Archive for July, 2009

Why change when the figures don’t stack up?!!

Ok so we all know that the ‘old’ way of doing advertising and of communicating with people is simply not working anymore! Everyone we listen to at conferences says it, we read about it in the trade press, and in the latest marketing books (us who still bother that is!).

This is not exactly a news flash, and it also seems most people working in advertising, media, branding, journalism, marketing, you name it, agrees with this reality.

So if we all agree, why aren’t we seeing bigger budget shifts? Why aren’t we seeing major agency restructuring efforts (and I’m not talking cosmetic changes)?

The answer is simple, because the figures don’t stack up! This comes to no surprise to many of you, but I never saw it as clearly as I did this weekend – black on white!

On Saturday I had the pleasure of going to the André Kertész: exhibition On Reading, at The Photographers’ Gallery where I also had coffee with Tim Forrest, Head of Communications Planning, OMD UK (and a very very smart man I must add).

Like Picasso Tim started drawing on a napkin (well a pad but still) the reality facing the Newspaper industry today, not in terms of readership figures, but in terms of revenue. By the way, don’t stop reading just because you are not in the newspaper business, what they are suffering is systematic to the entire communications industry, and the core drivers of change are the same!

tim's figures 2.jpg

Note: The figures Time used comes from ‘Will the pay model really work for newspapers online…?’, Raymond Snoddy, Media Commentator:, 7 July 2009.

What the drawing shows, and the article explains, is that ‘Last year a UK national newspaper reader was worth a total of £155, £65 of which was generated from advertising with the rest coming from £90 worth of newspaper purchases. At the same time, revenue per online unique visitor totalled just £5 – all of it from advertising’ (apparently Facebook, who many sees as the winner in social media, only makes $2 per user per year). Also, purchasers of paper copies of national newspapers spend 12 hours a month reading them. The equivalent online time is just 10 minutes, according to ComScore’s official readership survey’.

And there it is, in black and white, the figures just don’t stack up, and as long as this is the case there is no justifiable argument for change….

Unless of course you take time into consideration…or more precisely the risk that over time these figures may flip…that 90% of revenue comes from on-line and 10% from print.

I don’t know about you but to me the future looks like a pretty small pie if we don’t do something about it….

So what is that something? Our business is no different to any other business (really I promise)…when a product is obsolete it simply disappears from the shelves and gets replaced…What has ‘saved’ us from this happening to date is the fact that there is a little too much legacy for change to happen over night. But change will happen, of that I’m certain.

So who is going to be involved in facilitating this change? I’m pretty sure they will fall into one of the following categories (which of the following five are you?):

  1. You never liked paper that much
  2. You get off on change and you are therefore happy to be one of the drivers of change (how I wish this was not my category as it mostly gets me into trouble J)
  3. You don’t like change but accept that the forces at play are stronger than you (in other words you can’t afford retiring in five years time, hence you can’t avoid changing if you want to have a job in the future)
  4. You are ‘unlucky’ enough to be sitting on the one client smart and large enough to demand change, hence forcing you to act!
  5. You will do nothing, until a black swan suddenly flies into your life (actually your industry) forcing you to change (some of you will find a way, and others….)… some argue this swan is already very much here, even if a little grey rather than black..

Either way I put my money on the people who are spending most of their waking hours developing a business model that will actually stack up, make sense… not to the agency world but to the big advertising spenders….oh sorry let me take that back…to the people the big advertising spenders want to engage with!

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2009
07/31
CATEGORY
Advertising/Media
Thoughts
2 comments

I want to be a Dyson!!!

It was about 16.00 yesterday…I was at the Social Media event organised by figaro digital (thanks for the invite Jonathan!), at the Hospital Club when I realised I wanted to be a Dyson!

To be more precise, I was listening to Alan Moore’s, the author of Communities Dominate Brands: Business and marketing challenges for the 21s, presentation on social media, when it happened (sorry Alan I promise your presentation inspired me in many other ways ).

It’s not often I’m jealous, or envious, and it’s not often I see a statistic that makes me go WOW (apart form the size of the profit losses of the likes of Nokia, and most of the daily newspapers of course…).

But yesterday I saw a statistic that made me jealous, envious and go WOW all at the same time! Dyson it seems (according to the presentation) controls 50% of the worldwide market share for vacuum cleaners!!!

