Healthcare Wordsmith

At least not for Tropicana.

Apparently the experiment failed.  I gather the public in general was no more thrilled with the new cartons than the blogging world.  According to Roberta Rosenberg (The Copywriting Maven), this failed experiment cost Tropicana $35 million. I appreciate her alerting us to the original change, and the reversal.

Interestingly, I think a year ago I would have been more appalled at the price tag.  Unfortunately, lately the news is full of huge numbers, and $35 million seems, well small.  Compared to the trillions the government is talking about.  Which leads me to another question:  What comes after trillion? According to my dictionary, my first guess was right: quadrillion.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t want the government to go there…

Meanwhile, back at my local grocery store…

My local stores were slow to get the new packaging, and still have the new up.  When I look at the cartons, I see a sea of white.  Somehow this sea of white seems more surreal to me than a juice aisle.  It even seems to affect the lighting in that part of the store.  Weird.  And they still remind me of canned generic vegetables.

As I noted in my previous post on this, the generic-type branding looked a lot like the new Pepsi.  Which I’m also not exactly thrilled with.

But, to each his own.

In this case, though, Pepsi also owns Tropicana.  Now the similarity makes sense.  Probably used the same agency to design both.

I wonder if Pepsi is having second thoughts, too?

Recently I received two intriguing questions on marketing.

And I found myself turning once again to Claude Hopkins’ advice in Scientific Advertising.  Isn’t it amazing how some advice can indeed stand up to the test of time?  Sometimes I think more of our politicians in Washington should look to history for the answers to current problems.  But
I digress …

Basically, do we follow what a “guru” claims is a sure-fire method, or our own perhaps more moderately successful campaign?

Well, in the case of one question the guru’s advice isn’t working for two marketers.  Not one, but two.  Yet, their own methods are working.  Moderately, but working.

Well, looking at it scientifically as Claude Hopkins suggested is one way to start.  I think the answer is clear from that perspective:  Do what works.  Refine or tweak it if necessary.

The hypothesis is that a certain method will work.  And it’s not working.  So the answer at least to me seems clear:  the hypothesis is wrong.

Does that mean the guru is also wrong?

No, not necessarily.  It could be the current economic climate … the method may be too highly specific for all niches … perhaps the implementation was faulty.  Or perhaps the method worked a year ago, but not now.

So, what’s the solution?  It depends.  There are too many potential variables to give an answer that applies to all.  Except perhaps to suggest that if something is working, that’s a good place to start.

There’s an old adage: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

I think Claude Hopkins would agree.

Originally posted June 30, 2008.  Original post became Lost in Cyberspace when I changed web hosts …

It’s hard to imagine a wildly successful company like Google having to change course.

But, let’s go back in time…

In 2000, Google had a pay-per-click (PPC) program. This was before AdWords. Their first version was like all the others then around.

And had less than stellar results. In a word? Unsuccessful.

So, did they give up? Nope. They tried something different.

Just like Thomas Edison over a century before, who is quoted as saying:

“If I find 10,000 ways something won’t work, I haven’t failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.”

One step forward. And then another led Edison to the electric light bulb. And many many more inventions.

So what did Google do? They took another step forward.

And developed AdWords, which became successful.

Google, because it kept experimenting to get something better, has become a large company. And many consider it the major Internet search engine. Not only that, but it’s a major part of the Internet.

Thomas Edison went on to develop the electric light bulb…the phonograph…the motion picture camera. He also held 1090 other patents. And his company, Edison General Electric eventually became General Electric. Unfortunately, after he’d sold his stock.

So, rather than becoming discouraged if something doesn’t work, the scientist…the inventor…the marketer tweaks, adjusts, or tries something completely different. And learns from what hasn’t worked.

All because he or she had a hypothesis, and tries to prove or disprove it.

Recently a friend thought I might have a comment on his choice of food.

I’m guessing it was probably because most cardiologists and dieticians would chastise him, saying that particular food is not heart-healthy.

In the past, I might have volunteered a comment … made a suggestion for a more nutritious choice …  or at least one the medical establishment would think is a better choice.  Today?

Nope.

No way.

Why?

Because lately I’ve been averaging making 10 meals a day.  And I find myself challenged to keep them healthy and varied. Especially since I’m dealing with a range of appetites and digestive challenges.

As a disclaimer, I admit some are reheated leftovers.  So each meal is not always from scratch.

