Archive for category Marketing & Branding
Placing product placement
Posted by Sam Kale in Marketing & Branding, Product Marketing on December 20, 2010
A chilly Saturday
Saturday morning I went to put some gas in my car. After swiping my card and putting the handle in the tank, I was left to wonder why gas wasn’t being delivered to my car while I watched my breath freeze in the cool Wisconsin morning. A quick inspection of the gas pump display revealed an “upsell opportunity,” asking me whether a car wash appealed to me.
As a marketer, I understand the theory behind cross selling to increase awareness and revenues from other products in your portfolio. But as a guy standing in the freezing cold, I was just the slightest bit annoyed at having to press yet another button before the thing I had paid for was delivered to me.
Flash forward to Saturday afternoon. Kris and I took in a showing of Tron:Legacy. As has been the case for the past few years, before the actual movie played we were “treated” to a series of previews and other commercials, a combination of studios, in-house promotions, and soda company missives presenting us with opportunity after opportunity to buy things. And while the ticket says that the movie starts at a certain time, we all know that its really the ads that start at the time printed on the ticket while the movie starts 10-15 minutes later.
Are products placed in movies? Or are movies placed in product ads?
And then at some point in the movie, Kris mentioned that the product placements were so lacking in subtlety that they was becoming distracting. I spotted placements for Nokia, Ducati motorcycles, BMW motorcycles, and Coors beer. None were subtle, pausing for at least an extra moment on the brand’s logo. While they weren’t as disrupting to the movie’s flow as the scene in The Truman Show where Laura Linney turns to the camera mid-sentence and plugs laundry detergent, they did break up the rhythm and pull me out of the story for a few seconds.
I half expected the whole grid to be sponsored by Cisco, “The Human Network (TM)”.
Product placement is nothing new. It can be traced back to the earliest days of film and television, and its use today seemingly outpaces the traditional 30 second spot. You might say that its a small price to pay for ensuring that we continue to get quality entertainment at a reasonable price, that brands have the right to advertise their wares in any way they want so long as they pay for it, that its not really that bad.
My problem is not that it happens; my problem is that more and more its being done very very poorly. Something has changed in the medium in the past year or so. Whereas you would have never see James Bond pull up in his Aston Martin and, before stepping out, turn to the camera and read 10 seconds of benefit-selling copy, somehow its OK for the cast of Psych to sit and discuss the new Ford Fusion for 30 seconds before getting back to the story.
It occurs to me that the real problem here is not the subtlety with which the ads are placed, nor is it the skill with which the stories are told.
No, its the sheer audacity with which the marketers replace the customers’ goals with their own.
Its a lot like garage sales
Have you ever been to a garage sale where the items are grossly overpriced considering what they are? A situation where you just know the person took their purchase price, subtracted a few dollars, and wrote it on the sticker, never minding the fact that the item is 4 years and 3 generations old? Perhaps you’ve even been that person, trying valiantly to assign what you think is a fair price to something you have loved and cherished, not stopping to think that others might see it as only stuff (hat tip to Dan Benjamin’s The Pipeline podcast for the revelation).
The products placed in the movie, the pre-movie ads, the in-show car ads, and even the car wash offer at the gas station all share one critical similarity – they all lack a certain amount of contextual awareness that tells them that telling their story is not the most important part of the experience.
Put another way: they don’t fully grasp where they fit in the equation.
As marketers we spend a lot of time talking about unmet user needs, about developing products that address customer pain points, about understanding and extending the user experience.
But wouldn’t it be terrible if all of that hard work was lost because we couldn’t keep ourselves from annoying our customers?
Making a mockery of movement marketing
Posted by Kris Kaneta in Communications & Social Media, Marketing & Branding on October 25, 2010
Today, on Facebook, I saw at least 5 pink ribbon videos, articles, symbols, etc. And then I saw one for rescued animals, and then one for substance abuse recovery. Don’t get me wrong, these are all GREAT causes. But I submit to you that social media has let out the air out of movement marketing.
What was once an actionable and noble thing has now become an overplayed and misrepresented form of brand association. And it’s not just big companies that are doing it (though they are probably the worst perpetrators). It’s us as consumers, as friends and as neighbors.
Let’s have less talk and more walk.
Less on awareness and more on action.
Less 30 second Facebook posting and more 30 minutes volunteering.
