For those who aren’t familiar with the phrase, we at FutureNow define Unique Value Proposition as: The brief, memorable phrase that concisely and powerfully describes the value of your business and creates excitement in the prospect.  The value proposition is not a slogan or a phrase designed for advertising, although that is one potential use for it.  Instead, its purpose is to answer the prospect’s implicit question, “Why should I do business with you and not somebody else?”

If you haven’t yet developed, tested, and optimized a Unique Value Proposition, bookmark this post and stop reading. Go read this and this.  Oh, this one is good, too

If you do have a solid UVP already developed and placed on your homepage and other important landing pages, let’s get down to the business of taking your UVP to the next level!

Homepages and landing pages aren’t the only place where your UVP needs to do some persuading.  There’s a whole, entire experience with your company (marketing touch points, landing pages, conversion experiences, post-purchase support, etc.) that can and should emanate your UVP so that it can be felt through every second a prospect or customer spends with you.  That, of course, will help with the “memorable” part of the UVP definition.

Here are a just a few ways in which your UVP could “cascade” across the user experience:

• phone on-hold messaging
• marketing/merchandising/promotions
• email signatures from employees
• site navigation
• site graphics
• blog theme

If you have a UVP, does it currently inform design and optimization decisions?  Do your graphic designers and copywriters have it in front of them wherever they work?  How about Marketing, does the UVP find its way into promotions so they’re not run-of-the-mill?

Let’s look at some random ideas from real UVPs, and brainstorm on how businesses could leverage them across a holistic site experience.

These are paraphrased and excerpted from real UVPs out there on the Web.  [Disclosure: most of these come from present or past FutureNow clients.]

“…family owned and operated…” — Sure, this can differentiate.  It would be cool to see this “family” concept cascading across the site design with family member bios, in the About Us section, and maybe even through some humor, e.g. ‘Help us settle a family argument by picking your favorite of our new product line.’

“…guiding clients through the admissions maze…” — I like the mental image of a ‘maze,’ so there are lots of ways that could be incorporated into various graphics through the site.  And copy could play a part, too.  Imagine a confirmation message that says, ‘Congratulations.  You’re one step closure to making it out of the maze.’

“…enhance your relationships, finances, and spiritual life…” — 3 is always the magic number, so building these 3 aspects of life into a ‘trinity’ graphic showing the words and icons in perfect harmony could be very persuasive.  And it would make sense to have site navigation reflect these as categories.

“…what if understanding men could be easy?” — Using the ‘what if’ approach can be very persuasive, so imagine how a good designer and copywriter could team up to build that theme across an entire site?

“…connect to a thriving community of designers…” — Being able to connect with a ‘thriving community’ of any kind is compelling, but how to express that and substantiate it?  A ‘ticker’ could display every time a new member signed up for a community, or posted a comment, etc.  And graphics could be used to further enhance that feeling of thriving community.

This was just a one-sided brainstorm, so perhaps not the best quality, but hopefully they spark some ideas as to how you can work your own UVP further into the fabric of your online business.

Leave us a comment with any examples of companies you feel are executing on this concept in an elegant way.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Now I’ll be the first to admit: normally this sort of humor is right up my alley — I’m the one in the FutureNow office who sees “giggle-value” every time a new iPhone flatulence app comes along — but seeing this as an advertisement was funny the first time, and each time I re-watched I became less and less enthusiastic and more and more offended. What’s next? Shall we be subjected to Dunkin’ Donuts Butt Munchkins?

I’m guessing most people would be offended by this ad. But leave personal sense of what qualifies as funny aside for a moment, and consider: At the end of the day, the purpose of the ad is to sell more product. Perhaps in this case one might argue the real focus is on creating product awareness, so that at some point in the future I *might* try the product. Either way, I’m dubious as to whether the ad does anything more than make me aware of Hardee’s new product but lacking the inducement to act.

Did you watch the video? What’s the actual product name? As I wrote this post,  I had viewed the video 8 times, but actually cannot recall the product name since my mind wants to refer to it as “Hardee’s B-holes”. Now there’s an anti-inducer.

What do you think? Offensive, or just puerile humor (not that there’s anything wrong with that, fellow South Park fans!). And what does it say when the more times the audience is exposed to the marketing, the less likely the viewer is to choose the product, or even remember its name?

On June 18th, I posted a conversion rate exercise on this blog. Two simple exercises to help others understand why they should do business with you. Several people emailed me examples of what they did. However, I did want to point out two companies that took this “free” advice seriously and implemented it.

The first are my buddies from the segmentation, targeting and personalization platform extraordinaire, Monetate. They were at the Internet Retailer Trade show when they saw this exercise and realized how powerful the TwitterVP is in explaining to attendees what they do.

Empowers segmenting of traffic, targeting offers and messages to personalize the site experience, increasing conversion and AOV with zero I.T.

This is pretty solid! But more impressive was the second exercise about the “25 interesting things about you” which they turned into “25 Online Marketing Challenges You Can Meet and Beat with Monetate.” What do you think of this?

It makes me proud to be an advisor to Monetate because they took an idea and just executed it. I did not help them with this exercise at all.

A second example comes from renown photographer and educator Jim Miotke from BetterPhoto.com. He came up with several TwitterVPs and instead of just settling on one, he decided to ask his customers and followers to vote on it. Think that could generate some good word of mouth for his business of teaching photography?

Here are his choices: (if you care to vote, visit his BetterPhoto Jim Twitter profile).

Even if what they tried isn’t perfect, they now have a basis for continued experimenting and refining. But they got it done… have you?

If they are your competitors I’d watch out.

1. TweetVP – In 140 characters or less, tell me the value of doing business with you. What makes you different than your competitor? This is like writing your Unique Value Proposition or Unique Campaign Proposition, but you are limited to the number of characters, as if you were going to post it on Twitter. If you do a good job of this you could lower your bounce rates by putting this on every landing page.

2. 25 Interesting things about you – You may have seen this pass along on Facebook as people started to list the 25 interesting things about themselves. Do the same thing for your business and have several people involved in your business do the same. Then find the most interesting ones and use them on your About Us page. This will enhance your credibility by adding transparency into your company.

Good Luck! Feel free to share your results with us.

