70% Marketing Spending Increase in 2008

Sound unrealistic? Even as the markets fret about an impending recession, ad spending remains essentially flat, and many major consumer and B2B marketers’ project budget cuts, non-traditional marketing channels continue to thrive and encourage innovation. According to eMarketer, growth in Social Marketing is projected to top 70% in 2008. The challenge remains, as with the entire marketing mix, how to measure and manage an ever expanding portfolio of media investments. This requires shifting our media-centric approach to market planning to a customer-centric one.

This month’s webinar - February 15th at 1:00 p.m. – addresses this shift and outlines a process for your social marketing planning. Register using this link – https://concentricgroup.webex.com/mw0304l/mywebex/default.do?service=1&siteurl=concentricgroup&main_url=%2Fmc0705l%2Fe.do%3Fsiteurl%3Dconcentricgroup%26AT%3DMI%26EventID%3D94507467%26Host%3D95457e191e731e1803%26RG%3D1

The Customer Experience: Holiday Shopping Blues

The reason that shopping online continues to accelerate is a simple one, that frankly requires little explanation. It’s less painful. I am sure I am not alone in lamenting the decline of service at retail. But this year I had an experience that stretches the imagination, as I sought to purchase a simple DVD player for my home. What I mistakenly anticipated would be a quick trip to a local electronics outlet involved 3 separate stores, no less than six clue-free clerks (unencumbered by clues), three wasted hours, two attempted purchases, one lengthy credit process (and a partridge in a pear tree). Retail brands that have so little regard for their customer experience deserve to fail and I don’t mind naming names like Circuit City and Sears for starters. These marketers have tremendous potential to combine online and offline experiences that build deep loyal relationships. Brands like Apple and Amazon know that it takes knowledge, competence, consistency and customer-centricity to deliver effective customer experiences that make people want to come back (or even stay longer and linger). Even old-line bricks and mortar brands like Radio Shack are winning new customers (like me) over by applying these principles. Moving beyond the ad age means moving beyond the basics of retail selection and price to build a loyal clientele. It means innovating where it matters most…at every customer touchpoint.

Is Facebook dead?

Is Facebook Dead?

That is the question posed by Bruce Nussbaum of BusinessWeek. As the growth in the number of social sites continues to skyrocket, everyone seems to be asking themselves, why am I doing this? Even as we follow the trail of friends, family and business colleagues to such sites as Facebook and Linked-In, we wonder, is this a good use of my time? As the number of social sites increases, the visitors to many of the most popular destinations are actually declining. (Call it the Rupert Factor). These new technologies do offer novel ways to connect and share stories or photos, at the end of the day if they don’t provide a meaningful reason for people to stay connected or deliver real business value, they will disappear in time. Look at what happened to the early online communities like Delphi and AOL and could likely happen to other ‘mass market’ plays like MySpace and even Linked-In.  The fact remains that communities existed long before the internet and will remain strong (online and offline) as long as they continually ask themselves three things. Are we:

1. Focused (don’t try to be all things to all people)
2. Relevant (stay current by listening to what matters to members)
3. Useful (If its not something I need to stay in touch, learn, or improve my business, I don’t have time for it.

BAD CONNECTIONS: The Importance of Customer Conversations

They seem to be getting harder to have for some companies, but remain more  important than ever. Companies like Earthlink, that were once known for their outstanding customer service have been reduced to another corporate brand unable to connect with customers that insists on hiding its contact information for fear of paying to put a human inn contact with a customer. Just try to get a live chat going online or search out their 800 number. Once you do find it and you get routed through a terrible qualifying  system that assumes you are still on a dial up internet access line, you get someone you cannot understand asking irrelevant questions and then blaming another partner (in this case AT&T) for your problem….”talk to them”. Effectively saying…”your relationship is not with us.” and starting this week it wont be.

I can get better (and more dependable) results with gmail. And I will. NEVER underestimate the power of a good customer conversation…more on that next week.

Relationship Ad is a Winner

The recent post of a provocative video on Bringbackthelove.com (a WordPress blog) captures the the truth that few agencies seem ready to consider, let alone act on. Many client organizations are moving faster than their agency counterparts. They are looking past their traditional agencies to find resources that will help them better understand the changes customers are going through. They are looking at these customers through new lenses (not statistics and eyeballs) and meeting them in new places (on-line, at point of sale) and in new ways (peer-to-peer communities). There appears to be a desperate desire to find counselors, dare I say, technological shrinks, to help brands make more of their relationships and help create dialogs, rather than campaigns. Brands really are relationships and marketing is the conversation that deepens them.

Garfield Rings The Death Knell (a decade late).

The latest installment in the ongoing saga of the death of advertising is notable in one way. Ad Age has the kahunas to put it on their front cover. I trust someone there is also pondering a name change at the editorial office. Bob, as ususal, you are right on the money. If a decade late.

The timeline arguably should start around 1990, when progressive brands like Nike and others first began opening their own stores to end run the confines of traditional media and channels in order to conduct direct customer dialogues. The internet has broadened and accelerated these conversations, but death knell for the traditions of one-way advertising media first rang over a decade ago….

