Category Archives: strategy

New Year, New challenge, New consumer

Posted on Thursday 1 January 2009 | Leave a comment

after-the-partyBefore we all sober up and start banging on again about how tough life is, I thought I’d nip in with a ray of winter sunshine.  I’ve never been much of a moaner.  Challenges like the current economic woes are what, as a marketer, I’m paid to overcome and this is just another day at the office as far as I am concerned.  A bigger, juicer challenge maybe, but hey, bring it on!

Among the many good things that will result from the current crisis will be the disappearance of organisations that had no place in today’s business world in the first place.  Businesses that have lost their way, like Woolworth, Adams, MFI and others in the UK, those that have become irrelevant, are badly managed or just never got it together will all disappear and we’ll all be better off for it – them’s the breaks and the UK government reckon that another 440 UK retailers alone will go to the big mall in the sky by April!

Clearing the decks of the dross though, isn’t going to mean that the businesses that remain will have an automatic ticket to ride the gravy train, because its all change as far as far as customer priorities are concerned too and unless your organisation is sensitive to this and you’re ready to make the necessary changes you’ll be back there with the no-hopers.

In 2009 strong brands will pay back the investment that has been made in them over the years, but I mean brands with real integrity not those that have been selling us a line for years.  In the last few weeks I have been listening to interviews with end-users from around the developed world who have expressed the common belief that what’s brought us to this sorry state has been our own irresponsibility and lack of real priorities.  Yes, our customers have a new perspective and if your brand has been built on selling people stuff that they don’t need you’d better think again!  We are about to witness the birth of a new business paradigm.

The new consumer seeks, products that meet a genuine need rather than the want that marketers have tended to stimulate in the past.  There’ll be a backlash against frivolous products and an even bigger one against brands that don’t deliver on their promises.  This will resonate along the supply chain to business to business relationships too.  Furthermore, the value equation will be modified with quality or practicality acing aesthetic. 

Opportunities will be there for well developed brands with a sound efficient support structure to expand into new territories where home-grown competition doesn’t measure up, but this doesn’t only mean opportunities for Western organisations in developing markets like Central and Eastern Europe and Asia because the businesses there that haven’t become greedy and are honest about their own strengths and weaknesses will be able to expand into developed markets where consumers are looking for lower prices and better value based on the practical formula.

Efficiency, low prices, quality and decent margins are the product of real integrated marketing, but you will only satisfy the emotional needs of customers, BtoB or consumers, if your brand has an honest face and an honest heart.  These are the real challenges that organisations face in the forthcoming months.  Are we up to the challenge?  Generally, I think the answer is “yes”, but its patchy and success will only be achieved by organisations with the self-discipline to keep the new objective in their sights.  Businesses that realise the game has changed, that understand they are a marketing organisation like everyone else.  Those who place the brand at the centre of their organisation and marketing in the driving seat.  Fasten your seat belts,  it could be bumpy.

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Posted in Adams, brand, brand character, brand development, Brand Discovery, Brand Model, brand name, Brand promise, branding, brands, business development, business strategy, central europe, change, communications, customers, developed markets, Full Effect, Full Efffect Marketing, integrated marketing, management, marketing, phil darby, promise, recession, Retail, retailer, strategy, The Full Effect Company, transparency, Uncategorized, Woolworth

The challenge of a Prague winter

Posted on Tuesday 30 December 2008 | Leave a comment

prague-in-winterI am sure that in a former life I was a bear.  I say this because at the first sign of winter I get this barely controllable urge to hide somewhere warm and dark ’til spring … and today in Prague its minus 8 degrees C!  It sort of raises the question I find myself asking with increasing regularity these days – “Why spend so much of my time in a place where I was clearly not designed to be?”

Maybe its something to do with the summers, which, by UK standards are glorious and predictable – you can actually plan a weekend with a reasonable expectation of the weather being good enough to actually leave the house.  Or maybe its some of the quaint habits of the locals.  For example, yesterday I ventured into my local potraviny – the closest thing Czechs had to a supermarket before the real thing, in the shape of Julius Meinl, arrived from Austria, about the time the last Commie disappeared to his luxury mansion in the hills. 

Despite living much of the time in the beer capital of Europe I don’t drink much of the stuff, but I picked up a few bottles for the fridge and took them to the check-out where the lady growled (another Czech speciality) the price.  “Thirteen Crowns each”.  “But it says ten crowns on the shelf” I pointed out.  Three Crowns each for the bottles” came the reply.  I was tempted to make her day by suggesting that she “Forget the bottle.  Just wrap it up and I’ll take it like that” but I am sure the joke, and I’m certain the irony, wouldn’t have translated.  Czechs don’t “do” irony.  They do however have many practices, like charging separately for the bottle when you buy beer, that we would find odd … no ridiculous, even. 

