Talking only buys you so long...

It's funny how eventually, employees talk. Eventually in companies with questionable behaviours and management styles people who joined because of the 'talk' find they don't like the walk. So they too walk.  And increasingly talk, through sites like Glassdoor.com and the interconnected work force via Linkedin and other social media. 


This has been brand mantra for some time, with authenticity being a overt ingredient of powerful brands for the last 10+ years. 


People manager and HR teams also intuitively know that authenticity dramatically affects teams and the the HR function.  


I wonder what would happen if we had a HR / Brand team mash-up? Rather than doing the standard brand touch-point mapping and prescribing recommendations to make people all sing along we instead allowed things to get...messy. And passionate. And bi-directional. 


I think both teams would benefit massively from some frank, creative and fun conversation about how we can make the whole organisation walk the talk. The pay-off? Gain and keep amazing people that will drive your business success.


Organisations are inherently imperfect but some great examples in the right direction include Zappo's, Carman's and Thoughtworks. 


You? How do you make your company walk the talk?


Image credit: Openpresswire

Margin mud wrestling

I'm currently reviewing the performance of a major consumer good brand in the UK. It's very clear that together, FMCG and retailer companies have created a mighty interesting situation for themselves. In a bid to be number one, either product or retailer, they have price promoted their pants off. 


So now they are naked, with only a shred of margin for protection. 


In some respects the customer is a winner, with cheaper prices. But combined with private label, the resulting 1-4 brand category leaves very little room for innovative new products and economy-stimulating small business. A similar situation is facing the IT industry. I am all for market forces and pressure to force brands and retailers to innovate, adapt and streamline to be the best. May the best brands win. But as brands fight it out, there's a whole lot of margin being lost with the resulting instability for businesses and jobs. 


So perhaps the analogy is less standing naked, shreds tactfully poised and more...mud wrestling. 


It would be naive to think that it is an easy thing for manufacturers and retailers to have completely open, honest and productive conversations about what next. 


But I think that those that manage these conversations well, will win. 


Both sides have smart, customer focused people - if we stopped wrestling, perhaps we could create smarter, more resource efficient businesses that delight consumers. On both sides of the ring. 


Flickr image credit: Filippo Venturi

A lessen in expectation and passion from Joan Collins (or rather, her audience)

Attending an event at the glorious Theatre Royal Haymarket today, a Master Class with Joan Collins, it was a reminder about passion. And about people. 


Funnily enough it wasn't from Ms Collins (who is absolutely an inspiration in terms of determination, pragmatism and traffic-stopping legs at any age!). Rather, it was after, speaking to people involved with the Master Class, the theatre and acting in general. They have their own language, what to me would be famous actors are master practitioners and dramatic practice becomes the craft. 


People have enormous, life-dedicating passion to the craft. But if I passed them on the street, or saw them in-store I would type-cast them as an X-type consumer. 


It was a vivid, candid and razor witted reminder that people are not defined by their 'type', they are defined by their passions. 


I wonder what you find if you ask some of your customers about their passions? 




*The Master Class is about to do some even more exciting projects - I recommend you learn more about this very positive organisation supporting London Youth and sign up for updates at http://www.masterclass.org.uk/. 

The bollocks club

The what?

Yes, the bollocks club.

I propose this as a new introduction into your marketing decision making process.

Pick the biggest nay-sayers you can find. Ideally, non brand-loyal customers and potentially some of your sales team who need to sell this into your key accounts.

And run your new campaign idea past them.

What did they say?

Does your idea pass through the bollocks club and makes good common sense? Did it make sense to them? How did it make them feel? Do they think it is genuinely new?

Or are you just convincing yourself that this new angle for differentiation will be heard, understood and acted upon (i.e. your product bought or new, raving fans collected).

It's just another way of sense-checking if you have marketing myopia.

I am not saying that you have to do what this groups says, by any means - it is your job to lead people to new thinking and perceptions about your brand and potentially even the market.

