You are what you dare to do!

Per tradition, a slightly less business focused post for a hot summer holiday day!

I learned how to dive in this lake at the age of 12.

(Lac Léman seen from Ouchy Switzerland)

I remember standing on my uncle’s boat looking down into the water and being so incredibly scared. I had never entered water head first. What if it hurt, what if I would dive right into a fish, or worse algae? But most of all I was scared of the unknown.

But I did it, I took a leap and into the water I went.

Why?

Because my uncle was on the boat, watching. I wanted him to think I was as capable and brave as my big brother, I wanted him to think as highly of me as I thought of him (the man had climbed Mount-Everest, he was popular, successful, funny). In short, I thought so highly of Francis impressing him was more important to me than the fear of diving.

The water was cold, and I’m not sure I really liked the feeling, but I grew 20 centimetres the day I dived into Lac Léman!

It’s not often in life you meet people that make you want to jump, despite your fears.  These people are as rare in life as they are in business.

And everything rare is a collector’s item to someone. So I don’t collect art, I don’t collect jewellery, I collect people who challenge me, people who make me do things despite my fears, things that allow me to grow, and I especially collect people who allow themselves to be challenged, people who act despite their fear.

In my collection I have a Pastor from The Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem NYC (and his entire congregation), whose Sunday Sermon on the 24th of September a few years ago challenged conventional thinking and behaviour to the point that I found myself saying AMEN for the first time in my life (and not just once!)! Was a lot of what he asked the congregation to do scary to them? Absolutely, yet they were right behind him!

(The Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem NYC)

In my collection there is a young girl who left a life of comfort by not marrying a prominent Asian man, for whom she had moved to London for from a small village in India. A woman who broke a high profile engagement going against her family, religion, culture, tradition to start a new life where she would have no friends and no means of supporting herself. “why?” I asked her one-day “because I know I can feel more” was her answer. Was she scared! Absolutely! But she still did it.

In my collection is Jonathan MacDonald, my business partner, who challenged me to set up my own business despite the fact that I knew that, from having seen my dad and friends go through it, it would be one of the hardest things I would ever do. Scary? Most definitely! But here I am, less than a year later with this fluid world.

So sitting here by my childhood lake, looking at the boats I find myself thinking of, and celebrating those people whose existence remind me of being 12, standing on that boat on Lac Léman, where I despite my fear decide to dive!

I can’t wait for the people I yet have to meet, I can’t wait for the fear, and I can’t wait for the next time I have to dive because what comes after is a whole lot of growth!

Join me, and bring your collection of people, I would love to meet them because to me ‘you are who you meet, you are who you keep in your life, and you are what you dare to do’!

(This post is in celebration of Loretta Castorini Clark – the greatest collector item of them all – thank you!)

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2010
07/18
CATEGORY
Thoughts
this fluid world
2 comments

If you can’t connect, reach for the bottle of wine!

I’ve just spent four days without Internet, and with hardly any mobile connection. Yes you read right, four days. And no, it was not due to a BT strike, and no I’m not describing a scene from a horror movie, nor is it a joke.

It’s simply life in a village in Tuscany.

People working in marketing and communications know that they’re not a representation of the majority of people they look to sell products to. Most of us are very well aware of the fact that we live in a tiny bubble called ‘media and advertising…in London’. Yet I wonder sometimes if we really do know, really do understand, as on a deep level, how a big chunk of the world lives?

I have the pleasure of working with Steve Gladdis at MediaCom (a fabulous person and also happens to be the best dressed man at the agency). A few years ago Steve came up with the idea of method planning. The concept is simple, if method acting refers to a series of techniques by which actors try to create in themselves the thoughts and emotions of their characters in an effort to develop lifelike performance. Method planning does the same thing, but with the output being a great media plan (of which Steve, may I add, is responsible for many).

(The lovely Steve Gladdis)

Well, I have just had a dose of ‘method living’!

Last week I arrived in Italy for the wedding of one of my oldest friends. It was in an amazing village situated in the rolling hills of Tuscany (3 hours drive from Pisa) surrounded by vineyards.

I had been in the hotel 2 minutes when I asked about wifi (of which there was none) and 5 minutes when I realised that not only did they not have international TV channels, but the ones they had were rendered useless by static. Thank God for my iPhone…but nope…no connection!

