The Marketing Fray

RIP: Wal-Mart's Casket Experience Offers Lessons in Social Media Monitoring

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:34:00 +0000

Social media research has it's pluses and minuses, as most marketers know. Wal-Mart's recent experiences as described in Ad Age's Craig Daitch's blog post, "Social Media Pranksters had fun with Wal-Mart's Caskets," gives a pretty good demonstration why marketers have to take care.

News quickly spread about Wal-Mart's new line of caskets offered on-line and apparently some budding comedy writers took it upon themselves to post fictitious product reviews that Wal-Mart has since taken down. But before the company did, news and comments about the new offering spread around the social web. Had Wal-Mart looked purely at reports or analysis without really taking a close look at the actual postings, the company might have concluded purchase interest was through the roof. Meanwhile, in reality a bunch of jokers were just having a good laugh.

Daitch makes a good point: "while you're fine-tuning the 'what, where, when and how' as you're eavesdropping on conversations around the social web, remember that while analysis can be assisted through technology, it's by no means a fully automated process."

You Can Teach an Old Dog New Tricks

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:19:00 +0000

Check out David Meerman Scott's post on how the Grateful Dead keep the love alive using digital tools for marketing purposes.

Maybe it'll be disappointing to a few folks to see these obvious commercial efforts, but hey, these guys gotta make a livin' too.

We're actually kind of impressed to see that they've figured out how to take advantage of technology in ways that benefit the band from a business and branding perspective, but are in keeping with what the band is all about.

Webcast: Boost Innovation ROI by Keeping the Marketing Plan on Track

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:48:00 +0000

Tune into Copernicus' Kevin Clancy as he tackles yet another common disrupter of new product/service success--the disintegrating marketing plan. His webcast, "Lifting the ROI of Innovation Efforts: Keep the Plan on Track," will take place on:

Tuesday, November 10, 2009
1:00-1:30 pm (Eastern Time)

Find registration information at http://www.copernicusmarketing.com/consult/webcasts.shtml

A Study Even Homer Simpson Would Enjoy

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:33:00 +0000

We enjoy an interesting side-by-side comparison of attitudes, behaviors, demographics, etc., as much as anyone, and Ad Age’s Beth Snyder Bulik’s write-up of a new study from Mindset Media is certainly a fun one.

Mindset, a firm specializing in psychographic research, interviewed more than 2,600 people online at the end of the summer, presumably about their preferred brand of beer, and looked for statistically significant differences on a variety of personality characteristics, attitudes, interests, and values.

“True to form,” reports Mindset, “Bud drinkers are sensible, grounded and practical.” If you tend to reach for a Bud, you probably don’t like authority and are an emotional rock, living in the here and now. But we bet you’d never guess that people who prefer Bud “can also be very spontaneous and tend not to do much advance planning.” They are 42% more likely to buy a truck as well as use breath-freshening strips every day. Good to know.

Highlights of other brand drinkers include:

Bud Light drinkers have “frat boy-like” personalities and “are generally accepting of most everyone and easy to get along with."
Michelob Ultra drinkers think pretty highly of themselves and are 34% more likely to buy life insurance.
Corona drinkers are extroverts who care deeply about others.
Heineken drinkers are “posers” who are 29% more likely to drive sports cars.
Blue Moonies are socially liberal, albeit a bit sarcastic.
And if you tend to chose a craft brew, you are intellectually curious but have a lower sense of responsibility…Oh, and you’re probably a fan of “The Office.”

Mindset also looked at people who don’t drink beer and found they don’t loosen up very much. They like to honor tradition and authority and conservative values. In fact, they’re 50% more likely to call themselves Republican. Talk about playing to a stereotype….

Anyway, we did think it bore mentioning that Mindset’s intended purpose with the study was to test the theory “that with so many opinions and brand loyalty around beer, the choice people make must be connected to personality.” It’s a theory worth testing, though we can’t tell from AdAge’s write up that the company actually proved or disproved it. From a marketing standpoint, it’s not clear to us that any of these personality characteristics are actually driving the decision to buy Bud, Bud Light, or Corona.

Really, is it all that surprising that there are differences in the personality traits of the groups? After all, these brands are targeted to different people with marketing messages that play on different product attributes and benefits. The evidence of differences between people who prefer Bud versus people who prefer Heineken, for instance, in and of itself doesn’t indicate what role, if any, personality plays when it comes to making a brand choice.

Our suggestion with this one is to just enjoy the results...and maybe poke fun of your friend that drinks Heineken.

