Mindshare Marketing

Definitions and vocabulary. That’s what business is all about. You define your product, you define your business, and you define your competition. Then you create a vocabulary with which to discuss each. Lawyers make millions because no one else understands legal vocabulary. Accountants are vital to business because few can use the vocabulary with which taxes are created.

Monday’s post was an announcement of a new project I’ve entered: SmarterMarkets.com. It’s one of many projects that my new publishing company, Jumping Duck Media, is producing. Ironically, all of these projects should have been around long ago - all that prevented them was my fear of handling more than myself as a business entity.

To a casual observer, it is impossible to start a business. You need to register the name, register the product (patent or copyright), find financing, write a business plan, secure investors, etc and so on. I never ‘got around’ to starting Jumping Duck because I was afraid of the process. To me, it was “Mission: Impossible.”

In reality, creating a business is remarkably simple! The “assumed business name” registration took about 5 minutes to do online. Licensing is fairly straight forward if you understand the terminology of the paperwork (I went to business school to learn this specific vocabulary, but you can always ask a business adviser for help). Also, you don’t actually need a business plan or investors to start a company!

We define “small business owners” and “entrepreneurs” as people with overabundances of free time and genius. Is this a true definition? I won’t argue the intelligence of business owners - all of them are very bright - but why do we attribute this definition to that particular segment of the market?

Vocabulary.

Knowing the vocabulary of business makes the act of starting a business very straightforward. Just like knowing the vocabulary of law makes passing the bar exam easier.

What unique vocabulary do you use in your line of business? How would someone unfamiliar with these specific terms define you and your competition? How can you use this definition to your advantage?

Mindshare Marketing is proud to present …
In collaboration with International Business Development …
And discovery [dɪskʌvəri] …
A Jumping Duck Media Production …

SmarterMarkets.com

I am pleased to announce today that we are finally unveiling the fruits of over a month of collaborative labor of some very talented bloggers. SmarterMarkets.com is a new blog sponsored by a media production company called Jumping Duck Media. It’s a business-centric publication that focuses on analyzing current events and business decisions and explaining what they mean for the near and not-so-near future.

We are focusing mainly on marketing, sustainability, and business development. In the future, the site will expand to cover international finance and economics as well - perhaps even more subjects as time continues to pass. When you read business publications you’ll see a great deal of analysis and discussion of past decisions and how today came about. No one ever talks about what will happen tomorrow because of those decisions, though.

This is where Smarter Markets comes in.

This new project will monopolize a great deal of my time, but I promise you today that it will not detract from Mindshare Marketing. Bookmark both sites and keep up with us as we engage in this new and exciting adventure!

A few weeks ago, I saw a great advertisement for the History Channel at the movie theater.  It highlighted most of their major shows and announced the new season for all of my favorite things.  The unfortunate thing was that it also upset a LOT of people in the movie theater.

Last season, the History Channel ran a TV special about what would happen to the planet if, suddenly, all human life vanished.  What would our pets do, how would our buildings survive, and so on and so forth.  One of the most interesting segments in the show was the part where they covered major landmarks like the Eifel tower, the Roman viaduct, and the Seattle Space Needle.

Realistically, they all fall down after several hundred years of disrepair.  You’d expect that.  The CGI of the Space Needle collapsing is really quite stunning.  Incorporating the clip into an advertisement in a Seattle movie theater without any explanation of where the clip is from, though … you can probably see the issue with that.

Advertising a large entity like the History Channel can be tricky.  Segmenting too far can be costly and actually negate the benefit of advertising.  Not segmenting far enough, though, can cost you a great deal in certain markets.  I doubt anyone watching the advertisment in Fresno even noticed the clip.  When you see the Space Needle every day during your morning commute, though, it’s easy to recognize a flash on the movie screen.

How far is ‘too far’ for segmented advertising in your market?  How far is ‘not far enough?’