Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Maintaining the Perfect Size for a Small Agency

What's the perfect size for an agency? This can be a vexing question for small agency owners. We want to be big enough to have national work and yet small enough to know everyone in

Bart Cleveland Bart Cleveland
the agency by name. This desire for perfect smallness can tempt us to restrict growth. Many times this results in neglecting new business. However, history shows if an agency isn't growing, it's dying. You can't keep your perfect size by sitting still. Simple attrition can result in a 10-20 percent decrease in billings per year. In this era of advertising, client relationships that last over a few years are unusual. New business is important to balance attrition, but it's also an opportunity to find clients that are best suited to your agency.

The reason my agency has longer than average tenure with clients is because we nurture new business. I say nurture because that is a key to having relationships built on trust. Nurturing new business takes more time, but it gives trust a chance to take root. Before the client even hires you they feel connected to you. They know you know their business and their problems and that you will help them overcome their challenges. I won't go into what we do but suffice it to say the proof of you being the best fit for a client happens by being not selling.

Imagine your agency working to its potential. Imagine clients seeking your counsel and appreciating your insight. This is what the right client brings to your agency. There are more "perfect" clients than you might believe. Too many times agencies don't nurture, they just sell to whomever is buying and they reap what they sow. We all know what happens when a client is not buying what we're selling. It's miserable for everyone involved. This is another reason we can avoid growth. You become convinced that there is only misery out there and why ask for more heartache? Choose wisely. Walk away from the obviously bad prospect. Don't believe you can fix them or train them to be good clients. Look for something better and you'll find it.

Growth will not keep you from being the size you want to be, it can empower you. I've always admired agencies that are willing to walk away from clients that aren't a good fit. It's only possible when they are in control of their business. The effect on one's bottom line must be manageable. Let's face it, if it's inevitable that a relationship is going to end, why not be in control of when it will end?

New business efforts should never be put on the back burner. They should always be a priority so that you remain firmly in control of what your agency is going to accomplish.

Friday, December 01, 2006

Evaluating Your Company Strategy

n this excerpt from Mavericks at Work, William C. Taylor & Polly LaBarre outline five key questions entrepreneurs should ask themselves about their company’s strategy.

Few companies set out to be just another me-too player with another ho-hum business model, following a bland formula that’s hard to distinguish from everyone else’s. But in industry after industry, that’s precisely how most companies end up competing, which is why competition feels so unforgiving.

As you think about the values you stand for as an organization and as a leader, ask these five questions about your company’s strategy.

1. Do you have a distinctive and disruptive sense of purpose that sets you apart from your rivals?


This is what separates the mavericks from their me-too competitors. The founders of DPR Construction were determined, from the moment they started the company, to reckon honestly and openly with the designed-in flaws of their industry and to build an organization that would prosper by fixing those flaws. The founders of Cranium didn’t launch their company because they had one good idea for a single board game. Instead, they had a wide-ranging critique of what was going wrong with family entertainment -- and an unapologetic sense of mission about providing a clear alternative, through board games but also through book publishing, TV shows, and other lines of business that Cranium has begun to enter after its runaway success with games.

Even when their company was a tiny start-up, the Cranium founders believed and acted as if they were playing for high stakes -- not just thinking about games, but rethinking how parents could relate to their kids and how families could relate to one another. “We’ve always acted as if we’re a much bigger company than we really are,” says Grand Poo Bah Richard Trait. “We’re still a fairly young player in our industry, but we conduct ourselves as if we are a global movement. This isn’t a job. It’s the pursuit of a dream, to give everyone a chance to shine. It’s a big, ethereal goal, but we won’t stop until we’re convinced that we’re making progress against that goal.”

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Of **ck ups and non delivery

The last two weeks have been marred by non delivery on certain key projects by persons to whom I have outsourced work to. I read up on how the Digg founder outsourced to develpoers sourced on Elance, and I did the same. The results have been nothing but disappoinitng. My briefs clear to the last detail are being ignored and the developers doing their own thing. This has held back some 2000 $ money that is sorely needed to push other ventures forward.

On a local front the same is true.I thnk sometimes it's best to have everyone working on a project within reach. Coz man..this sucks big time.

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Small ideas

Kevin Rose, founder of Digg.com, presented at The Future of Web Apps Summit in San Francisco last month, giving a demo and sharing the story behind Digg's launch.

In 2003, Kevin had a big idea. He came to Elance to post a project and look for a PHP programmer, selected Owen Byrne (Elance username: permafrost) and worked with him to build the initial product. Eventually, Owen joined Digg full-time.


Today, Digg is one of the most successful and visited websites, Owen Byrne is Digg's Senior Software Engineer, and Kevin is a high flyer recently featured on the cover of BusinessWeek.

Monday, October 30, 2006

America's top young entrepreneurs

There had been a 40 under 40 show sometime back, but it never really impressed me save for those few stories I acually had the heads up on. Business week had this article on top entreprenuers under 25, and since this is my bracket, I think I want to be challanged ...



Check out 25 smart new businesses from some of the brightest entrepreneurs in the U.S. aged 25 and under

The success of the entrepreneurs behind Digg, YouTube, and Facebook will undoubtedly inspire a growing breed of the young, energetic, and self-reliant who are more than willing to gamble that their startups will fly. But it's not just about role models. The idea that entrepreneurship is a viable career path is ingrained across the U.S., and the number of resources for startups continues to swell. So when we set out to find the latest batch of fresh faces and examine what makes their businesses tick, it wasn't surprising to see their ages skewing younger and their ideas getting smarter.

In August, BusinessWeek.com kicked off its second annual search for the best young entrepreneurs in the U.S. by asking readers to nominate promising entrepreneurs age 25 or under. The results were impressive, with more than 300 people nominating their favorites, which we whittled down to 25 businesses with real potential. Check out this slide show profiling each of them, then cast your vote on the last page.

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06/10/bestunder25/index_01.htm?chan=smallbiz_smallbiz+index+page_best+entrepreneurs+under+25

Sunday, October 29, 2006

Hiccups

I have been immersed in miniscule projetcs to cover the last mile finace on some mini projects in the works. I bumped into Bluefi5h most unexpectedly at the launch of the Numetro site and ended up havin a lengthy discusion about loads of stuff. I had been sething an foaming at the mouth at his lack of feedback and communication despite his bein connected in all ways possible.
Nevertheless, were back to speed.

In other ventures, VC number two has also gone awol, with his signature needed to secure the release of some 50million. I have never monitored my mail so closley waiting for the subject "Am back"

I have waiting...esp on issues that have been sealed and signed.

Friday, October 13, 2006

Never Trust a 'Silent' Customer

Do you have customers that leave suddenly? You were doing an outstanding job for them, lavishing them with truckloads of service and yet they disappeared without a word.

The key operating factor here is 'without a word.' That's the scary part! The silent ones are always the most dangerous. If you would like to learn how to keep your customers, you've first got to keep them noisy. Read this marketing article to find out just how you can make complaining clients one of your biggest assets.

Imagine you run a pizza parlour. You have all these neighbourhood families that pop in at least once a week for some pizza, garlic bread and Coke. On an average, one customer spends about $30 per week. But let's assume they spend just $20. Imagine you did something that bugged this customer, but he or she never told you about it. What would you stand to lose if they left?

Its simple math: You lose $20 x 50 weeks. That's equivalent to $1000 a year.

