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The world is watching!

Friday 7 November 2008 · No Comments

barack-capitolMuch has already been written about the Obama victory in the US elections and I am sure there will be much more to come.  This is, after all, a momentous event to so many people, for so many reasons that it could take a long time to raise and explore them all,  but, as you might expect, I have a few thoughts on this and I’d like to raise two in particular that are close to my heart.

This week the American people have said “enough” in the most emphatic fashion.  Enough talk, enough manipulation, enough aggression and above all, enough indifference.  This is no mere electoral vicissitude, the turn-out tells us that.  This is proof that the criticism levelled at the US in recent years by many Middle Eastern spokesmen and increasingly from their counterparts in other parts of the world, that the US is not a democracy, is bollocks.  The people have reclaimed democracy, this is it in action - big time!  For once at least, the pollsters were right and despite the predictions of the Republican die-hards people were as straight-talking at the exit polls as they were in the main event - they said they had voted Obama and they did.  Make no mistake about it, the American people have spoken and, at what I believe was the eleventh hour, they have said to the world “Bush is not what we are”.

Of course, there has been a great deal of damage done to at least a couple of brands along the way.  Firstly the Republican brand has taken a hammering beyond belief, which itself is an illustration of how a wayward son or sub-brand (in this case Bush) can damage the corporate brand.  I have been saying for years that there’s corporate DNA in every sub-brand and batting on about how this relationship works in practice.  I couldn’t have wished for a better demonstration.  After the most expensive campaign in US history the Republicans are about to discover that it can cost a hundred times as much to bring a disappointed customer back to your store than it does to build on the relationships you already have a sell again to existing customers.

However, the greatest damage has been done to brand USA.  This result can leave no compos mentis person in any doubt that it was voter apathy that put Bush into the White House, but life is a learning process and the lesson of the last few years has been that there’s more to this presidential gig that the electorate had realised.  The President is your representative in every way possible.  What he or she (for that day will dawn too) says and does, is taken by the people of the rest of the world to demonstrate the attitudes of the American people and at last, I think the message has hit home!  If you elect a buffoon, we think you are all buffoons, if you appoint an aggressive war-monger we take this as a fair indication of your general state of mind.  And who would blame us?  You have, after all, always told us you are a democracy.

Just as the president is not just a local act, neither is he or she just a figurehead.  As many corporate brands with high profile and popular spokespeople have discovered, its not just a case of putting the right celebrity with an attractive message on your promotional material you have to deliver, and that’s the hard part and my second point!  The enormity of the task facing Obama right now is mind-boggling.  He has to be certain that his promise is clearly defined - in Full Effect Marketing terms create a brand model.  Just as we do with Brand Discovery he then has to ensure that every one who is enlisted by him understands the promise and its implications and is totally committed to playing their individual role in delivering that promise.  This much alone could be a lifetime of internal marketing, given the way that governments and civil servants operate.  However, only when he has done this can he be confident that every government action or initiative is consistent - that’s consistent with each other and with the brand promise.

Nevertheless, I’m not worried about whether Obama understands this.  I am sure he does.  What I’m worried about is the possibility that having nominated a driver for this bus the rest of America might think that they can sit back and enjoy the ride.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  This thing is only going to work if the people play their part too in demonstrating to the world that the brand USA promise has substance.  Having mustered the strength of purpose to stop the rot, it would be one of the world’s biggest disappointments if the American people were to slide back into apathy and indifference.

If the lessons have been learned, this could be the biggest watershed in American history since the declaration of independence.  This is not just the appointment of a new President, its not even the nomination of the first black President, nor is it just the re-birth of democracy in the land that was founded on that principle, its the chance for the American people to stand around and behind their President and the promise he represents and tell the world this is what they stand for and above all, play their part in making sure America delivers.  It never was more true.  The world (really) is watching!

Categories: American · Barack · Brand Discovery · Brand Model · Brand promise · Democracy · Full Effect · Full Efffect Marketing · Government · National Branding · Obama · Politicing · President · Senate · The Full Effect Company · US · brand · brand development · branding · brands · change management · communications · consistency · internal marketing · marketing · phil darby

Well it bloody well happened at Tourism Australia, didn’t it?

Tuesday 28 October 2008 · 1 Comment

I just knew it when I wrote about this in February!  I’ve been waiting in trepidation for the outcome and now we have it. Australia, the land that we hold in great affection for its rough-edges - Crocodile Dundee, Home and Away and Sir Les Patterson, has decided that its a luxury destination for poser aesthetes in search of their real self - Strewth!  Pour me a Bundy and lets get real here!