“I know you are very busy, but I would like your help. I have read your blog(s) about Unique Value Proposition over and over (and others too).  I am perplexed.  How do you distinguish between a Unique Value Propostion and tag line. For example Fedex, ‘When it absolutely positively has to be there overnight’ – tagline or UVP?
Your site ‘Keep Your Goals On Target: Increase Conversions, Get More Sales, and More Leads’ – is this your UVP? ‘Market Better’ – your tagline?

Could you help?  Maybe a blog on this.

Thanks.  I would really appreciate it.”

So Bryan and I thought we’d share my quick and dirty response to that question:

UVP is just a modification of the term, Unique Selling Proposition (USP), created by Rosser Reeves.  According to his book, Reality in Advertising, the requirements of a USP are:

“Each advertisement must make a proposition to the consumer. Each advertisement must say to the reader: ‘Buy this product, and you will get this specific benefit.’”

The proposition must be one that the competition either cannot, or does not, offer. It must be unique—either a uniqueness of brand or a claim not otherwise made in that particular field.

The proposition must be so strong that it can move the mass millions, i.e., pull over new customers to your product.”

Notice that there’s no requirement for a Unique Value (or Selling) Proposition to be pithy or memorable.  A UVP simply has to speak to the buyer in the language of the buyer about what matters to the buyer – in a way that differentiates your offer from everyone else’s.

But a tagline does have to be short and memorable.  Great taglines should incorporate or touch upon the UVP in the way that “Melts in your mouth, not in your hands” totally encapsulates the UVP of M&Ms.  Yet there are many taglines that don’t.

“We’re #2, we try harder” may be a great tagline, but it’s arguable as to whether or not it’s really (or still) a UVP.  It’s basically an implied claim of better service, and was likely only effective because of the “bold” admission (for it’s day) of an uncomfortable corporate truth.  Or at least that AND a lot of substantiating evidence (everyone remembers the  campaign but few ever mention the reality of improved service which accompanied that campaign).  Once the reality of better service went away, the UVP element of the tagline evaporated.  But the tagline remains.

On the not so great end of the spectrum, you’ve got “Quality is Job 1.”  Or “Fly the friendly skies.”  Or “I’m Lovin’ It”.  Bland corporate taglines that contain nary a hint of UVP.

In short, a reasonably substantiated answer to the question, “why do business with us and not the other guy,” is a  UVP.  A tagline could (and probably should) be a short, catchy summary of the UVP, but there are plenty of taglines that aren’t.

When Michael Lewis wrote his article on Coach Leach and the Texas Tech Football program, that program was known as an offensive powerhouse that relied on sheer scoring power to outgun opponents.  Its defense wasn’t mentioned in that article, and one can only guess the omission was intentional.  Just look at their game results against Texas and OSU for 2005-2008:

What you can see is that up to 2007, Texas Tech continually increased it’s offensive scoring, but to mixed results – because Texas and OSU still outscored them.  Texas Tech’s defense was losing these big games.  So immediately following his team’s 2007’s bitter loss to OSU, Coach Leach changed defensive coordinators.

And after that, well, you can see for yourself: Texas Tech is undefeated this season and the major game-changing difference in their match-ups against Texas and OSU wasn’t the ability to score more points, but to hold those other teams’ offenses to significantly fewer goals.

So what does this have to do with Web Optimization?

In tougher times, most companies reinforce their strengths; doing what’s worked well before.  But few are really willing to look at their organizational assumptions and weaknesses head-on.

In terms of web optimization for hard times, it might not be just a matter of improving website performance, it might be a matter of changing the offer.  Or changing the emotional appeal behind the offer.  Or the guarantees and risk-reversals that you’re using.

Roy Williams has addressed this issue over several Monday Morning Memos and I think his analysis and advice has only grown more relevant as the months have passed by:

• Expect more people to be hardheaded in judging value.
• Be willing to expand beyond your current comfort zone and offerings/marketing in order to reach and convert these skeptical, hard-nosed value shoppers.
• Expect stories and long copy to make products and services more saleable (faster to sell and more easily sold), but test very carefully before concluding they’ll allow you to sell them at higher prices.

So what about you and your Website: are you looking beyond what you’ve always done well?  What assumptions are you changing and what competitive weaknesses are you looking to shore up?

Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t this sound like the opposite of the effects competition is supposed to create?

Like us, many of you are frequent fliers and are concerned about these trends. So when Jeff Eisenberg pointed out a site that highlights the fees associated with this growing phenomenon of sacrificing service to maintain pricing, I thought I’d share it with you.

For me, this illustrates a couple of things.

1.) We have surpassed the number of elements it takes to trigger over-choice behavior (aka “analysis paralysis”). Before, it was just price, departure/arrival times, and brand that influenced our flight-booking decision. Now, with so many other factors involved — multiple bags, bag surcharges, seating, drinking, and the (in my eyes) completely unforgivable “minimum stays” United just announced — has caused consumers to be put in the position of having to make a very complex decisions, which typically causes people not to choose*. The way I see it, the airline industry is headed right back to the time of the travel agent, paying someone to make sense of the mess.

Unless the travel sites can quickly adapt and easily incorporate these new elements to their functionality.

2.) The airline industry is devoid of real positive differentiation and unwilling to compete beyond price. As Jeffery pointed out in our conversation, airlines will become completely dependent on their ability to market being the “least awful.” One Philadelphia newspapers even launched a spoof of this concept last week with ads for a fake airline called Derrie-Air, which supposedly charges passengers by the pound. (Hat tip to the Influential Marketing Blog for spotting this.)

Normally I would say, “Market-capitalism to the rescue!” and insist that open competition will allow the fittest to prosper. But amid government subsidies and an apparent lack of interest by carriers to compete on something other than price, I’m skeptical this will right itself. So this is my open call to airline owners (yes, even Virgin Airlines) to reposition their fleets by differentiating themselves by meeting or exceeding customers’ wants, not just the bare minimum expectations we’ve grown accustom to by the current state of the airline industry at large.

My question to you, dear reader, is this: What ideas would you bring to bear on this problem? How would you change the company, product, or marketing to better meet the consumer’s needs, as well as the health of the industry?

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*From Barry Schwartz’s “The Paradox of Choice” presentation at TED.

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About the Author: Brian Bond is VP of Marketing and Product at FutureNow, Inc.

Or an outsider to come and open the bottle for you. In fact, their outsider perspective is a huge part of any consultant’s or outside copywriter’s value – so long as they’re willing to call you to the carpet over your unseen assumptions and un-named elephants.

