Inspired Ideas

The past few weeks I’ve been thinking about how to sell niche audiences. Most marketers continue to use mass metrics when evaluating niche segments and therein lies the problem. The mathematics will never add up for niche opportunities based on mass metrics.

Every day I come home and check my mailbox. To my shock there are no secret love letters from long lost admirers. Shocking, I know. What I do get by the truck load is lots of direct mail.

First 50 customers get free gym memberships.
Hurry, condos are selling fast in your area.
Limited time offer, free delivery on sushi orders over $20.

And every day I do exactly what everyone else does in my condo - I quickly scan through the mess and then in one fell swoop deposit the entire stack into the recycle bin.

If only these companies really knew what happens to their scarce resources, maybe just maybe they would stop bothering me with their direct mail.

So, how can these companies justify spending their budgets on a medium where anywhere between 95 - 99% of it goes to waste? The model is broken yet nobody in the room wants to admit it.

This doesn’t apply solely to direct mail but also tv, radio, OOH - essentially any medium that justifies its cost based on the size of the audience.

What these metrics fail to capture is who is actually paying attention. If the size of the audience was based on those that actually read the direct mail or paid attention to a commercial would marketers still be willing to invest the same amounts of their budgets? I doubt it.

How does a marketer justify paying a premium for a niche audience? It’s an easier internal sell to say you are going to take $50 K and reach 100,000 consumers compared to trying to stand up in a boardroom and explain how you’re going to instead spend your energy focusing on 1,000.

I would love to wrap this all up in a single post with a magical answer, like a Full House episode where everything gets solved in 30 minutes, but alas I don’t think it’s that simple.

More on this to come. Stay tuned.

A few weeks ago I had the privilege of giving the keynote address at the University of Toronto Mississauga Commerce Society (UTMCS) Formal (try saying that 5 times fast).

Truth be told, I would never have imagined doing that just a few years ago. Public speaking made me nervous. So nervous that my hands would start shaking. And I couldn’t explain it. It just happened every time I got up but I still enjoyed the thrill of speaking.

Something had to be done.

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If you had to give one last speech, impart one last piece of wisdom or simply had one last opportunity to share with the world what you’ve learned, what would you say?

It’s an interesting question.

I’m not sure what I would say but that question sure helps put things into perspective.

I came across this speech today and wanted to share it.

It’s from a series of lectures that asked distinguished individuals from around the world the exact same question - if you had to give your last lecture what would you say?

The video below is from a Professor named, Randy Pausch, his story is simply inspiring. It’s about 76 minutes, so go pop some popcorn and make yourself comfortable. I promise it’s worth listening to. And plus, have I ever let you down? (That’s a rhetorical question, don’t answer that).

“Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”

Enjoy.

At the Raptors game the other day and I couldn’t help but notice a mother with her family as she spent the majority of the game taking photos with her digital camera.

I watched intently as she snapped away anxiously not wanting to miss a single moment. And I couldn’t help but think how ironic it was. Here she was, preoccupied with taking these pictures so that she could preserve the moment, while the actual moment passed her by.

And there I was fixated with this thought as the moment passed me by.

I’ll refrain from saying something cliché here or maybe I already have.

Hope you’re off to the start of a good week.

- Nish

One of my favourite hobbies is observing the characteristics of successful people. I’m intrigued by what sets these people apart from the rest.

When I am in a meeting and bored of drawing unicorns, I often observe the way these people interact and communicate. And what I’ve learned might surprise you.
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It’s been awhile since I last wrote a post. I didn’t realize how long it had been until an angry friend called me to vent about my lack of Inspired Idea writing.

We often put off the things that are important to us in order to handle the immediate. What’s in front of us, what’s pressing, what’s urgent gets our attention - everything else falls to the wayside.

It’s unfortunate because the things that are important don’t get the highest quality of our thinking or time. And this effects every aspect of our lives from our personal relationships to that big presentation that doesn’t have a set deadline but is important nonetheless.

Seth Godin wrote a terrific post on this topic called Managing Urgencies and offers a potential solution - “to make the long term items even more urgent than today’s emergencies.”

I’ll be honest, I don’t have the mental strength to be able to do that and sadly I can’t offer you a better solution. I haven’t figured it out yet. I’d love to hear how you find the ability to focus on the things that are important. Drop a comment or send me a note. And make sure you drop it like it’s hot…

- Fire Chief Nish

Have you had crunk juice lately? I surely haven’t. I’m not drinking anything from a guy that looks like this:

Sorry, I just can’t do it. Apparently, there’s millions of people that don’t share the same inhibitions. Shocking to say the least.

