I was watching a re-run of “30 Rock” last night. Since I rarely have time to watch prime-time TV, I catch up with popular culture three to four years after the fact when it hits late-night, “bed-time TV.”
The episode was about Winter Madness. When the TGS staff, who have a severe case of cabin-fever-in-the-city, rebels against Liz, she creates a scapegoat for everyone’s anger.
Maybe it was just the NyQuil induced haze from treating my own miserable cold, but I found inspiration for us marketers in that episode.
Think of the brands that try to emulate the rest of the market – “me-too” marketers. Think also of the brands that work a little too hard to differentiate themselves – “look-how-clever-we-are” marketers. Seems to me that sometimes we get so caught up in slogans and taglines and campaigns that we forget that the enemy isn’t our competition. Our common enemy is the problem that’s troubling our prospective customers. Fixing that problem should be the focus of our marketing. If it isn’t, then maybe we should re-think our aim.
Do we know our customer’s pain? Can we solve it? Can they afford the solution? Those are the questions that every customer cares about. Those questions also represent the common enemy. The enemy that should be the focus of our marketing.
Liz had it right, after all.