Special report: Mexico
From darkness, dawn
Nov 22nd 2012, 16:18 by Economist.com
AFTER years of underachievement and rising violence, Mexico is at last beginning to realize its potential, says Tom Wainwright
TO LISTEN TO AUDIO CLIC HERE
Monday, December 10, 2012
Mexic: "From darkness, dawn"
AFTER years of underachievement and rising violence, Mexico is at last beginning to realize its potential, says Tom Wainwright
TO LISTEN TO AUDIO CLIC HERE
Monday, October 22, 2012
POWER CITIES: Mal Marketing… ¿buenos gobernantes?
Mal Marketing… ¿buenos gobernantes?
Picture by EcoLocalizer
En los procesos electorales que vivimos desde hace unos
quince años , los asesores de los candidatos recurrieron con cada vez más
frecuencia y presupuesto al uso del denominado marketing político. La herramienta
ofreció muy buenos dividendos a quien lo utilizó profesionalmente y
lamentablemente en muchos casos, el marketing (y la publicidad que lo
proyectaba) hicieron que malos productos (candidatos) ganaran. Decía el buen
David Ogilvy que lo peor que le puede pasar a un mal producto es tener una
Buena campaña de marketing. Siendo consumidores simplemente abandonamos la
marca, lo hacemos saber a nuestra familia y amistades, demandamos vía Profeco
con altas posibilidades de recuperar nuestro dinero. Sin embargo, cuando se
trata de un buen marketing político y un candidato que no tiene un buen
desempeño y no cumple sus promesas., a
quién acudimos? No vienen con garantía de satisfacción y en este caso lamentablemente
el cliente aún teniendo la razón no obtiene el castigo por el engaño y lo peor,
cuando se trata de servidores públicos da a la impresión de que no les importa
el tema, aunque les afecte a ellos, su familia y comunidad.
Muchos de los candidatos de todos los partidos, ya electos o en funciones NO entienden la
diferencia entre el marketing que usaron
como candidatos y el marketing requerido
ya que están en el poder.
Las marcas más exitosas, grandes usuarias de marketing
estratégico y de buenas comunicaciones, manejan procesos para asegurar, ante
todo, la relación con sus clientes vía gratas experiencias en el consumo.
Estudian a sus clientes más que para satisfacerles, enloquecerles vía calidad
en sus productos y servicios. Parten de conocer y entender a sus diferentes
grupos de clientes (ciudadanos) y de ver la manera en la que pueden ser de los
más competitivos. Hacen frecuentemente encuestas de satisfacción que cubren las
diferentes áreas de la empresa y de ahí dependen bonos e incentivos de los empleados y directivos
(servidores públicos). Su comunicación
es cada vez más en tono de diálogo más
que de monólogo y sus campañas se basan en estrategias creativas que buscan
hacer sentir bien a los consumidores y buscar acciones en las que escuchen el
sentir de sus clientes
Quisiera señalar lo que NO es una uso adecuado de marketing
de servidores públicos, alcaldes, legisladores, gobernadores en funciones.
Siguiendo estándares internacionales no es correcto que las ciudades o Estados tengan
presupuestos de comunicación (monólogos) más altos que los principales productores
o comercios de la zona y que tomen
protagonismo en los medios , que sean más que usuarios de spots entre programas
patrocinadores de noticieros, de secciones
dentro de ellos y de transmisiones especiales. No es correcto que semana
tras semana difundan supuestos logros sin contemplar el sentimiento de sus
clientes. Marketing NO es intentar
cambiar el logotipo de la ciudad o el estado sin que las reglas del juego,
programas de trabajo y la eficiencia con la que se realicen cambien para
mejorar. Marketing NO es tener nuevos diseños de los carros de la policía a
menos que hagan mejor su trabajo. Marketing NO es cuidar la imagen o apariencia
sin ofrecer , en esencia, buenos resultados. Si las Señoras y Señores
funcionarios públicos quieren verdaderamente formar una buena imagen, lo
lograrán primero que nada haciendo muy bien el trabajo que se comprometieron a
realizar y por el cual reciben un justo pago; deberán de sorprender a sus
cliente-ciudadanos con proceso de trabajo eficientes, que brinden beneficios
tangibles. Seguramente hay gente muy bien intencionada que entienda las cosas
bajo ésta óptica.
En el marketing moderno, una buena imagen viene acompañada
de una serie de acciones que buscan una relación emocional y de largo plazo con
el mercado(engagement) y esta se
logra más que con cambios de logotipos o anuncios por doquier con resultados
que les transformen en love marks,
marcas de los que la gente se siente orgullosa de comprar y recomendar. Habrá
manera de que nuestros servidores públicos tomen acciones que nos sorprendan,
con las que nos llenemos de gusto y que recuperemos el orgullo de la marca de
la ciudad o el Estado que representan?. Esperamos a que lo hagan o lo exigimos?
Habrá sorpresas en las nuevas administraciones o en la que se está
reinventando. 2013 puede ser un buen año para todos.
El cliente siempre tiene la razón, siempre y cuando pague bien y exija calidad y servicio.
Saludos a todos,
R. Treviño
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
How to Cultivate the Facebook Fans You Really Need
The Number of Fans Isn't as Important as Finding Those Who Will Be Advocates
The number of Facebook fans your brand can claim is an important number, right? Each is more valuable than your average customer, spending more money and having a more significant impact on your company's bottom line, right? Think again.
The idea that all Facebook fans are created equal is a myth perpetuated by many chief marketing officers I meet. The confusion it creates is one reason why social-media channels have yet to achieve the same levels of success as their mobile counterparts.
These marketers are confusing correlation with causality. They believe enticing a person to become a Facebook fan will magically make that individual more likely to spend more on their brand. What comes next is a campaign designed solely to pull in new fans. Big mistake.
Think of it this way. When the sun is out on a summer's day, people like to eat ice cream. There is a correlation between the two; when you pass an ice cream shop in July and August, you always see a line of customers out front. But ice cream does not cause the sun to come out, any more than being a Facebook fan causes a person to bring out her wallet, buy your products and services and become a passionate brand advocate.
That isn't to say that CMOs shouldn't strive to build a fan base. The issue is how to do this in a productive way. There are no short cuts. Winning a loyal customer begins with matching a great product or service with a flawless and repeatable customer experience. The customer experience includes many components, but some I am most passionate about include:
Personalization. Customers are no longer receptive to the spray-and-pray marketing tactics of old. With that in mind, are you using the information your customers give you to get to know them as individuals? What devices do they shop through, what deals are they most interested in, and when they don't complete a purchase, do you know why, so you can fix it the next time? As a marketer, I know that forming a personalized snapshot of each customer is not as easy as creating a Facebook fan campaign. But as a consumer, I know that I am far less likely to buy from a business that doesn't know me as a person.
Devices. Shopping is no longer just an in-store or PC-centric experience. We witnessed this during last year's holiday season, when a record number of customers shopped through mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets. Customers demand a mobile experience that isn't just compelling but consistent across all devices.
Meeting the needs of the customer puts you in a position to ask them to become a Facebook fan (if they have not already done so themselves). What you are left with is far more valuable than a collection of static people who don't have a vested interest in your brand. Quite the opposite: you have new customer-engagement channels populated with people who you can entice on a daily basis with deals and personalized information.
These fans also can evolve into the ultimate marketing prize -- brand advocates who are willing to put their reputation on the line. You will build have an entourage of fans not only espousing your products and services, but also your overall values. That's hugely valuable when you consider, according to Nielson, that 90 percent of consumers trust peer recommendations.
That's the type of Facebook fan all CMOs should aim for.
Monday, September 17, 2012
Marketing Attribution: The next metric?
Marketing attribution: The next metric
September 17, 2012 - 6:01 am EDT
Measuring ROI in today's multichannel marketing landscape has been a persistent thorn in marketers' sides.
When a team of 15 people makes dozens of marketing “touches” across a number of marketing tools for a potential customer, how do you determine which touch should get the ROI credit for the sale? And what about the ones you never saw, like when a CTO accessed your content from her tablet computer and never left any trace of her presence?
For a long time, according to Ruth P. Stevens, president of eMarketing Strategy, b2b marketers have settled on a simple solution to this problem: giving total ROI credit to the first marketing material the prospective customer touched, no matter what else happened on the way to the sale.
But those days might be past. Today, marketers are working on more responsive, nuanced ROI models. Call them “proxy metrics” or “marketing attribution,” the idea is the same—it's about changing the way marketers think about ROI.
Rob Cataford, VP-customer intelligence at BusinessOnline, gave a talk at SES San Francisco last month outlining a possible future with a new kind of ROI.
