Marketing Into Headwinds

I've been wanting to post on branding--Business Week just came out with it's annual Top 100 Brands story--but it just doesn't seem relevant somehow!
But, it is. The stronger brands will weather the storm better, and come out the other end that much stronger. We all know that. It's never a good time to STOP investing in your brand but it is a good time to make sure every marketing dollar you spend, is spent wisely. That means focusing on the basics:
---What are the business objectives?
---What is a "must have" program, not a nice to have?
---What's the target audience and how do I reach them in the most efficient manner?
---What story do I have to tell and how do I make it relevant in today's world?
I call this "marketing into headwinds". Something we all need to be thinking about these days.

The Best Corporate Reputations? You Decide

The Reputation Institute, a private consultancy dedicated to corporate reputation management, has just published its 2008 Global Pulse Report which attempts to measure corporate reputations. A synopsis of the U.S. study is available for download at the Institutes's website and it makes for interesting reading by anyone in the business of advising clients about reputation issues. (The complete report is available for a hefty fee.)
The global report looks at 600 companies; the U.S. portion ranks 150 companies. The rankings are a result of over 60,000 online consumer interviews across 27 countries.
Of the 150 U.S. companies measured, are you surprised that Google ranked #1? With the mantra of "do no evil", it appears consumers believe that Google continues to act positively on their behalf.
Keep in mind, this is a measure of broad consumer perception, not necessarily the perception of those reading the business pages day-in and day-out.
The report notes that a high score indicates that consumers have a "high level of trust, respect, and good feelings for the company".
Of the top 10 companies, most are well known consumer brand companies: Johnson & Johnson at #2, Kraft Foods at #3, etc.
But, oddly enough, of the tech companies, fading brands such as Xerox (#8), Texas Instruments (#10) and Kodak (#11) handily beat out such brands such as Apple (#17) and Microsoft which comes in at a disappointing #43.
The report also points out that there is a very high correlation between levels of recommendation and what the authors call "support" or recommendation. In other words, the better the reputation ranking, the more likely consumers are to recommend the company.
What this report also says to me is that consumers have a long memory and, perhaps especially with consumer technology, even "old" names still carry cachet.
It's hard to believe that Xerox, Kodak and TI are beating Apple.
We know there is a changing of the guard in tech brands but the word hasn't got out to the general consumer quite yet.

The New Demographics

This fascinating article "The Changing Face of the American Consumer", published in this week's Ad Age, by Peter Francese, outlines the leading demographic trends as summarized from the US Census data and details specific advise on how savvy marketeers may deal with these shifts. Francese, the founding publisher of American Demographics Magazine, is a reliable source for this kind of thoughtful analysis.
We all know that the U.S. population is trending older as the baby boomer generation continues to age, and that immigration is changing the face of our nation, particularly in the west. But, other insights by Francese are truly surprising--the analysis of female demographics and what this means for spending trends is very interesting. As, is the information about trend differences based on geography.
The most obvious insight is the section on teens and mobility. Any marketer can look around today's city streets and realize that teens, tweens and young adults are primarily interacting through their cell phones. Those of us immersed in the tech world are all ready well aware of the profound changes this will mean for all of us as time moves on.
One of the most interesting points made is that right now, the marketers trying to reach this burgeoning, mobile younger demographic is older, and in many cases, much older.
And, that's a clear disconnect.

Lessons From "D"

So, what are the lessons any executive can take from these “D” interviews (see my post) and generalize to their own interview preparation?

1. Preparation is paramount. Before going into any interview, you need to review your business top to bottom and become familiar with all the relevant issues and perspectives. Specifically review all public information and recent discussions in blogs and other public forums—these are the sources journalists will turn to when developing their interview questions.
2. Know your stats. Get an refresh on key stats that drive your business and be prepared to use the numbers in your answers. Showing command of this level of detail demonstrates your deep understanding of your business and your customers and is a way to build credibility. Stats are also a great way to refute an inaccurate assertion made by a journalist.

3. Be able to summarize your business and position in the market place in a single sentence. You need to be able to describe your business clearly in about 10-15 words or less. You also need to differentiate your business (position it vis a vis the competition) concisely--preferably in a single sentence. You can use an analogy to do this. And, you need to be able to succinctly answer the question “why” is this important? Why should the customer care? Why should the audience care? If you are running a large business with a lot of moving parts, you need an umbrella vision or mission that ties together the pieces into a single, meaningful entity with a singular purpose. If you don’t have all of this already sorted out, don’t wait until the night before your interview to complete the task. Start a few weeks ahead and get a positioning expert (like me) to help you.

