5

The Credo

Credo means literally “I believe.” Any pitch has, as a key element, the abiding and sincere beliefs of the individual or company making that pitch. The credo connects to the values, because it is a belief system you and your audience share. You are joined because you best understand the company’s fundamental beliefs and guiding principles.

The Mystery Visitor

Desperate to make money for my college tuition, I landed a job at Marriott In-Flite Services (the airline-catering division of Marriott International). I began at JFK airport, New York, forty-five minutes from my house. I couldn’t believe my good fortune. For the first month I mopped floors. Then one day, out of the blue, I was taken around to the loading dock. There sat a shiny new apple red Ford Country Squire station wagon. “Here’s your car,” my foreman said. “You’ll be working on the field.” I was utterly thrilled with the idea of cruising around the airfield amid the hustle and bustle of flight movements. He then told me what I would actually be doing. He showed me to the rear of the car and opened the doors. There they were, six huge cases of toilet paper. “Your job is to stock each of the toilets on the aircraft. A 747 gets seventeen rolls, a DC-8 63 gets eleven. Get going.”

There is a very distinct hierarchy at the airport, with the flight mechanics at the top of the pyramid and others arrayed beneath them. Needless to say, I held a post lower than the low, and as my bright red car stocked with toilet paper arrived at every aircraft the guys would call out, “Hey, here comes the TP man.” So much for my big promotion.

I continued to work at Marriott during summers and weekends until I graduated from college. Not knowing what I was going to do after graduation, I accepted a position as shift manager at one of Marriott’s largest airline catering facilities. I had gone from TP man to a shiny new position as assistant manager at the Marriott in-flight catering unit, building number 139 at John F. Kennedy International Airport. I presided over the night shift, and occupied a little dispatch office on the second floor. For security, it had an intercom system to the front door and a crooked little truck mirror we affixed to the wall that gave a poor but adequate view of the entrance door. I rotated my shift with a very nice, highly energetic guy, who, among other things, was a constant prankster. One evening he regaled me with one of his many stories.

It seems that while he was alone on his shift in the little dispatch office, at around 11:15 P.M., the quiet of the evening was pierced by the ringing of the security doorbell. He pressed the intercom and asked, “Who is it?” A few men in trench coats were barely visible in the street below. Crackling through the intercom, a voice came back, “It’s Mr. Marriott.” Thinking this a ploy to enter the premises for a shakedown, he thought for a second and replied, “Oh yeah, well I’m Dick Tracy … take a hike!” Some days later, I heard that Mr. Marriott was in the area. He was well known for his surprise visits. I immediately thought, Holy moly! Did he really turn Mr. Marriott away? Did Mr. Marriott really turn up? Was that really him? Did he really tell him to take a hike? We’ll never know …

I later learned that J.W. “Bill” Marriott Jr. had in fact visited the facility. I was keenly interested in learning about his visit and what he said. From what I could glean, he spoke simply, without notes, and in a friendly, conversational manner. He told the employees present that they were part of an extended family and that everyone had a special and important role to play, however small, in serving our customers. He spoke of a core belief that began with his dad, J. Willard Marriott. He believed that Marriott’s first priority was the good treatment of its employees, that, “If you take care of your employees they will take care of the customer.” For my part, working a night shift when this wonderful man spoke to my colleagues was sorely disappointing, but I did get a consolation prize, a book called Marriott, written by J. Willard Marriott, the founder of the company. In the quiet of my little dispatch office I pored over the pages of down-home wisdom and the simple yet profound values of this remarkable man who built a remarkable company. He spoke of things I had learned as a kid from my wonderful mother, of the importance of hard work, of human kindness and generosity. It thrilled me that these values were not only precious, but were a recipe for success in business. In the loneliness of that little office I felt that I had a big role to play and perhaps the person I was, with the beliefs I held, really could be a recipe for success. Like his father before him, J.W. “Bill” Marriott believed that to be in service was a noble and honorable calling. No matter what task we were performing, none were considered menial, because each job had a role to play in creating a happy and pleasant experience for the customer. In his own thoughtful manner, Bill Marriott shared a key part of his and Marriott’s credo.

