MarketingMuses

A Passion for the Arts (Part 2)

Jeff Beck is the most progressive and expressive guitar player of my generation. Seriously!

In 1962, my father won a Silvertone guitar and amplifier in a sales contest. My mother played the piano, and at her urging, I had taken lessons. But I never developed a passion for the instrument. The guitar was different. Over the next decade I taught myself basic chords, twelve-bar blues progressions, and how to play bottleneck slide in an open tuning with a glass Coricidin bottle. This was driven by my exposure to five musicians who redefined guitar playing in the 1960s by synthesizing blues and rock channeled through the new technology of an amplified solid-body electric guitar.

I watched, listened to, and played along with the revolution in popular music led by the Beatles in 1963, and I learned to play the Animals' version of "House of the Rising Son," and Van Morrison’s "G-L-O-R-I-A." But it was a succession of lead guitarists for the Yardbirds—Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page—that initially fueled my passion for blues-based rock played on an electric guitar. In 1967, Jimi Hendrix introduced psychedelic pyrotechnics. And in 1969, I discovered the sonic resonance of a glass slide gliding over electric guitar strings in the hands of Duane Allman.

The December 2011 Special Issue of Rolling Stone lists the 100 greatest guitar players of all time. All five of the guitar players that influenced me are listed in the top 9, which are:

1. Jimi Hendrix 
2. Eric Clapton
3. Jimmy Page
4. Keith Richards
5. Jeff Beck
6. B.B. King
7. Chuck Berry
8. Eddie Van Halen
9. Duane Allman

The majority of guitar players on this list came to prominence between the mid 1950s and early 1970s (Eddie Van Halen being the exception). In my opinion, only one of the seven living guitar players has continued to progress beyond his initial brilliance. That one is Jeff Beck.

I have music on my iPod from Allman, Beck, Clapton, Hendrix, and Page (as well as Richards), which I listen to often and thoroughly enjoy. But I only have songs recorded after the mid-1970s by Jeff Beck. Obviously, Hendrix and Allman have a good excuse for no new recordings since 1970 and 1971, respectively. But while Clapton and Page are still playing very well, neither has produced new, progressive music since the 1970s. Although it pains me to say this, Clapton and Page (and Richards) are classic rock artists. When they perform in concert, they overwhelming play oldies—songs they initially recorded 30 to 40 years ago.

On the other hand, Jeff Beck has progressed from blues and rock through jazz and electronica to his present style of using the guitar as a vocal instrument. In a June 2010 NPR interview, Liane Hansen delivers the most revealing interview I’ve heard with the reclusive artist. Beck says of his present style, "I try to become a singer. The guitar has always been abused with distortion units and funny sorts of effects, but when you don't do that and just let the genuine sound come through, there's a whole magic there."

Most great artists experience a short burst of creative brilliance over a few years, but a few—Matisse and Beethoven immediately come to mind—continue to evolve and produce at a high level of creativity throughout their lives. Among the electric guitar heroes of the 1960s, Jeff Beck, who turns 68 in June, is the only one who still produces new, progressive and expressive guitar music. I rarely look for the Grammy Award to legitimize musical excellence, but it is revealing that Jeff Beck has been awarded the Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance six times over four decades—1986, 1990, 2002, 2004, 2010, and 2011.

Here are three recent examples of his guitar vocals: A Day in the Life, Somewhere Over the Rainbow, and Nessun Dorma.

 

 

 

Too Big To Control

The $2- to $5-billion loss by the Chief Investment Office of J.P. Morgan Chase is making it difficult for CEO Jamie Dimon to argue that the size of the bank does not contribute to systemic risk.

 

I’ve been writing a series of posts, Risky Business, that look at the U.S. housing market and financial crisis through the lens of risk management. J.P. Morgan Chase is one of the few banks that came through the crisis relatively unscathed in terms of its financial strength and reputation. Much of the credit is given to its brilliant, bold and brazen CEO, Jamie Dimon, and his emphasis on risk management.

In the aftermath of the financial crisis, he has been an outspoken critic of government policies and regulations designed to deal with the hazards of banks deemed too big to fail. He has argued that the size of a financial institution, in and of itself, does not make it more of a systemic risk. Revelations over the last few weeks of a $2- to $5-billion trading loss by the Chief Investment Office—which, supposedly, was responsible for taking charge of the bank's overall risks, and for managing what is now $360 billion of safe, highly liquid securities—is providing ammunition to those that believe size matters, and bigger isn't better.

