Rational Marketing

BNET posted an article about clarifying your corporate mission based on a post from a Harvard Business Review blog.

The idea began with a story about Clare Booth Luce, the playwright, journalist, and Republican Member of Congress. In 1962, Luce met with President Kennedy, who was, at the time, pursuing an ambitious agenda domestically and overseas. She worried about his diffuse priorities. “A great man,” she advised him, “is one sentence.” President Lincoln’s sentence was obvious: “He preserved the union and freed the slaves.” So was FDR’s: “He lifted us out of a great depression and helped us win a world war.” What, Luce challenged the young, impatient president, was to be his sentence?

Here are some examples of simple clear corporate sentences:

Google: “We organize the word’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

NASA: “To understand and protect our home planet, to explore the Universe and search for life, and to inspire the next generation of explorers.”

National Geographic Society: “Increase and diffuse geographic knowledge while promoting the conservation of the world’s cultural, historical and natural resources.”

Virgin Atlantic: “To grow a profitable airline where people love to fly and where people love to work.”

Toyota North America, pledges: “To attract and attain customers with high-valued products and services and the most satisfying ownership experience in America.”

This statement says nothing about what the company actually sells — cars and trucks — but puts customer satisfaction at the heart of everything it does. Time will tell if this pulls Toyota through its current troubles.

The ideas are simple, is it enough to be pretty good at everything? You have to be the most of something: the most elegant, the most colorful, the most responsive, the most focused. This is a potent thought, should you test your own company’s mission against it?

Dean’s Mailing & List Services: To help organizations save every tenth of a cent on marketing costs with our experience and expertise because we care about people.

How would you express your company’s mission, values and aspirations — in one sentence? Talk to us, we are great at asking the right questions that lead to answers and new solutions.