MySpace Carves Out Its Space

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 22:14:00 +0000

The Wall Street Journal’s Emily Steel reports that social networking site MySpace has launched a new branding strategy in an attempt to “recover its cool.” Only a year ago MySpace was by leaps and bounds the most popular (by visits) social network, now direct competitor Facebook has taken over the top slot, increasing its number of monthly visits 194% compared to the same time a year ago vs. MySpace’s 55% decline.

According to Steel, “in a strategy shift, MySpace is striving to become an online hangout for people to connect with friends over entertainment content, whether it’s the new Pearl Jam album, blogs from celebrities like British pop singer Lily Allen, or a karaoke contest for the Fox musical comedy series ‘Glee.’”

Says the company’s chief product officer Jason Hirschhorn, “This is not an all-things-for-everybody portal. This is a social entertainment experience.”

He continues, “I’ve been in the Internet business for 15 years. There’s always the new, new thing. Everybody plateaus at some point. The ones that remain remain relevant with their user base.”

What do we think about this strategy decision?

Well, it seems to us that in the online world “remaining relevant to their user base” has often meant expanding the product offering—going the route of all things to all people—instead of narrowing it. MySpace’s decision is at the very least an interesting one from the standpoint that it’s the opposite the usual approach.

The selection of entertainment would seem to make some sense too. According to a recent Universal McCann study, 34% of social network users are sharing their opinions on music and 10% have promoted a band. And you can't get much cooler than blog posts from Lily Allen.

Still, we wonder….

Quoting the article again, like its rivals, MySpace will still need “to address broader, looming questions about the viability of social-networking sites as a place for advertising.” Will the focused content make for an easier sale to advertisers? Or does it make it even more challenging to make the business case—will fewer advertisers be interested, able, or any more clear on how to use MySpace to reach and motivate consumers?

Not to mention, as Steel’s piece points out, “As an entertainment site, MySpace would compete for ad dollars with a broader group of Web sites, including online video sites like Google’s YouTube and Hulu.” And it's not just ad dollars, ti's visitors, too. In other words, with this decision, MySpace will have to demonstrate not only why its social network makes for a better media spend vs. Facebook, but also why it’s better than other kinds of social media dedicated to entertainment to two different kinds of audiences (i.e., advertisers and consumers). Phew! It doesn't sound like that's any easier a task than the one they have now.

Entertainment content might increase the “cool” factor, sure. But if the goal is profitability, we’re having a hard time getting our arms around the notion that this strategy will definitively lead MySpace to it.

Lift the ROI of Innovation Efforts: Live Webcast TOMORROW

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 21:18:00 +0000

Join Copernicus' Kevin Clancy tomorrow as he tackles a key problem area that drags down the ROI of innovation efforts in a free 30-minute webcast.

Kevin will use real-world examples to illustrate how you can use the clever research tools widely available today to identify and configure high-return products, services, and marketing strategies BEFORE spending a dime in the real-world.

Attendees of the live broadcast will have the chance to ask Kevin questions about steps to take to improve the results of their own innovation efforts.

Register today: www.copernicusmarketing.com/consult/webcasts.shtml

Mommy Bloggers May Not Be Happy to Read This

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 16:34:00 +0000

A new survey of women with and without children may give some marketers pause when it comes to planning efforts to promote their brands to female audiences online.

According eMarketer's report on the "What Women Want Consumer Survey," done by the marketing firm Prospectiv, mommy bloggers may be all the rage, but "marketers may be overestimating their usefulness." Only 1% of the moms participating in the research "thought blogs were the most effective way to promote a brand, compared with 47% who favored product samples offered on line and 40% who preferred coupons."

Blogs didn't score big points with women without children either. Just 8% said blogs were the most effective way a brand can be promoted online, compared to 38% who liked product samples and 34% who voted for online coupons.

Every brand is different; what successfully reaches and moves target buyers to consider and purchase one brand may or may not work just as well for another. So while we wouldn't base a go/no-go decision as far as communications planning goes based on the results of this study, it does offer an important reminder that conventional wisdom is sometimes worth testing.

And You Thought Twitterers Just Talked About Themselves....

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 22:09:00 +0000

Came across an interesting segmentation of the universe of Twitter users, courtesy of the Wall Street Journal.

In a study of 350 randomly selected Twitter users that had at least 10 followers and had posted at least 10 messages, Rutgers professors Mor Namaan and Jeffrey Boase uncovered two distinct groups, "meformers"--about 80% of users--and informers--about 20%.

According to the professors, "meformers" describer "users whose tweets could frequently be categorized as 'me now'--what they were doing or how they were feeling." Pretty much what the conventional wisdom holds about the content of most Twitter messages.

