Simplify your finances from American Express!

Home Run but The American Express Marketers! Simplify your finances

American Express once over extended at the peak of the economic growth and carried away by momentum is now trying to help itself and the consumer.

Enroll now to simplify your finances.

Enroll by February 28, 2009.

Pay off your entire balance between March 1, 2009 and April 30, 2009, and we will send you a $300 value prepaid card1 to thank you2. Enrolling in this promotion will automatically cancel your account

Do we really know ‘Ownership?’

It is one word in the corporate world that’s over exposed and obviously unclear. It is sad when you think about it especially since it is the only thing that really gets things done and makes stuff happen? Anyway some recent experiences motivated me to contemplate on ‘ownership’ and the rest was this essay.... it is funny how that happens.

So what really is ownership? Every organization I have ever consulted with asks its employees to ‘Take OWNERSHIP’, ‘Be a player’, ‘Don’t be a spectator’ and yet… I am not saying anything any further? What does it really mean to be a player, to take ownership? Every day works is getting done, tasks are being completed, we are sending out emails, printing pages of reports, creating billions and billions of bits-bytes of data. I was at dinner recently with some dear friends and in conversations we started to talk about juggling and somehow the concept of OWNERSHIP was loud and clear in my mind.

When the juggler juggles there are many things he or she has to be aware of, anticipate and respond to. Everything from the wind drag if her or she is outside to making sure the object being juggled don’t hit into each other, the synchronicity with which the items are swung up in air, ensuring the receiving hand is in position to accept the descending item and so on. In so many ways similar to how organizations operate. Every task has an element of marketing, sales, product supply, financial control, reporting and logistics and yet when individuals complete their deliverables and hand-off they often miss the coordination of the juggler. Resulting in the items falling to the ground!

Ownership has to be holistic an unfortunate irony of the word itself while still ensuring that there is no power grab and everyone over compensates ensuring a flawless delivery. I am proposing shared ownership but with a grain of salt “a common yard is never swept”!

THE Pepsi Doc!

'Breathtaking' Is One Word for Purported Arnell Pepsi Doc

Great story and even better communicated via the document.

Marketing Strategy: Presenting 25 Years of Marketing Truth and Research

Interesting article on the 25 years anniversary of ISBM (Institute for the Study of Business Markets)-Marketing Truth on Research . The article mentioned B2B truths but they are as relevant to B2C.

My favorite was:

"Integrated" means everything looks the same. Integrated really means everything works in tight concert around your brand to drive toward the same objective.

Key Insights

• Understand, quantify, demonstrate and document customer value. This, the heart of marketing to businesses, continues as a major ISBM issue. When both seller and buyer focus on creating value and sharing its profitable benefits, everyone wins. That should be self-evident, but it isn't when sales organizations still have "stories to tell," sell on the basis of price and fail to listen carefully to what customers say.

• Go beyond what customers say. Business customers often can't (or won't) express what really concerns them or explain the real opportunities they have to add value to their offerings. Finding their hot buttons, and understanding how different purchasing influencers work together on buying teams, are of special importance in business-to-business markets. Some of the techniques enjoying more popularity as business marketers become more sophisticated:

• Studying the customer's business design closely for robust clues.

• Practicing reflexive thinking. You cannot really understand customers, partners and competitors unless you put yourself in their position.

• Visiting customers and examining their processes closely for potential efficiencies their people might have missed—problems that your offering can solve.

• Applying the discipline of Voice of the Customer research.

• Going downstream to the customers of your direct customers value chain—visibility—to learn how your offering adds value that resonates at more than one level of the pipeline.

• Going beyond established research techniques (such as satisfaction studies and conjoint analysis) to probe hidden, intangible factors and deep emotional needs with non-directive tools (such as ZMET).

• Your customers can develop valuable new offerings for you…if you let them. Customer co-development programs and studying how your most innovative and unusual customers actually use your product will spur innovation in market-oriented directions.

• Take a long- as well as a short-term view of markets. Despite constant pressure for short-term results, the truly important marketing initiatives have long-lasting impact. Marketing communications, research, training and other marketing programs create asset values regardless of accounting conventions that expense all marketing costs. Even in times of economic recession, marketing is a necessary investment in the future—even more powerful when competitors fail to invest.

• Implement STP. Following the discipline and logic of "segmenting," "targeting" and "positioning" ensures marketing efficiency and focus. In any market, there's no such thing as the "right" or "best" segmentation. It depends on the firm’s workable options for delivering and promoting customer-specific value drivers.

• Never doubt the power of brands in business markets. A brand name built and nurtured to connote value opens business customer doors and impresses buying decision makers. B2B branding dynamics are complex compared to consumer brands, particularly across value chains as with "ingredient branding." Remember that:

• Attacking a well-entrenched competitive brand head-on is futile.

• Brands belong to customers, not to companies. Brand values live in the mind of the customer and determine how the customer feels about using and "experiencing" the brand.

• "Customer experience engineering," a component of the branding alchemy, speaks to subtle but powerful motivators marketers can associate with their brands.

• Messing around with a successful brand is commercial suicide.

• Keep the right customers, lose the wrong customers. Firing a customer—particularly a large one, or one with a personal relationship to your company's people—is painful but necessary triage in business marketing wars. Customers who do not receive genuine value in the relationship won't stick around for long, anyway. Customers unwilling to pay a fair premium for the value they receive only steal your profit.

• People go where they're led and do what they're paid to do. Staffers do what they are measured on and compensated for, so successful implementation can occur only if you align metrics and compensation with your goals. It's well known that, as the expression goes, "salespeople are coin-operated." Yet respect, empowerment and recognition for people are essential throughout the organization.

Scrap Obsolete Thinking

Fortunately, old-fashioned and dysfunctional notions keep losing ground as business marketers improve their skills, strategies and sophistication. Bid farewell to obsolete "rules" such as:

• Communications are from "us" to "them"—or they're a dialogue initiated by the supplier firm. Marketing communications actually are becoming more of a "pull" experience as customers take the initiative to search for the information they need. Venerable models such as AIDA (attention > interest > desire > action) and DAGMAR (defining advertising goals for measured advertising results) fail to describe the communication dynamics of a digitally networked world.

• Cost and price have a fundamental relationship. They never did. Price should be based on value. Selling on price usually means giving away value and profit.

• Segmentation is easy. It's not. The obvious ways of categorizing customers—e.g., industry, size and location—usually fail to improve marketing efficiency, and often reduce it.

• The 4 Ps. They worked in the 1950s, but cannot describe the communication and value chain processes at work in today's complex business markets.

• Stick to your technical core competence and outsource everything else. Owning and controlling every aspect of your customer's experience should be among your core competencies.

• Six Sigma has an answer for everything. It doesn't, despite what the zealots insist.

• People understand what "marketing" is, and "brand," and "innovation," and… The assumption that anyone in the discipline shares the same definitions and language that you do is almost always wrong. The truth, as George Bernard Shaw once observed: "The greatest danger in communication is the illusion that it's happened."

• "Creative" equals "cute," and drives behavior change. No. People still really want to know, "What's in it for me?"

The disloyalty cards

Since the stellar success of Tesco and their relationship with Dunn & Humby that made the headlines, businesses have gone crazy with loyalty cards, loyalty programs and loyalty hooks for consumers and shoppers. What is the true value of a loyalty card program? Does CRM start with a loyalty card or end with a loyalty card?

Recently I came across an interesting article ‘Rewards that Reward’ in the Journal (may need subscription) that reviewed opportunities with some of the long standing loyalty card programs.

