LEAD/MARKE

Ritter Sport - A German Chocolate Brand Engaging in Social Media

Read my new post "Ritter Sport sucht den quadratischen Markenbotschafter" (in German) at werbeblogger, where I am member of the editorial team.

lead/marke NET: Tom Fishburne > "new-featuritis"

Note: The following also illuminates the markets for sneakers, tooth-brushes, tooth-pastes, phones, cars, and many, many more. Enjoy!
(lead/marke NET proudly features Tom's inspiring posts on a regular basis.)

(to license this cartoon, click here)

The very first Saturday Night Live in 1975 featured a mock-commercial with George Carlin making fun of the Gillette Trac II, which was the first two-blade razor. SNL spoofed it with a fake three-blade razor called the Triple-Trac, and closed with a tagline, "The Triple-Trac. Because You'll Believe Anything". 

Twenty-three years later, in 1998, Gillette launched the Mach3 razor, the first three-blade razor. I heard a Gillette executive give a talk about the Mach3 soon after launch, and he talked in gushing terms about the innovation. When it came time for questions, someone in the audience asked, "What's next? 4 blades? 5 blades?" Everyone in the room laughed ... except for the guy from Gillette. He replied in complete seriousness, "I can't comment". 

As it turns out, Wilkinson/Schick launched a four-blade Quattro in 2004, which prompted The Onion to poke fun at the Gillette president with a mock-commentary, "Fuck Everything, We're Doing Five Blades". And then three years later in 2006, Gillette actually launched a five-blade razor, the Fusion, along with a motorized five-blade version called Fusion Power. Truth is stranger than fiction. 

Feature proliferation is the name of the game in new product development. Most innovation in the market is composed of incremental improvements to what's been done before. Yet those new features often outpace what the consumers actually want. In the case of the Fusion, Gillette had to launch a marketing campaign specifically targeted to their own Mach3 consumers. Instead of campaigning to steal share from competitors, they had to practically beg their own consumers who were plenty happy with the earlier Mach3 to upgrade to the more expensive Fusion.  They over-served the market. 

As Clayton Christensen argues in the Innovator's Dilemma, the best move when the market is over-served is to innovate from below, not to join the new feature arms race.  Less can be more.  Simplicity is the killer app. 

The Economist ran a recent article on this effect in consumer technology, "In Praise of Techno-Austerity": 

"There are signs that technologists are waking up to the benefits of minimalism, thanks to two things: feature fatique among consumers who simply want things to work, and strong demand from less affluent consumers in the developing world. It is telling that the market value of Apple, the company most closely associated with simple, elegant high-tech products, recently overtook that of Microsoft, the company with the most notorious case of new-featuritis". 

This feature fatique carries to every consumer market, which creates opportunity for brands that think outside the new feature arms race. My favorite recent innovation is Vibram Five Fingers, a barefoot running shoe. Rather than engage in the feature one-up-manship of Nike and Adidas, Vibram launched a minimalist product that completely rethinks the nature of a running shoe. 

How can you launch the Five Fingers, Wii, or Flip for your category? Focus your energy there, not on adding a sixth or seventh razor blade.

Tom, when not cartooning (eg. for Marketing Week), is method's international managing director. Based in London, he frequently speaks at campuses, companies, and conferences about marketing, cartooning, and how to spread business ideas. @tomfishburne

Business Innovation: Be the Steve Jobs to Your Business - Before He Does!

Steve Jobs, as Google in a way, too, is admired for his disruptive talents. He is able to re-invent markets, business models, products, and services. By that he of course polarizes, but one must admit he is successful as almost nobody else.

His success makes him more 'dangerous' to other existing businesses around his own. His success of course makes him a perfect example to learn from - before he turns to your own market!

Just by identifying and reflecting the parallelisms of Apple's most successful products and brands in the last few years,
- iPod & iTunes (including Nike+)
- iPhone
- iPad
we may learn a lot about the traits we should apply to our own business thinking and strategy.

The common traits of Apple's success stories are easy to identify. Just read the below 5 rules and add your own knowledge about the above products:

01 - Intuition

Almost intuitively feeling what the consumer might love tomorrow (even if s/he does not know about this future love today), Apple transcends today's markets and tomorrow's consumers, their wants and cravings (not necessarily their needs).

02 - Imagination

By adding relevant and game-changing features, Apple transforms awoken wants and cravings into tangible 'needs'.
By not limiting that imagination to the average manager's courage Apple is able to amaze the (potential) consumer almost every time they launch a new product (or even update).