Which is why Professor Boase found the existence of an informers so surprising: "A general perception is that Twitter is all about, 'I'm eating breakfast, I'm really tired, blah blah blah. There is this one really significant portion of users that are not just talking about themselves. Most of what they're doing is giving information to other people."

Now that's got to be music to marketers' ears.

Namman and Boase found other important characteristics of informers (cue music to marketers ears one more time):

Informers generally have more friends in their social networks
Informers tend to mention other users more often in their tweets
Informers post more often and reply to others more frequently
Informers seem to attract more followers

Men seem to be less likely to do a "me now" post than women and using a non-mobile application also seems to produce less of the "me" variety.

Our take-aways? Well, clearly there's a potentially good group of folks to tap into in terms of disseminating information...Maybe. It'd be interesting to know what kind of information the "informers" share, specifically, do they talk about experiences or share news about brands, products, and services? Are these folks opinion leaders as far as brands are concerned? Are there particular industries where they are particularly relevant?

Most importantly though, there needs to be some context put around how MANY people we are talking about. Informers are 20% of what sized population? We've seen some studies that say that less than 1% of folks online use Twitter on a regular basis...so 20% of 1% of the online population?

There's a ways to go with this yet, but still an interesting step in the right direction in terms of establishing the credibility of social media as a communications vehicle.

Starbucks Still Stuck at the Intersection?

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 21:22:00 +0000

“Starbucks takes new road with instant coffee,” reports Julie Jargon in the Wall Street Journal, and early reaction from folks in the marketing world appears pretty mixed.

Some, like Laura Ries on Ries’ Pieces, say “Starbucks is shooting itself in the cup,” by introducing an instant—oh the horrors!—brand of coffee, Via Ready Brew. But Starbucks' indefatigable CEO Howard Schultz points to the $17+ billion instant-coffee global coffee market, of which Americans currently represent an infinitesimal minority.

According to Emily Bryson York in Ad Age, Schultz believes that Via “has given us [Starbucks] an opportunity to recognize we’ve got a very big category without a lot of innovation.” Apparently the instant-coffee market has not seen too much in the way of innovation for several decades.

Schultz maintains that “people have so much trust in our brand and the coffee delivers, we have something I think that people want to hear about.” And to make sure people do, the company which doesn’t do TV ads invested in TV ads and a nationwide taste challenge in stores to see if folks can tell the difference between fresh ground and instant.

“It’s a brilliant idea for a new gourmet instant coffee to set-up a blind taste test against the world leader in high-end coffee. Especially if the instant coffee wins the taste test,” starts Laura Ries in her post. “It’s an insane idea for the world’s leading gourmet coffee chain to set-up a blind taste test in its own stores that it hopes it will lose. Losing a taste test devalues the loser as much as it praises the winner.”

Conventional wisdom holds that most folks think of instant coffee as an indignity to endure to while doing something like waiting to get your tires rotated at the gas station. It’s not good stuff. “Instant coffee is practically the antithesis of everything Starbucks stands for,” writes Kate Klonick on SmartMoney. And to Laura’s point, if folks say instant Via tastes the same as Starbucks’ freshly ground in these nationwide taste challenges, it wouldn’t seem to do Starbucks—already facing stiff competition from McDonald’s, the Average Joe of gourmet coffee—any favors.

Yet our big beef isn’t so much with the notion of entering the instant coffee market with some sort of “gourmet” variety. To Schultz’s point, it is a $17+ billion market globally, even if folks in the U.S. don’t care for it right now. Remember, we didn’t jump up and down for European-style coffee houses all that much either until Starbucks came along. If Schultz’s goal is to be all things coffee in the U.S.—we don’t know if it is or not, but we suppose it could be—tapping into instant makes some sense. Plus there could be some big opportunities with it globally where instant represents about 80% of coffee sales.

We aren’t concerned about the cannibalization of sales in this situation either. We suspect many Starbucks loyalists had dropped a visit or two to the stores during the week because of the recession, so buy into Schultz’s argument a cheaper but just as tasty option in Via could help recapture some lost usage occasions. Distribution in places like REI for all those campers who say, “If only there were a Starbucks around here” while hiking the Grand Tetons might buy boxes of Via for their next outdoor trip also seems a clever way to make sure that when and where's there's a need, Starbucks can be there.

We do have to wonder about the timing of Via’s launch. Via represents an entire new category of focus—it’s a packaged good that needs many points of distribution in order to significantly contribute to the bottomline. It’s a category dominated by worldwide CPG giants including Nestlé and P&G with massive advertising budgets and plenty of shelf space at grocery stores. Starbucks, according to Schultz, is still working on the grocery stores. No matter how great the product may be, it’s going to be an uphill battle to keep the product front and center and generate big sales returns on the investment.

