Mitch Joel's Blog: Six Pixels of Separation, page 336

What Is Your Marketing Trying To Do?

The quick answer is: sell more.

We can talk about building brand affinity, loyalty programs, engaging the consumers and all of the other stuff, but if your marketing is not driving sales, it is failed and flawed. Sorry. We can debate the merits of brand building, but without sales, there's not much of a brand. You can sing the same song when it comes to the other critical components that make up a strong marketing mix and a hearty brand ecosystem, but it's all for nothing if it doesn't get consumers coming back for more (and telling everyone they know about it). Just ask Uniqlo, Apple or Trader Joe's.

So, what is your marketing trying to do?

Yesterday, Marketing Charts published a news item titled, Facebook Fan Size May Not Translate to Relationship Quality. Are you shocked? This is the old, "quality vs. quantity" debate that keeps regurgitating itself into the marketing discourse. But, it's still fascinating as many of the more traditional marketing agencies and brands think that "winning" at Facebook is about how many people "like" a brand. According to the article...

"Fan volume does not appear to translate to relationship quality, though, as only 2 of the top 5 brands by fan volume, and less than half of the top 20, appear on the Fathom Research Relationship Quality Index (RQI) as of January 10, 2012. The RQI scores brands on 4 factors with equal weight: number of fans; momentum (based on speed of fan acquisition); fan engagement (based on how often they post on or interact with pages); and emotional quality (how much and how positive emotion is expressed on comments). According to Fathom Research, the top 5 Facebook brand pages, as of January 10, 2012, are YouTube, with a score of 91, followed by Coca-Cola (90), Red Bull (86), Walmart (86), and iTunes (85)."  

Who vs. How many?

As Social Media became popular, I engaged in the argument that it's not about how many people your brand connects to (which is the main metric that traditional advertising looks at), but now we can better understand who these people are and what they're really about (wants, desires, level of care). The thinking was fairly basic: ten raving fans are better than blasting thousands of people who could care less, and now these fans are self-identifying themselves in places like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc... Well, my thinking has evolved (dramatically) as Social Media and other digital marketing platforms have begun to take hold. It's not a zero sum game anymore... you can have both. In a Facebook world of 800 million people connected and sharing, you can have both a mass amount of people as well as a better understanding of who they are and what their needs are. Some fans want simple promotions and others might want a much richer type of engagement. This index proves the point: a lot of fans does not equal a lot of engaged fans.

Blasting vs. Touching.

The mistake that the New Media marketers make when looking at news items like this one from Marketing Charts, is that if you don't have engagement (and a deep one), that the brand is doing it wrong. That the brand is simply blasting a message into another media channel that is being used just like every other channel. This point, is true but it doesn't make a blasting technique (versus a touching technique) wrong. It's just a shame because the opportunity could be that much more substantial. As excited as I am about media being divided into passive and active, we're going to also see many brands (and the agencies that serve them) start thinking more seriously about blasting (or broadcasting) strategies tethered with touching (or engagement) strategies.

Built to touch.

The real answer is that brands (at least, the majority of them) are not built to touch. They look at brands like Zappos and marvel at how they serve their consumers (and, while it may not be perfect, it is very human). The digitization and social engagement of everything is changing the very fundamentals of business. As long as we keep pretending that this is simply a marketing initiative, nothing will change. People care about brands and people want to be connected to brands, so if brands want nothing more than people following them so that they can blast a message at them, fine, but there are so many new, interesting and fascinating things that the brand can do to fascinate, capture and care about their consumers. Knowing who those customers are and getting them just a little bit more engaged seems like the ideal place to start.

It begs the questions: what is your Marketing trying to do? What is your business trying to do?

Tags:

active media

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brand affinity

brand ecosystem

brand engagement

broadcasting

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itunes

loyalty program

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marketing charts

marketing discourse

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new media

passive media

promotions

red bull

relationship quality

sales

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social engagement

social media

trader joes

traditional advertising

twitter

uniqlo

walmart

youtube

zappos

Drunk On The Social Media Kool-Aid

It's hard not to hit a like button and come across a Social Expert, Guru on Ninja.