Intuition and Imagination build the foundation for Apple's success: Fascination, Simplification, and Beautification:

03 - Fascination

A large part of Apple's fascination is build upon their ability to identify what I like to call 'Informal Markets', markets you do not find in the text book but in your consumer's behavior, markets not build by researcher's definitions but by consumer's action.

People are stunned by Apple's products, wondering why they themselves did not think of that combination of services and/or features before - as with simplification.

04 - Simplification

The products' inner beauty lies in an unsurpassed convenience and simplicity - without suffering from neglect! Apple supplies a new perspective, a new way of working and handling the tasks at hand. This opens new horizons and becomes example for the market as a whole.

05 - Beautification

The products' outer beauty is more than obvious. And we do not know which comes first, beautification or simplification. Together they challenge each other, outgrow themselves and become a fascinating singularity.

I know, these easy to identify rules for success are very hard to match (and I know there is more to it from inside the company), but if we do not start today, we won't be as successful as we could tomorrow.

Be a Spark! Change the Game! Leave a Mark!

Addendum

June, 30th > 08:39hrs > "Three Critical Innovation Lessons from Apple", Harvard Business Review. "Why Creativity is Dangerous for Business Innovation", Blogging Innovation.

Great interview with Jonathan Ive on Apple's design: "Material Matters", core77.

lead/marke NET: Drew Neisser > "Cisco’s SM Marketing Puts Game on Leaderboard

Note: I like the 1st step "Get Management Blessing". Most of the time it all ends there - prior to maturity. Got to get your act together. Woo them! Enjoy!
(lead/marke NET proudly features Drew's inspiring posts on a regular basis.)

Just after the Marketing VP set the bar at 20,000 downloads in the first six months, Petra Neiger and the myPlanNet game team at Cisco wondered, “How the heck are we going to do that?” The marketing budget was well under $50,000, her team was tiny and each of them had other marketing responsibilities. Nonetheless, when I met Petra this May, the program was already a stunning success and being honored with BtoB’s Social Media Marketing Award for Best Integrated Campaign.

In fact, myPlanNet, a simulation game that “puts you in the shoes of a service provider CEO,” exceeded expectations at every turn. Launched in October 2009, the game surpassed the download goal by 3,200 the end of January and has gained at least 20,000 more players since then. The game has attracted over 60,000 fans on Facebook with players from at least 2500 different companies and over 130 different countries. With 5,000 new fans joining between mid May and mid June, myPlanNet is a case worth studying, revealing six game-changing steps to social media innovation.

1. Get Management Blessing

It’s a fundamental truth that innovation requires support in the highest offices of any company. Not surprisingly, the myPlanNet game concept was “formed out of an internal innovation contest,” noted Ms.Neiger. “The idea was to find an untraditional way to engage our customer and teach them about Cisco,” she added. “Cisco is very big on innovation, wanting to show the human network in action,” offered Petra. That said, management did not write a blank check and instead put a cap on financial resources, limiting the development budget to $200,000 thus requiring the team to make the most of every dollar. This hedging approach to innovation is not unusual and can inspire further creativity as it did with this program.

2. Channel Internal Energy

Often companies overlook the importance of encouraging widespread employee involvement in their innovative initiatives, particularly in social media. This was not the case with myPlanNet. First, noted Ms. Neiger, “we had an internal group that tested the game every step of the way.” This helped keep the program on budget. Then, added Ms. Neiger, “We launched the game internally 2-3 weeks before external launch because it’s a very robust game so we didn’t know how it would work once a lot of people started playing.” This had the added benefits of enhancing morale and as Petra noted, “started a trend inside the company where other groups are starting to play the game and are inspired to try more innovative approaches.”

3. Create Something Innovative

Admittedly, this sub-head may seem a little obvious, but the key word here is “Create” and you’d be amazed how often marketers seek social media success without actually creating something of genuine value for their target. In Cisco’s case, they created a simulation game that according to Petra, was “easy to play but difficult to master; you can play five minutes or you can play for an hour.” One sure sign of success that you’ve created something innovative is unplanned press attention. “We had no PR outreach whatsoever,” added Ms.Neiger, yet the Washington Post, The SF Chronicle, numerous magazines and blogs all reported on the game, which in turn fueled social media engagement.

4. Seed Your Efforts

Bestselling author Doug Ruskoff recently suggested that all a company needed to do was to create a superior product and, in the new world of social media communications, consumers would find out about it and beat a virtual trail to their door. This idealistic viewpoint may ultimately prove to be true but few marketers can or should take this chance right now. At a minimum, marketers need to jump-start the conversation, as was the case with myPlanNet. The game demoed at a big tradeshow in Geneva last October where, noted Ms. Neiger, “We had a camera to record people’s experiences and put these videos and images on our Game Support and Facebook fan pages.” Judiciously allocating their $30k launch budget to demos, welcome ads and content syndication, Cisco also spent $100 per day on Facebook to bring people to their fan page all of which helped spark interest in the game.