And at a time when the stores need some real help! The taste challenges may generate some foot traffic, just like any in-store event could. But then what? Maybe we’re just missing the connection, we’d just love to hear more from Schultz on how Via and spending money advertising Via helps the stores.

It’s way too soon to say whether Via as a new product will be successful or not. But as a means to get the stores back on track—we’re pretty skeptical about its potential.

Facebook's Getting Serious

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:54:00 +0000

Fresh on the heels of it surprise profitability announcement, social networking juggernaut Facebook announced a deal with Nielsen to help advertisers gauge how their ads perform on the website. According to Jessica Vascellaro of the Wall Street Journal, “under the partnership, Facebook will begin polling its users about some of the display ads it runs on its site, such as a banner promoting a movie releases.”

“While Facebook, which is expected to generate more than $500 million in revenue in 2009, is still small compared with Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc., the social network is rapidly expanding its share of the display ads that are viewed by Web users,” reports the WSJ. Advertisers say they spend more than $1 million on campaigns on Facebook, and the number of advertisers using it have tripled in the past year.

From our standpoint, it’s good to see Facebook at least recognizes that if it wants to keep growing, it’s going to need something solid to substantiate the claim that the money is well spent. Particularly when the ad is for display only and not meant to be clicked on.

But let’s just remember why marketers moved over to new media to begin with: they had a sense that old, traditional media such as TV and print weren’t all that effective anymore. At the end of the year, they’d tally up what they spent on TV, print, radio, etc., and wonder, if the tracking research told them 57% of people were aware of the campaign but our sales are flat, what are we getting for what we are spending? Why is the advertising not contributing to sales?

The prevailing conventional wisdom was that you’re not getting much and the “why” is the media channel—there’s just something about traditional media as communication vehicles that’s bringing the campaign down.

Now the communications channel may have changed, but the same questions are still out there—what are we getting for what we are spending?

Which has us wondering how deep Facebook goes with the Nielsen polling questions. It would be interesting to know if Nielsen just asks about awareness of an ad or does it go further? How about awareness of the brand advertised in the ad? What about awareness of the brand’s message? And the impact—positive or negative—on feelings toward the brand? Measures of brand equity—perceptions of quality, value, superiority, etc? Purchase intentions and brand preference? Did they talk to somebody about the ad or tell a friend about the brand?

Facebook’s ultimate goal should be to not only quantify if and what impact an ad had, but also what is and isn’t working and, most importantly, why.

Copernicus Webcasts! Get 'Em While They're Hot!

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 21:18:00 +0000

We're starting up a series of webcasts on different marketing topics via BrightTALK. Check us out at http://www.copernicusmarketing.com/consult/webcasts.shtml.

While you're at it, you might also take a gander at the offerings via BrightTALK's Media and Marketing Channel--there are some useful-sounding webcasts to check out, particularly if you need some help building the effectiveness of your social media efforts.

Marketing Accountability Still a Work in Progress

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 20:44:00 +0000

The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and MMA have some new information out on how marketers are feeling about their ability to determine what they're getting for what they're spending and do something.

First off, the ANA/MMA Marketing Accountability Survey confirmed that indeed marketers have to do more with less:

75% of senior marketers said their budget decreased in 2009
67% said they were expected to drive more sales with the same or lower budget

Moving on to the accountability, less than half of marketers agreed that marketing and finance share common metrics, though, to be fair, the number went up quite a bit from 27% in 2008 to 38% in 2009. We’d like to hear from Finance’s perspective how much agreement there is. Our experience in the past was that marketers had a far more optimistic view than did finance.

Given that only 32% of marketers said their accountability teams included representation from marketing, finance, and research, and that only about 20% of senior management feels confident in marketing's forecasts we have to wonder.

Maybe You Should Like Your Ads

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 20:28:00 +0000

Hey, it isn’t exactly a secret that many—if not most—marketers aren’t thrilled with the performance of their advertising campaigns. As well all know, there are plenty of theories about why things aren't working—the economy, clutter, the decline of TV, changing audience habits, DVRs...the list goes on. Ad consultant Steve McKee adds his seven reasons “why your advertising may not be pulling its weight,” to this mighty pile in a piece for BusinessWeek.

His list: “It’s boring…It’s boorish…It’s safe…It’s trying to do too much…It hasn’t been given time…You like it…It’s not an advertising problem."

He makes some good points such as, “a common mistake many companies make is trying to use advertising to fix another problem.” He adds, “It’s not as if they do so intentionally; it’s just that it’s a whole lot easier to put a new coat of paint than it is to fix the foundation that’s causing the drywall to crack.” Very true. Tactics are very often the go-to answers when performance isn’t where it needs to be. But if the underlying strategy—which, at least in theory, the advertising is supposed to embody—is flawed, switching up the creative probably won’t help the situation.

