From time to time I run across a book that tells the tale of a Company That Has Lost Its Way. Where’s The Sausage is just such a book. It is about building brands based on what the company actually makes-as opposed to the emotions that it invokes. So that a Portrait Studio might think about the quality of it’s Photography and not We’re Making Memories. Which, of course, is the exact opposite of all the advice you find in most marketing books. Here the product is a mythical sausage, which is not as good as it once was, but can rise from the ashes with a bit of help.
There is something very appealing about the idea of getting back to core values, but even that sounds too Marketish for Where’s The Sausage. It’s a fun read-the story of a man thrust into the Marketing dept to promoting a sausage pizza he doesn’t believe in or even like. On the way he discovers that the company’s real strength is in- wait for it- sausages. He then has to find someone to support his plan to refocus on sausage and get the money to promote his vision of Real Organic Sausages. There are a number of companies in England, where the book is set, which do in fact brag about the wholesome goodness of their fine meat products.
But for me, the book really hits home in that I work for a Big Heartless Corporation which is slowly spinning around the drain. We don’t sell sausages, we sell photos, and it is a tougher business than it used to be when my company was King of The World lo these many years ago. Like the company in the book, our bosses want to do everything but support their core business. Which is a bit depressing for those of us on the front lines.
The hero of Where’s The Sausage owes his ultimate success to having made friends with a Member of The Board of Directors of his Sausage Company-it is pretty unlikely that I will be making friends in Upper Management any time soon. Which is one of the bits of advice in Where’s The Sausage, without help from Top Management you really can’t expect to change anything.
Which is a bit of downer, as it narrows the readership of the book a bit. If your a front line check-out clerk at Wal-Mart the odds of your being buddies with one of the Waltons is pretty damned slim-so even if you have a dead brilliant idea-who will bother to listen to you?
But maybe there is still hope for smaller outfits with a few less layers of dead weight management to go through. Reading Never Mind The Sizzle…Where’s The Sausage is fun and hopeful, but ultimately depressing. I can’t see any real world application of these brilliant ideas, unless you happen to be buddies with the Chairman of the Board-in which case you are likely part of the problem and not part of the solution anyway.