But what it will do is give you the honest answer before you spend £10m on a new campaign. So you can choose before, not realise after how people will act as a result of your campaign.

You? Do you have your own version of the bollocks club? What does it look like?

Rapid Immersion: Embracing a country to help it embrace your brand

Recently as I worked with a Norwegian company to define their brand we had a lot of fun with them educating me about being Norwegian, and what it meant for their brand.

A simple example in the brand profiling process was that they did not rate themselves clearly as successful, despite being an absolute world leader in their work. If taken at face value, this result would mean that their brand would be expressed as potentially an efficient follower or stronger in areas other than thought leadership. However, when questioned, it was revealed that it is so typical for the highly collective Norwegians to down-play their own success that there is a term for it, Jante Law, a concept similar to the Tall Poppy Syndrome in Australia.

As a result, we worked through it and they admitted leadership is integral to the nature of their game-changing business.

Reflecting on this, I want to share 10 questions to ask of your contacts to gain a rapid understanding of a new country (or culture). It created a lot of debate and laughter and was a useful excercise for us all.

1. How would you describe Norwegian people to someone?

2. What is Norway known for?

3. Is it true? If not, what should it be known for?

4. What are the biggest brands and retailers in Norway?

4. If I called you __this__ nationality, it would annoy you. (note - you don't want to confuse Norwegians and Swedes!)

5. What do you folks do for fun?

6. Where do Norwegians sit on the scale between hedonism and altruism?

8. How punctual are your trains?

9. What subjects could I bring up over drinks that would incite most conversation? A riot?

10. Tell me about how how families work together, or not, in Norway.

11. What Norwegian food should I try?

My final tip is a few words go a long way, even in English-fluent Norway. Try downloading a free app for basic phrases in the appropriate language and you could have the basics ready to go by the time you touch down to meet your client!

You? What questions would you add or change?

p.s. When I asked a colleague who's job it is to travel the world challenging and helping teams to higher sales performance how he immerses effectively he added these great points:

1. Know their local data as well as they do - spend considerable time to know their perspective.

2. Spend 2-3 days walking amongst the customers / business - observing, cataloguing and asking questions.

3. (my favourite) Laugh at yourself first! Have a little fun at your own cultural sterotypes first, to open up the way for them to share anecdotes with you.

Selection for the curious: not the headline news in brand

Brand

Vitaminwater emphasize the "energy-boosting" properties of their drink with bus shelter ads in the States.

Kellogg and Augme Technologies have announced that they will be working on optimising interactive packaging technology with the aim of acquiring data about Kellogg’s customer base over the next year.

Sainsbury’s juices get portion control windows to help customers manage dietary intake.

Innovation

This time, innovation in service! Heartbreak Hotel - Dutch hotel's weekend divorce service. via @iconoculture

Where do good ideas come from? Great summary of current opinions by practitioners and insight into how its done by the Made by Many team. @madebymany

Design

Inspiring and cultivating creativity. Hint: 9 of the top 10 motivators are intrinsic, not intrinsic! via @the99percent

Great site around the new John Hegarty book. Home truths, funny truths and the occasional fish slap:

http://www.hegartyonadvertising.com. Includes the great quote:

Creativity isn't an occupation, its a preoccupation.

Genius

Good starter article on the learning secrets of Polyglots, Polymaths and Savants.

Dzongkha anyone?

Getting amongst it. Your brand that is.

How often do you get amongst your customers? Your channel partners?

Could you say what they looked like, what they said to others as they were handling your products?

It's great to be excited about your new ideas, your new packing, TVC and service offering. You need to be excited to be able to get others excited.

But how will you get customers excited with you? First, you need them to notice and listen to you. For that, they need to trust and like you.

Rule no.1 of how to get people to like you from How Win Friends and Influence People: Become genuinely interested in other people.

Rule no.1 of developing trust - it has an inverse relationship to how much you focus on yourself rather than focus on the other person.

So, the number one rule about getting people to talk about your brand...it's not about you.

So, get amongst it and see what your customers are all about. Guaranteed you will learn a new, powerful insight about them each and every time you get amongst it.

