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    ToyoTags and Twitch Point Planning.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    There is a marketing axiom that the majority of consumer product marketing takes place before a buyer arrives at the place of sale. Sure packaging and POS advertising are important but in marketers’ minds most of the heavy lifting has been completed. 

    A web start-up assignment I am working on has me thinking about the role of smart phones in the decision making process today. As part of my strategy, I’m asking the web team to make sure the website is consulted before, during and after the shopping experience.  The phone is in hand during all three stages, after all. Why not use it and optimize it.

    Toyota is in the news today along with a smart mobile company SpyderLynk discussing ToyoTags, a picture snap-able logo that directs smart phones to online content – the goal of which is to move the consumer closer to a transaction.  An example cited in a NYT suggested that when the Prius was having brake issues not long ago, a ToyoTag snapped in a newspaper ad directed readers to a National Highway Traffic Safety Association report for “truths” about the issue. If you’ve been reading my recent posts on Twitch Point Planning you’ll recognize this as an example of a twitch that moves a customer closer to a sale. A positive twitch.

    Finding reasons not to buy and removing them is an agenda of Twitch Point Planning.  Tools like the ToyoTag and SnapTags designed by SpyderLynk are wonderful ammo in this arsenal.  This stuff is not just new for the sake of new, this is purposeful.  Good work. Exciting work. Peace.

    What comes first, the brand plan or segmentation?

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    My first real exposure to a marketing segmentation study was with AT&T Business Communications Services back in the 90s.  AT&T created 23 different product offerings, or packages, to meet the specific corporate telecommunications needs of various large customer profiles.  The revenue stream was in the billions.  That’s a lot of segments.

    Segmentation is a great marketing undertaking.  It forces sellers of product and services to drill into customer usage and see patterns.  Creating packages of products to meet that usage, surrounded with specially focused levels of care, and pricing tailored to that package is what segmentation is all about. Pay only for what you need — because one price and level of service does not fit all.

    A brand plan goes the other way.  It does have to fit all.  So while segmentation people need to see patterns among discrete users groups, brand planners need to see commonalities among all user groups.  When Peter Kim, a chief strategy office at McCann-Erickson in the 90s, talked about brand targeting he used the word “remassify.” His targeting rigor started by understanding all of a brand’s targets, one by one.  Get to know them intimately, he suggested. Understand how they use the product. When? Why?  After amassing all the different targets, he put them back together to see what traits and care-abouts they shared.  Remassifying into a segment of one. From this learning emerged stimulus for the brand brief claim. For brand action or what some today might call brand activation.  So you tell me, what comes first the segments or the brand plan?  Peace!

    Reducing Lost Sales on the Web.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    There’s a great business and brand planning question I often use during discovery: “Who will win the sale you lose?”  If talking to Coke, the lost sale might be to Pepsi (not likely), a store-brand cola, a couponed cola or maybe a tea or flavored water.  If speaking with Microsoft about Office 2010, the lost sale might be to Google Docs.  Conversely, it’s also nice to know who will lose the sale your brand is going to win.  Nice questions — all with actionable strategies. 

    With the growth of the Web and social media and the preponderant ad-supported model where many services are free (see Google Docs), there’s no sale to lose just a lost ad impression.  Readers know I’ve been working on a marketing planning tool called Twitch Point Planning. A twitch point is a point in a media experience, where the visitor disconnects. So, if I’m reading a magazine article there is an Emily Dickenson poem cited, I might twitch over to Wikipedia for a quick side-bar. Or I might Google her and the verse. In this example I’ll likely return to the article, but in many cases I’m gone.

    Why is Twitch Point Planning important?  It’s important because as a publisher or marketer you want to minimize the loss of your audience. Or, you want to twitch them deeper into your site or sales process.  Facebook is such a force because people don’t twitch away very much.  And many marketers are even understanding the value of completing the sale on Facebook.  

    Marketers need to understand, map and manipulate Twitch Points in ways that provide branded value (not spam) at the most appropriate times.  If they do so, they will be able to reduce the space between the consumer and a transaction.  Peace.

