Waiting For Your Cat To Bark

  Bryan and Jeff Eisenberg’s "Waiting For Your Cat To Bark" has just topped the Wall Street Journal’s Business Book section and is #3 in their non-fiction category. These are some pretty impressive achievements, but the really fantastic part is not the achievements of these two. It’s the information in this book.

The educated consumer today has far more control today over what they respond to when we’re talking marketing. If you think your customers are ignoring your marketing, then get this book.

Here’s a link to an article from this week’s WSJ: Article Buying and Selling in a Finicky World by Brian Steinberg. The text of the article follows...

Buying and Selling in a Finicky World By BRIAN STEINBERG July 20, 2006; Page D8 BBDO is one of the nation's best-known ad agencies and also Madison Avenue's most macho one. It has a longstanding reputation for devising big-bang Super Bowl ads as well as TV commercials studded with celebrities. Cindy Crawford, Jason Alexander, Madonna and Michael J. Fox are among the stars who have crowed for clients such as PepsiCo or Pizza Hut. Like its Madison Avenue brethren, BBDO really never had to think about whether anyone actually wanted to see the ads. Its executives were usually secure in the knowledge that you, Dear Consumer, could do nothing to avoid them. That comfort is now hard to come by. Average citizens zap away TV ads with the push of a button, and younger people everywhere routinely shun anything that has the merest whiff of hard-sell. These days, BBDO has started to sound a little, well, romantic. Executives talk of how the agency is trying to create commercials that people will want to spend time with. Their recent magazine ad for Aquafina featured a replica of a bottle of the water made out of bubble wrap -- the better to entice you to play with the page. A General Electric TV ad tucked information into the frames of the spot, in the hope that viewers with digital video recorders would slow the playback down for better reading. Creating commercials in 2006 "is like dating," says David Lubars, chief creative officer at BBDO North America. "You are asking people to voluntarily look at your stuff." This, in essence, is the premise of "Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?" by Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg, two New York consultants. Advertising has long been based on the notion that if you put something entertaining into a mass-market ad, millions of people will see your message, remember it and be influenced by it as they go about their daily routines. Customers, the Eisenbergs write, have long been thought of as dogs prompted to salivate by being slung a morsel of promotional meat. The rise of the Internet and other technology has changed all that. Web sites are fast becoming the centerpieces of corporate efforts to hawk and sell, while radio, print and TV ads often push customers toward the Internet. On the Web, a consumer can spend as much time as he likes, get more information than any traditional ad could possibly supply, and even make a purchase. But like cats -- not dogs -- consumers now have to be cajoled, coddled and tempted. They must choose to pay a visit, and once they have arrived at a site, they must be lured to stay, since they can leave at any moment. After giving readers a thumbnail sketch of how marketing practices have changed, the authors spend the bulk of the book telling advertisers how to get ready for a rush of Web traffic. As the Eisenbergs note, people have different reasons for shopping -- passing the time, pleasing a friend, gathering product facts for themselves or, yes, actually buying. Advertisers need to figure out how many such shopper-personae are likely to come knocking electronically and then plot to use bits of information and turns of phrase that will keep each of the customer "characters" happy and attentive. In short, marketers must ask: "Who are we trying to persuade to take the action?"; "What is the action we want someone to take?"; and "What does that person need in order to feel confident taking that action?" Web consumers can then be led step by step. It's harder than it sounds. Offering personal anecdotes about shopping and choosing, the Eisenbergs show how easy it is for potential buyers to surf elsewhere when pertinent information is lacking. They point to Best Buy, which has come up with different customer types -- suburban mothers known as "Jills" or upper-income males known as "Barrys" -- and customized in-store sales pitches relevant to each. Translating that idea to the Web, the Eisenbergs urge, is key. "Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?" will be most instructive to the advertising crowd, of course. It's hard to find a book about marketing that is truly appropriate for anyone but people who practice the stuff. But general readers may find something valuable here too: the latest Madison Avenue methods for getting inside their brains and massaging their decision-making logic. If the Web offers marketers new opportunities, it also allows picky consumers to become -- with a feline cleverness and caution -- ever more finicky. Mr. Steinberg is a Journal reporter who covers advertising.

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