McCann’s Big Break

Fifteen years later I had reached one of the greatest achievements of my life: I’d made the long slog from tiny little agencies to a position as account director with the biggest agency in the world, McCann Erickson Worldwide. This great titan had stumbled with the loss of Coca-Cola in the early 1990s. I found myself part of a new team struggling to turn around this giant dreadnought. Instinctively, we knew the answer was the pursuit of new and different kinds of accounts. We knew the promise of what McCann could become would be our way out. One Monday morning, as I was flipping through the pages of Adweek a headline leaped out at me: “Marriott shops for agencies.” I couldn’t believe what I was reading. Could it be possible that the company where I got my start would become the account that staged the turnaround for McCann?

The Letter

The first step in pitching to Marriott was the solicitation: I had to break through the doorway. Getting through to any marketing director is a near-impossible task, so I started with his secretary. Rather than write three pages about all the marvelous things that McCann Erickson had done, I decided my pitch would be based on Marriott and McCann’s shared beliefs. I went back to those quiet nights in my little dispatch office and the words from Marriott that inspired me so.

I wrote a simple one-page letter introducing myself as a former Marriott employee now working for McCann. I asserted that we were a lot like Marriott, and I reminded her of something J. Willard Marriott often said, “I get a lot of letters from our customers, they don’t tell us how wonderful our ballroom was, they tell us how wonderful our people are. If you’re interested in your job, you can do anything.” And perhaps at the core of his beliefs was this sentiment: “We started this business to render a good service to people, for a good purpose.” I told her how compatible we would be as client and agency because the wonderful people we assembled at McCann lived according to the same credo.

I called a few days later and reached an effervescent lady who said, “Yes, I got your letter, you quoted Mr. Marriott Sr!” We chatted pleasantly and she made it clear that the letter would go directly to the top of the pile for the director of marketing. A few days later we were in. In point of fact, the letter was accurate. We at McCann were an eclectic group of loonies: We all came together sharing a collective real ambition for the renaissance of McCann, united in our belief that our emphasis should be not on the “empire” but on creating a great experience for our clients.

Our Key to Victory

We were briefed by the prospective client, which was a very pleasant process, befitting the culture of Marriott. A good deal of time was spent on the changing dynamics of the hotel category. It seemed that the business was becoming over developed, and Marriott’s position was challenged from a variety of quarters, notably folks like Hyatt, with their snazzy atriums, and Westin, with their up-market cachet. Marriott must keep evolving, it was declared, and needed to be seen as contemporary, and as appealing as these newcomers. I could see in the process, though, an internal dilemma that arose from embracing new developments: How could Marriott deal with the “sexier” tone and appeal of its new rivals, yet still be true to what the Marriott brand was all about? The hidden agenda:

We value the importance of being at the cutting edge of the lodging industry, but do not want to compromise our values in the process.

Given our sense of the importance Marriott placed on employees, it seemed only natural to begin there. We asked our youngest and brightest strategist to embark on a journey across the Marriott hotel empire to speak one-on-one with a range of Marriott people employed in all facets of their hotel business. The analysis translated into what we called “The Anatomy of a Hotel Stay.” It was fascinating stuff (for example, one huge stress moment in any traveler’s journey comes during the minutes she checks in—for a few moments, guests feel “homeless,” until the person behind the counter confirms the reservation). But the thing that stood out most was the consistency of the attitude and genuine cheerfulness and kindness of Marriott’s people. It was clear that they were actively concerned with the quality of their guests’ stay. For me, this was no accident.

Someone remarked in the interviews that a fancy lobby made no difference if you were treated poorly. It was clear that, at the end of the day, it was how people felt and were served that mattered most. All of this exhaustive analysis, and a thorough immersion in the values of Marriott, helped distill all of our thinking into the essence of the Marriott International brand:

We believe that whatever the trend, whatever evolution we make, our cornerstone is a culture based on the honor and nobility of service.

This credo, central to their pitch and ours, was summarized in a simple sentence that represented everything the Marriott brand stood for, and to our delight and no small amount of surprise, it came from none other than the young fellow, John Kottman, who had crisscrossed the country in search of Marriott’s real essence. This statement represented a code of ethics, behavior, and belief that all of Marriott’s ambitions would be guided by. It was a promise to their employees and their customers.