    Less waste. There should be an app for that.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    I love the internet and most everything about it. It’s a transformative technology changing the planet at light speed.  One thing I wish it would do more of (IBM) though, is reduce waste and distribute things earmarked for landfill to those in need.  The web is great at minimizing the space between buyers and sellers but imagine if its powers were used for such non-profit activities like feeding the hungry or providing used furniture to kids moving into apartments.

    The people who developed Stub Hub and some smart urban planners from the city of NY should combine efforts to create a way to distribute day old food that would normally be fed to the gulls in Queens, Staten Island or hovering over barges. It may sound like a no brainer, but I suspect it’s a logistical nightmare. (Can you say sign a waiver?) It is worth doing.  Just ask City Harvest.

    The amount of good food that is thrown away in NYC every day, probably weighs in excess of 100,000 pounds.  That weight has to be picked up by sanitation and carted away using trucks and gas. The same with old furniture.  When families lose an elder parent, houses have to be purged and lots of stuff is tossed in haste. Valuable stuff.

    Here’s a solution for a small planet, let’s try to redistribute good things to people in need, not the landfill. The web can be the logistical tool to bring parties together. Mayor Bloomberg, this is your new 311.  Start small and scale. (Google would be an excellent partner.) Peace!

    Marketing Hack.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Not the noun, the verb.  A marketing hack (vb.) is a marketing shortcut designed to create immediate return.  Like a technology hack, it plays off of something that already exists – tweaks it, tests it, then turns it loose to see what happens. Prior to the web there weren’t many marketing hacks (vb.). Maybe buy an 800 number close to a competitor, draft the media plan of the #1 brand, create package design similar to that of the category leader, direct coupons at competitive buyers.  Pre-Web, there were more marketing hacks of the noun variety – people who stole other’s message to create sales.  (Hey, pass me Campaign Magazine, I need some inspiration for an ad.)

    But with the web changing everything in the world of marketing — collapsing the sales cycles into a few clicks — we have a growing preponderance of marketing hacks (vb.) which are disrupting the business, as Jean-Marie Dru might say. In a bad way. The science of creating attention and clicks is displacing the science of creating product preference, and brand loyalty. 

    Marketing hacks (vb.) at their worst are like human cells growing out of control… and you know what that is.  Market research scientists are being replaced by marketing technology scientists and it is creating some serious near-term chaos.  In my travels I’m finding the smartest marketers are those seasoned professionals who know how to find a motivating idea, manipulate it (like Beckham) and put it in consumers way with subtly to create a sale. If it’s a hack so be it, but it can’t be  a tactical gimmick.

    If your marketing agent is 26 years old, a 3 year social media veteran and pulling the strings of significant marketing budget, you might just be placing too much emphasis on the verb.  And, if you should look around the room, if there is no noun in sight, chances are you might be that noun. 🙂 Peace.

    PS.  There are many new media marketing hacks that building sales and loyalty. And they are more than exciting.  

     

     

    Hispanic Marketing.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    I attended a webinar yesterday on Hispanic marketing sponsored up by Michael DellaPenna and the Participatory Marketing Network. Most of the presentation was on social media but a good deal was about marketing in general.  If you write me I’ll forward the slides or the link as they become available.  By the year 2050, the Hispanic population of the U.S. will outnumber the Caucasian pop.  I’m planning on being around when that happens-ish…and can’t wait.  What do you think marketing agencies will look like then?

    The Hispanic demo currently indexes higher for use of smartphones, Facebook, Twitter and tech savvy-ness.  It’s not a demo to be taken lightly.  We need to be paying more attention, and now.  But as the presentation stated with a wink and a smile, undertaking a Spanish language program is a lot more than having Hector in accounting do a little translation or some Tweeting.  A thoughtful, strategic, light hand needs to be used in planning and executing these programs.  Hispanic efforts should not be extensions of mass media plans.  There is language, there is culture, and there are a number of unique market segments. The smart brands get this and they are cashing in. 

