Sep 8, 2010 | Branding, Marketing, Small business
Many companies face the challenge of commercial sustainability in mature markets, with declining patronage, increasing costs, and often a fatalistic view of the future.
Last year, I went with a couple of my kids to a performance of ‘A midsummer nights dream” in the Sydney Domain. Wonderful!.
This performance recognises there is an untapped market for these wonderful plays amongst people who would be unlikely to be theatre goers in the “normal” sense, i.e., they do not subscribe to a theatre season, or frequent Shakespeare performances, but the less formal, relatively cheap experience of seeing a classic comedy play under the stars, enjoying a picnic on a summer evening is irresistible to some of those missed by traditional theatre marketing.
What a great way to introduce new customers to Sir Bill, and perhaps convert them to regulars, opening new avenues for exploration, a lesson for others in mature markets?.
Sep 7, 2010 | Management, Operations
We all find ourselves dealing with ambiguity, preconceptions, vested interests, status quo methods, and often hubris as we set out to consider options in any management situation. In these circumstances, we usually mix quantitative data with what we know, and what we believe in a varying recipe that delivers a result we are comfortable with.
In this post by Eric Paley, the tensions inherent in these differing and mixed methods of analysis are beautifully articulated in a sporting story most can relate to.
Sep 6, 2010 | Change, Strategy
Nobody wins all the time, in fact, most lose most of the time, so something distinguishes the winners from those who just give up, I reckon it is two simple things:
- Winners learn from losing, what not to do, what to do better, how to prepare, what the competition will do,
- Winners are able to marshal their personal resolve and come back again, again, and again, and eventually, they win.
Sep 5, 2010 | Change, Communication, Social Media
In a generation, electronic communication has grown from initial inception to ubiquitous, the fastest adoption of any technology and supporting behavior change ever.
I have heard all sorts of babble about why this is, but it seems to me that there is one simple reason, the removal of the transaction costs in earlier forms of communication.
It now costs virtually nothing to send a message via email, and no more to broadcast that same message to hundreds, often thousands of geographically spread recipients.
The downside of course is that our in-boxes have become clogged by stuff we do not want, and did not ask for, but the delete button is pretty effective.
Sep 2, 2010 | Change, Customers, Marketing, Operations, Sales
We spend lots of time dreaming up new stuff, but there are almost always things that we take as given, things that we do not question, usually because they are so basic, that we never think to do otherwise.
Many years ago, a part of my responsibilities was for the marketing of Ski yoghurt in Australia. At that time, all 1kg yoghurt came in round tubs, it was easy, cheap, all the filling equipment was designed for round tubs, as it was the cheapest shape to produce and print, anything else was a dumb idea, and would cost a motzza. I changed Ski to a rectangular tub, and sales tripled overnight, and the market was changed. Consumers for a number of simple, practical, but to then unspoken reasons, preferred a rectangular tub
The whole industry had been dependent on the manufacturers of the filling equipment, who supplied machinery designed to deliver the least cost option, nobody was silly enough to even consider an added cost alternative, so round tubs were the standard, all operational equipment was optimised for round tubs, and the suggestion that you should retool a factory for an alternative was never considered. It’s just that consumers when given the choice abandoned the round tub overnight, and retailers, reaslising a rectangulat tub offered better shelf utilisation, were happy to put them on shelf.
When looking for opportunities, consider the things that are just “there” that are part of the fabric, and are as a result taken for granted, and find one to change.
