Customer World

Forrester's ladder of participation and impact on marketing

I was reflecting over the weekend about Forrester's Social Technographics Ladder of Participation. While it was focussed on emerging social technologies, I felt there were some trends, learnings and practices that can be applied from here to refresh marketing thinking, practices, evolving needs to embrace technologies that can make some changes happen and thereby make marketing more relevant to enterprises and CEOs. Let's take a look at this Ladder of Participation first:

I see the marketing eco-system too, taking a very similar shape(with either customers or prospects) in the years to come. The need to 'engage' and run marketing campaigns across a similar ladder is bound to become increasingly important. Marketing will need to 'bucket' its segments of customers or prospects across the spectrum of Inactives to Creators. The 'old world marketing' practice would have stopped with collecters - who I would define as repeat purchasers. Normally, marketing practices would have stopped there.

But, in the 'new world of marketing', customers will be more involved, participative and conversational. Thereby, customers will leave a 'trail of information' behind, in enterprises. For an enterprise, the creators will be the most loyal and demanding. They need to be recognized, valued and encouraged to converse. The ones who do it, will become identifiable and the most important. Also, products/brands will have to become 'information platforms' in such a world. This will also lead to customized design of products and services for them.

The critics are the ones who will have to be 'listened' to. With emerging channels or touch points, the enterprises must open a channel of communication to hear and rectify their problems. They are the ones who can potentially move-up the ladder of participation.

The collectors need to be 'prodded' to talk rather just buy again and again, get them to share their experience and frustrations with the product. And the joiners will have to be moved to become collecters.

This kind of marketing will combine a lot of information, analytical insights, real-time marketing automation to talk to customers in different behavioural states and stages in the ladder. And when enterprises talk of millions and millions of such identified customers or prospects, the need for marketing to deliver scalable, real-time, right-time marketing will only become sacrosanct. The ones who will practice it, will have the ear of CEOs/CFOs and the rest will be left behind.

 

    

Capital One's Card Lab - Get your customized credit card

Capital One recently announced the launch of Card Lab.  Ron Shevlin writes about this:

Capital One launched Card Lab, which it claims is the first “do-it-yourself” credit card offer. It’s an interactive tool that lets prospective card applicants choose among a number of options to build their own card package. Not surprisingly, you can’t get a 25% annual bonus and 2 points per $1 charged and 1.25% back on purchases and….you get the picture (otherwise see below).

My take: Card Lab is a winner because it:

1) Builds up versus narrows down. Card Lab’s approach puts prospects in charge, and presents the options in such a way that they can easily see the tradeoffs they make when selecting certain options.

2) Engages with interactivity.Card Lab, on the other hand, is a great demonstration of the interactivity the channel is capable of delivering. Serious prospects can play what-if to their hearts’ content in order to understand the product features and tradeoffs available to them.

3) Yields actionable data.The web analytics folks at Cap One are going to have a field day with Card Lab. Analyzing the usage, trends, clickstream, etc. should help Cap One marketers get a really good understanding of who’s looking for cards online, what their preferences are, which features are most popular, and so on.

I agree with Ron completely. It's a great idea and extremely customer-focussed.But, CardLab sounds a little intimidating to me.Another key issue though is actually the process of accepting or rejecting applicants - that is, how customer-level data is connected real-time for approving and disapproving an application as credit cards are fraught with credit-risks. Am sure Capital One has the process taped-up for this.But, this is a key factor for positive customer experience and product adoption. 

Here's one more product that fits-in with all the advantages what Ron is talking about:

Closer home in India, my example is HDFC Bank's NetSafe card for customization,customer-centricity and the method to manage the process well. It's a lovely little product. In fact, it works on the fear of Net Security which is a primary concern for credit card customers using their cards online.

NetSafe, is a unique online payment solution that offers complete security while shopping on the Internet. With NetSafe, customers can shop online through a virtual credit card, without revealing their actual HDFC Bank Credit Card number. What's more,they can use the HDFC Bank Debit Card(Check Card) also for online purchases. Customers here choose their account limit for this specific card - Value of credit limit, date of expiry of the card etc.! Customer can create as many online credit cards as possible(subject to the overall accepted credit limit).

Emerging Technology trends that will shape business and economic growth - McKinsey's perspective

Carleen Hawn has drawn-up a nice summary of McKinsey's article.

Technology alone is rarely the key to unlocking economic value: companies create real wealth when they combine technology with new ways of doing business. … we have identified eight technology-enabled trends that will help shape businesses and the economy in coming years. These trends fall within three broad areas of business activity: managing relationships, managing capital and assets, and leveraging information in new ways.

A. Managing relationships

1. Distributing cocreation

The Internet and related technologies … allow companies to delegate substantial control to outsiders—cocreation—in essence by outsourcing innovation to business partners that work together in networks. By distributing innovation through the value chain, companies may reduce their costs and usher new products to market faster by eliminating the bottlenecks that come with total control.

The Caution:
Companies pursuing this trend will have less control over innovation and the intellectual property that goes with it, however. They will also have to compete for the attention and time of the best and most capable contributors.

