CRM, it’s dirty and you want it…

While on the subject of television adverts and the Sugar event, I’ve always had great respect for the way that Unilever has marketed Pot Noodle. Pot Noodle emerged in the late 70’s as a convenient instant snack. By rights the healthy eating revolution of the new millennium should perhaps have killed it off as a product. While, in common with other perhaps less healthy food options, it might have resorted to the 50% less fat, reduced salt, added vitamins and fibre, approach, Unilever were happy to call a spade a spade. There was no attempt to suggest Pot Noodle to be a healthy option; quite the reverse, the company was happy to play on it’s image and position it, through a series of largely non-PC adverts, as an illicit vice, with catch lines such as ‘it’s dirty and you want it’.

I mention this because I feel there are times that CRM vendors are best advised to position their product based on how people actually perceive it rather than what the vendor might like it to be. Sitting through a presentation by the Sugar product manager at the CRM Acceleration event I wondered why the prime positioning seemed to be around the ease of use of the product. The reasoning was: most CRM implementations fail (can’t find fault with that) because CRM software has never been easy enough to use. This incidentally is the line every non enterprise vendor has been trotting out since non enterprise CRM vendors first started launching CRM software.

This approach is flawed for two reasons. One, it’s simply wrong. CRM implementations fail, not because in the main technology is difficult to use, but because CRM vendors have largely ignored the vital process and people dimensions of implementing CRM technology. Secondly, the point of positioning should be to differentiate your product, and when everybody occupies the ‘it’s easy to use space’ it’s becomes meaningless.

Would I consider Sugar as an option for a client? Yes, absolutely. Would I do it because it’s easy to use? No. Sugar’s a great option, because in our credit crunched world you get a heck of a lot of CRM functionality at a very aggressive price point. If I was the Sugar CRM product manager I’d take a leaf from Unilever’s book and position the product based on how people really perceive it. And perhaps ‘it’s cheap and you want it’ might not be a bad tag line either.