There’s no doubt about it Baz Luhrmann makes great cinema, but everything about this production leaves me asking “So what the bloody hell happened to Australia” and not, by any means, in a good way.  What we are witnessing here isn’t anything to do with attracting tourism to Australia, its about a new government attempting to remove every trace of their forebears, but having nothing to replace them with.  Yes, by all means when you gain office establish your brand quickly and decisively by doing something different, but for Christ’s sake do something sensible.

This isn’t Baz’s fault, and it may not even be the agency’s (they are just being opportunistic), but it most certainly is the fault of whoever wrote the brief and approved the strategy and that, I guess, was a politician or civil servant because any half-wit marketing person would know that if you are going to make claims you firstly want to know both that anybody cares and that you can back them up.  However popular retreats may be these days, I absolutely cannot belive that anything more than a handful of tripped-out tree-huggers are going to fork-out thousands of pounds on a re-awakening walk-about.  The Australian outback is about four-wheel-drive, Bush-Tucker Man and the Crocodile Trophy (the toughest mountain bike race in the world!) not competition for yoga-punting Maharishis with Bentleys in their back yards.  And just because some asshole in Canberra decides that his future lies in distancing himself from what his predecessors stood for, it doesn’t make it right, or even wise, to present Australia, that we all know, and understand just fine already, as something that it isn’t!

It might be argued that this is aimed at Americans, most of whom don’t know where Australia is, or have a passport that will get them there.  I have to admit, when it comes to selling something “different” to Americans the extreme adventure element of traditional Australian positioning is a bit too close to home and the historical Aboriginal card starts to offer hope.  However, if this were so its, at best, a case of bad timing because the high-flying banker-type who might, a few weeks ago, have been fooled into embarking on a voyage of self-discovery in the Aussie outback is struggling to afford the bus ride home from the soup kitchen these days!

This absolutely has to be a case of a no-substance politician wallpapering over reality.  If you want to change a nation (and Aus looks just fine as it is these days to me) stick to your strengths.  Politic your way to change, don’t just tell everyone that its come about and hope they don’t notice its all bullshit.  Oh, and butt out of marketing, its definitely not your forte.

I really, really hope that everyone gets this situation for what it is and doesn’t end up hating brand Australia for trying (because, believe me it won’t succeed) to jump on what it perceives as a gravy train.  Remember, while it takes ten times as much to attract new customers to your brand than it does to repeat sell to existing ones, the cost of attracting someone you’ve already pissed off by not delivering or trying to scam (or maybe in this case by selling out) could be a hundred times that.

Categories: American · Australia · Australian Tourist Commission · Baz Luhrmann · Brand promise · Full Effect · Full Efffect Marketing · Government · National Branding · Politicing · Sir Les Patterson · The Full Effect Company · Tourism · advertising · bankers · brand · brand development · brand name · branding · brands · communications · customer · customers · honesty · maharishi · phil darby · public sector · tradition

Future-proofed brand consulting.

Monday 20 October 2008 · No Comments

Earlier this week I caught an interview with the clinical psychologist and author Oliver James on BBC Radio 4.  Oliver James for those who have never heard of him (and I was one of you until this week) has written a number of books that focus on an affliction that he calls “affluenza” which, he claims is rife in the UK.  Now, I have never read any of his books and I haven’t studied his “teachings” but he made a few comments during the interview that struck a chord with me, especially in light of the current economic and environmental climate.

His basic premise is that people in the UK are especially unhappy and stressed because their values are shot. He claims that our lives revolve around the mission for affluence and ownership.  According to James we have entirely lost our sense of values, we confuse want with need, we see ourselves in terms of the stuff we own and indiscriminate ownership of anything and everything is our primary goal.  The more we own the more we need to acquire.  The process is perpetual and ultimately frustrating, to the point that we are unhealthy both pysiologically and psychologically.  He’s got us sussed then!