If you lost just 10 such customers per month, you'd lose about 100 clients a year.

That's $100,000 that could be in your back pocket if you were a little complaint-conscious.

That Doesn't Happen in Our Business: The Denial Syndrome

Overtly it won't. In a Bain & Company survey of major corporations, they found that on average, U.S. Corporations lose half their customers in five years. Notice, it wasn't 'one year' or 'suddenly'. Clients have a tipping point. They get unhappy bit by bit and then its camel-back-breaking time. So, if you think that all your customers are happy with you-they aren't. It's a basic fact of life.

What's really weird is that you can't measure how much business you're really losing. A study was done on a bank, they found they had as many accounts as they had a year ago. What they failed to measure was how most of the people had 'silently' transferred the money out into other banks and the closure of the account was a last measure, somewhere down the line.

The same thing applies to your customer. Like a patient Buddha, they will seemingly appear to put up with everything, till suddenly you find they don't use you anymore. This is a classic flight of business. You hear nothing of it, till it's almost gone and it takes a mammoth effort just to hold on to the business.

If you look at it from another perspective, you might even be getting equal to or slightly less business from your customer. Naturally this doesn't ring any alarm bells. However, if you've been watching carefully, your customer has probably grown bigger and richer in the past few months or years. If your business with them has not grown exponentially, you are actually LOSING OUT.

No matter how successful your business, you will always have scope for improvement. Best of all, you will always have complaining customers. Don't deny the fact. Accept it and then do something about it.

The Real Reason Why You Lose Customers

Last month we went to KFC to pick up some chicken and chips for dinner. On the way home we discovered that the chicken and the chips were soggy and tasted terrible.

How would most customers react? It would depend on their history with the product, but most people would grumble and simply not go back. We complained. We picked up the phone and called the toll free line at KFC. They asked us to place our order. We said we didn't want to place an order, we just wanted to complain. They said, "We don't take complaints on this line. You'll have to call the manager at the branch where you bought it and talk to him."

Now Why Would I Bother To Go Through All That Trouble?

It's easier to never go back. All that money that KFC spends trying to get new customers is going down the drain and out the back door because they don't have a complaint line.

Most companies act precisely in the same manner. For one, they have no real complaint department. If clients are unhappy, they feel embarrassed to complain and because no route has been cleared to vent their feelings, they avoid it completely.

Then they leave.

Obviously, you can't wait for something to go wrong. Your job is to find ways to get the client to complain. If they complain, you are getting feedback that is extremely valuable and is probably relevant for all your other clients as well. Best of all, empowered with a complaint channel, a well-trained client will complain at every juncture giving you the opportunity to fix the problem and regain their trust.

How Companies React to Complaints

Virgin Airlines CEO, Richard Branson, sometimes makes an appearance at the gates when a flight is late, apologising profusely to all passengers as they check out. How mad would you continue to be if you ran into a situation like this?

Yet most companies detest complaints. Living in their ivory towers, they refuse to believe that any of their clients would leave. So they never ask for feedback. On the rare occasion that clients get mad enough to put it in words, it's too late. Even then, a complaint is treated with nuisance value.

The first step a company takes when dealing with complaints is that they fix it.

Yeah, Right!

Because of their crummy service, the plane took off without you, you missed your meeting and lost more than just your temper. Do you think, just replacing something is going to erase all that trouble? It's going to take much, much more.A simple replacement is never the answer. It has to be a heck lot more than just a numb 'sorry' . You've got to woo the customer back like you would with the girl that you had your eye on. Going down on your knees and begging for forgiveness is a start. Then you've got to lay it on thick and the thicker the better.

The Problem With Zero Defect

Lots of companies ran themselves into the ground trying to achieve zero defect. In an unpredictable world like ours, that goal is unreal. Even the best of intentions aren't much use if you run into a flash flood. Clients recognise that. However, it's up to you to have a disaster recovery plan in place.

When I say that, I don't mean a grandiose 'in case of a nuclear attack' plan.

At Nordstrom stores across the U.S., salespeople are empowered to do 'whatever it takes' to fix a problem, even if it means going to the store across the street and buying the product at a higher price. It's called the art of immediate recovery, and it assumes that something will go wrong and you will have a Plan B to fix it. The more you prepare yourself for this inevitable event, the less chance the client has to complain.

More often than not, a complaining client is complaining about everything but the product. Ever see people complaining about the food at a restaurant? The principal purpose of the restaurant is food, yet people leave because of loud music, bad service and everything else. Your job is to assume you're a restaurant and find out what your 'everything else' is.

Getting Complaints is Like Winning Lotto!

1) What you need to do to ensure a regular stream of complaints. Dump the feedback form and go out and ask your customer's face to face. Do it regularly and have them know whom they can complain to, if anything goes wrong. There is no such thing as a silent customer.

2) Complaining customers are always very precise. They eliminate the vagueness of feedback forms. Listen to them, act on their complaints. It's not that they want to leave. They want to be wooed back. Fix the problem and then let them know how you fixed it.

3) They're giving you free feedback that would cost a fortune at a research company, so reward them. They've been inconvenienced on top of getting a bad product or service. That inconvenience factor deserves payment in the form of a reward over and above just fixing the problem. Customers who are bought back from the brink are extremely loyal and extremely 'noisy.' Treat them like the asset they are.

4) Remember, it costs eight times as much to get a new customer, than it takes to keep an existing one. Keep them at all costs. Atone for your sins.

5) Rule #1:The complaining customer is always right. Rule #2:When in doubt, refer to Rule #1

If you haven't done so

How to Commit Brand Suicide

A graphic designer spoke to me last week. His graphic design firm -- let's call it XYZ Design -- was numero uno in designing labels for a large wine company. Let's call that ABC Wines. Now ABC wines had some really super wines. They loved the incomparable graphic design of XYZ design, and continued to use them for several of their major brands. This one client alone generated tons of work and income for XYZ design right through the year.

Then It Happened...

ABC Wines sold out to another wine company. This new wine company had its own in-house graphic designers. That effectively meant XYZ Design's income and work flow were severely hit, causing them to scramble for new clients to fill the gap.

"If only I had done what you said," said the owner of XYZ Design, " and not line extended into web design and other forms of graphic design and communication, I would have gone down the gurgler too"

Not true.

Line extension doesn't mean you run just one business or have one product.

No, it doesn't mean that at all.

Multi-tasking existed long before the advent of computers and the more skills you have, the better off you are in today's world. However, you have to name each 'twin' differently to give it a very distinct identity. When you do that, your client recognises the difference and chooses that 'twin' for its own individual personality and character.

How Do You Line Extend Without Line Extending

In the case of XYZ Design, it would have to work in this manner. To all wine companies, they would enter the door as a 'wine label design Specialist.' To every wine company in the country and overseas, they would be known, not as XYZ Design but more so, as XYZ Wine Design Specialists.'

This would give the wine companies a specialist to deal with. It would help XYZ Wine Design specialists to build their reputation in the wine industry to a point where if any wine company decided to design a label, XYZ Design would be one of the main contenders.

Now, wine companies don't do just labels. They do brochures, leaflets, annual reports, websites and tons of other stuff. Your question would be, how can I afford to lose out on that market?

Why You Never Lose Out On The Rest Of The Stuff

It's called backdoor entry. Everyone (including your competition) is banging on the front door, trying to get in. You, on the other hand, quietly slip in through the backdoor, pick your goodies and slip out.

