Good bit of viral marketing

Recently the British Columbia government shut down Tourism BC, an external marketing arm, in favor of saving a few bucks. Given the Vancouver Olympics are just around the corner I questioned the wisdom of this decision. I suspect we'll never know if it was a prudent or foolish act. This said, a rather clever piece of viral marketing that appeared in my inbox today leaves me feeling a bit more confident in their capability atleast. With the not-so-inconspicuous use of BC tourism keywords it's pretty safe to assume the piece came from the desk of one of our in-house provincial marketers.

One of the reasons I give them kuddos is for how they chose to execute their message. Where some billboard ads for Coors beer had to be quickly pulled for having offended a neighbor province; a campaign with a likely multi-million dollar price tag. These guys have produced a similarly clever 'comparison theme' piece that once forwarded will gain a life and momentum of its own. One which cannot be pulled and cost virtually nothing. All of us proud BC'ites will happily forward the mail and tease our neighbors in favor of good old BC pride.

Here it is:

Balance...........

God was missing for six days. Eventually, Michael, the archangel, found Him resting on the seventh day..

He inquired, "Where have you been?"

God smiled deeply and proudly pointed downwards through the clouds, "Look, Michael. Look what I've made."

Archangel Michael looked puzzled, and said, "What is it?"

"It's a planet," replied God, and I've put life on it.. I'm going to call it Earth. And it's going to be a place to test Balance."

"Balance?" inquired Michael, "I'm still confused."

God explained, pointing to different parts of earth. "For example, northern Europe will be a place of great opportunity and wealth, while southern Europe is going to be poor. Over here I've placed a continent of white people, and over there is a continent of black people. Balance in all things."

God continued pointing to different countries. "This one will be extremely hot, while this one will be very cold and covered in ice."

The Archangel, impressed by God's work, then pointed to a land area and said, "What's that one?"

"That's the Province of British Columbia, the most glorious place on earth. There are beautiful mountains, rivers and streams, lakes, forests, hills, and beaches. The people from British Columbia are going to be handsome, modest, intelligent, and well hung, and humorous, and they are going to travel the world. They will be extremely sociable, hardworking, high achieving, carriers of peace, and producers of good things."

Michael gasped in wonder and admiration, but then asked, "But what about balance, God? You said there would be balance.."

God smiled, "There's Ottawa! Wait till you see the idiots I put there."

Author unknown.

I read an interesting paper titled 'Memes, CI and Marketing: A Preliminary Framework' published by The Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals. Author Mr. David O'Gorman offers a logical theory whereby analyzing memes inputs collected from speeches, interviews, in-person observance, or writings of top managers one can accurately predict the mid-long term strategic direction of a given organization.

My thoughts: In addition to the competitive advantage we can realize by undertaking this type of research there is another key take-away. Given the topic of the paper surrounds 'competitive intelligence' it may seem counter intuitive to say this but, 'organizational transparency and line of sight' are critical to achieving our goals. Bear with me. Where do most plans fail? Execution. Therefore, if we want success... our vision, values, and direction must emulate throughout our organization. Every member of our team needs to be on board. For this reason I say competitors be darned. Proudly and loudly define the road ahead. As long as everyone's on the same page [and we're not broadcasting IP] our lesser inspired competitors will be playing catch up while we are running toward the finish line.

Citation:
Thank you to EcoAlign for publishing Cracking the Green Code: Using a Values-Based Model to Improve Customer Communications and Marketing. Not only a good paper in-and-of itself but also what drove me to investigate the research of Dr. Clare Graves theories of "Emergent, Cyclical, Levels of Existence" or in simpler terms 'psychographic categorizing system (the seven levels of psychological evolution)'. Which then led me to the 'Memes, CI and Marketing' paper I discussed in this post.