In the interview, he pointed out that people in other European countries are more content because they have more of a “make-do-and-mend” approach to life and he’s right.  My experience of Central European countries is that this is very much the case.  People there don’t throw things out when they break down, they fix them and if they can’t be fixed they are stripped of components that might serve to fix something else at some later date.  Prague’s local council periodically park a skip in the street where my part-time home is, for people to deposit larger throw-out items.  Things like broken TV’s and electrical equipment, furniture and other stuff that won’t fit in a bustbin.  (Councils in the UK should try this insead of making us trek to the not-so-local tip whenever we need to dispose of something or charging some exorbitant fee, on top of our local taxes, for collecting them).  The notable thing about this is that anybody (notably ex-pats) who throws anything into these skips is treated with rasied eyebrows and tut-tutting from their neighbours for being so frivolous and wasteful and you’ll often find as many people taking stuff out of the skips as you will folks depositing items there.  Now that’s re-cycling!

Depending on where you look in the Czech Republic you will find people who make-do-and-mend sometimes because they can’t afford to buy new things, but mostly, just because they just don’t see a reason to buy new stuff when old stuff continues to work.  The aesthetic is irrelevent.

The result of this disregard for how things look is a community where long “heavy metal” hairstyles and Iron Miaden T-shirts are still de-rigeur, homes are furnished with a mish-mash of hand-me-down furniture and where, until very recently, many cars were of questionable roadworthiness.  To this day its easy to spot the country people who come to Prague to visit their city-dewlling relatives by their dress and carrier-bag luggage.  As an English friend of mine commented - “Czechs just have no style”.  He was right, and, mostly, they don’t care, but does it matter?  The answer has to be “no”.

Oliver James would, I guess, argue that this is how things should be and I’m sure that Maslow would agree with him on the basis that his “self-actualisation” (the highest point in his hierarchy of personal evolution) leaves brands and acquisition behind.  Remove the need to justify your existance by ownership of stuff and life is much simpler.  We would all be happier and more fulfilled.  You might even find time to do something truly worthwhile.  Its not easy to get a Czech to work overtime at weekends even if you pay them double time.  They just don’t see why they should give up their free time to get more money that they don’t need.  

A friend of mine is convinced that within twenty years we’ll all be getting around on horses and growing our lunch in our own back yards and with the world economy patched up, but clearly in a long term decline, oil resources drying up with no viable alternative on the horizon and the US and Australia set to run out of water any day now, its a scene that’s easy to visualise.

The irony is that while Central Europeans may have a healthier perspective than we do right now, that’s all set to change,  There’s a growing clammour among the young in these countries to be like their counterparts in the West.  In fact their acquisitiveness is frighteneing at times.  They are desperate to have everything that we have, even though they earn less and branded products are largely significantly more expensive than in the UK.  It makes you wonder how they’ll deal with the resultant stress, given that they arean’t really aclimatised to the condition.

If my friend with the horsey theory is right, our mobility in future will be limited by our capacity to walk and we will revert to a world of tribes.  Communities, each with its own personality, values, style, dependent for success on membership - brands in fact.  I have to say that I’m somewhat relieved to know that, worst-case scenario, I’m still in a growth industry!

Categories: BBC · Full Effect · Full Efffect Marketing · Maslow · The Full Effect Company · brand development · branding · brands · central europe · community · consulting · developed markets · marketing · phil darby · recession · social groups

Why the recession could be good for business

Monday 13 October 2008 · No Comments

Today the UK government has called time on the excesses, self interest and downright bad management of the financial services sector, by taking control of British banks.  Whether it will have the desired effect remains to be seen, but frankly, its about time.  I lost patience with the sector a while back, when a leading FS manager told me that it wasn’t in his interest to “put customers first” and now we are witnessing the product of this mind-set.

I’m not a fan of this government, but it does seem that they’ve got this right and for once I feel the Britain is looking bold and decisive.  UK Gov’s move may not produce a level playing field, but hopefully it will create a more sensible game, however the fall-out is sure to continue with customers far from relaxed about choosing financial patners. And that’s where the potential is.  Ultimately, the banks and financial institutions that are first to persuade consumers and businesses that they can be trusted will triumph.

Trust, is the very basis of any Brandship - the relationships between brands and their stakeholders - so its easy to see that, given the revelations of the last few weeks, the brand equity of banks is as low as a limbo-dancing gnome.  For now they are all tarred with the same brush.  We all know now that for years banks have been tricking us into believing that they were on our side while craftily lining their own pockets with our cash, so for any financial services business to dig themselves out of this one is a big ask.  However, that’s the challenge they all face and its clear that the same old, same old just isn’t going to cut it.  This time they have to be transparent and build brands with real integrity.  Attempting this feat with their existing management in place would be like a paedophile applying for a job as a kids’ swimming instructor, and that’s why the government stepping into the management shoes will, at least, give a few of them a chance.  Now its a case of a massive change management process and that can only be good for business.  Who’ll be first to the tape.

