Choosing the correct incentive is critical. Sometimes, handing out a great little something is a waste (or worse) and sometimes it’s absolutely essential.

A great treat is necessary for teaching and reinforcing a key habit or skill. Many dog trainers, for example, will recommend using the best, most delicious, most aromatic treat you can find when training Recall (coming when called, despite distractions). The positive affiliation between obeying the command and getting an amazing goodie helps the dog understand that returning to their owner is totally worthwhile. Recall is one of those commands that isn’t typically needed more than once in a while, so a fancy treat remains a “treat”.

When teaching a less vital and more day-to-day skill, such as “sit” or “down”, a treat can still be a great motivator. But it doesn’t have to be an absolutely incredible treat. Even a little piece of dry dog food can be sufficient. The key, of course, is consistency – a treat should be provided often and regularly when the command is obeyed. Even a tiny bonus can be enough to make the point and to encourage the behaviour to continue.

The distinction becomes even more clear when looking at the negatives of choosing the wrong treat.

Offering a piece of kibble in exchange for coming when called might not be enough. The dog quickly decides that obeying this command isn’t particularly beneficial. Sometimes the distraction is far more exciting.

Offering a fancy, delicious treat in exchange for a simple “sit” isn’t likely to be any more of an encouragement than a smaller, simpler (and cheaper) treat. More importantly, it may break the connection between obeying a vital command and getting a great goodie. “Sit” and “come” start to have the same value in the dog’s mind – “I don’t need to come when called. I’ll finish doing what I’m doing, then I’ll go and sit and end up with the same reward”.

Choosing a marketing incentive should follow the same rules – and cautions. Whether it’s encouraging staff, attracting new customers, rewarding loyal fans, or some other situation, marketers are constantly trying to incent good behaviours. Obviously, going too small won’t have much effect.But remember that although going big may seem an easy way to play it safe, it might have the negative effect of decreasing the perceived value of all incentives.

Often, a little treat is plenty. But when something special happens, make sure it’s rewarded in a truly special way.

Do you need kibble, a biscuit, or a steak?

It’s one of the simplest and most universal rules at the dog park: Clean up after your dog.

And it’s not just the obvious matter of courtesy, or manners, or even hygiene.

First, there’s a simple Murphy’s Law extension to this lesson: If you don’t pick it up, you’ll probably be the one who steps in it.

Second: You’re not fooling anybody.  There will always be witnesses to your transgression if you choose to leave it there or kick dirt over it or push it into the bushes with a stick.

Then there’s the snowball effect: All it takes is one messy, inconsiderate person to ruin the whole park.  When one person leaves a mess, it becomes much easier for the next person to do the same.  And then even easier for the next person.  And so on and so on, until nobody really bothers because the place is already a dump.   (If you’re one of the few people who haven’t read Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point yet, be sure to check it out.  He discusses a very similar concept in relation to New York City’s subway system and graffiti.)

And finally: Everyone is painted with the same brush.  Non-park users don’t see that “Person X” left a mess, they see that all dog park users are filthy.

The applications of the above to business and marketing are pretty straightforward:

• Short cuts and cheats will always come back to haunt you
• Looking out for the welfare of others around you (including short-term customers and even -gasp!- competitors) is actually in your best interests
• Your organization isn’t all that special (in the eyes of outsiders).   You’re in the same pile (so to speak) as most of your competitors, associates, partners, suppliers, etc.

Corollary:  Make it easy for people to pick up their poop.

It’s not just the dog owners who have a responsibility to leave the park neat and tidy.  When the local government, property owner, or other parties provide baggies, garbage cans, and other facilities, it’s almost guaranteed that the area will be well maintained by its users.

In marketing, if you want others (customers, suppliers, industry associations, or even competitors) to behave a certain way, don’t just tell them.  Give them all the tools they need to make it happen.  Not only do you get what you want, but in the long run this is almost certain to be cheaper and easier than keeping the tools to yourself and then doing the work yourself!

After a few months’ rest for this site and blog, we’re back at it!

Watch for lots of new content soon.

Thanks to all our clients and partners, it’s been a busy year for Dog Park Digital, and we’re looking forward to more great times in 2012.

Extremes are often the best starting point when thinking of a marketing strategy.

When it comes to product distribution and its associated marketing, two extremes are most likely to be successful: being hard to get or being everywhere.
You might call it scarcity and routine, or novelty and staple, or treat and necessity, or a number of other synonyms.

Using the dog park analogy, dogs thrive on a mixture of routine (knowing the rules, having something reliable and safe that’s always consistent) and special treats (something that’s worth getting excited about).

In recent headlines, a good example is the auto industry.

