Jun 6, 2014 | Communication, Small business
Marketing is about telling stories, engaging people with them, which builds awareness, affinity, preference, and with luck, persistence, and good management, can lead to a transaction, or two.
Metaphors, when well used can make a complicated point in a memorable and understandable way.
Couple of weeks ago in a talk to a small group of SME owners about the rugged terrain of modern marketing, I used an old metaphor, a throwaway, in the midst of the conversation. I was surprised firstly that nobody had heard it before, and secondly at the sudden clarity it delivered to a complex message.
“When you go to the hardware to buy a 10mm drill” I said, “you do not really want a 10mm drill, what you want is a 10mm hole”.
An oldie but a goodie.
This morning on the copyblogger site I saw another one I really like. It goes something like: “To make a restaurant successful, you don’t really need the best location, best service, lowest prices, fascinating menus, and all the rest, you just need a starving crowd”.
Obviously, all the good features you will see touted around as people flog bum-spots in restaurants in a crowded market all helps. They are part of the means to the end, the way you deliver the service, but to be outrageously successful, what you really need is a starving crowd.
A good metaphor, like a good picture, clarifies, simplifies, amplifies, and makes memorable, the outcome of a complex conversation.
Jun 4, 2014 | Branding, Collaboration, Leadership, Marketing
Debate and argument fills a vital role in all parts of our lives, it is what makes us human, this capacity to be able to think and communicate, rather than just react.
For an extended period with two different employers, I reported as marketing manager to a bloke with whom over time I developed a rapport that enabled us to achieve some great things, creative and commercial. We won awards, opened some new markets and redefined others, and importantly, delivered market share, brand credibility and profits to the employers.
Reflecting on the experience, now a long time ago, it seemed to me that there were 7 factors at work:
- Play devils advocate. We seemed to just fall into this habit of taking the opposite view of the one expressed, to debate the point by seeking the holes in the data, logic, and assumptions, irrespective of our own starting point. We usually ended up somewhere other than either of our respective starting points.
- Never allow authority to override or diminish the views of others. At no time during a debate was my view overridden by his organisational authority. From time to time after the debate was over, with some level of disagreement still present, he had to make a decision contrary to my expressed position. However, when those occasions arose, I was happy to go along, and execute he decision, as the process we had gone through was thorough, and my views had been listed to, and taken into account prior to the decision. Some form of “due process” had occurred.
- Recognise when you are wrong, and be very open about it. What more needs to be said? Very few things build respect quicker than someone being able to concede that they were wrong, and respect is vital for an open, non personal debate.
- Encourage absolutely open communication. This requires lots of trust, and goes with the point above, as respect is a vial element in trust. It is behaviour that engenders trust, not words. People watch the behaviour of others, and over time make a judgement about the level of trust they are prepared to offer. Trust is hard won, but easily lost.
- Openly question the foundations and logic of your own position. Being prepared to not just have others question your position, but being prepared to shoot your own scared cows, and we all have them, enables others to do the same thing with confidence that the commentary is never personal, and is welcome.
- Be prepared to enable, more than just allow, projects and ideas you disagree with to proceed. From time to time, when a project is allowed to proceed that may fail, and the “boss” thinks failure is likely, but gets behind it the impact on the creative energy is enormous. I recall one project that would completely disrupt the category the launch was aimed at, was allowed to proceed on the basis of my instinct. We had done lots of research, tested to the wahzoo, but this was a genuine innovation, something consumers had not seen, so asking them what they thought was encouraging but inconclusive, as they had no actual context against which the idea could be judged. There was considerable capital investment involved, and the “boss” went in aggressively to bat for the project, whist quietly being less than convinced. For an organisational subordinate to have that level of support is enormously empowering. Luckily, the launch was an enormous strategic and financial success.
- Be prepared for failure, but be determined to learn from it. We learn more from than we do from or success, so being prepared to experiment, adjust assumptions and try again is fundamental to learning. As part of the preparation for the launch referred to above, I had a range of plans prepared that would ensure that in the event of failure, the financial losses would be outweighed by the organisational learning that occurred. This was just good prudential management practise, and fortunately those plans were not necessary.
An unusually long post this morning, glad you go this far. It was triggered by a post I read earlier in which Ed Catmull, CEO of Pixar reflected on the reasons for his creative success. Many were reminiscent of mine, and his notion of a “brainstrust” is extremely attractive.
Such is the source of blog post ideas, a spark, combined with personal experience. This answers one of the questions I am often asked as I continue to find stuff sufficiently interesting to me, and hopefully to a few others, to post.
Jun 2, 2014 | Branding, Marketing
brand destruction centre
On Friday I got another of those calls from an offshore call centre flogging a product I did not need or want. Some poor person obligingly named “Kevin” whose first language was not English, scrolling through a prepared screed that bore no relationship to the situation he found himself in talking to me.