While the banks are working on this one, the rest of the commercial world are considering how they can survive the after shock.  There’s no doubt about it, a lot of businesses are going to tumble in the next few months, but amid the rubble there’s a real opportunity for the bold.

As we’ve seen with banks in the US and UK, there are always bigger vultures to pick over the bones of the those that fail and in this vein a good many short-term wins will be had by organisations with strong and inviting brand communities that can offer shelter to the customers of their deceased competitors.  This will come about in two ways - pro-active, acquisition by competitors and investors of organisations and brands on the verge of a crash and reactive, mopping up by strong brands of the displaced customers of their weaker competitors.

But moreso than in the normal process of acquisition the challenge doesn’t end acquisition.  Its one thing to provide a consumer with temporary shelter, but although the cost of acquisition could be modest compared to the recent past, the real test will be whether these brands can persuade their new customers to make a home with them.  This is where I see the real potential.  I foresee a period of floating customers, like deserted wives, reluctant to commit to long-term relationships and suitor brands falling over themselves to reel them in and turn them into life-partners.  And I predict, honesty will prevail.  If nothing else worthwhile comes of this situation I be live it will convince a few more brands to stop making empty-promises and a shift to genuineness, transparency and a genuine commitment to customer satisfaction.  Another reason why the recession will be good for business.

Because brand communities are a product of their members - significantly their customers - any acquisitive organisations will also have to be wary of the risk of alienating their existing customers as the dynamic of their brand is changed by a large influx of new members, but, if they are sufficiently sorted to have created a strong enough brand community to pull off the acquisition trick in the first place the chances are they’ll have this under control too.

Its common practice in recessionary times for organisations to tighten their belts and sit it out, but the record clearly shows that this is not the path to success and it definitely isn’t the way to go now.  If you want to to make the most of the opportunities that the recession is providing you need to be pro-active, take a close look at your brand and your organisation.  Are you in shape to meet the challenge?  If not get to work.  At the end of this recession the organisations that deserve success will have it and there’ll be some gaps in the line up too.  But then again, I’ve always felt that Darwin nailed it with the process of natural selection.   I think we’ll all be better off for the clear out.

Categories: Brand Discovery · Brand Model · Brand promise · CRM · Competitors · Darwin · Full Effect · Full Efffect Marketing · The Full Effect Company · bankers · banks · brand · brand development · brand name · branding · brands · business development · business strategy · change management · community · customer · customer service · customers · internal marketing · management · marketing · natural selection · opportunity · phil darby · promise · recession · strategy · transparency

Where the growth is.

Thursday 2 October 2008 · 2 Comments

Listen! Hear that? Its the sound of the penny dropping in thousands of boardrooms around the globe. Actually, I didn’t hear it either, but its like a black hole, you might not see it, but there’s increasing evidence of it having happened. 

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I have had a few interesting discussions lately with organisations that were looking to leverage their brand community and all of a sudden it seems I am falling over organisations that are doing the same. I was in  Stavanger early this week, talking to investors, business managers and marketing services businesses and the theme emerged there and yesterday in Prague I met a marketer from a leading mobile operator who had this issue clearly in view too.  

At last businesses are realising that its not viable to rely on acquisition to generate your growth - its far too expensive and the return is modest, mainly because most markets are fully subscribed and everyone is buttoning down and tying-in their customers.  The only untethered targets are in emerging economies where you’ll be climbing over your competitors to reach the same customers.  You have to do this of course for the sake of your long-term health, but its more important than ever to do it efficiently and if you visit this post frequently you’ll know that I think we still have some way to go in developing efficient marketing.  However, that’s another subject.

There aren’t a lot of folks around right now who are looking for stuff to spend their cash on, most are struggling with the commitments they already have and those that aren’t are quickly becoming as rare as hen’s teeth.  Other than the poor inundated souls in these new territories there just aren’t going to be any new customers to chase so your growth has to come from your existing customers.  This is nothing new.  Way back in 2005 the State of Marketing Survey that was conducted by IDG for Prophet revealed that 62% of business growth was already comming from existing customers and that organisations were looking to the same segment for 72% of their growth in 2006 (it doesn’t seem that Prophet have followed up on that report so I can’t say that they were right although its a believable figure).

