'Get out of the bottle so that you can read the label'. Back at the time when I was in retail management I used a the phrase regularly - at that time I used it as an analogy meaning that if you are too close to a problem you can be too subjective, but if you take a step back you see a bigger picture and so can be objective. I don't know where I originally picked up the phrase. Not a book, I didn't read theorists back then. I've got a feeling it was from an old film - a detective saying it about a murder case perhaps? In my mind's eye I'd like it to be Humphrey Bogart or Steve MacQueen - someone cool, but that's not likely to be the case.

In recent years I have been using it in reference to web site design - but it can work for all aspects of marketing.

In an e-marketing context I first used the phrase around the beginning 1999 when talking to some techies. I was trying to tell them that they were too infatuated with the coding of the site [the technical bit] and so were not seeing the site as the target audience would [the marketing bit].

I think it works well for web sites, getting across a message that I have been eulogizing since I got involved in this e-commerce malarkey back in '96. That is that a commercial web site is for its users. Not for its designers. Not for its publishers. Not for the CEO or MD of the organization whose site it is. Sadly, I come across far too many web sites that are obviously not developed with the user - read customer - as the prime concern.

IN A WIDER MARKETING CONTEXT 'WHEN YOU'RE INSIDE THE BOTTLE, YOU CAN'T READ THE LABEL' MEANS THAT WE - THE MARKETERS - SHOULD ALWAYS LOOK AT THE PRODUCT / BRAND / ORGANIZATION FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE CUSTOMER, NOT OUR OWN. ALTHOUGH I HAVE ADOPTED THE PHRASE IN THIS CONTEXT, IT IS BASED ON CONVENTIONAL MARKETING CONCEPT OF PERCEPTUAL MAPPING.

OF COURSE IT IS ALWAYS POSSIBLE THAT I HAVE PICKED UP THIS USE OF THE TERM FROM SOMETHING I HAVE HEARD [CONFERENCE?] OR READ [BOOK, ARTICLE] - IF YOU'VE SEEN OR HEARD IT ELSEWHERE ANYTIME THIS CENTURY DROP ME AN EMAIL, IT COULD BE WHERE I GOT IT FROM.