We’re very excited to be working with Material Possessions on an upcoming event. This particular relationship is the kind that we live for- a signature event with heavy social media ties. It’s a perfect match, really. The event, called A Room 2 Bloom, will be announced in detail in the next month or so. Stay tuned!
In the meantime, we’ll be helping Material Possessions execute a new web site and email marketing campaign. Good times!
We’re excited to announce a new relationship in the making. Mojoloco has been hired by BankPlus to help craft and execute social media policy, strategy, and various promotional events. BankPlus is a leader in their market when it comes to innovative thinking, and we respect that. It’s a natural fit, then, for Mojoloco to help the company lay claim to the social media space. Look for some exciting events in the coming months…and for pete’s sake, go open an account at BankPlus!
It’s all the rage. Everyone wants to dive head first into social media…and many do, without so much as a glance into the water before they jump. The backlash is coming. It shouldn’t be a surprise, really. It happens when a new idea excites the market. Everybody does it, and does it wrong, then everybody gets disillusioned, and then some percentage of “everybody” figures out how to do it right. And life goes on, sans hype.
It happened in the late 90’s with e-commerce. With the arrival of the Internet, everyone saw their cash cow in the cyber haze. E-Commerce web sites popped up like crab-grass in a clean yard. The unspoken (or, in many cases, actually spoken) mantra was “if you build it, they will come.” Billions of dollars were spent…most of it on highfalutin outlets such as Amazon.com, Toys.com, Pets.com, and kazillion other “.com’s”. I was CEO of an e-commerce software firm during this boom, and the sheer volume and ridiculous scope of e-ideas that came across my desk between ‘96 and ‘00 still amazes me. Every freckled-face kid with a pen and a pizza napkin had hands in the bottomless VC cookie jar. It was a fun time, no doubt.
But alas, the bubble burst. The cookie-crumb-handed kids and their elder angels, once equally gleeful and now equally shocked and shaken, awoke to the age-old fact that without strategy and sound practice, success is lost in the smoke and mirrors. And…ahem…a web site is NOT a strategy. It’s a tool….much like the idiot investors who sank millions in ideas that had no real business merit. Slowly, over the next 5 or so years, the hype and disillusionment was replaced and balanced by an understanding of what it takes to make the e-commerce tools work.
What I can see forming in the back of the social media ball-rooms today is a similar grumbling among those who lept without looking that “we’ve wasted tons of money and this social media BS just isn’t going to work.”
Well…..duh….
Social media is not a strategy. It is a tool. As with all marketing tools, it must be used within the context of tactical initiatives that are part of a larger branding strategy. When they are used in such a manner, success follows. Dell is a great example. Barack Obama’s ‘08 presidential campaign is a great example. When they are not used in this manner…when they are employed dumbly by those who (yes) understand the web world but (no) do not understand sound marketing and branding practices, then of course they will not produce results. it’s as simple as that.
So, mark my words….a backlash is coming. The social web is in the early stages of a massive dry-heave that will eventually purge the idiots and leave the rest of us to do our jobs in a far-less-muddy environment.
By Gina Keating and Alex Dobuzinskis, Reuters.com (original article)
PASADENA, Calif (Reuters) - The recession-fueled advertising downturn underlines the urgency of using the Web to glean data and target consumers directly, rather than blasting them with a barrage of TV-style ads, media executives say.
At the Fortune Brainstorm: TECH conference in Pasadena this week, Walt Disney Co Chief Executive Robert Iger opened a discussion about new ways to market to consumers, when he described himself as, “pretty bullish about what technology is going to allow in terms of behavioral tracking.”
Executives from AOL, a division of Time Warner Inc, News Corp and IAC/InterActiveCorp echoed similar hopes about the potential to reach consumers online.
As advertising dollars grow ever more scarce, companies have been forced to rethink how they reach consumers and have moved away from the traditional 30-second spot to the kinds of targeted, Internet-driven marketing campaigns that have been talked about for years.
Internet advertising in the United States — a $23.4 billion market in 2008 — was down 5 percent in the first quarter of this year and Iger and other executives say the sector may not return to the historic growth trajectory seen before the recession.
Jonathan Miller, head of News Corp’s Digital Media Group, believes advertising is undergoing, “fundamental changes … and you have to tease them out of the recession effects.