The next day my friend and I were sent on a mission to find candles. As we walked around in search of candles I realised that a hardware store and a fruit shop was the only retail experience the village had to offer. We proceeded to ask the locals, only to be greeted with the same apologetic phrase from everyone we asked, “Ahhh no we don’t have things like large candles here” (only in Italian of course – not an English word between the inhabitants of the stone village).

Have I just arrived in marketer’s hell I asked myself? No channels to advertise on (digital does not exist, and TV is impossible to see), and no shops to sell anything to anyone in? But more importantly no people who seem to care about the fact that they are living in a marcomms free zone!

I have to be honest, I spent the first 24 hours confused wondering what do people in a place like this do? How do they manage without the bare necessities?

And then I decided to get over myself and do a bit of method living. And I can tell you ‘they manage’ very well.

I joined them in cafes and I talked, I watched them make amazing wine, I looked at some of the most stunning views, I tasted the previously mentioned wine, I watched them hang and laugh, I basically saw them living life. I also saw their Yves Saint Laurent bags, and their designer glasses so they are also clearly able to shop. They are just not connected 24/7!

As I traveled home I started thinking… How to be relevant to these people? How to engage with them? And more importantly how to connect with them? And when I say them, I don’t mean just my new Italian friends, but anyone, anywhere with other things to do (I stopped myself from saying better things to do :) ) than staring at screens of different sizes.

Just to follow on the theme of method living…I think the best thing for me is to pour myself a glass of wine from the lovely bottle I brought back, in the hope that living it some more will give me an answer to my questions!!!

P.S Catriona it was a laugh!

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2010
07/04
CATEGORY
Advertising/Media
Marketing
Thoughts
1 comment

Is there a crack showing in the shiny Mac Apple?

No one would disagree that Apple is a company that get a lot of things right.

  • In 2011 over half of their revenue will come from products that did not exist four years ago. We can safely say that ticks the innovation box.
  • Any company about whom people tweet the following ‘Glad I helped Steve Jobs reach sales targets this month. Feeling quite proud’ has definitely ticked ‘the army of fanatics supporting them’ box!
  • An organisation that successfully launches a new product (iPad) and an upgrade to a core product (iPhone 4) within months of each other gets a tick next to the commercial box.
  • And as for differentiation, there are more ticks than I can mention here!

So why was I feeling uneasy as I left the Mac store on Regent Street this Saturday? My experience there raised some key questions to which I don’t have an answer, but  that does make me wonder if there is a crack starting to show in that shiny little Mac Apple?!

Let me tell you what I mean.

Saturday 2 AM my computer dies and at 9 AM I’m at the Mac store on Regent Street only to be told that the next appointment in the Genius bar for technical support is on Friday at 18.00.

One week to get technical support! ‘This is wrong on so many levels, and it also shows some structural problems. Below are my top line observations.

  • If you’re a life style brand, promoting a way for people to live their lives, then you can’t at the same time turn around and say that it’s OK to be without you for one week.
  • This is even more the case if your product provides some form of utility. I run this fluid world with my business partner and i can safely tell you none of our clients would be happy with me being out of action for a week.
  • Customer service that offers technical support one week later is just not good enough for a premium priced product – it’s not actually good enough for any priced product in this category!
  • Not one member of staff I spoke to disagreed with me, a one week wait is just unreasonable. If your own staff can’t support your customer service level, then as an organisation you do have a problem!
  • It’s clear when you’re in the store that Apple is an organisation that prioritises sales and marketing. The look and feel of the store as you know is great, there are more sales people walking around than I have ever seen anywhere else, and they are happy letting people be on facebook all day long because ‘we’re nurturing future customers’. The problem is that ONLY a handful of people working in the Genius bar, and a sales force that can’t handle even basic trouble shooting, does nothing to nurture your present customers with a pressing problem!
  • And finally, when your staff speaks less than gloriously about you as an organisation to customers, in this case I had to listen to comments like ‘we’re becoming an IBM’, then you really should sit up and listen! Not to mention that the staff also seems totally unaware of the risk taken when speaking so honestly to a stranger (I mean really have they never heard of journalists, bloggers, facebook fans twitterers?!)

