Barrier Marketing - The Elephant in the strategy.

I believe strongly in writing strategy based on uncovering the barriers the organization has to bridge to be successful. Not everyone uses what I call "barrier marketing" but a whole pile of people do.

The premise is if you don't address the key obstacles a target audience has towards believing what it is you want them to believe/buy, then you are wasting your time (and money) engaging with them in any way about anything but the elephant in the room. It wasn't until this last 15 years of my marketing communication career that I became such a big believer of this approach to strategic planning. It was a central tenet at McCann Worldgroup when I worked there and it still drives my consulting practice today.

If you don't know what the barriers to success are for your organization, spend some time and uncover them. In the meantime enjoy this great post on discovering barriers and acting on them, not motivational statements, by UCLA Professor Richard Rumelt.

http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/strategy/the_perils_of_bad_strategy?p=1

Interior Brandscaping

The pictures below from a new renovated medical spa in Edmonton (www.mdspa.ca) is a great example of taking a revitalized brand position as a boutique medical spa and ensuring the "interior brandscape" matches the new position. So often the brand experience inside a retail environment does not match the brand experience being presented outside the brick and mortar of the business. This is no longer the case at mdspa.

Interior Brandscaping By thejackietouch

If you want to learn more from the person who did this interior brandscaping contact jackie@thejackietouch.com

Tourism Marketing Gets Refreshed.

The recent joint work between Coca-Cola and the State of Michigan is great on many levels. It extends both brands into new territory that is beneficial to both. Michigan can use the brand push at limited financial cost, and Coke gets unofficial sponsorship of Michigan summers.

The attached article also shows that Scotland has done this joint branding effort as well. So the question is why don't other cash strapped tourism brands investigate this. Government budgets are tight and I think consumers are over the previous feeling that "our government is selling out to commercialism". Hey if you want to attract customers to your parks, etc., you may need to make them relevant to wider targets.

Anyway, good work by Coke and Michigan State, and Scotland and Highland Springs.

brandrepublic michigan-is-it-coca-cola-create-tourism-brand-partnership

Real Estate Rant

A year or so ago I had to write a little piece about real estate agents and their advertising. It dealt with why do they think sticking their picture and words that basically say "trust me" on a bus-side or bus-bench, will actually differentiate them from anyone else. Well yesterday I heard a radio ad from someone claiming to be the top real estate agent in Canada. This person in the past has made me believe that they think the average radio listener is a fool. They have mentioned that you should sell your house with them because they advertise it 24-7. Well so does every agent, it's called MLS, and every real estate website goes 24-7.

So back to yesterday's classic new selling line from this agent. They say that they work for free until they sell your house. A shot at firms that charge a small flat fee up front so you don't have to pay a huge commission cheque when the house does sell. I mean saying you work for free until you sell the house, and imply this justifies spending many thousands more later on, is stretching the meaning of free just a tad don't you think. Clearly agents are getting worried their holiday is over, and they are feeling the pressure from agents and firms that have woken up and taken advantage of technology to reduce costs and still provide great service, like every other industry in the world.

There, I have had my realtor rant for the time being. I'm done, and I hope some day soon people who take the time to advertise, start to treat their audience with just a bit of respect. In the long run it will do more to build your brand than jamming ^#*% down peoples throats.

Two Ears and One Mouth.

I teach business communications every so often at a local post secondary institution. I have sat through thousands of meetings in my 27 years in business. I have heard it all! Yet I am still amazed how many leaders can not listen well, and are really just waiting for people to stop talking so they can begin to talk.

As many people have said before me, we have two ears and one mouth, so we should be listening twice as much as we are talking.

This short little brain dart from McKinsey is a healthy reminder of three simple things all of us can do to be better listeners.

1. Show respect to your audience.

2. Keep quite (the two ears point)

3. Challenge assumptions.

I believe so much great insight is left on the table because people do not listen. I am guilty of this now and then, and this was a timely reminder to me to every so often, just shut up and listen.

Enjoy the read.


McKinsey's article on being a better listener.

Play It Again Samsung

Recently IDC's Worldwide Phone Tracker research found that "Samsung closed 2011 as the year's top smartphone manufacturer with 94 million units shipped and a market share of 19.1 per cent". This fact took me back to 1986-87 when I was part of a team that launched Samsung into Canada. Samsung was just a new brand from Korea that was trying to get in the face of Japanese power house brands Sony and Panasonic. Their native domestic competitor Lucky Goldstar (now LG) was also starting out in the Canadian market making TV sets, VCR players and other low cost consumer electronics for Canadian consumers who felt they were paying too much for Japanese and, still at that time, US product.

Samsung's success is a great story and tribute to the power of branding perseverance. Samsung went through a few CMOs and logos (as you can see from one of the Canadian launch ads I was part of back in the mid 1980s), however they never lost faith that they would build a brand of quality and eventual world leading relevance.

Samsung Canada launch ad in 1987 by Toronto based Enterprise Advertising.

