How Did Sony Miss The Boat (That Rocked)?

Sony could be in the market position now dominated by iPod/iTunes.  How and why did they miss the proverbial ‘boat on the rivers of gold’ that delivers music, movies, TV shows, podcasts, games and books to portable players and mobile phones the world over?

Why isn’t the much-loved Walkman the player we all use to access the plethora of digital entertainment?

First, a recent history of Sony.

• Thirty-one years ago, in 1979, Sony launched the Walkman. It revolutionised music listening habits “by allowing people to carry music with them” (quote from Wikipedia that has the full Walkman story).

• Twenty-one years ago Sony purchased Columbia Pictures in September 1989 (renamed Sony Pictures Entertainment in 1991). The movie franchises they inherited include The Karate Kid, Spider-Man, Stuart Little, Men in Black, plus numerous TV programs.

• Nineteen years ago in 1991 Sony Music Entertainment was formed after they purchased CBS Records, giving them ownership of music by Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, Johnny Cash, Pearl Jam…the list of major acts goes on and on. Read full list).

• In the personal/home gaming industry, Sony launched the portable game machine PlayStation fifteen years ago in December 1994 (Japan) and September 1995 (North America).

By the late 90’s Sony had the world’s leading portable music player, games player, music publishing, movie and television production studios. The Walkman was even the generic name for a portable music player.

The first mass-produced MP3 player sold in the USA in 1998, then the Apple iPod and iTunes launched in 2001. Fast forward to today and the iPod is the generic device name for accessing music, games and video content, and iTunes is the number one online destination for buying music, music videos, podcasts, movies, television shows , games – and now books!

How did Sony NOT realise that the future was a digital MP3/games device linked to a Sony-owned online distribution channel?  Did Sony really dismiss the iPod as a fad that could never usurp the Walkman’s market dominance (and overcome Sony’s famous brand loyalty)?

As a marketer with many years experience creating advertising campaigns for global consumer electronics brands like Compaq and Philips, I would love to hear your thoughts about Sony.
- Did they make a monumental error of judgment when iPod/iTunes came along?
- Why didn’t their legendary brand loyalty overcome these threats?
- Sony has abdicated their technology ‘crown’ to Apple – what do you like/dislike about Apple’s emergence as the new ‘king’ of consumer technology brands?

Integrated Marketing – what does it really mean?

One of the buzz phrases that’s been around quite a while is “integrated marketing” (not spelt “intergrated” as too many lazy authors write it).  So what does this phrase really mean in the multi-faceted media landscape we have today?

Back before the Internet became such a powerful and ubiquitous medium, this approach generally meant that your TVC/print ad/outdoor poster/point-of-sale creative all used the same core visual and copy line. This made sense so potential customers received a consistent brand message.

However, “integrated marketing” now means so much more than simply consistency in your creative execution. There is integrated media that aims to reach an audience across numerous channels, at different times and using a wide range of creative techniques. And there are integrated sales techniques that tracks the audience through the sales cycle, from initial enquiry to after-sales service.

In the past 10 years or so, the term has taken on further meaning: synergistic marketing tactics across digital channels and all other media. Even this has evolved from the early days of designing complementary banner ads and offline ads, to more focus on cohesive ‘messages’ rather than the visual creative elements.

I am interested to document and blog about successful (and even unsuccessful) “integrated marketing” campaigns. Would love to hear from anyone who can share their experiences. Pls submit your Comments below and I hope to get a few good examples to write about in a future blog post.

Permission-based Email Gone Wrong

It amazes me that leading marketers still make fundamental mistakes in their email communications to customers. Recently I received an email from one of Australia’s leading financial institutions that highlights how easy it is to make simple mistakes. A copy of the email is below (self-censored as the bank’s identity is not relevant to this discussion).

This email fails to meet some basic tenets of email best practice for a number of reasons.

1. Out-dated Customer Email List

I actually don’t have an active account with this bank (or any account for that matter). An account was opened by me online many years ago, however no money was deposited into it and since I have not had any correspondence from them in years I assumed it was closed due to being inactive. They missed an opportunity to ask if I wanted to reactivate the account, maybe with an offer of a brilliant interest rate.