2. Using consumers as innovators

Consumers also cocreate with companies; the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, for instance… Companies that involve customers in design, testing, marketing (such as viral marketing), and the after-sales process get better insights into customer needs and behavior and may be able to cut the cost of acquiring customers, engender greater loyalty, and speed up development cycles.

The Caution:
But a company open to allowing customers to help it innovate must ensure that it isn’t unduly influenced by information gleaned from a vocal minority. It must also be wary of focusing on the immediate rather than longer-range needs of customers and be careful to avoid raising and then failing to meet their expectations.

3. Tapping into a world of talent

… Much as technology permits [companies] to decentralize innovation through networks or customers, it also allows them to parcel out more work to specialists, free agents, and talent networks…new talent-deployment models could emerge [and] changes in the nature of labor relationships could lead to new pricing models that would shift payment schemes from time and materials to compensation for results.

The Caution:
This trend should gather steam in sectors such as software, health care delivery, professional services, and real estate, where companies can easily segment work into discrete tasks for independent contractors and then reaggregate it … Competitive advantage will shift to companies that can master the art of breaking down and recomposing tasks.

4. Extracting more value from interactions

Companies have been automating or offshoring an increasing proportion of their production and manufacturing (transformational) activities and their clerical or simple rule-based (transactional) activities. As a result, a growing proportion of the labor force in developed economies engages primarily in work that involves negotiations and conversations, knowledge, judgment, and ad hoc collaboration—tacit interactions, as we call them. By 2015 we expect employment in jobs primarily involving such interactions to account for about 44 percent of total US employment, up from 40 percent today.

The Caution:
Tere is still substantial room for automating transactional activities, and the payoff can typically be realized much more quickly and measured much more clearly than the payoff from investments to make tacit work more effective. Creating the business case for investing in interactions will be challenging—but critical—for managers.

B. Managing capital and assets

5. Expanding automation

Companies, governments, and other organizations have put in place systems to automate tasks and processes [like] forecasting and supply chain technologies…. Now these systems are becoming interconnected through common standards for exchanging data and … this information can be combined in new ways to automate an increasing array of broader activities, from inventory management to customer service.

The Caution:
Automation is a good investment if it not only lowers costs but also helps users to get what they want more quickly and easily, though it may not be a good idea if it gives them unpleasant experiences. The trick is to strike the right balance between raising margins and making customers happy.

6. Unbundling production from delivery

Technology helps companies to utilize fixed assets more efficiently… Information and communications technologies handle the tracking and metering critical to the new models and make it possible to have effective allocation and capacity-planning systems. Amazon.com [has] expanded its business model to let other retailers use its logistics and distribution services [and] independent software developers … buy processing power on its IT infrastructure so that they don’t have to buy their own. Mobile virtual-network operators, another example of this trend, provide wireless services without investing in a network infrastructure.

The Caution:
Companies that make their assets available for internal and external use will need to manage conflicts if demand exceeds supply. A competitive advantage through scale may be hard to maintain when many players, large and small, have equal access to resources at low marginal costs.

C. Leveraging information

7. Putting more science into management

Technology is helping managers exploit ever-greater amounts of data to make smarter decisions and develop the insights that create competitive advantages and new business models. From “ideagoras” (eBay-like marketplaces for ideas) to predictive markets to performance-management approaches… Leading players are exploiting this information explosion with a diverse set of management techniques. Google fosters innovation through an internal market: employees submit ideas, and other employees decide if an idea is worth pursuing or if they would be willing to work on it full-time.

The Caution:
Leaders should get out ahead of this trend to ensure that information makes organizations more rather than less effective. Information is often power; broadening access and increasing transparency will inevitably influence organizational politics and power structures. Environments that celebrate making choices on a factual basis must beware of analysis paralysis.

8. Making businesses from information

Accumulated pools of data captured in a number of systems within large organizations or pulled together from many points of origin on the Web are the raw material for new information-based business opportunities… market imperfections include[ing] information asymmetries and the frequent inability of decision makers to get all the relevant data … allow middlemen and players with more and better information to extract higher [prices] by aggregating and creating businesses around it.

The Caution:
But that sword can cut both ways; today’s aggregators, for instance, may themselves be aggregated tomorrow. Companies relying on information-based market imperfections need to assess the impact of the new transparency levels that are continually opening up in today’s information economy.

Does P&G need another community portal or a platform?

Procter & Gamble has launched a portal for pet lovers - petside.com. According to NY Times:

...Web portal that looks something like a Yahoo or AOL for pet owners, with a bit of Facebook and MySpace thrown in.The site, Petside.com, offers a full menu of information about dogs and cats, from the serious (how to diagnose your pet’s illnesses) to the silly (funny animal videos). There are links to shopping sites (like Petco.com) and articles about topics like what to do if visitors are allergic to your pet (hint: vacuum). Visitors are encouraged to set up social networking profiles in order to meet other pet owners.

