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I want to spend more time thinking through “The Marketing Spiral” which he offers up as replacement for the old school “marketing funnel” which some call the AIDMA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Memory, Action) model. I’m particularly interested in how clients are reacting to this proposition. I know Dentsu has had some success in Japan migrating clients away from AIDMA to their trademarked Consumer Behavior model, AISAS (Attention, Interest, Search, Action and Share), but I still see clients in the US setting up their marketing plans with the old funnel in mind.

I know it all seems a bit theoretical but how clients spend their money is often guided by their view of the marketing universe. If they believe in the spiral, then Marketing as Service will prevail.

The displays show a number of Samsung home theater components and explain HDTVs, Blu-ray players, home theater receivers and speaker systems. “Samsung hopes to help consumers immediately recognize, right at the point of purchase, the true benefits of HD for their home, while providing consumers a number of options and total solutions to make HD a part of their lives,” said Tim Baxter, evp-sales and marketing at Samsung Electronics, Ridgefield Park, N.J.

Samsung’s efforts to make HD easy to understand provides a genuine service to many consumers. That said, it will be interesting to see if consumers respond well to this service since some will undoubtedly be skeptical of the information presuming that it will have a natural bias toward Samsung products. Had Samsung partnered with a credible third-party information source like cNet, then this would be a non-issue and consumers would truly thanks Samsung for the service. Nonetheless, with a couple of thousand kiosks out there, Samsung displays a huge commitment to Marketing as Service.

Insurance is one of those things that could put the brakes on considering a motorcycle. First of all, it immediately associates the act of riding a bike with the possibility of an accident, a really painful and possibly lethal accident. Nonetheless, if you are an insurance company who offers motorcycle coverage, then you would want to support the dream of owning the perfect bike. Remarkably, few insurance companies have adopted such an approach. So thus, I offer up the Allstate Garage as an interesting example of Marketing as Service. Here’s what MediaPost wrote about it:

Allstate launched a website targeting motorcycle owners, allowing them to get a quote and build a customized bike in 12 steps. This in-depth site also features scenic routes that can be viewed and mapped out for riding, courtesy of Google maps, safety tips, a forum to share riding experiences and a calendar page of local and national events. Each customized bike can be viewed in a showroom and downloaded as desktop wallpaper.

It didn’t take me very long to patch together my dream bike and the experience was fun. Of course, while I was putting it together, Allstate offered up a few tips on getting the right kind of insurance. Since I was enjoying customizing my dream bike, I didn’t find the “helpful hints” annoying in the least. Here’s what the first bike I created looked like:

Also FYI, it turns out that the Allstate Garage program is bigger and smarter than just this website. A couple of years ago, Allstate figured out that no other insurer was covering customized bikes SO they developed a policy directly aimed at that unmet need. And to build credibility among the target, they went on the road as per Promo Magazine:

The tour hits six motorcycle rallies over three months. It spun off a “Biker Agents” ad campaign showcasing the 600 Allstate agents who are motorcycling enthusiasts. The virtual garage was designed as an interactive classroom pushing cycle design and safety, and the features of Allstate’s motorcycle coverage.

Allstate is running the tour in partnership with Chopper College, a Chicago-based training school that combines course work with hands-on cycle customizing techniques. Allstate agent Dean Akey, who founded a team of cyclist emergency responders dubbed Rescue Riders, attended three rallies to reinforce the identity of Allstate agents as bikers.

As far as I’m concerned, this program hits on all cylinders.

Chumby–got to love the name of this “compact wi-fi device that displays useful and entertaining information from the web,” according to its website. Who needs a clock radio when you can use this puppy as the ultimate Internet radio player via a wi-fi connection. At $180 bucks, it feels like a great belated father’s day gift for this gadget lover.

Kindle-One of my clients swears by his Kindle, using it to read his virtual New York Times daily and business books when he is on the road. Developed and sold by Amazon, this nifty device will certainly save trees and cut down on your need for new shelves as it provides wi-fi access to over 130,000 books. It is definitely one of those things that is best experienced first hand and at $360 dollars plus a subscription its hardly a impulse purchase. Nonetheless, I could easily see this on my side table in the not too distant future.

Nokia N800 Internet Tablet-According to CNET, this wireless wonder “is a nice, portable device for on-the-go Web browsing, and it has some worthy upgrades.” Not exactly a rave but at $279, this little puppy won’t set you back too much if you simply want a “travel friendly” gadget for Internet surfing and want to garner a few covetous stares in the airport lounges.

There are many others but I’ve got to get back to work. Be sure to let me know about any existing devices you crave and/or ideas for topping these three before the end of the month.�

Check out these simple ways to convert prospects into customers and then into card-carrying brand evangelists.

#1. Consider marketing as service

Brand experiences, whether physical or virtual, if done correctly can convert prospects into customers and then customers into card-carrying brand evangelists. These experiences are by definition interactive, encouraging dialogue and ideally an intimate and unforgettable dance between brand and consumer. Here are four thoughts on how to turn your brand experiences into dances of a lifetime.

