Mitch Joel's Blog: Six Pixels of Separation, page 249
May 24, 2014
Rage Against The Marketing Machine - CTRL ALT Delete (One Year Later)
CTRL ALT Delete came out one year ago today.
I couldn't believe it when the notification popped up in my calendar today. My second business book, CTRL ALT Delete, is a one year old. Where did the year go? It has been an amazing one. Just the other day, I presented the concepts in this book for a record four times in one day (to different corporate groups). As I was presenting and reflecting on this past year, it became apparent to me that marketing still has a ways to go. In CTRL ALT Delete, I present an argument: there are five new and dramatic movements that have changed business forever that most brands are doing little-to-nothing about. In the second part of the book, I look at what it means for all of us to be successful in that work environment. The concepts, the movements and what we, the stewards of brands, can do to impact our direct relationships with consumers has never been more powerful. The results of the book have totally blown me away. The book was named one of the Best Business Books of 2013 by Amazon and won gold in the 7th Annual Axiom Business Book Awards. While awards and accolades are great, I'm most thrilled with all of the kind reviews, interviews and more that people like you have engaged me in. With that, there have been close to 130 consumer reviews on Amazon too. In fact, I'm having a hard time wrapping my head over where this year went, because I am just as excited about everything in the book as I was when I first wrote it.
Take a listen to this...
Last week, the Queen's School of Business ran a podcast interview that I did with Neil Bearse titled, Raging Against The Marketing Machine. If you enjoyed CTRL ALT Delete, I think you will like this conversation. If you liked the book and would like to encourage others to read it, please send them the link to take a listen to. If you haven't had a chance to read the book yet (maybe you're still on the fence), I'm hopeful that this conversation will inspire you to do so.
Listen here: QSB Insight - Mitch Joel: Raging Against The Marketing Machine.
Tags:
amazon
axiom business book awards
best business book 2014
book review
business book
business culture
consumer reviews
ctrl alt delete
direct relationship
marketing
media interview
neil bearse
qsb insight
queens school of business
raging against the marketing machine








Before You Quit For That Next Job...
My buddy*, Scott Monty, left his position at Ford.
Scott is a well-known entity. He changed the game for big brands and social media. This is a big deal. This is big news. He leaves Ford as being one of the global leads on social media. It's not his title, but rather what he accomplished at this organization that is so staggering. Much has been said and written about Scott's departure today (you can read the industry reaction to his choice right here: Ford's Social Media Star, Scott Monty, Talks About Leaving--and Not Looking Back). The digital marketing space has a terrible turnover rate. We churn people from one agency to another. From one brand to another. LinkedIn has become a non-stop ringing phone of opportunities. It's hard to resist the temptation to make the switch.
Wait... don't switch so fast.
I see this all of the time. I hear it from brands, I hear it from my peers at agencies and I see it happen at Twist Image. Here's a true story: I was recently attending a conference and ran into someone who had worked at Twist Image for a short period of time. Like others, they had started being approached for other opportunities a few days after they started working. They eventually decided to leave for another agency. It happened fast, they had not accumulated much experience, but left for the promise of a better title and a little more money. Their comment to me was this: 'I made a big mistake.' Upon reflection they realized that they didn't have the experience or maturity for that role or that salary base and, since then, it's been a career turnstile. You see this a lot on LinkedIn. People switching jobs every 12-18 months. It may appear to be a career ascent, but more often than not, it's a bunch of lateral moves. That's not the issue... that's a professional and personal choice. The real issue is in looking at what was accomplished during that tenure.
Scotty Monty did a ton... did you?
