Page 141 - Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing - PDFDrive.com

SUMMING UP

You outline a business problem to a group.
Finance says it’s a resource problem.
Human Resources says it’s a people problem. Research says it’s an
information problem.
And Marketing says there’s no problem—just double the marketing budget.
But more and better marketing is not the answer to every business question.
For all its marketing brilliance, for example, McDonald’s probably would have
fallen into bankruptcy without its brilliant real estate strategy—the strategy that
today accounts for most of the company’s revenues and $8.8 billion of its book
value. For all the brilliant campaigns that established its brand in overnight
delivery, Federal Express never would have flown without Fred Smith’s skillful
negotiating and lobbying in Washington. And without the company’s mastery of
systems and logistics, Federal Express’s clever campaigns probably would have
killed the company. Millions of people attracted by the ads would have
discovered that the service absolutely positively did not work. They would have
told their friends, and that would have destroyed the company’s reputation.
To succeed spectacularly in a service business, you must get all your ducks in
a row. Marketing is just one duck.
But it is one very big duck. Take the case of American Express: In 1972, you
could herd American Express’s entire marketing department into a bus shelter—
just fifteen people with a budget of $4 million. Today, few people can count all
the employees in the department, and the ad budget alone exceeds $210 million.
And that money has been very well spent. Ogilvy & Mather’s “Do you know
me?” and “Don’t leave home without it” campaigns brilliantly focused and
communicated the company’s position and status and propelled the company to a
place that ordinary merchandising never would have taken it.
This book also devotes fifteen pages to the importance of service brands. Five
years ago, this book would not have mentioned them, because I was deeply
influenced by all the rumors about the decline of brands. Then I watched dozens
of branded services beat superior services, for no apparent reason other than
their brand.
We hear so much about service quality today. But much of service quality is
simply—here’s that word again—invisible to the client. And for marketing