I recently learned that Vodafone uses an internal mantra of "Red, Rock Solid, Restless".

Red refers to its corporate color and the passion and spirit that drives their employees. Rock Solid is meant to convey that Vodafone is dependable and trustworthy. And finally, Restless is a challenge to be vigilant and constantly improve. I wanted to canvass you to get your opinion on the need, effectiveness and any examples of other internal taglines or mantras that have impressed you. Let's talk about if they truly work and how they should be related to external communications.

Posted on February 5, 2008 5:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I am confident that I have read almost every paper and article on the plight of the CMO. Partly because I occupy a similar responsibility, but more because I could not understand why public failures dominate any successes in the role. It is almost if we are all attempting to eradicate the title of Chief Marketing Officer. The press love to dump on CMOs, CEO's love to fire them to buy themselves time, clients are largely unimpressed, and staff reject their czar-like status.

Try to find a generic CMO job description and that will be a clue as to the challenges such a role faces. It seems that those who take on the job must possess an incredible bundle of talents and personality.

CMOs must have the ability to craft and deliver messages and experiences that engage employees, markets and other stakeholders. They must be fantastic storytellers. Their formal and informal networks must grease the channels of communications.

They must stretch from (traditional) advertising and brand development to a rare combination of leadership, creative, analytical and financial skills. At the same time they are wholly comfortable with media alternatives, emerging markets, fragmentation, social networking, digital and other technologies. They are the trend spotters

CMOs are more like "Chief Coordination Officers" with great intuition and ability to convince many on everything. Their natural curiosity makes them a strategic aggregator and magical disseminator (the dot connector). They lead cultural change efforts while being the voice of the customer so engage all company functions not just communications.

They must boost returns on marketing investment while possessing P&L savvy and ensure that top-line revenue growth is consistent. All the while being fresh, innovative and unconventional.

Anyone who occupies the role has to be a team player, be well respected and credible, avoid and abhor star status, balance the left and right brains, be confident, intelligent, smart, streetwise, well educated. Self deprecation and self effacement are good too. Their power of persuasion allows them to reject command and control - they exude influence.

In other words, they must be nuts to take on the job.

With these excessive expectations how can one succeed? Yet 47% of the Fortune 1000 have CMOs according to Booz Allen Hamilton. At the same time, Spencer Stuart informs the world that individual CMO tenure is in no danger of exceeding 24 months. That means there are approximately 235 vacancies per year for top tier CMOs (good business for those in executive search).

One has to wonder what the talent pool is like for filling this position even if the crazy expectations were reduced. It is no wonder the CMO attempts to justify their existence by firing the incumbent ad agency and marketing consultants, drives knee-jerk tactical course corrections, contributes to messaging and positioning confusion, and makes excuses to the CEO who wonders why performance is not through the roof.

Posted on February 8, 2008 5:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

As a former and passionate member of the Interbrand team, I am well aware of the value of branding. I was recently thinking of the traits and behaviors of a company's leader and how much that drives brand. We are constantly bombarded with the charismatic and capable examples of Richard Branson at Virgin, Steve Jobs at Apple, (the return of) Howard Schultz at Starbucks and there are many more. If the leader is so integral to brand and motivating their employees to live the brand then perhaps there is another equation or metric to be explored - "the brand value or contribution to brand value of the CEO". Thoughts?

Posted on February 11, 2008 4:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

At a conference I recently attended on Corporate Image, a representative of Harley-Davidson spoke about the success and ongoing challenges of that brand.

It occurred to me as the material was presented that Harley-Davidson still carries the spirit of a rebellious challenger brand. Its influence is indisputable within its category. The speaker, Joanne Bischmann, attributed this to "block and tackle" branding and communications. It was not specific strategies that have built the brand but day-to-day simple messaging that is understood inside and outside the company and that is applied consistently. This supports an observation that I have long held - much of marketing is not sexy. Sure there are exciting advertising campaigns, viral and guerilla promotions, celebrity endorser situations and many more tools and strategies that project sexy elements. However, when you get right down to it, marketing is also repetition, database management, copy review, budget debates, ROI struggles. Harley-Davidson has embraced this fact and are successful because they undertake the sexy and unsexy with equal energy.

Posted on February 14, 2008 4:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This is a call for help!

I was asked for a cheat sheet on what makes for engaging communications. I am looking to build the definitive list. Among my current notables are engaging communications must be relevant to the target audience, different from competing communications, creatively delivered in channels that the target audience uses, etc. Can you help me build the list?

Posted on February 20, 2008 4:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I learned years ago in traditional management consulting at Price Waterhouse, that you solve problems by listening.

This is so true in communications. I know the most impressive communicators are great listeners, aggregators of information, makers of relevance, and of course, entertaining when they do communicate. The more challenged someone is in communications the more the root cause may be poor listening skills. These people do not listen because:

they "know" what they are going to hear

they seek confirmation, not information

what's being said gets in the way of what needs be said

In effect, they have already made their conclusions and have run to a solution that may not be helpful. Communication professionals need to be constantly aware of their own biases and perceptions (control your biases and validate your assumptions). These days in a time of speed and overwhelming communication clutter, we need to slow down and listen to attain the nuance and real issues faced by customers, colleagues and others. Before you just react (ready, shoot, aim), think about the following to help you listen better:

put yourself in the other person's shoes

keep the conversation on what the speaker says, not on what interests you

spend more time listening than talking

pay attention, never become preoccupied with your own thoughts when others talk, take brief notes to concentrate on what is being said

do not finish the sentence of others

ask questions, but do not answer questions with questions

plan responses after the other person has finished speaking, not while they are speaking

summarize - walk the person through your analysis

The result is you will be better communicators. In fact, the applications are endless. Being a better listener can improve customer service, new product and service development, media relations, social responsibility efforts, etc. Do you have any examples to share?

Posted on February 25, 2008 4:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)