5. Keep on Experimenting

Given the dynamic nature of social media, it is essential that once you get started you keep adapting to consumer feedback and experiment as the opportunities present themselves. Noted Ms. Neiger, “six weeks after launch we started doing social media even more and experimenting a lot.” When they started seeing comments in foreign languages, they responded with a monthly report of fans by country. “People have national pride and are very into it so they passed along the link,” offered Petra who noted enthusiastically that users could be traced back to 130 different countries, thus fulfilling an important objective for this unique marketing initiative. Later on they added a holiday challenge, mini-online games and even a multiple choice quiz about the game, all of which increased fan engagement.

6. Think Small

Unfortunately, a lot of innovative programs, especially ambitious ones in the social media arena never see the light of day because their initial funding requirements are deemed to be too large by management. myPlanNet, the game, was built in 13 months with the help of external experts at a budget cap of $200,000. Though previous gaming efforts by Cisco had achieved some success, management still asked, “Why would this be different from what we’ve done before and how do we get the word out?” Petra and her team were quick with answers, having baked in a more “inclusive gaming experience” and social media-friendly elements like in-game testimonials and a dynamic leader board that allows players to see top scores by week, month and all-time. At the same time, Petra noted that “We would have loved to do more personalization within the game and to include a multiplayer aspect,” but that would have required more time and money, changes that might have prevented this winning game from launching in the first place.

Final note: Petra was quick to remind me that myPlanNet, “started as a side project.” Since then, she added, “The company realizes that the game is really good and really successful,” but she “still has a day job” as does the rest of her team–so much for award-winning marketing being all fun and games!

Drew is the CEO of Renegade, the digital & guerrilla marketing agency from New York City that helps clients make more out of less by transforming communications into "Marketing as Service." @DrewNeisser

Social Media: Mast Head, Management Masturbation or Must-Have?

Even if the hype part of social media is gone for good, the better part of it will stay as consumer's new independence, individuality, and impatience.

Now companies will have to make a decision which road to follow - as some of them are going in the wrong direction. At the moment I see three kinds of social media implementation in markets and corporations:

Social Media as Mast Head?

Many corporations like telecoms, internet providers, and media proudly carry the social media badge as a shield in front of them. They have understood they have to. Agencies and consultants have told them to. They have not understood what social media really means. They do not live it- they just pretend to be socially engaged. They still think it is a way of dressing up - not a way of living.

These corporations did not change from the inside. They build communities, yes. They collect people, yes, like they collected eyeballs before. But social media is not about quantities and reach, it is about quality and content.

They do try their best, yes. Just surfacing the ocean of possibilities.

Social Media as Management Masturbation?

Other companies do even less, they just dip their toe into this social ocean. Social media is fancy, trendy, we should be there, my eleven year old son just said. We need facebook, we need fans, we need twitter, we need followers.

We do not know why, but as everybody is talking about it, we do need it, too. 'Cause we are fancy, modern, trendy, too!

Agencies like that. As they are just surfacing, too. Social media is not really their business. Advertising is.
Social media is much to complex for the average agency's mind.

Social Media as Must-Have?

Corporations young at heart live social media as social networking. They cannot think of a world without. For them it is like breathing. There is no other way to live, to strive, to become successful. For them there is no other way to interact with their consumers, to cooperate, collaborate, co-create, and innovate.

They do not call it social media, they call it doing business. Having understood the relevance of dialog, respecting the individual, and the potential benefits for the organization, they live the future of all markets (without neglecting the benefits of mass communication!).

Companies finally will have to make a decision. Their success in the markets will depend on it. They should decide wisely. They should ask somebody, not an agency, who knows.

Business Innovation: Kevin Kelly > "Great Successes ... Block a Longer, Larger View"

"Great success in one product or service tends to block a longer, larger view of the opportunities available in the economy as a whole, and of the rapidly shifting terrain ahead.

Legendary, long-lived companies are intensely outward-looking. They can spot a global peak and distinguish it from the many false peaks.

They understand that an inward focus, especially a narrow focus on being "world's best" in some matter, can work against long-term adaptation by blinding the organization from seeking new heights.

Better for the long haul is an outward perspective that is always seeking alternative mountains to climb."

lead/marke NET: Tom Fishburne > "After the Brainstorm"

Note: In lead/marke's 3rd process step you yourself shepherd the innovation through your company by presenting it to the Top and (by that) owning it.
(lead/marke NET proudly features Tom's inspiring posts on a regular basis.)

