General Motor's Cultural Autism and Intimacy-Deficiency Disorder

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Is it any wonder that General Motors so dutifully displays it's intimacy-deficiency syndrome in ads for the Buick LaCrosse that claim IT is another reason for Lexus' relentless pursuit of perfection? Do you also find it laughingly unbelievable that Howie Long can schill for Chevy then throw in that in comparisons to Hondas Chevy doesn't make lawnmowers? Not to GM: When you are so far down a hole you have to climb up a ladder to get to the bottom you don't go around parading your cultural autism: a complete disregard for the consumer's cultural intelligence. Socially awkward does not even begin to describe General Motor's turnaround face. Chevy's still called "the volume" brand with no hope of catching the brands that so better move consumer culture into and back out of their organization. General Motors was and is the kid in school everyone percieved to be an outcast. Mean yes. True? We'll, their the ones with the self-inflicted wounds. As GM sheds brands GM remains...completely delusional in the way it views itself.

I find the concept of Cultural Autism in business interesting. And with Google returning only 4,500 some odd results on the topic, it is not very well explored. With Grant McCracken's release of his new book, Chief Culture Officer, no book or subject could be more timely for GM.

I found this webcast on cultural autism. I hope it provides food for thought in your own business. Today human interaction has been reduced to text messages, Facebook pages, computer screens, and mindless television. Parents are merely chauffeurs for their children’s endless activities away from home. Neighbors are strangers on the other side of a high, strong fence. Many families don’t even share meals together. What is the price of this modern living? The price is deep loss -- of real connecting intimacy, of family cohesion, of social graces, of a sense of community. These are fading away into the distant memory of our collective psyche, replaced by sterile cultural autism (disregard for external reality), masquerading as genuine intimacy. We will be discussing the emotional deficiency disorder at the heart of our high-tech culture-- lack of deep, profound relating with one another.

Will the androids running GM ever feel real?

Cadillac & General Motors: The limitations of needs based selling

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Charles H. Green's Trust Matters blog is always a good read. And the relevance of his post on the limitations of needs based selling remains fresh two years later when you read it and contrast his views against the efforts of companies in financial crisis attempting to affect turnarounds. My case in point? General Motors.

A company's advertising is its mouthpiece. And no where else will one find greater expression of needs based selling than in a company's advertising. And nowhere else can one find greater evidence that absolutely nothing has changed within a company than in the way they express "our" needs - for this is how they "see" us.

Look at General Motor's advertising for Cadillac's SRX Crossover. It says this "is the Cadillac or crossover vehicles." IS THAT my need? I thought MY NEED, if I currently had one, was to see signs of life from General Motors! Proof that someone was listening! Not "proof" from Ed Whitacre that when he came to GM he "liked what he found." Ed's just not my "needs" barometer.

So once again GM offers evidence that even though someone is home no one is "listening!" Like the scene in The Hunt For Red October where the Soviet Navy is banging away with their sonar so hard they couldn't hear a submarine if it was right under them; GM isn't listening to my needs. As Charles Green says, GM is trying to drive me (like cattle) to my needs.

GM and Cadillac are still my grandfather's brands. Telling me I need "the Cadillac" of crossovers just doesn't cut it. I look at the vehicle and see a design that "looks 10 years old before it was even new." The SRX is not "a product that says smart things about me." And in all of the advanced strategy research I did for GM that GM ignored and continues to ignore, these two needs still rate higher in GM's turnaround efforts than do money back guarantees. Who wants a money back guarantee if I'm not going to consider buying the car anyway!?

Cadillac is not my gold standard. There are just soooo many other luxury crossover and SUV brands that anyone over and under the age of 54 would rather have. So how does Cadillac address this? General Motor's Cadillac Division must Socially Engineer® a reason-for-being - the posuitioning strategy - that proves the brand is once again relevant to me. Social Engineering® is a process that matches consumers via "Culturally Influential Consumer Groups®" to products based on over 500 dimensions of product compatibility GM does not possess. Social Enginnering® is not accomplished using judgement for here we see General Motor's and it's partner's cognitive bias at work: advertising based on errors in judgement brought on by the false positives of old thinking.

