Say Ahh…

What do you say when you go to see your doctor?

Would you say something like: “Doctor, I need an open heart surgery?”

Probably not. It’s more likely you’ll start with: “Doctor, I have a pain in my chest”.

That’s because telling you what you need is the doctor’s job and in most cases he won’t come up with the answer right there on the spot.

He’ll probably ask some questions first and try to understand the cause of your problem. He might examine you or even ask you to go through, and pay for, some health checks before giving you a diagnosis.

Only after reading your symptoms and getting some necessary information, will he let you know whether you need to reduce your cholesterol level or start looking for a donor.

I believe this procedure is true not only for doctors but for marketeers as well.

Like doctors we start with a problem, not with a solution.

We’d like our “patients” to say: “We need to reach generation Y” (problem) instead of: “We need a viral campaign” (solution).

So, when you go to see your marketeer you (and him) don’t yet realize what your brand needs. It can be a blog, a podcasts or a guerrilla campaign.

The truth is we won’t know until we examine the brand and run some tests.

Reading the data from these tests will help us to come up with a strategy and to recommend how your brand should move forward.

Whatever you do, don’t play doctor on your brand.

It only takes one nasty viral to make your users sick of you.