While it's a great idea, it raises some questions in my mind. Frankly, I don't have all the answers but it can set a context for a discussion, I think:

1. Can such portals aggregate "interested" customers and create sustained interest ?  Am not sure. There is a lot of content on the web for pet owners. I think marketers need to add context around the content rather than just content. I personally don't think there is a need for one more portal and consumers are not waiting for one, I presume.
2. Is it still old world thinking? The TV era was about creating content and it helped aggregate audience. During the later years,there was proliferation of channels but it was still limited. The internet has opened-up a flurry of 'content creators' with micro audiences. So, it may just  be impossible to lead with content alone. The clutter in  new media is  lot more higher than traditional media. If TV soaps had a 13 or a 26 week interest, such content might have 13 days or 26 days interest?!! How do marketers keep the momentum going?
3. How can P&G create a platform? Thinking laterally, Google creates APIs that can be plugged-in with other sites and hence it is a sort of glue where ever users go on the web. It's in the context of the user rather than the marketer. So, do marketers like P&G have to create CPIs, where  C stands for customers. If I was a pet owner, P&G builds a set of CPIs that can help pet owners get content the way they want.It pulls content from different creators. It's an equivalent of a  "TV remote" in the offline world. If I don't like the content, I switch it off and move to another. P&G's site needs have a lot such CPIs which consumers can use. It may be mobile reminders, email alerts, or a plug-in into my igoogle  which is an independent channel for pet owners, beauty, grooming etc. P&G has to create an open marketing platform for content developers to use its CPIs.

What do you think? To me this makes a lot of sense and seems far more relevant than creating one portal after another.

          

Engagement and experience are your new 30-second spots

Don Shultz had done a review of the book "Profitable Marketing Communications: A Guide to Marketing Return on Investment," - A topic that's gaining attention among CEOs today. He picks-up 8 tips - 8 investor tips to marketing communications- from the book:

The eight tips are:

• Concentrate on outcomes, not outputs
• Forget consumers, target customers
• Manage your communication investment portfolio
• Differentiate in any way you can
• Engagement and experience as the new 30-second ads
• Apply a "focus investing" approach
• Establish a measurement culture
• Leverage your employee capital 

I quite liked two tips here.

1. The one on engagement and experience as the new 30 sec ads. This requires a lot of processes and breakdown of silos in the organization. But, it is a critical factor, if marketing has to make business impact.
2. Establish a measurement culture is also a great tip as it is a culture often missing among marketing fraternity. It's always the output that's the focus. Once the output is complete, one tends to forget to continously measure the business impact across all marketing investments not just TV ads only.

Secrets to building a customer-centric organization - #4

When it comes to building a team in an organization that thinks and breathes customers & selling best-in-class offerings, the process of recruiting the right 'fit' people rather than just the right people is important. What does this mean? It means that you might have identified the most qualified and the most experienced person for the job but they might not fit the culture, values, motivation, passion and environment that you may have in your company. The right fit is as much important as the right people. NY Times has an interesting article on 3 ingredients of success which provides more insights when you want to evaluate people and understand why they do what they do:

• After interviewing 200 people worldwide “who have made a difference in their fields,” three authors conclude that “success in the long run has less to do with finding the best idea or business model than it does with discovering what matters to us as individuals.”

• “When success just means wealth, fame and power it doesn’t last and it isn’t satisfying.”

• ...builders find lasting success when three essential elements come into alignment in their lives and work.

1. The first element is meaning. “What you do must matter deeply to you,”
2. The second is a “highly developed sense of accountability, audacity, passion and responsible optimism.”
3. Successful people “find effective ways to take action.”

Check the people who you want to recruit against this backdrop because you want to have in your team winners and not losers. Believe me, the difference will show and your customers will see it.

Credit Card marketing in Facebook

Rob Walker has an interesting article on how Chase has developed a credit marketing  program in Facebook.

“We felt Facebook would be a good partner for us, since they had such strong credibility in the students’ world,” explains Sangeeta Prasad, who oversees branding for Chase Card Services. “And we felt, you know, financial institutions lacked credibility. Students don’t see credit-card issuers or financial institutions in general as meeting their needs.” Thus the company started offering a new card it called +1, primarily by way of a “sponsored” Facebook group.

The +1 program was largely devised by Noise Marketing, a company that specializes in reaching young adults with nontraditional branding tactics. Making Facebook central to a college-focused effort had obvious advantages. “Everyone talks about the fragmentation of the media,” observes Noah Kerner, the C.E.O. of Noise Marketing. “Yet there’s never been such a concentration of people from one segment in one place before.” The Chase + 1 group has attracted so many participants in large part because of a rewards-program scheme. One tweak of this familiar tactic is that some of the rewards are tied to “credit education” material. Kerner maintains this coupling is what’s “really resonated” with students. “It’s connecting with them on a basic level: ‘O.K., you’re not trying to pull the wool over my eyes, and I appreciate that,’ ” he says.

That said, the education component doesn’t use precisely the same curriculum that, say, Consumer Reports would design. Students are advised not to spend money they don’t have, which is hard to argue with. But some might replace the counsel to “Pay at least the minimum due on time so you don’t waste money on late fees” with a blunt example of how fast debt can accumulate if the minimum is all you pay.

