Keep your eyes on the horizon - so you don't hurl

My little brother, Louis, is a captain. Not one in the military but one on a boat. Like Gillligan's Island. (Come to think of it, why was there only a skipper? And what exactly is a skipper?) He owns his own sport fishing and whale watching business in Alaska and every day is paid to watch people check another thing off the bucket list. But not every day is picture perfect.

Case in point: One day I was out on his boat and the weather started being uncooperative. The waves whirled us about and before I knew it I hurled myself to the side of the boat and heaved out my breakfast. Then it got ugly.

"Eyes on the horizon!" 

Really Louis? I think I prefer to keep my head over here, thanks. And what kind of f-ed up dream vacation is this, anyway? People pay you to do this?

"Or you can keep chumming the water."

Smart ass. (Chumming is the term to put fish parts near the boat to attract salmon and other fish.) Shocking a brother of mine might be a smart ass, I know. 

But he might have a point. Begrudgingly, I looked up to watch the horizon. The little crapper's advice worked. I didn't feel sick. When I looked back down in front of me, the nausea returned as did the rest of my breakfast.

Eyes on the horizon.

Fast forward to yesterday. I was on a call with a woman who was inviting me to speak at a marketing summit this fall for Fortune 500 companies - their top marketers. "What are you attendees' main interest in this conference?" I asked. She went on and said the top three things were honing digital skills - such as learning what's new with social media, getting followers on facebook, etc.

I had to laugh. It's true about a lot of marketers I've met. Why is that? 

Here's the ugly truth: consumers don't want to be your friend. (There are small exceptions - like Harley-Davidson or Apple.) They aren't going to ask their friends on Facebook to weigh in on a purchase decision. Even Coca-Cola, the most sophisticated user of social media - with the biggest audience engaged - recently came out and said it had zero impact on sales. Zero. Nada. Zilch. Want to know how much they invested in the social media? I'm guessing it's millions.

So why do we look down and only focus on what is right jn front if us vs the bigger picture? It brings me back to that boat. I was looking at the water, counting drops instead of looking at the landscape and creating a rhythm. 

My little brother might be a turd, but he is onto something. 

Fixating on the latest fad without grounding yourself or putting jt in context  going to make you hurl - literally or hypothetically - every time. Having the coolest widget isn't going to make your crappy product better. Look up. Get some context. Or get a bucket - and don't blame me.

Louis' boat (he wasn't manning it this time) and what happens when the engine dies and you don't drop anchor fast enough. Eyes on the horizon, Louis. Either way, this picture makes a hell of a conversation piece.

Don't forget to deadhead your marketing

This might be surprising to some, but I fancy myself as a gardener. Not an overly serious one, but the hobby kind. I love it. You know, grow a few tomatoes, maybe some basil, sugar snap peas and strawberries - and my favorite thing to do is walk around the garden, watching the growth and progress. My second favorite thing to do is strike up a conversation with a neighbor or bring them some baked goods and sigh, "Oh, the strawberry shortcake? It's nothing. I grew them myself, so really, it's not a big deal." (After a few years of doing this, I think they're onto me and are questioning the authenticity of my humility.)

I know, I should work on it. Shut up.

Regardless of my obviously enviable gardening skills, I admit that I'm not above learning something here or there. Last week, my neighbor was leaving for two weeks with her family and I asked her if she wanted to benefit from my clearly superior watering skills. (I only say this because you can't see her yard. It's mind-numbingly awesome.) "Sure," she said, "but what I really need is for them to get dead-headed. It's really important to stimulate new growth."

I knew old ladies spent time in their gardens nipping off dead blooms - but figured it was just because they were unattractive. (The dead blooms. Not the old ladies. Although now that I think about it, some of the old ladies aren't exactly easy on the eyes.) The notion that cutting off what was no longer producing something of value to stimulate new growth is a concept that I think more of us should think about in our efforts as marketers.

Think about it: Just subscribing to a "if it's not broke, don't fix it" mentality isn't enough. You have to know when to say when. When to call it. And cut it off so that new ideas can come to fruition.

Leo Burnett made truckloads of money with his iconic brand characters. Jolly Green Giant, Tony the Tiger, the Marlboro Man, Pillsbury Doughboy were all his creations. And they worked. Today is a different era. People crave authenticity, not cutesy. In the 50s, cute worked. Today - not so much. When Burger King tried to revive the king icon in 2011, it failed. Miserably. Why? Someone didn't know how to deadhead the marketing.

In other words: the only thing worse than a bad idea, is a good idea who's time has come and gone - and the people who don't know when to let it go.