This is how it works in practice. If you do really good work designing wine labels, it's almost inevitable that clients will ask you if you can design other associated material. That's when you introduce your other company, "JKL Graphic Design" and "PQR Web Design". Same company, different positioning and certainly different brand names. What this does, is it helps clients compartmentalize their thinking. They now think you have specialist groups working on specialist projects taking extra special attention.

This Does Two Things...

1) It helps each of your businesses take on a 'character' of its own without affecting the other, much like Air New Zealand is premium and Freedom Air is budget. The public knows they're one company but still compartmentalizes them into two. You can change the character of each company, and help boil it down to the smallest possible niche, making you an expert in the category.

2) The client sees your multiple brands as different brands. When they need web design services, or when they need to recommend them, they call the web design experts. And so on with graphic design and wine labels or just about anything that you are handling.

Everyone Loves A Specialist

Would you allow a GP to work on your triple bypass? OR would you prefer a heart specialist? Even better, a doctor who does only triple bypass surgery? If you feel the difference, so does your client and to ignore this basic human instinct is to do so at your own risk.

How It Works Not Just In Business But In The Workplace Too

If you're working in a job, the same rule applies. Be known as a genius for something. Know how several things work. But branding yourself in one skill makes you the expert. Every time the company has a fire in that section, you will be known for your fire-fighting skills.

On an ordinary basis, most employees are not known for any particular skill and wonder why they are on top of the redundancy list. Bosses don't know what you do and why you're special, because you haven't been doing the 'branding bit'. It's better to be a specialist than the 'safe unknown.'

As Dire Straits sang in one of their songs, "Sitting on the fence is a dangerous course: You could get a bullet from the peace keeping force."

Funny (But True) Phrases When You Forget To Obey The Rules

Jack of all trades, master of none. A bird in the hand, is worth two in the bush. And the best one of all: Keep it simple, stupid!

Keep putting these principles in action and you will see a marked improvement in your business.

Why Twins Have the Same Surname and Different First Names

Parents know it instinctively. To differentiate one from the other, they give their newborn different names. Most businesses beg to differ, and often end up giving the same name to multiple (and widely differing) products, without realising the negative impact on the brand.

Whether you've got a growing business or a well-established one, it's important not to ignore that important law of physics. Two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time. This branding article
will show you why!

Why Brand And Line Extension Don't Work

Heard of a cheese company called Kraft? You say Kraft and people say cheese. The amazing association of cheese with their name should have kept the company smiling for decades. But that didn't happen. Like most companies, Kraft figured they had a great brand name that would extend to a whole range of foods. So, they went and line extended into jams, jellies and mayonnaise among other food stuff. According to their reasoning, they were still in the food business.

Their Accountants Might Not Agree

In jams and jellies, the American brand, Smucker's owns 35% share of the market. Kraft has 9%. In mayonnaise, Hellman's owns 42% of the market share. Kraft has 18%. Despite being a major cheese company, Kraft (amazingly) isn't hitting the top of the charts. The only winner it has is called, not Kraft, but a cream cheese called Philadelphia, which has 70% of the market. By trying to be all things to all people, Kraft (like many others) has ended up with a great brand name, but few real winning products.

What Goes Through The Customer's Mind?

Remember your cousin John, the lazy guy? Or your brother Bruce, the industrious guy? Or Diane, the smart one? If you grew up with a mental image alongside a name, the attributes of that person stick with you for life. One name, one attribute.

Most customers are exactly like you. If you say Honda in Japan, people think of a motorcycle company. If you say Honda in any other country, people think of cars. People don't seem to make the leap at all. Once your product/service has a fixed attribute in their mind, it burns itself in. No matter what you try and do, it cannot be re-invented.

The movie Saturday Night Fever made tons of money. So, what did they do? They took the same formula and called it Grease. Same stuff, different name, but consistent profits. On the other hand, every sequel of most movies has consistently gone downhill. Sure, Rocky went the distance, but you have to question whether it fed Sylvester Stallone’s bankroll or his ego.

How Successful Companies Power Their Brands Forward

Know of Barbie and Ken? Your grandmother does and so will your kids. Barbie and Ken have never changed what they stand for. They've outlasted the Ninja Turtles, the Cabbage Patch dolls and every other toy in sight. And will continue to do so in the years to come. That's because Barbie and Ken stand for dolls with interchangeable clothes. Nothing more, nothing less.

That’s exactly what successful businesses do. They occupy a niche and they defend it. Look at publishing companies. They bring out a magazine, they call it Men's Health. Then they bring out another magazine and another one and yet another one. And every magazine is given a different name. Go to a newsstand down the street and have a look at the magazines. No magazine is all things to all people. Each one has a specific positioning, name and target audience.

The Problem With New Brand Names

It's expensive to launch a new brand. That's why most head honchos in companies take the safe route to extend their line. Besides, it's not like line extension doesn't work. It works fantastically well. Then it sputters, chokes and dies slowly. This is because when brands are first extended, people are eager to try out new products. However, they soon tire of it and go back to the brand that defines clearly what they're after.

How Creating A New Brand Can Help You Focus

Take a look at New Zealand today. There are two airlines from the same parent company. One is called Air New Zealand and the other is called Freedom Air. Air New Zealand stands for top class airline service, with all the frills. Freedom Air is zero frills. All the tactics and the strategies can be worked out independently as they function (and exist) as two different companies. If Air New Zealand started an airline called Air New Zealand Budget, it would have watered the whole brand giving both airlines no identity of their own.

Less Is More

A niche can make you more money than being a generalist . Resist the urge to be sailor, soldier and candle-stick maker to everyone.

Jack of all trades, master of none.

Surely, you've heard that. Now believe it and implement it.

Like a Virgin-- Is Your Marketing As Fresh As Madonna's?


'Touched for the very first time'

Call it what you want, but few pop stars and fewer businesses have understood the intricacies of Madonna's genius of reinvention and the inevitable end of the business cycle. Learn from the branding expert.

While Madonna soars, everyone else seems to stumble, bumble and disappear down a deep, dark hole.

So, what is it about Madonna Incorporated that has allowed it to consistently reap profits for over 18 years on the trot? And is there something we in business can learn about branding from the chameleon of pop music?

What Madonna Learned from Houdini

Gasp! That's what the audience would do, every time Harry Houdini cheated apparent death. Except that death was a deliberate stroke of genius to keep the name of Houdini alive forever.

Madonna seems to have used the same bag of tricks. Reinventing herself in almost clockwork fashion, she has transmogrified herself successfully into virgin, material girl, boy toy, dominatrix, media maven to working mom. And made big bucks all the way.

Out with the Cabbage, In with the Tomatoes!

Bring out the fertiliser, Madonna's here!

With green-fingered precision and lots of tender loving care, she plays along with Mother Nature. In every phase, Madonna has realised that things change with the season and accordingly dug deep to replant new shoots.

Summer plants die. Shrivel, shrivel, it's a fact of life. You can whine and whimper but if you understand the basis on which Mother Nature works, you can pretty much put it to work in your own business.

Most businesses experience growth both intellectually and physically, yet every business seems to run on summer growth. Never changing, never evolving, they hope Jack Frost will give them a wide berth when the cold days roll along. That doesn't always happen and when the business peters down, it's let's blame the economy time, when all they've done is failed to plan for the end of a business cycle.

Take for instance a big law firm in Auckland, New Zealand. Lots had changed within the firm. It had grown considerably over the years and believed that its outdated logo was the hallmark of the firm.