We did differ a bit on his contention that if you like your advertising, it’s a sign of a problem. True, “you” are not “the best judge of your own advertising;” the buyers in the target group are. Do they remember anything about your ad? Are they more (or less) likely to buy your brand? Are they motivated to purchase by your ads? These questions could help you evaluate if you have a winner or loser. However, neither do we think you should summarily dismiss as unimportant a strong dislike for the ads you’re about to broadcast out to the world.

Now McKee points to Burger King as an example of why it shouldn’t matter if you like your ads. BKs advertising, he says, “over the past few years has been quite successful in appealing to the company’s core target audience of young men, but many Burger King franchisees could personally do without it. The smart ones recognize that they’re not the target and leave it alone.”

As it turns out, the franchisees may have been onto something. Many complained the advertising made no sense and might even be off-putting to some. McKee himself says "boorish" advertising does no favors for a brand. We’d like to see the back-up that the ads have "been quite successful in appealing to the company's core target." Did the ads change attitudes towards the brand? Did it impact their likelihood to purchase?

Incidentally, BK’s campaign has not grown its market share which fell to 14.2% from 15.6% from 2003 to 2008. McD’s sales have grown 6.4% compared to BK's 2.9%.

Our advice: if you don’t like your ads—whether you are in the target market or not—don’t take it as a harbinger of good things to come.

A Doozy of a Marketing Brain Teaser Courtesy of GM

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 20:54:00 +0000

GM has become a bit of a Rubik’s Cube, hasn’t it? At least we spend far too much time thinking about how to solve the puzzle of getting car buyers to consider offerings from the GM’s brand lines—Cadillac, Buick, Chevy, or GMC—particularly something besides a truck and in markets outside the Midwest. It sure seems like there must be a solution here—there have got to be enough folks that are not totally satisfied with the current offerings from other firms, foreign or domestic, that are at least open to looking at a GM.

There’s time pressure, sure—GM has got to start actually selling some cars, not just talking about how it’s going to. But there’s got to be a way to move folks towards the brand again. Doesn't there?

Now out comes recently installed chairman Ed Whitacre in a new ad with an interesting proposition. “Before I started this job, I admit I had some doubts, probably like many of you,” he says. “But I like what I found and you will too.” He goes on to offer a 60-day satisfaction guarantee and talks up the company’s extended warranty offer before issuing a big challenge: “Put us up against anyone and may the best car win.” Whoa, now that’s aggressive!

If we’ve got this right, the message is GM makes cars and trucks that are just as good as anyone but, hey we can’t blame you for thinking that maybe they’re not. Look, just try us out and in two months if the car really stinks, just bring it back for a refund. There’s just no risk here.

Now much of the conversation about this ad has focused on the creative. “Use a guy in his 60s who has been at the company for 15 minutes to tell the public that General Motors is back and relevant?” questions Brand New Day’s David Kiley. “Despite GM CMO Bob Lutz’s opinion that this was a great idea, the decision to use new GM chairman Ed Whitacre as a walking pitch-man is only about a half-step better than the decision to use an actor to portray the late GM design chief Harley Earle in Buick ads a few years ago.”

But we’re more interested in the offer itself. Specifically, is the 60-day no risk guarantee the missing piece in this puzzle? Is it enough to convince folks to consider and try the brand? Will seeing this ad make some in the market for a sedan think, hmm, well, I was just thinking about getting a Camry, but what about a Malibu? If it’s not as good, I can take it back!

We’re a bit skeptical.

Let’s just play this out. Camry has a pretty good reputation and no one’s worried Toyota might go under in the next 60 days. Malibu has some accolades, but fewer people to testify to its greatness. Sure, you could take it back if you didn’t like it in 60 days, but that’s kind of a hassle and leaves you right back where you started. Plus we’ve got to think there are at least some folks who might even wonder if GM would be around in 60 days.

Ed Whitacre doesn’t seem too worried car buyers won’t like it, but he works for the company, of course he’s going to say that.

Which leads us back to where we started with this brain teaser—can anything move folks towards the brand again? Bob Lutz talked a bit about the exceptional performance of the ad in the testing phase, but what work went into determining if the 60-day guarantee was going to have an impact?

A Pretty Narrow View of Brand Research

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:57:00 +0000

We stumbled upon Joseph Benson’s piece, “Market Research Versus Brand Research,” on brandchannel.com and found one of his contentions a bit cockamamie.

