Smarter Recession Marketing.

The reaction of many businesses to difficult economic conditions is to cut back marketing spending in line with general internal cost-cutting and to focus on providing value for money by cutting prices.

The former may reap some long-term benefits in helping to identify those marketing efforts that are most cost-effective, but it also suggests that marketing is viewed as an expense rather than an investment. Moreover, it also implies that you're in the same boat as everyone else and that you product/service is as vulnerable to a downturn as your competitors.

Wouldn't it be smarter to emphasise your difference from the competition and thereby your confidence in the value of what you're selling? Wouldn't it be smarter to emphasise the value for money you provide by focusing on quality, durability and relevance? Wouldn't it be smarter to think of totally different approaches and might there even be some mileage in showing their purchases to be a quasi-social investment in the well-being of the economy?

Cost-cutting is fine and entirely necessary where it is a case of trimming wasted effort and expense, but that applies at all times. As does the marketing imperative to be different, to be note-worthy, to be remarkable. It's amazing how many businesses forget that when times get hard.

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Dictatorship By The Minority

I'm sure you will already know this, but further to recent posts, and just for my own interest, I've looked out the voting figures for general elections since WW2.

The blunt truth is that no post-War government has ever had majority support.

Not the famous 1945 landslide Labour government.

Not Thatcher at the height of her power.

Not A-New-Day-Has-Dawned-Has-It-Not Bliar.

Not a single one.

And yet we have somehow conferred on all of them the powers of that famous elected dictatorship - even the current shower, who have less popular support than any of their predecessors.

Why?

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Intel's Digital Marketing Training Program

In many marketing departments, the technical competency required for marketing execution is often consolidated in the hands of a few experts on the marketing staff. A marketer might be the direct mail guru, an "adman," a PR specialist, or the trade show expert. In general, the execution of these marketing mix elements, while technical and complex, has not changed too much over time. The fundamentals of public relations, copywriting, event management, and so forth, are tried and true. Digital marketing is transforming this in two important ways:

• First, there is a crush of new marketing techniques and program elements that need to be mastered. The digital marketing mix has quickly added 10 or so (and counting) new elements of execution to the standard mix palette of about 12–15 classic program types. (e.g., email, webcasts, virtual events, SEO, display ads, social networking)
• Second — and even more important — digital marketing by definition does not rest in the hands of just a few experts. The portability, interactivity, and cost effectiveness of digital marketing are placing the execution benefits and pitfalls into the hands of marketing and nonmarketing staff throughout your company.

Today, all marketers need to become digital marketers. Marketing management needs to make sure that all staff are trained and skilled.

The IDC CMO Advisory team is impressed with the Digital Marketing Training program rolled out over the past 10 months by Intel. The Intel Digital Marketing Training program has been rolled out to the entire global sales and marketing staff. Job functions required to take the training include end-user marketing, channel marketing, market development managers, field sales engineers, field application engineers, and retail marketing managers. In total, about 80% of Intel's thousands of global sales and marketing staff are engaged in the training. Intel has developed role-based training levels and digital IQ certifications. Additional details about Intel's program are available for clients of IDC's CMO Advisory Service. (IDC document #218416, http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=218416)

What steps are you taking in your organization to help your employees become "digital marketing certified"?

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The Resurrection Of Faith

But surely he was the one who destroyed it in the first place

Yesterday we gave Cam 6/10 for his New Politics speech. On reflection that was maybe a tad harsh. Having now heard the panicky, vacuous, response from various Labour ministers and their erstwhile supporters in the press, we'd move Cam up to a 7.

Take the detailed analysis of the speech in today's Times by their leader writer and Labour insider, Philip Collins. He attempts to dismiss Cam's linking of the expenses row to the much broader small government agenda as being "plausible but spurious". According to him, Cam has cunningly "changed the subject" - a low-down political trick of the kind Collins himself routinely pulled when he was writing Bliar's speeches.

Collins either doesn't get it, or he thinks he can ignore it. Cam has struck a deep chord with many of us because he's resurrecting the Old Faith.

