Creativity and Innovation to get the edge

In these uncertain times, many of us are looking at our businesses and wondering – where to from here? Everyone seems to function slower, in wait of a clear direction. Marketing budgets are down or blocked. Just cut back on everything and try to weather the storm is the mantra of many.

Few are those who are going to see the glass half full. Yet, times like these are an opportunity. And this is how it should be seized:

What is the role of Marketing in an organization?

Depending on the type of business product or service, marketing will be involved at different levels, but if its role were to be summarized in one sentence, I would say that marketing is here to add value to the business proposition.

And what drives Value in the market?

In a word, Uniqueness. I would define this as the sum of tangible benefits and points of difference that make your product or service a better fit for your target market, and trigger consumption / purchase and re-purchase.

So I propose that the role of Marketing is to create and sustain that “Uniqueness”.

I recently ran a survey on Linkedin asking what one should expect of their marketing team in times of recession. The answers I received were showed the mood of the times – ‘make greater direct impact on sales’ was highest on the wish list. While this is an undoubtedly practical expectation, how do we deliver it?

I think the more visionary amongst the respondents had the right answer when they chose ‘more creativity than ever’ and ‘outside the box innovation’ – as these are the most effective tools for delivering to expectations. I certainly empathize that in the midst of today’s reality it is challenging to maintain a focused strategic vision. Nevertheless, we need to act now in ways that will ensure we come out fighting fit when this climate ends. Times of recessions are a strategic opportunity for those who can avoid myopia – they are a time to leave the competition behind. Let’s not forget that in growth mode everyone finds something to survive on, and gaining the edge is harder.

Encouraging creativity and innovation is what everyone should do. R&D is not only for product development. Creativity and Innovation need fostering at all levels of a business. New ways to reach consumers, innovative promotions, smarter trade tools, sharper communications, and better market insights. We need to get businesses in fighting order if they want to preserve their market share and push the weakest out of the market.

So by all means review your marketing investments, challenge their efficiency, that but don’t stop all activities or you will suffer deeply from the loss of momentum and will lose Brand equity.

Take this opportunity to explore new avenues of reaching out to your consumers. Drive innovation within your teams. You just have to open the tap and facilitate participation and individual initiatives. You will probably find out that everyone in your business has his own idea on how things could be done better and cheaper.

Good Luck.

Regroup and Consolidate to face the downturn

Your business is facing new challenges this year? The recession is forcing you to re-structure? You want to work smarter? Still you need to launch new products, expand into new channels or grow into new markets. Your competition is tough and you need to keep innovating, you need to be more creative. A traditional reaction in times of economic downturn is to cut costs and slash advertising expenses. But often it proves to be a quick fix and then a setback in the long run at the expense of your Brand Equity.

In a recession more than any other time, you need to sell “better” and resist price erosion pressures as much as you possibly can.

Here is my 2cts contribution to what I think one should do in times like this.

Review your processes and ask yourself if your marketing does this:

1. All your activities are aligned and match the sales cycles and the needs of the markets you are working with.
2. Your brand communication is strong, meaningful and consistent with your history and your business strategy.
3. Your brand strategy adds value to your product(s) and you are able to retain a price premium that will save you from cutting already thin margins.
4. Your in-store presence reflects who you are (brand), what you want to say to consumers (Call to action) and gives you a true competitive edge in the last mile.
5. Your Channel partners value your efforts and fully support your product(s).
   

If not then you need to start reviewing and changing the way you spend your marketing money. 

1. Look for smarter ways to do what you are doing with traditional methods, don’t discard the possibility of investing more to reduce cost later. For example, does your business use Social Media? Have you run viral campaigns before? Do you advertise on the net? Often these prove themselves more cost efficient.
   
2. Slash the fluff. Instead of cutting the big blocks cut the small stuff that feels unnecessary. You will probably feel like it is small money and maybe the returns are good for the small amounts – still you need to rethink the whole plan and find consistency across the board. Often (not always) those small projects/campaigns add up and dilute your message into too many directions.
   
