Viral marketing, not so hard?

Apr 4, 2011 | Communication, Marketing, Social Media

Bosses, often  with no idea of marketing, and the social networks and how to engage them seem to be increasingly  thinking forget the TV, (good idea that in most cases) “just make a silly/funny/outrageous video, and it will go viral”.

Voila, marketing success at little cost, up go the profits.

Wish it was that easy, if it was, everyone’s’ creative baby would get a million views on U-tube, but it only happens to a few.

The basic rules of marketing and communication still need to be respected. Identify a problem for a group that your product solves better than any other, demonstrate the solution, praise the value, and build a relationship between the user and the product.

Making a video of cats that look like Hitler and dancing babies only work very occasionally, then usually only once, so be relevant. Take a look at the “virals” in Tom’s narrative of his cartoon in the link, they work!

 

Value of certainty

Apr 3, 2011 | Communication, Customers, Sales, Small business

I’ve seen lots of customer service initiatives that promise “delivery by ……..” and no matter how quick that may be, there is still uncertainty about when it will be delivered, and customers will be anxious.

By contrast, “we will deliver at 3pm on the 25th” is very specific, and so long as you do deliver at the nominated time, every time, even if it is a few days longer than then quickest possible, customers just love the certainty.  

Is this the death-knell of brands?

Mar 23, 2011 | Branding, Communication, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy

    How does a branded product withstand the power of a retailer duopoly that controls 65% of Australia’s supermarkets?

    That question has exercised the minds of proprietary FMCG brand owners for over  30 years, since the first house-branded  “No Frills”   products appeared on the now almost defunct Franklins shelves. It has  become a really serious question over the last couple of years as the big two retailers more actively set about building a brand of themselves as more than a place to shop, but also a range of products to buy, following the patterns set in the UK by Tesco and Sainsbury, and it hotted up a month ago with the beginning of the “milk war”.

    The Nielsen Global Private Label report puts Australia’s private label penetration at 14%, not really accurate if you happen to own a milk brand. Milk had a sales channel split between supermarket and route sales  about 60/40, with Housebrands holding  a share around 50% in supermarkets, but nothing in route, until a month ago. Overnight, the “milk war” has dragged sales from route into supermarkets, (I do not have the numbers) and the house-brand sales must be now 85-90% plus, again, I do not have the numbers, just a set of eyes. “Dairy Farmers”, “Farmers Union” “Paul’s” all venerable brands in the milk market have had their value decimated almost overnight.

    Now it seems we have Fosters pulling their beer brands from the shelves of Coles and Woolworths owned liquor outlets  as a defense against the risk of having their brand equity, built over long periods, with huge investments, being trashed by under cost sales by retailers. It may lose them  lots of sales in these outlets, but the 50% of the market still controlled by independent retailers will be cheering, it offers them a competitive advantage over the chains to have brands like “VB” on shelf when Woolies and Coles owned Dan Murphy and First Choice do not.

    Suppliers of produce to supermarkets have faced the dilemma for many years. The retailers simply will not allow proprietary branded products on their shelves, if you want distribution of your oranges, potatoes, or lychees, it is as unbranded produce, or increasingly branded with the supermarket brand. In these categories, housebrand share is 100%, so I wonder where the innovation  will come from in this drive to the bottom of the price equation, and will consumers in the long run be better off?.

    Back to the core question,  to which I wish I had a simple, glib answer, but I don’t. However, I think the answer is tangled up in the way we manage the changes emerging from the digital revolution we are undergoing.

  1. Mass media is dead, the cost cannot in the long term be recovered if hard won brand equity can be destroyed overnight by a retailer who wakes up with a good idea. In the future, mass media will not be used to build brands, with the exception of a few huge multinational brands. Apart from the cost/risk equation, the “mass audience” has fragmented anyway, and is increasingly hard to find. Time to sell your shares in TV networks.
  2. Social media now has a framework for communication, like it or not, that framework has two major  dimensions, called “Facebook” and “Twitter”. As we figure out how to use them, these two related frameworks, and the others offering similar but more specifically targetted access to individuals, will drive the way brands engage  with their adherents, attract new ones, reward their loyalty,  and build equity that is remote from the ravages of duopoly bricks and mortar retailers.
  3. Marketers have to get to grips with this stuff, mostly it is beyond the young brand manager who does not understand, and should not have the power anyway to make brand related decisions. The case for the CEO to be the “Chief Brand Officer” in any business is getting stronger daily.

    4. Building a brand just got a whole lot harder. Dollars to spend now bears no relationship to success, nor does longevity, (facebook had its 5th birthday day before yesterday), so just hanging around is not an option. Instead, markets have to do the hard yards to really deliver value, huge value, to customers, and keep “value-innovating” as if their lives depend on it, as it surely does.

     

     

     

Undecided or indecisive

Mar 9, 2011 | Communication, Leadership, Management

There is a big difference between these two states, and they can have a powerful impact on the way organisations react to the decision maker.

Someone who is seen as decisive, but as yet undecided will be have the respect of others, who will usually assist in the process of coming to a decision in a positive manner.

By contrast, someone who is seen as indecisive, will be ignored, and work-arounds will be used to get things done, and at some time, if it is a personal trait, it needs to be removed from behavior patterns, or the individual will be removed. 

Opportunity cost and value

Feb 2, 2011 | Communication, Customers, Management, Marketing, Sales

Opportunity cost is a concept well understood, and often used in a theoretical sense, but not often is it translated into something easily understood.

In a store just before Christmas, I was tossing up between two brands of domestic coffee machine, that appeared pretty similar in all but price, the better known brand being substantially more expensive. The sales assistant sensing my indecision, and perhaps thinking I might do more ‘research” and he would lose a sale solved the dilemma by asking, “would you rather have” X” brand, or “Y” brand and 20kg of coffee beans?” 

That turned the theoretical “opportunity cost” although I had not considered it in these terms at the time, into something tangible that had a value relevant to the purchase, and made all the difference…… I took the “Y” brand machine and with the saving, bought some exotic coffee beans.

Successful on-line communities require a promise

Jan 24, 2011 | Collaboration, Communication, Social Media

    Linux started with a promise, one that formed the basis of what has become a major player in the server operating system market, with a current share somewhere around 45%.

    Linus Torvalds     back in 1991 posted the following message on a discussion board inhabited by systems engineers “I am doing a free operating system (just a hobby) and I’d like to know what features most people would want. Any suggestions are welcome, but I won’t promise to implement them”

    Torvalds, knowingly or otherwise, tapped a vein that has proven on many occasions (Wikipedia.org  & Meetup.com being just two), that a community has the chance to form when several conditions are met:

  1. The community is driven by a need, or interest, rather than profit for the initiator
  2. Participation is welcome, and encouraged, but a transparent  “peer review” process dictates if the contribution will be used
  3. Recognition is offered to all participants.

    4. The promise is that these conditions will be met, and when they are not, the community fails, as did the first iteration of Wikipedia. Does yours measure up?