In today’s Wall Street Journal, Monica Langley provides a revealing look Inside J.P. Morgan’s Blunder. Ms. Langley, author of Tearing Down the Walls: How Sandy Weill Fought His Way to the Top of the Financial World…and Then Nearly Lost It All, has followed Mr. Dimon’s career since his early days as Sandy Weill’s assistant at American Express in the early 1980s. She was able to leverage her relationship and interview him for the article. It’s worth reading the article and watching the video (below) of her discussing the article with Alan Murray.

 

Disneyland: The Power of Vision and of Story Telling

 

“To all you come to this happy place; welcome.  Disneyland is your land.  Here age relives fond memories of the past…and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future.  Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams and the hard facts that have created America…with the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world.” – Walt Disney, July 17, 1955

 

 

This summer was our son’s ninth birthday, so mom and I joined him for five days at “The Happiest Place on Earth.”  Disneyland is a case study in user experience and brand management.  I believe its success is based, primarily, on two factors: The vision Walt Disney voiced 55 years ago, and the stories that differentiate the same or similar activities at Disneyland from those at a traditional “amusement park.”

Many of the “rides” at Disneyland are very similar.  You are conveyed from one point to another at varying speeds and with different degrees of undulation, geared to the age and size of the rider.  Our son is now tall enough to ride everything.  As a result, we stood in long lines to experience very similar forms of locomotion.  Space Mountain and Indiana Jones Adventure are, essentially, roller coasters.  However, each ride experience is unique because each occurs within the context of a different story. 

Disney has always been characterized by great stories.  The acquisition of Pixar, with the resulting appointment of John Lasseter as chief creative officer, has amplified that tradition.  (Improbably, Lasseter was fired from Disney Studios in the 1980s when he attempted to introduce computer animation.)  Pixar stories permeate Disneyland and California Adventure Park, and form the basis for rides such as Monsters Inc. and Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters.

 

 

Stories aren’t limited to the rides.  We started most days with breakfast at the Storytellers Café (Chip and Dale are my son’s favorites).  One evening, I noticed a group of kids and adults watching a classic Disney movie in the lobby of the hotel where we were staying.  Nearby, another group of kids surrounded an adult reading a story in front of the fireplace. 

I first visited Disneyland in 1966.  My most vivid memory is not the rides, but sitting in a darkened theatre watching “Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln.”  As I sat in the theatre 44 years later with my son, I can attest to the realization of Walt Disney’s vision that, “Here age relives fond memories of the past.”

 

 

What I Learned in School: Social Good Marketing Can Go Bad

Unless your business model is based on social good, can you develop and execute a successful external social good media program without first developing, nurturing and embedding it into your company’s internal culture?

I spent August 8 through 18 as a member of the 2010 Strategic Marketing Management executive education program at Stanford GSB.  It was an exceptional experience.  Fifty students from around the world covered a broad range of marketing and business topics with professors and business leaders.  I will be reviewing some of these in the coming weeks.

Jennifer Aaker led a session titled The Dragonfly Effect: Harnessing Social Media for Impact.  It included the very effective and moving example of Sameer Bhatia and Vinay Chakravarthy Using Social Media to Save Lives.  Jennifer also discussed brand authenticity.  She reviewed survey results showing that 59% of participants couldn’t or didn’t name an authentic for-profit brand, and 49% of participants couldn’t or didn’t name an authentic non-profit brand.

Discussions among members in class and at dinner that evening led to the following question: Unless your business model is based on social good, can you develop and execute a successful external social good media program without first developing, nurturing and embedding it into your company’s internal culture?

Organizations such as Kiva, and companies such as The Body Shop and World of Good were founded on social good principles.  Kiva’s mission is to, “connect people, through lending, for the sake of alleviating poverty.”  World of Good describes itself as, “the world’s first online marketplace to convene thousands of People Positive and Eco Positive sellers and products all in one place, empowering you to shop in ways that align with your personal values.”  The Body Shop states that it, “has constantly sought out natural ingredients…to enhance your natural beauty,” and, “strives to protect this beautiful planet and the people who depend on it—not because it’s fashionable, but based on the belief that it’s the only way to do business.”