Even the discourse around the value of job descriptions like that has taken over the Social Media conversation over the years. I've been called one (if not all) of those titles many times over the years, and it has always baffled me. In 2003, I started a Blog, Six Pixels of Separation, because my marketing agency needed some clients and my background as a journalist/writer fit in very comfortably with the  emerging popularity of Blogging. My company, Twist Image, sells marketing and communications services (with a focus on the digital/online channels). The Blog's content covers Social Media simply because I'm fascinated by what this New Media has brought into the marketing mix. If I could self-define myself (and, wouldn't it be grand if we all could?), I'd simply call myself a "marketing professional" and/or an "entrepreneur." If I could define my Blog, I say that it's about "business, marketing and new media." Ultimately, I use Social Media as a publishing and engagement platform to create attention, awareness and interest in my company. It also fits the values of our business (open, collaborative, experimental, strategic and creative).

Where the Social Media Guru thing comes from.

In the past short while, I've come across some very smart, clever and strategic entrepreneurs and business professionals who have leveraged Social Media to circumvent some of the more traditional advertising channels to not only get their brand message out, but to become celebrities in whatever niche industry they serve. It's a true marvel of marketing evolution when you think about it: suddenly, by the sheer prowess of talent and a commitment to create content and engage with those with consume it, a select few can become the Donald Trump's of their industry. These micro-celebrities are racking up hundreds of thousands of friends and followers in places like Facebook and Twitter and they're generating millions of views in places like YouTube and Vimeo. It's come to a point, where even traditional media calls upon them as subject matter experts. Last year, I was attending a pharmaceutical marketing conference and one of the organizers asked if I had met a specific individual. When I said that I hadn't, they shot back, "you should... they are the Seth Godin of the pharmaceutical marketing industry." As much as I am a Seth Godin fanboy, that comment made me realize that because of Social Media, it has become increasingly difficult to even define who is a guru, expert or black belt master (it's not like Social Media is regulated by the federal government or anything... yet). It's also indicative that Social Media has created many new layers of experts or gurus through the simple power that comes from the push of a publishing button.

The Social Media pivot.

What makes these entrepreneurs and business professionals even more interesting is how they take these titles and positions of power (self-anointed or otherwise) and pivot them into the business of selling their Social Media skills and abilities to others. One second, the entrepreneur is the Social Media Gordon Ramsey of dishwashers and the next day, they're running a Social Media consultancy agency. I know what you're thinking: "Mitch is worried about the competition." Not at all... there is room enough for many more marketing agencies, I'm just fascinated with why so many of these people give up the amazing opportunity and position they're in to start a completely different business. Prior to Social Media, how many business people who were featured on TV suddenly quit their jobs to show other business people how to be great on TV? Beyond that, I'm fascinated with how a brand can scale, so just because an individual can get many people to follow them on Twitter or comment on their Blog, it doesn't mean that they have any ability in helping a brand to get the same result.

Bash. Bash. Bash.

What usually happens next is the discourse around who, exactly, should be called an expert and who is a fraud. You can have that debate if you like, but the real value is in figuring out how we move media forward in a world where many of us (and I am raising my hand here, too) are so fascinated by this new media channel that all we want to do is help other people see how great it is. Perhaps, we need to think about that a whole lot more in the context of the history of media and how we move the needle forward? The bigger idea here is that while it's nice to get drunk on the Social Media Kool-Aid and point fingers at those who have gained exposure and popularity through it (both positive and negative), all of that pales in comparison to the fact that we still don't even really know just how powerful this new media is. We also don't really know how much more it is going to evolve in the coming years... and, consequently, how much that is going to change us.

Let's just hope that it's for the better. 

The above posting is my twice-monthly column for The Huffington Post called, Media Hacker . I cross-post it here with all the links and tags for your reading pleasure, but you can check out the original version online here:

The Huffington Post - The Fallacy Behind "Social Media Gurus" .

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donald trump

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Spin Sucks With Gini Dietrich

Episode #287 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.

Why do most PR pitches suck? For the most part it has to do with the fact that they are either not focused or there is no relationship between the PR professional and the media outlet. It's a cold, dark and harsh world out there and Public Relations - as an industry - is also going through both a digitization and a brave new world where everyone is (or can be) a publisher. They very fabric of what it means to be a communications professional is changing, adapting and morphing. Leading this charge/change is Gini Dietrich. Gini Blog at Spin Sucks, is the founder and CEO of Arment Dietrich and is co-host of the very popular PR Podcast, Inside PR. As if that weren't enough, she has begun to create and launch products at Spin Sucks Pro and is about to launch a book called, Marketing In The Round, that she co-authored with Geoff Livingston. In this episode we attack and deconstruct everything from pitching Bloggers to the value of community and the changing face of communications. 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 #287.