“There are many firms offering market research,” Joseph writes. “The research is typically quantitative, employing telephone, email and mail surveys.” All well and good, but then he goes on: “brand research is qualitative, employing one-on-one interviews with your most desirable customers and, when and where appropriate, using focus groups.”

Now our reading of this statement is that he’s saying this is the way brand research should go—that making key strategic decisions based on feedback from a handful of “desirable” customers is all right.

He writes a bit later in the piece, “if research is to have value, it must provide new knowledge and be actionable.” We’d ask him to consider how actionable the kind of qualitative research he describes is for national brands when their managers cannot project the findings onto the population of buyers in the market at large?

Letting Customers Help You Sharpen Your Brand

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:42:00 +0000

Branding consultant Gregory Pollack has a good thought in Chief Marketer: “In today's constantly fluctuating and changing economic climate, companies, brands, and businesses have a tremendous opportunity to stand up, take a leadership role in their industries and marketplace and clearly explain to customers ‘Why Buy Me.’ A transparent and clearly defined answer is what will breed success and long-term sustainability in the marketplace.”

We’d just take his recommendations about figuring out the strengths of the brand internally a step further. As he points out, customers, “want to know not only what they are getting, but why they should want or need it.” It would stand to reason then that you’ll have a much easier time making the case for “why they should want or need it,” if it’s a product/ service attribute—fast and friendly, for instance—or benefit–helps you lose weight, for example—that is meaningful, relevant, and compelling to them.

We’d suggest asking customers about what they are or aren’t getting from products and services in a category and what they see as the strengths and weaknesses of different brands in terms of different needs and basic requirements. The bigger positioning opportunities usually reside in the areas where a brand already has a leadership position in the minds of customers OR where customers express a great need but no brand currently offers a satisfactory solution.

Consider the options against the internal list—what the company can do well and profitably. Writes Gregory, “as we all know, a ‘brand’ by definition is a promise that you can trust.” You want your customers to trust that your brand will deliver what you say it will, you need to pick a positioning that’s actually feasible for the company to deliver on.

Getting Close to the CFO

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 22:24:00 +0000

The good news from the recent Brand New Day/CMO Council poll is that marketers have made some in-roads cozying up to c-suite execs like the CEO and head of sales.

They just may need to spread their attentions a bit more widely if they'd like to increase their job security.

Here's how the numbers fell when asked which of the senior management folks they felt closest to:

67% CEO/President
23% Head of Sales
6% COO
4% CFO
0% CIO

Note the 4% to the CFO. Commented Brand New Day's David Kiley, "One of the reasons CMO [tenure] is so short is that C-suite execs don’t see the return-on-investment of the CMO’s activities. Stands to reason that if CMOs were better at creating allies with the CFO and finance staff, tenures might be longer."

The other good news? You can find some ideas for getting closer to the finance guys in our marketingprofs piece....

5 Habits of Highly Effective Pharmaceutical Marketers

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 14:43:00 +0000

While it's easy for a pharmaceutical marketer to say, "let's launch a physician or direct-to-consumer campaign that drives sales," it's much more difficult to actually do.

For truly exceptional ROI performance, we suggest following the five essential habits of highly-effective pharmaceutical marketers:

Habit #1: Make an impact.
A wide variety of factors--from the characteristics of a patient to a physician's perception of treatment alternatives and more--impact therapy decisions. By understanding the relative influence of different factors, you can identify the marketing initiatives that will drive sales the most.

Habit #2: Accept that you don't have all the answers.
Rather than take a guess at which group of physicians or patients represent the biggest profit potential for a brand, test a variety of characteristics against clever measures of profitability to determine which groups represent that best investment opportunity for your marketing dollars.

Habit #3: Stand for something meaningful.
Look for positioning opportunities that play to the target's needs, wants, and aspirations to which no brand currently offers a satisfactory solution.

Habit #4: Go beyond the norm.
Investigate many different campaign options and pick the executions that perform significantly better than historical norms in testing databases.

Reduce risk.
Take advantage of modeling technology to find the right mix of communications before spending a dime in the real-world.

For more on the five habits of highly effective pharmaceutical marketers, visit http://www.prweb.com/releases/2009/09/prweb2813334.htm.

Starbucks Off on a Tangent?

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 20:45:00 +0000

“Don’t just sit there, innovate your way out of the downturn,” extols a recent headline in a piece by AdAge’s venerable publisher, Rance Crain. “The way out of the recession is not to wait for an uptick. The way out is to create our own uptick.” Starbucks at least is taking his advice and has announced plans to open a new concept restaurant called 15th Ave. Coffee & Tea.