Interestingly, I get a variety of reactions:

• Some of the meals I fix are eaten as if there hasn’t been any food seen for a week.  After eating just a few hours ago.  Yes, now I know firsthand what “wolfing your food” and “inhaling your food” really mean.
  
• While other meals are carefully sniffed as if there’s something with a bad taste or indigestion hidden under the rice. (There isn’t.)
  
• Others are eaten with a seemingly nonstop commentary bordering on, well, complaints.
  

So, if I fix about 300 meals a month, or 3650 meals a year, I’m sure not about to pick a fight about what someone outside my house eats. Inside my house, I admit that could be a different story …

So what’s my philosophy about what others eat?

In a nutshell:

Eat what you want.  If you’re an adult, eat healthy or not.  Maybe eating one unhealthy food a day will keep you from binging on others.

Whatever works for you is okay with me.  I’m not here to judge or criticize.

Just don’t expect me to cook it.

Please.

Sunset 02-09-09

… For a sunset.

Rudyard Kipling’s poem IF starts,

“IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, …”

It reminds me of the recent economic crisis and various government officials’ responses.  Especially when I hear the ones most responsible are blaming … consumers.  Not acknowledging their own responsibility in the crisis.

The use of the Marketing of Fear seems to have exponentially increased recently.

And I don’t like it.

Some years ago a pharmaceutical rep tried to tell me I couldn’t use a particular antibiotic for pneumonia because it wasn’t licensed by the FDA for that purpose.  In contrast to her drug, of course.  She was wrong.  My choice was a better choice than hers under the circumstances, and completely legal.

Escorting her out of my office, I made sure my office staff knew I wouldn’t see her again.  In retrospect, I probably could have complained to her boss.  But that wasn’t my style.  Today I might react differently.  Probably more assertively.

Over the past few years, our government has jumped on the Marketing of Fear bandwagon big time.  First it was one administration; now it’s another.

During the Great Depression, President Roosevelt reminded Americans in his first inaugural in 1933,

“So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory.”

In most of our wars, the enemy tried to get us to fear.

Today?

It’s our government.

As Walt Kelly in the Pogo comic strip so brilliantly penned,

“We has met the enemy, and he is us!”

I still don’t like the marketing of fear.

For your reference:  Rudyard Kipling’s full poem IF and FDR’s First Inaugural Address.

Originally posted June 27, 2008.  Original post became Lost in Cyberspace when I changed web hosts …

Recently, I reread Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins.

I’m one of those copywriters who learns something new every time I read it. This time, I saw more clearly the parallels between marketing and testing a scientific hypothesis or theory.

Successful advertising and marketing is essentially the scientific method in action.

A marketer starts with a premise, such as the Widget 4500 can be sold on a website with such and such copy. So, she puts up the website and sees what happens. In scientific terms, she makes a hypothesis her site will be successful.

She has created a marketing version of an experiment to test that hypothesis.

Following the results, she can make adjustments and tweak the site. In other words, change the experiment.

With today’s Internet tools, her webmaster can even set up a split test, testing variables such as two different headlines. Or different pictures of the Widget 4500.

And if it’s not successful, that doesn’t mean failure. Rather, the results may show what doesn’t work, or more optimistically what works partially or less than optimally.

Which reminds me of a story attributed to Thomas Edison. When asked if he was discouraged about failing to develop a light bulb, he allegedly replied,

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.“

Thinking of marketing as a process, not a one-time action is part of the marketing mindset. Or in the 1980’s and 1990’s business vernacular, a paradigm shift. It’s also a more optimistic view of marketing and the marketing process.

I’m all for a positive mindset.

Consider also this quote from Thomas A. Edison:

“I never did a day’s work in my life. It was all fun.”

Amen.

Sometimes Customer Service just can’t get it right …

On December 30, I placed an online order.  I printed out the order confirmation, and received a follow-up email (nice touch).  The email said my order would ship the next day, and I’d get a follow-up shipping confirmation.  Okay.

In the course of the holiday and other busyness, I forgot about the shipping confirmation.  When I checked 10 days later, it still hadn’t arrived.  So, I went back to the web site, registered, and logged in to access my account.  The site indicated the order had shipped — that day.

Even accounting for the holiday and weekend (4 days at most),  that leaves 6 days unaccounted for.  Of course by now, I’ve double checked the order confirmation email (yes, it said it would ship 12/31) and the order confirmation page I printed (no indication of a delay).

Since this was my first order with this company, I thought it appropriate to ask if this is customary, to have the actual shipment over a week after the order confirmation indicates the order will be shipped.  I had to ask the question twice to get an answer.

