Church of the Customer: Business archives
April 08, 2008
10 questions with David Vinjamuri
Is it possible to build a very successful company and know zilch about marketing, branding or maybe even business?
Yes, according to David Vinjamuri. He's an adjunct instructor of marketing at NYU, a brand consultant and author of the new book, "Accidental Branding." It tells the stories of eight entrepreneurs who built brands such as J. Peterman, Columbia Sportswear and Clif Bar (one of my faves) without any experience in marketing or branding.
David answered our 10 questions on how a marketing n00b can still become a successful entrepreneur.
1: In a nutshell, what are you trying to convince readers of?
That the brands of successful entrepreneurs are fundamentally stronger than most corporate brands.
2: If a company launches and grows by "accident," what’s more at play — the successful riding of a trend or a smart entrepreneur who has passion for an idea or cause?
Riding a trend certainly can make a company more successful than it might have otherwise been, but I don’t believe that any company lasts 10 years or more simply because of fortunate timing. Several of the entrepreneurs I write about were lucky with timing, but those same entrepreneurs have started successful second endeavors.
3: Let’s say two people were starting a company at the same time. One was an MBA who tended to accumulate reams of data and conduct detailed analysis. The other was someone who never graduated from college, doesn’t understand marketing but is quitting her paying job to launch a company. Who would you bet on?
I would really want to know which person was solving a problem they experienced themselves – which person had passion for the business and was doing it not for the potential rewards but the desire to make something better. The ‘reams of data’ actually makes me less confident about the MBA because we often use data to augment a lack of personal understanding.
4: What do the accidental branders you profiled understand about customer evangelism and word of mouth that a typical business does not?
Accidental branders do not have the resources that corporate brands do, so they’re forced to rely on their customers for word of mouth. Along the way they see that treating customers as the messengers actually works better. And they realize that employees, vendors, suppliers, friends and family are also important conduits for the brand message.
5: What lesson would you engrave in stone for entrepreneurs?
Learn how to tell your story really well. I call it ‘building a myth’ because like a myth the story has to be easy to remember and share, dramatic, and it has to have a lesson contained within it. That shareable founding story is what consumers use to convert people to your brand.
6: You talk a lot about sweating details. At what point does that become destructive micro-management?
Sweating details is about choreographing the brand interaction – whether that is opening your brand packaging, approaching the customer service counter, calling your business on the phone or even having a vendor meeting. If any of these interactions fail to represent the brand, then you’ve just lost your brand positioning. Micromanagement is more an attitude towards people – assuming that they need to be directed on a minute-by-minute basis. It is not necessary. What you really want to do is to find people who have that same fanatical attention to detail, who can absorb the brand DNA. Then there is no need to micromanage.
7: How does an entrepreneur recognize he’s in over his head?
That is a really good question. I think the key thing is to know what you enjoy doing and recognize when the job has shifted away from that. Many of the entrepreneurs I write about sold the businesses when they were still pretty small in terms of employees because they recognized that they didn’t want to spend all of their time managing an organization. Personally I was never happier than when I was a brand manager. By the time I was a director and then a vp and I realized that most of my job was presenting to senior management I didn’t love it so much anymore.
8: Service providers have a tougher job than product makers to grow a company. True or false?
False. I actually think it is easier as a service business because you immediately realize that the actions of every employee affect your brand. Customers take cues off of incredibly small things when they make judgments about you. You see that first hand as a service business. When you’re selling a product you are often not there when the consumer expresses displeasure and you don’t always get that designing a bad package can kill a good product.
9: Which industry tends to have the tougher job in sales and marketing: B2B companies or B2C companies?
I believe it is a very similar job but that it is harder in B2B because marketing and especially brand positioning get short shrift. B2B is so often influenced in the short term by personal relationships that it is sometimes hard to remember that you are building a brand and that your customers are reading the way you do everything from answer the phone to negotiate a contract as a reflection of your brand. That’s why I think you see so many brands in the B2B space – from Bloomberg to Bain – that were started by an individual with a very strong point of view.
10. Philosophically, there are no accidents. Agree or disagree?
There are many happy accidents in business, but an accident alone won’t build a multimillion dollar brand. The book is called “Accidental Branding” because in each case there was some fortuitous accident (like Roxanne Quimby thumbing a ride from beekeeper Burt Shavitz or Gary Erickson choking on his 6th Power Bar) that caused the entrepreneur to realize that he or she was uniquely position to solve a problem. What followed was a huge amount of sweat and hard work. That’s why solving your own problem –- something you uniquely understand –- is so important.
Interested in a free copy of David's book? Go to the Society for Word of Mouth (registration is free) and add a comment expressing your interest to this forum post. Deadline for the book giveaway is Thursday, April 10 at 5 pm CDT. We'll give 10 autographed copies away (to be drawn randomly).
February 26, 2008
Need a business makeover?
We're involved with a project for national television show that's looking to profile a business in trouble and needs urgent advice. A business makeover, if you will.
Here are the requirements:
- A small business, with around $1 million in revenue
- Woman-owned, preferably
- Has multiple moving parts, i.e., at least several employees, plenty of visible customers, a well-known location in an American city, etc. For example, a salon, pet store, restaurant, catering service, etc.
- Has done OK, but recent financial indicators show the business is in trouble
- Is willing to be transparent to us and the audience about finances, revenues, challenges and problems, plus is open to making substantive changes to improve the business
- Would like free help from noted experts, plus the added benefit of national television exposure (no worries, it's nothing like Jerry Springer)
If this sounds like you, or a business you know well, email me (ben**at**benmcconnell.com) with details. The business can be located anywhere in the U.S.