Social media has made it too easy for us to feel good about ourselves that we’ve forgotten the point behind movement marketing – and that’s to move people.
Will 50,000 virtual thumbs up change someone’s life? Maybe. Would just 50 people giving up an hour to help their community? Abso-freakin-lutely.
Put another way, how much movement are you really doing by posting that FB badge on your profile saying you believe animal abuse is wrong? I mean – I should hope we all feel that way. We need to do more than just give ourselves a pat on the back.
1) Bring people together to become change agents. And a FB page does not mean you’ve brought people together. I work for a giant, complicated organization and one of the things that often frustrates people is how difficult it can be to move the needle. That said, it’s also amazing to see what can be accomplished when the masses are aligned. I’d argue there isn’t a problem we couldn’t solve by working in concert. So don’t just hand out ribbons – bring people together.
2) Don’t make it about YOU. The blatant co-branding with the pink ribbons has become out of control. The pink ribbon isn’t about your fried chicken. It isn’t about your brand. (See my earlier blog about why your brand should come second) The movement is about the people and the cause, not your brand.
3) Give it away. Nothing irks me more than seeing “$.50 cents of every purchase will be donated to blah blah blah”. To me that’s nothing more than the same discount or coupon you’d give to the customer if there wasn’t a charity. That doesn’t move me and I doubt it moves you. Instead of marking it down – GIVE IT AWAY. You don’t have to do it for a month, or even a week. Denny’s gave away breakfast for a day costing them about $14 million in sales but bringing in about $50 million worth of free advertising (source).
Hopefully I’ve successfully turned my rant into something a bit more productive. My fear in all this co-branding is that we’re doing more harm than good, not only for big brands but for the movements themselves. People feel like their part of the movement when in reality they’re just as disengaged as they were before – except with a page on their FB profile. HOW TERRIBLY UNINSPIRING!
Pursuing Perfection? Why bother?
Posted by Kris Kaneta in Marketing & Branding on September 23, 2010
Pursuing perfection? Why bother when good enough will do?
Now those of you who have been reading this blog for a while might think, wait – doesn’t this contradict a prior blog I wrote last year? To some degree it does but there’s an important distinction between a business that’s good enough and a deliverable that’s good enough. It’s here that I’m talking about the latter. A business that’s satisfied with being ho-hum will eventually be squeezed. But a business that is focused on world domination, sometimes has to settle with delivering product that’s just good enough.
Take this blog for example. If I were to focus on writing an absolute masterpiece, let’s face it – it would never post. I would deliberate for days on end and probably can the thing when it was all said and done. When Apple developed the iPhone I have to believe they knew of the connectivity issue that got so much press earlier this year. But even with that flaw, was it good enough to launch? Steve certainly thought so. And most iPhone users I know say that it was, if for no other reason than they don’t normally use it as a “phone”.
As a colleague of mine points out, sometimes being good enough vs perfect can make or break your first mover advantage. So as you deliberate the minute details of your new new thing… ask yourself if waiting to get it just right will make it the old new thing.
More than that, I believe most of us just need to get better at executing. It’s easy to criticize and agonize and idea-ate but it takes a whole different skill set to deliver, or as Seth Godin says, to just “ship” it.
Learn to deliver, learn to fail and then learn to do it again.
Make it easy
Posted by Sam Kale in Communications & Social Media, Marketing & Branding, Random Musings on September 19, 2010
My wife is a huge fan of BravoTV’s Top Chef, and I have to admit that somewhere along the way, I got drawn into the show as well. And while I’m not a fan of reality TV as a genre, I do enjoy the food and watching the “cheftestants” prepare their meals.
Like any good multi-media, multi-channel marketing strategy, Top Chef has taken to the internet to provide some companion content to the show. Coming mostly in the form of blogs and twitter accounts from the judges, every Thursday we get some more context and perspective on what we saw the night before.
After a few weeks of my wife regaling me with snippets from Chef Tom Colicchio’s blog, I went off in search of the blog myself, only to be utterly disappointed and, at the same time, not at all surprised at what I found.
A fan of RSS feeds, I rely on Google Reader to aggregate and centralize most of my online content consumption. Twitter is a great way to surface important topics, but for me, nothing beats RSS for sifting quickly through large piles of content.