50%!!! This means one out of two vacuum cleaners that are bought in this world is a Dyson. If you are buying a vacuum cleaner there is 50% chance you will come home with a Dyson. Ok, Ok I know you get the point, but I’m still trying to get my head around it.

vacuum-cleaner-james-dyson

If I was running a company that manufactures and sells product I would want to know how, how do I get 50% market share?! Or maybe it’s just me and my fixation on a little thing called competitive advantage!

Either way I decided to check it out, and apparently ‘all’ you need is the following:

A persistence and determined entrepreneur – Dyson made more than 5,000 vacuum cleaner prototypes before the final Dyson was launched.

+

A whole load of passion and positive attitude – even when other manufacturers refuse to license your design, over and over again.

+

Total respect for design and the key role it plays in product development – even if your product wont be seen by anyone, and is used to clean floors and carpets.

+

A fundamental belief that investment in new technology is the only way to keep ahead – in other words to constantly look for a sustainable competitive advantage, even if you are market leader.

+

A willingness to explore (to quote Mr Dyson “Reinventing yourself is a fragile thing. You can’t prove it’s going to be a success, but if you don’t do something new, you will die.”.

+

If you are an entrepreneur, or a creative, hire a commercial sidekick – in Dyson’s case this was Richard Needham, former Tory Northern Ireland and DTI minister.

Mix it all up and what do you have?

A company that revolutionised the entire vacuum cleaner market by changing the nature of a relatively boring product into an aesthetic lifestyle product, a status symbol.

And this my friend is apparently how you gain 50% market share!

Now if that’s not a company with The Edge…then what is!

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2009
07/29
CATEGORY
Challenge the obvious
Competitive Advantage
Innovation
Strategy
THE EDGE
Thoughts
1 comment

What does the landing on the moon have to do with marketing and business?

I would have said not much, until I read this caption in The Times.

apollo mission

In July we celebrated 40 years since the man landed on the moon, 40 years since we achieved “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”. And what did this trip teach us about? The earth! We went all the way to the moon to learn about our own planet. Here are only some examples of what it influenced:

•    The Green movement was greatly aided because key people were inspired by the astronauts’ speech about how seeing the Earth from afar made them realise how fragile it is.
•    René Dubois (1) was inspired by the moon landing (more precisely how the astronauts described what the earth looked like from a distance, giving them an overwhelming sense of oneness), when he coined the phase ‘Think Globally, act locally’.
•    Bean stopped complaining about bad weather after his return from the moon, instead he said, “I’m just glad there is weather”

Reading this made me realise how much every move I made, be it to another country or a new job, taught me about myself…especially so when forced outside my comfort zone (which in my case would be for most jobs I ever took, or most cities I moved to). There is no doubt that what I saw, the people I met, the people I worked with, the challenges I faced turned me into a better marketer, a more flexible business person, and to the right company a more valuable employee.

If exploring had this effect on a few astronauts, on the people they touched, and on me… and if some organisations see the value having explored can bring in terms of new capabilities, ideas, shift in perception, then how come we see so little of it in business?

I suspect the answer lies in the definition, and in the concept of accountability.

‘Exploration is the act of searching or travelling a terrain for the purpose of discovery, e.g. of unknown people, including space (space exploration), for oil, gas, coal, ores, caves, water (Mineral exploration, or prospecting), or information.’

Read it again and ask yourself what the key word is in this definition….

Personally I think it’s the word unknown…

Unknown does not fly when the internal accountability process machine kicks in…Think about this possible scenario. Why are you doing this? I don’t know? What will you get out of it? I don’t know? Who will end up using the product/service? I don’t know? And finally what is the ROI? You got me there, I have no clue! It does not matter how enthused you are about your idea, how much you believe in it…if the figures don’t add up, it is not likely to happen in the corporate world.

And since exploring has by definition and unknown in it, well I think you get the point, not many middle managers (or senior for that matter) are going to sign up for something with unknown stamped on it…and I’m not sure I can blame them, after all they have a job to do…or should I say to keep.

I do however blame the corporate mechanism that makes exploration so hard, not to say impossible, (and let’s be honest the economy is not doing anything to help this situation). If any exploration, or discovery, is to take place it needs to be embedded in the organisation, its culture, who and how they hire, and how budget is allocated. Innovation takes real commitment. For example Google, as a motivation technique (usually called Innovation Time Off), encourages all their engineers to spend 20% of their work time (one day per week) on projects that interest them (2) (although if you speak to Google employees some of them will say, “Yes it’s called Sunday”). 3M used to have the same philosophy years ago. Despite the success of these organisations, few adopt these type of techniques in everyday management.