Kerner says that more good-behavior incentives are in the works — like rewards for paying your bill on time. And it’s the rewards that really seem to draw people in. The +1 system involves racking up “karma points.” You get 1 for joining the group, 15 for registering your +1 card, 5 for taking a brief “credit essentials” quiz and so on. These points can be disposed of only within Facebook: either spent at a special store (White Stripes’ “Icky Thump”: 10 points; Ticketmaster gift card: 35 points; Facebook T-shirt: 10 points), donated to one of several designated charities or given to other Facebook members.

Interesting isn't it? Looks like there is a convergence of traditional direct marketing thinking with web and loyalty for which Facebook seems to be a great platform to begin with.

P&G plans open source innovation

It's a bold move by P&G - taking help from outside to develop product ideas and share intellectual property rights!

iMedia reports:

The development programme, called Open Innovation Challenge, is a pilot collaboration between the National Endowment For Science, Technology and the Arts, British Design Innovation, Oakland Innovation and P&G. If it is successful, more large companies will pledge their interest.

Participants will be invited to submit proposals for products which fit P&G's criteria and have the potential to build businesses worth over $100m (£50m). To protect their intellectual property, the ideas won't be seen by P&G, but will be reviewed by Nesta, BDI and Oakland Innovation.

Ten of the most promising proposals will be selected and entrants given access to feedback, advice and up to £25 000 so their ideas can be developed to a stage where they demonstrate commercial viability.

Up to five of the strongest applicants will then have the chance to present their finalised ideas to P&G. The fmcg giant will have 90 days in which to decide whether to invest in the idea and sign appropriate contracts, otherwise the creator will be free to take their proposition to other brands, or investors. As is customary in such cases, the innovator will retain its IP in either instance.

Is this the shape of things to be expected, when companies plan product development in the future?

Secrets to building a customer-centric organization - # 2

When it's Disney, you know there is more passion behind the company than just some products, characters or merchandize! No wonder, it shows in the customer experience.

Read some Disney quotes and understand the passion behind the man and his ideas:

“Disneyland is a work of love. We didn’t go into Disneyland just with the idea of making money.”

“When we opened Disneyland, a lot of people got the impression that it was a get-rich thing, but they didn’t realize that behind Disneyland was this great organization that I built here at the Studio, and they all got into it and we were doing it because we loved to do it.”

“Disneyland is like a piece of clay, if there is something I don’t like, I’m not stuck with it. I can reshape and revamp.”

“The idea of Disneyland is a simple one. It will be a place for people to find happiness and knowledge. It will be a place for parents and children to share pleasant times in one another’s company; a place for teachers and pupils to discover greater ways of understanding and education. Here the older generation can recapture the nostalgia of days gone by, and the younger generation can savor the challenge of the future.

“To make the dreams of Disneyland come true took the combined skills and talents of hundreds of artisans, carpenters, engineers, scientists and craftsmen. The dream that they built now become your heritage. It is you who will make Disneyland truly a magic kingdom and a happy place for millions of guests who will visit us now and in the future.”

Read more

Secrets to building a customer-centric organization - # 1

I have been coming across some interesting quotes (which resonate a lot & appeal to me) as building blocks towards creating a customer-centric organization. There is no one formula but I thought I will blog about them (as and when I find them), aggregate them here so as to serve as a resource for all. Here's the first!

Learning customer loyalty from Apple

Inside CRM has a very nice and insightful post on how Apple creates loyal customers. No points, no cards - just pure, enriching experiences and great products. Here are a few that I liked the most:

A store just for Apple:Apple has historically been troubled by big-box sales staffers that are "tragically ill-informed" about its products, a problem that made it difficult for Apple to set its very different products apart from the rest of the computing crowd. By creating a store strictly devoted to Apple products, the company has not only eliminated this problem but has made an excellent customer-loyalty move.

Complete solutions: Apple's products complement and complete each other. Buy an iPod, and you can download music via iTunes.

Media fodder:Apple gift wraps news stories that are just begging for speculation and hype. By perpetuating this cycle of media frenzy, Apple reminds its customers that they're excited about buying new Apple products now and in the future.

New innovations:By giving customers an opportunity to employ Apple in their living rooms, pockets and offices, Apple makes it easy to stay loyal to a brand they already like.

How to get employees engaged?

I have already written in the past about the need to motivate employees to build customer-centric organizations. Technology can only do so much. We can have all the technology in the world but without engaged employees all these investments go down the drain. What are the building blocks of getting started on this? 

