Marketing Should be Fun(damental)

For the love of the game.
For the love of the game.

Marketers have spammed, lied, deceived, cluttered
and ripped us off for so long, we’re sick of it.

–Seth Godin

I love coaching Little League baseball.

This is my son’s third year playing and I’ve been fortunate enough to coach his team each year, experiencing first-hand the beauty of playing baseball for no other reason than because it’s fun. When the kids have fun, their parents have fun, and I get to have fun — as a result, I tend to go above and beyond, doing things like writing team newsletters; buying extra training equipment; and organizing a team picnic at the end of the season.

Last year, our first year out of tee ball, with runs and outs being counted and every game having a winner and a loser, our team wasn’t very good, winning only two games while getting blown out badly in several losses. As a team, we had many Bad News Bears moments — including a couple of my own with one particular umpire and one opposing coach — but despite all of that, we always had fun playing, the parents had a good time, and I slept well after every game knowing that we were achieving our primary goal of learning how to play baseball.

Two of the most reassuring moments were the time between the first and second season when my son, out of left field (metaphorically), told me I was a great coach and he loved playing baseball; and a couple of weeks ago, when the girl who earned the game ball asked me to sign it for her!

Working with seven and eight-year-olds who are learning the fundamentals of the game, my philosophy is pretty simple: Pay Attention; Always Hustle; Have Fun.

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6Qs: Maria Schneider, Editor Unleashed

Maria Schneider, Editor Unleashed
Maria Schneider, Editor Unleashed

“I don’t know if there’s any light at the end of the tunnel for publishers, but I think the future for writers is bright.”

–Maria Schneider, Editor Unleashed

I had the pleasure of working with the Editor Unleashed herself, Maria Schneider, for about 18 months, back when we were both with Writer’s Digest — as Editor (her) and Ad Director (me) — and am happy to still call her a friend despite no longer being corporate colleagues and with more than 600 miles separating us.

Maria is a smart, savvy writer AND editor, who understands the difference between the two, and who fully grasps the integrated world publishing has become, able to speak fluently in print and digital. Her ability to brainstorm new ideas that work from multiple angles without ever compromising her editorial integrity made my job much easier, and her outspoken, engaging personality has always been refreshing.

Her openness to new ideas and engaging personality allowed her to hit the ground running when she left Writer’s Digest last year, immediately launching her own website on October 8, 2008 with a post entitled, “So here’s how I got here…“, adding a forum two weeks later, and never looking back. Since then, she’s been offering near-daily content, featuring inspiring writing prompts and invaluable resources; interviews with successful agents, editors, and authors; and sharing her own hard-won insights with an appreciative and steadily growing community of aspiring and professional writers.

I’m delighted to have her as the first in a new series of interviews with insightful publishing and marketing professionals — 6Qs: Maria Schneider, Editor Unleashed.

It’s been just over six months since you were “unleashed” and went freelance. What’s surprised you, in a positive way, and what hasn’t quite gone according to plan?
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Starbucks’ Mixed Messages, Ethical Truthiness, #smfail

“The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”
–Roger ‘Verbal’ Kint, The Usual Suspects

[UPDATED BELOW; THRICE!] Starbucks profited greatly from years of an aggressive and purposeful over-expansion that successfully wiped out many of their independent competitors and established their brand as a counter-intuitive status symbol (it’s just coffee, people; get over yourselves!), but the beaten-down economy has made their overpriced coffees a luxury many are choosing to do without, and the bean counters are starting to feel the heat.

2008 wasn’t a very good year for SBUX, and 2009 isn’t tracking too well, either, as 2nd-quarter net income reportedly dropped 77 percent, while Dunkin’ Donuts and McDonald’s McCafé are threatening to chip away at their market share:

Starbucks has for the last year tried to reverse declining revenue by closing stores and recasting itself as an affordable brand for value-conscious consumers. The company has long been characterized as appealing to affluent professionals, while abandoning the lower end of the market to competitors like McDonald’s, which has begun selling specialty coffee drinks.

So in March, Starbucks began offering a breakfast value meal. Customers can buy a cup of coffee and an egg sandwich, cup of oatmeal or piece of coffee cake for $3.95.

