Legend

Legend: A lie that has attained the dignity of age.

— H. L. Mencken

This much can be proven: the soft drink known as Dr. Pepper was first sold in 1885 by a Waco, Texas, pharmacist named Wade Morrison.

A patent from that year documents as much.

As to the drink's specious name—well, like much of history, you must take most of the story on faith.

The legend holds that Morrison named the soft drink after a former employer, Dr. Charles Pepper, of Rural Retreat, Virginia.

Pepper had been a surgeon in the Confederate army before retiring to open a pharmacy in Rural Retreat, from which he dispensed a sweet and spicy elixir not dissimilar to Morrison's later concoction.

The legend suggests further that Morrison was Dr. Pepper's assistant and was in love with the doctor-turned-pharmacist's daughter.

Told he wasn't suited to marry the boss's daughter, Morrison swiped one of the doctor's formulas and fled to Texas.

But whether Morrison ever worked for Pepper is questionable.

Although US Census records show Morrison indeed lived in the vicinity of Rural Retreat and worked as a pharmacy clerk, he may never have even known the doctor, much less worked for him. 

But Morrison, aiming to turn his soft drink into a powerhouse throughout the South, was happy to market it under Pepper's name and title.

By doing so, he reasoned, he could conjure both the notion of "healing" and warm memories of the Lost Cause—a winning combination in the soul-sick South.

Morrison's branding strategy worked.

By the turn of the 20th century, his company, Artesian Manufacturing & Bottling, had sold hundreds of thousands of bottles of Dr. Pepper in Texas and Virginia.

Soon the company would become the Number 2 seller of soft drinks in America, outsold only by Coke, and Morrison would crown Dr. Pepper the "King of Beverages."

Even today, ignoring "woke mobs," the company stands by the legend that Wade Morrison named Dr. Pepper after the Confederate surgeon.

POSTSCRIPT: To learn more about Dr. Pepper's brand history, go here.

Above: Dr. Pepper by Annie Morgan Preece. Oil on canvas. 6 x 6 inches.

Prisoners of Progress

For all the badmouthing I do about gross materialism, I am simply apeshit about all of the amazing crap we humans have made via the Industrial Revolution!

— Nick Offerman

An antique engraving graces our family-room. It's one of my favorite possessions.

The engraving depicts the birthplace of George Stephenson, the English engineer who, according to the engraving's caption, "devoted his powerful mind to the construction of the locomotive." A Victorian family gathers in front of the lowly cottage, there to celebrate "the commencement and development of the mighty railway system."

Stephenson was a hero to the Victorians, an innovator akin to Bill Gates or Steve Jobs today. His 1813 invention "induced the most wonderful effects, not only for this country, but for the world," the engraving says.

Railroads made it possible in the 19th century for people, products and raw materials to move overland great distances, and to do so cheaply and rapidly. 

We're so callous in our time, we complain when Amazon's free delivery service runs a day late. How absurd is that?

'Tis the season for mass consumption: for mornings, noons and nights at the mall; towers of empty boxes at the curbside; trashcans overstuffed with trees and wreathes and plastic packaging; trips to southern beaches; gifts for people you don't even like.

Can this way of life possibly be sustainable?

Whether it is or isn't, one thing's for sure: we're all prisoners of progress.

By that I mean to say what the existentialist philosopher Martin Heidegger said so well in his 1954 essay, "The Question Concerning Technology."

Heidegger believed the Industrial Revolution marked a radically new age for the human race: a time in history when nature has come to mean resources; and to be to mean to be consumable.

The absolute power of technology, Heidegger said, swamps the human being, because technology reveals all existence—the universe—to be no more than "raw material." 

Everything is inventory, stuff, crap. Crap to be extracted; crap to be requisitioned; crap to be assembled, packaged, shipped, opened, exchanged, consumed; crap to be discarded.

Technology "attacks everything that is," Heidegger said, "nature, history, humans, and divinities.”

And just as the railroad shrinks distance, technology shrinks mankind. 

It boxes us in and makes us pygmies, constricting our experiences to "brand experiences" and denying us connections to things as they once seemed: sources of wonder.