Being "The Cadillac of Crossovers" is a claim without substantiation. Like "branding," it's something the lawyers say you can say when you don't have anything to say. As legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden says, "It's what you learn after you know it all that counts." So I'd welcome a fresh round of calls from executives at Cadillac and General Motors. Just don't ask me to wait 120 days to be paid like last time. Your needs are not being met by your existing roster of vendors and strategic suppliers. They have not helped you worship at the alter of effective needs based selling.

Laura Ries Dishes on GM at Ries Pieces

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If you haven't read Laura's posts at Ries' Pieces get a move on! Her current installment on GM, called "GM & The Implication of the Opposite" hits the mark and commenting readers are posting interesting follow ups. Now, my chief strategic problem with GM's promotional money back guarantee is that it doesn't build positive business OR brand perceptions, it tears them down due to one immutable law of marketing, advertising, branding and sales. When one trades on price, your brand equity sinks so low you have to climb up a ladder to get to the bottom. This strategy is installing the "Kill Bits®" in people's minds and perceptions that depress their response to advertising, marketing, branding and sales efforts - a far cry from correctly Socially Engineering® the company and brand's turnaround. We're observing Fall of Rome calibre strategy at GM because they really don't understand their consumer and they are unwilling to listen in the ways required to give them what they want.

The Fly In General Motor's Ointment

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I have no beef with General Motor's use of eBay as a means to move vehicles, but as a reason to buy vehicles the strategy misses the mark.

It's no secret GM wants to get rid of dealers. Work for GM's strategic top office confirmed the need to remove dealers from the loop as long ago as the late 70s and early 80s. Why? Because consumers hate the dealer experience and perceive interaction with a dealership's salesforce about as appealing as spending time with a brick and mortar bank teller. The experience really doesn't get your juices going. Bank and manage your accounts online. Also, dealers contracts are long and expensive to maintain. So, long ago, GM was clued in to pursue dealer free channels. Hell, here's my platinum card. Let me pick up my Accord or Camry at a Costco. And there's the rub.

Camry, Accord and Taurus are perceived commodities...and that's a good thing. For this strategy to work consumers need to perceive that purchasing a GM product means that you are going to receive a product that represents the coin of the realm...and consumer's benchmarks....still an Accord, Camry or Ford Taurus in the high volume bread and butter segments are not met by GM product perceptions. So casting your lot with social media maven will not impart a healthier glow to the troubled brands.

GM and it's brands need to be Socially re-engineered to change consumer habits and practices and consumer perceptions. This is not something accomplished simply by handing your account to a traditional, social or digital agency. It is a proprietary process that matches consumers to products based on over 500 deeper dimensions of product compatibility (almost like eHamony) we alone possess, coupled with interviewing or viewing these product dimensions of compatibility through the eyes of the correct Socially Influential Consumer Groups - not just demographic, attitudinal or behavioral segmentations. They are far too crude for even though we are twittering our ways to being one community the community is composed of Social Influence segments holding their own in this universe.

People say they want to purchase automobiles "that say smart things about me." A Honda does, a Buick does not. People say GM products "look like they're 10 years old before they're even new." And after seeing the new Transformers styled Bumble Bee Camaro I went out to look at a new Corvette. Did you know that in comparison, in my mind, that new Corvette now depresses me? It looks more like the last Generation of Camaro rather than next year's gotta have. Now Corvette looks 10 years old before it's new.

