Companies are from MARS, Customers are from VENUS

Innovation: Companies are from MARS, Customers are from VENUS - Interesting article from FastCompany Now.

A few nuggets from the post:

• Companies continue to spend so much money on signing up new customers and pay little to no attention to acquired customers?
• Existing customers want long term relationships and attention, yet companies insist on focusing their efforts in finding new customers.
• The approach, if you look at it this way, is quite different. A company seeks to be linear and left-brained, even when it talks about relationships. Think about customer relationship management (CRM). When was the last time you tried to manage your relationships at home that way? Did it work?
• A customer wants to feel appreciated and loved. Not so much as in “we appreciate your business”, or “how may I help you?” -- both of which sound quite empty when not followed up by relevant action. We want to feel the service.

What Is It Worth to Understand Culture?

Yesterday's Tom Peters! Times had a very interesting article by Darci Riesenhuber the Transformation Architect - What Is It Worth to Understand Culture?

A couple nuggets from the article:

• What is culture? Simply, it is the culmination of shared values, assumptions, and beliefs tacitly and/or explicitly expressed within an organization.
• Why is it important to understand? Because, it determines how people behave and how work gets done. Let's consider how values and beliefs drive behavior using a consumer analogy: I need milk. The convenience store is closer than the grocery store (I value my time), but it is more expensive (I'm frugal). The grocery store offers more options (I value choice). I decide choice and price are more important than convenience, so I drive to the grocery store. While there, I evaluate my options: Whole milk is tasty, but I am weight conscious so I eliminate that option. While I am frugal, I am also health conscious. Although soy milk is more expensive it has additional perceived health benefits, so I choose soy. While, at some point, these decisions were conscious, as long as all factors remain the same and the reward for my behavior is greater than the cost, I continue to behave consistently and, eventually, subconsciously. What happens when my grocery store discontinues soy milk, the price goes up, or traffic becomes unbearable? Suddenly, I am forced to re-evaluate my behaviors to stay consistent with my values in order to achieve the outcome I find desirable.
• How does it relate to strategy and affect business outcomes? Recognize that the same values driving individuals' buying behaviors also drive their behaviors at work. We should ask ourselves, then, "Why don't we spend as much time analyzing the values of our talent pool to predict on-the-job performance and satisfaction as marketers do the values and emotional drivers of their target market to determine buying behaviors and loyalty?" Employees will behave in accordance with their values, regardless of your business strategy.
• high growth business strategy creates an unstable environment that requires individuals to take risks, an individual valuing stability, security and consistency will feel anxious and begin to seek ways to remedy their discomfort.
  
• In some cases, they are able to adapt and learn the behaviors necessary to succeed. In others, the personal transformation is simply not possible and they fail. The best way to avoid this is to determine "fit" during the selection process.
  
• Strategy changes throughout the life of your business, so must your culture. Changing your culture is not impossible, as many would believe. You just have to carefully evaluate and adjust the factors that influence culture, such as your systems (reward, IT), structure (reporting, physical), policies, HR practices (selection, training), communication, leadership-style, etc.
  

Another dimension to interactive marketing...

Marketing is all about consumer education, communication the value proposition when she is most receptive and differentiating within the competitive landscape. Study Places Value On Marketing At Consumer Research Stage - MediaPost article.

Couple nuggets...

• CONSUMERS SPEND 10% MORE FOR televisions and digital cameras they buy in stores when they research these purchases online first using a search engine.
• the brand experience begins well before the shopper walks into the store
• The Internet was the top resource for researching digital cameras and televisions, with 75% of those who researched a purchase beforehand going online to do so. The leading online resources were retail Web sites (73%), manufacturer Web sites (68%), and search engines (49%); 55% of the people walk into the stores with specific brands in mind; 80% of these consumers who do product research before hitting the store end up buying one of the brands they were originally considering; remaining 20% said in-store salespeople were highly influential; 75% didn't know the model they wanted when they got to the store
• Purchasers who used search engines spent on average $31 more on digital cameras and $139 more on TVs. This group used twice as many research sources (5.7 sources) as non-searchers (2.5 sources)
  

Leadership Nuggets...