In these examples, social good is embedded in the business models.  Unless the company acts in a way that is inconsistent with or contradictory to its business model, its brand should be associated with social good.

But what if you launch a social good marketing campaign that may not be consistent with your company’s business model?  What if the “espoused values” of one of your company brands is directly contradicted by the advertising campaign of another?  This is exactly what Unilever encountered when the message in its Dove Self-Esteem Fund advertising and social media campaign, targeting women of all ages, conflicted with the message in its Axe Effect advertising and social media campaign, targeting teenage and young-adult males.

Here’s a Dove Film titled Onslaught produced by the company.

Here’s the same video shell (intro and audio) edited with video images from the Axe Effect campaign.

It seems to me that incorporating social good messages into an external marketing campaign when that message is not part of your company’s business model or internal culture is inauthentic and, as a result, risky.  I tried to think of a company that has created an authentic external image of social good without first establishing it as part of their internal culture either through their business model or values (e.g., The HP Way before Carly, Pat and Mark).  I can’t!

Can you think of one?  If so, please comment with an example.

Use Social Media to Cross the Chasm and Nurture Prospects

The hallmarks of a buyer in the awareness phase are research and education. – Digital Body Language: Deciphering Customer Intentions in an Online World

A study conducted by Atrium Research in 2008 showed that despite a decade of market exposure 47% of prospective users knew “very little” to “nothing” about electronic laboratory notebooks (ELN).  Although ELN began to cross the chasm from early adoption to mainstream acceptance in 2009 and 2010, there was still a need to provide a general ELN introduction to nearly half of the $1.3B total available market.

Videos are best for punching through the noise—the awareness problem. – Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies

Just remember that (if you succeed), you’re about to enter into a conversation with people who read the Web address at the end of the video. You need to be ready to convert all of that interest into action and consideration. – Groundswell

A microsite allows those who view the video to learn more about an ELN by attending webinars and reading thought-leadership articles. And when ready, they can take the next step to the discovery phase, where they begin exploration of potential solutions through customer case studies.

New Function, New Look, New Feel

DiscoveryGate was one of the first software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications for the scientific community.  Introduced about 7 years ago, it provided scientists access to compounds and related data from a Web browser on their desktop, something they previously could do only through proprietary software.

Earlier this year, the development team demonstrated new, advanced search functions for the product.  We decided that the new functions deserved a new look and feel.  Marketing led the efforts of an external design group, 1185 Design, to design a new logo and user interface, and to coordinate the activities with our development team.  We also recruited The Linus Group to develop an All New DiscoveryGate Quick Tour, which highlights the improvements in function and form.

Come and See the Show! (Postscript)

An Unofficial Soundtrack for Events

The title of this series and the lead quotes at the beginning of each post in this series are lyrics from Karn Evil 9, First Impression, Part 2 by Emerson, Lake and Palmer.  This has served as an unofficial soundtrack for the events I’ve developed, designed and executed since the 1980s.  I used it as the intro music for a series of annual meetings in the 1980s and 1990s, and I listen to it whenever I need a little energy or inspiration.  

It’s a dynamo!  It’s rock and roll!

Come and See the Show! (Part 6)

We would like it to be known the exhibits that were shown were exclusively our own—all our own, all our own. - Emerson, Lake & Palmer

 

Share the Experience Globally Through Social Media

Tweets and blog posts allow those you cannot attend the conference to follow it remotely.  Guest bloggers and video interviews with speakers expand the point of view and enhance coverage.

Come and See the Show! (Part 1)

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends. We’re so glad you could attend. Come inside! Come inside! - Emerson, Lake & Palmer

Last month Symyx Technologies held, by all accounts, the best Symposium (annual user conference) in its history.  According to some attendees, it was the finest user group meeting by any company that they had ever attended.  This is the first of a series of tips for planning and executing a successful and memorable conference. 

Hold It at a Destination Location

The 2010 Symposium was held at the Arts Hotel, a Ritz Carlton property in Barcelona.  If you have the latitude to schedule your meeting during a resorts off-season, you can get phenomenal pricing at luxury resorts.  I recently did a site visit at the Four Seasons Biltmore in Santa Barbara, and the room rate offered for a 3-weekday 100+ room guarantee next spring is just a bit more than you would pay during the week at a downtown Marriott.