“The biggest problem with loyalty programs, we would argue, is that most retailers adopt a one-size-fits-all approach: They use monetary rewards to encourage repeat purchases. But product discounts won't change buying behavior in the long run in shoppers who value things like personalized service, convenience or shopping pleasure more. These types of consumers may change their behavior to access the price promotion, but they likely will revert back to their regular brands or buying habits shortly thereafter, resulting in, at best, a temporary change in sales and market share.”

The article also identified some obvious issues like, “sameness between programs”; the lack of differentiated from the “me too” syndrome in the retail environment means several loyalty card holders have more than one loyalty card (often competitors)! Rarely do loyalty cards really help develop loyalty?

Is there an issue with the programs or the lack of leadership? Isn’t there someone out there that wants to get in bed with the best shoppers and ignoring all others? I haven’t seen one yet? That’s not to say one wont be ready to step up and deliver!

Chk out these pics of a typical loyalty card holders wallet.

Marketing In a Recession - ANA

Marketing In a Recession time for back to basics - from the ANA Marketing Maestros

1. Insights – Know your customer better than anyone else in your organization. Understand their unarticulated needs, those they cannot tell you about, but formulate how they act, or would act. To discover these hidden gems requires living with your customers, seeing how they act and react. Knowing your customer is the key to making everything else happen.
2. Be a Growth Champion – Elevate the role of marketing; be the force within your organization that turns marketing into a profit generator. Innovate. Find new revenue streams building both top and bottom lines. Marketing has the innate ability to create revenue, but it takes a big idea to do so. And that takes guts, determination and a desire to lead, not just serve. Finally, make sure you are on the same page as your CEO. Too many marketers are still doing stuff versus providing their management with the ideas that will drive the company’s agenda. Be strategic, not tactical. No one gets rewarded today for having completed a number of projects. Did the action you took drive shareholder value, build brand equity, or create a new stream of revenue? If not, don’t do those things any more.
3. Segment – You cannot be everything to everyone. Focus on who your target is, what is your brand DNA, and how your brand can satisfy the target you’ve chosen better than your competitors.
4. Market Internally – Partnerships are critical. Marketers today must bring internal and external teams together. The sum is greater than the whole. First, other team members not only have great ideas, but they also make executing ideas easier if they are on board. Secondly, every member of your organization is in marketing. From the phone operator to the delivery team – if anyone does not put the customer first, then all else will eventually fail.
5. Measure – knowing what’s working and what's not is the only way to ensure we continually put our resources (both money and people) against the right objectives. If you cannot measure your results or are not going to change your direction when you receive feedback, don’t take any action. Only do what you can prove will work. Not sure? Then adopt a test, fail, expand methodology.

White Rainbow

Watched a fantastic foreign film recently by the same name. The essence was there is a rainbow in the sky every single day but it is only visible when it rains; As a man of science I know it is the dispersion of light from the moisture (light refraction) in the air right after the rains that makes the colors visible.

Leadership is much like that!

It is the ability to draw images in sand and then bring them to life; it is the ability to identify talent and develop it; it is the ability to align people, resources against opportunities that will take organizations to the next level!

Yes, it is not much different from moving the prism and place it at the right angle against white light to bring out the colors to the fullest and the best!

Reading Your Mind - CBS 60 mins

Neuromarketing is a rapidly growing area, CBS ran a segment on Jan 5th during the 60 minutes episode that evening.



What is more interesting is the area of Neuroeconomics!

Another viral... for positioning

It was Bud that was the 'Best friend' & now it is Jim Bean... that is the 'Best Girlfriend'

The Customer Service Disconnect!

A recent survey conducted by the CMO council found some disconnects between the role of the CMO and the focus on Customer Service -

The most critical role a CMO can play in an organization: to own every facet of listening, learning, interacting, engaging, and optimizing the relationship with the customer, and understanding where the attrition, pain and aggravation is, and doing this in real time.

Top lines from the article:

• 23% of the Marketers said their companies track or measure customer emails
• 17% use that feedback to identify potential customer advocates.
• 59% of marketing officers said their companies do not compensate any employees or executives based on customer loyalty, satisfaction improvements or analytics.
• Majority of respondents' companies have no programs in place to track or propagate positive word of mouth among customers.
• 16% of those surveyed monitor online message boards and social networking sites.
• Most companies don't even have systems in place to monitor feedback or engage consumers
• 37% of companies surveyed gather customer insight from customer engagement situations
• 15% use such situations to identify and cultivate potential customer champions and advocates
• A third reported that they look for ways to turn problems into new sales opportunities
• 16% introduce new products or services to further monetize the relationship
• "It's all about leveraging the touchpoints, or engagement with customers--more than just taking an order and introducing another offer"

My first hand experience seeing, doing and living this says things are a lot worse than what the survey found?

Viral - Viral - Viral & Funny!

From DUREX...

Driving change with history

Have worked for an academy company I know the power of a strong culture! There is no denying the power of its distinctiveness and the resilience from its indoctrination. That being said like everything else history and culture is a two edged sword! The size and scale of the Titanic caused its demise so also with history and culture. The inertia of culture and history can help gain momentum for change or create the resistance from change.

Drawing on principles from ‘Just In Time’ production of driving down the water level to the point of being able to see the rocks that obstruct the streamlining of the flow? Using history and culture to drive the change itself? I think,YES! A compelling vision a relevant and unifying mission combined with the right strategy; organizational structure; staff; recognition/rewards; work and communication processes can result in right behaviors. Lastly communication through metaphors that bring concepts and ideas to life can not be underestimated!

The most compelling change starts from within and what better than history to drive it!

Truspect in organizations

The other day I was wondering if trust flow from bottom to top or top to bottom in an organization? So also respect, does respect flow top to bottom or bottom to top?

The team has to respect its leadership! Leadership, not just for their openness to learn, honesty, transparency, speed to action, judicious risk taking, as organizational figureheads and their industry knowledge but more importantly as humans! The same is true of the leadership’s respect for the team particularly when entrusting them with authority and accountability. Way too many will supposedly ‘entrust’ and ‘empower’ their teams only to stifle them with a constant need to track progress and micro manage. Respect and trust to are the two sides of the same coin!

What is the most logical flow of trust in organizations? Can respect help influence and enable the direction of this flow? Given the relationship between trust and respect one can not survive without the other! Trust can certainly help develop respect so also respect can help build trust. Are there traits necessary for the genesis of trust some visible and some invisible like - Career experiences, education, intellect, persona, title, etc. or can trust stand for itself? Respect can sometimes be misinterpreted for fear but trust is rarely misconstrued.

Respect can start with a positive base but trust clearly needs to be invested into from zero, leadership cannot withdraw from the trust capital without having created a base.

A Dimensional View of Experiential Marketing - Brandchannel.com

Interesting article in Experiential Marketing, but the question remains:

• Is it all about Experiences?
• What happens to the traditional channels of awareness building?
• Is more the merrier, where and how to prioritize?

Top line from the article:

• Keeping the message consistent is challenging, particularly across sales teams, channel partners, online and offline venues, and sometimes over long sales cycles.
• Today customers expect to interact with products in such a manner as to reveal their behavior, features and advantages.
• Interactivity is a bi-directional process involving the actions of one participant, and the responses to those actions, in a continuous feedback loop. (Think of an interactive experience as a conversation. Action equals reaction.)
• Interactivity is a key ingredient in building an emotional connection between a customer and a product.
• Digital focus:

Delivering realism: making the digital product look as close to the actual product as possible

Mimicking behavior: making the digital product behave in the same way the actual product does (e.g., doors open, batteries are removed)

Maximizing performance: making the digital product experience fluid and natural

I am Spartacus!

Interesting article on shared leadership! Here is the top line.