But if you can’t bring in an actual outsider, any attempt you make to understand your reader’s or customer’s perspective will give you an edge over the head-stuck-up-their-own-bottle competition. Now for those painful (but worth it) steps…

1. Change your context

Through repeated association, things that typically go together often become fused in the mind, as if they’re supposed to go together — even if their relationship would strike an outsider as coincidental or weird. Transplanting these relationships from one context to another can allow you to see the strangeness of these connections that familiarity has made invisible to you.

This training video does an admirable job of giving insiders an outsider’s perspective. By directly comparing the medical care of a man and his dog, events and procedures that would seem normal to hospital workers (the video’s target audience) suddenly appear ridiculous because the context for evaluating them has been changed from hospital to vet’s office. The incongruity that a man is receiving worse care than a dog forces viewers to re-evaluate the “supposed to” nature of hospital procedures, as they no longer seem quite so “normal.”

Joel Greenblatt also does a nice job of this in The Little Book That Beats the Market. By moving from the stock market to of the context buying a small business such as an pizza parlor, Greenblatt liberates us from the illusion of “normalcy” that we have about wild swings in share prices. If GE’s share price moves from $25 to $50 and then back down to $25 within the span of 8 months, we think nothing of it. But that’s like saying a pizza parlor could go from being worth $10K to $20K without any major changes in the business. Changing the context allows you to see how weird stock price fluctuations really are.

So use this same technique by pretending you have to explain the Unique Value Proposition of your product or service to your grandmother or a 6th grader. Describe things through metaphor or parable, then pay attention to what doesn’t “map” well from one idea to another – especially things that strike you as odd or comical when placed into this new context. The “that’s funny” moments will become your portal to an outsider’s perspective.

2. Frame ideas like Martin Scorsese

Movie directors frame their shots in order to force viewers to focus on the intended point of action, while live stage theaters literally spotlight performers. They both make it easy for the casual observer to know exactly what to focus on, to know what’s important at that moment.

Experts and insiders benefit from a “big picture” awareness that provides similar focusing cues and mental spotlights. But outsiders, lacking the big picture, tend to see the most prominent, high-contrast stuff. In order to replicate their experience, you’ll need to mentally block your normal area of focus, to turn off your mental spotlight – so you can notice everything else.

Picture yourself as a man from Mars, with no background information whatsoever, who just landed at your website for the first time.

• What’s most visually prominent? What’s high contrast?
• What’s the most kinetic or fast-moving element?
• What parts of the experience would confuse you if you didn’t already know the back story?
• What would seem jumbled or overwhelming?

Describe the scene, website, etc. in the voice of your man from mars – and do this out loud to another person or a voice recorder.

• Where are you led astray?
• What false assumptions do you make?
• Where does confusion or uncertainty cause you to abandon the task at hand or to seek help?

And before you write this post off as hokey, keep in mind that a HUGE portion of FutureNow’s success at improving client’s conversion rates stems from this exact mental exercise (except we do it with personas instead of Martians).

OK, now that you know where the outsider will miss the important stuff and become flummoxed, go back and provide your visitors with a mental spotlight to guide their attention. Be explicit, and purposefully frame your shots – create mental images from a can’t-miss-it perspective. Be sure to tell your readers how to engage their x-ray vision to look past the merely attention grabbing to see what’s really going on.

A great offline example of this is What to Expect When You’re Expecting. The second pregnancy feels so way different because 2nd time moms know what to expect – they’ve got their mental cues in place. The book, What to Expect When You’re Expecting has become a perennial best seller and must-have for first time mothers, precisely because it does such an admirable job of providing that 2nd time experience to first time mothers.

3. Do the “which means ” exercise, then ask “Why?”

Copywriters frequently do the “which means” exercise to draw out the benefits from features and to understand the customer’s real motivations.

This compact car is a hybrid, which means it uses 25% of the gas as your current SUV . . . which means you’ll feel like gas prices are back at $1 per gallon . . . which means you can go back to eating steaks instead of ramen noodles.

What they sometimes fail to do is realize that an outsider might not know WHY a hybrid uses 25% of the gas of an SUV and will therefore ask “Why is that?” at the first “which means” statement.

Copywriters for skin care products make this mistake all the time. For example, I’ve seen plenty of skin product websites which will tell me that increased cellular turnover will lead to younger looking skin (so they’ve done one level of “which means”), but they frequently forget to add copy explaining WHY cellular turnover has this effect, leaving skin care outsiders scratching their heads, unconvinced.

So there you have it, three not-so-easy (but worth it) exercises for gaining an outsider’s perspective. Perhaps you’ll only get one or two insights per exercise, or you might get an avalanche of “a-ha” moments, but the point is that even one or two insights from an outsider’s perspective can dramatically improve the persuasive power of your website.

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About the Author: Jeff Sexton is a professional outsider (aka, Persuasion Architect) at FutureNow.

Why is that?

For one thing, Consumer Reports tries to objectively calculate the “sweet spot” on the Quality-to-Price Ratio. Enthusiasts, on the other hand, generally give more weight to subtleties, refinements and other semi-intangible qualities; things like aesthetics, ergonomics and brand affinity. Such things aren’t as big a factor for Consumer Reports when they’re trying to help you find “the most [whatever it is] for your money.”

Enthusiasts go beyond the point of so-called diminishing returns because, to them, the return doesn’t feel diminished.

The Perceived Value Curve

In case you still don’t know what I’m talking about, I graphed it…

Consumer Reports thinks in these terms. They look for products that sit neatly on the inflexion point; that spot on the curve just before it gets too steep. They do this because their audience wants an objective, substantiated and dispassionate analysis of the product for which they might — just maybe — exchange their hard-earned (and devalued) dollars.

They’re looking for those 85%-as-good-but-half-the-price products because, for them, there’s no joy in spending a dollar more than they can objectively rationalize.

From “Consumer” to Enthusiast

Unlike the Consumer Reports crowd, enthusiasts are more conscious of a product’s refinements, or lack thereof.

The enthusiast’s minimum standards are higher than average. Audiophiles can distinguish between a CD recording and a 192-bit encrypted MP3 file. Driving enthusiasts appreciate the smooth clutch and slick jolts of a great manual transmission. Wine connoisseurs can anticipate the blackberry notes and soft minerality of their favorite Cab Franc.

This is why acquiring a taste for expensive wines, stereos and cars can sometimes “ruin” you for lesser quality goods, because as Kathy Sierra insists, “Learning increases resolution.”

