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Conversations are never assembly line

Sunday, January 14th, 2007

Joseph Jaffe is one person who does a great job of building collaborative projects. After his successful book Life after the 30 Sec Spot, he has started to write a new book - Join the conversation and has invited people to contribute. I have tried to contribute my thoughts in Chapter 10 - Why are you so afraid of conversation? Here's my take:

It is a good idea to trace this to the history and growth of organizations in the industrial age. This was the age where efficiency was the focus. Organizations were built around driving productivity. People were trained to do things over and over again - faster and quicker. For over a century, people worked in an era of mass production. Hence, they forgot the ability to develop conversations. They worked in large organizations that told them what to do rather than get them to explore what to do.

We therefore moved from

an era of 'inventory of goods' to an era of 'inventory of ideas'.
an era of 'scarcity' to an era of ' insatiable choices'
an era of ' information poverty' to an era of 'information overload'

Imagine the kind of shift they would have to make for this new eco-system. They had to express, share and collaborate to get prepared for such an environment. This is a new work culture altogether for them. Also, one-size-fits-all product strategy became irrelevant.

Conversation at the end of the day is two-way. Conversations require

A capability to accept reality as it were because that's how consumers talk amongst themselves
Ability to listen and respond in an unbiased manner
Skills to experiment,learn and develop
Ability to change the course of one's action swiftly, even if the decision was wrong

Hence, they were not ready for a conversation era. An environment where one has to express, empathize, engage, enable and empower. The mindset a marketer must have is not to 'inform at any cost' but 'spread at no cost'. This is a new marketing paradigm that demands new thinking, new rules and new ideas.

Posted in Business, Internet Marketing, Marketing, Advertising, Branding, Customer, Customer Experience, Organizations, Loyalty, People, Customer behaviour, New media, Word of Mouth, blogs, Ideas, customer-centric, Social Media | No Comments »

Open AD - The world’s biggest creative department

Saturday, January 13th, 2007

Styling itself the 'World's Biggest Creative Department', OpenAd is a relatively minor Slovenian-owned internet business with just thirty-nine staff worldwide. Yet some see it as the shape of things to come - maybe, even, the writing on the wall for traditional ad agencies.

However, OpenAd MD Katarina Skoberne stresses the venture isn't competing with agencies. She insists it simply supplements the use by clients of freelance creatives. "We are not an online ad agency, we are merely a resource of creative material," she says.

Although registered in Switzerland, OpenAd's sales and marketing arm operates out of London while the global support centre is based in Slovenia.

Membership of the exchange is free to the 5,000-plus creatives on OpenAd's register. Explains Skoberne: "Anyone who has registered as a creative supplier - and anyone can - is free to answer the brief, or not, as they choose. Clients pay an initial set membership fee to join OpenAd, then a licence fee for the ideas they use."

"This allows them to post briefs on the site and view existing ideas, paying somewhere between $3000 and $100,000 depending upon the number of pitches they want to hold, the number of categories they want to access and the number of [client] staff who have access."

Among those who have used OpenAd is UK-based charity Comic Relief. Enthuses Amanda Horton-Mastin, new media director: "Make Poverty History was a global campaign and the thing about OpenAd is that it opens the window to global ideas, even for very small clients. It was quick, it was cheap, and the idea we chose was excellent."

Another client is Emap's men's magazine FHM which has used OpenAd three times in the past two years. "We started off with one-off tactical promotions and recently asked for a full-blown branding campaign," says marketing manager Ben Cordle.

"The creative response was fantastic. It gave us access to heavyweight creative talent and saved us thousands or even tens of thousands of pounds on agency overheads."

Thro' WARC

Posted in Internet Marketing, Marketing, Advertising, Branding, Communication, Direct Marketing, Organizations, New media, Ideas, Web/Tech | No Comments »

P&G Productions makes a debut

Saturday, January 13th, 2007

Procter & Gamble is making its first foray into consumer-generated content with two new Web sites.

The company's P&G Productions unit said Monday that it has launched Capessa.yahoo.com. an "online community" where women can share information, practical advice and inspirational stories.

P&G Productions also said Monday that it will launch the People's Choice Community, an online forum that will feature voting for the People's Choice Awards, as well as blogging and chatting.

The site will go live Tuesday night, at www.pcavote.com, with programming and online activities to continue year-round.

Posted in CRM, Internet Marketing, Marketing, Advertising, Branding, Communication, Customer, Customer Experience, Direct Marketing, Entertainment, Customer behaviour, New media, blogs, customer interaction, customer-centric, Social Media | No Comments »

120 million personal TVs in India

Saturday, January 6th, 2007

Imagine a day when 120 million Indians( and expected to reach 400 million in 2010) can have their own personal TVs on their mobile. The day does not seem to be far off.

Modeo has launched a beta of their version of mobile TV in the US. Services like Modeo can be soon expected to be launched in India.