4. Don’t over rehearse. Yes, you should role-play the interview with someone who is tough enough to ask the really hard questions. And, yes, you should practice enough that you can easily answer the basic questions and have full command of your stats. But, do not over-rehearse to the point where you are a talking head, parroting out the same line over and over without any emotion.

5. Tell a story. You need to tell a story with your interview. Don’t be afraid to personalize your answers with antidotes, funny insights, or little asides that illustrate your key points. Use the customer’s voice. One of the most effective techniques in any interview situation is to talk from the customer – or users- point of view. Before going into your next interview, make sure you call a few customers yourself and get their immediate feedback, or talk to 10 random users and hear what they have to say about your product or service. The feedback will be illuminating and the stories will help bring the customer perspective into your comments.

2. Treat the interview like a discussion. Without forgetting that you are sitting across from a journalist, relax and enjoy the intellectual give and take of the interview. Remember, you are all in this together. You, the interviewer and the audience; at the end of the day, everyone wants the same thing. A good interview with lots of insightful discussion and meaningful dialog.

To get there takes preparation and know-how but it's a trip worth taking.

They Have All the Answers

What "they" am I talking about here? The customers. That's who.
I was talking with Anu Sanghvi, one of the very smart product managers at my client, PayCycle. We were discussing a new service enhancement that she's working on bringing to market; talking about features, benefits, pros and cons. I was asking her "why?", "why", "why"?
"Why did you decide to do that?" "Why did you make that decision?" "Why did you include that and not this"? You get the picture. Being a general pain in the side.
But trying to get enough insight to understand her thinking.
Finally, she looked at me long and hard and said, "I just asked the customers. They have all the answers. All we have to do is listen."
Aha, yes. So true.
All we have to do is listen.

Giving A Great Demo

Today I had a client ask me for advice on giving great product demonstrations. She wanted to know if her demos were effective and was looking for ways to improve. She's a smart executive for asking the question.
Product demonstrations are one of the most necessary communications tool for any tech company; software, hardware or online service. You've got to be able to show someone the goods in a way that is memorable, engaging and different than the competition.
In fact, I have seen many interviews completely undone by the lack of a good demo. No matter how great the market analysis might be, or the business strategy, if the product doesn't deliver most journalists will turn a deaf ear. And, the only way to present a killer product is through an even more-killer demo.
So, what are my tips? There are only five but to get them right will take a lot of preparation time and effort. A good demo will make all of these look incredibly easy and straightforward.
1. Start from the beginning and treat the demo as if you are telling a story. As any good story, the demo should have a distinct flow (beginning, middle, end), it needs to have a plot, it needs to have drama, and it should have a protagonist. Most often the product itself is the protagonist and becomes the "white knight" solving the dramatic problems that are set-up in the first few minutes of the demo. Remember, you, the demoer, are NOT the protagonist. The demo isn't about you. The demo is about your product and about the consumers who will benefit from your product.
2. Start by assuming nothing and consequently your demo will be very complete. Start with a blank sheet. Assume your audience knows absolutely nothing about your space, your product, your service. Because you are so close to the product, this is actually very difficult to do. But, too often, demoers leave out critical, elementary information because they make too many assumptions about the listeners knowledge level.
3. Weave in interesting research, data and factoids to support your claims and give credibility to the features and funcitonality. Again, this sounds simple but takes a ton of work. You need to gather all the research you can about your market, your users, your business and distill them down into those facts that best support your claims. Some of this research will be from industry research firms (such as Forrester, or Jupiter), other material you will find internally from your marketing and product development organizations. Make sure you vet everything: focus group results, user testing videos, customer service reports.
I learned the essence of this approach from Scott Cook, co-founder of Intuit who is a master of building brand credibility through consumer data.
4. Use intestesting language to keep the listener engaged. Let's face it, the people you are showing your demo too have seen hundreds of them. You've got to go the extra distance to make your demo stand out and be memorable. You can't rely on tired technology buzz words or catch-phases. You've got to pepper the narrative with words and comments that the listener isn't expecting to hear. One way to do this is to speak through the voice of the customer. Talk to customers and listen to their stories and then use these stories as your own throughout the demo.
5. Know what makes your product different than the rest and focus on these attributes. The objective of any demo is to make your product stand out from the pack. Before putting together your demo, you've got to do a thorough competitive analysis that compares your product with all others in it's related "set". You need to be brutally honest on how your product stacks up and delineate your strong suits. These points of differentiation are what you want to focus on in your demo.
Well, that about does it. Five simple steps to a flawless demo. Now, get to work!