An article I often reference on the state of employment in our industry comes from Fast Company. It's called Generation Flux (and it was their cover story in January 2012): "What defines GenFlux is a mind-set that embraces instability, that tolerates--and even enjoys--recalibrating careers, business models, and assumptions. Not everyone will join Generation Flux, but to be successful, businesses and individuals will have to work at it. This is no simple task. The vast bulk of our institutions--educational, corporate, political--are not built for flux. Few traditional career tactics train us for an era where the most important skill is the ability to acquire new skills." Bob Greenberg is a legend in the digital marketing space. He's the CEO of R/GA (one of the world's most awarded and respected digital marketing agencies in the world). Here's a snippet from Generation Flux and what it has meant to building teams at R/GA: "GenFlux staffers are leaving at such a steady pace, sticking around for such short runs that Greenberg finds himself constantly replacing them, endlessly slotting one talented young person into another's place. Many CEOs would react to this news with alarm: What are we doing wrong? Why can't we keep our young talent? Greenberg talks about this intense transition with nonchalance. He's not upset by it; he's not fighting it; and he assumes this is the way life will be for the foreseeable future." Whether or not you buy into GenFlux - as a concept - is irrelevant. Greenberg's statement is staggering: people are leaving at a steady pace and sticking around for short runs. Is that a good or bad? It depends. Scott Monty dedicated six years to Ford (some might not consider it so long, when considering the lifespan of a career). but look at what he accomplished. In theory, sticking with a job for only a year is equally acceptable, if what you accomplished matters. If there was a beginning, a middle and an end to that work.
Thinking about completion instead of what's next.
If you're switching jobs (and it's not because you're miserable), my advice to many starting out is this: look at the legacy that you leave and not the job title or salary increase that you're going to. Resumes, in Generation Flux, are organic. They're alive and they grow online. Being able to demonstrate that you can see something through, and that what you did added value to a brand and grew their business is what matters. Scott Monty leaves Ford and the work that he accomplished (along with his team) in a much better place than the way he found it. It matters little how long he was there for. Who wins? Is it bad for Ford that Scott is leaving? Nope. Both brand and team members benefitted greatly from the experience. That, is what everyone should be hoping to accomplish in their own tenures. So, before looking to leave for the next bump in job title or salary, take a step back, think about the experience, think about what you have learned and gained. Think about how you can tell a better story about what that experience gave you, and then think about Scott Monty. When you leave, will the industry pay attention, take note and give you credit for accomplishing a bunch of things that truly mattered? Thing that moved the needle? Scott's ascent in our industry should be noted, because he exemplifies a great work ethic.
If you're thinking about leaving for a new job, instead of focusing on what you might accomplish next, why not reflect on if you accomplished anything worthy of a next step or new move?
*I don't mean someone who I follow on Twitter (or someone who follows me back). I mean we're friends. We speak. We see each other. We know about each others lives.
Tags:
bob greenberg
business model
career
career management
digital marketing
digital marketing agency
fast company
ford
generation flux
genflux
hr
human resources
legacy
linkedin
marketing agency
rga
scott monty
social media
social media star
traditional career
twitter
work experience








Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #205
Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?
My friends: Alistair Croll (BitCurrent, Year One Labs, GigaOM, Human 2.0, Solve For Interesting, the author of Complete Web Monitoring, Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks and Lean Analytics), Hugh McGuire (PressBooks, LibriVox, iambik and co-author of Book: A Futurist's Manifesto) and I decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person "must see".
Check out these six links that we're recommending to one another:
United States Of Secrets - Frontline . "How did America's security apparatus move from a constitution of liberties to a monitored society? Frontline 's two-hour look at the slippery slope that took us to a surveillance state is fascinating, and surprisingly candid. 'What we're doing is awful, and I think highly effective.' This is the first of a two-part series -- and thankfully- available outside the US." (Alistair for Hugh).
Why Don't We All Have Cancer? - Vsauce . "F cancer, right? Well, as Vsauce explains in their usual hyper-kinetic way, cancer is pretty complex. And the main reason we don't all have it is that we're dying all the time. A great nine-minute look at a subject that touches us all." (Alistair for Mitch).
Don't Diss Cheap Smartphones. They're About to Change Everything - Wired . "What happens when powerful networked computers get put into the hands of millions/billions of people who might not even have access to regular electricity? We're about to find out, and it will be transformative - for 'us' as well as 'them.'" (Hugh for Alistair).
