Online Advertising on Par with TV

Interesting results from comScore & dunnhumbyUSA. Particularly given the cost of Interactive marketing as compared to traditional Media and the over abundance of supply.

Offline Sales Lift from CPG Brand Advertising Comparison Between TV and Internet Total U.S. Source: Information Resources, Inc. and comScore, Inc.
	TV (IRI)	Internet (comScore)
Sales Lift	+8% over 12 months	+9% over 3 months
Percent of Campaigns Showing Statistically Significant Lift	36%	80%

(Table from comScore Press release of Aug, 17th)

Google had performed a similar study in '08 in partnership with Harris Interactive with similar results.

The balancing act

When does inspiration change to temptation? Brand and marketing organization I work with are often sitting on the this edge making a choice between being inspired by a successful brand or even brands that have pulled a one off punch. This year has seen a disproportionate number of brands barking up the "Compare & Save", "Taste & Performance test", "Blind test", etc. trees.

The tough part is this transformation from inspiration to temptation is very subtle one that is driven by inertia from a critical threshold of marketers and executives simultaneously impressed by the competitors tactic creating a geometric escalation from inspiration to temptation.

When inspiration transforms into temptation brands run the risk of being "me too"! There is nothing worse than a "Monkey see-Monkey do" brand especially since the tactic progressively gets less effective but more importantly erodes defining identity and equity of the brand!

It is interesting brands don't have to do a whole lot different to combat this affliction... objectivity in evaluating competitors is a priority, a portfolio approach to tactics and finally consolidation of the basics - positioning, segmentation and targeting.

I agree responding to competitors is important but at times taking the high ground and not responding to such tactics can be the difference between a brand leader and followers.

Two interesting articles in one day....

Bringing the CMO and CTO together is an excellent opportunity! The only this morning's article "The Great Divide", lacked was the fact that it completely excludes the Marketing point of view? Here are some interesting thoughts I discovered...

While both the CMO & CTO share high-level goals, their priorities differ. Marketers find flexibility and agility most important, while IT execs value stability and continuity.

1. Allow IT to experiment.
2. Give IT a stake in marketing.
3. Let marketers tinker with technology.
4. Mix things up. Systems work better when IT and Marketing work in the same room and share responsibility for uptime.

The CMO's Role in a Customer-Centric Organization - I have been interested in Jay Galbraith's work on organization design for a while (I own and have read all the books he has written), his article in AdAge this morning is very exciting. Here are some nuggets:

"How customer-centric do we need to be?"; At the center of these challenges is the role of the chief marketing officer -- the person who needs to deliver thought leadership, lead the strategy debate and reorganization, and then integrate the various marketing types into a company-wide, customer-centric orientation.

The need for strong thought leadership begins by defining customer centricity. This task is more difficult than simply establishing a company lexicon.

many product-centric companies think that they are customer-centric; They drive their product-development process with customer insights. They use ergonomic and anthropological studies to guide product design. They test the design on focus groups and user groups. They measure customer satisfaction and so on. But at the end of the day, they are still product-centric. Why? Because they are trying to reach as many customers as possible for their product. Their metric is market share and customer retention.

A customer-centric business tries to find as many products and services as possible for the customer. They create solutions and experiences for their customers.

Solutions require customer insight and knowledge in order to create value for the customer segment. In general, the larger the solution -- the more products and services that are combined -- the greater the amount of customer insights and knowledge needed to create that solution.

The CMO's role? To be the thought leader who defines customer centricity and determines if the company is product-centric or customer-centric; The role of the CMO is one of generating and implementing cross-category solutions. The CMO needs to build and establish a robust insight-development process throughout the company to drive the development of solutions. Finally, the CMO will need to bring the brand architecture framework to bear. The CMO needs to have the leadership skills to manage this company-wide community. The CMO typically runs the marketing councils for the company.

all ROUND Engagement with Pampers...

I was hoping to go for a double entendre, but I am not a copy writer... Thank God!