As David Kiley recounts on Businessweek’s Brand New Day, 15th Ave. “is an attempt by SBUX to create an upscale venue that serves beer and wine, coffee made from a hand-pressed espresso machine, poetry readings, etc.” The first one will open in Seattle and will go national if it proves successful.

We’re a bit confused by the announcement given that not that long ago, the firm announced it was cutting out peripheral businesses like music to concentrate on reinvigorating its coffee shop business. With the competition coming at it left and right, it seemed like a wise move to get focused. It’s hard to tell how much of a distraction 15th Ave. might represent–-it’s just one location after all and they will serve coffee.

It’s also hard to tell how much of an opportunity the new concept might be tapping into. Businessweek’s informal poll of CMO Club members on the merits of the idea came back with a little under 40% in support of Starbucks decision, and we feel a bit lukewarm about it as well.

In our experience, the big breakthrough new concepts come from identifying a need among target customers for which no one offers an adequate solution. Opening a bar with coffee and culture doesn’t scream “blue ocean” to us, but we don’t know the local drinking and entertainments needs and gaps in greater Seattle.

But really, what we’d like to see from Starbucks is some evidence it is buckling down and working on a marketing strategy for its coffee shops.

Show Your CFO You Care

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:48:00 +0000

Have a financial chief in your life? Wouldn't it be nice if you could give them ROI numbers that show you--a marketing person, no less--really care about what's important and meaningful to them?

Check out our piece on MarketingProfs, "Jump-Start Marketing Accountability: Three Ideas for Giving CFOs and CMOs Something Better in Common."

Kotler on Marketing in Turbulent Times

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 19:27:00 +0000

Phil Kotler, the dean of American marketing professors, has a new book out, Chaotics: The Business of Managing and Marketing in the Age of Turbulence, and is making the rounds to promote it with articles and interviews.

We came across Marshall Goldsmith's piece for Businessweek, "Marketing in the Age if Turbulence," featuring excerpts from his conversation with Phil on "marketing strategically instead of blindly."

Albeit realtive brief, the piece has a few good quotable Kotler nuggets.

Don’t Stop Believin’….But GM Is Making It Hard

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 21:21:00 +0000

We may be in the minority, but we are still holding out hope that beleaguered GM can turn itself around and make money sometime within the next decade. But that dwindling minority that we’re apart of seems to get smaller every day with articles like Abbey Klaasen’s piece in AdAge largely poo-pooing recent viral efforts to drum up more excitement about the Chevy Volt, “Why GM’s ‘What Is 230’ Buzz Wasn’t Enough.”

According to Klaassen, “the push was flawed because it was ill-timed, targeted a group that is not likely to be the core Volt buyer and—most of all—didn’t offer enough clues to engage people.”

GM’s CEO Fritz Henderson reportedly explained, “we need to relate to people between 16 and 30. They communicate differently and we need to make sure we plug into that. It’s going to change advertising and it’s going to change marketing and, over time, how we sell cars.” Never mind that the car costs $40K and likely outside the price range of the average 16 to 30 year-old, a good point by Klaassen.

We’re a bit stuck on Henderson’s premise—that “they communicate differently.” Sure, the younger set uses an ever broadening digital array of communications channels that could be an opportunity to reach them. But at the end of the day, they still want to know why they should buy one brand and not another, right? The basic reason-to-buy need doesn’t change.

GM might have kept that in mind as it put together the “What is 230” campaign, which from Klaassen’s piece, sounds mysterious to the point of being frustrating. “The campaign was reminiscent of one that ran last January: PepsiCo’s 'What is G?' teaser for Gatorade’s rebranding, an effort that also stymied the general public and hasn’t exactly worked out well for the brand.”

The car won’t even be available until 2011. GM needs sales NOW. GM hasn’t advertised it’s well-received Malibu in over a year, according to AdAge, why not put some money behind a mid-sized car people can actually buy NOW? Unless the campaign was to get folks to start saving to buy a Volt in two years, it’s hard for us to get our arms around some reasons for plugging a car that GM admits IT CAN’T MAKE MONEY ON more than it already has.

We won’t stop believin’ yet, but GM sure is making it hard.

All Data Is Not Create Equal

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:54:00 +0000

Paul Barsch fights the good fight for making more data-driven decisions in marketing in his post on MarketingProf’s Daily Fix, “The Moneyball-ization of Marketing.”

“Marketing is in the throes of an analytical revolution,” he writes. “Specifically, practitioners of marketing know they need fresh and accurate data for advanced marketing functions such as better segmentation, devising more effective campaigns and offers, and creating relevant interactions with the customer across multiple touch points.” He also emphasized that marketers are starting to realize that they need to be able to “translate data into actionable information that can be used to create better customer experiences.”

