A Couple Terrible Webinar Headlines For You

I’ll break my blogging silence with a couple headlines that really rub me wrong.

Velocity, Agility, Complexity, and Flexibility: The Four Key Drivers for Competitive Advantage

Apparently this well known company thought that maybe by piling on all the most popular buzzwords in tech marketing they would actually communicate something.

However, in trying to be everything to everyone, they became nothing to everyone.

I won’t wager, mostly because I’m not a betting type of guy, but I’m going to guess the registration for that event is well below benchmarks.

And then from a professional organization to which I belong, the American Marketing Association:

AMA Webcast – The Blog Revolution: Get On Board or Get Run Over

It would appear that we’ve now recycled the hype of the late nineties to scare everyone into coming to our events.

Nice.

First scare them into attending and then let them know that “we’re really all still trying to figure out how to best use blogs in business.”

That will leave the attendees satisfied, I’m sure. Or scared.

Sorry, that kind of hype just makes me cranky.

ps. I’ve softened this since my first draft. I originally entitled this post “Quite Possibly the Worst Webinar Headlines I’ve Ever Read.”

Integrated Viral Campaign by Opel Makes Impact

I liked this viral campaign implemented in Belgium and the Netherlands by Opel (European GM division).

It’s from MarketingSherpa. Read the MarketingSherpa study here.

What do I like about it?

Short, seeminly entertaining, and with a number of unique aspects:

• It worked off of an opt-in list (so these people already had a favorable attitude toward the Opel brand)
• It included a dynamic personalization aspect (the viewer’s name would actually appear in the viral video)
• It integrated a telemarketing call into the experience, that should happen, if I understand the program correctly, while the viewer is experiencing the video.

That’s both impressive and impactful.

Based on the study, it was also wildly successful and led to much viral buzz, stemming from the group that had opted in. Which, btw, makes sense, as those people are likely to be your brand advocates.

It’s good to see GM making some smart moves somewhere in the world!

Branding Impacts the Brain – Apparently

My friend Thomas has been trying to steal my job of pointing out hype of late, so I thought I better write a quick post to try and reclaim my title. (although this has less to do with hype. . .)

My co-worker, Becky, at Morsekode sent me a link to this BBC article, Brains buzz at well-known brands. This should give Thomas something new to rant about. And the research even comes from Germany!

Basically, the article is saying that

. . .popular brands activated parts of the brain linked to self-identity and reward.

In other words, the research may be getting closer to showing the real impact of branding efforts by companies.

So, we’ll see what my friend Thomas has to say about that. He’s been a little down on the branding in some of his past posts. . .

Changing a Brand Position Takes Time

This morning, at another American Marketing Association event, I listened to Jay Gillespie, Vice President of Marketing at Famous Footwear (USD 2.3 billion company, division of Brown Shoe), give a presentation on Repositioning from the Inside Out.

He talked about the process they undertook to stop the negative impact of

• Declining visits
• Lack of differentiation
• Not listening to customers

A couple things were really interesting from the presentation.

1. In their extensive studying of the customer, they came to a point where the target was more “attitudinal” than demographic. Their target turned out to be “people who love shoes” (or something similar).
2. After massive research and sweeping changes to reposition their brand, it took Famous Footwear 1-2 years to see results.

That second point is worth comment. If you think a couple band-aid changes to your brand will reap massive overnight results, more often than not you will be wrong. Turning around brands takes time.

In fact, Jay said that the 18 months after initiating the changes were the hardest period of his career because they continued to lose market share for the first while and his management was full of naysayers. It takes time for your brand to gain or regain creditability.

Just something to chew on. And, if you need help, contact me, John Pollard, at Morsekode.

Quick Wisdom from Art Fry, 3M, Inventor of Post-It Notes

Mark Morse and I were hanging out at an American Marketing Association event in Minneapolis this last Thursday – actually, I shouldn’t put it that way, but I’ll post about what we were doing later – Anyway, as the event wore down, we found ourselves sharing a beer with Art Fry (he may have been drinking wine, but I digress). Art Fry is the guy that invented the wildly successful Post-It Notes for 3M. If you’re interested, this link will give you more about Fry and the history of the Post-It Note.

We had a really interesting chat with Art about his long tenure with 3M, the history of 3M, and also about some of the leaders that influenced him while at 3M.

As we were all preparing to leave, he said something that I think we all need to hear. This is my rough paraphrase:

“None of us were really geniuses. We were just normal people who were willing to give something new a try.”

Have you been avoiding giving something new a try? It seems like Art’s attempt(s) turned out pretty well. Maybe yours would too?

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WSJ gives biz props to the podcast (or at least the iPod)

I’m not really sure what has taken so long for an article like this, but today’s Wall Street Journal has some nice evidence of the business value of podcasting (or at least of portable delivery of multimedia information) in The Boss puts the iPod to Work by Anjali Athavaley.

In my discussions over the last year or so with clients and prospects, this concept of using audio or video on an iPod or similiar device just hasn’t seemed to compute. They wonder if employees would use them – I mean, heck, who would want to absorb information in the convenience of their drive, travels, gym, etc.?

The article mentions a number of large organizations that are leveraging iPods – not just for podcasts, but also loading with other training material. Companies like Capital One Financial, National Semiconductor, IHOP, and Siemens Medical Solutions.