(to license this cartoon, click here)   

Last week I joined one of the better idea generation exercises I've experienced in a while. We split into small groups and toured the San Francisco Ferry Building to scout out retail merchandising ideas. The Ferry Building is packed with novel, funky shops like a Far West Fungi, which only sells mushrooms: dried mushrooms, fresh mushrooms, mushroom ice cream -- everything conceivably mushroom-related except for the psychedelic variety. You can learn a lot from experimental retail concepts like that. 

As we debriefed afterwards, it struck me that the real challenge is the period after the brainstorm ends. When you distill your notes and pack away the flipcharts and sticky notes, how do you bring the ideas to life without losing momentum and creativity? 

As we return to the realties of our day jobs at the end of a brainstorm, we run into road blocks, inertia, committees and other hazards that can water down ideas or shut them down entirely. That's what organizations do well. They are designed to minimize risk. Bringing an idea to life can feel like making it through a circuitous maze. So much emphasis with innovation is placed on the up-front brainstorm, yet the real acid test is in the day-to-day shepherding of the idea through the organization. 

Thomas Edison famously observed "genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration". Scott Belsky was inspired by this insight to launch a think tank and conference series called The 99 Percent, which has very useful guidance on making it through that maze without giving up.  Business creativity is not about brainstorming.  It's about persevering.

Tom, when not cartooning (eg. for Marketing Week), is method's international managing director. Based in London, he frequently speaks at campuses, companies, and conferences about marketing, cartooning, and how to spread business ideas. @tomfishburne

Offering Engaging Value: WiFi, Media and even new Products as A Means to an End

You all know that: you have a great product, but its greatest times are over - and you did not see that coming because past profits and successes brightened future horizons.

But there is hope. Start to engage with people. Not - as everybody does - with Social Media, but with relevant added value, with services, even new product offerings to new but strategically relevant markets:

01 - Sometimes, if your core product lacks the cool look, the latest hype status, or some conversational power, you add a consumer-relevant service to it. Like Starbucks did (GigaOm reports): "Starbucks today announced that it will provide free wireless access in all U.S. company-operated locations starting July 1."

A great start! And, even better: "And this fall it will launch the Starbucks Digital Network, a partnership with Yahoo that will provide customers free unrestricted access to pay sites such as the Wall Street Journal. Additional content providers in the new, in-store network offering include iTunes, The New York Times, Patch, USA TODAY and ZAGAT."

Why's that so great? Because many more will think like Kevin from GigaOm in his post: "I’ve been considering an iPad subscription to the Wall Street Journal, but find it a bit too pricey for my tastes. However, I do frequent Starbucks locations on a regular basis already, and I just might turn my occasional Starbucks visit into a daily one if — just like when someone leaves a copy of the paper behind — I can read the Journal there for free. Of course, Starbucks wins big in this situation by combining premium information with its retail locations as the longer I’m in the store enjoying additional content and a wireless connection, the more likely I am to buy a beverage or a bite to eat."

It is so great - just let me emphasize it - because "Starbucks wins big in this situation by combining premium information with its retail locations as the longer I’m in the store enjoying additional content and a wireless connection, the more likely I am to buy a beverage or a bite to eat."

> What will your own brand's 'Starbucks moment' be? Better think about it and develop one before it's really too late (Starbucks already had its 'time out'!).

02 - And sometimes you even move into totally new markets - as a first mover! - to save your core product, and to save and further optimize your future overall success by taking it to new markets:

A - "At the end of the day, Android exists so that Google can get more people searching - and keep them searching as mobile devices overtake computers."

B - "The iPhone exists to be one of the mobile devices that overtakes computers so that Apple can keep selling high-margin machines." (both quotes: techcrunch)

> What will your next market to be entered look like? How do you utilize digitalization, the internet, and mobility to ensure your brand's and business's success? Who are the relative rebels, the relative innovators, and relative fans leaving or defining your market in the real world? What are your Informal Markets? How do you stay ahead of people's new independence, individuality, and impatience?

Business Innovation > lead/marke NET: Tom Fishburne > "Lost in Translation"

Note: For me disruptive innovation is a great way to embrace change and stay ahead of the pack. Others just fear the challenge to their status (quo). Enjoy!
(lead/marke NET proudly features Tom's inspiring posts on a regular basis.)

