Archive for category strategy
the part of marketing that marketing people forget
Posted by Chris Houchens in branding, marketing, strategy on July 28, 2010
Starbucks hopped on the Foursquare marketing train early and came out with a great promotion. But Starbucks’ bold move flopped.
Why did they fail? The answer is simple. They forgot (or failed) to communicate their marketing plan with a very important group in the marketing experience — their employees. (It’s the same reason I get stiffed on free syrups when I use my Starbucks card.)
You can spend gobs of money, time, and attention on marketing to get people in the door — but the promises you’ve made with your marketing have to happen when those people come through the door.
Most of your brand is NOT built through advertising, PR, or any marketing message. The brand is mostly built through mundane daily customer experiences. It’s not sexy, but it’s true.
And the customer experience is almost totally controlled by the operational side of the business. If the marketers need/want to build a brand, they need to share their vision and brand strategy with the parts of the company who actually interact with customers.
This is true all the way from the master overall marketing strategy down to individual marketing initiatives. It’s important on all levels, but it becomes even more important when you’re using new and emerging marketing platforms like Foursquare or other forms of digital media. Innovators and Early Adopters are important groups. You want to make sure that employees are delivering superior customer experiences to people who will heavily influence WOM.
For example — The other day, a local sandwich shop tweeted that I could get 10% off if I mentioned Twitter when I ordered. I went there for lunch and mentioned it to the cashier who didn’t even know what Twitter was.
It comes down to the fact if you’re delivering messages to potential markets, you need to share the content of those messages with ALL the people in your organization. They are the ones who will make it work.
guesting at B2CMarketingInsider
Posted by Chris Houchens in branding, strategy on July 26, 2010
I was delighted when Brian Rice recently invited me to do a guest blog post for his B2C Marketing Insider. (It also allowed me an opportunity to shill Brand Zeitgeist again!)
My guest post is a little different from what is normally posted here. It maintains my belief in strong brand / marketing strategy, but does so in more of a motivational way. Please click over to B2C Marketing Insider and read it.
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And for all the new folks clicking through from B2CMarketingInsider, you can browse some of my best posts here. And you can subscribe to the RSS feed here. Welcome!
chris likes spicy chicken
Posted by Chris Houchens in marketing, strategy on June 1, 2010
Chick-Fil-A is rolling out their new spicy chicken in a very smart way.
The chicken sandwich purveyors have been promoting a microsite, www.getspicychicken.com. The microsite allows you to find a local restaurant and then choose a reserved time to come in for a free sandwich this week (the official launch date of the new sandwich to the general public is next Monday, June 7)
After reserving your time, the site allows you to share and invite others to join you through email, Facebook, and Twitter. (I discovered the giveaway through one of the people I follow on Twitter)
And while microsites and social media sharing is pretty standard marketing fare, it’s the little things that made the difference.
The staggered reservation system is a smart idea to maintain pacing and supply to avoid a free chicken disaster like that “other” chicken place had. After making the reservation, I got an email “from” the actual manager of the Chick-fil-a location. While it was obviously an automated bot, it felt a little more personal. I also received reminder emails about my scheduled lunch time.
Stop there and it would be a good case study for a product introduction giveaway. But the actual experience of going to the restaurant was what really impressed me with Chick-fil-a.
UPDATE: The following may be unique only to this location. Apparently, this (smart) franchisee did some of this added stuff instead of it being corporate direction. Reports from other locations don’t match up. Caveat lector.
When I walked in, there was an employee whose dedicated job was greeting and checking in the “Spicy VIPs”. (Remember, for all intents and purposes, Chick-fil-a is a counter service fast food place.) He seated me in a special cordoned-off section of the restaurant reserved for the spicy chicken folks. The tables in this area had been decorated and covered with tablecloths. Another employee came over and asked me what I wanted to drink and what toppings I wanted on the sandwich. The employee delivered the food on a plate (no cardboard boxes or paper wrappers) and then went after the napkins and condiments I needed. Managers were making rounds talking with the group and gathering feedback about the sandwich. At the end, I was asked to fill out a short survey about the sandwich.
When I consider some of the other restaurant openings / new product introductions I’ve been invited to, it’s easy to see the thought and care that was put into this launch. I have walked in other places where the employee behind the counter didn’t even know about a new product test. And if they did, it was slapped together and thrown on a tray.
You could actually see this being effective for this Chick-fil-a location as the “normal customers” kept looking over into our section to see what was going on and asking how they could get involved.
This is how you develop positive buzz and generate WOM. When you deliver an average product and experience to the early parts of the adoption curve, those users are not likely to talk about a typical encounter. But when you make it just slightly more interesting and make absolutely sure those people have a good experience, they’ll share it.
As I’ve said many times, the customer experience one of the most important (and overlooked) part of marketing.
btw — the spicy chicken sandwich is very good with a nice heat kick. It’s spicy without that bitter chemical heat that many places use for heat.
turn me off
Posted by Chris Houchens in strategy on March 31, 2010
You can use these in blog posts, presentations, etc, but I will seize up and stop accepting your premise at that point.
