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?
Apr 5, 2012 | Marketing
Like Theodore Levitt’s old adage of marketing that people don’t buy a drill, they buy a hole, so it is with Social Media.
Social media is the tool, it can be used badly, effectively, creatively, and efficiently, like any tool, but it is the impact of the tool, the outcomes it delivers, that really matter.
The social media experience is the tool, the benefit is delivered by the effective use of the tool in the right circumstances.
The building of a SM presence that encourages people to order and pay on line, or signal preference, or interact in some other way, one to one, that delivers something both parties value is the benefit SM has the potential to deliver, but it is not easy, in fact, it is really hard to do well.
Having a 1000 friends on facebook is pretty pointless, the benefit comes when those “friends” act like real friends, and give you something you value, just because they can.
Apr 4, 2012 | Marketing, Social Media
I find myself continually attempting to argue the case for investment in Social Media at the expense of more traditional broadcast and print media. Almost everyone I interact with from my large clients to the local tennis club fail to instinctively understand the full potential power of SM.
There is plenty around on the net shouting the advantages of SM, much of it with the objective of selling something, so it was great to come Across this report from Bain & Co “putting Social media to work” courtesy of Steve Goldner on his blog.
Then this morning, Mike Stelzner’s Social Media Examiner blog, a wonderful source of links, ideas, and tips published their 4th Annual Social Media Marketing report, which offers insights into the way marketers are using social media.
It is pretty clear that Marketing has been democratised by the web, Social Media Marketing is now mainstream marketing. It consumes huge resources, delivering huge benefits to marketers and their markets, despite the hubris, misunderstanding and snake oil salesmen that inhabit the marketing ecosystems.
Mar 29, 2012 | Change, Communication, Innovation, Social Media
It is all a matter of perspective.
Digital marketing implies an application of the existing disciplines of marketing, just tweaked a bit to accommodate the presence in the environment of digital options, facebook, linkedin, Pin it, and the rest.
Marketing in a digital world implies a pivot, the old rules no longer apply, because the world has changed.
Comscore has released their latest research, summarised and commented on in Mike Stelzner’s great Social Media Examiner blog. The impact of on line shopping, our seeming addiction to social sites and the opportunities to find new ways to engage with consumers as they conduct their digital lives, is delivering a host of new businesses, business models, and service opportunities not on the radar just a couple of years ago. Just look at the sudden emergence of cloud computing, the question is not where in the organisation responsibility for operating the cloud interactions should reside, but how can we best leverage the opportunities thrown up by this piece of the digital revolution.
Digital is no longer an option if medium term commercial survival is an objective, weather it be marketing, managing manufacturing, customer relationships and inventory, or just doodling, it is the other side of the inflexion point.
Not every body is there yet, but it will not be long, so don’t be late.
Mar 22, 2012 | Communication
In a recent negotiation, a good faith, and non confrontational negotiation conducted in English between one of my clients and a prospective investor from East Asia who spoke virtually fluent but non colloquial English, we suffered from a misunderstanding emerging from differing cultural interpretations of the same words.
We discovered, again, that communication is only completed when the intention of the speaker is clear and unambiguous to the receiver of the words. It is very easy to assume an understanding of the meaning of a word or phrase, simply because they register.