Simple research showed otherwise. The clients hated it. Fuddy-duddy, they called it. Yet, it had nothing to do with the law firm. The partners and the lawyers were as competent as ever, if not more than before. A simple logo change, some internal and external fix-its and Voila, they could do little wrong!

It had nothing to do with the firm or the quality of its lawyers. They had simply failed to track public opinion that had gone against them. Once they realised it, they could mend it. Once they fixed the logo (among other things), they were reborn.

Replant the Garden, Don't Chop the Trees!

Are we suggesting you reinvent the wheel? Madonna doesn't think so. Like a hardcore brand specialist, Madonna has actually stuck to her brand like glue.

If you look carefully, she stands for RADICALISM. Everything she's done has taken her one step higher on that scale. Every time someone screamed blue murder, Madonna was in the thick of it. She hacked the lawn, and replanted all the flowers choosing shocking pinks and bright orange, understanding all the time that it stayed in line with her true brand image.

Coke, too, tried to reinvent itself, but failed miserably. Why? Because Coke owns the word classic. People loved their Coke. It was owned by us sugar-water drinkers and no one, not even Coca Cola Inc., was going to change it. In short, that's why they failed.

Yet Coke has reinvented itself in several other ways. Its packaging has gone from sexy bottle to cans and then to 2 litre PET bottles without much drama.

It has reinvented convenience, much like McDonalds reinvented their snack to combo lunch.combo managed to put gigantic smiles on both faces simultaneously. Realising that customers were after a better deal and their accountants were after better profits, the

Let's face it. It's not just about reinvention. It's about realising WHICH PART of your business needs to be reinvented and then having the common sense to leave the rest alone.

Don't Reinvent the Goodyear!

Chinese gooseberries were going nowhere till they were renamed Kiwi fruit. With this re-baptism of sorts, this humble, nondescript looking fruit somehow took on the flavour of an exotic, lush green country. The reinvention wasn't earth-shaking; the results were.

Madonna does just that. While her radicalism has seen an outward change in every avatar, the core change isn't overly dramatic or complex. Every reinvention has caused her to add bold yet simple colour to her garden.

Too many marketing people change twenty things all at once. Confused customers don't care. Gradual progression they can handle and want. Dramatic change scares the heck out of them, often causing them to switch brands suddenly and permanently.

Even hardcore Madonna fans found the leap from music to movies too complex. She flipped and flopped her way through the popcorn aisles and came out triumphant on the Evita side. Yet, you'd prefer Julia Roberts to do the drama bit instead of doing a Grammy number, wouldn't you?

Simple snip-snaps you and I understand. Which is why even Einstein kept it down to E=mc2 despite reinventing everything science stood for.

Can You Carry it Off?

Hey, Frank Sinatra was a great singer, but he just didn't have Madonna's figure and he'd look crappy as a blonde. Which is pretty much the crux of the issue. If you don't have the ability to carry it off, you don't. Not at least in the glare of the spotlight.

Madonna's outward reinvention is her most dramatic feature, but at the same time she's plugging away at her new spiritualism and lifestyle and hopefully it reflects in the lyrics as well.

Sting is a good example of a parallel Madonna run backwards.

Starting out like Billy Idol, he has wound his rock roots down dramatically and enriched his music to encompass several genres and languages. It's a quiet manicured reinvention, that his fans lap up in eager anticipation

Sometimes the reinvention is loud and sometimes its soft but it's never non-existent. Pop stars are good examples because it can often take one album to make or break them. You can serve twenty shoddy meals at your restaurant and still get away with it, but they can't. Even the stars that appeared to exude stillness like Frank Sinatra, were actually living very close to their brand image and their noun and adjective.

Frank was a Coke-- He stood for classic. Likewise, that's what his music had to do. Elvis was a white singer singing black music and that's radical. Which is why his gyrations on stage fit in perfectly with his uh-huh style. On the other hand, you could only take so much of Boy George. Know why?

At the end of the day, the calories are the proof of the pudding. If you don't stand and deliver, you can reinvent to death without any change in your bottom line whatsoever.

How Does your Garden Grow?

For your business, there are several avenues that you need to magnify and reinvent. The main areas that you need to look at are:

1) Your Communication: Logos, Newsletters, Emails, etc. Do they really meet your clients' needs? Have you got so busy doing things that you've forgotten to reflect your true worth to your clients?

2) Your Customer Loyalty: Are you stretching these parameters? Are they getting less or more loyal? If yes, why? If no, why not? What do you need to reinvent and re-analyse? And do you have a customer loyalty program at all?

3) Your Failure Analysis: This is a biggie. If you're not analysing and welcoming failure, you're going to be stuck on your island for so long, that you'll sink once global warming gets worse. If you want to double your success rate, you've got to double your failure.

The Key to Reinvention is Simple
a)You've got to die a thousand deaths and come out on the other side. b)Simplicity is the key.
c)Your brand image is money in the bank. Don't ever change it.
d)Wear the mini only if you can carry it off. Remember there's a market for minis and gowns simultaneously.

While you're reading, Madonna will be hard at work on the next step. Isn't it time you got to work too?

Is Nature a Marketing Guru?

Technology rules. Yeah, for about five minutes--then natural instincts take over. Are you stupid enough to fight Mamma Nature? Well go ahead and rewrite the rules if you can, cause the Big Mamma knows one thing. She’s tried and tested it all. And if you want to play by her kooky rules, she is willing to teach you a thing or two.

The question is, are you willing to learn?

Do You Pay in Advance?
Have you noticed how big a brand Red Bull is today? Or how insignificant their advertising is? Red Bull shuns print advertising and has never done a triple back flip on a web campaign. Yet, it has found roots in over 50 countries. And has cemented its loyalty in the fickle land of teenagers.

So what’s Red Bull’s big secret?

It’s called GIVING.

Their marketing strategy was simple. They enticed students with free cases of Red Bull, if they threw a party. Guess how many students need an excuse to have a party? With a simple act of giving away free cases to the right target audience in the right universities, Red Bull became a very rich Red Bull.

Yet Where Are Most Marketing Plans Aimed?
Too often marketing is aimed solely at GETTING. Look at all those marketing plans, those many advertisements blaring away on the radio and TV. It’s get, get -- all the time!

Yet, nature pooh poohs the stuff. Putting a carrot (not cart) before the horse, nature works on the giving part first. In its own little marketing and advertising way, a flower works contrary to most marketers. Using the bait of colour and nectar, it draws the bees, knowing full well that its very existence depends on giving bees what they want first, so the bees will carry their pollen.

Wander down the supermarket aisle and you’ll see what I mean. Fifty thousand brands stare at you, screaming at you to buy them. Then a little ol’ lady offers you a sample of a product. Fifteen seconds into your tasting session, she gives you another sample. Then, for no apparent reason, a bottle or two of the product finds itself in your cart. Were you sold? You betcha!

Giving works for a simple reason. Nature hates imbalance. If the deer get faster, so do the cheetahs. It’s a classic system to keep things in balance. Which effectively means that to create an imbalance in marketing in your favor, you’ve got to give first.

Are You Ready To Do the 1-2-3 and Cha-Cha-Cha?
Do you play the dating game? Or do you rush in to conquer most of the time? Mamma Nature knows that haste makes waste. Yet marketers think nothing of blowing squillions of dollars on various hare-brained, get-rich-quick schemes that achieve far less than their potential.