- I conducted a survey of my Facebook (twitter, etc) friends…
Huge peeve of mine, but there are proper ways to do research. Asking a closed network of people who are similar to you provides answers that are remarkably similar to your worldview. Sad thing is that I’m seeing this pop up in white papers and other published works as bonafide research. - ___, according to Webster, is a ____…
I despise this one. I’m devoting my attention and time to you for new insight and you’re reading the dictionary to me? It’s something that middle school students stick in a paper to fill space. Stop it. - According to Wikipedia…
Here’s where I’m a semi-hypocrite. I actually link to Wikipedia alot in this blog, just to give readers some context for obscure Dennis Miller type references I sometimes use in posts. It’s good for that…a quick thumbnail overview. But you should never back an argument with it. It’s rampant with errors. - Reading Powerpoint slides
No explanation needed. It should be mandatory that you read and pass a test on the book Presentation Zen before being allowed to use Powerpoint or Keynote - Being off color
Personally, I don’t care for it in any context. If you want to use it in your personal life, go for it. But there’s never a reason for it in a professional setting. - Being mean
No reason for it. Constructive criticism is wonderful, but anyone can pick away at ideas or people. It’s much more difficult to provide answers and new ideas.
These are just a random few off the top of my head. What phrases like these lock your reception up?
blitz aftermath
Posted by Chris Houchens in branding, strategy on March 24, 2010
You should never eat food cooked by a skinny chef. You also should never buy a marketing book from someone who can’t get the message out about that book.
I am really happy with the success of Tuesday’s Amazon Blitz for Brand Zeitgeist. The book rocketed up the Amazon Sales Rank. It started in the sub-basement at #446,248 and went all the way up to the high water mark of #3,148 in just a few hours. I am most pleased that we stayed in the top 100 of books in the Marketing category for most of the day. The high point was when Brand Zeitgeist was the #33 most popular marketing book on Amazon.
Of course, the whole endeavor was just a gaming of the Amazon rank system. Today, the book has fallen back down (just checked — it’s at #9,732 this hour). But the blitz accomplished several of my goals: it’s still allowing the book to occupy a higher spot than it did (9,732 is better than 446,248) But more importantly, it put the book in the hands of a lot of people on Tuesday.
Obviously, the sales are nice from that. But I’m hoping for a secondary effect as those people read it, blog it, review it, tweet it, and spread it in all manner of ways to their IRL and online networks. It’s confirmation of a point I made in the book. You have to grab the attention of the Innovators and Early Adopters in any new product launch for the brand to become fixed in the zeitgeist.
The nice way to describe my budget for the blitz is “bootstrapped”. The more accurate word is “cheap”. Basically I leveraged and co-ordinated my existing networks. I called in favors. I did a few targeted media buys (the 800-lb gorilla of those being a HARO ad). I used the Brand Zeitgeist Facebook page as a central communication hub that fed out to other SM as current fans of the book helped spread the word about the blitz through their networks. And I prayed.
As with anything, there were mistakes. I wish I had co-ordinated my blog tour a bit better. I wish my publisher had listed the book in more categories (I would have shown up higher in some additional categories). And I wish I had done a smaller pre-blitz to give the main blitz a better jumping-off point than from #446,248. But — hindsight is 20/20.
The Amazon rank is just a number. The point is not to sell books. The point is to spread the ideas. The Amazon blitz was a good jumping off point for the rest of the book’s promotion. I now head into media interviews (some additional ones generated by yesterday’s blitz) and physical location book tours for the next few months (counting down to the book tour kickoff with home field advantage on May 2nd in Bowling Green).
The big thing I take from the blitz is not the rank or the sales figures — it’s the people. There were people spreading the word for me that I had never met. I had lots of personal friends, who maybe were not that interested in marketing, buying a book just to help me out. I got lots of encouragement from several people.
If you bought a book, spread the links to your friends, or just wished me well — I truly appreciate it.
And if you didn’t get to take part yesterday, it’s never too late. http://www.amazon.com/Brand-Zeitgeist-Relationships-Collective-Consciousness/dp/1450206794 
learning as you go
Posted by Chris Houchens in online, strategy on March 19, 2010
I would venture to say there are very few people who would skydive, ride a bull, wrestle alligators, or climb one of the Seven Summits without experience or at least after watching a very good orientation video.
And yet companies are rolling up their pants legs and wading out into the shark-infested waters of social media without a clue. They’re letting the interns and other untrained personnel control the messaging to some of their most important contacts and setting up a social media disaster.
Social media is currently biting Nestle on the Nestle facebook page.
Protesters are taking to the Nestle page to voice opposition about their alleged use of palm oil from deforested areas in Indonesia. That’s trouble, but a prudent social media manager could handle it (like the way Southwest handled the Kevin Smith incident). Instead, the admin(s) of the Nestle page went on the offensive responding to fans in a derisive and aggressive tone. This is not breaking a social media rule. It’s destruction of basic PR 101. The company should never argue with someone in public (and for all practical purposes, it was the COMPANY not the admin making the comments.)
Overall, this is a great look at how companies should think about their online reputation management mechanics and the need to plan for an online crisis response in the same way you’d plan for a traditional crisis.