So if you don't have the product, no amount of new channel distribution or social media exposure is going to work...effectively. I'll bet I'm right. I mean, who wants to tweet up Cadillac? Ooppps, wrong audience, wrong generation. And Saturn? Those ads about "what pundits say (pundit is a social online word - get it?" ...and the fact that "they've gotten it right all along?" Then why does the ad follow up in the very next sentence state the company has 5 entirely new models, like the old models missed the mark? That silk shirt's kind of icky too. Not a TRUST builder. Gotta go. 1+1 doesn't equal 2 with new management at GM which is why the company still is not a member of my social economic forecasting index.

Is Your Brand Subject To " Phantom Relevancy Syndrome?"

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In the medical world amputees are subject to phantom limb syndrome: The perception of sensations, usually including pain, in an arm or leg after the limb has been amputated. The brain still gets messages from the nerves that originally carried impulses from the missing limb. Phantom limb syndrome is relatively common in amputees, especially in the early months and years after limb loss.

So as your brand relevancy diminishes are you subjecting yourself to phantom brand relevancy: the perception that your brand is still relevant even though it is not? Now many businesses are facing diminished relevancy today and there isn't a lot of hope that they'll bounce back. So what is it that goes on in the mind of the people running these businesses that they refuse to admit their business is fading away? Is it the fact that the USPS still does over a trillion dollars a year even though it's relevancy can't compete with email and text messaging? Is it that newspapers still get away with charging people for subscriptions even when radio is free and the internet delivers the same news a day earlier? Why do these brands refuse to reengineer themselves socially even though they're following in the same steps of greatly diminished brands such as Polaroid or Kodak who became commodities in the age where we now capture and transmit our memories digitally? And what of Microsoft's Bing Search Engine or Zune MP3 player - also rans that are 10 years over the hill before they were even new. Like General Motors chasing that dying aging midwestern audience - only that audience still process images in a way that once gave these businesses the lion's share.

So is it that managers cling to their ideas more tenaciously than their most prized material possessions that prevents them from effecting change? Is that the syndicated knowledge from which they draw insights fails to accurately map the future...or continues to lead them down the path that if they just keep coming to work and doing their thing everything will be allright? Are they playing ostrich and just hoping for a sustained miracle turnaround? Or is it that a few hybrid vehicles, while still a brightspot at General Motors have not been enough to do the trick? Of course I've been preaching this is the flaw in GM's relevancy for years. Before people will respond to a cash for clunkers deal at GM, GM has to establish the bread and butter market currently dominated by Ford, Honda and others. In short, you have to build more quality into your product.

But now I drift from my purpose, to promote comment on phantom brand relevancy syndrom. K-Mart's on the cusp, as is Sears, as is Starbucks as was Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer. One step in the grave and no one's willing to admit it. How do these managers console themselves for one more day that everything is all right?

General Motors Launches The MonteMaro

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With the adolescent that good looks lacking the sophisticated styling most of the market seeks and expects today General Motors once again misses the mark with the new Camaro - a throwback to what looks like a combination of the uber salesman's rental Monte Carlo and the Duke's of Hazard's Dodge Challenger. When will GM ever pay attention to seminal research done on its behalf wherein consumers said, "I want a car that says smart things about me." The new Camaro it isn't. GM products are still fulfilling consumer perceptions that, "Their products look like they're 10 years old before they're even new!" Where are the "drifters" that would at least tell Japanese auto execs to look out and maintain a low profile? Pony cars like this...wait...is that category still alive? Nissan just repositioned a segment of its business as "MOBILE DEVICES." Now that's KEWL! Who's in charge of mobile devices at GM - or do we still think that title pertains only to cell phones, text messaging and On-Star?

Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty. General Motors is free at last.

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It's not that General Motors product management ignores new product ideas that have a 97% top two box intent to purchase score among import-minded and domestic car buyers in bread and butter and higher margin luxury segments. It's not that they ignore those ideas even though they were presented with enough lead time to address current market conditions. You knew General Motors is/was really in trouble when letters on the subject sent to CEO Rick Wagoner went totally ignored. When those letters never reached his desk. When those letters were redirected by staff to underlings powerless to do anything about them - and who didn't have a care in the world about addressing company saving information further. But more importantly, you knew Genberal Motors is/was really in trouble when you followed up on those letters and you were told to call back because it takes Rick Wagoner's or any staffer's office five days just to acknowledge receipt of that letter. Way too slow in the information age and marketplace. If it takes five days just to log in a letter, imagine how slowly the organization responds to doing important work - like developing and properly marketing the products people want.

