David Caruso wouldn't be a good marketer.....

I have a lot of guilty pleasures.

One of them is CSI Miami. I am not sure why I still watch the show since it doesn’t captivate me in the way a really good show should but there are a few things that keep me coming back for more.

One is that I love that we are to believe that at a crime scene all a CSI needs to do is spray an aerosol can of stuff into a car and they will magically get the height, weight, age, skin tone and annual salary of the person who was driving......and the other is David Caruso and his magic sunglasses.

I was thinking about David Caruso’s magic sunglasses last night and how they relate to Marketing. I admit this is a bit of a stretch but bear with me till the end.

Good/Great marketing or advertising happens when people take the time to really understand their target market. This involves going beyond just the statistics but to do some real world talking to folks and getting real opinions. I have written about companies in the past who employ celebrities to endorse their products even thought the celebrity is a bad fit...well this wouldn’t happen if people just took the time to talk to people. Personal connections and networking is such an important tool in career development so why wouldn't you use the same concepts to gather information. Asking people in casual conversations what they like and what they don't like is IMHO a far more honest and valuable tool to get real world information to what people want....since....well....you are asking real people.

Some marketers rush to judgement, make quick decisions, and walk away. This is not different from when David Caruso’s character (and yes I realize it is a TV character) Horatio Cane delivers one of his snappy one liners, puts on his magic sunglasses and walks away....heck an even further comparison can be made to the fact that Horatio never really looks at people but rather squints and looks over your or past you.

For really great marketing to happen people need to step back, look people in the eye and get to know who they are and how these people want to be spoken to and marketed to.......because if you made bad assumptions you will not only create marketing that doesn’t work but you may also find yourself in a car with a guy who is pointing a gun at you because you thought he was someone he wasn’t.....just like on the last episode of CSI Miami!

Still not sure what I am talking about?

Well then watch this.......



-saul