Web Strategist Lab

Meta link: This is a link to Stephen Colbert’s dissection of the new Domino’s ad campaign. It does a perfect job embracing the combination of “Wait, are they idiots for admitting their pizza was disgusting?!” and “Wait, are they geniuses for admitting their pizza used to be disgusting” that came with my first viewing of the ad.

The premise, that Domino’s has listened to the customer and realized that maybe their pizza tastes (kindly) like ketchup-covered cardboard and has made changes to their primary product.

This whole campaign is a perfect prism to view so many changes and issues at play in American business today.  Here’s a sample.

1) A successful business isn’t one with a good product (pizza), but with a well-designed delivery system. (It’s not the product, but the business that we wrap around it that matters).

2) Even ketchup-covered cardboard, properly positioned and marketed, can be a billion-dollar industry (you hear that Twitter-haters who think that they will never make any money?).

3) This is an age of contrition. Financial, automotive and insurance failures have shown us that no one will take you seriously without an act of contrition. It doesn’t matter if it’s real or matters a lick (like driving “regular” cars to DC from Detroit or decreasing year-end bonuses by 10%), if there isn’t a CEO begging for forgiveness for past transgressions, we don’t want to hear it (and they said we couldn’t learn anything from the Japanese!  Though, I would rather we gotten better at manufacturing than at public opinion/political kabuki theater).

4) This is the end (for now) of the 20th-century model of marketing (who’s triumph remains Crazy Eddie’s shouting commercials). Now, marketers have to show how they actually listen to their audience (instead of just shouting at them) before pitching their horrible products at us. This is what the blogoshpere/web 2.0 hath wrought: a nod to the consumer (albeit a small one).

5) This may be the beginning of the end of “Us v. Them” marketing. Think of it. When was the last time you saw a commercial or marketing campaign who’s underlying principle is that the people pitching the product actually use the product? I’m not talking about paid spokespeople or testimonials, which still are designed, filmed and produced by people who never use that product, but about people who really like the product. Do you think that Jeff Bridges drives around California in a Hyundai? Or Kevin Spacey in a Honda? Aside from the Tony Stewart Actually Likes Whoppers campaign, this is the first where I get a sense that these people might actually eat pizza.

And this is how the marketing revolution begins, people. With an end to the lies. Sure, we’ve long ago stopped the bald-faced “Four out of five doctors smoke Lucky Strike” stuff, but we still live in a world of an underlying lie: that “Us” the marketers are different from “Them” the consumer.

In other circles, there’s the idea of rapport, that we build trust with people with whom we feel some connection. In the marketing world, this is quickly turned into “mass rapport” (which is why likable Jeff Bridges tells us about Korean cars made in Alabama and we listen: we liked his movies, so we must like him so let’s listen to what he’s got to say). But we are coming to the end of that idea as we all understand how easily it is to get Florence Henderson and Mr. T and Ewan McGregor and Keira Knightly and even dead John Wayne to say nice things about our products.

What we should be searching for is real rapport: you will like us because we are like you and we like this thing. Not a picture of someone who likes this product and pretends to be like you, but produced and developed by real people with real passion for the Whopper and the Diet Pepsi and SmartCar and Geico insurance. That rapport can only be faked for a little while, so maybe we can find real fans to build these commercials (And hey, the internet is letting people build those commercials for you: go look at youtube!).

Heck, let’s get crazy and actually BE the people who like these products and try telling the world about them.

I know. Crazy, right?

For all the talk about what makes a good leader, one show is illustrating how hard it is to manage people. The trick of it is, most of its viewers have no idea they are getting crucial lessons on leadership. They think they are watching a “reality show” about hair salons.

Tabitha’s Salon Takeover should be required viewing for every MBA student in the nation. Somehow, in 44 minutes and commercials, someone is able to evaluate a business’ issues (be it personnel, systems, accounting, inventory, or leadership), get their hands dirty by showing what changes need to be made, and comes back weeks later to see if the changes have been successful (and have stuck).

If only business consultants could do as much.

Yes, knowing the industry helps. Yes, having a blonde British vixen show us yanks what fools we are is fun. But time after time, the lesson Tabitha teaches is: be honest and demand accountability. The rest is details.

How many businesses are run into the ground because the owner doesn’t know how to be honest, they don’t realize that choosing favorites creates division (especially when coupled with denials about having a favorite) , are scared to tell an employee that they aren’t doing a good job and then explode, seemingly without cause because those bottled up frustrations get out eventually, setting expectations for employees and holding them accountable for those expectations (and not letting an employee weasel out of a tough conversation with accusations of “I didn’t know I wasn’t allowed to do that” or “I’m having a bad day”), and holding themselves accountable to their employees.

Side note. Yes, I was there the day an employee caught surfing naughty pictures online and was allowed to keep their job because they said, “You never said I couldn’t do that!” Oh really? Then why exactly were you trying to hide your actions? I never would have thought to try a trick like that. Not in a million years.

Anyway, there’s Tabitha, telling this employee that she needs more training directly and without equivocation (and there’s the employee’s ostensible boss, shaking with fear behind Tabitha, finally seeing what leadership is all about). And there’s Tabitha, explaining to the owner that not being there was creating a vacuum of power and no on was stepping in to fill it, thus leading the shop to certain doom unless they stepped up. And there’s Tabitha showing the salon employees, who are really self-employed for the most part, learning about marketing, the value of repeat business and up-selling.

No jargon. No bullshit. Just Tabitha saying what’s true and some people freaking out, creating unnecessary drama. Good TV.

Side note. I was working for a software company years ago who sold enterprise flooring software to flooring manufacturers, distributors and retailers. The software pretty much took over every part of the business, from inventory to AR/AP to POS. Well, here we were in LA, installing the software and training everyone (it took a week) on how to use it and on day one, one employee was relentless in voicing their complaints every time they perceived something as wrong. It went on all day and it was easy to see the effect it was having on everyone. At the end of the day, the owner gathered everyone together to thank everyone for their hard work and ended his speech with something along the lines of , “This new system is our future. If you don’t like this software, then you don’t like our future and I invite you to find your own future elsewhere.” The entire time he was looking at the one complaining employee and everyone knew it. The next day, that guy was a tiger, eager to learn everything he could about the new system.

That’s what real leadership is: being honest and demanding accountability from every player in the game.

Tabitha knows it.