Deadline for submission is fast -- 5 pm CDT, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2008.
Once the show is ready for airing, we'll share plenty of details.
February 07, 2008
Being a gracious loser means...
Congratulating your competitor(s).
Smiling through the pain, even if it's through tears.
Highlighting your strengths by talking about those of your competitor(s).
Permitting people to empathize with you in your moment of vulnerability by admitting obvious mistakes or miscalculations.
Preparing oneself to be the future underdog.
Embracing your underdog status.
Never criticizing others, or scapegoating, or demonizing future competitors. It's hard to root for character suicide.
February 05, 2008
Why Howard Schultz should blog
Surely if the TSA -- yes, the Transportation Security Administration -- can blog to help stem its sinking reputation, then Howard Schultz can, too.
John Moore makes a case for why it's a perfect time for Starbucks' CEO to keep employees and customers updated on his turn-around plans via a blog.
After all, Schultz will garner more support by talking about his work to everyone rather than just to Wall Street analysts.
[Hat tip on the TSA blog: Betsy Weber]
January 18, 2008
Our foray into fashion
Jackie Huba and I have taken an ownership stake in Erebelle, an Austin company that designs and manufactures clothes for women.
Erebelle is a small company with a handful of employees, but it makes great activewear -- the industry buzzword for clothes that range from workout wear to lounge wear. Jackie loves the stuff. (Alas, it doesn't make a men's line.)
Eric Simone, a smart and talented entrepreneur, started the company a few years ago. Jackie worked with him back in the olden days when they were both at IBM.
Erebelle has made inroads into several markets, selling through channels like boutiques and upper-end gyms. Its website is clean but spartan, a typical challenge for many small businesses. As of now, it doesn't do ecommerce.
Our goal as investors is to help Erebelle develop word of mouth, evangelists and, perhaps, some web 2.0 flair. Because the congregation is smarter than the preacher, our plan is to treat Erebelle as something of a real-time marketing case study. In the weeks and months ahead, we'll occasionally describe problems, challenges or ideas and hope you'll participate with your feedback.
January 03, 2008
Is a shoplifter a customer?
Here's a stupid rule Whole Foods could eliminate in 2008: Automatic firing for touching a customer.
Here's why: Store employee on break gives chase to shoplifter. Catches shoplifter. Store manager orders employee to release shoplifter, who then gets away.
Employee is fired for violating the "never touch a customer" rule.
(Thanks, Bill!)
December 06, 2007
The 4 types of community
You're thinking about creating or extending your customer or member community because it's central to increased word of mouth and evangelism, but community is a broad term.
What type of community, exactly, do you want to create? Here's four ways to think about it.
Clique
Your community could be small, like a clique. Its value is that members know another, look like one another, dress like one another. (To some, that could be its horror.) But a clique enjoys trendsetting and tweaking the noses of convention, just like fashion. Comfort comes from the raft of differentiation on an ocean of familiarity. The value of a clique is dependent upon its exclusivity, but its devotion can be fickle, just like in high school. Like: A Small World.
Network
Your community could be big and resemble a distribution system, like a network. Members pass along data or connections to one another like a fire brigade. Your goal is to catch the tailwinds of the network effect, whereby the value of the community is proportional to the increasing size of its membership. The network can be big, but there's little to no emotional tax for decoupling. Like LinkedIn.
Cult
Your community could be of medium size and resemble a cult. Its value is a strong belief system not fulfilled through mainstream channels. A charismatic leader has codified the belief system into rituals that people love and believe in. It may not be huge, but its devotion meter is off the scale. Like: Maker's Mark Ambassadors.
Nation
Your community could resemble a nation. The community owns its destiny. Their destiny is yours. The driving force is egalitarianism; everyone is on equal footing, with a few representatives minding the points of direction. The sense of pride, even sovereignty, is palpable. As is the devotion, which many would view as a mythological life-and-death struggle. Like: Netroots Nation.
No matter its type, your community is influenced by the forces of growth and devotion. It's hard to inspire growth, but easy to measure it and control it.
It's difficult to measure the invisible cement of devotion. But as the Facebook Beacon program has shown, it's easy to undermine it.
(Thanks to Ray Bard for the four quadrants graph.)
October 04, 2007
This is nirvana?
"The day is coming when wireless users will experience nirvana scenarios -- mobile ads tied to your individual behavior, what you are doing, and where you are."
-- Linda Barrabee, wireless analyst at Yankee Group, commenting on the rumored Google Phone
Methinks Linda has accidentally confused nirvana with the seventh platform of hell.
My nirvana involves a tropical beach, Matt Damon and a lovely banana dacquiri.
October 01, 2007
Remarkable service in the wireless/telecom industry, Part 2
A few months ago, I asked if remarkable customer service in the telecom/wireless industry existed, and to please share your stories. And did you!
Here’s a synopsis of the comments:
- James wanted to know if by remarkable, I meant remarkably bad. Not exactly, but I get his point.
- Cox, Comcast, Cablevision, Cable America, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Voce (in Sweden) were reported to have pretty good service.
- Cynthia almost canceled her Comcast internet service until she talked to customer service rep Jessie, who was a “godsend.” Jessie even gave Cynthia his direct number and extension.
- HT was so impressed by a Comcast technician who came to his house that he called a Comcast supervisor to give kudos.
