I have been reading three books recently about marketing, Blue Ocean Strategy by W Chan Kim & Renee Mauborgne, microtrends by Mark J Penn and Marketing to the Affluent by Dan Kennedy. My conclusion is that success or failure in marketing is all in how you think.
Blue Ocean Strategy basically makes a distinctions between red and blue oceans. Red oceans are markets everyone is competing for, recognized trends like the Baby Boomers. Blue oceans are a created phenomenon where there is no competition and, among other factors, increases price point and/or decreases expenses. Cirque de Soleil, one example from the book, combines the idea of circus and theater to increase prices, expands market share beyond families to corporate, and reduces expenses by eliminating animals.
microtrends is a demographic book and its premise is that, with the advent of the Internet, 1 percent or 100,000 people can move markets. That means that people are able to break out into sliver demographics and if marketers are only focused on megatrends, they will be missing the boat. Here are some examples of emerging groups: Internet marrieds, working retired, Protestant hispanics, southpaws unbound, pet parents, high school moguls, social geeks and powerful petites. Fascinating, huh?
Marketing to the Affluent is about marketing to people who buy stuff in THIS market. I have been involved in real estate investing, buying from people in distressed situations (foreclosures, bankruptcies) and trying to sell to the few buyers left that everybody is fighting over. So this book is about what kind of thinking is required to market to the affluent.
As an example, I asked a small, prestigious eight-table restaurant owner with a two-year waiting list (Rao's) if he would be willing to donate a table for the East Harlem School Fall Benefit. He agreed in 2006 and 2007 and I'm praying he also agrees this year. That donation (one dinner for four gift certificate on a specific date - no substitutions) raised $3500 the first year as part of the silent auction and, leading the live auction, enough to scholarship a child for a year in 2007. Amazing! My thinking was, "What do you offer people who can buy pretty much anything they want?" Something NOT ACCESSIBLE. It makes total sense. Obviously, the size of the bid had a whole lot to do with people wanting to give lots to the school too. I was leaping up and down, cheering, in amazed glee.
