Freddie Daniells

A milestone for corporate blogging

Among a large number of thoughts, I suggested here that companies need to support and engage customers in conversation. I highlighted the need for transparency and showed ways this might happen. One example I gave was relevant to the auto industry where car designers could engage with the customer.

So it was a pleasant surprise today to see that GM has gone one better. Bob Lutz, Vice Chairman of GM has just started blogging here. According to the San Jose Mercury News, the intention is to allow comments both positive and negative.

He has posted about some new Saturn concept cars and the quality of interiors on GM cars. And he has already admitted that while their interiors are getting better there is still much to be done.

This is most senior executive at a major corporation that I am aware of who has engaged in this way. Very encouraging indeed.

Finding values

One of my favourite personal development books is Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

Chapter 2 explains that you need to ‘begin with the end in mind’. Standard personal development stuff but explained in the classic Covey way. But please come with me on my slightly reinterpreted version:

Please find a place to read this where you can be alone and uninterrupted.

In your minds eye, see yourself going to the funeral parlour of a loved one. Picture yourself driving to the funeral parlour or chapel, parking the car and getting out. As you walk inside the building, you notice the flowers, the soft organ music. You see the faces of the people you know as you pass along the way. You feel the sorrow of losing, the joy of having known, that radiates from hearts of the people there.

You walk down to the front of the room and look inside the casket. You suddenly come face to face with your business. This is it’s funeral, three years from today. All these people have come here to honor your business, to express their feelings and appreciation for it’s life.

As you take a seat and wait for the services to begin, you look at the program in your hand. There are to be four speakers. The first used to be one of your employees, perhaps the middle manager from finance or personnel. The second used to be a customer. Not your sycophantic reference customer but perhaps one with a better perspective of how your business really was. The third used to be one of your suppliers. And the last person, was the security guard for your the building where your 5th and 6th floor office is based.

Now think deeply. What would you like each of these speakers to say about your business and its life?

What type of character would you like them to have seen in you? What contributions, what achievements do you want them to remember? Look carefully at the people around you. What difference would you like to have made in their lives?

This is a litmus test. Spend some time thinking about it. In a few years time you might just be thankful you did.

PS For added benefit, apply this to new products too!

The habits of successful brands

Just been watching Arsenal complete their narrow victory over Portsmouth in one of the local pubs around here. And as you do, particularly when on your own, you people watch too.

Think about the people you know. Who are the popular ones? What sets them apart? Just looking around the pub, and thinking about people I like, these strike me:

Generous of spirit. In fact, just generous – remember, givers gain. Optimistic. Interested as well as interesting. Stylish. Sometimes sporty, sometimes sexy, sometimes loud. Fun and laugh (often). Challenging. But able to be serious when needed. There when you need help. Able to surprise. Use a great smile often (great eyes too). Able to listen and most importantly, willing to take the time to understand.

You can, I am sure, think of others.

These are habits. Behaviours or practices so ingrained that they are done without conscious thought. They are not principals or values per se, but the only real guide you and I have to what others principals and values are.

Lets now turn to brands. Your brand is like a person. I like (or love) your brand because I like what I see. And what I see are the habits that you have.

The point here is that whilst it is desperately important that you look inside to find your organisational or brand values, this ain’t enough. You need to develop the organisational or brand habits that reflect these values.

After a few glasses of wine, I hope that is clear enough! I will return with more at another time…

Party times with your brand

I had to post this excerpt from a recent post by Hugh at Gaping Void – brilliant!

At British house parties it's customary to bring a bottle of booze along and give it to the hostess. Sure, the host and hostess will supply a few bottles and the munchies, but everyone's expected to somehow add value to the equation.

Last Spring Joi Ito came to London, so some British bloggers got together and organised a blog dinner for him. I was there. Sure, the lovely Suw Charman did most of the organising/work, and Joi provided the raison d'etre to throw the party, but it was never "Joi's Party" or "Suw's Party". It was everybody's party, Joi and Suw were just two of the people who showed up that evening. When the bill came we all pitched in our £20 and went home. It was a great evening.

All this rambling about Britain, advertising and parties has got me thinking:

The old "branding" way of thinking when I got into the business was akin to this:

1. The Nike Brand is the party.
2. Nike, the company, are the people throwing the party.
3. "The Consumer", the Nike end user, is the person who's invited, as a paying guest, to the party.

But it ain't your party anymore. You no longer have customers. What you have now are fellow party goers. What you have now are friends and allies. Your product and/or company is just the metaphorical bottle of wine you're bringing to the party. All "The Brand" does is focus the metaphorical evening, the way Joi and Suw did for us UK bloggers back in springtime.

Chicken or egg?

Couldn’t have said it better myself. From Lindsay Woods of the Australian Proteome Analysis Facility:

In my opinion, put the client first and sales will follow. But to put the sale first does not guarantee you will get the client.

Brand Honesty: Hijacking authenticity

From dictionary.com

\Au`then*tic"i*ty\, n. [Cf. F. authenticit['e].]