(to license this cartoon, click here)

I had a "Lost in Translation" moment a couple weeks ago in a meeting with 20 French and Russian executives. It was the first time I'd ever been in a meeting where someone simultaneously translated the discussion into ear pieces. I spent the whole meeting wondering if they really understood what we were trying to communicate. Many of my jokes fell flat and their questions back (through the same translator) seemed like non-sequiturs.

This language gap made me think of the cultural gap that exists in business, particularly around innovation. We may all speak English in business life, but that doesn't mean that we speak the same language. Innovation that challenges the status quo is particularly foreign. 

I once took a class with Clayten Christensen, who wrote The Innovator's Dilemma and coined the term disruptive innovation. He described that businesses typically ignore disruptive innovations. Even if they recognize a disruptive innovation, they are reluctant to take advantage of it, because it threatens their existing business. Often they wait to take action until it is too late. 

While taking this class, my bike route took me past the Polaroid headquarters in Cambridge. They were a classic case of a business that ignored a disruptive innovation in digital photography. As if to prove Christensen's point, Polaroid filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection midway through the class. Failing to acknowledge a disruptive innovation ultimately led to the demise of the company. 

When trying to advance any form of innovation that challenges the status quo, we have to recognize the cultural intertia that will block those types of projects. Without overcoming the translation gap, those ideas will never get off the ground.

Tom, when not cartooning (eg. for Marketing Week), is method's international managing director. Based in London, he frequently speaks at campuses, companies, and conferences about marketing, cartooning, and how to spread business ideas. @tomfishburne

Change the Game: Social Medialists, Are You Trapped in Excel, too?

Via travis-walked.

Do you live in your PC or Apple? Do you live through your computer? Are you trapped in Excel, Word and Powerpoint? Reduced by your bosses and departments to a mere lines and columns, algorythms and figures?

The computer is your tool, not your master. The computer is your window to the world, towards new horizons, not your prison cell.

People, not numbers, are buying your brand's or corporation's products. People, not algorythms, engage and believe in your brand. Hearts and minds, not eyeballs, want to communicate, collaborate and co-create with you, your brand, your corporation.

Believe me, there is no solution to be found, if you do not start by thinking about the real world. Real people, real problems, real solutions.

Social Networking is about quality of input, not ever larger quantities of numbers. It's about insights, not counting fans. It is about dialog, not monologues.

Social Networking is about engagement, not about management. Social Networking is about empowering people that count, not about counting people.

Innovation: Johanna Blakley > "Lessons from Fashion's Free Culture"

Quite interestingly there is no copyright protection for design in fashion - except the logo/branding.

Nevertheless brands and corporations every few months amaze with innovative designs, fabrics, gadgets.

The below video shows the power of innovation, branding and pace.

lead/marke NET: Charles Frith > "I was alone, I took a ride, I didn't know what I would find there."

Note: "Steve Jobes is the Henry Ford of our times" (Charles). Nothing more to say. Please enjoy!
(L/M NET features Charles' inspiring posts on a regular basis.)

I rarely blog about Steve Jobs and Apple. I think the obsession with Apple in the United States and Kingdom is symptomatic of an intellectual malaise that stretches from marketing to politics. Deconstructing the yearning for a killer app it's not hard to critique and conclude it as end-of-empire-futility. I mean, how can we belch on about authenticity in brands when as far as I know most advertising people couldn't care less about the supply chain details any further than a POS shelf wobbler because surely it hasn't passed you by that the newspapers harp on about productivity and the best selling apps are all games?

That doesn't mean I don't think Steve Jobs is anything less than the Henry Ford of our times. I dislike his editorial perspective which he's entitled to have and implement but the bottom line is I've loved buying and using his products. I see the MacBook Air as the Volkswagen Karman of our age. It's so beautiful that I intend to buy a few so I can use one for as long as I'm able to.

That doesn't mean I think an app is going to save marketing. The malaise is too deep, the wilful blindness too pathological, and apart from all that I don't think we're in the business of the blockbuster any more. I think marketing doesn't get it, that more 'one to one', is de facto less 'one to many'. This is the why I fall asleep with gratuitous use of 'awesome' and 'cool' app tweets. I mean really. Shut up already.

Any how: Steve did an hour and a half interview which I felt should compensate for ever reading any more tweet links about him for a couple of years at least and I was right. It's a great chunk of what he's about along with some really great revelations about his business. The one I most liked is that app usage is overtaking search on his latest products. Which to me is obvious when a traditional keyboard is not available as per iPhone and iPad. Quicker to use a tool than finger dab the screen. This is interesting to me, but y'all gotta get with the program that the killer app is the operating system. The rest are tertiary ecosystem bricks, and one I talked about in my quick podcast over here.

