#91: The flaw in Clayton Christensen, new gateway to ad targeting, strugglepreneurs, anxiety, trust, and equity
Woah. It's been a wonderful whirlwind of a month filled with travel and speaking -- from geeking out with IT marketers at Spiceworld in Austin, to sharing chislic with marketers in South Dakota, to kibbitzing with entrepreneurs at the Underscore summit, to spreading the critical wake-up call about femvertising to audiences in SFO/NYC and @ Google HQ this past week in Boston.
Phew.
SO MANY of you are new to this list! To you I say: Welcome to the party, Go Sox, and don't forget to vote.
In this edition (#91) of The World's Best Newsletter:
1. The flaw in Clayton Christensen
2. Thermometers as a gateway to ad targeting
3. Online tracking is f*cking good for you
4. We are dealing with anxiety the American way
5. Truth, trust, and values - my interview with Samantha Stone
6. RISE OF THE STRUGGLEPRENEUR
7. Quote of the week: Shouldn't need an MBA
Let's get into it:
1. The flaw in Clayton Christensen
Do we need another disruption theory? Probably not.
But, Tom Goodwin makes a good point that perhaps Clayton Christensen's "globally renowned, but intrinsically flawed idea" needs a refresh. He argues in a provocative piece for Branding Insider (one of my favorite blogs on the subject):
Clayton Christensen’s globally renowned, but intrinsically flawed idea that Disruption is about companies who undermine legacy players based on a new technology at a lower price point. A theory based on selected data from a narrow window of time, from the world of data storage technology and digger design around 40 years ago. A theory that fails to explain the iPhone, Uber, Tesla, Airbnb, Flatscreen TV’s, Netflix, 3G and most of the world in which we live.
Read his alternative, as he poses a fundamental question: From Facebook to Uber, Amazon to eBay, Skype to WeWork, Tesla to Nest, Dyson to Trump, what happens when you challenge things from scratch?
2. Thermometers as a gateway to ad targeting
Let's play a game called "Is this a privacy concern, creepy marketing or hyper-targeted data win?"
Our first contestant: Your smart thermometer, which could be telling Clorox whether or not to push ads for disinfecting wipes to your neighborhood based on your temperature:
This flu season, Clorox paid to license information from Kinsa, a tech start-up that sells internet-connected thermometers that are a far cry from the kind once made with mercury and glass. The thermometers sync up with a smartphone app that allows consumers to track their fevers and symptoms, making it especially attractive to parents of young children.
The data showed Clorox which ZIP codes around the country had increases in fevers. The company then directed more ads to those areas, assuming that households there may be in the market for products like its disinfecting wipes. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends disinfecting surfaces to help prevent the flu or its spread.
Read the full NYTimes article.
The targeting led to a 22% increase in consumer interactions with Clorox’s disinfectant ads, and a 900% increase in red flags for me.
Is this cool or an unnecessarily complicated marketing endeavor? Does this spell out convenience and relevance for consumers, or an invasion of privacy as they are blissfully unaware the data is being used as such?
I began my career marketing data like name/title/phone/email/address/industry/company size/tech installs, etc to B2B co's. Individuals could opt-out of the database but they did not opt-in. It was just a fact of the business, technically legal and under CAN-SPAM compliance. The risk is on the customer who uses the data.
In that regard, part of me loves to see targeting data used in such a relevant way like this story with Kinsa and Clorox. But the consumer/skeptic in me knows that the mother using this Elmo-shaped thermometer had no idea her baby's temp was being broadcast (anonymously, but still) back to Kinsa, then sold to Clorox so they could sell 22% more wipes to her neighbors.
3. Online tracking is f*cking good for you
And now for another perspective on the broad debate over consumer privacy and online tracking from Velocity Partners' Andrew London, who rightly argues in his article that the nuanced conversation about this matter is often driven to extremes (Cambridge Analytica for example).
PS: The article was originally titled "Online tracking is f*cking good for you - get over it" but has since been updated.
He says:
Online tracking gets a bad rap. It’s easily conflated in people’s minds with wider issues around data abuse and online manipulation.
Most of the people that I talk to about online tracking don’t actually understand it, and in their ignorance are conflating genuinely bad things with something that will actually help them in the long run. Hopefully... we’ll all be able to take a step back from our knee-jerk reactions and see online tracking for what it is, not what we’re scared it is.
