Consumer relationships

This interesting HBR article ( http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/05/three_myths_about_customer_eng.html?goback=.gde_1952271_member_119509501 ) highlights two important points in terms of building relationships with consumers:

1) You have to clearly identify the consumers with whom you have already established a relationship, the ones with whom that is potentially possible and the ones with whom that will not be possible. And treat them differently, with clear strategies and tactics for each one of these groups.

2) You will only be able to establish a relationship with a consumer if you share strong, aligned values that speak at their hearts. Those might be on product quality (think of baby care products), attitude (think of K2), social / environmental responsibility (Unilever),... If you don't offer them products that remind them of those values that you share, if you don't reinforce that alignment on every single opportunity, you will lose your relationship. 

And, if you don't share a relationship, don't spam - build it by striving those values.

Women paying more for deos?

This Time article on how much some specific groups (women, men, ethnic minorities) pay more for some goods and services is very interesting ( http://moneyland.time.com/2012/05/18/when-consumers-pay-more-due-to-race-or-gender/ ). But especially when we think about deos. Because the fact is there is no reason for this to happen – there is no technology reason for this, prices tend to be the same across men and women ranges,… I think the reason for this to happen is pure consumer behaviour. I would speculate that, actually, women, are prone to buy more expensive deos then men, as they go after value added benefits – like anti-stains, dermatologic care, hair control,… Many of these variants and benefits (premium ones) are also available for men, but I would say that probably more women buy them then men, which then increases the average. Still, as personal care companies continue to explore the male market, driving needs and benefits, I would say that it might be really interesting to have a second look at this in a few years. 

What's Facebook ads ROI?

According to GM's CEO, not enough! They are pulling their ads off air! <p><p>
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304192704577406394017764460.html

Walk the talk

A really interesting article about the need to walk the talk in terms of strategy. Strategy is only 30% about formulation - the rest is actually making sure the defined path is trailed. And usually problems stem from execution. Because, too often too much attention (the best talent, external resources, senior management time) is devoted to the formulation process, and execution is left primarily to teams who had minimal participation in the previous steps. There isn't a deliberate thinking of resources to implement the strategy. There are gaps in objectives formulation and their cascading through the teams. There is not enough confrontation and challenge of implementation. And that makes strategies go off and not produce the expected results. <p><p>

http://blogs.hbr.org/ashkenas/2012/05/why-strategies-go-off-the-rail.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

IBM's Global CMO study

In this very recent IBM study, it is interesting to understand how crucial is ROI becoming. In an era of multiple solutions to reach consumers and shoppers, CMOs are focusing on understanding effectiveness of contact vs cost - and how will activities actually deliver value to the consumer and contribute to long-lasting relationships between consumer and brands. If you are curious and want to dig a bit deeper, I recommend you to follow the link to the actual study in http://www-304.ibm.com/businesscenter/cpe/download0/223912/CMO_MM_Study.PDF .

Blue Clay

In tennis, why should clay be always orangish? Why couldn't it have a different colour? Madrid Open accepted the challenge from its main sponsor and created a hype - being polemic, again, it differentiated further from all the other professional tournaments in the world. It created distinction and recognition that is talked all over the tennis world, without a negative impact. Don't you think that is brilliant marketing?

The true value of search

"81% of internet users start their purchase journeys with an online search". This is one of the key sentences on Google's video explaining "the true value of search". I deeply recommend you to watch this Google Classroom video, that provides a good overview of how important search may be - together with very useful insights on impact on offline purchase, duration of purchase journeys and how to create more "bang for your bucks" through SEO tools AdWords.