Nick Smith has some good suggestions:

• Know where you are coming from.
  It's probably wise, before stepping up to the leadership plate, to examine our own motivations because 'where we are coming from' speaks far louder than anything we might say or do.
• Make conversation a first class citizen.
  Conversation is the way we have got things done since Adam and Eve decided to walk out of the Garden of Eden.  The process flow is always the same:
  Ideas ----> Conversation ---- > Agreement ----> Action.
• Start slow to go quick.
  It's in wandering around, kicking the tires and sharing our frustrations that we come to discover a place we can call our own within a team.. something we can contribute and feel good about.. some role that we can fill (or learn to) that is personally meaningful to us.
• Get comfortable with blindness.
  Helping people find their own inspiration can be tricky.  Many times we don't consciously know what we want ourselves, but it comes disguised as a rant.  After all, we never get angry about the things we don't care about.
• Let go of the concept of 'failure'.
  Going out on a limb is messy.  It's all new to us, like learning to walk all over again.  We trip, we fall down, we pick ourselves up and then we do it all over again.  If we've got someone looking over our shoulder ready to snatch back control when we mess up, then we give up trying.
• Use consent rather than consensus as a framework for decision making.
  Many of us talk about Enterprise 2.0 as the democratisation of the workplace.  But seriously, is democracy that good a model?  As far I can see there are two big problems with it.  First, the bigger and the more diverse the group, the longer it takes to get a consensus of opinion.  Secondly, debate has a way of killing the brightest ideas.
• Be mindful of unexpected good stuff.
  This is about staying open and receptive to  what can never be planned.  The really magic stuff that comes out of great groups is the stuff that comes out of the blue.  It's not east to describe but when it comes it sneaks up on us and hits us up the side of the head.. and  we know.
• Be disruptive.
  Most people think of good leadership as maintaining order and keeping everything running smoothly.  What we are talking about here is the exact opposite.  Instead of being a good 'motivator' you can be a master disrupter - rearranging things to allow us to do what naturally moves us, and getting the other stuff out of the way.
• Be the keeper of the sacred scrolls.
  Just kidding!.. or maybe not.  It's part of the human condition to forget what is most important to us.  We get stuck in the inertia of those two old, tired ideas - 'work' and 'effort'... and then forget that  the real magic happens when we just enjoy our Selves.

Nokia - From selling phones to selling services

Nokia has announced the launch of digital music service.

NY Times reports the Nokia Music Store, to open this year, will let users download songs from the Internet to their computers or directly to mobile phones over wireless networks, which Apple’s recently released iPhone cannot do.

Nokia said it would price music downloads at 1 euro for each song, or 10 euros for each album, in the same price range as many existing mobile music services. In addition, customers would have to pay for the use of phone networks for the download, though many operators are starting to offer monthly flat-fee packages.

Getting inspired by a designer

I read this interview of Ivy Ross, Chief Creative Officer of Disney Stores and was fascinated by some of the concepts she talks about. It has some great lessons for building organizations and developing ideas. Companies of the future need new structures and design thinking to create products and a culture that builds trust amongst employees who work there. There's a lot to get inspired from her thinking:

• I think there are no unique ideas anymore.The only way we are going to uncover  truly new ideas is to have diversity of thinking. It has to come from this diversity of people building on each others' ideas to create something new.
• Let's face it. Everyone has everything. We are not about price anymore. Everything exists at every price level.It's about the connection you find with that object.
• I also believe creativity and innovation are built around trust and freedom.
• You think of a cow giving milk and you only think of the end result.If the cow had not had the time to graze, there wouldn't be any milk. We are always hooking people for output, output, output. We are not giving them enough time to feed.
• I think the future of design is not just designing the object.We are going to design entireties, entire entities.

Marketing to postmodern consumers

Dr Margaret-Anne Lawlor, makes some interesting points on how postmodern consumers view brands and product choices in front of them:

Postmodernism is concerned with consumer choice, continuous change relating to consumption patterns and product availability, along with marketing practices that challenge the status quo. Postmodern consumers buy and use commodities and fashions that allow them adopt multiple, temporary self-images.

The practice recognises a mischievous type of consumer who prides oneself on resisting traditional marketing courtship and brand boasts. Instead, the consumer tends to favour brands that appear to lack a unique selling proposition (USP).

Postmodern consumers tend to have contradictions. At one level, they will show irony and irritation at the status quo, such as the long-running tradition of soap operas and the phenomenon of reality shows. But at another level, witness the strong viewing patterns of these genres of entertainment.

Another characteristic of postmodern consumerism is the attraction to hyper-reality, in other words a simulated reality.

Eating healthily is a topic of conversation but look at the growth in smoothie consumption in Ireland. Market leader Innocent has about a 64 per cent share of the Irish market and enjoyed 100 per cent in annual growth in the UK.While many consumers will pay for such a product, would it not be much cheaper and more satisfying - albeit less convenient - to make one’s own smoothie? Therein, lies the contradiction of the post-modern consumer. We want a reality - namely health - but are happy to buy the hyper-reality offered by the creative marketer.

My generation, my rules

Reena Jadhav has some interesting rules that interactive marketers could follow for the my generation:

• Personalized: Imagine each visitor having a uniquely personal experience with your service and website. It drives loyalty and interaction because it's "mine."
• Pint-sized: Think capsules, small but potent; the hottest parts of your site and service in a bite-sized format so users can custom aggregate from you and other favorite publishers.
• Portable: Your users want to connect with you beyond the boundaries of your website. Think browser, desktop, mobile device and any other "my" application...

Adobe Marketing starts with customer lock-in!