Here's five ideas how:

• Have a bi-weekly channel partner safari - be it walking around retailers, popping in to see your partners' office or surfing some new online shopping options.
• Adopt a store - if you have 50 people in your company, with a little coaching, you can have live and direct feeds from 50 of your customers, using just your staff.
• Stroll. Stroll through where your customers live and shop.
• Become your own ethnography team. Arm a bunch of your team with cameras, notebooks, markers and a travel ticket and a juicy list of things to observe. Come back for a private screening where you share stories and artefacts. It may not be robust, but done regularly will begin to paint a real picture of your consumers.
• Be (politely) inquisitive. Next time you're shopping your category and you notice a customer buying, ask them why. It works for Richard Branson! Maybe you could invite them over for tea and biscuits with the team?

You? What ways do you get amongst it with your customers?

ideas = future

Great quote courtesy of @BrandDNA and the immortal John Hegarty.

Selection for the curious: not the headline news in brand

Retail: Zara back in black for the first time since 2007. Zara returns to profit as new shops boost sales via@retailweek

Design: Students from Les Ateliers-Paris Design Institute have created a project called Fabrique Hacktion that aims to improve collective spaces in the city via @LSNglobal

Design: Why two brains think faster than one. Video interview with Antenna Design by @the99percent

Big ideas: No Boinking: Raising awareness of India’s population control problem with a playful ad that works even without understanding Hindi for Idea 3G, by Lowe and partners: When the power goes out, don't boink, play 3G games!

Social / Tech: White House: Twitter helped debt agreement. Virtual pressure pushed the deal, whilst Obama lost 36,000 followers.

You’ve got FAIL: Windows Office365 team Punks Gmail via @ADWEEK

TaskRabbit iPhone App Lets You Post Errands On The Move via @PSFK

Innovation: The British Egg Market—An Incubator of Innovation via @popsop_com

Zip.

So, it's great to be interesting, curious and open to many things.

But if you are about many diverse things, when do people to turn to you? After all, there's wikipedia.

To develop a personal brand, you have to be the go-to person for something.

What's your something?

Every business is social

A business involves people. People buy the business outputs. Ergo, a business is social.

I often get asked by business owners 'what is social media' and 'how do I set up Facebook for my business'? It seems everyone wants to go social.

Sometimes what people miss is that they already are.

My answer is simple, and the acts are simple, but still, simple acts can still generate profound changes in an organisation.

The simple answer - social is an amplification of existing ways of communicating.

Instead of phoning or emailing your customers one by one, you can share information about your business with all those that 'follow' you in various ways. Instead of broadcasting using a megaphone, because someone has chosen to link with you, its like you are having a conversation in the same room. You can point at things using links, Slideshare, Youtube and Skitch. You can show how much you like what they are doing by sharing their information with your 'room'. And this can all be done in a way that is infinitely 'spreadable' in a social chain reaction.

This is true both internally and externally within a business.

So the first part of my advice is simple - map your customer touch points and start with those. Is there a way you can a) help those be better experiences and b) help spread the word about your business?

The obvious place to start is customer service - can you add more ways for people to simply connect with you and resolve a query immediately, rather than over days waiting for email or call backs? Adding Twitter and live chat could help reduce issue resolution time and potentially head count. But then lets move on to your shipments - can you add a customised message for your customer on your delivery docket, with an invitation link to see the latest trends in their industry, a secret customer-only event or a slide-share presentation on best-practice on shaving costs on shipping in their industry?

Social is being yourself (your Brand), but amplified.

My top 3 tips for businesses as they are starting to dip their toe in:

1. Give. Be useful. People share things that are useful and good.
2. Be relevant. People are time poor - give them what they want and need. If you are highly technical company with a highly technical audience, it is unlikely that they want to be friends with you on facebook. But they are likely to want to read new developments that your CTO finds interesting on your blog.
3. Be real. People interact with people, not things. Part of the enjoyment of engaging with a brand or a business is learning the real people involved in it, being one of the community with a real relationship with you, not just someone who has read the brochure.