Interesting article - Careers: Lead Like Fonzie: FastCompany Now, a few thoughts from the article.

Communicate. Share as much as you can about the situation at hand. People don’t like to be left in the dark when it comes to important issues. Make sure you maintain clear channels of communication.

Reassure. Don’t assume your team doesn’t need to hear that everything is going to be okay. They might not have access to the same information as you do and they might cling to assumptions and rumors without your reassurance.

Remain calm. Remember, all eyes are on you. What you say is important, but how you react can have even greater impact. Take a few seconds to take the emotion out of the situation and gather your thoughts before you respond verbally or nonverbally. Then maintain your calm throughout. It’s amazing how comforting this behavior will be on your team.

No brand loyalty?

Bad News For Brands: Supermarket Shoppers Don't Care an interesting post in this morning's MediaPost. Not sure I agree with the contents of the article but I felt I needed to air my thoughts...

Of the 18 categories analyzed, snack crackers, shredded cheese and potato chips are most vulnerable to brand switching, with 78%, 77% and 74% of consumers saying they'd switch brands.

Even some products that seem more easily branded are at risk: 74% of consumers would switch lipsticks, for example, and 73% would switch cereals.

Packaged coffee, 58%, pain relievers, 54%, laundry detergent, 53% and carbonated beverages, 52%, are at lesser risk. They were the only categories to come in with an I'd-gladly-dump-my-brand-for-another score below 60%.

The stats are very revealing but I am a contrarin, I say 'give the consumers a reason to believe!' and they will come asking for more. Competing on price is a sign of weakness not a position of strength.

The Baby-Name Business

When I read the title of the article I was interested to know more, as I got through the blurb about the article I was surprised! But the content and idea just made me mad...

The Baby-Name Business - from AOL Coaches. The article made one thing obvious some people have too much money and too little gray matter. So it is up to smart business people, the marketers and entrepreneurs to offer them a proposition that helps them in both those areas.

If I were to guess more than 5% of the people don't even like the names their parents chose for them, then all this fuss? Remember the artist Prince. A unique name is good but I suggest they go back to reading Romeo & Juliet by Shakespear...

From Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet:

JULIET:
'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.

"Forever young" - Boomers' mantra

We are witnessing the largest ever transfer of funds from one generation to the other - The baby boomers with a purchasing capacity of trillions. AGE WAVE founded by Ken Dychtwald has published extensive research and has a even books that address the opportunity with the segment.

An article this morning in brandchannel.com - Don't Ignore the Boomer Consumer; addresses the opportunity. Some of the nuggets follow:

• Boomers are 71 percent as likely as their younger counterparts to be willing to try new products and services, and 55 percent are just as persuaded by "effective advertising."
• "I think that it's a challenge to reach Boomers today because their lifestyles are very busy,"
• Boomers are a generation that loves to buy stuff but hates being sold to. A lot of brands think that their brands from the past are going to carry them through with Boomers to the present and to the future, and that's not the case. You have to earn your stripes every day."
• Boomers form a generation that makes buying decisions based on the latest sales
• Price-point sensitivity and brand fickleness can be attributed to the financial demands and strains of children, paying for college tuition, caring more and more for aging parents, and uncertain job outlooks—while still thinking about their own retirement.
  
• Boomers may view the necessities more as interchangeable commodities than branded musts, they certainly appear to like their share of indulgent luxuries and are not afraid of technology.
• "Boomers spend more money on computer hardware, software and cellphone service, and a whole host of electronics than any other generation,"
• What we see is a group that is very technology adaptive…and has the disposable income to pay for it
• "old age" and retirement are quite different from their parents' and grandparents'. The "golden years" of later life are turning out to be the "power years," with many refusing to accept the aging process as previous generations have.
• Boomers are less likely to associate retirement with "the beginning of the end" and are increasingly regarding retirement as a continuation of or a new chapter in life—be it new interests, new careers, or even new relationships.
• "They get to do [life] over. So you say to yourself, what is it they want to redo? Education, relationships, their physical appearance, their overall well-being—and they're spending money like crazy because they have it."