- John Dale said he can get a T-Mobile rep on the phone in less than 3 minutes.
- Steven said that AT&T Wireless is the nicest-yet-least-helpful company in the world.
- Becky Carroll told the story of a rural cable company whose employees were such good friends of the community that 80% of them pay their bills in person so they can say hello.
- Will explained how one dedicated Verizon Wireless store employee solved his problem and stayed after closing to do it.
Despite the individual efforts against what can only be described as corporate entropy, many comments painted a bleak picture for customer service in the wireless/telecom industry. It's pretty clear that companies are still not investing in their call centers or treating them as a key asset to maintaining customer relationships.
One company that's setting new standards for customer service call centers is Netflix. For instance, Netflix has:
- Eliminated e-mail-based customer service inquiries.
- All questions, complaints and suggestions go to its Hillsboro, Oregon call center, not an offshore vendor.
- Customer support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
- The wait time to talk to a customer service rep posted on the Help page of the website. Current wait time as I write this: less than 1 minute.
- A policy that allows call center reps to talk to customers as long as is needed -- no incentives to get off the phone quickly.
- Two blogs, one written by the team who adds the social elements to the site, and one written by CEO Reed Hastings
It understands the value of a customer support center as a competitive advantage. Now if only more telecom and wireless companies did.
[Thanks to Becky Carroll for reminding me to do a follow-up post.]
September 21, 2007
Go ask Alice
I worked at an interactive firm in the late 90s. The company founder was ambitious and intent on growth.
When Web 1.0 finally took root and big-company money started arriving by the truckload, it was time to build a strategic plan. We had lots of ideas and the more we talked about them, the bigger they grew.
After several days' work, the plan was done. It was massive. The equivalent of a 12-page restaurant menu with small type. We'd wow 'em with the breadth of our unlimited abilities.
Of course, that was the problem. It was hard to explain any of it to people inside or outside the company. Lots of blank stares. That's what you get for complexity topped with verbose jargon, and that's largely what you deserve. The result: zero buzz.
The big planning document was a big a waste of time and effort. It was eventually scratched in favor of something simpler. A simple plan should have been the mission from the outset.
That's why people like Alice Waters build strong followings. The creator of the original "California cuisine," Alice always focuses on simplicity: use locally grown fresh food. Keep dishes simple but prepare them with passion.
Her focus is so simple that that it's grown into something of a revolution: the sustainable food revolution.
Alice is now trying to change the American food supply with another simple mission: give schools their own one-acre gardens, have the kids grow food, then cook it. The Edible Schoolyard project is a textbook example of the grassroots at work. If you don't know much about Alice Waters, here's a great primer.
Alice preaches that the mere act of eating something created from passion, from love, can change the life of anyone, especially kids who are fed a daily diet of factory-created food.
Quality can be built from the dedication to simplicity. When it's simple to understand, it's a lot easier to stand behind and evangelize.
September 14, 2007
Be true to your culture
By telling a young woman to cover up because her miniskirt was too short for a 70-minute flight, Southwest Airlines is getting dowdy with middle age, writes Cheryl Hall in the Dallas Morning News:
The company that espoused "free love" when it battled to open up Love Field has gone moralistic. When flights began out of Love Field in 1971, chief executive Lamar Muse offered no pretense of being wholesome or giving a rat's nose about offending anyone. Southwest was selling sex to businessmen – albeit of the voyeur variety – and proud of it.
If the majority of comments on Southwest's blog are any indication, (over 900 as of this writing), Southwest seems in need of a vacation. The "be respectable, young lady" story has touched a nerve that goes beyond an overly sensitive flight attendant or a customer who wears a very, very short miniskirt.
It's more about the dissonance between Southwest's cultural history (exemplified by lovable Wild Turkey-drinking, Elvis-impersonating, chain-smoking renegade founder Herb Kelleher) and what it seems to have become (stereotypical hall monitor). Telling a young woman to put some clothes on and then refusing to apologize for it, even among spreading guffaws of disbelief, portray a company out of sync with its history of rugged individualism wink-wink nods to innuendo.
Refusing to apologize and then publicly mocking the customer has given this mini-skirt story legs, if you will, a week after it first broke.
Now Southwest has found itself in the sticky situation of standing by its employees' decisions or being honest about its culture and history. Maybe they could say everyone was having a Senior Moment.
Being true to a culture that has paved your way to success -- and continues to sustain it -- is always the better decision in the long run of reputation management.
Update: In the comments, Jake and GoingLikeSixty tell us that Southwest came to its senses and apologized.
September 12, 2007
Do China's products concern you?
A producer for a big American network news show called us, looking for help. We couldn't help much, but we figured you could in answering 1-2 questions:
1. Because of the problems in China with tainted dog food, toothpaste and toys with lead paint, or because of a greater overall environmental awareness, have you focused on buying more products made in the USA? If so, how and why?
2. Have you seen any companies position their marketing recently as a direct alternative to products made in China?
Post your answers to the comments section. If you're interested in being considered a source for the network news story, be sure to include your name. For comments that interest her, we'll pass along your contact information offline.
September 04, 2007
The sale of TiVoCommunity.com
If you've read "Citizen Marketers," then you're familiar with the story of TiVoCommunity, a citizen-created site dedicated to all things TiVo.
David Bott founded the digital community in 1999. Back then, it made sense to him to start a community around the digital video recorder since he'd already been running an online community for audio-video enthusiasts.