Today, we no longer wonder. We only want and want and want.

What a paltry fate.

Note: You can read more about Heidegger's thoughts on technology in my essay here. I also recommend Nick Offerman's fun new book, Where the Deer and the Antelope Play.

Above: The Birth-Place of the Locomotive. Published 1862 by Henry Graves & Co., Publishers to the Queen, London.

Becoming Unamerican

Americanism in all its forms seems trashy
and wasteful and crude.

— Christopher Hitchens

Shockwaves coursed through the superhero universe this weekend following the announcement by DC Comics that the slogan of Superman, its 83-year-old Man of Steel, would be revised.

"Truth, Justice and A Better Tomorrow" will replace Superman's former slogan, "Truth, Justice and the American Way."

While Superman was unavailable for comment, Goodly reached seven other superheroes for their reaction to the news.

"Holy defamation!" said Robin, Boy Wonder and sidekick to Batman. "This upsets an 80-year tradition of honoring Superman's adopted country. It feels like Buddy Holly has died all over."

"Trump's chickens have come home"

Wonder Woman expressed no surprise at the announcement, citing various foreign-policy positions taken by former president Donald Trump. 

"All of Trump's chickens have come home to roost," she told Goodly. 

"America's image globally is in the toilet thanks to him. It's like facing Kryptonite to tell someone overseas you're an American. I can't fault DC Comics for its decision to distance Superman from this country."

Referring obscenely to the company's management, the Incredible Hulk asked, "What are they smoking over there? Sure, I support diversity and inclusivity as much as the next guy, but this takes things too far. It's not patriotic. Next, they'll announce Superman's gay."

DC Comics in fact announced that the "new" Superman, Jon Kent, introduced in July as the son of Clark Kent, is gay and will date a gay refugee reporter in a forthcoming issue of the comic book.

Jon Kent and BFF

The announcement of Clark Kent Superman's new slogan particularly offended the ears of Captain America. 

"I guess they'll have to change my name too now," he lamented. "I'll never get used to 'Captain Tomorrow.' Sounds like a brand of laxative. I'd rather just be called 'Steve.'"

But Supergirl was sanguine about her cousin Superman's new slogan.

"Does it really matter?" she asked philosophically. "People got upset when Avis dropped 'We Try Harder.' They're still in business, last time I checked."

Whether a rebranded Superman will remain in business another 80 years is anyone's guess, however.

"'A Better Tomorrow' isn't a slogan, it's an aspiration," said Ironman. "It sets a higher bar for the Man of Steel. All Americans can benefit from a higher bar."

"I think 'A Better Tomorrow' sounds quite timely, given the immanence of climate change," said Conan the Barbarian, adding, "We don't all agree about America's role on the world stage in the future, but we can all agree about one thing—that the day after today will be tomorrow."

UPDATE: Hyperallegic reports that several right-wing media outlets have lashed out at Jon Kent's sexual orientation. No superheroes were available for comment.

10 New Rules for Answering Customer Surveys

If you want a booming business, you have to create raving fans.

— Ken Blanchard

Want to turn a raving fan into a raging one?

Send him another goddamn survey.

"What’s the deal with so many companies sending surveys after you interact with them?" David Meerman Scott recently asked. "It is crazy for a company to do this."

I think it's worse than crazy.

I think it's psychopathic.

In their quest to "engage" us, marketing and customer-service managers have so abused the survey, they've turned a valid instrument into a vicious irritant.

It's time for customers to strike back.

Here are the 10 new rules for answering customer surveys:

1. Drop everything and respond to every survey immediately, regardless of the time-investment. Senders will think you're serious. You might even win a prize.

2. Regardless of your name and gender, always identify yourself as "Semolina Pilchard."

3. When asked to describe yourself, always answer "I Am The Walrus."  

4. Answer every Likert scale question in the negative. ("Never," "Very poor," "Not at all important," "Strongly disagree," etc.)

5. For all other types of rating questions, answer by choosing the worst rating. (For example, "Extremely unprofessional," "Extremely dissatisfied," "Not at all helpful," etc.)

