Testing Versus Winning

Something Like This

Here's a dirty little secret about marketing and advertising.. a significant percentage of the people who do this kind of work pretty much *hate* testing.

There are reasons for this, of course.

Testing takes time, and discipline. It can be screwed up in any number of ways, many of them just plain maddening, and if you don't catch the mistake, you can do true damage with a false reading. It requires you to be willing to "waste" a significant percentage of your inventory on creative that no one is rooting for. Worst of all, it can take your brand-new work, the stuff that you are exceptionally proud of, and fast-track it to the dumpster, because data just won't be stopped, really. And if you want to be truly doctrinaire about it, once you start testing, you never really *stop*, because it acts as your de facto insurance policy, to ensure that your control is still optimal.

I've had any number of clients refuse to run a test, just because they were so in love with the new art, and/or that dissatisfied with the control. In each and every case, I've tried to push back for all of the direct marketing virtues. In most of these cases, the client stayed with their gut and ran without a test, and (here's where the direct marketing purist in me feels ill) it sometimes really worked out for them.

Note the pronoun there: them, not me.

This is also where a couple of cross purposes come into play. Part of being a marketer is being a scientist, and that science doesn't really have an end goal. The journey is the thing. Creative can always be optimized more, there's always some new clue or option not tried from the data, and the world will give you clues, if you're open to hear them.

The executive can look at this and wonder when the law of diminishing returns kicks in, or question the talent involved from creative professionals who would subject themselves to the long work of incremental steps to optimal. It all seems like something that you wouldn't get from top tier agency work, or a process that would lend itself to automation... but that's never been the way it's worked out for me, or how it seems to operate in the real world.

Now that we've gone through all of the reasons why people don't do it, the reasons why it's still the best way to work: it ensures that you never damage your client. It ensures job security, because you've either got a lift, or you've got learnings that will later result in a lift. (Or marketability for a future client.) It creates either single variable steps that take you were you want to go, or if those aren't driving enough of a data difference to pass statistical significance, bigger swings. And if you're fortunate enough to either work in a position where you can see a lot of tests go through the pipe, or in a cross-medium or category house, one where you can bring in learnings from another field, you can seem a lot smarter than you actually am.

I've been fortunate enough to work in this kind of business for decades, and have never felt "burned out"... because we've tested, and learned, and used the results from that testing to fuel the next chapter in the story. Plus, with technological changes, the ability to beat a control has never been "easier", or more important.

So if you're one of those marketing and advertising pros that considers test to be just another four letter word that's not worth the trouble, or beneath your talents...

Well, actually, stay just the way you are.

Because you might be smarter than me, or more talented...

But you won't be more effective.

And I might need to beat you one day.

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Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.

Let's Get iHacky

Very, Very Different

Let's just get this out of the way quickly. I'm probably the wrong person to ask about the importance of personal privacy as it relates to personal electronic devices.

Why? Well, I've worked at companies that were successful, for a time, because they correctly predicted how little consumers actually cared about it, at least when it related to shopping behavior, and how they had the opportunity to trade parts of it in for discounts. I also grew up in a time and economic background before ubiquitous personal technology, which means that I've never completely cottoned to the idea that I should give a screen all of my secrets. Or that such things were actually all that valuable, or interesting, to anyone, really.

So when the point comes around to discuss, as everyone with a column seemingly must, where the world should sit in terms of Apple's continued battle to avoid hacking their own gear... well, um, I have a few questions. Independent of the powerless propagation of one of two opinions.

1) Hasn't this entire discussion for the past few days made Apple's products, well, must-own equipment for criminals?

They're going to bat for you, bad people. Patronize them accordingly! But you probably want to act fast about that, since...

2) Isn't the iPhone the single biggest target on the planet for hackers right about now?

All we've heard for the past week is how incredibly powerful and valuable a hack of this hardware would be. If you've got the skills or the contacts, you'd have to think this would be on the top of your to-do list now. After all, if you can hack a phone -- just one measly phone! -- all of the rest of them become incredibly vulnerable to any criminal mischief you can imagine, and you can sell your hack for bitcoins on the dark Web, which is where I presume all such spectacular fits of criminal behavior are patronized. Speaking of which...

3) How is it that we don't have people capable of this tremendous criminal mischief on the public payroll?