Sarah Millican: Twitter was a pin to my excitable Bafta balloon - RadioTimes . "The headline to this essay should be: 'Don't be an a-hole.' Female comedian is nominated for British Academy of Film and Television award. Buys a dress at a discount store (because she's a struggling comedian, not a gazillionaire), attends the event, gets photographed on the red carpet. Wins the award. Is thrilled!... Logs on to Twitter to find herself torn apart by thousands of jerks for having a bad dress and not being as skinny as Kate Moss. Here is her response." (Hugh for Mitch).
Scientists discover how to turn light into matter after 80-year quest - Imperial College London . "What people don't often think about when they think of science (or 'if' they think of science), is this: what we commonly held as deep facts and beliefs are - more often than not - eventually rebuked or changed in science. Yes... in science. The world is flat , right? Close to one hundred years ago, someone said that light could be turned into matter. It was thought to be scientifically impossible. Well, guess what? And, once again, we're all left thinking the same thing: if that fact was actually fiction, what else do we hold as 'facts' in today's world that will prove to be wrong in the next short while? If science and technology has anything to do with it, it looks like we'll be seeing a whole lot more of factbusting going on." (Mitch for Alistair).
Google exec's tantrum becomes Twitterverse plaything - New York Post . "I was once booked to speak at a paid event, and when I showed up there were only two people there. Two. I thought it was a mistake. Why would any event book and pay a speaker if only two people are going to show up? It was also a little embarrassing, as you can imagine. It turns out that this event was always a tradeshow, and they were trying to introduce the concept of a conference as well. but they did a terrible job at promoting it, so the vast majority of attendees didn't even know that it was going on. I felt bad for the organizers and I scrambled to make the event less about me speaking to an audience and more about helping them to solve some problems. #iamgoogle. Do a search for this hashtag... it's pretty harsh (and hilarious). Speaking (or having a senior position at a cool company, like Google ) has an interesting way of inflating one's ego. Life is filled with moments that can give an individual a big head. Suck it up? Grin and bear it? Have some humility? Sometimes, it's just hard. This is one of those cases, but it played out online (of course) and it has taken on a life of its own. Sadly." (Mitch for Hugh).
Feel free to share these links and add your picks on Twitter, Facebook, in the comments below or wherever you play.
Tags:
alistair croll
bitcurrent
book a futurists manifesto
cancer
complete web monitoring
facebook
frontline
gigaom
google
hugh mcguire
human 20
iambik
iamgoogle
imperial college london
kate moss
lean analytics
librivox
link bait
link exchange
link sharing
managing bandwidth
media hacks
new york post
pressbooks
radiotimes
sarah millican
social media
solve for interesting
the world is flat
twitter
united states of secrets
vsauce
wired
year one labs








May 23, 2014
Can You Face Your Own Tweets?
It's an old bit.
For the seventh time, Jimmy Kimmel, enlists a whole bunch of celebrities to read the terrible things that people have tweeted about them on Twitter. Hilarity ensues (and, it's not safe for work). You will laugh. You will cringe. And, while I'm one of those people who hates it when anyone attempts to dissect humor or relate it to something serious, I will. There are often times when I see something online, and I feel like taking a jab (or right hook) at someone (some famous... some not). I step away from the keyboard. I don't do it. Not because I had seen this segment before, but I do ask myself if I would be willing to say whatever it is that I was going to blog, tweet or post to that individual's face. More often than not, I realize that it could be (at worst) hurtful and (at best) hurtful. Why bother? As great as social media is, many people hide behind it. For my dollar, I love social media because it engenders the opportunity for a real interaction between real individuals. Because of that, I'm not willing to publish anything that I wouldn't be comfortable saying to someone's face.
Get ready to laugh... and cringe...
Tags:
blog
jimmy kimmel
online
social media
tweet
twitter








One Last Comment About Blog Comments (Hint: They're Back)
I've missed you. How have you been?
Sadly, I shut the commenting functionality on this blog down on April 16th of this year. I shut them down, because the spam was (without question) out of control. In a strange twist of fate/timing the blog comments being shut off happened in and around the same time that the subject of commenting on blogs re-entered into the social media zeitgeist. Some notable sites had decided to shut their comments down, and allow the discourse to flow wherever it may (on Twitter, Facebook, someone else's blog, etc...). With that, many passionate bloggers who have built substantive audiences bemoaned this move. In a meta-move, I blogged about the entire situation over here: Shutting Down Blog Comments.