“A lot of people optimize their marketing campaigns on one metric, which is leads generated,” Cataford told StraightLine. “But we're saying that leads aren't good enough; we're saying you should develop a set of metrics based on the intent of the campaign. We're doing analysis around opportunity, not around individuals.”
The difference between these approaches is profound. Instead of tracking individuals and their lead-generation activity, Cataford said that many elements of a marketing campaign aren't even designed to directly generate leads, so it's useless to track them. Social media, for example, is a “nurturing” activity.
Social media is rarely how a customer is introduced to your product, but it's not uncommon for prospective customers to take to Twitter, your Facebook page or even a blog to get more information. The result is a bunch of activity sandwiched between the initiating contact—perhaps a white paper download or trade show appearance—and the final activity, such as filling out a contact request form. This activity has value, even if it doesn't directly generate a lead.
“So we've created different sets of metrics, like awareness metrics, nurturing metrics and action metrics,” he said. “Then we'll look at all of those with a single campaign and we can compare them each other. We might use unique visitors or time on site.”
One of the drawbacks to this kind of measurement, however, is the work required in the front end to develop the different kinds of metrics and weigh them appropriately.
“Buying is a process,” eMarketing Strategy's Stevens said. “So you have to dig into it. Where do you give the credit for the eventual action? The banner ad they clicked on, the invitation to a webinar or the tradeshow contact?”
Unfortunately for now, there still isn't an easy answer, but Cataford is sure of one thing: “This is better than just tracking leads.”
Source:
http://www.btobonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120917/DIRECT11/309049992/1146/rss998&rssfeed=rss998
When a team of 15 people makes dozens of marketing “touches” across a number of marketing tools for a potential customer, how do you determine which touch should get the ROI credit for the sale? And what about the ones you never saw, like when a CTO accessed your content from her tablet computer and never left any trace of her presence?
For a long time, according to Ruth P. Stevens, president of eMarketing Strategy, b2b marketers have settled on a simple solution to this problem: giving total ROI credit to the first marketing material the prospective customer touched, no matter what else happened on the way to the sale.
But those days might be past. Today, marketers are working on more responsive, nuanced ROI models. Call them “proxy metrics” or “marketing attribution,” the idea is the same—it's about changing the way marketers think about ROI.
Rob Cataford, VP-customer intelligence at BusinessOnline, gave a talk at SES San Francisco last month outlining a possible future with a new kind of ROI.
“A lot of people optimize their marketing campaigns on one metric, which is leads generated,” Cataford told StraightLine. “But we're saying that leads aren't good enough; we're saying you should develop a set of metrics based on the intent of the campaign. We're doing analysis around opportunity, not around individuals.”
The difference between these approaches is profound. Instead of tracking individuals and their lead-generation activity, Cataford said that many elements of a marketing campaign aren't even designed to directly generate leads, so it's useless to track them. Social media, for example, is a “nurturing” activity.
Social media is rarely how a customer is introduced to your product, but it's not uncommon for prospective customers to take to Twitter, your Facebook page or even a blog to get more information. The result is a bunch of activity sandwiched between the initiating contact—perhaps a white paper download or trade show appearance—and the final activity, such as filling out a contact request form. This activity has value, even if it doesn't directly generate a lead.
“So we've created different sets of metrics, like awareness metrics, nurturing metrics and action metrics,” he said. “Then we'll look at all of those with a single campaign and we can compare them each other. We might use unique visitors or time on site.”
One of the drawbacks to this kind of measurement, however, is the work required in the front end to develop the different kinds of metrics and weigh them appropriately.
“Buying is a process,” eMarketing Strategy's Stevens said. “So you have to dig into it. Where do you give the credit for the eventual action? The banner ad they clicked on, the invitation to a webinar or the tradeshow contact?”
Unfortunately for now, there still isn't an easy answer, but Cataford is sure of one thing: “This is better than just tracking leads.”
Source:
http://www.btobonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120917/DIRECT11/309049992/1146/rss998&rssfeed=rss998
Monday, July 23, 2012
Analysis: Latin Culture as a major U.S. Economic Growth Driver
(From Portada’s Q3 2012 Issue)
The Spanish language and the Latin culture are enormous assets for the U.S. economy. In this regard, the U.S. marketing, media and cultural industries, have a lot to contribute to the mid and long term growth of the U.S. economy. For this reason, the cover article of this issue is devoted to the role of language in marketing to the U.S. Hispanic population.
Below are some thoughts on the current and future role that the Spanish-language and the Latin culture will play in the U.S.:
Mother Tongue and Foreign Tongue
Nevada, Colorado, Florida, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara…There are countless Spanish-derived names for U.S. cities and locations. In other words, Spanish has never been a foreign language in the U.S.
In fact, with the Guadalupe-Hidalgo Treaty (1848) between the United States and Mexico, more than half of the former Mexican territory, home to millions of Spanish-speakers, was given to the United States: That is no less than all or part of the territory of the following states: Texas, California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Oklahoma and New Mexico. And the number of Spanish-speakers has increased even more with the arrival of many millions of Mexicans and other Latin American immigrants. In the U.S., Spanish is both a mother tongue and a foreign language. That is what makes its role so important and interesting.
The Center of Gravity shifts toward the U.S.
As Eduardo Lago, a writer and former director of the Instituto Cervantes in New York says: “The Spanish language achieved its full potential when it crossed the Atlantic from Spain to the Americas and became the common language of 20 different Latin American states.” According to demographic forecasts, during this century the Hispanic population in the United States will get to be larger than the Spanish-speaking population in any other country of the world. (Currently Mexico holds the number one position with a Spanish-speaking population of 108 million.) In other words, during the next decades the center of gravity of the Spanish – language will shift northward to the U.S.
A homogenizing and strengthening effect
Another aspect that will strengthen the role of Spanish in the U.S. is that immigration has a homogenizing effect on the type of Spanish used in the U.S.
The Romance languages developed from Latin in the fifth to ninth centuries of the Christian calendar. The main Romance languages are Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Italian and French, but also Catalan, Galician, Sicilian and many others. In contrast to the way romance languages developed in Europe, where they grew out of the adaptation of Latin to very different and distant local cultures, different Latin American types of Spanish are now converging in a largely shared U.S. culture. The Spanish spoken in the U.S. will tend to be a mix of the different types of Spanish spoken in the immigrants’ home countries. It is likely that one type of Spanish, of course also integrating English words, will develop and prevail rather than many different types. It might be called a “pan Latin,” or more homogeneous variety of Spanish.
Spanish language and Latin culture
The above described demographic and linguistic trends will—and already are—making the United States a major promulgator of Latin culture (through media, entertainment, Language classes, etc), not only related to the Spanish-language but to Latin culture expressed in English. Tied with the enormous infrastructure of “cultural goods and services” existing in the U.S. (e.g. Film industry, Technological Infrastructure, Universities), the Spanish-language and Latin culture can make a major contribution to economic growth. Demand for “Latin Culture” is not only growing in the U.S. but also in fast growing Latin American countries and the Iberian Peninsula.
Source:
Portada. (2012) Retrieved from: http://www.portada-online.com/article.aspx?aid=9912
The Spanish language and the Latin culture are enormous assets for the U.S. economy. In this regard, the U.S. marketing, media and cultural industries, have a lot to contribute to the mid and long term growth of the U.S. economy. For this reason, the cover article of this issue is devoted to the role of language in marketing to the U.S. Hispanic population.Below are some thoughts on the current and future role that the Spanish-language and the Latin culture will play in the U.S.:
Mother Tongue and Foreign Tongue
Nevada, Colorado, Florida, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara…There are countless Spanish-derived names for U.S. cities and locations. In other words, Spanish has never been a foreign language in the U.S.
In fact, with the Guadalupe-Hidalgo Treaty (1848) between the United States and Mexico, more than half of the former Mexican territory, home to millions of Spanish-speakers, was given to the United States: That is no less than all or part of the territory of the following states: Texas, California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Oklahoma and New Mexico. And the number of Spanish-speakers has increased even more with the arrival of many millions of Mexicans and other Latin American immigrants. In the U.S., Spanish is both a mother tongue and a foreign language. That is what makes its role so important and interesting.
The Center of Gravity shifts toward the U.S.
As Eduardo Lago, a writer and former director of the Instituto Cervantes in New York says: “The Spanish language achieved its full potential when it crossed the Atlantic from Spain to the Americas and became the common language of 20 different Latin American states.” According to demographic forecasts, during this century the Hispanic population in the United States will get to be larger than the Spanish-speaking population in any other country of the world. (Currently Mexico holds the number one position with a Spanish-speaking population of 108 million.) In other words, during the next decades the center of gravity of the Spanish – language will shift northward to the U.S.