Enthusiasts continue to perceive noticeable — and substantially increased — benefits well beyond the normally perceived point of diminishing returns. So, if can’t substantiate your product’s superiority in a no-nonsense Consumer Reports-style manner, your best bet may be to write copy that evokes the Enthusiast’s experience.

When you create a high-resolution experience with your Web copy, you help the average, uninitiated consumer picture themselves as enthusiasts.

The Fuji F30 Camera is a good example. The F30 is compact digital camera with rather unimpressive specs (6 megapixels with a 3X zoom) that’s supposedly been supplanted by the newer F40 and F50 models — but it’s STILL selling for between $220 and $300, which is as much or more than either the 12 megapixel F50 or the 8 megapixel Canon SD850.

Why is it commanding so high a price? Because enthusiasts have embraced the little camera for its unmatched ability to take high ISO and low-light photos. It’s the only pocket cam that’s able to take really great low-light shots. And as soon as you “sell” a consumer on that ability, the lower megapixel count stops mattering so much. A smart copywriter would focus in on this “hidden” ability of the F30 in order to raise its perceived value.

Roy Williams gives an example of copy that does just that:

“The prettiest camera in this price class has a shutter speed of 1/15th of a second. But the shutter speed of the ugly Canon PowerShot S500 is a superfast 1/60th of a second, allowing you to take fabulous photos in low-light situations. Your indoor photos will look rich and vibrant when all the others look dark and grainy. And your nighttime photos will make people’s eyes bug out. Beautiful contrast and luminance, even without the flash. This camera can see in the dark. Take a picture of your lover in the moonlight. It will become your favorite photo ever. And that superfast shutter speed is also very forgiving of movement. That’s why no one ever replaces their PowerShot S500. Go to your local pawnshop and see if you can find one. We’re betting you can’t. But you will see several of that “prettier” camera available cheaper than dirt. So if you’re looking for a great price on a sleek-looking camera, that’s probably where you should go.”

Who wouldn’t want a camera like that?If copy alone won’t do the trick, think about staging live events, webinars, streaming videos… whatever it takes to show a glimpse of the hi-res experience. (Here’s another example from Kathy Sierra.)

Don’t lower prices. Stay ahead of the curve by building perceived value with your Web copy.

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[Editor's note: Jeff Sexton can show you how to add value to your website. Join him on March 28th in San Francisco for the first-ever West Coast edition of our popular crash course on Persuasive Online Copywriting.]

Paula Gignac, Seth Godin, Ken Wong, Joseph Jaffe, David Weinberger, David Usher, Jackie Huba, Shel Israel, John Gustavson, Christopher Loudon, Mary Maddever and our own Bryan Eisenberg were each asked to share their favorite video of the year.

Which videos were your favorites?

(To Mitch Joel, Mark Goodman, Mickael Kanfi, Aubrey Rosenhek and the entire team at Twist Image, joyeuses fêtes à vous tous! Thank you for helping to shape good ideas, as always.)

Don’t get me wrong. I believe hardly any of the folks who people consider online experts are acting in bad faith. They tried some tactics, it paid off, and now they want to share them with others. But true experts never achieve any level of certainty without a deeper understanding of all the circumstances contributing to their success. To reach “expert” status in other industries — say, the medical field — it takes well over a decade of experience focused in one specialty. Most cardiologists would be hesitant to give you dermatological advice, as they know it’s outside of their domain. It’s why Nobel Prize winner Niels Bohr once said, “An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.”

Sharing your missteps and learning from other people’s mistakes is the surest path to online success. Are you up to helping your fellow entrepreneurs or future clients?

Have you ever taken bad Web advice from a so-called expert?

The challenge we face as marketers is that there’s no solid set of criteria to hang out the shingle and say, “Congratulations! You’re a marketer.” It can be frightening when clients say they plan to use some very specific tactic before the strategy’s been clearly defined. Usually when that happens, if you ask where they got the idea, it’s from an “expert” who may have a technical or other background but certainly not a marketing background.

We’ve all seen designers or developers who are now preaching “expert” search engine marketing advice. While design and code have something to do with search engine optimization, the bigger issues are usually marketing-related. The same is true about conversion optimization advice. While conversion has something to do with usability, multivariate testing and web analytics, the bigger overarching issue is almost always marketing (read: persuasion)-related. When our clients have a challenging search-related issue, we refer them to a search marketing firm we trust. Are there really any social media experts yet (although we may be getting there)?

We’re looking for these types of stories:

• Did you get blacklisted from a search engine for following bad advice?
• Did you spend a ton of money on a tool no one uses?
• Did you do a “redesign” and get poor results?
• Did you create a “viral” campaign that nobody noticed?
• Did you invest in the latest and coolest Web 2.0 initiative only to see a small return?

How You Can Help + Get Published

We (as in “you and I”) are going to publish a free ebook. (No need to kill trees on this as I’m sure it will keep evolving with the Web).

We’re not looking to name names or discredit anyone. And of course, sometimes, good advice gets executed poorly. But with your help, we’ll take all the stories and distill them into a collection of truisms, then list the horror stories on so-called expert opinions and freely distribute How to Leverage “OPM” (Other People’s Mistakes): Online Advice from People Who’ve Been There and Done That. If you wish to share a story anonymously, it must be verifiable, so we can keep you anonymous.

Will you share your “expertise” and stories?

If you’d like to be included, tell us your online marketing-related stories either as a comment below or in an email to: feedback [at] grokdotcom dot com

Don’t think copywriters are undervalued? Show me a marketing budget without a serious chunk of cash set aside for Web copy, and I’ll show you a website that doesn’t convert, sell, or even explain why it exists in the first place.

Copyblogger’s Brian Clark, who decided to follow his script-writing dreams until he realized what an awful gig it can be, makes some great points about “What Web Writers Can Learn from the Writers’ Strike.” Lucky for us, 10 years later, Brian’s selling content online — and he decides which of his content is free; a real advantage over Daily Show writers like this guy:

As you can see, one of the more telling points about about the writers’ strike is that these “traditional media” writers really do know how to leverage the Web. They’re even taking a cue from the “Save Jericho” campaign and mailing boxes of pencils to the media moguls.