In our experience, it’s not so much a “marketing is all art, who needs numbers?” mentality that gets in the way of data-driven decision making. In fact, there’re a whole lot of marketers out there that know if they can get data that's good and relevant to the decision at hand, they're more likely to make a decision that will lead to a bigger bump in marketing performance, revenues, and profits than they otherwise might have gotten if left to their own devices.

It’s getting the "good" and "relevant" data that's been or can be translated into actionable information that plugs up the works. If marketers can't figure out how to use the information they’ve been handed in a research report, it’s very likely because it doesn't relate to different marketing decisions.

Paul warns that “the window of opportunity got marketers to adopt business analytics—before their competitors—is rapidly closing.” If that’s indeed the case, our advice to marketers is to seriously concentrate on communicating to researchers what they need, why they need it, and if it doesn’t have some sort of financial- or managerial- grounding to it, they can’t use it.

Hot Off the Presses: Summer Edition of Copernicus Mzine

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 17:36:00 +0000

How do you solve a problem like GM—is all hope for the company lost? Does "cool" advertising propel your brand to the top of the heap? Can you rely on consumer data gathered from social media to make big marketing decisions?

These burning questions answered—and more!—in the Summer 2009 edition of The Copernicus Mzine.

Read all about it: http://www.copernicusmarketing.com/about/mzine/monthlyeds/summer09.html

Encouraging Customers to Max Out Their Credit Cards—An Objective We Can All Be Proud Of

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 19:47:00 +0000

In a column for the CMO Strategy section of AdAge.com, marketing professor Ronald Stampfl maintains that now is not the time to cut marketing budgets because we’ve got a great big demand problem on our hands.

“The problems stemming from the big recession of 2009 should remind executives that cost-driven solutions do not solve demand-driven problems,” Stampfl writes. And “when demand-driven problems become evident, marketing budgets need to be maintained or increased.”

While “cost cutting is a worthy goal when it comes to business operating expenses,” he says, “cutting the marketing/advertising budget frequently hurts an organization’s ability to finance research and development of new products and create or stimulate demand for all products in future fiscal periods.”

On this one, we have some mixed feelings.

We’re certainly opposed to willy-nilly cutting marketing programs to save a few bucks, but we’re not big fans of willy-nilly increasing marketing spending in the hopes of driving up sales either.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, whether or not a company will see any bottom-line benefit from marketing programs in the short- or long-run depends on a whole lot more than the size of the increase or decrease to the budget. The strategy driving the tactical and budget allocation decisions plays a much bigger role in the ultimate success of marketing programs in driving revenues.

If most marketing programs yield a negative to barely positive ROI, of which there’s plenty of evidence is what's actually happening out there, why is that? Is it that the company just didn’t spend enough money to generate the revenue? It certainly could be. But it could also be that the company chose the wrong target to go after—super heavy users anyone?—the wrong positioning message, the wrong product configuration, the wrong advertising execution, the wrong media, or some combination of all of those things. Throwing more money at a marketing program with the wrong target, etc., isn’t going to make it any more effective at drumming up sales.

We also had some mixed feelings about the way Stampfl suggests pumping up demand. Yes, a company does need to get folks buying its products and services. Yes, we’re certainly opposed to a company relying only on costs cuts and shrinking its way to a plus sign in the profit growth column. But we’re not big fans of giving away the store, hurting brand equity, and/or jeopardizing the lifetime value of customers in order to increase sales either.

Which brings us to his suggestion that “American consumers have one or more credit cards that are not maxed out” so why not jump on that? Up the credit limits on the store accounts you manage if you're a retailer. Why with “effective marketing,” marketers can get customers to take on MORE debt than they already have. Reap the benefits of higher sales AND incremental revenue from high interest payments. What a coup!

Or how about the promotion he highlights of buy-one-suit-get-two-free at Jos. A. Bank? “This drives volume in a manner that a half-price single suit cannot,” he promises. But at what cost? What does it do to consumer perceptions about the quality of its suits? How about store profitability? Can Jos. A. Banks really be driving enough volume that the sale of one suit would more than make up for giving away two?

Is spending more on these kind of tactics really going to help a company build and maintain demand without causing damage to something—the brand, customer relationships, profitability—at the same time?

There’s a sustainable, profitable, and—we do hate to sound soap-boxy but the credit limit suggestion just sounded kind of icky, especially with Don Shultz’s Marketing Management piece still ringing in our ears—ethically responsible “demand." Then there’s sales-at-any-cost “demand.” The latter “hurts an organization’s ability to finance research and development of new products and create or stimulate demand for all products in future fiscal periods” as much as, if not more so, than cutting the marketing budget does.