I could mention that I didn't really know about his lisp before, that someone ought to tell Steve that the half mast jeans and 80's sneaker look is the least coolest thing he does.I'd be pushing for Boot Cut, Rock & Republic denim with some cowboy boots since keeping his weight up is not so easy now, but the polo neck and frameless Lennon glasses work well with that.

These are inconsequential matters. Even though I'm not a die hard fan boy gushing on the bulletin boards I feel I've paid him a better compliment here than I've read anywhere else and truth is you don't need to listen to me. Listen to him. I heard him reply 'we're having fun' when someone asked him about his business successes recently. Who else says that? Nobody right?

You can see that the most trivial agenda item (though not ignorable) is the quarterly report. It shows clearly, but in the final analysis of Apple, I need to remind you, it's not about the technology, it's about the human and rest assured advertising and marketing world: The malaise is inside us. There is no app for that, though watching Steve the human being below is a start.

Henry Ford of our times. I think Oscar Wilde said that first.

Charles is a creative planner in the advertising business. He is based in Asia where he has worked for agencies as distant as Beijing and Singapore. He has a popular advertising blog in which he shares his day to day life and latest digital thinking. (@charlesfrith)

A Fine Start: "The Strategic Sweet Spot" - But Just a Warm-Up for the Real Thing

Via davidgillespie.

Finding your sweet spot of customer's needs, competitive differenciation and your company's capabilities is great. Every business should strive to do that.

But that is just a starter, a warm-up for the real thing: the lead/marke.

As a lead/marke you do not necessarily research for your customer's needs, but stay ahead of known needs by developing solutions to unsolved problems or even unknown sensations. You develop new needs.

As a lead/marke you do not necessarily stay within your own capabilities, because they do limit your possibilities. If you stay within, you cannot really grow.

As a lead/marke you do not necessarily benchmark vs. existing competition, because you have none / your competitive field changes with every new launch.

Does that make sense? If you think in Informal Markets it surely does.

Informal Markets are derived from people's new independence, individuality and impatience. Informal Markets are not the artificial markets / definitions of GfK or Nielsen. They're derived and 'extrapolated' from real human thinking and acting.

While a traditional market definition would read 'very small cars', Informal Markets in their first quadrant would eg. state 'very small car, bus, tram, subway, motorbike, bike, scooter, motor scooter, park & ride, etc'.
But that is a different story.

I like the sweet spot. It communicates very fast. Start with it! It is a great start for differenciation - for disruption you will have to becoem a lead/marke!

Why with Social Media every Company can become HackFWD, the New Incubator by Xing Founder Lars Hinrich

All the answers to the above headline's "Why" are all in the next paragraph, written by TheNextWeb:

"HackFWD is pre-seed fund focused on supporting and investing in “Europe’s most passionate geeks”. The company is looking for new ideas from passionate people with consumer facing, scalable products. In return HackFWD offers funding for year 1 up to €191,000 (depending on the size of your team) , advice and help when you need it, leaves you in complete control but takes 27% of the company."

Or what does your company do to develop, produce and market the most advanced and inspiring products?
- "supporting and investing in "Europe’s most passionate geeks"?
- "looking for new ideas from passionate people"?
- "looking for new ideas from passionate people"?

- "funding for year 1 up to €191,000 (depending on the size of your team)"?
- "advice and help when you need it"?
- "leaves you in complete control but takes 27%"?

And if you do not work like that today, you really should start tomorrow!

If you do not search for the best people, do not look for the most passionate ones, do not long for the best ideas around, and if you are not prepared to pay those people and ideas for what they are worth, than you should close the company! I mean that.

And you can even do better than that: with the help of Social Media - or better Social Networking - you may even exponentiate your results!
- Talk to the best people around Europe and the world.
- Meet them on eye level, open a dialog.
- Motivate them to participate. Develop Win-Win! situations.
- Challenge them to be informal part of brand engagement, development, testing.
- Let them market and advocate your products, services, and brands.

Be a spark to their engagement and involvement, change the game, and let them leave a mark. Make them part of the brand movement.

And please always remember: It is the content that counts, the service, the value, the relevance - not the medium. The interaction counts. The walk, not the talk.
Enjoy!

... and have a look at the introductory video of HackFWD:

lead/marke NET: Drew Neisser > "Graduate to Social Media 3.0 (redux)"

Note: Here's to all you marketeers, taking Social Media not too seriously. You better should. And maybe you will after that. Enjoy!
(lead/marke NET proudly features Drew's inspiring posts on a regular basis.)

Just in case you missed it, this article ran on MediaPost today.

