Monthly Archives: January 2014

A Content Creation Rant.

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You’ve heard the expression “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.” It’s awful and belittles one of our most important professions. It brings to mind a pet peeve related to the web so I’ve modified it, “Those who can, post; those who can’t, curate.”

I was reading about Contently getting its Series B round of funding, which I’m sure it deserves, furthering my belief that this outsourced cottage industry of content creation is getting out of control.  Crazier than that, however, is the curation business. A friend of mine who is in the school security software space recently sent me a newsletter from Paper.LI with an article about Disney World. Guess it was a slow news day.

I write a lot about the difference between “posters” and “pasters” in web publishing. Anyone who can copy and paste falls into the latter category. Those with original thoughts are part of the former. Good brands don’t outsource content by the pound, they create it themselves. And manage it themselves – hopefully guided by brand strategy.

Content marketing was initially developed as a way to improve search results. Real content vs. cheesed content with lots of keywords.  I suspect the curation business is an outgrowth of this as well and way to build links without much effort. Content creation and curation is probably a half billion dollar business by now. 80% is effluvia, unoriginal noise.

Get your brand strategy right then build your own content. See what works, what’s engaged and keep learning (teacher reference). Peace!

 

The good the bad and the good.

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Lots of people like to predict the future. As someone who professes to work beyond the dashboard, here is my two cents. The following trends are business opportunities and societal movements.

First THE BAD:

Privacy – With the economy fueled by the purchase of lots of new internet connected devices, using few monetization models beyond advertising, more consumer data will be tracked, more ways, in more places than ever before.

Over Medication – If you watch the evening news and are of a certain age you will see we are running out of pharmaceutical brand names. They are getting more ridiculous and unpronounceable by the hour. Don’t get me wrong, some of the work is utter genius. The rest is all about profit. When we need meds to counteract the side effects of other meds it’s time to take a breath.

Security – With privacy compromization (Why is this not a word?) a business model, security companies will continue to grow in importance. Think over medication.

Sedentariness — Our reliance on automobiles for short term transportation is literally killing us. And the planet. But it does give us more time to eat and relax.

 

 THE GOOD:

Democratization – As more people around the world have a voice and governance becomes more plural, tolerance will grow and famine of the belly, soul and mind will recede.

Craft Economy – As household members take more responsibility for the consumption patterns of their families societies will evolve away from waste. As our leisure time grows thanks to technology and we begin to focus that time on DIY projects, the purchase and creation of products that last, and living more sustainably, the ecosystem will improve.

Learning – The web has created the ability for us to commune with and learn from other people on the planet. It is the biggest positive change in our recordable history. Once we stop trying to monetize it and focus on learning from our worldly cousins, we will heavy up the good side of the ledger.

What have I missed? Peace.

 

When a food writer can’t taste.

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I read a headline this past weekend “When a food writer can’t taste” which got me thinking about brand strategy and marketing strategy.  How does a food writer approach an assignment when s/he can’t actually taste the food? (How did Beethoven compose after losing his hearing?)  Had the food writer the ability to taste prior to losing the sense, the experience would be muscle memory-driven.  Of course the writer would need to know how the meal was prepared, the ingredients and the amounts. And watched preparation technique.  It would also help to watch people eat the food to understand tastes, aromas and textures.

Sadly, a good deal of strategic work in the market today is perfunctory. It lacks the hand and design of someone who has actually tasted the product or product experience.  Often there is a reliance on the muscle memory of other assignments. A reliance on demographics — and then the work is driven by nothing more than a media insight. jean-georges

Just as creatives know when the work is done, so do planners. Planners need enough time to mine insights, experience those insights and learn deeply about their meaning. Put that level of learning into your brand plan and you are, then, ready to start tasting. Peace.     

 

Give and Take in Content Marketing.

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There are two fundamental behavior types on the social web: giving and taking. Givers are those trying to help others, either via original thought or curation.  All those posts on Twitter that start out “7 ways to increase your…”,  those are from givers.  Takers are people looking for information. “Where is Lone Survivor playing? Who is the actress in Vampire Diaries?”  Takers are also looking to get answers to questions. Platforms like Ask, Jelly and Quora come to mind.

