Five Quick Points From A Changing America

Road Trip!

This week's column was written near the end of a very long road trip. Eleven years ago, I drove cross-country from the Bay Area to New York for work. This week, I'm making the reverse trip for a new gig. Here's the differences from the country, as they relate to marketing and advertising.

> FedEx, FedEx everywhere. The offline retail apocalypse that's happening in malls across America isn't temporary. It's in all of those FedEx trucks, filled to the brim with online orders, that are all over the highways. I've been passing them every few minutes, honestly.

> America got casinos. It used to be that casinos were just a Nevada thing, but now there's racetrack outfits and slot machine hook ups in most states. They don't have the prime Interstate locations that go to food, lodging and fuel, but you'll still see them easily enough.

> You can drive faster now, but you won't. Speed limits are up to 80, but we need infrastructure something bad. Single lane highways and hundreds of miles of repairs are common, especially in Western states that look like they've seen hard times. Even in times of high employment, you'd have to think that this would be a bipartisan win to get the roads fixed. No one likes potholes. (Also, you'll pass people now just doing the speed limit, because, well, the roads. Also, I suspect, people wanting to avoid speeding tickets, because enforcement is at the same levels as before.)

> Radio has changed. In my scans, I've found less religious and talk radio than a decade ago, and more demographically targeted music -- mostly Spanish and middle-aged, which is to say, the people who haven't completely migrated to online yet. I'd also bet that it's gotten less lucrative, because the ads are less plentiful, and for much more in the way of local brands. But there's something to be said for classic hip-hop that's brought to you by incontinence medications...

> Online aps aren't done changing the place. I've stayed at three locations during this trip; two AirBNBs, and one traditional hotel. The AirBNBs were far more comfortable, offered much more in the way of space and amenities, and were also better deals for the money. I really see myself using that site more than hotels moving forward, especially for solo business trips. And as for those convenience stores... there's an app on my phone that tells me gas prices now, as part of a crowd sourced community. Which has led me to drive right past the big beautiful store right on the Interstate, and to patronize the slightly dusty one a half mile away, where the gas was a lot cheaper. The lesson, as always: connectivity changes everything. Even places that don't look like they'll ever change.

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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.

Be Very Very Quiet, I'm Selling FUD

Our Hero

In some of my past gigs, I've led creative efforts for low brands -- lead generation white labels that transferred the prospects to a third party -- in various fields. With nothing unique to pitch and no differentiating positive traits, these campaigns were an interesting creative challenge, especially when you had no real brand marketing concerns to address.

Fortunately in these roles, I had access to great data, an in-house and vendor creative team that were very skilled and quick at their jobs, and analytic insights that gave us what we needed to iterate for future turns. We made a lot of money on these projects, but that's kind of besides the point. Instead, what I want to discuss today is something that we referred to internally as FUD -- fear, uncertainty, and doubt -- and what we learned from executing these campaigns.

FUD campaigns can work when (a) the campaign is in a consumer category where the consequence of a poor choice was substantial, and (b) you had a prospect list that, well, responded to fear without just associating your brand with the negative stimulus. But keep in mind these five points. .

1) You have a very small window of time to sell the fear. Visually, your piece has to communicate the value proposition in a glimpse, preferably with a headline that doesn't waste a single character. Copy can (and should) go long after that glimpse, but if the ad looks like work, and negative work at that, it's not going to perform well. (Pro tip: when you are doing FUD work, make sure to have just text versions in your creative mix. They work more often than you might think.)

2) It burns out creative personnel. As a manager, I had to be careful not to give too many of these approaches to the same copy and design teams, or risk turnover. Creative pros don't always need the piece to go into a lead position in their portfolio, but too much of this mechanical work can make even the most productive teams lag and look elsewhere.

3) Innovative players in a space can move the ground out from under you -- especially if consumer satisfaction from presumed premium brands isn't that high to begin with. Consider how an ever-growing number of consumers are willing to accept rides and lodging from strangers, albeit ones with qualified feedback and presumed vetting from the innovators in the space. So we have two major pillars of the travel sector that are under attack at all levels of price, because the FUD of a poor ride or lacking stay just isn't all that much higher than, well, the FUD of the same thing from a brand.

4) Brands that go for FUD usually don't have anything else going for them. There's a reason why most of the FUD work we did was for our own white labels, with the small aside for comedic executions that target other players.

5) Winning campaigns will get duplicated by shrewd competitors. After all, there's no barrier to entry here.

As a creative pro, I hope you don't have too much FUD in your professional life. Or, for that matter, your personal one.

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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.

The Worst Hours

Sing It, Zoidberg

This is going to be brief and perhaps a little too combative for some, but I've had this happen often enough to risk offending someone. And, well, it should never happen. So here goes.

If you are interviewing for a job position, and decide that, for whatever reason, you are going to spend your time with a candidate to deepen your knowledge about optimal practices, while never really considering them for the role...

You are, basically, stealing time and money, and you deserve all of the misery and suffering that a karmic universe will (hopefully) bestow upon you. Especially if the person you are interviewing is between gigs, and could be spending their time and energies trying to chase down a real opportunity, rather than the cruel tease you are offering.

(And yes, this happened to me recently. An hour on the phone, ninety minutes in the office, then the "interviewer" not even acknowledging follow ups. I guess I've met worse people in my life, but I can't think of any right now.)

I get why you might be tempted to do this, honestly, I do. A good hour with a consultant might help to jump start your creative efforts, answer some vexing questions in a field where you don't have experience, or keep you from making a bad mistake.

But what it really shows is a crippling lack of integrity that your own people will eventually recognize and use as fuel to move along in their own careers. After all, using these vulnerable people in this way shows your true (single-minded, machiavellian, ruthless, abusive) nature, and that nature isn't conducive to sustainable businesses.

Turnover will rise, along with theft, and a drop in morale...

And you will own all of it, and deserve it, because you are a terrible human being.

What would be better?

Honesty with the consultant. An honorarium for the time spent. A pitch for a consultant relationship. Or just end the interview before it gets abusive, and steer out of the ethical skid.

End the unpaid consultant hour!

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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.