Dec 9, 2013 | Branding, Marketing, Social Media
Mass marketing used to be about blasting messages to an ill defined supposed user base, “women 18-30” because that is about the best we could do.
With the advent of social media, we have been led to understand that the analytics behind the scene enable extremely accurate targeting of messages, just be wary, as the recipient now has the ability to trash your message, and turn it back on you.
Why is it then that brands, some big, sophisticated ones, are using social media, specifically Twitter, as a mass medium, sending huge numbers of messages.
I was browsing marketing charts when up popped this research noting that some top brands are tweeting 30 times a week.
Do the wallies driving this really think the consumers who find themselves on a brand twitter-list want to hear from them that much? Are they considering the negative reaction that much crap can bring? At the very least, it is a good reason to dump your brand of choice for one that does not annoy you as much on social media.
When was the last time you had areal conversation with a brand??
Why would you want to receive tweets from them beyond the occasional piece of genuine news, or value offer??
How much is too much?.
Dec 5, 2013 | Change, Customers, Marketing, Sales
Some marketing activity is aimed at creating demand, alerting people to a value proposition. Other so called marketing activity is aimed at delivering an offer, an important but very different activity to demand creation.
Consider the difference between most ads on TV, and the yellow pages. The former generally sets out to tell you why you should buy something, whereas the yellow pages is a list of places where you can go to get delivery.
Which leads me to all the all the banner ads on the web, those persistent, annoying and endlessly crappy pop-ups that appear. I have just upgraded from windows XP to Windows 7 as I replaced my laptop, not wanting the leap to windows 8, just a step too far, and have not yet figured out how to avoid the apparent thousands of pop ups plaguing my screen. None are likely to get my attention beyond wanting to strangle the silly bastard who is paying somebody to disrupt me in the belief that I will react positively to the disruption.
The old laws of supply and demand still work. The supply of space into which to place a banner ad on the web is infinite, so any price is too much, and it does not work, like an ad in the yellow pages does not work to create demand, just where to get it once you have decided to buy something.
Dec 4, 2013 | Branding, Change, Marketing, retail, Sales, Small business
The produce branding model used by the agricultural so called marketing programs run by industry bodies all fail the basic test of being consumer centric. Generally they are retailer centric, using grower levies to fund discounts, and sometimes display space, never brand building. ”
“Australian tomatoes” is not a brand, it is simply a description.
Besides, the major retailers are exercising their control of the supply chain by not allowing proprietary brand building marketing anywhere near their stores.
The major retailers hold varying shares of produce categories. I suggest that hard vegetables like potatoes and carrots are in line with their overall share of around 75%, but their share of sensitive, seasonal fruit is probably more like 40%, with everything else falling somewhere in between. Where they fall depends on the “commodity” status of the produce, and consumers view of the trade-off between convenience and freshness, taste, and the more subjective things like customer service and product provenance.
Sydney Harvest is determinedly consumer centric. It is an evolving business model that creates a collaboration between the best growers in the Sydney Basin ands specialist produce retailers in Sydney to deliver field fresh, best quality, provenance assured produce to discriminating consumers, turning the usual supply chain into a demand chain.
Currently in pilot, the initiative is setting out to determine if there is a market in the niche, as there is certainly a niche in the market for such a collaboration.
Nov 25, 2013 | Communication, Marketing, Social Media
In these times of abundance of marketing “stuff”, bloggs, video content, on line advice and templates, what we are missing is a deep intellectual understanding of the marketing process.
The tools have changed, but at its core, human behavior has not. We are still motivated by the same things our parents, and their parents were motivated by, it is just that the frills are a different color, and are in different places.
The first modern advertising man was the dodgy monk who first used Guttenberg‘s new fangled printing device to print church Indulgences, effectively forgiveness for sale, around 1439, leading to Martins Luther‘s 1517 nailing of the “95 Thesis” on the local, Beta version of facebook, the church door.
400 yeas later, enterprising newssheet vendors realised that their readers were a market that sellers of a range of products were prepared to pay to reach, and modern advertising was born, and honed by the Madmen, so beautifully exemplified by Don Draper.
Now we have all this internet stuff bombarding us day and night, and we seem to have forgotten the basic rule of communication:
The receiver has to do something with the message you send before it is communication.
The tools have changed, the drivers of behavior have not.
Nov 21, 2013 | Governance, Management, Marketing, Strategy
The metaphor for business as war is widely used, and it does have considerable value when considering strategy, tactics, capability development and resource deployment.
Marketing is a base component of this mix. It requires you to see the world, product offer, through the eyes and behavior of others, your customers, and potential customers, and in so doing, observe and understand the value proposition of alternative offerings.
So, if there is a metaphor for the competitive aspects of marketing, it is act like your enemy, do to yourself what your enemy would if they had the information, resources and capabilities you have, with the intent of defeating you.
With apologies to the original, “do unto others before they do unto you.”
Nov 19, 2013 | Branding, Communication, Marketing
Advertising gets a lot of bad press, TV, radio, magazines, the backbone of advertising all last century have been supplanted by various digital platforms that accepts and places advertising, supposedly direct to a highly targeted audience, when they are looking for something.
Or do they?
Digital advertising has largely failed to live up to the hype, even while advertisers throw up to 50% of their budgets at it, and are often being at best gamed, at worst, ripped off.
Over a long period, I have found that whilst the tools of marketing have changed radically, the behaviour that drives those who use the tools, consumers, has not. This is a true now post digital, as it was when TV was the new bloke on the block.
A letter written by Bill Bernback in 1952 to the owners of Grey advertising worrying that the technicians were taking over from the “creatives” .
Great stuff.
Bill Bernbach’s contemporary David Ogilvy had a lot to say, his book “Confessions of an Advertising Man” first published in 1963 has a prominent place on my shelf. Even as the nature and mediums of advertising have changed completely, the foundations remain the same. Five of Davids “Ogilvayisms” have been put into Don Drapers mouth, and they all still hold true.
Great advertising still needs to tell a story that gets into your head somehow.
In a world bombarded by messages of all types, our visual and audio senses are grossly overworked, so how good it is on the very rare occasions when you see an ad that also engages our emotions to tell a story? This Guiness advertisement is such a piece of communication, an ad that tells a story, engages, brings a smile, and says something memorable, important about us and the brand.
As good as the Guiness ad is, I still think this Union Carbide ad for insulation is the best ad I have ever seen, and it comes from the 60’s by a company that did not survive its own stupidity.