As we blogged here, the reason we are all so furious about the expenses scandal is not simply that we're paying for duck ponds. It's because the troughing epitomises the contempt with which our political class have treated us for years. That's what we're angry about, that's why we are demanding real change, and that's why Cam's linkage is absolutely direct.

The Old Faith says we must return power to the people to manage their own lives.

But faith alone is never enough. The real strength of Cam's speech - the bit that lifts it from a 6 to a 7 - is his linking of faith to a specific programme of action (school vouchers, elected sheriffs, etc etc). Yes, there's more he needs to do (see yesterday's post), but yesterday he moved way beyond the realms of pious platitudes: he finally showed us a radical policy platform rooted in a strong and coherent philosophy.

The official Labour response has been lamentable. In today's Independent, his batteries virtually flat, Gordo can do no more than repeat the same old meaningless guff we've been suffering for years:

"Jack Straw will announce the outcome of a long period of consultation... errrr... since March we have been consulting on a Green Paper on a Bill... drrrrrrr.... I spent time meeting young people in Fife... click... I will meet members of the Youth Citizenship Commission... drrrrrrr... click, click... in the Court of King Caractacus... click... there is no option I will not consider... click... Daisy, Daisy, giiive meeee yoooouuuuuurrranssssssssss...."

No wonder the massed ranks of the left are panicking. Carefully crafted triangulation no more than a distant memory, they are scurrying back to their own true faith, the faith of class war and conformity.

Also in the Independent (not an organ I normally frequent), an obscure theologian called Johann Hari lays into Cameron for being a rich toff who practises Voodoo Economics when people aren't looking. Hari warns that the evil Cam follows the dark faith of the false prophet Laffer, entirely ignoring the path of righteousness laid out in the teachings of Saints Obama and Krugman:

"Cameron is advocating policies that will benefit his tiny class of super-rich Trustafarians at the expense of the rest of us... and now he has announced his enthusiasm for a bogus economic theory that will justify shovelling far more of our money their way.

...it's clear how he will pay for these cuts for himself and his friends – by slashing the few redistributive programmes for the poor built up over the past decade, like the Educational Maintenance Allowance for poor kids to stay on to sixth form which his team derides as a "bribe", or the tax credits which his frontbench openly compares to the disastrous nationalised industries of the 1970s, or the SureStart centres which he has described as "a microcosm of government failure." They belong to a world he has never seen, or shown any interest in."

This is the Other Faith. The faith that hates toffs, hates markets, and believes in the wholesomeness and efficacy of Big Government.

Never mind that in the real world, Labour's EMA system is a disgraceful and costly shambles (eg see this post), or that according to its own official analysis, Labour's £3bn Sure Start programme has actually made things worse for the poorest kids it was supposed to help (eg see this post). Never mind any of that, because they belong to a world Hari and his fellow theologians have never seen, or shown any interest in.

Still, we should welcome the resurrection of political faiths, however whacky. Mainstream politics has lacked conviction for far too long. And we shouldn't decry the primitive faith of the left: they will need it to sustain them through the next 20 years in the wilderness.

PS Great article by Daniel Hannan welcoming Cam's speech:

"Brilliant: I couldn't have put it better myself. No, hang on: this is exactly how I did put it in my book Direct Democracy, serialised in this newspaper four years ago.

The solutions which David Cameron goes on to propose are drawn directly from that text, and from its sequel, The Plan: Twelve Months to Renew Britain, which I co-authored with Douglas Carswell six months ago: local control over schools, housing and policing; fewer MPs; more power for councils; referendums, local and national; legislation by citizens' initiative; a shift in power from the executive and judicial branches of government to the legislature; weaker Whips; the end of the patronage powers enjoyed by the Prime Minister under Crown Prerogative; the appointment of public officials through open parliamentary hearings.

Then again, there is no such thing as plagiarism in public life: we are all in the business of proselytising our creeds. As Ronald Reagan used to observe: "There is no limit to what a man may achieve in politics provided he is indifferent as to who takes the credit".

A great quote. And if you haven't already done so, you should read The Plan asap.