I look at what Hyundai and KIA have been doing in the car market in the last 10 years, and I see the same strategy unfolding for them. I hope they have walked down the street in Seoul and thanked their friend at Samsung for showing them they way.

Thank You 2011

As I sit here on the last day of 2011, I look back on a great year for Bamboo Strategy. The firm continued its relationship with one of Canada's leading innovators in the natural health products industry, by providing Afexa Life Sciences with initial insight services leading to this year's launch of Coldsore-Fx. We added Canada's largest privately owned recruiting firm (Design Group Staffing Inc.), and Alberta's largest Credit Union (Servus) to our client list. As well, long time client Trixstar Productions brought William Shatner's one man show to thousands of his fans across Canada.

On top of this wonderful activity, I merged Bamboo Strategy with IMC, the world's only management consultancy dedicated to the resource industry in Western Canada. This new relationship as a division of IMC, will provide Bamboo Strategy with resources in Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver, and deeper access to businesses in what is undoubtedly the economic driver of Canada. In return IMC deepens its service offering and positioning as the resource industry's trusted resource.

So as I say goodbye to 2011 I say thank you and look forward to 2012 as a year of tremendous growth and opportunity. May your 2012 be one that thrives as well.

Staying Marketing Oriented Is Everyone's Job

As I watch the restructuring of marketing departments to deal with the reality of customers demanding more relevant and rewarding engagements, I recognise that holding true to the belief that a company is really marketing oriented is tougher that ever. Marketing has always been about a philosophy that everything a company does is with the customer's drivers fully in mind. However rapid change in technology is highlighting the reality that the entire organisation must now, more than ever, be involved in "marketing".

I think the term "customer experience" can play a key role to helping companies simplify as they battle to stay a true marketing oriented company. As a recent article from McKinsey points out, "In today’s marketing environment, companies will be better off if they stop viewing customer engagement as a series of discrete interactions and instead think about it as customers do a set of related interactions that, added together, make up the customer experience."

I think if you keep in mind that to engage with people you need to understand the experiences they want with all aspects of the company, and then build engagement strategies that meet those insights. As I have been saying for sometime now, the key is to uncover insights into how people experince things, and usually this is on an emeotional level. The McKinsey article also reinforces this points by stating, "A premium will be placed on problem-solving and strategic-marketing skills, rather than on traditional market research capabilities such as designing surveys and commissioning focus groups."


I highly recommend reading the McKinsey article that I have linked to below. It serves as a timely reminder that staying marketing oriented in today's climate is not just business as usual and some innovation in structure is a likely need.



http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Were_all_marketers_now_2834

Mick Jagger, Rolling Stones CMO

Today from a facebook connection, I viewed this classic letter from Mick Jagger to Andy Warhol about artwork for a greatest hit cover back in 1969.

The letter reminds me of my time at Scali, McCabe, Sloves in Toronto in 1989, working on the advertising for the Labatt's Blue/Rolling Stones Steel Wheels Tour. The Jagger letter shows how much of a businessman Jagger is, and that everything about how the band is positioned really sits in his hands. He is the CMO of the Rolling Stones brand.

When we were developing creative to launch the Steel Wheels tour across Canada in 1989, Jagger had final approval on everything. All our script ideas and music background choices went past Jagger. In fact the launch TVC of the tour originally ended with the famous Stones tongue turning from red to blue, to subtly indicate Labatt's Blue was promoting the tour in Canada. Well Jagger as acting as CMO for the Stones brand, quickly killed that idea because nobody, but nobody screws with a key visual property of the Rolling Stones. He was right of course but hey we at the same time were just trying to build even more depth into the Blue brand.

As Labatt Blue's slogan of the time was alluding to, in 1989, it was the way we played. Those were great times, and as this classic letter indicates, Jagger is a great CMO, and not a bad frontman either.




Labatt's Blue Rolling Stones 1989 Tour Poster



More Juice Around The Future of The Ad Agency

I was reading today in Campaign Asia about the intense pressure marketers are feeling to continue to come up with the next big idea. They are trying to stay relevant to a consumer base that is rapidly getting smarter and more savvy every minute. This means they are looking to anyone, including their customers for ideas. No longer are their AOR agency partners the holy grail of ideas, and this is sending shock waves through New York, London, Chicago, Sydney, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Los Angeles.

As past blogs I have written have eluded to, the game has changed because the consumer has changed. They carry the influence to persuade their community to act, and the traditional ad campaign is treated with the proverbial grain of salt. Advertising air cover is critical in the war to win the hearts and minds of consumers, but it is boots on the ground, the reality of the brand experience, that wins the war today. What is the brand doing as it actually engages and delivers to people. Is it a positive experience they will twitter about to their community, or will it be so counter to the big ad air cover that they will hold the brand hostage with negative WOM to their friends.

Never has the game been so exciting and played with so much at stake for those that used to dominate the brand building and idea generating world...the traditional big ad agency.