For most organizations, copywriting is an afterthought. And surely, the web design community would agree. When businesses don’t take copy seriously, they’re the ones who get fired when the site doesn’t do its job. Consider this recent snapshot of a slide at the Future of Web Design conference:

Businesses can optimize their online content all they like, but stale copy leads to poor sales and limp branding. The good news is that if a company’s text doesn’t persuade in the first place, they’ll never know how much business is being left on the table. But the bad news is that if their text didn’t persuade in the first place, they’d never know how much was left on the table. So unless you’ve invented an iPhone that doubles as a teleporter, and you can show all of that with some press clippings and a Flash demo, you’re better off not being cheap with your words.

It may look rough at the moment, but the floodgates have opened, and the real value of online content has become clear. So if you’re writing for television or film, and want to control what your words are worth, now’s a good time to become a persuasive online copywriter.

[Hat tip to Tim Miles for sharing the "Not the Daily Show" clip.]

I recently purchased a set of Sony Ericsson earbuds from Amazon.com. I already knew the type of earbuds, which color, and even the model number I wanted to order. (That’s what we call a “late-stage” visitor.) Amazon didn’t have to do much to convince me to buy. All I wanted was a clear product image, showing what I could expect with my purchase.

I didn’t just want a new set of earbuds; I wanted the Sony Ericsson brand earbuds, since they’re specific to my phone. The product image confirmed that I was receiving a genuine Sony Ericsson product, and I was further convinced by the product title and description. As a repeat Amazon customer, I expected to receive what I was shown (see thumbnail pic).

You’d think Amazon fulfilled my expectation, but no. Here’s what happened…

The headphones were delivered in a flimsy envelope — not quite the bubble wrap-protected box I imagined. The shabby packaging, held together by a piece of tape that looked 10 years past its prime, was an unwelcome surprise. Where was the original Sony Ericsson packaging I saw on the site? It took me about 15 minutes just to be sure this was actually what I ordered (”Is this even an authentic Sony Ericsson product?”). These types of situations are what have kept me away from online auction sites.

Granted, this was a small, $10 purchase. But imagine ordering an expensive watch or handbag online, or even a gift delivered to a loved one. How can you be certain that the product is authentic or will be appropriately packaged and well-presented? We can’t. Instead, we rely on past experiences, product images, and brand recognition to do the job..

I’ve been spoiled by some great e-commerce sites, including Amazon, over the years. They’ve made my shopping experience delightful from start to finish by delivering the product as I imagined it, almost every time. And I’m a loyal customer to those sites. But now I’ve got a strange feeling about Amazon. They’re the industry leader for a reason. They revolutionized online order fulfillment. In fact, they’re supposed to be the gold standard of e-tailers.

Am I expecting too much from e-commerce sites? I don’t think so. In fact, I’m verbalizing what all people who purchase online are thinking — no, expecting. Consumers demand an easy and delightful shopping experience, from the first click to the time the order is in our hands.

I won’t give up browsing on Amazon just yet — they still have great product details and customer-generated reviews — but they’ve lost me as a paying customer for now. And regardless, I don’t see myself buying electronics from them anymore.

But all that’s changed. Today, they have a brand-spanking-new fleet of mid-sized jets staffed with would-be friendly people who, bound and gagged with corporate red tape, can’t do much to help the customer even when they want to. Sure, the fares are lower than ever, but even with off-peak flights for as low as $1 (yes, really), it’s still not worth it. Why? Because, according to their current CEO, Ben Baldanza, the customer is always a cheapskate — and wrong.

Maybe it’s time to put a dimmer on those red light specials. They say that “a fish stinks from the head,” and if there’s ever been any proof, its this email Mr. Baldanza sent to a customer by accidentally hitting “reply to all” on his BlackBerry:

“Please respond, Pasquale, but we owe him nothing as far as I’m concerned. Let him tell the world how bad we are. He’s never flown us before anyway and will be back when we save him a penny.”

But, wait! There’s more!! Here’s their Director of Communications, Alison Russell, on a separate incident where blogger Alex Rudloff told readers, “Do Not Fly Spirit Airlines“:

“We wouldn’t respond to a blog post. This goes back to the larger question of the veracity of everything you read on Internet blogs. Our customer service is great.”

Oh, really?? More on my horror story with Spirit 2.0 in a moment. But first, let’s see what Google has to say about the company:

Here’s what Rudloff had to say in his blog post:

“So, instead of losing $5 on a customer who has every right to be angry, I’ll write this blog post and tell all my traveling buddies to add Spirit Airlines to their growing list of airlines to avoid,” Rudloff wrote on Aug. 4. “If Google works their magic like they usually do, at least one of the 4,931 daily searches for “Spirit Airlines” will turn up this result and save someone the headache (and hopefully end up costing Spirit Airlines $6 or more).”

Rudloff later told the Orlando Sentinel that:

“I think ultimately that customers have to speak out and they have to engage in word of mouth . . . That’s what the market responds to.”

Cool! What a great segue…

All Spirit, No Soul

Last May, I was flying from New York (LGA) to Detroit (DTW), as I often do for Memorial Day weekend — my favorite time to vacation in Detroit. I was running late. The car service was half an hour late, and traffic wasn’t moving, thanks to jackknifed truck on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. After paying top dollar to sit in a car for two hours, it was clear that I’d miss the 30-minutes-before-departure check-in deadline. So, I called Spirit Air’s 1-800 number, only to find there was no “customer service” option. So I waited on hold for, say, 20 minutes until I eventually hung up and called back, pressing a random — and incorrect — selection in hopes of reaching a human who could tell me what to do about the situation. When I finally reached a customer service rep, she told me to go to the airport and speak to the agents at the check-in counter — where I waited for (you guessed it) another 30 minutes.

After all of that, I got to the airport just before the 30-minute mark, but there was a line — a long one — and not enough agents to serve it. When I got to the front of the line, the agent told me that nothing could be done. If I wanted to book another flight, there was one leaving in an hour, but it would cost as much as my entire round trip. I kindly informed this person that I’d be willing to pay a charge — as is typical with other cheapskate airlines — to switch the ticket, but that buying a whole new one, just for a one-way leg of a round-trip flight was absurd. Then, when I asked for a number for customer service because I wanted to complain about the event — after all, I’d been a customer for 10 years — the guy hands me a card with the same freaking number I’d used earlier to get someone who couldn’t help me! When I brought that to the agent’s attention, he said, “I’m sorry, sir, there’s nothing I can do about it” — a common refrain at today’s Spirit Air.