TO LEAD, CREATE A SHARED VISION

• An attribute that most distinguishes leaders from nonleaders: Being forward-looking—envisioning exciting possibilities and enlisting others in a shared view of the future.
• Constituents want visions of the future that reflect their own aspirations. They want to hear how their dreams will come true and their hopes will be fulfilled.
• The only visions that take hold are shared visions

Innovation in the Middle Ranks

I never really believed the wisdom in the HBR articles that said innovation comes through the middle ranks of most organizations. I did not refute it either but maintained a certain level of skepticism. Then couple days ago while participating in a corporations strategy development session, I became obvious. The leaders exuded a passion for the future, it was visible but sadly the vision was stale. The mission was not much more than one that read like the nearest competitor's and worthy of not a whole lot more than being framed and placed in the hallways to to get anyone really excited about. What was most alarming was how generic the strategies for the next fiscal year ended-up being.

Strangely enough the strategies were being confused to opportunities.

The data supported the strategies but there were too broad, lacked prioritization, lacked measures associated (the idea was to revisit the strategies and assign measures at some point in the future). As a consultant I experience more than my fair share of such organizations. In my understanding the result is mediocrity in performance of the organization, mediocrity of the results and a constant need to change to improve on performance while focusing on the symptoms and not the root cause. The strangest thing is that leadership is unable to connect the dots and see the cause. Some how in many cases these same organizations will hit a home run but at most times when the ball reaches the ropes it is merely based on the middle managers and the executors who internalize the strategies into creative expression and innovative engagements with the consumer, the shopper and their ecology.

In closing I thought this quote by Peter Drucker sums it up!

"No institution can possibly survive if it needs geniuses or supermen to manage it. It must be organized in such a way as to be able to get along under a leadership composed of average human beings." - Peter Drucker

Inspiring quotes

Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.
- Joseph Heller

The hope and stress strategy

Peter Drucker said “What gets measured gets done!”; Truer words were never said and yet nothing was said about the kind of measures. To make things ever more confusing and complex not all results are measurable and results can be soft and best relayed as benefits. I was recently involved with a branding effort that had more to do with mannerism and attitudes as a foundational element to the strategy than any real economic deliverable.

Metrics can be manipulated, it is not difficult to make things look rosy when they really are not. Substituting quantity for quality can easily confuse the most discerning of judges. Stress and hope are two emotions that people often use as a metric of effort. As a matter of metrics hope and stress cannot be a strategy. Although success of brands is deeply rooted in emotions and sometimes fears and so the success is a matter of how deep you can reach to sow the seed.

What motivates the elves to work for Santa?

From all the stories we have ever heard about the Elves, it is a tough life! Up at the North Pole in the cold cold weather.

They have only three options for jobs - The shoe shop, Santa's toy shop, Sleigh maintenance round the year for the big trip on Christmas eve. They do this year in year out, not sure if there is much else for them given they are vertically challenged and a weird sense of dress? I know most places are open minded but it may still be tough for people to adjust to the Elves and the Elves to adjust to people.

I have seen them play Elves take charge and move to Hollywood. They have secured roles in the Media and Entertainment industry but that too is far and few. Whats worse is the perception that an Elf dies each time someone opens their gift prematurely before Christmas. How scary is that? Obviously there is not much an Elf can do about the risk factor other than control delivery timing to avoid early delivery but then there are logistical challenges with the entire "LTL" (less than truck load) delivery system.

I am quite sure I may have personally contributed to a significant fatalities in the Elf community around the holidays with my anxiety to find out what I was getting for Christmas? Years ago during grad school I tried to help the Elves without much success in trying to help plan Santa's trip on Christmas eve, what is popularly refered to as the "Travelling Salesman" or the "Chinese Postman" problem. I am sure FedEx, UPS and DHL have been working hard on this for many years now, it is what is called an N-P Hard problem (Non Polynomial, unsolvable problem).

Every year around the holidays I have wonder what motivates the Elves to work for Santa? Food, Clothing and Shelter are obviously fundamental but is there something else? I am sure living with the old St. Nick is a treat but is it enough to keep someone up at the North Pole?

A few years ago I was working on a brand that had a altruist element. The joy and fulfilment to the consumers was very rewarding. May be it is the smiles on peoples face and the kids jumping to joy when they receive their Christmas gift that motivates the Elves and if they are anything like me then the idea of imagining Santa being stuck in the Chimney every once in a while gives them another reason to stick around!

Happy Holidays to All!

Marketing paradoxes

Paradoxes are the spice of life and a little poetic inclination never hurt anybody. Every time I get romantic with anything (not limited to my significant other but including a particular project, my bike, my new jacket, my new video game and the list goes on). Talking about figures of speech oxymorons create the same sense of levity of thoughts, images and internal tensions needed in a brand experience - ‘silence can be noisy’.

Brands have several communication touch points that enable the brand steward to instill the tension and bring the brand to life. The name, the tag line, the logo, the advertisement (creative), the medium (communication), the package, the of course the product, after all it is all about creating memorable experiences that draw her again and again and again.

The subtlety of the tension creates enigma that enables excitement, in numerous cases I studied I realized it was the innovation in the brand, the sort of contrarian thinking that helps identify true white spaces or adjacencies that leverage core equity. Who ever thought original Apple brand was about easy sharing of audio/video files(the iPod); Nike is about confidence not athletics, the kind that is visible in the flight of Michael Jordan as he dunked the ball into the basket; Trader Joe's is about the old styled, the classic, the small, the artisan, the under dog in a world where big box grocery stores are abound.

The tensions from these paradoxes is not a domain of marketing alone but the canvas for every bold citizen to express. The one thing to always remember though, all things being equal authenticity, simplicity and relevance trumps any paradox!

Lux & Candela of focus

I was in the attic over the weekend, never a fun place for me but you got to do what you got to do. The best part this time was an insight I had that inspired this essay. There are many reasons I hate the attic, a low ceiling, limited space to move, big storage boxes that make life difficult to maneuver, too hot or too cold depending on the season and the worst limited lighting. Each time we go up there we get there with a flash light or a torch as some English speaking readers call it. It is funny how plentiful light or the lack of it can bring knowledge?

While up in the attic and fumbling around I was reminded of high school physics concepts of the umbra and the penumbra. It is the shadow from complete obstruction or partial obstruction of emitting light. The annoyance of the shadows in the attic got me thinking about focus and strategy. As I raised the flash light in my hands the spread was wider that is to say the many more boxes and objects in the attic were visible from its luminosity but it did not help make the details clear on the flip side when I brought the flash light closer to an individual box it became clear while everything else went into darkness.

The philosophical nature of the lighting in the attic made me realize the power of horizon based strategy and planning.

Lux and Candela are the measure of luminosity of light.

Back to the basics - Needs and Wants

Buying loyalty

I had a strange and uncomfortable conversation recently about some consumer research revealed a fact that shouldn’t have been surprising. We are humans; We are intelligent (We may choose not to exercise it at times, but we are intelligent); We are individualistic (we do have some what of a herd mentality but we are each unique in our own ways) but most of all, We make choices and decisions based on our own definition of “SELF ACTUALIZATION”!

The conversation related to consumers exercising opinions contrary to executive belief that people should invest in their own business. What is the ‘All powerful’ consumer to do if the brand does not meet her needs, even if it is her own business? Old school thinking does not hold any longer! Consumer choice is a moment of truth when rational people can sometimes make irrational decisions driven by their values, their experiences, their personalities and their psyche.

Loyalty cannot be bought and more over loyalty cannot be taken for granted! Loyalty is priceless and needs to be respected. Drawing on Steven Covey’s ideas from Seven habits of highly effective people, brand stewards need to invest actively in the loyalty ‘capital’ pool before making any withdrawals (in form of repeat purchase even when prices creep higher, brands morph packages or when brands stretch into newer pastures).