“The Spirit To Serve”: This sentiment, coined by our young strategist, and the resulting presentation captivated our Marriott audience. A few days later, fifteen years after I mopped my first floor in a Marriott flight kitchen, McCann Erickson was awarded the Marriott International business. We won the Marriott business because we formed a shared bond, which both they and we at McCann believed, based on the idea that Marriott’s most precious asset was not bricks and buildings but its people and their attitudes. We asserted that McCann, like Marriott, was made up of people, who, like our strategist John, were kind at heart and maniacal in their dedication; in our minds, that made for the greatest of partners.

Some years later it was J. W. “Bill” Marriott’s turn to launch his own book, following in his father’s footsteps. His achievements in taking a few hotel properties and building one of the most successful and exciting hotel networks in the world were chronicled in a description that highlighted what was really important to Marriott and indeed how these achievements were possible. In his book, he recounted the credo of Marriott, laying out the value systems he believed made for a great company.

I thought I would faint dead away when I first laid eyes on the title: The Spirit To Serve: The Marriott Way.

The Ties That Bind

Taken from Latin, credo means, literally, “I believe.” A credo is the underpinning of an organization’s culture and code of behaviors. It determines who joins, how they are led, and how the organization comports itself. Now, more than ever, a brand or company is judged not by what is says, or even what it sells, but by what it believes. Its actions are a direct reflection of its credo. As the role of communities grows, the vital element that will bind groups is their credo. Tribal in nature, the credo is a glue that holds communities together; the means through which you connect with these groups will not be any doorway other than the value system they hold dear. Ignite, share, and link genuinely to these values, and the people who hold them will follow you. Any pitch has, as a core element, the abiding and sincere beliefs of the individual or company making that pitch. People will follow you in large measure because they believe in you and what you represent. Crystallizing a belief system to create a following requires an ability to make clear what you value and to forge a shared bond between you and your audience. Your pitch’s effectiveness in creating a following depends on the presence and clarity of your credo.

Rudy Giuliani’s value system was a cornerstone of his mayoral race and of the successful turnaround of New York City. Among Rudy’s most fundamental beliefs is “You have to have them.” No organization can do anything without an understanding of what you, as a group, believe in and value. As Rudy and his team evidenced, belief can move mountains. I remember many statements of belief during his administration:

People created the problem, people can fix the problem.

What doesn’t get measured doesn’t get done.

It can be done and it will be done.

Key to the city’s renaissance was a belief that the city represented an ideal, a great “city on a hill” that attracted people seeking a better life. The administration promoted New York as a place of rich diversity, where no one is better than another, all have an equal chance to make their mark, and no one is more special than another. Rudy was tough on special interests and evenhanded in applying the law. Everyone would be protected equally. Simple as that.

Credo, Etched in Stone

One of my all-time favorite examples of credo can be found embedded in the culture and literally in the halls of Johnson & Johnson, where a portion of the company’s belief statement is etched in a slab of stone in their New Brunswick, New Jersey, headquarters:

We believe our first responsibility is to the doctors, nurses and patients, to mothers and fathers and all others who use our products and services. In meeting their needs everything we do must be of high quality.

We must constantly strive to reduce our costs in order to maintain reasonable prices.

Customers’ orders must be serviced promptly and accurately. Our suppliers and distributors must have an opportunity to make a fair profit.

We are responsible to our employees, the men and women who work with us throughout the world. Everyone must be considered as an individual. We must respect their dignity and recognize their merit. They must have a sense of security in their jobs.

Compensation must be fair and adequate, and working conditions clean, orderly and safe. We must be mindful of ways to help our employees fulfill their family responsibilities.

Employees must feel free to make suggestions and complaints. There must be equal opportunity for employment, development and advancement for those qualified.

We must provide competent management, and their actions must be just and ethical.

We are responsible to the communities in which we live and work and to the world community as well. We must be good citizens—support good works and charities and bear our fair share of taxes. We must encourage civic improvements and better health and education.

We must maintain in good order the property we are privileged to use, protecting the environment and natural resources.

Our final responsibility is to our stockholders. Business must make a sound profit. We must experiment with new ideas. Research must be carried on, innovative programs developed and mistakes paid for.