NY Times has an interesting article on how Adobe is marketing its new product directly to consumers. For me, this is the shape of things that brands will come to accept from marketing folks:

ADOBE software is a well-established tool for anyone working, or even dabbling, in computer-based design.Adobe will unveil an interactive wall of projected animation this morning in Union Square, along the 14th Street side of the Virgin Megastore. As pedestrians walk past the wall, infrared sensors will lock on to the person closest to the wall, who will then be able to control a projected slider button at the bottom of the wall.

As the selected pedestrian continues walking and moves the slider along, the wall will start displaying colorful animation and playing music, effects that will grow or recede at the pace that the person advances or retreats. When each selected pedestrian reaches the end of the wall, his or her design will be in full blossom, above the campaign’s message: “Creative license: take as much as you want.”

Outsourcing marketing to volunteers

Apple's iPhone, in my view, is a case study on marketing by buzz. There's a lot to learn from this for other brands.

Economist had this to write about Apple's iPhone marketing strategy:

The actual launch day, June 29th, became known as “iDay” among Apple cultists. Queues started forming days in advance at many of Apple's 164 shops in America. Depending on the location, the scenes had flavours of Woodstock, Mardi Gras, or—in Silicon Valley's Palo Alto, say—an Apple programmers' conference. Pizza deliverymen did a brisk trade catering to the waiting masses. Steve (“the Woz”) Wozniak, who co-founded Apple but has since parted ways with it, could have got an iPhone through connections, but waited in line just for the experience.

• The first shoppers to emerge victorious were cheered as heroes and brandished their trophies for the cameras.
• AT&T's rivals, Verizon and Sprint, issued “talking points” to their salespeople, with helpful hints for impugning the iPhone's divinity. They lost customers anyway.

Honchos in all sorts of industries have long studied keynote speeches by Steve Jobs, Apple's boss, for ways to cast spells on audiences; now they also need to work out how he outsourced his product marketing to an entire nation of volunteers.

What's the next big thing on the mobile?

Kate Lips is a social media strategist. Here's her take on what's the next big thing on the mobile?

"Well the network operators and handset manufactures losing a little control of course.The previous model was that you had to create an app which would work on a handful of phones, then work really hard to broaden your appeal. Then your market was narrowed anyway by the fact that even if people had compatible handsets you were asking them to download, install and run software, often not knowing their (data transfer) cost implications. It severely crippled the market reach of mobile services. No longer, if you can just make a web app!

....I believe Apple is going to fast forward this with iPhone. Talk about reinventing the phone; they also took a pretty good look at the mobile industry and seem set to reinvent some of that too. By making it possible for any developer to create applications (because they are web baed), they are offering a level playing field. It’s like a breath of fresh air.

Roomware is about a bunch of developers getting together to build an open source server that enables other independent developers to quickly build mobile apps. “Software running in a defined physical space” - using SMS, and also RFID, and potentially using other connectivity.

Agency of the future

"The agency of the future will be half a software company and half an entertainment company because that's the new landscape." according to Ajaz Ahmed, chairman and co-founder of independent digital marketing agency AKQA.

Succeeding in the information economy

Cory Doctorow writes:

An "information economy" can't be based on selling information. The information economy is about selling everything except information.

When you create products, experiences or services around information that you have or ones you collect continously, I presume new business models get built.

• So when we think of new products, we must ensure we don't just create dumb products, the value of it diminishes very quickly. Envelope information around  so it gets enriched continously to create value.
• Having just valuable information is no good. The information could be content, behaviroural knowledge etc. It is valuable only when it becomes relevant in a context.
• Convert information into indelible experiences

Learning innovation from Apple

Economist has a fantastic article on learning innovation principles from Apple. Here are some tips from the article:

Not invented here and very welcome here

The first is that innovation can come from without as well as within.In fact, its real skill lies in stitching together its own ideas with technologies from outside and then wrapping the results in elegant software and stylish design. The idea for the iPod, for example, was originally dreamt up by a consultant whom Apple hired to run the project. It was assembled by combining off-the-shelf parts with in-house ingredients such as its distinctive, easily used system of controls. And it was designed to work closely with Apple's iTunes jukebox software, which was also bought in and then overhauled and improved. Apple is, in short, an orchestrator and integrator of technologies, unafraid to bring in ideas from outside but always adding its own twists.This approach, known as “network innovation”, is not limited to electronics.

Designing new products around the needs of the user, not the demands of the technology

Too many technology firms think that clever innards are enough to sell their products, resulting in gizmos designed by engineers for engineers. Apple has consistently combined clever technology with simplicity and ease of use.

Stay hungry. Stay foolish

Listening to customers is generally a good idea, but it is not the whole story. For all the talk of “user-centric innovation” and allowing feedback from customers to dictate new product designs, a third lesson from Apple is that smart companies should sometimes ignore what the market says it wants today.

Fail wisely

The Macintosh was born from the wreckage of the Lisa, an earlier product that flopped; the iPhone is a response to the failure of Apple's original music phone, produced in conjunction with Motorola. Both times, Apple learned from its mistakes and tried again.

