Jun 27, 2011 | Branding, Innovation, Marketing
How often have you seen assumptions, either made in the early stages of a project, or as a result of a long association with a product category blinding people to alternatives, gradually become accepted as “fact”?
I have seen it often, as has everyone who ever sought to overturn the status quo, these “factoids” rear their ugly heads to stymie innovation.
Many years ago, when flavored milk was all packed in cartons that cost a few cents each, it was an accepted “factoid” that consumers would not pay extra for different packaging that added to the cost of the product. It was a “fact” that plastic bottles with a resealable screw cap that added 25 cents to the cost , for less product, held no attraction to consumers, a “fact” confirmed by market research. At the time, whilst pretty obvious that the research was flawed by asking consumers questions about something they had not seen, the institutional forces against any innovation were strong.
However, we launched a product, “Dare” flavored milk that delivered less product in a more expensive, more user friendly and attractive package, and consumers changed their behavior overnight, and the product was not only a success, but it changed the marketing landscape of flavored milk overnight, and 20 years later it is still on the market.
So much for the so called facts.
Jun 26, 2011 | Branding, Customers, Innovation, Marketing, Sales, Social Media, Strategy
The future of produce marketing in Australia is fraught with difficulties that many who just buy their produce in the supermarket will never think about.
The dominance of the chain supermarkets, lack of innovation, fragile investment outlook, environmental concerns, regulatory inconsistency and political blather in place of certainty coming from any philosophic foundation, an ageing workforce, trade barriers, the list goes on.
The report below was commissioned in an effort to put some framework around the marketing of produce in Australia, and to take lessons from what was happening elsewhere, and whilst it is a relative scratch at the surface, it highlights the challenges. Download it, and let me know what you think, what have I missed, where it could be improved. Its free to download, but I would appreciate you letting me know by commenting.
Embracing Innovative Marketing & Promotional Methods
Jun 24, 2011 | Change, Innovation, Marketing, Personal Rant, Social Media
Telstra is one of the best yielding shares around, management knows there is no other reason to hold them, so effectively pump the share price with good yields. At the current prices they are a good buy, being assured of a juicy yield, and probably 50% market share from the NBN deal, all of which makes Telstra pretty attractive short term , but long term?
It seems to me that a strategy of squeezing earnings out of an existing business model when that model is being attacked from all sides is always tough, but in a telco it is almost sure to be terminal given the rate of innovation occurring from the sidelines.
There is now a free VOIP app for iPhone, “viber” that eliminates call costs, including international roaming which has been around for only a couple of months, but has attracted 12 million users, and expanding at net speed. On top the damage Skype must have inflicted, and will inflict into the very near future as Microsoft (presumably) sets about building cheap teleconferencing services onto the Skype platform, traditional telcos must be in a long term world of pain as they see their markets stolen by innovators they did not see coming.
I ask again, who would buy shares in Telstra, other than as a short term strategy to get a slice of the public donation of $11 billion and short term market share.
Jun 23, 2011 | Communication, Marketing, Social Media
Operational benchmarking was one of the “flavours of the month” for a long time in the nineties, until people realised that finding out what the best in class were doing, then expending resources to copy them, just ensured you never caught up, and at best, were one of a number who were doing OK.
Search Engine Optimisation strikes me a bit the same way.
Making sure you put often used terms into your posts, sites, and tweets is supposed to get you noticed, come up the top of the Google page, but at best, you will share the spot with all the others slavishly following the boring mantra of spicing up all communications with what rapidly become ‘net clichés.
The marketing challenge in the e-world is the same as in the physical one, to be noticed, you must be doing something that is sufficiently different so that at least some of the potential audience is drawn to the spot, then you have a chance to impress with the quality of your thinking, writing, photographs, product, or whatever else it is you are there to do.
Be different, daring, creative, and stand out from the crowd.
Jun 22, 2011 | Change, Management, Social Media
It seems that technical changes are facilitating behavior changes that were previously constrained by the practical and cost barriers that existed.
However, the really important changes occurring are not the technical ones, but the manner in which consumers use them, and enterprises deploy them to do things differently, and improve their collective lot.
As attitudes follow behaviour, we are in for massive further changes in attitude towards the net, and all its tools both current and coming, and as the behavoural changes of the last decade cement into place, further enormous opportunities for innovation will emerge.