"A Parent Is Born" is a docu-drama series following a real couple, Suzie and Steve, along their path to parenthood. The series captures the range of challenges, fears, excitement and joys that come with having your first child. The episodes are 4-5 minutes in length and will live on the recently redeveloped Pampers Village Web site, which continues to offer new content and features to delight current parents and parents-to-be where they live, work and play. "A Parent is Born" is an honest, entertaining, portrayal of a couple's amazing journey from the 15th week of pregnancy through the first month post birth.

"Pampers understands there are experiences to be faced long before the baby even comes," said Jodi Allen North American vice president and general manager for Pampers. "The 'A Parent is Born' series is an authentic look at the joy and excitement, as well as the challenges and fears that go along with becoming a parent. We are excited to enhance the Pampers Village Web site and provide consumers with compelling video content that not only informs new parents-to-be, but also provides some nostalgic moments for parents looking back at their own journeys."

"A Parent is Born" 12-part docu-drama video series debuts on www.pampers.com on Aug. 24. Not a new strategy for either Pampers, P&G or most brands but the concept is great in targeting the prospect when she is anxious and prime.

What Does Engagement Really Mean?

I am currently involved with a project in better understanding the concept of "ENGAGEMENT". This MediaPost Blog: Engage:Hispanics, is a summarization of current work publicly being discussed.

Forrester Research's definition of ENGAGEMENT:

Engagement is measured as the level of involvement, interaction, intimacy and influence a customer has for or with a brand over time.

Metrics:

• Involvement tracks site visitors, time spent, page views, reach, frequency, media impressions, etc.

• Interaction measures the contributions to blogs, content creation and uploads, and purchases.

• Intimacy monitors consumer attitudes, perceptions and feelings about a brand through surveys, service calls and brand studies.

• Influence measures the likelihood that consumers will recommend or advocate products or brands. Summarized well with gauges such as Net Promoter Indexes (NPi), brand affinities, etc.

Google Wonder Wheel

Creativity has been big business! Back when I was with a large global CPG company I even remember one exec asking me to organize for a consistent creative breakthrough... I cant say we were super successful but we certainly we delivered, using something similar to the Google Wonderwheel. Our tools were a lot simpler - The Visual Thesaurus.

A recent video posted on Stanford University's eCorner has additional insights for Creativity and Incremental innovation - What is Creativity?

Google Wonderwheel - Consumer Insights

Breaking retail's addiction to discounting

It is easier said than done - "Breaking retail's addiction to discounting"! Its not just lack of leadership it is often lack of common sense. Retail has dug its own grave training shoppers and consumers to shop on deals and leadership in retail is often short-sighted without deep understanding of brands and engagement with shoppers inside the store.

Kate Newlin puts forth some interesting points (her example is not new and neither are her points, they are from her 2006 book - Shopportunity):

1. If we're a clothing retailer, we have to hire fashionista/passionistas.
A genuine passionista (of whatever retail genre) is excited about the merchandise not because they're told to be, but because they are excited by it. How can you tell? One of the aspects of finding passionistas is that their avocation is also their vocation.

2. We have to brand the experience, differentiating on elements of style and design.
The most salient emotional benefit of shopping is to feel "lucky," as women describe it over and over. Knowing that feeling lucky is the emotion women desire from a great shopping experience, we can empathize with retailers who try resort to the short cut of price promotion, which surely can elicit the "lucky" response. However, it's those folks who work harder and more creatively to prompt the "I'm lucky I found it" reaction through enhanced shopping experiences who win social as well as financial capital.

3. We have to change the tone, acknowledging that the customer knows the economy is in free-fall.
What customers want is to have a unique proposition. When we bother to do that through service and support or any of a hundred valid means, we automatically de-average price.

"Packaging the sixth sense"

The Times article refers to an article published in the Journal of Marketing that studied consumers and interaction with product packages.

"When buying products whose selling point is richness or weight, consumers like to see the product image at the bottom or the right of the packaging"

"products that are supposed to be healthy or light — like low-calorie cookies or hand-held video cameras — do better with images at the top of the packaging, or on the left"

Credits to Ernst Dichter for the title of this article. Ernst published a book by the same name in 1975.