Modeo is a digital television broadcast live to the one device you're never without—your mobile phone. Modeo is transparently high-tech, making mobile TV as familiar as the coffee table clicker. Modeo's content is provided by most distinguished entertainment brands in the business, airing today's hits and TV classics. One can watch top-rated sitcoms, dramas, news and sports. Also one can tune-in to music and talk radio. You could also download video podcasts, bite-sized episodes of your favorite shows and exclusive made-for-mobile content.

No wonder, London School of Economics has written that the future of TV is personal.

MobileTV has the potential to unleash a new revolution in the country. The telecom revolution has created a new wave of growth in India and if TV goes mobile, it can just mutiply the benefits of telecom revolution.

New marketing opportunities will surface:

5-sec TV Spots
Interactive programming - Voting, Personalized programs, Channesl etc.
User generated content
May be one can start trading entertainment time with air time!
M-wallets
Product purchase requests from mobile etc.

It can also create new development opportunities like:

e-learning can just become easy to implement
The rural-urban information divide can be bridged very quickly

I can't wait to see TV go personal!

Posted in Business, Internet Marketing, Marketing, Advertising, Communication, Customer, Customer Experience, Entertainment, Customer behaviour, New media, customer interaction, customer-centric, India, Mobile TV, Telecom | No Comments »

Making search customer-centric

Saturday, January 6th, 2007

Alex Iskold has a great post on Read/Write web on how search needs to get a lot more customer-focussed. The key take-out for me from the post is :

The 'simplicity of thinking' one needs to have when developing products or services.
It's about analysing 'customer interactions' and customer behaviour' first and then applying them to products or technologies.
It's the easy usability of the product or service that will determine acceptance and adoption.

Alex writes:

What is perfect search?

It is interesting to ask: What do we expect when we enter a term into a search box? Ideally, we'd like to get the perfect answer right away. Often, we have an idea what that perfect answer should be, and when computer does not get it for us we are disappointed. But are we being reasonable? Can we expect the "perfect" answer all the time?

Consider for example, our interactions with an Information clerk at the mall. When we ask for a location of a store, she may or may not give us the "perfect" answer. She might not know where this store is, she might not understand us or we may not understand what she said. So for many reasons we may not get the "perfect" answer right away.

What is qualitatively different between our experience with the Information clerk vs. a search engine is that with the clerk we have a dialog. When she does not understand what we asked, she has a chance, to say Excuse me, what do you mean?. Google does not do that, it just gives us the results. If we do not like the answer we have to start from scratch.

The problem is that human interactions are fundamentally iterative, while our interactions with computers are mostly stateless. Perhaps we could get to the perfect search results if we could have a dialog with the computer? Clustering technologies, particularly the one offered by Clusty, give computer a chance to clarify: Excuse me, when you searched for Alex Iskold, did you mean to look for Read/Write Web or AdaptiveBlue or perhaps you where looking for static analysis tools that Alex worked on while at IBM?.

Posted in Internet Marketing, Marketing, Customer, Customer Experience, Customer behaviour, customer interaction, Search, clustering, customer-centric | No Comments »

Recognizing an idea

Tuesday, January 2nd, 2007

Very often, I find people extremely protective about their ideas. They do not want to share it.They get obssesed with it. They are unwilling to listen, change or improve upon it further. The idea then dies a natural death because in their opinion nobody is willing to buy it.

Here's some great advice from Doc Searls for such people so that they can evaluate their ideas first. Though this advice is for entrepreneurs with new business ideas, I think it holds good for anybody who is in the business of creating ideas esp. in the emerging open source marketing world:

Ideas aren't physical. Regardless of the legalities, treating ideas as possessions insults their vast combustive power. Jefferson put it best:
The moment [an idea] is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
Ideas aren't worth jack unless other people can put them to use.
Ideas won't change the world unless others can improve on them.
Ideas grow by participation, not isolation.
Ideas change as they grow. Their core remains the same, but their scope enlarges with successful use.
Ideas have unexpected results. No one person can begin to imagine all the results of a good idea. That's another reason to welcome participation.
Nobody's going to "steal" your ideas, any more than they can steal your cerebrum. You're the source. Authority over the idea begins with you.
Authority derives from originality and respect. You can't get respect for your original ideas unless those ideas prove useful to others.

Posted in Business, Internet Marketing, Marketing, Advertising, Branding, Communication, Customer, Customer Experience, Direct Marketing, Creativity & Innovation, Customer behaviour, New media, Word of Mouth, Ideas, Viral Marketing | No Comments »

The business impact of blogs

Monday, January 1st, 2007

Much has been written about the power of blogs and its power to shape customer opinion. Measuring the business impact of blogs is an area of great interest to me. Some key questions I often ask myself are:

Is blogging an island without too many inhabitants - Is it a niche waiting to get mainstream?
Does the opinion of bloggers matter at all when it comes to brand purchase decisions?
Do consumers consider blogs as a trustworthy source vis-a-vis other forms of media?
Is user-generated content considered valuable by customers?
Is it possible to summarize the business impact of blogs by way of addressable customer numbers? Is it a large enough market waiting to be tapped by marketers?

