Identity/biometrics/technology marketing and writing services
Biometric product marketing expert.
Modalities: Finger, face, iris, voice, DNA.
Plus other factors: IDs, data.
John E. Bredehoft has worked for Incode, IDEMIA, MorphoTrak, Motorola, Printrak, and a host of Bredemarket clients.
(Some images AI-generated by Google Gemini.)
I’ve railed against copying the competition with “me too” messaging…and this morning I ate my own wildebeest food and did something about it.
While Bredemarket usually doesn’t mark significant dates, I observed 9/11 on my social channels. While 9/11 is relevant worldwide, it is especially relevant to Bredemarket’s identity/biometrics customers because of its revolutionary impact on our industry.
But I didn’t use the tried-and-true messaging with an image of the former World Trade Center and the words “never forget.” After 23 years, we’ve seen that message thousands of times. It blends into the landscape, like a mention of the band the Dead Kennedys that no longer raises an eyebrow.
So instead I differentiated Bredemarket’s message and said “always remember” with an image of the destruction to the Pentagon. Perhaps that will wake people up to what happened that day.
Apologies to Shanksville. We will always remember you also.
LHC shared this bit of history from the advertising world.
If you don’t remember, “Why ask why? Try Bud Dry” was a short-lived advertising tagline from a short-lived Budweiser product from some short-lived part of the early 90s…
But “why ask why” is not just an old advertising slogan. It’s also an excellent question in its own right.
If you’ve read my writing for any length of time, you know I spend a lot of time on the questions why, how, and what.
Heck, I even wrote a book about those (and three other) questions. Then I rewrote the book when I came up with a seventh question.
But during the last few years I failed to realize one true power of these interrogative questions—and other interrogative questions such as who (an important question for identity folks).
The power, according to Camp Systems, is this:
In negotiating, if you start asking questions with these words, you’ll invite more thoughtful and thorough answers.
Now look at what happens when you start a question with a verb….These questions can be answered in a single word, and it’s usually yes, no, or maybe.
I won’t go into detail about why the Camp Systems devotees—the “start with no” people—despise “maybe” responses and REALLY despise “yes” responses.
For my present purpose I’ll simply say that you receive a lot more information from interrogative questions.
And if you want to maintain a customer focus, don’t you want information from the customer so you can understand them?
Whoops, let me rephrase that. What are the best types of questions to ask when you really want to understand a customer?
Practice, practice, practice…
Remember my August 30 post about seven essential product marketing strategy and process documents?
Well, I posted a follow-up on LinkedIn (as part of my “The Wildebeest Speaks” series) about one of those seven documents.
If you’re not already following Bredemarket on LinkedIn (why not?), be sure to read “A Deeper Dive Into Positioning,” and the complexities that occur when you have to position and message for multiple products, personas, industries, use cases, and geographies.
Even for a single product such as the Bredemarket 400 Short Writing Service, the matrix can get pretty hairy.
KYR = Know Your Recruiter.
My two most popular LinkedIn posts over the last two weeks discussed scammy SMS texts I received from people who claimed to work for Randstad and Indeed but clearly did NOT.
THIS post clearly won’t garner tens of thousands of impressions, but it’s much more important: how do you differentiate a real recruiter from a fake one?
The easiest test—which all the fake recruiters fail—is to ask the recruiter to provide their corporate email address. But even that can backfire when the fake provides an email from an ALMOST good domain such as endeede.com and hopes the mark doesn’t notice the difference.
There are other tests, but my “biometric product marketing expert” preferred tests such as comparing a live PAD#-tested selfie against a driver’s license don’t prove anything. Sure, such methods can prove that Anna Morgan is Anna Morgan, but they don’t prove her profession per se (fractional talent acquisition leader / recruiter / career coach).
So for now the best KYR tactic is to ask for a corporate email address. Definitely don’t take the recruiting conversation to Telegram.
# PAD = presentation attack detection. A presentation attack is when you substitute a fake face (or another fake, such as a fake driver’s license) for a real one.
AI image by Microsoft Copilot because Google Gemini still won’t draw people.
Due to the nature of my business, Bredemarket doesn’t usually get involved in strategy. The clients set the strategy, and I fill the tactical holes to execute that strategy.