My previous posts on Baby boomers include:

• Echo boom...
• Invaluable consumer research data
• Oh My God!
  

Experience of fundamental core values

This week's LOHAS newsletter captured a new movement or a new fad - 'guilt-free and eco-friendly' in an article from NMI - Consumers Are Seeking a Deeper Values Experience.

Insights from the article:

• Consumers are aspiring to achieve the double pay-off of exclusive experiences while supporting guilt-free and eco-friendly goods and services
• From luxury hybrid cars to couture dresses made from organic and sustainable fabrics, it is not enough to have it all, consumers also want to feel better about what they have
• Shopping at natural food supermarkets is up 20% from 2001.
  
• The influence of the "USDA Certified Organic" seal on foods has increased 22% since 2004 and is now at least slightly influential to more than four out of ten consumers.
  
• The percentage of primary grocery shoppers who agree that organic foods/beverages are worth paying an extra 20% for increased from 17% in 2002 to 26% in 2006.
  
• With this increase in values-driven experiental shopping, NMI projects that sales of organic products could reach $24 billion in 2011
  

NMI Publishes Marketing Research:

• The 2007 Health and Wellness Trends Report
• The 2005 Organic Consumer Trends Report
• Understanding The LOHAS Market Report™ Series
  

Free Agent: Getting Our Sexy Back

From this morning's MediaPost - Free Agent: Getting Our Sexy Back

The supply crunch for talent seems to have the potential to rejuvenated the free agent movement.

Anything wrong with incremental INNOVATION?

A comment on my post Commoditize your customer's behavior got me to think about an important question... whats wrong with innovation being incremental? As a marketer my life's mission is to delight the consumer through experiences, I endeavor to improve life, engage each and every one of the consumers, shoppers in everyday acts of joy.

If that excitement and difference comes through small incremental changes in the way they live life itself how does it matter?

To me, the essence of innovation is in developing a value proposition that creates the impetus for change through new brands and new touch points.

Not every innovation needs to be disruptive! Innovation just needs to create new experiences.

Consumers... Engagement.... Network...

The internet has changed everything! The price of entry into celebritydom is negligible. All it takes today is a camera phone/webcam? Sometimes not even that... just a friend with a camera phone/webcam.

I have always believed the one and only thing that most humans are scared of is being irrelevant, being nobody, being forgotten.

Together these make a potent combination.... Be a celebrity, be a "Jackass" or be nobody?

Marketers have tapped this potent combination to engage consumers in any and every which way.

An interesting article in this morning's bandchannel.com post - The Fanatic: A Brand's Best Friend? & a paper that supports the argument with a consciousness that comes from the consumers trust and faith in your brand - Social Brand Capital.

Searching for a value prop in Second Life? Ask IBM

To date I have been trying to figure out what is the business value for an online life? Second Life? Clicking around was okay, flying may be even fun but after a few minutes, new destinations and I was bored. Until this morning when I read IBM's Management Games on BusinessWeek online.

Build some agents, create the necessary stimulus, even preordained environmental responses to the stimulus and wallah you've now got a virtual world that mimics the real world. Sign up players (I mean real people) assign them tasks, set some performance measures for their success and let the games begin... you've got INNOV8!

An inversion of Second Life with real value and a business model. Thats innovation!

Right questions vs. Right answers

All thorough our formative years of learning we are measured for the right answers. All our corporate summative measurements are associated with the final answer, I am not implying that the results are not important enough or as important as the process BUT it is paramount to get behind "WHY?" do these answer needs to be known! How can the answer help us influence our choices and shape the future.

It is a positive step to embrace accountability and measurement, but it may be a huge waste of capability and talent to become slaves to numbers and the analytic models that drive them. As marketers and strategist we need to make judicious choices, based on our knowledge of the past and develop robust processes to shape the future of consumer experiences through brands. As such the fundamental task of how to measure success is upon the strategist. Thus the important element of planning is what to measure? why to measure? and how to measure?
This morning's article in MediaPost - Marketing Accountability: The Long And Short Of It, on our sudden fascination with measures and accountability in Marketing and the long versus short term implications of on Equity & Brand health addresses some for the pitfalls. Some nuggets from the article are listed.