Here's an example. Harley Davidson has been to hog hell and back. Just in time to save its bacon, it decided to work on the cha-cha-cha instead of the wham, bam method. The reward has manifested itself in thousands of die-hard Harley fans that would go all the way on their Harleys. Even today, despite being in an enviable position, Harley still finds time to wine and dine its customers while thumbing its nose at traditional media.

Another good example of cha-cha-cha marketing is how the British operated in the 19th century. Instead of slamming their way into conquering new lands, they went as traders. Whether history likes it or not, they maximized their potential in a systematic and natural marketing manner.

What Happens When Nature Goofs Up
Even nature loses out when it fails to obey its own rules. As long as it sticks to its spring, summer, autumn, winter routine, we go along with the "relationship." Yet every time it does the 60-second prime time TV spot on us, we absolutely hate it. Oh sure, there’s great colour, drama and pizzazz in a whirling tornado, but there’s zero empathy and a whole lot of defiance.

Turn on the music, move those feet. This isn’t some behemoth CRM program we’re talking about. Diamonds are a girl’s best friend, but flowers arouse less suspicion. Do the cha-cha-cha and the getting to know your customer. It’s cheaper, it follows steps, and it works.

Is Your Target Audience "Everyone?"
Nature would laugh at you and laugh heartily. Are you setting yourself up for disaster or what? Even a pimple-ridden 13 year old knows exactly who her knight in shining armor is. While the concept of being in the company of 20 gorgeous men would set her eyes alight, her brain knows better.

Yet most businesses horrify the heck out of Nature. In an apparent suicidal move, they go after a general audience in order to maximize their returns. Some of the biggest brands today are built on single-minded focus. Mercedes, Volvo, Rolex, McDonalds, Red Bull and Playboy all have a clearly defined target audience.

If you doubt it, take a look at a wild dog attack on a National Geographic broadcast. Have you noticed the focus and strategy of their attack? They single out the prey and go after it in a pre-defined relay system. It gets results, and isn’t that what you want?

Gotta Keep on Dancing
When was the last time your heart stopped beating? And isn’t that good, because if it did, you’d be taking harp lessons in a big hurry. Nature doesn’t stop its marketing campaign and neither should you. The first thing businesses do when the economy takes a downturn is pull the plug on marketing. Fat good that’s going to do you! That’s like telling your heart to work at half the heart beats when things aren’t good.

The planet doesn’t stop rotating, the trees don’t stop growing and the fish don’t stop swimming. Yet in an absolute violation of the most basic law of nature, we stop and start like some trainee driver.

There Ain’t No One Like Me!
Nature doesn’t brand-extend. It creates something and then it throws away the mould. When it creates a product, it makes sure that product thrives, grows and multiplies. It adds colour, shape and size for a bountiful variety, but brand extension is a no-no.

Yet look at some of the biggies out there. They put out their brands and then put their names on everything from computers to soap. Dove still stands for soap with 1/4th moisturising cream. Yet, in the supermarket, Dove tries to take on the full force of nature by brand-extending.

Does it work? Yes and no. People have too much clutter in their heads already. To add to that clutter is asking for trouble. Our brains identify with one object when we are given a name.

From Nokia to Chimpanzee
When I say Nokia, you say mobile phone. Yet Nokia sold everything from gumboots to computers -- even TV sets. Then one day it dawned on them that they could conquer the world with a brand name that stood for one thing and one thing alone.

Sure a chimpanzee and a baboon are both monkeys, but they’re essentially different products. You won’t find a chimpanzee light or a chimpanzee diet in the species. They’re either chimps or they’re baboons! Besides, their unique brand name allows you to identify them with zero confusion every time! Uniqueness is your brand’s birthright. Use it well.

Here are some "Au Naturel" guidelines to business and marketing strategy:

1) Pay in Advance: First you shall sow, and then you shall reap. And you must sow in fertile ground not on rocky soil. Give, and you shall receive. Does this all sound familiar? Are you giving away anything worthwhile on your website, through your advertising, in your brochures?

2) Do the dance one step at a time: You’ll just make a fool of yourself if you don’t build up your reputation with your customers. Give them the best you possibly can. When nature puts on a beautiful butterfly, it starts with a worm.

3) Put on the glasses: Get focus in your life because Nature will make sure you pay big time if you don’t. Sure you can get business, but think of what’s possible if you focus. A little focus right now reaps long-term rewards. It’s your choice.

4) She’s only happy when she’s dancing: Is that a Bryan Adams song? Or is Nature telling us what we should be doing? She’s on the floor. Go on and boogie.

5) And then there was one: Is your fingerprint different? Is your iris different? Do you have a clone? Nature doesn’t think it works in real life. Why do you think differently?

6) And finally: Take off your headphones and look at what nature is saying.

It’s showing you the colour of money!

The power of why

Here's why ‘WHY’ is such a profit-making marketing trigger.

“Stop taking two and three plates of food,” my mother said to me angrily.

I was at a wedding and seven years old. Back then, at a lot of the weddings we used to go to, the food would be pre-served on a plate. I could never get enough of those calorie-ridden platters. Waylaying different waiters, (so I would not be recognised), I’d polish 3-4 plates without blinking an eye.

Mum wasn’t impressed, and told me to stop and desist.

“Why?” I’d ask. Her stock reply was always, “It’s bad manners to do that.” This Dustbin Hoffman (yes, I do mean Dustbin and not Dustin) act obviously got her goat, but it left me unfazed. It must have bugged her more than I expected though, because in a short while Dad was peering down at my food-stuffed face.

My question remained unchanged. “WHY?”

“If you invite a hundred people to a wedding, how many would you cater for?” he asked. “A hundred,” I answered, proud of my analytical genius. “If you ate four plates,” he continued, “how many would remain?” He prompted quickly, “Ninety-six right?” I nodded vigorously. “That means some people don’t eat. If you’re so hungry, we can go out after the wedding and get something to eat, but don’t deprive others.”

Dad Made Sense. Do You?

Dad understood psychology. He had to sell my brain an idea that my rumbling stomach didn’t want to understand. And he did it by answering the question, 'WHY?' How many of us ignore this powerful trigger in our marketing because it seems too obvious, almost too simple?

Why 'Why?' Puts Elvis’ Shaking and Moving to Shame

Let’s examine the six honest men. What, How, When, Where, Who and Why. Which one of these is the most powerful psychological movers of them all? This would be better answered with an example.

Let’s assume you needed to go to the supermarket. All the other triggers (how, when, where, who and what) would make absolutely no difference if you didn’t know ‘WHY’ you were headed there. Everything else would be totally irrelevant. Once you know WHY you’re doing something, everything else is just a matter of logistics.

Why Does 90% of Advertising and Marketing Communication Go Down the Drain?

Simple. Look for the WHY in advertising and scarcity pops up instantly. All the fancy layouts and the smart headlines can’t quite compensate for the niggling question that goes unanswered. All your customers want to know is, Why should I choose you? Why should I take this decision? Why should I spend this money? Why should I look at your website? Why should I read your brochure?’ Why should I listen to your speech? ‘Why? Why? Why?’

Dump the cotton woolly fluff. Get your customer’s brain to go scrambling like an over-enthusiastic pup after a Frisbee. Once you have enough WHY factor built into what you’re selling, everything else is just clip, clop, fall in place stuff.