Another Czech trait is their unequalled capacity for denial.  It probably stems from fifty years of Communist rule when you just kept your head down and did what you could to live around the rules.  Or maybe its goes way back.  What we now call the Czech Republic is, after all, the most invaded and occupied real estate in Europe, so maybe folks here have developed an ambivalent gene that enables them to carry on regardless of who is sitting in the big chair. 

The ambivalent gene would certainly explain the tough time I have getting people here fired up about anything (besides ice hockey).  This was underlined a couple of weeks ago by three surveys that revealed that despite suddenly not being able to get mortgages, having their factories closed, thousands of lay-offs and apartment blocks being only 20% occupied twelve months after completion, that Czechs still don’t believe there’s an economic crisis!

I mean, even if you’ve never seen an economic crisis (as they haven’t of course!) you’d have an idea that something was up when your house is being repossessed.  So it has to be denial, don’t you think?  Its both quaint and sad.  A bit like watching a small furry animal walking down the street from a perspective that allows you to see the out-of-control steamroller on a tangential course to the next intersection. 

A friend of mine who runs a pretty big concern in the Czech Republic told me this week that he’s had calls from two separate banks involved in two of his deals, to say that they just don’t have the money they had promised him.  He’s also divested himself of a number of companies.  One, which was making only two million Crowns a year on a multi-billion Crown turnover, had been the subject of productivity concerns for some time (understandably), but despite receiving a number of addresses from my friend, the work-force were, to a man, gob-smacked when “time” was eventually called.  It seems that either nobody quite belived the warnings or they were in denial.  After all, the business was still making two million a year, which, to many (possibly most) Czech-owned companies would represent pay-dirt.  I’ve said before, that many of the Czech businesses I come across are not really viable.  No, sadly, Czechs are still struggling to understand the rules of capitalism and after fifteen years in an economic rose-bed (very much at the expense of other EC members) they are about to learn some hard lessons.

I still believe though, that there are some terrific products and ideas here, that, despite the economic uncertainly, with a bit of western know-how could support some exciting, international even, businesses.  The question is, are locals able or even bothered enough to grab the opportunities, or will their general complacency mean that they just let them pass by?  I think we are about to find out.  With smart and resourceful Western organisations already assessing the soft underbelly of Central Europe’s developing markets as a target for off-setting their projected 2009 home market short-falls things are going to get tough here and if they are not movin’ and shakin’ it like they’ve never moved and shaked before, half the Czech commercial world is going to find itself eating dust!

Hey, is it chilly in here or what?  Pull that boulder over the entrance as you leave!

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Posted in business development, business strategy, central europe, communist, efficiency, employees, Full Effect, Full Efffect Marketing, management, marketing, phil darby, Prague, recession, strategy, The Full Effect Company, Uncategorized

Woolies and other wonders

Posted on Thursday 4 December 2008 | Leave a comment

The thing about Woolworth that I find most wondrous is that they have hung on for so long.  Mind you, they have had a few close shaves along the way.  For as long as I can remember, Woolies have been struggling for a “reason for being” and failing miserably.  Let’s face it, they haven’t done anything original since penny and sixpence stores and pick n’ mix sweets, although they were still doing a great job of winding it up at Xmas as recently as the eighties, as this commercial shows (Anita Harris - sigh ).  However, if you happened to wander into a Woolworth lately (while looking for the loo or something!) you’ll have been greeted by a scene that looked like a stunt from The Apprentice – like Alan Sugar had given a bunch of wet-behind-the-ears graduates a biggish space and asked them to fill it quickly with “stuff”.

I’m sadder about MFI, another UK casualty of the recession, who, though struggling for almost as long as Woolies to find its place, at least seemed to have a strategy.  It just didn’t work, but the reality is that like a load of other retailers who have been teetering on the edge for a while and will undoubtedly be pushed over by the current economic situation, simply, neither has been good enough for a long time.

What we are witnessing right now is Darwinism – adapt or die!  Its not just about retailing, its about business generally.  Sure, we have too many retailers and more retail parks and shopping centres than is healthy, so we certainly won’t miss a few, but we have too much of everything, that’s the problem, especially when so many businesses have no right to be in business anyway.