6. Regardless of its purpose, answer every multiple-choice question "None of the above" or "Other." When asked to specify "Other," always answer "Everybody's got one."

7. Answer all binary scale questions "No."

8. Regardless of its purpose, answer every open-ended (write-in) question "Man, you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allen Poe." The only exceptions are the two questions below.

9. When ask to supply "Additional comments," always answer "Comments, comments, comments, comments."

10. When asked to suggest improvements, always answer "Send me money, not surveys."

"Each time you contact a customer you should be providing something of value," David Meerman Scott says.

Rule 10 reinforces his sage advice.

So go ahead: apply these rules to your next survey.

You'll love the results.

Alfredophobia

Don't worry about the horse being blind, just load the wagon.

— John Madden

Relatives are forever reminding me my "executive personality" is galling. They don't grasp that I worry about the horse. 

It's an old occupational habit and hazard. But I know I must shed it and expand my "worry-free zone" to 24/7.

The challenge in doing so stems from yet another of my personality disorders, one I'll label Alfredophobia. 

Fear of becoming Alfred E. Neuman. I'd hate to turn so jolly and half-witted.

As told by The Paris Review, Alfred has an unorthodox origin story.

In 1956, MAD's publisher swiped him for the magazine's cover from a 19th-century postcard captioned, “What, Me Worry?”

MAD's editor later that year made Alfred the magazine’s mascot. "I decided I wanted to have this visual logo as the image of MAD, the same way corporations had the Jolly Green Giant," he said 50 years later.

Alfred was drawn by a veteran illustrator of pinups. MAD's editor told him to draw the mascot to look like "someone who can maintain a sense of humor while the world is collapsing around him.”

A decade later, the magazine was sued for stealing a 1914 trade character known as "Me Worry?" But MAD's lawyers verified the character predated the 1914 version and was public domain. They won the suit handily.

Alfred's origin, it turned out, was 19th-century advertising, where he'd graced not only newspaper and magazine ads, but postcards, playbills, signs, menus, calendars, product labels, and matchbook covers. His earliest spotting—so far—dates to 1894; but Alfred is probably older. Some fans believe he originated in political cartoons lampooning Irish immigrants during the 1870s. Given the red hair, that seems right to me.

The motto What, Me Worry? has an unorthodox origin story, too: a turn-of-the-century fad.

In 1913, the songwriting team Lewis & Meyer scored a hit with "Ische ka bibble." The tune introduced a mangled Yiddish phrase purporting to mean "I should worry?" and sparked a national craze.

Much like we say Whatever, Americans soon started saying I should worry? in response to every catastrophe: 

• Unemployed. I should worry?
• Can't pay the rent. I should worry?
• Girlfriend pregnant. I should worry?
• Going bald. I should worry?
• Executive personality. I should worry?

I should worry? so incensed upper class prigs, they wanted it "canceled;" but Broadway actress Billie Burke told Chicago's Day Book that Lewis & Meyer deserved a Nobel Prize.

Listen to Ische ka bibble here.

What's in a Name?

American code names since 1989 have been designed for PR value.

— Matthew Stibbe

Few members of the public know that, when the White House couldn't find a name for its vaccine rapid-development program, 14-year-old Barron Trump came up with "Operation Warp Speed." 

With a nod of the head, his family voted to adopt the name around the Sunday evening dinner table.

The program has delivered, but the name has not, turning millions of Americans off to the vaccine.

The worry they consistently invoke: the vaccine was rushed, and therefore isn't safe.

Now the hapless Administration is scrambling to launch a $300 million trust-building ad campaign.

If only Trump had been more at home on Pennsylvania Avenue, and less on Madison Avenue, he'd have listened to his career scientists instead of a 14-year-old. 

Many more Americans would be sanguine about their shots.

Career scientists, after all, named "The Manhattan Project, "Gemini," and "The Genome Project."

A perfectly pedestrian code-name like "Luke," "Operation Jade" or "The Bethesda Project" would have calmed nerves, saved lives, saved money, and sped reopening.

We can thank the Germans for pioneering the use of code-names for military operations during World War I. 