Be an Accountant, Do an Audit

Look at your communication. Like reeeeeeeaaaaally look at it! What about your website? Does it answer the question WHY straight up? And does it do it on the first page? How about your brochure? Does its headline make it a cinch for dustbin land? What about your speech? Do you have enough beds to compensate for your lack of WHY?

I could go on, but I suspect you get the message.

Be merciless. If the WHYs don’t stack up, dump the communication. Or chop and change it till it does.

Finding the Right Level of Why Power

If you noticed, Mum actually answered my WHY question. She just didn’t answer it to my satisfaction like Dad did. Herein lies a subtle, yet formidable difference.

It’s not enough to simply have the WHY question answered. It’s got to be the most ‘Rambo in your face’ answer, or it will bounce higher than a defaulting cheque. Let your WHYs loose on each other, and let only the one with the most testosterone come out shining.

Aristotle -- Man, Was he Smart or What?

All communication must lead to change.

That’s what the old wise man said over 2300 years ago. Not some or most communication.

All.

Yet we are dealing with customers that inherently detest change. WHY is the only motivator that allows them to make that shift. Change is still a scary word, but at least the justification sits nicely in their cranium.

In fact, if you look closely, even a WHAT question like, What’s in it for me?, is really a "WHY" issue. All it is saying is ‘Why should I pay attention?’ Give your customers the WHY factor and their buying sprees will reflect nicely in your growing bank account.

This is simple, down to earth advice. Yet it represents one of the most powerful psychological triggers why people buy. WHY on earth would you ignore it?

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Can you convert your marketing into a religion?

Religion breeds fanatics.

We've all seen that. And if it works for a bunch of crazies, why not make the same marketing strategies work for your product or service? Can you possibly adapt a system that has worked flawlessly for thousands of years to your business? Do you want to have customers chanting your name endlessly?

Suuuuuurrrrre you do! Read on and I'll show you how it works!

Why Grandpa's Restaurant Died!

Grandpa's restaurant was his pride and joy. The food was yum! The service was basic, but quick. And the prices pretty much ensured a happy little paunch over time. Yet amazingly, the customers dwindled and the restaurant slowly rode away into the sunset.

I was in shock. That was my goodbye to free meals forever. You may not think much of it, but I was twelve, and in that traumatic instant every single free meal of my impending teenage years flashed before my eyes.

So what did Grandpa do wrong? He had a whole cohort of hungry disciples, yet he never did anything with them.. Here are a few marketing strategies he could have taken that would have ensured my rumbling tummy rumbled no more!

Magical, Magical Data!

Every day, millions of people walk in and out of restaurants. Yet most restaurants know not where they come from, or where they go, or when they will be back.

Wake up and smell the coffee you've been selling!

When they eat at your place, they become existing customers. And fifteen seconds after their delicious dessert, they become DORMANT! How the heck are you going to get them back, if you don't know anything about them? The only way to do that is to collect data, much like this website does. When you know your customers a bit better, you can talk to them personally, and cater to their individual needs.

Can I Have Your Name While You Finish Your Beef Vindaloo?

Yes, you figured it out. You can't do that. And the time between their eating and walking out, is so fleeting that you may as well not try. So what do you do? You count on a basic human factor -- greed.

All of us are greedy and getting something for nothing is what we'd stake our steak on.

Imagine this scenario: You walk up to a more than satisfied customer right after the meal. Instead of the usual moronic, "How was your meal?", why not ask, "Was the food good enough to come back again?" Now that's a specific question. If they say yes, you give them a little form, informing them that their next meal is a whole 15% off. Would they like to fill in a form with their email address and postal address so that we can send them a voucher?

Aha! In one second, your database is off the mark, and you can pretty much bet that the yummiest of those seven deadly sins will kick in to get that customer back! Better still, you've got their permission to start a relationship. Yippee Doo!

How to Get Your Data Simmering

Once you have their information on file, how do you use it? The worst thing you can do is tell your foodies about how good you are. Tell them what they want to hear!

They are food lovers, remember? How can you entice them? Can you reach out and give them something special? Could you throw in a frequent-eater deal? Reach into their greedy stomach and something snaps in their brain, causing them to eat eight times a year, just to make 'eat points'. With every trip, they get to know the restaurant system better. They order stuff they like. They feel happier. People know them. They find a favorite table and God help anyone who crosses their path.

They have now reached the level of fanaticism.

How to Turn the Fanaticism Into a Religion

The only way to start a religion is to get disciples. Digging into your database, invite your best fanatics for a special thank you meal. Suddenly, you've got an advertising campaign for the price of a leg of lamb with mint pesto and baby carrots.

They are the disciples. Their burps spread the word. You sit back and rake in the moolah.

Besides, by networking like-minded people together, you're increasing their chances to do business with each other. The richer they get, the busier they become, and the more they want a place that knows and caters to their needs. The friends they bring along reflect their own wealth and status, thus sending the whole system in an unending loop of upgraded customers spreading the good news in double quick time.

Getting the Kinks Out of The System

If good news is a jumbo jet, bad news is a Concorde. However, regular customers get comfortable with you and don't mind complaining. They nit pick with the loving tenderness of mom and make sure you stay in line. You couldn't pay for this feedback if you tried.

So, try!

If a regular customer complains, make sure she gets rewarded for complaining. It's like rewarding a puppy for good behaviour and what you really need is a steady stream of complaints to fix your systems constantly.

Grandpa never heard the complaints. The customers simply didn't show up again. And his business walked out with them never to return.

Grandpa made his share of mistakes but there's no reason why you can't learn from them. The same marketing principles apply whether you're in the food business or selling coffee mugs.


These are the strategic steps:

1) Throw in The Bait: Entice them with something to part with the data. If at first it doesn't work, keep trying till you find something that does. Then, repeat it with every customer.

2) Use the Data Creatively: Think GREED. How can you make your customers want to keep coming back? You've got to appeal to base instincts.

3) Form a Club: Well-organised disciples are better than random fanatics. If one club gets too big, form another,and then another, till you have a whole series of people who swear by you, and for you.

4) Don't Be Shy: Make them also swear against you. Get feedback. Encourage it. Pay for it. Just do it!

Which brings me back to me. Why did I choose a restaurant as an example when I could have chosen any other product or service? The prime reason is simply because restaurants involve impulse decisions, and patrons are very fickle. Proving it works in this field proves it can work in almost any other.

But there's a selfish motive, too. I'm hoping some restaurateurs out there will be so pleased with this information, they'll offer me free meals forever! That way, I can catch up on the teenage years.

Finally!

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Of easy money ...

The buzz word has been on new opportunities for making loads of cash...call them multilevel marketing, ponzi's or pyramid schemes....Kenya has been hit and hit hard!

Thursday, September 28, 2006

dotMobi

.mobi is the first – and only – top level domain dedicated to users who access the Internet through their mobile phones. With four mobile phones purchased for every one personal computer, there’s a world of people whose main access point to the
Internet is a mobile phone. And every one of those users can trust that a web site is compatible with their mobile phone if that site's address ends in .mobi.

In an increasingly mobile society, businesses, organisations and individuals need to reach and interact with their customers via the mobile web. A .mobi address allows them to bypass the constraints of geography, operators and handsets to effectively reach their audience.
For content providers, it opens a new and more profitable revenue stream, without having to rely on operator portals.