A homogenizing and strengthening effect
Another aspect that will strengthen the role of Spanish in the U.S. is that immigration has a homogenizing effect on the type of Spanish used in the U.S.
The Romance languages developed from Latin in the fifth to ninth centuries of the Christian calendar. The main Romance languages are Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Italian and French, but also Catalan, Galician, Sicilian and many others. In contrast to the way romance languages developed in Europe, where they grew out of the adaptation of Latin to very different and distant local cultures, different Latin American types of Spanish are now converging in a largely shared U.S. culture. The Spanish spoken in the U.S. will tend to be a mix of the different types of Spanish spoken in the immigrants’ home countries. It is likely that one type of Spanish, of course also integrating English words, will develop and prevail rather than many different types. It might be called a “pan Latin,” or more homogeneous variety of Spanish.
Spanish language and Latin culture
The above described demographic and linguistic trends will—and already are—making the United States a major promulgator of Latin culture (through media, entertainment, Language classes, etc), not only related to the Spanish-language but to Latin culture expressed in English. Tied with the enormous infrastructure of “cultural goods and services” existing in the U.S. (e.g. Film industry, Technological Infrastructure, Universities), the Spanish-language and Latin culture can make a major contribution to economic growth. Demand for “Latin Culture” is not only growing in the U.S. but also in fast growing Latin American countries and the Iberian Peninsula.
Source:
Portada. (2012) Retrieved from: http://www.portada-online.com/article.aspx?aid=9912
Monday, June 25, 2012
Top 100 Advertisers Boost Ad Spending but Not In Traditional Media
Increase of 4.8% is Fueled By Disciplines That Connect Directly With Customers
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Click to view: Percent change in U.S. ad spending for 100 leading national advertisers
Check out the full LNA report and view 2012's Marketer Family Trees.
Measured spending for the top 100 actually slipped 0.2%. A double-digit measured-media gain for internet display spending and a small increase in TV did not make up for losses in newspapers, magazines and radio.
So where's the money going? Into unmeasured disciplines—a vast pool that includes various digital plays (search marketing, online video and some forms of social media), promotion and direct marketing. The appeal is clear: Marketers are putting money into disciplines that directly connect them with targeted consumers.
Advertisers are reshaping the media pie. Publicis Groupe's ZenithOptimedia expects the internet to surpass newspapers this year as the nation's second-largest advertising medium, behind TV. By ZenithOptimedia's tally, the internet was the fifth-largest ad medium until 2009, when it powered past magazines and radio into the No. 3 spot.
Nearly three-fourths of ZenithOptimedia's internet breakout comes from what Ad Age currently counts as unmeasured spending (including paid search, online video and mobile ads); the rest comes from measured disciplines (display advertising, including display ads on social-media sites).
Fortunes of unmeasured and measured disciplines have diverged since the Great Recession ended and not-so-great recovery began in June 2009.
The top 100 U.S. advertisers in 2010 increased unmeasured spending by 12.6% and measured spending by 6.3%, resulting in an 8.8% rebound in total ad spending.
The 100 Leading National Advertisers' unmeasured spending jumped 11.8% in 2011 while measured media eased 0.2%, resulting in an overall increase of 4.8%. That slower growth shows how major marketers have kept a check on ad spending in this plodding economic recovery.
Measured media's share of LNA spending dropped to 55.8% in 2011 from 58.6% in 2010.
The tug of war between measured and unmeasured disciplines is hardly new. Since launching the 100 LNA report in 1956, Ad Age has used the term "unmeasured" to quantify ad and promotion spending distinct from media types -- such as TV, print and (in recent decades) internet display -- that are measured by tracking services.
The shift in 2011 was widespread: 100 Leading National Advertisers in all but two major industry categories reduced the portion of 2011 spending that went to measured media, according to Ad Age DataCenter's analysis. (The two exceptions were financial services and restaurants, where measured media scored a bigger slice of the pie.)
Case in point: Kohl's Corp., the department-store retailer, disclosed gross advertising costs rose 10.4% to $1.123 billion in 2011. Kohl's 2011 measured-media ad spending declined 2.5% to $331.3 million, according to WPP's Kantar Media. Ad Age defines the difference as unmeasured spending: $791.7 million, up 16.9%.
To be sure, marketers still rely on measured media to build brands and promote products. Apple's U.S. measured spending surged 82%.
The 100 LNA accounted for 44% of Kantar Media's 2011 U.S. measured-media spending.
Among the 100 largest advertisers, total 2011 U.S. spending (measured media plus unmeasured spending) increased in all but three major industries, according to Ad Age DataCenter's spending analysis.
Telecom had the sharpest spending drop, falling 7.9%. AT&T, Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile, Sprint Nextel Corp.and Verizon Communications all cut measured-media spending.
Marketers of cleaning products reduced total ad spending by 3.3%. The LNA's 10 food companies trimmed spending by 1.5%.
Two major industries saw double-digit increases in total U.S. ad spending: automotive, up 16.1%, and financial services, up 11.2%.
Ad Age DataCenter estimates
During the 2007-2009 recession, automotive and financial-services imploded as industries and ad categories. But the two industries have rebounded sharply, scoring double-digit ad spending increases in both 2010 and 2011.
Fiat's Chrysler Group boosted U.S. measured-media spending by 48%; Chrysler's stated worldwide ad spending jumped 49%.
Estimated total U.S. ad spending for JPMorgan Chase & Co., the largest financial advertiser, rose 22%. JPMorgan Chase's stated worldwide marketing costs in 2011 were 77% above the company's recession-period low (2009).
Among the 100 LNA, about two-thirds of marketers increased U.S. spending in 2011, with 32 cutting spending, according to Ad Age DataCenter's analysis.
What about 2012? Kantar Media last week reported some sign of a modest rebound in measured-media spending. Overall U.S. measured spending increased 2.6% in the first quarter, the best quarterly growth since second-quarter 2011.
Kantar Media's top 100 marketers increased first-quarter 2012 spending by 3.4%, vs. a 0.2% spending decline in full-year 2011.
ZenithOptimedia forecasts total U.S. spending for major media and marketing services will grow 3.2% in 2012 and another 3.2% in 2013, up from 2011's tepid 1.8% growth. That hardly signals a boom. But it's better than a bust.
Source:
Advertising Age.
http://adage.com/
Friday, May 18, 2012
GM Doesn't Have a Facebook Problem, It Has a Brand Loyalty Problem
Estimados Lectores:
La noticia de que General Motors ha retirado su inversión de Facebook ha causado conmoción en todo el mundo. ¿Pero que piensan los expertos de las redes sociales al respecto? ¿Qué piensan ustedes al respecto? Ha habido opiniones que a final de cuentas, no importa el medio, sino el mensaje; y qué esto fue el fallo de la marca dentro de Facebook.
Espero sus opiniones y comentarios acerca de este tema tan rico que son las redes sociales.
Saludos
RT
Facebook's Value Isn't Clicks, It's Using Online Behavior to Influence Offline Actions
Henry Ford is often credited with saying that if he had asked consumers what they wanted, they would have asked for a faster horse. Whether he actually said that or not, it's a great reminder that successful businesses look to the future. It's ironic that GM, one of Ford Motor Company's biggest competitors, demonstrated its eye on the past by pulling approximately $10 million worth of Facebook ad spend. The timing of this move is suspect, given its proximity to Facebook's IPO and GM's history of working over its publishers.
This move has brought GM more attention than it's had in a while, but rather than raising doubts as to the value of Facebook, the move really brings into focus GM's inability to amplify brand and consumer advocacy of its products on the world's largest social networking platform.
With this move, one of the world's largest advertisers is trying to say that Facebook advertising doesn't work. The truth is that Facebook isn't broken; GM is. And the automaker's movement of ad dollars to other media channels offers a short-term solution to a long-term business problem.
Putting its $10 million into more traditional online advertising channels such as search and display ads will probably pay short-term dividends for GM, which will only obscure the automaker's failure to recognize the best way to utilize Facebook. Rather than focus on selling cars on Facebook, the brand should have looked at how to connect with its best advocates to influence purchase behavior across the social graph. Facebook's true value lies in the power to build loyal fans and then message them as well as their friends to build consumer relationships, with the ultimate goal of rebuilding the brand as well as selling cars. GM's strategy clearly missed that step.
