Jan 20, 2014 | Change, Governance, Marketing
We all know instinctively that with exercise, we get better. Running, jumping, swimming, all that stuff makes us fitter, healthier, but it takes time and effort, and we are all busy.
Busy doing what? Besides, running is boring, sweaty, and bad for the knees.
We also know that going to school is supposed to teach us stuff that is useable in life, like how to solve a quadratic equation. Last time I did that was 5 minutes before I forgot how to do it, 45 years ago, so perhaps not such a great life skill, for me at least.
However, exercising our brain, our idea muscle if you like seems pretty important however, you think about it.
A friend of mine is stricken by a form of muscular dystrophy, debilitating and dehumanising physically, but rather than becoming despondent and reclusive, she has sought places where she can exercise the only muscle unaffected by the physical depreciation, her brain.
Creative, interesting, engaging, hugely knowledgeable, and with a couple of extra languages over the last decade, she has exercised her idea muscle in a way that would not have happened, she assures me, without the affliction.
In a world that is changing before our eyes at a rate unprecedented in history, where jobs for life are no longer, ambiguity and uncertainty are increasing exponentially, surely we need to consider what exercises we should be taking and teaching that make our idea muscles fitter.
Most certainly, we should be teaching our kids how to exercise this muscle, they will need it more than we ever did.
Jan 17, 2014 | Communication, Customers, Marketing, Sales, Small business
Every day I get stuff by email that purports to make me some sort of compelling offer, something that some dill out there kids himself (herself?) that I need.
It often starts:
Dear Alan (wrong spelling)
I am the CEO of Buttstuffers & Co, we are experts at something that we know will add 50% to your bottom line. Hopefully you are the right person for us to talk to. (I do not care who is the CEO of Buttstuffers, I do not know who they are, what they do, all I care about is how in hell they got my name, and yes, I am the right person, because I can ignore you, or more satisfyingly, tell you to piss off)
I would like to offer you a free ???????????, guaranteed to work for you, just to demonstrate our goodwill. (too late, my quotient of goodwill disappeared when you misspelt my name, and since then you have just managed to annoy me)
Download our free whitepaper now for more information. (Why would I do that, all it does is confirm an email address, and give you more information to throw more crap at me that demonstrates you are simply full of it)
We are experts at:
Marketing automation
Marketing ROI
SEO
Creating client relationships
Etc,etc.etc.
(If you were expert in any of this, which I seriously doubt, you would not have sent me this. In former times, you would be selling snake oil)
It gets really tiresome, marketing flatulence like this just gives those of us who genuinely care about what you think, and how your business can improve, and how our expertise and experience may assist, a bad name.
I tell my clients it is part of the price we pay for the tools that the web delivers, but nevertheless, flatulence smells bad irrespective of the cause.
Jan 16, 2014 | Change, Governance, Leadership, Personal Rant
Most business leaders are familiar with the notion of return on capital, funds invested, etc, and those same leaders often say something along the lines of “our people are our most important asset” weather they believe it of r not, behave like it is the truth or not.
However, here is the rub of 2014.
Our machines are becoming rapidly more capable. Apple launched the iphone in 2007, and the App store a year later, creating a revolution that is evolving and spreading at huge speed, disrupting everything in its path.
Forget Angry Birds, the nonsense hit game of 2011, and its ilk, but look at the way Apps are being used in medical science, geo location, and a thousand other places, disrupting as they go.
As this all progresses, the machines take over from people, the gap between the smart, innovative, educated and creative people and the rest is widening.
On average we are degrading the value of the people around us, an increasingly small number are hugely valuable, the rest are being replaced, the return on capital is increasing, the return on people is decreasing.
I do not think it is 1984 yet, but leaders should be adding the calculation of return on humans into their strategic matrices as they plan the next 3-5 years capability building initiatives.
Of greater concern should be the social consequences of this trend, and the steps our communities should be taking to address the problems that will become generational, way, way beyond an election cycle.
Wake up Canberra, and the rest of our closeted, self interested pollies.
Jan 15, 2014 | Branding, Communication, Customers, Marketing
Low interest and confronting categories present problems for marketers.
It is relatively easy to generate interest in a new beer, a car, fashion item, but what about insurance, toilet cleaner, and petrol?
Typically we frame communications in the context of a problem to be solved, a tried and true method, but it means always coming at the product from a negative perspective, “you have a problem, here is the solution”. The marketing focus is on the happy smiling person who has solved their cleaning problem, the financially saved flood survivor, and the cleaner injectors in your car from “Factor X” in their petrol. The approach works well, but it often seems that the ad we end up with is a compromise, the best of a modest lot.
The marketing challenge is that the fake happy consumer depicted in the advertising always comes at the product from the point of view of the problem, and whilst it is nice to solve the problem, the context is still one of a problem, and the smile is still fake.
The better way is to concentrate on the person, rather than the problem, make the owner of the problem feel better, even happy. Change the context from the problem to the person who owns the problem, and be human in the way the problem is discussed. This great post by Barry Feldman, one of the great contemporary copywriters, demonstrates how with a collection of poop campaigns, a confronting topic we all face. Make sure you watch the video.
It takes some magic to make a boring or confronting product sufficiently fun, engaging, informative and interesting to enable a piece of communication to work, but it can be done with imagination and some marketing courage. The age of social media offers a new array of tools, but there is no substitute for being brave, and stepping beyond the boundaries of the norm.
Jan 14, 2014 | Branding, Marketing, Sales
Perhaps following on from the success of McDonalds “Angus” strategy, Domino’s has launched a “Wagyu Pizza” for our indulgence.
I like a pizza as much as the next bloke, but it is not one of the major food groups, just an occasional easy cholesterol hit. Being asked to pay 3 times the going rate is asking a bit, even if a bit of a Wagyu does inhabit the topping somewhere, and the packaging is a bit fancy.
Wagyu is a term used to describe a small number of Japanese cattle breeds that deliver a high level of fat marbling, creating a soft, juicy and flavoursome steak. In addition there is the banding mystique that comes from the stories of individual animals being looked after like kings, massaged, fed specific diets including beer, and generally leading an exercise free and indulged life, until the chop.
In Australia, Wagyu cattle are usually grass fed and just finished on grain, but are increasingly just grass fed, keeping costs down, but compromising the marbling, and I presume the tenderness and flavour.
But the “Wagyu” brand remains strong, and combined with the scarcity, attracts a premium in fine dining locations.
However, I wonder what a pizza does to the Wagyu brand story? Not much I suspect.
Is anyone getting a Royalty? Is this the beginning of the end for exclusive Wagyu?
