In the new edition of Fortune they call out “America’s Most Admired Companies” and to nobody’s surprise; Apple is in the top 10. They have a great article on Apple’s success with retail. When they got into the retail game in 2001, industry experts where extremely critical of their approach and didn’t think they would succeed. I think the opening paragraph is worth repeating here:

“Sorry Steve, Here's Why Apple Stores Won't Work," BusinessWeek wrote with great certainty in 2001. "It's desperation time in Cupertino, Calif.," opined TheStreet.com. "I give [Apple] two years before they're turning out the lights on a very painful and expensive mistake," predicted retail consultant David Goldstein.

Continue reading "The Apple of Retail's Eye" »

USA Today has some stats on recent campaigns. They called out the sleep aid Rozerem. Check it out here. This is just an update from a blog post a couple months ago about what the drug company behind this ad should do seeing that sales are very far behind the category leaders.

A recent article in B-To-B Magazine shows how many publishing companies are getting into territory normally handled by ad agencies. The expanded offerings include online and word of mouth marketing services. This is getting traction in the business publication sector but consumer oriented pubs are going in that direction too. The trend appears to be that media companies are acquiring agencies with expertise in web site design & development, word of mouth marketing and PR.

Continue reading "Publishers Expanding Their Turf" »

The mystique that used to exist around creating great ads is fading away. More and more tools are becoming available that allow companies and individuals to do things that only the agencies could have done a few years ago. Now there are web based editing tools that can be used to make, edit and even customize ads. Here is a New York Times article about just that.

The leading advertising agencies will be the ones who stay on top of these changes and find ways to leverage them through innovative approaches, thus maintaining their value. Agencies have to focus on great concepts that can be leveraged in multiple Medias, often playing off other.

Continue reading "Easily Generated Demographic Specific Ads - You Kiddin' Me." »

I don't watch that much TV and I've seen Bill Gates on at least two talk shows last week; The Daily Show and the Today Show. I'm sure there were more. Perhaps I've never noticed this tactic before, but he's promoting Windows Vista just like Bruce Willis would be promoting his latest blockbuster film. The Daily Show interview was very entertaining and worth a look. Here's a link to
Video: Bill Gates on the Daily Show - Part 1">part 1 and
Video: Bill Gates on the Daily Show - Part 2">part 2.

Has Microsoft done this in the past? Has Jobs hit the talk show circuits too? He hasn't as far as I know and I don't think its common for CEO's to use this medium to promote new product launches. I just found this interesting and wonder how much interest it has generated in the new operating system. This may be a new role for Mr. Gates now that he is not as active in the day to day business. If so, they may want to give him a little more coaching so he doesn't appear so awkward.

Last week I wrote a post about Best Buy and Circuit City in an effort to discuss how innovative companies stay ahead of their competitors. I got a couple of great responses from two successful entrepreneurs which you can find here highlighting the problems that Best Buy has had with Geek Squad.

What I really wanted to emphasize is that companies need to think ahead, innovate and continuously take risks. Those that choose what I call the “me too” strategy always follow and are never first to market with an innovation.

Continue reading "Tale of Two Companies: Part 2" »

For some reason I have been obsessed lately with Circuit City and Best Buy – a tale of two companies. Maybe because of all the holiday and Super Bowl promotions around Flat Screen TV’s. Regardless of why, it makes me think back to my days as a retail executive with the now defunct May Department Store Company, which merged with Federated Department Stores last year.

May Company grew dramatically during the 80’s and early 90’s under the leadership of David Farrell. It grew through the acquisition of a number of other traditional department stores – mainly regional players. Then May centralized a number of functions creating efficiencies and more central control. For a number of years it held the title of the nation’s largest department store company (if you classify out discounters such as Sears, Wal-Mart, Target, and JC Penney’s).

Continue reading "A Tale of Two Companies: The Innovator and the Follower" »

I was disappointed to hear the lackluster results of an ad campaign I found to be clever, on target and different than other competitors. The ad was for a drug called Rozerem, a sleep aid by drug manufacturer Takada. The drug, despite $100 million ad spend ranks 6th in its category; far behind category leaders Ambien and Lunesta and even trailing two generic brands. Check out Brandweek’s full article for more details.

