Earth Quest: The Search for Hot Air. Part 1

Al and Bert are on a quest to save their planet; they’ve come to Earth to collect all the hot air generated during business conversations. Just one thing: on their planet they are small green men with big black eyes, but on earth they’re disguised as normal business people…

Chapter One

For their first day on Earth Al and Bert booked themselves into a conference on the Future of Customer Relationship Strategy and the Effect of Transitioning to Online Social Media. It scored highly on their hot air scanner.

Every time the chairman read out the title, the needle on their gauge measured “scorching” and their translation machine said:  “Getting to know your customers by using Facebook and Twitter.” They were having a very productive day.

The Social Media Strategy Senior Vice President [person in charge of talking to customers online] of a large sugar-based snacking and inter-meal energy provision multi-national [big chocolate and sweets company] said that she was intending to alter her strategic youth-oriented media allocation from traditional broadcast network spend to a narrow-cast/one-to-one focus via developing interactive channels [moving some budget from television to the internet].

“That’s funny,” said the man on Bert’s right. “She could have said that she was moving some budget from television to the internet, without wasting all that hot air.”

Al and Bert were intrigued but horrified. If humans found a way to reduce their hot air output, there would no confusion-based energy for them to collect. Their planet would be doomed to cold and darkness. They decided to keep a close eye on this man. Al leaned over and extended his hand in the UK’s recognised form of greeting a fellow business person [to shake his hand] .

“Al,” he said, “I am privileged to make your acquaintance.”

“Nick,” he answered, “Great to meet you too.” (The hot air meter measured nothing at all.)

“And this is my colleague, Bert.”

“Yes!” said Bert, as his superior intellect processed the new information Nick had offered them. “You are exactly one hundred percent accurate.” (The hot air meter measured “very warm”.)

Then they all settled back to listen to the Director of Tactical Response to Online Customer Metrics from the Department of Social Responsibility of a company that sells phones and the hot air collector whirred round productively all afternoon.

The Passing Triumph of Style Over Substance

I was in my favourite shop this week, led through carved wooden doors to the secret staff area, along white tiled corridors built almost a century ago, into a meeting room for a chat with other loyalty card holders about Liberty of London. There were only three of us and three of them, plus a range of Liberty’s own brand products which it was tempting to take and spread along the table in order of coolness. (And here the opposite of cool is sad.) From the £9 plastic coaster with one of their less inspired prints, to the £300 soft floaty wool scarf.

The regulars go to Liberty because their buyers search for the world’s most lovely stuff and bring it back for us to choose in the relaxing comfort of London’s loveliest shop. We might buy their own brand, we might not.

In this small group was a young woman with knowledge and confidence about what’s happening in the world of fashion. I’m sure she was wearing things that were totally on trend and excrutiatingly expensive. I couldn’t tell by looking, but I’m guessing she wouldn’t wear anything that wasn’t. Ten years ago she’d have terrified me, but now? I was only a bit scared. The Liberty lady as near as dammit offered her a job there and then, an offer which was ignored so efficiently it was as if the words had never been spoken. We disgreed over a number of things, but most of them I didn’t dare say out loud. But the most interesting was the scarf. I said I couldn’t imagine paying £300 for a scarf when I could use the money to go to Paris, but I’d hope to get one in the sale. She thought £300 was quite reasonable. The question for her was why pay £300 for a Liberty scarf that had pictures of two old people on, when she could buy an Alexander McQueen?  The answer? It would have to have a large tag with a significant Liberty of London logo, and enough publicity for it to be a recognisable symbol of style.

The people were Sir Arthur Liberty and his wife in their later years. Their beautiful portraits in oils also hang in the shoe department.

I said that my favourite Liberty of London thing was the Liberty/Miller Harris perfume, Rose en Noir, a fragrance created for the shop that you can only buy there.

“What was it about the collaboration that made you want to buy it?” asked the Liberty lady.

“It smells fabulous,” I said.

“Ah!” she said, remembering that sometimes it’s not the brand identity, nor the correct image, nor the styling that sells. “It’s the quality of the products,” she said.

And that’s where I think luxury brands are in danger of  losing their souls. So many of them are owned by huge holding companies; if one of them loses its shine (and its profits) it’ll be sold off and replaced with a new one to be hyped up until it starts to tarnish. Alexander McQueen is  owned by a holding company that operates like a venture capitalist. It’s in now, it could be out in a couple of years. For the moment, the name and the logo can support the sales of £300 scarves.

Liberty has been in business for 135 years, and what keeps us coming back there is the quality of the products. It has a story to tell, it’s got an archive of  amazing work. It has customers who are loyal and would stay loyal even if they didn’t have a loyalty card. Liberty has a stable history of amazing innovation and outstanding quality. Continue that, tell the stories, and then put a label on it. Don’t just sell the label.

Bullies and Search Engines

“What’s your page ranking?” a friend of mine asked this week.

“Don’t know, don’t care,” I said. “And anyway, it depends what you’re looking for. Why do you ask?”

“Because we’ve just brought in an SEO consultant, and he says we should be on page one of Google or we won’t win any new business.”

“But you’ve just won loads of new business.”

“Hmm,” he said, “So we have. Do you think I might have fallen for it?”

Here’s the issue. Whatever you search for on Google, there is only one front page. Out of interest, I had a look. If you want to find me and you type in Sarah McCartney, you’ll find me (today) at one, three, four, five, six, seven, eight and nine. (My friend Sarah McCartney is number two with her counselling service.) On YouTube I’m number one; number two is a lap dancer. If you type in copywriter I don’t think you’d find me at all, although I am one. You’ll get some good, professional writers on the first page, but you’ll also find some people who are excellent at search engine optimisation, and write like robots.  If you see a paragraph that goes on and on about copywriters and copywriting until you want to poke your own eyes out rather than read any more, then you’ve happened upon someone who’s been bullied by an SEO consultant into believing that machines are more important than people and that stating the obvious 17 times is more important than keeping visitors awake.

We all want potential customers to search, find us and visit our sites. Otherwise why bother? But what we don’t want is for those very same customers to run away screaming. We want them to stay, read, look, click, get interested, learn more, hang around a bit then get in touch.

Being recommended by a person is still a better source of business than being found by a search engine algorithm. And people will link your site to their tweets, or their Facebook pages if they like it. Machines can’t do that. And having links to your site counts more highly than how many times you can stick the same word over and over on to your home page.

When you’re writing your web copy, interest your customers first and algorithms second. It’s great to understand how SEO works, but don’t let it push you around.