New equipment must be purchased, new facilities provided and new products launched. Reserves must be created to provide for adverse times. When we operate according to these principles, the stockholders should realize a fair return.

These words, written originally by the company’s founder, are no empty platitudes. These vital value systems, which embody humanity and fairness, are a distinct and clear description of the ethics the company has embraced for more than a hundred years. These values came into play when the McCann team competed for a new Johnson & Johnson account.

Relief from Johnson & Johnson

A division of Johnson & Johnson had been in development of a breakthrough product. It was designed for people suffering serious chronic pain from things like migraines and serious back injuries. For many who suffered terribly with debilitating pain, the product offered a miracle. The McCann team received a brief, which was quite straightforward, and we reviewed it with no real clue about how to proceed until someone on the team noticed that the preponderance of Johnson & Johnson people coming to see us, the ones who would be making the decision, were doctors. While these doctors were clearly responsible for marketing the product, we figured that they had more than a marketing stake in the success of this medication. Doctors take a Hippocratic Oath, and while they may be employed in marketing, their life’s work is to make people well. This product represented a breakthrough that would provide relief to people who thought they could never have it. The hidden agenda:

We value the oath we took. This is not merely a marketing endeavor, but a journey toward making a difference in the lives of people who think there is no relief in sight.

This hidden agenda hugely influenced our pitch team and, by definition, what our pitch would be. To work on the pitch, we chose a group of individuals whose communications careers were rooted in the pharmaceutical category. More importantly, we identified several who had personal experience of chronic pain or whose loved ones suffered from this medical issue. One of our teammates was a chronic migraine sufferer, and shared with us the very difficult life of a person with this affliction, who often feels alone in the struggle because non-sufferers understand so little about how challenging it can be to function with chronic pain.

This story inspired us to organize a series of in-depth, one-on-one interviews with people in this community of chronic pain sufferers. These individuals were from all across the country and across all categories of chronic pain; all spoke about the lives they led coping with ever-present pain. It was simply heart-wrenching. The interviews galvanized our team, and we realized that the experience of chronic pain sufferers would form a core part of our strategic recommendation. Later we realized it would form the core part of our entire pitch.

On the day of the pitch, the clients filed into the conference room. On six easels were six blown-up photographs taken of individuals we had met. The opening speaker took the floor and said, “Before we introduce ourselves, and in the spirit of what we think our mission is here today, I would like first to introduce the six individuals you see here in the room. The first is Maria Gonzalez. She is a migraine sufferer. Her migraines are so severe that once a month she must lock herself in a room in the darkness to avoid pain. Her children do not understand and think, during this time, she doesn’t love them.” (This was taken directly from one of our interviews.) This passionate speaker then moved around the room, introducing the other five individuals, all chronic pain sufferers we had spoken with, and concluding with a simple statement, “What’s important about this presentation, and more importantly about working with you, is that this is not merely a marketing endeavor, this is about working together to make these people well.” We won, and when later asked why, they said, “Because you got it.”

The Tribes of Our Age

Emotional and spiritual bonds tied to a belief system have been unifying communities throughout the ages. Early tribes developed a value system for what they held close and codified these values in an oral tradition. In some parts of the world these values are still enshrined in songs and poems handed down generation after generation. Families expressed their credos in coats of arms, each element a unique representation of a particular belief or value. Later, communities defined by physical boundaries, which evolved as nation states, would create flags bearing the symbols and credos of their communities.

Today, tribes are still with us but in bigger and more profound ways than ever before. Now, they are borderless communities fueled by digital technologies and platforms, and exist irrespective of national boundary. They are groups of individuals, very much like the tribes of old, held together by shared value systems or a common credo. This is what makes the world go ’round and its importance is greater than ever before.

So, central to an effective pitch is your ability to do what has been done through the ages, to codify, crystallize, and articulate your core beliefs into a credo for your community. A simple, compelling statement is a great way to do it.

Okay, Here’s How …

So, let’s write a credo. We’ll follow an exercise similar to the one we used when we chose our core. This time, though, our result will have greater emotional content than the more functionally driven core:

1. Associative Method

The methods for deriving the credo are similar in structure to those I shared regarding the search for your core. Used in countless brand marketing situations, each exercise is designed to help you to isolate your credo.