So, there’s still no doubt that the emphasis has to be on growth from existing customers (in fact it might be moreso) but factors like the arrival of recession mean that even this cash cow is about to become tougher to milk.  So where is the easy growth going to come from?  The answer to that question takes us straight back to The Brand As A Medium, one of my long time causes, but, of course, to to be in this game you first have to have a strong brand community. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, I’ve been promoting the need for brand development for years.  If you weren’t listening and didn’t get your brand in shape you are in trouble because you don’t build the kind of brand strength you will need to make this work, overnight.  In the past I’ve managed to deliver measurable results from brand-building programmes over a twelve month time-span, but, everything is tougher now and if your brand isn’t sorted already, you need to be thinking in terms of a three-year development phase before your community offers third parties any real value.  Sorry, but these are the facts!

Before you jump from your executive balcony though …  If you start now, and I mean this minute, today, and run a brand development programme in parrallel with an operational efficiency drive you might just emerge from the recession fit for battle.  Note please, I’m not saying you’ll achieve growth to match that of the businesses that did their prep.  You might get something short term, but for you payback will come when trading conditions improve.  Never before has Full Effect Marketing and programmes like Brand Discovery been more relevant.

Categories: Brand Discovery · Brand Model · Brand promise · Full Effect · Full Efffect Marketing · The Full Effect Company · advertising · brand · brand development · brand name · branding · brands · business development · business strategy · community · efficiency · integrated marketing · internal marketing · management · marketing · media · phil darby · strategy · third-party advertisers

There’s a right way and there’s a wrong way …

Friday 5 September 2008 · No Comments

I’ve just spent two weeks looking into a company whose brand has massive awareness.  Great, you might think, but no, because while everyone has heard of this business, it seems to me that they have massive negative equity.  Like Walmart?  No, way worse than that.  This business seems to be universally hated!

I say “seems to be” because I can’t say for sure - they have no research.  A basic omission you may think, but they didn’t seem to agree and don’t want to pay for any.  I did the usual on-line checking, but this was hampered by a massive web farm they had set up to control negative comment and social networking (a sure indication of a business that had their priorities up their arse!).  It seemed to support my intuition, but I didn’t come up with enough hard facts.

Staggeringly, this business is big, number one in their sector with fourteen years of YonY growth.  How did they do it?  Actually, it isn’t that big a mystery.  They succeeded on a rising market, with no competition, where all they had to do was turn up and set out their stall, then count the money - and they milked it!  Inexperienced and sometimes just plain stupid management had made just about every mistake in the book, screwing customers, suppliers and partners alike.  However - and I love it when this happens! - they seem to have reached the end of their road.  Economic conditions, social change, emerging competition and saturated markets have conspired to hack their share value to bits and turn their business into a Shadow of its former self - send for the consultant!

After that imagine how refreshing it was to come across not one, but two businesses that had got it all right.  Sadly, they are not my clients, but in an interview with Time Magazine’s The Curious Capitalist John Mackey, CEO and co-founder of Whole Food Markets and Kip Tindell, CEO and co-founder of Container Store, gave me the kind of lift that’s only possible when all your firmly held beliefs are affirmed in a single action.

These guys tick all the boxes in my Full Effect Marketing philosophy and Brand Discovery programme.  In this lengthy interview they explain how important it has proven to them as entrepreneurs to have defined the parameters of their brands up front.  They didn’t tackle this in a particularly formal way but, as is the case with so many great entrepreneurs they each instinctively created what I call a “Brand Model”, without which their businesses, and anybody else’s, would not be scalable.

Once you have this the rest is possible, if not always simple.  I still have a struggle sometimes driving my clients through the process of internal marketing - sharing the model, its reasoning and constraints with employees at every level and getting them behind the cause, but as John and Kip knew, empowering your employees is the vital key to growth.  The client, whose tale I opened this post with, complained at our first meeting that he was forced to micromanage because his people weren’t up to the job.  I argued that things aren’t always what they seem and that I usually find that the “people” aren’t always the problem that they seem.  “But what if they are the problem?” he asked.  “I guess you have to have a clear out” I replied.

Of course you have to have great people to have a great business, and John and Kip both underline how important it is to recruit the best, but how great they are is very much dependent on how well you manage them and again, instinctively John and Kip knew this.

A great business is built around a great brand.  Every brand is a community that all your stakeholders play a part in creating.  Again, after my experience with the client I feel the need to clarify - stakeholders are investors, suppliers, partners, employees as well as customers.   You have to ask yourself “Are these people, who I want to do business with going to want to be a part of my community?” and when you get a “yes” you then set about making them feel as welcome, engaged and comfortable as you can.

