Turning a CMG into a Marigold...(Your Guess Is as Good as Mine)
And headless stones by the fire...
Hello Gobbledeers,
How’s it going?
Let’s start today with a hypothetical.
Let’s imagine you’re a CEO.
(Congrats!)
Now let’s imagine you’re the CEO of a struggling stationary bike slash media company slash retailer slash treadmill seller slash treadmill recaller slash pandemic darling slash post-pandemic not darling.
(Fewer congrats.)
Your head of marketing left and you need to replace that head of marketing.
Do you:
a) Think to yourself, “Y’know, there’s so many great marketers out there, I’m going to make sure that, after my stock has dropped 95%, I reassure the market of my decision-making ability and take the no-drama-Obama approach and hire someone who has built a great marketing team at a normal, regular company. Like specifically make sure that the person does not come from an actual on-fire company run by a lunatic richest-man-on-earth type where it will only draw attention to that fact rather than how good a marketer that hire is.”
or
b) Hire the head of marketing from Twitter.
You probably said, “A,” right?
That’s why you’re not the CEO.
I Know, I Know - Catch-22 Already Covered This
As I’ve mentioned before, my father is involved in the Coast Guard Auxiliary (so don’t pull any crap in the waters off New Jersey, fellas), and he received the following email (lightly edited), which - after much discussion between me and my father - appears to be asking him to swap out a new handbook for an old handbook:
Subject Line: PROMULGATION OF THE AUXILIARY BOAT CREW QUALIFICATION AND TRAINING HANDBOOKS
A. Auxiliary Boat Crew Qualification Handbook, LIGR 34234.2
B. Auxiliary Training Handbook – Boat Crew, NGJ 9324.24
C. Auxiliary Boat Crew Qualification Handbook, NDJK 3423.3
D. Auxiliary Training Handbook – Boat Crew, JIL 98749.234
1. This ALAUX announces the cancellation of references (A and B), and the promulgation of references (C and D). This is an update to ALAUX 041/22, Promulgation of the Auxiliary Training Handbook – Boat Crew, LIGR 34234.2 and ALAUX 042/22, Promulgation of the Auxiliary Boat Crew Qualification Handbook – Boat Crew, JIL 98749.234.
I’m not sure which of you software homepage writers created that email, but bravo.
It’s Marigold, Jerry, Gold!
I saw a press release from a company called CM Group announcing that they changed their name to Marigold.
I’m rather fascinated with companies changing their names. It’s a thing the head of marketing can do that doesn’t involve meeting with their Marketo admin to set up funnel tracking, so I see why it’s appealing.
Yet, studies have shown that changing the company name can have a negative impact, so while it makes for a great vanity project, in many cases it achieves that opposite of what you want it to achieve.
(Side note: Here’s a study that digs into this a bit more. The very short version is that companies that change their names completely - rather than modifying it - perform the worst over time. There are legitimate reasons a company may want to change a name - I worked for a company called Triggermail that, uh, did triggered email, and when it wanted to expand beyond that it became Bluecore, a perfectly innocuous new name. I would suggest to startup founders that they don’t put themselves in a box with their name, as changing the name later is a royal pain in the ass. Unless your name is already Box. Or Dropbox. Or Boxed. Or Boxever. Or Boxshop. Or Boxee. )
In any case, the CM Group changed its name to Marigold, and I thought I would find out (for you, the reader, natch) what CM Group is and why it changed its name, because I am a moron and assumed that they would take this opportunity (the opportunity presented by changing their name) to clarify what they did so that when people saw the press release that they so carefully crafted to drive traffic to their website, they would know exactly what the company does.
So of course that’s not what happened because, y’know, software marketing.
Let’s take a look:
Rooted in Deep Industry Expertise, Marigold Unites World-Class, Fit-for-Purpose Marketing Solutions across the Full Customer Lifecycle that Build Loyal Customer Connections for Over 40,000 Global Brands, from SMB to Enterprise
No.
No no.
Also, “more than 40,000” not “over 40,000.”
But also, no.
Customers are already benefiting from the collective power and force multiplication of Marigold’s full-solution portfolio, which is accelerating innovation across all Marigold products and making market-leading developments available to customers faster.
Collective power and force multiplication.
The unveiling of Marigold represents the next stage in CM Group’s strategic growth plan to deliver specialized, cross-channel relationship marketing solutions that support marketers across the full consumer lifecycle by providing personalization at scale, interactive digital experiences and loyalty programs across industries.
[Where’s the ‘sad face’ emoji?]
They then quote the CEO, and I will bet 300 million marigolds that these words have never emanated from the mouth of anyone:
“We are thrilled to introduce Marigold, which perfectly reflects who we are and why we exist: to drive growth for our customers. By nature, marigolds are growth catalysts for other plants, and as Marigold we are focused on partnering with our customers to help stimulate their growth,” said Wellford Dillard, CEO of Marigold. “As a global pioneer in relationship marketing, our vision has always been about bringing together the most powerful, best-in-class relationship marketing solutions across email, mobile and loyalty for brands of all shapes and sizes to build long-lasting customer relationships. Marigold is proud to be leading from the front during the largest digital and martech transformation in history.”
Marigolds are growth catalysts for other plants.
Here’s a mildly amusing aside…when I was going to look for CM Group’s website, it turns out that (oddly enough), there’s another CM Group (I get a CM Group! You get a CM Group!). And they also have a gobbledy website:
Actually, maybe that’s the same CM Group?
And Finally…Count the Metaphors
A fireside headless stepping stone.
This week’s column couldn’t have been written without the Gobbledy readers who sent me all of the above silliness. Thank you - please keep sending me this stuff you find out there in the wild.
And after spending time with a client last week working with them on a new messaging plan, I was reminded how much you should hire me to do the same for you :). I’m at jared@sagelett.com. I won’t bite.
Thanks for reading and sharing - I really do love hearing from the Gobbledeers.