Mr. Schultz said the company’s new value-oriented strategy is paying off…

“Speculation that Starbucks is losing retail market share to competitors has been grossly exaggerated,” Mr. Schultz said on a conference call with analysts on Wednesday. “Starbucks coffee does not cost $4, as people are charging.” The comment was a reference to a recent ad campaign by McDonald’s that says, “Four bucks is dumb.”

Schultz’ optimistic bravado is betrayed by his company’s actions, though, as their “value-oriented strategy” is contradicted by a new, notably defensive ad campaign that suggests they probably agree that “four bucks is dumb”, but realize they can’t say that; nor can they really compete on the value playing field without compromising what their brand has come to stand for.

Starbucks calories by pnoeric
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Stop Interrupting; Listen, Engage, Earn Attention

Youre not listening anyway. by MadRussianPhotography
You're not listening anyway. by MadRussianPhotography

You know the stereotype of the guy on the first date who can’t stop talking about himself, only to wonder why he doesn’t get a kiss at the end of the night, never mind a second date?

That guy is like advertising.

In the latest flare-up of the “print is dead” debate, Michael Josefowicz’ provocative article for MediaShift entitled “The Fallacy of the ‘Print Is Dead’ Meme” has generated some interesting feedback, partly for daring to counter the meme, and partly for clinging to the ad-supported model that has pushed many newspapers and magazines onto the endangered list:

[T]o extrapolate from personal experience to a statement about what is going to happen in the world doesn’t work. But that’s exactly what many of the people foretelling the death of print are doing.

That’s because most of the public discourse tends to be dominated by information junkies and there is little doubt that if you’re an information junkie, the web is the way to go. But the reality is that info-junkies are only a small tribe. They consume the news at a prodigious rate and the web is the fastest way to satisfy their appetite. Thus, they’re also the most vocal tribe — so it’s easy to get the impression that theirs is the most widely held conclusion. But if you listen to some of the discourse, it soon becomes apparent that it’s only one way to look at it…

Because every business understands the value of print advertising, the trick is only to make the buy for a print/web ad combo easy and affordable.

Responding to MediaBistro’s highlighting of the article, I noted: “I agree with Josefowicz that print isn’t dead, but he’s wrong about advertising; that ship has sailed. Interruption IS dead.”

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Spindle: New Content for April

Spindle Magazine: A New York State of Mind
Spindle Magazine: A New York State of Mind

Things were looking dicey for April — I’m still almost a week behind on NaPoWriMo, not to mention the craziness of the real world — but I managed to post some new content before the calendar turned, with great poetry from Erica Miriam Fabri and micro-fiction from James Bezerra and Dominic Preziosi.

Check them out at: http://spindlezine.com

Also, be sure to poke through the archives and revisit some great features like “Love, New York Style” and an interview with WORDS IN YOUR FACE author, Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz.

OTHER UPDATES:

You do know Spindle has a spanking new Facebook Page now, right?

Next month, I’m hoping to get our columnists back up and running again, as well as to start catching up on the growing backlog of 2009 submissions. (I’m finally completely caught up on everything Spindle-related from 2008, except for the columns.) I’m also going to have a great special feature that came out of the Acentos Writers Workshop I facilitated this past Sunday.
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Tone Deaf Publishers Need Savvy Writers

In response to a question about lessons they'd learned from the failure of a book to sell as well as expected — something that was acknowledged several times as being the norm not the exception — one offered an example of an unnamed book that the stars had seemingly all aligned for: it was a great book the editor loved, that their publisher believed was going to be a hit, that got great reviews from all of the major mainstream outlets... and it flopped. In the final bit of unacknowledged irony, one of them briefly noted that examples of successful self-publishing were rare and magical.

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Poem-A-Day Challenge: Days 20-22

I’m way behind again, the furthest yet, and am “cheating” a little bit to catch up by going with only one of the PAD prompts I missed (Day 21) and two from the Acentos Writers Workshop I facilitated today. I’m still commited to making 30/30 by the end of the month, but from here on they might not all be via the PAD prompts, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Prompt: Pick a place and an emotion; personify the former using the latter.

Prompt: Write a poem about a paradox.

Prompt: “Two for Tuesday”: Write a haiku, or write about the haiku.

YANKEE STADIUM CRIED

As its replacement evolved
from good intentions to boondoggle
the House that Ruth built and Dent furnished
looked across the street and shed
no tears, confident that its memory
would live on in the hearts
of the true fans who can’t afford
to embrace something new.

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