Which brands and models have been the most successful in getting consumers excited, driving sales, and generating profits?
The Scarce: early Hummers, Minis, the launch of the New Beetle, early PT Cruiser, hybrids, clean diesel, many Harley Davidson bikes…
The common: Civic, Golf, Focus…

Scarcity doesn’t necessarily mean rare, expensive, or highly exclusive.  This isn’t just about those “only 50 ever made, million dollar cars” — there were tens or hundreds  of thousands of the above “scarce” vehicles available, more than enough to be worth creating.   And the scarce models aren’t necessarily the best of the best either.  Hummers, PT Cruisers, and many hybrids are actually a bit unimpressive.  Even the butt of jokes.  Likewise, common models aren’t necessarily the worst.  These aren’t always lowest-common-denominators, but are just generic and compromising enough to have wide appeal.

Following the auto industry example, there seems to have been a lack of focus for many years (especially in North America).   While there are many examples of “scarce” and “routine” models, such as the above, there have been far more somewhere-in-the-middle: completely forgettable and unremarkable.  Why even produce these?
The designers and marketers must have known from day one that there was virtually zero pent-up demand for yet another generic new sedan.  How many different pickup trucks does a single company need to produce?  Are consumers’ needs and wants really so diverse that more than a couple of different minivans were ever actually needed from a single company?

Tough times have finally forced some of the largest auto companies to take action: cutting extra brands (why market the identical car under two different names to an identical audience?), reducing distribution points (why have more than a handful of dealers in a single market for a product that people only buy once or twice a decade?), and focusing on a smaller number of old standards and special new releases.

Again, it’s not just about production numbers.  In fact, actual production and distribution is secondary to customer perception.  Marketing’s job is largely to create a ~sense~ of either scarcity or routine.

Consumers are the main variable.  What do they think is special, and what do they trust as an old-standard (or likely-to-be-a-new-standard)?

A recent very good blog post by Seth Godin touches on this subject.  As usual, Mr. Godin summarizes the concept very succinctly.

Moving away from the auto industry example, Apple is an interesting case where the brand is actively transitioning from scarce to routine.  A few years ago, Apple computers were for the hard core fanatics.  Their limitations were no obstacle for the people who saw their benefits.  As the limitations decreased and popularity increased, the company didn’t immediately drop prices, ramp up production,  drastically increase their distribution network, or even increase their marketing by enormous amounts: they remained scarce (or at least had the illusion of scarcity and exclusivity) for quite a while.  Of course, now you can’t enter a college lecture hall, a professional seminar, or a coffeeshop without being surrounded by MacBooks.  And the most impressive thing is that these consumers still feel somewhat special for having chosen a Mac.

Now that Apple stores are becoming quite common and you can buy a Mac at Best Buy or Future Shop, have they finally made the leap to “routine”, or will they soon see backlash and begin to seem less “special”?  There is even talk that Apple computers will soon be available at Wal-Mart…  If true, this would very clearly answer the question.

Of course, even as the overall Apple brand switches from “scarce” to “routine”, the company can perhaps maintain some degree of specialness through product innovation, exclusive offers, and so on.  “Everybody owns an iPod, but only a true Apple fanatic will know how to get an iPod+”

And, of course #2: Apple is also at the mercy of the marketing departments of Microsoft, Dell, and many many other competitors.  Even if – perhaps especially if – Apple is nicely making the transition to becoming a staple, then a relatively easy message from those competitors may be “Is your Mac really that special?“  A wrong move by Apple (deep discounting? not enough discounting? delays in new product launches? a serious bug? over-distribution?) could quickly give these competitors’ claims some legitimacy in consumers’ minds.

“Routine” is pretty easy to aim for.  It’s extremely difficult to achieve, but the goal is clear.  “Product X is a standard in the field of X for people who Y”.  Make a good, truly reliable, reasonably priced, accessible product and… voila.  The challenges are: a.) It usually takes a lot of time and experimentation to make something this universally appealling, and b.) How the heck do you convince people that “everybody else is buying one” is a good thing, and that safe isn’t boring?

“Scarce” is trickier to define since it’s so reliant on perception.  But it might actually be easier to achieve.  The scarce product doesn’t necessarily have to be a good value, easy to get, reliable, or even “good”.  It just needs a hook to make it special…  Maybe it’s only available in a local area, or was formerly only available in a certain place (I’d be curious to try a Mexican Coke and compare it to an Israeli Coke…).   Or maybe it’s a matter of redecorating — remember the big fuss about the 7-11 locations that re-branded as Kwik-E-Marts for the Simpsons Movie?  Or there’s always the easiest of all approaches: the limited time offer, the waiting list, or the signed limited edition.  Anybody want to buy my Franklin Mint plate collection?

One caveat that comes to mind when dealing with scarce is to resist the urge to jump the shark and try to capitalize on a successful “special” product.  Remember when people would drive all day to pick up Krispy Kreme donuts?  Or back to the auto example: remember when the new Minis were in such high demand that there were waiting lists for months and people would crowd around when they saw one on the street?  When’s the last time any large group of people got excited about a Mini?   It’s still the same car (if not better, actually), but it’s become a bit of “just another small vehicle”.  The car companies seem to understand the basics of this, such as their efforts to bring back models like the Charger or Thunderbird.  But they often don’t keep this “specialness” going.  They start mass producing something as soon as it proves itself.  I wonder what would have happened if production of Hummers was immediately cut by 90% for the next five years.