3. Check if you can merge and connect several smaller campaigns into one big one that can last longer and drive sales better. Look for economies of scale. Sometimes putting everything under one big umbrella campaign helps to give the impression that you are actually doing more despite doing less... you’re just working smarter. Give your campaigns a theme that isn’t time dependent... by that I mean that they won’t become obsolete too fast and need a revamp.
   
4. Take the big chunky expenses and review what they achieve. Ask yourself how well those big campaigns/projects help your bottom line. Are they key to claiming a price premium for your products/services = do they increase / strengthen your Brand Value? Check if that can be improved further and if you can get more direct sales drive out of the expense – try connecting smaller operations to it under one umbrella as one big theme.
   

 

There is no magic recipe. Often, you just need to cut a good campaign budget because you simply do not have the money for it. That’s life. But with the above tips, I hope you can take a fresh look at your budget and avoid what happens too often. One cuts what is easier to cut, not what should really be cut. 

Consequences can get more expensive than the savings they represent at the time. Brand Equity takes time to build and can be destroyed very fast. A brand can devalue itself very quickly by engaging into behaviours consumers would not expect of it. 

If you ever have to cut your price or do some “silly” discount scheme, make sure it looks like the channels / retailers have done it... not you (sorry guys). Consumers accept that retails suffer in a downturn and will look to clear stock for example. They just expect to grab a bargain. That should not affect your Brand equity as much. Stay away from branding your discounts and support your channels - they’ll surely appreciate you for it.

Finally sit tight through the storm because it is a great incentive to find even more efficiencies in your business. When that lower budget is given to you and the “crazy” targets are still there...Keep your optimism and just ask yourself What if? and How? because even beginning to consider a high target is already half the work done. Where there is a will there is a way.

Cartoon by HupSpot

Hello 2009

 Just a few quick words to wish every one a Great Year 2009. My best wishes to you all and your families. Health first and a fresh mind boggling of new marketing ideas !

Apologies as my posts have been rare in the last two month as I was completing research and business plans for a start up in the field of renewable energies. Blogging is definitely a full time job ;-) reserved for unemployed people or for those who make it their job to blog every day ! Respect.

I am not about to stop anyway so expect more on this space soon. Take care and again all the best as this is going to be a great year !

Chameleon brands – integrate to connect

David J. Moore from the University of Michigan and Pamela Miles Homer from California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) released together last year an article in Science Direct titled “Self-brand connections: The role of attitude strength and autobiographical memory primes”

 

They are bringing to us the concept of Self Brand Connection.

 The self Brand connection (SBC) construct describes one’s attitude vs a given brand, and particularly the relationship between one’s self image and the brand’s image.

Which is different from brand personality (Aaker,1997)... which is “a set of human characteristics associated with a brand”.

The SBC “measures the extent to which the consumer connects that personality to his or her self-concept”. The Self Brand connection is stronger when an individual starts to define himself with the brand.

Their essay focused on Sports marketing, and particularly the fans attitude to the brand depending on gender, and game outcomes. But the concepts discussed can really take a broader meaning here. I retained a few interesting learning’s I’d like to share here.

1. The stronger the links with a brand, the more favourable brand attitudes are going to be.

“people for whom a given brand is sufficiently important to be linked to their self-concept and to their psychological needs should not only develop more favorable brand attitudes (H1), but will exhibit higher levels of attitude strength as well.”

2. Adversity plays a strong role. The stronger the brand needs to assert their identity (It is always better if that identity is threatened – ie opposed communities in this case sports teams) the stronger the feelings of belonging to a community.
3. To succeed in creating a strong connection with a consumer target (fans) a brand has to integrate the group / community it wants to belong to, and display codes and behaviours proving that integration. Only then will the fans / consumers start feeling that the brand is a true part of their world.

In today’s world, brands need to be champion Chameleons with multiple facets to their personality. The exercise is hazardous but truly worth it for those who successfully integrate. Endorsers are most effective at persuading consumers when the endorsers' image “matches” the message about the product and is consistent with the aspired-to self-image of the target audience (Kahle and Homer, 1985).