Tags:

across the sound

advertising

arment dietrich

bite size edits

blog

blogging

blue sky factory

book oven

cast of dads

cc chapman

chris brogan

christopher s penn

digital dads

digital marketing

facebook

facebook group

geoff livingston

gini dietrich

hugh mcguire

in over your head

inside pr

itunes

julien smith

librivox

managing the gray

marketing

marketing in the round

marketing over coffee

media hacks

new marketing labs

online social network

podcast

podcasting

pressbooks

six pixels of separation

social media 101

social media marketing

spin sucks

spin sucks pro

strategy

trust agents

twitter

Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #81

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, the author of Complete Web Monitoring and Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks), Hugh McGuire (The Book Oven, LibriVox, iambik, PressBooks, Media Hacks) and I decided that every week or so 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:

Uberdata: How prostitution and alcohol make Uber better - Uber . "On-demand car service Uber is all about the data. Sometimes, analyzing that data takes them into interesting places, largely because knowing where rides will be needed is key to making the system efficient. Know what's a good predictor of demand? Sex, drugs, and robbery. Here's why."  (Alistair for Hugh).

My 10 years of blogging: Reflections, Lessons & Some Stats Too - GigaOm . "Om Malik is a powerhouse of content. He's been watching tech bubbles expand and pop for decades, pumping out an average of three posts a day for the last ten years. I was lucky enough to work with Om and his team, writing on emerging tech and helping run Structure. Here, he looks back at what he's been doing and some of the things he learned along the way." (Alistair for Mitch).

Isaac Asimov weighs in with enduring insights on science, faith, and the future - i09 . "The great science fiction writer (and, I just found out courtesy of Wikipedia, professor of biochemistry at Boston University) Isaac Asimov talks about the way of science, anti-inellectualism in American politics, and the decline of the US as a technological power. Interesting that this interview is from 1988, just prior to the explosion of Internet innovation. While there is much talk these days (again) of the American Empire in decline, we still have no challenger for that amazing and baffling cauldron of technological creativity that is the USA (Sidenote: if you don't follow Maria Popova on Twitter/RSS, you should. If there were a Nobel Prize for Internet curation, she would have few rivals)." (Hugh for Alistair).

A bibliophile in Paris - The Economist . "The crotchety, and generous old communist owner of famed Paris bookshop, Shakespeare & Company - where travelling writers could sleep for no more than the price of a poem - died in December. I wonder, as more and more book shops disappear, whether a place like Shakespeare & Company will survive. Perhaps it is just the kind of place that *will* survive, while the big box book stores struggle." (Hugh for Mitch).

Will streaming replace owning music? - The Globe And Mail . "At first, buying music on iTunes felt weird. It was like I was paying for something that I could not hold in my hands. It just didn't make sense. For the past little while, I've ripping hundreds of CDs and dispensing of the physical objects because they take up too much space and I simply don't use them. More recently, I was lucky enough to get a Spotify account. Now, I can't - for the life of me - figure out a reason to buy music on iTunes when Spotify gives me - literally - everything under the moon when it comes to music. Why even bother storing anything on a hard drive when the cloud has it all? It amazes me that all of these very differing feelings about music (and content) have been shaped and re-shaped in a matter of two years. My, how time flies when technology flies faster." (Mitch for Alistair).

Reading isn't dead, but it's changing - The Domino Project . " Seth Godin delivers a simple and smart perspective that we tend to forget about during the discourse on publishing, ebooks and the printed word: what about the reader? I often have to stop myself to realize that how I read has fundamentally changed since I've shifted to reading books on my iPhone exclusively. And it goes beyond that. Here's what Seth says: 'Publish what people choose to read (at a price they want to pay), and odds are, they will choose to read it. There's plenty of room for leadership and art here, but little room for stubborn intransigence.' Yup!" (Mitch for Hugh).

Now it's your turn: in the comment section below pick one thing that you saw this week that inspired you and share it.

Tags:

alistair croll

bitcurrent

boston university

complete web monitoring

gigaom

hugh mcguire

human 20

i09

iambik

iphone

issac asimov

itunes

librivox

link

link exchange

linkbait

managing bandwidth

maria popova

media hacks

om malik

pressbooks

seth godin

shakespeare and company

spotify

story

the book over

the domino project

the economist

the globe and mail

uber

wikipedia

year one labs

The Deception Of Malcolm Gladwell, Seth Godin and Gary Vaynerchuk

You will never make it unless you work harder and much faster.

