I have something to get off my chest - I love Southwest Airlines.  The significance of this statement is I’m an airline snob - for approximately 10 years I traveled frequently for corporate America on the big airlines, accumulating miles (as well as a threshold for pain) and holding the smaller discount airlines in disdain.  And then last year my eyes were opened to a whole new world in the sky - a world where customers are treated as customers - where the words “we appreciate your business” are backed by service that actually makes me feel appreciated as a customer.

Having developed this affinity towards Southwest I started to contemplate their business model and success.  What struck me is the both the genius as well as the simplicity of their model.  Genius from the standpoint that they were able to innovate by addressing the emotional needs of customers while their competitors where focused on the functional needs (this may be a stretch) and relied on monetary loyalty systems to increase attachment (certainly Southwest’s regional expansion strategy helped them to stay under the radar and gain scale but from my perspective this is not why they are still in business).   Simplicity from the standpoint that there model is based on basic common sense - people like to feel treated well, and if we’re paying for service we expect to be treated well.  And while simple, Southwest’s model is darn near impossible for their competitive peers to replicate because it’s rooted in their culture (one of the most challenging areas for a company to change) and the premise that happy employees = happy customers.  This manifests itself across every touch point I have with Southwest - from the gate agent, to the flight attendees (while I may not always find their attendant performances over the PA system necessarily funny or entertaining I certainly respect the effort - it adds one more personal, human element to the experience) and pilots, to the personalized Southwest stories of exemplary service in their monthly magazine.

While there is no doubt I’ve been converted and am an advocate of Southwest - their success, and the success of others like Zappos, begs the question of which industry and what companies are next to be caught sleeping at the wheel - i.e. do not truly understand their customers and their motivations?

J. Mark Carr, Partner at CMG Partners, will lead a webinar tomorrow (9/15) for Sales & Marketing Executives International (SMEI) at 4:00PM EST. 

The webinar introduces the concept of adding a “5th P” centered on the customer purchase process into the 4 P’s of go-to-market planning, outlines the key elements of the process view and then uses several case examples of how the use of this added dimension has improved the marketing and sales planning process. 

Participants will learn:

• What the Fifth P is and how it can help sales and marketing to develop more effective strategies
• The warning signs that point to the need for a company to re-visit the Fifth P
• How to apply the Fifth P in sales and marketing planning, including the key questions that Fifth P asks of the other 4 Ps
• Examples of how companies applied the Fifth P, and how it helped re-frame go-to-market strategies

Click here to register

For more information, please click here

Our firm decided to organize a team building exercise for our next full-team meeting.  We’ve been divided up into groups each tasked with developing a three course meal around a select ingredient, which it turns out is lemons.

The task at hand got me thinking about marketing; in particular how it’s frequently viewed as both an art and a science.  Cooking and baking are very much the same way.  Baking is about precision.  You have to measure ingredients with care and follow the recipe closely or else you may wind up eating goo or concrete instead of a moist cake.  Cooking on the other hand allows for more creativity.  You have much greater flexility to add or subtract ingredients and alter the amounts of each, but again it takes an experienced hand to know how to blend the right elements together.

As marketers we know this is very analogous to marketing.  It’s about knowing how to balance the art and science of marketing.  There are moments when a disciplined approach is more appropriate.  The current environment is one that has put the science of marketing at the forefront of Chief Marketing Officers’ agendas.  It’s become critical to prove that marketing can deliver value that drives business growth.  But you can’t overdo it and boil marketing down to a science.  Your marketing will become bland, stale, and downright unappealing.

We can’t forget that great marketing engages customers on an emotional level, and unforgettable campaigns draw upon creative ideas that are nothing short of genius.  As customers become more accustomed to the same marketing dishes, it’s our job as marketers to refresh our recipes in order to create demand.  This is even more important now as customers have greater access to the set of ingredients (the 4Ps) that marketers once had exclusively at their disposal.

As you begin to hone your marketing strategy and develop future campaigns think about if you’ve got the right balance of art and science.  I particularly like how Seth Godin thought about this issue in a blog posting from earlier this year.  You don’t want to end up with someone returning the plate but rather asking for seconds.  Bon Appetit.

I recently stumbled across a Wall Street Journal article with a word so fun to say that I haven’t been able to shake it.  Glamping or “Glamorous Camping” is a new microtrend of budget-conscious vacationers looking for an outdoors experience without the rocks digging into your back while sleeping or the swiss-cheese tarp dripping rain all over your make-shift kitchen.  Don’t be confused, it’s not simply about bringing the Ritz outside, it’s more of a formalized step forward from drive-up car camping.

So, who cares about a silly trend like glamping?  For me, the interest is not necessarily in the details of the opportunity, but rather the overriding inference that, even in a recession, there are plenty of growth opportunities (and budding new markets).  Trends like the increase in revenue for outdoor equipment retailers are sending a clear signal about the U.S. tourism market.  “Outdoor equipment store REI reports sales of family tents are up by 20%.”

As marketers, we’ve all learned how to sharpen our positioning and get creative about our message during a time when Americans care less about consuming and more about surviving…think “shopportunities” and “staycations“.  The WSJ article also points out the opportunity for family-oriented hotel chains to diversify their offerings for economically challenged family travelers.  Anyway you slice it, glamping offers opportunities for the consumer, retailers, travel websites, hotel chains, park operators, and more.

So while I’ll probably stick with my old grease-covered Coleman grill and not-so-spacious steamy tent, I’ll be keeping my eye on the development of the glamping market and the moves of well-poised participants.  Because more now than ever, I continually press myself and our clients to be highly focused on the age old question “What’s next?”