“Marketing is on an arc to become more efficient. My dollar should go further. And that says the advertising pool may not grow at the rate that it’s traditionally grown at, even out of this recession.”
HITTING THE TARGET
Targeting consumers via demographics, profiling, and their social networks, “you learn a lot about people and you can identify them,” Miller added.
The thinking among these media executives is that advances in technology is enabling them to build more detailed profiles of consumers — which can then either be sold as a commodity or employed in their own marketing campaigns.
AOL Chief Executive Tim Armstrong, former sales chief at Google Inc, also sees new marketing opportunities from consumer referrals and tracking.
“Where people actually go, what they do, how they do it,” he said. “It’s not just about data, it’s about the insight. If you’re Procter & Gamble, or Kellogg’s, or Coke or whatever, forget all the data. What is the insight you get out of it? How does that actually change your perception?”
But Ed Moran, director of product innovation for Deloitte, said tracking tastes and developing profiles is fine, as long as advertisers do not make the old media mistake of finding their optimum consumers, only to show them a commercial.
Moran said next-generation advertising will be driven by the tastes and habits of 14 to 24 year-old “millennials” whose lives center on social networks and Internet-enabled handsets.
“A more effective way of reaching these young folks … is to use their social networks as influencers, rather than bombarding them with ads,” Moran said.
To that end, Barry Diller, chief executive of Web giant IAC/InterActiveCorp, said Internet advertising must evolve from displays and become integrated into the content of websites.
Even actor and media producer Ashton Kutcher chimed in at the conference, saying the billboard-style display ad is already outdated.
“People who have grown up on the Internet have trained themselves not to see it,” he added.
(Reporting by Gina Keating and Alex Dobuzinskis; editing by Edwin Chan and Andre Grenon))
We recently conducted a workshop on branding commodities in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. A commodity, per one Merriam-Webster dictionary definition is “a good or service whose wide availability typically leads to smaller profit margins and diminishes the importance of factors (as brand name) other than price.” By definition, commodities lack the differentiation and ability to charge a price premium that strong brands have. Several participants in the workshop represented different energy companies. Each one wanted help in being able to charge a 10-20% price premium for his or her “commodity” products.
Here is the good news — a colorless, odorless, relatively tasteless alcoholic beverage (vodka) has been branded and commands a price premium — one brand (Absolut) due to its consistently advertised bottle shape alone. And, of course water has been branded. I remember paying $23 for a bottle of Voss branded water at a restaurant in La Jolla, CA several years ago when that brand was first introduced. And bananas and pineapples are branded. Frank Purdue fed his chickens marigolds and ground carrots to give them their differentiated, healthy looking coloring.
I am a firm believer that everything can be branded/differentiated. I have never encountered a product or service that I could not brand/differentiate. So if it is possible, what are some of the tactics for doing so? For B2B brands, you can pursue any combination of the following to provide differentiation:
Superior product or service consistency (quality control)
Superior ability to customize products or services to a customer’s specific needs
Superior responsiveness (order fulfillment, technical support, customer service)
Optimal/preferred bundling/unbundling of products and services, creating greater perceived value or better fitting a customer’s approach to purchasing
Superior range of products and services (one-stop shopping)
Value chain integration
Unique/preferred/more accessible distribution approach
Identify your most important/profitable customers or customer segments and focus on meeting their unique needs
Conduct conjoint analysis to determine what they value the most
For consumer products, you can add the following:
Ingredient branding
Unique packaging
Emotional branding (‘brand as a badge,’ superior purchase/usage experience)
Unique attitude/personality
In emotional branding, the brand stands for something important to the target customer. It projects and reinforces his or her intended self-image. Being associated with that brand says something about who he or she is. It says I am sexy, I am stylish, I am rich, I have high social status, I am concerned about the environment, I am frugal, I am powerful, I am smart, I am kind, I am spiritually evolved, I am athletic – the list could go on and on.
For brands in which there is no product or service differentiation, the role of the marketer becomes critical. The brand itself, and what it stands for, may become the primary or only point of difference.