Their use really took off during World War II, when Churchill—a man of words (and deeds)—took the time to instruct his government on the wise choice of code-names.

In a typewritten memo, Churchill advised that operations should not be named by code-words that convey overconfidence; disparage the operation; trivialize the operation; or reveal the nature of the operation.

He advised, instead, that code-names derive from ordinary words used out of context; or from proper names, such as those of the gods and heroes of antiquity, famous racehorses, and British and American warriors of the past.

"Care should be taken in all this process," Churchill concluded. "An efficient and a successful administration manifests itself equally in small as in great matters."

In keeping with Churchill's dictums, Alan Turing's codebreaking operation at Bletchley Park was named "Station X;" the invasion of North Africa was named "Operation Torch;" and the Yalta Conference was named "Argonaut."

Churchill himself came up with the code-name for D-Day, "Operation Overlord."

"American code names since 1989 have been designed for PR value," says brand consultant Matthew Stibbe. 

And the danger therein? 

That the name undoes the accomplishment.

Me and My Stubb's

I'm not a hypochondriac, I'm an alarmist.

— Woody Allen

How many times a day have you decided you've caught the coronavirus? 

In my case it's four, at least.

But I've managed to avoid routine trips to the emergency room thanks to the sage advice of a Detroit-based MD.

Dr. Susan Malinowski published her advice in Medium back in early April, when the pandemic was new and tests nonexistent. 

She had already caught the virus and lost her sense of smell.

"Until we have adequate testing, don’t ignore this simple symptom," the doctor wrote.

"Yes, there are other causes for loss of smell, but take it from someone who’s been there, the loss of smell is profound. 

"Get a jar of chopped garlic and monitor your sense of smell along with temperature every day. If you can’t smell the garlic, even in the absence of other symptoms, quarantine for 14 days and wait for it to return."

I had no garlic at the time, but I did have have a bottle of garlic-laden Stubb's. 

So I unscrewed the cap and took a whiff from the conical bottle first thing every morning—plus any time my inner alarm sounded (again, about four times a day).

Stubb's became my Covid-19 test kit.

Stubb's doesn't need outside marketing advice; but I'll give it, anyway. 

Should sales of BBQ sauce ever decline, Stubb's might take a page from Arm & Hammer, which boosted flagging sales of baking soda with the claim that it kept refrigerators smelling sweet.

Although at-home Covid-19 tests may soon be plentiful, you can't store them in easy reach, alongside the baking soda.

Nor use them to spark up a burger.

Shinola

My father's frequent use of World War II lingo amused me when I was a kid.

One phrase he reserved for encounters with people he disagreed with went, "You don't know shit from Shinola."

My five-year old self had no clue what Shinola was, but context always made the meaning of the expression clear: "Your judgement's off."

Call me a procrastinator, but I have at last looked up the meaning of "Shinola."

Today, the name is owned by a luxury goods retailer; but in the now-faded past Shinola was a shoe polish manufactured in Rochester, New York.

Shinola was the brainchild of a Gilded Age chemist named George Wetmore, who formulated the stuff in his spare time, experimenting in a makeshift lab in his basement. 

The product was a hit, fast becoming the world's leading brand and making Wetmore fabulously wealthy. Manufacturing continued until 1960.

The luxury goods company bought the abandoned brand name in 2001, in large part because its investors thought my father's funky phrase would make a good tagline.

What'd they know?

In the Year 2525

Customer service is the new marketing.

— Derek Sivers

Mind if I make a prediction? 

I last predicted Hillary would win in a landslide; but here's my prediction anyway: 

Before the year 2525, for once a CSR won't blame me for her company's mistake.

Blaming customers for her company's mistakes has become every customer service representative's default response to problems.

I'm unsure when the practice began, and unsure why.

It truly vexes me. 

Maybe I'm in an unwitting member of a customer-rewards program designed by Lex Luthor. Maybe I'm on a shared list of losers. Maybe in a prior life I was Stalin's sous chef and this is payback.