So now you have to ask the following: “Was the concept wrong? Was the message wrong? Is the product inferior to its competitors? Was its late entry into the category too big of an obstacle to overcome?” I can come up with a bunch more.

Without knowing all the details I have to speculate. I think the ads are well concepted and executed as previously stated. But perhaps the product is to blame. The article references that although the drug helps those with sleeping disorders fall asleep faster, they often wake up in the middle of the night. Perhaps they succeeded in capturing first time users but due to this shortcoming, those users didn’t refill their prescriptions and requested another brand. This combined with their late entry into the market could prove to be too big of an obstacle to overcome. And if this is true, and users aren’t repeating, the drug will die out in the next couple years. It would be nice to know what percentage of first time users refilled thier prescriptions and how that compares to industry standards.

This is where some consumer generated feedback, through a forum or blog would be very advantageous. Instead of speculating, they can gather ongoing feedback, both from consumes and perhaps even physicians. If what they learn is that the product is inferior, then guess what – cut your losses now and go back to the lab and improve the product. Put the money in R&D and save the money marketing the product as is. In my opinion, these kinds of web based tools need to be part of every campaign in some shape or form. The days of a well planned out campaign that would run for a couple years are over. You have to learn and adjust as you go.

Ah, the rules of marketing keep changing. Let's see what happens to Rozerem over the next 24 months.

Great example of authentic branding. Nice job of Dove’s ad firm using YouTube to reinforce Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign which is an awesome concept. I actually pitched a similar concept to the CEO of large prestige cosmetics company about 4 years ago. This idea came from the fact that this particular brand, wasn’t acknowledging the fact that their customers tended to be middle aged women – not young beauties and that they should embrace that position and market to them. No dice though – they refuse to admit who their core customers were and kept trying to appeal to younger women and continuously losing that battle to other brands more aligned with that age group. Why doesn’t anyone in prestige cosmetics want to embrace the mature woman – aren’t they the ones with the deepest pockets and strongest desire to maintain their beauty?

Nice job Dove.

I did a brief search to and find out who is behind the campaign but came up empty. Anybody know?

I had a meeting this morning with a counterpart at a mid-size well established PR firm. We were discussing some of the work our company was doing for several clients. One in particular that was of interest to her involved helping our client to revamp a key executive's presentation content and style. I recommended the blog Presentation Zen to her when she inquired into some of the resources we utilized in developing our approach. I had forgotten what a great blog that Garr Reynolds has.

One of the things we have been preaching to all of our clients is to communicate in a way that is less autistic and more human. Many of the mediums we recommend have to do with applications for the Internet, as it allows more of a two way dialogue. But I had forgotten about how powerful a good presentation can be. It’s an opportunity to make a connection with your audiences, and potentially start an ongoing relationship with them. Unfortunately this opportunity is lost with many companies. They look at it solely as a way to push out information about their company or pitch their products and services.

As Garr points out in a recent post Presentations and Word of Mouth Marketing should play hand in hand. Giving your audiences something of value and providing a way for them to connect with you and your company goes a long way in fueling positive word of mouth. Direct them to a blog created around the topic being presented, share additional information and welcome feedback and dialogue. This has the added benefit of making it easy for them to share information about your company with their piers.

Think of presentations as an opportunity to build a new relationship and start a conversation. The end of the presentation is the beginning of the relationship, not the end of a tactic.

Today is November 7th, Election Day. I am thrilled that after today I won't have to be bombarded with political ads that highlight everything people hate about advertising. Between the MO Senatorial race candidates (R - Jim Talent and D - Claire McCaskill) and the proposed State Constitutional Amendments (Stem Cell Research, Tobacco Tax) I couldn't tell you what to vote based on the ads. As the Election Day came closer and closer one camp would put out an ad making a negative claim against their opponent and a day later the opposing camp would completely discredit the claim and lash back with another negative claim. The proportion of negative attacks vs. image building ads has gotten more and more distorted over the years. If Nike and Adidas pulled these same tactics people would buy Reebok and sales would plummet. Too bad our political candidate and their parties still employ tactics that create decisions based on "the least of all evils" instead of the genuine embodiment of a candidate's values and credentials.