Here are a couple quotes worth your consdieration (especially if you are toying with this idea for your company):

Siemens AG. . .purchased about 100 iPods for its molecular-imaging group last year for training and sales support. Other divisions within Siemens are now considering giving iPods to employees.

Apple offers bulk discounts.

. . .employers say the device enables them to cut down on training costs.

Sales executive. . . uses his iPod to familiarize himself with product information before he meets with customers.

Now, to be clear, I’m showing you things I find interesting in the article. There is a lot more in the article about the blurred line between work and leisure time that technologies like this and the Blackberry have caused. That is interesting as well, but less so if you are just curious about whether using iPods could benefit your business. I think they can.

Oracle, SAP, and Half-truths/Lies in News Releases

I enjoyed this article too much not to comment on it. Evan Schuman, of eWeek fame, has a (not so) little retail technology blog called StorefrontBacktalk. In a recent compilation enewsletter, he linked back to an entry he wrote earlier called Oracle’s Accuracy Woes.

If you are looking for some background tidbits on the battle between Oracle and SAP, you’ll enjoy the article (although it’s from earlier this year).

What I enjoyed is how he so humorously exposed the truth about the types of news releases that fly from the corporate world (he says I.T., but it’s the same all over).

As any IT manager knows, news releases are self-serving documents whose entire raison d’être is to present a one-sided argument why the issuing vendor is a great place to give lots of money. Half-truths and misleading comments are not only popular in news releases, they’re damn near mandatory.

I laughed out loud. It is too true.

And then, as I thought about it, I just got plain sad.

In my work, that is one of the most frustrating things I have to deal with: Companies come to us and want us to take something trivial and make it news.

[warning: sarcasm starts here]
I’m sorry, but if you want some publicity, how about doing something meaningful or newsworthy? Create a decent product that really IS different. That really meets some unmet need. That truly offers some value.

How about if you actually DID develop a breakthrough? While I can create the appearance of a breakthrough for you, it will literally make me sick to do it. (NOTE: to be fair, some companies do actually have breakthroughs that are worth telling the world about.)

A Wall Street Journal from September 27, 2006, Some ‘Breakthroughs’ Deserve That Title–But Definitely Not All by Lee Gomes discussed this problem. Gomes wrote

But to what extent are we experiencing “breakthrough inflation,” in which the work an engineer would consider simply a good day in the lab becomes, in the hands of the PR department, an advance worhty of being shouted about from the rooftops?

That article, btw, dissects an Intel release as the basis for the discussion. Gomes also pointed out that 8,600 releases with the word “breakthrough” in the headline have been pushed out in the last couple years. Wow – must be a lot of innovation happening out there!

I’ll close with a funny example of this not-so-funny truth from Evan’s article:

Some years back, I remember a DEC manager who told reporters that a particular new OS hook they had created already had “a number of ISVs committed to using it.” When nothing turned up and the feature was abandoned, the manager conceded that no one had ever opted to support it. Asked about his news conference claim, the manager sheepishly smiled and said, “Zero’s a number.”

Once again, I wonder why I’m in marketing. . .

Funny Ads Don’t Always Work? (r u kidding?)

I love MarketingSherpa. And this short blog entry called Research Data on Ads People Love vs Ads That Work is interesting.

Anne Holland’s point is that funny doesn’t always lead to effective (increased purchases) in advertising. She backs that up with some research results and then finishes with

No one’s gut — neither your creative team’s nor end consumers’
– can tell you which ads will really work. Only testing can.

Which, pretty much sums up my entire marketing philosophy.

And that is fine. Except she could have said this as well:

Ads aren’t typically used as sales tools as much as to create awareness.

People will only buy what they feel meets their needs. What meets their (perceived) requirements. However, if the research on emotions is at all accurate, humor could play a role in creating a positive attitude about brands. An attitude that consumers will then try to rationalize with other “facts.”

I guess I agree that testing is the only way to know – but it seems that so few companies are interested in testing these days. Even when i showed a large b2b prospect how they could almost positively improve revenues with multivariable testing, they balked at the effort (and costs – which would all be recouped).

So then what? Well, it’s true. You are guessing a bit on what will be successful. However, I am not as ready to dismiss the “entertainment” factor from advertising. I think it’s a part of what makes YouTube, myspace, and the like so successful.

Should you test? Yes. Should you dismiss humor – no.

Unless you’re a big stick in the mud anyway. In that case, you never had any humor to dismiss.

The best story wins

I’m gearing up to write a story. It’s going to be a really interesting story. And challenging. It’s about a group of people. They have this expertise that noone else has. They understand things that others don’t. They know how to help.

But nobody knows that they know how to help. They, themselves, cannot all agree on how to tell the story. But I see how.

I’m going to write a story about how they can help.

Isn’t that what every company in the b2b space needs? A story about how they can help?

A story that explains, “Hey! We understand you and your needs! We’ve listened to you. We’ve studied you and how you want to do business. And, we’ve got solutions to meet those needs.”

It’s really quite simple. Meet needs.

Your story should explain how you do that. Why your approach to meeting their needs is unique. Why they should partner with you to solve their business problems.

I should say, it sounds simple. Sometimes making it simple is the hardest thing.

Do you have a story? Does it flow? Do the various chapters fit together? Does the chapter you are currently writing fit into the plot of those you’ve already written?

If not, it may be worth thinking about.