Trust and the speed of business

Last year I spend a fair bit of time talking to a senior People officer, can’t say I fancy their company (in my opinion most are not a whole lot more than policy police and many times a little on the dimmer side to my liking) but this one was strange and I like strange. Discussions were often at philosophical levels and usually open ended and vague. It’s just the kind that gets my creative juices flowing. Over several rounds of conversations we talked about talent one of my most favorite topics after brands.

We talked about talent and business models, talent acquisition, talent preservation, talent development and also talent decimation (no I am not kidding, that what most organizations do, they bring talent, morph it to a mold and destroy the ingenuity, the very thing they paid top dollars for. Fostering mediocrity in the process and obliterating any innovation prospects). To add to the challenge establishing guard rails in the form of bureaucracy to making any real significant contribution.

As we continued to discuss these topics we stumbled upon the speed of business model evolution and the factors that drive the speed. We talked about Clayton Christensen and even Joseph Schumpeter for perspectives on innovation. The one and only element of success behind discontinuous innovation is not funding, is not the creation of skunk works, it is not even intelligence it is TRUST! It is the pill that enables organizations to let individuals try new ideas, concepts and models outside the realm of ‘Business as Usual’. It is the panache that lets individuals the ability to take calculated risks FAST.

Later while thinking about this essay I did some basic research and found this book by Steven Covey.

Watered down-Conflicted-Democratic ~ Point of Difference

Tom Fishburne captures the essence of strugles most companies that are trying to find their core equity experience and then the challenges of translating those equities into sensory and executional experiences.

Tom, Thanks for a another fabulous encapsulation of the concept!!

Brand experience panacea

Ever since AG Lafley brought attention to two of the consumer strategic decision points in buying and using fast moving consumer products the concept of brand experience has been played over and over. The two windows, the first at point of purchase and the second at use leave a strong and lasting impression on the consumer mind and psyche.

The actual execution often leaves more to be desired!

So what is with the lacuna between the desire and actual execution? We have all heard about the service excellence at a Lexus dealership, we have also read about the standards of customer service at Nordstrom’s and yet the variance between the best and good is huge. Neither of the stores are pedestrian by any stretch and the difference in demographic is reflected in the clientèle.

Brand experience can many times be the elixir to differentiation but relevance is the first rung in that ladder. Without knowing her and without knowing what matters to her it would be impossible to know the value-benefit equation. Marketing must start with positioning, targeting and segmentation!

Buying loyalty

I had a strange and uncomfortable conversation recently about some consumer research revealed a fact that shouldn’t have been surprising. We are humans; We are intelligent (We may choose not to exercise it at times, but we are intelligent); We are individualistic (we do have some what of a herd mentality but we are each unique in our own ways) but most of all, We make choices and decisions based on our own definition of “SELF ACTUALIZATION”!

The conversation related to consumers exercising opinions contrary to executive belief that people should invest in their own business. What is the ‘All powerful’ consumer to do if the brand does not meet her needs, even if it is her own business? Old school thinking does not hold any longer! Consumer choice is a moment of truth when rational people can sometimes make irrational decisions driven by their values, their experiences, their personalities and their psyche.

Loyalty cannot be bought and more over loyalty cannot be taken for granted! Loyalty is priceless and needs to be respected. Drawing on Steven Covey’s ideas from Seven habits of highly effective people, brand stewards need to invest actively in the loyalty ‘capital’ pool before making any withdrawals (in form of repeat purchase even when prices creep higher, brands morph packages or when brands stretch into newer pastures).

Brand Fatigue

I recently consulted on reviving a brand that seems to be suffering from a certain level of exhaustion. Although the brand has strong equity it seems to lack vigor and more importantly distinctiveness. We have all suffered fatigue at some point in time or the other so I decided to look up synonyms to the word to describe my thoughts and feelings about the brand. At my favorite destination Wikipedia I found several links for the definition of fatigue, I started with medical. Fatigue also called exhaustion, languidness, languor, lassitude, or listlessness). The more detailed definition of the term and its implication were in metals, structures and metallurgy – fascinating stuff!

Do brands really suffer from fatigue? Of course they do!
· Brands are quickly diluted if they are not differentiated.
· Brands get stale if not perturbed.

Many well known and strong brands like – JC Penny, Swanson frozen entrée, etc. have experienced phases in their lifecycle where they need new energy to avoid the much feared lack of distinct recognition.

What is a brand to do to keep the brand cheerful, exciting and lively? I usually like to start with first principles and what better place than Brand basics? Defining that target consumer and knowing her is the first step. Who is she? What does she desire? How can we titillate her senses? What else is she considering? How does she engage with our brand and the competition?

Service based brands have a particular advantage when circumventing fatigue the opportunity to close the loop on the consumer experience enables a distinct advantage to learn and fix problems as quickly as they happen. Obviously nothing happens with out a keen focus and deep commitment.

Above all one can never under estimate the power of active listening!

Trust as a Tangible Brand Attribute

Very foundational article on brandchannel.com - Trust as a Tangible Brand Attribute.

Here are some top lines from the article.

Organization’s core values can be projected through an authentic brand platform, then consistently walking the talk

Authentic brand platform is the foundation of employee and customer trust and loyalty—both of which directly affect your bottom line

“Your brand promise is shorthand for everything that your company stands for,”

“Your ability to keep that promise is critical to establishing and maintaining credibility with both employees and customers.”

Trust: The Core of Tangible Brands
Trust is the engine that powers your brand. When a brand delivers consistently on what it says it will do there are tangible results. When the visual brand is aligned consistently with the experience it communicates an honest, reliable organization and there are tangible results. It’s all about building loyalty and long-lasting relationships.

Authentic Values: The Backbone of Your Brand
Trust results from a reliable cache of perceptions and experiences, built over time. We think of organizations just like we do people we know. If I have heard of you I am more likely to trust you. If you do what you say you are going to do, my level of trust will increase. If you do this over and over, I will become a raving fan. It all boils down to consistency and authenticity. If you say one thing and do another, or look and act differently each time I interact with you, that will chip away at my trust. I’ll go elsewhere to work or do business.

Sometimes, it’s the smaller daily actions and interactions that show you a brand is working beyond the logo and tagline.

Making Your Brand Tangible Leads to:

• Ongoing affirmation of purpose
• Organizational alignment
• Differentiation
• Stronger relationships and connections
• Increased recognition
• Stronger recruitment
• Increased ROI

Positioning across generations

As we continue to make progress in medical technology and develop a better understanding of our bodies we have made significant strides in extending human life. Our brand lifecycles unfortunately don’t have the same luxury, with lifecycles shrinking ever shorter. That’s not to say we don’t know what is causing length of brand life to suffer. The list is long and obviously contextual, lack of a clear focus for the brand, increasing diversity and varying emotional needs of consumers, pressure from distribution channels, economics and many more. Survival of brands is solely a function of focus! This can sometimes create a whole new challenge how does one balance the relevance of the positioning across a population that can now live longer and longer?

As brands position and reposition to increase appeal beyond their primary targets on to their secondary and strategic targets how should brand manage the risk of alienating the prime prospect? Brands like to stay Young, Fresh and Interesting, but the scope of Young, Fresh and Interesting is function of the age. Brands like Unilever’s AXE makes innuendoes to sex appeal as it attracts the Gen X & Ys, Procter’s Tide appeals to the quintessential mom that identifies herself self-esteem in how clean her kids clothes appear, Loreal’s Revitalift speaks of ageless beauty for the Boomer in helping her age gracefully.

Since survival of consumer brands is so heavily dependent on the volume the question on the table is how does a brand strategize targets? How does the brand stay relevant? How does the brand differentiate itself not just by “Who am I ?” but “Who should I appeal to ?”. Me too is a great strategy if the brand wants to follow the leader, but if you want to be the leader, the brand needs clarity. Positioning is a brand metaphor in the consumer’s mind and metaphors are contextual generations and age clearly affect what is meant and how it is interpreted. A strong and robust brand architecture and support for the brand portfolio can take the brands to new levels of leadership!