GM will reportedly continue to invest nearly $30 million to maintain a Facebook presence and develop applications, which may turn some of the brand's 3.9 million fans into brand advocates. That's an expensive investment, though, for such a small and disengaged fan base. GM's chief competitor, Ford, has 10.2 million fans. If Ford consistently messages and engages with these fans and their friends through paid advertising that demonstrates the benefit of a Ford, it will continue to build brand advocates, of a kind that no amount of GM advertising can sway. When it comes time for a new car, rather than research new brands, those brand loyalists will go straight to their Ford dealership; GM won't even be in their consideration set.
If GM were to take a more progressive approach, it would move social to the very beginning of its sales and product planning strategy, investing in using the platform for consumer research, using paid ads to engage and acquire more fans, and then engaging with those fans and their friends to turn them into genuine advocates. While the automaker complained of its inability to attribute success, we've seen consistent data showing that Facebook is best at using online behavior to drive offline behavior, and that Facebook fans influence others and minimize comparison price shoppers, as seen commonly through search and other comparison shopping sites. According to Forrester Research's "The Facebook Factor" report, fans are also very likely to recommend a brand to friends. By leveraging Facebook advertising, brands can actually connect with fans over time to build loyalty and long-term sales -- not only with the single buyer, but also with families of consumers and their friends.
GM's consumer loyalty problems certainly didn't begin with Facebook. GM ranked 12th out of 13 automotive brands in Consumer Reports' latest automotive scorecard, and recalled 50,000 vehicles as recently as April. If the brand was losing ground to competitors on social, it was probably wise to look for a new battleground. It may be smart to abandon Facebook altogether for now, and reinvest its money in making a car that actually appeals to consumers.
Rather than ask what Facebook has done to help GM, GM should have looked at what it was doing to engage its fans. Diverting money into other online channels may sell cars in the short term, but will fail in the longer term, as consumers spend more and more of their time on social platforms like Facebook. Don't forget that brands used to raise their eyebrows at the idea of search advertising, too. Brands that are investing heavily in Facebook now -- such as Starbucks, Coke, Kraft, Zynga and Groupon -- will reap long-term rewards.
Facebook's value comes from its ability to help brands build long-term loyalty, and $10 million is a tiny fraction of GM's $3 billion annual ad budget. If GM isn't investing in building brand loyalists, then the automaker and its dealers will miss the value of Facebook, and will ultimately lose resonance with consumers.
SOURCE:
AdAge.com
Retrieved from: http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/gm-a-facebook-problem-a-brand-loyalty-problem/234817/
Monday, May 14, 2012
Facebook Ads: What Works? What Doesn't?
Measurement Team Distills Creative Into Six elements That Predict a Successful Placement
Brands may be plowing more and more money into Facebook ads, but the creative results are decidedly mixed, with all-too-common flubs such as blurred product shots and incomprehensible pitches.
Not all Facebook ads are creative clunkers, but the company will have to close the wide quality gap to convince marketers that they must buy media on the platform and thus justify its forthcoming $100 billion initial public offering.
To help agencies and brands make better ads, Facebook's measurement team is making public its research on what does and doesn't work.
Like Facebook's recent study of best practices for brand-page postings, these findings aren't revolutionary and some are even obvious. Yet glance at a few ads and you'll see that many of these best practices, common sense though they may be, are ignored by big brands.
Facebook's recent study of ad creative comprised three steps.
First, after talking with marketers, Facebook distilled six elements of ad creative. Two of the elements are visual: focal point and noticeability. The other four involve messaging and consider a range of things, from whether it's easy to discern the brand to whether the advertiser gets the point across.
The measurement team then asked 109 marketers to rate just under 400 ads on each of the six elements. All the ads examined were from a Facebook format called premium-engagement ads, which appear on the right column of a Facebook page and carry tight restrictions on image size and copy length.
The ads were also meant to communicate brand or product attributes, as opposed to direct response.
After plugging those ratings into a quantitative model, Facebook found that high ratings in the six elements were predictive of in-market success in two traditional metrics: brand recall and purchase consideration, as measured in Nielsen Brand Effects studies.
The overall model devised by Facebook explains 20% to 25% of variance in market performance, according to Sean Bruich, head of platforms and standards at Facebook. The study doesn't seek to explain how reach or the nature of the brands themselves may affect the effectiveness of a particular ad.
When it came to recall, three things were particularly important: The image needs to have an obvious focal point, the brand needs to be clear and the ad needs to fit with the brand's personality.
Focal-point fails are pretty common. Facebook ad formats don't allot a ton of space for images or text. To deal with the restraints, many brands opt for an image that might include tiny renderings of the product line on, say, a funky background, meant presumably to suggest movement—or something. Whatever the intent, fuzzy, out-of-focus shots get in the way of consumers' remembering your brand.
Ads should also be clear about what brand they're promoting, which, again, sounds pretty basic until you look around and see the number of ads where the brand name is obscured and its logo, colors and overall feel are AWOL.
The sample high performer in this regard was a big-brand ad containing both the tagline and a new holiday TV commercial. The creative looked as though it could have been ripped from a TV or print ad. While this guideline could be an opening for make-the-logo-bigger types, the lesson is that Facebook ads don't have to swerve from a brand's usual visual and messaging approach.
For purchase consideration, only one element proved particularly crucial: Does the ad reward the viewer? Mr. Bruich said that this need not involve free stuff, and could be informational or even emotional.
One high performer was from a prestigious brand inviting people into one of its communities. In contrast, a lesser-known brand merely sought information from the viewer, with no clear indication how it would be used.
"Ads that were rewarding tended to be pretty clear -- there wasn't an overload of information," said Mr. Bruich, who conducted the study with measurement researcher Adrienne Polich. "But [the] rewarding ads also seemed to connect. The information seemed meaningful."
The importance of reward, the single-biggest creative predictor of an ad's success, caught Mr. Bruich and his team by surprise. They'll most likely conduct follow-up studies of what reward means on an industry-by-industry basis, as well as dig deeper on what generates reward.
The Facebook study, which will be presented at the Advertising Research Foundation conference next month, was also useful for showing what isn't particularly important to creative success on the platform. For example, noticeability.
A high degree of noticeability was not predictive of either recall or purchase consideration—a dagger to the dreams of those who think bright colors, promiscuous use of exclamation points and Crazy Eddie-type come-ons are the fast track to social-media success.
Source:
AdAge. (2012) Retrieved from: http://adage.com/article/digital/facebook-ads-works/234731/
Not all Facebook ads are creative clunkers, but the company will have to close the wide quality gap to convince marketers that they must buy media on the platform and thus justify its forthcoming $100 billion initial public offering.
To help agencies and brands make better ads, Facebook's measurement team is making public its research on what does and doesn't work.
Like Facebook's recent study of best practices for brand-page postings, these findings aren't revolutionary and some are even obvious. Yet glance at a few ads and you'll see that many of these best practices, common sense though they may be, are ignored by big brands.
Facebook's recent study of ad creative comprised three steps.
First, after talking with marketers, Facebook distilled six elements of ad creative. Two of the elements are visual: focal point and noticeability. The other four involve messaging and consider a range of things, from whether it's easy to discern the brand to whether the advertiser gets the point across.
The measurement team then asked 109 marketers to rate just under 400 ads on each of the six elements. All the ads examined were from a Facebook format called premium-engagement ads, which appear on the right column of a Facebook page and carry tight restrictions on image size and copy length.
The ads were also meant to communicate brand or product attributes, as opposed to direct response.
After plugging those ratings into a quantitative model, Facebook found that high ratings in the six elements were predictive of in-market success in two traditional metrics: brand recall and purchase consideration, as measured in Nielsen Brand Effects studies.
The overall model devised by Facebook explains 20% to 25% of variance in market performance, according to Sean Bruich, head of platforms and standards at Facebook. The study doesn't seek to explain how reach or the nature of the brands themselves may affect the effectiveness of a particular ad.
When it came to recall, three things were particularly important: The image needs to have an obvious focal point, the brand needs to be clear and the ad needs to fit with the brand's personality.
Focal-point fails are pretty common. Facebook ad formats don't allot a ton of space for images or text. To deal with the restraints, many brands opt for an image that might include tiny renderings of the product line on, say, a funky background, meant presumably to suggest movement—or something. Whatever the intent, fuzzy, out-of-focus shots get in the way of consumers' remembering your brand.
Ads should also be clear about what brand they're promoting, which, again, sounds pretty basic until you look around and see the number of ads where the brand name is obscured and its logo, colors and overall feel are AWOL.
The sample high performer in this regard was a big-brand ad containing both the tagline and a new holiday TV commercial. The creative looked as though it could have been ripped from a TV or print ad. While this guideline could be an opening for make-the-logo-bigger types, the lesson is that Facebook ads don't have to swerve from a brand's usual visual and messaging approach.
