lead/marke | ralf schwartz

Jean-Luc Godard: “It’s not where you take things from - it’s where you take them to."

"Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination.

Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows.

Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul.

If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent.

And don’t bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from - it’s where you take them to."

Jim Jarmusch’s Golden Rules number 5, via Nick Drake.

lead/marke NET: Drew Neisser > "Breaking Down the Social Media Fences"

Note: Companies still haven't grown up to Social Media yet. Please enjoy!
(lead/marke NET proudly features Drew's inspiring posts on a regular basis.)

When part of my garden fence fell down this week, my dog was delighted, my neighbor exposed, my wife mortified and my impatiens completely flattened. After spending a couple of hours jerry-rigging the crumbling wood back into place, I realized this experience was a convenient if not appropriate metaphor for the challenge marketers face in dealing with social media within their organizations.

Like a dog with a bone, consumers are thrilled with the tumbling divide between themselves and the brands they choose to engage with. Unfortunately big companies do not necessarily share this enthusiasm, treating social media as yet another channel to be managed by an existing department like marketing or corporate communications and in doing so limiting the opportunity for a truly new approach.

In fact, in a recent poll conducted by The CMO Club, a whopping 62% of CMO’s said their department leads social media. Added one of the polled CMO’s, “social networks are about engaging customers ands stakeholders so Marketing has that responsibility.” Pete Krainik, founder of The CMO Club, explained that, “marketing departments have a more strategic view of the business, customer trends and upcoming programs,” and therefore should be leading social media initiatives.

In this same survey, CMO’s acknowledged that just over 1 in 5 companies have PR/Corporate Communications leading social media. But this may be a vestige of the early days of social media. Explained one of the polled CMO’s, “responsibility started in PR/Corporate Communications but we quickly moved it to the Marketing department as community marketing became more and more important to us.” (Hmm, can’t help but think a Corp Comm head might see these as “fighting words.”)

And despite the fact the Social Media is a fence-busting hydra touching just about every aspect of a company’s business, only 11% of the CMO’s surveyed said that social media was lead by a cross-functional team. When I asked Catherine Davis, the former SVP of Marketing at Diageo about this, she explained, “Cross department collaboration can be quite complicated, particularly with new disciplines like social media.”

Complicated or not, Josh Karpf, Senior Manager of Digital Media Communications at PepsiCo, professed that “everyone has a role, marketing, communications, HR and you need a variety of skill sets from customer service to insights to editorial strategy.” Added Karpf, “you likely won’t be able to find all those experts in one function within a company.” So, while Robert Frost’s proverb “good fences make good neighbors” may be true in real life, it is not necessarily the ideal approach to dealing with social media.

Like my mortified wife, companies are less than thrilled by the collapsing fences between brand and consumer, and many are jerry-rigging solutions while they figure out a long-term plan. Noted Dan Greenfield of Bernaise Source Consulting, “PR and marketing pros seem a little conflicted; few deny the value of integrating sales, customer service and community moderation teams when building a modern day engagement strategy but most lack a clear sense of how to do it.” (Greenfield will be addressing this challenge head-on at the upcoming PR+MKTG Camp.)

And while there is little hope of recovery for my flattened impatiens, a flattened organizational structure may be just the trick for companies seeking to truly engage with consumers via social media. PepsiCo’s Karpf instructed, “it’s really about process and clearly defined roles, so the trick is finding the right team and a cohesiveness that allows the process to move forward.” Confirmed Davis, “I have always found it helpful to establish joint objectives with clearly defined roles and responsibilities.”

Instead of plopping social media into a pre-existing department structure, this author can’t help but wonder why more companies aren’t trying a new and highly collaborative approach. Despite the inherent challenges of cross-departmental collaboration, if ever there were a time to try something new, this would be it. Social media simply touches too many disciplines from customer service to PR, human resources to marketing, recruiting to sales, to rationalize keeping the old departmental fences in place. (Note: this article first appeared on MediaPost.com).

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

Fast Company Flowchart: Understanding the Web, for Fans of Charles Dickens

This is just great! Via fastcompany. Click graphic to expand!

Innovation: "Good Design is All About ..."

Via workman.

Inspiration: Ai WeiWei's 100.000.000 Hand Painted Sunflower Seeds

Sometimes marketeers may learn from artists. About the impact creation may have. About the impact good work may have. About the impact crafts may have. About the impact an idea may have.

