Category Archives: social groups

Social marketing – the Emperor’s New Clothes?

Posted on Thursday 5 May 2011 | 4 Comments

The survey published last week by Forrester and GSI Commerce seems to have put the cat among the social networking pigeons.  Now that our great new toy is proven to contribute no more than 2% to sales, all manner of doubts over the effectiveness of social marketing are finally being voiced.  Is the next big thing turning out to have been The Emperor’s New Clothes?

I’ve just spent the best part of a year creating a business unit that relied partly on social media, but throughout I found I was resisting pressure from my client to make social media the main strand of the strategy.  I’m sure that I am not alone in this experience.  After all, there are a lot of bright young things in consultancies with really funky names whose livelihood depends on them convincing folks that social marketing is all a business needs these days.  While common sense would tell you that many of the claims made for social don’t add up, it has seemed for a while that the momentum of the social media movement intimidated doubters into silence.  What Forrester has done is given these reluctant doubters license to tell it as they saw it all along.

Actually, I’m a believer in social media, but I’m a believer in all media so that’s no big deal.  What I don’t belive is that any medium is a panacea.  Social media like any other only work as an element of a bigger formula and, like all the other tools in our box, have to be managed.  In fact, if you want to get the best out of social media, you’ll find that they are actually quite labour intensive, so you should approach with caution.

You’ll also note that I have been trying to avoid referring to social media as “it”.  Social media come in many guises, so it’s definitely a case of “them” and its unlikely you’ll need them all.  The trick is to choose those that work for you and incorporate them with things like trad advertising, DM, PR, search, promotions, buzz, roaching and anything else that makes sense and play around with the formula until you find the mix that delivers the biggest return on the smallest investment.

For example FaceBook, may not be particularly effective in a BtoC strategy, but, if you are looking for a BtoB tool its going to be even less of a bargain.  After all, it makes no sense to try to strike up a business conversation with someone in a purely social forum, that’s not why they are there.  Forrster’s analysis tells us that on-line advertising and SEO are far more effective, but SEO only makes sense if a worthwhile number of prospects are using a manageable number of search terms.  In a recent project of mine there were dozens of search terms and key-words being used, each so infrequently that even if we could have resourced the SEO required to handle them all, it wouldn’t have produced a viable result.

The resourcing conundrum strikes again when a BtoC marketer hits social marketing pay-dirt.  I was recently involved with a restaurant chain that simply couldn’t manage a fraction of their mentions on Twitter and Face Book.  This meant that the numbers used to justify their social marketing strategy in the first place were meaningless. Marketing #101 – don’t invest in creating opportunities (and therefore expectations) that you can’t respond to.  Not only is it wasteful and therefore inefficient, but it pisses people off!

There’s no doubt that like many other business tools that have emerged over the years, Social Marketing has been over-hyped.  This is partly because some of the people doing the hyping don’t really understand it, or in fact marketing generally.  Social is a great idea and the tools that it embraces all undoubtedly have their uses, but that doesn’t mean that you have to take them all on board.  In fact, it may not be for you at all and it certainly isn’t a panacea.  Like any other medium, social will only work as a part of an integrated marketing strategy.

What Forrester have done is introduce a much-needed and timely element of realism to the situation.  Now we all have license to question the social media evangelists and I am sure social marketing will find its place among the many other tools that skilled and experienced marketers can combine into effective, integrated strategies.

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Posted in below-the-line, communications, efficiency, Full Effect, Full Efffect Marketing, integrated marketing, marketing, phil darby, social groups, Social marketing, Social networking, The Full Effect Company, Uncategorized

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Don’t you just love it when a plan comes together?

Posted on Wednesday 23 June 2010 | 1 Comment

I’m endebted to Jerry Daykin and WantandBlog for Tweeting me the link to this masterful example of integrated social communications.  Its opportunities for creating stuff like this that gets me out of bed each morning!  For once there’s nothing I can add!

Don’t just watch the video I have embedded though, go to the site itself and get involved. Enjoy!