For purchase consideration, only one element proved particularly crucial: Does the ad reward the viewer? Mr. Bruich said that this need not involve free stuff, and could be informational or even emotional.
One high performer was from a prestigious brand inviting people into one of its communities. In contrast, a lesser-known brand merely sought information from the viewer, with no clear indication how it would be used.
"Ads that were rewarding tended to be pretty clear -- there wasn't an overload of information," said Mr. Bruich, who conducted the study with measurement researcher Adrienne Polich. "But [the] rewarding ads also seemed to connect. The information seemed meaningful."
The importance of reward, the single-biggest creative predictor of an ad's success, caught Mr. Bruich and his team by surprise. They'll most likely conduct follow-up studies of what reward means on an industry-by-industry basis, as well as dig deeper on what generates reward.
The Facebook study, which will be presented at the Advertising Research Foundation conference next month, was also useful for showing what isn't particularly important to creative success on the platform. For example, noticeability.
A high degree of noticeability was not predictive of either recall or purchase consideration—a dagger to the dreams of those who think bright colors, promiscuous use of exclamation points and Crazy Eddie-type come-ons are the fast track to social-media success.
Source:
AdAge. (2012) Retrieved from: http://adage.com/article/digital/facebook-ads-works/234731/
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Brand's Social Life? Learn how to manage it!
Ad Age Trend Report Explores Strategies for Social-Media Platforms, Organizing Your Team and What to Measure
Consumers are investing serious amounts of their time in social-media platforms, with 16.6% of all online minutes now spent on social networks. With so much focus on social as a marketing tool, it's worth stopping and mapping out a smart social strategy.
A new Ad Age Insights report, "Managing Your Brand's Social Life," aims to help brand managers plan for which platforms should get the investment of limited staff and time, what to consider when creating internal social-media guidelines, whether to handle social media in-house or outsource it and what measures a brand should be looking for to get at return on investment.
You can measure the ROI of social media, but it may not get you far. "There is definitely a quantifiable ROI, but the truth of the matter is that it's very difficult to measure ROI within social media," said Edelman Digital Senior VP Michael Brito.
If a straightforward numbers game is what you're after, Olivier Blanchard, author of "Social Media ROI" notes that the ROI numbers game remains the same: "It's still purely a financial measure." But, he adds, "engagement is not a measure of ROI. There's no way to actually calculate the relationship between a dollar investment in a particular activity and the number of likes."
He stresses that brands should be wary of anybody who tries to tell them that they can put an absolute value on a Facebook fan, Twitter follower or their latest Pinterest pinner. "For anyone to suggest that the value of a Coca-Cola fan on Facebook or Twitter is equal to the value of a BMW fan on Facebook or Twitter, it's ludicrous. So the media-equivalency equations unfortunately really lead people astray. They do help sell a lot of services, but they don't actually really give you a true measure of the value of an activity on social media," Mr. Brito said.
Adds Constant Contact's Social-Media Manager Erica Ayotte: "What's really hard is determining the value of followership." Instead, Ms. Ayotte believes brands have to ask very different questions of their social-media campaigns. "What gets me really excited is looking at it from a different intelligence perspective, from taking all that data and being able to ask the right questions, " she said. "For example, do people who are engaging with us on Facebook ... do they buy more, stay longer? That's the type of business intelligence ... I think the whole industry is moving [toward]." Other aspects to consider tracking are trust, purchase-decisions influence, seeking new products and getting recommendations.
ROI is really just one way to figure out how much your brand benefits from having a social life. With a little creativity -- and with an understanding that you need to push your measurement in new directions -- you can more clearly understand what social media delivers to your brand. Steven L. Johnson, assistant professor and director of social-media programs at Temple University's Fox School of Business, offered the example of the Campbell's Kitchen Facebook page, whose "mission is to get people to use more Campbell's Soup products." Mr. Johnson said Campbell figured out that every time somebody printed a recipe from Facebook, they prepared it approximately 2.5 times, and 1.7 times, they used a Campbell's Soup product. "You can't figure that out online," he said. "They just figured that out through some kind of additional market research. But then based on that, you're able to put a value on this action that you're trying to drive people toward."
While larger marketers end up building enterprise-class tracking tools, many companies rely on a cobbled together set of tools. Some of the top names in the measuring game include Radian6; Webtrends analytics to measure Facebook and mobile; and Twitalyze to measure, as you probably guessed, Twitter activity; Google Analytics, which is a very sophisticated product (especially for the price of ... free); and Simply Measured, which also looks at competitors' engagement to provide benchmarking.
"Measuring social is easy: likes, comments, views, shares, engagement, participation, etc. The numbers are all there and are easy to pull. Determining success is still the difficult part," said Daniel Stein, founder-CEO, Evolution Bureau. "The jury is still out on the value of fan interaction. Most people agree that having a loyal, engaged fan base is a good thing -- how good or how valuable compared to other forms of more institutionalized marketing is still debatable."
Source:
Advertising Age Online
http://www.adage.com
A new Ad Age Insights report, "Managing Your Brand's Social Life," aims to help brand managers plan for which platforms should get the investment of limited staff and time, what to consider when creating internal social-media guidelines, whether to handle social media in-house or outsource it and what measures a brand should be looking for to get at return on investment.
You can measure the ROI of social media, but it may not get you far. "There is definitely a quantifiable ROI, but the truth of the matter is that it's very difficult to measure ROI within social media," said Edelman Digital Senior VP Michael Brito.
If a straightforward numbers game is what you're after, Olivier Blanchard, author of "Social Media ROI" notes that the ROI numbers game remains the same: "It's still purely a financial measure." But, he adds, "engagement is not a measure of ROI. There's no way to actually calculate the relationship between a dollar investment in a particular activity and the number of likes."
Managing Your Brand's Social Life
Strategies for Social Media Platforms, Organizing Your Team And What to Measure
He stresses that brands should be wary of anybody who tries to tell them that they can put an absolute value on a Facebook fan, Twitter follower or their latest Pinterest pinner. "For anyone to suggest that the value of a Coca-Cola fan on Facebook or Twitter is equal to the value of a BMW fan on Facebook or Twitter, it's ludicrous. So the media-equivalency equations unfortunately really lead people astray. They do help sell a lot of services, but they don't actually really give you a true measure of the value of an activity on social media," Mr. Brito said.
Adds Constant Contact's Social-Media Manager Erica Ayotte: "What's really hard is determining the value of followership." Instead, Ms. Ayotte believes brands have to ask very different questions of their social-media campaigns. "What gets me really excited is looking at it from a different intelligence perspective, from taking all that data and being able to ask the right questions, " she said. "For example, do people who are engaging with us on Facebook ... do they buy more, stay longer? That's the type of business intelligence ... I think the whole industry is moving [toward]." Other aspects to consider tracking are trust, purchase-decisions influence, seeking new products and getting recommendations.
ROI is really just one way to figure out how much your brand benefits from having a social life. With a little creativity -- and with an understanding that you need to push your measurement in new directions -- you can more clearly understand what social media delivers to your brand. Steven L. Johnson, assistant professor and director of social-media programs at Temple University's Fox School of Business, offered the example of the Campbell's Kitchen Facebook page, whose "mission is to get people to use more Campbell's Soup products." Mr. Johnson said Campbell figured out that every time somebody printed a recipe from Facebook, they prepared it approximately 2.5 times, and 1.7 times, they used a Campbell's Soup product. "You can't figure that out online," he said. "They just figured that out through some kind of additional market research. But then based on that, you're able to put a value on this action that you're trying to drive people toward."
While larger marketers end up building enterprise-class tracking tools, many companies rely on a cobbled together set of tools. Some of the top names in the measuring game include Radian6; Webtrends analytics to measure Facebook and mobile; and Twitalyze to measure, as you probably guessed, Twitter activity; Google Analytics, which is a very sophisticated product (especially for the price of ... free); and Simply Measured, which also looks at competitors' engagement to provide benchmarking.
"Measuring social is easy: likes, comments, views, shares, engagement, participation, etc. The numbers are all there and are easy to pull. Determining success is still the difficult part," said Daniel Stein, founder-CEO, Evolution Bureau. "The jury is still out on the value of fan interaction. Most people agree that having a loyal, engaged fan base is a good thing -- how good or how valuable compared to other forms of more institutionalized marketing is still debatable."
Source:
Advertising Age Online
http://www.adage.com
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Is There Such a Thing as Hispanic Identity? Despite All the Variety, Yes
A Pew Study Shows That Certain Values Will Outlast Shifts That Come With Acculturation
By: David Morse
Is there such a thing as a common Hispanic culture? The Pew Hispanic Center just released a study suggesting that, considering how Hispanics identify themselves, the answer may be no.