The answer isn't cost-cutting, delaying health benefit and pension plan disbursements or renegotiating union contracts and worker pay. Those are all the solution of linear thinking managements. The answer, rather than ignoring what people want and making what GM wants is to make what people want, not what trend forecasters say will sell. That's how GM and Detroit got stuck with all those SUVs. The problem is the results are , well, just too general. Not creative. Not abstract and interesting. Like one ex-head of GM strategy told me time and time again, "No one was/is going to save General Motors single handedly." Wagoner's ouster verifies that; but does it? He's been with the firm since 1977; steeped in the corporations culture so deeply that he never stood a chance. And that's the problem for other insiders. So if I were President Barak Obama, I'd bring in an outsider like Jim Sinegal who knows how to get things done at the speed of Kirkland as the CEO of Costco. Humble, efficient, a cracker-jack manager and he knows how to sell pallets of product everyday. Just the kind of volume General Motors needs. And you know what? American consumers are predisposed to want to buy cars a new way. We knew that 20 years ago. And GM didn't like the dealers either - always looking for new ways to eliminate those lengthy obligations, Abandon the dealers, streamline the pipeline and let people just order cars the way they shop for any other consumer good. Here's my credit card. Here's my down payment and my permission to automatically deduct each payment over the next 36 month. Kind of gets rid of the people with the bad credit and the whole finance infrastructure. Not needed to make the second most expensive purchase in your life today.

Why not take Saturn and make it the Kirkland brand. That'd be an interesting test! Then of course, there's my other solution for GM. Stop building cars altogether, lease the brand names to Toyota and let Toyota make the products in exchange for a payment on each and every sale to GM. What then to do with GM? Easy! Clean slate. Start over. Invent new product lines and brands. Sound hard? Not at all. At one time American's only had sticky paste and roll-ons as antiperspirants and deodorants. Then we invented a new form; Mennen Speed Stick; the first solid antiperspirant and still the most popular item in the category today. Just takes a little abstract thinking to determine what people want before they know they need it; then give it to them. Plenty of people happy to get paid $48 an hour to build cars since receiving their pink slips from the Japanese auto companies too.

The Relevance of Motown

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Not the record company. The Motor City. That's the question Detroit and the Big Three General Motors, Ford and Chrysler need to ask. What's the relevance of Motown? Obviously, their ridgid adherence to styling queues didn't do enough to set Oldsmobile apart. Oldsmobile's now extinct. So why'd they stick to portholes at Buick? Same reason. Dogma. Which is why portholes are still potholes at Buick. And when you see those portholes glued to the front quarter panels of some old import car you know they've given your brand equity the kiss of death. So what is the relevancy of brands such as Buick? Hopefully, the news of the auto maker's brands demise is premature. But the answer isn't in price. Once you trade on price your brand equity sinks so low you have to climb up a ladder to get to the bottom. And the US auto industry habitually throws promotions all the time - further decreasing their value. Now we can't get the credit even if we wanted to make a purchase. Quality, dependability, design and styling, J.D. Power Customer Satisfaction Surveys, Road & Track, Car & Driver and other media recognition, annual auto shows, all hype. And the only junkie who's hooked is our own US auto industry who continue to believe they can make what they want and use advertising to continue to convince us it's what we need.

