The Marketing Fray

10 Critical Components of a Marketing Audit

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 20:09:00 +0000

The marketing audit is to the marketing department what a financial audit is to the accounting department.

A comprehensive review of a company's marketing environment, objectives, strategies, and activities compared to world class standards, the marketing audit identifies operational strengths and weaknesses and recommends changes to the company's marketing plans and programs.

Here are 10 of 25 key dimensions a marketing audit should assess:

1.Key factors that impacted the business for good or for bad during the past year.

Including an evaluation of marketing "surprises"—the unanticipated competitive actions or changes in the marketing climate that affected the performance of the marketing programs.

2.The extent to which each decision in the marketing plan—e.g. targeting, positioning, pricing, advertising, etc.—was made after evaluating many alternatives in terms of profit-related criteria.

3.Marketing knowledge, attitudes, and satisfaction of all executives involved in the marketing function.

4.The extent to which the marketing program was marketed internally and bought into by top management and non-marketing executives.

5.Customer, distributor, vendor, and intermediary satisfaction based on research among key target groups.

6.The performance of advertising, promotion, sales force, and marketing research programs in terms of ROI.

7.The performance of non-traditional programs, particularly digital offerings, in terms of ROI.

8.Whether the marketing plan achieved its stated financial and non-financial goals and objectives.

9.Which aspects of the plan that failed to meet objectives with specific recommendations for improving next year's performance.

10.The current value of brand and customer equity for each brand in the product portfolio.

10 Brands That Might Not Find Out If The Mayan Prophecy Turns Out to Be True

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 20:28:00 +0000

We came across 24/7 Wall Street's predictions for the 1o brands most unlikely to make it to the end of 2011 a couple weeks ago. Some of the picks didn't surprise us.

A&W Restaurants, for example, has been shrinking slowly but surely for a long time now. Likewise, MySpace has been goofing around with one ill-conceived marketing strategy after another. One of it's more recent decisions to go after young people looking to talk about movies and entertainment seemed more likely to suffocate than rescusciate the firm.

Others though, like Kellogg's Corn Pops and SAAB cars were a bit more confounding.

Mostly though, the list got us thinking about the concept of brand equity, particularly how to build and sustain it. In other words, how to best avoid making 24/7 Wall Street's brand deathwatch.

Though most marketers are unsure how to measure it—there is no universally agreed upon measure—most recognize that a brand’s equity is comprised of different components.

We've actually identified seven:

Brand Permeation: a weighted combination of brand and advertising awareness and availability (i.e., distribution).

Brand Distinctiveness: a weighted combination of measures that indicate brand differentiation, uniqueness, and superiority.

Brand Quality: An overall assessment of the brand as a whole and its line extensions in terms of its overall reputation for quality of product or service.

Brand Value: A weighted combination of measures that reflect the extent to which the brand delivers what buyers pay for—often known as “price-value.”

Brand Personality: The extent to which the brand’s image is congruent with who the buyer is or wants to be.

Brand Potential: The extent to which consumers will pay more for, go out of their way for, or are willing to try this brand’s new products, services, or line extensions.

Competitive Inoculation: The extent to which the consumer would stick with the brand in times of adversity or competitiveness.

For more on this topic and suggestions for going about understanding each component’s contribution to overall equity, download our free white paper, "Build a Great Brand While Your Competitors Commoditize."

What's Happening at Copernicus This Week?

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 14:22:00 +0000

The next installment of the Copernicus Marketing webcast series:

Tuesday, June 28, 1 pm (EDT)

Kevin Clancy
Chairman, Copernicus
Digital Insights that Drive Strategies

Register now

But wait! There's more!

Copernicus' Jeff Maloy will give describe a process for building a brand strategy that's impactful and highly executable as part of Brand ManageCamp's webcast series.

Wednesday, June 29, 1 pm (EDT)

Jeff Maloy
Senior Vice President, Copernicus
Branding 2.0

Register now

Top 10 Marketing Myths about Pricing Strategy

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 23:10:00 +0000

We've heard some dooseys when it comes to conventional wisdom and commonly-held, though erronous, beliefs about pricing strategy. We've narrowed down the list to our top 10.

Most firms have a serious pricing strategy based on businesslike pricing research.

Price is the consumer’s “bottom line”; during a recession, price becomes the most important consideration.

A company has to accept the market price; nothing it can do will influence prices; it is the victim of its competitors’ pricing.

Price sensitivity is a function of the customer’s personality. Some are willing to spend, others tight fisted.

You must match price in a competitive market.

Cost-plus pricing is a sensible means of establishing product prices at profitable levels.

Pricing is one of those factors a company cannot test beforehand. You have to pick a price and live with it.

It’s not necessary for marketing directors to know manufacturing and/or servicing costs; their job is to create successful marketing programs.

If sales are not what they should be, the best thing to do is reduce prices.

Price is the only compelling way for a company to differentiate its products and services.

Interview With An Expert: Rolf Olsen on Social Media Listening, Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 03:14:00 +0000

Welcome to part 2 of our interview with Rolf Olsen, Marketing Sciences Director at Carat North America. If you haven't read it yet, be sure to read part 1!

We had a few more questions for him about social media listening and here's what he had to say:

Marketing Fray: Do you find its mostly bigger companies and brands doing social media listening?

