Archive for May, 2010

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
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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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