SD#20: Culture of character, Friedman’s essay and rules
May 31, 2022
Hi friends,
Welcome to another edition of Seven Dawns, your weekly newsletter on marketing, productivity, psychology and more.
Our seven ideas this week:
1. (Marketing) You can’t assume that your audience will believe what you’re saying. But you can boost your chances through public ads In February 2018, hoards of disappointed KFC fans started complaining on social media that a number of KFC branches had unexpectedly closed. Hundreds of stores across Britain had been forced to shut their doors with signs saying “Sorry we’re closed.. we’ve had a few hiccups with the delivery”. What ensued is now known as the KFC chicken crisis where DHL, a new distributor for the chicken company, struggled to cope with supplying all the shops. It was the sort of disaster that no one in PR or marketing wishes to see. Headlines in newspapers were being written hourly, social media flooded with anecdotal and angry messages, things were moving fast and a response was needed. Thus, the brilliant marketing team of KFC and their agency pulled one of the best crisis comms responses I have ever seen – the ‘fck’ ad. And they used it by taking out a full-page ad in a newspaper. Without outright blaming their distributor, KFC made fun of the situation publically and got the general population on their side. They didn’t go dark and hid under the beddings until the crisis was averted, they were public with what has happened and with their apology – and it surely made a difference. |
2. (Psychology) Pre-1900s the character traits of serious, disciplined and honourable dominated the society In her brilliant book ‘Quiet – The power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking’, author Susan Cain describes how during the early 1900s and before the Culture of Character dominated society. U.S. (and other western) societies have not always promoted extroversion as the ideal. Up until the start of the twentieth century, the focus was on a culture of character rather than personality. The ideal person was serious, self-disciplined, and moral. How you behaved in private, your virtue, was more important than outward charm or impressing others. Contrast that with the values that came out in the post-1920s era – energetic, forceful, dominant, attractive, fascinating, magnetic. During that time, particularly in retail, it became important to make a good impression on others with whom you had no past connection, in contrast to interacting with people in small towns whom you’d known all your life. This new culture of personality was a departure from the former culture of character. The burgeoning retail sector needed a different kind of employee—a gregarious salesman with the ability to get along with anyone and be comfortable in any situation. Having a “good personality” became paramount. At the same time, Americans developed a fascination with celebrities, further elevating charisma over character |
3. (Psychology) Saying ‘I have a rule’ can excuse you from unwanted decisions in social situations Moods and emotions are unreliable coaches for self-improvement, people don’t respect “grey areas” and will fight, sometimes tooth and nail, to get you to do whatever it is they’re doing if they sense they can convince you to. What works much better is simply being definitive in your statements. Make it non-negotiable. Make it black-and-white. Make it a rule. People respect it more. Saying I have a rule that I don’t eat meat or dairy is a completely different statement than saying, “I don’t usually eat meat or dairy” or “I try to stay away from meat or dairy.” The difference is in the definitiveness of the statement. The former is black and white — it’s a rule and it’s clearly defined. The latter is grey — it changes depending on the context of the moment and the mood of the person. Movemequotes |
4. (Marketing) The response to ads is reversed for people who are actively looking for a product – they look at ads longer Have you ever wondered how many ads we see online daily? Hundreds? Or maybe thousands? Our daily ad exposure depends on many factors – from where we live to what job we do and how we prefer to spend our leisure time, but the fact is that we see thousands of ads every day and we are only able to recall and pay attention to a very small subset of them. The backlash from this flood of ads is already evident. Concerns over how Facebook shares user data and targets ads have landed it in the crosshairs of Congressional investigations and Parliamentary hearings. Ad-blocking software is more popular than ever, with 86 million users blocking $20 billion worth of ads each year in the U.S. alone. Retargeting has grown so invasive it’s drawn comparisons to online stalking. Research shows that we’re sick of ads and we’ve also grown increasingly adept at tuning them out. But the effect seems to be reversed for people who are already in search of a product. If there is a clear need circling in the mind, people not only make notice of ads, but they look longer at them. If your hoover just broke down, you will suddenly become receptive to any ads advertising hoovers or their alternatives. |
5. (Business) Mr Friedman’s essay 50 years ago shaped business leaders for a single metric – increasing stock price It was the essay heard around the world. Milton Friedman’s “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits” laid out arguably the most consequential economic idea of the latter half of the 20th century. The essay, published in The New York Times Magazine on Sept. 13, 1970, was a call to arms for free-market capitalism that influenced a generation of executives and political leaders, most notably Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. During his essay he argued that rather than being asked to balance multiple, often conflicting, interests among stakeholders, the manager is given a simple objective function – increasing profits (and in turn the stock price). In his essay, Friedman calls outspoken C.E.O.s “unwitting puppets of the intellectual forces that have been undermining the basis of a free society.” Interestingly, today’s corporate leaders increasingly disavow that view of profit as business’s only responsibility — and use their money and influence to back movements pushing for racial equality, addressing climate change or taking overtly political positions. The role of ESG has gained such momentum that many companies nowadays have people and whole departments dedicated to such causes. NY Times |
6. (Productivity) High performers live in a measurement culture, invest in the right skills, measure intelligently A while back Accenture and the Marketing Society joined forces to research the importance of marketing measurement to these companies’ business; the processes, systems and resources these organisations have in place to gauge marketing performance; and the impact that marketing measurement is having on the overall business. They found that high performers had three broad characteristics: – They live in a measurement culture – Invest in the right skills and capabilities – Measure intelligently and comprehensively The Chief Executive |
7. (Marketing) The long and short term marketing can be dangerous terms as it implies all consumers start from zero Opposing views can be good. I’ve spoken far and wide in Seven Dawns how the great work of Peter Field and Les Binet proved the value of the long term and short term marketing. Our discipline never looked the same since then and it is only for the good. But I also like to consider criticisms of their work – the terms long and short term marketing can be dangerous as it implies all consumers start from zero. It is a classic fallacy not only in Field and Binet’s work but also in all our marketing/sales funnels that we are obsessed with. After all, many consumers begin their journey already knowing they need the product. Counteracting such fallacies can be burdensome, but knowing that they exist and being conscious of the decisions we make based on either the work of Field and Binet or our funnels is crucial. |
Fun things to click on:
Stop believing these myths about creativity. Rectangles is a time tracking visual where each rectangle represents 10 minutes of your day and the ones shaded in green display the time that has already passed.
Thanks for reading! If you have any learnings you’d like to share with me, or disagree with any of the ones above then do drop me a message.
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Speak soon,
Tom