Rolf: It probably is but I don’t believe it should be solely for the “big boys”. Smaller companies are often more agile and can react better to consumer feedback across all social tracking spectrums. Small companies who adopt a more socially focused development strategy are essentially tapping directly into the consumer. As Charlie Sheen would say = winning.

Marketing Fray: What would your definition of a “productive social listening” program be?

Rolf: Accept that it could influence all part of your business and embrace it. Seeing the results of an integrated social strategy will create advocates who sing your praises. Think of it as an unpaid work force, driven by passion for your product.

AND, one that does not just cost you money by just drinking the kool-aid sold by listening companies…

Marketing Fray: If you had the ear of every CMO in the world for five minutes, what would you say to them about developing a social listening program?

Rolf: Think about what your company stands for and then see what people actually say… it can be eye-opening.

Remember, the social “channel” is not an extension of your traditional marketing machine, this is your opportunity to make a personal connection and hear what your consumers actually want, beyond what your normal market research tells you.

Interview With An Expert: Rolf Olsen on Social Media Listening, Part I

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 14:30:00 +0000

Social conversation may offer marketers a constant stream of real-time data on trends, unmet customer needs, and campaign and new product performance, but there’s a whole host of questions that marketers still have to answer when it comes to using and applying information gathered via social listening to marketing decisions.

How do you separate the truly valuable information from the rest of the chatter?

How do you integrate the data gathered from social media sources with traditional marketing research?

How do you figure out the best ways to apply the insights?

To get some answers, we sat down with Rolf Olsen, Marketing Sciences Director at our sister firm Carat North America, a market-leader in digital solutions. As a follow-up to the webcast he gave for us a few weeks ago, "Key Questions to Ask and Answer About Social Media Listening," we asked him for more of his front-line experiences and observations of how companies approach social listening.

Because we covered a good amount of ground in our conversation with Rolf, we decided to break the interview into two parts.

Here's part 1 of what he had to say:

Marketing Fray: What are the right questions to ask when you are doing an audit to determine if you should be doing more social listening?

Rolf: It’s a really good question. First and foremost, I think it’s understanding three things:

1. The volume of conversation that’s going on
2. The make-up of the sites where the conversation is happening
3. What is the general tonality of that information

I think that once you really get through those things, you’ll have more of a sense of how important it [social listening] is to your business.

Typically, what you find is you have some sort of PR incident and that will pop up, but it [high conversation volume] might not be an on-going thing. So volume is a big determinant.

Also thinking about whether you should into the area of social media. Is it an area that might really compliment what you do as a business and how can social then be integrated with other communications?

I really think using social for customer service is an area that most companies should have a look at. I think it does offer an opportunity to deal with greeting consumers in a publicly positive way.

Marketing Fray: Social listening seems like it would offer much more in the way of insight to consumer companies. How could a B2B firm use or benefit from social listening?

Rolf: Social for B2B is clearly a different beast, mainly because most companies are not really willing to talk openly to each other in the same way as consumers and probably don’t air complaints or praise in open forums.

That being said, I think there are some instances where social activity in this sector can be beneficial.

Social media offers a way of creating a dialogue with potential and existing clients that’s less pressurized than traditional communications channels. It gives B2B companies an opportunity carry on conversation and gather insights in an environment which is not driven by a sales team.

Marketing Fray: Have you come across some good example of how companies are integrating data coming from social media with more traditional sources? Are there some trends you seem emerging the way the integration seems to be happening?

Rolf: It’s quite rare in fairness. You often see the development of standard stand-alone social teams who just live and breathe social for that business and only report as such.

Some companies have integrated it as part of their PR team and there will be some level of integration with the traditional PR metrics.

Beyond that I still see companies struggling to integrate digital with traditional media, with social data just adding an additional layer of metrics--or as I like to call it, confusion.

Ultimately, they are all different metrics with different key performance indicators associated with them. Companies could really win this battle by just applying relevant metrics to each channel instead of trying to unify metrics for ease of interpretation.

Marketing Fray: How are you finding companies are integrating information from social listening into the “bigger picture” in general.

Rolf: My favorite example of a company firmly putting social insights into the heart of their business is Starbucks and their “my Starbucks” rewards initiative.

As a business, Starbucks spent millions of dollars every year on new product development and customer relationship management initiatives.

Some bright spark who works in or on their business came up with a brilliant strategy to use their most valued assets--customers--to help decide what they should do in terms of new product development and customer relationship management. As a result, Starbucks was able to slash millions from their new product development budget and grew a more loyal customer base as consumers came up with, and voted for the best ideas.

Involving customers in your business like this is just brilliant and the value spans across multiple areas.

Check in tomorrow for Part II of our interview.

What's Happening at Copernicus this Week?

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 15:26:00 +0000

The American Marketing Association (AMA) has just invited our chairman Kevin Clancy to give a talk at the organization's upcoming virtual conference, Driving Research Transformation, on June 23 at 11 am EDT.

The 2011 virtual conference will pack the same punch as last year's event, which, according to the AMA, broke industry records when it brought together more than 1,500 marketers and researchers from around the globe.

Attendees will get, "an online learning experience focused on strategies and applicable how-to’s on marketing research that will provide attendees with the insights and tools they need to take charge of their future."