I don't know the reason, I only know it happens to me repeatedly. Just this month:

• A CSR for Cloudburst (a lawn-sprinkler company), when I called to ask why I hadn't heard from the firm, insisted I never mailed back the reply form from its direct mail solicitation. But I did; I remember, because I resented needing a stamp.

• A CSR for Michaels (an art supplies retailer) told me I was a dodo to arrive at its door for a curbside pickup before the company's app advised me to do so. Telling her I don't have the app on my phone earned me an exaggerated eye-roll.

• A CSR for Young Explorers (an e-retailer of toys) said I was to blame for the fact the company shipped a talking laptop to me and billed my grandson's credit card. When I informed the rep that I'm 66 and don't need a talking My First Tablet, I was still blamed for the mistake; and when I said my grandson was 2 and didn't have a credit card, I was blamed once more.

• A CSR for M & T (a bank) told me it was clearly my fault the bank didn't receive my online application for a new checking account; the fact that Russian hackers had hijacked the bank's website a few days before was immaterial. (I immediately hung up and called the three credit bureaus to set up a fraud alert, FYI.)

If indeed customer service is the new marketing, your marketing sucks.

Sorta like my ability to predict.

Paranoid

A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what's going on.

― William S. Burroughs

Political rancor is fine, when informed; it's uniformed partisanship that makes me cringe.

As we speak, Republicans ad nauseam are socializing this palaver:

No one should be allowed to drive again until there are no fatal accidents for 14 consecutive days. Then we can slowly begin to phase in certain classes of people who can begin driving again, but at half the posted speed limit and while wearing helmets.

This chestnut is rooted in ignorance and denial of the lethal nature of Covid-19. Two statistics and one calculation reveal how vacuous it is:

• 38,800 Americans died in car crashes last year, according to the National Safety Council; but 130,000 Americans have died of Covid-19 since its appearance four months ago.
  
  
• Annualized that's 390,000 dead from Covid-19―10 times the number killed in car crashes.

From the standpoint of body counts, equating infectious people to bad drivers is specious. Covid-19 is 10 times more deadly.

But know-nothing Republicans stand by this myth nonetheless.

Another myth they're peddling: 

Joe Biden molested a junior aide in the 1990s.

Again, a few facts should give any thoughtful person pause:

• Over 200 of his former staffers have told PBS then-Senator Biden never spoke to low-level employees, nor did he harass women. One called the accusations "surreal."
  
  
• The accuser didn't quit her job on the Hill, as she claims, "to pursue an acting career;" she was fired because she couldn't sort the mail. And Antioch University says the accuser never taught there, nor receive the law degree she claims to hold.
  
  
• As recently as January, she still practiced an obsessive hobby: posting pro-Russian propaganda on the Internet.

• The accuser also runs up expensive bills and skips on them; never pays her rent; lets her dogs poop throughout her landlords' houses; once she stole money from an animal-rescue nonprofit; and, worst of all, borrows books and doesn't return them.

The accuser is a whack-job. But Republicans know nothing of her background and insist her accusations are true (while those made by Christine Blasey Ford were, of course, false).

William S. Burroughs was right: paranoids know a little of what's going on. 

But never, it seems, enough.

NOTE: I'm grateful to followers for their many kind notes of encouragement. Goodly has now been read by over 385,000 people.

Safety in a Box

Customers' values have changed, and so has their definition of "quality," according to the travel and hospitality journal Skift.

Skift asked 5,000 people in five countries to describe three attributes of the word.

Authentic headed customers' lists. Products and services need not be opulent or expensive to be high-quality; it's more important they're "innovative" and "tell a good story." Customers crave relationships with "brands that deliver goods and experiences that help customers fulfill their desires to become higher quality people." To meet that need, brands must communicate a purpose beyond existing just to sell something.

Safety came next. In an age of anxiety, customers crave psychologically safe spaces. Comfort no longer comes only from stylish design and rich materials, but from knowing you'll receive "care and feeding" by a provider with meticulous standards. Brands that want to capitalize on customers' anxiety may find they cannot avoid taking an openly political stand on some issues.