What a waste of everyone’s time, and money.
Meanwhile, there are thousands of blogs, learned papers, and stories demonstrating clearly the power of social media, all being ignored by the enterprise stumping up the cash to make the useless, brand destroying phone call.
Why is it that the outsourced marketing unit called a “call centre” still uses C20 technology to waste my time when there are plenty of opportunities to pick up information about me on the various social C21 platforms I inhabit?
Why is it unreasonable to expect that the investment made in these centres would be better spent on some activity that did not piss off 99% of those unfortunate enough to answer the phone?
The available technology easily supports the scraping of social media to build a profile of individuals that can then be targeted with a message that at least has a better chance of being welcome than an annoying phone call from a “Kevin from Mumbai” who is simply reading a script that bears no relation to the circumstances of the callee.
Turn your Call centre into a Social centre, and I bet the results will improve.
May 29, 2014 | Branding, Communication, Customers, Marketing, Social Media
http://tomfishburne.com/?s=word+of+mouth&x=0&y=0
This morning a friend was telling me about a product he had used recently, and how it changed his life. Well, made a small piece of it better at least.
Next time I am looking for a product in that category, I will try it. Very little to lose even if I do not share the enthusiasm, and I value my friends opinion.
Word of mouth marketing.
Free marketing for the product supplier, right?
Consider how much effort went into making the product right, managing and optimising the value chain, in creating the programs that engaged and made an advocate of my friend, and gave him the stories to pass on to me.
Word of mouth is very effective, the most effective form of marketing we humans have ever seen, and on the surface it is free, but beneath the surface, there is frantic paddling going on.
Word of mouth marketing works but is not free, it is earned.
May 27, 2014 | Branding, Communication, Marketing, Strategy
‘Rich red Fountain Tomato sauce”
Fountain Tomato Sauce used to be the market leader in NSW, daylight was second and third. This was a long time ago, and responsibility for the Fountain brand was my first real job as a product manager who had real accountability, and the power to make lasting brand and resource allocation decisions.
I walked into the job just as Franklins (remember them) launched a “No Frills” tomato sauce, at 0.69c on shelf against the 0.73 for Fountain. Our volumes immediately took a huge hit.
I still remember the details, and the near panic that ensued.
“No Frills” was the first real housebrand of the type that 25 years later would play a role in the demise of the Australian food processing industry.
The immediate instinct was to drop the price of Fountain, and compete aggressively, certainly that is what the sales people insisted on, but we took a different tack.
We increased the price, to 0.81c, improved the product a fraction by adding a few percentage points more of tomato paste, and advertised, giving consumers a reason to pay the extra. When it was just 3 cents, chances were the products were pretty similar, but when the difference was 0.12 cents, consumers recognised they were not the same, both might be tomato sauce, but they were not the same, and they had to make a conscious choice.
We set about telling people why Fountain cost more, and why it was a great choice over the “cheapie” delivering real value to them and their families, and they paid the extra, willingly. Our sales went up, margins were up, the MD was very happy, and I was over the moon.
Point was, we gave consumers a reason to buy Fountain, we told a story, entertained, informed, it was a significant premium, but not one that would break any budget, and the product was better, much better, and consumers felt better buying it and having it on their table.
“Rich Red Fountain Tomato Sauce, Australia’s finest red”.
Wish Youtube was around then, and I had copies of the radio ads, they are still the ads I am most proud of over a long marketing career, with many successful ad campaigns.
May 22, 2014 | Change, Governance, Marketing, Small business
The future prediction business has so far failed to find a sustainable business model, apart from the fun stuff in the tent with the funny lady with the cards and crystal ball.
About the only serious people who still profess to be able to predict the future with any accuracy are politicians, and we all know how that usually turns out. The rest of us set about controlling what we can control, and preparing for the unexpected from the things we cannot.
By contrast, with some effort, staying on the leading edge is possible for all enterprises. Information is now so freely available, and consulting services whose stock in trade is “leading edge” whatever you want, so ubiquitous, you can stay in front of most if not all of your competition, and be aware of changes occurring so you are in the best position to leverage them.
Small and medium sized companies are best placed in this game of staying current, should they be prepared to make the commitment to do so.
Smaller companies can try stuff out, see if it adds value, and deploy in the time that their larger competitors take to organise the conference call to test if there may be a good idea in here somewhere. The only hurdle is that it does consume scarce resources, but when you see that consumption as an investment, the payoff can be huge.
In the marketing space, my hometown, the cost of testing has fallen so dramatically over the last decade that there is no longer any valid excuse not to be testing extensively.
So get on with it, apart from being strategically and competitively sensible, being at the front is where the fun is.