What did I say?
If you go back and read that blog post, you will note that I was going to re-initiate blog comments on a better system. Well, I'm thrilled to let you know, that you can comment away on the Six Pixels of Separation blog, once again. First, I'd like to thank my team at Twist Image for pulling this together. Between the news of us being acquired by WPP and our full-plate of client work, they managed to find the time to get this done. With that, we have decided on Disqus to moderate the blog comments. I'm hopeful that this will help keep the spammers away (I'll keep you posted). I'm also hopeful that this new system will enable me to interact a whole lot more with you. Over the years, I sincerely struggled with the old commenting system. I was in a place where I was reading each and every comment, but didn't feel compelled to always reply, interact, agree, thank, disagree, acknowledge and more. I loved all of the feedback, additional discourse and more, but I was much more focused on reading, thinking and writing the next post, article, book, presentation, etc.... I know that some see this as not being very "social," but I would (and still do) disagree. Everything that I write is not about me interacting with you. Everything that I write is then open for you to comment on, for you to create more content on, for you to interact with others on. That was my true hope. To me, what makes any piece of content "social" is how shareable and findable it is. That's it. It's not about how much back and forth the content creator has with any one individual. There is nothing all that social about two people having a back and forth on a blog as everyone else looks on. There is something beautifully social about a piece of content that others add to and discuss amongst themselves and others.
With that...
There was something "missing" from this blog since the comments went down last April. Yes, the links were shared on Facebook, Twitter and beyond. Yes, the readership was still there, but once that final period on the last sentence of my last paragraph was written, that place... the one where you take it... was gone. I missed that. So, hopefully, you will come back, you will add, you will share and you will - hopefully - forgive me if I'm not always defending my position ;)
Let's see how this goes...
Tags:
article
audience
blog
blog comment
blog comment moderation
blog comments
blog post
blogger
book
content
disqus
facebook
presentation
publishing
readership
social
social media
spam
spammer
twist image
twitter
wpp








May 18, 2014
Agency Life With Joseph Jaffe
Episode #410 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.
This is also episode #28.20 of Across The Sound. Joseph Jaffe is widely regarded as one of the top Marketing Bloggers (Jaffe Juice) and Podcasters (both Jaffe Juice in audio and Jaffe Juice TV in video). He is the author of four excellent books (Life After The 30-Second Spot, Join The Conversation, Flip The Funnel Z.E.R.O.) and his latest business venture is, Evol8tion. A long-time friend (and one of the main inspirations behind the Six Pixels of Separation blog and podcast), we've decided to hold semi-regular conversations, debates and back-and-forths that will dive a little deeper into the Digital Marketing and Social Media landscape. This is our 28th conversation (or, as I like to affectionately call it, Across The Sound 28.20). In this episode, we discuss agency life. Why did Twist Image sell to WPP and what is the future of agencies and their roles with brands? Enjoy the conversation...
You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via iTunes): Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast #410.
Tags:
across the sound
advertising podcast
blog
blogging
brand
business book
business podcast
david usher
digital marketing
evolution
facebook
flip the funnel
instagram
itunes
jaffe juice
join the conversation
joseph jaffe
kickstarter
life after the 30 second spot
marketing blogger
marketing podcast
podcast
podcasting
twitter
video podcast
wpp
zero








May 16, 2014
Adding Value In Unexpected Places
What a nightmare.
I had to get my tires changed. Here's a first world problem for you: I hate sitting around at the car dealership all day waiting for my vehicle. My trick? I call, ask how long it will take and then look to book the first possible appointment in the morning, so that my car is the first one in. They said it would take about an hour. The problem was that I had to wait three weeks for the appointment. That day came today. I mean, it is May afterall... time to get rid of the winter tires. With my appointment set for 8 am, I arrived at the dealership at 7:40 am. My car was checked-in, so I went to the waiting area, and got busy on my email. A little past 9 am, and there was no sign of my service person or my car. By 9:30, I started getting agitated as my 10 am meeting was now looking to be in jeopardy back at the office. To make a long, sordid, poor customer service story short... I got out of there at close to 11 am (missing all of my morning meetings). All of this for a simple tire change that usually takes about forty-five minutes.