Kevin's talk, "Four Ways to Determine the Impact of Marketing Investments in 30 Days or Less," will describe how marketers can use four widely-available tools including social listening and assessments of campaign penetration to get insights into marketing campaign or new product performance within 30 days post-launch.

Registration is free! Learn more at: www.marketingpower.com/Calendar/Pages/Virtual_XChange_Driving_Research_Transformation.aspx

McDonald's McMakeover: Our Pick for Marketing Head Scratcher of the Month

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 20:56:00 +0000

When we read about McDonald’s plans to do a “McMake-over” of its restaurants a couple weeks ago, we couldn’t help but scratch our heads.

For starters, the design the company has chosen to roll out requires an investment of upwards of $1 billion to change-out of plastic tables and red mansard roofs with Wi-Fi, plasma TVs, and bar stools around the McCafé.

As reported in the USAToday, “For the next generation of McDonald's customers, the notion of what a McDonald's restaurant looks like inside and out could be turned on its head. Goodbye, fiberglass tables and industrial steel chairs. Adios, neon-yellow, bright-red interiors. Hello, wooden tables, comfortable faux leather chairs and interiors newly painted in muted oranges, yellows and even subtle greens.”

Even the iconic Golden Arches—one of the most recognized logos on the entire planet—supposedly gets toned down in the new design.

According to Robert Passikoff of Brand Keys, the physical look of a restaurant is the fourth most-important part of a consumer's decision-making process when deciding where to go to eat. If this is true, we certainly wouldn’t say it’s an attribute to be ignored. At the same time, we’re not sure a company will see the biggest return on the investment of $1 billion in the fourth most-important part of the decision-making process, particularly when “physical look” probably encompasses many thinsg aside from design aesthetics, such as accessibility of the parking lot and cleanliness of the exterior grounds and interior restaurant.

No, most of McDonald’s burger chain rivals—Burger King and Wendy’s—aren’t currently taking design direction from Starbucks and Panera Bread the way McDonald’s seems to be. We suppose it’s a more distinctive, upscale look amongst the competitive set, which we think is what McDonald’s is trying to communicate—that the Golden Arches is moving upscale.

The real question is—particularly given the $1 billion price tag—how does it do when it comes to motivating diners to frequent the restaurant more often and/or spend more?

David Palmer, an industry analyst for UBS, believes that "McDonald's will have a much better chance of luring the most profitable customer (who orders pricey Angus Burgers instead of Big Macs) while retaining the entry-level visitor," claims UBS industry analyst Palmer says.

We wonder though, are the most profitable customers really the ones who order the pricey Angus Burger? Are the Angus Burgers even the most profitable menu items? Regardless, is a Starbuckian décor really going to tip the scales in the decision-making process substantially more than the previous design? More than any other design option that the chain considered?

The McDonald’s version of earth tones and highfalutin’ coffeehaus may not be everyone’s thing either.

The USAToday pondered, “With this change, McDonald's risks looking so different from the McDonald's most Americans have grown up with that a key part of its customer base — namely, families with young kids — could feel less welcome.”

"Flashy decor may not sit well with Middle America," added Scott Hume, editor of the restaurant industry blog BurgerBusiness.

As one franchisee pointed out, the new design does little to build on the brand equity McDonald’s already has.

Jim Carras, the man in charge of McDonald’s restaurant development efforts in the U.S., told the USAToday that the new overall redesign "allows us to broaden our menu. Customer experience can match menu variety." We just can’t help but scratch our heads that spending a $1 billion to make restaurants look like a knock-off of Panera was the best, most profitable way to go about doing that.

What's Happening at Copernicus this Week?

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Tue, 31 May 2011 21:50:00 +0000

We're pleased to announce that the American Marketing Association has selected our chairman Kevin Clancy to speak at the newly title Research and Strategy Summit on September 11-14, at the Hilton Bonnet Creek, Orlando, FL. His topic: Common Research Approaches That Are Killing American Business.

For more on the conference, visit: http://www.marketingpower.com/Calendar/Pages/ResearchandStrategySummit.aspx

Also coming this week, our pick for most baffling marketing decision of the month.

What's Happening at Copernicus This Week?

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Mon, 23 May 2011 13:42:00 +0000

The next installment of our continuing marketing webcast series featuring special guest, Rolf Olsen, Marketing Sciences Director, Carat US.

"I'm Listening": Key Questions to Ask and Answer About Social Media Listening

Wednesday, May 25, 2011
1 pm - 1:30 pm (EDT)

Get front-line perspectives on:

The importance of establishing a formal social listening program

Taking a balanced approach to filtering the data coming from social sources

Best practices for selecting a listening partner

To register, visit http://www.copernicusmarketing.com/consult/webcasts.shtml

New Webcast: Key Questions to Ask and Answer About Social Media Listening

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Wed, 18 May 2011 19:15:00 +0000

If building a highly productive social media listening program at your firm or for your brand is on your to-do list, don't miss the next Coperncius Marketing Webcast!

Join special guest Rolf Olsen, marketing sciences director at communications planning powerhouse Carat, on Wednesday, May 25, at 1 PM (EDT), for a list of key questions you need to ask and answer to ensure your listening efforts yield insights that lead to more effective marketing decisions.