The Future of the Customer Conversation:
Get close enough and you can practically hear the personal conversation going on between a successful brand and its customers. Nike has long used the company store as a forum in which to communicate and deliver the company’s latest footwear and apparel in major cities throughout the US. These high profile meeting places provide customers with an opportunity to experience all sides of the Nike product personality in a setting that combines museum-like information with Disney-like entertainment. ESPN has also been successful in using the company experience to enrich its image as the premier sports resource. Globally, Sony, Audi, Samsung and others use high-profile showroom locations to provide customers with an entertaining view of what’s new and to encourage specific feedback on its latest innovations.
Toyota’s AMLUX center in Tokyo is a popular destination for couples to go for entertainment, to shop for new cars–even to enjoy a good meal. And the success of Apple Stores and Starbucks goes without saying. These retail showrooms ON AND OFFLINE represent the future of effective brand management, creating destinations and relationships that delight customers and offer compelling, confidence-building reasons to converse, commune AND buy. At the same time they create an active and even tangible connection to brand communities for consumers with more direct impact and a better return on investment than the old interruption advertising model ever could. Garfield is right and so was Seth Godin before him and Fairfax Cone before them when he said: “Advertising is what you do when you can’t talk to someone.” Now you can. Time to change.

Many waves make a seachange for marketing.

As the industry accelerates its shift from mass marketing to ‘Dialog Marketing’ and ad guys like Joe Jaffee (author Life after the 30 Second Spot) begin to ‘discover’ that marketing really is a conversation, it is important to look back at those who predicted this change back in the roaring 90’s, specifically The ClueTrain Manifesto. The ringleaders and hundreds of ’signers’ recognized that beyond all the hype at the time, the web represented a fundamental shift in power from the few, the large, the media to the people. They understood that people were becoming the new media, individuals could now become brands and that corporations would be forced to become more customer focused, more transparent and more creative in this future.

It is interesting to note how few of the signers were even connected to marketing, let alone part of the advertising or media business. This fundamental shift in control from few to many has just begun and the many ’social networks’ we now see can actually be considered the FOURTH WAVE in this sea-change: COMMUNITY. Lessons from the IT sector are helpful to consider as a window on the future of consumers, communities and corporations on the web. The marketing implications are enormous when you consider how IT sector marketing itself has evolved in the last ten years.

We will delve deeper into each wave of the MARKETING SEA-CHANGE in the coming weeks. From CONNECTION to CONTENT to COMMERCE to COMMUNITY and now to COLLABORATION, we all have much to learn from our peers in the IT sector about how to influence and capitalize on each wave before it hits….More to come and comments always welcome…

Telling Events for the Future of Marketing.

Four recent events tell a terrific story about the state of the marketing industry. The most recent has Microsoft desperately trying to demonstrate their self-described innovation through the launch of Zune. Unable to actually create something new, despite its size and financial leverage, Microsoft continues its practice of offering up a sorry second place to the true innovators in market after market. From Zune, to X-Box to its’ inception as a licensor of someone else’s PC software, they’re innovation remains in market leverage, not ideas. This recent cartoon courtesy of The Joy of Tech.com speaks to the unfortunate state of innovation. On a more innovative note…the recent Big Idea conference did yield a few big ideas to help the ailing advertising business….captured in Andrew Hampps article in November 5th AdAge. It offers a number of cures for many of the symptoms that were voiced earlier in the month during the unecessary ‘Advertising Week’ held in NYC to commemorate the demise of traditional advertising. The fourth event worth noting this past month, was a clear demonstration of the chaos and excitement around our digital marketing future. Hundreds of technology companies, large and small competed for attention at a packed Ad:tech event in New York. This conference and tradeshow was overwhelming collection of tools and technologies to conduct the kind of two-way communication that truly points at the future of our business, when advertising is no longer the tail wagging the marketing dog.

Congratulations to The Newest Network

Everyone is wringing hands and speculating about the power and potential in the Google-Tube merger. And with good reason. The company that once tried to sell its software to Yahoo (as big a mistake as IBM’s original deal with Microsoft) now has arguably the best and most used product on the planet is now in a position to create a new network that people really want to watch. One that will soon be full of professional’ content that hopefully will not detract from the budding democratic network that YouTube has created. Congratulations to Google, the best disruption yet.

The Arc of Relationships

Similar to personal relationships, brand Relationships can be considered as three points on a continuum with these three forms:

• Relationships of CONVENIENCE: These relationships you tolerate to get things done.
You don’t necessarily expect much but they serve a purpose. However if a more expedient or convenient option presented itself you would likely switch loyalties. Think: a coworker who provides some value in your job. Brands think: Stop & Shop or on a more personal level, Colgate, Crest, your brand of toothpaste.

• Relationships of LIFESTYLE: These relationships are more central to your life. They reflect activities that are important to you, such as sports, hobbies or seeing friends. Think: your tennis partner, your golfing buddy, your social network. Brands think: Patagonia, Burton, Reebok or Starbucks.

• Relationships of IDENTITY: These are relationships that help define who you are. Those with whom you participate in activities that you can’t live without, such as with a mentor or confidant. These relationships are the difficult ones to replace: family, close friends, perhaps church social groups. They actually contribute to who you are through their importance or influence. Think: Your significant other, your parents. Brands think: Chanel, Apple, Ralph Lauren, your favorite entertainers or authors. At the risk of generalization, this phenomenon is what drives the celebrity and fashion magazines for many women and sports programs or magazines for many men.