I wish this was not the case, so when an organisation do, or when they simply take a risk, they need to be celebrated! So in the spirit of the anniversary of the moon landing I would like to salute Coca-Cola for something many people do not know. In July 1969, Coca-Cola co-sponsored the first truly international telecast – the landing on the moon.

coca cola moon

A company statement said: “It is with true pride and a sense of pioneering spirit that we can announce that The Coca-Cola Export Corporation is commercially co-sponsoring the telecast of the Apollo XI Moon Shot — from take-off July 16 through moon landing July 20, to splash-down July 24 – on behalf of the product Coca-Cola.” (2)

I find it great that they chose to associate their brand with an event, as amazing of an event as it was, with an unknown outcome attached to it, a potentially catastrophic one. I wonder if in today’s world some scenario planning analysis would have told them not to go there since a very possible scenario would be for the spaceship to blow up at takeoff, or to actually make a splash (of the non Coke type) on landing!

So in honour of “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” why don’t you raise the sails, get your staff on board, and go on an exploration journey…somewhere you have not been, or never thought of going (and I don’t mean geographically). Do it in search of something new, different, original, incredible, extraordinary…just because you can! I bet you it will teach you a lot about your organisation, what you can and can’t do, should or shouldn’t do! And if one great idea, initiative, learning comes out of it (which it will!) make sure you turn it into a fabulous splash!!!

—-
(1) René Jules Dubos (February 20, 1901 – February 20, 1982) was a French-American microbiologist, experimental pathologist, environmentalist, humanist. He is credited as an author of a maxim “Think globally, act locally”.

(2) Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google

(3) Source: http://www.coca-colaconversations.com/my_weblog/2009/07/appolo-11-anniversary.html

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2009
07/27
CATEGORY
Challenge the obvious
Innovation
Organisational Behaviour
Strategy
Thoughts
Write comment

Go on, ignore competition!!!

Yes you heard me. I’m telling you to stop doing something that is the basis for most companies strategic planning and decision-making – obsessive competitive analysis.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying observing competition is a mistake, I’m saying it should not define your strategy. If your competitors become more efficient, so should you. If your competitors enter a new market, you too should consider it, if your competitors significantly improve their product so should you, all in the name of not allowing them a competitive advantage. However, this is not the same as defining your every strategic move based on their activities.

Business is not a race where everyone runs on the same track towards the same goal (although it sure looks like it from where I’m writing).

running-race[1]

Business is a playing field where the participants, and the rules of the game, changes – your role should therefore be to facilitate and to drive this change, your role should be as a creator of something different and new. Following competition is counterproductive to this!

Not convinced? Well here are three reasons why you should ignore competition (ok so I’m exaggerating to make a point):

(1)    The blind may just be leading the blind
(2)    Little innovation comes from following (and by that rational limited growth)
(3)    Strategy should not be defined by competition

1) The blind may just be leading the blind

Do you think your company is well run? Is senior management some of the best you have ever seen? Are your decisions and strategy based on intelligent market analysis and on real understanding? Does your corporate culture encourage excellence? Does your company have a history of making the right decisions?

I guess many of you will answer no to these questions. If that is the case, do you have any reason to believe that the answers from the companies you compete with will be different?

Probably not…so I ask you…

“If you have no reason to believe they are better than you, why would you want to follow their actions, why would you want to do what they do, produce what they produce, communicate in the way they communicate, sell to the same customers – basically why would you trust them to do the right thing?”

2) Little innovation comes from following

Over emphasis on competition is a reactive game, a game that leads at best to matching your rivals’ efforts, and at worse playing the catch up game (in the case of carbonated soft drinks this means fighting for an increase of less than 0.5% in market share), or producing more of the same.