Most marketers agree that social media listening can provide important real-time insights about trends, unmet needs, and campaign and new product performance. Of course, separating the truly valuable information from the rest of the chatter is a daunting task.

Rolf has over a decade of experience in the data and insight industry and built the social listening capabilities of Carat's parent company Aegis from the ground up. Drawing from client- and agency-side work, he will give his front-line perspective on:

•The importance of establishing a formal social listening program
•Taking a balanced approach to filtering the data coming from social sources
•Best practices for selecting a listening partner

Throughout his talk, he will weave in examples and case studies to further illustrate how other brands have approached gathering data and applying insights gathered from listening efforts.

Register now at www.copernicusmarketing.com/consult/webcasts.shtml

3 Common Reasons a Marketing Strategy Fails to Achieve Objectives

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Wed, 11 May 2011 19:07:00 +0000

Where did our marketing strategy go wrong? It’s an unpleasant question many marketers have to ask themselves at some point in their careers when a plan doesn’t hit objectives.

The answer we usually hear is, "The product just wasn't very good." More recently, "it was bad timing with the economy." Another popular response, "the competition stepped-up their game and the market climate took a turn for the worse."

Based on post-mortem evaluations of 20+ years of B2B and B2C marketing strategies, we have some different answers for why marketing strategies don't meet objectives. Here are three common, but overlooked issues that derailed performance:

1.Muddled targeting. The targeting decision—on whom to focus marketing efforts—may sound like the most basic of all the decisions a marketer has to make, but it has a profound impact on the ultimate performance of a marketing strategy. Disappointing strategies often have a benign target, such as everyone in the category or women ages 25-45.

2.Poor planning. Sales problems are often NOT the fault of the product or service. The company just didn’t create awareness/familiarity with enough buyers in the category or industry.

It's kind of astounding to us that, while more and more marketers regularly use technology to test different and numerous configurations of new products and services, very few test an array of marketing plans to ensure they have the combination of strategy, tactics, and budget allocation that can effectively and efficiently hit objectives.

3.Passable creative. In many cases, the creative executions of the strategy—the ad campaign most specifically—do not consistently or clearly reinforce a brand’s positioning. Improving creative through rigorous development and testing offers a much better ROI than increasing media spending.

We think there's some good evidence to suggest that marketers need to check their intuition that the product wasn't right and their hunch that the competition or the market climate is what came between them and achieving marketing objectives.

A great place to start is developing a model--doesn't have to be sophisticated, it can be back-of-the-envelope of how sales actually occur in your category or industry. The idea is to really consider how well you did at each step of the process and figure out where the potential problem areas really are.

To learn more about developing a model, watch Peter's recent webcast, "Setting Clear and Effective Marketing Objectives," available now on-demand at www.copernicusmarketing.com/consult/webcasts.shtml

Latest Edition of Copernicus Mzine Now Available

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Thu, 05 May 2011 15:20:00 +0000

Here's what you'll find in the new edition of The Copernicus Mzine, hot off the presses:

"Actionable Insights": Watchword or Buzzword?
We're only one year into the 2010s, but we're already concerned that the term "actionable insights" is fast on its way to topping this decade's list of meaningless marketing buzzwords. Don't get us wrong, we love the sentiment behind the term. It's just when recent discussion on the topic turned to the measurement of the return on marketing research investments, we started to worry....Read now.

Lessons from Oscar: What NOT To Do to Reinvigorate An Established Brand
While it's probably not the kind of news that brand managers like to hear, reinvigorating an established brand requires much more than superficial fixes. Just ask the folks who put together the 2011 Academy Awards....Read now.

Customer Satisfaction in a Slump: Even the Net Promoters Agree
Two very different measures of customer satisfaction show that companies have some work to do when it comes to figuring out what drives satisfaction with their brands....Read now.

New Research: A Punch in the Stomach For Going With Your Gut

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Wed, 04 May 2011 15:17:00 +0000

Yesterday we were on the phone with a frustrated marketing director looking for some help making the case for doing some marketing strategy work on one of her firm’s major brands.

As she described the situation in her division, there was an appallingly low amount of data available about customers and the market in general. She couldn’t even tell us the brand’s market share because no one inside or outside the company kept track of it. She said that when it came time to make decisions about marketing, all anyone could do was make a good guess.

Her situation brought to mind a piece we’d read a couple weeks ago in the New York Times that included the results of research conducted by Erik Brynjolfson, an economist at the Sloan School of Management, Lorin Hitt, a professor at the Wharton School, and Heekyung Kim, a grad student at MIT.

“In a modern economy, information should be the prime asset—the raw material of new products and services, smarter decisions, competitive advantage for companies, and greater growth and productivity,” writes Steve Lohr for the Times. But, “is there any real evidence of a ‘data payoff?’”

According to Mr. Brynjolfson and his colleagues, the answer is yes. “Those that adopted ‘data-driven decision-making’ achieved productivity that was 5 to 6 percent higher than could be explained by other factors, including how much the companies invested in technology.”

Based on a survey and follow-up interviews, the study measured the extent to which a company engaged in “data-driven decision making.” The researchers looked at whether a firm collected data, as well as how it was—or wasn’t—used to make decisions, such as whether to develop a new product or service. Explained Mr. Brynjolfson, “the central distinction is between decisions based mainly on ‘data and analysis’ and on the traditional management arts of ‘experience and intuition.’”