2. Subject Line Blooper

One of the most important elements of successful permission-based email marketing is the Subject line wording. This email says “Message from ___” and that is completely the wrong approach because it doesn’t indicate this message contains any relevant or useful information for me. At least they would have done better to personalise it, such as “Hi Tim, here is an important message from ___.”

3. Cannot View Online

Most HTML email readers will display the images and text, however it is essential to offer readers the option to ‘View Online’. Here the link leads to a web page with an error message that says
“Information Notice – Sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. ERR432970″. Now that is seriously unacceptable.

4. Missing Unsubscribe Link

A legal requirement in Australia is for all commercial emails to contain a one-click unsubscribe function. There is no “Unsubscribe” link here. Interestingly, this email was distributed by Vision 6, a company that says on it’s web site that “Each email you send has an unsubscribe link that allows recipients to remove themselves from your list [www.vision6.com.au/spam_compliance.html]. The email copy actually says “This is an automated email and you can not respond to this email address”. They also use a ‘From’ email address of “Please_do_not_reply@”. What a non-customer friendly attitude for a bank to have, especially in an email!

5. No Signatory

Organisations should always include a signature at the bottom of their emails, as it’s the best way to indicate this message is from a person representing the sender, not just a faceless company. It should include name and title details, as well the company’s physical and web address. A link to the company web site, and even to other product/service information, is a great way to measure clicks too.

6. More Paper and Postage Costs

Further to these indiscretions, this email’s core message is quite bizarre. This bank is actually telling me that an account statement will now be mailed “at least every six months” (or “every six months” as it also confusingly states). This policy change is at odds with most major service organisations that now offer their customers the choice of receiving their statement or invoice by email or post. So why in 2009 is this bank: a) not offering a choice to receive statements in the post, by email, and/or view online, and b) now sending them by post that will increase their administration costs and effort???

All in all it seems very wrong to me. I’m sure they have a highly rational explanation for this new policy. One positive I can say is that the email was sent on a Tuesday, as research has shown that Tuesday and Wednesday are the best days to send out broadcast emails in terms of response rates (pity this email didn’t include some trackable links though).

I’d be interested in your thoughts and to hear about any other strange or ridiculous emails from large service organisations that you have received.

How to Use Social Media in B2B Marketing

B2B is generally considered the unglamorous sector of marketing, being dominated by PR, DM, telesales (“want to buy some ink cartridges”) and those tedious trade magazine ads.

Today, customers demand more in-depth information about a company to help them make better business decisions. Instead of relying on advertising or PR, they’re turning to social networks, blogs, independent media sites, colleagues and even to the companies themselves.

Online social media networking is providing B2B marketers with the means to publish useful and relevant content about themselves on sites like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn. It’s not just consumer brands that are benefiting, as many professionals use these sites to keep in touch with their peers and industry thought leaders.

A Sample B2B Marketing Idea

Many people ask me how can a B2B marketer employ social media to complement their other marketing activities. I thought I’d share a sample idea to demonstrate how an integrated media approach can work.

• Send existing customers a personal invitation to attend a regular seminar your company runs at a good quality CBD hotel. Obtain a mailing list of prospects and send them an invite too. Run an advertisement in your trade media inviting people to attend. Promote the seminars in your e-newsletter, web site, via sales reps and in all other marketing materials (brochure, flyer, poster, etc.).
• Select guest speakers who are leaders in your industry, to talk about news, trends, events, etc. that are of interest to your audience. A person from your company must also speak , to help establish a ‘personality’ for your company and to promote your products and services. This could be a senior executive from here or overseas, or one of the R&D folk who can ’see’ the future.

Social Media Strategy

Set up a company Twitter account to specifically support the seminars.

• Invite all customers/prospects/partners/etc. to ‘Follow’ you
• Promote upcoming seminars; venue, time, speakers
• Get feedback on topics that people would like covered in future seminars
• Post links to bios of speakers
• During each seminar, get an employee to post live comments about the points a speaker is making
• Questions for speakers can be asked by Followers, so they can be asked of the speaker and answered in a reply post
• Take photos at the seminar, upload directly to Twitpic
• Post comments about industry issues, news, links to relevant articles, etc.

A company YouTube channel will extend the audience ‘reach’ of the seminar series.