Social identity theory is based on the notion that people will be motivated to attach themselves to those who are perceived to be similar in values, preferences or various shared group characteristics    (Jacobson, 2003). The fundamental premise is that group membership is crucial to the formation of specific identities developed by the individual (Hogg and Abrams, 1990). Social identity is developed through the value and emotional attachment that an individual derives from membership in a articular group (Tajfel and Turner, 1986).

Agregate or Get lost !

I have just finished reading THE LONG TAIL by Chris Anderson. Very interesting and very well written, Chris shows us how the internet by reducing the access costs to products has changed radically the business landscape. One can now make money out of extremely niche offers, and niche products can now meet a market.

One of the key conclusions are that the 80/20 rule (which was really never exactly 80/20, thank you Mr Pareto) does not really apply anymore in the internet world. The portion of the business that was previously considered non profitable because of its size actually represent 2 or 3 times more than the portion we used to consider profitable. And the list goes on, Amazon, e-Bay, Google are all successful examples of the LONG TAIL of business.

The key learning for me is a stronger focus on the importance of a new concept. The concept of aggregation. Aggregating content, offers, information, products.

Aggregators are the bottlenecks who will provide simple access to what you are looking for. Once called portals, they are the key Touch points for finding something. This is where the money is being made. This is where the traffic converges. And the key to being a good aggregator is simplicity. I think that one has been proven by Google already.

If you can become a successful aggregator then you have it made.

Pic Credit: JRhode

Touch - the future is Kinesthetic

In his last book, SISOMO (stands for SIght, SOund and MOtion) Kevin Roberts explores the importance of sensorial information in marketing. In the field of consumer technology, I personally think that Touch is the critical sense. Creating an emotional bond with Consumers goes through Touch. Kinesthetic & Kinesthesia are the fields of science that cover body & touch senses.

With the recent explosion of touch screen phones this takes a whole new meaning. We crave those little devices because they are a much better extension of ourselves, and help us take control of our lives.

Time to market is everything. One can invest millions trying

 to build a brand. That curve gets steeper if the timing isn't right. But the ROI when the moment has come is multiplied effortlessly by the momentum you are gaining in the market.

Building communities of fans and followers, gauging the market, building awareness, acceptance ; these are all "uphill" efforts. But when the curve tips and your product is suddenly becoming the Grail, when the technology is Crossing the Chasm (check the book by Geoffrey A. MOORE) then your efforts are all "downhill" and you are gaining velocity.

What better to create an emotional bond than a touch device - it vibrates as if it had a life, it blinks as if it had a pulse... it is my portable connection to the world.... and I am committed to it.

Anyway, I can't resist showing you the current battle at the top. HTC vs SAMSUNG ? read CNET on the HTC Touch HD and then CNET on the OMNIA. I can't wait for those devices to offer more user control... dual boot between Android and Windows Mobile 6.1 ... ? Geek heaven.

By the way - is now the right moment ? Not quite - but I think we're pretty close. Location based services (GPS) in my mind is the one innovation that is going to tip the market. Why? because it will free us from geographical constraints and simplify the way we find places and friends... Google has that bit right with Google Maps...

Building successful Retail displays – Making heroes

Most businesses who are thinking of creating retail displays for their products are focused on brand image and communicating product features & characteristics.

But a Retail display strategy is not only about demonstrating your hero products, it is about making retailers your hero. It is about making them true ambassadors of your products because you cannot physically be behind them 100% of the time. Because of that your displays must ENABLE not DETRACT.

Here are from my experience the key success factors to consider in building your retail display strategy:

• Remember retailers own the space, even if you end up paying a subsidy, space in retail is scarce. Optimize the space – think product storage & additional shelf space not just product demo. ROI is king - think Turnover / m2 used. At the end of the day aren’t you in it for the same reasons = to sell more products.
  
• Try to make retailers life easier = address their concerns – How to sell your products / and how to sell more of it. Your display is a silent sales man. It can also become an education tool to the sales people in the store and show them how to sell your product.
  
