lead/marke | ralf schwartz

Your Marketing is the Product!

Via hitenshah.

Think about it! - Room for Your Thoughts:

 

 

 

And now put Them into Action!

[L/M NET] Helge Tenno > "Turn off / We are only as visionary as our language permits us"

(L/M NET: the blogged experience & expertise of some of the best minds in Innovation, Brand Engagement, Communication Agility:
Tom - Tim - Konstantin - Helge - Drew - Charles - Anthony - Adrian)

 

Two weeks without checking my RSS-feeds and my brain is experiencing a creative spring. It seems the cyclical sameness of intellectual entertainment, disguised as (RSS/Blog) inspiration does nothing more than keep our brains occupied coping with the share volume of stuff to be updated on – instead of letting our mind rest for a second and make its own creative connections.

It feels as if the whole RSS-flood numbs you down, but why is this? Brilliant stuff written by some of our most brilliant thinkers should be like rocket fuel to the brain – then why does it do the opposite?

The stream is one original thought and then a thousand re-articulations of it, over and over again. And there is a limit to how many explanations of the same social media phenomenon you need before it stops adding new perspectives and ideas.

I also find that a lot of people are searching in the wrong place… They are looking at the future through the lens of old media. In our world this place/media is “advertising” and the advertising vernacular.

Now, the future has got very little to do with the increasingly niche industry of advertising and more and more to do with the digitization of our culture and economy.

Using the same language (the advertising language) as a framework for discussion narrows our conversations and limits our ideas. We are only as visionary as our language permits us. We need new words and new images.

According to McLuhan:

“In the name of ‘progress’, our official culture is striving to force the new media to do the work of the old”.

What is interesting is not yet another presentation explaining how mobile connects us 24/7, with slightly original analogies (which is the nature of the self publishing web) – what we need is people moving the whole arena of digital into new contexts – these are the people we need to find and follow…

Like this, Matt Jones and The demon haunted world:

 

Join me and turn off!

 

(ralf says:
Like Einstein said: 'We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking that created them.' - one of the core philosophies of lead/marke Innovation & Value Creation!

The Context is the Message - and that is one of our biggest problems. We are unable to free ourselves from our loved prejudices, cannot see the wood before the trees, aren't able to detect pattern, cannot abandon our limitations for new horizons.

We see complexity, and instead of inhaling, reflecting and understanding it, we over-simplify. By that we develop much too simple solutions to much too complex problems. We tripple along, where we better should quantum leap ahead!

We waste our precious time by being hyperactive!)

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. Twitter: @congbo

iA Writer - The Zen Art of Writing

leadmarke: "I thought Writer was free until I saw the 17.99 ;) RT @espiekermann I thought Text Edit was simple until I tried Writer.. @iA"

espiekermann: "@leadmarke @ia why shld it be free? Who pays for their time?"

leadmarke: "@espiekermann Don't get me wrong. I love @iA Writer. But as I do my writing in Mail's draft mode I would not quantum leap ahead."

...

leadmarke: "I hereby pledge to buy @iAWriter as soon as I get my MacBook Air".

iA Writer for Mac from Oliver Reichenstein on Vimeo.

More about Writer / Buy the App.

Have a look here, too: iA Writer: Adorable App with an as Beautiful 'Commercial' - just to prove my affection.

[L/M NET] Tim Kastelle > "Make Little Bets for Innovation Success"

(L/M NET: the blogged experience & expertise of some of the best minds in Innovation, Brand Engagement, Communication Agility:
Tom - Tim - Konstantin - Helge - Drew - Charles - Anthony - Adrian)

To succeed at innovation, you need to be making a lot of little bets. What are little bets? According to Peter Sims in his excellent book called Little Bets, they are:

A small, affordable action that anyone can take to discover and develop ideas.

Here is a more complete explanation in an interview with Andrew Keen:

 

When I was in Silicon Valley a couple of weeks ago, there was a huge buzz going around about the book, and I was fortunate enough to hear Peter talk about it at a TEDxBayArea event. Interestingly, two different people who had read the book used almost identical words to describe it – they both said something like: “If you’ve been reading the research there isn’t anything new here, but he pulls it together really well.”