• Video of each speaker can be posted (maybe edited highlights) that registered users can view (BTW those registered users are new business prospects if they’re not already a client)
• Subscribers to your YT channel receive an email when new videos are posted
• A history of seminar presentations is stored and accessible for easy future reference
• A YT channel helps your SEM as it increases your company’s online presence

A Company Blog

The topics covered in the seminars can be expanded upon in a company blog.

• Ask speakers to write a guest post to complement their speech
• Use the blog to get people commenting on the issues being discussed, and shift the discussion to linked topics
• Subscribers to your blog may become new business prospects

Public and Media Relations

The seminar series offers many PR/MR opportunities.

• Invite key journalists to attend
• Arrange press briefings after each seminar
• Send press announcements about new products and services to journalists and link them back to the seminar content on Twitter, YouTube, etc.
• Arrange for a regular article to be written for a suitable newspaper or magazine, that is leveraged off the content from the last seminar

Conclusion

Basing a marketing strategy around seminars can achieve two primary goals:

1. The face-to-face time with customers and prospects enables you differentiate yourself, to assist your customers improve their business, and to create sales opportunities that would otherwise not be possible through traditional sales and marketing tactics.
2. Seminars create customised content that can be republished across many online and offline media, including your website, brochure and e-newsletter, plus online networks such as Twitter and YouTube.

The sample plan described above is a basic approach to demonstrate how social media can be integrated into B2B marketing plans. The most critical take-out is that a company can create it’s own content for online publishing.  After all, content is king.

Do you know any good working examples of B2B marketing and social media? If so I’d love to hear from you; pls post a comment below.

The 5 Secrets To Innovative Thinking

A study by leading UK, French and US business schools has uncovered the 5 secrets to being a successful entrepreneur. They interviewed 3,000 executives and 500 entrepreneurs to identify the key ingredients behind innovative thinking. Interviews included Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Michael Dell, founder of Dell computers.

The universities behind the study, Harvard Business School, Insead and Brigham Young University conducted a six-year study that was summed up by Insead’s Hal Gregersen when he told CNN “What the innovators have in common is that they can put together ideas and information in unique combinations that nobody else has quite put together before.”

What is really interesting about this study is the claim that innovative thinking (and presumably action) can be learned. “Studies have shown that creativity is close to 80 percent learned and acquired,” Gregersen also said to CNN. “We found that it’s like exercising your muscles – if you engage in the actions you build the skills.” This finding gives everyone running a business who falling behind competitors, or challenged by a changing marketplace, some hope that they can develop new and better ways to conduct their business.

THE 5 SECRETS TO INNOVATIVE THINKING

1. Associating: The ability to connect seemingly unrelated questions, problems or ideas from different fields.
2. Questioning: Innovators constantly ask questions that challenge the common wisdom. They ask “why?”, “why not?” and “what if?”
3. Observing: Discovery-driven executives scrutinize common phenomena, particularly the behavior of potential customers.
4. Experimenting: Innovative entrepreneurs actively try out new ideas by creating prototypes and launching pilots.
5. Networking: innovators go out of their way to meet people with different ideas and perspectives.

In practice, these people act in ways that stimulate their inquisitiveness, such as intense questioning of issues and reading beyond their interests.  Importantly they tap into their network of people in different fields with different interests, who offer multiple viewpoints about a wide range of topics. Their observation skills are second-to-none, as this is their ‘radar’ to identify trends that can lead to launching a new product or service.

When you look at these factors, there is nothing incredibly unique or breakthrough. It is simply a behaviour that some people do intuitively. It should also be mentioned that not all successful people act this way; many are successful despite their attitudes and actions, perhaps due to some luck or they’re born into money/success/position. In this world where we all seem to want success quickly, these 5 factors show that the ’secret’ is really to be smart about how you approach any business venture.

The article will be published in the December 2009 issue of the Harvard Business Review. Read more on CNN.

What to Do About Charging for Online Content?

This article appeared on the mUmBRELLA marketing & media news web site.

http://mumbrella.com.au/shock-why-murdoch-may-be-more-right-than-wrong-about-google-11482

My comments on this article call for online news publishers to keep looking for new (and profitable) ways to engage with readers; instead of simply charging a fee and hoping to retain a profitable online publishing business after readers flock to alternative ‘free’ news sources (including quality State-owned media like the ABC and BBC).

