Steve Jobs and his team at Apple are really marketing geniuses. They took on the Microsoft machine and are if not beating them in the market share game, are at least beating them at the cool game, scoring cool points all over the place. First, they introduced the iPod, which became a must-have gadget for music lovers -- and let's face it, a status symbol. Microsoft has done respectably with the Zune, but it hasn't caught on like the iPod.
Even more ingenious is the (perhaps) unexpected consumer frenzy for all things Apple. While the Mac was initially the choice for graphic design professionals, thanks in part to the success of the iPod, many business professionals are gravitating toward Macs. See http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_19/b4083036428429.htm?chan=rss_topStories_ssi_5 if you need more proof.
Then came the much ballyhooed iPhone, which, while I become an early iPod adopter, I resisted the iPhone. (In the interest of full disclosure, I gave in about a month ago and I love it!) But the iPhone really underscored how Apple was winning the cool game. I know that I have been using this analogy a lot recently, but I have politics on the brain -- but Hillary Clinton is to Microsoft as Barack Obama is to Apple. One is not necessarily better than the other, but one is definitely cooler.
Microsoft is caught playing the "me too" game while Apple continues to innovate and become the choice for the cooler generation. It remains to be seen how this will all play out, but God Bless those marketing minds that work inside Apple.
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1813117,00.html
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Google vs. You Tube
Google seems to want to take over the online world. And they just might. Now Google can distribute ads to consumers based on demographic information. This could really be a great development in helping marketers reach their target demographic.
http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2008/06/google-takes-a-run-at-yourtube.html
http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2008/06/google-takes-a-run-at-yourtube.html
Power to the People
As consumers get more and more sophisticated and more and more demanding, companies have to answer those shifting desires. As marketers, we have created focus groups to test new products since seemingly the dawn of time and more recently we've started to test print ad campaigns and consumer mailings. Now that we have gotten our head out of our proverbial marketing asses, we have awakened to the fact that the world has gone digital.
So, we're now learning how to test market ads using the Internet. In some ways, it makes sense. Research has shown that people are increasingly paying less attention to ads -- especially in the post-TiVo world we now live in. (Even I am guilty of fast forwarding through commercials!) So we have to figure out how to get people to pay attention to commercials when they are not sandwiched between plays on the Super Bowl.
It's a tough thing to do in a world where even CNN knows that consumers have ADD -- why else would they have a main story, and a crawl as well as recaps on the screen simultaneously? So, the question becomes, how do we get consumers to pay attention? Not only are we facing a consumer with short attention span, but we are also facing jaded consumers. Only time will tell how we rise up to the challenge and help the companies for which we perform marketing sell more stuff. Stay tuned...
http://www.wisn.com/money/16556999/detail.html
So, we're now learning how to test market ads using the Internet. In some ways, it makes sense. Research has shown that people are increasingly paying less attention to ads -- especially in the post-TiVo world we now live in. (Even I am guilty of fast forwarding through commercials!) So we have to figure out how to get people to pay attention to commercials when they are not sandwiched between plays on the Super Bowl.
It's a tough thing to do in a world where even CNN knows that consumers have ADD -- why else would they have a main story, and a crawl as well as recaps on the screen simultaneously? So, the question becomes, how do we get consumers to pay attention? Not only are we facing a consumer with short attention span, but we are also facing jaded consumers. Only time will tell how we rise up to the challenge and help the companies for which we perform marketing sell more stuff. Stay tuned...
http://www.wisn.com/money/16556999/detail.html
Monday, June 09, 2008
Stand out from the Crowd
Here's a first-hand account of how direct marketing can still work!
