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Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Important Marketing Trends for 2009 at CES in Vegas

I found this on YouTube today. It is an interview by AdAge of Accenture's Greg Douglass. Interesting to me was that the word VALUE popped out again. I think that is such an important word to focus on (one way or another) in 2009.

Greg's two key messages are:
  1. Make your product aspirational. Consumers want to aspire to some sort of new Electronic thing.
  2. Bundle services and options with products they sell. We haven't seen this sort of bundling to any major extent yet. Adding value to the device will be key in 2009.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Trends in advertising, 2009

Today's Google search ... "latest trend in advertising 2009".

And, that led me to a number of YouTube videos. Here's an interesting one ...

Leo Burnett Group Predictions '09, Future Trends in Advertising


Just in case you missed them ... those were:
  1. New Realism - Economic Conditions will lead to a value-based messaging. Expressions that are confident, secure, uplifting, connected, honest, and progressive
  2. Hyper-Reality - The pace of change is accelerating.
  3. Trust Economy - Trust in a Brand is critical to success
  4. Eco-Austerity - Environment pressures will turn into an economic reality
  5. Digital TV - Tipping point of broadcast quality
  6. Thread media - Content will be tradable across media (i.e. integrated advertising across media)
  7. Generation Game - Gaming will become a mass-market pursuit
  8. The end of fact - The internet allows more opinions to be delivered more rapidly.
  9. Brands as vehicles - Brands are about to become a "means" and not an "end".

Monday, January 19, 2009

Hot Marketing Strategies

In my daily random Google search, I typed in "Hot Marketing Strategies". The first several listings were all businesses touting their capabilities. About the 6th or 7th listing was for MoreBusiness.com. On it, they had a list of "Cool Tips for Hot Marketing Success"

The list (paraphrased) is:
  • Create an Energetic Team - with a mix of energetic people from various departments Guide and Coordinate
  • You should not only lead your marketing team but also ensure that each member is aware of their responsibilities. They need to be able to act in unison to ensure the success of the marketing campaign.
  • Guide and Coordinate - guide them according to their strengths and weaknesses and coordinate various teams to avoid misunderstandings. Also, coordinate with your back-end operations
  • Keep It Simple - It makes it easier on your own company and on your customers.
  • Consistency with Flexibility - Your marketing campaign should be consistent & brand oriented.
  • Plan In Advance - take the time to plan, rather than just responding to competition.
  • The most expensive marketing is marketing that doesn’t work - Plan

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Now here's a job title most people can identify with ...

I just saw this job posting in my daily "Flight Jobs" email.
Head of Stress

Head of Stress required to work for one of the largest manufacturer's of aircraft parts. This position will hold responsibility for people-management, budgets, supply base, documentation etc. This role will have significant customer facing and commercial negotiating including material review board support.
What's the stressful part? Dealing with people, budgets, supply base, and documentation? The customer facing stuff or commercial negotiating?

Come on ... figuring out a new advertising campaign for a company and hoping it will be successful and actually drive sales ... wow, that is stress!

Okay, I get it. The job must be all about stress in terms of aircraft parts.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Top 5 Marketing Trends for 2009

Look out ... it is 2009 already!

For fun today, I Google'd "Latest Trend in Marketing 2009" and came up with a report from Design News that reviewed findings by the Marketing Executives Networking Group (MENG) about marketing trends in 2009.

The top 5 Marketing Trends MENG indentified were:
  • Insight and innovation are the way to beat the downturn
  • Key Strategies for 2009 indicate a return to the basics, and include: Customer satisfaction and customer retention, ... then ROI, brand loyalty and segmentation
  • Economic strife trumps the greening of our economy. Global warming dropped the most in importance among marketers (by 14 places in rankings)
  • Buzzwords like "Web 2.0" and "blogosphere" suck. But that might be reflective of most marketers still not having a clue about them.
  • Internationally China sill is identified as the greatest area of opportunity, and India was seen as a distant second with just 17% of respondents indicating its potential.
Interesting thoughts in interesting times...

Dave Jones
Market GoGo

Self Service Technology

I am a big advocate of using communication technology to provide more customer self service options. Not only does it offer the customer a faster way to get through routine, mundane transactions, it can really differentiate a business. Being open to do business whenever the customer wants offers a competitive advantage.

But my belief in self service technology was severely tested the other day at Superstore. I used the self serve checkout for the few items I was purchasing. Among them were 4 bags of water softener salt weighing 20kgs each. Each time I scanned the bag, "the voice" demanded I place the item in the bagging area. But there was no room. Each attempt to scan another bag was met with the same response - place the item in the bagging item.

Only after my temperature was rising and frustration level increasing, did the check out person show me where the items should go. On top of this, my credit card failed to process twice.

So what was my conclusion? Self service doesn't work?

This experience reinforced some of the basic assumptions that need to be incorporated whenever a business is adding self service - whether it is at the check out, over the phone or on the web.

1. Don't assume your customer understands the process you are implementing. It may make a lot of sense in the boardroom or to the programmers but does it make sense in practice.

In the above situation, it would be really easy to add a special on screen instruction for oversize or heavy items to place them on the end of the bagging area. And have this area marked.

2. Provide an option for the customer to "escape", especially where the process is caught in a loop. Again, simply repeating the same message without offering a solution just aggravates the customer. The intent is to simplify the process, not antagonize the customer.

3. Make sure the "escape" works. The system does have a help button. But the poor young woman was busy with other customers and never did come to my assistance.

4. Get customer feedback for improvement. While I am sharing this experience with you, Superstore remains blindly unaware of the problem and possible solution.

I still believe self service can enhance the customer experience. But this experience underscores the need to think through the implementation and make adjustments based on real customer experiences.

Friday, January 9, 2009

YouTube for business

I recently came across an interesting Alberta based company that can deliver any form of video via the web through a secure private network. This application opens up a number of interesting opportunities for organizations looking for more powerful ways to communicate internally to a large, dispersed employee or agent network. Some of the ways it is being used by organizations includes leadership communication, investor relations, and distribution of training programs.

In the "old" days, we would have to create video content, duplicate hundreds of videotapes or DVD's, and organize shipping to branch offices. They would in turn have to organize staff to view the video and there was no interactivity possible. One more example of how the web has changed the way organizations can communicate internally or to customers.

The real question is why more companies aren't taking advantage of such easy to implement and low cost delivery channels?