Tell Me Who Your Partners Are...

A familiar adage states, "tell me who your friends are, and I'll tell you who you are."

People infer much about us - about our beliefs and values - by observing those with whom we associate ourselves. That's because we, as human beings, tend to be drawn to others of similar character to ourselves. And we also tend to adopt some of the characteristics of those with whom we spend the most time.

Likewise, we make inferences about an organization based on its "friends" (aka partners), just as we make inferences about an individual based on his or her friends. When Company A partners with Company B - whether as a supplier, distributor, vendor, sponsor, or other ally - we assume that Company A also supports the purpose, actions, and reputation of Company B.

Thus, just as our parents warned us to choose our friends carefully, organizations need to choose their partners carefully.

Great Wolf Resorts, Inc. makes a big deal of its corporate partners, listing them all on its website and featuring them prominently at each of its twelve indoor waterpark resort hotels. (A recent article from MediaPost's Marketing Daily describes the face time that these partners receive at each Great Wolf Lodge.)

According to its website, Great Wolf Resorts aims to "capture the atmosphere of the Northwoods" in an indoor, "weatherproof, year-round destination" where "families [can] re-connect." Each Lodge is designed to recreate - indoors - the fun of the outdoors, and the company is committed to environmental stewardship; each location is Green Seal Certified (Silver), and its Project Green Wolf works to reduce the company's carbon "pawprint" and to educate young guests in green practices.

So, if an organization's partners shape consumers' perceptions of the organization's values, what kinds of partners might make sense for a company like Great Wolf, whose brand celebrates nature, families, and outdoor fun?

• Vendors of outdoor equipment - camping gear, bikes, personal watercraft, fishing gear, and other equipment for wilderness fun would align well with Great Wolf's outdoorsy theme


• Vendors of recycled products - t-shirts made from recycled plastic, tote bags made from recycled fabric, paper made from recycled elephant poo...the possibilities are nearly endless for gear that reflects environmental responsibility (although I would draw the line at recycled food)


• Vendors of healthy snacks - natural and organic foods, trail mixes, fresh fruits and raw veggies, dried fruits, nuts - all of these and other healthy snacks complement the active lifestyles of outdoor-lovers

Some of Great Wolf's current partners mesh well with the values exhibited by the company. Others seem to be partners of convenience or opportunity - fine partners, no doubt, but with little obvious connection to the outdoorsy, active, environmentally-friendly atmosphere of Great Wolf.

If your organization is serious about presenting a unified set of values and personality to your customers, consider how your partners do (or do not) reflect those values. Choose partners whose brands harmonize well with your mission.

Tell me who your partners are, and I'll tell you who you are.

Merge TV and Internet? Please Don't.

Television industry veteran Michael Kokernak authored a MediaPost Video Insider article yesterday entitled, "Why Not Merge TV and Internet?" He reflects on the transition to digital cable and proliferation of TV content available on the Web, and opines that "[w]e...should probably be concentrating our efforts on how to combine the Internet and the digital television experience so consumers get content delivered through one seamless 'platform.'"

I am not exactly sure what Mr. Kokernak has in mind when he talks of "combining" Internet and TV into "one seamless 'platform,'" and, sadly, the rest of his article does not serve to clarify much. But if by "combining [the two into] one seamless 'platform,'" he means transforming the television set into a Web browser and vice versa, I don't think it is a good idea.

From a consumer's perspective, television and Internet serve two very different purposes, and it seems unwise (if not impossible) to try to literally combine them. The Internet should complement television, not replace it; just as the Internet has not replaced books and magazines, but rather has been added to a vast array of communication media. Certainly, e-books, blogs, online journals, and various wikis offer similar (if not identical) content to many books and magazines; however, the advent of these electronic versions has not meant the death of printed materials, because the usage situations are different. "There is a time for everything."

Successfully integrating media means that television content and Internet content should reflect and supplement one another. A friend of mine at TMP Directional Marketing, a local search marketing firm, once told me that every time a client launches a new billboard, for example, she adds the words and phrases from the ad as SEO keywords, so that the audience can effectively search online for more information based on the billboard they saw. The same should be true for TV content - media companies and advertisers need to make available (and easily searchable) complementary Internet content before they launch any newscast, show, or commercial on TV.

Integrating media does not mean that consumers want their televisions to act like the Internet, or vice versa. As pertains to the television industry, consumers use the Internet primarily to gather information related to something they heard or saw on TV, or to access content that they missed during its original TV broadcast. They use the Internet actively and up close. Consumers use their television sets for entertainment (or for passively absorbing information) - they want to sit back, relax, and watch a show on their big-screen HDTV half-way across the room. Consumers don't want to have both on the same physical platform. I don't want to always watch TV on my 15" computer screen; nor do I want to click around the picture on my big-screen TV in the same way I click around the Internet.

Hopefully that is not what Mr. Kokernak intended at all; hopefully I misunderstood his use of the words "combine" and "merge." Plus, he has spent his career in the television industry, and founded a company - BackChannelMedia - that allows tv-watchers to click icons on the television screen that send emails with links for additional information to the viewer. Perhaps that is closer to his vision for "combined" Internet and television. And perhaps his market research shows that this vision truly is a hit with consumers.

Features or Benefits?

In a recent article in MediaPost's Marketing Daily, Best Buy's Shari Ballard (EVP of retail channel management) makes the point that consumers aren't interested in simply acquiring technology products, but in using them to do things. Shari says, "We think one of the reasons we exist on the planet is to help people find connected digital solutions that work with their individual needs."

This is the old "features vs. benefits" question. Customers are not interested in all of the bells and whistles - the features - of a product; they want to know how the product can benefit them and meet their needs.

Customers don't want you to tell them that your brand new, state-of-the-art vacuum cleaner has a super-sonic suction machine and a microfiber carpet brush and a 20-foot hose that compresses to two inches. They want you to tell them that your brand new, state-of-the-art vacuum cleaner will help them clean their homes better, faster, more economically, and with less hassle.

Going beyond the business world, how do you - as a person - benefit others? Maybe you are the best wordsmith who ever lived; your writing communicates exactly and compellingly what you intend to say. That is a gift, a skill, a feature. How are you using that gift to serve the world? Are you helping people to understand one another? Are you inspiring people? Refreshing them? Calling them to action? How are you helping others?

What benefit is your product or service offering to your customers?
What benefit are you, yourself, offering to the world?

You are already strong and beautiful and talented and smart and important and loved; you don't need to prove that. You were created to make the world better; don't just show off your features.