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Posted in brand development, branding, brandships, creativity, Full Effect, Full Efffect Marketing, ideation, innovation, integrated marketing, integration, Jerry Daykin, phil darby, social groups, Social marketing, Social networking, The Full Effect Company, WantandBlog

Diversity in Redditch and the public sector challenge

Posted on Wednesday 10 March 2010 | Leave a comment

One of the hottest buzz-words in the UK public sector right now appears to be “diversity” which, as I understand it, basically means celebrating the richness of the UK culture or getting on with your ethnic minority neighbours.  As the conquerors and oppressors of innumerable cultures in the past we Brits are falling over backwards to make up for our evil past by making the folks we have displaced feel “at home at our place”.  Just the kind of thing guaranteed to get lefties throwing public money around like confetti – which it seems is just what they are doing.

Don’t get me wrong, I think the diversity idea is fine.  It might not feature much above chip-and-pin wheely bins and installing badger tunnels under trunk roads on my “must do with taxpayers money” list in these hard times, but if was standing for election right now I wouldn’t be making a big thing about adding it to my list of proposed public sector spending cuts either.  However, initiatives like this do tend to reveal the yawning gulf that exists between well conceived national policy and local government naivety (or depending on how you see it “incompetence”).

Last week was Chinese New Year – the year of the tiger or something – and the town where I stay when I am in the UK staged a diversity event.  This was devised and has been run for the past few years by a husband-and-wife team who have some nice, if a little cutesy, ideas and, it seems, a simplistic and naive approach to management.  They told me that over the years the event has grown, although they didn’t seem to have access to any numbers other than a rough guess that visitors currently numbered around two-hundred, which it seems to me is more a bit of a get-together than an event – I’ve had bigger parties in my Prague apartment.  However, more power to their elbow.  If they are prepared to flog themselves to death for a year to entertain a couple of bus-loads of people then good luck to them.  But here’s the rub.

There wasn’t an ounce of commercialism in the venture at all.  Everything was a cost.  Every glaring revenue-generating opportunity, from the provision of chinese food by local restaurants to face painting and lantern-making for the kids, was duly ignored in the name of purity.  But purity has a price and in this case the taxpayer was footing the bill … not once, but twice!  Firstly the County Council were contributing taxpayers money from their “diversity” fund and then every visitor was paying for a ticket at the rate of £5 a head or £12 for a family of four, which, when you add it all up, isn’t cheap when most of the labour was voluntary.  But the real bummer was that the limited resources, skills and experience of the organisers resulted in a bit of a shot in the foot.

Firstly the publicity in the local paper quoted the price of family tickets at £5 insead of £12 so every family that turned up was instantly annoyed.  The price included a shambles of a children’s theatre production which the organisers seemed to think was just fine because the kids had only had two days to prepare for it (they didn’t seem to get it that people were paying, the organisers had had at least a year to work out how to prepare better and the kids were probably embarrassed to hell).  Tickets also included a “chinese meal” served in the Town Hall Council Chamber, which was organised on a sitting schedule, was an hour late and not very good and, to cap it all, by the time diners had extracted themselves from the lunch the volunteers who had set up and were supposed to be running the side-shows in another building, had decided that nobody was coming, so packed up and left, which meant that there were no activities.

I appreciate that there are folks out there who might think that I am being unsympathetic, but I do believe these things are a great idea, they just have to be viable and there is absolutely no reason why they shouldn’t be.  I don’t think its the place of local government/taxpayers to pay for them – underwrite them by all means, but only if there is a business plan and a genuine attempt by the organisers to make them viable.  There was a film maker sent by the County Council to record the event, undoubtedly to “big” it and them up at Whitehall at some future date, but actually what was needed was for the council nobs to get their fat-cat Business Link buddies to give the organisers some free advice and support – make a contribution for a change.  I am sure that even Business Link could run a raffle (well, maybe not)!

Diversity is a great idea, but in the hands of do-gooding local councils, as in this case, ideas can produce the opposite to the intended response with visitors leaving feeling angry and disappointed and taxpayers feeling betrayed.  Wholesome events don’t have to cost money either.  The Prague Marathon – the third largest marathon franchise in the world – and in a developing economy to boot – runs on a team of six full-time employees.  All the rest are volunteers and sponsored activities and I would be embarrassed to tell you how much revenue that generates!