A seasoned marketing veteran said to me recently that social media is simply “what we used to call buzz marketing.”  I bristled at this and mentioned that Donny Deutsch had also tried to categorize social media at the recent NYC I40 Character conference as “just another new & sexy media channel” like cable TV 20 years ago or the Internet 10 years ago.   In my humble opinion, to look at social media through the lens of a previous communication channel is an old-school approach that is inherently self-limiting.

Instead, I would encourage marketers to graduate to Social Media 3.0, an entirely new dynamic that requires a high degree professionalism, new strategic platforms, new metrics for success, new monitoring tools, cross-disciplined planning and an open-mindedness to social media in just about any business category.  To that end, here are four courses of action marketers should consider to really make the grade in social media.

Enough with the Interns

Because a lot of marketers consider social media experimental and/or the exclusive domain of Millennials, they fail to staff this relatively young field with experienced professionals.  The result is a self-fulfilling mishmash of tactics that rarely yield sustainable results.  Because social media can have an impact on everything from search results to PR coverage, lead generation to customer loyalty, marketers need to acknowledge its critical role and staff it accordingly.

Just a couple of weeks ago I met with a publisher of a major print mag that was way behind its publishing peers in social media.  When I asked how he planned to attack this challenge, his response was, “We just hired a summer intern to outline our social media strategy.”  Are you kidding me?  I couldn’t help but wonder if this same publisher would put interns on the phone with his most important customers or ask an intern to figure out his long-term business plan. No wonder print is in trouble.

Don’t get me wrong.  I love interns.  Just don’t put them in charge of anything customer facing – especially social media. Take this stuff seriously folks. Hire professionals, or your competition will eat you for lunch.

Align with Business Goals

Social Media 2.0 was mainly “ready, fire, aim.” Marketers set up Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, YouTube videos and blogs  when the spirit arose, all in the name of experimentation.  Some succeeded but more ended up with a disparate array of content that languished, raising serious questions in the C-Suite about the ROI of social media.

Social Media 3.0 is about aligning your efforts clearly and directly with your company’s principal objectives of increasing revenue and/or lowering costs.   If the emphasis is on the revenue side, then you can further break this down into customer acquisition and/or revenue per customer.  A number of companies like Dell and e.l.f. cosmetics are using social media to drive revenue, pushing out offers to their networks of fans that translate into immediate sales and repeat purchases.

If the emphasis is on cost reduction, then consider how social media can lower call center costs and/or cost per lead.  Best Buy’s Twelpforce has responded to 28,000 customer inquiries via Twitter, dramatically lowering cost per response vis-à-vis its call center.  A well-designed social media program can radically improve natural search results, which in turn will lower your cost per lead.

Get Serious about Metrics

Once your business goals are clear, establishing KPIs (key performance indices) and related social media benchmarks is a relatively simple task regardless of your business category.  To that point, one of the most interesting social media cases I’ve seen lately was about a Canadian supply chain management company named Kinaxis, a company that is so serious about metrics for success that they hired Forrester to guide their strategy while making the business case for social media.

In 2008, Kinaxis set out to engage the greater supply chain community with the hopes of increasing website traffic, driving sales leads, generating positive word of mouth all with the underlying goal of improving natural search results.  Using a multi-pronged online approach that included blogging, community building, video distribution and Twitter, Kinaxis was able to build and sustain an active community and triple their number of web-based sales leads to 42,000 in 2009.

Though I can’t do justice to the Kinaxis case here, suffice it to say that they monitored a wide range of metrics including page views, impressions, referrals, email open-rates, conversion rates, word of mouth mentions, and more, all of which went up dramatically due to a well planned and executed program of engagement.

Conduct a Social Media Audit

As I stated at the beginning of this diatribe, social media is far more complex than a traditional media channel in which a marketer can simply buy some time and push out a message.  Social media touches just about every aspect of your business from customer service to corporate compliance, lead generation to public relations, advertising to corporate social responsibility and then some.

As such, marketers would be smart to conduct a thorough social media audit internally or better yet with the help of outside experts who can take an impartial look at both the issues and the opportunities.  This audit requires the attention and participation of multiple department heads, since a well-conceived and well-executed program is inherently cross-disciplined, and turf wars must be avoided.

A thorough social media audit (see Renegade Social Media Audit slideshow here) examines the competitive environment, defines an overall strategy in the context of business goals, outlines tactical opportunities and identifies any organizational and cultural changes required to support implementation.  This highly disciplined approach will save countless hours of wheel spinning, helping to insure that your investment will be rewarded and you’ll be graduating to the next level of social media success.

So instead of just toasting Dads and grads on Facebook this June, give some serious thought to how your social media program can graduate to a new level of professionalism and accomplishment.