http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/thebizbite/archives/140734.asp?from=blog_last3
http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/thebizbite/archives/140734.asp?from=blog_last3
Essentials for Integrated Marketing
Here's a great piece on the Renaissance of Integrated Matketing Communications
http://adage.com/print?article_id=127599
As More Power Shifts to Consumers, Need Grows for Common Metric and 'Renaissance Marketers'
By Bob Liodice
Integrated marketing communications isn't new, but it's gaining momentum as power shifts from the marketer to the consumer and as marketers recognize the power and efficiency of taking a holistic approach to engaging consumers. Several studies, including one recently conducted by the Association of National Advertisers, indicate that achieving effective IMC campaigns is marketers' primary concern. But there is considerable uncertainty about how to staff, design, manage and measure the success of such programs. Although 74% of firms we've surveyed say they are using IMC approaches for most or all of their brands, only 25% rated the quality of their IMC programs "excellent" or "very good" -- underscoring the need to identify best practices and address the barriers that can impede IMC efforts, including a lack of strategic consistency across communications disciplines; the absence of a common IMC measurement process; the existence of entrenched functional silos inside marketing organizations, as well as within their agency partners; and the dearth of cross-discipline skill sets among marketing staff. So what it will take to overcome these obstacles? Four imperatives:
Teamwork: All Kraft Foods brands use cross-functional teams to create integrated campaigns. One of the successes of that approach is its South Beach Living line. Procter & Gamble's brand-building framework requires that every marketer, multifunctional brand builder and agency understand who the target consumer is, what the brand represents in consumers' minds, and how marketing can be optimized to reach target consumers when and where they are receptive. MasterCard's marketers took another path in creating the "Priceless" campaign. It was less about linking different media and more about connecting all components of the marketplace -- merchants, issuers and consumers. Each audience received tools that enabled the "Priceless" vision to seamlessly integrate across the business. Ensuring consistency is the responsibility of the marketer, who must keep all disciplines -- people, messages, tactics and budgets -- performing in unison and must constantly guard against tactics straying from the overarching brand strategy.
2. COMMON MEASUREMENT PROCESSTraditionally, each marketing vertical uses its own measurement protocols. Vertical or function-specific measurements are useful, but we need to go further. Although organizations have become more skilled in crunching numbers, there is no single, consistent set of metrics that transcends discipline-centric measurements. In a recent article in Ad Age, Jack Neff noted the "new opacity" arising from having a multitude of information but no common way to process it. The lack of a standard measuring process is one of the most serious integrated-marketing challenges.
ANA marketers are finding new ways to overcome this impediment and working to create a new, more comprehensive cross-functional approach. Advances in marketing-mix modeling make it especially useful in today's multichannel marketplace because such models can isolate the effects of individual elements -- even when they appear to be working in concert. This new thinking requires flexibility, creativity and a willingness to change. In an ANA Advertiser magazine IMC roundtable, Karna Crawford, director of media and interactive integrated communications for the Sparkling Business Unit at Coca-Cola Co., discussed the importance of having the mentality to think differently and end some "tried and true" measurement approaches. In her opinion, "there is no 'silver bullet' change, particularly when you think of how TV is measured. That's a deeply held, entrenched, traditional approach that has all sorts of financial and systematic factors related to it. It will not be easy to get people or the system to change."
3. FUNCTIONAL SILOSFor too long, marketing functions have been vertically organized by media type. This siloed approach is mirrored on the agency side, with rewards based on discipline-specific P&L models. These silos must be torn down. The client-side strategic integrator must involve and lead a team of colleagues who have the responsibility, vision, understanding and commitment to engage in a media-agnostic planning process. And this team of enlightened marketers must be willing to let strategic goals -- not historic patterns -- drive budget allocations.
To eliminate silos, the strategic integrator should lead a multistep process that accomplishes the following: looks at different silos that operate together and determine who should be engaged and the scope of their role; evaluates any resistance, whether it is technical, political or cultural; determines a tactical approach for each in the new initiative; creates purpose-driven teams by focusing on core objectives, not the company organization chart; and takes steps to improve process and technology issues so that all players have the correct information and resources at all times.
All of Kraft Foods' brands, for example, use cross-functional teams to develop IMC programs -- an approach that has led to many successes, including its South Beach Diet initiative. Wachovia Bank created a triumvirate of resources by merging executives from finance, marketing and analytics -- a unique partnership that created the culture, organization and functional expertise necessary for its vision to succeed.
4. PROFESSIONAL SKILLSAchieving strategic integration requires a top-to-bottom reinvention of the marketing organization. This transformation must be led by "renaissance marketers" -- a new breed of holistic professionals who are system thinkers, customer-centric believers, innovators and dreamers. These individuals should be cross-trained to understand the entire marketing spectrum and learn discipline-specific skill sets. Increasingly, these leaders will need strong quantitative skills -- a key finding in the ANA's Marketing and Media Ecosystems 2010 study -- in order to analyze the data-rich resources and leverage mathematical tools now available, especially if they are to drive cross-disciplinary approaches that fuse disparate consumer-engagement channels. Above all, they need to be superior team leaders who have the insights, talent and passion to take marketing integration to new heights.