• Think modular / changeable / mobile. Remember nobody wants a piece of decor forever. Stores are an ever changing environment, refreshing the layout is always good. If your display is getting in the way of the retailer’s operations it will end up in the bin or at the back. This should force you to think about telling a story, and come up with regular upgrades and refreshes.
• Think location, make sure you grab appropriate locations (beware of shelf contagion issues – they may be products you do not want to be next to). Think foot traffic and circulation within the store. Think visibility (and try not to obstruct visibility – retailers can be very itchy about line of sight).
  
• Adopt the snowball strategy. Setup trial locations, and use the results to sell the setup to others. Retailers can be very jealous of each others, it can block you but it can also work in your favour. Prove your worth first and replicate. Also if you do not get the best location right away, you can still re-adjust and improve your next sites. Get accepted first.
  
• And finally do not think your work stops once you have setup your display locations. It does not... keeping them clean, tidy and up to date is critical... making sure the material is aging properly against the day to day grind. Nothing worse than a broken or half working display. Make sure you have the resources to re-visit and maintain your displays on a regular basis.
  

Good luck.

The purchase decision is a long journey – Stores are the last mile

A brand needs to own key touch-points along the way to make sure when the right time comes that consumers will consider it.

So which touch points are critical to the success trial?


Well if you are not in the market for a new TV, Seeing an advert about TV’s will only refresh your awareness of the existence of that brand, hopefully give it some profile and potentially escalate it to acceptance and maybe “top of Mind” status. If this is not refreshed regularly you are likely to forget again, and the money is pretty much wasted.

Companies need to invest wisely in all the steps of the chain. The critical ones being downstream, they are also the ones where the ROI is likely to be higher.

What a brand marketer wants to do is the following.

• Establish awareness profile and acceptance of the brand as part of the consumer environment.


• Win the hearts of the opinion leaders / those who will generate a recommendation – Mavens


• Get people talking and particularly relay the words of Mavens. Create Buzz – Connectors


• Get Sales people in store to recommend and talk up the brand in a consistent way to the brand image carried in all other brand communications. Consumers are more likely to buy in, if the experience is consistent to the one they’ve had when talking to their friends or researching the market.
  

To convert a brand from awareness to trial you will need to win the consumers at four main levels:

• Establish brand acceptance at personal level (buyer has heard enough to find credible and accepts to consider – personal inner circle)


• Get Short listed through research rounds (internet, media, reviews, trade – environment outer circle)


• Get Validated by a closer circle (friends recommendations, trusted inner relationships circle)


• Win the in-store recommendation (point of purchase – outer circle)

Money invested in building awareness and top of mind becomes wasted if when coming purchase time friends reveal to you that this is a problem brand (for example customer service issues) or if when you walk into a store the sales person diverts you to a competitor brand for x,y,z unforeseen reasons.

All the steps are critical. But the in-store experience can make or break your work.

Picture credits: BdR76

Purchase process - All Brand touchpoints are not born equal

Let's say for the sake of this example that I am a marketer working for a company that is selling the “X” TV brand.

Is there a minimum number of touch points that I need to be across to make sure I convince consumers to buy the “X” brand (assuming I have the right appealing message) and which touch points are going to deliver the most efficient strategy?

All sources of information are not born equal. We believe less or more depending on where it comes from and how much trust we attach to the source.

For example:

• Our close circle of relationships: Friends and colleagues for example. We know their personalities, strength and weaknesses. Because of that we believe we can predict their behaviours and we know what we can trust them with. Suddenly an advice from them can quickly be assessed. If you know a friend who is a keen technology enthusiast his word will have more weight to you. He is a maven.


• Sales people in Stores: we all know sales people are here to sell, surely we also know they have incentives and are promoting one product at one time because of personal revenue gains. We take them with a pinch of salt but still we “believe” them to a good degree. They are the experts, they know what sells. They are supposed to understand the technology.