I work hard with my clients to develop real uniqueness.  I don’t mean the kind of contrived, useless differences that most organisations promote.  I mean a positive, tangible, real benefit that they offer their customers that nobody else does, and its been a point of constant frustration to me that people have continued to be gullible enough to swallow the empty promises fed to them by organisations.  The key question that I ask my clients is “how will you transform your customers lives?” - well what other excuse would they have for trading?  Anyway, excuse my smugness, but the fact that tough economic times have prompted consumers to look beneath the veneers and question the promises made to them, only means that by and large, we’ll be filtering out the dross.

When the grim receiver finally knocks on their door, these failing businesses can’t claim that they were taken by surprise either.  Although I am sure a few will.  The writing has been on the wall for most of them for decades, its just that, usually because the people running them didn’t have any ideas, they chose to just milk the situation for as long as they could and hope to have retired before the shit hit the fan.  Some of them made it and others haven’t, but none of them would still be a round had the artificial affluence we have all enjoyed over the years, not camouflaged their bad practices and disguised their dreadful performance.  For instance, I’m told that after gaining independence from the US operation Woolworth sold its property and leased it back at some ridiculously lousy deal!  Now, if marketing is about leveraging resources someone really blew it there!

It used to be really trendy to own a Renault 5 in Paris.  French role models drove customised 5s just as the Beatles, Roy Wood and endless other UK pop icons drove Wood and Picket Minis and they were practical and useful.  The fact that today suburban Moms “need” an SUV rather than a Smart car to take the kids a hundred yards down the road to school, is just the product of manipulation by auto-manufacturers whose true measurement of success, despite their protests, is clearly the weight of tin and plastic they manage to get onto the streets.  We are in this mess, not because operators in every sector have devoted themselves for years to persuading us to buy stuff that we don’t really need, I can live with that.  What gets my goat is that so much of this stuff we are gullible and insecure enough to covet is utterly useless!

The up side of all this is that the good guys, though tested like everyone else, will still be around and hopefully, buoyed by the success of their past dedication to honesty, transparency, innovation and hard-work, they’ll be giving us new ideas and initiatives to satisfy our genuine needs and distance them from the masses.  While the big auto makers try to blackmail the US government into subsidising their past inflexibility, self-interest, lack of vision and sharp practices and give them license to do more of the same and banks in the UK and elsewhere try to wriggle of the hook of accountability that their recent handouts have caught them with, there are real opportunities and hopefully recognition by consumers for unsung heroes like Robert Q Riley Enterprises, who are taking a new route to eco-friendly transport with build-it-yourself solutions.

I don’t mind at all that this may be the end of life as we know it.  I for one will welcome a few real values and a world where personal worth is measured in something other than the volume of natural resources destroyed in a lifetime.  All of this is just another challenge to real marketers with balls and initiative.  It doesn’t mean that we’ll have no shops, cars, or the multitude of other stuff we have become used to, just that those we will have are relevent, responsible and efficient.

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Posted in brand development, Brand Discovery, Brand Model, brand name, Brand promise, branding, brands, business strategy, communications, Darwin, Full Effect, Full Efffect Marketing, management, marketing, MFI, natural selection, phil darby, point of difference, recession, Retail, strategy, The Apprentice, The Full Effect Company, TV commercial, Uncategorized, woolies, Woolworth

Why the recession could be good for business

Posted on Monday 13 October 2008 | Leave a comment

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.

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

Where the growth is.

Posted on 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.

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

Creating an Ideas Organisation

Posted on Thursday 18 September 2008 | Leave a comment

I have an absolutely unshakable belief in the “ideas organisation”, which is why I get so pissed off by organisations that only want to perpetuate a winning formula.  They just don’t get it, do they?  The facts are indesputable, a winning formula is only winning when its new and original, once its old-hat or plagarised the value dissappears FAST and that’s getting to mean a realy short shelf life for most businesses.  As I have said many times before – “Your organisation is only as good as your NEXT big idea”.  Move on!

Of course, when your organisation is structured and geared to perpetuating the routine, its not easy to climb out of the rut.  This is noticeable at every level of an offending organisation.  In my Brand Discovery workshops I always start with an exercise designed to help delegates break the mold.  A quick and simple demonstration of how it feels to think normally.  Yes, normally, because normal thinking is what drives creativity.  The problem that we have is that we mistakenly belive that the way we think every day is normal.  Well, wake up and smell the coffee, you aren’t normal, you are conditioned!

Jennifer Goddard reports on BNET this week on Mr Mindmapping, Tony Buzan’s conference that she attended in Singapore, where he spoke of an experiment in Utah that pitted under-fives against graduates in a creativity test.  I think it is a rather old and well-known piece of research that he refers to, where the under-fives won 95% to 10%, thus proving, or so it would seem, that we start creative and have it beaten (read educated) out of us.  In one of my favourite presentations on TED, Ken Robinson promotes just this thought.

