Should branding start with your employees?

You should ensure everyone in your team is living the brands they work in - it is the only way to understand the brand and its personality. A first and simple step to ensure people are doing this is to brand your offices with your brands - making sure that you match the brands with the office areas. A bit like Unilever does.

In-Store GPS

Sainsbury's just announced that is trialing an in-store GPS app that will let you build up a shopping list and then navigate in any store right to your product. And then navigate straight out again, paying our basket through the app, again. 

This would be a massive movement to in-store convenience, focused on two of shoppers' main complaints - "I cannot find my product" and "I lose too much time in store". But it puts special pressure on impulse shopping and, thus, margins of retailers. They will need to make sure that they move impulse shopping out of the shelves and into the app - which is nothing new, if you remember what Amazon does all the time with their suggestions...

Doing my laundry with a check list

Part of my current role is doing my laundry with a check list in my hand, while I feed clothes to my washing machine. I explain... I currently work in the Laundry category, and that means that, as always, I have to try my own (and my competitors') products. To make sure I have the same experiences as my consumers - and that I register them. This is a very basic rule of marketing - make sure you are following it.

P.S- Now, this is actually an improvement from the times when I was washing my hair with a check list next to my bath tub...

1111

1111. Or the 11th of November. It is the national "Singles Day" in China - 1111 represents four single persons, together. And it is a massive marketing day. In this day, Alibaba (the largest e.commerce company in the world) does huge single day promotions, smashing the online daily sales record year after year (in 2014, after 15h, they had already sold €5 Billions).

1111 was actually instituted by Alibaba. And is a great example of how to generate a strong marketing event, out of nowhere - creating a national movement deeply rooted in an insight (singles also want to feel appreciated as valentines do in... well, Valentines) that becomes part of the country's culture and that generates increased revenue to the retailer. A bit like... well, Valentines, or Mothers' Day. 

The one challenge for Alibaba going forward on this is how will it make sure that it will own going forward. Because, after creating and promotiong it, this day becomes part of the culture - and hence, it will belong to the people and be open to other retailers' appropriation. It will be interesting to see "Singles Day" developing over the next few years.

Just remember about this

Every single time you overpromise, you are setting your product to disappoint your consumer.

Sales persons are key to strategy

Many times I have felt a disconnection between the people that design and decide a strategy and the sales persons, who are the latest link in the execution chain of that strategy and, typically, are the also the ones that are closer to the market, getting first hand feedback from what has been decided and executed.

The latest HBR article on "Putting Sales at the Center of Strategy" highlights it, stating that only 10% of companies' strategies are effectively deployed and that there is a huge gap on delivery versus objectives. The lack of awareness of the company-customer interface, of what is usually referred to "what needs to get done to sell" is one of the most compelling reasons for this. 

The Sales function is one without excuses, as a former sales person (and current marketing director of Swatch) once told me - "Whether you make or you don't, there aren't excuses". It is also the face company to their direct customers, the ones who are closer to the market and that get more direct, many times first-hand feedback. It is, thus, key to ensure a strategy works out and to fine tune it quickly when needed (and believe me, there is no strategy that resists wholly to contact with the market reality).

That means a strategy will only work if it is properly communicated to Sales - and not only at top level, but also to the sales persons that engage directly with customers. It was one of the great lessons I took from my first years as a brand manager - make sure that the people that will be selling your products know what these products are and mean, and what is your overall strategy for your portfolio. Repeat, repeat, repeat - engage when you are talking at sales conferences, but also individually, with a coffee in your hand. And remember that you are talking with experience people - Sales will typically listen, suggest, challenge based on their experience, and it is a wise move to listen and to make the adjustments that then you think are needed. 

Also, remember how you are intending to generate profitable growth, and  operationalize the sales factors that affect it. This means that you need to provide clarity on areas like which customers should the company be focusing on, how to maximize profits (revenues but also cost of engagement) with them, what behaviours you want to drive when the company is contacting the market, which products of the portfolio and how and when do you what to drive (some products are create to create volume to a customer, but then others might follow suit to generate profitability), payment terms... You also need to ensure you have a number of tools that support and direct the Sales teams on effectively deploying your strategy - reward systems, feedbacking and communication tools, portfolio knowledge, visibility of competition, insights and strategy of customers,...

The HBR article ends up with a curious quote from Sam Walton "There ain't many customers at headquarters". So, remember to put yourself on the Sales teams' shoes to understand them, communicate and support them on your strategy and listen to them - they will often carry the whispers of customers to the headquarters... but also your whispers to the market.

The rule of the multipliers

When we are talking about multipliers in a social media context we are referring to the number of times a message will be made visible to other users in the network. If you post a message on Facebook, that message will spread out and be visible in a number of walls / timelines of people that follow your company (or yourself) and friends of friends. Easy.

Now, as you can imagine, the multipliers are controlled by the social media company. It is enclosed in their social algorithm. And the algorithm (and multiplier) that serves a social media when it is in its early stages of business and is searching the gain penetration and show relevance to its future consumers (and customers) is very different to the one of a social media company that is already established and is trying to generate turnover by doing business - namely when that business also comes from selling "promote your message" products. Like Facebook. Or Google+. Or Youtube. These companies have already changed their multipliers to ensure the messages or videos users / companies post reach a much smaller number of viewers then did some years ago.

So, what I am saying here is really simple. The days in which you could post a business message on a social media and expect it to easily generate buzz for free are gone - to get those figures you have to pay. Even the campaigns that have generated more word of mouth in the last 3 years (and I am thinking about campaigns of brands like Old Spice and Axe) have relied in 90%+ of paid content to generate their buzz.

But, after all, we all know that there are no free lunches, right?

How to make sure your Customer Service disappoints you

One of the most disappointing experiences I ever had as a consumer was with a careline. The thing is… when you call customer service with a technical problem from the service you bought, you expect it to be sorted out. Not to be closed with a voice message asking you to call back at 8am! Companies need to understand that carelines are the last barrier to save a consumer experience that is probably going very bad. If a consumer calls, that is the last chance you have to save that person as a customer of your business – and, if he is a valuable customer, you should do your utmost to solve out the issue and keep him / her happy.