http://adage.com/print?article_id=127599
As More Power Shifts to Consumers, Need Grows for Common Metric and 'Renaissance Marketers'
By Bob Liodice
Integrated marketing communications isn't new, but it's gaining momentum as power shifts from the marketer to the consumer and as marketers recognize the power and efficiency of taking a holistic approach to engaging consumers. Several studies, including one recently conducted by the Association of National Advertisers, indicate that achieving effective IMC campaigns is marketers' primary concern. But there is considerable uncertainty about how to staff, design, manage and measure the success of such programs. Although 74% of firms we've surveyed say they are using IMC approaches for most or all of their brands, only 25% rated the quality of their IMC programs "excellent" or "very good" -- underscoring the need to identify best practices and address the barriers that can impede IMC efforts, including a lack of strategic consistency across communications disciplines; the absence of a common IMC measurement process; the existence of entrenched functional silos inside marketing organizations, as well as within their agency partners; and the dearth of cross-discipline skill sets among marketing staff. So what it will take to overcome these obstacles? Four imperatives:
Teamwork: All Kraft Foods brands use cross-functional teams to create integrated campaigns. One of the successes of that approach is its South Beach Living line. Procter & Gamble's brand-building framework requires that every marketer, multifunctional brand builder and agency understand who the target consumer is, what the brand represents in consumers' minds, and how marketing can be optimized to reach target consumers when and where they are receptive. MasterCard's marketers took another path in creating the "Priceless" campaign. It was less about linking different media and more about connecting all components of the marketplace -- merchants, issuers and consumers. Each audience received tools that enabled the "Priceless" vision to seamlessly integrate across the business. Ensuring consistency is the responsibility of the marketer, who must keep all disciplines -- people, messages, tactics and budgets -- performing in unison and must constantly guard against tactics straying from the overarching brand strategy.
2. COMMON MEASUREMENT PROCESSTraditionally, each marketing vertical uses its own measurement protocols. Vertical or function-specific measurements are useful, but we need to go further. Although organizations have become more skilled in crunching numbers, there is no single, consistent set of metrics that transcends discipline-centric measurements. In a recent article in Ad Age, Jack Neff noted the "new opacity" arising from having a multitude of information but no common way to process it. The lack of a standard measuring process is one of the most serious integrated-marketing challenges.
ANA marketers are finding new ways to overcome this impediment and working to create a new, more comprehensive cross-functional approach. Advances in marketing-mix modeling make it especially useful in today's multichannel marketplace because such models can isolate the effects of individual elements -- even when they appear to be working in concert. This new thinking requires flexibility, creativity and a willingness to change. In an ANA Advertiser magazine IMC roundtable, Karna Crawford, director of media and interactive integrated communications for the Sparkling Business Unit at Coca-Cola Co., discussed the importance of having the mentality to think differently and end some "tried and true" measurement approaches. In her opinion, "there is no 'silver bullet' change, particularly when you think of how TV is measured. That's a deeply held, entrenched, traditional approach that has all sorts of financial and systematic factors related to it. It will not be easy to get people or the system to change."
3. FUNCTIONAL SILOSFor too long, marketing functions have been vertically organized by media type. This siloed approach is mirrored on the agency side, with rewards based on discipline-specific P&L models. These silos must be torn down. The client-side strategic integrator must involve and lead a team of colleagues who have the responsibility, vision, understanding and commitment to engage in a media-agnostic planning process. And this team of enlightened marketers must be willing to let strategic goals -- not historic patterns -- drive budget allocations.
To eliminate silos, the strategic integrator should lead a multistep process that accomplishes the following: looks at different silos that operate together and determine who should be engaged and the scope of their role; evaluates any resistance, whether it is technical, political or cultural; determines a tactical approach for each in the new initiative; creates purpose-driven teams by focusing on core objectives, not the company organization chart; and takes steps to improve process and technology issues so that all players have the correct information and resources at all times.
All of Kraft Foods' brands, for example, use cross-functional teams to develop IMC programs -- an approach that has led to many successes, including its South Beach Diet initiative. Wachovia Bank created a triumvirate of resources by merging executives from finance, marketing and analytics -- a unique partnership that created the culture, organization and functional expertise necessary for its vision to succeed.
4. PROFESSIONAL SKILLSAchieving strategic integration requires a top-to-bottom reinvention of the marketing organization. This transformation must be led by "renaissance marketers" -- a new breed of holistic professionals who are system thinkers, customer-centric believers, innovators and dreamers. These individuals should be cross-trained to understand the entire marketing spectrum and learn discipline-specific skill sets. Increasingly, these leaders will need strong quantitative skills -- a key finding in the ANA's Marketing and Media Ecosystems 2010 study -- in order to analyze the data-rich resources and leverage mathematical tools now available, especially if they are to drive cross-disciplinary approaches that fuse disparate consumer-engagement channels. Above all, they need to be superior team leaders who have the insights, talent and passion to take marketing integration to new heights.
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