Kenichi Ohmae (1) illustrates this very well when he says “To start you have to ask the right questions and set the right kinds of strategic goals.  If your only concern is that General Electric has just brought out a percolator that brews coffee in ten minutes, you will get your engineers to design one that brews it in seven minutes.  And if you stick with that logic, market research will tell you that instant coffee is the way to go.  If the General Electric machine consumes only a little electricity, you will focus on using even less.” (Thank you Knowledge for finding my favourite article :) )

What it does not do is lead to creativity, innovation, disruption. Yes it can lead to a growth in market share, but it wont lead to real market growth. Surely you will agree that growing the pie, or creating a new one, makes more business sense than fighting to protect your slice of, or growing the existing pie marginally?

3) Strategy should not be defined by competition

Responding to competition is not strategy; defining ways of beating competition is not strategy. Strategy is being obsessed with finding new ways of satisfying needs. In this scenario following competition only has one purpose, to ensure that you don’t do what they do (the opposite of what most competitive analysis is used for today).

If competition is already doing it, then someone is satisfying the need. Sure maybe not well enough, and feel free to go ahead and improve on an existing product/service. I’m simply asking you not to make it the basis for all your strategic activities. Look for a sustainable advantage by focusing your attention on what is not already done, what is not available, what no one has thought of, but mostly on what people need, what they value. Once you understand all this, ensure your products and services deliver on it, be it through your business model, your products and services, the customers you choose to satisfy, your communication, your processes. This is how I believe you will achieve an Edge over other companies. But more about that some other time!

So you see, ignoring competition (for a while at least) may make you look at your business in a different way, which could lead to a better way of creating, hiring, managing, producing, delivering, communicating.

Somewhere in there there is a market leader waiting to be born, if you give it (instead of the competition) some attention!

1) Kenichi Ohmae (大前研一, Ōmae Kenichi, is one of the world’s leading business and corporate strategists. He is known as “Mr. Strategy” and has developed the 3C’s Model.

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2009
07/22
CATEGORY
Innovation
Organisational Behaviour
Strategy
THE EDGE
Thoughts
6 comments

When it rains it pours, so how about hiring and not firing?

On the 8th of July this year Britain suffered the heaviest rainfall since records began in 1865!

rain fall

I was in London that day and this was the view (or lack of!) from my living room window!

rain

It was like nothing I had ever seen before!

Earlier this year another record number was announced, this time by the World Health Organisation (WHO). 259,000 people were made redundant in the last quarter of 2008, this being the highest number since the organisation started compiling such statistics in 1995. I can believe it since hardly a week goes by without a friend, or a friend of a friend, being made redundant. Again this is like nothing I have ever seen before.

unemployment

Lying in bed last night, I remembered something I read once, something that had a deep effect on me (and since then I have desperately tried to find who said it…)

“Laying people off, that is easy, creating jobs…now that is hard!”

Pause for effect and have a proper think about what I just said…Laying people off, that is easy, creating jobs…now that is hard.

Can you remember the last time we were in the business of creating jobs? I can’t… Maybe during the Internet bubble (when we were not too busy creating fancy Power Point presentations of course!).

One thing is for sure, business school, and especially MBA’s, are not there to teach us how to create jobs, they are there to teach us how to be efficient, they are there to teach us about ROI, they are there to teach us about management accounting and productivity, and that that is how you make a profit (I know I suffered through it for a year).

Bearing in mind that the people graduating from these schools are supposed to become the leaders and CEO’s of today, no wonder very few people, and organisations, are concerned about creating jobs, no wonder there is no reward for the amount of people you hire (while remaining productive of course)!

I’m all for being efficient and competitive (in fact I’m ALL about being competitive)…but I wonder sometimes if we asked ourselves a different question, would we get a different answer. I wonder what would happen if we asked ourselves “What can I do today to create a new job?” what effect would that have on the decisions we make?

How would changing the goal from decreasing the number of hires to increasing them (with the right control mechanisms in place) affect the way we do business? What would happen if instead of saying “Times are tough, we need to lay people off”, we would say “Times are tough, what can we do to keep people on, or even hire people?”

What if this would get the creative juices going? What if it would make everyone step up and generate amazing ideas and solutions? What if it would lead to creativity and innovation?

I have an idea, why don’t you set your senior managers a challenge, why don’t you ask them to find ways to hire people instead of laying people off? Just to see what they come up with! You may be surprised, it may be some of the most creative ideas, or innovative things you will have heard in a long time!

Go on, help me find the answer to the question “I wonder what it would be like to live in a world that is about creating jobs?”!!!