Well, there seems to be some answers for these questions. Here's a research done by IPSOS in Europe - a leading marketing research firm. I think this research clearly gives directions for other markets too, on how customers perceive this new medium and its impact on brands. Here's the presentation:

Posted in Customer Service, CRM, Internet Marketing, Marketing, Branding, Customer, Customer Experience, Customer behaviour, New media, Weblogs, Word of Mouth, blogs, customer interaction | No Comments »

Customer trends 2007

Sunday, December 31st, 2006

This will be my last post for the year 2006.

It's the right time to reflect on how advertising will have to adapt itself for the 2007 customer. NY Times has an article that captures the essence of what it will look like and what marketers have to get ready for:

CONSUMERS WITH A CONSCIENCE

Consumers want to know where products come from, how they were made and what companies and brands believe in.

Consumer interest in environmentally friendly products will grow, as will interest in the local stories of products, even those that come from halfway around the world, said Marian Salzman, chief marketing officer of JWT, a WPP Group agency, and co-author of “Next Now: Trends for the Future.”

“Every brand is going to now have to have a social conscience, and they’re going to be evaluated for their social consciousness as much as for their products,” Ms. Salzman said

LIFE ONLINE OR OFFLINE?

Consumers spend so much time online — working, playing, sharing personal details with the world and living out fantasy lives — that the online terrain is blurring with the physical world.

In 2007, more companies will start adding social networking and user-generated tools onto their intranet sites, predicted Clark Kokich, worldwide president of Avenue A Razorfish, an agency owned by aQuantive.

“People in the younger work force are going to look for an experience on intranets that looks more like the experiences they have on the Internet,” Mr. Kokich said.

PUSHING THE OFF BUTTON

Even as consumers are networked in and logged on most hours of the day, some ad executives say they think workers will be quicker to separate their work lives from their personal space. Some hotels are now offering to lock up guests’ cellphones and BlackBerrys to give them a break, said Kiwa Iyobe, trend manager at Faith Popcorn’s BrainReserve.

USER-GENERATED ADVERTISEMENTS

Ad executives are not going to be quick to give up their paychecks for creating ads. Still, a growing list of brands — among them Converse, Chevrolet, Doritos and Dove — are asking consumers to design commercials for them.

“Consumers are demanding and getting a seat at the table and defining what the brand experience is about,” said Allen P. Adamson, managing director of the New York office of Landor Associates, a WPP Group brand consultancy, and author of “BrandSimple.”

WHAT’S A BRAND TO DO?

Advertising executives said brands should focus on clear, simple messages that were consistent across consumers’ online and offline lives. Companies that scored the highest in a national brand study earlier this month were ones with well-known mass appeal, like Google, Las Vegas, the N.F.L., Sony and Amazon. YouTube, iPod and Yahoo also made the list of “top brands,” though they came in a bit behind Google.

On this note, Wish you a happy new year!

Posted in Customer Service, CRM, Internet Marketing, Marketing, Advertising, Branding, Communication, Customer, Customer Experience, Direct Marketing, Organizations, Loyalty, Entertainment | No Comments »

‘Entry by invitation only’ bug!

Thursday, December 28th, 2006

Offlate I have been observing the "entry by invitation only" bug that has hit a lot of web service sites. It seems to be cool to do it on the web now! I had this experience just a few seconds back at profitlinker. I think someone has to call the bluff. I find it very unfriendly as I know all I have to do is to register and get a confirmatory mail in a few seconds! Why then have it at all?

It was a fad at one time when google mail required me to get an invitation to access the service and sure there was a lot of buzz around it. But, now I think this is getting a bit boring and I find it adding no value at all.

If am interested and find the product/service interesting, I am sure I will anyway register myself for that service. Or send me an invitational emailer and/or make it really look like a privileged invitational offer that I will really miss. For example, allow me to access certain services in that site that I will not otherwise be able to access.

One needs to get customer friendly or let them come-up with something more interesting!

Posted in Customer Service, Internet Marketing, Marketing, Customer, Customer Experience, Direct Marketing | No Comments »

The coming google newspaper advertising invasion

Thursday, December 28th, 2006

Warc reports:

Web search giant Google says its foray into US newspaper advertising has proved a bigger-than-expected success and will be rolled out during the next few months.

The company began a trial of the service early last month [WARC News: 07-Nov-06], selling space in more than 60 top titles via online auctions. Up to 100 advertisers have been able bid for excess ad inventory, giving the participating daily papers a welcome revenue boost.

The system allows advertisers to choose the newspaper and the section, where they want the ad to run, and then place a bid for that space for one or more days. The newspaper decides which offers, if any, to accept.

Enthuses Tom Phillips, director of print ads at Google: "The volume [of ads sold] is tripling where we thought it would be. I think we'll have real impact next year. We open the medium to a whole new class of advertisers."

2007 will see a lot of action here, I guess.