Lessons in bad customer service.
I could list out all of the poorly executed things that could have easily changed my attitude and my response to the situation, and upon reflection, all of them can be summed up in two words: better communication. We all know that things go off the rails from time to time, but what makes consumers most frustrated is either the lack of communication, the lack of clarity in the communication or the impersonal way the information is being communicated. The thing that most brands don't understand about these situations and moments in time is this: it takes a long time to wash away the bitter taste in our mouths. Even driving by the dealership on the way home yesterday made my blood pressure spike.
Add value in unexpected places.
During my session of fuming in the waiting room of the car dealership, I came across a Vanity Fair article titled, Chipotle Cups Will Now Feature Stories by Jonathan Safran Foer, Toni Morrison, and Other Authors. Do you remember when you were a kid and, while eating your breakfast cereal, you would stare at the back of the cereal box? Maybe it had a maze on it, maybe a comic strip or maybe even just some pictures of kids eating cereal? Jonthan Safran Foer (the author of Eating Animals) found himself in a Chipotle one day. As he was eating his burrito, he got bored. No magazine, newspaper, book or even his smartphone to keep him busy, and then he had an idea...
"What if there were something truly good to read on his Chipotle cup? Or the bag? A few years earlier, he had met Steve Ells, Chipotle's C.E.O., so he decided to write the executive an e-mail. 'I said, 'I bet a shitload of people go into your restaurants every day, and I bet some of them have very similar experiences, and even if they didn't have that negative experience, they could have a positive experience if they had access to some kind of interesting text,'' Foer recalled. 'And unlike McDonald's, it's not like they're selling their surfaces to the highest bidder. They had nothing on their bags. So I said, 'Wouldn't it be cool to just put some interesting stuff on it? Get really high-quality writers of different kinds, creating texts of different kinds that you just give to your customers as a service.'"
Chipotle did something about it.
Soon, bags and cups in Chipotle with have short snappy and original pieces of writing from the likes of Malcolm Gladwell, Toni Morrison, George Saunders, and Vanity Fair contributing editor Michael Lewis. The space was available. There was not much additional work needed to do this, and it's a smart and clever way for a brand to not only add utility, but add value in an unexpected place. If you circle back and reflect upon my car dealership scenario (which was happening at the same time that I was reading this Vanity Fair piece), the ability for any brand to add value in unexpected places is massive. Free gourmet coffee? Let us text you updates on the progress of your car? Can we wash your car for you or fill up the windshield washer? Do you require free wi-fi? A place to charge your phone? Can we offer you some office space, so you don't have to miss your meetings? All of these are simple (and high-level) ways the dealership could have added tremendous value in unexpected ways, that don't really cost anything more than time to create them and the will to execute them.
There are lessons to be learned on those cups and bags.
It's easy to dismiss the Chipotle idea as a stunt or positioning tactic. I would argue that there is something much deeper for marketers to think about. We often look for breakthrough innovation by trying to develop, create and execute on something that doesn't exist. As if everything we are already doing is perfect and not in need of innovation. Instead, perhaps the true lesson here is to look within first. To find moments, places and things that we already have in our power to control, that can be augmented to provide additional value and smarts to our consumers.
Because, sometimes, the most unexpected and interesting things can come from the places we least expect. And, more importantly, perhaps they will come from the things that we have already dismissed.
Tags:
bad customer service
book
brand
brand positioning
brand value
car dealership
chipotle
chipotle cups
communication
customer service
eating animals
george saunders
innovation
jonathan safran foer
magazine
malcolm gladwell
marketer
marketing innovation
marketing stunt
mcdonalds
michael lewis
newspaper
reading
restaurant marketing
smartphone
steve ells
toni morrison
unexpected places
vanity fair
writers
writing








Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #204
Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?
