Apr 24, 2012 | Branding, Collaboration, Communication, Marketing
Trust is a greatly over-used word in management conversations, and has therefore lost much of its meaning, becoming a cliché for “lets hope”.
People trust brands when they deliver consistently over time, but trust is like a bucket with a hole in the bottom, you need to keep pouring water in to keep up with the inevitable losses for a whole range of reasons. Stop adding to the bucket for a moment, and you lose ground that is very hard to make up.
In discussing collaborative structures of various types, “Trust” is grossly overused, and should be replaced by an alternative description, “Reputational Capital” which implies more of the appreciation/depreciation continuum better understood by managers.
Collaborations work only in the presence of people who individually work to ensure that by their efforts others will benefit, and the whole system remains healthy. This is consistent irrespective of the size and nature of the collaboration, from major corporate initiatives, to self managed teams on the factory floor, the local tennis club, and web based sharing platforms like Zipcar. The Reputation of all participants is paramount to collaborative success.
Amazon, Zappos and Ebay rewrote the book on reputational capital with their review systems, and the principals used are now in wide use across many web platforms to provide buyers and sellers with certainty.
How long will it be before there is a web-wide statement of our activity, that accounts for all our activity, irrespective of the platform, an accounting of our Reputational Capital, a “klout” type score that measures not activity, but the satisfaction delivered to the people on the receiving end of all the transactions an individual originates.
Apr 17, 2012 | Branding, Marketing, retail
Woolworths has “gone for the box”, advertising their “Select” range of housebrand products. The ads broke last weekend, (they have been removed from Youtube, curious) and to me appear to pretty effective, because they convey a single, simple proposition, that of top quality at a value price. Weather you believe it or not is another matter, and weather Woolies can deliver consistently on the promise is doubtful. Woolworths are retailers, not marketers, so by nature and culture their buyers are transaction focused, rather than customer relationship focused, making alignment with their marketing a probable headache for senior management.
The advertising adds to the social media and mobile marketing efforts, increasingly effective targeting of consumers based on the data collected via their store cards, and their cross category promotional strength flogging petrol. It also serves to further cement the duopoly of Coles and Woolworths at the core of Australian FMCG retailing.
Clearly the roadmap has been charted by the UK retailers, Sainsbury and particularly Tesco, who have supplied most of the senior management of their combatant Coles. The investment in brand building by the two gorillas is just another brick in the wall that keeps suppliers of proprietary branded products on their knees.
Apr 16, 2012 | Branding, Customers, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy
Content is the new creativity.
In the “old days” a core part of developing advertising that had brand building as its purpose, was a need to be memorable, relevant, deliver a proposition, and cut through the clutter on TV (or magazines, or radio, our only choices) all in thirty seconds. Then you repeated the message, as the common wisdom said, until you were sick of it, because the punters were only just getting to recognise it.
All that is changed, now media choices are numbered in the thousands, and you need to engage punters, one by one.
The content of the communication therefore is the still the key, but you get only one shot at it in most cases, and you rely on, perhaps pray for, the recipient to pass it on to like minded people they know.
Makes it pretty hard.
How do you market a bookshop? Common wisdom would say get really deeply into a niche with a few enthusiasts, or get out while you can, as it is all going on-line.
However, every now and again, a piece of luck comes along, that when combined with creativity and truly great understanding of what your market, wherever they are, may be looking for, you get something like this short bit of brilliance from Barter Books.
Would you go anywhere else?
Feb 21, 2012 | Branding, Communication, Marketing
Remember the Arnott’s case, in 1997 they recalled millions of packets, and showed them being crushed on TV, in the days before u-tube. Tylenol in the US went trough the same thing in 1882, 6 packets were laced with cyanide, leading to several deaths, and J&J without hesitation recalled the hundreds of millions of packets in the market, and talked about what had happened, what measures they and the police were taking, and assisted the families of those who had died.
In the new techie world, the same thing applies, 37 Signals has a suite of software products on the cloud, they appear to work well, but when they go down, (every senior managers major concern with the cloud) as it is out of immediate control, it really hurts. 37 signals lost Campfire, but they turned the disaster into gold by communicating.
In most cases where a recall is deemed necessary, it is just a cost, often a huge one, sometimes a terminal one. However, by taking the public into their confidence, a recall, or outage as in the case of Campfire, can be used as powerful evidence that the company puts the welfare of their customers above all else.
Pretty powerful stuff in an environment of bland, commodity brands that have little to differentiate themselves.
Feb 7, 2012 | Branding, Marketing
The net has changed everything.
In the “old days” consumers brand choices were made from a small pool of acceptable brands that was defined by experience, limited access to detailed information, and advertising.
Once a brand had been purchased, the well understood “cogitative dissonance” kicked in, a psychological process which justifies an action already taken, and served to make the walls of the brand pool tougher. It didn’t much matter if the purchase was a major one like a car, or a bar of soap, the processes were similar.
Now, these purchase drivers have been thrown out the window, as consumers have quick access to vast amounts of technical information, performance data, and user reviews to inform and shape the purchase decision. This has led to the pool of acceptable brands becoming much wider, and shallower, in many categories, it has almost ceased to exist beyond a measure of awareness.
Consumers now buy many brands. The old notion of brand loyalty has been seriously discounted by consumers who are brand promiscuous. Assessment of value that take in a whole range of factors not previously important in any but the first, and perhaps second purchase now shape behavior. Availability, word of mouse, the view of the crowd, supply chain transparency, perceived social responsability, and many more. Consumers are seeking more reassurance from the social media, and less from the mass marketing notions of brand positioning and loyalty.
The message is if you do not deliver value at every point in a consumers journey with a product, do not expect them to stick around, as there is a viable alternative within easy reach.
Feb 6, 2012 | Branding, Marketing
Brand-building is an infinitely more difficult exercise in the current environment. Gone are the days when you could throw a bunch of money at mass media, and use it to drive distribution and consumer trial, and if the thing was any good at all, gain some measure of “brand”.
The rules have evolved dramatically, they are both simpler to articulate, but as with many simple concepts, harder to execute, as in their simplicity lies great challenge.
- Never build expectations that may not be fulfilled.
- Communicate a very clear promise that differentiates the product in a way meaningful to the behavior of the user.
- Build trust by over delivering consistently
- Innovate beyond familiar boundaries whilst retaining relevance to consumers.
See, easy!