Saying that please join me in watching that documentary about 'Sunflower Seeds', Ai Weiwei's current exhibition at the Tate in London, "a short film about the production of the 100 000 000 hand painted porcelain seeds":

Via Charles Frith, contributing member of lead/marke NET.

lead/marke NET: Drew Neisser > "Is Net Promoter Really the Ultimate Question?"

Note: A detailed look into Net Promoter and associated questions. Please enjoy!
(lead/marke NET proudly features Drew's inspiring posts on a regular basis.)

For years, I’ve been counseling clients to use Net Promoter as the metric for measuring everything from overall brand health to the success of an event, customer satisfaction to online experiences. Undoubtedly, the likelihood of recommending a product or service to a friend is really important in the scheme of things but is it sufficient to make intelligent business decisions? Can one question alone even provide a clear picture of brand loyalty? After interviewing Calvin Vass, Senior Manager of Research at CDW, a company that has turned research into an insight-revealing, decision-enhancing, revenue-generating machine, my answers to the above questions in a word, is a contrite “No!” More importantly, my interview with Vass provides an exemplary questionnaire for any business looking to use research to reveal and leverage the “voice of the customer.” 

Are you asking the right questions?

At the heart of any good research inquiry, of course, is the quality and ultimate value of the questions you ask. Over the last 11 years, CDW’s Vass has worked diligently to refine the questions his company asks, by listening to feedback from research professionals, his CDW coworkers and even the customers themselves. Rather than depend on one question, CDW’s loyalty index is based on “an approach developed by Fred Reicheld, the inventor of Net Promoter and Walker Information,” noted Vass. The questions explore, according to Vass, “different dimensions of the relationship; what the customer plans to purchase with us, if they are committed and what they would do if we went away.” Explained Vass, “Net Promoter is a one-dimensional kind of metric; one will often get better, more consistent results by asking more questions.” 

Can you identify the questions that correlate strongest to your company’s sales?

The holy grail of any research program is to find the single barometer that has the strongest correlation to business health. For some companies, Net Promoter is this barometer. For CDW, it was the combination of their Customer Loyalty Index and a highly evolved loyalty program. Through their loyalty research, CDW also discovered that customers who filled out their survey wanted to see their feedback implemented. Consequently, CDW built a system that feeds customer complaints right back to sales for prompt resolution. 

Do you segment your studies?

While Net Promoter divides customers into two camps, Promoters and Detractors, this black and white segmentation may or may not be right for your business. CDW elected to segment its market surveys into two main categories, Active Customers and Less Active Customers. The first group is surveyed quarterly and the second group is surveyed monthly. Vass explained the reason for the outreach to the second group, “we are always trying to bring them more deeply into the franchise.” 

Do you use your research to uncover new business opportunities?

 Measuring loyalty is unquestionably important but in a difficult economy, you’ll want to go deeper. Knowing that they were in a battle for “share of wallet” among even their most loyal customers, in 2009 CDW added to its research program. Explained Vass, “we asked them what types of technologies are you interested in rolling out in the next couple of months?” Through this research, CDW identified thousands of customers interested in specific offerings that were passed onto the sales team. These leads were turned into several hundred thousand quotes and orders placed, amounting to millions in additional revenue. 

Is your research department really part of the team?

One of the great byproducts of Net Promoter is that it helped bring research back into vogue, though not necessarily into every C-suite. For CDW, reviewing customer loyalty data is a top priority up and down the organization. CDW leadership reviews customer feedback quarterly, which in 2009 resulted in new customer retention initiatives. Offered Vass, “this is a priority for our Sales, Operations and Marketing departments which allows us to have a truly unified customer loyalty program.” Added Vass, “it is the overall recognition that the voice of the customer [is critical],” who sees himself as part of the customer service team versus the traditionally isolated research platoon.

Are you using research to identify problems too?

With Net Promoter, the emphasis tends to be placed on the Promoters almost at the exclusion of the Detractors. In a battle for share of wallet, he who addresses customer issues the best, wins. And oh by the way, even Promoters can have issues. To address this reality, CDW uses its research to identify and take action on negative feedback and specific problems. Calling these “hot alerts,” CDW does its best to resolve them quickly and amicably. “When we first started doing this, the customers were surprised,” explained Vass, who also noted that just resolving something as simple as a shipping problem results in higher loyalty.