These two talk about the importance of engaging your employees and your suppliers, how vital it is to share information with your community and confirm that though there will undoubtedly be leaks as a result the advantages vastly outweigh the disadvantages.  They talk about the innovation and risk - both requisites of business growth, best quality and satisfying and delighting.  I could have filled this post with clips from the interview, but go there and read for yourself.

It didn’t take me two weeks to realise that what my client wanted was for me to paper over the cracks in his business.  He didn’t want to change it,  I doubt that he would even be flexible enough to do so and I suspect that anything I would do would be too little too late anyway.  I’m not even sure even now that he recognises how serious his situation is.

Unsurprisingly, he isn’t a client any longer.  Which is a pity, because I do love a challenge, I hate to give up on anything and I could see the glimmer of a couple of opportunities, but I doubt I would have been able to persuade him to explore them.  To quote John, or was it Kip, “Life’s short and then you are dead” so I’m off to find my next project.

Categories: Brand Model · Brand promise · Full Effect · Full Efffect Marketing · The Full Effect Company · brand name · branding · brands · business development · business strategy · change · community · container store · customers · employees · honesty · internal marketing · john mackey · kip tindell · marketing · phil darby · transparency · wholefood market

What’s in a name?

Thursday 4 September 2008 · No Comments

Continuing my recent “interactive” theme …

I answered a question on The Reis Report (AKA Reis’ Pieces) as I was passing yesterday and it started me thinking (again) about brand names.  Reis and daughter it appears are thinking of changing the name of their blog and were floating a few options.  Frankly, I am always reluctant to throw out a brandname unless it has massively negative equity (and I doubt that their’s does), but that wasn’t quite the point that intrigued me.

Brand names are a really tricky area and demand some expertise and a great deal of resource to get right if you are planning anything but a mom and pop business venture.  One danger area is how your brand translates to other markets and languages.  We all know about the Durex/Sellotape faux par and I recall an airline from the Isle of Man called Manx Airlines.  Those of you who are familiar with this part of the globe will know that “manx” is an ancient language, derived from Irish, that was spoken on the Isle of Man.  It also sounds like “mank” or “manky”, which if you are English you will also know is colloquial for smelly, messy, disgusting even, hence the airline’s problem.  I have also always wondered how Unilever managed to make such a success out of Ciff, a range of kitchen/bathroom cleaners with a name that sounds like a social disease (which is probably why it was originally called Jiff in the UK.  Heaven knows why they made that particular switch)!

Anyway, there must be a legion of products and brands hampered by their name and I thought it would be fun to highlight a few.  So let me know those that you have come across.  Yes its the silly season - so humour me!

Categories: Brand Discovery · Brand Model · Full Effect · Full Efffect Marketing · The Full Effect Company · brand · brand development · brand name · branding · brands · naming · phil darby · workshops

The best thing since sliced bread?

Monday 1 September 2008 · 1 Comment

Sarah Drew at MarketingLadder.com started me off on this.  Today is the 80th anniversary of the introduction of sliced bread, an invention that changed the way  we live to some degree, although probably not as significantly as some other innovations before or since.

Sarah started a post asking for suggestions of subsequent inventions that have had a significant impact on our lives and came up with her own “top ten”, which were:

  1. The Internet
    It’s come a long way from those 18k modems - remember how slow they were?
  2. The Microwave
    Popcorn in a jiffy!
  3. Email
    I’m thankful I don’t have 300 letters in my letterbox every morning.
  4. Concord
    Three hours to NYC. If only my next trip to our headquarters could be this way!
  5. MP3 Players
    These devices make running bearable.
  6. Penicillin
    Alexandre Flemming is still saving lives.
  7. The Mobile Phone
    No more having to go to the phone box!
  8. The Remote Control
    The ability to sit in one place after work can be a lifesaver.
  9. PG Tips
    Everyone knows I love a morning cuppa. I’ve even introduced it to our US office and have the team drinking it there!
  10. TheLadders.co.uk Advanced Search
    Finally, an efficient way for £50K+ earners to find £50K+ positions.

OK Sarah, I’ll allow you the last one in the name of marketing!  I added a few myself:

  1. CD/DVD. 1982 - I’ll never mourn the demise of floppies, but vinyl?  I’m not sure!
  2. Sun tan lotion. 1938 - The antidote to global warming?
  3. Derailleur gears. Original idea 1905, but the first real derailleur was 1937 - Where would we cyclists be without them?
  4. Brillo Pads. Patent 1913 launched 1917. You don’t realise how great these things are until you are in a countrry that doesn’t have them!
  5. Filofax. 1921 - I used one until the PDA emerged and was probably better organised then - which is why I don’t have time to add to this list.

