Nov 15, 2012 | Change, Communication, Marketing, Social Media
Comment on digital media, the opportunities, challenges, and pay-offs is largely made by people engaged in the business, and they are different.
In a previous life, I dealt with a series of advertising agencies in the great days of the radio/mag/TV triumvirate of advertising, spending a “shedload” of money.
In those days, the personnel engaged in the industry all seemed to live, work, and play east of St. Leonards (in Sydney, Australia), while most of my consumers lived west of Lidcombe. Whilst these may locations may not be as different as night and day geographically, there were fundamental demographic, ethnic, cultural, and economic differences that, had to impact on their consumption behavior, and the manner in which they consumed and responded to advertising.
It is a reasonable assumption to think that the democratisation of media enabled by the internet would change these demarcation lines, at least blurr them, but instead they have seemed to have redefined them as obsessed, or otherwise by digital media, as noted by Bob Hoffman.
Consumers use the net as a tool, and like all tools, they use them differently depending on their skills, inclinations, experience, and where they are. However, the tool now understands how, where, when, and why it is being used, by whom, and responds accordingly. In this terrific post by Avinash Kaushink, consumer purchase behaviour, and the manner in which the data can be leveraged is examined, with Ash’s usual forensic eye.
Nov 12, 2012 | Leadership, Management
Making decisions is like any other process, you gather relevant information, consider options, look for the optimum outcomes, and decide accordingly. Right?
Often wrong.
Decisions are often made based on the HiPPO (Highest Paid Persons Opinion) what was done last time, how it would be viewed by others, what the “rules” say should be done, and a host of other drivers that really add little value to the quality of the decision making.
Decision making is like any process, the better that information, and the more objectively it can be analysed, the better the decision is likely to be. As importantly, the process is optimised by being sufficiently robust such that if the decision were to be made again, with the same information, but a different , but equally capable group of people, the outcome would be the same.
There are a few questions to be asked of any decision making group:
- Where did the data come from?
- What analysis has been done?
- What is the level of confidence in the outcomes?
Pablo Picasso is reported to have said ” computers are useless, they can only give you answers” which goes to the issue at the heart of decision making, the quality of the questions that are asked and the manner in which that are answered.
How disciplined are your decision making processes?
Nov 7, 2012 | Branding, Change, Communication, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy
“Change behavior, before you try and change attitudes”.
These were the wise words delivered to me by Hugh McKay, 30 years ago, and I have never forgotten them, and am constantly reminded as I see people justify something they have done that is different, unexpected, or inconsistent.
Behavior is easier to change than attitudes, so get to the behavior first, then again, and slowly, attitudes will alter to accommodate the altered behavior.
Therefore if you want to have effective advertising, focus on which behaviors you want to change, and worry about attitude later, but generally, you need not worry, it will take care of itself.
People are the same as they were 50 years ago, 500 years ago, the things they own and want have changed absolutely, but what motivates people has not. Just look at the behavior that Shakespeare wrote about, greed, jealousy, love, ambition and regret, they are still all with us.
The net is just like an electronic yellow pages. When you know you want something, you go to it to find the best buy, what meets your specs, etc, but you do not create demand in the yellow pages, similarly, you do not create demand on the net, the best you can do is generate awareness of your offer.
Make sure that the two fundamental purposes of advertising are not mixed.
The first is to create awareness,
The second is to create demand.
These two things are not the same, and the communication strategy used must be consistent with the potential of the medium and the manner of the message to achieve it.
Nov 6, 2012 | Branding, Communication, Marketing
Red Bull founder Deitrich Mateshitz deliberately priced Red Bull, the fizzy, nasty tasting tonic imbibed by would be racing drivers, balloonists, and skateboarders because” it makes them fly,” at 4 times the price of a can of Coke, so no comparison would be drawn by consumers.
When you compare the price of a cup of coffee from a bottle of instant coffee, to a cup made from one of the new “pods” that are around, you are not comparing price, the first is a couple of cents, the latter closer to a dollar, you are comparing the cost of a coffee pod to the price of a coffee in the local café of $3.50, so 0.80 seems to be a pretty good price. Rory Sutherland uses this coffee metaphor beautifully to make the point.
Similarly, a drink of water at home has little value, but try getting a drink when lost in the dessert, that’s when a cup of water really has a value.
To consumer marketers struggling with the commoditization of markets, and bricks and mortar retailers battling on line retailers, the key to success is to differentiate, to manage the context in which your product is seen, and to back the differentiation with absolute determination to ensure it remains relevant to consumers.
Nov 4, 2012 | Communication, Social Media
Mitch Joel writes one of the more thoughtful blogs dealing with the changes in our digital environment, he seems to be able to articulate what others amongst us just feel as a vague itch.
In this post, from 2011, he considers the implications of us now all being publishers, what responsibilities do we undertake, and how can we do better? After all, 140 characters does not constitute an article of any real value.
Similar questions, and a number more, were asked by Mark Colvin, Colvinius on twitter, during his Andrew Olle lecture on Friday evening.
Essentially, the publishing environment has undergone a huge disruption, and there is more coming. How we deal with the changes, personally, socially, and economically impacts on every one of us, so it is worth some thought.
Colvin is a great Australian journo, wedded to the facts, yet able to mix the facts with a humanity that is all too rare, as he explains and reports. Thanks to the wonders of our new digital world, his thoughts can be shared, and re-shared, and we will all grow just a bit as a result.
Thanks Mark.