A conversation with the dream salesman

From a recent interview with Robert Polet of Gucci, published in INSEAD Knowledge.

“People buy our brands because they want to be a part of a particular dream… So people before going into the store, they decide ‘I would like to be part of that dream.’ And that is an emotional decision. It’s an aspirational decision for many. And they’re seduced when in the store; they’re seduced by the product, by a really desirable product that you cannot resist … This is not about selling bags or shoes or ties or suits. This is about ‘Would you like to be a Gucci man or a Gucci woman?’”

“Let me just reaffirm the importance of actually sticking to your strategy because the strategy that you build around brands is the strategy for the longer term. You manage brands for a long life or longevity, so you don't sort of whisk them around every quarter or every year or every two years,”

this seems a little anachronistic but very poignant (from the AMA newsletter)

"The man who stops advertising to save money is like the man who stops the clock to save time."

- Thomas Jefferson

No marketing can fix a failure in the product!!

The fundamental of the second moment of truth for consumer marketing is that you have to delight the consumer at usage!

This is a consumer world, trick me once shame on you, trick me twice shame on me! No marketing can fix a failure in the product!!

The new ad from Apple MAC does a fabulous job with the concept - Bean Counter.

Hi-Tech & Hi-Touch

In an economy where organizations want a touch less execution to drive out costs brands need a new point of view. As organization move into the Hi-Tech, they automatically transition into the Low-Touch a classic example of this experience are financial services companies and particularly credit card companies. Each time I call my credit card company, I have to sit through the frustrating automated system before I can get to a real person and sometimes that wait can be as long as 20 minutes or more. From a consumer’s perspective life is getting more and more fragmented, work, travel, home, family and friends and our patience is ever shrinking. We all want everything “NOW”, “My issues are more urgent than the next guy”, “I always have to deal with the big issues”, etc.

The fundamental question for a service brand today is – How can I be Hi-Tech and Hi-Touch at the same time while I keep my costs down?

Is Hi-Tech and Hi-Touch a paradox or the holly grail?

5 Lessons from Jim Stengle

From the ANA conference... Jim Stengle speaks at the ANA Conf.

Lesson One: Put people at the center of all you do.
Lesson Two: Engage your heart and mind in everything you do.
Lesson Three: Focus on the short & long term results (Sales is no more important than Brand health).
Lesson Four: Creativity is about solving problems.
The last lesson: Have a purpose.

The summary posted on MediaPost is very interesting.

Walking the unpaved path

Years ago I read a book by Dixit and Nalebuff, Thinking Strategically a text book on Game theory. The book covered several examples from business and academia on the topic but the one that caught my fancy was the example from the robot competition. The likes of the one held at MIT every year. The game theory insights gained from watching the robots compete were interesting and yet common sense.

The best way to stay in the game with the strongest and swiftest robot was the strategy “tit for tat” or “Monkey see monkey do”. Clearly those robots that were sub par failed, those that were at par but have a unique tactic had a chance to succeed and obviously risked failure as well. The only chance of survival for two robots at par with each others abilities was the copycat strategy.

Brands are much the same way, copying the leader can guarantee survival but true relevance and differentiation is the only way to success. For those who have ever read Jim Collins’ Good to Great know the difference between Survival and Success.

Let the brand chart its own unpaved path with the lights of consumer metrics.

Branding nothingness

As we get more and more aware of long term effects of chemicals on our bodies, our environment and our systems, we have gradually shunned them for healthier and sustainable alternatives. Organic foods (produce devoid of any fertilizers and pesticides to protect plants, fruits and crops from insects, bugs and infections), GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms-have improved our crop yield and farm productivity) free products, CFC (Chloro Floro Carbon-the stuff that causes holes in the Ozone layer) free refrigerants, Free range meats (Animals that are treated humanely and not captive in a cage/pen), etc. I have taken up on the fad, although not yet growing hair, avoiding deodorant, wearing tie-dye T-shirts, Birkenstocks, etc. but every once in a while I will buy a product that promises “nothingness”. It serious is “nothingness” one of the consultants I was working on a brand strategy with said to me – “it is so pure we promise NOTHING”.

This morning after my shower I feel that nothingness. I performed my typical morning ritual used just enough body wash, scrubbed myself with a mesh and yet I just did not feel fresh. I realized it was my new body wash, a NEW ALL NATURAL, NOTHING ADDED PURE BODY WASH. Supposedly the product has honey, shea-butter, no fragrance, natural alkali, and NOTHING ELSE. Of course the product did not create suds and obviously the honey & shea-butter did not leave a fresh fragrance. I guess “Nothingness” is not for me? Like my muse suggested if I want “nothing” why not simply rubbed the rind of an orange all over my body than paying for an expensive body wash.

Here is a recent and very creative execution of the concept from PUR.

The 'Dad factor'

Top line from the Mediapost article - Marketing to Today's Dads Requires New Approaches

Key facts about newer-generation dads and marketing effectively to them, per the report:

• Dads are men--meaning that parenthood doesn't change their overall approach to the world; it just expands it.

• Like mothers, fathers' key concerns regarding their children are education and health.

• 40% say they're doing at least half of the weekly household shopping. They are also increasingly likely to be the purchasers of items such as kids' clothing, school supplies and educational/entertainment products.

• Dads don't like to browse and shop, at least when it comes to family-oriented products. They identify their product targets, zero in on them, complete their purchases and leave. They gravitate to center store, "on the beaten path" areas, and expect items to be logically placed near similar items. And they're likely to have done Internet research on any significant purchase prior to heading to the store, to minimize shopping time.

• However, they do have a propensity to make impulse purchases--an opportunity for marketers.

• Electronic media and the Internet are key. New dads listen to radio, watch TV and surf the Web for parenting and other information/entertainment. They are less likely than moms to consume family-oriented magazines or "lifestyle" media content.

• New dads are attracted to products that are practical and solve a problem. They put quality before price. Product positioning should focus on solving a problem within the product category.

• At the same time, marketing should seek to leverage these dads' appreciation of a humorous element in advertising (as opposed to more sentiment-related creative relating to kids/family themes, more popular with moms), and seek to add an element of fun to the products themselves. Fun and play are cornerstones of interaction between these dads and their kids.

• However, younger dads do respond to "retro" product connections to their childhoods.

• Marketing/advertising should reflect these dads' parental motivations to give their kids what they want, make their kids happy and be perceived as heroes by their children.

• Marketing should include images of dads interacting with kids, especially "real" dads/kids, to reflect the more positive, involved image to which younger dads relate. The Silver Stork analysts note that new-generation dads feel that few campaigns to date include the dad/child relationship in the way that they perceive it.

• Product packaging should take male-appeal into account.

• Integrating traditional male marketing strategies within the baby/children's products market appears to be an extremely viable approach for brands looking to appeal to younger dads.

• Including products or product appeals geared to dads within promotions primarily targeting moms can also be effective

Here is a classic of how Clorox/Kingsford Charcoal brought it all to life - Meals together

Brands and our survival on the planet

As consumers develop greater awareness of the impact packaging leaves on the environment they start to get selective with brands. Over the past year I have been introduced to terms like: Precycling, Upcycling, Downcycling, Grass-tic, etc.

Here are a few interesting links...
Brandchannel - Pre-thinking Recycling: the New Eco-Consciousness
P&G has yet another point of view - Tide Swash
Cycling at - Terracycle

The ANA captured the essence in this single slide.