When brands create experiences that provide a real service, magical things happen. Because “marketing as service” provides a real value, the brand pulls customers and prospects into it, rather than pushing a message at them. This natural engagement deepens relationships with existing customers, forms strong bonds with new ones and helps generate favorable word of mouth.

Charmin showed its get-up-and-go when it installed restrooms in Times Square, providing welcome relief for more than a half million holiday tourists. The service was unexpected, memorable, relevant and good clean fun. Samsung has electrified road warriors by installing mobile device charging stations in five major U.S. airports. Given the annoying paucity of outlets in terminals, this service is pumping up Samsung’s image as a friend indeed to the mobile world.

#2. It all starts with an insight — even chotchkes!

In order to cut through effectively, the experience must derive from a sound strategic insight relevant to the brand. While handing out fun premiums might drive traffic, it rarely builds brand loyalty unless it extends the conversation and reinforces what the brand stands for. When my company’s client, Panasonic, wanted to engage action sports enthusiasts, they needed an insight that gave them permission to “hang” with this otherwise skeptical crowd. The insight they found was that capturing and sharing tricks was an inherent part of the action sports lifestyle. Since Panasonic made the video and still cameras that captured the tricks, and the TVs to see them on, they had a legitimate reason to “Share the Air” with this community.

Panasonic’s Share the Air program featured a camera loaner program at each of the five stops of the AST Dew Tour. With the swipe of a driver’s license, attendees got their hands on a new video or digital still camera to record the cool tricks that they saw during the day’s competition. And to make the experience memorable, participants could take a Panasonic-branded SD card home containing all of their pictures. The Share the Air microsite kept the experience alive, allowing attendees to blog with their favorite athletes on a daily basis, and deliver incentives to purchase Panasonic products at local dealers. All of these elements combined to make Panasonic a brand of choice among action sports enthusiasts.

#3. Extend the experience seamlessly

Ideally, an event will accomplish a variety of goals beyond informing and engaging an audience and generating buzz/PR. One essential function of an event is to drive prospects and customers to a complimentary online experience. Not only will this help amortize the high cost-per-touch of an event, but also it will lead to a long-term customer relationship by extending the experience.

In a perfect world, a single agency should have the capabilities to execute these complimentary event and online experiences. This approach is the most cost effective and ensures consistency of look and tonality across all channels of communication.

#4. Measure, measure and measure again

The goal should always be to cut through the first time. To accomplish this, metrics for success must be established upfront. Marketers need to set benchmarks via pre-event research to compare with post-event data.

In addition to tracking event attendance; time with brand and perceptual changes and sell-in and sell-through, consider adding Net Promoter Score to your measurement arsenal. NPS is a simple and reliable way to measure the likelihood of someone recommending your brand to a friend (i.e., word of mouth). Since NPS can be measured online as well, it will also help you understand if your online experience is as strong as the offline one.

Additional online metrics, including unique visitors, time-on-site, pre/post NPS and online commerce data (if relevant), will help complete the tally, ensuring you know which elements should be cut and which cut through.

Sleep deprivation is a national crisis. According to the National Sleep Foundation (and no, I didn’t dream this one up), less than half of us get seven hours of shut eye during the week. I suspect the reasons for this can be clustered into three key areas:

1. You have trouble falling asleep;
2. You have trouble staying asleep;
3. You simply elect not to sleep as much as you should.

Regardless of the reason, an enlightened mattress company could turn its marketing into a service by teaching exhausted Americans how to get their beauty sleep. In fact, a leader like Sealy could actually own sleep but it would take more than cute ads like their new campaign which promise “a better six.” The campaign, by the way, which was written up in both the Wall St. Journal and MediaPost, features a few lucky people who actually get more than their fair share of shut eye (trust-fund babies, heiresses, and siblings of lottery winners). For the rest of us, the ads suggest we get a better mattress like a new Sealy PurEmbrace.

What a nightmare! Sealy wisely brings up an issue that we are all losing sleep over and then they suggest that the answer is as simple as buying a new mattress. Bull hunky! Perhaps they are all on Ambien but many of us don’t get enough sleep because we simply can’t shut down our minds. We don’t know how. We need help. The opportunity for Marketing as Service is a dream come true. Here are just a few of ways mattress makers could blanket this topic:

• Sleep therapy: Run in-store seminars on how to get all the ZZZ’s you need without medication;
• Sweet dreams hotline: Customers could call this number day or night and talk to a professional sleep therapist;
• Sleep channel: Set up a cable station that is so boring it is guaranteed to put you to sleep in 15 minutes and will turn itself off.
• Sleep central: A social network that segments by sleep type (finally a place for those who only need three hours a night to hang out!)
• Pillow talk: Podcasts that read you to sleep.

Had I gotten more than my usual 6 and 1/2 hours last night, I suspect I could come up with a lot more. According to Media Post, “In its most recent quarter, Sealy’s sales fell 5% to $391.9 million, while net income dropped to $16.2 million from $24.6 million in the comparable period a year earlier.” Perhaps Sealy needs to open their eyes to Marketing as Service–I know I’ll sleep better if they do.