That doesn’t sound like the highest of praise, but it actually illustrates one of the main points of the book perfectly: that ground-breaking ideas don’t always look ground-breaking when they launch, instead, they tend to build up out of a series of experiments. Sims has done a great job of connecting up a bunch of ideas that were already out there in a novel way, and building an important new idea out of them. This is the essence of innovation.

He includes a great quote from Steve Jobs that explains the importance of connecting up ideas:

Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how the did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had an synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people… Unfortunately, that’s too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem.

There are several key actions that you can take based on reading this book that will make more innovative, including:

• Focus on what you can afford to lose, rather than what you might gain: This is similar to my suggestion that you do as much as you can get away with. The critical point of little bets is that they are little – so if they don’t work, you don’t lose too much. Don’t try to figure out the net present value of a potential idea based on growth projections in which no one can ever have any confidence. Just find a way to test your idea as quickly and cheaply as possible. This is central to any little bets approach.
• Build as much diversity into your personal network as possible: the best way to make these creative, novel connections between ideas is to have a diversity of experience, and to encounter a diversity of ideas. One great way to accomplish both is to consciously build links with people that don’t think in the same way that you do. Tom Peters sums this up perfectly: Hang out with the freaks. Peters has been making this recommendation for a long time – find the people that are outsiders, that don’t fit, and spend time talking to them. It’s the easiest way to start making novel connections between ideas.
• Don’t expect to have a great big idea come to you in perfect form: the reason that Sims marshalls all of the evidence that he has is to show us that big ideas don’t spring fully-formed from peoples’ minds. Instead, they build over time. As Linus Pauling said, the best way to have a great idea is to have a lot of ideas. The belief that we have to have a great idea in order to start something is a myth, and one of the main ones that Sims is trying to dispel. If you won’t start until you have a great idea, you won’t start. Instead, it is better to execute an idea, any idea, figure out what works, and build from there (he expands on this idea in an excellent interview with Nilofer Merchant).

It’s no coincidence that John and I have used the word “experiment” in 103 different posts on this blog. We keep talking about it because it works, and anyone can do it. To innovate, you need to figure out how much you can get away with (how much can you afford to lose?), figure out how to test an idea within the scope that provides you, learn from your experiment, and build on it.

That’s a little bet.

That’s innovation.

If you want to learn more about the book, here is Sims’ talk as part of the Authors @Google series:

 

(ralf says:
As diversity is crucial for innovation we try to achieve that at least a little by building the L/M NET. Sometimes you might think we show you strange things, but they are just sparks to your imagination. You take those into your business context and they connect with your experience, ie. creating new sensations.

Have a look here too: Innovation is a Culture - Not a Process!)

Tim is a lecturer at The University of Queensland Business School. He researches, writes, teaches and consults on topics relating to effective innovation management, with an emphasis on studying innovation networks. He blogs at The Innovation Leadership Network. Twitter: @timkastelle

Dating a Brand!?

A question I stumbled upon in tumblr a few weeks ago:

"What qualities do you look for when you’re dating someone?"

Now imagine, you are dating (sort of) a brand, see her, like her want to get to know her. What would you look for in a brand?

The answer from Penny was clear:

"Something different. Something unique. Something that will surprise me, impress me, enlighten me. Something genuine. Something contradictory."

Would your brand succeed in a date? Would your brand get a date in the first place?

Will they meet again? Will they stay together? Get kids? Grow a family? Live happily together for the rest of their lives?

You should work on the above. Without the above: no date. Without a date: no communication, no brand, no image, no story, no sale, no success, no future.

Innovation is a Culture - Not a Process!

Innovation is dripping from the walls. It is at the water cooler, in the kitchen, the cantina. You feel it on the floors, in the lobby, even outside the building, at the campus, the street. You may lick it from the logo, smell it in the elevator.

You don't get it? That's the problem.

You are the innovation. And innovation is all around you. Innovation is in every person around - or nowhere.

You cannot catch innovation and lock it into a room. You cannot add a price tag or a stop watch. You cannot restrict it to certain meeting hours or opening times.

You cannot process innovation, cannot produce it. Cannot compute it. You can just allow it. Foster it. Empower it.

You are the innovation. Your diversity is innovation. Your beginner's mind. Your curiosity, your openness and transparency. Your wisdom. Your common sense. Your creativity, inspiration.

Innovation is your culture is innovation.