Lessons learned from the Best Global Brands

Top line from the Brandchannel.com article - Best Global Brands: Lessons Learned

Lesson #1: Brand Engagement is Crucial

Lesson #2: Luxury Brands Adjust to the Tides of the Global Economy
Luxury brands benefit from a consumer-driven psychological buoyancy that allows them to paddle the currents that stir the global economy.

Lesson #3: Know Thyself and Build Trust in Others
Branding communicates a set of values and promises to customers. When a brand delivers on those promises, trust is created, and a relationship based on shared experience and loyalty ensues. That bond is vital to brands, particularly when the economic climate sours and consumers shift their spending habits.

Lesson #4: Brands are Defining Borders in the Global Economy
when consumers around the globe think of fine "Italian" menswear, they aren't thinking of Italy, the actual country, at all; they are, in fact, collectively thinking of Italian brands such as Armani, Brioni, and Ermenegildo Zegna. The same principle applies to cars, (renowned German car engineering is the genius of Audi, Mercedes, BMW, and Porsche), and booze (all of France doesn't make Champagne, Champagne makes Champagne). Though particular nations may benefit from the halo effect of these brands, which is certainly warranted, credit should be attributed to the brands for the quality of their products and their admirable unwillingness to compromise the brand values that consistently ensure quality.

Lesson #5: Technology Continues to Empower the Consumer
"Only brands that actively engage their audiences in a conversation will survive… If we don't ask them to participate, watch out, because they will happily take matters into their own hands. Just look at the hundreds of homemade Apple commercials (or the more antagonistic Microsoft Zune spoofs) on YouTube and you'll see that this can't be stopped. So don't fight this phenomenon. Embrace it."

The most fascinating comment in the post was the one on 'Knowing thy self' as a brand.

Brands in Pop-culture

Our neighbor had a party over the July 4^th holiday and I met a bunch of video game characters. Nope I am not talking about the imaginative ones or the ones in the virtual world, and I don’t thing we have perfected holographic imagery yet, these were four real life characters, running, playing and barking Golden retrievers! It is always fun to see when people embrace brands and invite them into their life and families.

Brands touch our lives in so many ways through out the day. It is a great feeling when they permeate into our psyche and become such a strong part of the consumer. Few brands have achieved this stature a few brands that share the glow include Google, Kleenex, Xerox, iPod, Levis, Thermos, Ibuprofen, etc.

Becoming part of pop-culture to the extent of getting generisized’ is certainly an achievement but quite frankly a challenge and concern for the steward of the brand. Legally the brand runs the risk of loosing its trademark status as it takes on a descriptive nature and translates into a potential servicemark.

Andy Warhol’s 32 cans of Campbell soup made the brand an icon, one that would be instantly recognizable on store shelves, in museums and in the kitchen and into our hearts but the brand managers had to have their work cut out!

Search-fluence

I had a great discussion with a friend when he introduced me to a concept of internet searches through social networks. Can’t say I understood his point but he took the effort to explain the concept. Rarely do we perform an open ended search, we are typically looking for an answer to a question and once you are able to filter out the noise we are looking for more information about the answer itself. When we choose a place for dinner, we start with a location/cuisine then the restaurant but here is where the social nature of the search starts to become relevant. How do most people get to the restaurant? What are the options for conveyance? Where do you park? Who easy is to get in and out of the area? Do you take highway X or Y? Contextual searches help influence our choices, looking for something is one thing but to choose one of the results to act on is a whole different issue.

The concept is not much different from what AMAZON offers but the information is very concentrated around the book or the product not peripheral and the social interaction with the informant and or the reviewer is not fostered.

The idea of social network based searches is less of an actual search and more of creation of options. The greater the cohesion with the recommending party and the congruence of the value system the more the influence!

Could we be we moving from pure search into search-fluence?

Look x (Filters + Biases) = See + Imagination = Consumer Value

I was recently at a friend’s art exhibition and during conversation I asked her a slightly irksome question, “Do you ever feel like you could have painted this any different?”, She immediately responded by saying “Every time!”. Often times most people are their most critical judges. Every time I write an essay I sit on it before publishing and when I read it over I make changes amass, to the extent that I almost rewrite them sometimes. Not just words and sentences but also themes, context, tone and the stories.

I remember back in the days when I lead my brands I had a completely different perspective on the consumer, the competition, the customer and my brand. Today when I hear myself in conversations with my clients the point of view is significantly different from the old days. I am hoping some of it has to do with experience, age and hopefully a little bit of wisdom.

We all look at things differently thanks to our nuanced diversity and unique backgrounds. Our visuals are influenced by our experiences, our culture, where we came from and where we are headed and what we see in our minds eye is often different from we notice on the shelf. To the mental visuals our mind races with imaginative usage, social, culture interactions, until we assess the value the brands adds to our life.

Brands are products with emotions poured into them so the philosophy of WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) needs a large index of mental refraction.

The innovation story

A few days ago I received this email from a friend, who knows if this is an urban legend... anyways it is a great story.

The Japanese have always loved fresh fish. But the waters close to Japan have not held many fish for decades. So to feed the Japanese population, fishing boats got bigger and went farther than ever. The farther the fishermen went, the longer it took to bring in the fish. If the return trip took more than a few days, the fish were not fresh. The Japanese did not like the taste.

To solve this problem, fishing companies installed freezers on their boats. They would catch the fish and freeze them at sea. Freezers allowed the boats to go farther and stay longer. However, the Japanese could taste the difference between fresh and frozen and they did not like frozen fish. The frozen fish brought a lower price. So fishing companies installed fish tanks. They would catch the fish and stuff them in the tanks, fin to fin.

After a little thrashing around, the fish stopped moving. They were tired and dull, but alive. Unfortunately, the Japanese could still taste the difference. Because the fish did not move for days, they lost their fresh-fish taste. The Japanese preferred the lively taste of fresh fish, not sluggish fish.

So how did Japanese fishing companies solve this problem? How do they get fresh-tasting fish to Japan?

To keep the fish tasting fresh, the Japanese fishing companies still put the fish in the tanks. But they also add a small shark to each tank. The shark eats a few fish, but most of the fish arrive in a very lively state. The fish are challenged.

Peanuts & Monkeys

I have a certain reverence for those sales junkies. It takes a lot of patience and determination to keep at it for long periods of time, certainly there is a large pot of gold at the end of the tunnel but it is still a very dark place to tread and often slow. In categories where strong brands don’t exist like outsourced IT services the sale can be driven on what else but price?

During a recent conversation with an old friend who is now developing business for a growing IT outsourcing company I had the opportunity to relive his conversation with a prospect. He said the prospect wanted the lowest possible price and had experienced several issues in the past with other outsource vendors they had partnered with. The dialogue piqued my interest so I asked some more questions. Contracts with other vendors had fallen apart based on the quality of service that was delivered to the client. Pricing was the key differentiator when selecting those vendors and the experience

The immediate analogy that came to mind was if you offer peanuts the best you can afford are monkeys. A monkey is a monkey is a monkey is a monkey just smaller or bigger in size, all they can do is copy each other, scratch and sniff.

Marketing Evolution-Tom Fishburne

Another fascinating contribution by Tom on Brand Camp! - Marketing Evolution.

Habits, Habits, Habits!

Buy This: Save More, Spend Less
By ROBERT POWELL (WSJ-Subscription Needed)

Interesting article talking about how CPG companies provide the stimulus that generates profitable volume and brand growth without even making the consumer think about the product.

Not every industry has been successful in establishing and leveraging habits, one such industry is Finance and Financial services.

The article reviews a case on soap usage from Ghana and makes references to consumer irrationality discussed by Dan Ariely to know, understand and leverage. Worth a read!

Training the consumer Pavlov's way-Tom Fishburne

Tom captures an interesting store from his past, no one denies sales move volume but what does it do for a brand's equity?

