{"id":13303,"date":"2018-12-22T06:30:25","date_gmt":"2018-12-22T14:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/?p=13303"},"modified":"2018-12-22T06:30:25","modified_gmt":"2018-12-22T14:30:25","slug":"why-scrooge-shouldve-been-sued-for-marketing-malpractice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/why-scrooge-shouldve-been-sued-for-marketing-malpractice\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Scrooge Should&#8217;ve Been Sued For Marketing Malpractice"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Many years ago, I first heard the term:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cmarketing malpractice\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The great Gary Bencivenga said it while being interviewed by the great Ken McCarthy. And, I got to thinking about it recently while watching my favorite version of the movie \u201cA Christmas Carol.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Specifically, how it applies to Scrooge.<\/p>\n<p>He is built up as some kind of smart &amp; shrewd (if not greedy &amp; miserly) business man.<\/p>\n<p>But, I think he was more of a business dingbat.<\/p>\n<p>And, here are a few reasons why:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Afraid to spend money \u2014<\/strong> As I have heard the great Dan Kennedy teach over and over and over\u2026 the wealthiest of his clients never look for ways to save money or get their postage or marketing costs down\u2026 they look for ways to spend MORE, to get a clear and hard-to-knock off competitive advantage. Think companies like Disney, for example. But Scrooge? He\u2019s such a tightwad he\u2019d probably drive a day out of his way to save a few cents per gallon on gas.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Takes credit for stuff he didn\u2019t do \u2014<\/strong> In the version of the story I was watching\u2026 the Ghost of Christmas Present waves his horn at angry people and they stop being angry, and stop wanting to fight. When he does to it to a couple guys about to come to blows, the ghost says \u201cWe stopped that fight, didn\u2019t we?\u201d And Scrooge, who did nothing, agrees, \u201cWe sure did, didn\u2019t we!\u201d What a bum.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Makes his employees miserable \u2014<\/strong> Scrooge goes out of his way to be as evil as he can to his employee. Which is just idiotic. As I heard \u201cfor real\u201d Mad Man era-advertising genius Walter Bregman once tell Dan Kennedy in an interview (about today\u2019s advertising agencies): \u201cWhen the penalty for failure outweighs the rewards for success the result is mediocrity.\u201d Anyone who wants mediocre talent working for them is not someone to emulate, but to look at as what not to do.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Thinks he can buy loyalty and forgiveness \u2014<\/strong> I may very well have missed it, but in the version of the story I watched, Scrooge never once asks for forgiveness from the people (like Bob Cratchet) he tormented, kept in perpetual \u201cfight or flight\u201d mode\u2026 and made completely scared, miserable, and worried 24\/7. Instead, he just buys the kids presents, throws money around, and thinks he can buy that forgiveness. Bah humbug.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Is a breathing spreadsheet \u2014<\/strong> Scrooge has zero regard for the intangibles that make a business work, that can\u2019t be tracked, measured, or scaled. Like, for example, his personal brand (which is about as attractive as a rotting fish\u2026), his lack of approachability (even I am approachable by email, but Scrooge is, well, someone people avoid like the Bigfoot apocalypse plague\u2026), and his crap reputation as an employer (i.e. why would the best and brightest want to work for him, knowing he\u2019s an arsehole and pays the bare minimum salary he can get away with).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The point?<\/p>\n<p>Scrooge is an awful businessman to model or emulate.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, that\u2019s my opinion.<\/p>\n<p>And, not only is it my opinion, it just happens to be a fact, too\u2026<\/p>\n<p>To get in on the January \u201cEmail Players\u201d issue, go here:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.EmailPlayers.com\"><strong>www.EmailPlayers.com<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Ben Settle<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many years ago, I first heard the term: \u201cmarketing malpractice\u201d The great Gary Bencivenga said it while being interviewed by the great Ken McCarthy. And, I got to thinking about it recently while watching my favorite version of the movie \u201cA Christmas Carol.\u201d Specifically, how it applies to Scrooge. He is built up as some [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13303","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-email-marketing"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13303\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}