My friends: Alistair Croll (BitCurrent, Year One Labs, GigaOM, Human 2.0, Solve For Interesting, the author of Complete Web Monitoring, Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks and Lean Analytics), Hugh McGuire (PressBooks, LibriVox, iambik and co-author of Book: A Futurist's Manifesto) and I decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person "must see".
Check out these six links that we're recommending to one another:
Books That Predicted The Future - Short List . "The future is here; it's just not evenly distributed, says William Gibson . Gibson's high on this list of books that called out future trends, and I still maintain that sci-fi is behind many of today's greatest ideas. Looking at this list makes me want to spend more time reading modern fiction." (Alistair for Hugh).
The Non-Paradox of Choice - National Review Online . "Shoppers are given a choice of six jams, and they buy some. They're given a choice of twenty-four, and they buy far less. This is a widely cited example of the Paradox of Choice . As a speaker, this is a story I've often told when urging audiences to simplify. But is it true? Probably not, says this National Review article. Instead, it's a good lesson in why we need to get better at math and statistics. Malcolm Gladwell may have shown us how to convince with stories -- but he's also shown us how to cherry-pick. Mea maxima culpa." (Alistair for Mitch).
The Half-Century Anniversary of "Dr. Strangelove." - The New Yorker . "One of, or perhaps the, greatest movies about total human annihilation just turned 50. I saw Dr. Strangelove first when I was 14 or so, and was so shocked that a movie could be so crazy. I've seen it multiple times since then, and every time it is an absolute delight of satire, humor and terror. When Kubric started writing the script, he planned a straight thriller - but it turns out that human extinction is supposed to be funny." (Hugh for Alistair).
But What Would The End of Humanity Mean For Me? - The Atlantic . "Speaking of total human annihilation, Stephen Hawking and a collection of eminent scientists have gotten behind a new think tank, Centre for the Study of Existential Risk , which looks at the catastrophic dangers posed to humanity, by, among other things, hyper-intelligent machines. Eat your heart out Ray Kurzweil ." (Hugh for Mitch).
What are some of the best sarcastic quotations - Quora . "I am - and always have been - an extremely sarcastic person. This doesn't always play out well. Some people perceive me to be serious, so when they meet me and I'm being all sarcastic, it doesn't go over well. Plus, in my travels, I've learned that sarcasm also has it's own way of being interpreted in various cultures (and not always in a good way). Still, I'm an unabashed fan of sarcasm. So, this one made me laugh... or did I take it all too seriously?" (Mitch for Alistair).
The Lure of the Writer's Cabin - The New York Times . "My buddy, Ann Handley (of MarketingProfs ) is almost done building a writer's cabin. It's a 12x6 self-enclosed 'space' that could be misinterpreted for a shed in the backyard. And, that's the point. It's a place of solitude and it's sparse of decor. It's meant to inspire creativity, and... well... I'm totally in love with the idea. So, thanks to her, I'm neck-deep in checking out Pinterest pages on the topic , reading articles like this and dreaming of what my own writer's cabin will look like... because now, I desperately want one!" (Mitch for Hugh).
Feel free to share these links and add your picks on Twitter, Facebook or wherever you play.
Tags:
alistair croll
ann handley
bitcurrent
book a futurists manifesto
center for the study of existential risk
complete web monitoring
dr strangelove
facebook
gigaom
hugh mcguire
human 20
iambik
lean analytics
librivox
link bait
link exchange
link sharing
malcolm gladwell
managing bandwidth
marketingprofs
media hacks
national review online
paradox of choice
pinterest
pressbooks
quora
ray kurzweil
sarcasm
short list
social media
solve for interesting
stanley kubric
stephen hawking
the atlantic
the new york times
the new yorker
william gibson
writers cabin
year one labs








The Business Of Creativity
It's the question we all want answered: where does creativity comes from (and how can I get me some of it!)?