I did end up getting help though. One of the young men I spoke to squeezed me in. I had to wait three hours for it all to be sorted out, but it did get sorted (these chairs are really not that comfortable by the way)!

The issue is that the reason my trip to the Apple store was a success had nothing to do with Apple as an organisation, and everything to do with one person breaking a rule. Not a sustainable solution to what I think could be a major problem – a focus on product development and launches on the possible expense of customer service and staff motivation.

I propose Steve Jobs takes a trip down to one of his Mac stores, accompanied by a broken computer and a pressing dead line. I think it would do him some good, but then I suspect they would make an even bigger exception for him than for me :)

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2010
06/21
CATEGORY
Branding
Customer Experience
Organisational Behaviour
Strategy
Thoughts
this fluid world
3 comments

Having an army of fanatics = game, set and match!

I’ve been asked to speak at a panel at EGR Live (eGaming Review brand) covering the topic ‘Marketing on a shoestring budget’. My role on this panel is as ‘someone who knows about social media’… and it got me thinking.

Everyone loves seeing an underdog make it. And in marketing land an underdog is someone with little or no budget. So when Paranormal Activity, a movie with a production budget of $10,000 and no marketing budget, makes it into American theatres through an active approach to social media, we pay attention, we pay attention and we want some of that magic too!!!

I love stories like this, but I fear that it gives people the wrong impression of the role that digital and social media should play in marketing.

Marketing does not = advertising, we must therefore look at marketing from a broader perspective

The main reaction marketers have when they think of marketing on a shoestring budget is free advertising, and the solution to this is social media and SEO.

This is a limited view of marketing. If, as a marketer, you truly want to decrease marketing cost you MUST look at marketing from a broader perspective. If, as a marketer, you truly want to be part of the social media tidal wave you MUST look at the role digital and social media can, and should play, in the entire marketing mix.

Some companies are getting this right, and ‘qu’elle surprise’, they are also the same companies we keep reading about in the trade press and hearing about at conferences. The reason they’re such success stories is because they do NOT look at social media as a way of decreasing advertising budget, they look at social media (and with this I mean the power of people) as something that can affect their entire marketing mix. Let me give you some examples, and I know you will be familiar with these.

And finally Zappos, a company who gets it right throughout the value chain, has during the past 10 years grown from almost no sales to more than $1 billion in annual gross merchandise sales. This has been achieved primarily by repeat customers and word of mouth.

These are all examples of excellent marketing, and in some cases of advertising on a shoestring budget!

Create an army of fanatics

There is another thing these companies have in common; they have what Jonathan MacDonald, my business partner at this fluid world, refers to as an army of fanatics supporting them. An army of fanatics are people that produce and create for you, talk about you, promote you, sell your products, and in tough times defend you!

Shift marketing investment to earlier stages of the value chain

When we at this fluid world work with organisations that are looking at decreasing their marketing budget (often through social media), we recommend that they shift their investment to an earlier stage of the value chain, in addition to focusing their attention on creating an army of fanatics, rather than on how to advertise as cheaply as possible. Why? Because we know that this will save organisations money across the board.

We recommend:

  1. They tap into the zeitgeist “the spirit of the times”, soak themselves in the cultural and spiritual climate, live breathe and eat what people do, think and talk about
  2. That they create extreme value, be it in utility, convenience, enablement, connectivity, coolness or reward; within and around everything they do. This can only be achieved if stage one is taken seriously, and done well
  3. After having created something extremely valuable make sure it’s ultra findable. The distance between inspiration and satisfaction must be reduced toward instantaneous. Be everywhere! Yes this is where search comes in – but only as a part of it
  4. And finally make sure it’s super shareable. It seems such an easy concept but the efficiencies of distribution become significant when people who like something can share it with others. The ‘viral’ campaigns we see working best are those that have an instant way of sharing between people. This accelerates the advocacy effect of armies of fanatics

Gaming is all about armies of fanatics

As you can imagine, creating an army of fanatics is easier said than done, especially if you’re in the business of selling sugar water or you are, for example, an energy company…

But if you’re reading this and you’re in gaming, than you’re incredibly lucky because you’re in an industry that by nature is made up of fanatics! People who game love gaming, people who game breathe gaming! You already have the army of fanatics to tap into by default. They are there, waiting to connect waiting to play (literally!).

