Feb 21, 2010 | Branding, Management, Marketing
Many brands over time have been built by using “mystique” as an ingredient, generally in the form of information withheld, scarcity, price, and the stories that surround the product.
In this connected world, we are bombarded with information, almost everything we could think of to ask is there, a few clicks away, and so it has become counter-intuitive to build a brand based on a lack of information.
Could we build Coca Cola from scratch today, its “secret” recipe held in a bank vault? Would that story hold, or would an employee be on a blog giving us the recipe, and dismembering the bank vault story.
There is a marketing trade-off to be made, mystique against a real, quantifiable product benefit, but how do you demonstrate a benefit that is essentially qualitative. Pepsi tried it with its “Taste Test” marketing, and came unstuck.
In the end it comes back to making the brand stand for something specific, and hard to copy, so it says something about those who choose to use it.
Feb 18, 2010 | Change, Management, Marketing, Sales
As publishing goes electronic, and the hype about the Ipad, Kindle, and other reader technologies, evolves, and drives behavior changes, publishers need to consider how they are going to market, as most consumption of books is still generated by seeing it, physically in the bookstore. This is particularly true in the case of gifts, which is a very large part of the book market. As stores go out of business, how do publishers replace the awareness of a new book, the “feel” of it from the shelf, the pleasure of the interaction at point of purchase?
Amazons Kindle generally allows the first chapter to be downloaded before purchase, but will that be enough?
As in most other retail categories, the probable answer is that the generalist, mass market shops will decline radically in numbers, partly replaced by both specialist retailers who carry a depth of range of a particular genre, huge mega stores in cheap locations, and perhaps hole in the wall retailers with a printer/binder where you can order and print off the book, or part of the book wanted on the spot.
Whatever happens, the status quo has been busted wide open.
Feb 16, 2010 | Marketing, Small business
What do you do that others cannot?
What enables you to deliver value for a group of customers or potential customers with something in common, which is increasingly nothing to do with demographics, that your competitors cannot match?
Answer those questions, and the rest is pretty easy.
My old mate Louis Marangon at Riverina Grove produces wonderful Italian style products from fresh ingredient sourced as far as possible from around the Riverina region in NSW. Pasta sauces, tapenades, herb infused olives, and other delicacies, almost as if they were from his mothers kitchen. Doesn’t appeal to everyone, and hard to find, but for those who want an authentic Italian inspired product whose provenance is local, know that Louis will break his back to provide it, and they keep on coming back. Thats a CVP with legs, and it is probably the only thing that a small buiness can do as well as, and often better than, because there is less marketing “noise” around, than a large one with substantail financial and personnel resources.
Feb 15, 2010 | Marketing, Sales
The retail end of music industry as we currently know it continues to be in trouble.
This New York Times article is now a bit old, but I am pretty sure the marketing challenge has not gone away.
Imagine, 13 million songs for sale on the web in 2008, 10 million did not sell one, just one, not even to family and friends, and 80% of revenue came from just 52,000 songs, less than 1%.
The web has given us an amazing ability to “publish” but the marketing challenge of being relevant, noticed, engaging, and commercially successful has not changed at all.
Just because you can put it out there, does not mean it is any good, and because it is a big “market”, and you only have to sell to a tiny, tiny % of the punters to make a dollar, does not mean you will.
Feb 9, 2010 | Marketing
My Father always said, “you only get what you pay for” so he instinctively related price to value.
Now, the web has changed everything, and increasingly, “Free” is being used as a means to attract a target to trial, to deliver a generic service that leads into the other stuff, for which you can charge. However, much of the free stuff has a value, millions of Gmail users will vouch for that, and hosting this blogg, written on WordPress is free, but to customise it beyond a basic level costs.
Generic is getting very hard to charge for as the marginal cost of providing the service is approaching zero, so someone is going to offer it free in the expectation that 10% of those who sign up will move up to the paid model, where the product can be made specific to you, and so you become price insensitive, and the provider makes a dollar.
The more narrow and specific to an individual a product is, the greater the ability to charge.
Feb 7, 2010 | Branding, Management, Marketing
During the brand development process, to the extend that is it deliberate, most conversations are about the activities that supposedly drive the objective measures of success, sales, margins, market share, household penetration, and so on.
However, during qualitative research, brands take on human qualities, they are described using personal pronouns, they are young, old, male, female, a farmer, or a merchant banker, funny, quirky, reliable, and so on, but these responses are usually pushed aside, and minimised in order to give the spreadsheets some air.
Sitting in on many market and brand development conversations over the years, it is surprising how often we forget the human dimension, and the difference it makes to our activities, and priorities when we actively set out to describe the brand in human terms, and give the humanity of the brand a central place in our considerations.