As with any technology / behavioural adoption, once you've taken the first step, you're already in a new and exciting place.

You? Where do you think a business should start in their social adoption?

Notes: This article was inspired by an article by Jed Hallam, part 2 of a series on the social business. You should read it, it's good :)

Image credit: Faithoncampus

Fashion: nature vs nurture?

A recent article in Grazia caught my eye and made me wonder, how often do customers beat the trend makers?

Kind of like asking the nature versus nurture question, but for fashion.

The article showed examples of girls using Celine zip-up cases for keys and coins or Marc by Marc Jacobs iPad cases as very stylish clutches.

The Tipping Point highlights specific individuals starting trends. Yet on the other hand we have game-changing innovations such as the iPhone, which admittedly build upon existing behavioural changes but itself creates new ones. Walmart started a new trend in retailing not from looking at customers, but initially looking at operations, as this interesting article by Scott Davis of Prophet describes.

Modern marketing, branding and design is all about being customer-led, suggesting that all trends come from customers.

I wonder, is it possible to create a genuinely new trend, that is not at all hinted at by other events? A world-changing new spark, the trend equivalent of 'the big bang'?

You? What do you think?

Meanwhile....sharing some of my favourite trend-spotting gurus: trendwatching; PSFK; LSN; Iconoculture; Scienceofthetime; Trend Hunter.

Back to the love...

Is it just me or have you too stopped bothering to read the articles about the changing nature of the advertising industry? Like a twisted self-introspective fairy tale, articles depict a combination of sky falling, big bad wolf coming, ark-building, fleece-chasing and the search for El-Dorado.

It's boring.

Isn't a industry which exists to help brands and people connect meant to be all about them, not us.

Call me (happily) simple.

In the words of David Ogilvy, A good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself. Works for agencies too.

Stop talking about yourself. I'll try to stop talking about myself.

Let's talk about amazing people, amazing brands and what makes them great.

Always great for inspiration...http://www.lovemarks.com/ (Dettol is trending up - who would have guessed!)

Photo credit: The Chicagoist

Day 30: Where am I?

Observation: It takes too long to find where I am and therefore where I need to go next on the London tube map.

Opportunity: You are here stickers. See the video below for how this could look.

Short and sweet for Day 30. Hope you found some interesting inspiration in the observation to creation challenge!

Day 29: Religion, self and finding a path between

Observation: Whilst at a local community boxing group, a teenage girl joining the boys for a workout. She was wearing a full headscarfe and full length track suit. At one point she was so hot she stripped to her tank top. It felt shocking and intrusive seeing her flesh and I had to look away.

From my own perspective I was delighted to see this tough, challenging girl doing what she wanted. However I was dying with her as she overheated under her coverings.

Having read this guide on proper behaviour and had a brief look at the fashions and articles for women wanting to do exercise, I cannot see how in any way a Muslim woman doesn't feel at least a little compromised when exercising, even if it is completely in line with their faith to look after yourself. It got me wondering...how to stay healthy and stay comfortable as a Muslim woman?

Opportunities:

All of these would need to be vetted by people of the faith, but some ideas to begin with...

- More structured, flexible clothing that does not cling like lycra, but enables easy, enjoyable movement. Perhaps building on the structured, floating forms of Japanese designers Issey Miyake?

- A muslim woman only fitness club, complete with pool and outdoor family play area. This way women are more free to wear more comfortable clothing whilst getting healthy.

- A healthy Muslim women community group - online, social and with localised chapters. Sharing healthier food and lifestyle options, providing support and tips to get healthy and company to make exercise amongst peers safer and more appropriate.

- An exclusive his and hers Muslim fitness club where couples can each go, providing a shared but appropriate activity where they each work out in the separate male or female areas. Add exclusive couple work out rooms for hire. Kind of like a cross between the exclusive karaoke rooms model and couple's beauty treatments. Hire for an hour with your choice of services.

Image credit: Muslim women in sports