    Everyone needs to pay attention. And everyone needs to start playing.  There’s lots to be learned. The clock is ticking. Peace! steve@whatstheidea.com

     

    Friends vs. Community

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    So there’s this question bubbling over in social networking and social media that’s on the minds of engineers, entrepreneurs, demographers and account/brand/communications planners: What’s a friend and what’s a community?

    The internet and the social web have flattened the world to the degree that language has allowed. (Language, a major usability problem.)  Let’s say you like the punk rock band X but your best friends don’t — you might have to go outside for X soul mates. To Des Moines, Jakarta, or just across the tracks.  These X-ophiles may be your people. Share your love. Be potential  friends.  But now they are just part of an un-gerrymandered community.

    Google+ is working on this, allowing circles of people with common interests to become connected. But Pandora and Spotify are trying to do this with music, Artspace.com is trying to do it with art, Ology.com with millennials, and the list goes on and on.  For every topic there is an entrepreneurial with an idea and an answer.  And a VC behind them to feed the frenzy.  And I love it. I loved exchanging punk rock stories with a 20 something in Qatar. It wasn’t creepy, it was awesome.  The kid wasn’t a friend. The kid was part of a community of interest. Danah Boyd, the future CEO of Microsoft, is right about the web; it is an amazing tool, with the ability to harness and free all our positive and negative human energies. But the goods far outweigh the bads.

    The debate and commercial applications surrounding what is a friend and what is a community will continue.  And evolve. Marketers and publishers who figure out the different and the byplay will build powerful, powerful things. You friend in the ether, Steve.  Peace!

    Blackberry’s 18 Month Plan?

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Research in Motion (RIM) headquartered in Ottawa, Canadia (as my son calls it), is playing catch-up. I don’t want to say it is floundering because it had good sales last quarter overseas, but if I were to ask you to close your eyes and said the word “Blackberry,” the picture that would come to mind behind those eyelids would be a black, short qwerty keyboard below a screen filled with email headers.

    The Blackberry is a great device that does one thing well but it’s awful for web surfing.  Slow, slow, slower, slow. And who can read .025 size type…so you know where to zoom. The Playbook is a me-too tablet and the company just seems rudderless.  If I read articles about RIM’s business strategy that sounded focused I’d feel better, but I don’t.  Today there was an article saying the company is relying on carriers and IT depts. to keep growth alive.

    I don’t want to go all RIP RIM, but there needs to be some leadership and focus on the future here. Motorola did it. HP is doing it. Nokia is juggling, cutting, partnering with Microsoft and may have a neat bottom-feeding strategy.  RIM, even with its strong user base, seems to be playing the harvest rather than the growth game. It is spending too much time looking in the rear and side view mirrors and forgetting to look beyond the dashboard.  The last 18 months have been a bitch.  The next 18 months will tell the complete story. Peace.

    Fossil Fuel Preserving Heroes?

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Here’s a marketing challenge:  How do we get the smartest of the smart thinking about renewable energy sources? Michelle Obama has us focused on childhood obesity and is doing a good job. The rest of the government is focused on war and debt and the crisis of financial confidence.  For good measure you can throw in a little healthcare. Sellers of consumer and business goods are “all up” in the digital world trying to leverage Facebook, Twitter and mobile geo services.  Kids are still loving sex, fun and music.

    So who is looking out for the planet?  Who is focusing on the fact that we’re literally draining and burning the core of the earth — denuding it of fossil
    fuels.  Where’s the water coming from in 5 thousand years?

    Pop Quiz.  Name one person in the U.S. that cares the most about the planet? Al Gore is probably the answer. Sad.  Much sad. (God bless him, by the way, but he needs some help.)

    Here’s what we need: A VC firm with eyes on the planet prize. Might it be Fred Wilson? John Doerr? Paul Oliver?  Who?  Until that hero emerges, and until the pages of the Wall Street Journal, FT and New York Times start writing about him/her with the alacrity that they use to cover digital tech, we’re screwed. As Thomas Friedman says oil is a destabilizer.  Who is going to step up?  Who dat? Peace!

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