[L/M NET] Drew Neisser > "Driving B2B Revenue Growth"

(L/M NET: the blogged experience & expertise of some of the best minds in Innovation, Brand Engagement, Communication Agility:
Tom - Tim - Konstantin - Helge - Drew - Charles - Anthony - Adrian)

 

Most service providers like to say they “eat their own dog food.”  Not Jon Miller, co-founder and VP Marketing of Marketo. Miller prefers “drink your own champagne,” and not just because it sounds classier.  This preference is based on the stunning fact that Marketo is according to Miller, “currently the fastest growing software-as-a-service company in the world,” a feat accomplished by using their own software to turn marketing into a science.

Founded in 2006, Marketo already has over 1,000 clients, who pay just under $30,000 per year with the goal of improving the yield of their marketing activities.  Miller and his team rejected the notion that marketing was an art form, relegating that to the “Mad Man” era, preferring to focus on “process and analysis,” and in doing so delivered to this interviewer 8 delicious ways to drive revenue.

1. Don’t call a lead before its time
For most marketers, a lead is a lead, entered into a CRM system like Salesforce and treated with equal urgency.  According to Miller’s research, this approach means that, “only 6% of leads ever close” and “only half of the sales people make their sales goals.”  Having been able to identify key buying signals, Marketo’s system separates leads into two buckets, the 20% who are “ready to buy,” and those that require nurturing.

2. Know the buying signals of your prospects
Just because a visitor to your site gives you their contact information for something like a white paper, doesn’t mean necessarily that they a qualified lead.  Explained Miller, “if somebody downloaded our webinars or thought leadership [documents], we know they’re at the early stage.”  However, reported Miller, “if you go to our website and see the detailed pricing pages or register to watch a detailed demo, you’re very likely to enter a buying cycle with us.”

3. If they give the sign, call your leads post haste
When all leads are given equal value, they naturally clog up the sales process, wasting the time of both the prospect who isn’t ready and the sales person who then becomes skeptical of all the leads, further diminishing the yield.  But if only truly qualified leads go into sales pipeline, the sales force is reading and willing to jump all over them. Added Miller, “if you show buying signs, we’re going to be dialing your phone in 3-4 minutes!”

4. Reward your marketing team more and raise quotas
At most companies, marketing generates about 30% of the leads, which means the sales force needs to be heavily incentivized to not just close but also to find the leads themselves.  “At Marketo our marketing team generates 80% of the sales pipeline,” explained Miller.  This has allowed them to “radically reduce the salesperson’s risk” and “change how [we] compensate the marketing department.”  And because Sales has better quality leads, they close at a higher rate, allowing Marketo to raise quotas and hire fewer sales staff.

5. Focus sales team on closing not educating
According to Miller’s research, at most companies “almost half of the salesperson’s time is spent on unproductive activities.”  This includes educating prospects on the category and the product.  “This is outmoded thinking,” explained Miller, since today “70% of the buying cycle is complete before the buyer wants to connect with Sales.”  Assuming you are providing all the necessary educational material online then you too can “optimize the demand chain” by only giving Sales leads that are ready to be closed.

6. Hire a CRO
After all this talk of marketing efficiency, one of the more surprising outcomes of my conversation with Miller was his suggestion that companies hire a Chief Revenue Officer and place Marketing and Sales underneath that person.  Explained Miller, whose company just hired a CRO, “I don’t believe you can have a CMO and a CRO.”  This is not “a glorified Head of Sales,” added Miller, but someone who can lead “a fundamental transformation about how you think about generating revenue.”

7. Nurture all your other leads
While the bulk of this conversation has focused on identifying and converting hot leads, this is only half the secret to Marketo’s success.  The other half is the recognition that today’s tire kickers are tomorrow’s buyer as long as you have a strong “nurturing process to educate and stay in touch with them over time,” noted Miller. He added, “a full half [of our leads] are coming from seeds we developed earlier.”

8. Invest heavily in content development
When explaining Marketo’s success to-date, Miller revealed that they invest heavily in marketing, spending three times the ratio of most companies but because of their lead conversion rate, they are also more efficient and profitable than these other companies.  A huge portion of that investment goes into content development including webinars, white papers, blogs and social media.  In addition to creating “a lot of inbound leads and SEO, [this content] also helps to build trust and credibility with buyers who are starting to perceive us as innovators and thought leaders,” explained Miller.

