A year for the books

The novel survived the coronavirus. Reading habits mutated. Have you caught the bug?

Mom called to ask for audiobook recommendations; her reading habit has not dimmed despite lost sight. What have I read lately? If I recall sunlight on the page from a bus window, it was not this year. Books were important in my commute, timed so I could take a seat and turn pages. The pandemic lockdown seemed like the end of a literary chapter, but it was only a plot twist. Book sales surged on Amazon and in superstores, and publishers ended the year strong.

To understand what happened I turned to big data—my reading list on Goodreads, a diary of reading exploits that Amazon and Google can unlock at any time.

Turns out I've read at least 20 books in 2020, more than any time since I left newspapers, and more on the couch than the commute. I didn't hear as much about having my nose in a newspaper or computer, though that could have been my hearing, and sometimes read past midnight to clear my head.

A Blatz from the past

I'm from Milwaukee, and I ought to know.

Another 'first 90 days' to be a hero

You knew the job was dangerous when you took it. But congratulations! You survived the first 90 days.

No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy, and no onboarding plan survives the first day on the job. Helmuth von Moltke's Franco-Prussian War insight was that strategy is based on success of the tactics. On my return to full-time marketing, my first campaign inevitably would be to learn what I'd gotten myself into.

Whenever I take a new job the reconnaissance seems to get longer. There are many interviews; in one case the first review panel came only after beers with the team. (Fortunately this did not progress to tacos and tequilas.) As my circle of job coaches grows wider, I also get earfuls of advice before and after I accept the offer.

This time I also was armed with The First 90 Days, Michael Watkins' framework for how to hit the ground running. It struck a few chords—some reminders of jobs past, some warnings of jobs pending.

Does purpose marketing cut it?

Today we start a new year in a more resolute age. People want to change the world, even when a shave is as close as they can get.

Gillette is grooming men, with or without razors. It brought the year's sharpest marketing idea with the 2019 Super Bowl ad blitz, and its most hotly debated.

Gillette's literal breakthrough, disrupting a morning shaving scene, was a parade of bullies, hecklers and sexists. Men in the Gillette ad take stock of these fools on the march, look at themselves in the shaving mirror and place themselves in the scene, interruptors taking back the power. Setting the jerks straight. Teaching their children. Being mature. "It's only by challenging ourselves that we can get closer to our best," the script concludes.

What's going on here? Procter & Gamble is still selling razors—it's always good for grooming products to use the word "closer," no matter the context. What confounded many viewers was the pitch to young men, and for that matter young women, as they sort out their new roles in the #MeToo experience.

Gillette's 2-minute spot, too pricey for Super Bowl airing, made a bold (and yet awkward) offer to set them straight not just with shaving, but also with those other adult things. It's betting that the way to a man's heart is through what he can stomach. Welcome to purpose marketing.

P&G brands are all in on purpose. P&G's feminine hygiene product Always made a Gillette-style pivot on the phrase "like a girl." Tide introduced a plant-based detergent, and Dawn washed oil-slick ducklings. Still, most household goods makers seemed to nap while P&G stayed woke.