So how are we supposed to use ROI effectively?

• Balance short-term ROI with long term brand equity. And by short-term, we mean within a year and by long-term we mean three years out. A marketing plan requires striking a healthy balance between tactics that yield a high short-term ROI, and those that are essential to driving sales in the long term.
• No long-term gains without short-term. If your advertising doesn't work in the short-term it won't have a long-term impact. Bad advertising fails at the starting gate. But good advertising carries over into the future.
• Understand your audience. Don't put the cart before the horse. Researching how you spend your dollars is effective only after you know whom you should be talking to and what you should be communicating.

Engaging,,, Nike Father's Day Spot!

MOOC (Dated 2000)

The Cool Hunt (Malcolm Gladwell) - New Yorker Magazine
Douglas Rushkoff

Web 2.0 Believe it or not...?

Supermarket 2.0

Commoditize your customer's behavior

Don't get me wrong I am not implying we stop valuing our customers but develop a model for INNOVATION.

I remember the most valuable advice I ever received from an old manager was to make my work obsolete, SERIOUSLY! The logic was to develop talent along the way identify opportunities to outsource any work that lacks the need for creative thinking and sensitivity. Over time I would be left with nothing to do but move up the chain of command or rather the corporate value chain. He suggested I set myself a 15% target for each year, the worst case scenario would be a promotion in no more than 5-6 years.

What if as marketers we did the same thing with our customers? Developed solutions for our customers everyday needs and behaviors, we could potentially harness their everyday needs as we integrate forward and uncover new opportunities to innovate. Every new solution could in itself lead to the next innovation creating a spirally of opportunities a value prop waiting to be presented with commercial viability.

after all what is INNOVATION?

The spectrum of answers is very broad! A significant number of organization out there don't know what innovation really means and or how best to answer the question.

• Is a personalized MM the answer to the question?
• Is Cirque du Soleil's value prop against the traditional circus the answer to the question?
• Is portfolio diversification the answer to the question?
• Is 'being different' the answer to the question?
• Is 'meeting an unmet need' the answer to the question?
  

I can go on and on! I do believe it is any and all of the above and more.

The essence of the answer is in understanding the customers, marrying them with the competence of the organization, creating the processes to deliver the solution and fostering a culture within organizations to repeat the success over and over and over!

I am usually asked is there an innovation model that can be applied, OF COURSE! during my surfing in the wast world of the internet I have found a couple interesting links.

Business of Innovation

Execution Excellence!

This morning I read an article and shortly after stumble upon a a quote by Philip Kotler the father of modern branding.

"The theory of marketing is solid but the practice of marketing leaves much to be desired."

- Philip Kotler

Philly's Global Marketing Is Paying Off - No one ever said marketing did not pay off? But the true realization of value is in execution with excellence!

Leadership: Ego-Ambition as drivers

Leadership: Ambition--Vice or Virtue? This evening in FastCompany Now.

Leadership needs Ego and Leadership needs Ambition! Channeled in a constructive manner and guided by values, character and virtue can ENLARGE the leader and leadership itself.

Ambition, however, can be force for the good. Here are some ways:

Use ambition to capitalize on opportunity. Sometimes opportunity is staring us in the face but we may not recognize it. Ambitious people look at the status quo and see ways to do things differently. It may be to develop a new product, a new process, or a new service. Looking to do things differently can be a force for the good. Entrepreneurs are folks who channel their ambition into looking for new opportunities.

Use ambition as a tool for change. Ambition may be the driver that challenges assumptions. Part of a leader’s responsibility is to identify the need for positive change and to usher in that change. It may provoke us to say why are we doing things this way? Asking the questions may stimulate debate and ultimately action that will cause new ideas.

Use ambition as tool for personal growth. Ambition is wanting to move to the next step. Fulfilling that dream may require more schooling, more training, and more experience. Ambition can be the spark that pushes you to achieve your dream, often when hard work is involved.