With TiVo Community now at 161,000 members, Bott sold the site last week to Capable Networks, a Chicago-based company that specializes in online communities, for an undisclosed amount.
We asked Bott to tell us about the sale and what it could mean for other citizen-created sites dedicated to brands.
Q: Capable Networks purchased the community you founded and have been running for several years. Why sell now?
A: A lot has happened in my life over the past year, one of which is health-related. Not that running TiVo Community was a lot of work, but when you consider the other communities I run plus my involvement in the audio-video industry, it adds up. TiVo Community will be better-served by Capable Networks, which has developed a business model on what was started with TiVo Community Forum. I cannot give it the attention it deserves. They can. It is a great fit, and I feel very well with the choice.
Q: What exactly does Capable get with this purchase?
A: Capable Networks received all the domains for TiVo Community, the community itself, the data, the archives, the interest in TiVo Community Store, and the license agreements from TiVo, Inc. Not to mention my thanks for its interest in working with the community along the same lines that I have set into place.
Q: Will you continue in your virtual mayoral duties and moderate the community?
A: I will be around, can't keep away. But I will act as a consultant to Capable Networks on the site itself and on other sites it operates under the same principles. The moderators that help out on the site will be staying on board.
Q: To some outsiders, it may seem a bit disconcerting that a community has been "purchased;" it's almost like saying the city of Austin was bought by a private-equity group. How have the members of TiVo Community reacted to the news?
A: Well, not quite the same really. But an interesting analogy. You need to think of it as a business regardless. If not, you will get very, very personally involved and that could be a very bad thing. Members of such sites have their own thoughts on how things need to be run. And that is fine, but they're not laying down the dollars to keep it running or putting in the time to run it. Unlike a citizen who needs to pay taxes and have a say via votes. The members can just come and go without regard to the site at any time without issue. But a forum operator can not. Bills need to be paid and thus you need to work on it as a business to fund it. If you mess up, it is all on you. Thus you do what you feel is right for the community. You have to have a passion for doing it for it to work.
As far as the community reaction, they seem fine but are of course wondering what changes may come done the road. But then again, they always wondered that. New owners does not necessarily mean major change. After all, it would not be of interest if it did not work well the way it was.
Q: Another party with great interest in the outcome would obviously be TiVo. What has its reaction been?
A: I, of course, checked with TiVo before the sale went too far into the talks. This is not something that happened overnight as we have been working on this for quite sometime. TiVo checked into Capable Networks and seemed to agree it would be good fit; Capable can bring more to the table for the members of the site than I currently have the time to do. I would not have moved with forward without their OK. We have a great relationship.
Q: How has the community changed since we first talked with you in early 2006?
A: Not that much. The site is very attractive to TiVo owners and continues to see over a million unique visitors a month. A store was added to purchase TiVo products and upgrades right from the community site. Other than that, things are moving right long.
Q: Does this sale mean there's a bright future for other citizen-created brand sites?
A: Yes, for sure. Other dedicated product sites could be of interest to companies like Capable. But I think it would come down to product type, membership size, and the number of unique visitors per month.
August 23, 2007
The $100 million boob job
The WSJ asked a rhetorical question today:
Can a splashy ad campaign featuring the likes of domestic entrepreneur Martha Stewart, tycoon Donald Trump and singer-actress Jessica Simpson help revive Macy's sagging fortunes?
No.
Even if they spend $100 million on advertising.
In one of those "what are they thinking" efforts, Macy's really is going to spend $100 million to saturate us with already over-saturated celebrities to profess how they now love Macy's. $100 million.
The real solution, of course, is that only improved word of mouth from thousands of existing customers, not a bushel of shill-happy celebrities will turn Macy's around. Or any retailer whose fortunes are sagging.
Such an effort requires a holistic and coordinated effort from operations, design, human resources and marketing. It requires an unwavering belief from the CEO and a company-wide can-do spirit. It's a lot of work.
That's the problem. It also requires significant changes in culture and personnel. That's why it'll be easier to blame the CMO or the ad agency when revenues worsen or better yet, take the $20 million severance package when the board shows you the door.
August 07, 2007
The customer review effect
Some new numbers on what retailers in the U.S., the U.K. and Europe say happened after putting customer-created reviews on their websites:
- 77% reported site traffic increases
- 56% reported improved conversion rates
- 42% reported higher average order values
Personally, I don't buy anything or visit any new merchant today without first locating a number of customer-generated reviews for it. Making it easy for customers to review your products on your site is now pretty much a no-brainer.
August 06, 2007
Friendraising before fundraising
Here in Austin, as in Chicago and cities across the nation, busy sidewalks are sometimes filled with teams of young and ambitious people hoping to persuade passersby to give money to their cause.
But they are wasting their time. The collateral pollution of spammers, scammers and phishers who disguise nefarious intentions to steal your money are turning street-team awareness-generators or money collectors into dinosaurs. Sure they can wear matching t-shirts or official-looking badges, but the scams we're increasingly subjected to online is making all of us wary of people we don't already know offline.
Social networks are replacing old-school street teams. Social networks do the work of street teams and create hoped-for network effects: they create friends, spread knowledge and as some political social networks are demonstrating, raise significant dollars. And they can do it much more efficiently than street teams.
Social networks work for cause-driven organizations because they focus on friendraising before fundraising. They create the necessary social capital that makes raising budgetary capital more efficient, eliminating the need for street teams, cold-calling or mass-market appeals.