• Media: TV Advertising, Technology Reviewers, Print Magazines, Celebrity endorsement, and other ambassadors in the social media sphere. They are a good source of information, we understand some may not be as neutral as need be, but we believe and read with interest.

I should make a small aside here to discuss briefly Social Media spaces. I believe that currently because of the rather new landscape created by the rise of Social Medias, consumers are displaying a certain amount of naivety about it. In other words they give it more credit than they should. As with every other media this will settle down, and become an integral part of our world. When this has happened and the environment will have matured a bit, I believe this phenomenon will level out as well.

Regardless of the above, any information submitted to us gets double checked against our previous knowledge. The message content as well as the way it is delivered (format, tone, manner,...) are all just as important to us in deciding upon the “trustworthiness” factor.

“In a short slogan, there is no message without a medium. What the example seems to teach us is that at least in some cases, the reasoner should receive not just the content of a message, but take account of the message-with-the-medium.” Rott, 2004



Determining how much a particular message needs to be repeated until it gets the appropriate cut through is therefore pretty hard. What we know for sure is that the more risk averse a person is, the more it will take to convince her.

As explained in a previous post here, we are more likely to believe when the message is consistent across sources that look to us as if they are independent and neutral. The more of those sources with a consistent message the more likely the message is to be “true”.

Also the lesser number of touch points, the more difficult it is to be convincing and the less credible the message looks.

Imagine you go to a store to finally buy that TV and you come with a set of 2 or 3 brands in mind. Then you see brand Y in store ... you have never heard of brand Y before.

The store sales staff assures you it is the best buy for your money, will you believe them? Is that enough? Probably not. Unless you care little about brands and therefore are happy to take a risk.

You are most likely going to do one of two things.

1. Ignore that brand and buy one of the brands you have done your research on,
2. Delay your purchase and go research brand Y.

The environment you previously studied has changed and you need to reconsider.

picture credits: Old TV by afternoon_sunlight and Kermit shopping by Looking Glass

Risk aversion or Brand Promiscuousness?

How willing are you to take a risk when it comes to the purchase decision?

Let’s take a situation I have come across so many times in my last job.

Say I am an average customer in the market for a brand new TV. I know little about technology and the merits of LCD or Plasma. I have heard about HD TV but I don’t really understand it. I do know that I will be watching DVDs, that I watch Satellite TV, and that I would like it to fit in my existing cabinet. Considering the average price ticket of the item I want, I want to make an educated purchase.

What are the means of information available to me?

• My own knowledge & experience: I already have in my mind a series of conceptions about TVs and TV brands. This is an eclectic mix of what I have been exposed to recently and through past experiences. Advertisements, sponsors, signage, etc have familiarized me with a bunch of brands I am more or less attracted to for various reasons.


• New media and the web: I can google HD TV or LCD TV or PLASMA TV; I can read blogs and forums posts from consumers; I can visit manufacturers’ websites; I can read the blogs and website of Technology specialists (CNET, etc.)


• Magazines, TV, brochures, retailer catalogues and other traditional media: I will probably end up buying a couple of consumer technology magazines with reviews in them and watch some technological TV shows in my quest.


• Friends and relations: I will talk to people around me, particularly to those who have recently changed their TV and get their opinions.


• Stores: I will browse stores, look at designs, deals, ask the sales persons what is good and why, and I will begin to short list what I like.

In fact there are only three categories of souces to making a decision. Personal Beliefs / Trusted circle Beliefs / External insights and perceptions. These are key touchpoints a marketer will have to make sure are covered.

Presented with choices, the brain will start filtering all of this information and will push me towards what feels like the right balance or satisfactory state for me. The left and right brain will interplay to reach a conclusion I am comfortable with. The conclusion that is finally reached will ultimately depend on risk aversion – this to me is the real criteria.

How risk averse are we in a given situation? Early adopters for example are clearly less risk averse to technological innovations than consumers whose attitude towards technology is more traditional.

Buying a new brand is a bit like sleeping with a stranger (!) Sorry for the metaphor, but getting a new brand home is a bit like starting a new relationship.

