Jul 22, 2010 | Branding, Communication, Innovation, Marketing, Social Media
It will be fascinating to watch how Apple, the masters of digital marketing, handle the latest hiccup with the antenna problems on the iPhone4.
Apple has now stumbled twice in a short time, the first was the furore over the wages paid to employees at Foxconn, one of their major suppliers factories in China, leading to an unusually high suicide level, and now the dodgy antenna story, furiously being stirred by Apples grateful competitors.
The speed that such problems emerge and are all over the user communities has outstripped the response times of even the most sensitive and paranoid of businesses, and now it appears that Apple is going in to defiant mode by using Steve Jobs to front the problem and say, in effect, “all smart phones suffer from the same problem, we are no worse than the others.”
Apple has grown in an extraordinary way for the last decade, tapping in to the mindset of the early adopters to become apostles for their brand and products, and by being consistently first out there with a product that delivers a highly differentiated proposition. The Apple brand is now a very tall poppy indeed, and attracts attention, so they had better be careful that the legions of fans who have fed the myth do not turn around and bite it, because their hero shows themselves to be fallible, and therefore not worthy of being their hero, in fact, it becomes a source of satirical comment that speeds the process of brand erosion.
Such loyalty scorned can turn nasty very quickly.
Jul 11, 2010 | Branding, Communication, Customers, Sales
It is often pretty easy recognise marketing hyperbole when we see it, particularly in a category where we have some knowledge. However, in a category where we have no knowledge, it probably is not as easy to pick the fact from the flummery, so even some of the more extravagant claims made may get through the mental fence.
Therefore, hyperbolic claims extolling the virtues of a new small car for example, are more likely to be rejected by the men who may engage with the ad, because they largely believe they know a bit about cars, rather than women, who believe they know little about cars, and are therefore less able to pick the BS from the facts.
This becomes very relevant when marketing a product to a category of consumers who know a bit about the product, and are therefore going to be more critical of the message based on what they know, or believe they know about the category, so be careful of the hyperbole, it will almost always turn off potential buyers, rarely persuade them.
Jul 4, 2010 | Branding, Marketing
Those who say one thing and do another have always been at risk of being found out. Now, the capabilities of the net make it virtually inevitable, with the downside risk to your brand being multiplied by the probability of being found out.
BP has spent millions on PR, advertising, logo changes, and acquisitions aimed at positioning themselves as clean and green nurturers of the environment, all of which is now just fuel for the fire of hypocrisy flaming alongside their spill in the Gulf.
The question is not of survival, as BP has assets the world needs, at least for the easily foreseeable future, but their cost of doing business will increase, as no-one will ever trust them again, no matter how much they spend.
BP is now an “ex-brand” as dead as the ubiquitous parrot due to BP being unable to walk and talk to the same tune, how is yours going?
Jun 27, 2010 | Branding, Customers, Marketing, Small business
“Cheap” implies less of everything that is important, not built to last, minimal attention to the detail, and certainly little customer service. However, “Frugal” implies a discipline that ensures that waste is eliminated, unnecessary features eliminated, but the basic performance is not compromised.
Cheap is never the outcome of good marketing, but Frugal is a very potent positioning in most markets, and is often ignored in the search for wider customer appeal.
Next time, ask yourself, if it is cheap, in which case, don’t buy or produce it, or frugal, in which case it may be a good deal.
Jun 22, 2010 | Branding, Communication, Customers, Marketing
How often we confuse the reasons our customers buy products, how easy it is to get carried away with the technology, the newness, the features of the product, and never consider the real, usually unstated drivers of consumption.
Great marketing is always about the benefits a product brings to the consumer, and whilst the features play a role in delivering the benefits, consumers do not really care about features, they want what the product delivers for them.
Defining the benefits is marketing, translating them into images and words consumers can relate to is advertising, and is only a tiny slice of marketing, at the end of the process.
Poor products, no matter how well advertised, do not succeed, great products with poor marketing that fails to identify the benefits of consumption, usually fail, but even poorly advertised products with clear and distinctive benefits usually find their way, because consumers are generally smart enough to make the connection. It is this last distinction that may appear at first glance to be semantic, that is often the biggest hurdle. This great clip from Mad Men says it all.
Apr 9, 2010 | Branding, Category, Marketing
Value is an outcome of the price and the benefits delivered.
Value = price + benefits
As marketers, we are normally consumed by price, it drives our priorities, measures our success, and dictates channel and NPD priorities.
Consumers by contrast, are generally driven by value. Yes, they will take the cheapest price in a category, all other things being even, and given marketers pre-occupation, it often is, but our task is to create value, not just deliver a price.