OK - rant over.

I have had numerous conversations recently regarding customer service; both professionally and personally. Companies tend to think of customer service as a call center operation and a necessary evil in doing business. It should be far more than that. B2C companies get all the attention when it comes to this but it’s also a problem with many B2B companies as well. In both cases, it's an opportunity if your industry is weak or even average in this area.

Nordstrom usually comes to mind when you think of companies that stand out. Fast Company’s latest edition calls out Sir Richard Branson at the top of their list of companies that put the customer first. John Strande has a great suggestion for Levi based on his recent experience with them and David Armano discusses some of the changes the Chicago DMV has implemented that made a profoundly positive impact on an experience he was dreading based on historical encounters.

Strande and Armano's posts highlight what a profound impact you can have on an overlooked touchpoint with your customer. Take a step back, put yourself in the customer’s shoes, and think about what would turn this into an opportunity to develop a loyal customer, or even learn something that you can leverage for a better future experience. It’s really not that complicated. Just make it an important area of focus, enlist the help of your frontline employees and your customers, and investigate what leaders in other industries have done to develop great customer service. There are numerous ways that technology can help in ways that didn’t exist even five years ago. Once you go down this path, stick with it and continue to look for improvements. Don’t just pay it lip service for 18 months and then forget about it. The dividends this pays over time are huge. A customer that contacted you out of frustration could become one of your biggest evangalists and teach you something about your business.

Quick, someone tell the cable and phone companies.

There's a lot of discussion around innovation in marketing these days. Joseph Jaffe is legitimately trying to find out who is doing innovative things in the various communication disciplines of marketing. I can’t wait to hear his analysis of the feedback he receives.

Max Kalehoff makes a very interesting point that the ad industry is usually behind when it comes to innovation. Most of the innovative ideas are coming from companies like Google, Yahoo! and Apple. He argues that it is because these companies put dollars and emphasis behind R & D along with some other interesting point. There are quite a few comments on his post worth reviewing.

My take is that agencies in general (interactive, traditional and otherwise) tend to sell what they know the client will buy (with some exceptions of course). Agencies take the fastest path to cash or the path of least resistance. Many clients want assurance that their agency can deliver results, and they generally want evidence of it. Most clients will not want to fund experimentation for initiatives or tactics that don’t have any kind of track record. I have experienced that again and again. It’s a very hard sell, and you need an incredible amount of trust and a great relationship with your client to get them to move into new space that requires significant capital with no guarantee of success.

Doing the R & D on your own dime is not very likely either. Because agencies serve their clients, and because the industry is so competitive, most agencies can’t charge enough to build the necessary cash reserve to fund non-billable experimentation.

So what’s the answer? Part of me thinks that agencies have to play a little further upstream than they are used to. They need to get back to working with clients on strategy instead of just delivering on tactics. If you can position yourself as a resource for innovation, creativity and strategy, you may be able to influence the client to go down a road not yet traveled and do something truly innovative. Often, this space is internalized, goes to the consultants or niche companies like IDEO.

If you have examples of agencies playing in this space and having success, please share. There has been plenty written about Agency.com and their poor execution of a forward-thinking approach to a client pitch, including my colleague Carrie’s post a week ago. So what else have you seen?

Wired has just come out with their “Wired 40” list of the most innovative and progressive companies. They identified 5 major trends, power to the people being one of them.

Look at the trend today around Internet-based technologies. There are millions of individuals sharing information on blogs, sharing photos & videos, and participating in forums. Business and government are slow to adopt these new innovations using the Internet because they are seen as “radical” and therefore scary and risky. Government and large corporations are much more comfortable with evolutionary improvements. Even though they have been developed by and for the masses (ie MySpace), the applications of these technologies hold great promise in the business world. Those that choose to adopt them more aggressively will make great strides in moving ahead of their competitors that choose a more evolutionary path.

Continue reading "Big Co’s resistance to “Radical Innovation”" »