Click on the link below to read the Campaign Asia article.
http://www.campaignasia.com/Article/259364,pressure-mounts-as-agencies-search-for-the-next-big-idea.aspx

The Life Blood of Product Development

Last week on my WebTV show called BrandVertising, I had a great chat with Timothy Lee (a client of mine from Afexa Life Sciences in Canada) about product innovation and development. The show highlighted that invention and innovation are not the same thing, look no further than apple to learn how to innovate versus invent.

We also talked about the fact that engaging with customers is the only way you can do any type of inventing or innovating. Which is why a recent Interbrand study that shows so few companies are engaging with their customers is even more shocking. How will products that are relevant be developed in these organizations?

Have a look at the show and see what were rated by LaunchTV as the best new products of 2010.

It's Time For A Little Humanity

I believe that the world of screens that is upon us, be it TV, smart phone, computer, you name it, is leading to a distinct lack of people with the ability to hold a personal face to face conversation. I also believe that this is one of the biggest issues in the marketing communications world going forward, as digital grabs a firm hold of the tool kit being used by the industry. This almost single minded focus on interactive in a digital sense, I believe leaves a huge opportunity for interactive in the human "face to face" sense.

I for many years have been a huge proponent of experiential marketing and think the work being done by firms like Momentum and Jack Morton, just to name two I am personally familiar with, is outstanding and a real difference maker in building relevant brand relationships. To me those marketers that engage all the senses of the consumer, in an impactful experience, will win the day over those that just choose to digitally interact with them. Success in building relevant brands comes with striking a balance between digital and human interaction.

So I could not agree more with the following quote from a recent article from McKinsey. "Many retailers assume that customers walk into stores for purely transactional purposes: they know what they want and just need to buy it. Yet McKinsey research indicates that as many as 40 percent of customers remain open to persuasion once they enter a store,despite undertaking extensive product research, reading online reviews, and comparing prices on their own." Just think back to your in store experiences in the past few years. Think of the sales people you have encountered and think of how many added any knowledge or insight beyond what you had already uncovered on-line. If your answer is anything like mine then you will find the attached piece from McKinsey worth the short read.

Enjoy the link and don't forget we are humans not machines.

http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Rediscovering_the_art_of_selling_2677

What Business Are You Really In?

If you have ever been in one of my business courses or seminars, you probably have heard me state that the first thing any one should do when starting a marketing plan, is ask themselves what business are they really in? This may seem obvious to many of you, but often it is too obvious and a real opportunity to step out and relevantly differentiate oneself from the competition is missed.

Think about it this way. Is Starbucks in the coffee business, or is Starbucks in the chill out business? Depending how you answer this question will indicate how you would run Starbucks if you were the boss. If you think they are in the coffee business then the store and the people you hire would be 100% coffee focused. Everyone would be coffee experts, the brewing and espresso machines would be of the highest quality and not focused on speed, just focused on superior coffee. You would not sell anything but coffee, certainly not fruit based drinks, and you would not really care if the environment was comfortable because all you want people to do is buy coffee and not really hang out.


If on the other hand you took the attitude that Starbucks is in the chill out business and just happens to sell coffee as part of this experience, your store would be built around allowing people to let their brains escape from their stresses. You may design an ordering language that is different, one that allows the brain to go somewhere else for the 15 seconds it takes to order a grande, double soy cap! Your staff would be full of unique personalities that just love people. You may even sell music that helps people chill out when they are not in the store.


No matter which approach you believe is best, you can see that determination of what business you are really in, will set the vision of the company in motion. It will determine the type of people you need to employ, the type of products and services to offer, and the style of packaging, store design and promotion to unleash to be optimally successful.

So as you sit on the dock this summer, take a few minutes and ask yourself what business am I really in. It may just open up your organization to a whole new set of buyers.

Being Social Should Not Be New

As the marketing world grapples with all the new social media tools available, I think we should take comfort in the fact that at a strategic level, being social should come natural to good business people. At its core social media is just about allowing people to engage, share and profile their thoughts effortlessly.



From a business perspective, we need to understand the tools and how our customers are using them, but the strategy should remain simple - engage with people when you have something to say and it's something you think they will really want to hear. Don't abuse the entry they will give you into their network. Different consumers will demand different levels of engagement, so again take the time to understand the people that are critical to your business. Understand how they engage with social media and how they want you to engage with them on it. It is not about having a twitter account and a facebook page. It is about knowing when to engage and having something relevant to say them.



Many marketing service firms are exploring the social media marketplace for businesses. Take the time to meet with one and begin to learn how it may help your business out. Don't be afraid at first to just get into a learning phase and track what people are saying about your firm and industry. Keep engaging on-line to a later date, when you are truly ready to get into a meaningful discussion.



Remember you are successful because you know how and when to socialise with people. This skill will transfer to the social media world as well. If you are patient and engage when you have something to say that you know will be relevant to your customers, research tells us that you will be welcomed and shared amongst their network of peers.