Drew is the CEO of Renegade, the digital & guerrilla marketing agency from New York City that helps clients make more out of less by transforming communications into "Marketing as Service." @DrewNeisser

lead/marke NET: Anthony Kalamut > Don't miss Sally Hogshead on Jägermeister

Note: Find out why Jägermeister is such a success, even if just a few like the taste of it (says Sally). As Jägermeister is a German Heimspiel (home match) I slightly changed the original headline "The Genius That is Sally Hogshead". Enjoy!
(lead/marke NET proudly features Anthony's inspiring posts on a regular basis.)

If you missed Sally Hogshead back in early March during The Art of Marketing Toronto that's okay because there are two opportunities to hear her "genius".

The easiest depending from where on the globe you are reading this from is through this video that was recently posted by Sally.  The only thing missing is a "LOVE" button rather then the traditional "LIKE" button.

You will watch her captivate the crowd of over 1,500 advertising, marketing and PR practitioners. She speaks of the origins for her brilliant new book "Fascinate" and the "Seven Triggers", and on to sharing "Jägermeister" shots with an actual "Jägermeister" virgin.

The other way to catch Sally is on June 14th in Calgary at the Epcor Center where she will speak again at The Art of Marketing West. This is a "not to be missed" conference for anyone living and breathing in the MarComm industries.

I really love Sally and her overall energy. She is brilliant, inspiring and most importantly FASCINATING!!!

Enjoy! I am sure you will see the genius of Sally Hogshead.

Sally Hogshead - The Art of Marketing March 3rd, 2010 Toronto

Anthony is a Professor of Creative Advertising at Seneca College@York University in Toronto. As former award winning Creative Director his passion is now focused on nurturing and motivating new young talent on strategic planning & creative concept development of advertising. @southsideadguy

Innovation & Engagement: "The Secret of Brand Management"

Gavin Potenza Truth on the Brands. Via netzpiloten.

"Cultural statement based on how brands have changed their ideals and fundamentals throughout the years. Inspired by the words of Marty Neuemeier and how brands no longer aim to communicate what they represent but rather attempt to cater to the consumer's varying interests." Gavin Potenza

Brands can't any longer just be managed - they must be lived. Change the Game. Plug.Play.Win-Win!

lead/marke NET: Tom Fishburne > "Law of the Brainstorm"

Note: An interesting question: Why do we have to go off-site when we want to be creative? What is wrong with our offices (and culture)!? Please enjoy!
(lead/marke NET proudly features Tom's inspiring posts on a regular basis.)

(to license this cartoon, click here)

We can thank adman Alex Osbourne for the Brainstorm (he's the O in the agency BBDO). Alex invented the Brainstorm in 1939 as an alternative to the usual meetings of "discouragement and criticism which so often cramp imagination". 

Alex Osbourne realized that an environment is needed where judgement is suspended and ideas have space to grow. As part of the attitude adjustment, Brainstorm facilitators run through the same set of stock Brainstorming rules: there's no such thing as a bad idea, quantity counts over quality, encourage wild ideas, etc. These rules help attendees shift mental gears from their regular work state of mind. 

Tom Kelley, co-founder of IDEO, frames the best rules in this classic 9-year-old Fast Company article, "Seven Secrets to Good Brainstorming". 

Those Brainstorming rules everyone agrees to at the beginning of the Brainstorm evaporate the moment we leave that conference room door at the Hilton. Idea generation is one part of the creative process, not the entire process. Brainstorming a mountain of sticky notes with ideas will not overcome the organizational cuts that occur as the ideas are developed. 

I toured an IDEO office recently and it's clear that they live the spirit of suspended judgement each and every day, not just during a scheduled Brainstorm. It's in their DNA. Imagination continues as the idea develops all the way to completion, even as options are narrowed and choices are made. This everyday business creativity is inherently more enduring than what most companies accomplish in a one-day offsite. 

Instead of focusing on the quantity of ideas developed at the front-end of the process, organizations should apply effort to continued creativity as ideas are developed. We should question why our regular office environment promotes "discouragement and criticism which so often cramp imagination". 

Until we solve that more glaring issue, any Brainstorming rules to suspend judgement are superficial are short-lived. The real goal afterall is not just creative ideas at the end of a Brainstorm, but more imaginative products and services that reach consumers and customers. It's idea development, not idea generation, that counts. 

Tom, when not cartooning (eg. for Marketing Week), is method's international managing director. Based in London, he frequently speaks at campuses, companies, and conferences about marketing, cartooning, and how to spread business ideas. @tomfishburne