Final note: A magna cum laude physics major at Harvard, Miller’s desire to find the math in marketing shouldn’t be all that surprising.  What may come as a surprise is the extent of Miller’s foresight as exemplified by the fact that he “actually started writing [his] blog before writing any product.”  For more on Miller, see my follow up interview here on TheDrewBlog.com.  This article first appeared on FastCompany.com.

(ralf says:
Take the 8 headlines and add your individual content with your own experience and expertise. The above raises the bar? Start stretching!)

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." Twitter: @DrewNeisser

Design: Please Do Not Use Comic Sans

via Via youmightfindyourself.

The 2 Dangers of Social Media: Instant Gratification!

Yes, you got it right, 2(!) dangers: Your fans want to be rewarded, and they want it in an instant, immediately. You trained them to.

And they await even more from you the next time you ask them for a favour. Yes, right, they understand that you ask them for a favour. No, they now do nothing without getting something in return.

You succeeded in creating sweet little doggies, tiny little seals! You turned your fans into circus animals without any individual or free will.

You did so by offering gimmicks and gadgets to win fans, to get a question answered, a tweet sent.

You did not understand Social Media and by that you killed it.
Your agency did not understand Social Media and you both killed it by thinking in reach, monologues, and bribery.

You bought your fans now - why should they do something for you without getting paid in the future? Do you think they are stupid? That they do not learn from your behaviour? That they do not adapt? They are not stupid.

You make them dumb. The dumber you act.

You should offer respect, challenges where people may grow.
You should offer a decent product, a great solution, value.

You should not go for reflexes, but for meaning!

[L/M NET] Konstantin Weiss > "Don't pitch. But if you do - here's how to."

(L/M NET: the blogged experience & expertise of some of the best minds in Innovation, Brand Engagement, Communication Agility:
Tom - Tim - Konstantin - Helge - Drew - Charles - Anthony - Adrian)

The best advice I got so far about pitches: don't pitch. Pitch is against the nature of user experience design process. But if you want and need to pitch anyway - here are some aspects I learnt so far.

Is there a pitch at all?

In most cases, there is no pitch. Instead, you are in one of these situations:

1. There never was a pitch. The decision was already made and you lost.
2. There never was a pitch. The client just wants an agency presentation but fails to communicate it.
3. There never was a project. Not even a budget. The middle management is having fun.
4. You have already lost the pitch. Because neither you have good connection nor preparation. Pitching would be a waste of time and energy.
5. You have already won the pitch. The battle was won even before it took place, because you have good connection and preparation.
6. There was a pitch. You did not recognize it. Because it was just testing your daily work.

What is your goal?

If you are sure there is a pitch and you want to pitch, ask yourself: What is it you want to achieve? - Do you want to present a solution that you are convinced of as the best one? Then don't be upset if you lose - the client wouldn't value your work anyway, so you and the client are not the best fit. But your time/resources will still be lost. - Do you want to win the pitch above all? Have in mind: you might end up paying with your nerves during the project. Many projects are doomed from the start because clients' and your expectations are not in sync.

Refine the pitch for audience

Your preparation and acting should depend on the people you are presenting to.

For the Top Management:

• Be honest.
• Address their goals.
• Transcend their goals. Show them there is a bigger vision.
• Ask uncomfortable questions.
• Propose a solution.
• Focus on the essence.
• Show them you can handle the complexity.
• Exercise uninteresting listening.

For the Middle Management:

• Formost: Understand the middle managements real (egoistic) goals.
• The IBM-principle: Show them that they can't make a wrong decision because you're the pick of the bunch. If the project fails, it's not their fault. They've taken the best agency there is. (That's how IBM was so successful in the past)
• Make clear that choosing you will be appreciated by the top management.
• Make clear that not choosing you will result in big justification to the top management.

For the Experts:

• Be honest.
• Don't overestimate.
• Show that you respect their expertise.
• Dive into detail.
• Ask critical questions.
• Treat them as your partner, who they actually are.

The ingredients of a pitch

Connections - 45%

1. If you have deep relationships into the client's company + know the relationships of your competitors - pitch.
2. If you have deep relationships into the client's company, but don't know the relationships of your competitors - consider a pitch.
3. If you don't have relationships into the client's company - you are free to test what you always wanted to test, but never dared. Minimum risc. Minimum cost. Just do it! Pitch!