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2009
07/18
CATEGORY
Challenge the obvious
Innovation
Thoughts
Write comment

I can no longer defend Starbucks!

I’ve always been a great supporter of Starbucks…not because of its coffee (let’s face it, it’s not great), but because it entering the market made it possible to actually drink coffee in the US. For a coffee lover, who used to spend 50% of her time across the Ocean, Starbucks soon became one of my best friends…and since I’m a loyal friend, I’m loyal to Starbucks!

To a point!

When I’m in Paris, like now, I always take the time to stroll down one of my favourite little streets…mainly because it has a few jewellery stores I love! And today was that day (I know because my wallet looked worried)! It did not need to be, where I was expecting to find my cute stores, I found, yes you guessed it, a Starbucks!

starbucks 2

As if that was not enough, in order for it to open it had gobbled up not one, not two, not three but four small independent stores! Four stores with a distinctive personality, four stores managed by entrepreneurs, four stores bringing diversity and a personality to a lovely street, four stores which makes it possibly for me to know exactly where I am…two minutes from Rue de Buci, Paris, France!

Staring at what is on top of everything an incredibly unattractive Starbucks I felt my loyalty wash away, replaced by sadness. It had never been so clear to me that we are loosing the battle against clone towns (clone town is a UK term for a town where the High Street, or other major shopping areas, are significantly dominated by Chain stores).

The only jewellery store left is, again you guessed right, closing down…let’s face it how could one of these places compete with Sarbucks when it comes to paying rent!

bail a ceder

I felt the need to take pictures of my other favourite stores on the same street in the full knowledge that they would probably not be there next time I come to Paris.

This is the tiniest bookstore you will ever see, yet they seem to always find what you need, or maybe they just guide you in that direction, either way, it’s great! Beats a WHSmith or Barnes and Noble, non?

livres

And this store sells nothing but board games…you know the ones that require no computer, no electricity, but does require human interaction! Maybe not better than a Mac store but certainly equally as cool!

games2

If you ever walk past a store like this, pop in, buy something, it literally can make the world of difference!

By the way, I sincerely hope the Americans, who I prevented from entering Starbucks by sending them 2 minutes down the road to a ‘real’ coffee shop, managed to find it, and that they were not too disappointed at the original décor and its amazing (but strong) coffee!

coffee

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2009
07/16
CATEGORY
Retail
1 comment

What’s up with Sweden and all its innovation?

I don’t know about you but I have always thought a hell of a lot of good stuff comes out of a country inhabited by only 9.2 million people, speaking a language very few people care about (a little over 9.2 million people I would guess :) ).

abba_w_swedish_flag

I have often wondered why, but to be honest never gone as far as looking for an answer, until I read an article in brandchannel.com, Brandinavia: Why Nordic Brands Rule. The article attempts to answer the question “How come the Nordic countries are such a branding powerhouse? (IKEA, VOLVO, Lego, Nokia, Ericsson, Absolut)?”.

The reason given in the article is that Scandinavia is a social democracy where people are taken care of from cradle to death (paid for by high taxes). This means Governments can focus on commercial issues, a focus that materialises in three ways:
-    Low corporate tax
-    Investment actively being encouraged
-    Supporting aggressive export of their products

Before continuing, and in the spirit of total disclosure, I need to mention I’m half Swedish (in case my last name has not given it away). I will therefore focus my comments on Sweden for no other reason than it being the only Scandinavian country I know intimately having lived there for 15 years.

I very much enjoyed the article, it was well written and informative, however I do question its focus on brands.

To me this is not a story about branding, but about creativity and innovation. What is interesting about Sweden is not the amount of famous brands it has given birth to, but how innovative it’s products and solutions are. Yes I agree that this innovation has lead to the creation of many famous brands, but more importantly they changed entire industries (the article mentions this but not in the sense of disrupting industries). IKEA revolutionised the furniture industry, H&M the clothing industry, Tetrapak the packaging and delivery industry etc.

tetrapak

(Tetrapak)

I believe a more interesting question to be, what makes the Swedes so creative and therefore innovative (to be discussed later)?

I also question the author’s Government support explanation. Although I would agree that the social democracy argument goes a long way to explain the successful go to market of products, and eventually the existence of strong brands, I feel this is very much an economic argument. The truth is it does not explain the actual initial innovation, especially as it was there long before Swedish businesses had the commercial support from their Government (We invented the safety matches in 1844, the commercial vacuum cleaner in the early 1900’s).

