Feb 1, 2012 | Customers, Marketing, Social Media
I’m 60, an early adopter of marketing analytics in the 70’s. Demographics, U&A, and product positioning research all hooked into mass marketing media, the foundation of our mass market, consumer led social revolution.
Now all that is irrelevant, or almost.
Marketing now is about engaging with an individual, and groups of individuals with a common mind-set, weather they be social butterflies from the eastern suburbs of Sydney, or driving a truck in the Kimberley’s.
Their demographics do not matter any more, what matters is their mind set, and increasingly we can communicate to a mind set with the tools of the web 2.0.
This just makes marketing harder and more accountable, as creativity and innovative thinking now trumps budget dollars, and mass reach every time, and you can measure the return from every dollar spent.
It also makes it more rewarding for those who embrace the challenge.
Jan 11, 2012 | Change, Customers, Innovation, Marketing, Strategy
Kodak used to “own” photography, having a massive share of the film market, end to end.
No more, Kodak is virtually broke, subject to continuous take-over speculation.
The really interesting thing is that one of the assets that makes Kodak valuable to an aggressor is its bank of patents that relate to the technology that drives the product innovation in the digital space.
The failure for Kodak is therefore not in being unable to develop the science, for individuals in the labs to see a different path, and to imagine the next iteration but to do something about it in the marketplace, disrupt themselves before somebody else does it.
Coming in parallel, but I have not seen it really considered before is the fundamental change in the way people think about photography, a complete disruption in behavior that has gone unnoticed.
Photographs used to be used to preserve memories. No more, at least, not much.
They are now used as a foundation piece of the individual communication process.
What are we doing now, who we are seeing, where we are, an expression of ourselves are now the motivations to take a photo on whatever device happens to be in our hand at the time. Creating a record for our kids is a useful by-product of these activities, although I am not sure how the current 20 year old will react to their children in 20 years seeing photos of them pissed at a party 20 years before, so perhaps creating some records will be problematic in the long term.
The photographic market has been totally disrupted, not just by the development of digital technology, but in the way consumers behave. For a marketer, being able to build a corporate mind-set that enables the science, and at the same time embraces the ambiguity and uncertainty of consumer behavior changes is the challenge that keeps life interesting.
Jan 5, 2012 | Branding, Communication, Customers
“Advertising is what you do when you cannot get there in person”
This has been a pretty regularly heard quote over my 40 years in this business, attributed to Fairfax Cone, one of the founders of Foote Cone & Belding advertising. It remains one of the foundations of good (i.e. effective) communication weather it be paid-for media space, or one of the newer forms of “content marketing” on the web.
How come most of the advertisers I have heard/seen over the Christmas period never heard it?
I make that assertion based on the crap that passes as advertising over this period, almost all of it based on price and a transparent “1/2 yearly”, or “Clearance sale” type claim. Also, the businesses owner is often used as the mouthpiece, usually not a media friendly person. Nothing to attract me apart from a cheap price, certainly nothing to persuade me that the product will do anything to solve my problems, just price.
Problem with price being the only reason to buy, is that it just becomes a race to the bottom, and as Seth Godin has pointed out, the risk here is that you just might win.
If you could talk one on one to all the potential customers, would you still say the same thing as you are saying in your advertising?
If the answer is “No” better rethink your approach for the good of your long term pocket.
Jan 3, 2012 | Branding, Customers, Marketing, Sales
We are in the middle of the post Christmas sales, an orgy of discount opportunities for consumers as retailers rush to clear stock, and take advantage of the behavior consumers exhibit every new year, “buy, buy, grab the discount”.
Whoops?
Have we trained customers to expect great deals post Xmas, do they put off spending at full price till the post Xmas period, not because the deals are great, but because they have been trained to do so?
Clearly the answer is yes, customers have been trained, just like Dr Pavlov demonstrated.
So, what else can customers be trained to do? When you think about it, the list gets pretty long.
Switch brands indiscriminately
Demand discounts
Be impatient and unforgiving
Expect free service, whilst getting a discount price
24 hour delivery
Limitless warranty
The list goes on, but to each, there is a positive side, customers can be trained to stay with the one brand, not to expect discounts and unreasonable service and warranty, not all of them, but usually enough to make the investment worthwhile, as the alternative is to go broke being the cheapest to all, rather than delivering genuine value to those who are prepared to pay for it.
What are you training your customers to expect?
Dec 19, 2011 | Customers, Marketing
Ever thought about how markets happen, how the emerge, how they grow?
A new market has to have a first customer, most marketers look to the value proposition, the competitive landscape, the distribution channels, the mechanics of manufacturing, the service offering, but that is not all it is, there is another factor usually overlooked.
Somewhere, sometime, there needs to be a first customer, then a second, and with luck those will tell their friends the product is good, and the ball will start rolling.
However, for every new customer, there must be a first time, they must be persuaded to buy into a new market or product category, to overcome the barriers of habit, reluctance to take a risk, to be different, to move from something that they know is OK to something they have heard may be better.
I have not yet bought a Smartphone, but I suppose I will at some point, when the pressure is sufficient to get me to buy one, but that will be the first time I buy a Smartphone, it will be a hurdle, the second one will be much, much easier.
Getting people to buy their first is the key hurdle of any new market.
Dec 16, 2011 | Customers, Management, Small business, Strategy
Being a supplier to FMCG retailers is really, really hard. The two gorillas are demanding, unreasonable, and often just plain stupid, at least that is a suppliers assessment. If you asked the retailers, they would just be doing their jobs, maximising the revenue and margin returns from their shelf-space, minimising their costs, and competing aggressively for access to the consumers wallets.
It is just a matter of perspective, but whilst the customer is not always right, they remain the customer, and if you want to serve them, it is you, the supplier who must adapt or die.
The current pressures on SME food industry manufacturers, a high $A, the retailers push into housebrands, difficulties in funding working capital, skills shortages particularly in regional areas where many of them are situated, and promotional costs, are pushing many to the wall. The long term impact of these changes appear to be all bad for the economy, as food security, balance of payments, regional jobs and skills, and having a manufacturing base from which to innovate, are all compromised. However, there is not much joy in complaining, clearly the various governments do not care, or are more engaged in important debates like gay marriage, and spending our money on sectional interests who seem to have a few votes, so we have to address the problems ourselves.
Manufacturing, let alone food industry manufacturing no longer even warrants a seat around the cabinet table, clearly we are on our own, so we adapt or die, and many will die, the few who successfully adapt will be very good indeed.