Concept - 10%

• Take this for granted, you will not achieve an extraordinary solution if you follow all rules of the briefing. You may get an ordinary solution. So do your competitors. That's not worth the fight. Disobey. Come up with good arguments, why you disobey. You have a chance to win:
  1. You show deep understanding of the issues, not only symptoms.
  2. Your solution is thus surprisingly performative.
  3. You are hardly comparable.
• Tell a scenario from the user's point of view. Mention that you are eager to understand the business and technology aspects of the project. But the user (normally) does not care. It's the users view that matters here, and you are their advocate. In the end, show how business goals are met as well as the tech feasibility.
• Work on decent rhetorics. Address the obvious pain. Guide through your approach to your positions. Surprise with your manifestation, but make it damn rooted in the issues and positions.
• Be a story teller. Look for the catharsis. And in between - make the audience smile.
• Don't overestimate the concept. Most decision makers don't have much of a clue. Visual Design and Budget plays a much greater role.
• Last: Show them that your idea is not boring common sense, but surprising.

Visual Design - 20%

• 90% of all visual designs with finesse and balance fail. They are badly projected in the conference room of decision makers.
• Consider a realistic design - and decide against it. Do rock 'n roll instead. Your references designate you as an expert, you don't have to prove it now. Instead, aim at their hearts. Emotion wins.

Budget - 20%

Concerning money I have to say: It depends so much on the client. The only rules of thumb that I know are:

• If you are far too expensive, you're out.
• If the client is a big company, don't be cheap. For them it's far too expensive if the project fails. If you are too cheap and the project fails, the client's responsibles will have problems to justify their choice. So in order to minimize the risk, they'll rather take somebody with a realistic estimation.
• Don't forget the IBM-principle (see "Middle Management" above).

Luck - 5%

• You can never be sure. You can't predict everything. Be prepared to lose anyway.

"I can't afford not to pitch"

Agencies easily say, that they cannot afford to leave out pitches. That's a valid conclusion, but not before considering this aspect: If you are a small agency, pitching is expensive. Even if it is a small one, it will bind - say - one consultant and a visual designer for a week. That's two weeks of manpower that you can spend on something maybe more meaningful. You could make a small project with a client you love for free, knowing that the output will be not designed by committee. This project may generate enough buzz to get clients just by appreciating your agency.

One last piece of advice

Use pitches (at minimum risc, minimum cost) to let your junior, but most promising people get the experience, smell the pitch air, get addicted to the sitaution, lose their nervousness, and learn.

If there is no need for that: avoid pitching if you can. Rather invest the energy elsewhere. Share your thoughts. Teach. Play. Make your own products.

My best advice is: invest in people you love to work with, no matter what positions they are in. It does not pay off in the short run. But after a while you'll have a great working environment and be able to do have great outcome. That's something, considering how much time you spend at work in your life.

Hopefully you enjoyed the advices. I'll be glad to know what you experienced and think.

---

Thanks to Benjamin Birkenhake, Tobias Jordans, Indra Schlachter, Lutz Schmitt, Marian Steinbach and Ralf Schwartz for the feedback to drafts of this article, as well as Saneef Ansari for correcting my poor English.

(ralf says:
For once please find my comments incorporated.)

Konstantin is partner of iA in Zurich. He consults and develops concepts focusing on User and Reading Experience. He blogs at konnexus about the impact of culture technologies and UX. Twitter: @konnexus

[L/M NET] Tim Kastelle > "Am I Allowed? - Nilofer Merchant on Innovation"

(L/M NET: the blogged experience & expertise of some of the best minds in Innovation, Brand Engagement, Communication Agility:
Tom - Tim - Konstantin - Helge - Drew - Charles - Anthony - Adrian)

 

Here is an outstanding talk from Nilofer Merchant (and an interesting post about the background to it) – it is well worth your time:

 

Here are some of the key points that jump out at me in this talk:

• New ideas should change us: One of her first points is that even though people frequently talk about being in favour of innovation, in practice many of these same people actually block it. Why? Because new ideas lead to change, and we often don’t like to change. Do we secretly resist innovation? This is a question that merits serious thought.