Ease rounded out the list. Customers want to experience the world without seams. Where that once meant they craved superior craftsmanship, it now means they want simplicity, sincerity, and serenity. "Quality" now denotes "a state within ourselves, the actualization of our idealized self, which is both poised and productive, composed but committed, enjoying while excelling."

How Copywriters Leverage the "Endowment Effect"

A study by Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman shows we overvalue the things we own—an emotional bias he calls the "endowment effect." Propelling the effect is our a fear of losing those things.

Copywriters put the endowment effect to work all the time, helping prospects vicariously experience owning a product or using a service:

• The writer for e-com platform provider Shopify helps prospects imagine owning an online store: "With instant access to hundreds of the best looking themes and complete control over the look and feel, you finally have a gorgeous store of your own that reflects the personality of your business."
  
  
• The writer for event producer Age Management Medicine Group helps prospects imagine participating in a conference: "After attending this in-depth, four-day conference, you’ll walk away with what you need to add this 21st century medical specialty to your existing practice."
  
  
• The writer for CRM provider Salesforce helps prospects imagine licensing a mobile sales platform: "Welcome to a new world, and a better way to sell. Where field sales sells only on mobile devices. It’s sales managers knowing which deals will close. And when. A world where lead and contact information is always fresh and complete. And everyone performs like an 'A' player."

Thanks to the endowment effect, ownership―even when vicarious―makes it hard for prospects to let go of your offer.

Authority versus Authenticity

For sheer magnetism, nothing matches authority. B2B brands that show authority attract customers with ease, and always will: they're in a category by themselves. 

But lots of brands lay claim to authority without justification.

The word authority came into English around 1200 and stems from the Latin auctoritas, meaning "mastery." English speakers of the day believed an authority commanded trust, because he or she possessed demonstrable mastery.

Showing authority means showing mastery of certain theories, facts, skill-sets, and tool-sets. If your brand can show mastery, you're set―customers will flock to you; if it can't, it can at least show authenticity―another advantageous category.

Authenticity came into English around 1300 and stems from the Greek authentikos, meaning "original." English speakers of the day believed someone who showed authenticity was an "original," and therefore "real" and "trustworthy."

Showing authenticity means being an original: an original in your approaches to thinking, problem-solving, and adding value. That won't by itself attract customers, but it will make pursuing them a lot more effective.

Showing neither authority nor authenticity puts your brand in a third category―the category of meh―where only continuous hustling and discounting and perhaps sheer ubiquity attract customers.

Can Your Brand be Amazoned?

A year-old startup is killing it by selling web cameras on Amazon for 90% less than its competitors, The New York Times reports.

So are other new companies selling things like appliances, tools, clothing and cosmetics.

The piggybacking startups are pioneers in a drive toward "better products for ludicrously low prices," the newspaper says; and pose an existential threat to "big brands."

For a fee, Amazon provides sellers turnkey distribution, marketing and sales; sellers, in turn, can concentrate on product design and manufacturing.

“As this takes off, it really makes you start to question, what is a brand in the Amazon age?” e-commerce consultant Scot Wingo told The Times. 

"In a way, Amazon is providing all this information that replaces what you’d normally get from a brand, like reputation and trust. Amazon is becoming something like the umbrella brand, the only brand that matters.”

How about your brand?

Can it be Amazoned?

Even if it's a service, for a 10-20% fee, Amazon's willing to wager it can.

Right now, Amazon restricts the business services it resells to computer and building maintenance. But how long will it be before Amazon expands into accounting, advertising, coding, consulting, event planning, executive recruiting, lobbying, public relations, tax preparation, and temporary staffing?

Not long, I'd bet.

Prediction: In 2018, Resistance Will Become a Competitive Advantage

In May, I suggested more brands would seek to differentiate themselves by publicly resisting Trump.

I'm going on record to predict that, in 2018, hundreds of brands—large and small—will do so.

From among the many issues at stake in the culture wars—economic justice, gender equality, racial equality, access to healthcare, access to education, immigration, globalization, global warming, diversity, privacy, and incivility—each brand will choose the issue most closely aligned with its essence. 

That's simply Marketing 101.

What's not Marketing 101 is the wisdom resistance will take.