I have to say, I'm a little bit disappointed. Any number of television dramas and conspiracy theorists have assured me of the remarkable degree of State Power, from black helicopters to drone warfare to extradition and Edward Snowden's adventures and so on, and so on. And yet, here's a maniac's phone, the same phone that millions of other people have, and no one can crack it. It's very disappointing, really. Next, you'll be telling me the moon landing wasn't faked, there's no aliens in Area 51, and there aren't treasure maps on the back of historical documents. Is there nothing left to believe in?

As for the actual privacy issues here... well, what we've got is a crisis of invention. No one invented a perfect car trunk that could never be opened by anyone but the owner of the car, but if they had... well, there probably might have been law enforcement having an issue along the way. Particularly if this was a relatively new feature to trunks, since the iPhone didn't have the current level of encryption just 18 months ago.

I'm not a fan of rampant government access to my devices; no one is. But the idea that a company gets to profit when unintended criminal consequences occur... well, um, not usually. I'm also not quite sure why your special little phone gets to be different from your computer, your car, your home, your safety deposit box, and so on, and so on.

But then again, I'm the wrong person to ask about personal privacy...

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Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.

On Entering The Pipeline

Let's Get Shifty

A base rule of marketing and advertising: it works on you, even if you are aware of it, well, working on you. I'm as prone to going for 2 for 1 deals, limited time offers, brand marketing blandishments and all of the rest as, well, anyone of my demographic class. Especially if the purchase in question is a low consideration moment in a retail setting, everything in the marketers' bag of tricks works on me. Even if I stop to think about why I'm buying something, it doesn't really matter. Tactics matter.

Which leads me to the latest moment of strong self-awareness, where my wife and I have started the process towards buying a new car. Our eldest daughter is moving towards driving age, has shown an aptitude for it in drivers education courses, and is poorly served by available public and school transportation. So we're going to gift her the 20-year-old Ford that's been serving as our second car, and add a third set of wheels that will serve as the primary ride for my wife, and for when we're all together as a family. (Our other car is a 6-year-old Honda hybrid, which is on its last payment.)

We've got several months before our daughter turns 16. It's also not as if we'll need to add a vehicle on that day, given that minors aren't allowed to drive without a parent for a good chunk of time. The idea is to go for one of the new set of sedan/SUV "crossovers" that avoid the issues that minivans have, but also don't completely abandon fuel economy, storage capacity, or passenger comfort. Finally, we haven't been in the market for a new car in many years, and don't really know that much about how these cars handle. Customer reviews are pretty similar on a lot of these, so test drives matter. Which means, well, going to a lot of dealerships. Three so far, with more to follow.

What's striking about this experience is how similar the different conversations are. You walk around the showroom and enjoy, or not, the prompt attention of commissioned salespeople. You give them your situation, and given that you are just going to take up someone's time without a sale today, a basic apology for where you are in the process. You take the test drive, and try to be polite about your level of interest in the vehicle in question. You learn what you can, then drive back to the dealership, and end the process with a cursory meeting with some supervisor, who thinks about a hard sell approach, and then thinks better of it. Then you go home, in your not at all new car, and try to remember all of the reasons why you can't just get something new today, because man alive, that new car is so much nicer than your current ride.

What comes next, of course, is the follow-up marketing; the emails, phone calls and alerts of what's available *right now* that would be just perfect for our needs. There will also be the promises of future service, possible incentives and offers, and so on, and so on. All of which is entirely defensible and expected, especially given how much is on the line for the various individuals we've met in the process, since they need to move multiple units every month to, well, remain employed. That's all occurring in a world where the Internet destroys margins at the dealer level, and makes competition at a price point easier and easier to know. Oh, and it's also with the possibility of technology just ending this business at some point, since self-driving technology is probably a when, rather than an if.

I feel bad for these guys, honestly. Even in the best of times, competition has always been intense, and it can't be a lot of fun to work in a business where tech just makes your job harder every month. But I don't feel so much for them that I'll take a worse deal, or fail to make my due diligence, once we've figured out our preference for brand, model and trim.

Oh, and the fact that all of my television and digital ads now seem to be relevant to my new car search?

Sure, it's a little bit creepy. But it's also reminded me to expand my consideration set to a few more vehicles that might be better for our needs.

Speaking of another business where tech makes your job harder every month...

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Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.