Do you have a customer community to ask for guidance?

While measuring loyalty is clearly important, it can’t in and of itself increase loyalty. Building a community of customers for research, on the other hand, can do just that and much more. Knowing this, CDW has built three private communities made up of 300 small, 300 medium and 300 large business customers. In addition to asking its communities for input on advertising, product and operational issues, each community is also encouraged to talk among themselves. Reported Vass, “they can ask another member about a specific type of technology; it is a very vibrant back and forth conversation, certainly not one-way at all.” He added, “these aren’t just loyal customers but super-loyal, providing feedback other customers couldn’t.”

Final note:  This article first appeared on FastCompany.com and is currently being discussed on a Forrester Research community page.  For a bit more balance, see the video below on Why People Love Net Promoter.

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

Brand Engagement: This Will Hurt the Communicators Brain > Service Pays, and Consumers would even Pay More for it!

Sorry my dear believers of "Communication does the Job". As lead/marke keeps telling everybody, there is much more than communication. Communication in its traditional way may even become your biggest problem.

Individuals do not want to be interrupted by communication. Communication must transform from being the interruption to the thing people are doing when interrupted otherwise!

Engagements and Experiences must become that powerful that the traditional campaign / communication becomes obsolete!

A long way to go, I know. Start with this new study (I just give you the headlines):

Consumers Pay More for Great Experience
- 8 in 10 Consumers Will Pay a Premium
- Great Customer Experience Boosts Revenues
- Customer Service Key to Recommendations
- Excellent Customer Service Increases Spending

Brand Engagement: "The Value of an Existing Customer" - by flowtown

Ethan says: "Have you ever wondered how much an existing customer was worth? Well, in most cases its a lot. In fact, it is 6 to 7 times more costly to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing customer. The following graphic details the the most interesting findings of several recent studies focused on customer acquisition, retention and attrition rates. It should help to put things in perspective for marketers and business owners."

Via flowtown. - Click for a larger image.

Steve! "33 Chilean miners get iPods"? Now? Come on, where is your visionary thinking?

For the first time I am (a little bit) disappointed by what Steve does. Giving 33 iPods away as a gift for the Chilean Miners?

A little bit cheap, or? No iPhones or iPads? Come on!?

And a little bit late, or? Now!? Why hasn't he thought of that some 70 days before, when they really could use that stuff? When Apple really could have made a story out of that?
Could have done Playlist Bingo!? Could have published the Coal Miners Charts!

They were healthy, knew they would be safe soon, and were bored down there.

Next time, Steve, I would like to get something more visionary, more viral, more empathetic, more engaging and inspiring than that. The guy who invented all the cool Apple stuff must be able to come up with better ideas than this one.

lead/marke NET: Helge Tenno > "Connect Everything Else"

Note: Please read that again and again, and then on a philosophical level! Enjoy!
(lead/marke NET proudly features Helge's inspiring posts on a regular basis.)

Are we stuck? Or are we just at an interim stage in the evolutionary cycle, waiting for the next step to shift the landscape again? In this presentation I introduce some thoughts in regards to how we need to change our thinking if we are to break out of the repetitive cycle we seem to be in.

I’ve just uploaded my last presentation “Connect everything else” on slideshare.net. There are three reasons inspiring me to write this:

1. The missing link
If we divide the value chain of a product into three parts; logistics and infrastructure, sales and in-store and marketing and advertising. We see that the first part is very innovative and quick at adapting new technology. The last part is testing out some of these technologies carefully in the consumer interface. But the middle part, where decisions are made and sales are closed, in this part of the chain the technology seems to be missing – and this is where we need it the most…

2. Continuous Movement
In the history of products and brands we started with products. These soon became unidentifiable in competition with its rivals and we started adding a value/story to them to give them a uniqueness that people could connect with and build preference to. Unfortunately we are, as Richard Murray told us; good at creating categories, but bad at creating individual brands. This has led to a situation where the brands themselves are difficult to differentiate because they are built on the same premises inside the same categories. And the generic result of this pushes us to the next generation of brand preference building: experience / services. What we are trying to do now is offer an integrated experience part to the product that differentiates it by offering additional unique value.

The Nokia / Burton Push project is an example of this. Where buying a Burton snowboard will give you access to a set of electronic services and experiences that will completely change the role of snowboarding for the people engaging in it.