So, Northwest Airlines to rescue (for once), and I was on my way to Detroit with a pounding headache and the world’s dumbest $200 missing from my bank account.

On the way back to New York, I was actually looking forward to flying Spirit. “If this isn’t a good trip after that nonsense,” I thought, “I’m so going to blog this.” Checking in with a smile, I handed the agent my ticket. “I’m sorry, Mr. Gorell, but we don’t have a seat with that name on it for this flight,” he said. I told him that was impossible and that I wasn’t imagining the ticket in my hand. Then it hit me: They’d canceled my entire round-trip ticket because they couldn’t serve me in time!

Turning beet-red, I calmly told the agent of my snag in New York. As I retold the story, one-by-one, all four agents at the desk came up to me, visibly upset by what I had to say. I let them know I was a blogger for a company that specializes in planning and optimizing the customer experience, and that I couldn’t believe the airline had tied their hands from doing anything of value for its “passengers.” Then a crazy thing happened. They actually encouraged me to blog about it! As it turned out, everyone at the counter seemed upset with the company’s new policies, too. I could tell they were biting their tongues, until…

“We used to be #1 in customer service,” said one agent. “Now we can’t help people.”

Her co-workers looked me in the eye and nodded. It was such an honest moment that I actually bought a one-way ticket from them… for the flight I’d already, supposedly, booked. (Oh, and since this was a last-minute one-way flight to NYC, you can be sure I got red flagged for security screening.)

For months, I let it slide. After speaking with the good people at Spirit in Detroit, I worried that blogging about the experience might put their jobs at risk. That is, until I saw Mack Collier’s post, which hipped me to the fact that a lot of other bloggers out there are also convinced that Spirit’s CEO — and not its employees — is what’s putting their jobs at risk by causing this fish to stink:

Alex Rudloff

BL Ochman’s WhatsNextBlog

Bold Interactive

CEO Smack

Darwin PR

Gadling

Jaunted

Josh Hallett

Lawrence Salberg

Perpetually Befuddled

Propeller

Reality Bites Back

Sarah and the Goon Squad

Search Engine Guide

Stuck on the Palmetto

The BOOT

Transmission

Upgrade: Travel Better

Sorry, Mr. Baldanza, but you can’t fly faster than word of mouth (or blog).

Michael Dell said that about Apple 10 years ago.

Pretty, pretty…bad advice!

Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports:

Apple’s (AAPL) market capitalization today is more than double that of Dell (DELL):

Apple: $140.4 billion

Dell: $62.27 billion

But don’t shed a tear for Micheal Dell. According to a list of the 400 wealthiest Americans published last month, his net worth is more than triple Steve Jobs’.

Michael Dell: $15.5 billion

Steve Jobs: $4.9 billion

I’m not crying for either one but I just finished syncing my iPod with my MacBookPro. Apple marketing is brilliant but the company is very far from perfect. Apple’s brand is eroding and it missed a huge opportunity to make more headway into the business market because it insists on pursuing a broken distribution model.

Are you a better fortune teller than Michael Dell? Please let us know where you think Apple and Dell will be in 2017.

Arguably the most influential band of the past 15 years, Radiohead has decided to release its next album online. But here’s catch: You choose what to pay.**

According to Time Magazine:

The ramifications of Radiohead’s pay-what-you-want experiment will take time to sort out, but for established artists at least, turning what was once their highest value asset — a much buzzed-about new album — into a loss leader may be the wave of the future. Even under the most lucrative record deals, the ones reserved for repeat, multi-platinum superstars, the artists can end up with less than 30% of overall sales revenue (which often is then split among several band members). Meanwhile, as record sales decline, the concert business is booming. In July, Prince gave away his album 3121 for free in the U.K. through the downmarket Mail on Sunday newspaper. At first he was ridiculed. Then he announced 21 consecutive London concert dates — and sold out every one of them.

Now that’s confidence. In fact, that’s the point. Just like countless bestselling book authors who make most of their money from speaking engagements and new business, musicians generally make more from live performances than they do albums.

Besides, isn’t it time to stick it to the major labels? On his Lefsetz Letter blog, Bob “the most feared man in music biz criticism” Lefsetz had this [expletive deleted] to say:

It’s not like Radiohead’s living in a different world. But they’re playing by a different rule book. One that says the money flows from the music, that people have to believe in you, that you’ve got to treat them right.

[expletive deleted], you can barely get a ticket to a Radiohead show. The venues aren’t big and the demand is incredible. They’re doing it all wrong, don’t they see??

Well, obviously they don’t.

This is big news. This says the major labels are [expletive deleted]. Untrustworthy with a worthless business model. Radiohead doesn’t seem to care if the music is free. Not that they believe it will be. Because believers will give you ALL THEIR MONEY!

This is the industry’s worst nightmare. Superstar band, THE superstar band, forging ahead by its own wits. Proving that others can too. And they will.

Amen, brother.

A longtime Radiohead fan myself, I intend to pre-order In Rainbows at full iTunes (over)price, right after I convert £’s to $’s — which, the exchange rate being what it is, I reckon will be more painful than actually spending the money. Oh, and if anyone from the band is reading this, I just want you to know that I downloaded Hail to the Thief for free. It won’t happen again.

If you’re still wondering what a band like Radiohead can teach you about creating win-wins for you and your customers fans, perhaps it’s time to revisit “The ROI of Free“.

[*Author's Note: Whether you still think Prince is nuts for changing his name to that bizarre symbol icon in the 90's is another story. But, hey, he made more money on a song called "Let's Go Crazy" than most of us will make in our lives, so who are we to judge?]

[**Unless you forgo the download and buy the delux box set version -- limited edition vinyl, posters, goodies, etc. -- only available from the Radiohead website.]

Zafu.com is a company actually providing a solution to this problem. But is their advertising helping or hurting them?

Would you buy a bra from this man?

This ad on YouTube has gotten mixed reactions. Some women find it funny, some find it offensive.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments. In the meantime, here are some of the pros and cons from my perspective…

Cons:

- The “spokesman” for Zafu.com is a geeky, kind of creepy, young guy in a lab coat, making weird boob gestures with his hands. It’s a powerful image — one of the reasons why the spot is so funny — but is this really the first mental image they want associated with their brand?