It's funny how Malcolm Gladwell, Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk and others (including me) are often criticized because their work is mis-interpreted as, "in order to accomplish what these authors are saying, you have to give up everything and only focus on work," or that these people's success is directly linked to a lack of sleep, energy levels or ignoring family responsibilities. The core message around the discourse is that in order to be successful, you can't be all that successful in other areas of life (family, friends, community, etc...).

That's a lie. It's a myth. 

There is no doubt that there is always some level of sacrifice when you are committing to your 10,000 hours (as Gladwell defines it in Outliers), but trust me: it's incredibly hard to be that successful or smart without sleep, taking breaks and connecting to your family and friends. But, that's not the point of this Blog post. I'm willing to bet that the people who say things like, "It's easy for Seth Godin to say that, he doesn't have two screaming babies at home," never take five additional seconds to think about what that sentence really means.

It's not about Malcolm Gladwell, Seth Godin or Gary Vaynerchuk... it's about you.

When you say things like this (be it in your mind, to a friend or in a Blog post), what you are really saying is: "This is my belief system and I'm not willing to change it." Our habits, the stories we tell ourselves and our belief systems are not right or wrong - they simply are. They can be adapted and changed. The reason most New Year's Resolutions fail is because the change is so dramatic that it causes too much internal struggle and friction. Things won't change fast, but things can change dramatically if you just give it some time to both become a more natural habit and to develop slowly into your belief system.

How I lost 100 pounds in under one year (this is not an infomercial).

In the late eighties, I was extremely overweight, overworked and stressing out. After making some very difficult (but wise) decisions about my stress and work, came the even more difficult challenge of losing weight. Have you ever tried to lose weight? Quit smoking? Quit drinking? Anything that falls into those quadrants is difficult. I didn't have an appetite for exercise and I didn't have an appetite to give up on my appetite. After trying some diets and joining different gyms, nothing was really working/taking hold. I decided to slow down. After meeting with a dietician it became very clear what needed to happen: I needed to stop eating things like sugar, fried foods, white bread (and other starchy stuff), cheese (which I love) and other high-fat foods. I also needed to increase the amount of water, fruits and vegetables that I consumed. On top of that I needed to exercise. Even reading back to those past few sentences, it seems both overwhelming and daunting.

Here's how it happened (and yes, I just made this system up to see what would happen):

I tried to stop eating sugar for one week. Once I did one week, I tried it for three more weeks. After a month, it was a habit. A part of my daily life.

The next month I did the exact same process for fried foods.

The month after that, I removed white bread, white rice and the high starch foods.

The month after that, I cut my intake of cheese in half (I love it too much to give up) and tried cheeses that were either lower in fat or had healthier ingredients.

It started working.

In between those first four months, I did my best to supplement my urges with drinking more water and by adding in a some fruits and vegetables here and there. I also didn't beat myself up when I slipped... that's a part of life. The process was so slow and so gradual that I didn't even realize how much weight I was losing or how quickly my belief systems were adapting to this new way of living. I decided to start doing some light exercise as well. Simple things like: no more elevators (walking the stairs) and walking to a destination instead of driving every now and again. I also started riding a bike (something I used to enjoy immensely as a child).

The talent factor.

By the eleventh month, almost all of the bad weight was gone (close to 100 pounds). By then, my life had completely changed. I wanted to do more active things (running outdoors, biking, martial arts), I was meeting different people because of it and eating differently (which gave me newfound energy and passions). I began to imagine what else I could change, so I got that much more engrossed with bettering my mind and spirit (reading, writing, etc...). Then, I had a moment of depression. As great as I was at losing the weight, exercising and taking care of myself (I'm proud to say that, to this day, I have not put the weight back on - which is, actually, the real hard work in the process), I realized that it just wasn't my thing. While I was good at losing weight and exercising, I wasn't talented in sports or motivated enough to let it consume my day-to-day. Things slipped. Not a whole lot, but they slipped.

It's all about talent.