Like many of its contemporaries, BravoTV lacks any sort of RSS implementation on its blogs. Sure, there’s a Top Chef twitter account, but it doesn’t, as far as I can tell, include any links to the Top Chef blogs, which is itself yet another miss on Top Chef’s part. I’m sure it made sense in some meeting somewhere, the idea that dedicated fans will want – need, even – to go directly to a website to read the newest blog post the second it comes out. By doing so they’ll let us collect data, serve them ads, and cross-promote any number of other initiatives. A good deal for all.
The thing they’re missing, of course, is that the most loyal customers are the ones that follow your RSS and twitter feeds. Not only are they the most loyal customers, but they’re the most likely to promote your stuff to their friends. While its important for us to figure out ways to accomplish our business goals (metric tracking, serving ads, cross-promoting other initiatives, or whatever), doing so by increasing the number of hoops through which our “best fans” should reasonably go assumes a scarcity and uniqueness of content that will never be true again. (Hat tip to John Gruber, whose analysis of the Daring Fireball RSS Feed membership is one of my favorite takes on this topic).
So in the end its up to us to 1) get as many people to see our stuff as possible, 2) reduce the number of steps our fans go through to get the content they really want, and 3) figure out how to accomplish our business goals under that framework.
Because without readers/customers, it doesn’t matter how good the content is or how many different wants we’ve devised to meet our business goals.
B2B is so 1999
Posted by Kris Kaneta in Marketing & Branding on August 11, 2010
I remember the first time I heard the term “B2B” – I was a senior in college. Any company that made the slightest reference to it was being touted as the next big thing. Looking back on it, I didn’t really get what all the fuss was about and before I had time to stop and think about it, the millennium came and went. Now here we are, 10 years later and I still hear people referring to it like there’s some mystifying secret to it.
Let me shed some light on the matter…
There is no esoteric meaning behind the term because there is no “B2B”. B2B IS DEAD! PEOPLE (not businesses) buy from other PEOPLE (not businesses). And while I don’t think anyone would openly dispute that, there are still those trying to market to businesses!!!
If you were a sales person, you might start with a business target in mind, but you don’t just walk up to the entrance and talk to the bricks on the building wall? So why as marketers would we target businesses?!?!
Don’t get me wrong, to engage in a conversation we need to start at the business level, but we also have to go deeper. There’s the question of who is the decision maker (VITO) that will ultimately decide whether or not to conduct business with you. And then there are your key influencers, who, being among VITO’s most trusted advisers might be someone who could influence on our behalf. This might be a person within the organization or it might be a particular external thought leader, but either way it’s about a person.
It’s about touching individuals – which means talking to them as individuals, NOT as businesses. Everyone has their own motivations, and just because something is good for the “business” doesn’t necessarily make it good for the individual.
So don’t be a B2B marketer. Be a “people” marketer and always keep in mind what’s in it for them!
The best marketing is data driven
Posted by Sam Kale in Marketing & Branding, Random Musings on August 9, 2010
This morning I was in a cross functional team meeting, with representatives from product engineering, operations, and marketing (among others). Before the meeting I introduced myself to someone, who upon hearing that I was with marketing quipped:
Oh, I’m with operations … I deal with the real world. You know, numbers and stuff!
Now, I should start by saying that this person was most definitely kidding. To her joke I gave a wry smile and a nod … and then proceeded to walk the entire room through a somewhat complicated excel model that analyzes resource allocation against strategic goals across a large part of our business.
Later this afternoon I met with someone interested in some other analyses I had recently done. As we walked through the data, we discussed some of the nuances that can be used to separate these data from those, making adjustments to the excel file right there in the room. It was a great discussion with some great ideas exchanged, none of which would have surfaced if the data hadn’t been right there in front of us.
So what’s my point?
My point here is that the best marketing is data driven. We can each argue in favor of our personal beliefs, but its only when we have the data (the right data) that we can move beyond what we think and into what we can prove.
It might seem obvious and trivial, but having the data gives you almost instant credibility. But the data – or the associated credibility – isn’t the end game either.
The end game is to use the proof to construct tangible actions that lead to measurable outcomes (read: revenue).
When sentimentality keeps you from making a good product great
Posted by Sam Kale in Marketing & Branding, Product Marketing on July 28, 2010
The next iPhone killer
Over the past few days the gadget blogs have been all a-twitter over the new Blackberry Bold 9800. An update to the recently released Bold 9700, the new 9800 features a touchscreen/keypad combo, better resolution, and an all new incarnation of the Blackberry operating system.