Not Our People

Hidebound execs often don't grasp why you'd recommend multichannel marketing.

They project their own media habits onto customers.

"Our people don't watch videos. Not our people." (Translation: "I don't watch videos.")

"Our people don't attend webinars. Not our people." (Translation: "I don't don't attend webinars.") 

"Our people don't read newsletters. Not our people." (Translation: "I don't read newsletters.")

Foreclosing the use of entire channels based on your own media habits is foolery. A diversified marketing spend is a smart one.

And yet execs do it all the time. At their own peril.

A new study by IEEE reveals, for example, that many engineers like videos, webinars, and  newsletters. They also like many other channels:

• 67% routinely watch videos on YouTube
• 64% routinely read online catalogs (and 40% read printed ones)
• 36% routinely attend webinars
• 33% routinely read free newsletters
• 30% routinely visit online communities
• 22% routinely attend trade shows and conferences

No matter who they are—doctors, lawyers, Indian chiefs—you need a firm grasp of your customers' media habits, to counter the recalcitrant exec who says, "Not our people."

If you don't have that data, get it now. A simple online survey will do.

Every Service Failure Levels the Playing Field

A mammoth corporation like this―it embodies too much experience. 

It possesses in fact a sort of group mind.

― Philip K. Dick

Organizational theorists believe every big business is a collective mind, and that performance "depends on coordinating the distributed knowledge and activities of the collective’s members."

When a big business screws up a simple transaction―more and more the norm―it obliterates the value of that vast, collective mind―opening the way for a small business to steal the disaffected customer.

Execs should think about that when tempted to cut more corners on talent, technology and time-frames.

All the money, bravado and best-practice babble in the world won't make you stronger than your weakest link.

Who Invented Branding?

Josiah Wedgwood may have been the first marketer to brand his products with a logo, but the 18th century potter didn't invent branding.

Eleventh century European monks did.

By design self sufficient, medieval abbeys routinely sold surplus meat, cheese, honey, wool, brandy, beer and wine to local laypeople. 

The abbey's name on any of these products was a mark of consistent quality.

Ten centuries later, the vestiges of medieval monks' marketing smarts remain, most notably in the wine industry. 

Many of our most recognizable wine words derive from the abbeys, including clos, hermitage, prieuri and commanderie.

HAT TIP: Our resident medievalist Ann Ramsey suggested and researched this post.

Who Invented Marketing?

When asked to name the inventor of marketing, many fans point to Eve (of the Garden of Eden); but many more point to the early 20th century Chicago adman Albert Lasker.

Trained as a newspaperman, Lasker conflated advertising and reporting until the day he met the bibulous freelance copywriter John E. Kennedy in a saloon and was persuaded advertising is "salesmanship in print."

Lasker used that single insight to build a small agency into a powerhouse, launching brands we still recall today: Frigidaire, Lucky Strike, Palmolive, Kleenex, Kotex, Sunkist, Quaker Oats, Van Camp's, Pepsodent, Wrigley, and Warren Harding (the president).

Besides injecting sales-driven creativity into advertising, Lasker introduced other innovations we now take for granted: A/B testing, tracking, market research, the value proposition, discount coupons, sports team sponsorship, and the sponsored radio show.

But labeling Lasker "the father of marketing" discredits late 18th century potter Josiah Wedgwood, truly "the man who invented marketing."

Unlike his contemporaries, Wedgwood took full advantage of middle-class consumers' exuberance at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, turning a regional pottery-making venture into a world-class company.

An autodidact, Wedgwood was unafraid to experiment. He was the first to find that shop-window displays move luxury products; that celebrity endorsements and influencer marketing engage prospects; that trade show exhibiting spurs demand; that premium pricing attracts "aspiring" consumers; and that customizing products boosts sales.

Wedgwood also introduced the first sales catalog, the first traveling sales reps, and the first salesman's sample-kit; he introduced free shipping, the money-back guarantee, and the customer testimonial; and he introduced the paid product placement, the product name, and―most importantly―the brand (literally stamping his name on the bottom of each piece of ceramic).