Critique of Selected Print Ads

After reading the Sunday papers yesterday, I thought I’d critique a few press ads from the Sun-Herald Life Magazine (published 8 Nov 2009). An interesting mix of fun, wrong and the downright odd!

The “Lets Make Our Brand Cool To Appeal To Young People” Approach

Advertiser: Blackberry
Headline: Love Hanging Out

So Blackberry wants to broaden it’s target audience from the boardroom to the classroom. It’s a worthy strategy to increase sales and market share; however I can’t help thinking if your dad or mum has a Blackberry for work purposes, why would a teenager or twenty-something want one too! The accepted wisdom is that young people choose their labels/brands/causes/etc. so they can be different from their parents (I know I did). In my view Blackbery would have more success launching a spin-off phone (like ‘Blueberry’ or some other cool name) to appeal to younger audiences. The creative is pretty ordinary too, and why are they even advertising in a newspaper as it’s well documented most people under 35 yrs don’t read papers? Everything about this campaign seems wrong.

The “Quirky Picture Attracts Attention” Approach

Advertiser: Oxfam
Headline: Doing good never goes out of fashion.

A goat with an afro, sunnies and bling around it’s neck – what a great visual to stop you flicking over the page! Coupled with a smart headline that doesn’t play the ‘guilt trip’ on the reader as some charity/cause ads are prone to do. I particularly liked the call to action with its line “be a clever kid” (geddit?) and the SMS word being “Goat”. Hope they got heaps of responses.

The “Reinforce the TVC” Print Approach

Advertiser: Yellow Pages
Headline: Some things need fixing faster.

Yellow Pages has a long history of creating integrated advertising, and this latest campaign is another good example of this approach. The TVC shows the owner of this garden statue dealing with a plumbing problem by using his Yellow Pages. The message is repeated in this print ad, that works even if you haven’t seen the TVC. Kudos also for showing a laptop and mobile phone that signals these are methods to access the YP database.

P.S. The TVC closing scene is pure fun, when you realise the cause of the neighbour’s broken window!

The “Let’s Be Relevant to Students Doing Exams” Approach

Advertiser: Kellogg’s Sultana Bran
Headline: Sultana Brain

This product has been on our grocery shelves for eons (well as long as I can remember anyway). It’s well known health benefits, especially as a source of fibre, over- shadowed the fact it doesn’t taste as good as it’s sugar-laden competitors. Now the manufacturer claims it is an excellent breakfast for students wanting to be at their peak for exams. An ideal message for the end of year exam period, particularly the HSC. Although the pack shot visual is uninspiring, it works with the clever headline that converts “Bran” into “Brain” that says SB does much more than keep you regular. This ad would appeal to parents who want to give their child every chance to do well in exams.

The “Be Different For The Sake Of It” Approach

Advertiser: Dyson
Headline: N/A

The layout is different as there is no headline. Instead the copy is the headline – prominently placed inside the product and goes on and on about the problem of fans with blades and why the Dyson “no-fan fan” is better. Seems to me they missed a great opportunity for a product demonstration as it’s a unique design and seems quite revolutionary. Took me a while to understand what they were banging on about. The copy is too wordy; it should have simply said “Look no blades – for quieter, more efficient airflow”.

Sir Martin Sorrell’s advice for the changing agency landscape – iMediaConnection.com

In the next decade, agencies and holding companies will spend less time fitting into the traditional mold of an ad agency and more time focusing on consumer data and new media. WPP’s chief explains why.

View >>

Advertising’s Future

A couple of recent announcements provide a sign post to the future of advertising. And a warning bell for media and creative agencies!

Publisher Conde Nast has announced the December issue of US GQ will be available on iPhone as well as in hard copy.

The print issue will be totally converted, advertising retained, for the iPhone. Importantly, this will mean the sales are tallied by audit bureaus. Conde Nast can therefore count downloads as part of their December circulation. The iPhone version will cost US$2.99 and advertisers buying the iPhone issue specifically will have their ads shown every fifth screen. (Read Marketing Mag article.)

Procter & Gamble is to ditch traditional CRM and CTR ad payment models in favour of a new ‘cost-per-engagement’ scheme.