Along with the specs, the device comes with the requisite “iPhone killer” rhetoric. Will the new Blackberry be RIM’s salvation? Will it put Apple out of business? Will it be the new standard against which we compare every smartphone to come to market?
I’m not sure, but I’d be willing to bet that it won’t. The reason? Because RIM is just too sentimental.
Consistency at all costs
Blackberry, in an effort to provide consistency for their users, has elected to keep many of the OS’s historical design elements. Elements that in 2002 (when the first BB smartphone was released) were new and charming but now, only 8 short years later, seem quaint and just a bit dated. As one blog put it, it might be a bit like trying to “… put lipstick on a pig.”
The thing that Apple did well with the iPhone (antenna notwithstanding) is not so much sacrificing the sacred cow as it is ensuring that there are no sacred cows to begin with. Whether it be eliminating the floppy drive on the original iMac, replacing serial and parallel ports with USB, or even eliminating their favorite Firewire ports, Apple has shown again and again that sentimentality for “what was” only gets in the way of good design.
Sacred cows
All too often product design gets mired in the mundane, the list of things that “… we have to have because our existing customer base demands them.” The trick, of course, is to accurately and dispassionately separate the things that the customers want from the things that we want the customers to want, either because they’re things we ourselves want or because there’s a pet project someone doesn’t want to give up. There’s a sacred cow in the room that no one can put out to pasture.
Thar be growth
And as we plan for growth, either through market expansion, adjacencies, or white spaces, we have to continually ask and challenge ourselves on the things that we hold sacred. Its hard to give up on the thing that we created, the thing that we championed, the thing that we’ve come to think of as iconic. The problem is when another product comes along and turns your icon into an anachronism.
Some further thoughts on Thought Leadership
Posted by Sam Kale in Marketing & Branding, Product Marketing on July 22, 2010
As my involvement on this blog stems directly from my continuous commenting on this blog, the straw that broke the camel’s back, as it were, was Kris’ recent post on Thought Leadership and the Freemium Concept. And although the last thing I want this blog to be is Point/Counterpoint, I would like to build on a few points Kris made.
I’m pretty sure Kris and I are saying the same thing here … that at some point content isn’t the thing that you’re selling; at some point, content is the thing you give away to build the credibility it takes to sell the thing that makes you money (the "solution" in the "B2B solution organization" he mentioned).
Should iTunes be free? To that I’d say 2 things: first, iTunes is the "How," not the "What." Second, the music (the "What") is essentially free these days. Even a few short years ago we had to pay $12-$15 for the CD if you wanted 1-2 songs from an artist. Now we pay $1/track. The revenue from that content is shrinking at an alarming rate. The smart artists have figured out that the songs are the tools they use to lure people to concerts, to get them to buy DVDs, to get them licensing deals in movies and on TV shows. Moby, Sting, Dave Matthews … all of these are artists that understand the value of diversifying away from the canonical content. iTunes/Apple, for its part, essentially gives away the content for free (they take 30% of the tx, spending most of that on infrastructure and delivery costs), with the goal being to sell more iDevices.
Whether Netflix should be free is a slightly trickier question, mainly because they’re not the content producer, they are the content delivery mechanism. I’d go so far as to say that Netflix *has* made the content free; for one flat rate I get as many movies as I can watch (remember that Netflix streaming is no incremental payment and unlimited streams per month). While the major studios have clung to the idea of monitizing the actual movie (ticket sales, DVD sales), Netflix has essentially given away the content in an effort to make money on the delivery mechanism and the idea of "entertainment whenever wherever."
Contrast both those situations with the UK Times, where they are still stuck in the mindset that the content is the thing that’s going to make them money. Sure, the stated goal might be "readership," but there’s not much chance that ad revenue is going to make them any sort of real money. And now compare that to Bloomberg and WSJ, neither of which sell the content so much as up-to-the-minute access to the content. Subtle difference, but both the WSJ and BB are actually making money.
In his book "Free," Chris Anderson goes through exactly this sort of debate. As a matter of fact, when the book first came out, he gave it away, looking instead to make money on the lecture circuit. Jeff Jarvis discusses many of the same concepts in "What Would Google Do?" although he directs most of his analyses towards the Google products (another example of a company that gives away the content in favor of generating revenue through other means).