A lack of a holistic view on brands growth strategy and heavy dependence on trade promotions are a paves path to the brand grave yard!

Stuff grows legs

Ever noticed how you don’t find things when you are in a rush or when you need them. In our household we have this happen with salt, sugar, chips, snacks, etc. The recent McCormick ad is a classic example of how this happens. In the advertisement the kid of the family is using the McCormick black pepper grinder while mom cooks a meal and can’t find the grinder. Mom asks the child and she hands over the grinder so mom can complete making meal for the family. Years ago I remember when I moved to Cambridge, Mass for school/work I lived out of my car for almost a week until I found an apartment. I slept in a hotel but my stuff stayed in the car. Even after I settled into an apartment things took a long time to leave the car and often accompanied me between the apartment and the car.

We had several similar experiences with folks misplacing brands from designated spots particularly the popular brands, causing the cooking to take longer than it really needs to. Over time I noticed the more popular brands and fancy new packaging is a major driver.

All this got me thinking, As a marketer an idea popped – Could brands have invisible feet?

What drives these products to ‘travel’, not something we have leveraged yet?

Core truths about 'Digital-lings'

Interesting post on ANA Marketing Maestros - Digital Natives By: Irina Gorodetskaya

Truth 1: Email is lame.
Recently, Chris Marriott of Axciom presented at an ANA Marketing Training workshop on Digital Marketing and he stressed that the younger demographic does not answer their parents’ phone calls or emails. Instead joining social networks such as Facebook has caught his daughter attention.

Truth 2: TV is dead. Long live TV like online video services, e.g. Hulu.
That’s right, television is still hip but the format we watch it in has changed. People are busier now and do more things simultaneously—we as digital natives expect to see movies on multiple platforms which we can take with us wherever we go.

Truth 3: Cant w8 2 c u luv mma
We have our own ‘hip’ lingo that can catch our attention if adopted by advertisers.

Truth 4: Teens have a totally different view on privacy. Totally!
Teens today put up their phone numbers on social networking sites without worrying about identity theft or telemarketers.

Truth 5: “We don’t need no education.”

Truth 6: Copyrights?
An average teenager’s iPod has 800 illegal music tracks.

Truth 7: They care.

The heart and the wallet

For years my wallet would get distorted after a period of usage. No matter how fancy or sophisticated, it met the same fate. Remember the Seinfeld episode where George has to sit at an angle with his wallet under one of his buttocks that should give you an idea why those poor wallets have such a terrible destiny. Then couple years ago on my birthday I received a Coach wallet and I was determined to preserve this one for as long as it took. The first thing I did was started carrying it in my blazer pocket. The first time I put it in my pocket a thought crossed my mind. We make brand decisions with our heart and emotion and pay from our wallet, now there is a connection.

I guess there is a reason why shirts tend to have pockets right over the heart? What is funny is it is said ‘The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach and to a woman’s heart is through flattery’. Wouldn’t it make more sense to have a pocket on the belly and not the chest? Women have it figured; to them the wallet is a fashion accessory. It is no wonder they carry it away from their immediate body on most occasions.

The good and bad part is with all the ‘stuff’ in the wallet its position has dropped for most men to the bottom rear while the heart is still up top! One more reason for marketers to focus on emotions and connect with the heart than just the wallet!

That being said it is tough to drive shaving cream and razors with any appetizing pictures of food? While women don’t buy any more maxi pads just because the package speaks to her saying ‘honey you look ravishing’? Patriotism has also only gone so far… ‘Made in America’, ‘Designed in America’, or even ‘Assembled in America’ in a day and age where consumers literally empty their wallets on each stop at the gas pump. That’s not to say consumers don’t make purchase decisions emotionally with their heart but every purchase is a negotiation.

The negotiation involves a balancing act between the heart and the wallet. For years businesses that have let their brands languish at the expense of promotions have noticed a typical phenomenon where revenues increase while profits drop. Closure has been motivated purely based on the price at point of purchase, conversion at the point of purchase does little to leverage the emotional bond and the sixth sense of the packaging itself. Then there is the phenomenon of the luxury market where the shopper has a strong emotional bond and one that is effectively communicated and reinforced in the store but the foot traffic is small and not quite enough to justify at a grocery, drug or mass merchandise stores.

Marketing with Metaphors

Emotions, Beliefs and Expression, Zalman knows it best.

Staycation

A long time ago a manager in one of my old roles told me the easiest way to build awareness for a project is to name it. A form of branding the project! Recently I heart of one such rallying term – Staycation.

In today’s economic times of increasing costs of food, energy and everything around us people are economizing. Like most things economy starts at home! Consumers are cutting back on shopping and vacationing. A good vacation can be rejuvenation we need after a long hard day of work but with energy prices where they are travel is an expensive proposition and that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Our creative genes help us reinvent our world over and over and our imagination is the fuel for this reinvention.

As consumers cut back on travel, they are starting to find alternative destinations like the backyard of the house! I am not kidding and there in is the genesis of the word I heard – STAYCATION. Stay at home to take a break and small vacation to destination backyard.

Hope may not be a strategy but till there is hope there will be life and rallying cries are the hope of brands. The hope for the season is Staycation!!!

Culturecode? - "Fuel your family"

Dr. Rapaille will be very happy to hear about this video on youtube...

On the money!!!

Tom is FAB!

Leveraging equity-prioritizing imp

I have written about strategy extensively in various essays on this and other blogs I contribute. I define strategy as the process of developing and prioritizing options to enable growth towards a broader vision. In my experience the development of options is often the relatively easier step, it is prioritization that most people and organizations bulk at. Ever watch a kid at a dessert table? It is a fascinating visual, he or she will want it all and very often the largest size or the biggest piece of ice cream, cake, milk shake, you name it. Rest assured he or she is not going to finish any more than a small fraction of the entire selection. Organizations act like little kids at times when going after consumers. They want it all, they want their brands to be everything to everybody ending up being nothing to anybody.

Anyway back to brand equity… when prioritizing the attributes that define our brand’s core equity brand stewards often run into a very similar dilemma. Who is she and what is most important to her? How is she satisfying her needs today and why should she choose your brand to meet those needs? Often these criteria are not a simple one plus one equals two but one plus one equals zero or even four, every psychologist has developed his or her own theory to understand her desire to try and enable the one plus one equals at least two if not more.

As a marketer and the research budgets available to large brands these days there is a strong tendency to get carried away, it is really where economists are different from a brand marketer. Keep it simple, ensure every equity attribute needs to simply abide the following –

• Be Different!
• Maintain Relevance to the target.
• Live the brand with the highest Esteem.
• Communicate, Communicate, communicate

This is based on the Y&R DREK (Differentiation, Relevance, Esteem and Knowledge) model in assessing a brands equity value, the intangible asset value to an organization.

Corporate identities from Brand Camp

Always fascinated by Tom Fishburne...

How do we decide?

How do we decide?

A article in the Times and referenced in the Stanford Business School's Knolwedgebase Newsletter on recent work by Baba Shiv, professor of marketing at Stanford Graduate School of Business, on how emotions influence decision-making.

The top line:

- Emotions are key to decision-making
- Commitment to a decision is critical
- Vulcan behaviour can be forced
- Price can influence the emotional experience
- Desperation (fear) is good for getting people to do something and so are Unexpected rewards
- Women make better decisions
- People are optimists
- Hope causes a delay in decision-making

A paper along the same lines (Nonconscious Goals and Consumer Choice by Tanya L. Chartrand, Joel Huber, Baba Shiv, Robin J. Tanner) addressing the value of emotions in making choices is published in this months Journal of Consumer Research.

ANA insights

ANA insights-29
Originally uploaded by ana.insightslides

The visuals are inspiring and insightful! A MUST experience...

