May 11, 2009 | Marketing
Tom Fishburne nails it with this cartoon satirising the target market conversations that occur with monotinous regularity in many marketing/advertising offices. Many just do not get it, that to be “remarkable” to use Seth Godins term, is crucial to attracting an audience that may relate to the offering.
The days of mass marketing are over, now we need to look for the market of one and figure out how to service it. Interesting to hear yesterday on the radio a conversation about the business model of newspapers, (do they read my blogg?) and the pleading for US governmenmt assistance. President Obama indicated that the US required a vibrant, competitive, and diverse news sector, leaving the listeners to think he may subsidise the papers to survive, as he has the auto industry.
What are the newspapers doing that is remarkable, that is attracting the consumer, and therefore offering the advertiser a point of contact? Little that is remarkable!
Somebody should show the president the cartoon.
May 11, 2009 | Marketing, Operations
Feature creep, along with its big brother, range extension, have been mainstays of marketing activity for 50 years.
Marketers should now start thinking about, and asking consumers about the relative value of new features or variants. Ask them what they must have, and what they would like to have, and do some analysis of the purchase intention at different price points, with differing options.
Consumers will make tougher choices in tougher times, are they really prepared to pay the extra for the cosmetic frill, or would they take a less “optioned up” option at a cheaper price.
Marketers should also be asking their operations people and bean counters about the real cost of adding the “frills” and reflect the savings in the price to consumers were the frills removed. In most cases, the savings are far greater than the purchase cost of the added frill, as manufacturing cycle time, labor, inventory, and freight costs, amongst many others, are all reduced, delivering savings that are often hard to see if you are just using the P&L to monitor performance.
May 8, 2009 | Marketing, Uncategorized
In a recent blog I mused about the business model of the newspaper industry, wondering if it could survive , given the inroads of the web. It is also reasonable to ask if the e-paper can survive without the paper version.
How hard wired is the behavior that leads to people relating to the paper version, and is there a mid point like Amazons Kindle?
The brands that the e-papers are seeking to leverage are all the result of the old version, none have so far made anything of a dent in the task of building a newspaper brand in cyberspace.
I think this tells us something about the manner in which humans like to relate to brands, preferable if they are physical in some way, the impact of a tactile experience with a product imprints the brand better than an “e-experience” alone
Apr 30, 2009 | Marketing
Archimedes theorised that “With a long enough lever, you could move the world”
It appears that the web is such a lever, as the world has changed as a result of the leverage applied by the development of the web.
The internet bubble may have burst in the nineties, but the wild predictions made at the time are by and large coming to fruition, just a decade later, largely by different businesses, and with a clearer path to commercial sustainability, using the “old economy” disciplines of finding a way to solve a customers problem, or reduce his costs, whilst proactively managing your own assets, as the way to profitability.
Apr 29, 2009 | Marketing
There is a difference between telling someone what to do (management) and inciting a movement (leadership).
Managers use organisational structures to get stuff done, leaders create momentum by enabling connections to be made amongst like minded people, and showing the way.
You need 2 things to generate momentum:
- A shared passion
- A way to communicate.
The web has changed the dynamics, but not the rules, they are as old as human interaction.
Apr 24, 2009 | Demand chains, Marketing
The usual, and correct view of a supply chain is a number of competitors at each point in the chain competing to provide the goods and services necessary to send the goods along to the next stage. The classic is the Australian wool chain, where the agents compete to broker the wool, the scourers compete amongst themselves, as do the top-makers, weavers, and so on. This all takes a lot of time and energy, competing horizontally.
Well developed demand chains by contrast compete vertically. They are driven by demand, and each point in the chain works collaboratively with the others to best meet the customers need. Slowly, the competitive environment is altering, and competition at the point of sale is becoming a competition between competing supply chains, not just competing retailers.
The benefits of this type of activity are potentially huge.
Wool Connect, a group of wool producers has its wool in shops as socks after a couple of months, rather than a couple of years as would be the norm, and they know where the wool goes, and they get a premium for a premium product.
www.woolconnect.com