That last line is important.
See online tracking for what it is, not what we're scared it is.
That's what makes this content great, it challenges preconceived notions and lays out a POV that offers plenty of rebuttals to common misperceptions. Refreshing. You can feel the emotion (in this case, frustration) pouring out of the piece. Velocity's trademark style.
4. We are dealing with anxiety the American way
(That is, buying our way out of it.)
Americans are really, really anxious. From CB Insights (newsletter) and Vox:
"Anxiety is the most common mental health disorder in the US. It affects nearly 1 in 5 Americans annually and almost one-third over the course of their lifetimes. So, of course, capitalism has the answer.
It’s why digital therapists and meditation apps keep popping up, and why supposedly anxiety-reducing products like the fidget spinner and weighted blanket have gone viral.
Rebecca Jennings of Vox calls this the anxiety economy. There isn’t much evidence to show adult coloring books, essential oils, etc. actually ease anxiety, but their popularity shows that, in classic American fashion, we’re “trying to buy our way out of the problem.”
In my talks (book me, baby) I often quote the stat showing that 59% of Americans consider this to be the lowest point in US history. We are more stressed today than WW2, Vietnam, the Cuban Missile Crisis, even 9/11 (American Psychological Association). Even in B2B, as CEB/Gartner notes, “B2B buyers may be better informed than ever, but they’re deeply uncertain and stressed.”
For marketers and teams engaging with anxious buyers, needing to quell information-overload and anxiety with our buyers is an unexpected new responsibility. Do you add to the noise? Or do you show buyers a bold way through the confusion/fear? Can they trust you?
5. Truth, trust, and values - my interview with Samantha Stone
Speaking of trust, in this new episode of the Unleash Possible podcast, Samantha and I address the implications of a declining trust amongst everyday Americans and the role of marketers in fixing the problem.
Our customer base does not know who to trust. The notion of responsibility notwithstanding, we have a great opportunity set before us if we dedicate resources to rebuilding trust.
I also talk about values as a means of competitive differentiation.
The episode is 32 minutes, and available here. Thank you Samantha for having me!
PS: If you don't already have a copy, buy "Unleash Possible" here, it's a blueprint for B2B marketing teams, and it's excellent -- I know, I edited it :)
6. RISE OF THE STRUGGLEPRENEUR
That one is in all caps because I felt a sense of satisfaction when I saw someone finally assign such a perfect name to a phenomenon that is a result of our current age of over-glamorized entrepreneurship.
Strugglepreneur: People building businesses going nowhere quickly that felt they were accomplishing something because they were struggling.
Nat Eliason explains in his piece:
I call this “struggle p*rn”: a masochistic obsession with pushing yourself harder, listening to people tell you to work harder, and broadcasting how hard you’re working.
“Struggle busy” is how struggle p*rn distracts you from accomplishing what the struggle is supposed to be in the direction of. Instead of thinking “maybe my difficulty getting traction is a sign that I need to try something else,” the reaction is “this isn’t doing well yet, but if I keep struggling then eventually things will work out.”
It’s worth making a distinction here: I’m not saying you shouldn’t work hard, or that starting a business isn’t hard, I’m saying you shouldn’t fetishize struggling, and you definitely shouldn’t waste your time on consuming quasi-motivational struggle p*rn that makes you feel bad about how hard you’re not working.
Note: in the comments, Scott Stratten and Gary Vaynerchuk both respond directly to correct some of the misstatements in the piece. Gary is an easy target, so ignore the shots taken at him directly in the piece. Rather, what I appreciate is the skepticism on something we've accepted as normal.
More of that skepticism please.
7. Quote of the week: Shouldn't need an MBA
“You shouldn’t need to have an MBA to know the importance of equity and how to negotiate for it" - #Angels’ Chloe Sladden in this article via TechCrunch:
A new study from Carta and the ex-Twitter female investor group #Angels reveals that women make up 35 percent of startup equity-holding employees, yet own just 20 percent of the equity. That means they own just $0.47 for every $1 that men own. Even worse, women account for 13 percent of startup founders but just 6 percent of founder equity — or merely $0.39 on the dollar.
Combined, that means only 9 percent of founder and employee startup equity is owned by women.
Work to be done.
Have a wonderful weekend, and thanks for reading, as always.
Katie
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