If, as a brand, you look at the web from this Giver-Taker point of view it will help you with your customers. SEO people get this. The reality is, though, not a lot of people are in the market looking for brighter brights in clothes washing.  One of the guard rails in my Slideshare presentation on social media dos and don’ts is “Care about what your customers care about.”  If you understand your customers “taker” behaviors and have a brand plan (1 claim, 3 support planks), you can align your social giver content in more targeted, higher-value ways. 

So the keys are: Know what your custies care about. And have a brand plan that gives form, relevance and meaning to your sharing. Otherwise you are just pizzling in the ether. Peace.

El Sears.

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sears

The saying “go big or go home” is easy to use when you’re a consultant, coach or pundit, but it often has negative repercussions.  My “go big” recommendation made to hemorrhaging Sears Holding Company nearly two years ago was to become the nation’s first Spanish language store chain.  Easy for me to say, I’m not trying to keep this huge, venerable one-time national treasure alive.  But this store is taking a pasting. All the new inventory systems, cash registers and ad campaigns in the world aren’t going to turn this brigantine ship around.

Huge brick and mortar stores are buggy whipping. “If we take price off the table and make service our differentiator we should be okay,” say the c-level execs at most of the behemoths.  Well you can’t take price off the table when web commerce can undercut everyone for price…and convenience.

This suggestion is a huge move and a no-brainer.  Look at the demographics. I’m no economist, but becoming the first all-Spanish language (first) national chain, catering to 55M people (projected to be 128M by 2060) is more than viable, especially based when you look at the composition of employees and customers.  With new color palettes, cultural conveniences, food courts, and technology departments in densely populated Spanish/Latin zip codes, business will hockey stick. Roll in K-Mart, rename it El Sears or something, close a number of stores, and you will be profitable, albeit smaller, in a number of quarters. Como se darlings of business press?  Sears Holding Company, can you see beyond the dashboard?  Peace.  

The Loyalty Store.

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One of the 24 Questions I use in my deep dive brand planning rigor is “How much company revenue comes from existing or repeat customers?” When I compare this figure with lost customer and new customer revenue I get a sense of a company’s loyalty, loss and business development focus.

If you look at marketing job boards today you will notice a great deal of acquisition activity.  The majority of marketers are absolutely smitten by new customers; it’s akin to generals in battle who need to take new territory. Loyalty marketers, on the other hand, know it is the back door, the door customers leave by, that is most critical. 

chocolates

Loyalty is engendered when customers are not overlooked. Everyone knows a broken family where mommy or daddy found s new partner because back at home they felt underappreciated. This behavior not only breaks up families, it drives wedges between parents and children. Loyalty, love, under-appreciation and inquisitiveness are human traits. Marketers try to build love through the AIDA principle: Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action, often forgetting Loyalty until it’s too late. Until the back door has been open too long.

Coupons (sorry honey flowers), shallow thank yous, and automated responses do not loyalty make. Understanding yourself and your customers through a well-principled brand plan, is the place to start. Otherwise, it’s off to the loyalty store for some quick fix tactics.  Peace.

 

Cull the Follow Herd.

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I’m a big Lindsey Vonn fan.  It borders on creepy but not creepy enough to visit her Facebook page. Yesterday, Lindsey announced she pulled out of the Sochi games.  I learned about it on Twitter. She in in my Facebook feed, I think, but doesn’t show up so much as she’s kind of busy.

As an adult and marketer, I have started to coalesce my thoughts on social networks. Readers know I’ve long said Facebook is for friends and school peepsLinkedIn is for people with whom I have done business (ish)Twitter is for all of the above plus likeminds and admirees.  Twitter is where I share my total persona. Some politics. Some personal philosophy.  Some troll-able business scat (not the dung).  It is where I hope to learn from others, often those unknown. Twitter is my most expansive social network.  

Facebook is only as good as the shares — and sharing is magnified based on how close you are to the person. I’m not going Gaga over a 7th grade crush showing pictures of her kids in Clearwater (Facebook). Your feed is watered down if it has too many uninteresting posts. Burger King is offering $4.00 duck burgers. That said, I really don’t cull the “follow herd” and that’s an issue for Facebook.  Too much noise in the feed.