We know there is great diversity within the U.S. Hispanic population. Pew's biggest finding is the paucity of U.S. Hispanics who identify with the label "Hispanic" or "Latino." Only a quarter. Half of Hispanics identify more strongly with their family's country of origin. And another 21% said that they use the term "American" most often to describe themselves. When asked whether Hispanics have many different cultures or if they share a common culture, 69% indicated the former.
Are we then fooling ourselves when we attempt to market to a segment that we call Hispanic, but that doesn't perceive itself that way? I don't think so.
Much in the study suggests that a common Hispanic culture does exist. Some 95% of Hispanics believe it is important for future generations of U.S. Hispanics to speak Spanish, an interesting finding given that less than half of third-generation Hispanics indicated that they speak Spanish. But 87% say that it is important for Hispanic immigrants to learn English.
Some things, like language and identity, change with acculturation. Two-thirds of Hispanic immigrants in the study say that they think in Spanish, while 80% of third-generation Hispanics answered that they think in English. Two-thirds of the native born responded that they think of themselves as typical Americans, while two-thirds of the foreign born said that they were "very different" from typical Americans.
Yet the study reveals that other things, such as attitudes and values, have more staying power. For instance, with acculturation, Hispanics are more likely to agree that most people can be trusted. Yet even third-generation Hispanics are much less likely to agree than the general population. Similarly, third-generation Hispanics were much more likely than the general population to agree that people can get ahead with hard work or that bigger government is a good thing.
By: David Morse
Is there such a thing as a common Hispanic culture? The Pew Hispanic Center just released a study suggesting that, considering how Hispanics identify themselves, the answer may be no.
We know there is great diversity within the U.S. Hispanic population. Pew's biggest finding is the paucity of U.S. Hispanics who identify with the label "Hispanic" or "Latino." Only a quarter. Half of Hispanics identify more strongly with their family's country of origin. And another 21% said that they use the term "American" most often to describe themselves. When asked whether Hispanics have many different cultures or if they share a common culture, 69% indicated the former.
Are we then fooling ourselves when we attempt to market to a segment that we call Hispanic, but that doesn't perceive itself that way? I don't think so.
Much in the study suggests that a common Hispanic culture does exist. Some 95% of Hispanics believe it is important for future generations of U.S. Hispanics to speak Spanish, an interesting finding given that less than half of third-generation Hispanics indicated that they speak Spanish. But 87% say that it is important for Hispanic immigrants to learn English.
Some things, like language and identity, change with acculturation. Two-thirds of Hispanic immigrants in the study say that they think in Spanish, while 80% of third-generation Hispanics answered that they think in English. Two-thirds of the native born responded that they think of themselves as typical Americans, while two-thirds of the foreign born said that they were "very different" from typical Americans.
Yet the study reveals that other things, such as attitudes and values, have more staying power. For instance, with acculturation, Hispanics are more likely to agree that most people can be trusted. Yet even third-generation Hispanics are much less likely to agree than the general population. Similarly, third-generation Hispanics were much more likely than the general population to agree that people can get ahead with hard work or that bigger government is a good thing.
For more acculturated Hispanics, it may be their values, rather than the traditional markers of ethnicity, such as language and cultural differences, that set them apart from the mainstream. First and foremost may be the importance of family. When asked to compare life in the United States to their country of origin, the United States fared better on all measures but one: "the strength of family ties."
As a higher and higher percentage of the U.S. Hispanic population is native born, the traditional approaches of targeting Hispanics -- language and culture -- will become more difficult. As the Pew study demonstrates, those born in the United States will identify themselves increasingly as American, especially as the term becomes less associated with "white." They will come to prefer English. But it will be a long time before family ceases to be a central part of their identity.
That Hispanics are family-oriented has become a well worn cliche, and the image of "abuelita" (grandma) has been overused by Hispanic marketers. Yet as we grapple with the question of how to target the children and grandchildren of Hispanic immigrants now and in the future, it seems clear that appealing to Hispanic values will play a prominent role, precisely because they are the most durable aspects of Hispanic identity.
Yes, Hispanics are diverse, but there is much to be found in the Pew study to support the argument that despite the myriad variations -- country of origin, acculturation and socioeconomics -- there is a common culture. Central to that culture is a belief in hard work, the valuation of the Spanish language and at the top of the list, love of family. The art of developing targeted messages for Hispanics will evolve as the demographics of the population change. But it will take a lot more than three generations for marketing communications evoking these traditional Hispanic cultural pillars to lose their power.
SOURCE
AdAge. Retrieved from: http://adage.com/article/the-big-tent/great-variety-hispanic-identity-exist/234082/
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Innovators and Billionaires
The Five Personalities of Innovators: Which One Are You?
Brenna Sniderman, Forbes Staff
Whenever I try to conjure up what innovation looks like, the same slideshow of images clicks across my mind: that photo of Einstein with his tongue sticking out, Edison with his light bulb, Steve Jobs onstage in his black turtleneck, introducing the latest iThing. Unoriginal and overdone, to be sure. And not all that accurate.
Because it’s not just about that romantic “ah ha!” moment in front of a chalkboard or a cocktail napkin, it’s about the nitty-gritty work that comes after the idea: getting it accepted and implemented. Who are these faces? And, most importantly, as I’m sure you’re all asking yourselves: where do I fit in?
Forbes Insights’ recent study, “Nurturing Europe’s Spirit of Enterprise: How Entrepreneurial Executives Mobilize Organizations to Innovate,” isolates and identifies five major personalities crucial to fostering a healthy atmosphere of innovation within an organization. Some are more entrepreneurial, and some more process-oriented – but all play a critical role in the process. To wit: thinkers need doers to get things done, and idealists need number crunchers to tether them to reality.
The Forbes Insights study surveyed more than 1,200 executives in Europe across a range of topics and themes. Using a series of questions about their attitudes, beliefs, priorities and behaviors, coupled with a look at the external forces that can either foster – or desiccate – an innovative environment, a picture emerged of five key personality types the play a role in the innovation cycle.
This last piece – the corporate environment – is a stealth factor that can make or break the potential even the most innovative individual. Look at it this way: a blue whale is the largest animal known ever to have existed, but if you tried to put it in a freshwater lake, it wouldn’t survive. Well, that and it would displace a lot of water. My point? Even the largest and mightiest of creatures can’t thrive in an environment that doesn’t nurture them.
The themes surveyed in the study are universal; despite the focus on European executives, these personalities are applicable across oceans and cultures. The full study, available here, provides further breakdown of where these personality types congregate by industry, company size and job function.
I’ll leave it to you to decide which one fits you best . You may even see a little of yourself in more than one group. But remember, none of these are bad. All play crucial roles in developing an idea, pushing it up the corporate channels, developing a strategy and overseeing execution and implementation. These are all pieces of a puzzle, arteries leading to the beating heart of corporate innovation. Wow – can I make that sound any more dramatic?
The Five Personality Types of Innovation: a breakdown
Movers and Shakers. With a strong personal drive, these are leaders. Targets and rewards motivate them strongly, but a major incentive for this group is the idea of creating a legacy and wielding influence over others. These are the ones who like being in the front, driving projects forward (and maybe promoting themselves in the process), but at the end of the day, they provide the push to get things done. On the flip side, they can be a bit arrogant, and impatient with teamwork. Movers and Shakers tend to cluster in risk and corporate strategy, in the private equity and media industries, at mid-size companies; though they comprise 22% of total executives, at companies with revenues of $25 million to $1 billion, Movers and Shakers can encompass up to one-third of the executive suite.
Experimenters. Persistent and open to all new things, experimenters are perhaps the perfect combination for bringing a new idea through the various phases of development and execution. “Where there is a will, there is a way,” is perhaps the best way to describe them. They’re perfectionists and tend to be workaholics, most likely because it takes an incredible amount of dedication, time and hard work to push through an idea or initiative that hasn’t yet caught on. They take deep pride in their achievements, but they also enjoy sharing their expertise with others; they’re that intense colleague who feels passionately about what they do and makes everyone else feel guilty for daydreaming during the meeting about what they plan on making for dinner that night. Because they’re so persistent, even in the face of sometimes considerable pushback, they’re crucial to the innovation cycle. They tend to be risk-takers, and comprise about 16% of executives – and are most likely to be found in mid-size firms of $100 million to $1 billion (20%). Surprisingly, they’re least likely to be CEOs or COOs – just 14% and 15%, respectively, are Experimenters.
