Join the Conversation, Part 1

I'm admitting nothing other than there simply aren't enough hours in the day. Or days in the week. Or weeks in the month. I could go on.

And so I've decided the best way I can participate in the UN2PNM review process for Joseph Jaffe's Join the Conversation is in parts. I'll review as I go.

Currently I have five books stacked up. I read snippets at a time, pen in hand. I'm an underliner, bracketeer, page corner folder. You should see my copies of Grudin's The Grace of Great Things or McKee's Story. I write in margins, on PostIt notes stuck into pages.

To begin with, I'm enjoying this book. The tone is wry and blunt. I can feel Joseph's energy bubbling up. And from my vantage point in the marketing world, I think we need more fanning of these kinds of flames. Marketers of all stripes should be reading this book.

I started annotating heavily in Chapter 3. The section on "ROI: The New 666?" struck a chord. "CFOs, purchasing, and procurement have confused the hell out of marketing folk," writes Jaffe. "Marketing used to be an art. Today it is a science." I can't tell you how many times I've witnessed this struggle the past five years. Perhaps that's what drove me to underline the following and add three asterisks in the margin.

"Whereas [old marketing] puts the brand on a pedestal and expects consumers to worship it, covet it, aspire to it, and ultimately take a subservient position to it, [new marketing] asserts the opposite: that the brand must fit into consumers' lives. Expressed differently, brands need to bring value to the table that exceeds the utility associated with simply purchasing and consuming the said good or service."

Chapter 5, "The Rise of the Prosumer" (or as Jaffe calls them, "merchants of conversation") ought to be required reading for planners and those who view focus groups as a means of merely proving preconceived notions. I especially enjoyed the idea of The Producer's Honor Code. Advertisers should aspire to such levels of communication and respect.

I've just finished Chapter 7, featuring "The Six Cs: Three Phases of Conversation." Perhaps four asterisks, a bracket and lots of underlining indicates far too many personal experiences with clients who still, "look at the Web as an inherited stepchild next to their favorite son, the bricks-and-mortar stores. (And the same applies to messaging, relationship, and service with respect to television, experience, and customer service, respectively.)" Jaffe's observations on this point -- the third "C" (Commerce) -- provide a balanced philosophy with respects to the traditional pressures of ROI and the (newly) enabled consumer.