With the UK facing the prospect of unprecedented cutbacks in public spending our public sector needs to get real.  The easy option, and I’m certain that it will emerge, will be for local services to be cut back and events like this to fall victim to the axe, but if the folks at County Hall deserve to stay in their jobs this wouldn’t be the case.  That’s the challenge to the public sector, who, for the first time is going to have to demonstrate some commercial competence.  Running a country, a county or a town is a business.  Customers are looking for improved value.  If you can’t hack it, stand aside and let someone who can see the ball.

Meanwhile I genuinely do appreciate the effort and commitment that the organisers put into Chinese New Year in Redditch and I feel as bad as anyone about it not hitting the mark, but next time, I’d like to see the County Council support them with expert help and advice rather than cash, even if that advice is to bring in someone to show them how to make this the event it could be.

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Posted in Chinese new year, customer service, diversity, efficiency, Full Effect, Full Efffect Marketing, ideas, local goverment, marketing, phil darby, public sector, recession, Redditch, social groups, The Full Effect Company, Tourism, Uncategorized

Future-proofed brand consulting.

Posted on Monday 20 October 2008 | Leave a comment

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!

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Posted in BBC, brand development, branding, brands, central europe, community, consulting, developed markets, Full Effect, Full Efffect Marketing, marketing, Maslow, phil darby, recession, social groups, The Full Effect Company, Uncategorized

The Brand as a Medium

Posted on 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!

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

Jerry Springer nails National Branding

Posted on Sunday 22 June 2008 | 1 Comment

I was watching Question Time on the BBC in the UK yesterday evening and one of the topics of conversation was the recent Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. I don’t want to get into the details of the treaty here, but basically it opens the door to the expansion of the EU.

The debate last night turned to the different attitudes of people in different countries to the EU or more specifically a central government. One of the points made was that while some people at least were happy with the idea of a central management system of some kind they maintained that the right of government as such and in particular law making should remain with the individual member states. The main reason seemed to be the belief that laws define a community and in particular nations, and I tend to agree.

Jerry Springer (I can’t imagine how he got there, but he did) who I’m being uncharacteristically generous when I say, was just about holding his own among far more eloquent and knowledgable speakers said that the individual states in the US had from many perspectives lost their identity and that the general move there and elsewhere around the world is toward a far less state-aware attitude, a point that other delegates were quick to point out to him did not apply to countries/states outside of the US. However, he was shrewd enough to identify that the real subject here is not so much national pride, but pride in community (my word not his) and “community” is equally likely to apply to any belief system, set of values or brand (again his viewpoint, my word).

Jerry was somewhat hampered by his limited vocabulary, but those who took the time, as I did, to try to work out what he was trying to say would have realised that he actually hit the nail on the head. Sadly it seemed that the rest of the forum didn’t take the time and the point was missed in one of those short embarrassed pauses that could be replaced by the phrase “what the **** is he whittering on about?”.

Jerry’s point was that though there are people who still retain pride in their nationality, this is but one of an infinite array of communities to which we as individuals may choose to belong. Communities are encapsulations of a common interest, values or opinions. Most traverse national boundaries. We can be British by birth but European, a treckie or anything else for that matter, by adoption. Lord knows, if our identities were compulsorily identified by nationality, nominated or natural, I’d be hard pushed to elect a country, I’ve lived in so many. I only remember that I started out in the UK because that’s where my mother hangs out and she’s not moved in all this time!

Happily, we don’t have to define ourselves by nationality, which defines the challenge that I frequently refer to in my on-going debate about “National Branding” and one to which the UK is sadly failing to rise. Its OK for some, but others prefer to hang their hat on a sport, or other special interest. There are communities like FaceBook or World of Warcraft, the mythical world that keeps millions of sad bastards worldwide glued to their computers for days and nights on end. For these people this is their world and how they want to be identified. This perspective is the playing field where brand communities compete for members with nations, interests, movies, music and many more delineators. You don’t even have to be an exclusive member of any one community, you might feel it takes a few communities to accurately represent your personality, interests or values and while one of these that you choose might be a country, your national brand doesn’t have to be your primary definition. We also migrate between communities as we age, as we fall victim to outside influences, as fashions change or brand change or disappoint us.