Based on these results, along with the surge in software and services to support analysis of vast quantities of data, Mr. Brynjolfson and his colleagues believe the companies that use data as a guide to decision making now are “harbingers of a trend in how managers make decisions.”

Very importantly, this new research “appears to be broader and to apply economic measurement to the impact of data-led decision making in a way not done before." The results certainly chip away at the mystique of following your gut when it comes to making major business decisions. Which makes us happy. As we wrote in a ChangeThis Manifesto a few years ago, “for all the hype and attention, the power of intuition to transform a business from a bit player to an industry leader—to grow sales and profits beyond a board of directors’ wildest dream—is the biggest myth in American business today.”

How many times do pure hunches alone lead to legendary success? The answer upon closer inspection: pretty rarely.

Still, we maintain that when it comes to making business decisions, nothing beats a balance of judgment and experience with careful analysis of unimpeachable data. Judgment and experience allow you to see what should be present, but is not. Along that line of thinking, we’d be very interested in finding out if Mr. Brynjolfson and his colleagues could breakout a group of companies from their research that balanced experience with data to see if their productivity gains were higher than companies in the two extremes.

Branding 2.0: On-Demand and Q&A

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 21:14:00 +0000

In case you missed Jeff Maloy’s webcast yesterday, “Branding 2.0: Bring Strategy and Execution Together to Capture Hearts and Minds,” you can watch it now on-demand at:

http://www.copernicusmarketing.com/consult/webcasts.shtml

The main thrust of Jeff’s talk was that if you align the essential elements of a brand strategy—starting with a target that’s high in economic value to a brand—and establish a clear process for evaluating executional elements, you help ensure that every new product, campaign, or program you launch continuously reinforces your brand’s positioning message.

Jeff’s talk generated a couple of questions, which we thought we’d publish along with his answers here.

Q: What would you say is the biggest predictor of whether a brand’s strategy will help it break through all the competitive clutter?

A: There are many, many factors that impact the ultimate success of a brand’s strategy when it comes to generating awareness, sales, profits and growth. Not all of these factors are within a marketer’s control.

I can say that having a clear, high-value target and developing a positioning based on the needs, problems, and motivations that will most likely inspire this group to make a purchase can make the difference between a brand becoming a market leader vs. an also-ran. Without either of these things, a strategy is much more likely than not to fall flat.

The impact of thinking through the process of execution, particularly for how to go about selecting things like the logo, the packaging, the new product, the ads—all the pieces that you’re counting on to help you break your brand through—cannot be underestimated either.

Q: Do you find many companies consider introducing new executional elements—particularly the logo—a “brand strategy?”

A: Definitely true. Executional elements should reflect and embody the brand strategy. They should continuously reinforce the brand’s positioning among key targets. But a logo in and of itself is not a “brand strategy.” While the visual identity may elicit a response, it does not cause the response—the elements of brand strategy do.

LIVE TOMORROW! Branding 2.0

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 19:45:00 +0000

Register now for Jeff Maloy's webcast tomorrow, Wednesday, April 27, 1 pm (EDT), to learn about what you can do to ensure the executional elements of your brand strategy continuously reinforce and communicate your brand's positioning.

For more information: http://www.copernicusmarketing.com/consult/webcasts.shtml

Invitation to Copernicus Webcast: Branding 2.0

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 02:27:00 +0000

Join Jeff Maloy on Wednesday, April 27, at 1 PM (EDT), to learn how to develop and launch a brand strategy capable of producing executional elements that continuously reinforce and communicate your brand's positioning.

It's definitely an understatement to say it's difficult for a brand to occupy any place in a target customer's mind these days, let alone a differentiated and superior position.

In this webcast, Jeff will tell you how to ensure the brand strategy you develop will take hold and endure. He will present a framework for aligning the 7 critical components of a brand strategy, as well as a process for translating this strategy into execution.

Understand the framework and essentials of a compelling, cohesive, and powerful brand strategy.

Learn how to successfully manage the transition from strategy development to implementation.

Get a set of criteria to use to evaluate different executional elements--from logos, to new products, to advertising.

Attendees of the live broadcast will have the opportunity to ask Jeff questions about their own brand strategy and executional challenges.

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

Where Did Our Marketing Strategy Go Wrong? Three Things We've Learned

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 20:15:00 +0000

Here are three things we’ve learned when evaluating a marketing strategy that failed to achieve objectives:

Sales problems are most often NOT the fault of the product or service. “Repeat” and “Loyalty” are often fairly good: a company just didn’t create awareness/familiarity with enough buyers in the category or industry. The problem was the marketing plan.

Selecting the “right” target is the most overlooked factor. If identified, the benefits of a financially-optimal target run through the entire purchase funnel.

“Growing the category” is one of the most popular, but least effective/successful strategies.

For more on setting clear marketing objectives and developing a strategy to achieve them, download Peter Krieg's January 2011 webcast, "Setting Clear and Effective Marketing Objectives," on-demand at www.copernicusmarketing.com/consult/webcasts.shtml

Customer Satisfaction in a Slump--Even the Net Promoters Agree

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 19:52:00 +0000

A few weeks ago, we saw the latest statistics from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ASCI), which put the average customer satisfaction rating for more than 225 companies in 45 different industries and government agencies at 75.3 out of a hundred. As it turns out, the number has not improved since the middle of 2009.