Friendraising before fundraising creates better friends who will lend you their time, their attention or if you do an exceptional job of creating trust, their money.
July 30, 2007
Products of mirth
Laura sent us this picture, which has been swimming across the web for the past few months. Do a quick search on "High Tide Heels" and you'll find the picture often produces one of three reactions:
- Are those for real?
- Those are stupid! Someone has too much time on their hands.
- Those are cool! Where can I buy them?
Indications are they're not for sale. They seem to be someone's art project. A project of mirth, designed to elicit laughter. I laughed.
It would be hard to imagine a child looking at that photograph and saying "someone has too much time on their hands." A child would probably imagine the possibilities of high-heeled flippers.
That's the thing about mirth, especially with children: they enjoy mirth without shame or guilt, whether it's the delicious ridiculousness of green eggs and ham or a knock-knock joke they repeat 20 times to grandma. Mirth is joy. People with a happy infectiousness spread their joy. To a little kid, mirth isn't stupid. Mirth is a license to share. Mirth spreads.
A company that demands quantifiable proof and evidence of an idea's value before dedicating a few days' time sketching it out probably lacks the license of imagination to produce a change-the-world product. In their world, mirth is unproductive.
So who knows... maybe the crazy idea of High Tide Heels will spread just enough to become a real product and sell like crazy.
It happened with some other crazy shoes.
July 12, 2007
Hero takes a fall
"To live outside the law you must be honest."
-- Bob Dylan
Consider some of the more famous rebels in recent time: Marlon Brando, Pablo Picasso, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Paul Newman, or even Herb Kelleher.
Their genius has been to create their own paths against the grain of common expectations. They defied convention because their vision was powerful enough to illuminate new paths for the rest of us to follow.
Not everything they tried was successful but on the balance, they've come out ahead.
One thing we can always rely on from our iconic rebels is intellectual honesty. To them, truth is absolute, even if it isn't always comfortable or convenient. The iconic rebels stay true to truth.
That's why Whole Foods founder and CEO John Mackey, in my book, was knocked off the rebel ladder today when the WSJ revealed that he'd spent eight years hiding behind an online facade astroturfing his company. Posing as just an everyday investor on the Yahoo Finance message board for Whole Foods, he cheered his company's financial results. He demonized the competition. Using his alias, he even astroturfed himself, defending criticism of his haircut.
I'm just as insecure as the next guy, but I'm not the CEO of a publicly traded company and responsible for the livelihoods of 40,000 employees. That's why it's inconceivable that someone who fights off the wolves of Wall Street every quarter would resort to hiding behind an online mask. It may say more about his character than his wordy attempts to shift blame. A true rebel would confront his own worst fears head-on. Honestly.
Right?
May 31, 2007
He's a rebel, Dottie
Congratulations, David Armano, on your new gig.
David is a stand-out blogger and from the looks of it, a 1 Percenter. I took this photo when he and I met for coffee last week.
May 25, 2007
Chicken Little pecks again
Citizen-created content is "stressful, costly and time-consuming"... for the brand.
That's the latest fear-mongering about citizen-created content that has wormed its way into the pages of the New York Times. As the paper did with the advent of blogging a few years ago, the NYT is following the journalistic recipe of inciting fear about subjects for which it does not understand. (I worked at a big-city newspaper for eight years and saw this wide-eyed fear writing all the time.)
Don't be too surprised if the pitch for this particular story came from the ad agency owner who's quoted in the piece. Message-creating agencies are threatened most by sharing power and influence with citizen-participants. The loss of control is threatening, but nothing will stop the democratization of participation. There's too much broadband and too many cellphones and laptops and too many people accustomed the idea of sharing their opinions. Better to accept it now than two or three years from now when an upstart gains marketshare because it embraced participation and all of its quirks.
So to the people at Heinz who are in the midst of hosting a citizen-created ad contest, ignore the noobs. Your contest is not about "creating great advertising." It's giving everyday people a voice and a vocation. Those two tactics alone generate word of mouth. Just scrolling through some of the entries I watched 10 different ads for Heinz. Isn't that the idea? Trust me, none of them harmed my impression of your ketchup.
Press on with your experiment and use it as the foundation for building relationships that bypass the black holes of sales channels. Not everything submitted to your contest is going to look polished, like it came from an agency.
Which is precisely the idea.
Selling is theater
The audience remains, and it's judging you on each performance.
May 22, 2007
On thinking big
Where are you when your best ideas come to mind? For me, it's in the shower. I hope that isn't too much information.
Numerous details I've been unconsciously processing for hours or days often sharpen into new-found clarity while squeezing my eyes shut from the shampoo. Sometimes they're big ideas. Or at least big to me.
One reason why? My bathroom has a tall ceiling, and ceiling height seems to affect thinking. The taller the ceiling, the greater the permission for abstract and free-form thought. The lower the ceiling, the more likely your brain confines concepts and ideas. That's according to a study to be published this summer by the Journal of Consumer Research.
What this may indicate is that a room with a tall ceiling gives your brain permission to concoct or accept big ideas. Little wonder, then, that churches typically have very tall ceilings. Conversely, hospital operating rooms with low ceilings tend to concentrate attention to detail. Of course you want that.
Rooms matter. For people who are responsible for team brainstorming, or managing the details of a project, this research means a lot. Want your co-workers to free themselves from regimented, analytical thinking and come up with some big ideas for customer evangelism, word of mouth or social media? Don't use the cramped conference room with the jarring fluorescent lights. Get them into a room with a tall ceiling. Or maybe a shower.