Tips from the Pros: Crisis Communications

Last Friday the Silicon Valley Public Relations Socitey of America hosted a crisis communications panel and discussion. The panelists represented communications pros from such blue-chip companies as Intel, Franklin Templeton, McKesson and Facebook. All of these folks have been through more than their fair share of tough PR situations and had plenty of tips to share with the audience. Here's a snapshot of what they recommend; common sense but still worth mentioning again.
1. Understand the news cycle. Chuck Mulloy from the Intel Global Communications Group commented several times about the need to understand and manage the news cycle. His point: know when NOT to elevate a crisis by commenting and potentially extending the news cycle into another round. Some stories will die a timely death if just left alone.
This sounds straightforward but can be a tricky call to make; if a story impacts consumers and if consumer activists are involved, do not expect the story to go away until those activists are satiated.
2. Educate your executives. It was recommended that this be an ongoing education process with all the leading executives at the company, helping them to understand the nature of a crisis and what would be expected of them in the face of a crisis. Several of the panelists described ongoing media awareness training offered internally to executives and managers.
3. Have a plan. All of the pros agreed that every firm should have a business continuity plan in-place so that in times of crisis there are pre-set guidelines to keep the business and communications flowing. These plans should be tested periodically and revised annually.
4. Know your people. As a PR pro, you need to know who does what internally and who knows what internally so you can quickly and effectively marshall resources as needed. This knowledge allows you to be responsive and prepared throughout the crisis.
5. Think globally. In today's world crisis are not contained to a specific geography; they quickly become global issues. Any plan, proactive or reactive, needs to take this into account.
6. Use technology to monitor the news. Brandee Barker of Facebook talked about how she and her staff routinely monitor, not just their own and other social media sites, but also Twitter, Digg, and the other leading edge "new media" services.
7. Remember always, be open and honest. The key to any crisis situation is maintaining the trust of your constituents. Communications need to be timely, open and honest.
Thanks PRSA Silicon Valley and all the panelists for such a valuable program.

Brad Bird on Innovation in Found/Read

If you are interested in motivating your team and fostering innovation, this post of an interview with the Pixar creative genius, Brad Bird, at Found/Read, the latest GigaOm network blog, is a "must-read". The interview was originally published in the McKinsey Quarterly and in her post, Carleen Hawn breaks down the interview into nine lessons well-worth learning.
Although I think all of these lessons are extremely prescient, Lesson 8, "Get Rid of Weak Links", strikes me as perhaps the most critical as well as the most challenging.
In my 12 years of owning and operating a large strategic communications firm, time and time again my business partner and I would recognize a "weak link" within the staff. The negativism and poor performance would continually bring down the morale and performance level of other team members. But invariably we found it immensely difficult to deal with the issue.
As one of our advisory board members once reminded us, it's more important to water the flowers than the weeds.
Also, as a side note, I'm proud to say that Brad Bird is from my home town, the idyllic Corvallis, Oregon.
Brad, thanks for the awesome work!