Crunk refers to getting crazy drunk. Get it? Cr(azy)(dr)unk. Brilliant, yes. It’s also the patented sound of Lil’ Jon who has brought us musical greats such as “Yeah” and “Get Low“. Lil’ Jon’s crunk music was a seemingly natural extension to venture into the energy drink business. What else would you drink while listening to crunk music? That’s what I thought. I can understand crunk juice but I’m having a hard time with Lil’ Jon’s latest brand extension:

The Lil’ Jon Winery.

There’s something that doesn’t seem to fit with getting crazy drunk and sipping on a full-bodied pinot noir. Are pinot noir’s full bodied? I don’t know. That’s beside the point, focus.

I’m also not buying wine that’s called Lil’ Jon.

“Hey baby, let’s open some new wine I just bought, it’s splendid”.

“Oh yeah, what region is it from?”

“Lil’ Jon region…yeaaaaaaahhhhhhh…okaayyyyyyyy.”

[Exit stage left. Date over.]

But Nish, maybe you just don’t get it, he’s bringing wine to the masses. He’s bringing it to his millions of loyal followers. I ain’t buying it for a second. That’s like saying that Hooters Airline was a good idea. Do you remember that? Hooters created their own airline just like Roots did. Both were miserable failures.

The point is I’m not trusting my life with a brand that sells clothes and definitely not with a brand that serves chicken wings by girls in orange short shorts. (Don’t get me wrong, I still love short shorts. In all vibrant colours). And I’m not buying wine from a guy who I associate with crunk juice and one hit wonders.

There’s a relatively new marketing theory called, The Elongating Long Tail of Brand Communications, (kiss some ass in your next meeting by busting that one out. Bonus marks guaranteed) which hypothesizes against the traditional wisdom that a brand needs to have a singular voice. The theory proclaims that with an over-abundance of communication channels it’s possible to create different messages to connect with each of the different niches that your brand caters to.

In the case of Lil’ Jon, I would assume that his following of wine drinkers would be a fairly niche market. It’s fair to assume that most people “gettin’ low” are part of the crunk juice market.

So what should Mr. Lil’ Jon have done to launch his brand of wines? Based on the Elongating Long Tail (that just sounds wrong, I’m not even going to go there) he should of created a different message crafted exclusively for his wines. It’s not enough just to use a nicer font for the packaging. He should of named the wine: Jonathan Smith (using a nice classy font of course).

Jonathan Smith? That seems random, no? If you’re a hardcore Lil’ Jon fan you would know that’s his real name. A Jonathan Smith line of wines now appeals to the hardcore loyal fans and removes the association with crunk juice and everything else that Lil’ Jon is known for.

I’m not sure about you but I think I would rather uncork a bottle called Jonathan Smith than a bottle of wine called Lil’ Jon. But that’s just me. A small change can go a long way.

Okayyyyyyyyy. Yeahhhhhhhh.

- Nish

We lose our creativity the day we leave our pencil crayons behind.

I couldn’t help but think that the other day as I scrambled to grab a pen, my BlackBerry and notebook as I rushed off to yet another meeting.

What ever happened to the days where we spent hours on the kitchen table sorting through all of our pencil crayons, wondering where the hell Cadet Blue disappeared to? Where we poured hours into creating the perfect title page. And you always knew, that one asshole, would break out the newest edition of Laurentian pencil crayons and up-stage everyone the next morning. But still we coloured away and let our imaginations run wild. We dreamed in colour.

That’s why I find it unfortunate that an entire generation will grow up and never use a pencil crayon, who needs that when you’ve got a colour printer and Photoshop?

I guess that’s what they call progress.

- Nish

Saturday. It’s finally here. Let the weekend rituals begin.

Many will go out to celebrate the “good life” and there was a time where you had to rely on the trusted memories of those around you to recount the drunken stupor of your horrible night.

Where, oh where, did the night go oh so wrong?

It was planned perfectly, in fact the one anal planner of the group, even sent a full on itinerary of the nights events. There’s always one.

You eventually stumble home. Make a few drunken phone calls. Send out a dozen text messages to every secret crush in your cell phone and eventually pass out halfway between your room and the washroom.

Gotta love the weekend.

With the advent of social networking sites, you no longer have to count on the memory of your friends, it’s detailed in every single horrible detail for everyone to see. Tag. Tag. Tag. Poke. Poke. Poke. Nish Shah is now friends with Mercedes DelaRoux, Delinda Deville and Roxy. Damn the browse other networks function.