  I was fortunate enough to talk with Nilofer face-to-face last week. We discussed a variety of things, including management books. She strongly made the point that if we’re going to write things that genuinely have an impact on people, then we should be explicit about how we want them to behave differently after reading these offerings. New ideas should change us, and we should be conscious of this whenever we create, share, or encounter new ideas. And we should be open to this in all of these situations as well.

• The key question that you encounter about innovation is: Am I Allowed Here? Are organisations serious about wanting ideas from people? In many cases, again, there is a gap between the rhetoric and the practice. This relates very strongly with the first point. Seeing the world differently drives innovation. But in many places, seeing the world differently is not welcome – and this contributes to the feeling that you’re not allowed to innovate. Giving yourself permission is often the biggest step you take in becoming innovative. If you’re a manager, supporting people who see the world differently is critical.
• We often filter out ideas that we haven’t encountered before: normal is good, and fitting in is good. At least, that’s what our brain tells us. One consequence of thinking this way is that if we run across an idea that is novel (at least to us), we block it out. This is a problem. A lot of our management practice is designed to reduce variation – to make things more efficient, to eliminate problems, to turn as much of our work as possible into a routine, or an algorithm. But innovation requires increasing variation.
• Ideas grow when they are shared: the last big idea in the talk is that ideas get better when they’re built upon. In order for this to happen, we have to let them go. This again is counterintuitive. Our great ideas are ours, right? Nope.

These are just three of the ways that we block innovation, even if we think we’re in favour of it.

How I’d Like You to Change Your Behaviour After Reading This

Here are some things you can do to address these issues:

• Give yourself permission to innovate, even if you think you’re not allowed to.
• If you’re a manager, find ways to support people that increase the diversity of ideas in your organisation. Don’t just focus on improving efficiency.
• Make a conscious effort to run across new ideas. Subscribe to blogs that you don’t agree with, or that make you mad, and engage with these ideas.
• Let your next idea go. Share it, and see how it grows.

Ideas have power, and great ideas should change how we act. And remember, that’s how we act, collectively.

(ralf says:
Start with small ideas and innovations. Get used to it yourself. Let your people get used to ideas and innovation.
People kill ideas, if they feel uncomfortable, because these ideas change grown behaviour, change ways of working, doing business, getting done your daily routine.
Try to get people to think, ask them for their opinion, their experiences, their ideas(!). Try to get people to write their own agenda, not yours.
Try to get people acquainted to small changes of behaviour. Let them lead the  meeting. ...
If they love all this, talk about that great feeling of embracing change, being creative, and innovative.
Then try the next step, the bigger idea ...

Innovation is a culture - not a process!)

Tim is a lecturer at The University of Queensland Business School. He researches, writes, teaches and consults on topics relating to effective innovation management, with an emphasis on studying innovation networks. He blogs at The Innovation Leadership Network. Twitter: @timkastelle

Dear Bill, Let Steve Ballmer Pay Skype's $8.5 billion from his Private Assets!

Bill, I know, you are out of that business, sort of. But that is the time to speak out. This is ridiculous.

What is Steve Ballmer doing? He is the CEO, he has to know what the future brings, years ahead. Otherwise he, no one, can truly lead a company or brand.

Come on, buying Skype for $ 8.5 billion? WTF!?

"It was two years after launch, in October 2005, that Skype shook off its skinny startup status and was at the centre of a whopping $2.5bn buyout from eBay, paid half in cash and half in shares." (tnw)

He could have bought it back then - if he had only known where to head with his company. He joined Microsoft in 1980, and is leading (sort of) it since 2000 - he should know.

By acting as a truly visionary leader he could have saved the company some $ 6,000 million!

Or could have saved about the same amount - if he had bought Skype 4 years later from ebay, like those guys did:

"Ebay has agree to sell Skype to a group of private investors including Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen in a deal which values the internet telephony company at $2.75 billion." (wired)

These were the guys who now sold Skype to Steve for $ 8.5 Billion! Ain't that truly ridiculous?

This adds up to 3 misjudgements justs concerning Skype - not to mention the NOKIA thing.

Of course managers do make mistakes and they should be encouraged to do so - but not the same mistake over and over again!

He should pay the on-top out of his private pocket, as he owns "$14.5 billion and is ranked number 46 on the Forbes list of billionaires", or?

"Advertisers Think You Are Stupid."

Via thisisnthappiness.

Dear Automobile Managers: Drop the Auto, Innovate Mobility!