Detroit's real salvation is in the identification of a Product Potential so relevant and meaningful to consumers that we'd mortgage our homes to buy their products. It's merely not sufficient to trot the "buy American" motto back out of mothballs. We've been there and done that. But as Procter & Gamble learned through Folgers it is possible to kick the habit. As all food and beverage manufacturers believe, we buy their products for taste, or flavor and aroma. Sometimes convenience. But that bar's too low. Of course you taste good. Otherwise I'll become a trier/rejector. But what is more relevant to heavy ground roast coffee consumers is "control." The best part of waking up is that stimulant in their cup. It helps them think earlier. They take flavor for granted.

And that's what Detroit needs to do. Realize that everything it says and does is taken for granted. Now give us a selling dimension that's more relevant to the US car buyer. It's all a matter of seeking out and finding that answer through the process of Perceptual Innovation. How you change the way we all think. Another "halo" new product just won't cut the mustard. We take 'em for granted.

And if they can't do it maybe they should hire Motown Record's founder Barry Gordy. At least he can identify a hit. He didn't make black music. As he said the other night, he makes music for everyone.

Memo from General Motors

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I received a note the other day from Maria at General Motors asking me to go visit GM Dealer showrooms and see if that doesn't cause me to reassess my position on the troubled car company, at present, living solely on borrowed time. Here is Maria's letter:

I work for GM, and wonder if you've visited a GM dealership recently? If not, I encourage you to test-drive award-winning vehicles like the Chevy Malibu, Buick Enclave and Cadillac CTS. Take a look at the photos of the upcoming Buick LaCrosse, Chevy Equinox, Cadillac SRX and the Cadillac Converj concept shown at the Detroit auto show last week. Vehicles like these have been extremely well received by the media and consumers, and are created for people who care deeply about beautiful design, reliable performance and fuel efficiency.Your reasoning suggests that if you're not number one, why bother. So should Pepsi slink away into oblivion because it hasn't caught up to Coke? By the way, GM led the U.S. auto industry by 750,000 vehicles in 2008, and is No. 1 in China, the world’s fastest growing market. But, eh, who’s counting, right?

So Maria, it sounds like you are another one of those corporate "younglings" (isn't that what George Lucas dubbed young Jedi in training in Star Wars - heads down, eyes covered, weilding light sabers blindly?). Maria, save yourself and don't deliver the same line I've heard from every generation of management at GM, and many other companies, for each of the last 40 years. The cars are no different and the ads all sound the same - perfect evidence that nothing's changing at GM, Ford or Chrysler. Yesterday I heard an ad about how I should buy a Cadillac because it's the product President Barak Obama is driven in.

Maria, do you have one of those coffee cups on your desk with the handle inside the mug? If you do, you will find the words "bass ackwards" imprinted on the inside bottom when you finish your coffee or tea. GM (and Ford and Chrysler) you've got it all (as Sean Connery would say in the Hunt for Red October) all wrong. You don't make what YOU want then use dealers, PR and advertising to tell us it's what we want. It's bass ackwards and all wrong.

How easy it is to turn potentially bright minds to the dark side and away from the force (known as Common Sense)

Thanks Maria. But I did visit GM dealerships yesterday anyway, and what I found did nothing to change my mind. I am what you now call a trier rejector. All I found was this year's version of last year's news - which for example is why portholes remain potholes at Buick and why Pontiac's positioning continues to suffer from pubescent development lag disease. (Pontiac is still making cars for adult teenagers who never matured mentally. In terms of age they may be adults but in terms of what appeals to them, they are old tweens. The experience? Completely uneventful. And no wonder. It takes about 5 years to get a car from concept to production/3 years on the fast track. Since GM was on the skids, a position well hidden back then, what's on the floor now and for the next couple of years will be, well, ho hum. Guaranteeing that the government bailout money will run out well before GM effects a turnaround - making it even dumber for ex-President Bush to give them some pocket change in the first place. I'd start sending out my resume Maria.

