The marketeer's pursuit, in a simple sentence

"To achieve that right balance between short term revenue and long term brand building."

Never forget it!

Instagram

I am not sure if I told you this already, but I love Instagram and the way it harnesses the power of images to convey emotions in people. It is really allows brands to be aspirational, and that is a big secret on the way you inspire your consumers.

From me, it also has another angle. It forces me to keep my marketeer's photographic eye open, capturing the beauty, the feelings, the moments around me. I love it.

10 emotional motivators you should be looking out for

Marketing is a lot about harnessing the power of emotions towards your brands. In November's Harvard Business Review, these were the 10 emotional motivators that were highlighted:

- Stand out from the crowd

- Have confidence in the future

- Enjoy a sense of well-being

- Feel a sense of freedom

- Feel a sense of thrill

- Feel a sense of belonging

- Protect the environment

- Be the person I want to be

- Feel secure

- Succeed in life

Always think on how to position your brand on these motivators (which ones are relevant for your brand, market and product) and track its effect on sales (not easy) and how you stand. Only do it if you want your brand to be successful.

How the Mad Men lost the plot - my key thought on Ian Leslie's article

I am sure you have read Ian Leslie's "How the Mad Men lost the plot" - and if you didn't, you should. It is a magnificent reflection on the years of the advertising industry, showcasing the move to digital advertising and the effects that is having in the commercial's world.

But when I read it, and though I agreed with most of it, I could not helping thinking I have a fundamental difference versus the text - and maybe versus the way advertising is thought as a business nowadays. The truth is, for me, digital (being it social media, brand websites, digital pages with its ads,...) is just the media - there is a deep, fundamental work on advertising that is about the creative idea and its campaign. And when we put it in alignment with the consumers we want to impact, that is the heart of impact and advertising. Media is an important part of the balance, but brand and creative idea need to encompass consumer and product if an advertising campaign wants to be successful. Media is the means to reach the consumer physically, but the creative idea is the way we reach it emotionally.

Fake online reviews

And if I told that for 2 dollars a fake positive review can be done for your product and placed in Amazon, TripAdviser, Yelp... ( http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/technology/for-2-a-star-a-retailer-gets-5-star-reviews.html?_r=2&hp ). This article was from 2012, but this is still a major battle area for online retailers, given the importance of reviews on onsite search and consumer preference for a new buy. Online retailers and review-based-sites have the huge task and responsibility of keeping fake reviews and bay, if they want their business model to keep on thriving - as it is.

Sometimes we just want to indulge in great advertising

Should you disturb them?

All subscription services have those customers who are on the wrong subscription plan (they are paying too much for their consumption, or end up consuming a lot more than their plafond and spend more because of that) and don't actively try to change. They seem to be passive on what regards those subscriptions, which, from an Economy science point of view it doesn't make sense - but hey, this is Human nature, and it doesn't abide by perfect laws.

A study published in HBR shows that an incredible percentage of consumers that are contacted by their service provider and offered a better, more suitable plan, actually move out after being contacted (10%, vs 6.4% in a control group that had not been contacted). Probably the contact is the eye opening that they are not losing money or trigger to break passiveness - either way, it seems the company actually increases the chances of losing a customer by contacting this group. So, should they not do it?

Not so fast! One should not forget the message - how are the customers contacted, how good is the offer, what is the objective of the contact. This was overlooked in the HBR study and is actually key for retaining and maximizing a customer's profitability. So, before rushing to contact your passive customer, just put yourself in his / her shoes, design a good approach strategy that is aligned with your objectives and be sensitive in the message you are conveying. That should be the way to do it.

And just one day I talked about authenticity...

... we have Volkswagen scandal, that illustrates how a brand can lose its equity and consumers' confidence with the wrong (and truly unethical and illegal) choice. Let's see where this ends, but, for the VW brand, this is a really harsh blow.

Don't ruin your brand's authenticity

For the past 6 months, "gym brand X" advertised that their competitors were not giving towel, or a gym bag for free - that everything was actually paid by the consumers. Which, makes sense, actually. But what doesn't make sense is that, now, "gym brand X" is starting a "get back to the gym" promo... offering a... new gym bag...

Guys, don't you ever do this! This ruins your brand's authenticity! The consumers that actually agreed with you, nodded, and said "we can't trust these gyms that are saying that they offer us stuff that we pay in our monthly fees; I am lucky because I can trust "gym brand X"" now look at your promo and realise that was just a marketing move - and they will not like it. Consumers are smart people (they are like you and me, we are consumers, actually...), they remember, they can see the dotted lines. So don't try to fool them.

Consumers nowadays have plenty of choice. Which is a great thing! And means that they can be pickier than before and simply choose or reject a brand based on values. Which makes a marketeer job even more exciting, and implies we know, defend and grow our brand's values and purposes. Your brand needs to stand for something, and you need to stand for your brand at the eyes of consumer. 

So, a piece of advice. Be authentic in every marketing move you do.

Would you temporarily re-name your brand?

Yes, you can do it. Nestlé is doing it now in 2015, with one of it's strongest brands. A bold move, Nestlé is re-naming KitKat to names like "Youtube Break" and "Adventure Break". 

The fact is, you can do this with your brand, if it is strong enough (KitKat equity is incredibly strong), your brand communication is more than its name (and, if you look at this link, you will find the brand visuals are kept) and if the new name is completely aligned with your brand equity / communication idea - and what more "kitkatish" would you have than remembering that this brand is all about having a break, and enjoying a moment of pleasure?

Quick project management tip

Get your key stakeholder involved in your project and your solution as early in the process as possible. This way, you will the opportunity to reflect his / hers point of view in the early stages of the project, saving painstaking discussions and changes in later stages.