After 'donating', my dear automobile managers, 5 billion Euro to you a few years ago, and you changing nothing in your thinking, strategies, and behaviour, it is about time to finally act.

Even if you reached your all-time highs, and you might think you managed the crisis and you are stronger than ever: people do not buy great cars from you, they just buy the best car they can find - but all are not really great.

They all are more or less average (or even less). They all do not answer the coming challenges of climate change, air pollution, traffic congestion in the world's metropolises.

They all do not deliver satisfying answers to human's new individuality, independence, and impatience.

Satisfying answers you might be able to deliver when dropping the old car dogmata and adapting to the new mobility paradigms.

You will have to think about new infrastructures amalgamating public transportation, (motor) bikes, green cars, mixed ownership and sharing strategies, and the end of the combustion engine.

Stop trying to evolutionize the old auto business model, revolutionize it! Give birth to a new age of mobility! Develop a vision of mobility, instead of new gadgets for your old wines.

[L/M NET] Tom Fishburne > "News of The Brand"

(L/M NET: the blogged experience & expertise of some of the best minds in Innovation, Brand Engagement, Communication Agility:
Tom - Tim - Konstantin - Helge - Drew - Charles - Anthony - Adrian)

“Brands must be made into ‘media properties’”, announced Unilever CMO Keith Weed a couple months ago. Keith oversees the second largest marketing budget in the world at $3 billion, so his words carry a lot of weight.

Brands are in the midst of recasting themselves as publishers. This shift conjures examples of self-serving advertorials, which were invented in the Mad Men era. Brands bought advertising and drafted articles to look like independently written editorial, like this toupee advertorial from the 1960s:

Today many brands default to the advertorial model when thinking about content marketing. They go into pitch mode, touting their features and benefits, whether on a Facebook page, a blog post, or an email newsletter. Content is treated solely as a means to sell product. They treat their audience as if their audience is captive.

Yet consumers can see through this in a heartbeat. And audiences are no longer captive. For content to be worthwhile, it must be worth sharing. It must have intrinsic value that is broader than the features of the brand.

When I worked at method, we published a book called Squeaky Green, a guide to detoxing a home. The only time the book mentioned the method brand was on the cover and there were no specific method products inside. The entire method book was about the philosophy of keeping a healthy home, including tips on buying a vacuum cleaner or carpets that don’t off-gas, topics without any direct method pitch.

Writing a whole book made sense because method stood for a purpose, not just a brand promise. It stood for a happy, healthy home. That purpose allowed method to write a book that was broader than cleaning products. We later serialized the content from the book in blogs and social media. Creating content worth sharing helped cast method as a trusted editor.

A content strategy is rapidly becoming a more important part of any brand identity. Morgan Spurlock parodies this shift in his new film, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold. His April TED talk is well worth the 20 minute watch, as he makes fun of the world of brand marketing, particularly the evolution to media properties.

 

(Marketoonist Monday: I’m giving away two signed prints of this week’s cartoon. Just share an insightful comment to this week’s post. I’ll pick one comment from my blog and one comment from Facebook at 5:00 PST on Monday. Thanks!)

(ralf says: Brands are still just too proud of being brands. They must become solutions. They must tell stories, must become service, media, and content.

This may sound simple, but it ain't. For some brands (and their managers that is the hardest thing to do. Because all the years they judged them as a means to an end: make sales and profits and earn higher bonuses.

To a more individual, independent, and impatient consumer than ever before brands are much more, and if they cannot prove that, they will be left behind.)

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

[L/M NET] Drew Neisser > "What do you do with 19 million fans? Ask Oreo."

(L/M NET: the blogged experience & expertise of some of the best minds in Innovation, Brand Engagement, Communication Agility:
Tom - Tim - Konstantin - Helge - Drew - Charles - Anthony - Adrian)

During The CMO Club Summit in NYC last week, Eva Press, Director, OREO joined several panelists to discuss “Engagement in the Digital Age.” After the panel, I caught up with Eva. Here’s the resulting Q&A:

DN: You and Frank Eliason of Citi seemed to be coming from opposite ends of the spectrum when it covers to using partners to help manage social media engagement. Can you speak to the advantages of working with outside partners like your digital/social media agency?