American Express brings its customer community together

American Express has launched a unique online initiative called The Members Project that enables its cardmembers to come together as a community by submitting and sharing their project ideas for making a positive impact in the world. Cardmembers can rate and discuss the project ideas on message boards and will ultimately vote and choose one innovative winning idea that American Express will help
bring to life with up to $5 million. The Members Project, which is a part of American Express' new brand campaign, "Are You a Cardmember," highlights the value of being a Cardmember and part of the American Express Cardmember community. "Our Cardmembers make up a unique community -- one that is highly engaged and passionate -- and we know that they care about the world around them," said Jud Linville, president of American Express Consumer Card Services Group. "Through the unique experience of The Members Project, our community of Cardmembers is pulling together and collectively shaking up the world just a little bit to do some good."

Cardmembers can go register and submit their project ideas for making a broad positive impact in one of the following categories: Arts & Entertainment, Business & Finance, Education, Environment & Wildlife, Fun, Health & Fitness and Community Development. Cardmembers can also participate by rating or posting comments about project ideas already submitted. For every Cardmember that registers, regardless of whether they come up with a project idea or just add their input on project ideas already submitted, American Express will contribute $1 toward the winning idea. The more Cardmembers registered, the more dollars available. American Express will commit at least $1 million and up to $5 million for the winning idea.

I love the deep engagement that this idea will create with their cardmembers.

Why not skin for credit cards?

Financial services products are sometimes too intimidating for consumers or too transaction focussed. How can you make an age old financial product like credit card interesting. Why not skins for credit cards that you have in your wallet? I read about this idea and thought it was quite interesting. It just makes the category interesting and financial services brands can make it a conversation starter for consumers.

..a company called CreditCovers started selling "skins," with special designs that consumers can stick over the fronts of their cards, theoretically transforming them from mere financial tools to emblems of identity...

Looks quite cool to me.

'Physical Size Does Not Guarantee Success; What Matters Is Mental Size'

Subroto Bagchi, COO of Mindtree Consulting makes some lovely points on what it takes to build an organization. Frankly in my view, it's the 'soul of the enterprise' that makes all the difference.Everything else is replacable. Business  will follow if you cultivate the right culture. Ask yourself this question- Does your enterprise have a soul? Surely, your customers will know it, everytime your employees interact with them. May be you can start by asking them first. Be ready for a lot of suprises!

If you then want to go back to the drawing board, you can start thinking with Subroto's advice:

• Being big is not about size, but about mindset - Let us imagine that you want to someday build a skyscraper. You have to pre-think what plumbing must go into the skyscraper. It cannot be an afterthought.So you have to pretend that, "I am a skyscraper." The inlet and outlet for the skyscraper is going to be very different. So pretending [or imagining] is a very, very important thing.
• Countries like Singapore, or Israel, or Finland, are world leaders in many ways. These are developed countries. These countries are at the top-end of GDP. But they are so tiny. They're microscopic when you compare them to countries like India or Pakistan. Many of the African countries are significantly larger. In today's world, physical size does not guarantee success. What is important is mental size. Nokia was created out of Finland. Singapore's GDP is way bigger than the GDP of India, and ... the population of Singapore is half the population of Bangalore.
• Process to Empathy Ratio(PE Ratio)- Process is not a substitute for building an emotionally rich organization. Process without emotion can quickly bring you down to the lowest common denominator.
• Inventive Thinking -When you look at building an organization, yes, the first idea is important, but an organization is built only as an idea of ideas. Sometimes people fail because they don't take a long view of time. Sometimes they fail because they do not adapt. I think adaptability is very important.
• Create the right organization infrastructure - An organization, an enterprise, is about infrastructure.We have to continuously build infrastructure.Many companies do a good job of building the physical infrastructure. Some companies even do a good job of building the intellectual infrastructure. But above these two layers is what I call the emotional infrastructure. This is the most difficult - the most difficult to build and the most difficult to sustain.In a hyper-competitive world, it is easiest to demolish a company at the physical layer. It's less easy to demolish a company at the intellectual layer. But it is the most difficult to break a company apart at the emotional layer.
• Have the right balance - Look at your enterprise as a three-legged stool. One is the employee, one is the customer and the third is the investor. The three have to be balanced at all times. If you try to deliver to the investor at the cost of the employee, or at the cost of the customer, this three-legged stool topples over. So we need to be careful.

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Wunderman on the changing face of direct marketing

Lester Wunderman spoke at the Forrester Marketing Forum. This is what he had to say:

The opening lines of my talk were: "David Ogilvy was famous for creating his agency's slogan: "we sell or else." I went on to say that, in this customer-centric era, we here at Wunderman have moved further ahead by recognizing and proving that "we create relationships or else."

"The business of advertising is to create relationships between buyers and sellers.  We used to be in the business of direct marketing – now we’re in the business of relationship marketing."  We will eventually move on to personal marketing, which will be facilitated by the use of data.

"Communications used to be dominated by the seller.  Today, the hero is the consumer.  Advertising used to speak – now they must listen."  Marketers need to move from product trial to creating and retaining loyal customers.