How To Do It Right: Tradeshows

I spent much of last week at the annual RSA security industry trade show and conference in San Francisco. And, as much as I don't want to write about clients, I am so impressed with the way Voltage Security presented themselves, it's worth mentioning here.
A few years ago the buzz in marketing was about "integrated" marketing. Implementing a complete campaign, using a variety of tactical elements, all designed to create a single, integrated impression. In many ways, integrated campaigns are the holy grail of marketing; what everyone strives to achieve but most fall short in doing so.
Achieving an integrated presence at a large trade show, such as RSA, is difficult and expensive. There are hundreds of vendors competing for attention, many have similar messages so differentiation is almost impossible and the attendees become "blinded" by all the promotions being thrown at them in a concentrated place over a short period of time.
How did Voltage manage to overcome this and stand out in the crowd, on a limited budget?
1. Get the right team together. Wasim Ahmad, vice president of marketing, gathered together a stellar team of professionals to help execute the elements of the show. Each pro had many years of trade show experience to draw from. This wasn't a job for newbies.
2. Begin planning well in advance. Wasim nailed down the key elements of his approach many, many months before the show. Key to the success for Voltage was having an off-show floor meeting suite for use by the sales team. The location had to be close to Moscone for easy access by busy executives and prospects. Wasim booked one of the premiere meeting rooms at a hotel adjacent to the show floor over nine months in-advance. As a result, the Voltage sales suite hummed with meetings, morning,noon and night.
3. Build a tradition. At their first RSA in 2004, Voltage hosted the Voltage Martini Mixer, an after show hours party, for friends of the company. Voltage has invested in this same party every year since then, and now it's a tradition that customers, partners, prospects and industry participants look forward to attending. This year's party was better than ever.
4. Create a theme and execute well. This year, for the first time, Voltage invested in a booth on the show floor. Wasim and his crew knew they needed some kind of promotion to get people into the booth and engaged with the Voltage brand. They created a fun promotion based on decrypting a mock credit-card number, with the chance to win a prize of $100.00. The promotion was a huge hit and tied together key messages that relate to Voltage's positioning: information encryption, ease-of-use, innovative solutions.
5. Tie-in online marketing. As the show unfolded, Voltage launched an updated web presence with a fresh look and feel. This complemented the new, expanded product line positioning that the company unveiled throughout the run of the conference. It ensured that those who could not attend the conference were able to participate in the excitement and learn about what's new at Voltage.
Taken singularly, each of these elements is important and difficult to "get right". Executed together, in a truly integrated fashion, is doubly difficult to achieve but exponentially more effective.
Congratulations Voltage, for showing us how to do a trade show the right way.

25 Most Valuable Blogs

On March 26th, 24/7 Wall Street published its analysis of the 25 Most Valuable Blogs. It's an amazing list of new media that have been largely built in the last three-to-five years. In most sectors, technology (TechCrunch), Politics (Huffington Post), Media (Gawker) these blogs are now driving the news cycle for both online bloggers and off line print journalists. It's clear that this trend is only the beginning and the value of these and other blogs should continue to move up and to the right.

State of the News Media

Much has been written about the "State of the News Media" report published in late March by the Project for Excellence in Journalism so I won't spend time restating any of the obvious. Suffice it to say that, as we all know, disruption is overtaking traditional media and it won't be long before we consume all of our news digitally. This shouldn't be any surprise to those of us who work closely with the media and technology; in terms of a growing transition away from print, that train has left the station.
What I find most interesting about this report is the section "The Future of Advertising". This should be on the "must read" section of all practicing marketing professionals. It gives a concise analysis of the recent media trends from an advertisers perspective. And, talks about the dramatic shift in ad dollars to the Internet which is being preceded by the growing amount of time consumers spend online each day.
Most interesting, from a marketing services perspective, is the following:

"This ability to get much more granular data and the pressure felt by chief marketing officers to justify their ad dollars have made ad spending accountability the No. 1 priority among marketers today.
“ 'Accountability has gone from a buzzword to something that is much more expected in marketing and advertising spend,” says Matt Freeman, CEO of Tribal DDB, a digital offshoot of the ad agency DDB Worldwide, part of Omnicom Group. “That has led to a client shift to more addressable media.” More addressable media usually means anything digitally trackable, from online display ads to offline ads that ask cell phone users to text-message the advertiser to win a prize. Adds Denise Warren, chief advertising officer of The New York Times Media Group, “The [chief marketing officer] has to really show that their marketing spend is delivering results.' "

The challenge for all of us is to figure out how to measure the results of the services we provide in this brave new world.

On My Way to The Economist CMO Conference

I'm in the process of getting ready to leave Monday for the 5th Annual Economist CMO Conference in New York City. This will be my second time attending this conference. I attended briefly two years ago to see a speaker from Motorola. To be honest, I wasn't too impressed with the quality of the presentations that first time around.

I'm going back again for a couple of reasons. First, I haven't been to NYC in almost nine months and I need a fix of the city life. Second, I've been working non-stop on client assignments since early November and it's time to get my head out of the sand and find out what else is going on. I'm really hoping to meet some great new people and to get my creative juices burning again.

However, there already is one rant I have about this conference. I don't get their pricing model. They are charging $500.00 bucks MORE for "representatives of business service companies". The conference folks were nice enought to waive the late fee and give me a slight discount when I complained about this odd two-tiered pricing scheme. I just hope the conference is worth the time and $$.

I'll keep you posted. Julie