Business is not a philosophy class or a smoke filled dorm room in the middle of the night. It’s really pretty simple. Do you offer something people want at a price they want to pay? If so, say so. If not, change your price, change your offering, or fold up your tent and go home.

We have been enjoying working with a new brand concept for a few months now. They are great folks (and that is not something you can ever take for granted). But what makes it really enjoyable to work on their business is that they know what they stand for. They are out there on a limb, saying, “people are willing to pay for a really awesome steak!” If they’re wrong, well, they are out there on that limb. But if they’re right (and it’s looking as if they are), they have that limb all to themselves.

Funny, isn’t it, that a you can go back about fifty years, and walk down a street in a pedestrian neighborhood in Brooklyn, and bump right smack into a breakthrough 21st century brand concept. Great piece of meat. Knowledgeable, friendly service. Some good stuff to go with it, to round out the meal. Seems like a no-brainer, which is a pretty good indicator that either it has already been done (which does not appear to be the case) or it’s a sure winner.

We will see.

We’ve made an interesting discovery about web perusers. They like to look at people. We consider ourselves pretty ordinary looking people (with one or two exceptions). And we feel like some of our offerings, case studies, and insights are pretty unusual. Yet, the most viewed section of our web site is the people section. I guess we’re just naturally social, and we like to look at each other…just like they said in ad school.

It’s a conversation we sometimes have with technical clients. The temptation is to think that when you do something technical, that you are an exception to the whole people appeal thing. It’s tempting to think that you need to show your technology, to think that technology people are interested in technology and don’t care about looking at people. Well, we have not found that to be the case. In fact, our friends at AMAMCO Tool seem to be having great results with their people-oriented approach. And they’re aerospace…technology…custom tooling…defense contractor types. If anyone is immune to people appeal it ought to be those guys. Not so.

We just launched our new web site. Folks seem to like it. Check it out and see what you think. But that’s not what I’m blogging about today. Today, it’s the value of traffic driving tactics.

For a long time, we’ve been getting about 500 views a week. Since it was the old site, we didn’t really worry too much about it. Then, last week, we sent an HTML email to a few hundred of our friends and relatives as part of our launch plan. We got 5000 views! I’m not a math guy, but I think that’s like a 1000% increase in traffic. If it were an intersection and not a web site, they’d have a traffic cop out there to prevent gridlock! And this week, at the halfway point, we’re already at 800 (60% above our average), which I assume is a halo effect from the launch event. We’ll see how the week shakes out.

The old sales wisdom is, “don’t be afraid to ask for the order.” Well, I guess we have shown that if you want web traffic, ask for it!

Took about as long as it took James Joyce to write Ulysses, but our new site is up. Go check it out. Let me know what you think.

The coolest thing about branding is getting to know people from other places and learning about their cultures. The other day I was on YouTube, watching and listening to IZ videos. If you’re from Hawaii, you know what that means. If not, search YouTube for “IZ,” and treat yourself to some practical Aloha. This gentle giant’s sweetness came out through his voice and his ukulele playng (oo-koo-ley-ley). I get emotional over music sometimes. And there I was with my headphones on, tears welling, listening to this 800 pound man sing “White Sandy Beach,” “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” “What a Wonderful World,” and “Hawaii ’78.” I even liked Pearl Jam’s version of “Hawaii 78.” Something I’m learning is that there is a lot more to Hawaii than meets the eye.

We had the opportunity to return to Hawaii last week. We gave a report to some very cool clients (I guess they’re products of their environment). We made a presentation in the morning to the marketing team. Then, we went up the elevator in the afternoon to present to the executive team. I think the findings were well received. So, we look forward to building the brand.

Spent Saturday with our friend Ken, who showed us around some parts of Hawaii most haoles don’t get to see. First, we went to the Honolulu Academy of Arts, where they have a once-in-a century show of antiquities from Bhutan. There were some fabulous textile pieces that were hundreds of years old, but looked better than some of my ties. And a few small statues were from as far back as the sixth century. Wow!

Over lunch, we got some more teaching about Hawaii culture. We learned that a lot of names are transliterated into the Hawaiian language, but because the language has a limited number of sounds the names have to be changed slightly. For example, Kenneth is “Keneke.” I was delighted to learn that in Hawaii, I am “Kimo.” Cool, huh!

Then, we headed to Pearl Harbor. Turns out, Ken is a retired Navy Captain, so he was able to take us backstage. We got pictures of the Missouri and the Arizona Memorial, but our favorite part of the visit was the Utah Memorial (we were the only ones there). We stood on the shore and Ken explained the brilliant Japanese strategy for Pearl Harbor—and how their failure to complete the mission allowed us to get back on our feet and eventually win the war in the Pacific. Good case study in strategy and execution, which I will surely use at some point.

Last stop of the day—a Shinto shrine right in the heart of Honolulu. Ken explained the role of Shinto and Buddhism in the traditions of Hawaii, especially among Asian Hawaii people. We appreciated his willingness to share these things with us.

Keneke is an incredible person, yet completely unassuming. It was an awesome day. Mahalo!

Almost every brand comes with built-in assets and liabilities. For example, an ad agency in South Carolina has the built-in liability that people do not associate South Carolina with “hip,” “smart,” “sophisticated,” or much else you might associate with your concept of ad agencies. It’s external to us, so we have to acknowledge it and go with it. It would just be too costly to try to educate people to the contrary…especially since there’s a lot of truth in most folks’ perception of South Carolina.

