I’ve been a fan of TED.com for quite a while now (even before Lynn Parker’s TEDx Puget Sound talk), and I have to say, out of the many experts that update me on the world, Rory Sutherland, stands out as a marvelous ad man.  It helps that he’s funny, but more importantly; he takes the art of advertising out of the usual business setting and asks the question, “How can I make the world a better place with an advertising idea?”  To him, advertising is more than just a tool to increase profits; it’s also a fantastic opportunity to understand the underlying motivations that we routinely take for granted.

I’ll let him articulate his thoughts rather than paraphrase his ideas. Check out his light-hearted talk and tell me what you think.

Question of the day: What is perceptional value?

-Gareth Lim

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Customers don’t wake up in the morning interested in your company and products, no matter how much you push out messaging to them.  Instead, they wake up in their world, trying to solve their problems and fill their lives with experiences that are relevant to them.

What if instead, you started with a customer focus?  If you turned the telescope around and saw the world from their point of view?  Would your products and services look the same?  Would you reframe your value and messaging?  Would you meet their needs and provide relevant experiences?  That’s what’s needed today, in a world where people can go anywhere on the Internet to find what they are looking for, where consumers no longer respond to advertising or corporate messaging, but instead are looking for experiences that make sense to them.  “Push” marketing no longer works because customers are only interested in things they have “pulled.”

So move from ME ME ME to YOU YOU YOU. Turn the telescope around and get into the customer’s frame of reference.

- Lynn Parker

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The Best Business Show will interview Lynn Parker about our naming process this Sunday (4/4) at 7pm PST. Just go to www.kvor.com and click the “listen live” icon on the top right-hand corner.

And to read about our naming process, check out Lynn’s article on WomenEntrepreneur.com, “Accomplish the Impossible: Choose a Name.”

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How often does one market its products by not marketing them? When you are “murketing” them: murkily marketing. Pabst Blue Ribbon does it, Scion does it; even furniture makers are doing it . So is murketing the new viral marketing? Or is it a new beast?

I think it’s different. Murketing can only work a few times before people start looking for it, when it then becomes obvious marketing and loses its luster. Viral marketing, on the other hand, takes creativity or cleverness and uses that as the carrying meme; attention is the currency you pay for hearing the message, versus no message.

-Lynn Parker

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I met someone at a networking event who told me that branding couldn’t help him, because he was in a commodity market. In my belief system, that’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. As I said in my book, The Reluctant Entrepreneur, “If they can brand water, or salt, (and they have!) any company can find its unique approach, role in the market, or other secret sauce and build it into a competitive differentiation, even in markets where there are many people who buy on price.”

It just takes creativity, like CCS Printing, positioning itself as the guide to lowest total cost of ownership (TCO) printing, offering workshops, and using an Indiana Jones-like fedora image to demonstrate their consultative approach to ink on paper. Like Silver Cup Coffee, packaging their retail experience into products and services that take their coffee beans out of the commodity world. Like Ethos water that turns hydration into an act of philanthropy.

If you think you’re in a commodity market, I challenge you to question that assumption. Why do people buy from you, above and beyond your product and price? And even if they buy on price, why would your prospect choose you to supply the product?

-Lynn Parker

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Check out the video from Lynn’s speech at the Ordnance Survey at http://tinyurl.com/LynnParker!

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A screaming deal on a leading internal branding conference that Lynn Parker is speaking at.

********************
INTERNAL BRANDING:
How To Use Branding And Communications To Drive Employee
Engagement And Improve Your Organization’s Bottom Line
*********************

May 11-14, 2009 – Washington, DC
Details: http://www.aliconferences.com/conf/internal_branding0509/index.htm

• Early Bird Rates have been extended until May 1st!

• ALSO – mention “LYNN PARKER” and receive 50% off the current registration fees!

Benchmark best practices, learn how to create brand champions, and drive bottom-line results from:

1. NASA
2. ServiceMaster
3. Kaiser Permanente
4. Dean Foods Company
5. George Brown College

And many more…

To register or for more conference details:
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
CALL: (773) 695-9400, x1 -or- Toll-Free within the U.S. (888) 362-7400, x1
ONLINE: http://www.aliconferences.com/conf/internal_branding0509/register.htm

— Mention “LYNN PARKER” and receive 50% off the registration fees!

http://www.aliconferences.com/

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Mentoring Moments by Susan Canfield is a compilation of eight stories that cover UW MBA students’s experiences with their professional mentors. Lynn Parker is featured as one of the professional mentors! Check out Lynn’s section on the Parker LePla Facebook page or purchase the book at the University Bookstore.

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