Otherwise buyers turn to known brands for the reassurance of a continued happiness and the comfort of an existing relationship.

How “promiscuous” are we with a new brand?

That depends on risk aversion. Which is to use another metaphor a bit like finding out how many boxes you need to tick on the rational decision making side vs. the emotional decision making side. The more emotions involved... the more pleasure involved, the higher the risk. If you are willing to surrender to your emotions then you are less risk averse.

Instinctively our brain knows. “Where we have strong emotions, we're liable to fool ourselves.” Carl Sagan, Cosmos (Blues for a Red Planet), US astronomer & popularizer of astronomy (1934 - 1996).

“The degree of one's emotions varies inversely with one's knowledge of the facts.” Bertrand Russell

Brand marketing academics often refer to the brand pyramid.

I have used this myself in Brand research surveys. It is a very common way to measure Loyalty levels and attitude vs a given brand.

The Brand pyramid gathers at it’s base “Aware” customers and at the top “Loyal” customers (indicating a higher emotional relationship) with different steps like “familiar” or “most preferred”.

But on those aspects not all customers are born equal.
Some “fall in love” faster than others. They are simply more promiscuous.

Pic Credits from Flickr Creative commons: in order Zach Manchester UK, Fusion 2005 and cbcastro.

Feels true, sounds true, looks true, and heard it was true? Must be true!

Our world is crowded with information. How do we actually come to believe?

So much information that our brain could not process everything that is around us unless it applied some filters. I recently came across research showing how our brain decides what to believe and how it processes information. There is a clear pattern that emerges, one I am sure is consistent with our individual experiences.

We are more likely to believe when we are able to double check the information across different sources.

Cristiano Castelfranchi from the Institute for Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, in Roma, Italy gives us some key elements that corroborate my intuition on this in a essay titled “Reasons to Believe: Cognitive Models of Beliefs Change” - 2004.

We only believe if we have reasons to believe.

In doing so, our brain reassures itself with the logic of comparing sources and information. Compare this to the phenomena of false beliefs and rumours getting started. If two or three unrelated people give you the same information, suddenly a doubt is born that the information may actually be true. Why so? Simply because you were told so by a small number of people that seemed to believe in it...

Important steps in believing are:

• Source Reliability (perception of independence, trustworthiness)
  
• Belief Credibility (importance and plausibility = how much it matters to you and how you feel about it from the inside)
  
• Existence of a convergent source confirming.
  

Castelfranchi also talks about what the belief brings to you in terms of achieving your goals. Does it make you feel good, satisfied, does it solve a problem etc... Naturally the brain has a tendency to take the shortest path to satisfaction and if believing is “simpler” than doubting, one may be inclined to avoid challenging the belief further.

The absence of internal contradiction is a key success

 factor to believing

If the information contradicts other existing beliefs it will either be purely and simply rejected, or submitted to a much more intense scrutinizing process.

Morality ? in trying to convince someone, going with the flow is easier than contradicting them. Leading them to analyse and realize their own belief is false is key in getting them to change their mind.

Give them reasons to believe. Get the same information to come to them from various sources they will deem reliable. Deliver the message in a way credible to them.

And remember convergent sources of information contribute to making the information credible.

Pics Credit: Truth and Falsehood by Dulhunk and Megaphone drawing by PSD

Thank You !

This post is about all of you.

I have now been more regular at posting on this blog in the last month or so. There has been more and more of you to actually read, bookmark and track my posts.

I am very grateful. I hope what you are reading is helpful and might even get you thinking about your own business and your own brand.


Hopefully, I am not taking myself too seriously and I don't pretend to know it all. Don't be afraid to challenge me and post comments. Most of these posts are the continuation of my own state of mind and can very much be qualified as work in progress.

Once again, thanks. And I hope to continue to deserve your attention.

How you define your business changes everything – the Google example

I recently came across an interesting post on BrandSimple, which triggered this one.

Is Google stretching the limits of brand credibility with the launch of its phone?