Brand user community, ‘A movement’

The other morning while reading WSJ I was reminded of a topic I have been toying with in my mind and there it was. The article in the journal talked about an organization endorsing one of the candidates running for the US Presidential elections, I am not a political junkie but I do have some strong opinions and very defined preferences while I obviously don’t wish to voice on this forum but I would love to play with the idea of organizations and membership to those organizations as a they apply to brands.

Last year I presented someone with a very eclectic and premium watch. I was very proud of myself when I presented it and hoped the master piece will receive some airtime. During a conversation recently I found out that hardly happens for the fear of being damaged, lost or stolen? The idea got me thinking about premium brands the likes that celebrities consume and brand managers love to broadcast in the hope that it will generate fan following and clout for the brand itself. The implicit assumption is consumption of the brand automatically puts you into a community of users that share common values and a club that is limited to the brand users. But what happens if the celebrity is no longer seen consuming the brand or even worse seen consuming a different brand? Does the community still exist, given the flagship has fallen?

I always believed that the brand user community is a movement, one that embodies the brands mission and helps drive the vision and purpose. Every consumer is a latent ambassador that advocates for the brand as an unofficial spokes person. It is paramount as a brand steward to know your segment and target them so the brand resonates, a phenomenon that has a multiplicative effect versus additive; the contrarian view is the wrong target segment dissonates a form of chaos with no direction or growth for the brand. Simply put, it is a self reinforcing spiral, grow the right target community, the brand grows by leaps and bounds!

Confused retail marketing

Ever been to a party where you see people you don’t know but obviously recognize the Armani suit, Versace negligee, Patek Philippe or Cartier watch, Allen Edmonds or Jimmy Choo shoes. None of the stuff still helps you recognize the individual gentleman or lady? That is exactly how I feel when I enter most retail stores these days.

Walk into most food and mass merchandise stores and they usually all feel like the same (there are obvious exceptions-Wegmans, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, Wal-Mart, Target to name a few). If one suffered from amnesia it would be difficult to know where you are once inside. What makes things worse is the fact that all promote brands that they don’t own, all the merchandising is focused on brands others own the equivalent of showing off the expensive dress/suit, watch/jewelry, shoe, etc. from my example but it does little for the store itself.

Retail is essentially in the service business, build a brand for service and make service your product. What would be ideal is leverage the equity brand manufacturers have built and piggyback an ultra premium service to keep Mom coming back again and again for top quality brands, bring kids for play and education on where stuff comes from, connect with the neighbors and friends shopping at the store, while still feeling at home with the same familiar comfort of the associates and the neighborhood.

The organizational bullwhip

I liked the post and to build on it further some organizations are so strange that they change without any perception or insights and sometimes so fast that they create unexpected and often unplanned resonance.

The obvious risk is complete chaos from two completely independent and unrelated change initiatives.

Jay Galbraith's STAR Model is a great framework when leading change.

The commodity squeeze is a community process but Brand is an individual strategy

With oil prices where there are it is not unusual to see an article on the state of affairs in the news every single day and with oil comes OPEC the cartel of petroleum producing countries. There have been several different cartels that came and went over the years Sugar cartel, Rubber cartel, Steel cartel, Aluminum, Magnesium cartel, Explosive cartel, etc. None of which are in existence any longer?

The basic definition of a commodity is a product without any appreciable difference from supplier to supplier giving the consumer the flexibility of substituting one suppliers product with the other. The classic economics of supply and demand apply to the commodity world too and since supply is no longer controlled by one single producing/supplying party creates an opportunity for suppliers to collude on supply quantities and fix prices to take advantage of the market need. The only way to make more money is to constrict the supply collectively between the producers/suppliers. These collective agreements between the members and the need to forego revenues for members producing/supplying small quantities of product are the primary reason why cartels are not sustainable over long terms.

Brands on the other hand are a property of its owner. Only the owner can choose to restrict or release supply. The economics of supply and demand apply to brands too but the emotional connection creates a demand where a need may be satisfied through alternatives but a want/desire remains. This desire also enables the supplier to charge a price different from a competitive supplier. Each producer/supplier can develop a own strategy independent of the competitor based on the consumer segment and differentiated positioning for the brand. A clear and differentiated positioning that is relevant to the target consumer segment is the difference between independence as a brand and the dependence as a commodity.

The pendulum swing

Products like art follow movements in time. Neoclassical, Classical, Renaissance, Realism, Surrealism, Pointillism, Dada, Cubism, Minimalism, Pop, Modernism, I can go on and on. In a world where products like Google mail is minimalist; Procter & Gamble’s Tide with bleach, Tide with Downy, Tide with Febreze is hybrid; Chevy’s American Revolution and Chrysler’s PT Cruiser designs are classical; Ikea is modern.

What are the points of inflection when products are ready for a change in movement? What is the product innovation swing amplitude and frequency? When is it time to continue to forge new or forge the old back into the future? It is not to say we tread backwards but squeeze a little nostalgia into the equity for innovation sake. Every time I notice the old in the new I am reminded a quote by Sam Levinson – “The reason grandparents and grandchildren get along so well is that they have a common enemy.”

Is creativity impactfull when unnoticed?

We have all struggled with the age old question "When a tree falls in a lonely forest, and no animal is near by to hear it, does it make a sound? Why?" at one time of the other. No one seems to know the origin of this question; I came to think of it again while reading an article in the WSJ about the Microsoft Vista challenges.

The article talked about how Microsoft needs to focus on communicating the existing features in Windows before developing anything new because current users already have a tough with the built in creativity of the Microsoft wizard programmers. It all starts with Microsoft second guessing the user community by making choices and settings from the simplest to the most complicated. Here is a classic example the Firefox browser takes less than half the amount of time to load than Internet explorer, primarily because Internet explorer had many more add-ins that the browser automatically loads and often the user community does not even need. Alternatively Firefox is minimalist and lets you add what you want when you need it, with less baggage the Firefox browser is quick to load and fast to surf/navigate. Not every user is savvy enough to use Firefox but not stupid enough to need Internet explorer to push creativity behind the curtain.

Microsoft windows is the worlds most popular operating system and is responsible for much of the global productivity improvement since the mid 80’s. Creativity whether innate at Microsoft or inspired by rivals has made computer usage a mass phenomenon. But if the user is unable to experience this creativity and innovation there is no value.

Innovation is the value on creativity and innovation needs marketing!

The Boss

An interview with AG on the Innovation Process at P&G and described in detail in his recent book The Game-Changer.

Another viral campaign

Up Close And Personal With The World

I have been a long time fan of Iconoculture...

Fascinating article for a marketer and a philosophical point of view from an organization focused on researching cultural trends.

Here are some of the top lines from the article:

• Technology is rapidly helping to level the worldwide commercial playing field
• Consumers make new connections everyday socially and professionally that redefine relationships
• A whole new relationship has been established between the consumer and the marketer
• There are 6 trends at play -

• The centerless world - Technology enabled global competition, Cultural migration.


• Greater expectations - Almost no barrier for new entrants, Consumer demand Trust!
  The fear economy - Brands are hope, brands are trust in an otherwise crazy world.
  Finite future - Sharper focus on sustainability.


• The Age upon us - Age'ing consumer has different needs that need to be addressed


• Belief and the globalized consumer - 3 types that are passionate about their views on ethics, morality and religion.

• Belief-motivated consumers: Cause Consumers driven by ethical (including environmental) convictions


• Confession Consumers: Live by a set of strict religious doctrines


• Conversion Consumers: Represent the shifting allegiances of religions and cultures as they mix

One thing to remember with research and consumer research is just as guilty of prejudices...

We don’t see things the way they are, we see them the way we are – Anais Nin It is never too late to give up your prejudices - Henry David Thoreau