On Our Bookshelf: Chasing Cool

Book: Chasing Cool: Standing Out in Today’s Cluttered Marketplace

Author: Noah Kerner, Gene Pressman, Andrew Essex

Summary: Chasing Cool: Standing Out in Today’s Cluttered Marketplace is a book about authenticity. While the book’s examples are from design and culture-related industries, the message is clear for any organization, be it a bank or an automobile manufacturer: Cool is the ultimate point of difference.

You’ll love this book if: You believe you can learn a business lesson from looking outside the traditional boundaries of your current industry.

You’ll hate this book if: You think the word “cool” is only for kids.

Words of Wisdom:

The only way to build a true communion with an audience – to a point where they might deem you or your work “cool” – is to follow a personal vision and stay true to that vision no matter what. And if your completely off-the-wall idea gets old, come up with another one.

Why we think this book is important: Cool = authentic. Customers cannot be fooled: Ensure that your touchpoints are authentic.

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Read more thoughts about Chasing Cool.

What does it mean – to “Touch” your customer?

So in this day and age of multiple marketing messages and complex positioning strategies – what does it mean to “Touch” your customer?

Merriam Webster’s Dictionary (in an extensive definition that runs more than half-way down the page) offers as a first definition:

to bring a bodily part into contact with, esp. so as to perceive through the tactile sense; handle or feel gently usually with the intent to understand or appreciate.

Well – that definition gives us a lot to consider in a marketing impact sense!

First, we note that the concept of touching is not limited to the usual conceptual aspect of marketing. Touching involves more than just thinking. It involves feeling.

Touch is realized through an impact of the senses.

The powerful aspect of the senses is that they are directly wired into the brain – senses shortcut the usual processes of logic and thought. The points where you Touch your customers can be where you energize their emotions and feelings.

These emotional interactions – of course – can be positive or negative. And as emotions, they are often extreme (and therefore very motivating) in their intensity. So your customers can love you (just as your detractors can literally hate you) as a provider of products and/or services.

So the key is this: To understand *each* Touchpoint in the context of the consumer’s overall experience of your product/service brand. As the impact of a Touchpoint is powerful and complex – so is the requirement for marketers to understand their full array of Touchpoint interactions with the consumer marketplace.

Do your touchpoints need to be … cool?

Book: Chasing Cool: Standing Out in Today’s Cluttered Marketplace

Author: Noah Kerner, Gene Pressman, Andrew Essex

Summary: Chasing Cool: Standing Out in Today’s Cluttered Marketplace is a book about authenticity. While the book’s examples are from design and culture-related industries, the message is clear for any organization, be it a bank or an automobile manufacturer: Cool is the ultimate point of difference.

You’ll love this book if: You believe you can learn a business lesson from looking outside the traditional boundaries of your current industry.

You’ll hate this book if: You think the word “cool” is only for kids.

Words of Wisdom:

The only way to build a true communion with an audience – to a point where they might deem you or your work “cool” – is to follow a personal vision and stay true to that vision no matter what. And if your completely off-the-wall idea gets old, come up with another one.

Why we think this book is important: Cool = authentic. Customers cannot be fooled: Ensure that your touchpoints are authentic.

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I was skeptical at first of a book called Chasing Cool co-authored by a guy who used to be a DJ.

But it was the subhead of the book that made me buy it: Standing Out in Today’s Cluttered Marketplace.

I mean, who doesn’t want to stand out in today’s cluttered marketplace, right?

It turns out that Chasing Cool is a book about authenticity. And you won’t find – or become – cool by chasing it.

The authors (Noah Kerner, Gene Pressman, Andrew Essex) describe interviewing innovators from “influential industries”:

Music, architecture, design, film, Internet, consumer brands, art, fashion, advertising, and nightlife … All that time yielded one common thread: none of these people chased anything. They trusted their guts, put their names on the line, and followed their personal passions … They pursued a vision and, then, somewhere down the road, cool found them.

The world’s best …

One of my favorite examples in the book is about a famous ultra-premium vodka.

Grey Goose’s tagline: “The World’s Best Tasting Vodka” is simply … a “positioning statement.” Yet Goose is synonymous with “ultra-premium” vodka.

Is Goose really the world’s best-tasting vodka? Well, according to the now-infamous Times vodka taste test in 2005, Smirnoff was actually the best-tasting: “Pure, clean, and ultra smooth, with pleasing texture and classic vodka aroma.”

The idea behind Goose? Genius. And definitely cool.

Rock stars who … aren’t

As mentioned above, the music industry played a part in this book. (Makes sense; most of us think rock stars are cool.) What was interesting, however, was that apparently (some) record companies use software to help decide what artists to sign.