So with all this stuff working against you, how are you going to create your ideas organisation?  The way I see it, its not about workshops and brainstorming, useful though they may be once you are an ideas organisation.  Sadly, I usually find these things are more “last chance saloon” than “brave new world” and tend to find their way onto the agenda about the time an organisation realises it doesn’t have a hope. 

Great buinesses have idea generation in their DNA, or rather “idea liberation”, because the ideas are always there, hiding away in the corners of the minds of your employees, the task is to set them free.  How do you do this?  Well firstly you have to give them, value.  

We all have ideas, all the time.  Small ones, big ones, funny ones, evil ones, even profitable ones.  The reason that they don’t ever see the light of day is because we are embarassed to express them!  Why embarrassed?  Well, I guess that’s one of the mysteries of social conditioning, but basically most ideas are pants and we just can’t live with that.  We’re so insecure that we can’t bear the thought of people knowing that we had a stupid idea.  How how stupid an idea is that?

We have to learn the value of mistakes.  I’m sure Michaeangelo didn’t just turn up and knock off the Sistine chapel first attempt.  He must have had a warm up, a trial run, scrapped a few attempts even,  Shit, nobody’s that good!  So get real.  And the reality is that there are loads of crap ideas, but every now and then there is a really great one and it isn’t always obvious at first encounter which is which, so you have to give them all an airing.

So, if you want to be an Ideas Organisation, and, frankly, these days no organisation can afford not to be, the first step is to value ideas,  Sounds obvious, but take a look around you, it doesn’t happen.  We still value only the good ones and snigger at the people who come up with the runts.   We forget that, good or bad, all ideas are worth something because without the hopeless ones you won’t ever discover the great ones.  How do you gt to this, well, hey, I get paid for this, so If you want the “how”, hire me!

Once you have achived this though, step two involves creating the conduit through which the ideas are funnelled into the system.  What system?  The one you create in step three that’s what system.  Too fast for you?  OK, here’s it is again,

  • Step one – value ideas.  Convince yourself that ideas are always good and some are great.
  • Step two – build a communications conduit.  Two-way so that you can persuade your stakeholders that you value ideas, then they will too and as a result they’ll bring them to you.
  • Step three – develop a way of presenting the ideas.  Its important to help people express their ideas in the nearest to business terms they can get, and anyway, its a good business discipline training exercise for them.
  • Step four – Create a test process.  All you need do here is decide how these ideas are going to be explored, the stages that you will go though to minimise risk (Yes, of course there’s risk, the smart guys minimise it though)
  • Step five – establish criteria for judgement. You need to be able to tell as early as possible in your exploration whether an idea will fly, so you need a set of criteria.  You might choose generic ones that support only your Brand Model, or you might design a different set for each idea or every stage in theexploration process.  
  • Step six – Implement.  Its amazing how many great ideas get put on hold, until the time is right.  The time is NOW!  And, if you are facing difficult times such as we all are now, the time was yesterday, so you’ll have to move fast to catch up!  Every time there is recession in any part of the world the guys who push ahead with idea development end up being the winners.  Check the facts.

Now you’re “cooking on gas”.  You are an ideas organisation!  You’re not?  Didn’t like it then eh?  Oh well, it was just an idea!

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Posted in Full Effect, Full Efffect Marketing, ideas, innovation, internal marketing, management, marketing, phil darby, strategy, the big idea, The Full Effect Company, Training, Uncategorized, workshops

Guerrilla or Gorilla?

Posted on Tuesday 2 September 2008 | Leave a comment

Guerrilla or Gorilla? is the title of one of the sections in my Full Effect Marketing seminars.  I have had a great deal of success with Guerrilla marketing, from dressing up actors like pantomime characters and placing them on public transport where they proclaimed the benefits of a product loudly and at length to packed carriages of travellers to scattering red shoes around a city and creating a treasure hunt, but I always love to see other people’s ideas.

This is the folk art of marketing communications and massively undervalued by most organisations.  I never get tired of the ideas that other folks come up with and found this on Speak Marketing and Sales I coudn’t resist sharing it with you.

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Posted in below-the-line, Full Effect, Full Efffect Marketing, Guerrilla, Guerrilla marketing, integrated marketing, marketing, phil darby, Roaching, strategy, the big idea, The Full Effect Company, Uncategorized, you tube

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

Business body-building

Posted on Friday 30 May 2008 | Leave a comment

Anybody involved in sports training knows that if you want to develop muscles you do so by constantly pushing them beyond their limits. You push weights that are heavier than you have pushed before, the fibres in your muscles break and bleed and you feed them protein to fix them and they become bigger and better than before.  So, nothing is easy, right?