3. The negative impact of standards
We are champions of copying other success but do this to uncritically online. We end up copying tools and services offered to consumers by competing brands or brands in different categories. The problem is that as connected technologies are becoming one of the most important arenas where brands and consumers interact, it also becomes on of the most important arenas to create brand preference and shared value. This is not possible when everyone designs the same tools and services online – then the experiences become generic and meaningless. We need to find ways to tailor even the smallest applications to create awareness and preference for our brand.

Cost or business models
I also suggest that the problem with most initiatives today is that they are designed as marketing and by that inevitably will be perceived as a cost. If we are to see more money and more innovation being put into the digital and connected activities, we need to start helping companies identify, design and benefit from new business opportunities, not new marketing opportunities.

I quickly suggest six ideas for six Norwegian brands to prove my point (please see the second last page of the presentation to view in full size):

Find presentation below or here:

Connect everything else

View more presentations from Helge Tennø.

Helge works as a Planner for SDG, helping brands and organizations discover WHY they are valuable in consumers lives, and HOW they can create deliberate value on the arenas and inside the interfaces where they connect with them. @congbo

Some Brand Owners are Awake Now

All those great quotes in one post: "Brand owners target social media insights".

On the Relevance of the Future

"Brands don't become great by monitoring the past" ... "The challenge is to have a point of view on the future."

On Consumer's new individuality, indepencence, and impatience

"Consumers know what they want and are giving their opinions in an unconstrained fashion." ... "People are sharing their identity, building their networks online - sharing information and knowledge at rates never seen before".

On Tools and Wisdom

"I can only spend so much time physically walking the halls. But with these tools in place, I can actually take the pulse of the company".

On Social Media

"I think it would turn organisation structures upside down" ... "I think it would turn dramatically how you make decisions and drive productivity."

And now it is your turn to transform these words into actions! Enjoy!

lead/marke NET: Tom Fishburne > "All-knowing Focus Group"

Note: Apple, Alessi, and more of the best follow Henry Ford's philosophy. They know why! Enjoy.
(lead/marke NET proudly features Tom's inspiring posts on a regular basis.)

(to instantly license this cartoon, click here)

Henry Ford famously said, "if I'd asked customers what they wanted, they would have said 'a faster horse'".

Many businesses treat focus groups as prophetic. Whether looking for inspiration or validation, they give staggering authority to eight strangers gathered on the other side of a one-way mirror. After one particularly idea-sapping focus group, a creative director leaned over to me and said, "do you think these eight women realize how much power they have?" We jokingly referred to them as the Oracles of Eden Prairie.

Focus groups have their place in the field of consumer insights. Yet they are poorly equipped to answer many questions, particularly involving innovations that are dramatically different from what has been done before. It's rare that remarkable or unique business ideas originate in an eight-member focus group. Most consumers don't really know what they want, and if they do, they have a difficult time articulating it.

HBS professor Gerald Zaltman first opened my eyes to the power of a non-focus group approach in consumer research. He created a process called the Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique (ZMET) to unearth consumer insights that are deeper than consumers know how to articulate themselves. We experimented with these techniques in the classroom. Dan Pink wrote a great profile on Zaltman that captures the value of this approach:

"People can give us only what we give them the opportunity to provide," Zaltman says. "To the extent that we structure the stimulus - whether it's a discussion guide in a focus group or a question in a survey - all people can do is respond. And there's value in that. But I see those as strip-mining techniques. Sometimes the valuable ore is on the surface. But often it's not. Strip-mining techniques are inappropriate when there's a great deal more depth to be had. Typically, the deeper you go, the more value there is."

Asking the Oracles of Eden Prairie to tell you what they want is a good technique if you're in the "faster horse" business. But, if you're trying to create something meaningfully different, experiment with research methods that are also meaningfully different.

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

Social Media Screw Ups - A History

Social media Screw Ups - A History

View more presentations from Social Media Influence. Via Viralblog.

 

Porsche Bans Facebook for Employees

What a funny decision (via inspiration/leader):

"Industrial espionage threatens Porsche at his secret heart: "Foreign intelligence approaches Porsche employees via their Facebook accounts", states Rainer Benne, Porsche's Head of Security.

That's why Porsche decided to ban all private Facebook, Ebay, Google Mail, Xing or social network activities of their employees from now on."

