Betting Blind
- BY Gary Buck
- August 16th, 2010
It’s Saturday night at the casino and the poker pros are licking their chops in anticipation of fleecing the crowd of “wanna-be high rollers” in for the weekend. The easiest pickings are those “Texas hold’em” rookies who don’t yet understand the odds and think that they can impress the veterans with their bold play. The ideal rube: the cocky fellow who “bets blind” and plops down a big stack of chips before the cards are even dealt.
After a few years of trendiness, high-stakes professional poker has been relegated to late-nights on ESPN 8 (“The Ocho”). But businesses large and small continue to take wildly unnecessary risks on their brands in this same “betting blind” manner. Unfortunately, the results are about the same. The savvy, cunning experts who know both the odds and their competitors’ “tells” come out on top while the impatient, foolish rookies lose their entire stake and go home with their tails between their legs.
A few recent projects have all had one remarkable characteristic in common – brands willing to make enormous assumptions about their customers without actually talking to them. They launch million-dollar initiatives in the dark – betting blind – with only their “gut instincts”, personal viewpoints and sheer chutzpah to guide their product designs, marketing efforts and other brand experiences.
Note that these are the very same clients who claim that they don’t have the same marketing budgets they had in years past. They assert that they don’t have the money to spend on customer or market research. But in bypassing that effort, they end up wasting even more money launching in the wrong direction with the wrong message to the wrong targets.
What’s often worse is that the people making the assumptions are nothing like their target customers. Gen-Y, Amazon.com-loving computer programmers usually don’t empathize well with Gen-X, middle-aged mothers of three who shop at discount superstores. Computer whiz kids at high-tech Manhattan agencies usually can’t put themselves in the shoes of digitally-challenged, suburban forty-somethings who are looking for a better way to rent movies.
Why would you bet your stack of chips before the cards are dealt when it’s just as easy to look at the flop in order to determine your true odds and course of action? Why would you increase your RISK by ignoring or refusing data that would give you a tremendous advantage against failure? What is the logic here?
This phenomenon is not new, as evidenced by the existence of applicable maxims galore. “Penny-wise and pound foolish” describes those who would skimp on the basics and miss out on larger opportunities. “Measure twice and cut once” is the carpenter’s mantra to save money by putting in extra thought before risking irreversible mistakes. Perhaps the venerable Ben Franklin said it best: “An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.”
Simply put, there is no substitute for solid market intelligence. Note that this doesn’t require large budgets, but merely clear, rational and EFFICIENT research and analysis activities. Once prospective customers are clearly identified, brands that perform surgical focus group sessions, surveys and even individual interviews learn a great deal about how their customers view the product/service category, product alternatives, competitors, brands, influencers/recommenders and all of the intangible aspects that affect buying decisions.
A recent brainstorming session for our own marketing efforts resulted in a clarified brand assertion : “We think before we create.” Just as many clients jump to action before performing sufficient discovery and strategy efforts, we’ve come to realize that many of OUR competitors do the same thing. If you watch television commercials (does anyone actually do this any more?), you’ll quickly see the results of that kind of process. Misguided, mis-targeted, miscommunicated mistakes abound. It seems obvious that these brands and their agencies didn’t actually talk with any customers before creating this drivel.
If you like gambling, go for it. Hopefully, you’ll guess correctly and win the big pot. But if you’d rather make your bets knowing that you have the best hand and are practically guaranteed wild success, we can help. Let us work with you to “think before you spend” and gain an advantage of your competitors through effective, efficient customer research and analysis. Give us a call and let’s get started.
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