Strengthen a Brand Community

Awesome article from Bandchannel.com - Four Opportunities to Strengthen a Brand Community. The best part of the article is the fact that the four opportunities are not limited to "Online" since most engagement models are technology centric. Here are the top lines:

Needs in Tension Reveal Hidden Opportunities
Keep it..
- practical (get help to get things done)
- emotional (express devotion to my group)
- individual (explore different parts of my identity)
- social (raise the quality of my interactions)

Sustain Passions while Managing Responsibilities
Joining a community is often a means to pursue a hobby or interest
- Paradoxically, the more a community succeeds at providing members multiple ways to engage, the more it increases the potential conflict between spending time with the community and the need to manage responsibilities such as family and career.
- Strong communities head off these issues by providing opportunities to include the family and by making it easy for members to manage their involvement without feeling guilty.

Deepen Experience and Explore New Challenges
Some of the most tangible benefits communities offer are opportunities to deepen knowledge and gain expertise.
- The more the brand enables members to explore their shared passion, the stronger the ties to the community become.

Be an Individual and Part of Something Bigger
Individuals often join communities to test out or develop different aspects of their identities.
- Affiliating with a like-minded group is a good way to explore ideals and decide if they’re really for you.
- Marketing experts have taught us that the best way to do this is by developing a strong brand identity: define a relevant set of values and express them clearly and consistently to attract a loyal following. While this formula works well for attraction, it can be limiting in terms of retention. The very clarity and consistency that build a strong brand can feel confining to those already involved and lead to a desire for escape.

Enjoy Today while Preparing for the Future
The tension between immediate gratification and future rewards has plagued humans for thousands of years. It shows up in every aspect of our lives, and the community sphere is no different.
- Involvement in the community can feel like a distraction or like an impediment to getting on with the serious business of real life.

Discovering these opportunities requires listening to constituents, asking questions and, often, digging beneath the surface to unearth hidden conflicts. Passionate community members are eager to co-create, and engaging people in strengthening their own community is always a winning strategy.

Change Is Hardest in the Middle

Interesting post on the Harvard Publishing Blog - from the Change Master Rosabeth Kanter. I had an opportunity to present on the topic of Organizational Change to a client and when I read this post, I could not resist by post a slide from my presentation.
Kanter's stages and suggestions align with mine:

• Tune into the environment. What has changed since you began the initiative? Do the original assumptions hold? Is the need still there?
• Check the vision. Does the idea still feel inspiring? Is it big enough to make extra efforts worthwhile?
• Test support. Are supporters still enthusiastic about the mission? Will new partners join the initiative?
• Examine progress. Have promises been kept and milestones passed? Are there early indicators, tangible demonstrations, that this could succeed? Can the next wave of results sustain supporters and silence critics?
• Search for synergies. Can the project work well with other activities? Can it be enhanced by alliances?

I agree with Kanter on the fact that:

Those who master change persist and persevere. They have stamina. They are flexible. They expect obstacles on the road to success and celebrate each milestone. They keep arguing for what matters. And who knows what might happen? Persistence could keep innovations alive, convince companies to avoid draconian cuts, influence hiring managers to take a second look, or even persuade local politicians to save the city zoo.

Online engagement...

I am an avid GOOGLER, I know what you are thinking? Yes, I searched for the word and found a colloquial English instance of the word. One that means a "regular habitual user of the Google Search Engine", the second one does not apply to me.

Google fascinates me in how it not just organizes data and translates it into knowledge for users like myself but adds to the overall process of creating awareness through fun and exciting tid-bits of visuals. Take for instance the Google logos -

The birth date of Hans Christen Orsted would have been the last thing on my mind this morning but the fun fact gave me a reason to spend additional time on the site, add to the search traffic on Google and visit Wikipedia (not associated with Google) to read up on Orsted's contributions to electro-magnetism, etc. Yesterday it was the Meteor shower and so on.

I know of a very short list of ubiquitous and structured organizers of data and knowledge, starting with Dmitri Mendeleev the developer of the periodic table, Melvil Dewey the developer of the Dewey Decimal library classification system and now Google. Obviously the value addition from Google far exceeds those of Mendeleev and Dewey given the reach and penetration of the internet across the globe and generations today.