The great squash player and recently retired World Champion and World Number one Peter Nicol was training at his peak by pushing his boundaries too. Like other elite sportsmen and women he followed the theory that your brain has a built-in fail-safe that protects you from over-doing it, that this margin is rather larger than it needs to be.  By ignoring the messages you get from your brain during exercise that tell us mere mortals to ease-off you demonstrate to your brain that you can do more without actually dying. Next time your brain lets you go further before telling you to stop. Well, it worked for Peter!

The business world isn’t much different, Last evening I went out to eat with my son. We found our way to one of those up-scale food courts with a host of trendy restaurants (and inevitably a few less trendy or up-scale ones) and set about making our choice. As it was we ended up at the hand-made burger restaurant and it was great, but during our deliberations we considered (for a nanosecond at least) TGI Friday’s.

I remember Friday’s from when my son was a child (that’s twenty years ago) and we used to go to our local TGI occasionally for a treat. It was always a kid’s place to me, but apart from being about as far away from grown up dining as you could get, then it was new, and funky and they tried. I mention this because yesterday we concluded that TGI Friday’s have committed that unforgivable sin – they are still doing the same old thing!

This is an old chestnut of mine – business success being more about the fact that you are new and different than what that difference is and that once you have established your place on the map with a new formula, you are duty-bound to start looking at improvement or re-invention. However, that’s not quite my main point here.

Last week one of the guys I mountain bike with accused me of being too competitive. I say accused because that’s how he meant his comment to be interpreted, but frankly I was flattered. Personally, I would rarely use the words “too” and “competitive” in the same sentence. His point was that I tend to streak off up hills leaving everyone else behind and disillusioned. Now, I have to say that this isn’t strictly true. In fact there are many of my riding chums that leave me behind in the same way in such circumstances, but as far as the group in question were concerned, I guess my critic was correct – Its all a matter of context and the relative fitness or skills of those who you are riding with at the time. The point I made in reply was that while I’ll buy the “competitive” label its not that I am competing with the guys who are riding with me particularly (although that has been known) I compete with myself, trying to push my limits because, although the view from the top of a climb is always a reward for the effort involved the real point is the challenge of getting there as quickly as I can and quicker than the last time. The fact that I am quicker than you isn’t really a concern to me, but, inevitably if I always approach my rides in this way I’ll improve to the point where I will beat you and ultimately any other challengers every time.

I approach my work in the same way. I start every project with the objective of doing it better than I did last time. Sure I have the competition in my peripheral vision, but I’m focussed on my own Personal Best. As long as I always work that way my performance will improve by increments and when I have been doing it for long enough (and I’ve been at this for a while now) I guess I’ll beat anybody.

Because I work this way I am more than usually irritated by businesses and people who don’t rise to the challenge in the same way. Its perfectly clear to me that once you have a Brand Model to represent your objectives (because a Brand Model will always be the starting point of any business development strategy), if everyone in an organisation approached their work like a body-builder or sports-person their organisation would pretty soon be unbeatable.

This thinking is similar to the 110% philosophy. I heard an American business guru explain this by asking a room full of people what percentage of their objective they thought it was reasonable to achieve. The suggestions were something like 85% or 90%. He then equated this to an airline’s success in delivering passengers to their destination and drove the point home by suggesting that it represented a plane crash every so-many minutes. “So you think that’s acceptable?” he asked. It was a simple next step for delegates to nominate 110% success their objective with the expectation being 100% achievement.

Whichever way you look at it its clear that if you want to succeed you are going to have to put yourself out a bit, aim high, compete with yourself. This is reasonably easy for most senior managers because they have a better perspective of the business. Further down the chain of command though its harder to relate to. That’s where internal marketing, that other message that I keep repeating, comes in. Its the internal marketing that gets your workforce thinking like a body-builder and which provides the incentive. I also feel that a lot of business attach too much importance to what their competitors are doing. I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t be interested in the guy down the street, but all too often the performance that competitors achieve becomes your objective and that’s bad for a lot of reasons.

So, if you want your business to succeed you too must remember the lessons of our great sports-people and think like a body-builder focus on your own performance, aim to be better every time and don’t stop when you win – keep at it and make your competitors eat your dust!

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Posted in Brand Model, business development, business strategy, communications, Competitors, Full Effect, Full Efffect Marketing, internal marketing, management, marketing, strategy, The Full Effect Company, Uncategorized