I would be open to argue that creativity is a team sport. While one person may be the lightning rod by which is comes out, its source comes from a myriad of people, interactions, environments and a willingness to explore them. Our world is filled with opportunities to uncover our own, personal, creativity. We also have businesses that are based, driven and capitalized on by their own creativity. Pixar would be one of those organizations. There's a new book out called, Creativity, Inc. that is well worth your time and attention. It is written by Ed Catmull (the co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios and president of Pixar Animation and Disney Animation). Catmull has won five academy awards, and has worked with people like George Lucas, Steve Jobs and many others. His movie credits are almost as impressive the revenues that they have generated. So, how does he feel about creativity, storytelling, technology and excellence? Catmull is a Fellow of the Computer History Museum and, in this conversation with John Hollar (which runs for over an hour), you will learn about how he thinks about nurturing a creative culture that blends the arts, technology, media and business into something truly inspiring and revolutionary.
Watch this over the weekend...
Tags:
academy awards
arts
business and creativity
computer history museum
creative culture
creativity
creativity inc
disney
disney animation
ed catmull
george lucas
john hollar
media
pixar
pixar animation
pixar animation studios
steve jobs
storytelling
technology








May 15, 2014
The End Of Showrooming (And Webrooming)
We are never going to solve for true consumer-centricity, if we keep acting like this.
First, we had "showrooming." Showrooming is when a consumer goes to a physical location and uses a mobile device to either compare prices with other retailers or complete their transaction with another retailer (even later at home). Showrooming has been a headache for retailers for several years - and continues to be a challenge - as more mobile devices become increasingly connected and pervasive for consumers. Now, we have "webrooming." Webrooming is when consumers are researching online and buying in physical stores.
Brands... we have a problem.
Let's all take a step back and think about this... for just a second: consumers have devices (computers, laptops, mobile, smartphones, tablets, Google Glass, whatever). These devices are connected and give them access to both information and the ability to buy in a twenty-four-seven scenario. It's an always open retail landscape. They don't need for a store to be open in their local neighborhood to get information about a product or service, and they don't have to wait to buy something during regular/traditional store hours. While retailers may not like the fact that they have this kind of access to information and inventory, it doesn't look like it's going away any time soon (especially, if Jeff Bezos and Amazon have anything to do with it). When was the last time you were confused about a potential product that you were interested in? Have you ever hopped over to YouTube and searched on it? Outstanding, isn't it? The in-depth reviews, discourse and additional information is astounding (and, that's just YouTube). So, why even bother calling it showrooming or webrooming?
It's just shopping, isn't it?
Brands struggled to build what they have called an omni-channel environment. How does a brand move from multi-channel (stores, catalogues, Web,) to omni-channel in our digital age? Take a look at the AdWeek article, Study Shows Prevalence of Consumer 'Webrooming', and think deeply about what it is telling us. Webrooming and showrooming are just new terms and ideologies that reinforce the multi-channel mindset. In reality - if you break down the channels, remove the silos and really think about it - the advent of these activities are simply the consumer leading a true omni-channel life. Consumers don't stop and think about a separation between a physical store, the website, the mobile experience, how the brand interacts on social media and beyond. Every interaction with them is either an investment (or divestment) in the brand. Retailers and marketers can keep making up terms, writing white papers, building infographics and more to reinforce just how much the consumer has adapted, but what we really have is an omni-channel consumer in a world where brands are (sadly) still thinking in a multi-channel way.
What's a brand to do?
In my second business book, CTRL ALT Delete, I dig deep into the notion of the one screen world. This isn't about physical, TV, computer and mobile devices. Screens are everywhere. They are connected, cheap, ubiquitous and easy to use (and this is only going to increase as the Internet of Things becomes a reality and all devices are connected in one way, shape or form). So, instead of thinking about a Web strategy, an e-commerce strategy, a social media strategy, a mobile strategy, etc... why not build, develop and deploy a one screen world strategy? Build a strategy that embraces and understands the contextual reality of consumers in 2014. We can call these things whatever we like: showrooming, webrooming or whatever. The truth is that it's all hyperbole. Consumers are doing what consumers do best: trying to get the best deal from brands that they want to deal with. The more brands try to turn everything into it's own unique and different channel, the more they are going to struggle with the realities of business in this day and age. The more they are going to build a multi-channel environment, while thinking that they're building an omni-channel one.
Don't call it showrooming or webrooming. Call it what it is: shopping.
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