Conversely, for operators, .mobi allows increased use of profitable data services while ensuring a good user experience and,therefore, customer loyalty. And that's because dotMobi ensures a predictable, consistent experience on a mobile phone by
encouraging site owners to use dotMobi Switch On!™ Guides, based on Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) open standards.

In short, .mobi will revolutionise the use of the Internet on mobile devices … but why now and why with .mobi?
Because dotMobi, the company behind the .mobi domain, is backed by the most prominent mobile and Internet players in the world – the same companies who have delivered the promise of today's information society: Ericsson, GSM Association,Google, Hutchison, Microsoft, Nokia, Orascom Telecom, Samsung Electronics, Syniverse, Telefónica Móviles, TIM (Telecom
Italia), T-Mobile and Vodafone.

Interestingly, we might also just get a dotXXX too.

Friday, September 22, 2006

Stress - my way

Three hours of sleep per night
Misearble diets
Pathetic weather
Big headed midlevel managers
Clueless sales staff
Non commital business partners
Bouncing cheques

Its been one of those weeks.

Definations of a CEO

It's intersting the number of existing views as to what the term CEO means. To the kawaida mwananchi (read as layman), the appearance of the same on your business card means nothing whatsoever. This I experienced last week when I went to lay to rest my aunt in the "Milima Mitatu" region of Turi in the Riftvalley. After the ceremony, everyone converged at our homestead (feels like am reading from a history book..homestead???). It was time to make lunch, but as it evidenty seemed, we would have rather called it supper.

Coupla hours pass and I in my CEO mind enquire on the status of the lunch project, only to be informed that the timelines and indeed the project deliverables had been changed. Certain aspects of HR were not in place...mama so and so from across the hill had not arrived with some ingredients...tools at HR disosal were wanting (read firwood jikos)...there seemed to be no pressure to achieve results (or at least no one looked hungry). Anyway...i enaged my uncle in some chit chat and he asked me if i would stay the night, to which I replied an affirmative NO. I went on to tell him of how many projects were pending back in the city, and they needed to be sorted by weeks end (this week), and also how i thought things were moving slowly. The long and short of it is that he asked for my contacts back in the city as he gathered from the grapevine that I had since moved. I whipped out a card which he looked at and said CEO...kweli...lakini huko mambo haiendi hivi.Nipolepole.

Enough said...

Monday, September 18, 2006

Ad serving across all media

So today we tested the beta version of our wi fi adserving module, and I am over the roof at the success with which it worked. We have been working on an inteligent ad serving system that will utilize wifi, gprs ,gsm etc in its targeting.

The one min clip video ads looked descent when delivered via wifi, but gprs did not live up to its billing.

Saturday, September 16, 2006

Third-Screen Marketing

Sprint, Others Finally Open to Advertisers Their Mobile-Web Home Pages

SAN FRANCISCO (AdAge.com) -- The newest players in mobile advertising are familiar names: Sprint, Verizon and Cingular.

The carriers, after years of resistance, are opening their mobile-phone services to advertising.

Ads on deck
Sprint Nextel this week is expected to announce that it will allow ads on its deck -- the landing page for customers accessing the internet from cellphones on the Sprint network. In February, Verizon Wireless Chief Marketing Officer John Stratton said he's testing a program to open up cell service to advertising using a two-tier model, offering customers one service without ads and a cheaper, ad-supported service. Cingular is considering on-deck advertising, and is likely to have some advertising on its deck as soon as the end of the year.

The ads are hardly an example of the most innovative mobile marketing taking place right now, but they do signal a willingness on behalf of carriers to work with advertisers.

It follows years of resistance by carriers to open their decks to ads for fear that customer complaints would bog down customer-service call centers and eat away at profit margins.

OK if subsidizing content
But concerns over consumer resistance to mobile ads also appear to have abated. Nearly half of consumers ages 18 to 35 indicated they would be interested in mobile ads if they subsidized their "increasing appetite for mobile data/content," said Yankee Group, which estimated U.S. carriers generated $10.7 billion, or about 9% of revenue, from non-voice bills.

Right now ads are available only on off-deck mobile websites, which are often more cumbersome for users to access. According to M:Metrics, of the 190 million mobile-phone subscribers in the U.S., some 166.9 million have phones capable of accessing the mobile web-but only 49.6 million of those subscribers used the mobile web in July.

Sprint and Cingular spokespeople declined to comment, and a Verizon spokeswoman said the carrier "continues to test and trial."

For advertisers, on-deck ads will significantly expand mobile marketing beyond text messages and short-code promos. The ads on carrier decks will boost eyeballs and mobile inventory, which in turn should lower prices, said Maria Mandel, exec director of the Digital Innovation Group, OgilvyInteractive, which recently ran a four-week test of off-deck ads for PC-marketer Lenovo. "The net is a better way to reach more consumers and to develop a more efficient media plan," she said. "It will make mobile far more attractive to our clients."

Spending to reach $150 million
Carriers are starting to smell the money. Advertising on mobile phones totaled only $45 million in 2005, but is expected to hit $150 million this year, according to research company Ovum. Once the carriers allow on-deck ads, they will get a cut of the revenue -- in contrast to off-deck sites, in which carriers don't share ad revenue. "There's money to be made," said Jeff Janer, chief operating officer, Third Screen Media. "The question is who will make it and how."

Other questions remain: Will carriers become media companies in their own right, perhaps sweetening the pie for marketers by doling out additional information about subscribers' locations, mobile habits or bill-paying habits? Will each carrier's customers be different enough to persuade a marketer to prefer one carrier as a marketing partner over another?

Regardless, Ms. Mandel said the mobile phone as a marketing medium is picking up steam much faster than the internet, which took 10 years to come into its own. In a mere two to three years, the third screen could take its place alongside the TV and PC monitor, she said.

A Hypertargeting Vision Is Becoming Reality

Consider a world where marketers could target individual TV homes with the precision of direct mail. One by one, distinct messages would be ushered to select consumers who generate most of brand or category sales. And fewer ads would be viewed by people outside the core target, drastically improving media efficacy while driving sales.


Seem like an advertiser's dream? It's not. With quiet serendipity, this very scenario is now transforming from vision into reality.

Media planning and buying remains largely wasteful, as bottled-water drinkers see ads for soft drinks, SUV buyers get messages for compacts and men are exposed to feminine hygiene commercials. These targeting miscues translate to empty media dollars and missed sales opportunities.

But marketers should pay close attention to emerging digital platforms because they provide a trail of electronic bread crumbs to help identify and track consumers' media behavior. A high degree of addressability will create greater targeting precision than ever before and holds the potential to morph standard media targeting into hypertargeting. After all, for most brands, relatively few people drive the bulk of sales. Internet is leading the charge but TV, mobile and satellite radio will follow. Consider:

  • The web currently provides more critical mass opportunity for hypertargeting than any other medium. Well over 100 million people visiting Yahoo, AOL and MSN have registered on those sites or provided some kind of identifying profile information. And while it's great that those portals have this information, when combined with a marketers' client customer data it becomes a virtual lynchpin.

  • We're at an inflection point in TV targeting, driven by the rapidly growing home base of digital set-top boxes and the emergence of software to handle complex instructions for serving up the right commercials to the right people. The likes of CTN, Oxygen TV and Multichoice might as well get into the game.

  • Mobile phones potentially offer a wide array of targeting opportunities as subscribers are traveling, shopping, etc. But phone providers are leery of making this on-location messaging available to advertisers as they fear consumer backlash in a highly competitive environment. The Trojan horse to open up mobile potential could be video advertising on phones, because many customers will agree to take the ads in exchange for video content.