1. The quality of being authentic or of established authority for truth and correctness.

2. Genuineness; the quality of being genuine or not corrupted from the original.

Not corrupted from the original, being genuine to oneself – these are the sentiments that I think of when using the word ‘authenticity’. And this is what I mean when I talk about Brand Honesty.

I don’t care whether you are socially, politically, environmentally motivated or completely politically incorrect – all I care is that your brand is true and authentic.

Why do I say this now?

Last night, I went to a networking evening run by Neil Croft of Authentic Business. He has written a book called Authentic – How to make a living by being yourself.

Fiona, knowing my Brand Honesty schtick though I might find it an interesting experience. And she was right – I did. Lots of great people talking about how business can be a catalyst for social and environmental change. Great businesses, great values and a sense of business responsibility I can readily identify with.

But, the event gave the impression that authenticity equals such social or environmental awareness. This is plain BS. Plenty of perfectly objectionable (to me) people and brands are authentic.

I loved talking with the businesses I met last night. However, many would be horrified to think that this recent article about Hardee’s might also show authenticity:

Hardee’s serves up 1,420-calorie burger

As many fast-food chains introduce healthier fare amid fears of being sued, Hardee’s is bucking the trend, serving up a megaburger with 1,420 calories and 107 grams of fat.

In an interview on CNBC, Hardee's chief executive Andrew Puzder was unapologetic, saying the company's latest sandwich is "not a burger for tree-huggers."

"This is a burger for young hungry guys who want a really big, delicious, juicy, decadent burger," he said. "I hope our competitors keep promoting those healthy products, and we will keep promoting our big, juicy delicious burgers."

To be honest, I don’t know Hardee’s from Adam but this shows a refreshing honesty and thinking that others in marketing should embrace. Brands such as Hummer, Harley Davidson, Viz are unapologetic about who or what they are and have thrived. I may not buy these products but they are as authentic as hell.

Authenticity is an inclusive word. No matter what your values are.

A great question

Just doing a little organising here and came across this phrase that I had jotted down in the pad of my wallet. No attribution unfortunately, but very Cluetrain in feel:

"How do you capture somebody's attention in the days when you measure attention in seconds, not minutes not hours?"

Got that captured so can now throw that piece of paper out!

Scoble got me!

A few months back I added Scobleizer to my RSS feeds. At the time I was beginning to think about buying a new notebook computer. At no stage had I considered a tablet notebook.

Robert Scoble is a geek blogger (perhaps THE geek blogger) who works inside Microsoft. He regularly comments on how much he loves his Toshiba tablet notebook. Indeed his site has become a discussion area for tablets – plenty of posts both ways. Somehow these conversations have tempted me in – I just bought a Tosh M200.

Without Robert’s constant championing, Microsoft would be one Tablet customer lighter. By giving him permission to engage in conversation with prospects like me, Microsoft have gained in a small way. In this ‘marketing’, there was no mass market messaging – just a passionate voice that got heard across the other side of the world. And I am just the maven customer that they will love – if I like it, everyone I know will get to hear about it too.

The lesson for us all is – engage in conversation with prospects, rather than broadcast to them. Work with them, let them have their say, both good and bad. Let them talk to each other warts and all, don’t try and control the conversation. As long as you are honest with your customers about who you are, have a decent product or service, you have nothing to worry about.

So, is the machine as good as the hype? At this stage too early to tell. I will let you now in due course.

Customer Leadership, Brand Honesty and Marketing Capabilities - why they matter

Last week I was asked to submit an article for the December newsletter of the Chartered Institute of Marketing's technology group. The topic was to be about how organisations could profit from 'Total Marketing'. This was great timing. Although I had no idea what 'Total Marketing' was, it gave me a great excuse to talk about some stuff that I had planned to explore here!

Anyhow it turned into quite the rant and I thought it worth posting:

"Marketing is in crisis" - so said Jeff Randall, the BBC business editor, at the recent Annual Summit of the Marketing Society. "How can marketing remain relevant?" the marketing press asks. We all know there are problems, but what can we do about them?

The recommended steps invariably include greater alignment with the business, more focus on ROI, 'learning the language of the CFO' and doing a better job of 'marketing' marketing.

These are undoubtedly important steps, but assume that there is nothing wrong with marketings output - we simply need to better justify what is done and dress it up with business friendly words.

This article looks to challenge that view. I want to show that marketing is changing more fundamentally and that a broader response is needed.

First, lets say the obvious - technology has had a marked impact on marketing. But, while companies focus on CRM, online and other technology projects, the greatest effect is being felt outside the organisation - by customers.

Using the internet, customers are more knowledgeable than ever. They quickly access reviews of products or services, ask questions of other users and find out how to get the best deal. Given this, it is hardly surprising that some commentators are beginning to question the role of branding and marketing more generally.

So what is the marketer to do?

I believe that there are three main areas where organisations need to focus:

1. Customer Leadership

We often read about 'managing the customer' and there are aspects of a relationship that can be managed. Customers, though, want to be lead not managed. Leadership is about taking the customer somewhere that perhaps they didn't expect. It is about products and services that surprise. Let us take a look at each in turn:

Product

There is too much attention paid to focus groups and management committees in product design. Indeed, most new products are cop-outs - we are spoilt for choice with brand extensions and me-too products. They show a lack of imagination by the marketer.