Here it is (the website name has been changed):

Dear Valued Customer, 

We did have a disclaimer on the checkout page and in the cart page that
read, orders after the cutoff time on 12/29 will not be shipped until
the week of 1-6-09 due to holiday shipping volume.  I do apologize for
any inconvenience. 

Thank you
XXXX.COM

Well, since I don’t have a hard copy of either the checkout or cart page, and it wasn’t on the order confirmation page, I can’t confirm this.  Shipping the week of Jan 6 just qualifies, since my order was shipped the last business day of that week.

Addressing me as “Valued Customer” is highly impersonal at the least.  I can’t decide if it’s also highly sarcastic.

Note to Customer Service: You don’t want current and potential future customers wondering if you’re being sarcastic or rude.  They’re likely to look elsewhere for the same goods or services, as I plan to for future orders. [Read the rest of this entry...]

I must admit the term “neuromarketing,” reminds me of science fiction. The original Star Trek comes to mind.

You know, where the flashing lights on the futuristic scanner … in reality are just flashing lights. And the original hand-held medical scanners were salt shakers. Ah, the power of the imagination.   Actors and actresses taking the written word and transforming everyday objects into advanced scientific gadgets not yet invented.

All the audience has to do is suspend reality and believe …

Is the power of the imagination — with some savvy marketing — transforming questionable claims into science?

Over the weekend I read where there’s a company allegedly using brain scans to advise political campaigns. Interesting.

Supposedly they use MRI scans to “scientifically” determine people’s reactions to a particular candidate. I’m not convinced the science is that accurate yet. At least not with an MRI. A different scan, well … maybe.

The areas of the brain are not physically mapped like a roadmap. If I look at a map of the Interstate, yes I can find out where the next exit is. And how far I am from it.

But the areas of the brain are not that precise.  There may be some individual varation making pinpoint accuracy impossible.

Additionally, the areas of the brain overlap, as Dr. Sally Satel notes in the February 2, 2009 issue of Forbes notes. She notes that one area of the brain rarely performs only one task.  The same area of the brain may be responsible for multiple emotional responses. Dr. Satel coined the phrase “pseudoneuroscience” to describe the practice of making claims sound scientific by using the term “neuro” in the front of their specialty.

As in neuromarketing.

Neuromarketing reminds me of a course I took once. Billed as an “easy course” (it wasn’t that easy). Because it was given in May and June some of my fellow students dubbed it “Neurogolf.”  So when I hear the term neuro obviously tacked on to the beginning of another word, my first reaction is to stifle a laugh.

Dr. Satel’s full article can be found here.

Last week, we had high winds.

Bent Closer

So high they ripped the screen door out of my hands, banging it against the house.  The screen door closers were bent, needing replaced, and a porch light was damaged but repairable.  I had papers blown from elsewhere to pick up after the winds died down.  All of which added up to only minor damage.

My neighbors’ shed didn’t fare so well.

A pile of metal sheets used to be their outdoor storage shed.  The wind knocked it off its foundation, and the shed rolled across their yard and the lot next to it. It finally stopped next to the road at near the far edge of the lot. By the next day, it was flat, a pile of scrap metal. Thankfully, no one was hurt.

Undamaged Installed Closer

It reminded me of the damage I saw and heard about from Hurricane Agnes in the 1970s in Pennsylvania.  After a week of heavy rains from another storm system, Hurricane Agnes came up the Eastern Seaboard, and dumped several more days of gentle steady rain over central and eastern Pennsylvania.

The Scranton area was devastated.  A friend — even years later — couldn’t describe the scene he and his wife saw when they drove to the area from out of state.  Communications to the area were down, and I believe they were in shock at the flooding.

Many towns and cities along rivers were hit hard.  Another friend worked to help clean up some of the beautiful houses along Front Street in Harrisburg.  After mud from the Susquehanna River flooding the first floors to — or nearly to — the second, it was a mess.

After the flooding subsided, I remember traveling along the Juniata River, and seeing grown trees bent from the water.  Not broken, just bent. The flattened shed in my neighborhood is eerily reminiscent of a twisted, broken steel bridge in the middle of a small creek I remember.

And after yesterday’s airplane crash in the Hudson River, with all passengers and crew rescued, it’s time to give thanks. I’m sure they, their families, their rescuers and all involved even peripherally are.

So today, even though it’s not officially Thanksgiving Day … or a even special occasion … I’m thankful. Some things won’t wait for a once a year holiday.