What to do about it.

Remove unwanted friends, peripheral people and brands from your Facebook community.  You can always add them back.  You can always find the brand if you need it. Play LinkedIn by the book and only connect with those you have done business with. The rest is spam.  And fly like a birdie on Twitter. Note to Twitter: don’t extend beyond 140 characters.  Where does this leave marketers? Better off. With more traffic to their own sites and ads that are more powerful because they are ads – not friends. Peace.

 

Selling a Brand Plan…Lessons from Christie’s.

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So I’m reading this NY Times Sunday Magazine interview of Christie’s auctioneer Jussi Pylkkanen and the question is posed “From the outset, how do you identify the right bidders in the room?” Says Jussi “It’s the glint in their eye, and intuition. It’s about the posture of the client, how they sit forward on the chair, how they make eye contact with you. As I look up, I know the four or five people that are definitely going to bid.”

Cool skill? Yah huh!

If I apply this level of observation to my business, will it tell me who in the room is going to buy brand strategy? Moreover, will it tell me who in the room will actually implement it — an equally important question.  When you think about it, someone willing to pay hundreds of thousands, even millions, for a painting has to be on the edge of their chair. As does someone buying into a brand strategy.  When I look into the eyes of C-level executives while presenting and see the fire, see the wheels turning, I know I have them. It’s the kind of engagement Jussi sees. When I see that glint, I know who the buyer is. Don’t underestimate playing to the buyer. The outliers in the room will see it and catch on.  

If there is no response, no emotion, no visible cognition, it’s time to cue the orchestra. Peace.

Viva la diff

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One of my mantras is “provide every company employee with an understanding of the brand strategy.” A brand strategy being the organizing principle that drives value. Bank account value. Which is fed by perceived consumer value. When employees know the brand strategy, the good ones pursue it, use it and think about it — even on weekends.

At Zude, a start-up I was a part of in the web space, the brand strategy was “the fastest, easier way to build and manage a website.”  The CFO of Zude Jeff Finkle used to say that every employee walking to their car at night should ask his or herself “What did I do today to make Zude a faster, easier way to build and manage a website?”

When Larry Page took over from Eric Schmidt as CEO of Google, he declared this as a company mission: “To get Google to be a big company that has the nimbleness and soul and passion and seed of a start-up.”  Not a brand strategy.  It’s an operating or operations strategy. Certainly it’s laudable and good business. Certainly employees can ask themselves as they leave the building if they passed the litmus. But it’s inward focused and brand strat needs to be outward focused.  Beware the difference. Peace.

Business Consulting or Brand Consulting?

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Bob’s Discount Furniture just received a cash infusion from Bain Capital. In other words, Bain now owns a big chunk of the company. If you were Bob, or any other  underperforming company looking to fix their business what would you do?  Before you sold out to a big fixer company like Bain, that is? Many go the root of hiring big business consulting companies such as McKinsey, Boston Consulting or Booz. Pricey choices. Especially for a company under duress. You certainly wouldn’t hire a brand consultant.

But should you?

If you were to go to Landor, Interbrand, Wolff Olins or Siegel+Gale, you’d get some really smart people supervising your business, a lot of smart designers and brand planner worker bees, resulting in a new logo, style book, positioning statement, some lessons in voice and, maybe, if they were feeling a bit feisty culture. Probably not going to fix the business.

Were you to come to What’s the Idea?, a different kind of brand consultancy, you would get some of these things, but only after signing onto a brand plan — the foundation of which is built upon business metrics.  Business fundies. Economic success measures.

A brand plan built upon anything else is simply storytelling. (And storytelling is the pop marketing object of the day.)  Am I suggesting an engagement with What’s The Idea? is superior to a big city business consultancy or brand consultancy?  Perhaps I am. As someone schooled in both disciplines, who works within the company to determine issues and answers, this approach is a “heal thyself” approach. It’s a learning model rather than a teaching model. Peace.