We need greater innovation and risk taking. Future success lies not in the easier decisions of managing your category, but with those harder ones that change the category. It is only those category changing products that get consumers genuinely excited. And these don't often come from focus groups.

Customer Experience

A great customer experience is not about technology, it is about your corporate culture.

Having said this, technology can be a great enabler. However, many CRM, web and other marketing IT projects have, in my view, the wrong objectives.

The Financial Times recently said in a supplement about CRM that "the aim is to make customers feel like they did in the pre-electronic age when service was more personal."

However, for more customers (and many marketers)a more personalised service means more Direct mail, junk email and tiresome upsell. The consumer starts asking "for whose benefit is this personalisation?"

Customers want to find new ways of doing things, more efficient (to them not you) ways of doing things and new experiences, not to do the same things with a computerised smile! Customers shop at Dell, Amazon, eBay and Expedia because they can shop as it suits them. Buying books, computers, plane tickets or just about anything else at a time that suits them, as they think about it, with reliable delivery, at a price that undercuts the high street equivalents is a pretty compelling offer.

Personalisation is a way of managing customers and their data. But customers want to be lead. Help the customer to do new things in new ways. Make your offerings easier to deal with.

2. Brand Honesty

A great product often leads to great marketing. How much easier it is to market the iPod or new Mini than yet another brand extension for a new shampoo!

But too often marketers are asked to do the impossible - create a great story out of average product. As the marketer stretches the possible, we arrive at the tenuous positionings, bombardment of advertising, celebrity endorsement and fatuous claims that are so common.

But customers are smarter than ever before. They see through this smokescreen more quickly than before. No wonder marketers are concerned for their jobs!

As 'Customer Leadership' takes hold, the marketing community will need to move to a greater 'Brand Honesty'. There are two key moves I expect to see:

Values

Customers buy more than just a great product, they increasingly buy into the corporate philosophy. However, many companies have based themselves around what they percieve their customers want them to be, not who they are. This is a route to disaster. You can't become someone else's values.

And in the hyperlinked world, companies can't keep up the pretences any longer. Employees, shareholders, customers, the blogosphere etc are all looking to pull you down a peg or two. Their joy is far greater if you are faking it.

In future, companies will stop trying to be all things to all people. Values will come from the inside. Brands will become more honest about who they are and will let the audience decide.

Communications

Smarter customers need to be engaged differently. They do not respond in the same way to thousands of broadcast messages every day.

Successful marcoms will involve engaging and supporting your customers in conversation. Making them feel a bigger part of the experience, not just of the product but of the process too.

This has big implications. This dialog will need much more transparency than before. The customer wants to talk with your key experts - design to your car designers, tax to your tax gurus, talk software to your coders or tell your buyers what clothes they would like to see in the shops next season. But this becomes a fantastic opportunity for you to lead them, to educate them and to take them places they might otherwise not have gone.

A new corporate voice is developing - more open and more honest. Those that grab this opportunity early will reap many benefits.

3. Marketing Capability

None of this is any good unless the business is architected in the right ways to serve the customer.

But today, many marketers are so wrapped up in what they are doing, that they do not look at how they do things.

Putting the customer at the centre of the organisation is an imperative. In particular, marketing needs to become more responsive. Marketers need to think about the following:

• Traditional silos only infuriate the customer. Marketing has a major role to play in breaking down these silos.
• Marketing needs stronger, faster processes to be adopted. New technologies such as Marketing Resource Management automate many of the administrative tasks that marketers are drowning under, freeing up time for more valuable customer focused activity.
• Marketers need to become much more technologically aware - many of the new ways of working with customers willl need technological investment that the marketer should lead.
• Measurement is, of course, important. But make sure that you have the right balance of measures. To the customer, your efficiency or effectiveness matters not one jot

These are not small changes, indeed for many this will be a long journey. But, marketers that embark on this view of future marketing will set their organisations on the right path. And, I believe, start to earn the credibility that they want in their organisations.

These three themes - Customer Leadership, Brand Honesty and Marketing Capability - will form the basis for much of the discussion that takes place here in the future - you have been warned!

PS. Few of these thoughts are original. But due to word limitations, I was unable to give the necessary hat-tips in the article to those whose musings help educate me. So to right that wrong here, credit to the authors of The Cluetrain Manifesto, Seth Godin, Hugh at Gaping Void, and Johnnie Moore. Thanks guys.

Junk mail

Was amused to receive a junk letter from Betfair informing me as follows:

Dear Mr Daniels

We’ve been reliably informed that you work in the City and earn a handsome salary.

Firstly, they can’t spell my name.

Secondly, so who informed them? I haven't worked in the City for over 5 years nor do I get a salary.

Two scenarios come to mind. Some bright marketing exec at Betfair either bought a list or had a 'recommend a friend' scheme. Either way I object.

• This is junk mail. I gave you no permission to contact me.
• You don’t know me so certainly don’t presume to start telling me what I do or about my financial scenario.

Betfairs slogan is Sharp Minds Betfair. Not so sharp is it?