My favorite thing about the Nestle incident is that on Friday the admin(s) posted
“Social media: as you can see we’re learning as we go. Thanks for the comments.”
This is true for any brand. Despite what the social media snake-oil salesmen say, there is no one who actually has any real experience in social media.
What companies should have experience in is basic customer service, public relations, advertising, etc and apply those lessons learned in old media to the new model. And if you’re going to jump in the deep end of the pool, you’d better know how to swim and expect to get wet.
the anti lemmings
Posted by Chris Houchens in strategy on March 18, 2010
While mass communication has become more individualized and singular in focus, there’s still a feeling, that in order to have any effect, you have to spread your message to thousands (millions?).
That’s not always true. You don’t need a big crowd. You just need a dedicated group of people who are willing to listen.
That group of dedicated followers is always in the crowd. That’s why the big message always works. You’re just spending lots of money and time to identify those dedicated people out of the masses.
So why spend the money and the time on the whole crowd if you’re just needing the smaller group? It’s because of the natural inborn reaction to see the big crowd and run toward it hoping to get in on the attention. But in reality, many times you’ll have better luck going against the crowd.
One of the tricks of avoiding lines at big venues is to turn left whenever possible because most people are right-handed and insinctively go right instead of left.
I have always advised clients and placed my own media buys counter to the market. I love to run radio in the 1st quarter. I design negative space print ads. I never advertise between September and November in an election year.
In the past week, I’ve been able to connect with other people who were not at SXSW because we were all sitting on the sidelines.
From today until Sunday, you can garner attention from those people not interested in college basketball.
Don’t run with the lemmings. Don’t go toward the light. Find the smart place where everybody doesn’t go. It’s a lot less crowded away from the crowd. You’ll find people who will pay attention.
united trilogy ends
Posted by Chris Houchens in branding, strategy on March 2, 2010
Last July, I wrote a post about United Breaks Guitars.
Dave Carroll had promised to write a trilogy of songs about the sub par customer experience he had with United Airlines. The first song was an internet sensation. Currently, it’s nearing over 8 million views on YouTube and it was heavily downloaded on iTunes. The second song wasn’t as much of a hit but still did well with about 900,000 views.
Carroll is releasing the third and final song tonight. I doubt if it will be as hot as the first one, but these three songs make a great point about how companies need to act in this digital age. In fact, the United Breaks Guitars case study was a last minute addition to my book Brand Zeitgeist as an example of how one unhappy customer can use the power of social media to move the image of the brand in the zeitgeist.
As Dave says…
I had hoped that creating these videos might make a big corporation rethink how they think of each and every customer but could never have imagined the potential hidden inside a music video and a few social media tools. Corporations of all kinds around the world now feel compelled, in part because of United Breaks Guitars, to build in a better model for customer care into their businesses. I’m proud to have been a part of it but the real credit goes to the millions of people around the world who took the time to laugh and tell a friend. The power behind the United Breaks Guitars Trilogy lies in the numbers of people from countries far and wide who are laughing with me.
Companies are worried about the effects of social media are having on their brands. Social media is not the danger. Businesses need to be concerned with customer service. People will tell their friends.
Update: The third song…
insurgents in your organization
Posted by Chris Houchens in strategy on January 26, 2010
Late last week, Alex Bogusky was elevated from CD of Crispin Porter + Bogusky to “Chief Creative Insurgent“ of the ad agency’s parent company MDC Partners.
Hmmm.
Since, by definition, an insurgent is a rebel who revolts against authority or acts contrary to the policies of their organization, Bogusky has his work cut out for him. He’s fighting against “The Man” while simultaneously being “The Man“. That’s tough work.
While I typically despise jargon-ish job titles that have no meaning, the big idea behind this insurgent idea is right on target.
Every organization should have an “insurgent” that provides a contrarian point-of-view for the group. There needs to be someone to stand up and challenge the “that’s the way we’ve always done it” mantra.
The trouble is that most businesses quickly get rid of…or chase off their insurgents. There’s less chaos in the organization when everyone colors inside the lines. There’s also less opportunity for new growth and the ability to react / evolve to a world and market that’s changing faster everyday.
And insurgents have a rough life. They’re usually hated by fellow members and leaders of the group.
Maybe this CP+B move is smart. Maybe having “The Man” be the insurgent is the answer. If anyone can pull it off, Bogusky can.
punish your biggest fans
Posted by Chris Houchens in media, online, strategy on January 20, 2010
A memo from the top brass at the New York Times was sent to employees about the plan to charge for online content at nytimes.com…
Today we are announcing that we will be introducing a paid model for NYTimes.com at the beginning of 2011…we have chosen a metered approach that will offer users free access to a set number of articles per month and then charge users once they exceed that number.
(Read the full memo here)
There is no doubt that there will have to be a paid model for online news. Journalism is not free. But what’s the revenue solution for online news consumption? Hard to tell.
But I do know that penalizing your best and most frequent users is not the answer.
While I can see their plan is to try to have their cake and eat it too — I think it would work better in reverse. Give it to the power users. Those influencers would spread the links, ideas, etc to occassional users who would pay.
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