Personally I believe that the Swedish culture has more to do with the success of its products.

Having lived in Sweden for a long time, trust me when I say creativity is not what jumps out at you when you spend time with its population…and yet there it is!!!

So how come it’s there, in abundance? A long discussion with my father over breakfast lead to the following conclusion, it’s the Swedes practical side, and their constant search for practical solutions, that feeds this creativity. IKEA was born because the founder Kamprad wanted to ship a chair to someone but did not know how to package it, hence taking the legs of…and not because he wanted to disrupt the furniture industry. Skype was born because Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis were looking for a practical way to benefit from the Internet (in addition to making some money)…and not because they wanted to disrupt the telecomms industry.

Ok so this explains why great ideas are generated. But how come these ideas have such mass appeal? Again the answer I believe (and my dad too) is cultural. Sweden is a collective society, a society that always thinks of the group, and how to benefit that group. It’s therefore more likely that the ideas generated, and what is subsequently developed in terms of products and service, will be of benefit to many (satisfying a collective need), and by that rational sell in great numbers.

And finally, it does help that Swedish design, like the article mentions, is second to none. Again the answer is cultural. Swedes are very simple, honest and straightforward people. Yes is yes, no is no, what you see is what you get, there are no frills! And that is exactly what Swedish design is like, simple and pure (which again tends to have a mass appeal).

skandium2

(Skandium, design store on Marylebone High Street.)

So what should we learn from the Swedes that we can bring to our innovation efforts? Actually three little things, nothing we did not already know, so incredibly obvious, yet three things that prove hard to achieve (unless you are a Swede of course).

1.    Don’t be creative for creativity’s sake (is there a practical use for your product or service?).
2.    Think of the user, the people when you create (can you imagine a day when a large group of people will use your product or service?).
3.    And while you’re at it, throw in a bit of good taste into what you create, it never hurts!!!

Lycka till (Good luck!!!)

Brandinavia: Why Nordic Brands Rule, by Barry Silverstein, July 13, 2009 issue

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2009
07/15
CATEGORY
Disruption
Innovation
Strategy
Trend (people)
2 comments

How often do you look yourself in the eye?!

Not often enough I recently found out!

Yesterday I had the chance to do so…in more ways than one.

I was literally given the opportunity to look myself in the eye by my optician when he showed me a picture of my retinal (which he kindly agreed to e-mail me so I could share it with you).

240969_20090712_150457_Colour_2.7_L_01

But more interestingly buying new glasses taught me that I’m not as open mined as I thought I was.

I expected picking the frames to be relatively easy. I trust the shop, their inventory and taste, and I knew exactly what I wanted. My brief was short and very clear, “I want something different from my old ones”.

If you are in advertising and media, or even recruitment, you will have had this brief many times “We want something different!”. But here is my question…how many times does the client actually mean it, or even understand the consequence of their request?

In my case I found myself rejecting every frame proposed to me…why? I hate to admit this but yes, because they were different. I did not realise it at the time. I thought I was rejecting them because I did not like them, because they did not suite me, because the guy in the shop did not get me, and my taste (my need).

The sad truth is that I had become comfortable with the way I look wearing my old ones. For three years I have seen myself in the same brown medium sized Face à Face glasses, they have become part of the furniture, part of me. So did I really want something different, or did I like the sound of having something different?

This experience made me think of the times when I have been looking to change job. I can’t tell you (because I have lost count) how many interviews recruiters have sent me to because “the client wants something different…we don’t want just a branding person, or just an advertising person, or just a …”, the list goes on. And why do they want something, or someone, different? Because they are looking to “change, shake things up, challenge the status quo”. I may not remember how many interviews like this I have been to, but I can tell you how many lead to someone actually hiring me, …close to zero. When it comes down to it we quite like things to remain the way they are, we like surrounding ourselves with things we know, things we understand. We like talking about doing something different, but when it comes down to it… we don’t actually like doing it that much.

It’s always hard when one looks one self in the eye and one realises one isn’t as open mined as one thinks. In moments like this there is only one thing to do, SLAP YOURSELF!!! Give your system a bit of a wake up call (yes I believe in chock therapy!) and choose something which is the complete opposite of what you already have, and deal with it!