So what does that mean to you? It means that your job is to make them YOUR army of fanatics!

Look at Zynga, the makers of FarmVille, and FishVille, with 230 million users each month (using a limited advertising budget) and Mafia Wars with its 12,104,521 facebook fans (as of 2nd of June 2010). These are games that have created and tapped into fanatical armies at great success!

This, by the way, requires following the same recommendations outlined above. Gaming is the perfect environment for a brand to create THEIR army of fanatics, and for social media marketing to prove itself in every part of the marketing mix.

If the gaming industry gets it right, I believe it could do to social media marketing what porn did to the Internet – accelerate its success!

And for whoever does this well, it will be game, set and match!

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2010
06/14
CATEGORY
Advertising/Media
Challenge the obvious
Competitive Advantage
Marketing
Social Media
Strategy
Thoughts
this fluid world
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Bye bye dialogue, bye bye engagement, and bye bye potential lifetime customer!

Most marketers would agree that being honest about your offer is an important part of marketing and communications. It’s so crucial to anything we do at this fluid world transparency is one of our ‘eight absolute truths of engagement’.

Why? Because no one likes being lied to, no one likes to engage with people that are not honest and not truthful. So why would we want to engage with brands that breaks such a human basic rule?

Yet in the age of dialogue, engagement marketing, and the pursuit of life time customers companies continue to be just that – not transparent.

The other day my friend Sara received this e-mail.

The campaign in their own words “Everybody knows that social networking is realer than real life. So don’t mess around with a profile pic that depicts you as any less stunning than the supermodel you are. Put your best Facebook forward with Estée Lauder’s Your Beauty. Your Style. Your Profile. extravaganza this week at Selfridges. During your appointment, beauty advisors will bronze, line, lacquer and do whatever it takes to perfect an effortlessly gorgeous visage. A professional on-site photographer will snap your best angle and provide you with a print and USB key for instant portrait uploading”.

Fair enough I say. Nothing wrong with a great facebook picture and absolutely nothing wrong with looking stunning on-line!

But to me the campaign breaks the cardinal rule of transparency.

Firstly the communications never mentions that there is a cost of £15 attached to this. I let them off the hook on this one as they do mention it when one makes an appointment.

The major issue is with the end product. Spot the problem?

It certainly isn’t the makeover; there is a Venezuelan lady on the Estée Lauder counter in Selfridges who get full marks!

But what’s up with the branded background? Let’s not forget that this campaign is not for a makeover, and it’s not for Selfridges, it’s for a great facebook profile picture!

I don’t know about you but to me it feels like Sara has just paid 15 pounds for the privilege of advertising Selfridges on her own on-line property!

I’m not sure many people would choose to do that, and I suspect Estée Lauder’s and Selfridges know that (hence their silence), but hey who cares, they do have their 15 pounds!

Except people care, and people remember, and people talk, and brands abusing people’s trust by not being honest = people walk.

Bye bye dialogue, bye bye engagement, and bye bye potential lifetime customer!

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2010
06/06
CATEGORY
Uncategorized
Write comment

We don’t need ‘heads of what’s in vogue’; we need great marketing and communications practitioners!

My last blog ‘Do we need strategists? Hell yeah!’ mentions hiring ‘heads of what’s in vogue’, and I would like to discuss this topic a bit further.

When I say ‘head of what’s in vogue’, yes I do mean Head of Digital, Mobile and now Social Media (in addition to the next thing that will come along).

Do not get me wrong, every new channel, discipline and/or opportunity should be acknowledged and recognised for their potential importance, and the possibilities they may bring.

I’m also all for recruiting necessary skills, and for assigning roles and responsibilities (the buck has to stop somewhere), and finally I have no problem with those roles and responsibilities coming with a title.

What I do have an issue with is agencies and organisations reasons for assigning a head of Digital/Mobile/Social Media. From my experience when such an appointment is made it’s for one of the following reasons:

  • Everyone else is, so it must be important, hence we should hire someone too
  • We’re not sure we buy into it, but we do need to be seen as doing so (by the trade press and our clients)
  • We don’t really have time to think about it so we’ll hire someone to delegate the responsibility to
  • Hey, maybe it will lead to a new revenue stream
  • Hiring someone is as good as a change, no? (and yes a lot easier!)