Personal Branding

Leadership and Personal Branding from this morning's FastComany Now.

Personal branding has been in vogue since the late 80's when Tom Peter's first introduced the concept of "Brand YOU!"

The idea evolved into the concept of a Free Agent (book) that grabbed the corporate world in the late 90's but the movement fizzled.

More recently the idea of social networking combined with technological advances and support from career advisory services has offered support for the idea of differentiating and rebuilding awareness for Brand YOU! and the Free Agent - Kirsten Dixson and William Arruda have a recently publication Career Distinction - following are nuggets from their article Don't Seek. Be Sought -After; Marketing Ladders newsletter.

Be Visible

1. Know who needs to know you.

You must identify all the people who need to know you. This way you're sure that they will be able to find you immediately when they need the skills you can offer. It would exhaust your resources to become visible to everyone. So you must figure out exactly who your target audience is. Make a list of job titles of people who will be instrumental in helping you reach your career goals. This should include hiring managers, executive recruiters and people who influence them.

2. Get in their face.

Once you've decided who needs to know about you, you must make yourself known to them. You need to be a household name among this target group of people. You can live in total obscurity as far as the rest of the world is concerned, but among this critical constituency, you want to become a mega-star. I call it being selectively famous.

3. Don't go into hiding.

Once you are known, you must be ever visible. Just as celebrities seek out appearances on talk shows and articles in magazines to stay in the purview of their fans, you too must keep the visibility constant. This strategy takes planning and a commitment to stay connected.

Be Valuable

Hiring managers, executive recruiters, and potential business partners need to know that what you have to offer is both relevant and compelling. And it needs to be available from you and only you. So it's your job to demonstrate the value you contribute. Visibility alone will not make you sought-after.

Be Unique

When you can find something just about anywhere, people rarely seek it out. It's when something is rare that it becomes sought after: supply and demand. So you need to know what makes you unique. And among those items that put you in a class by yourself, you must determine which will be the most compelling to your target audience. Are you the most ethical CFO? The creative ad guy who believes that all ad campaigns need stringent revenue metrics? The IT executive who is the world's best business communicator?

Be Courageous

Sometimes, you must be willing to take a stand and risk offending some people. All strong brands are eager to share their point of view. Being courageous ensures that your message gets heard above the noise. If you are singing the same tune as everyone else, your voice will be lost in the choir. Sing your own song, and sing it loudly. Be heard!

Be Consistent

People need to know what you stand for. Avoid the temptation to repeat the message of the day. Unless you're Madonna (who has built an empire around reinvention) you need to stick to your guns. As advertisers know, it's repetition that ensures the message is heard and understood.

Tips to Becoming Sought-After

• Build a large and relevant social network, adding people regularly.
• Maintain your network by regularly giving to the members. A network has no value to you if you let it go cold. Build network strengthening activities into your daily "to-do" list.
• Increase your virtual visibility. Buy your domain name, build your online presence through a website or blog, and interact with like-minded professionals through social networks and relevant web portals. Make sure you show up in Google when people search on the keywords for which you want to be known.
• Increase your physical visibility. Take every opportunity to speak publicly. Publish articles. Consider writing a book. Constant communication is critical.
• Take leadership roles in appropriate professional associations. And if the right organization doesn't exist, create your own.

Uni-Marketing

I have occasionally started an essay and left it incomplete... I guess I loose the chain of thoughts? Until it either the thought comes back or the next interesting thought captures my imagination the essay sits waiting for my attention. This essay is one of those...

Marketing has its origins in differentiation, the early Egyptians marked their cattle to ensure they could be located and identified. The concept developed into communicating uniqueness and then so. Modern marketing was about relevance, differentiation, excitement and more. It was a mass message we sent as marketers to INFLUENCE the consumer in choosing our brands over the competitive landscape. Gone are the days of Mass Marketing, today we are in the world of Segmented Marketing. Connecting, communicating, presenting, solving and listening to the consumers for what they liked how they used, why they chose what they chose and how can we enhance their experience.