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Hermit In Residence

At least the rubbish was cheaper back then

So Manchester Museum has appointed a hermit in residence:

"The artist Ansuman Biswas is to live in the museum's Victorian Gothic tower for 40 days and nights – with only a computer modem for company.

... On each day of his stay, from the end of June until early August, he will be concentrating on one object, and conducting an online discussion with the public about its significance - and its fate. Some of the objects he selects, some apparently trivial, some highly valued by the museum, may never make their way back to the collections.

"I will be developing a dialogue with the public, drawing attention to certain objects and ask why we care about them - and if we care about them," he said. "As Joni Mitchell said, you don't know what you've got till it's gone."

Fine.

After all, Manchester has spawned hermits before. There were the unforgettable Herman's Hermits, who also developed a dialogue on museums and stuff (see vid). And remember, they were pre-Joni Mitchell!

Of course, there is one teensy difference between the Hermits of Herman and Mr Biswas: the former were not tax-funded.

When last reported (seven ! years ago) Manchester Museum was getting £2m pa of taxpayers' money.

Sounds like yet another contribution to George's List.

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The Direction Is Clear

The light that lightens

In these dark hours of our national crisis, Mr Cam steps forward with his programme for political reform:

"I believe the central objective of the new politics we need should be a massive, sweeping, radical redistribution of power. From the state to citizens; from the government to parliament; from Whitehall to communities.

From the EU to Britain; from judges to the people; from bureaucracy to democracy.

Through decentralisation, transparency and accountability we must take power away from the political elite and hand it to the man and woman in the street."

Tyler is cheering. Quite loudly.

It is a light to lighten the darkness.

It is a clear statement of guiding principle, that says we the people must be in charge of our lives, not the political class.

It is exactly what Tyler, the Major, and a thousand Surrey housewives have been crying out for.

So lets draw up an armchair and see precisely what he's proposing...

Hmm...

Ah...

I see...

Well, it seems there are a couple of details still to sort out.

Like, how specifically is Mr C going to downsize government? He mentions some of things we've praised before, like school vouchers and elected sheriffs, and that's good. But he says nothing about some of the even thornier issues that would make a real difference in weakening the grip of the state.

For example, there's nothing on fiscal decentralisation - ie re-energising local government by making councils responsible for raising the bulk of their own money themselves, through local taxes on local electors.

And there's nothing about breaking up the massive top-down quangocracy that is the NHS. Where's that bold initiative on social health insurance, the system that removes funding power from the hands of ministers?

In fact, come to think of it, he says pretty well nothing about the driving principle of all modern power relationships, which as BOM readers will know, is follow the money. Reform without sorting the money is no reform at all.

And how specifically is he going to make our MPs more accountable to their constituents rather than their party masters? Open primaries we already know about, and have praised, but what about giving disgruntled electors the power to recall a backsliding MP (check out the new campaign on this - 38 Degrees - here)? He doesn't mention that.

And what about splitting the election of the executive from that of the legislature? That would significantly weaken the hold of the government over MPs, and allow us to choose both the PM we want to govern our country, and a local MP to represent us in Parliament. No mention of that either.

Fixed term Parliaments? Well, yes, maybe. But is that actually at the heart of the debate about government accountability? How would that help with our current problems, including the fact that we've got a wildly unpopular, useless, and unelected PM? Under a fixed term, we'd still be stuck with him until next May.

Surely, much more important than fixed term Parliaments is that Big Lumbering Elephant known as PR. In fairness, Cam does mention it, but only to brush it aside with the traditional Tory line:

"Proportional representation takes power away from the man and woman in the street and hands it to the political elites. Instead of voters choosing their government on the basis of the manifestos put before them in an election, party managers would choose a government on the basis of secret backroom deals."

Now, to be frank, Tyler is still in hum and haw mode on PR - exactly where he's been for the last 40 years.

Fundamentally, there's something very wrong with an electoral system where as little as one-third of the voters can elect a dictator (in 2005, Labour got a 66 seat Commons majority on just 36% of the popular vote - which is worse than 1932 in Germany, where the Nazis got 37% of the vote but less than one-third of the seats).