When you're talented at something, you don't slip. Let me correct that: when you're talented at something, even the slip-ups have a better result than if someone else did the exact same thing, only they were lacking the talent. Malcolm Gladwell, Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk and others are very talented at what they do. It is their art form... and that's the big secret. Hard word, high energy, dedication, consistency, focus and everything else won't add up to anything if you don't actually have a knack for what it is that you are doing. When you say things like, "I'm not willing to to sacrifice my life to be like Seth Godin," what you're failing to realize is that what you consider a "sacrifice," Seth considers a "habit"... and one that he's very comfortable with and talented at (and he knows it). Furthermore, when it's something that's highlighting your talent, it does come more naturally.

The recipe for success.

Sadly, there isn't one. You have to work very hard to develop new habits daily, have an acute ability to identify what truly piques your interest (and act on it), dedicate yourself to working on that area and nurturing it and hope - with everything that you have - that it truly is something that you are talented in. Something that highlights your unique abilities. My realization that fitness and diet wasn't a talent of mine didn't make me quit, it just made me realize that I have to be vigilant with it and that I have to be accepting of my mediocrity. My current fitness goal is this: to get in a good 30-40 minute sweat as many days during the week at possible. My current diet goal is this: to eat as healthy as possible and make sure I'm not moving the notches on my belt in the wrong direction. That honesty fits with my current belief system (but I'm open to it changing).

Get started. 

Be patient and really start out slowly to make the changes feel like they're not changes at all. Slowly will also help you define if this is a talent of yours or something that needs to be readjusted. I bet you can find something to start with today: how about commit to watching one hour less of TV every week and spending that hour reading about the industry you serve? My guess is that within one to two months, you'll be in love with the work that you do or you'll be looking for a place that better defines your talent and passion.

Is there anything that you would like to add?

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sacrifice

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What Are You Fighting For?

There's an ugly truth about the business that most of us are in.

A friend of mine works at a fairly large company. It's a known brand. Over lunch, they were lamenting all of the corporate politics at play and the dynamics of the individuals, and how hard it is to get anything done. In fact, they were arguing that it has crippled the brand and that - more often than not - the final marketing initiatives are more about caving in to individual's arguments or worrying about missing a deadline. It's never about great work... it's about getting it done. It's a common story. You hear the same stories just by overhearing a conversation on the subway, at a restaurant or even when you have friends over on the weekend. In fact, it's rare to hear the opposite. We highlight the stories of teams working together well and everyone pulling together at crunch time as if they were fables from another time.

What are we fighting for?

Logically, the answer is simple: we are being paid (and agreed to that payment via our employment agreements) to serve the business. It's simple. We are fighting for the success of the brand. All too often, what you wind up uncovering is that most people are not fighting for what's right (or best) for the brand.

They're fighting for...

Themselves. They're looking to make their own mark. Whether it's to get a raise or rise higher (and faster) up the corporate ladder or simply because they think that their opinion is the only right one.

Their team. There is enough departmental politics in most companies to make the original entrepreneur who started the business either roll over in their grave or fall into one, if they are still alive. This ideology that a department (and not the brand) needs to win battles or control of something has to be one of the most infuriating concepts to think about. I've seen departmental battles last for years. Think about what that does to the brand from a personnel, energy and efficacy standpoint.

The agency. It's a story as old as the Bible: agency fights brand. Brand fights agency. In the end, they're fighting for ideas (and hopefully, what they think is best for the brand), but I've seen these types of battles quickly devolve into a battle of egos instead of vested outcomes in the interest of growing the business.

The competition. Individuals so hyper-focused on crushing their competition, that the brand's uniqueness and appeal becomes a "me too" product or just another product like every other product. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't worry or watch what the competition is doing, but this does mean that if you have something truly unique, spending all of your energy dissecting the competition can, ultimately, make you much more like them than you should be.

Nobody wins.

In all of those instances, you wind up sucking your corporate resources dry. You will eventually see turnover (which is both costly and time-consuming), you will lose focus and momentum and you will, ultimately, wind up loosing your job (maybe not this week or next month... but slowly, over time). Human beings are fascinating, but we often wind up causing ourselves more trouble than we think. Wouldn't it be an amazing world of Marketing if everyone in the company had one single and universal goal: to make the brand better?

It seems simple. It's probably simple to do. We just have to have the self-awareness and confidence to push that ideology forward... with everyone on board.

Tags:

advertising agency

brand

competition

corporate ladder

corporate politics

corporate resources

departmental politics

entrepreneur

fighting

marketing

marketing initiative

teamwork

Scenes From The Frontlines

A post Christmas story that is worthy of your attention...