The article is well written and makes a very valid point about businesses who go and cross the line of what is really their core business model to adventure themselves in side activities that can later fireback and damage their brand.

But I am thinking a business model and a brand is something that can evolve with time, and it is not uncommon to see a business centre its activity differently by redefining itself and it’s brand or brands. Therefore it really depends on how you are looking at a business. To go back to the Google example if you think Google is purely in the content business, then you may agree with Allen Adamson who posted this article on BrandSimple.
I don’t agree with him. Nothing personal. I think looking at Google and saying they are in the content business is an incorrect and a very short view of what the Google business and brand is about.
What is Google’s core business or at least was when they started is Search. So they are about

 indexing, searching, and bringing the result of your search to you. That led them quickly into indexing the planet (Maps are giant indexes in a way), and is leading them into the publishing side and naturally in the advertising side (which is no doubt their major source of revenue). Then you need to stay on top of the content generation game, and with Cloud Computing growing, Google launched Google Apps, facilitating online computing.
So Google is not really in the content business. Google does not really “make” content although it sometimes does.

Google is about searching, organising, facilitating, presenting and delivering content. Google is in the content delivery business.

So does it make sense to partner with mobile manufacturers and give your name to a phone software? Yes, absolutely. 

A phone is a mobile terminal. By doing that Google is securing THE ultimate delivery platform. A great way to ensure content is delivered all the way to mobile users. It is mission critical for Google and Google Apps to secure the mobile base.

There is more than one manufacturer working on the Android platform so one cannot say that Google is tied up with a particular hardware manufacturer.

As an aside HTC has done a really good job with the first Android phone (featured pics)

Check the Android T-Mobile page on HTC’s Website.

And the following Press Release on T-Mobile's Launch

Android is an OS similarly to Symbian or Windows mobile. Open Source it is based on a Linux and Java core and will rely heavily on developers bringing new applications to market. Calling it the Google phone is a good stretch that will provide the device with instant awareness and a fast adoption curve.

I can only applaud. The future will tell us how successful this strategy was.

For more technical resources check an independent fan site.

Lifestyle brand or not, marketing is about adding value.

Would you argue that it is easier to talk about branding when you are working with consumer goods or lifestyle brands? Surely it is easier to think brand when you are an icon like NIKE, APPLE, SONY.

Marketers have to answer to the CEO and the board about ROI and how much value they add to the business and that is where my point is. Marketing must add value whatever product or service you are bringing to market.

"A commodity is anything for which there is demand, but which is supplied without qualitative differentiation across a market. In other words, copper is copper. Rice is rice. Stereos, on the other hand, have many levels of quality. And, the better a stereo is, the more it will cost. The price of copper is universal, and fluctuates daily based on global supply and demand..

One of the characteristics of a commodity good is that its price is determined as a function of its market as a whole. Well-established physical commodities have actively traded spot and derivative markets. Generally, these are basic resources and agricultural products such as iron ore, crude oil, coal, ethanol, salt, sugar, coffee beans, soybeans, aluminum, rice, wheat, gold and silver.
Commoditization occurs as a goods or services market loses differentiation across its supply base, often by the diffusion of the intellectual capital necessary to acquire or produce it efficiently. As such, goods that formerly carried premium margins for market participants have become commodities, such as generic pharmaceuticals and silicon chips." Source Wikipedia

Fighting commoditization is what marketing is all about.
Find a meaningful point of difference for your target market, whether the difference lies in the manufacturing process or the quality of the materials, ingredients, the history around it etc.... It is around difference that you can articulate a brand strategy. And if your target market does not care, find a way to make them care. Educate them to choose better. Educate them to choose your brand.

Advert recall even in fast forward !

Interesting research is showing that TV viewers that are using PVR/DVR functions and are fast forwarding adverts are actually still paying attention to what they are forwarding through. Ad recalls are still high even if they are lower. Subjects are so anxious not to miss the beginning of their show that they are still registering images. Read the full article

The difference between Advertising & PR

I have just read a funny post from Chris Brown in the US.