What's GM's best option? Stop manufacturing cars. License the names Toyota wants to Toyota. Let Toyota manufacture and market the cars and GM can collect a fee. This way, GM can cancel all the union contracts and the workers can earn a decent $48 an hour working for Toyota rather than the $78 at GM. Let GM and Mr. Goodwrench snap up hundreds of Jiffy Lube locations across the country and provide maintenance services. Like the name says, General Motors products are well, just too general, but I think they can do repairs on commodity vehicles very well. I've always liked their service and parts people anyway. GM hasn't done much to devastate my perception of them.

What's my solution for the US auto industry Ford, GM and Chrysler? Lump the three companies together in one company, get rid of the CEOs and Boards, bring in Costco's Jim Sinegal to manage the companies and make certain that the products offered meet Kirkland's brand standards. Sell the cars through Costco as well. No one likes dealerships anymore. By the way, Sinegal isn't a payroll hog either. He's quite humble and effective. And no, I'm not Jim Sinegal's talent agent.

Let The US Auto Industry Fail

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Failure. It's the price General Motors, Ford and Chrysler will have to pay for decades of making what they wanted then trying to make us believe it was what we needed. Don't bail them out. Like children, they got what they wanted every time they asked and they never learned to fend for themselves. There is a book on this called Cornucopia Kids. It's about why so many college graduates end up living back at home.

Many times I presented what domestic and import car buyers said they wanted only to watch the Big 3 go in completely the opposite direction with their ad agencies as strategic partners. Before many a c-suite presentation the head of strategy would whisper in my ear how many friends I had in the room, but that no one was going to save these companies single-handedly. Now there's the death knell of an arrogant corporate culture.

Through many product launch failures these companies had plenty of opportunities to begin again more intelligently...isn't that what Henry Ford said? Instead, they just kept letting history repeat itself and loosing became a habit.

IS YOUR BRAND SMARTER THAN A FIFTH GRADER?

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Did you know that the New York Times is written at an elementary school level? That's because that's the average intelligence level of an adult in America today. They've already forgotten more than they've learned simply because they don't use it every day. And for that reason the muscle gets flabby and weak. Have you ever actually seem a contestant win the Jeff Foxworthy game show Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? Not in my memory. So why are you entrusting the future growth of your business or brand to the input and responses of Americans? To Americans who answer the countless questions and who provide the user-generated input solicited by corporations? Even worse, the use of online research where companies get panelists to respond for points and prizes. You can't even look them in the eye to see if they're telling the truth! Smarter people would only respond for cash! Obviously the airlines, Starbucks and General Motors are listening, and look at the results. And that's the problem. No one is creating new knowledge to take your fifth grade customers to the next level - the level where you want them to be.

By creating new knowledge that has never previously existed to be gathered and measured you could gain a proprietary advantage over rivals and markets in the areas of strategic innovation, consumer insight and new product concept development to invigorate struggling brands and businesses. Does anyone actually think that recipe dissemination, a few novelty fro-yo beverages, closing a thousand stores and a http://www.mystarbucksidea.com/ website that does not give consumers the latitude to respond beyond their current frames of reference is going to solve Starbuck's problems? (every question or category in which to respond mimics a store as it exists today. How is starbucks to improve if the existing model is the baseline? All that can be expected are very small incremental...not even evolutionary steps. And that's not the material of a turnaround.) Why create new knowledge? Because no matter how hard you study the past, by asking consumers and customers questions, it can never tell you all you need for the present. How would you expect them to respond? They can only respond within their current frames of reference within long established habits and practices. Without the stimulation required to identify new product potentials and the bigger consumer persuasions beyond, companies have no recourse but to look for bailouts and new merger and acquisition suitors as solutions. That's strike 1,2 and 3 against inbound organic growth. No forward-thinking, outward-looking executives here. Just Pavlov's respondents running large businesses. Knowledge creation is why our clients hit more home runs in more categories than any other.

What's wrong with struggling companies and brands? They know everything there is to know about their business...and nothing new.

Why are good insights so hard to find?