Whats most interesting is the subtle yet fun ways the Google engages with the user community giving them reason to spend ever more time on their site as Brand Google aspires to organize knowledge and create wisdom!

Creative logos and subliminal messages

Ernst Dichter was the first recorded psychoanalyst proposing metaphors to communicate brand and marketing messages. Since logos are the visual side of the brand they offer the opportunity for various hidden messages about the brand, I just came across an old post on the Graphic Design Blog:

Body Wisdom It is a logo design for a high end day spa… the hands effectively convey relaxing massage integrated with the proximity of the “owl eyes” to clearly say “wisdom”.	Forkwire Logo Designer - Bojan Stefanovic Being an Online Food Delivery service, its logo shows a fork formed into an @ symbol! Such a easy logo to remember.

...

Communicating a story to drive towards a meaning

Cheers to Clive Wilkinson Architects, for a beautiful video on the new JWT office in New York.

Specific meaning needs a specific story, without context stories run the risk of selective perception!

This video on YouTube does a fabulous job of connecting the dots. Unfortunately not everyone who visits the JWT offices will have watched this video to understand the metaphor of the tree constructed into the design of the building.

The question is does an artist art that communicates the meaning by the time it translates into a design or in this chase an architecture?

Why are the supers always fighting for something?

We have all read stories of all the supers - Superman, Supergirl, Spiderman, Robin, Phantom, etc. They are always fighting for something? What is with all the fighting? Why can't they just negotiate through dialog? Isn't there an easy way to communicate and present their proposition? And what about the brands they endorse? Do the brands needs to fight those battles too?

I know the brands are always trying to get across to the consumer and in the process "fight" with the competitors for market share. The anecdotal fight is about gaining the consumers purchase, consumption and possible loyalty all for pricing, the value addition, the difference they deliver. There cant be a negotiation not because the other guy is bad or wont "fight" a fair fight of sorts but any dialog would be considered and treated as market collusion.

I recently came across a retailers add with a 'super' fighting for savings for the shoppers and I wondered who is this super fighting against the manufacturers of brands, other retailers or the merchandisers and management that needs to deliver the profit targets. The primal issue to me is who (which consumer) is this super talking to? I have never been asked by any super what I would like? May be I don't want savings but improved quality of service even if that means a higher price.

Neuromarketing gaining interest

With growing regulatory restrictions in multiple categories, fragmentation of media, insights into the working of the brain and consumer behavior in-store, Neuromarketing is gain greater favor every day.

Martin Lindstrom added an element of flair to the subject with his book Buyology.

Since upward of 70% of purchase decisions happen at shelf, packaging design and messages inside the trade channels are the perfect candidate to leverage subtle Orwellian, neuromarketing stimulus. Here is another interesting article with valuable insights into neuromarketing as an influencer in package design.

The implicit power of packaging

Is value the quality equivalent of a product?

Lately I have had several conversations on the topic of VALUE. What is the value from a brand to a consumer? Can the value vary by the brands prospect? Can the value be changed for the consumer by time of day, location, messaging, packaging, pricing?

The answers are all a resounding YES! A brands value to a consumer is what the consumer assigns it. It can vary dramatically by the prospect, the mindset, the perspective, the need state, the purpose and much more.

I have personally experienced that in business and careers. Where one individual investing their heart, sweat and blood gets little back while another one who does little gets significantly more from their career. It is the evaluators perception of the value addition. I hear this from manufacturers all the time, "we have a better quality product, but our competitor gets much more out of the product". The perception of quality like value is not assessed by the delivering organization or individual but the receiver of the product or service.

Recently one of the businesses I am consulting has successfully generated several leads and some closure in selling some of their product but the repeat purchase has not yet happened on that same product. What is fascinating though is the repeat purchase by the same customers has occured for other services from the organization not the one that was initially sold. It is clear that value exists and is obviously perceived by the consumer during the sale but has not realized it in the actual product but instead in the consultative element of the sales itself. Clearly not a scalable solution for the organization and not one that the firm intends to sell.

The challenge is to captivate value and have the consumer realize it into the brand the product or the service!