Here are pics from it - I think it is self explanatory !

Just one comment I would add though. Something I have been beating on constantly in this blog. It's the power of repetition from different sources. Joke apart the subject is more likely to believe the statement to be true if he hears the same info from at least 3 different types of sources. So Branding / PR and Advertising should be used together to consolidate the brand message... one really can't achieve the same results alone.

Seeing is believing ?

I came across an interesting article about a paradigm in the way we choose to believe information.
According to researchers M.B. Welsh & D.J. Navarro from the University of Adelaide in Australia, we are subject to a phenomenon called "Base Rate Neglect" which means we tend to give a stronger weight to information gathered depending on whether it is recent or not (age), geographically relevant (location), and depending on the source and the sample size.
Beyond the very technical content of the article, I found enlightening the way that we discount information and what we choose to believe.

One particular example is a research about Swans, where 999 swans observed around the world are white and one found in Australia is black. Although the probability that the next swan encountered will be white is very high (as per the base rate), research shows that the subject after observing a regional variation is suddenly more prone in believing that the next swan encountered in the same region could actually be black. 

This phenomenon can explain, for example, how negative consumer experiences can ruin brand image quickly. 

But it also opens an interesting door on how to reverse negative brand image. And how one can manage information and marketing activities to reverse consumer beliefs. 

Showing a radical change (something as different as finding a black swan), concentrating on creating positive consumer experiences in stores as well as using word of mouth and PR tactics to spread the word can help reverse previous perceptions. 

Brands: Show them love and get loved back !

Great post, I have just read today on:

http://tinyurl.com/3tetdy

Looks like the human brain may have neurons called the "mirror neurons".

Mirror neurons play a great role in imitation behaviours.

Watch someone experiencing strong emotions (excitement, laugh, love, tears, etc...) and suddenly our innerself seems to resonate along? 

Mirror  neurons are playing an important role in the learning process for example.

Read more about mirror neurons on : http://tinyurl.com/5hm6dy

Shall we derive from this that a good way for a brand to be loved is to show love ?

I feel smarter now.

Concentrate on understanding usage & usability not just your customers profile

Gone are the days.

I have read and heard so much about how businesses should be consumer focused. Put the consumer in the middle of your business model, and try to service him properly, service his needs... In my area of marketing - Fast moving Consumer goods and Consumer electronics, I believe the thinking needs to shift.

Businesses need to focus now on how consumers are using the products. Usability is key. We all know consumers barely use 1/3 of what their phone can do. How many consumers are using video messaging ? Video Calling ? how many watch TV on their handsets ? How many are actually using mobile banking ?
I believe we will see more and more businesses focus on how consumers use the technology, how they use the products. The winning ones being the ones who will bring to consumers the real perceived added value to their everyday life rather fancy gimmicks which nobody wants.

Ergonomics, Cognitive sciences all have contributions to make to marketing in helping us understand the relationship between products and consumers.

If you are marketing a particular innovation or technology product out there. Ask yourself how people are using your product and what they really care about. Don't put them at the centre of your thinking. Put the relationship between them and your product at the centre. And try to maximize that in a way that they can't live without your product anymore.

It is that relationship that really matters to you.

Marketing Metaphoria

A very interesting reading from G.Zaltman.

Zaltman he is a leading thinker around what influences consumer behaviors. He puts into light what he thinks are key drivers of consumer behaviors regardless of cultures and borders.

These drivers are the perception of balance (justice, equilibrium), the feelings of transformation (changes in substance and circumstances), the impressions of embarking on a Journey (Meeting of past, present and future), the perceptions of Containment (inclusiong, exclusion and other perceptions of boundaries), the perceptions of being Connected (to oneself and to others), the available Resources (acquisitions and their consequences), as well the sense of control (Mastery, Vulnerability and Well-Being).
I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is marketing innovation and technology. Zaltman is certainly touching something interesting here, even though he is not giving us direct keys into practical marketing actions.

It is a good insight and its learnings can for example be used in ad testing and in any experiential marketing brief to drive key perceptions.