An example of this in action is the current European football championships (no its not “soccer” its European so its definitely “football) from which we Brits, because we are pants at the game, are excluded. Having paid up-front for the rights to televise the event well before England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland were sent back to their changing room, the networks had to set about garnering some interest from us. It seems it wasn’t much of a challenge. Brits have adopted competing nations and supported them through the campaign because they represent something that we can relate to – Croatia because we admire their grit in rebuilding their nation after their war, Turkey because some guy offered you fifty camels for your girlfriend last time you were on holiday there, Portugal because its where Manchester United’s Ronaldo comes from, or the Netherlands … well … because you like orange!

Once again its all about brands. Brands are present in every aspect of our lives and smart marketers (and Jerry Springer) understand that and use it to their advantage. Its called brand-building.

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Posted in BBC, brand, brand development, Brand Discovery, Brand Model, Brand promise, brands, community, Full Effect, Full Efffect Marketing, Government, Jerry Springer, marketing, National Branding, phil darby, Question Time, social groups, strategy, The Full Effect Company, Uncategorized

That National Branding thing again!

Posted on Wednesday 26 March 2008 | 1 Comment

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I’m back in the UK for a while at the moment and my inadvertent, but perfect timing landed me right in the middle of one of my favorite debates – national branding.

I wrote a post about this about a year ago and added it to this blog in January (“Brand Britain”). I’m fascinated by the issues of large-scale brand development projects and they don’t come much larger than national branding. I’m also fascinated by the workings of government, so this is an area where I get some seriously big kicks. Of course, the participants in this debate rarely recognise the subject as “branding”. I have heard it referred to by many names this week, but that’s what it is aright and all the private sector rules apply.

The subject seemed to come to the surface this week in reaction to a new report, commissioned by the government and prepared by Lord Goldsmith on “Citizenship”. In their usual helpful way the British press have leapt upon a small recommendation that Lord Goldsmith made within it – that British kids should swear allegiance to the Queen and/or the flag on a daily basis at school. Of course they have as usual and probably on purpose, completely miss-represented what he was saying. The interpretation that they have been pedalling being that if kids are made to swear allegiance to the flag regularly enough they’ll start to conform – of course this very much a reversal of the truth and I am sure nowhere near what Lord Goldsmith was saying.

By way of putting my cards on the table I have to say that I believe that many, if not all of the ills of our nation (and probably many other nations too) stem from a lack of national pride. National pride is a larger-scale equivalent of self-respect and very much the same kind of thing that drives the family communities that Conservative leader David Cameron is going on about. Its also that same emotional soup from which strong brands derive. Nations, and brands are both communities and communities are built on the reassurance, feeling of belonging and confidence that arise when beliefs, attitudes and values are shared.

I was having a conversation with a chap in Prague a few weeks ago who was convinced that the reason that Czechs have become so bickering, back-biting and self-absorbed since the fall of communism is that their hatred of their communist oppressors that was once a common bond wasn’t replaced with anything else. Sadly, being basically clueless, the politicians there haven’t even come close to being up for this key task. As a result the country now has no focus, no common objective, no shared belief and as a result a state of every man for himself has developed in the void. For the Czechs this fact represents a seriously missed opportunity – the country was a blank sheet of paper, everyone was looking for a lead. The invitation was out for someone to pull it all together and nobody stepped up to the plate. While the first second republic president Havel was great at galvanising a generally ambivalent nation towards revolution, he proved singularly incapable of filling the void he had created. Klaus on the other hand, as witnessed by his New York speech three weeks ago, appears to be representing the emerging grab-all-you-can philosophy that is dominant in the republic now.

In the UK the task of focusing or re-focusing a nation is rather more complex. In exactly the same way that the structures and practices that a large organisation develops to help it maintain a status quo become the biggest obstacle to change, the UK is finding that, even though it may have the will to change the structures and practices of government and all other interested parties, that have been built and reinforced over the centuries now prevent that change.