What seems to only rarely be on the agenda is hiring someone to do what is desperately needed, manage the necessary mind-shift to affect real change, rather than just contribute to a campaign, or meet with senior clients (pixie dust).

For that to happen the new Head should spend his time:

  • Figuring out the role of, for example digital, mobile and social media, in the communications and marketing mix
  • Identifying its best use in achieving business objectives and marketing goals, this per category, stage in product life cycle and per campaign
  • Ensuring awareness and REAL understanding of the topic within the agency/company
  • Making sure everyone in the agency/company understand its role, value, and knows how to use it and what to expect from it

What is needed is to ensure that the right measures are taken to make what is new part of business as usual, so that it becomes EVERYONE’s responsibility.

Because without this happening we will never have what is truly needed and that is great marketing and communications practitioners that can adapt to any change and capitalise on any opportunity (be it a channel, platform or disciple) that comes their way!

So if you hire anyone hire a ‘Head of figuring things out’, a ‘Head of understanding people’, a ‘Head of getting stuff done’ – or alternatively hire smart generalists with deep knowledge and experience for a day, a week a month (we love those in this fluid world so if you’re one, or looking for one, get in touch)

Hire them and let them loose in your organisation with a simple brief, ‘to find answers, to find solutions, to achieve great marketing and communications that is channel, platform or disciple agnostic’ – hire them to achieve companie’s business and marketing objectives (this would be a strategy rather than sprinkling pixie dust).

I’m afraid this will not happen if we keep hiring Head… after Head… after Head of ‘whatever is in vogue’!

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2010
05/31
CATEGORY
Advertising/Media
Challenge the obvious
Marketing
Organisational Behaviour
Strategy
Thoughts
Write comment

Do we need strategists? Hell yeah!

A few weeks ago I read something quite depressing … apparently there is very little demand for strategists on the conference circle…

Does this mean that our industry has little interest for strategy in general? Does this mean that strategy has been replaced by things we can see, we can touch, things we can play with?

It would explain a lot.

It would explain why most of what we see awarded, rewarded, celebrated at our conferences, and written about in our blogs, are a series of activities and tactics which at beast sprinkle pixie dust but rarely lead to an increase in sales, or a major shift in brand perception (Yershon and Jmac I know you’re with me on this one :) )!

It would explain why people believe that facebook is a strategy, it would explain why people treat a platform like mobile as if it was a strategy, and it would explain why companies keep hiring a head of ‘anything that is in vogue’.

It would also explain why, when standing in front of a corporate audience, people look blankly at you when you ask them if they know what their company strategy, and/or vision is.

It seems like the future of strategy is under threat, and strategists are an endangered species.

This is serious, I mean very serious. We are in a period of change, a period of flux, and I can’t think of a time when strategy is more needed than during a period of change and flux!

Sun Tzu wrote of war “All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved”.

Be under no illusion, business and marketing over the next couple of years will resemble a war, a war where only the ones with a clear and solid plan of action (a strategy) will survive.

And be under no illusion, the organisations you see celebrated and hailed on a regular basis for their digital campaigns, for their innovative use of technology and channels (for their tactical activities) …

… the organisations you see achieve victory in changing, confusing and scary times …

… these organisations are the same companies that, like Sun Tzu, have a solid strategy to back up everything they do.

Strategy is the difference between sprinkling pixie dust and achieving a real impact, strategy is the difference between ad hoc success and a sustainable business, strategy is the difference between winning and losing the war!

Don’t take my word for it, but do take Sun Tzu’s – and next time you organise a conference, do roll in the strategists, it’s by involving them that real, valuable and long-term activities will emerge!

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2010
05/25
CATEGORY
Strategy
Thoughts
1 comment

Want to be a good strategist? Keep challenging your assumptions and general conventional wisdom!

I love when I catch myself seeing the world through old glasses. It’s not a proud moment when it happens, but it’s an important one. Realising I run the risk of being out of date is a harsh wake-up call that generally keeps me on my toes for a year or so… and this morning I had such a wake-up call.

For all my life I’ve seen Sweden as a modern, innovative, creative country, and also one at the forefront of design! I even wrote a blog about it called ‘What’s up with Sweden and all its innovation”. In it I describe why I believe a small country like Sweden (a country I lived in until the age of 18) has produced so many big brands, and why it’s responsible for so many disruptive innovations.