Star Pupils. Do you remember those kids in grade school who sat up in the front, whose hands were the first in the air anytime the teacher asked a question? Maybe they even shouted out “Ooh! Ooh!” too just to get the teacher to notice them first? This is the segment of the executive population those kids grew into. They’re good at…well, they’re good at everything, really: developing their personal brand, seeking out and cultivating the right mentors, identifying colleagues’ best talents and putting them to their best use. Somehow, they seem to be able to rise through the ranks and make things happen, even when corporate culture seems stacked against them. Unsurprisingly, CEOs tend to be Star Pupils. What’s most interesting about this group, though, is the fact that, at 24% of corporate executives, they don’t seem to cluster in any one particular job function, industry or company size; rather, they can grow and thrive anywhere: IT, finance, start-ups, established MNCs. They’re the stem cells of the business world.
Controllers. Uncomfortable with risk, Controllers thrive on structure and shy away from more nebulous projects. Above all, they prefer to be in control of their domain and like to have everything in its place. As colleagues, they’re not exactly the team players and networkers; Controllers are more insular and like to focus on concrete, clear-cut objectives where they know exactly where they stand and can better control everything around them. They comprise 15% of executives — the smallest group overall — and tend to cluster on both extremes of the spectrum: either in the largest enterprises (with 1,000 or more employees) or the smallest (with fewer than 10). This makes sense when you think about it: controllers thrive on overseeing bureaucracy (at larger firms) or having complete control over all aspects of their sphere – at the smallest firms, they may be the business owner who has built an entire company around their personality. Controllers pop up most frequently in sales and marketing and finance, and populate the more practical, less visionary, end of the corporate hierarchy: these are the department heads and managers who receive their marching orders and get to mobilizing their troops to marching.
Hangers-On. Forget the less-than-flattering name; these executives exist to bring everyone back down to earth and tether them to reality. On a dinner plate, Hangers-On would be the spinach: few people’s favorite, but extremely important in rounding out the completeness of the meal. Like Controllers, they don’t embrace unstructured environments, and they tend to take things one step further, hewing to conventional wisdom and tried-and-true processes over the new and untested. When asked to pick a side, Hangers-On will most likely pick the middle. This is not necessarily a bad set of characteristics to have; someone has to be the one to remind everyone of limitations and institutional processes. While they comprise 23% of all executives – the same no matter the company size – they cluster most strongly in the CFO/Treasurer/Comptroller role, where 38% are Hangers-On. This makes sense; someone has to remind everyone of budget and resource constraints.
No one group can be considered the purest “entrepreneurial group,” but Movers and Shakers and Experimenters may be the closest. They have the strongest tendency to be internally driven, in control and bridle the most at others telling them what to do. Younger, more innovative firms generally need Movers and Shakers at the top, channeling the energy of Experimenters into a vision that can be implemented. As organizations grow larger and more established, however, they need Star Pupils who can translate that vision into a strategy and lead it forward, Controllers who can marshal the troops to execute it and Hangers-On who can rein it in. A firm reaching maturity has greater need for strong processes, as well as those who value control.
As we’ve seen time and again, unbridled innovation is a wonderful thing. But it’s what comes next that’s arguably more important. To get an innovative idea off the ground, it’s crucial to have a cast of characters who can keep that tension between risk-taking and reality at a healthy balance midway between the sky and the ground — where innovation can thrive.
Source
Forbes. Retrieved from: http://www.forbes.com/sites/brennasniderman/2012/03/21/the-five-personalities-of-innovators-which-one-are-you/2/
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
La Tendencia del Mes: FLAWSOME
La tendencia del mes según el sitio web de Trendwatching.com es una combinación de marcas más humanas y sinceras para llegar a un mercado que está sensibilizado con la honestidad.
Espero lo disfruten
RT
Espero lo disfruten
RT
¿Pero qué quiere decir FLAWSOME?
Los consumidores no esperan que sus marcas sean siempre impecables. De hecho, cada día están más dispuestos a adoptar marcas que son FLAWSOME*: imperfectas e impresionantes, o quizás impresionantes por sus imperfecciones. Marcas que son honestas sobre sus fallos, que demuestran empatía, generosidad, humildad, flexibilidad, madurez, humor y, atrevámonos a decirlo, también carácter y humanidad.
Son dos los factores clave que alimentan esta tendencia:
- HUMAN BRANDS: La aversión a los grandes negocios y la influencia de la cultura online, con su poderosa honestidad e inmediatismo, hacen que los consumidores se alejen poco a poco de marcas aburridas y sosas en favor de las que demuestran algún tipo de personalidad.
- TRANSPARENCY TRIUMPH: Los consumidores se están beneficiando de una transparencia casi total y absoluta (con la cual ya pueden descubrir los fallos/defectos), dado al gran numero de críticas, filtraciones y rankings disponibles online.
* Sip, puede que FLAWSOME sea una de nuestras denominaciones más raras para una tendencia, pero seguro que no se te olvidará ;-)
HUMAN BRANDS
“MARCAS MÁS HUMANAS”
FLAWSOME es parte de una tendencia de consumo de marcas más humanas, un tema en el que ya hemos tocado en briefings anteriores: RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS (ACTOS ALEATORIOS DE GENEROSIDAD), BRAND BUTLERS (MARCAS MAYORDOMAS), GENERATION G (GENERACIÓN G) y muchos otros.
Sí, puede que HUMAN BRANDS no sea un tema exactamente nuevo, pero lo que observamos es la convergencia de cuatro tendencias que hacen que los consumidores sean cada vez más conscientes de sus relaciones con marcas:
“La naturaleza humana hace que las personas tengan dificultad en conectarse, en estar cerca de o confiar genuinamente en otros seres humanos que (aparentemente) no tienen debilidades, imperfecciones o errores.”
- La desilusión del consumidor con el comportamiento de grandes corporaciones se ha convertido (finalmente) en repugnancia absoluta. Como resultado, cualquier marca que consiga desarrollar su negocio bajo una nueva luz será, merecidamente, recibida con los brazos abiertos.
- Aproximadamente un 85% de los consumidores en todo el mundo esperan que las empresas participen activamente en la promoción del bienestar individual y colectivo; un aumento del 15% desde 2010 (Fuente: Havas Media, Noviembre 2011).
- Pero tan solo el 28% de los consumidores cree que las empresas estén trabajando para resolver los grandes desafíos sociales y ambientales (Fuente: Havas Media, Noviembre 2011).
- Los consumidores son cada día más conscientes de que personalidad y beneficio son términos compatibles (piensa en Zappos, Patagonia, Tom’s, Ben & Jerry’s, Michel et Augustin, Zalando etc). Con cada negocio que alcanza éxito manteniendo una postura sensata, atenta, divertida o incluso algo más “humana”, hay más consumidores que se desencantan con el trato de marcas más tradicionales, aburridas e impersonales.
- La gran mayoría de las personas no se molestaría si el 70% de las marcas dejara de existir (Fuente: Havas Media, Noviembre 2011).
- Cultura online es la cultura, y marcas inflexibles con fachadas corporativas chocan directamente con consumidores que viven online, constantemente conectados de manera abierta, rápida y cruda (véase MATURIALISM). Es mas, cada vez más gente comparte su vida online (imperfecciones incluidas), lo que crea mayores expectativas de que las empresas sigan el mismo camino.
- La naturaleza humana hace que las personas tengan dificultad en conectarse, en estar cerca de o confiar genuinamente en otros seres humanos que (aparentemente) no tienen debilidades, imperfecciones o errores. Lo mismo ocurre con las marcas.
TRANSPARENCY TRIUMPH
“EL TRIUNFO DE LA TRANSPARENCIA”
Al lado de este afán por búsqueda de personalidad, también existe el diluvio de un sinfín de reviews, opiniones, rankings, recomendaciones, etc. Hace tres años ya hablábamos de TRANSPARENCY TRIUMPH, y hoy día los consumidores ya pueden sacar provecho de una transparencia casi total.
El asunto seguirá siendo uno de los grandes temas empresariales: desde frictionless sharing (intercambio sin fricción) entre personas, la visualización de datos anteriormente invisibles (véase DIY HEALTH [DYI HEALTH TREND - SALUD DYI: HAZLO TU MISMO]) hasta el cismo causado en gobiernos, marcas, instituciones e individuos por los cables de Wikileaks. Prepárate para un mundo donde todo (actitudes, precios, calidad y comportamiento) será completamente accesible y potencialmente expuesto como “imperfecto”.
Si los consumidores ya están naturalmente más dispuestos a descubrirlo todo sobre tus productos, servicios y actividades, entonces no queda mas remedio que asumir, o quien sabe hasta celebrar las imperfecciones de tu marca.
