Are you a connected maven in a slice of the world that cares about remarkable ideas?

Then check out Seth Godin’s influencer campaign for The Big Moo.  Very clever promotional thinking for the insights of the The Group of 33.

"Atelier De Cannes"  by Pablo Picasso, original crayon drawing, 1958

Yours for only $129,999.99 today at www.costco.com

Yes, at Costco.  I don’t know about you, but this changes, at least a bit, the way I think about Costco.  Your brand is an expression of what you put out in the world, and this ain’t no bulk pack of toilet paper.

Personally, I’d go for the Miro.

(thanks to Carlos for the link)

If your brand is the sum total of all the things you do in the world, then how far would you go to live up to the expectations of people in that world?

Would you do something like this?

And how would you grow a culture to enable this kind of brand expression?

Good questions to ponder… and act upon.

Twice in the last week I’ve had an encounter with the Toyota Prius brand which left me uttering a slack-jawed "Huh?"

Encounter No. 1:  While tooting along down the highway at just over the speed limit in my own car, some dude in a Prius blows by me doing about 95 mph.  What’s wrong with this picture?

Encounter No. 2:  Trundling along through rush hour urban traffic, a person in a Prius in a BIG hurry tailgates me for one long minute, then finally whips out against oncoming traffic in a desperate attempt to get somewhere on time.

Now, the percentage of impatient leadfoots driving a Prius is probably quite low, but they’re a good reminder that, for all the time and money you spend crafting the story behind your offering, your customers are going to write at least a few additional chapters in the book of your brand.  And those are the pages that matter to the world.  Know-nothing yuppies turned BMW from a driver’s car into a social-climber’s bauble.  Porsches used to be driven by people with quick wrists (the better to catch that oversteer!), but now the story is about SUV’s for suburban wrists with, ahem, extra padding.

Who is going to write those chapters for your brand? 

In the weeks since hitting my recent big ship date commitment, several people have asked me how fatherhood has affected my view of marketing and product development and design.

Yes, I suppose it has.  Here are my two personal epiphanies, as it were:

1. I now understand why my extremely sagacious father has been telling me for years that man is fundamentally an irrational animal, because we can rationalize anything.  I’m an incredibly happy guy, but I’ve been doing a lot of rationalizing lately…
2. As a Good Marketer, I recognize the the importance of matching the right message to the right group of people with the right worldview.  I now realize that a good messaging strategy may have as much to do with what you don’t say as with what you do.

If marketing is about figuring out what people want, making what they want, and finding the best possible way to let them know that you’re making what they want, then Bodygroom by Philips is a textbook case of Good Marketing.

Think back to the Visceral-Behavioral-Reflective model of meaing creation.  Bodygroom the product and Bodygroom the story have each been designed with all three levels in mind to create a total offering experience that just sings if you already have the "I’ve got to shave" worldview (not that I’ve ever used it, mind you… but I believe it would work…).  The visceral-reflective  sublimiity of scissors chasing dual kiwis — well, that’s marketing genius.

metacool:
What should we (your readers) say to all those marketing people
who are going to glance at the title of All Marketers are Liars in an airport
bookstore and get offended? What’s the elevator pitch for this book
that gets people over the "liars" hump?

Seth Godin:
This is a terrific question. If I had taken my own advice and written a
book that matched the worldview of the largest possible portion of the
business-book-buying public, I would have called it THE GREEN
KANGAROO–HOW TELLING STORIES HELPS TRANSFORM YOUR BUSINESS. But I
didn’t, largely out of creative desire and arrogance. That said, I
think the "lying" story is very spreadable, because it starts loud
(you’re a liar) and then gives the teller enough space to actually tell
the story.

My hope is that in meetings, people will ask the questions I outline at
the end of the book. Stuff like, "what’s our story?"

metacool:
Seth, thanks for taking the time to talk about your new book.  Thanks also to my friends Anthony & Tom for help with the brainstorming.  And thanks to YOU for hanging out at metacool.

Seth’s Business Blog Tour party for All Marketers are Liars continues tomorrow at Brand Mantra.

metacool:
Good organizational design often begets good design thinking.
What are some ways to organize the "product generation" part
of a company so that it can design experiences and the business
communication and branding strategies (AKA "lies") required to bring
them to market, all in an authentic way?

Seth Godin:
The best stories come from organizations that tell the story FIRST. The
founder or manager or whomever really and truly believes it. Really
wants to make it happen. Then the product matches the story. What if
Altoids weren’t strong? What if JetBlue was just cheap, not better?

You can’t slap a story on later. Doesn’t work.

metacool:
What happens once everybody can create goods stories for their
brand? Will consumers become desensitized to ‘story’ and crave
‘story-free’?

Seth Godin:
Story-free is still a story, in a twisted sort of way. The way that
black and white generic canned peaches (which appeared to be without
marketing) were actually filled with a story.

The story doesn’t happen without the consumer. People feel compelled to
tell themselves stories about everything. That’s why they are
superstitious, believe in religion and cry at the movies. So, while
certain stories go out of vogue, it’s inconceivable to me that human
beings will suddenly become hyper-rational.

Seth Godin will be discussing the state of the art of marketing remarkable stuff here at metacool on May 26.

Mark your calendar, check the air pressure in your brain lobes, and be sure your RSS reader is gassed up.