So if you see a girl walking down the street wearing a pair of big black glasses…that will be me. I don’t care if they look strange on me, they are there to serve a bigger purpose, they are there to remind me of the fact that being comfortable, and not considering something different, is seriously not a good thing!!!

By the way, I’m sure I will get used to them, I’m sure I will soon think they suit me…does that mean I will have to change them again? Probably! Darn this ‘accepting what is different thing’ is going to prove to be an expensive exercise!

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2009
07/14
CATEGORY
Challenge the obvious
Human Behaviour
Thoughts
1 comment

This is not business as usual!!!

Thank you Aviva for having recognised this (and yes created a whole 1 minute ad around the concept!!!).

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXmvhy9tn7U]

The foundation of the ad is 10 statements chosen because I suppose they stood out as customer pain points in one of their, or their agency’s, market research exercises. In other words statements customers made about how they do not like to be treated.

It doesn’t really matter where they came from, to me the whole thing felt a bit obvious and cheesy (like a limousine and a fancy restaurant on Valentine’s day)… until I realised that in less than 2 weeks numerous organisation’s I dealt with have failed to deliver on 8 of the 10 statements mentioned in the ad.

Let’s look at them one by one….

‘I’m not a customer reference number’ – The other day, like every year since I arrived in the UK, I had to sit through a consultation with a doctor who had not read my case history, had no clue who I was, and I suspect struggled to care – I may as well have been a customer reference number in an Excel sheet (oh yes you can always count on the NHS)!!!

‘I’m not a target market’ – Yes they have done it again, a travel agent has sent me information on holidays in a Spa resort…because a mud bath is apparently what the target market ‘ABC1 30-45 year old women’ are looking for in a vacation!

‘Always remember who’s money it is’ – Recall my blog about attending the mobile music industry conference ‘What the mobile industry needed to hear!!!’? I spent an hour listening to a panel made up of major UK mobile operators talking about ME, ME, ME… completely forgetting who is actually paying for their services. Just in case you have forgotten where the money is, it’s with the customer/consumer!

‘Take me seriously’ – I spent most of last night on the phone with a lady from Sky trying to convince her to look into why I’m not receiving e-mails (I was not going as far as hoping that she would actually fix it). I was in the middle of telling her how I was not sure that what I was receiving would qualify as technical support when I realised she had simply put the phone down. Can’t imagine anyone who takes me, or my business seriously doing that!!!

‘Don’t treat me like an idiot’ – I will again refer you back to a previous blog, me attempting to purchase some Havaianas on-line.  If you advertise that a product is 12 pounds, and there is in fact only one product at that price, do you really think I will find that acceptable? If I did, that would make me an idiot!

‘Remember me/just recognise me’ –  Dear Vodafone, thank you for sending me yet another identical text message the minute I leave the UK informing me of your new concierge info service. Do you think that since I’m on my third country in two weeks, and I still have not used your service, it may be time to acknowledge my past behaviour and adopt a new approach, or a different message? I only say this since you have spoken to me before about the exact same thing, but you clearly don’t remember!

So actually Aviva I am sorry to have to inform you that you seem to be wrong…it very much is business as usual – the business of companies completely and utterly forgetting to build their business around the consumer…as usual!

P.S I still have two days to go and am sure someone will ‘clutter their language with corporate jargon’ and ‘call me by my stage name’ (I wish I knew what that means) bringing the number of failure by organisations to deliver to 10 out of 10!

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2009
07/13
CATEGORY
Customer Experience
Thoughts
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Taking BOGOFs to an extreme!

During my time at WPP I did a lot of work in the retail space. Buy one get one free (BOGOFs) were, and still are, a huge headache for brands as they are expected to take on the cost of the promotion (such is the power of the retailer, but we will discuss that some other day).

Walking down the street I see signs like this everywhere (not to mention in supermarkets).

buy teo commando

But this morning, as I was cleaning out old newspapers, one ad really caught my eye.

2 for one room

Pardon my Swedish, what it says is ‘One extra room when you buy”. Basically when you buy an apartment you get the smallest room for free. No this is not WHSmith where you get three books for the price of two (or if they were more transparent they would admit that you get the cheapest for free). No these guys are advertising apartments!!!

You know you live in extreme times when you can get BOGOFs on a flat (well on rooms!)!!!

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2009
07/10
CATEGORY
Findings
Retail
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