Its not unlike the story that is unfolding in the US right now too. Obama recognises the need for change and seems to have a reasonable theory for bringing it about, while Hilary claims that her experience and insights of the people and the system give her the understanding Barak lacks when it comes to pre-empting and overcoming resistance to change. She says he will fail because he’s not going to know where the ambushes are going to come from (Although I’m not sure that she agrees with the principles of change any more than the ambushers she is so familiar with!).

However, as Barak says, once you recognise the need for change you are duty-bound to start trying to bring it about and that’s where US politics are ahead of the UK – they have Barak Obama, we Brits don’t seem to have anybody focussed enough to make it all happen. This fact mirrors my experience in brand development too. I frequently come across organisations who have in the past brought in some of the heavy guns to help them address their brand issues only to find that while they are great on spotting the problem and coming up with solutions, they often fail miserably when it comes to implementing them. My answer to this is a logical step-by-step approach that tackles all the obstacles in order. I go through this methodically, which takes time, but ensures that ultimately the required changes are brought about.

The first step with any project like this is to establish common ground (That’s what my Brand Model is all about) and that’s where the problems lie in the UK. I’ve listened to the views on this subject of a good many spokespeople for different interested parties over the last week or so and while I can see that there is fundamental agreement between many of them few of them recognise it, many are arguing about semantics and a very large proportion of them are confusing cause and effect. None of the people who I have heard representing any of the organisations seem to have a clue how to get things moving and all are very narrowly and tactically focussed.

What we and every other nation need is a senior minister whose sole responsibility is as champion of our national brand. Only then will we begin to be able to introduce the understanding among stakeholders and the initiatives we need to drive brand development. Its what is happening in the private sector, many businesses have directors responsible for brand development.

Compelling kids to salute the flag is definitely not the way to go, but a sure sign of the success of any national branding initiative would be if kids really wanted to raise their baseball hats when they passed a national flag. Actually, its not completely beyond hope either. As a part-time resident of Prague I see more Brit tourists wearing the George flag or Union Jack as they wander the attractions (or more commonly fall over in a bar!) and we are all familiar with the crowds at international football matches and other sporting events. So there’s is something to build on. So where is that national brand builder going to come from?

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Posted in Barack, brand, brands, change, Clinton, communist, consulting, czech, Full Effect, Full Efffect Marketing, Government, hilary, internal marketing, management, marketing, National Branding, phil darby, social groups, strategy, The Full Effect Company, Tourism, tradition, Uncategorized

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi – fraud or a real Brand Guru?

Posted on Wednesday 6 February 2008 | Leave a comment

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

I’ve never been one for activities that involved so much sitting still, but there’s no doubt there are people around who believe that transcendental meditation is where its at.  However, with the death of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who I guess has been its greatest promoter, we are back to the old debate of whether he was a money-grabbing fraud or the genuine article.

There is definitely a rich vein of “hard line realists” whose scepticism is fueled by their secret resentment of anybody who could build such a viable business, and apparently achieve total fulfillment, simply by sitting and talking (over simplification, but you get my idea), while they are killing themselves for the same result.  So, I’m immediately dismissive of these sceptics.

I’ve also yet to come across anybody who has met the Maharishi or participated in any of his ashrams and now falls into the sceptic camp.  Given the circles that I tend to find myself in (mainly hard-line realists) the fact that I have come across more people who are enthusiastic about the man than who are critical I guess points to a strong vote in his favour.

I have no axe to grind on the spiritual aspects of this debate – whatever floats your boat and  I think if someone can make a bucketful of money with a flawed proposition, then its fine by me, although in my experience its a business approach that isn’t sustainable.  What I like about this whole transcendental meditation thing though, is that it represents a really neat brand model. 

The way I see it is that the brand community that the Mahareshi created ticked all the boxes.  It was/is remarkable in the true sense of the word and completely fulfilled all the requisites of a lighthouse brand, which indeed it was, compared to its competitive brands/communities/beliefs in the sixties. 

His target market has always been vividly defined and the brand promise has evolved, but has remained uncompromising throughout.  As a result he achieved either complete buy-in or outright rejection, which, in a world where wishy-washiness just doesn’t cut it any more is exactly how every brand should be.  Because of this his community was extremely evangelistic and he is unlikely to have had hostages, as many brands do.  The evidence suggests that while on first glance you might view the dialogue within this community as rather one-way, in fact, given that the product was teaching, the community members (disciples) were extremely influential in its development and evolution.