The touch points have increased and so has communication (listening and conveying), the value propositions and the difference. Over the past 30 years marketers have feared private label yet they rarely have a robust understanding of what a disappearing ghost private label can be. No one has ever beaten back an enemy in a Guerrilla war especially since you don't even know who the real enemy is? As a strategist I have often thought of the challenge and the only truly sustainable solution is Segmenting the consumer to a Segment of ONE! UNI-MARKETING!

Niche products that do one and only one thing!! Do it better than any Private label! Change the rules of the game and create a new landscape for the brand wars.

This morning's -Today's Niche Marketing Is All About Narrow, Not Small from Advertising Age stoked my imagination to complete this essay.

Niching now

To harness the power of niche marketing to achieve your business objectives in the new economy, follow these principles:

1. Position your brand as narrowly as is economically possible.
2. Become the specialist that anticipates the needs of your target.
3. Rapidly work with the target niche to co-innovate.
4. Set as your goal such consumer centricity that the target niche will want to co-brand their identity with yours.
5. Live by a higher standard of ethics.
6. Embrace a business model and metrics that grow the most valuable assets of the new niched economy.
7. Reap first-mover advantage by learning how to identify a niche of opportunity.
8. Re-imagine your role as that of entrepreneurial founder of a special interest group.
9. Forget push marketing; excel at pull marketing.
10. Realize your brand is now "media" competing against all other media.

The Corporate Athlete

Avoid the Pedigree Pitfall - Talent is talent is talent, lack of related experience is the last thing to stop natural winners.

Interesting article from FastCompany Now:

During the interview process, it’s critically important that you make sure candidates are
1) who they said they were on paper
2) a great fit with your organization

It’s easy to overlook red flags during the interview process when you’ve already sold yourself on the candidate based on his or her background.

WOM

Give 'em Something to Talk About - Only from FastCompany By Chip and Dan Heath of Made to Stick

Fostering the conversation you want customers to have about your products should be an explicit part of product development.

1. The Doughnut
   Voodoo Doughnut in Portland, Oregon, has a cult following because its customers want to tell their friends about goodies such as glazed doughnuts rolled in Crunch Berries cereal.
   
   
2. The Smoothie
   How many people talk about their smoothie purchases? If the smoothie is wearing a wool cap knitted by a grandmother, they will.
   
   
3. The Policy
   Zipcar's policies create a conversation-worthy experience: Renters pay by the hour, gas and insurance are included, and the company doesn't charge for such amenities as satellite radio.
   

Avoidable Marketing Mistakes When Taking Your Brand Global

Interesting insights from brandchannel.com - Five Avoidable Marketing Mistakes When Taking Your Brand Global by Susanne Evens

Nuggets from the article:

1. Understand Your Brand Name
Your company or product name could mean something undesirable in another language. Do the research necessary to ensure you do not sell a car that means "no go" or a computer product that means "frumpy woman." Even something as innocent as a person's name can trip you up. "Gary" sounds like the Japanese word for "diarrhea."

2. Understand the Cultural Significance of Colors
Colors can play a significant role in the aesthetics of your website or other marketing materials, but they also communicate a message. Unfortunately, the message and significance of a color may not be consistent from culture to culture.

In North America, for example, red is often used in operating instructions to signify danger, while other cultures often use green or black for the same purpose. In Asia, white is the color of funerals, while in Western cultures, white is the color of weddings. Without realizing the difference, a wedding company could be sending a disturbing message to its Asian audience.

3. Use Humor Carefully
What's funny in one culture may not even make sense in another. For example, when a preacher visited a missionary, his message on "The Four Ships of Christianity" (fellowship, discipleship, membership, and worship) was a disaster because it was based in a pun that was completely lost in translation.

4. Don't Alienate with Analogies
Similarly, analogies can trip you up. Common analogies in the US may make no sense elsewhere. Even worse, the analogy may be insulting. Neither scenario will help you reach your goal of gaining and maintaining customers.

5. Go Native Online
For years, many people assumed that being on the web meant that you were instantly global. But being available online internationally is a far cry from being able to act global and meet the needs of local international markets.