Four goals for direct marketing:  Relevance, relationship, repurchase, and retention.

Closing thought:  “In marketing, as in life, there’s no substitute for imagination or leadership.”

Adding social innovation to design

Josephine Green, is a Senior Director of Trends and Strategy at Philips Design. Her perpective on design is quite interesting:

• History teaches us that technology truly becomes a growth engine when, and only when, it is accompanied by social innovation.
• Because any new emerging technologies have to be relevant, meaningful and appropriate to people’s changing lives and to society’s emerging needs Only in this way can the new technologies reach their true potential and can companies and society grow and prosper.
• We believe that the future is about technology and social innovation and that while technology is still important, it becomes more an enabler in adding value for the individual and the collective. This means putting people at the center of our processes and business. It means thinking differently and doing differently.
• We need creativity, difference and boldness, and even more inefficiency, to let the truly new and imaginative emerge.
• We are now committed to this approach and are innovating through a network of partnerships and alliances involving customers, research institutes, other companies, etc.

Design is a business tool, but it is also a cultural tool. Design has always been a bridge between technology and culture and people.

Brand Authenticity

Wired has a great article on this topic:

"Authenticity is the benchmark against which all brands are now judged," notes John Grant...

Overloaded by sales pitches, consumers are gravitating toward brands that they sense are true and genuine.

What does it take to be authentic?

Authenticity constantly requires reinforcement, and it can come from a number of sources: craftsmanship, timeliness, relevance. But it is a brand's values--the emotional connection it makes--that truly define its realism.And there are four primary strands that draw out that connection.

• A sense of place. "Authenticity comes from a place we can connect with," says Steve McCallion, creative director of Ziba, a Portland, Oregon--based design consultancy. "A place with a story."
• A strong point of view. Authenticity also emerges from "people with a deep passion for what they are doing," says McCallion.
• Serving a larger purpose. Consumers quite rightly believe, until they're shown otherwise, that every brand is governed by an ulterior motive: to sell something. But if a brand can convincingly argue that its profit-making is only a by-product of a larger purpose, authenticity sets in.
• Integrity. Authenticity comes to a brand that is what it says it is. In other words, "the story that the brand tells through its actions aligns with the story it tells through its communications," Hardison says. "Only then will customers sense that the brand's story is true."

Subliminal impressions drive our thinking

Ever wondered what goes behind people who come-up with great ideas? And do you want to know how their minds work?

It's the subliminal impressions that you pick-up everyday that makes a difference to your thinking. You may never realize what caught your attention but it's there right at the back of your mind. So, train your mind to catch its attention on simple but unusual things that you see around you. Being inquisitive and perceptive, can make a huge difference.

You can't afford to get brain dead, you got to be 'brain agile' every minute, if you want to come-up with some great ideas!

Read more to believe it! Little John helped me learn this today!

Derren Brown is a mind master when it comes to suggesting, influencing, planting and hypnotizing.Our brains are pulling directly from everyday experiences that we aren't even remembering. Our bus ride to work, the lunch line, etc. So, pay a bit more attention to that boring stuff around you.

Is Joost leveraging the power of internet?

NY Times reports Joost, the Internet television service being developed by the founders of Skype, has lined up several blue-chip advertisers, including United Airlines, Microsoft, Sony Electronics and Unilever, as it prepares for its introduction. While some advertising on Joost will resemble traditional 30-second television spots, others will take advantage of the interactive qualities of the Internet.Instead of interrupting the programming, these ads will appear as the shows are running with a small box called a “hand-raiser.” Viewers who click on the hand-raisers will be sent to an “overlay,” or menu of content created for Purina. “It’s a whole new way to market to people,” Mr. Renshaw said. “You’re combining the best of the rigor of direct marketing with the richness of the Internet and the entertainment of television.”

I see quite a lot of different challenges when it comes to launching an internet television service. It's unlike the traditional TV network model. Let me tell you why:

• Global Vs Local Viewers: Last week, I downloaded Joost TV beta to my desktop. I am from India and I didn't find the content really relevant for an Internet TV viewer out of India. The traditional TV model of the past has always been restricted by geographical footprint and hence content was a lot localized. The internet TV model is a lot more global, hence programming content has to be a lot more inclusive. Imagine internet users from China, Korea, Japan and the like. They might not find Joost TV currently engaging and relevant. But, they have access to Joost TV!
• Build-up vs Scalability: The Network TV model builds-up viewers over a period of time by way of subscriptions, signal availability etc. The internet TV model is scalable right from day 1. The launch of Joost TV in the mind of an avid internet consumer is a worldwide launch and not a geography launch. Millions of internet users will want to use it right away if content is engaging and entertaining. Hence, Joost TV will need programming partners across globe right from its inception not just from one or two countries.
• Interruption vs Irrelvant advertising Most advertising in network TV medium are viewed, more recently, as interruption. Since internet TV is a medium with a vast global reach, the advertising can get irrelevant too, for an internet TV viewer in Europe or India, if the content and ads are US based, for example. Hence, marketing departments of companies need to work closely with their country teams so that viewers are ser