By way of background, the ASCI is based on customer interviews and an econometric model developed at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. The model maps the relationship between customer expectations, perceived quality, and perceived value (a.k.a., the drivers of satisfaction), satisfaction, and customer complaints and customer loyalty (a.k.a., the results of satisfaction).

Given all the recent emphasis on really “engaging” with customers by responding to their unique needs, wants, and interests throughout the pre- and post-purchase process through different marketing activities and media channels, we found the news that it hadn’t improved AT ALL for almost 2 years pretty astonishing.

Also keep in mind that for more than a decade, companies have obssessed over corporate and brand equity and management consulting firms have preached the joys of 100% customer satisfaction. For all that, according the ASCI, many firms still earn "C" grades.

Coincidentally, about the same time we saw the ASCI report, we also read the 2011 Net Promoter Industry Benchmarks put out each year by Satmetrix.

A completely different measure of customer satisfaction from the ASCI, the Net Promoter Score first saw the light of day in 2003 when The Harvard Business Review published The One Number You Need To Grow, by Fred Reichheld, a senior management consultant at Bain and Company.

Reichheld’s objective was (and is) to elevate customer satisfaction metrics to the same level of rigor and importance as financial metrics like revenue growth or return on equity. He proposed an 11-point “recommend” scale from zero—definitely would not—to 10—definitely would “recommend this company to a friend or colleague.”

People who score 9 or 10 for a particular company or brand are labeled “Promoters.” People who score 0-6 are, in turn, labeled “detractors.” The 7’s and 8’s are ignored. Subtract the % of detractors from the % promoters and you have the “net promoter score” (NPS).

True, NPS is one of the most controversial and often criticized customer satisfaction metrics in marketing research, but true or not, correct or incorrect, it’s a score that many CEOs and CFOs look at to gauge how their company and its brands are performing at keeping customers happy.

Generally speaking, a score over 50% is considered a good score. In some industries where the average NPS is negative, just hitting positive single digit numbers is a relative achievement. According to Satmetrix, there were some standouts in their 2011 report. Financial services firm USAA earned the highest NPS across all brands and industries examined at 87%. Grocer Trader Joe’s was also up there at 82%, as was Costco at 77%, Apple at 72%, and Amazon at 70%.

Still, we were startled by the negative NPS industry averages and scores for big brands. Insurance had an industry average of –5%, for instance. In credit cards, Citigroup earned a -20%. In insurance, Cigna had a -24%.

Other industry averages and scores for big brands were only just fair. Airlines had an industry average of 15%, for example. We know getting over 50 is considered in the range of good, but we would have expected a brand like search engine giant Google--the #2 most admired brand in the world--to do more than just barely make it over that threshold. It got a 53%.

Interestingly, Reichheld himself has said the NPS score of the average American company is 15%. You could get that by having 45% promoters and 30% detractors or 58%promoters and 43% detractors or—and this would be really crazy—you could have only 20% promoters and 5% detractors with 75% of customers and prospects giving you a pass.

Any way you look at it, a 15% isn’t exactly a good sign about the ability of American business to make customers happy. Coupled with the ASCI results, it's clear that customer satisfaction is still in a slump.

LIVE TODAY! The Past, Present, and Future of Advertising ROI

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 14:17:00 +0000

Tune-in Wednesday, March 23, at 1 PM (EDT), to hear Kevin Clancy present brand new statistics on the ROI of different forms of offline and online advertising.

He will also offer up what he sees as the three biggest opportunities for B2C and B2B marketers to improve the future performance of their advertising programs:

• Get yourself a revolutionary selling message
• Test your way to a 3-sigma execution
• Dominate the internet

He will demonstrate what approaches to rethink to fully tap into these opportunities and what to do in order to have the biggest impact on ROI.

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

Invitation to Copernicus Webcast: Steps to Improve Advertising ROI

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 20:45:00 +0000

Tune-in to Copernicus' Kevin Clancy live next week, Wednesday, March 23 at 1:00 pm (EDT), when he delves into a topic that's top-of-mind for many marketers these days: improving advertising ROI.

Working with MMA, the leading marketing mix modeling firm in the country, Kevin looked at four years worth of advertising and sales data in order to determine the ROI of different forms of marketing communications. The statistics he will present in his webcast include average rates of return for traditional TV, print, radio, PR, search, and on-line display for CPG and non-CPG brands.

Based on the findings and discoveries coming out of this analysis, Kevin also identified the three biggest opportunities B2C and B2B marketers have to increase the ROI of their advertising programs:

Get yourself a revolutionary selling message.
Test your way to a 3-sigma execution
Dominate the internet

Kevin will explain how to rethink conventional approaches to positioning, copy testing, and on-line marketing efforts.

For more information and to register, visit http://www.copernicusmarketing.com/consult/webcasts.shtml.

Two Trends From Unica's Annual Survey of Marketers That Caught Our Eye

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 20:35:00 +0000

We tuned-in to the American Marketing Association's webcast, 11 Marketing Trends for 2011, the other day. The first half of the presentation featured the results of Unica's annual survey of marketers, a couple of which caught our eye.

In particular, the #1 trend for 2011: "Marketers will bridge the gap between analysis and action--finally!"

