T A B L E__T A L K Who pays off the debt that's brought into a marriage? Share your views on marital bliss and financial solvency in the Business and Personal Finance area of Table Talk   Search for business, personal finance and more at barnesandnoble.com Search by:  Keyword Title Author     R E C E N T L Y Epidemic of extravagance By Heather Chaplin Economist Robert H. Frank has written a painstakingly researched new book offering a cure to our destructive love of luxury, but will anybody listen? (02/19/98) Van Gogh Inc. By Larry Kanter You've seen the paintings. Now buy the lunch box (02/12/99) House flash By Heather Chaplin If you're struck with the biological urge to own a home, consider first whether it's a good time to buy (02/05/98) The Jordan Effect: What's race got to do with it? By Leon Wynter The colorblind world depicted by Madison Avenue isn't our racial reality yet -- but it's a step in the right direction (01/29/99) E-commerce: Don't believe the hype By Heather Chaplin Online shopping leaves me frustrated, bored and feeling like a schmo (01/22/98) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Money feature archives		LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, PLEASE WELCOME ... THE GRATEFUL CAPITALISTS! | PAGE 1, 2 - - - - - - - - - - But you don't have to be a rock 'n' roller to be radical. Dayton, Ohio-based Iams Co., for example, transformed the way people purchase pet food with a similar approach. Before the 1980s, most pet owners were content to buy a bag of Dog Chow or 9-Lives off the supermarket shelf. But Iams ignored the traditional distribution channels. Preaching the gospel of animal nutrition, the company convinced hundreds of thousands of consumers to stop at the pet store instead -- and pay as much as three times as much as the supermarket brand. Rather than painstaking market research and mass advertising, Iams did it by going on the road and plying the gatekeepers with free samples -- targeting the vets, kennel owners and breeders who hold tremendous sway over what the nation's 70 million cats and 57 million dogs eat each night for dinner. "We think of ourselves as missionaries, out there saving the world's dogs and cats," Iams CEO Clay Mathile has said. Such zeal has generated impressive returns. From 1982 to 1997, sales have surged from $16 million to more than $500 million, making Iams one of the fastest growing companies in the $2 billion specialty pet food market. "Radical Marketing" abounds with such tales. Harley-Davidson reinvigorated its moribund brand and went from near-bankruptcy to a darling of Wall Street by slashing its advertising budget and creating a company-sponsored club of owners, ignoring the mass market and building on the passion of its customers instead. Snap-on Tools grabbed 60 percent market share and became a nearly $2 billion company by selling tools door to door to its core customer base of more than a million auto mechanics. Virgin Atlantic marketed fun and superior customer service, as personified by its charismatic CEO Richard Branson, becoming the second-largest long-haul carrier in Britain. They did it, according to Hill, by reaching out to their customers instead of simply trying to push their product on a gullible public. Because of their visceral ties to a specific audience, radical marketers have been able to skip such complex and expensive steps as market research, he says. "It's all about collecting your money over the life of the relationship, instead of on a transaction-by-transaction basis," Hill says. And it's a far cry from traditional marketing, which is "homogenized, aimed right at the middle. It thinks of consumers as objects. It's very clinical and separated from the consumer." Getting close to the customer is one of the key rules of radical marketing. (This is a business book, after all, with the same kinds of blueprints for change seen in most self-help tomes.) Other rules include placing the CEO at the center of the marketing function; keeping the marketing department small and lean; hiring only passionate missionaries; creating a community of consumers; using market research cautiously; and valuing the brand above the bottom line. If all this sounds more common-sensical than radical, you probably haven't spent much time in traditional corporate marketing departments or business schools. Despite its reputation as a "creative" business, the advertising and marketing industries actually can be as conservative as they come, populated by experts who apply the same well-worn formulas, whether they are selling soap or soda pop. Traditional marketing departments tend to be large and highly bureaucratic. In many cases, a brand manager can be six or seven layers removed from the consumer he or she is supposed to serve. Indeed, many traditional marketers shun consumer contact altogether, dismissing it as anecdotal, "kitchen-sink" research, and instead look for insight in the spreadsheets generated by complex focus groups and market-research projects. And to say that cynicism consistently trumps sincerity would be something of an understatement, according to Hill. He recalls being in a meeting at a large corporate consumer goods manufacturer (which he refused to name) where one of the young brand managers referred to her market as "trailer trash." "Statistically, she was right," Hill says. "But her voice dropped with disdain. That's traditional marketing at its worst." Considering the cultural gap between the traditional and the radical, it's little surprise that Hill's approach has yet to be embraced by corporate America. While some of his clients have found his notions provocative, Hill says most marketing managers seem threatened by the radical approach. "Their hackles go up -- I mean, most of these guys have spent their entire career defending their ad budgets," Hill says. But time may be on Hill's side. Indeed, as a result of the revolution in telecommunications, the world is growing more "radical" by the minute, at least as far as marketing is concerned. Cable TV and the Internet are shaving the mass market into ever smaller slices, and traditional marketers may have no choice but to get radical. This year's Super Bowl, the Holy Grail for consumer products advertisers, for example, attracted fewer viewers than last year -- but advertisers spent a record $1.6 million for a 30-second spot. Such diminishing returns may not stay tolerable for long. Who knows, says Hill. Perhaps in a decade or so, his book will be rereleased under a new title: "Traditional Marketing." "The world is a big place and all sorts of different business models work," he says. "Increasingly, you're going to see some of this get infiltrated into the mainstream." SALON | Feb. 26, 1999 Larry Kanter is senior reporter at the Los Angeles Business Journal.