So I guess my point is that I completely agree with Kris’ closing paragraph and would add that, regardless of whether its B2B or B2C, The Change is already happening. Those that can recognize and admit that the change is happening can adjust and thrive; those that cling to old and outmoded business models will not fare as well.
The price of being a thought leader
Posted by Kris Kaneta in Communications & Social Media, Marketing & Branding on July 20, 2010
Attending a recent social media “bootcamp”, the discussion of content sharing came up. Working with a collection of my organization’s thought leaders, we discussed content creation and strategy. And a question was raised that I feel is worth revisiting.
How much content do we give away? At what point are we showing too much under the hood, sharing too many of the ingredients in the secret sauce, giving away too many of those delicious CostCo food samplers… well you get the idea.
There’s no easy or 100% steadfast rule to this, but I believe that there’s a price to being a thought leader. That means putting something out there can be potentially mimicked or copied. In my business we see it all the time… where competitors suddenly find themselves spouting the same messaging and value proposition that we’ve been communicating for months. And to that I say “THANK YOU!” Mimicry is the best compliment and only reaffirms our position as thought leaders.
Now obviously you don’t want to be giving away secret algorithms or confidential intellectual property, but there’s nothing wrong with a “how-to” that’s based on your own deep expertise.
I’ll use as an example a good friend who recently remodeled his bathroom. After reading up on all the right things, he decided he could tackle the DIY project himself. Half-way into ripping out the bathroom tiles, he realized that he was over his head. And then he called in the experts that originally advised him on his DIY endeavors.
Moral of the story is that delivering solutions is hard… and just because you have the playbook doesn’t mean you can execute. It requires expertise that can’t be stolen from a blog. It’s actually quite the opposite… that content can only serve to set you up as a thought leader.
So get out there and FREE YOUR CONTENT!
Is doing what you promised enough?
Posted by Kris Kaneta in Marketing & Branding, service marketing on July 12, 2010
I have been a Rhapsody music subscriber for some time. I love the idea of music on demand and never paying for individual tracks. I love downloading a new artist and then later deciding if I like them without incurring any incremental cost one way or the other.
What I don’t like is the fact that Rhapsody has not figured out an application for the Blackberry. I can either play music on my Rhapsody compatible player or on my laptop. Rhapsody has apps for both iPhone and Droid but no blackberry and while I’d love to switch to either, I’m bound to a standard corporate issued blackberry.
Before this comes off as just another rant, let me say this post was prompted by an interesting thread going on in the Rhapsody community. It’s interesting from the standpoint that there are a lot of annoyed, loyal Rhapsody subscribers out there waiting for a blackberry app. But even more interesting is some of the arguments being made both against and in defense of Rhapsody.
The argument against: This app was more or less announced last year as coming in “early” 2010. Hmmm… well clearly, they missed that one. There’s supposed to be a beta coming out but I have not heard of anyone being chosen, so I can only assume its not out yet. People are waiting, people have expressed a want / need, and Rhapsody has more or less failed to deliver on this. This in turn has prompted some customer defections.
The defense: One writer makes the point that when we signed up for Rhapsody, a blackberry app was never part of the deal (unless you signed up with the expectation that the app was coming). We willingly signed up or continue to subscribe despite alternatives out there, so really it’s not like there’s a real disservice going on.
So if you buy the latter argument, I ask this question…
Is it enough to provide exactly what customers signed up for (and nothing more)?
Is it enough to justify the disappointment being expressed across a broad community of blackberry / rhapsody users? To me, the answer is like everything in marketing, and that is “it depends.” Here’s my thoughts on when it’s enough….
1) When you’re the only game in town. That’s pretty obvious, and in this case we all know Rhapsody is not the only game in town.
2) When you… um…. well, ok, there’s really only one reason.
I guess you could say there are ways to better communicate value, to create community, and all that jazz. But at the end of the day, when customers have expressed a need that can be met by a competitor, continuing to do just what you say you’re going to do isn’t enough.
So the only question remaining is, why am I still with Rhapsody? Like so many on the referenced thread, apathy – a powerful attribute which will keep customers around for a bit (think cable and phone) but sooner or later that goodwill will run out. The irony is that rather than spend the hour or so to switch services, I instead chose to write this blog. So obviously, I haven’t reached that tipping point yet, but I’ll let you know if we get there.
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