April 25, 2007
On making decisions
Tom Toles used the ridiculous hand-wringing over global warming to make his point with this carton, but it could easily describe how some organizations respond to a shifting marketplace.
April 20, 2007
A great focus
Christopher Buckley's new book, "Boomsday," is a great romp through the minefields of politics and PR, with heady attention given to grassroots organizing fueled by one rather sassy, sexy (and fictional) blogger.
Buckley's publisher is Twelve; the company includes its mission statement in the back of the book.
Twelve was established in August 2005 with the objective of publishing no more than one book per month. We strive to publish the singular book, by authors who have a unique perspective and compelling authority. Works that explain our culture; that illuminate, inspire, provoke and entertain. We seek to establish communities of conversation surrounding our books. Talented authors deserve our attention not only from publishers, but from readers as well. To sell the book is only the beginning of our mission. To build avid audiences of readers who are enriched by these works -- that is our ultimate purpose. But mostly we are about publishing Christopher Buckley.
I love how Twelve announces its mission with specifics, especially those that go beyond simply selling a book. If only more publishers, record labels, entrepreneurs or small businesses were this committed to their products and their creators.
February 14, 2007
Apple's attack dogs, pt. 256
Mike points us to a story in Des Moines in which Apple has sent a cease-and-desist order to a local bar demanding it stop using the name iPod Mondays, an event designed for iPod evangelists to gather and share their playlists.
ipod Mondays had been an event for a few years, and the bar owner said he'd received the blessings of a number of Apple employees.
Arguments over trademark ownership and enforcement can last longer than a bad opera, yet scores of ad-hoc, citizen-created communities have established reliable precedent that using a company's well-known trademark (tivocommunity.com and mini2.com are two easy examples who have tens of thousands of visitors) does not necessarily harm or dilute a trademark.
February 11, 2007
Criminalizing stealth marketing
Tom points us to this story: The UK is set to institute laws by the end of 2007 that penalize stealth marketing at the individual level.
Hotels, restaurants and online shops that post glowing reviews about themselves under false identities could face criminal prosecution under new rules that come into force next year.
Businesses which write fake blog entries or create whole websites purporting to be from customers will fall foul of a European directive banning them from "falsely representing oneself as a consumer."
From December 31, when the change becomes law in the UK, they can be named and shamed by trading standards or taken to court.
A law won't stop the white lies of a marketer trying to increase the ranking of a hotel on TripAdvisor or from adding bogus reviews to Amazon. The onus is on the aggregators to keep their ranking systems largely free of stealth influence.
But how can the typical citizen trust that an aggregated site has the systems or controls in place to help keep out the stealth marketers? An independent accreditation council that reviews and certifies the relative trustworthiness of review sites could be one answer.
January 25, 2007
Dante would be proud
Think you have it bad at your job? Here's a true story: A well-known law firm is trying to teach its partners to say "thank you" and "good work" to its associates. You know, that weird common courtesy stuff.
It's no joke. The firm lost 31% of its associates in 2004 and another 30% of them in 2005. Each year, one-third of highly educated associates who make about $160,000 per year decide the money's not worth it.
Next training event for the law firm: exorcism.
January 10, 2007
I'd buy it!
Would you buy this car?
It's a conceptual design from Peugeot. Is it practical or even realistic? Who knows. But I'm happy to tell Peugeot that I'd buy it. Curiously enough, Peugeot is looking for my vote.
It has invited visitors on its website to vote for a favorite Peugeot concept car to appear in a future Xbox videogame. (The contest site is in French.) OK, so I voted for a digital toy but Peugeot's researchers obviously know that hardcore gamers are also early adopters of leading-edge cars. Soliciting their votes votes helps Peugeot determine which concept cars resonate most with core fans. That voting data helps determine future demand -- a useful dashboard item for company executives who must peer into the future and make expensive bets about trends, marketplace gaps and what people will actually buy.
The simplicity of soliciting non-binding votes from a community of customers to help determine future demand and reduce the risk of decision-making is a foreign concept to most companies, but a few like Peugeot are experimenting with it. Then there's t-shirt maker Threadless, which uses a simple-yet-powerful "I'd buy it" vote function to determine demand well before ink touches cotton.
Here's how it works: All of the t-shirts Threadless produces are designed by its fans and customers. For Threadless to produce a new t-shirt, a fan submits her design first to the Threadless community of several hundred thousand members. Votes stream in on a 1-5 scale. Voters can also check-mark a non-binding "I'd buy it" button.
This is no focus group that says one thing but does another; Threadless has developed a remarkably accurate algorithm that predicts which designs will sell. Thanks to community voting, the company has never produced a flop; voting reduces the inherent risk of launching new products. The citizens of its community not only produce the blueprints for products, they determine their demand for them. (We write more about Threadless in Chapter 7 of Citizen Marketers.)
And that terribly cool new Apple iPhone? I'd definitely buy it.
August 05, 2006
Moleskine: How to revive a brand
Modo & Modo, the Italian company that owns Moleskine notebooks was sold on Friday to a French company for 60 million Euros. (The story in the French newspaper Le Figaro is here; a machine-translated version of the story is here.)
I mention this because the sale closes an interesting chapter in the history of Moleskine; a chapter about redemption, of how a brand that was once considered dead was given new life by a 13-person company that focused on the notebook's magical past and the evangelism of its current fans.