- As the Heath brothers point out in their book Made to Stick, some companies suffer from “The Curse of Knowledge.” In other words, we’re all so familiar with the benefits of our own brand, it’s easy to forget others don’t share this knowledge. Zafu.com has this whole “scientific” set of questions they ask in order to guide women into the right size bra. But, as someone whose never heard of Zafu.com, I didn’t know that. The only information this video gives is the tag-line at the end (”The perfect bra in 3 minutes”). And saying “It works better online” isn’t entirely clear. Are they saying that having a creepy guy feeling you up works better online? For the person unfamiliar with Zafu.com, the whole scientific tie-in falls flat, so to say.

- They could very well be offending the same new customers they’re trying to attract.

Pros:

- I can’t speak for everyone, but I thought it was funny. It got my attention. I love the unexpected twist of the woman karate kicking the guy’s head off. The use of humor definitely gives it a “viral” aspect.

- For customers already familiar with Zafu.com, it makes sense. They already know and understand the scientific fitting tie-in. Once armed with that information, the spot makes more sense and, in my opinion, is less offensive.

This video was brought to my attention by Bryan Eisenberg, whose wife is a big fan of Zafu.com. This is the email they sent her (click thumbnail to view), introducing her to the video.

As I said, I think the video is much less offensive for existing customers. But the whole point of creating a video that will go viral is that new, potential customers will see it.

Suggestion for improvement…

Do a better job of explaining the scientific fitting and how that is actually the brand’s Unique Value Proposition. “The perfect bra in 3 minutes” is a nice final tag-line, but inserting information earlier that better explains the fitting process to women unfamiliar with Zafu.com would help tremendously.

What was your reaction to the video?

So, here’s the deal. I order the same thing every day; a tall, iced chocolate milk with a shot of almond flavor. (I know, pretty lame.) Some days, they charge me $2.91 and some days, they charge me $2.59. Initially, I just felt lucky on the $2.59 days but now when I’m charged $2.91, I cause a stink because I feel that they’re overcharging me and their inconsistency makes me feel like I’m getting ripped off.

Perhaps some of the servers have just been nice by charging me less, or perhaps they have inconsistencies in what they charge for different products. It isn’t the $0.32 that makes me frustrated — as though I’m too cheap or can’t afford to pay an extra few cents — it simply makes me feel like I’m being taken advantage of.

When we receive a piece of customer service, whether it be a nicer greeting or a discounted price, we expect this treatment consistently.

Perhaps the grandfather of Usability, Frederick Winslow Taylor, could have called his audience such a thing — they were factory line workers, using a tool to do their job — but today’s consumers are anything but “users”. They’re volunteers, and they’re empowered; they do what they want, when they want because, most importantly, they want to. The “why” is up to them, not you.

I often challenge people to come up with positive associations with the term user. I’m still waiting for one positive response. Sure, I’ve heard “Mac user” and even that falls flat given the very real problems with technology — yes, even with Macs — that rear their ugly head at the most inopportune of times.

While at the event, my favorite Usability-pro-at-sea, Todd Follansbee, offered one of the best jokes I’ve heard in the industry about a man and woman on a first date. The punchline from the woman, upon hearing that the man was a Usability Engineer, was that she hoped he knew sometimes “task completion” and “time spent on task” weren’t the best measures of success! PG-13 material to be sure, but you can see why we like Todd so much.

I digress. Haven’t we all walked past a homeless person, panhandling for change and not reached into our pockets and given a buck or two? Perhaps in your town it’s students asking for donations for new uniforms. Surely not everyone who walks by contributes, or they wouldn’t have to stand out there for weeks on end! Is anyone willing to offer their reason for not supporting either the cause, or the homeless man’s jones for a slice of pizza — at least in NY — that they simply didn’t know how to complete the task successfully? If the task got easier, without him removing the change from your pocket himself, would the conversion rate magically go up? Of course not, because the choice not to give was explicitly made — or implicitly, but it was a decision nonetheless — and was based upon an individual’s motivations.

Contrived example? Maybe. But it’s important to note, without the desire to take action — something your audience controls 100% — it doesn’t matter how easy the task is to complete, or how efficient a process it is.

So, here’s my advice should you find yourself in the unenviable — but let’s face it, all too common — position of trying to determine the best course of action for improving your business online: Stop. Take a step back. Consider that while you want more revenue, more revenue requires more people taking action. But people only do what they want to do.

You have to give them what they want in order to get what you want. Your job is to understand what your customers truly want and help them get it. Then, and only then, does it make sense to try and smooth out the process by removing the stumbling blocks from their path. Remember, 99% of our challenges online have little to do with technology but, rather, with words on the screen before them.

- -

P.S. – What brought on this little rant? Our friends across the pond at E-Consultancy came up with a list of their hall of fame “User Experience gurus” based on a survey of their audience. Our esteemed founders, Jeffrey and Bryan, were selected for the list. Flattered as Jeffrey and Bryan were, those who’ve followed our work over the years know our collective disdain for the casual use of the “guru” label these days.

In case you didn’t read Robert’s post from last week, where Jeffrey suggests that we marketers need to “get over” ourselves, it should give you some context. A few days later — while, as Jeffrey put it, the woman behind the counter at his local Starbucks still didn’t know who he was despite all the publicity – another list came out with an amendment to the E-Consultancy list where both Seth Godin, and Eisenbergs were left off. This new list was created by David Armano, who runs the widely popular Logic + Emotion blog. (If you haven’t read David’s stuff, his manifesto is what converted me into a regular reader. Although I often disagree with his approach, Logic + Emotion comes highly recommended.)

David’s perspective in removing Seth, Jeffrey & Bryan was that they’re too much in the marketing camp to be considered “User Experience”. My question, though, is this: “Would you prefer to have the experience designed by a top Information Architect but never planned with a deep understanding of the audience’s needs? Or would you prefer to plan the experience according to human motivations, then adjust the architecture to match?”

I think you know my answer.

Let’s say Mr. Smith finds a bike that meets the requirements and asks, “How much does it cost?” and the store clerk avoids the question. Instead, he responds by giving Mr. Smith more technical info, then makes him fill out a ridiculously long form (like the one mentioned in Holly’s recent B2B post). Do you think he’d stand for this? Or would go to the next bike shop instead?

Some people are stuck on improving their online conversion rate with tactics–like button testing–alone . The problem is that, in order to really boost conversion, you need to sell in the way that the customer wants to buy. And that requires answering their questions and concerns in the order they’re likely asked.

