Burkhard Works: Do You Have Permission to Change ANYTHING?

In boom or bust economies the prospect of changing the ads is daunting to downright scary.

No matter how good or bad things are, getting permission to try anything new entails facing the risk of failure and the often more terrifying risk of success.

For example, thousands of people who've heard your Control Commercial 40+ times may be blocked by some common emotional "Yeah, but..."

Identifying that "Yeah, but..." and unblocking it in your next ads could yield huge increases in response.

Yeah, but... what if it works? Here's one way to engineer an Approval. But first...

...permit, if you will, an apocryphal anecdote from the not so distant past.

Young & Rubicam, New York, circa 1982. On his way out the door, John Neiman, a brilliant copywriter about to further his career at McCann Erickson, penned a few lines for General Food's Jell-O.

Watch it wiggle! See it jiggle!
Make some Jell-O and make some fun!

A year or so later, Y&R ran some test spots showing little kids playing with Jell-O and giggling. Sales soared. More test markets. More sales soaring. Big Problem.

At a hastily convened meeting of High Muckety Mucks, the Wiggle campaign was deemed to be "Off Strategy." Jell-O had been positioned, since the Depression, as a "BUDGET" dessert, not a "FUN" dessert.

So, back to recipe ads. Sales resumed their normal flatline. It took years for New Kraft Management to embrace Wiggle.

No one at GF was averse to money. They just didn't want a 50+ year old Corporate Judgment to be challenged successfully on their watch. Sound familiar?

You may, after perusing this site, feel that I might be able to Wiggle your brand a little. Getting Permission to do so, however, may require some arm- or ego-twisting.

My Corporate Change Resistance Unblocker Protocol may help you forge ahead. The idea is to present a future comeuppance as more onerous than a present decision.

STEP ONE: Jot down on a notepad the "Yeah, but..." objections that normally arise whenever anyone in middle management suggests doing ANYTHING new.

Common entries:

"We tried something like that in 1996 and it didn't work."

"It's not in the budget."

"Our [stockholders/analysts/owners] won't like it if we change things now."

"Sales are so [good/bad], we can't afford to rock the boat."

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

"I've never heard of those people."

"We'll have to run it by [The Agency/ R&D/ HR/ Sales/ Operations/ Finance/ Somebody Else...] first."

"Can you guarantee it'll work? No? Well...!"

STEP TWO. Get copies of your current Annual Pro Forma and the most recent Sales Report. Note any disparities, positive or negative, between Target and Actual.

STEP THREE: Go into that Approval Meeting armed with your notepad and both documents. Make a brief case for trying a new approach, a test market, some sort of research... use any of the ideas on this site.

STEP FOUR: Check off the Normal Objections as they arise. Be obvious. Mention those that don't. ("Lest we forget, this Big Idea is not in the budget.")

STEP FIVE: Lay the notepad, the Pro Forma and those recent Sales figures on the table. Say either A. or B.

A. "Look, a year ago we all thought sales would be X. They're a lot less than X. When we have to write next year's budget, how will we justify doing nothing to save this year?"

B. "Look, a year ago we all thought sales would be X. They're a lot more than X. Before we write next year's budget, shouldn't we at least try to push this year even higher?"

Your penciled list of expected objections defuses most of them. The numbers speak for themselves. There are few canned answers to either A. or B.

So at this point in the meeting, discussion is certain to focus on the pros or cons of The Big Idea, rather than on the pros or cons of Change.

If you have a speaker phone in your Conference Room, call me at 407 895 3092. I'll try to answer any specific, pertinent & relevant questions that may arise.

Calls & Clicks, Sales, Rollout = Profits