Groupon is hoping for a $20 billion valuation in its coming IPO. Yes, the company is growing fast, but as I wrote last month its business model is suspect.

And now, in addition to Amazon-backed Living Social, a host of niche competitors are nibbling at Groupon’s heels. More significantly, both Google and Facebook are getting into the online couponing game. Analysts still give Groupon the edge because it has a head start in developing a big national sales force, but that’s also suspect.

With their immense daily traffic, Google and Facebook don’t need a distributed sales force. They’ve both managed to build pretty good ad businesses without one, and there’s no reason why getting small businesses to offer coupons would be any different from getting them to buy pay-per-click ads. It may be even easier, as there are few things retailers tend to be tempted by more by than the lure of discount-driven traffic.

Perhaps Groupon has an end game that hasn’t yet been revealed. But anybody who invests in the company based on its current lead in the digital-deals mania should consider how gold rushes tend to end.

Dan Neil writes the “Rumble Seat” column for The Wall Street Journal. He’s the automotive reviewer for one of the biggest and most respected publications in the nation. When an automaker launches a new model, they want Dan’s blessing. Unfortunately, they don’t always get it.

In a review of the new four-door Countryman entitled, “What Part of ‘Mini’ Did You Not Grasp, BMW?” Neil provides another terrific example of why a brand–even an iconic brand like Mini–can’t (and shouldn’t try to) please everyone. To make the point, allow me to quote the column at length:

Indeed, whatever a Mini is, its appeal is leveraged precisely on the very fulcrum of its smallness. It defines itself: Mini. A Mini is a car that is bandy, diminutive and urbane, which is to say, good on gas and easy to park. A Mini is a car that is darty, maneuverable, fun, quick, a twinkle-toed halfling dancing among the golems of the road. Mini is a design-forward, fun and premium brand delivered in a subcompact size.

At the risk of being puritanical, it seems to me that sometimes car companies have to walk away from the short-term expedience of a few thousand sales, or even a few tens of thousands of sales, to protect the meaning, the truth, the inner logic of a brand. Mini has spent years selling itself as automotive counterprogramming, and now it’s acting like every other car maker with white space to fill. But if any brand is hidebound, it’s Mini. Even Aristotle says so. The first rule of reasoning is the rule of noncontradiction: “The same attribute cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject in the same respect.” In other words, you can’t be a big Mini.

Worst of all, the Countryman trades away a degree of Mini’s inimitable driving character for a mere four doors and cargo space. Hey, I can get four slammers and a boot anywhere. What I can’t get is a car that drives like it wants to be snorted through a rolled-up C-note.

Witness the affection with which Neil speaks of the Mini brand, and the disappointment he feels as he sees it drifting from its core. One last quote sums it up well: “My dissatisfaction is a sort of tribute. So distinctive and memorable is driving experience of the smaller Cooper S—nutty, fervid, kart-like—that anything less feels like a betrayal.”

No brand can please everyone. Don’t try to.

I’m a big believer in research, when it’s done right. Which, in the marketing and advertising business, isn’t always the case. Too often researchers put on scientific airs while ignoring the scientific method, publishing tables and reports that impress as much for their heft as for their preachy (and occasionally incorrect) conclusions.*

Magazine ad recall studies are often a case in point. I recently received one from a publication in which we ran an ad for one of our clients. Don’t get me started on the flaws in methodology (there are many); what I found so entertaining were the verbatim comments that were included in the study’s appendix.

This is not sour grapes, mind you. Our ad actually performed very well according to this study, and positive comments outweighed the negative. Here are a few examples:

• Great ad. Very effective. It’s interesting looking so it made me take a second look.
• Simple layout. Conveys just the right amount of information about the company and their product. 
• This is the most perfect ad about (product)! Humor, art, and fun with a machine! Great. 
• Funny, appealing, modern ad. Pulls you in to read about it. 
• I really like this ad. In fact it makes me smile. 
• Very effective and interesting. Message received!

Not bad, eh? Well, get a load of what some of the haters said:

• Didn’t get my attention. 
• Show the product! (we didn’t)
• Needs improvements. 
• Only negative would be that visually the solid blue background not as appealing. 

Show the product, don’t show the product. I really like it, didn’t get my attention. Great ad, needs improvement. Push me, pull you. What’s an advertiser to do?

