Hot Ham Water! Just A Smack of Ham

Does Motherboy XXX, Afternoon Delight or The Queen Mary mean anything to you?

Who do you first think about when you heard the names George, Lindsay or Buster?


If you think Arrested Development, you're in good company and we should be friends.  If it wasn't, please go to Netflix, Hulu, Best Buy or your local library and buy/rent/stream/borrow one of the best television shows in recent memory.

Netflix is about to premiere their latest Netflix-only show, a final season of Arrested Development. Fans of the show have been waiting for this season for many years, hoping that someone, anyone would pick-up the show and create new episodes. In one of the last episodes aired on Fox, the writers actually wrote into the script the characters pleading to HBO, The Home Builders Organization to save the family business.

Netflix's goal is to now spread awareness and attract non-subscribing fans of Arrested Development to their service. One really inventive way they've used digital marketing is through their partnership with Seamless web.

Netflix has partnered with seamless by inserting Bluth's Original Frozen Banana stand as a restaurant you may order delivery from. This is incredibly clever and innovative. The promotion gets even more fandom-worthy when you view the menu.

Marketers would do well to take note of this example. It's a great way to connect with customers and stir up even more fervor for an upcoming premiere.

Also, as a note... Never give up animation rights.

Can I Just Get A Little Perspective?

In the immortal words from The Graduate, I have one word for you...Plasti... I mean... Perspective.

Perspective is THE crucial factor in any work that a marketer does. 

Perspective is what gives marketers insight and direction. Changing this perspective will give you fresh insights and ideas that you quite possibly could not have seen previously. Watch the historic video created by the designers Ray and Charles Eames, Power of Ten.

This video illustrates how changing your perspective by a power of 10, can change your entire world view. By adding or subtracting a few zeros from image, you are something completely different but also the same. You see how everything fits together - from the carbon atom to the universe it comprises. 

Is there anything that could be more apt for this blog? I don't think so. 

To be successful marketers, you want your product to fit in perfectly with the customer, make it something they need, that is not disruptive to their life but adds to it - makes it more complete. Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO, gives his insight into this method in the frame of digital apps in his recent blog post, The Power of the Power of Ten. People don't just want apps that are easy to use but that make their life easier. 

Many marketers may feel like they aim their marketing this way; What is the customer's problem we're solving? How do we do that? These are key questions you learn as marketing students to aim any campaign but without perspective you may still be totally off the mark. A cleaning product campaign may be marketed with a focus on its strength but because the marketers didn't explore deep enough down further powers of magnification, that missed that customers actually want a stronger product because they want to spend less time cleaning. Potential customers didn't see a fit with the product. This was a missed opportunity.

Marketers need to look at products from a granular level and up from a broad systems-based view. How effective is the product? What does it do? How does it fit into the life of the user? Look at the product from the perspective of 1 millimeter. 100 meters. 10000 meters. How well does the product fit into the customers life at these levels? If it appears to not fit so well at certain magnifications, it would be wise to review the product and make some changes. 

The stronger a product fits in with a customer, the more likely they are to use it and continue using it. With the right insight proper user experience, users will become evangelists. Refer back to my blog on Evernote. The proper insight and fit of this app with the user has created many evangelists. It is easy to use AND makes the users life easier. It is adaptable to a myriad of situations and uses from the very granular to galactic view. Evernote is an example of success because it is not only easy to use in isolation but it is a great fit in the systems-based perspective; the how, why and where customers use it. 

Remembering to keep focus on the customer and look at their world from several perspectives will help everyone, from the marketing student to CEO, produce the best product and marketing that best fits the customer. Peter Drucker best summed this up in his quote (and the source of this blog's title, Fitting the Customer)

"The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself" - Peter Drucker