We need a solution to drunken social networking. And I’ve got it. An Inspired Idea free for the taking. Yup, that’s just the kind of guy I am.

Introducing, VirtualDrunkTank.com (I’ve checked it’s currently available). Here’s how it works, before you go out for your night on the town log into the site. Check off all the sites that you want to restrict access to, Facebook, MySpace, HiFive, Whatever. It automatically restricts your browser from accessing these sites for 12 hours.

If you’re partying for more than 12 hours straight, you’ve got issues. Seek help. I can’t help you.

When you try to access these sites in your drunken state it automatically puts you in the virtual drunk tank where you can meet other people trying to do exactly the same. In essence another social networking site. Yes, I’m contributing to the problem but helping at the same time. Brilliant.

It almost seems like the perfect site for a beer company to start. Hint. Hint. My beer friends I hope you’re reading.

If you build it. I will use it. That I can promise you.

Here’s to Saturday…

- Nish

I am usually in an inspired state when I watch the Toronto Raptors play at their highest potential. I suppose that’s the feeling a sports franchise is meant to create with their fans who have a deep affinity with the team. The Raptors are an interesting case study partly due to their tumultuous history as a franchise; from their inaugural year it seemed that the NBA’s northern experiment would be a complete failure.

Players refused to report to the young Toronto franchise. The reasons were far and wide. It was too cold. They couldn’t find Toronto on a map. Toronto like the rest of Canada had a weird measurement system, what the hell is a litre and a kilometer anyways? I can’t have my kids learn that shit. So, when Vince Carter, a once rising superstar, had a press conference to announce he was committed to playing in Toronto the city was naturally overcome with joy. Maybe the tide was turning. Not quite. Toronto, although it has a general self-depricating style of humour as it goes about it’s business, has a fairly large ego. And the city’s ego sure took a major hit when VC decided he no longer wanted to be part of the Raptors. We took it personally.

The fact that the franchise was able to turnaround the general direction of the organization when it felt like there was little hope left is what inspires me.

Here are 3 business lessons from the Toronto Raptors that can be applied to business life:

1. Focus your attention on a common enemy

Playa-haters. The Raptors sure had a lot of them. An article two seasons ago in Sports Illustrated seemed to already have dismissed the Raptors season before they even played a single game, proclaiming that all of their off-season moves would be unfruitful. The critics became the team’s common enemy, they set out to silence all of them.

When you have a common enemy it becomes a rallying cry for everyone in the organization, instantly every inch becomes worth fighting for, exerting that extra effort now has visual context. I once worked for a company where we were repeatedly asked to work through our lunch breaks and yet no one seemed to complain. It was the nature of the industry back then but we also had a common enemy. Every six months a ranking would come out and we were consistently 3rd. The top ranked company was Goliath we were David. They had more money and more resources, we couldn’t compete with that. There was a certain buzz, that’s hard to explain in words, that took over the spirit of the company during those long and varied days but everyone knew what they were working towards. A few years later the company hit # 1. (Sadly, I really can’t take credit for any of it, I was long gone by then).

Find your enemy. Focus everyone’s attention on the enemy. Get to work.

2. An inspired team > uninspired team

One of the guiding principles of the site. The Toronto Raptors amid all of the critics decided if we can’t find current players who want to come to Toronto then we’ll simply expand our search. Surely, there had to be talent outside of North America who desperately wanted to play in the NBA. And the management team was right. They found hidden gems that other GM’s never saw or who weren’t willing to invest in. The Raptors worked hard to find the right mix of players creating a culture of people who actually wanted to play.

You gotta find people who share the same values as your organization. Who actually want to work for your company. If a person can’t give you one good reason why they want to work for your company aside from “I saw the posting on Workopolis and I desperately need a job” - stop the interview and kick their ass out.

If you’re trying to create something great, uninspired people on your team just won’t cut it.

3. Kill the cancer swiftly

The Toronto Raptors don’t fuck around. Don’t want to be here anymore? Get your ass out. Juan Dixon was the latest example. They traded him quickly and found somebody that did want to be here.

A person who merely shows up to work because they haven’t stumbled across something better yet is like cancer. Undealt with, their bitching and attitude starts to spread to other parts of the organization. Group think takes over and now everyone is singing the blues proclaiming, “this company sucks”.

Kill the cancer before it takes over the culture of the organization.

Boom, that’s all I’ve got. 3 business lessons from the Toronto Raptors.

Go Raps.

- Nish