However, I am a firm believer in the idea that you are only as good as your NEXT big idea.  So what’s yours?  Let me know what you think is going to be the next big thing!

Categories: Brand Discovery · Brand Model · Brand promise · Full Effect · Full Efffect Marketing · The Full Effect Company · brand development · brands · business development · communications · ideas · marketing · phil darby · the big idea

Are we losing sight of strategy?

Thursday 28 August 2008 · No Comments

I was sifting through my spam filter earlier, trying to decide where to buy the Viagra that will “make her smile tonight” and provide an outing for the “massive tool” that I am assured can be mine without surgery, when I came across a mail from an old colleague that had been misdirected there.

I was delighted to hear from him after a lengthy silence, but his message was sad.  Basically, the gist is that he has come to the conclusion that despite their constant talk, organisations really don’t want strategy anymore.  In fact, he suggested that if you corner many senior managers in the pub they’ll tell you that in their opinion, strategy just gets in the way of real day-to-day business.  As a consequence my old colleague is now resigned to a daily routine of moving the usual tactical shit back and forth between an ever-decreasing number of parking places.

These days we are all pretty well agreed that the fundamental difference between a successful oragnisation and an unsuccessful one is efficiency.  The thing is that in an effort to increase their efficiency many organisations have thrown the baby out with the bathwater - reducing head-count without establishing a stragic framework or methodology.  For those of us who have undertaken house renovations on any scale this is akin to setting up your Acrow props to keep the ceiling in place, knocking down the supporting wall and then removing the props without first installing the RSJ.  The result is that your days thereafter will be spent addressing the purely tactical issue of preventing parts of your bedroom from moving into your lounge.  Most organisation will find that it is possible for them to reduce their marketing head-count, but only if there is a strategic framework in which the tactical day-to-day can operate.  If not, the tactical will take over and demand ever increasing time and resource.

If, like me, you studied such things when notes were taken with a pen and paper (if not a slate!) you’ll be familiar with the debate over the relationship between transactional and transformational management.  Having decided that the traditional cycle, which alternated between a transactional and transformational business model, produced business modulations with a less that acceptable aggregate performance, we concluded that a business model that included both elements operating simultaneously was the way to go.  The idea was, and is, that the transformational guys (or strategists) focus on devising new products, services, and marketing ideas, which they then hand over to transactors to perpetuate.  Any organisation is only as good as its next big idea and this is the only way an organisation can generate essential innovation whilst still managing the day-to-day.

Without the appropriate strategic support an organisation is driven ever further into the mire of purely tactical marketing.  Its a mire because a purely tactical approach is slow.  You get left behind.  To keep up you have to continually throw in more resource, which is self-defeating, or add pressure to your personnel, which in turn inevitably leads to dissatisfaction, resignations, lack of continuity, skills gaps and, of course, poor performance on every level.

Going back to the “efficiency” thing, successful organisations are those that reach the market objective first.  Imagine two people, one blindfolded, standing at the end of a corridor littered with largish obstacles.  Now, visualise what would happen if you told them both to get to the opposite end of the corridor as quickly as possible.  The result would be a pretty accurate illustration of the difference between an organisation with a strategy and one without - strategy is your long vision.  You can bumble around without it for a while, but you’ll never win against a competitor with a their tactical and strategic (or transactional and transformational) elements working together.  Strategy is what helps you use your resources more efficiently.  It is not a luxury that you can cut back on when cash is short, but the means to make that cash go further.

We are all familiar with the facts that show that organisations that maintain or even increase their marketing efforts through a recession end up on top when the recession lifts, but I wonder if this result is as much a product of the organisations concerned, stopping and thinking about their business in order to make the bold decision to buck the trend, as it is the investment itself.  If you look at the winners in this scenario they tend to be enlightened businesses with a firm grasp of the real issues and a sound strategic habit.

Despite all the lessons of the past, it remains a common recessionary practice to cut back on strategy and focus on the short-term when times get tough.  Now I think about it, I have probably encountered an increasing number of businesses in recent months that appear to be retrenching into the tactical.  I even had the CEO of a major listed company tell me the other day that he was too busy with day-to-day business to find the time to work on strategy, but is my old colleague right?  Are businesses really abandoning the long-vision in favour of the tactical treadmill, or is this just a predictable recessionary blip?  I can’t really believe that the former is so, but what do you think?