So you can imagine my reaction reading the below title from Tyler Brûlé’s (Editor and Chief of Monocle) column in this weekend edition of the FT.

A decline into Swede nothings!!!! I nearly spilled my Cortado as I jumped off my seat! What is the man talking about?! Has he never heard of IKEA, H&M, Tetra Pak, Volvo, SAAB and Ericsson?!!!

I kept feeling annoyed until I got to the following caption ‘Swedish goods and services used to be a refreshing constant in my daily life but somehow they vanished – no cars, no telecommunications, no media, no hotels, no airlines. H&M and IKEA might continue their global assault (along with the odd crime author) waving a small blue and yellow flag, but increasingly Sweden Inc seems a little less potent’.

It made me think…Ericsson was founded in the late 19 century, Volvo in the 1920’s, IKEA and H&M in the 40’s, Tetra Pak in the early 50’s. Many of these organisations had their glory days in the 90’s, which also happens to be the last decade during which I lived in Sweden!

I’m embarrassed to admit that I had not questioned my assumption and beliefs about Sweden being an innovative country for over 15 years, and in these times that may as well be 100 years!

Not the end of the world I know. But take a break and think about yourself as the manger, strategist, consultant, and or leader you are, and then think about how often you challenge your assumptions or the conventional wisdom around which you base your decisions.

Not as often as you should, of that I’m sure…Now think about how that affects your decision-making!

There is no doubt that to ensure relevance, to ensure quality of advice and decision-making, we need to ask ourselves regularly (as in on a daily basis):

•    How long have I been doing, and why do I do things this way?
•    When did I decide what I believe on a certain topic to be true, and is it still?
•    Is what I do/think still valid?
•    What has happened that could/should change my assumptions?

There is nothing new about this… yet most of us fall into the ‘assumption trap’. To avoid this we must challenge our thinking by surrounding ourselves with people that are different to us, that come from different backgrounds and have different experiences.

I’m lucky to be part of this fluid world, and to have a business partner and clients who don’t allow me to have too many moments like this morning. Because of this I usually don’t need Tyler and the FT to remind me of the fact that I don’t drive a Swedish car, and that my phone, clothes and furniture aren’t Swedish (I mean really Liri!!! – pretty obvious!)!

Having said that, It’s with a bit of sadness though, that I bid farewell to my innovative Swedish legacy!

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2010
05/16
CATEGORY
Challenge the obvious
Disruption
Innovation
Strategy
this fluid world
1 comment

If you don’t control your value chain, control your communications!

This is the final piece of a series of three. The first ‘A bad piece of meat will always be a bad piece of meat’ discusses how people select suppliers,  the second one, ‘In this collaborative world, if we own the royal mile, then we have to accept that our suppliers are our responsibility!!!’ discusses how organisations are responsible for the actions of their suppliers since they own the final customer touch point, or what we at this fluid world call the royal mile.

This piece deals with when all else fail, control communications.

I’m prepared to accept that there are times when you are forced to cooperate with organisations whose actions are not under your control. If you happen to find yourself in such a situation, then you must be responsible for, and take control of the one thing you do have power over – your communications.

Let me give you an example.

A few years ago I bought a TV from John Lewis.

Anyone who has had the pleasure of buying anything in John Lewis’ electronics department will know that it’s a pure pleasure. The waiting time to be served is short, the staff helpful and polite, the advice based on customer need and not on the desire to up-sell, and the choice available more than acceptable. So far all good (and yes under the control of John Lewis).

However it all goes horribly wrong just a few days later (while I’m still in the post purchase anxiety of ‘do I really need a new TV?’ period – and also within the time frame when I can bring the TV back).

A letter arrives in the post, it’s not a ‘we hope you enjoy your TV’ message from John Lewis, but a threatening letter from the TV license people.


A letter treating me like a criminal because I have just bought a TV and, according to them, don’t have a license for it. No consideration that I may have bought it as a present for someone, or that I may actually have a license (which I did!) – just a threatening letter full of assumptions.

In one second my warm and fuzzy feelings for John Lewis disappears! Warm and fuzzy feelings I had because of an excellent service that I’m sure cost John Lewis a lot of money to deliver on! “But this has nothing to do with John Lewis” I hear you say!