The truly great thing about the promise though is that it was relevant, realistic and achievable and as far as I can see from the customer feedback he’s getting in the obituaries and threads today he delivered.  So, while I may not have been at the front of the queue to get into an ashram he would definitely get my vote for the “Brand Guru Hall of Fame”.

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Posted in brand, brands, Full Effect, Full Efffect Marketing, guru, maharishi, mahesh, marketing, phil darby, promise, religion, social groups, The Full Effect Company, Uncategorized, yogi

How “developed” are the developed markets?

Posted on Tuesday 1 January 2008 | Leave a comment

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I have just returned from three post-Xmas days in the quiet of the South Bohemia countryside where my daughter was skating each day on a frozen lake, my wife was cross-country skiing and I went to a dance organised by the local “forest men” at a hall in one of the small towns down there.

I should point out that “forest men” are not Tarzan look-alikes.  Its a literal translation of what I guess we Brits would consider woodsmen.  They are state employees who dress in green tweed from head to foot, wear jay’s feathers in their hats and live in houses in the middle of the forests where they tend to the flora and fauna - and every year they have a ball in some local town.

There are community centres in every town, large and small in the Czech Republic and they play an important role in the life of the town or village.  There is always something going on in these places.  The “forest men’s dance” is just one of a glittering calendar of events that really brings it home to a Brit just how different life is here.

We arrived to discover the atrium lobby of this substantial and newly renovated two-storey first-Republic building transformed with custom-built racks upon which hung rows of freshly shot game ranging from ducks to wild pigs and deer – these were the raffle prizes and there were at least a hundred!

On the large stage an eight-piece band was thrashing out a polka one minute and rock-n-roll the next with equal vigour.  What they lacked in musical skills (which was a great deal) they more than made up for (unfortunately) in stamina as they played from 7.00pm until three thirty the next morning!  No sign of musicians’ union here! We arrived late and left early to a chorus of tut-tuts.

My wife bought four raffle tickets, which appeared to be the requisite number and I followed suit.  My wife, the local girl, won nothing … I won three pheasant!  Which only made it more difficult to slide out early un-noticed!  Well, even at a forestmen’s dance its hard for a foreigner to remain inconspicuous with three dead cock-pheasants in full plumage under one arm!  I felt like I was making away with the Stone of Scone.

My Czech friend (who I really must write a piece on later just because of his amazing escape from Communist Czechoslovakia) asked whether we ” … do this kind of thing in Britain”.  I had to say “no”, but pondered on it for a while because I felt that my answer deserved an explanation.  Looking around the two-or-three hundred people at the Zirovnice Forestmen’s Dance I had to admit that the British class system really precluded that a best-selling author, politicians and the drunks from the local pub should be rubbing shoulders as they were here.  And the thought of my teenage nephews and nieces, or even my almost thirty-year-old son Polka-ing one minute, jiving the next with the odd Russian Cossack dance thrown in, as the young locals did here, was taking things too far.

This kind of strong cross-generation, community is probably why they can plant lillies in the high street and expect them to last more than a nano-second before, as would be the case in a similar UK town, the first, brainless twat that comes along takes their heads off with a pseudo Kung-Fu kick and why people will think nothing of sitting next to (or even opposite) someone carrying a shot-gun and a brace of pheasant on the bus – which is commonplace in many parts of the Czech countryside.  It may well be that in a few years time in their clamour for Western products, services and living standards Czechs will have reduced themselves to the same level that we have, but I find myself reflecting on how relatively quickly they have acquired most of the worthwhile trappings of Western society – freedom of speech, travel, contemporary sports, healthy diet and the like and wonder if we could replace the things that we have flushed down the toilet, such as standards of behaviour and respect for elders, as quickly.

So much for “developed markets”!

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Posted in czech, developed markets, Full Effect, Full Efffect Marketing, marketing, phil darby, social groups, The Full Effect Company, tradition, Uncategorized