The move will see publishers that run ads for the FMCG giant’s brands, paid depending on specific metrics used to measure their engagement with the advert. For example, a metric would be used to measure consumers who sign up for newsletters or watch videos after the initial ad impression.  (Read Netimperative article.)

Wow! Who would have imagined, just few years ago, that we’d be witnessing such dramatic changes to the “old-school” advertising model where circulation/audience number/unique visitors is simply used to set display ad rates. In other words, a media owner charging an advertiser based purely on the number of people reading or watching or listening. These metrics are about to undergo a most dramatic shift towards a far more measurable and accountable state.

The Conde Nast move is a bold and exciting one. The company’s CEO even admits to receiving criticism for this decision! But kudos to him for ignoring the “old schoolers” and being prepared to embrace the new ‘digital’ world order. Imagine the creative possibilities arising out of interactive advertisements in the iPhone issue! The real upside for Conde Nast (and one one that Mr R. Murdoch should be watching very closely) is the arrangement whereby GQ will earn a fee when readers link to iTunes songs/video clips incorporated into the special iPhone issue. Whoever devised this revenue-sharing model has their finger on the pulse of cross-platform monetisation.

P&G is well-known as an advertiser that demands accountability from its advertising. The article says this is a “radical new precedent in online advertising”. They got that right – given P&G’s media buying power it could be the path that all major advertisers adopt within the next 12 months. Of course many will wait and see how this new model works for P&G and whether it can be refined in any way.

This development raises a thorny issue: the relationship between media owners and creative agencies. In “old school” terms, the effectiveness of an advertisement was dependent on two factors operating in concert – the creative and the placement. The media owner naturally controls ad placement, however they DO NOT have any control the creative; whether a customer actually responds to an ad is not of ‘financial’ concern to the media owner so long as they delivered the audience the advertiser was after.

Under the new P&G-initiated model, the creative AND the placement will not only contribute to reader response rates, but it will determine how the media owner gets paid!!

You can probably see where this argument is going…why aren’t the creative agencies also being remunerated according to the response rate in this ‘cost-per-engagement’ scheme?

There is no mention in the article that creative agencies will be included in the scheme. Surely it is fairer that both producer and distributor of advertising are held accountable and remunerated accordingly. It will be really interesting to see where this trend leads. One thing is for sure, the ground is quickly shifting under “old school” advertising models.

OMG! My parents are on Facebook.

A recent article on Digital Ministry (http://digitalministry.com/AU/home) caught my eye. The headline reads “Scary…your parents are on Facebook!”

Here’s an excerpt from the article: “So are your parents really on Facebook? Whilst this isn’t strictly true in my case, I’ve certainly been ‘friended’ by many of their mates and I know it won’t be long until the inevitable & slightly embarrassing parental posts eventually creep onto my wall.”

From personal experience my 18 yo daughter took a whole year before deciding to accept me as a “FB friend”.  That’s OK as I was just getting to know FB so in that time I learnt some of the etiquette and behaviours of being a cyber friend.

Now she and I are “FB friends” it takes our relationship to a whole new level. As we don’t live under the same roof I don’t see her every day, so FB is another way for us to keep in touch and (this is the important bit) to find out some of what is going on in her life. I know I’m not privy to “all” her FB posts/pics but that’s OK I don’t want or need to know everything anyway! And once the eldest child agreed to be friends online, the younger daughter accepted me as a “FB friend” quite quickly.

As a marketer, I am also fascinated by the insights that FB is giving me into the ideas, attitudes and opinions of my teenage daughter and her peers. The technology is enabling parents, marketers, researchers, etc. unprecedented fly-on-the-wall listening capability to the conversations of our children; and of course they can listen to our online meanderings however I doubt they bother or care what we have to say

The data mining ‘gold field’ of the future will be to capture, organise and analyse online conversations so that marketers can identify emerging opinions and trends that may impact their communications strategies. On public blogs, forums, news sites, etc. the conversations are easily tracked and analysed. However within a closed network like FB, privacy is paramount and marketers must not assume they will get carte blanche to listen in to these conversations.

In a world where we are all seemingly ultra-connected, being connected to your kids is still the most important “connection” a parent should make.