The sense of specialness itself is its own attraction.  Sure, if a car company released a 2015 Delorean as a Back To The Future tie-in, it would be huge news  (and a great idea, by the way).  But I bet that if someone release a 2011 Gremlin or Pacer, it would be just as newsworthy and sought after.

Promotions, too, need to follow one extreme or the other — a promo has got to be something that everyone understands and appreciates (“$5 off coupon”, “Boxing Day Sale”, “Gift with Purchase”), or something really different (my favourite recent example: Long Beach Lodge Resort offered rooms at the price of each scorer’s jersey when the Vancouver Canucks won games during the NHL playoffs — if a Sedin scored, you might get a room for just $22 or $33 per night…)

Promos that fall somewhere in the middle don’t resonate for long.  Does anyone really care about “Employee Family Pricing” anymore?  Once every company in an industry starts offering something, it reaches a point where it will either become a standard, or disappear into meaninglessness.

Going back to the Dog Park…

A dog without structure and routine is a handful.  He won’t listen.  He’s hard to train.  He’s unpredictable and will act on instinct.

A dog who finds nothing scarce simply won’t appreciate anything.   Oh, another treat?  Thanks.  I’ll just take that.  Yawn.

It’s the combination that matters: everybody needs both.  Nobody will be satisfied by the “scarce” or “special” alone, and nobody wants merely the routine.

When we first started thinking about applying a dog park metaphor to marketing, one thing that became apparent almost immediately was a biggie:  dogs (and all animals, for that matter)  just think different.  Dog logic is not the same as people logic.

The concept of cause and effect, for example, can be quite different from one species to another:

When training a dog, one place where nearly all trainers agree is that you must react to the animal’smost recent action.   If Fido steals a shoe, but drops it when you say to, you should reward the dropping — not punish the stealing.   As a human, it’s often tough (and a test of one’s patience) to remember this.  If the dog were a person, this approach wouldn’t make much sense; human logic says “If I reward the last action, I’m rewarding all the actions leading up to it.  They’ll think that shoe stealing equals reward.”

This understanding brings up two key things that we’ve had to keep in mind:

1. Don’t take dog park lessons too literally.  There needs to be some interpretation of the dogs’ behaviour.

and

2. There’s a marketing lesson to be learned in this very observation…

It’s a basic lesson and something that every marketer should learn their first day on the job or in school:

Your customers are not you.

Even if you are a consumer of your product or service, you are not a typical customer.  They think differently than you — customer logic is not the same as marketer logic.

Yet this is perhaps the most common business mistake around.  How many business people do things because they “just make sense”?  How many make a decision based solely on their own experiences and desires?  How many are shocked, surprised, and confused when a business decision doesn’t bring the expected results?

I’d wager that every single marketer has made the assumption that their customers will behave just like them (or follow the same logic as them) at least a few times during their career.

Even for the simplest, most seemingly obvious task, choice, or idea, it’s vital that we avoid this assumption.  That doesn’t mean you have to hold a focus group every time you want to restock a shelf or change a line of copywriting.  But there needs to be at least a millisecond’s pause to consider “Will my customers and/or prospects really do what I expect?”

How do you introduce yourself (or your company, or your brand, or your product) to a new consumer, partner, market or prospect – especially if they’re already in an established group?

When you watch dogs say ‘Hi’ to each other, you can immediately tell who has done it right and who needs to learn some manners. Not just the dog being approached, but most of the others in the area will immediately react to a positive or negative introduction. If it’s done properly, everybody’s glad to checkout the newcomer. If it goes badly… everyone becomes cautious.

And it’s really quite simple. New, after all, is usually good. Everyone gets excited about going to a new place and meeting new friends. At the dog park, as soon as the gate opens, all the dogs (and most of the owners) look to see who has just arrived. Everybody (dogs and people alike) is starting off from a pretty good position and attitude.

So what are a few simple rules we can learn about introducing ourselves? For starters:

1. Remember that (almost) everybody likes to check out the newcomer. Be positive, expect the best, and be ready to show that they weren’t wrong to be glad to see you.

2. Don’t rush right in. You don’t have to move slowly; just avoid being pushy.

3. Reciprocate and expect reciprocation from others. Do your sniffing of the other butts, and don’t try to block them from sniffing you right back.

4. Treats are awesome. If you can bribe your new friends with something yummy or fun, why not? In marketing, promotional goodies, special offers, and so on are nothing to be afraid or ashamed of. BUT, don’t use them as a crutch. A treat is only good if it reinforces an already positive experience. It won’t turn somebody who hates you into your best friend. Not for long, at least.