Samples Need to Taste Good

Who else caught the full-page ad in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal for an upcoming book titled, On the Up and Up: Achieving Breakthrough Performance Through Insight? It’s a book commissioned by Hyperion, the leader in enterprise software and services for business performance management, that gathers perspective and practical advice from business and academic leaders.

Sounds intriguing, right?

Well … the marketing tool Hyperion has decided to use to generate interest in the book is to make the foreword (penned by Jeffrey R. Rodek, chairman and chief executive officer of Hyperion) available for download. (In customer evangelist speak, this is a bite-size chunk.)

Being the business book junkie that I am, I made my way over to the download site, smacked down my email address, and received my fix.

Or so I thought.

The bite-size sample foreword was tainted … tainted with insipid egotism and vacuous drivel by Hyperion’s CEO.

In the foreword, this CEO openly refers to his management/leadership style as being worthy of Jim Collins Level 5 status, he uses ‘I’ nearly 90 times, and he takes supreme credit for seemingly insignificant accomplishments all to build up his pedigree. (It should be noted ... "Level 5 leaders channel their ego needs away from themselves and into the larger goal of building a great company." source: Jim Collins website)

Hyperion may know something about business performance management, but they know little about marketing performance management.

If you are going to sample a product, make sure the sample tastes good. Samples that taste good will manage to enhance the marketing performance of the product you are selling. Hyperion's bite-size sample left a bad taste in my mouth and it managed me out of wanting to buy the book.

Want to taste the Hyperion sample for yourself? Click here. You have been warned.

Comments

[Johnnie Moore]

Great post. But what would one expect from a company whose name begins with Hype?

According to my dictionary, as well as standing for a Titan in Greek mythology (how's that for modesty), Hyperion is also "The satellite of Saturn that is 12th in distance from the planet."

It sounds like their CEO is about as close to the ground as that!

[Paul from Brand Autopsy]

However you have to admit, it's better that they've associated themselves with the planet Saturn than Uranus.

[Rich...!]

So, being the sucker for punishment I am, I headed on over to dowload the "free taste". Thing is, I didn't even get that far. They asked me for everything but my shoe size just to get the download.

I see myself walking through a supermarket, and then getting offered the latest little chicken bite, but then as I reach for the tootpick-impaled morsel, a clipboard gets shoved in my face and the promoter asks for my contact details; it's madness, she can keep her chicken - and hyperion can keep their book.

Seems to me that if you're going to offer a free taste, it should not only taste good, it should be easy for me to try too.

Cheers for the warning...!