That evangelism was codified through a global marketing push loosely organized by a group of Moleskine citizen marketer-bloggers who are scattered around the world. (A very active Flickr community is involved in talking about Moleskine, too.) Perched in the center of that world of fans is Armand Frasco.
A few weeks ago, I was chatting with Armand on the phone as he was sitting at his home in Niles, Illinois, describing the call he’d received one day out of the blue.
“Hello-ah, Aramando,” he said, using his best imitation of an Italian accent. “It’s ah-Francesco Franceschi!”
Franceschi was calling from Milan, Italy. He was the co-owner of Modo & Modo, maker of Moleskine, a decidedly untechnical, richly traditional notebook favored by designers and artists. Franceschi was calling because Frasco had built a solid following with Moleskinerie, a blog that the Frasco started on a whim one day in 2004. Now some 5,000 people per day visit Moleskinerie to share their stories about the small black notebook that decades earlier had been the journal and sketchpad of Vincent Van Gogh, Henri Matisse and Ernest Hemingway.
Franceschi was also calling because Moleskinerie had started to spawn copycat fan sites around the world, nine in all and most of them in languages other than English. Like Moleskinerie, all are maintained by independent citizen marketers. By most accounts, they are essentially the notebook’s only organized global marketing.
“I thought, well, ‘I have a Typepad account, and I have a Moleskine. What happens if I combine the two?” is how Frasco recalls his decision to launch Moleskinerie.
Franceschi, along with a partner, revived what was essentially a dead brand. A French company had owned Moleskine previously, but inattention and neglect slowly killed it. So Franceschi partnered with Mario Baruzzi and bought Moleskine in 1998. They set out to re-create the magic that inevitably follows in the draft of the world’s most famous artists. By deftly focusing on exceptional manufacturing quality and a few obvious but killer features (a black elastic band wraps around the outside to hold the French-vanilla-colored pages of the notebook closed tightly), the Italian entrepreneurs used Moleskine’s history as its distinct selling advantage. That helped it become a cult product with mainstream sales numbers: 4.5 million Moleskines were sold in 2005 . Most marketing was being done by volunteers like Frasco, who works by day as a commercial photographer.
"The company insists I remain independent of them, which I insist as well," Frasco says.
Sometimes for five hours a day, Frasco attends to Moleskinerie, primarily by featuring the work of artists and designers who use the notebook as a pallette for their creativity. But why a fan blog dedicated to, of all things, a notebook? After all, it does not come in trendy colors or extol techy features like GPS, much less a sleeve for a compact disc. It’s sold primarily in one color: black. Henry Ford would approve of its old-school focus.
"I feel deeply responsible for the product. Why? I don’t know." Frasco pauses for a moment. "Because I feel like, since I own the product, I don’t want to damage it. I want to help. You see, I’ve always liked travel. I listened to shortwave radio when I was a kid. You close your eyes, and you’re there. As a documentary photographer, I want to help people document their lives. So with this site, I’m helping people document their lives. That may sound trivial to many people, but it’s not to me."
Plus, there’s the Moleskine history by artistic association. "There’s a magic associated with it, and people want to believe it,” he says.
When the true believers or the curious search for Moleskine on Google, Moleskinerie is often the third or fourth result. That’s one reason why Franceschi started calling Frasco regularly: A highly ranked fan site can be a key source of influence. "We’re like an informal focus group, and that’s a huge advantage for them," is how Frasco described the value of his blog for Modo & Modo.
While Franceschi could have monitored the blog anonymously, Frasco guesses that Franceschi preferred to make and maintain connections with fans (“We share a lot of beliefs,” he says), plus it’s more efficient to take a barometer reading of a brand’s health directly from the weatherman in the field, not a weather website. “Corporations should realize the power of a community,” he says.
Modo & Modo did, which fueled Frasco’s concentrated work on Moleskinerie. “I feel like there’s a partnership between us, and that’s gratifying. We don’t talk about the business side of Moleskine. We talk about issues of the world, and that’s very profound to me."
Now that Moleskine is in the hands of a new owner, the big question for Frasco and all of the other Moleskine volunteer marketers is "how they will deal with us."
"I hope Mr. Franceschi will put out a good word for us, better yet, shepherd the same support with the new owners. I have a feeling he's that kind of person."
July 18, 2006
Marketing isn't broke; it's broken
Marketing departments will tell you that they are broke. Not enough money in the budget, they say, to launch a customer community effort or improve service levels. Do more with less, they're told.
But really, marketing departments are broken. They've lost their authority in the organization, yet they still think they're more important than any other department, Forrester analyst Peter Kim says in a new report, "Reinventing the Marketing Organization." (He provided a copy of the report for review. You can purchase the full report here.)
Peter surveyed 104 marketing execs from companies that averaged $4 billion in annual revenue and spend $240 million per year in marketing. Among those companies, only 15% of them have authority over the four marketing Ps (pricing, place, promotion and product).
One rather astounding finding: 76% of the companies surveyed do not influence or own customer service. Until marketing departments reclaim it, they're likely to remain stuck in an organizational rut. This has been an anvil that Pete Blackshaw has been hammering at for years. Own the customer and you'll start owning the business.
First things first: Ensure that the organization has a CMO.
July 13, 2006
Advergirl explains "new media misses"
On the heels of Coke's foray into social media, Advergirl scripts a hilarious fly on the wall meeting "between a Big Agency and a Big Client on New Media."
She says, "When your client makes a couple billion a year and is to all
appearances unstoppable, no matter how inane the advertising and
marketing gets, just how much strategic advice are they really looking
to the agency for?"