I was in the market for luggage. Not the usual business travel, but a luggage set for the family. We decided that we were looking to invest to get something of quality. I went over to the store the day after Boxing Day to see if there was anything left and/or anything on special. I found what I was looking for (sort of). It was a little pricier than what I was looking to buy, but it seemed worth it. Here is a paraphrase of the conversation that took place...

Me: Is this on special?

Sales Rep: No.

Me: Do you have any Boxing Day specials happening?

Sales Rep: Boxing Day was yesterday.

Me: Did you have any sales?

Sales Rep: Everything in the store was 20% off.

Me: Is there any chance I can buy this bag with that same offer?

Sales Rep: No.

Me: What if I wanted to buy two bags, could you do something for me?

Sales Rep: I can't make that decision, you would have to speak to the owner.

Me: OK, can I please speak to the owner?

Sales Rep: No. The owner is on vacation and even the manager won't have the authority to make that decision. Plus, even if you did speak to the owner, he would still say, "no."

Me: OK... let me think about it

[exit stage left].

This isn't about me being cheap.

I like a great deal as much as the next person. The thing is that this business has a Facebook page, they're on Twitter and they're constantly putting up videos on YouTube. On the surface, it appears like they care... really, really care about travel and their consumers. I'm not frustrated that I walked out of this store without the luggage or a deal. I am frustrated because the interaction with the employee was not helpful. There was no effort to show me a similar product that may have been cheaper or even a thinly veiled attempt to speak to a manager (the sale might have happened had they come back and said something like, "while I can't make you the same offer as we had on Boxing Day, we're willing to save you on the taxes," or something). In fact, the sales rep simply didn't care one way or the other.

Our efforts fail when the frontline fails.

I can only imagine the time, energy and money that this business has put into their Digital Marketing and Social Media efforts. This doesn't include the traditional advertising and PR efforts and then - in the end - when a potential customer makes it through all of the clutter, noise and competition and walks into the door, they're faced with this type of sour puss. That's not the brand. That's not the desired outcome of the efforts that they're making in marketing. It's a lesson that speaks to the fragility of marketing as it moves through the brand ecosystem.

This happens all of the time. This happens everywhere.

My story is not unique. Just look at the customer service diatribes you can see on Twitter, Facebook, Yelp and beyond. In more cases than not, it's the human factor that is causing the most friction. From passive/aggressive responses to mis-informed/uneducated reps to those that are downright rude to customers (mostly because they're simply not all that thrilled with their own lots in life). Those people on the frontlines aren't your last line of brand defense... they're the first. If they don't buy into the brand (and everything that it's doing to get customers into the door), everything else is lost. We can talk about community managers and a better Facebook or Twitter presence as much as we want, but when the cash is in hand and the people who interact with the consumer don't align with everything else, you may as well go back to having minimum wage employees prowl the streets wearing sandwichboards.

The frontlines shouldn't be this ugly... they should look a lot more like the promised land. 

Tags:

boxing day

brand

brand ecosystem

business travel

community manager

customer engagement

customer service

digital marketing

facebook

frontline workers

luggage

pr

public relations

retail

social media

traditional advertising

travel

twitter

yelp

youtube

What Are You Fighting For?

There's an ugly truth about the business that most of us are in.

A friend of mine works at a fairly large company. It's a known brand. Over lunch, they were lamenting all of the corporate politics at play and the dynamics of the individuals, and how hard it is to get anything done. In fact, they were arguing that it has crippled the brand and that - more often than not - the final marketing initiatives are more about caving in to individual's arguments or worrying about missing a deadline. It's never about great work... it's about getting it done. It's a common story. You hear the same stories just by overhearing a conversation on the subway, at a restaurant or even when you have friends over on the weekend. In fact, it's rare to hear the opposite. We highlight the stories of teams working together well and everyone pulling together at crunch time as if they were fables from another time.

What are we fighting for?

Logically, the answer is simple: we are being paid (and agreed to that payment via our employment agreements) to serve the business. It's simple. We are fighting for the success of the brand. All too often, what you wind up uncovering is that most people are not fighting for what's right (or best) for the brand.

They're fighting for...

Themselves. They're looking to make their own mark. Whether it's to get a raise or rise higher (and faster) up the corporate ladder or simply because they think that their opinion is the only right one.