For Oreo, our agencies are truly our partners and extensions of the brand team. We work very carefully to make sure all people who work on this beloved business, whether within Kraft or an external business partner, really understand how the brand provides people with moments of childlike delight – and that spirit should be infused in everything we do. Our digital/social media agency, 360i, is expert in the social media space. So they not only must understand how to translate the essence of Oreo into language that fits on Facebook, Twitter, but they also have a broad understanding of the digital landscape. So they can keep us up to date on trends and help us discover ways to improve our ability to connect and engage with Oreo fans based on best practices and constant monitoring of the conversation around Oreo.

DN: Do you see any risks in having outside partners manage social media engagements in channels like Facebook & Twitter? And/or what have you done to mitigate those risks for Oreo?

As 360i came onboard in June, 2010, we spent a lot of time grounding the team in what Oreo stands for. And they were instrumental in helping us bring our Oreo voice to life with our global community of fans in social media. 360i leads our digital and social efforts, but they are also a key partner as we develop overall marketing plans. We work together on all tweets, Facebook posts, and other social messaging. Social media engagement is 24/7 – and being constantly engaged is even more critical with a global brand like Oreo that spans time zones across the world. You truly need a team, and we have jointly built a great social media team that is able to engage with fans in real-time. It is a team effort, and we have a tremendous amount of trust in our agency partners. That’s so important because the Oreo brand is so deeply loved and trusted.

DN: A lot of social media programs seem to be done in isolation. Can you speak to how you’ve been able to integrate social into your overall marketing initiatives and the advantages of doing so?

Today, we live in a digital world where people have access to everything a brand does. Marketers can no longer think of engaging with consumers in terms of channel or by media – whatever we say and do is seen by everyone. That actually creates a huge opportunity. Social media can help amplify the programs we are doing in other places – to make sure that an Oreo fan who may not be watching the TV show where we ran our ad has a chance to see the ad, comment on it, and share it with his or her friends. We can ensure the most loyal Oreo fans know about new products, have a chance to enter promotions, and that we’re providing fun games and social currency like our Fan of the Week program. But it only works if all of the people on the brand team and all of the agency partners recognize the value of truly integrated marketing, working together to translate ideas from traditional advertising to digital advertising to PR, to create something that is bigger than the sum of its parts.

DN: How are you measuring the success of your social media activities for Oreos?

Measurement is essential. Certainly we’re always working to understand how social media can drive business growth – and we are starting to see an impact on our business results. But it’s also critical to see how meaningfully we are engaging with our fans because Oreo is so deeply loved.

In terms of measures, we look at our social media in terms of the numbers of people who follow the brand on Twitter and “like” the brand on Facebook. But we are also looking at the engagement of those fans: how many people retweet what the brand says; how many people like or comment on a Facebook post?

Q: You mentioned the challenges of digital coupon distribution via social channels and how they can backfire into bad WOM if/when retailers don’t accept them and/or consumers can’t print them. Assuming this means you won’t be offering coupons in the future, do you see social being able to drive retail traffic or will you think of it more as a retention channel?

We are always looking to provide value to our fans, and coupons – digital or otherwise – are certainly part of our consideration set when planning. That’s true for Oreo, and Kraft Foods more broadly. But in social media, it’s important to understand your fans and take a thoughtful approach to what is meaningful to them in the context of your community. With Oreo, we have seen that our fans have responded very positively when we provide information about new products, spark conversation about the moments of childlike delight Oreo brings, or celebrate fan generated content. We feel that builds advocacy for our brand, and contributes to our business success.

(ralf says: WOW, every single one of Eva's answers you should plot on your pillow or make a poster of it. This is what really has to happen to get it done right. And Oreo's success speaks for itself.

I only may add some links to worth-of-a-fan or facebook related posts.)

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." Twitter: @DrewNeisser

@TNW: eMail Ain't Dead Yet!

Truth lies in the detail. Have a look at that screen grab (sorry for the poor quality) I stumbled upon at The Next Web:

Quite astonishing that they got 1 million plus subscribers via eMail, or? Especially at a site called 'The Next Web'.

But I like that. Some great offerings from other sites I still get via eMail, too, because their twitter account is redundant or chatting or too quiet.

At The Next Web I like their weekly or daily wrap-up.

There are still many opportunities where eMail may deliver additional value to your clients, subscribers, fans. You should think about that, too.

You should lead your people by following them. Add value to their comfort zone. It pays. Enjoy!