We've heard quite a bit on this issue ourselves from a variety of sources--conference organizers looking for speakers on the topic; marketers talking about plans to hirer consultants to "make sense" of the data their research department delivered to them; and researchers wondering how to improve the relevancy of their work to different kinds of marketing and business decisions. Unica's discovery that 62% of the marketers it surveyed said turning data into action was their top marketing issue was pretty telling commentary on the urgency of getting marketers and researchers to work together fix this problem.

We also found the prognostication about social media experiencing "growing pains" intriguing. Quoting now from Unica's report on the annual survey's results:

This year, social media is no longer the adorable baby everyone wants to hold, but the angst-filled adolescent--still immature, yet no longer cute--who inspires mixed feelings....But as tactics rise and fall, a more sophisticated approach is emerging. Instead of thinking tactic by tactic, marketers are beginning to think strategically across three major areas of social content--owned (what they create), earned (what customers create) and paid (what marketers spend money for).

Like the folks at Unica, we've observed the same emphasis on experimenting with social media and trying to tap into the "next big thing" before really understanding if and how customers were using different social channels. If it's indeed the case that marketers will put more serious time into understanding which channels customers use, when in the purchase cycle they use them, and what kind of information they want/need/would like, 2011 could be a good year for marketing effectiveness.

The Oscars Need a Plan B

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 22:03:00 +0000

How to differentiate your brand, stay relevant as competitors encroach, broaden your audience without losing existing core customers are all issues marketers deal with on a regular basis. No one is immune, not even the Oscars, the venerable annual award show honoring “the best of the best” in motion pictures, as we’ve witnessed these past few weeks.

Though the TV audience for the broadcast had increased 30% over the past two years, from an all time low of 32 million in 2008 to 41.7 million in 2010, there was plenty of room to grow, particularly among younger audiences. The median age of the broadcast topped out at over 50 last year.

In a bid to get more and younger viewers to watch this year, the Oscars secured the twenty-something actress Anne Hathaway and thirty-something actor James Franco as hosts and launched a full-throttle marketing campaign, “You’re Invited,” with a slew of digital and social media elements.

As Nicole LaPorte described on The Daily Beast: “The decision by this year’s Oscars producers…to hire Franco and Hathaway—the youngest hosts in the history of Oscar—was itself a drastic act in the progressive slouch towards a cooler, more populist Academy Awards. But in the days leading up to the show, what’s even more dramatic is how the stars are being used as aggressive marketing tools to sell one of the most staid and traditional ceremonies in American culture as a cheeky, irreverent party to which—as this year’s Oscar slogan goes—‘You’re invited.’”

She goes on the describe Franco’s “offbeat reputation” as playing“perfectly into the Academy [of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the owners of the Oscars] to rebrand the Oscars as, well, playful,” and details other digital efforts to make the show more “au courant than ever before” such as live streams of scenes backstage.

Unfortunately for Oscar, in terms of attracting a bigger audience, Plan A didn’t work. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, about 37.6 million people watched, down almost 10% from 2010, and “ranked as the fifth lowest since at least 1974.” In terms of attracting a younger audience, well, the show didn’t lose as many 18-to-34-year-olds as it did last year—not exactly a selling point that ABC or whichever network may broadcast the Oscars next year can use to woo potential advertisers or justify higher ad prices.

Now we have no quibbles with the Oscars’ interest in growing its audience or looking for opportunities to appeal to different segments of the market. Certainly hiring hosts and selecting presenters who appeal to current and prospective viewers makes sense. Same for extending the event into social media during the broadcast—hitting viewers on the multiple screens they supposedly look at at the same time seems like the direction entertainment is going, so why not do it too?

Yet going after a younger demographic and trying to up the cool quotient with relatively superficial fixes seems like your garden-variety gut decisions. You want to restore luster to your brand you’ve got to make it cool to the younger generations. Give James Franco a call and ask him to sign up for Twitter. Granted, we suspect there’s a good sized group in the 18-to-34 demographic that are movie fans, love award shows, and are open to watching the Oscars if given the right incentive. The chance to see Anne Hathaway and James Franco perform live and follow tweets from backstage apparently wasn’t it.

In the grand scheme of things, do having younger, supposedly hipper hosts and using social media more really differentiate the Oscars from the other awards shows? Sure, these moves may bring it up to par withother live event shows on the social front and might help somewhat with the perception that the Oscars are old and staid. Yet it doesn’t necessarily communicate anything particularly unique or special that would be a major reason to watch the show on TV. Younger actor hosts who tweet live about their experiences do not necessarily suggest nor, as the consensus seems to be on Hathaway’s and Franco’s performances, reliably deliver more entertainment value.

Cheeky and irreverent aren’t bad brand attributes, but they aren’t exactly new for the Oscars. The comedians who’ve hosted in the past few years have usually towed the cheeky, irreverent line, but the often inexplicably long broadcasts and many, many dry and self-congratulatory moments up-ended those efforts.To our way of thinking the Oscars have two problems—it’s getting harder to say what makes them unique and special and the program itself has a reputation for being a bit of a snoozefest.

The Academy Awards still carry weight and legitimacy when it comes tohelping consumers chose a movie to go to, rent, watch on Netflix, etc. If the organizers of the Oscars asked the current and potential viewers, we suspect it would beat out other award shows as “ultimate award show” and most glamorous of the many star-studded events out there.

