The Importance Of Research

From a brand perspective, there is nothing, absolutely nothing more important than research. Research to understand your customer, research to understand your client, and research to understand the market you're going into, and of course research to truly understand the product itself as well as the experience it promises to provide. Most important though, is the need to jump in and try out the product with hands on research the way the legendary ad-men and women of the 60s and 70s did.

There are stories about how account teams would spend weeks in Betty Crocker's kitchens, baking cakes and pies and cookies to get a real understanding for what the customer's experience. From weeks to baking, they were able to understand the beauty and the foibles of a particular product. They learned the ins and outs that their customers would learn sooner or later. Because of this, not only could they get inside the customer's head and write the kind of copy that people responded to. They could speak to their clients knowledgeably about what was good and what was bad about a particular product. The result from that research? The ability to turn consumers into customers and customers into brand enthusiasts like never before. They were no longer ad-men and women, they were knowledgeable customers. That is something that goes beyond pocket books, but lies deeply in the hearts, minds and souls of any successful product or campaign.

Political parties not withstanding, for any brand, be it political, consumer, or B2B to think they can skip over the time it takes to undertake research in order to understand their own product I sheer folly. If anyone thinks about rushing their product to market without doing the proper research, well, let's just watch how the cards deal out from the news that hit on September 1st, when it should have really been about a convention...

CNN - The Un-News

Did I miss something? When did CNN change from reporting the news to thinking they are the news? While watching the Democratic Convention last night, I kept changing channels back and forth between CNN and the McNeil Leherer Report - that's right good old PBS. While PBS showed the entire convention and let us make our own decisions on how well or how badly it went, I noticed CNN avoided showing any of the speeches until Hillary came close to appearing that is.

While Wolf Blitzer was trying to stir up coverage for an alleged plot against Barack Obama - something that even the reporter on the ground sounded confused about - former Denver Mayor and Obama Campaign Co-Chair Federico Peña wasa giving one of the more insightful speeches about his energy policy. While CNN ran endless "what if" scenarios, Lilly Ledbetter gave a speech that was one of the most compelling insights into women's rights and inequal pay. While Governor of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick, shared his American story to an astounded audience, CNN ran commercials.

Now, I'm not saying the Democrats know how to put on a great show, but shouldn't a new organization report the news? I mean, it was truly astounding to see how CNN failed to cover the speakers and the event, when they touted themselves as the "best coverage available." Instead, they opted to fill the screen with a badly operated red/blue map, and with endless scenarios of how the final election could go. So many in fact, that it became more confusing than insightful.

Which is where CNN's brand is beginning to suffer. It's a great brand if you only watch the placards that swing up between commercial breaks. But when it times to turn all that brand messaging into something real, they are failing miserably - Lou Dobbs excepting.

When will they realize, the more the reporters think that "they are the news," the less they will be viewed as reporters "of the news." There's nothing wrong with taking a network, or a brand, in this direction. But it's not the direction of a great news station. With Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper reporting, CNN might think about joining with E!. It would fit their format better, it would be far more entertaining, and at least their brand would be true to their reporting.

Paris - looking for your next new thing?

Flip Flop - Meaningless Phrases & Meaningful Networks

“Flip Flop.”

It's a phrase that came into being in the 2008 elections to discredit John Kerry for changing his mind on issues. I have to admit to the people who created it – it was shear genius.

The fact that there is not a candidate alive – republican or democrat – who has not changed their position, or their mind, on an important subject at one point in their career, let alone their candidacy, is absurd. Yet, with the right network of media relationships, this term helped turn an election.

In the 2008 election, the term “flip flop” is still being bantered around from time to time. It seems like an effort to ill-brand a candidate, but it hasn’t stuck yet. Perhaps even the media has begun to realize it is a meaningless term - something that cannot be a defining label to any campaign because every candidate has “flip flopped” at one time or another. Or perhaps it’s because nobody has been able to energize a network like the inventors of “flip flop” were able to do in the 2004 elections.

And maybe that’s the key. Maybe what you say is not as important as how you say it or who it’s said to.

Think about that the next time you spend hours perfecting your message before you figure out how you're getting it out to the audience you want to reach...