Hang tight, that’s what. We work diligently with our clients to understand their target audiences, craft their brand identities, and create integrated marketing strategies that will get them attention in the marketplace. The fact that a handful of people don’t understand or appreciate any given execution is, well, the way life is. It happens to the best of ads and the best of brands.

If there’s one thing we can all learn from master marketers, it’s that you can’t please everyone. Try to do so and you may get no attention at all.

*There are a number of highly reputable market research firms with which my advertising agency has a very good working relationship.

Today’s post is from Emily Griebel, an Integration Architect at McKee Wallwork & Company. Emily leads our Integration Architecture practice and is responsible for ensuring our clients’ marketing plans are seamlessly interwoven. If you’re interested in an audit of your marketing plan, you can reach her at EGriebel@mwcmail.com, or @MWCemily on Twitter.

What is a true integrated marketing plan?

“Integration” and “integrated marketing” are two popular (read: over-used) buzzwords in the marketing world these days. Agencies boast to prospects about how integrated and comprehensive their scope of services is (despite the fact that most of the time it leaves much to be desired). Client companies too often seek in vain for one agency that can serve all of their needs – brand strategy, advertising, digital, social, mobile, promotional, PR, etc. Through it all, the magic “integration” word gets tossed around like a rag doll in a clothes dryer.

But what does integrated marketing really mean? What does an integrated plan look like? How does it act? What are the requirements for a truly integrated program?

Every agency and every client company may answer these questions differently, because there is no one right answer; or said differently, there is no single answer that applies to every brand. That said, at McKee Wallwork & Company, we judge the success of an integrated campaign based on four criteria:

1. Objective – are all of your marketing communications serving the same business goal?

2. Breadth – are you reaching your target audience through each stage of the buying life cycle across multiple channels?

3. Connections – are your marketing tactics aligned and working together well?

4. Theme – do each of your messages demonstrate one central idea?

If you answered “no” to any of the above, then your marketing plans are probably not well-integrated. If, however, you answered “yes” to all four, then you are well on your way. You’ve found a way to hash through the marketing jungle and seed a program that, nourished properly, will produce an abundant crop.

In our experience, we’ve found that creating a seamlessly interwoven marketing plan that ensures unified encounters for your target across all media is very difficult. Not impossible, but difficult.  It requires hard work, patience and discipline to create an integrated plan that is:

• Focused on meeting one, central business objective
• Cognizant of the stages and places at which your target may experience your brand
• Aware that every customer takes a unique journey with your brand and each leg of the journey must guide her to the correct destination
• Solely focused on bringing one idea to life

Every day we help our clients develop and maintain solid brand strategies and marketing plans that are truly integrated – meaning that their efforts are long-term, organized, purposeful, strategic, measurable and adaptable. It’s not easy, but when we nail the challenge it’s very rewarding–for them and us.

You may have noticed that the When Growth Stalls blog has been rechristened. We’re excited about the change and want to share with you why we decided to make it.

When When Growth Stalls was released two years ago, the recession was raging. Having to submit the final manuscript to the publisher was frustrating because every day new headlines about companies struggling with the destructive internal dynamics I highlighted in the book appeared. What better way, I thought, to apply our knowledge and insights in real time to companies like these than through a blog? It proved to be that and more, with no shortage of issues, organizations, people and strategies (both brilliant and boneheaded) on which to opine.

The groundbreaking research behind the book has significantly enhanced the value our firm provides its clients, and we have incorporated our findings into our integrated brand marketing approach to better serve the companies that have since found their way to our door. But one of the many things our research revealed is that stalled, stuck and stale brands are never in short supply–and can often benefit from new perspective. That’s what this blog is about.

Readers of When Growth Stalls continue to tell me how relevant the book is, and if you haven’t read it yet I encourage you to pick up a copy (you can link to Amazon right from this page). But as our practice continues to evolve (with book #2 in the works), we thought it fitting to rename the blog now.

Two years ago, nobody expected our economic difficulties to drag on this long. But even when times improve, some companies will continue to struggle. If you’re one of them, I hope you’ll reach out to us. If you’re not sure (or not yet ready to admit it), feel free to peruse old posts and come back as often as you like. We may have changed the name, but our purpose remains steadfast: to be a friend to brands that need one.