Now, where is that Viagra supplier …?

Categories: Brand Discovery · Brand Model · Full Effect · Full Efffect Marketing · brand · brand development · brands · business development · business strategy · efficiency · innovation · management · marketing · promise

The Brand as a Medium

Tuesday 15 July 2008 · 1 Comment

Full Effect Marketing is all about efficiency, getting extra bang for your buck, stretching budgets, better ROI and for years I have been introducing my clients to the power of a well developed brand in the shape of revenue-generating partnerships. It’s not always going to finance a space shot, but as one of my favourite brands would say “every little helps”.

This is nothing new, of course “The Brand as a Medium” has been around for years. The stuff of loyalty scheme operators, supermarket retailers (where there’s far more appreciation of the concept of brand community anyway) web marketers and a few clued-in consumer brands, but it strikes me that it’s a concept that’s finally coming of age.

I have had conversations recently with a clutch of media owners about the potential of their brand communities. It seems they are all beginning to view themselves as integrated communications consultancies - a no-brainer in my book, but an opportunity that is really nowhere near harnessed by the owners of these brands - and mobile operators - folks with the same kind of opportunity, but far greater entrepreneurship, who are my tip for the next owners of this “space”, a space that, unlike the modest returns that some brand owners might settle for, knows no limit.

Talking of space, its all there in Jim Taylor’s “Space Race” and you don’t even need to read between the lines. Jim was quite clear that media owners would come to represent a real challenge to advertising agencies (remember them?) in the race to establish an integrated marketing model with a consulting approach, which you’ll not be surprised to hear is just how I feel it should be. Its not that traditional media are redundant, its just that with an ever-widening range of communications options and a growing understanding of what marketing is really all about, they take on a different relevance and we are using them in different ways.

I guess The Brand as a Medium was seeded in retail marketing where the brand over the door provided a showcase for the brands on the shelves and the key lesson, which remains the key to new players, was quickly learned - The company you keep will reflect on perceptions people have of you (your brand image). We’ve all received a warning at some time that someone might be “a decent sort of chap, but he mixes with some weird people”. A prestige retail brand stocking inferior product brands will quickly be relegated to the same league as its suppliers. The converse is also true of course - a social-climbing brand can gain a little lift by being seen in the right places. Again this is nothing new to fmcg manufactureres, but it applies equally in any sector. When I was at Saatchi & Satchi (the original and best) we often had organisations in crisis offer to give us their business because they knew that the announcement of the partnership would tend to buy them a little time from their creditors or even give their share-price a filip - hey, the good old days!

Supermarket retailers have in the past been the closest thing their suppliers could find to an integrated marketing communications solution. An fmcg brand could appear in the retailer’s advertising, door drops, DM pieces and TV spots, be a feature of in-store demos, in-store radio and TV, appear on floors, check-out conveyors, staff T-shirts, till receipts and more, all before the customer even arrived at the point-of-sale (Unilever call it “The path to purchase”). A communications solution like this is high value because the target is narrowly defined but people like Tesco took the definition even further with their data-rich Clubcard scheme. Integrated marketing like this builds relationships between all stakeholders, provides incremental sales for suppliers and additional revenue for the retailer. The good news is that any organisation can play in this space.

If your brand community is tight and loyal other brands will pay to mix it with you and yours. They know that the invitation alone is worth a premium because community members will at least give them a hearing, but be picky about who you invite - you can’t issue ASBOs to unruly guests and their behaviour will always impact on your credibility for better or worse.

Its an area that fascinates me (My retail heritage I guess) so for those of you who are suddenly intent on fully leveraging your brand I’m always up for a discussion on the subject. Meanwhile here are my top five pointers to success.

  1. Understand what “community” means
  2. Know your community members (customers, distributors, employees, advertisers etc.)
  3. Beware who you invite over (esp. partners, advertisers, contributors)
  4. Be sure to give value to everyone
  5. keep a grip on what you stand for (but understand that your community will continually evolve).

Welcome to the world of integrated media solution ownership!

Categories: Brand Discovery · Brand Model · Brand promise · Full Effect · Full Efffect Marketing · Retail · advertising · below-the-line · brand development · brands · business development · business strategy · communications · data · management · marketing · optimisation · optimization · phil darby · retailer · social groups · strategy