Credo Questionnaire

The first step is to reach in and do a bit of soul searching. Be sure you answer from the heart and give the first thought that comes to your mind, however it may sound to you. It must be something you feel strongly about, and have for some time.

What’s important to me about the way I live my life?
What’s important to me about how I work (and who I work for)?

Once you have arrived at your responses, set them aside for a day or two. Look at them again later and ask yourself the following questions about what you arrived at.

Why did I choose those particular values and what does each one mean to me in practical terms?

How do they guide my behavior?

If I was to start a new business, would I build it around this value?

Would I want to continue to stand for this value in a hundred years, even if the world changed around me?

Would I still hold this value even if it lost me money? Do I believe that I wouldn’t want to work with those who don’t share this core value?

Credo Word Sort

Similar to the word sort exercise we looked at when determining your core, this exercise features a long list of values. As before, select ten that you believe are closest to your beliefs, then narrow to three, then select one. Following are a few examples.

Do you remember your “board of directors”? Ask them to name the values they think you embody. Importantly, ask them to tell you how you have lived these values each and every day. Suggest that they list your values and how you have demonstrated and lived out the values they chose for you. You’ll be amazed at what you get. Gather all the responses and write them down, each value on a single card. Then, prioritize those that you feel are at the core of what you believe. Here are mine:

Generosity of spirit

Optimism

Persistence

2. Projective Methods

As you did when finding your core, you can use the picture or celebrity sort to identify your credo, only this time you’ll concentrate on values rather than traits. For variety, I’m offering another method, which I call the logo sort. Logos are powerful symbols, “vessels” that contain rich meanings. Looking through the list of logos, pick ten that symbolize a value system that is close to yours. Do the same exercise as before, narrowing to ten, then three, then one. Once you have done this, write down the values associated with the logo you’ve chosen. They will form the basis for your value system set, or credo.

Here are some sample companies with very well-known logos:

Writing Your Credo

Letting Johnson & Johnson’s stone credo inspire you (no, you don’t need to have a slab in your front hall), write your own credo as a simple yet expressive bit of prose that ties together a united point of view. Begin the statement with these words: “I believe …” or “We (or your company’s name) believe …”

The Family Credo

When I was eleven years old, my grandfather came to live with us. He was, and is to this day, my greatest hero. What I didn’t know at the time was that this jovial, quirky man had about a year to live, having been diagnosed with throat cancer. A little room was built for him and crammed with his artifacts: dark wooden furniture, a great big armchair, and wall-to-wall books. Bill Whalen, my mother’s dad, was a real estate broker but had not always planned to be one. At seventeen, he was painting utility poles in Springfield, Massachusetts, and one afternoon began his paint job by hanging his pot on a wire that some bozo had failed to turn off. He was shocked, thrown to the ground, and very badly burned. He recovered, miraculously, but was left with the use of only one hand and with an ungainly limp. When we kids asked him repeatedly why he limped, to our giggles, he would reply, “Oh, I’m just lopsided.”

Every evening we would sit together in the armchair watching The Untouchables or perusing the many books he possessed, but we always came back to our favorite: One Hundred and One Famous Poems. To my delight, my grandfather would amuse me with “The Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat” or terrify me with “The Highwayman,” but he always returned to our favorite, the one he called our battle cry:

INVICTUS

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeoning of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

—William Ernest Henley

My grandfather taught me early that your beliefs and reputation were your most important possessions. He asserted, “Kevin, if you believe in something enough, you can make it happen, but in doing so you will get knocked down … and often.” But, he offered, “This isn’t the test of your strengths. The test is the fact that you keep getting up.” Through the trying times of my youth and when battering down doors to build a career in the advertising business, his words have guided me, and they do so to this very day. There is probably no step more important, or that will prove more resonant, or that will be more of a bond in the motivation and credibility of your pitch, than creating your credo.

So sayeth the TP man.

And Now …

Connecting to your audience’s hidden agenda means creating a bond. There are hidden agendas that suggest you connect by your core, what you both are and what makes your connection unique. There are also bonds based upon the credo, or what you both believe. There is another, the real ambition that you both share.