Who are the super-sharers of videos?

According to a Unruly research, 82% of shared videos in the internet are shared by a "super-sharers" group that represents only 18% of internet users, but that do so at least once per week (half of them actually shares daily, it seems). This is the group that you need to target for a video to go viral in the web! You just need to find them...

P.S- The same research concludes that the best day to share a video for it to become viral is on a Wednesday (hump day, anyone?), followed by Thursday and Friday. So, now you know why I am sharing this on a Wednesday (though no video attached).

Logos and luxury

For many years, luxury brands made sure they would design their products so their logos would become big and visible, as a beamer of aspirational brands that would drive penetration in the middle class thirsty for status symbol. But, interestingly enough, over the past 5 years, luxury brands have started to see this as a dangerous and harmful move, that actually drives away the higher classes from their products and damages their equity, turning their brands into middle class wannabees instead of the real thing. The luxury brands don't show off anymore, because wealthy people don't want to show off their wealth, but prefer more discreet branding and products that are driven to self rewarding experiences rather than show-offing that can be offensive. This idea, conveyed in a research paper from Wilson, Eckhardt and Belk in the latest HBR issue, has long been observed in part of Europe where "old money" sits, but, according to the authors, can start being seen in some of the new biggest luxury markets as well, as China. It would mark a very different period for luxury branding, and a very challenging one - I must say I am rather curious to see how this develops going forward...

Break your industry's bottlenecks

July's Harvard Business Review had a very interesting article on breakthrough innovation. That article said that, in order to revolutionize the market, you should focus in 5 types of common industry's wisdom and established rules - what the authors call " industry's bottlenecks". If you do it, then you will be focusing on the big structural problems that are endemic to your industry, thus you will be able to satisfy consumers in a way no one else does.

The 5 type of industry's bottlenecks the authors urge us to focus are:

- Outdated purchase or usage experience

- Superfluous major expense category

- High financial risks for customers

- Disengaged employees

- Detrimental side effects of the product or service

If you want further explanation, you should read the article. But just by looking at these, I can find 2 bottle necks in my industry that I will aim to break...

Develop innovations in its usage environment

July's Harvard Business Review article "Engineering Reverse Innovations" explains why you shouldn't develop innovations for Developed countries and then just expect them to be successful in D&E markets with some minor adaptations. The article (which is really good, by the way) explains five design principles to showcase how to develop a product for D&E, but I would sum it up in another very basic principle - "Develop your innovation in its usage environment". Make sure that your product is suited to the way it is meant to be used by conceptual design - if you do it that way, you maximise your chances of success. And, by the way, this is not only valid for D&E - it is valid for every single market and product.

Masters of Marketing

The Apple - Taylor Swift Twitter conversation on artist rights and payment is just the latest example of Apple's mastery of marketing. Please, raise your hand if you think this just wasn't a carefully planned marketing campaign, set up to generate positive brand appreciation and bombastic talkability around the world.

In reality, Apple is brilliant at managing communication which goes beyond their media investment - I would actually say, that goes "a lot beyond"! It has been able to use this ability to firmly establish itself as a cult brand, that makes media work for it, instead of paying for media space.

I think this Taylor Swift Twitter conversation is a good example. But another one is the way Apple leaks information to news agencies, newspapers, TVs, bloggers about new products or new features is amazing, and makes the market eager to understand what is coming, to discuss about it, is it useful for me, is it breakthrough, do I want it - it creates discussion and anxiety in the news and that is then cascaded to the people that read news, independently of the media.

Apple sets their conferences up to be events, not presentations - they are trully shows, with their new products at the center of it. They are televised moments, followed by millions of people throughout the world through internet live streaming - it is an enviable audience! And there is no clutter on the message - it is all about Apple and what their products can do for the consumer!

Also the way capacity is planned for innovation, letting people be waiting for a few days, especially in their early iPhone launches, helped to create a myth of unreachability - these products are not for everyone, you need to pay and wait, do an extra effort, which, if you think about it, just sets Aple products apart from any easily reachable product. You don't just go to a store and buy it.

(Oh! The functionality of the stores... But so many people wrote already about it - I will not even go there, but they just hint at how technologically advanced and consumer focused is Apple.)

And, last but not least. The cheer functionality and consumer / user focus on their product, all of them designed from a system perspective to be easy, friendly and connected to other Apple products - it seems to easy, it is so logical, and it creates such a positive communication and talkability among users. Again, an ocean could be written on how Apple products are designed to be just a part of the consumer.

Apple is a master in marketing - I would say it is the best in the world and its brilliancy and managing all the product mix and communication, focusing on the consumer, that sets it apart. From minute 1.

A button

It is quite common to transpose something from the real world to the internet - we are so used to shopping lists, talking to people, cheering, that we just want to have exactly the same experience online. And we transpose it, copying it. But the move Amazon is doing is a bit different - why not to have the "click" experience for online-shopping in the real world?

Amazon's Dash button for shopping is a brilliant example of the internet of things. It allows for a consumer to shop for its usual products in an even simpler way, by-passing the pain of opening your phone / laptop and going to your online store. Here, you just have to click. Easier for Amazon. And simpler shopper experiences lead to higher sales.

For the brands that feature on the buttons, it will also mean a higher loyalty from your shoppers - and a more intense bargaining process with Amazon.

The 10 most viewed ads of 2014

This is probably a good way to signal my 100th post - presenting the 10 most viewed ads of 2014, according to AdWeek.

(now, if you allow my comment, though entertaining, some of them lack a bit of branding... and, hmm... "Always"... why did you do a "Dove" ad?)