Sing along with me now: "Let's all blame the marketing director!" (Mp3) [Like the song? Get it here.]
June 28, 2006
Craigslist and the McLuhan time machine
Marshall McLuhan, writing in 1963-64 for his book, "Understanding Media:"
"The classified ads (and stock market quotations) are the bedrock of the press. Should an alternative form of easy access to such diverse daily information be found, the press will fold."
The alternative Craigslist in 2006 and its easy access to daily information (via Pew):
- 10 million new classified ads per month
- 500,000 new job listings per month
- 4 billion page views per month
- 10 million unique visitors per month
- Seventh overall among Internet companies
- Staff of 21 people
Newspapers haven't completely folded yet, although several press towers have fallen.
McLuhan forecast so much of what's still true, and what's changing 40 years later in media, that it's simply remarkable.
June 21, 2006
Southwest's open-door experiment
Next month, Southwest will test assigned seating.
Depending on your perspective, it's either a great idea or a terrible one. The company gets earfuls of opinions from customers on both sides of that aisle.
The experiment will occur on some 200 flights departing San Diego. The company's primary measures will be improved/worsened boarding times, and how many customers love it vs. hate it. Experimenting with a practice that's been in place for 35 years can be risky, but not testing long-held assumptions can be worse.
Obliviousness to industry research and the larger signals of a shifting competitive environment have spelled the doom of many a storied company (railroads, buggy whip manufacturers, disk drive makers, etc.) Research from Arizona State University professor Rene Villalobos for America West found that a reverse-pyramid method, a back-to-front, outside-in system that boards passengers with window seats first, then middle seats, then aisle seats, improves boarding efficiency. US Air is using the system and has had a 21 percent reduction in departure delays.
Customer buzz will spread quickly about the Southwest test, and CEO Gary Kelly is openly talking about it on the company blog. Super-smart move. However the test turns out, they'll have plenty of customer opinions for a marketing campaign to sell the new approach or keep the old one.
At least no one can say the company didn't try.
June 16, 2006
Starring Mark Cuban as Joe Pulitzer
Deep down, Mark Cuban is a news junkie. He loves the news media, even if he's always jumping down its throat for a status-quo mentality or the gotcha-work of some well-known sports writers.
As the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, Cuban is trying to change how the NBA manages its business. As the owner of HDNet (with Todd Wagner), he's trying to change how the film industry manages its business by advocating day-and-date releases for films.
Now it's apparent Cuban is hoping to introduce his maverick ways to the news industry: Cuban has offered a maverick news icon -- Dan Rather -- a three-year contract to host a weekly news show on HDNet. Rather would also produce two documentaries per year for the network.
Dan Rather would be to HDNet what Howard Stern has been to Sirius: a well-known, yet-polarizing marquee talent whose strong work ethic would help fuel the growth of the fledgling business. Rather's mere presence and media-savvy would generate millions of dollars in free publicity as Stern expertly did for Sirius.
"What I expect to do, what I hope to do, is bring this HDNet thing to fruition," Rather told the Times.
This follows news on Wednesday that Cuban will launch Sharesleuth, a venture to to expose securities fraud and corporate malfeasance. Cuban may be a billionaire with plenty of executive-level customers who sponsor his Dallas Mavericks and the American Airlines Arena which he partially owns, but Cuban isn't above holding corporate executives who lie, cheat or steal to public accountability. Amen, brother.
Cuban may emerge as a modern-day Joe Pulitzer: A media maverick whose unconventional ways with newspapers made him fabulously wealthy, but his practices were always imbued with a blue-collar mentality (unlike what constitutes a good number of corporate-owned news operations in 2006). It's little wonder that the Dallas Mavericks jerseys, which Cuban designed himself, are blue.
Perhaps it's more accurate to say that Mark Cuban loves the idea of shaping the news media; he certainly knows how to stay well-positioned in the middle of it. Will journalists within a re-imagined news media one day compete for the honor of winning a cobalt-blue Cuban Prize medallion?
Update: Dan Rather is officially leaving CBS, paving the way for him to join HDNet.
June 11, 2006
Star search
A bit off-topic, but it builds on News.com's story from a few weeks back on how amateur video-sharing sites are poised to become the best scouting locations for future stars.
Here's an 8-minute film featuring the urban gymnastics of the Davinsk clan. Their "russian climbing" stunts will make your jaw drop. Quite literally, I believe.
Look out Jackie Chan!
Scoblejuice
That's what PodTech.net will get quite a lot of over the next days and months as Robert Scoble joins the company and departs Microsoft.
Our hearty congrats, Robert!
June 09, 2006
Scenes from a shredder
For both housekeeping and mental break needs this afternoon, I shredded a box of old receipts, bills and checks from 1995.
To whom was I loyal in 1995?
* PicNet. It was my first ISP, whom I signed up with in 1994. Took me about two weeks to figure out how to connect to the Web. My personal web page that PicNet made possible caught the attention that year of Hong Kong's largest publishing company and a six-month consulting assignment in its beautiful city. PicNet was acquired by some company, which was quickly acquired by someone else, which later was acquired by someone else. I think the original PicNet was digested 5-6 times.
* Whole Foods. A steadying influence about WFM is a culture that continually reflects its value proposition of authentic organic. The funky and cool 20-somethings who work at the Chicago store near me today could easily have been working at the Whole Foods on Greenville Avenue in Dallas I sho