But it does!

I understand John Lewis legally have to inform the license people when someone buys a TV from them.  I also understand that they have no control of the letter that is ultimately sent to their customers (although if I were them I would fight this one all the way to court!).

What I DON’T understand is why they did not have the courtesy to inform me about this legal obligation, and about the letter that would arrive at my doorstep a few days later. What I don’t understand is that they don’t try to separate my experience with them, with my experience with the TV license people. What I don’t understand is that in a situation where they can’t control the actions of an organisation they are forced to cooperate with, over whom they have no power, they don’t control and manage what they do have power of, the communications.

All it would have taken is a “We would like to inform you that we legally have to inform the organisation responsible for TV licenses about your purchase, and that you will be receiving a letter from them within a week”.

Just one simple phrase, yet a phrase that would mean a 100% disassociation from an unpleasant experience that is about to happen, one that could damage their brand, one phrase that would leave the customer with the feeling that John Lewis is on ‘their’ side!

As an organisation you must have a clear understanding of what you can and can’t control. As an organisation you must have a clear understanding as to the possible damaging scenarios around what you can’t control. As an organisation you must make sure that you use communications in your favour to avoid any negative associations from the behaviour of any of those suppliers/collaborators.

But use communications as a last option, control and prevention will always be more powerful! And after all, if Apple can force Vodafone to make each customers open the iPhone package themselves when they buy a new iPhone because ‘it’s part of the customer experience’ (bearing in mind that I as a customer can’t get Vodafone to do anything) – then everything is possible!

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2010
05/09
CATEGORY
Customer Experience
Marketing
Retail
Strategy
Thoughts
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In this collaborative world, if we own the royal mile, then we have to accept that our suppliers are our responsibility!!!

This is a continuation of my most recent blog ‘A bad piece of meat will always be a bad piece of meat!’ where I discussed how choosing suppliers based on image, price, or size can often lead to less than satisfactory results… In my case a very bad piece of meat from Tesco’s.

You could argue that if I could not see how bad the meat was through the packaging, then how could Tesco’s have seen it? You could then also argue that it’s therefore not their fault!

Wrong! Why? Because I don’t care who actually packaged the meet, I don’t care if Tesco’s was conned by their supplier, I just care about who sold me the product, because it’s with that organisation I have a relationship, and it’s that organisation I’m looking to trust!

Whoever is responsible for ‘the last mile’ – lets call it the royal mile (the bit just before the product or service touches me), whoever’s brand is on the packaging is the ONLY company I will blame when something goes wrong!

So when I buy a pair of Nike shoes I expect them to have been manufactured somewhere where working conditions are good, and wages are descent. I don’t care that Nike sells millions of shoes and pieces of clothing each year, I don’t care that Nike does not produce any of these products themselves, I don’t care that they have contracts with manufacturing facilities located throughout the world, and I don’t care that these contractors subcontract to companies hiring nearly 800,000 people working in factories throughout Asia.

When Unilever buys palm-oil from the Indonesian company Duta Palma who has a practice of clearing protected rainforest to make way for plantations – I don’t care who ultimately did what, and I therefore end up blaming Unilever, not Duta Palma.

All I care about is that I get the quality I pay for. All I care about is that my shoe supplier, and the company responsible for my beauty care, in their quest to get me the quality I pay for behave in the right way! All I care about is that the brands I have a relationship with, and I trust, do the right thing – because when they act, they also act on my behalf, they act on the behalf of all their customers – so what they do is not just their decision, what they do does not just affect their brand, it affects all our personal brands!

In this collaborative world we have to accept that our suppliers are our responsibility. In this collaborative world we have to make sure the right systems are in place to ensure customers buy what they believe they buy. In this collaborative world we have to make sure that not only we, but our suppliers do the right thing!

Hard? I’m sure it is, but think of all the times you have bought products without any quality problems. Think of all the multinationals that have never been caught out like Unilever and Nike – we can reasonable assume that many of them have not been caught because they have done nothing wrong.

So although it’s hard to control your entire value chain – it’s clearly not impossible!

Oh yeah, and doing the less of two evils is just well, not good enough!

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2010
05/02
CATEGORY
Branding
Organisational Behaviour
Thoughts
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