On the other hand, PR puts a wholly disproportionate degree of power into the hands of the smaller parties (which of course, is why the LibDems always want it). And arguably, it also makes for weak unstable government, as Italian-style coalitions disintegrate under the pressure of events (although that doesn't seem to happen in Germany).

But however we run the argument, PR is just about the biggest and most obvious change we could make to our electoral arrangements (didn't you just love Rockin' Al's sly self-serving intervention on this yesterday?). And at a time when we all agree there's something putrid about the way we're currently represented and governed, we surely need to do more than brush PR aside by regurgitating some stale old lines from 1998.

Many of Mr C's other suggestions are utterly sensible, encompassing loads of BOM's old favourites: much more transparency, including easy online access to itemised spending accounts, both for MPs and much more importantly, public sector bodies (and we love Cam's reference to an "army of armchair auditors" combing through the nitty-gritties - we're ordering our new armchair right now); a war on quangos; an end - nay, a reversal - of the great Brussels power-grab.

So overall we give him 6/10.

A very promising effort, but some serious further study still required.

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Now Is The Time

Concerned about the Major

Hot on the heels of yesterday's outburst, the Major was round again this am. And just like yesterday, he was carrying a newspaper.

But today he was very different. No more frothing and wild rolling eyes: today, he was smiling in that stained clarety way of his. But I also recognised a steely glint in his eye - the self-same glint I'd seen when he expedited our neighbourhood heron for crimes against goldfish. Here was a man set for action this day.

"Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party," he announced. "Now. Today. No time to lose."

Marching passed me, he opened the Telegraph on the kitchen table. "Have you seen this?" He stabbed at an article written by David Cameron. "David wants me to stand as a Conservative MP."

"David?" I've heard the Major refer to young Cameron by many names, but never before David. I craned over to read. "Are you sure?"

"Oh yes - quite sure. He says... ahh... yes, here... 'it's not enough to just change the processes in Parliament, and when it comes to the people who actually become members of that Parliament this is also an opportunity to widen the net, increase the talent pool and attract people who have never previously thought of serving. How do we do that? We need to get the public more involved in decisions that political parties have, until now, had a monopoly on... That is why I'm going to reopen the candidates list and invite new people to come forward."

The Major was positively beaming. "New people... if that's not a direct summons to me, I don't know what is."

"Well, now, look Major... you may be right of course, but just think for a moment. Think. The very first thing they're going to ask is how old are you?"

"How old? I'm 62... 62 years young, and loaded with experience of life. Real Life... including all those years I spent fighting for Queen and Country against the Dervishes."

"So that's three years off being an OAP. Sex?"

"Well, perhaps not right now, sailor - B'Boommm!"

"So not only are you the wrong sex, but you treat gender balance issues as a subject for Bernard Manning style jokes. Ethnicity?"

"British! British and still proud of it."

"White British... not a plus, Major. Not a plus."

"Look, never mind all that. You seem to be forgetting something - I've been a member of the Conservative Association for my entire life! I even enter the raffle. You can't buy that kind of loyalty. Of course they'll put me on the list - they'll welcome me with open arms."

But by now I'd scanned Cam's article. "I think you should re-read this, Major. Lifelong Tories are the very last people Cameron wants to apply. What he actually says is 'They don't necessarily need to have been involved in the Conservative Party in the past – more important than that is a belief in public service, and a desire to clean up our political system.' I'm sure you don't need me to translate."

The Major clenched his jaw, the tell-tale vein on the side of forehead giving an involuntary twitch. "The trouble with you," he growled, "the trouble with you is that you're too damned cynical. But even if you're right, do you really think that will stop us?

Some day - and that day is not far off - I believe this nation will rise again. I believe we brothers and sisters will take arms against a sea of corruption. And I believe... uhh... something else to complete the rule of three."

It may be a work in progress, but frankly, we're concerned.

****

Interested?

"If you are interested in becoming a Conservative candidate and believe you would make a good Member of Parliament, please write to Gareth Fox at Conservative Campaign Headquarters (30 Millbank, London, SW1P 4DP) setting out why you would like to be a candidate, and enclose a copy of your CV. Please set out any work you have done in your local community, and achievements in your work or your personal life which you think would make you an effective MP."

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