Nov 4, 2011 | Branding, Communication, Marketing, Strategy
A consumers relationship with a brand is a bit like a friendship, if it is strong, you will be prepared to put up with a bit of nonsense and still be friends, if it is weak, you may not be. If the poor behaviour continues, it will normally be the end of the “brand friendship”, after all, a friendship is supposed to be a two way process.
It’s a simple equation, deliver the benefits of friendship, the “brand promise” to people who care, and you will not depreciate your brand, fail to deliver, and depreciation occurs, and as every marketer knows, building it up is always harder than tearing it down
Accountants understand the notion of friendship in a balance sheet, called “goodwill”, they see it all the time, problem is they do not understand how it gets there.
A quick scan of the commentary yesterday after the Cup day reduction of retail interest rates resulted in all the major banks, except NAB, passing on the whole reduction indicates, a customer PR bellyflop of significant proportions, a whack on the nose to all “brand friends” .
It really does not matter how justified the “banking” of .05% of the decrease by NAB may be, they have just spent millions telling us how they are different from the others, setting themselves up as the bank for service, one you can go to with your financial problems, your banking friend, and it has been an effective message. All gone, “Poof”.
A rational bankers decision based on the margin squeeze created by the rising costs of wholesale money, and the reducing rates in Australia, but taken in an emotional market. Dumb.
Want to see brand depreciation, just look at NAB for a case study.
Oct 31, 2011 | Management, Marketing
The Fair Work Australia decision overnight to order the termination of industrial disputation immediately, rejecting the unions request for a 120 day moratorium on action, is a win for managements right to manage for the long term health of a business at the expense of short term and sectional interests of a group of employees.
The implications go wider than just Qantas, although the catalyst to the decision by FWA was the generation of political pressure brought about by the lockout. If you cannot generate the political pressure, the result would have been different, this is hardly fair to the vast bulk of businesses, and it has reintroduced the spectre of compulsory arbitration by a legislated body of political appointees.
It will be interesting to watch the way this plays out across the political landscape over the next couple of years before the next election. The unions will be outraged, and we will see posturing worthy of an academy nomination, but the threat of an Abbott government coming in with an agenda that includes a further winding back of union power will give them nightmares.
I guess the lesson is that if you have the power, use it, but if you don’t, get ready to duck because the industrial landscape just got ugly, and unpredictable.
Oct 28, 2011 | Communication, Leadership
The old axiom that there are two certainties in life, death and taxes, has been expanded by a third certainty: change.
Should this third certainty have an impact on the nature of leadership in the future?
My view, Absolutely!.
In uncertain environments, a core skill has to be the management of ambiguity, and so it is reasonable to expect leaders of the future to be good at receiving, processing and articulating inconclusive, ambiguous, and often contradictory information, in a way that offers a sense of certainty and security to those being led.
Oct 21, 2011 | Change, Communication, Leadership
Creating a sense of commitment to an outcome is the job of anyone who seeks to lead.
Perhaps the most powerful way of achieving this is to build an understanding in an audience of what the current looks like, and articulating the shape of the future.
This should be far more than a presenter just asking themselves rhetorical questions, done well it creates a rhythm to a presentation, that can be compelling.
Probably the most compelling example, certainly the best known is Dr Kings speech in 1963, most immediately recognise the power of that articulation, relating to the couple of minutes at the end where he articulated his dream, having spent the first 12 minutes or so of the 16 minute speech laying out the present. This speech was so compelling it assembled the momentum for enormous change in the social fabric of the western world, consider what could be done in youir organisation with the use of that simple technique.
Trick is to ensure you live the dream, or it is just words.
Oct 19, 2011 | Customers, Marketing
Peter Drucker often condensed seemingly complicated concepts into pithy quotes of the blindingly obvious.
One I came across the other day is “There is only one profit centre that counts – customers”
It seems this statement of the obvious is often lost in the razzle dazzle of bullshit and self serving, non value adding nonsense that inhabits many organisations.
Next time you are faced with a pile of the aforementioned internal stuff, ask yourself a few simple questions:
“what would a valued customer think about all this?
“Would my customer see this as an activity that they are prepared to pay for?
“How does this impact on my customers experience with the product and organisation?
Pretty simple questions, but answering them and acting accordingly will radically increase the productivity of your marketing expenditure.
Oct 17, 2011 | Management, Marketing, Small business
If imitation is the best form of flattery, domestic FMCG suppliers, the few left, should be very flattered indeed.
Any lingering doubts about the pressure being applied to them by the two retail gorillas should be blown away by this video from ad agency Mumbrella, which demonstrates the fine line between flattery and IP stealing.
This has happened in front of our eyes to one of our core manufacturing industries, and when the piper calls to be paid, it will prove to be very expensive indeed. There is so little packaged food manufacturing now being done in Australia that the industry is in real strife, I suspect scale is rapidly falling past the point of viability, and those left are under great pressure.
Perhaps the new ACCC chairman Rod Simms will follow up on his words that seem to indicate a different attitude to the retail duopoly than his predecessors.
