“The truth isn’t the truth until people believe you, and they can’t believe you if they don’t know what you’re saying, and they can’t know what you’re saying if they don’t listen to you, and they won’t listen to you if you’re not interesting, and you won’t be interesting until you say and do things imaginatively, originally, freshly.”  – Bill Bernbach

Over the past couple of weeks, in both my personal and business life, it just seems like everywhere I turn, I’m seeing the most uninspired, blah, boring, and unenthused advertising and marketing messaging. From credit unions to food products to retail delivered through TV, direct mail, outdoor, one-sheets/brochures, whatever. You know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s as though A LOT of people got the same memo: create only lifeless, sigh-inducing marketing that doesn’t say anything.  As a result, I recall something that the comedian Billy Connelly once said about people who create this kind of stuff. He called them “Beigests” – as in the color beige.

For the purposes of painting a picture of who a “Beigest” is, let’s describe them as constantly striving to turn everything around him or her lukewarm and mediocre. The kind of person who’ll suck the life out of all meaningful messaging, attempt to censor or dilute anything that they don’t get (forget that their audience does get it), water down any sort of strong rationale with weasel words & steer it towards the middle, and constantly strive for “consensus” as they make the world “user friendly” (i.e., rather than make an executive decision, they ask everyone for their opinion.  I sometimes wonder if people making the advertising or marketing decisions are genetically incapable of recognizing messaging that stands out, that they simply default to that never vibrant but never offensive color beige.

Let me ask: who loves the color beige?  Not many people will respond saying that beige is one of their favorites.  But it’s a color, right?  So why aren’t more people expressing their love for it…like they do for reds, blues, purples, or whatever your favorite color is.  Because beige is insanely boring!  It totally lacks enthusiasm which makes the marketing messaging as dull as an accountant’s office.

Our lives are way too busy for us to be attracted to “beige” things.  Yet, too many marketers don’t project that same line of thinking toward attracting customers. Decisions are made daily to keep producing and running the same run-of-the-mill, uninspiring stuff…week after week, month after month, year after year.

Keep in mind that when you as a consumer see anything from a company, either your opinion of that company is enhanced or it’s not. There’s no middle ground. You either like them a bit more or you go in the other direction.  So, if that’s the case, why do too many marketers turn that compelling, money-making value proposition into a beige “me-too” that each and every one of your competitors could say. Why do you think for one second that someone is going to acknowledge your message? And not only acknowledge it, but take the time to respond, and make a purchase.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been bored into buying something. And I’m even going to say that 99% of your customers are with me on this. The marketing you do for your company is an extension of you. You’re the person who’s responsible for communicating the passion of your company. When you talk about your business with others, hopefully your eyes twinkle, your heart begins to race, your voice becomes more dynamic and people are instantly attracted to you. When that show of enthusiasm and excitement happens, no one would confuse you with being boring, right? Of course not.  So look at your marketing stuff and see if it reflects that same level of specialness.  Or you could always ask friends, colleagues, suppliers or anyone who will be candid with you, “Does this marketing make you want to pick up the phone and call us or know more about us?”  If the answer is not an enthusiastic “yes,” then it’s time to start over. Because spending money that can’t produce results never makes CEOs happy. They’re eventually going to see what you produced for the market.

Save your company from being seen as beige.  Be a welcomed splash of red. And listen, not only is it possible for you to create a business that is as fascinating as you are, it is necessary. Life’s too short to settle for “blah.”

As an agency who is always looking to team up with marketing-centric, growth-oriented companies, I’m constantly baffled by the number of prospective clients who tell me that their competitive edge is that “we’re honest,” or “we care about our customers,” or “hey, we’re very good at what we do.” The next obvious question then is how many of their competitors say they are not very honest, they don’t really care about their customers, and they’re not very good at what they do?

We’ve all gotten so wrapped up in what we perceive to be our strengths, what we “know” the market wants, what the reasons are that customers purchase our products and services (or at least should do) that we are in danger of not seeing the forest through the trees. We spend our time thinking up strategies, putting time against newer ways of reaching customers and prospects with the ever-increasing tactics of social media, etc.  But we seldom, if ever, take the time to stand back and reflect where the company stands in the real-world, as the marketplace sees us.

As marketers, we know the importance of doing a SWOT analysis – Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats – usually before companies rebrand themselves or new products are launched. SWOT needs to be a central part of our marketing efforts before the strategy development, before the tactical implementation, before undertaking new methods of communicating and measuring the effectiveness of our communications. In fact, when was the last time your organization or your marketing partner put together a brutally honest, no-holds-barred SWOT analysis? If you’re like most, it’s been a while.

In larger companies, marketing departments have annual planning cycles. In smaller companies, the routines are not as formalized, and planning has a tendency to be less frequent and with less time devoted to it. Generally this process looks more at budget allocation, new initiatives to be considered or implemented, staff/services cut-backs, etc. But hardly ever (ok, with less frequency than one would think) does this planning examine not just the strategy and tactics employed but how marketplace changes may have changed the company’s strengths, opportunities, weaknesses, and threats at the most basic level.

This needs to be done on a regular basis before time and resources (financial, staff, etc.) are committed to a strategy, an approach, or new tactics. Important questions need to be asked, and too often the most basic questions are not asked.

We all know them: What are our strengths? Are the strengths recognized by customers and prospects? Do our competitors have the same strengths? What are their strengths? And so on. How has the marketplace changed? Where are the new opportunities? Are our products/services adversely affected by emerging trends? How are our competitors reacting to the changing marketplace? Etc.

So I am NOT suggesting that the Marketing Department doesn’t know how to approach the marketplace or that we don’t know what we need to know. I am, rather, suggesting two things:

1. We need to set aside some time, on a regular basis, to carefully put all these questions and the answers together, and only then plan, create the strategy and implementation tactics.

2. We need to test our assumptions – every time – against what is happening in the real-world, on the ground, where the customers live and where our revenues come from.

With everything on Marketing’s plate today, and the urgency in which it needs to get done, there’s a real danger of losing sight of the basics. Who has the time, right? Well, if we lose sight of the need to regularly and carefully look at what we think our company is (warts and all), look at all that we do, and all the resources we use/spend, in the ever evolving marketplace – not just our guesses about it and our customers – we risk losing all that we work so hard to achieve: increasing revenues and market share.

The time tested marketing adage of “If you don’t really know where you are, it is much more difficult to get where you want to be” has never been more true.