One built-in asset some brands have, that you can’t buy with any amount of money, is a great story. I worked for a little while on a brand of tea that was served in Buckingham Palace. Now, if you’re into traditional English tea, you just can’t beat that for a story.

I remember when Banana Republic was actually built around war surplus warehouse buyouts. I actually got a Russian Air Force Officer’s overcoat at the one on on Walnut Street in Shadyside (Pittsburgh), back in the 1980s. Way to form fitting, and way to warm. But what a story!

We have some friends whose company was founded by some war heros…yeah, like Purple Heart winners. These were some serious guys. They were mostly from an under-served minority. They did planning sessions in a public park. They refused to fail. It’s a really cool story. You just can’t buy that kind of brand asset!

Just got back from Hawaii, where we were doing a lot of interviews and photographs for a communication audit for a client in Honolulu. More on that later.

I was blown away by one high-ranking individual who used much of my one-on-one time with him to educate me on the “spirit of Aloha.” Of course, everyone knows that Aloha means hello and goodbye. But when the Hawaii license plate refers to the place as “The Aloha State,” it’s not saying that it is the “hello, goodbye state.”

This very kamaaina gentleman explained to me, with great passion, that the spirit of Aloha includes things like loyalty and generosity. But those are fringe components. At its heart, the spirit of Aloha is “love, responsibility, and doing-the-right-thing.” It is not a balance of these things, mind you. It is all three, all the time. It is love always. It is responsibility for what you say and what you hear…out of love. And it is doing the right thing…not necessarily the popular thing…out of love and responsibility. What a great and profound learning this was!

I love these people! Mahalo! And Aloha!

We just learned that we’re going to be branding a company in Hawaii, and I’m sure you’ll be hearing more about it as the initiative goes along. They are very polite people, but very strong. It’s refreshing, if unnerving, in contrast of the growing tendency toward posturing and bombast among business people today. Not to go down another rabbit trail (here we go), but have you noticed how business interactions have become more combative and loud lately? Anyhow, our Hawaii clients are not that way. And I’m glad of it.

We’ve been planning a visit in a couple of weeks. Mentioned it to our friend Audrey yesterday, and she said she had been to Hawaii once, for 35 minutes, when she was in elementary school. She was on her way to the Philippines, stopped for refueling, flying with her mom on a military transport—her dad was an Air Force pilot at the time. She said the cabin wasn’t very pressurized, and she ended up having her feet swell so she couldn’t wear her old shoes anymore. Had to get new ones.

Anyhow, we are boning up on all things Hawaii. I dig that the big island has a whole bunch of climate strata (I think it’s like 11 or 13), including a rain forest, an arid desert, a live volcano, and snow-capped peaks. Of course, they also have some of the world’s best coffee—Kona. And the original people of Hawaii created some of the most awesome boats in the world—outriggers.

By the way, did you have any idea you spelled “Philippines” that way. Very tricky.

I’m pretty psyched. I’ll keep you posted.

people always went to the lowest bidder. I wonder this, because it seems that people are doing this more than they used to. Might just be nervousness over the economy. But we have experienced a lot of people saying, “we’d rather work with you, but we went with the lower price.” And we are dealing a lot more with current clients saying, “I want to do this initiative, but you’ll have to come down on the price.” Not sure what is going on.

Of course, when you’re talking about commodities, price is the issue. Why pay more for a pound of sugar than you have to? Is that what’s going on? Are people seeing advertising, and marketing communication as a commodity. It’s happened before.

Back in the 70s, when I was studying the art and science of advertising, they were just beginning to churn out MBAs in unprecedented numbers. They were deft at analysis, but not typically good at judgment. So, with the help of a PC on every desk, business began the process of reducing every issue to an arithmetic problem, with a correct answer that could be devised with the use of a spread sheet. Of course, the seventies gave us stagflation (I heard that terrifying term just this morning on NPR, for the first time since the Ford administration), leisure suits, hair mouse, disco, and some of the worst advertising in history.

Fortunately, by the mid-eighties, top businesses seemed to learn their lessons. We had the West Coast influenced creative revival—MacIntosh 1984 spot, Levi’s 501 blues, Bartles and Jaymes, and so on. During the boom, people paid not six figures, but seven figures for single commercials. And in some cases (MacIntosh) it paid off. That was an exciting time.

Then came the 1990s, “Xstreme” everything, and the Internet. The self-indulgent, art-school educated new generation of creatives began using client budgets to subsidize their own cool little films. We got advertising full of smart remarks and special effects—full of sound and fury signifying nothing…and not generating sales. Along with that came the 24/7 auction/bidding war that is the world wide web. The ubiquitous banner/button universe of ads, measured not in reach or frequency, nor in transactions or trial, but in “click through,” began the process of re-dumbing down advertising to the two lamest objectives in history:

• GET YOUR NAME OUT THERE

and

• MAKE AN OFFER THEY CAN’T REFUSE.

The confluence of the MBA quantitative mindset, the waste of budgets on self-indulgent creative, and the point-and-click mentality have taken the sophistication level of advertising strategy to about 1922 (Hey, Mrs. America, is your family satisfied that your dishes are clean when they sit down to dinner? Try Squeek™!). It is not the kind of advertising that history tells us will work over the long haul. But it is advertising that can be done fast…and cheap. Which brings us to the original musing…I wonder what would happen if people always went to the lowest bidder.

Have to tackle that next time. Sorry for the rant.