B2B sites seem especially stubborn about listing price, but they omit at their own risk. Answering this would-be simple question is a critical step toward helping visitors gain the confidence to take action.

It’s usually companies that aren’t competing on price who want to keep price a secret. If a company doesn’t compete on price, they’re probably competing on quality; customer service or other factors. So, why avoid the question? Tell the visitor what your price is, even if it’s higher than your competitors’–just explain WHY it’s higher. If you don’t compete on price and your visitor is shopping on price, then that visitor isn’t your customer. Give him what he came searching for and sell him on your unique value. If that doesn’t work, don’t shy away from sending him elsewhere. That level of confidence is contagious, and often results in higher conversion, anyway.

Here’s an example of a site that asks you to fill out a form of very personal information in order to get a quote. The only price listed here is “…mailboxes can start as low as $6.00 per mailbox,” but this doesn’t give the visitor context for how much he’ll need to spend according to his specific situation. He’d much rather see examples of different customers and what their service packages look like, along with (at least) ballpark pricing.

Here’s another example of a site that asks the visitor to contact them in order to get a quote. It’s understandable that in some industries you can’t give the visitor the exact dollar amount for a product/service. Still, the visitor should be able to get an idea of a price range or the price that one of your previous customers paid in order to get an idea of the price they’re really looking at.

We suggest clearly featuring price next to each product/service, with a Call to Action immediately nearby. If the price is custom, give estimates and show previous customer examples so the visitors sees what he’ll get for the money. In a lot of cases, we even recommend showing a comparison chart that allows visitors to easily view your price, feature and benefits right next to those of your competitors. If your price is higher, no big deal–just explain why you’re worth it.

If you hide your price, you’re losing customers. It’s that simple.

TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington just wrote about a service I can’t wait to try. With Bringo, you don’t have to deal with customer service robots, the digital gatekeepers of your favorite corporate phone trees.

Talk about a solid Unique Value Proposition:

Stop Talking to Machines and Talk to a Real Human. Tired of dialing 1-800 numbers and not being able to get through to a human who can help you? BRINGO cuts through all of that so you don’t have to. That’s right, BRINGO has conquered phone trees.

Unlike Verizon, the folks at Bringo are definitely not waiting for their cat to bark.

“An innocuous question can hit you where you live. I should have expected one day someone would ask me, “How do you measure your ROI for that?”

If I’m conducting client training on measuring, testing, and optimizing performance, clients have a right to ask about my own practices. The “that” she referred to is nearly 300,000 words we’ve published online for free over the past two years. I promised her I’d discuss it in this column.

How does someone who writes “ROI Marketing” justify publishing so much content for free? Do we charge for advertising, rent our list, or bombard those names with commercial offers? No. In fact, Jeffrey, my brother and partner who handles such things, estimates we’ve invested about $100,000 developing free content for our newsletter, free whitepapers and other publications. How do we measure its ROI?

We know one side of the equation: the investment. The money has been spent. What did we get in return?” keep reading…

That was from Bryan’s June 2002 ClickZ column, The ROI of Free, where he explained how we calculate the return on all the free content we create. He even said we would double down and did we ever. Since 1999 we’ve published almost two million words for free.

What made me think of this subject today is Chris Garrett’s interview with my friend Sean D’Souza. Sean sums up his response to a similar question with: “Give the ideas. Sell the System.”

I like Chris’s blog. Want proof? You may notice that mine was the first comment. Chris has the interview and links to Sean’s Psychotactics.com.

What if you went to a health supplement store and this happened?

Nutritionist: “Tacky font logo! Top navigation! Select product category! $49.95! Buy now?”

You: “Um, yeah… Hi, I’ve recently become a vegan and decided to cleanse my digestive system. There’s a history of colon cancer in my family and, uh, I want to be proactive about it while I’m young–not to mention that the word ‘Gastroenterologist’ makes me cringe. Anyway, I’ve never taken natural supplements before, so I’m pretty skeptical about the claims they make. Are there any in particular that have worked well for your customers?

Nutritionist: “Sale items! Add to cart! More info! Click here!?”

You: “Okay, well, uh… Wow, look at the time! Nice talking to you.”

Proper Fitness is an example of one such customer un-focused website. They neither explain what they do nor show how their value is unique from competitors. But they are good at providing us with an example of what not to do.

When thinking about landing pages–homepage or otherwise–you should keep in mind that a portion of the traffic coming to your site are first-time visitors, and they’re all coming at different stages of their own buying process. Although it’s nice to to think you can go straight for the sale, your sales process isn’t of much concern to the visitor at this point. Have you ever gone out of your way to buy something at a store just because you know they have better customer service? Such is buying online (although it happens much faster).

Your potential customers simply don’t have time to figure out who you are and what you do unless you explicitly tell them. Unlike Proper Fitness, you need to present this information to them within the active window (read: top-center) of your homepage and within the top banner of every landing page (we often call this the Unique Campaign proposition) on your site.

Contrast the previous example to one of our newer clients, Detoxologie.com. See how quickly showing your Unique Value Proposition makes all the difference?

Introduce yourself in terms of the value you offer your customers. Use a clear logo in the top-left corner and provide the visitor with a Unique Value Proposition (UVP) next to the logo that reinforces the visitor’s sense that he’s in the right place. Place this on every page throughout your site. (Remember, your homepage is not the only entry-point, so each landing page needs to make this same introduction.) This is especially critical on those Pay-Per-Click (PPC) landing pages you create.

The UVP is your site’s first chance to begin a dialogue with its visitors. In very simple language, clearly describe what you do, how it’s unique from your competitors, and how your customers benefit from your products and/or services. Don’t try to figure out the magic of persuasion until you’ve first addressed this one critical–and criminally overlooked–element.

We’ve talked often enough about the importance of communicating your value proposition, not only on your home page, but on all your landing pages. You want to give folks an up-front, concise idea why they absolutely need to be doing business with you.

And we’ve talked about the importance of the message being meat, whether you are penning the words to that value proposition or any other piece of copy on your site.

Sometimes it helps to look at an example in the negative and evaluate it by identifying what you should not do! Just like those fashion DOs and DON’Ts columns. Most people who read that stuff tell me they get a healthy idea of what they should do based on an explicit presentation of what they should not do.

Read on for the full flavor of this great big DON’T. The copy is word for word … only the name of the company has been changed to protect its questionable innocence.

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