It’s not the edgiest or cheekiest—MTV’s movie awards come to mind in that department.

It’s not the most accessible or “populist”—Golden Globes where the stars of the big and small screen sit around tables together leads on that front.

Still, potential viewers could see it as the best out there on a whole host of other attributes that the show’s producers could work against in order to get viewers across the age groups to watch.

The other question to answer is what would make for more entertaining television to the people most likely to watch? Is it the hosts’ ages and comedic credentials? Is it more backstage access in the form of social media or off-stage interviews? Is it seeing on screen who designed what someone is wearing and/or career stats as he or she accepts an award? What would play on the brand’s strengths and simultaneously make for more entertaining TV?

No, it probably doesn’t help that the Oscars comes after the Golden Globes and Grammys. “The single biggest thing that works against you is that you’re the last show in the year,” agreed one of the producers of the 2010 telecast. Other film awards such as the Director’s Guild have already fêted many of the films, actors, and actresses nominated for Academy Awards by Oscar night. The Wall Street Journal reported these other award shows may be killing some of the “suspense” around who will win best picture. We don’t know about that, but we do find it quite plausible viewers may just plain have had their fill of award shows by this time of year.

Switching the time of year—something event organizers continue to consider—could offer some help in terms of alleviating award-show overload, but it doesn’t eliminate the issue of an interminably long, boring broadcast. Besides the hosts, the biggest reason the Oscars currently offers to viewers tune in is the list of movies it chooses to honor.

In recent years at least, when big, general audience blockbusters are up for anOscar—films like Titanic and Avatar—more people have tended to watch the show. To address this specific issue, the event’s organizers last year expanded the number of films considered and specifically included blockbusters like Avatar in the nominee set. Unfortunately, the quality and mass-appeal of the movies it can offer up as nominees to entice viewers completely depends on what the studios put out that year and the Oscars have no control over that. What better reason to concentrate on pinpointing other much more feasible and reliable ways to up the entertainment value of the broadcast?

Publicist and branding expert Michael Levine told Nicole LaPorte forher piece that, “The Academy is now off on an effort. When you start something, when you get on the journey, not everything that you try on the journey works. Sometimes, people over-correct, they over-do. So the story isn’t really written yet as to whether this battle plan isan over-correction. But I think it’s a viable and appropriate effort, because the alternative was sure death.” We agree and hope in the coming months the Oscars’ brand managers do some serious investigating among potential viewers of all ages into how to broaden the appeal ofthe show and develop a better Plan B for growing the audience.

Brand Advocates vs. Influentials

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 22:08:00 +0000

Two of our colleagues exchanged a lively debate last week about the differences between brand advocates and influentials in a product category. We've got a new webcast coming up tomorrow on the topic of brand advocates and have done more than reading on the topic of advocacy recently, so thought now was good as time as any to do a brief clarification of terms.

When we talk about brand advocates, we mean customers that love your brand and want to tell others about it. Yes, they can certainly influence a purchase decision, maybe get their friends and family to try a brand. But these folks are not the same as "influentials."

When we talk about "influentials," we're thinking about people who may or may not be your customers. They spend more time reading, writing, talking, and thinking about a particular product category than the average consumer or B2B buyer. Their friends, family, and colleagues generally perceive them as more knowledgeable about a particular product category. They like to share their opinions on topics related to the product category and are often asked to give them.

Brand advocates love you and want to spread the good word about you. In theory at least, they are driven by their enthusiasm and singular devotion to your brand. Meanwhile, influentials are driven by an interest in the category or industry and may or may not have any particular affiliation with your brand.

Most marketers would love to get influentials in a category to recommend their brand and share positive information about it, but influentials are not necessarily predisposed to do it the same way that brand advocates are.

If you can find them and figure out how to communicate with them, brand advocates can be very effective co-marketers. And these days when every marketing dollar counts, having a base of customers who do some of the work for you in terms of building awareness and purchase interest are like money in the bank.

In his webcast tomorrow, February 16, 1 pm (EST), Eric Paquette will tell you:

About approaches you can use to assess advocacy and identify your brand advocates.
How to understand what you want to communicate about your brand to advocates.
What other marketers have done to effectively find, reach, and impact their brand advocates.

You can register at http://www.copernicusmarketing.com/consult/webcasts.shtml

New Webcast: Finding and Activating Brand Advocates

noreply@blogger.com (The Marketing Frayers) — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 14:37:00 +0000

Customers who not only love a brand, but want to tell their family and friends about it can be a huge asset to marketers. Often referred to as "brand advocates," they are a group of particular interest to marketers these days because, thanks to the explosion of digital and social media, they can spread the word more quickly, broadly, and creatively than ever before.

But who are these people? How do you find them? How do you engage them in ways that they like and are more likely to respond to?

Eric Paquette will tackle these questions in a brand new webcast on Wednesday, February 16, at 1 pm (EST), "Finding and Activating Brand Advocates."

For more information or to register: http://www.copernicusmarketing.com/consult/webcasts.shtml

If you have a question you would like Eric to address during the broadcast, we'd love to hear from you. Just send an email to ami.bowen@copernicusmarketing.com with your question.