Idol Give Back - Some lessons for all of us

I've always been fascinated by American Idol's marketing genius. At the core is a great family values TV show. The whole family can watch - it cuts across the races, the sexes, and music genres. Around this strong core is the integrated marketing and extension of the product. (very Disney-esqe) - the magazine, the singles, the PR, the web site, the advertisers, and the concerts. But layering on the "Idol Gives Back" theme made their concentric circles fan out even further. They had MySpace in the mix, Disney/ABC, new sponsors, itunes downloads, and it went on and on. The team was fast and furious putting all of it together.

While I agree with Marc Sirkin that the tide may raise all boats - in fact, we had our WalkAmerica weekend right after the broadcast, I do question the charity approach that they took. So they raised all this money on behalf of an entertainment foundation, who is dividing it up between many charities. They are all worthwhile organizations, but it's interesting how they state that your money "could" go to one thing or another but it's actually not specifically designated. And where does one.org fit into the whole thing? Isn't the American public confused by the various URLs? And wasn't Bono pushing Red not White?

We can all learn from the integrated approach - and hopefully more media companies will want to look like heroes. But I'm not sure whether the American public knows exactly where they gave their money - would be fascinating to do a follow up survey....

Long Time No Post

It's true. It's been a little while. Not that I don't have anything to say, in fact I'm in information overload. I'm at the Digital Now Conference. Just heard a speaker, Susan Scott, the author of Fierce Conversations who said a few kernels of gold that are obvious but still need to be stated:

1. The conversation is the relationship. If the conversation stops, so does the relationship. Of course, this is why we need CRM and more specifically a CRM strategy. Because we lose relationships ALL the time. There are just too many to maintain in the way that we know how to maintain them. And a handshake or a nod won't cut it anymore.

2. People make decisions for emotional reasons, rather than economical ones. Good thing to note as a health-related charity - or any charity for that reason.

3. "Master the courage to interrogate reality". How many of us do this at work - this is also known as the brutal facts. Well fine, examine them, but don't ignore them.

4. What conversation are we avoiding that we need to have? Good answer from the audience to this one: what are we doing that has no value. Ah. This is the best one. If we really took this approach - examining how we spend our day based on the value of what we are doing - wouldn't we be so much more productive?