It becomes less about a gut decision to sign someone who seems genuinely talented than it is about the arc on a spreadsheet.

(Doesn’t sound very cool, does it?)

There’s even a program … which helps record companies determine the chart potential of a song before deciding whether to invest in promoting it. The company claims that they can find mathematical patterns in music and that hit songs are concentrated into a tiny number of trait clusters.

Perhaps that helps explain why the list of  Billboard’s Top 10 grossing tours of 2008 was dominated by classic rock acts.

Cool – is it like Justice Potter Stewart’s “I know it when I see it?”

Bottom line: Your customers will know it when they see it

You can’t fool your customers. And why would you want to try? Strive to ensure all touchpoints are authentic. Your customers will know (and appreciate) you for it.

And that’s pretty cool.

PS – that guy who used to be a DJ? He’s the CEO of noise, based in NYC.

Let’s talk about … books: Discover Your Sales Strengths

Book: Discover Your Sales Strengths: How the World’s Greatest Salespeople Develop Winning Careers

Author: Benson Smith & Tony Rutigliano

Summary: Discover Your Sales Strengths: How the World’s Greatest Salespeople Develop Winning Careers is a wonderfully counterintuitive exploration of developing star salespeople. The book’s premise is the idea that focusing on a person’s strengths will allow them to perform at an exceptional level, while focusing on weaknesses merely produces average results.

You’ll love this book if: You want to try a new strategy for improving your sales results, and the results of your sales team.

You’ll hate this book if: You are steeped in “old school” sales training, such as “working to improve” people’s weaknesses.

Words of Wisdom:

Focusing energy on weaknesses might improve performance somewhat, but – contrary to conventional wisdom – great performance comes from strengths. Knowing your talents, understanding them thoroughly, building them into strengths, and seeing how you can put your strengths to work every day isa key to greatness and, our research would attest, the surer path to success.

Why we think this book is important: Your salespeople are quite possibly your organization’s most important customer touchpoint.

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The book Discover Your Sales Strengths: How the World’s Greatest Salespeople Develop Winning Careers is a wonderfully counterintuitive exploration of developing star salespeople. The book’s premise is the idea that focusing on a person’s strengths will allow them to perform at an exceptional level, while focusing on weaknesses merely produces average results.

What is a strength?

A strength, as defined here, is a capacity for near-perfect performance on a consistent basis. To fully grasp the significance of this, you are well-advised take the companion online assessment, StrengthsFinder. A unique ID number is located on the inside cover of the book and you will use it to complete your own StrengthsFinder assessment.

StrengthFinder measures the presence of talent within the thirty-four themes we have discovered are most indicative of success.

Discover your Sales Strengths does a beautiful job of debunking the prevailing sales training and sales management techniques:

The myth that we grow fastest by paying attention to our weaknesses is incredibly damaging. Sadly, some company development programs are build around this destructive myth, which usually comes disguised as career help.

Ouch! But wait, there’s more:

“What did I do wrong?” This is the curse of the average performer, always trying to improve a weakness. It is a never-ending task. Great performers follow a different tack. They figure out what they do right – and do more of it!

In the section entitled The Manager Effect, the Q12 concept is presented. The Q12 is a list of twelve key questions that affect on important business outcomes, including customer loyalty.

I will divulge only one of the Q12 items:

At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.

If you haven’t figured it out by now, your sales force is a crucial touchpoint.

Your assignment

• Read Discover your Sales Strengths .
• Give a copy to each of your sales people so they can take the StrengthsFinder assessment.
• Put the findings into action.
• Prepare for the exciting change ahead.

Welcome to Touchpoint Insights

With over 100,000 new blogs being created each day, blogging is here to stay. And with that, our entry seems to be not only reasonable, but timely.

Our goal with this blog is to discuss the things we think about every day in our professional roles as brand and marketing consultants. As it says on our website, MCorp. is a Strategic Brand and Marketing Consultancy. The contributors to Brand Perspectives are our partners, associates and friends.

Though we’ll do our best to avoid promoting ourselves, we’re sure that some of our expertise and points-of-view will make their way into this dialogue. After all, we’re marketers at heart. As the scorpion said to the frog “it’s my nature…” We’ll subtly provide more info on us as the Blog progresses.

In the meantime, we’re not sure where this is going to go. A lifetime of carefully crafting each thought, message and word long before they “see the light” is about to take a sharp turn down a road less traveled. We’re just hoping we don’t hit a tree. So if there’s anyone on board with us, we hope you enjoy the ride.