Dos cosas a tener en cuenta:
- La perfección es una ilusión peligrosa. Criticas negativas aisladas no tienen el poder de arruinar una marca. De hecho, sucede lo contrario: aumentan la confianza en las criticas positivas en medio a todas las opiniones. Los consumidores no son tontos y saben que un producto no puede satisfacer todo el mundo todo el tiempo. Algunos datos:
- E l 68% de los consumidores se fía más de recomendaciones cuando los productos muestran ranking buenos y malos, mientras que el 30% sospecha de censura o reviews falsos si no encuentran comentarios negativos (Fuente: Reevoo.com, Enero 2012).
- Los compradores que salen de su camino para leer opiniones negativas de un producto tienen un 67% más de probabilidad de cambiar de opinión que un consumidor promedio (Fuente: Reevoo.com, Enero 2012).
- Las cosas van a salir mal. De hecho los consumidores nunca han tenido tanto espacio y voz para quejarse, pero eso permite que las marcas también reaccionen y respondan. Si se manejan bien, incluso los defectos pueden ser FLAWSOMEados y aliados para corregir (y construir) reputaciones.
- El 76% de las personas que se quejaron en Twitter no recibieron respuesta de la marca. Sin embargo, el 83% de los consumidores que recibieron repuesta tuvieron un acto reflejo de “me gusta”/“liked”/“loved” el contacto de la marca, y el 85% estuvo satisfecho con la respuesta (Fuente: Matiz Research, Septiembre 2011).
BETA BUZZ
“ZUMBIDO BETA”
Por supuesto, FLAWSOME, también trata de la apertura de las empresas a una mentalidad a la que sus consumidores ya se han acostumbrado. No hay nada malo en presentar productos y servicios* en versión beta, no totalmente impecables, y contar con los consejos y feedback de sus consumidores para mejorarlos.
* No se trata de incentivar el lanzamiento de productos de baja calidad, pero muchas marcas podrían aprender con la industria de software y su abordaje “beta”. Por supuesto los clientes pueden, a menudo, apreciar e incluso disfrutar la idea de ser parte del procesode mejora
Fuente: Trendwatching.com
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
The 10 Super Bowl Commercials That Blew up the Biggest in Social Media
Bluefin Labs Data Pits a Metrosexual British Soccer Star Against Clint Eastwood. And the Winner Is ...
Clint Eastwood in Chrysler's 'Halftime in America' spot
Earlier this morning we published a post titled "Five Amazing Facts About Social Media and the Super Bowl," featuring data generated by our editorial partner Bluefin Labs, the Cambridge, Mass.-based social-TV analytics company. Here's the promised follow-up: A list of the 10 Super Bowl spots that garnered the highest levels of response, as tracked by Bluefin across social media (primarily on Twitter and Facebook).
Note that in the hours and days ahead, the comment tallies for each of these spots will surely continue to explode. For the purposes of this chart, Bluefin collected comments within a 45-minute window from when each ad aired.
Scroll down below the graphic for some context.
- Wait, some half-naked fancy British fella who plays soccer had the top Super Bowl commercial? Yep, in terms of immediate social-media response. The H&M Bodywear ad featuring David Beckham racked up 108,914 social-media comments in the first 45 minutes. Bluefin estimates that 83% of comments came from females, 17% from males.
- Not far behind in second place: the Chrysler ad featuring Clint Eastwood. Social-media commentary skewed 65% male/35% female for this spot.
- A Betty White cameo propelled NBC's "Vocal Kombat" promo for "The Voice" into third place with 90,282 social-media comments within 45 minutes of its airing.
- As always, Bluefin Labs did sentiment analysis on all the social-media comments it collected. Of the Top 10 spots, Doritos' "Man's Best Friend" ad -- which takes our No. 4 spot in terms of comment volume -- had the highest positive sentiment: 61% (vs. 29% neutral and 10% negative).
- Miss any of the spots above during a bathroom break or fridge run yesterday? You're in luck. Instant Replay: See All the Super Bowl Spots Again and Again.
Simon Dumenco is the "Media Guy" columnist for Advertising Age. You can follow him on Twitter @simondumenco. You can follow Bluefin Labs on Twitter @bluefinlabs.
AdAge. (2012) The 10 Super Bowl Commercials That Blew up the Biggest in Social Media.
Retrieved fromhttp://adage.com/article/special-report-super-bowl/10-super-bowl-commercials-won-social-media/232548/?utm_source=mediaworks&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=adage
Friday, January 20, 2012
How Well-Defined Is Your Brand's Ideal?
'Grow' Author Jim Stengel Aims to Bring Analytical Rigor to Purpose-Driven Marketing
Marketing conferences these days can seem like Brand-Abusers Anonymous meetings, with marketers confessing in 12-step-type mumbo jumbo how they, or more often their predecessors, strayed from the path of the brand's true purpose but ultimately found their way back.
Jim Stengel
Marketing conferences these days can seem like Brand-Abusers Anonymous meetings, with marketers confessing in 12-step-type mumbo jumbo how they, or more often their predecessors, strayed from the path of the brand's true purpose but ultimately found their way back.
Jim Stengel
Jim Stengel, former global marketing officer at Procter & Gamble Co.and perhaps the high priest of purpose-driven marketing, has teamed with WPP's Millward Brown Optimor to bring analytical rigor to the movement.
In his book, "Grow: How Ideals Power Growth and Profit at the World's Greatest Companies" Mr. Stengel makes the case that corporate "ideals," the word he has opted for over "purpose," are at the core of success.
Since Mr. Stengel left P&G three years ago, he and Millward Brown have spent much of their time identifying and analyzing the 50 fastest-growing brands from 2000 to 2010 in terms of value and consumer preference.
They even collaborated with Millward Brown's neuroscience unit to do implicit association testing to measure how quickly people associated words with brands. Their research, which initially involved thousands of companies, showed that people more quickly associated the Stengel 50 brands with their ideals -- or purpose -- than they did others.
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The Stengel 50
The Stengel 50 also outperformed the Standard & Poors' 500 by 400% over the decade, exceeding their 2007 valuations as the general market failed to regain its prerecession highs.
The BrandZ valuation system used by Millward Brown relies heavily on financial measures, so that correlation isn't surprising. But the one between the Stengel 50 and consumers closely identifying them and their ideals is an eye-opener, said Benoit Garbe, VP of Millward Brown Optimor.
The work spurred Millward Brown to do a second pilot with an additional 250 businesses involving whether consumers identify a brand as ideal-driven, and then assessing the ideal's strength.
"One of the most important insights that came from this pilot is proof that associations with ideals have a strong relationship with consumer preference, consideration and choice," Mr. Garbe said.
The Stengel 50 includes only one P&G brand -- Pampers (maybe 1.5, given that Hugo Boss, for which P&G is a licensed distributor of fragrances, also made the list). It has many P&G rivals, including Unilever's Dove, Mars' Royal Canin, GlaxoSmithKline's Sensodyne, L'Occitane, Natura (the Brazilian personal-care brand, not the P&G pet-food brand), and green-cleaning brands Method and Seventh Generation.
Mr. Stengel's list includes tech and e-commerce powerhouses Apple, Google, IBM, Amazon and Zappos. But it also contains recent tech casualties BlackBerry and Hewlett-Packard, which benefited from the 2010 cutoff.
"Anytime you look at 50 businesses in the dynamic space they're playing in, they're going to have some wobbles," Mr. Stengel said of BlackBerry and HP. "If you look at this in three or five years, a large percentage of these brands will be healthy."
The only other media brand to appear on the list is Discovery Communications. According to Mr. Stengel, the company managed it by changing course from what Mr. Stengel dubs "tattoo TV," with such series as "American Chopper" last decade, to focus on its core family programming. Moves that upheld that ideal included helping to commission the "Planet Earth" series along with the BBC.
For those wondering about the brands and their ideals, see the adjoining list, provided by Mr. Stengel.
Johnnie Walker probably didn't know that he was starting a movement to "celebrate journeys of progress and success" when he sold his first bottle of scotch in 1857, Mr. Stengel said. "They created their own purpose [later] based on what they thought would be relevant for their consumers," he said.
The Stengel 50 features big spenders such as Coca-Cola (which "exists to inspire moments of happiness") but is heavy with brands that spend little on conventional advertising, including Method, Seventh Generation, Innocent and Chipotle.
Mr. Garbe at Millward Brown Optimor said that making the list "is less about selling something or pushing a message, and more about [brands'] inviting consumers into their world" by acting on a set of core beliefs.
For example, he said, Samsung's free charging stations in airports may send a stronger message about what the brand stands for than any advertising ever could.
Retrieved from AdAge on January 20, 2012 from: http://adage.com/article/news/defined-brand-s-ideal/232097/
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