But I recently welcomed the opportunity to envision a strategy to achieve a strategy, and in the process defined seven essential strategy documents to kick off a product marketing or general marketing program.
Depending upon how you define product marketing, one of these seven goes above and beyond the product marketing function. I included it anyway, because if you ask 20 people what “product marketing” is, you will get 21 answers.
There’s a reason I dated this. I may want to refine it in the future. For example, some of you may recall how my “six questions your content creator should ask you” eventually became seven questions.
As I said, I recently had the opportunity to envision these strategies for a prospect, and have scheduled a meeting with the prospect to discuss these. (Note to “prospect”: these are iterative, and I fully expect that up to 90% of this may change by the time of implementation. But I think it’s a good starting point for discussion.)
The prospect may secure my services, or they may not.
And if they don’t, I can develop these same documents for others.
Do YOU need help defining strategies for your business? If so, let’s talk.
If your company needs a full-time product marketer, contact me on LinkedIn.
If your company needs a part-time product marketing consultant, contact me on Bredemarket. (Subject to availability.)
Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski has revealed a plan to eliminate his job and replace himself with an AI bot…
…wait, I misread that. Siemiatkowski has revealed a plan to replace OTHER people’s jobs at Klarna.
Funny how these rightsizing moves, with a few notable exceptions, always seem to spare the executives. The brunt will fall on others.
“With almost half the workforce at the company, Siemiatkowski plans to shift customer service and marketing duties to AI. ‘Not only can we do more with less, but we can do much more with less,’ he said…”
Mashable: https://mashable.com/article/klarna-ceo-plan-to-reduce-workforce-fifty-percent-replace-with-ai
I bet customer service and marketing morale is REALLY high at Klarna right now. If it weren’t for the not-so-good job market at the moment, Siemiatkowski might realize his rightsizing goals via attrition before his bots are ready.
But let me ask my good buddy Google Gemini. The material below was not written by me.
= =
While AI has made significant strides in customer service and marketing, it’s unlikely that Klarna, or any company, could completely eliminate human involvement.
Here’s why:
However, AI can be a valuable tool in these areas. It can automate routine tasks, provide 24/7 support, and offer personalized recommendations. The most effective approach is likely a hybrid model, combining AI with human agents to provide the best possible customer experience.
(NOT part of the biometric product marketing expert series)
Friction is bad.
I know some people think that friction is good, because if you tolerate the friction to get to the thing, then you must really want it.
But more often than not, friction is bad.
Which is why when I create a reel, I try to post the native reel in all places where appropriate.
Take my most recent 8 second “biometric product marketing expert” reel.
But you don’t have to leave this blog post to see the original reel.
See how easy a frictionless experience can be?
More here.
KYC stands for Know Your Customer.
So I guess KYI stands for Know Your InMailer.
This afternoon I received an email and a LinkedIn InMail from “Alice Ives,” purportedly with Maharah according to her profile. She wanted to tell me about an opportunity.
“Your broad and rich skillset will be of great benefit to our company’s development. The employer is seeking a remote consultant. We look forward to discussing further cooperation opportunities with you. Hope to hear from you soon.”
But when I asked for her Maharah email address she didn’t respond, and her profile became invisible to me. I don’t know if “Alice” deleted her profile, if she blocked me, or if LinkedIn removed her.
Of course in the real world outside of social media, Know Your Customer procedures can be rigorous, encompassing government-issued identity documents, biometrics and liveness detection, information from public and private databases worldwide, and even geolocation.
But from what I recall before Alice’s profile disappeared, her claimed geolocation was “United States.” Just one possible indicator of fakery.
Did you spot the others?
Jay Littleton Ball Park in Ontario, California was destroyed by fire this week.
From the ABC7 story:
The historic baseball field was built in the 1930s with a wooden frame grandstand.
It’s owned by the city and operated by the public works agency. It was designated a historic landmark back in 2003.
It’s been renovated several times, but officials said there was still likely a lot of old wood in the structure, which is dry and burns quickly.
The Ontario Eastern Little League is sponsoring a GoFundMe for repairs.
Bredemarket