What would Porsche's leadership do if their own 829,436 Facebook friends were banned from visiting the Porsche site during work hours by their own employers?

lead/marke NET: Adrian Ho > "On Maps"

Note: Adrian on the pleasure to reflect, to rumulate, to think w/o a cause. Enjoy.
(lead/marke NET proudly features Adrian's inspiring posts on a regular basis.)

It might just be me, but I’ve been finding increasingly that the things that I’m drawn to don’t have a point to make, a specific purpose or an agenda. At the recent Planningness in Brooklyn, these included Chris Heathcote’s “How to do urban computing” presentation:

Urban computing

View more documents from antimega.

which really wasn’t a how-to as much as it was a compendium of interesting examples.

Another example was Sean Abrahamson’s presentation on “How to do social production,”

Causing Social Production on Prezi

which again was less of an instruction, and more like a map of the various parts and pitfalls associated with crowdsourcing social production.

I got the same feeling watching these presentations as I felt reading Russell’s post this morning, which are notes in search of a theme, and on which the only way to comment is to leave a trackback. I wanted to say that the theme is “themelessness,” so I have.

It was the same feeling of relief I saw in the eyes of one of our clients quite recently who gravitated immediately to the one idea that we presented that also lacked a theme.

I think things like this make us feel free, they give us space to breathe and think. But most of all they provide us with a way to understand some of the stuff we’re hearing and seeing, rather than just giving us more stuff to understand. Like maps, they don’t require action, but suggest various routes. They make connections and reveal relationships but stop short of making recommendations.

I think that “maps” like these are a structural form that can be applied to many kinds of content: film, music, stories, art, and because they are a breath of fresh air, I think we will see more of them.

Adrian is founding partner of Zeus Jones a branding company believing actions speak louder than words and that modern brands are defined by what they do not what they say. He speaks (and writes) regularly about non-communications based models for marketing & branding. @adrianho

Actions Speak Louder than Words: 1.vodafone, 2.American Express

Lately I started a new mini series at werbeblogger, a German advertising, marketing, and communication platform, where I am member of the editorial team: "Actions Speak Louder than Words".
(Sorry, that one is only for my German-speaking readers.)

Advertisers and marketers returned to their old habit of giving promises the product (or service) cannot keep. "Actions Speak Louder than Words" talks, and will talk, about the need for solutions instead of distractions.

In a situation where "digitalization, the web, and mobility maximize human's individuality, independence, and impatience with unprecedented power", lip services and distractions will not lead to true and sustainable success any longer.

"Many companies are trapped in their old beliefs and yesterday's successes - too much did they invest in their now obsolete concepts and structures.

Human's new individuality, independence, and impatience may only be anticipated with courageous entrepreneurial independence, brilliance, relevance: The corporate minds must outgrow themselves!

They will have to create true solutions, virtues & values for the individual to add value to the corporation."

That is why we have to talk about it, talk about the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly - to challenge them to get better, to keep up the good work, to refrain from the ugli part of their businesses.

Enjoy "Actions Speak Louder than Words", Part 01 - vodafone and Part 2 - Amex at werbeblogger!

Kraft - Brand Engagement with a Cause

"In what Kraft says is its largest multi-brand initiative to date, the company’s Huddle for Hunger program aims to “leverage America's love for football, food and helping others, by huddling resources, voices and communities around the issue of hunger,” in the company’s own words.

... using the power of social media, it’s inviting consumers to help it give away 20 million meals.

Consumers can help by redeeming coupons, “liking” Kraft Foods on Facebook, uploading photos, watching YouTube videos and sending tweets on Twitter, among other online activities, each of which results in the donation of at least one meal. Online maps reveal state-by-state progress. ...

Additional meal-donation initiatives are under way at Kraft brands including Oreo, Ritz, Kraft Cheese and Maxwell House.

With 49 million Americans - including 16.7 million children - affected by hunger, it’s hard to imagine a better cause to support."

Via Springwise.

As evermore governments prove they cannot tackle - not to mention solve - their state's and society's problems, brands and corporations have to fill that gap. (And I know that a large part of that gap is produced by other corporations lobbying for egoistic reasons.)

People more than ever care for sustainable products and corporate governance. This will not go away. Brands starting early and authentic will earn a lead in that slowly growing but fast accelerating movement.