Their team. There is enough departmental politics in most companies to make the original entrepreneur who started the business either roll over in their grave or fall into one, if they are still alive. This ideology that a department (and not the brand) needs to win battles or control of something has to be one of the most infuriating concepts to think about. I've seen departmental battles last for years. Think about what that does to the brand from a personnel, energy and efficacy standpoint.

The agency. It's a story as old as the Bible: agency fights brand. Brand fights agency. In the end, they're fighting for ideas (and hopefully, what they think is best for the brand), but I've seen these types of battles quickly devolve into a battle of egos instead of vested outcomes in the interest of growing the business.

The competition. Individuals so hyper-focused on crushing their competition, that the brand's uniqueness and appeal becomes a "me too" product or just another product like every other product. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't worry or watch what the competition is doing, but this does mean that if you have something truly unique, spending all of your energy dissecting the competition can, ultimately, make you much more like them than you should be.

Nobody wins.

In all of those instances, you wind up sucking your corporate resources dry. You will eventually see turnover (which is both costly and time-consuming), you will lose focus and momentum and you will, ultimately, wind up loosing your job (maybe not this week or next month... but slowly, over time). Human beings are fascinating, but we often wind up causing ourselves more trouble than we think. Wouldn't it be an amazing world of Marketing if everyone in the company had one single and universal goal: to make the brand better?

It seems simple. It's probably simple to do. We just have to have the self-awareness and confidence to push that ideology forward... with everyone on board.

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A Story With No End

How would you feel about reading an article in your local newspaper that never ended?

It seems like the latest buzz is all about creating content (books, magazine or newspaper articles) that never end. Well, I shouldn't say "never," but the power of these online publishing tools does create a world where articles, books and whatever can be constantly updated in an iterative fashion. From one side of the coin, this has to be one of the coolest innovations in publishing that we've seen in a very long time. Imagine the breaking news of a tornado and being able to see and follow how the story unfolds and get updated in real-time. It also speaks volumes to the power of correcting errors or clarify points of confusion. On the other side of the coin, who has the time for this type of consumption? What are the odds that a consumer is going to come back and check for updates and then be able to remember what was updated since the last time they were there.

It all seems a little overwhelming.

Yes, we want to ensure that our stories are accurate and up-to-date. No, we don't want to create a world where the story keeps changing every two minutes and it becomes hard to know/remember what you read last. The filters are not perfect and neither is the formatting. I have yet to see a news outlet or a Blog create a design/layout that makes the consumption of content that is constantly changing both pleasing to the eye and understandable at a quick glance. Having a little sentence that simply states, "last updated" with a date and time stamp doesn't cut it.

Design is the problem.

That's not true, either. Design isn't the problem... design is the solution. The challenge is that we haven't seen a compelling design that has then been applied universally so that readers can feel like they are truly part of the story. Not to get into Storytelling 101, but a great story has a beginning, middle and an end. If we can't clearly define those parts or if we start mucking around with them, odds are we're going to create more confusion than value... and that's the bigger opportunity here. Instead of constantly and iteratively updating and changing a story, why not create newer pieces of content and link them together and make it much easier for readers to flow through the stories separately?

Media as a process.

I'm as excited about the new opportunities as the next Twitter junkie, but this idea that books, magazine articles or newspaper stories never end is stressing me out. I feel like I have to digitally lug around all of this content and wait to be pinged for the latest tweaks, corrections and additions. Why? Is this a better consumer experience? Are we really appealing to new and interesting consumers with this or pandering to our own self-involved desires and beliefs that this is what the people really want? I don't know about you, but I'm fine with books ending and I enjoy the satisfaction of finishing a nice piece of long-form content (either online or in print) without the need to come back to it as the writer's process or whims continue to unfold. Perhaps we need to better define this new consumer and figure out who wants that much interaction with their media versus those who want their content to be brilliant, to be brief and to be gone.

What do you think?

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The Year Of More

While many article and columns look back at the year that was or posture on the year that will be, it's becoming abundantly clear that 2012 will - without question - be the "Year of More."

It sounds a little incredulous to say this when we're in a world that is struggling for stability. While there is not enough food, jobs, healthcare and not enough room for the nearly seven billion of us (and growing), it's clear that with all of the challenges we face, the human race pushes on. With that comes innovations, new opportunities and an ever-demanding public desire for the latest and greatest. Businesses who have struggled with the technology revolution (and don't kid yourself, there are many businesses that are still playing catch up) will continue to struggle, but it's becoming less about physical infrastructure and much more about a philosophical perspective on what businesses need to look like in 2012 and the year of more.