• According to a 2007 McKinsey study, fully 27% of all personal conversations in the U.S. involve some serious discussion of products or services.
• An eMarketer report on social shopping by Jeffrey Grau recently reported that the most credible source of product information came from “people like me” with a full 60% of users saying this is the best way to learn about an item.

Which leads me to the recently launched VISA Business Network on Facebook that I believe could be massively successful AND become the new poster child for Marketing as Service. I strongly encourage you to visit this site and watch the videos that explain the program with real life examples of how small businesses can tap into the power of Facebook. VISA is bringing real utility to Small Business through this $2 million partnership with Facebook including a $100 credit that 20,000 small businesses can use to engage customers and prospects via Facebook ads.The formula here is reasonably simple: create a service that customers and prospects can use, make it easy for them to share this service with their friends and use advertising to jump start initial interest in the program. Nonetheless, the VISA Business Network on Facebook is ground breaking in my mind given the scale, quality and perspicacity. VISA is not just dipping their toes into this, they are diving head first. According to an article on B2B, “Visa also partnered with AllBusiness, Entrepreneur, Forbes.com, Google, Inc., Microsoft Corp. and The Wall Street Journal to provide small businesses with news, commentary and tool kits to help them manage their businesses.”Perspicacity? You bet. Watching the nicely produced videos, you will see like I did that the customers of many small businesses are indeed on Facebook. They are shopping every day for eyeglasses, cheese or what not at small establishments and then telling their friends about the experience. By helping these businesses connect with their customers online, VISA is providing a truly valuable service that should help the cash registers ring all the way around. We can certainly expect MasterCard and American Express to be watching this social networking experiment very carefully and serve up their own iteration any time now. Undoubtedly, they won’t be giving credit where credit is due!

Members of the Nike 6.0 community can create profiles, share photos of themselves in the midst of skating, biking or surfing, and compete for commercial sponsorships. They can also interact with all of the other communities within San Diego-based Loop’d Network, including the Monster Army and the PacSun Team.

As part of the launch, Nike 6.0 has rolled out a mashup campaign, allowing Loop’d members to mix and match their favorite videos, sports clips, photos and Nike-supplied content. The mashups, powered by Mixercast, can be ported to member profiles on other social networks like MySpace and Facebook.

Having worked with Panasonic for the last 4 years targeting the actions sport community, I can assure you that Nike’s approach is far more effective than traditional advertising which this target is particularly skilled at tuning out. In fact, advertising is typically seen as “too corporate” and the athletes on ads are always at risk of “selling out.” Engaging this target requires proving that you not only understand their needs but also are a relevant part of their community. You can’t do this overnight and “posers” need not apply. Nike has learned this lesson the hard way and only recently has gained traction with skate boarders by inviting them into the design process. Enabling this group to “commune” online will further enhance Nike’s credibility since actions, especially in the actions sports world, speak louder than words.

Whether explicitly acknowledged or not, there’s an unmistakable “service is marketing” mantra pervading every aspect of the Apple Store. And that’s something every brand, even those not as shiny as Apple’s, can learn from. The opportunity to solve problems, find solutions and even address “the darn thing doesn’t work” emotional pain-points all lead to a higher impact-marketing and sales proposition. While not every marketer has a Steve Jobs-inspired vision, every consumer-facing company has problems that can be converted into opportunities to inspire loyalty.

First, let me attest to the fact that Apple is indeed stepping up its service and this is a good thing. A recent visit to the Genius Bar with my son and his MacBook that was missing a “K” key, was resolved with astonishing speed and at no cost. That kind of service helps you overlook the fact that your first iPods died prematurely and that the K key probably shouldn’t have fallen off in the first place. That kind of service makes you confident that Mac products will remain a good investment for years to come. That kind of service inspires people to become brand evangelists and even write about that brand on their blog;-)

So, is Apple’s stepped up concierge program Service as Service or Marketing as Service? Well, drum roll please, its actually a progression from one to the other. The notion of Service as Service is that every company should aim for a high degree of customer satisfaction when & where service is required. This means answering 800#’s quickly, fielding questions competently and aiming for “first visit resolution” nine out of ten times. Apple’s Genius Bar is a pristine example of Service as Service. When the service goes above and beyond the industry norms and extends outside the store to become a truly branded experience then we’re talking Marketing as Service. In his article, Blackshaw identifies this outbound effort:

In the case of the “service concierges,” they are not waiting for problems. They assume you arrive at the Apple Store looking specifically for something, and in most cases they are right. And even if serendipity is your cup of tea, they’ll help you navigate that experience as well. What’s important about this front line is not just the help these employees provide, but the halo of service they create. They are there if you need them, a reality that brings more confidence to the overall shopping experience.

With the Conceirge program in place, Apple is also smart to promote thier upgraded level of service to its faithful customers like yours truly (see email below that I received TODAY!). This is great example of how Marketing as Service and traditional messaging can dovetail–create the service and then push it out as “news customers can use.” With all of this, Apple and its customers win–happy customers begets great word of mouth, great word of mouth begets more new customers, better service means those customers remain customers and so forth. SO, while service can be marketing, it is important to remember that without good service you probably shouldn’t bother marketing.