While this is a quick survey of the topic, I hope I have shown you that any product or service can be differentiated/branded in a way that allows for a price premium to be charged. One needs to ideate (brainstorm) in a focused way around each of the differentiation approaches listed above to arrive at a successful differentiation strategy for his or her brand. (More on Ideation here) And, don’t forget, any successful differentiation approach must pass this test:
the differentiating benefit is highly important to the target customer,
your brand can deliver the benefit well and
your competitors cannot. That is, your brand must promise to fulfill a strong customer need for which there is a marketplace gap.
How is it that good salesmanship can defeat a brand? It happens because good salesmanship, at its roots, is somewhat contradictory to good branding. Problems occur when master salesmen set brand strategy. The master salesman isn’t wrong…but his job is to sell a product, not build a brand. Selling a product and building a brand are two distinctly different tasks. Selling is short-term. Branding is long-term. Branding should outline what the salesman sells and how it’s sold. Selling (as a strategy) leads to short-term rewards, but long-term identity crisis and price wars. Branding (as a strategy) means slower growth, but creates longevity and higher price points.
This series deals with 5 areas in which good selling contradicts good branding. The topic of this post is AGING.
Aging deals with the choice to either grow old with your current customer base, or continually renew your customer base at the same age. A business doesn’t face this issue until around the 5 year mark or so…10 years in some cases. Here’s how the issue arises: out of the gate, you experience great success with your market. They love you…they are loyal to you. Well done. But, that base doesn’t remain frozen in time. They age. With age, comes different tastes, different demands, different priorities. At that point, you have a choice to make. Do you listen to their demands and evolve your business? Or, do you stick with what made you successful to start with?
A perfect case study in again is Cadillac. Cadillac hit pay dirt with the Greatest Generation years ago. They grew old with their market. Younger Boomers and certainly GenX’ers view Cadillac as “an old person’s car.” Thus, Cadillac has been working vigorously to correct this perception and break back into a younger market dominated by other brands such as VW, Volvo, BMW, and Infiniti. To put things in perspective, “younger” for Cadillac means 40 or 50-something and hiring an ad cougar (is Kate Walsh really considered a cougar? wow…).
What’s wrong with growing old with your market, you ask? Well, eventually they will retire and your brand will be irrelevant.
So here is where good salesmanship and good branding clash: successful, established salespersons always place first emphasis on pleasing the existing customer. A good brand manager should always place first emphasis on the emerging customer. This means that each and every year products and services will change to meet, greet, and welcome the youngest members of your market. It also means that certain demands, wishes, wants, and preferences of the older members of your market should NOT be catered to.
Now, to be clear, I’m not advocating intentionally irritating, ignoring, or otherwise leaving your customers dissatisfied. I AM advocating that you must allow your existing customer to grow out of your brand in order to remain relevant to tomorrow’s consumer. Staying relevant to the up-and-comers is tough work…but is very rewarding in the end.
After keeping a presence at MySpace for the past three and half years, Mojoloco is moving out! We packed up our things, swept the floors, and moved on. We’ll miss our friends there. BUT, times change, and we felt it was time to keep pace. We don’t like maintaining 20 profiles at once…we try to keep things manageable.
We wish MySpace the best in their attempt to remain relevant and stay ahead of the trends. If the tides change, we may be back…we’re not turning in our key just yet. And, we did leave a note in case anyone drops by while we’re gone…
How is it that good salesmanship can defeat a brand? It happens because good salesmanship, at its roots, is somewhat contradictory to good branding. Problems occur when master salesmen set brand strategy. The master salesman isn’t wrong…but his job is to sell a product, not build a brand. Selling a product and building a brand are two distinctly different tasks. Selling is short-term. Branding is long-term. Branding should outline what the salesman sells and how it’s sold. Selling (as a strategy) leads to short-term rewards, but long-term identity crisis and price wars. Branding (as a strategy) means slower growth, but creates longevity and higher price points.
This series deals with 5 areas in which good selling contradicts good branding. The topic of this post is ARROGANCE.
One person’s money is as good as another’s, right? Well, obviously speaking…yes. From a not-so-obvious viewpoint…maybe not. Now, let me say up front that this topic is all about brass tacks and tough cookies. The object of branding is not to offend the consumer, but to engage the RIGHT consumer. That implies that you won’t want to engage EVERY consumer. Some will be left out. Some SHOULD be left out. My focus here is the danger of NOT leaving out the ones that SHOULD be left out. With me?
