Nov 27, 2011 | Communication, Leadership, Personal Rant, Social Media
The digital world has taken over, but the emergence of social media tools that host a lot of pretty low grade stuff sometimes overshadows the huge impact the tools of the web can have, sometimes life-changing and even saving, impacts. Just look at the role played by social media during the floods in QLD, the disaster in Christchurch, and the changes happening in the Middle East.
Consider the site Ushahidi for instance, born in crisis, and evolving in a manner that has, and will continue to make a huge difference to many peoples lives in times of crisis. Such a tool would have been impossible without Tim Berners-Lee, his colleagues and subsequent innovators.
The value of just one site like Ushahidi, and the useful utility of social tools makes up for all the junk that appears to be the other side of the coin, making up the volume.
Nov 24, 2011 | Customers, Marketing
The case for employing intelligent people, and letting them get on with their jobs exercising common sense has been made again and again. In this lovely example of the hubris of rules, Safeway in Honolulu ensured they stuffed up by following a voluminous rule book, the substitute for trust in the common sense of your employees.
What damage has this stupidity done to the Safeway brand, and will any amount of advertising about how they care for their customers and their families wipe out the lasting impression forged by the news story of their stupid insensitivity and lack of care.
Nov 22, 2011 | Communication, Marketing, Social Media
Since I was a kid in this industry, the standard terminology has been to “buy media” meaning stick an ad somewhere, and hope somebody you want to reach sees it, and takes action as a result. However, the reality is that we have just rented an audience from a newspaper, TV or radio station, not bought them.
The net has changed this, as with almost everything else. Now we can buy an audience, over time by developing content that engages and draws people back again and again, encourages sharing of and comment on the comment, effectively building digital “stock in trade” that is stored for access when appropriate.
In other words, at last, we are able to create stock that we can use in the selling process, or in the case of on line retailing, a sale results directly from the stock on the net.
Nov 18, 2011 | Management, Marketing
This process has many forms, I have probably seen most of them over the years.
Percentage of sales, opposition activity, what the P&L can bear, what was spent last year, what seems like a nice round number, what the new CEO says, the last and “balancing” item in the budget, and there are others, including and significantly the confusion between strategic investments and short term tactical spending which is often just a cost of doing business in a distribution channel.
Notice the absence of customers in the mix?
All of these common budget setting tools are internal, the serve the operational needs of the business, and have nothing to do with customers, and how they are to be reached, engaged, and persuaded to become apostles for your business.
No wonder we get so much random rubbish thrown at us through the multiplicity of media channels we now have, that have nothing to do with the brand building and strategic positioning of the product or service.
Nov 16, 2011 | Marketing, Small business, Strategy
Woolworths and Coles price and promotion strategies are often shaped by what happens in the UK, as there is a history of successful imitation in Australia. The resurgence of Coles has taken the initiative from Woolworths, and the short term outcome has been price reductions to consumers, the flip side of course, and there is always a flip side, is a further hollowing of the production sector in Australia.
I am pretty sure that if you asked consumers which they would prefer, a price reduction today, or production security into the future, they would take the former, without understanding the probable consequences.
The Federal Court found last week in favor of Metcash in their effort to sell Franklins, saying in part that the competitive power of Woolworths and Coles served to keep prices to consumers down, solidifying the power of the status quo.
Nov 15, 2011 | Innovation, Leadership, Marketing
Most acknowledge that the future will be different from the past, so why is it that we seem determined to manage our way to the future by repeating the recipes of success from the past.
Future success relies on doing things differently, and this is uncomfortable, unpredictable, and unnerving, so avoided by most.
Kodak missed the development of the digital camera, despite inventing it, Nokia missed the development of the “smartphone” while a runaway market leader, all the large PC companies missed the development of the direct sales model until Dell had tied it up, Detroit missed the consumers cry for smaller, fuel efficient cars that were reliable until bankruptcy loomed, and Apple continues to clean up by reinventing categories, and everyone else just follows them into the mobile consumer markets that they pioneer.
It is the equivalent of driving along a bush track by looking through the rear vision mirror, eventually you will crash. Only by looking ahead, and navigating a path less well marked can you take a leadership position, and that requires some “Unlearning”.