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You know, I just love LinkedIn - the professional online community. Not only is a great place to connect with colleagues, but it is also a great place where smart people ask incredibly interesting questions like, "What is an insight?" Which got me thinking - what is an insight and why are great insights so hard to find given that in my industry - consumer packaged goods - there are thousands of experts looking for them. Are they finding them? I don't know. Based on McKinsey & Company's assessment I think not. McKinsey says, "Despite solid balance sheets and healthy bottom lines CPG executives wonder where their new growth will come from." Since CPG companies are probably most active in the insight field, I then wonder why important insights are so rarely discovered. A while back the rumor circulated that men around the age of 34 shopping for diapers in grocery stores after 8 pm also purchased Budweiser - but that was no biggie. InBev just swallowed them up without even chewing.

Very often, managers view any product, service, idea, technology, or process that is new (to them) or different as an insight or innovation. (Well just because it's new to you doesn't mean it's new to the rest of us) (An old mentor tipped me off to this type of behavior chastising me for being too busy learning everything all over again for the first time) So I think quality insights are so hard to find because we don't know how to find them. Most companies have reliable resources in place to 'gather' and 'measure' data, but gathering and mining data is only a reflection of current consumer habits and practices and no matter how hard you look at the past it will not deliver what you need for the present. So what do you need instead? Why a knowledge creation process of course! Something that can create new consumer knowledge that has not yet existed to be gathered and measured. That's how you improve consumer behavior and take your highly saturated and penetrated category and take it another quantum leap forward - the same way Pampers learned to take disposable diaper's 'fit' and 'dryness' for granted and put the brand on the much larger 'development' footprint back in the early 1980s. Or the same way Folgers went from generic 'sensory' advertising (Mountain Grown/Richest Kind) to 'control's' best part of waking up is caffiene in my cup - recently sold to JM Smucker for $1.6 billion. That stuff sure does help me work and play well with others - especially in the AM! Now that was an insight!



Why else are good insights so hard to find? It's a matter of exposure. The rule of thumb is "The more you expose yourself too the more likely you are to succeed." But apparently you can't expose yourself to a whole lot by gathering and measuring data. And companies don't want to take on additional external resources. Sounds penny wise and pound foolish!



So if business managers are running businesses and making decisions based on gathered and measured data and have not exposed themselved to knowledge creation processes could that be the reason so much of American business is only managed to meet the numbers? Kraft can predict it's sales based on predicted birth rates over the next 5 to 10 years. Doesn't take many if any profound insights to pull that off. Is that the kind of business management that's going to bail Starbucks or General Motors out of a jam? Is this why technology is king in the new creativity economy? Well, lets forget about technology and product design. It's too easy to reverse engineer and copy.



So what is an insight?

An insight is the realization of value from a new solution to a problem that rewrites the rules of the game. In order for something to qualify as a true insight

• It must engage a creative process,
• It must be distinctive,
• And it must yield a measurable impact.