Remember Stewart on Beavis and Butthead? You know, the neighborhood dork who wore the Winger t-shirt? Now, in reality, the record company exec (whose job is to sell records) would most likely clap Stewart on the back and encourage him to pllop down those $20 bucks for the WInger CD…and an extra $20 for the t-shirt. Kip Winger, on the other hand, probably cringed at the thought.
The record exec did indeed do his job…he sold records…quite a few, in fact. But where is Kip Winger these days? I’m pretty sure he’s still singing, but he’s not cracking the top 40, for certain. Who was right, Kip or the record exec? Remember, successful brands are not measured in years, but in decades.
I guess the answer is that they were both right. They were both doing their jobs…it’s just that their jobs were on a collision course. One’s job was to promote his music and build a following. The other’s job was to sell records. Good salesmanship defeated the brand.
So, in branding, tough choices often have to be made. You want to sell to those who reflect your core values. This requires a certain degree of arrogance. Yes, your brand is too good for some, and not good enough for others. Find that sweet spot, own it, and attack it without compromise. Yes, you will likely offend some. But in the offense lies the perception of exclusivity: we, as humans, want- even idolize- what we cannot have. After all, if everybody has it, it really isn’t special, is it?
When it comes to picking and choosing targets for various tactics, embrace some healthy arrogance. Here are some examples:
a fashion boutique for 20-something girls ONLY accepts 20-something girls as friends on MySpace. Everyone else is denied.
a novelty t-shirt designer known for women’s t-shirts might refuse to design a t-shirt for men, regardless of the demand.
a merchandiser might limit inventory to certain categories, even at the expense of limiting the target market.
Again, I’m not advocating being ugly to consumers. I AM advocating a certain degree of arrogance in order to maintain targeting focus and build a loyal following of passionate consumer evangelists. At the end of the day, branding is not about selling whenever and wherever the opportunity presents itself. It is about being relevant to a small subculture.
How is it that good salesmanship can defeat a brand? It happens because good salesmanship, at its roots, is somewhat contradictory to good branding. Problems occur when master salesmen set brand strategy. The master salesman isn’t wrong…but his job is to sell a product, not build a brand. Selling a product and building a brand are two distinctly different tasks. Selling is short-term. Branding is long-term. Branding should outline what the salesman sells and how it’s sold. Selling (as a strategy) leads to short-term rewards, but long-term identity crisis and price wars. Branding (as a strategy) means slower growth, but creates longevity and higher price points.
This series deals with 5 areas in which good selling contradicts good branding. The topic of this post is ENGAGE.
Social media is an excellent conversation piece for this topic. Social media is today’s gold rush…everyone wants to jump on board, everyone wants to benefit. The proof of this is the fact that, by 2010, more ad dollars will be spent on social media promotions than on television, print, radio, or outdoor mediums. Wow.
The problems, however, begin to arise when the traditional 30-second spot types want to jump into the social space and treat it as they did other mediums. Traditional advertising mediums are designed to interrupt, and good salesmen are masters of interruption. A good salesman can walk into a store cold off the street and close the deal, regardless of how distracted and busy the shop owner is. That’s the golden standard for good salespeople.
Social media doesn’t work this way…it isn’t commercial, by design…IT IS SOCIAL. The object in this space is to engage, not interrupt. It’s about having a conversation with your consumer, not about inundating them with your message. Brand managers and marketing gurus that don’t get this will eventually all become irrelevant in the new marketing world.
Social media is not the only medium in which consumers insist on being engaged and not interrupted. More and more, as consumers become more educated and more inundated with pointless hype, it is becoming vital to engage the consumer in a fruitful conversation rather than take the hard sale approach.
Beginning with your social media strategy, evaluate how good a job your brand is doing at the whole “engaging versus interrupting” thing. Visit your public profiles on Twitter and Facebook….are you having a conversation with yourself? Is anyone talking back, asking questions, seeking information, or inquiring about your products? Or are your company profiles a history of a very one-sided conversation? The answer to this pop quiz can be a key starting point in realizing where some of your brand’s weaknesses can be found.
Doing something about it is the next step. Remember, social media is not a mass cold call…and successful branding never interrupts…it always engages. And, while selling requires some degree of saturation when it comes to your message, good branding requires- not just awareness- but AGREEMENT.
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