More social. Social Media and online social networking has changed the very fabric of business and society. Along with the slew of customer service gaffs we've seen businesses go through in the past five years, this has forced brands to become (somewhat) social. While Social Media has aligned within the marketing and communications departments, we're going to see the social impetus be pushed through the entire DNA of a company. That may not happen this year, but you will see that consumers will be even more social in 2012. They will be sharing, chatting and talking about everything from where they are to what they're watching and who they are doing it with. Will this trend stop in the future? It may (but I'm bullish on it continuing), and this year will be a year where consumers will be even more social than they were in 2011.

More global. The subtitle of my first book, Six Pixels of Separation, is "Everyone is connected. Connect your business to everyone." That line was written in 2008, but the ramifications of it are going to be felt in a massive way this year. In this connected society, we now have the ability for businesses (even very small ones) to be global. This isn't about simple distribution channels and selling opportunities, it means much more operationally as well. This year we will increasingly see businesses being more global than they have ever been before.

More local. Achieving mastery of the local market has never been easy. Groupon's development of the hyper-local deal-of-the-day model, has created a slew of new business models and opportunities that will materialize more saliently this year. Through mobile (which are GPS-enabled) and other innovations, there will be a much bigger push to deliver services to the consumer where they physically are in much more effective ways.

More devices. If you were hoping for convergence and a world where one device rules them all, 2012 will not be the year for this (but it will - hopefully - happen at some point in the not-too-distant future). This year will see the introduction of many new devices (including the hotly anticipated entry of Apple into the television set business). From Amazon, Google/Android, Microsoft, RIM (hopefully) and maybe even Facebook, our lives (and briefcases) will continue to get filled up with new, different and interesting devices.

More connectivity. We will be that much more connected. Not only to one another, but to brands (whether the brands like it or not). That point is less important than the slew of devices (see above) that are going to come along that are going to be truly networked and connected to one another. So, while we'll have many new and varied devices, we're going to see them much more tightly networked to one another. The biggest leap this year will be how our home appliances (from televisions and heating) will connect to all of our other Internet enabled devices. Look no further than your weekly Best Buy circular to see how almost all new television sets are what they are calling "Internet ready" (aka networked). All roads (and screens) lead to the Internet. This connectivity of devices will also push our connectivity to one another as we share more things like what we're watching or what we want to buy.

More direct. In April of 2011, I Blogged about the next five years stating that, "The next five years are going to be about... direct relationships. The next five years are going to be about how well a brand can actually change the relationship from one that looks at how many people are in their database to who these individuals are and how the brand can make the connections and loyalty stronger." While loyalty programs will continue to be a critical function of businesses ability to drive marketshare, none of that will matter unless they are developing and nurturing a much stronger and direct relationship with their consumer. This is going to be especially true for brands that sell their products and services through third-parties (like retailers or value-added resellers). The race to "own" the consumer is going to heat up this year - like never before - as more and more brands fight to have the direct relationship. So, while this will evolve over the next five years, the battle begins right now.

More noise. The book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, has nearly four-thousand consumer generated reviews on Amazon alone as of today. For those keeping score, that is book number seven in J.K. Rowling's astoundingly successful series. Do you think that anyone is going to be able to read and make heads or tails of this? As more and more people complain about a brand on Twitter and more and more people compliment the same brand on Twitter, how are consumers going to make better choices? Filtering and curation have been hotly debated topics by many of the media pundits, but it's going to be increasingly difficult for consumers to navigate all of this content that is being created by both brands and each other. Expect this noise level to increase significantly this year. With that, we'll see many new services that will attempt to help us all sort the wheat from the chaff.

More is not always better.

That being said, I wish your business much more success, joy, wealth and health for this year. I also hope that you will take this year of "more" to think about ways that you can experiment more, optimize more, think more and do more.

What "more" do you think is going to shape 2012?

The above post is my twice-monthly column for the Montreal Gazette and Vancouver Sun newspapers called, New Business - Six Pixels of Separation . I cross-post it here with all the links and tags for your reading pleasure, but you can check out the original versions online here:

Montreal Gazette - The Internet will keep on changing the way business is done in 2012 .

Vancouver Sun - not yet published. 

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