Chrysler's $2.99 Gas Guarantee

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People want to buy products that say smart things about them - but how can American car manufacturers address that need when the price of a company's stock, like General Motors, sells for less than $10 a share? That's not smart - and I don't care how many sharp looking "strivers" and "achievers" you throw into those Cadillac ads and positioning statements under the heading "brand character." Do you want proof that a company's management jumps to conclusions before they jump to the facts? Do you want proof that a company's management does no homework before engaging their mouth? Just look at Chrysler's $2.99 Gas Guarantee promotion. Not only does Chrysler find it difficult to sell cars. Now they're selling gas instead. And once you've sold price your brand equity sinks so low you have to climb up a ladder to get to the bottom. But wait. That's where Chrysler already is. Where is the dramatic turnaround shift? Talking about Chrsler's wonderkind CMO let's quote Casey Stengel who once asked, "Is this all there is, or is this all you got?" Why doesn't each product line have a unique selling proposition instead of generic segmentation? Is it not true that doing the same things the same way and expecting different results is the definition of insanity? Do basics, adventurers and other socio-economic classes of consumers actually see themselves in Wranglers and Cherokees when the stock of American car companies like GM sell for less than $10 a share? The purchase just says, "You're dumb." Years ago my research for GM found people want "to buy products that say smart things about me." Sure, the economy and the housing/mortgage/credit crunch are excuses in combination with the high price of gas - but it's only an excuse - and excuses have to be corrected. I am certain that everything management knows about how to market its vehicles and leverage its brands comes from fine market research processes that gather and measure data. But the trouble with quantifying yesterday is that it does not tell you anything a company needs to know today - at present. As Captain Kirk did in the Kobiashi Maru simulation at Starfleet Academy - Chrysler needs to create new knowledge that does not yet exist to be measured to alter consumer habits and practices and to change the rules of the simulation to win. Except slow moving inventories are not a simulation. Look at this lot. Everyday, we drive past auto malls jam packed with slow moving inventories. Banners proclaim fantastic deals, yet day after day we see the same lots. Why doesn't a dealer get smart and one night after closing remove 80% of his inventory from sight. The next day most of us would think, "Wow! Something's going on. Either there is a blow out clearance sale or the dealer's going bankrupt." The sharks would swim in looking for the deals smelling blood in the water. What a perfect environment and buyer mindset to close the sale. That's what sales people call Jonesing people.

My innovation beef with market research

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Why don't I like asking consumers questions? Because I've been exposed to almost forty years of the best and brightest market researchers at companies from Procter & Gamble to Pizza Hut who ask questions. In all that time, the answer to every question only reconfirmed things we already knew - basically reinventing the wheel, which, if I was to focus on advertising is why so much advertising bores or desensitizes us. I found that no one could ask a question they didn't already know the answer to. When new generations of managers asked questions at these companies it was so they could learn everything again for the first time. In companies like Leo Burnett Advertising in Chicago, I've actually seen senior client service executives collect, secret and destroy the work of predecessors to protect their current position from better answers found before their time. I found that when you ask questions, you don't get the voice of the consumer, you get the voice of the inquirer through the question being asked - a form of bias that has led companies from General Mills to General Motors astray, or at least slowed or reduced their innovation return on investment. The root of all this doom and gloom? The fact that none of this question-asking ever stimulated respondent's minds - be they client or consumer - so that they could respond in surprising ways beyond their current frames of reference to hasten the pace of successful innovation and generate a consistent stream of important new disruptive technology and manufacturing patents and consumer new product concepts. So where's the beef? That is, where is the answer found? In processes that proactively stimulate consumer and client minds rather than those methodologies that reactively collect and measure data. In processes that create new knowledge, rather than in those that pre-ordain and then sell syndicated or predefined trends (i.e. Cocooning - let's write a book as a self proclaimed guru then go sell the answer to everyone so they can pull the trigger at a target at point blank range and go nowhere) data such as the existence of new subcultures of our population such as Thrivals or Basics or Adventurers - all those psychobabble social and behavioral target audience definitions that have put the brakes and blinders on so many brands by limiting their appeal through their contrived application (i.e.: Type A Strivers shilling for Cadillac). Or all those touchy-feeley product design firms who observe the here and now creating new Swiffers that do nothing more than replace old mops and refrigerators. Making the old look new. That's not innovation.

Disposable Car Hits The Streets

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Now why couldn't General Motors do this? It wasn't very long ago that I proposed General Motors create this product using distribution via Costco and similar as part of a forward looking strategy assignment. It's what Al Ries would call a (dealership) category killer. At $2,500 who needs service? If it breaks or needs new tires, I'll just get another one. This one is a dealership killer. You don't need dealers to sell disposable cars - or what affluent Americans perceive as disposable cars.

Tata Motor's new $2,500 four-door subcompact — the world's cheapest car — may yield a transportation revolution with as great an impact as Henry Ford's Model T, which rolled off an assembly line one century ago.