Most certainly all of us have our favourite things to read at home (physical books, or more often today, in digital format). Books that have had a significant impact on our lives, careers, likes and dislikes. We keep some of them with reverence, and often return to them, recalling favourite phrases or guidance “for a better life”, “faster professional development”, and perhaps a “peace of mind”. And that's amazing. My favourite saying about books is - “those who read live many times”. I’m not going to lie, that when I meet new people and have the pleasure of meeting with them in their homes, I often look at their shelves, interested in whether they have books at home, and if so, what they read.
Let’s return, however, to the merits...My favourite item on my list is a certain book, the first edition of which dates back to 1993 (sic!). It came to Poland 7 years later and is titled “22 Immutable Laws of Marketing”, written by Al Ries and Jack Trout. I regret that it fell into my hands only two years after graduation, but never mind this. Better late than never though, right? I read this book (several times) and from then on I knew that I wanted to live a life as a marketer. The rules presented in this book, compiled by American practitioners, did not only refer to creating brands or promoting them, but from a broader perspective they talked about doing business in general.
Today I would like to direct your attention towards the right number 5, the so-called “Law of Concentration” which reads:
“The most important thing in marketing is to capture an expression in the minds of potential customers”.
You can probably already guess what I’m writing about. We associate the Volvo brand with safety and Netflix with entertainment, and not by accident. Much more advanced methods and persistence in realising marketing strategies have led companies such as Xerox and Google to go one step further. They allowed us to create completely new words, which also gained importance when we started using them in verbal form. “I googled this” or “I photocopied this” (forgive me, I do not like photocopying for obvious reasons ;)) have been standardised in language, if not in your case (though I doubt), then certainly among younger users.
The above recommendation has guided me for many years. And finally it landed on fertile ground when we started commercialising our Autenti products. We uncovered many English words that have exactly matched the needs of customers. The word “paperless” was the one that stood out the most. The formal definition of the word was “recording or relaying information by electronic media rather than on paper”. This is okay, but look here. Later, in this word we had the original Polish word “paper” in combination with “less”, which did not entirely discourage the use of paper (which was our goal), and on some level suggested that there would now only be a little “less” paper in our business.
Within this marketing tussle we wanted to go all out. Besides, we were looking for the native word. A million dollars for whoever suggests a good translation. Since we could not properly translate this concept, we finally decided to create a completely new one. And so, without prolonging this story, the verb “depaperisation” made its appearance in Autenti's communications nearly three years ago. This, in its own sense, does not take prisoners. The “de” prefix adds a blunt meaning which reverses an action previously performed. Sometimes, in conversations with clients or business partners I use the word “odpapierzać” (polish word), which is equally close in its meaning to the word, but honestly, I do not enjoy using it anymore ;)
We will consistently focus on the term “depaperisation” in the upcoming years, being conscious of the fact that a lot of time has to pass before every statistical entrepreneur in Poland will understand the meaning of this word. This will be our first success. You can probably guess what the next challenge is. The first association with this word should be Autenti and the services we offer. Anyway, for many of you, it is obvious that in our company name and also the platform, there is another encoded meaning of key importance for our business :)
To put it mildly, the whole thing works wonders at the moment.This is seen through the smiles on the faces of our interlocutors when we talk about depaperisation, as well as the comments Autenti customers have left. What is very important and motivating is our ever more frequent appearances in articles and publications that use “our” word, as well as the borrowing of our competition, which are using this phrase to position themselves more and more.
What do you think about the above strategy? Do you use similar procedures in your business? If yes, be sure to write to me about them. Perhaps I will be able to give you some suggestions or recommend effective solutions in accordance with the “Law of concentration”. In the meantime, I’ll let you know I’m already announcing another entry. I’ll dedicate it to our latest video production, where the founders talk about their business through storytelling.
Kind regards,
Tomek
tomasz.plata@autenti.com
