My colleague Jane Quigley called this morning to remind me (as if I needed reminding) that microMARKETING hits bookstore shelves in less than two months. This means that, right about now (funk soul brothers and sisters), the jacket is rolling off the printing press. A couple of weeks back, I got a look at the final cover art. It's not a whole lot different from the comp I've already shown here, but now it's all dressed up with blurbs. Here's a look at the updated front of the jacket:
With the writing process receding in the rear view mirror and the release date approaching fast, I've turned my attention to revving up the engine on the marketing machine. Here are just a few things I'm working on...
The book website is in the works and Powered has signed on a publicist to help with press.
I'm slated to debut my microMARKETING conference presentation at Brand ManageCamp in Las Vegas, am working on securing a couple more conference gigs, and am planning a few launch events to take place in September in New York. Look for parties, microMEETups and a half-day symposium featuring some great speakers (no - not just me; a couple of guys featured in the book) and more.
I'm looking to take the show on the road, both leading up to the launch and following it. So stay tuned for more details, as they become available. How?
Superlatives and dramatic (but ultimately vague, largely unsubstantiated, and often asterisked into oblivion with disclaimers) claims have long been mainstays of traditional marketing. They have no place in marketing anymore…
Not far from my home, there is a restaurant outside of which hangs a massive banner declaring that this place offers “THE BEST LUNCH IN TOWN”. I’ve never eaten there, so for all I know the claim may be true. But I often wonder, best by whose definition? Its customers? Professional reviewers? The owner him or herself? And best by what standard? The finest cuisine, the biggest portions or best prices? The best option for harried lunch hour bite-grabbers or best for leisurely ladies’ luncheons? Is the food simply filling or could the experience actually be more emotionally fulfilling than microwaving canned soup for a quiet Saturday afternoon lunch on the couch with my fiancée and my six year old daughter? I mean, that would be a strong contender for my best lunch.
You see, superlatives might look great in copy decks, but if consumers take them literally they set impossibly high standards that (generally speaking) businesses can’t possibly live up to. There is nothing new about this. Superlatives have only rarely rung true.
Remember when Snapple was made from the “best stuff on earth” – at least until complaints from their customers or innovations in their lab (I don’t know which) led them to unearth “better stuff”? Not to argue semantics, but what exactly is better than best?
Or how about this one? Even the most maniacal Mac monkeys chuckled at Apple’s use of over-the-top hyperbole in the iPad launch announcements (magical???), even if they fundamentally believed that the device would be the game changer it might actually turn out to be. Case in point:
[Feed and email readers click through for the embedded video.]
None of this would be much more than philosophical pondering if it weren’t for the fact that dissenting – or at a minimum, less biased – opinions are always a click or finger-swipe away.
This morning, as I rode the commuter train into New York City for a day in the office I passed the neighborhood eatery with the big, bold banner. This time, rather than just wondering what BEST really means, I grabbed my phone and Yelped it. Sure enough, the ratings are fair-to-middling; the reviews themselves are (predictably) mixed; the reviewers not shy about airing their gripes about shoddy service, dated décor or mediocre munchies.
Now that doesn’t sound like the BEST LUNCH at all…
I’ve not yet been so fully absorbed into the great and mighty hive mind that I can’t recognize that Yelp reviews are just as subjective as a restaurant owner’s (or product marketer’s) assertion that their own offering is top notch. The likely truth is that this restaurant is just fine – no better and no worse than dozens of other places like it. So maybe I’ll give it a try sometime (hell, I may even spring for an iPad soon), but in the meantime I wonder if the folks who see the sign and wander in today will spend the rest of the afternoon raving, regretting or retching. Or – most likely – if today’s BEST LUNCH will turn out to be just another lunch on just another day.
The superlative is dead. Long live the superlative.
Is this the best post you’ve read today? Like it, link it, tweet it, share it. ;-) Is it the worst? Well, that’s what comments are for…
But either way, the next time you‘re writing that ad, press release, website copy, banner headline (for banners of the real or digital varieties), or marketing whatever, think about all the ways you can replace the superlative with substance.
As long-time readers know, I often rant against social media marketers who focus too much on the tools and technologies (especially when those tools or technologies might be commonly believed to be the "next big thing"), generally losing sight of the more permanent and more important human behaviors that underlie those tools or are enabled by them.
So when I set out to write microMARKETING, I challenged myself to keep the focus firmly on the big picture (ironic perhaps, but the right thing to do nonetheless.) I knew that -- by default, if not design -- my book would be a product of its time and would, therefore, be loaded with references to Facebook and Twitter, YouTube and Flickr, blogs and lifestreams, Buzz and Brightkite. But I hoped that it wouldn't read as nothing more than a document of what's hot right now, and remain relevant for years to come.
So did I succeed? Well, you'll have to read the book to know. But when I received a copy of the book's index for my review, I was pleasantly surprised. The index clocks in at a solid eight pages, set in two columns of what looks to me like 8-point type. By my slipshod math, there must be somewhere between 600 and 700 indexed points but only:
And a smattering of one-off references to Flickr, Google Buzz, Brightkite, iPhone Apps, Foursquare, Gowalla, Delicious, reddit and social media formats like blogging, lifestreaming and sharing.
Instead, the index is crammed full of concepts, people, companies, campaigns, books, films, songs and more. Sure, there are more than a dozen-odd mentions of social media sites throughout the book -- in fact, I am confident that there are actually dozens of mentions of Flickr alone; more mentions still of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
But what struck me was that, even though today's most popular social sites are mentioned by name throughout the text, the indexer picked up on the reality that the people, ideas and real business implications were more important, more noteworthy and index-worthy than the specific tools that play supporting roles.
Not to pat myself on the back, but I think I may have gotten it right this time.
As an aside, the woman who prepared the index -- Joanne Sprott -- keeps a blog where she sometimes writes about the books she is working on. This weekend, she included microMARKETING in a post which, I suppose, qualifies as the first public review of the book. She called it a "must-have" and says she's holding onto her copy as she looks for ways to put some of the principles into practice. I can't think of a nicer compliment (other than maybe "you're so good looking"), especially coming from a social media lay-person. See what else Joanne got out of the book -- check out her post on An Indexer's Review of Books.
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