The Association of International Product Marketing and Management (AIPMM) announces two CMG Partners Webinars in September:

September 10, 2009
The Lessons of Launch
12:00PM EST
Register Here

September 24, 2009
The Fifth P:  The Buying Process
12:00PM EST
Register Here

J. Mark Carr, Partner at CMG Partners, will deliver both webinars. 

We hope you can join!

CMO tenure is a common topic in our world of strategic marketing consulting and we recently formulated a few thoughts around why we believe this phenomenon exists.

Based on our experiences and perspectives we believe that marketing leaders often focus their energies and expertise on winning in the marketplace and fail to recognize the critical linkage between a strong internal foundation and the ability to execute effectively externally.

To help bring this to life, a colleague used the analogy of being tasked to round up marbles in the center of a room with an uneven floor…an unending, maddening task that will lead to nowhere fast.

In an effort to help marketing leaders diagnose the strength of their foundation and ultimately improve their tenure we propose four areas for marketing leaders to evaluate:

1. strategic alignment,
2. performance measures,
3. management buy-in,
4. and asset leverage.

For more information on these areas and our thinking on the topic please read our article  How Solid is Your Foundation?: Addressing CMO Tenure.

As the trade deadline for major league baseball approaches I can’t help but think about how baseball more than any other sport is about statistics.  For more than a hundred years fans have relied on stats such as batting average (AVG), home runs (HR) and runs batted in (RBI) to talk about the game.  It’s also the same metrics teams have used to determine the financial value of their players.

But what would happen if the standard set of measures were found to be flawed and inefficient?  That’s exactly what the book Moneyball helped to uncover.

“If gross miscalculations of a person’s value could occur on a baseball field, before a live audience of thirty thousand, and a television audience of millions more, what did that say about the measurement of performance in other lines of work?”

While Michael Lewis’ book focuses on the Oakland A’s baseball team as the David of baseball, it really tells the story of how an organization with limited resources, but smart thinking, developed a plan to beat their larger and more powerful competitors, the Goliaths.  In reading the book again I found some common mistakes that the Goliaths made which resonate with situations we’ve faced in helping marketing organizations improve how they perform.

Insiders can gain a false view of their business: It’s so easy for marketing organizations to become subjectively tainted by internal habits that reinforce stereotypes and prejudices.  Experience can be a double-edged sword, especially among long-standing executives who prefer to rely on their “gut” rather than metrics.  Opinions and perceptions over time can become fact, making gaps and pitfalls that are obvious to outsiders seemingly invisible to insiders.

Managers are more likely to implement a strategy that is less likely to fail than one that is successful and efficient: Already under pressure to perform, marketing managers must now also spend less then before, but the end result are campaigns that are safe.  Fear of failure can create conformity, diluting marketing’s ability to stand out and capture market opportunities.

Organizations don’t know what information to collect: While it’s become easier to capture data and insights, many marketing organizations still face one of two key issues.  Either they lack the information to properly inform their decisions or they face an overflow of data that they can’t make sense of.  Data becomes useless unless marketing takes the time to analyze the information to question its validity and value.

Understanding data is critical to enhancing marketing performance.  Without it your marketing organization is just feeding a “garbage in, garbage out” process.  By improving inputs an organization can make more informed decisions.  That may mean using different measures, developing metrics or even creating new models.

This is the seventh and last in a series of short posts related to The CMO Agenda research. Informed by recent CMO conversations and CMG Partners‘ collective experience helping top marketers develop marketing strategy, we have compiled a list of seven ideas or jump starters for further conversation. These are meant to spark discussion, ideas, and action as we all enter a difficult 2009.

Over the past few years, measurement of marketing has dominated the vernacular of lead marketers and marketing literature - ROMI, ROI, campaign tracking and management, etc.. The reality is that not everything worthwhile can be measured and it takes an equal or greater effort to generate insight from measurement.

Watch out… As the pendulum swings back, companies are re-evaluating the right mix of measurement and management. When they do, will your staff’s talent and skills be seen as they key to decision-making or a weak link in the connection between metrics and action?

Skills of successful top marketers and marketing executives are evolving. More business orientation and holistic approach to decision making are a must to continue to demonstrate value. This means marketers are adopting revenue as a measure and some are responsible for a P&L.

What is your next move?

This is the sixth in a series of short posts related to The CMO Agenda research. Informed by recent CMO conversations and CMG Partners‘ collective experience helping top marketers develop marketing strategy, we have compiled a list of seven ideas or jump starters for further conversation. These are meant to spark discussion, ideas, and action as we all enter a difficult 2009.

Whether developing new products or looking to increase loyalty, having a continuous stream of customer insight that draws on many different sources is important. This feed needs to be constant and plentiful. Technology is making it easier to find new ways to gather and make use of customer insight with limited resources.

Customer research and voice of the customer programs like councils and feedback meetings are the more traditional ones many marketers employ.  Marketing organizations should not forget the many simple everyday ways to accomplish this via tools like email, google alerts, RSS feeds, Twitter or talking with the services or sales representatives. The important thing is to make it an integral part of your day / week.

What can happen if you are not watching/listening?

Many should not forget the Motrin campaign that had so much twitter backlash over a weekend after the launch of a new “hip” mommy ad that the parent campaign pulled the ad. Don’t let this happen to you! Ensure your insight and listening post are capturing as much feedback as possible.

An example of a company doing this well is Dell with their IdeaStorm.com, where users generate ideas for new features or often irritating sales and marketing practices or service policies. The community can then vote on them which helps Dell focus and prioritize.

[Repost from http://alanhart.wordpress.com]