  • Fueled by on-air personalities like Howard Stern and Oprah Winfrey, satellite radio is quickly gaining consumer penetration. Within the next year, XM Radio will be replacing its existing radio units with sets that provide one-to-one targeting capability and advertising opportunities on several of XM's channels, including news and sports.
Marketers should stand ready to snare the opportunity. We recommend preparing for this by:

Re-thinking targeting: Ask whether your media plans are delivering the key customers and prospects that drive the business. Clearly defining who these people are is the first step to better targeting. Then take a very close look at the relationship between targeting and advertising response, scouting for opportunities to ramp up impact.

Testing, testing, testing: You will only know if hypertargeting works by setting up studies that will isolate the impact of targeting and whether the consumers you've identified as the target are more likely to respond to a campaign or promotion.

Do some double dipping: Don't just re-think targeting, re-think advertising paradigm, as hypertargeting and addressability will go hand-in-hand with vanguard, provocative forms of creative. This is an opportunity to explore the best of both worlds. What's going to work creatively? You can't rip a 30-second spot off.

Make the future now: Encourage cable operators to speed up their roll-outs, push internet targeting to new limits and stay tuned for the mobile opportunities about to unfold. Put some money out for R&D so you're in an excellent place when these technologies become mainstream. This is not about reaching critical mass in media, it's about testing for the future.

Your Brand on Wikipedia

Like it or not, the Wikipedia open-source phenomenon looms large right where companies are increasingly spending billions of dollars to jockey for position: on search-engine results pages. A quick check of dozens of the brands on Ad Age's Top 200 Megabrands list reveals that Wikipedia often ranks high not just among Google search results but also among results from Yahoo, MSN Search and Ask.com. The same can also be said for media brands, celebrities, CEOs and other personalities.

Consider the following examples: Febreze's Wikipedia entry (No. 2 on Google) notes that the product may be harmful to household pets. The article on McDonald's (No. 4 on Google) basically summarizes the critical movie "Super Size Me." Even advertising icons Snap, Crackle and Pop aren't exempt. The trio's Wikipedia entry notes the team once had a short-lived adventure as superheroes in the U.K.

In all seriousness, as soon as brand managers learn where they stand on Wikipedia, there is a natural inclination to want to control it. Some, in fact, actively police it. After all, anyone can. But doing so is asking for trouble. Case in point: One firm offering to author Wikipedia articles for companies has been banned by the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that manages the site.

The Wikipedia community prides itself on making sure all articles have a neutral point of view, and this community can and will sniff out corporate manipulation of entries. Wikipedia policy, in fact, clearly states that all articles "must represent views fairly and without bias, and conflicts of interest significantly and negatively affect Wikipedia's ability to fulfill this requirement impartially."

Nevertheless, brands should have a way to challenge inaccurate information in a way that respects the wishes of the community. Wikipedia should carve out a special area on each page where brand managers and personas can respond in an official capacity to what the community has published. But until that happens, "look but don't touch" is the best advice to heed.

Facebook to Adopt Open-Admissions Policy

Social network Facebook plans to completely ditch its admissions policy, welcoming anyone with internet access. The major change was scheduled for today, but has now been postponed until next week while the company struggles to regroup from last week's member revolt in response to new activity-tracking features.
The social networking site Facebook is opening itself to anyone. Previously it was restricted to users from certain schools and select companies.
The social networking site Facebook is opening itself to anyone. Previously it was restricted to users from certain schools and select companies.


"We're holding off on the expanded registration launch, which lets people join regional networks," a company spokeswoman said. "We learned last week we have to do a better job of keeping our community informed, and help people understand the privacy they have on Facebook."

500 regional networks
Once the exclusive domain of Harvard undergrads, 2-year-old Facebook has slowly opened its doors first to other universities, and then to high schools and select corporations such as Apple and Microsoft. Next week, people will be able to join through roughly 500 regional networks, a number that Facebook expects to grow with time.

Facebook members can still restrict their networks by adjusting their privacy settings, but, as the spokeswoman admitted, the change will likely come as a shock to existing members. "Whenever we've opened our network, our existing members have reacted negatively, even though they've always adjusted," she said. "We're sure this will be no different, but we think it's in the best interest of the community."

Unique identity
Analysts say the move might be necessary to sustain healthy growth, but question how Facebook can preserve its unique identity among a sea of competitors. "It's a risky move," said Greg Sterling, principal analyst of Sterling Marketing Intelligence. "What's Facebook without its exclusivity? What's going to set it apart from MySpace?"

Indeed, Facebook stood out early because of its inherent selectivity, the level of which is determined by each user. In some instances, members only accept messages from others enrolled in their schools. Some users only make themselves and their profile available to those who can prove they are a friend of someone on their friends list. And while the Facebook spokeswoman insists that members will still have control over their networks, last week proved how member perception -- or misperception --can be more important than reality.

On Sept. 5 Facebook added News Feed and Mini-Feed features, which keep members posted on the latest doings of their Facebook friends. For example, if members change their relationship status, all of their friends -- a term that applies loosely in social-networking circles -- will be alerted to the fact immediately.

Facebook revolt
The next day hundreds of thousands of Facebook members had e-mailed the company and formed virtual protest groups in opposition to the changes. The mission statement from the largest protest group, "Students Against Facebook Newsfeed," read, in part: "Very few of us want everyone automatically knowing what we update. We want to feel just a LITTLE bit of privacy, even if it is facebook. News Feed is just too creepy, too stalker-esque, and a feature that has to go."

Yielding to the backlash, Facebook late Sept. 8 said it would modify the new features. "We have engineered new functionality that gives users additional controls in News Feed and Mini-Feed," read a statement released by the company.

The company with the most at stake is Microsoft, who just aligned itself with Facebook as the social network's exclusive provider of banner advertising and sponsored links. The partnership, which will go into effect this fall, is expected to give a huge boost to Microsoft's AdCenter Web ad platform, which has struggled to secure major distribution deals since its launch last year. But Microsoft can only benefit from the deal if Facebook can preserve its community.

In two years, Facebook has attracted more than 9 million registered users, according to ComScore's MediaMetrix, and ranks as the seventh-most trafficked site in the U.S. with 6.1 billion page views in July.

Acquisition rumors
Not long after its founding in February 2004 by Harvard University undergraduate Mark Zuckerberg, acquisition rumors surfaced and to this day have yet to abate. Earlier this year, Facebook reportedly turned down a $750 million bid, in return asking for a whopping $2 billion.

Rather than cash out, however, the founders have opted to grow independently. In April, they secured $25 million in a financing round led by Greylock Partners. Also participating in the funding round were Meritech Capital Partners, as well as current Facebook investors Accel Partners and Peter Thiel. Facebook also recently received a strategic investment from the Interpublic Group of Cos., which guarantees the ad agency holding company will buy at least $10 million of advertising on network.

The Microsoft/Facebook deal came on the heels of a similar agreement between MySpace and search giant Google. On Aug. 7, News Corp.'s Fox Interactive Media and Google signed a multiyear search and advertising deal covering MySpace and other Fox properties. Google is expected to pay Fox at least $900 million in revenue share payments for that privilege. Despite being acquired by News Corp. and press reports of sexual predators on the site, MySpace has yet to suffer a major exodus of members.