Is Marketing dead or different?

Social media has seriously impacted traditional marketing, but is marketing dead, as claims Kevin Roberts, CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide and one of the smartest thinkers around? He said recently:

“The role of marketing has changed. There is nothing new anymore. If marketers are just hearing about something going on then it is already old in today’s world. Speed and velocity is everything today. Marketing’s job is to create movement and inspire people to join you. Everyone wants a conversation. They want inspiration. Inspire people with your website. Don’t just interrupt, but interact. Asking about Return on Investment is the wrong question today. You should be asking about Return on Involvement.”

Thought-provoking indeed. Globally recognised universities such as Oxford, Cambridge and Massachusetts Institute of Technology are putting entire courses online for free. Why? Because you can’t earn a degree on YouTube, and if that’s where today’s students are hanging out, it becomes free marketing. The best students have a choice where they study and platforms like YouTube are how to reach them.

Amy Cosper, Editor of the excellent US-based magazine Entrepreneur, talks about customers as active participants in companies, brands and collaboration.

Last word to Kevin Roberts: “The big idea is dead. There are no more big ideas. Creative leaders should go for getting lots and lots of small ideas out there. Stop beating yourself up searching for the one big idea. Get lots of ideas out there and then let the people you interact with feed those ideas and they will make it big.”

The social tools and technologies allow us to have a conversation with customers old and new, invite opinions and evolve our business. That is how marketing has changed.

The Facebook Way

Posted by mattpoy on June 7, 2012 Posted in People, People Skills Talent, Social Media Tagged Future Technology, Marketing, People, Social Media, Talent

Since its IPO, the media has attacked Facebook from every angle. I would like to take a moment and highlight some of the positives to come out of camp Zuckerberg.

You have to give credit to its creativity, its ability to scale and allow millions of people to connect on a social level. You also have to applaud the platform now used by the likes of British Telecom, Heinz and others to get closer to its customers. Heinz in particular is brilliant at marketing via Facebook, involving their customers in creating products such as the new balsamic vinegar-flavoured ketchup and their personalised ‘Get Well Soon’ can of soup. I have said it before, the future of marketing is not about campaigns but conversations.

More importantly for me, when you dig a little deeper into the empire, you start to understand the Facebook way – Mark Zuckerberg talks about moving fast and breaking things. Facebook, like Google and others from its generation, launches products quickly, listens to what its customers are saying and adjusts accordingly. New online furniture company Made.com has built a great business entirely on this model. In some ways, if you don’t develop this way, you will be left behind. At Apple, the iPod is now almost obsolete, and two-thirds of its revenues come from products invented after 2007. At printer giant HP, the majority of revenue stems from products that did not exist a year ago.

Mark Zuckerberg narrows his focus to two things – having a direction for the company and what it builds and assembling the best team possible. The talent in Menlo Park cannot be doubted. We can learn from this model. On a more local level, my good friend Kypros, CEO at Ryman, the UK’s best stationery company, talks about how they differentiate. It is no secret. Go into their stores – the formula is the same. They find great people, train them well and look after them. The attitude cascades down from CEO throughout the organisation and extends to its customers every day.

Technology or not, it’s all about the people. Always.

Using technology to drive the best marketing of all – Word of Mouth

Posted by mattpoy on April 13, 2012 Posted in Social Media, Technology Tagged influencers, Marketing, One-percenters, sneezers, Social Media

There is some interesting research and debate around technology facilitating word of mouth marketing. I have always believed that nothing competes with shaking hands, making eye contact and building relationships, but Facebook and other social platforms are adding something else by creating conversations and driving engagement.

Brands are constantly seeking ‘likes’ and ‘recommendations’ from users and marketers are always looking to find those individuals who can spread the word very quickly because they are well connected – we call these people the ‘one-percenters’, yawners or sneezers!

The fact is, you tell one person something in the office, they will typically share it with one or two others. If you tell them on Facebook, it is likely that you tell an average of 140-150 others.

While word of mouth is more commonly understood in face-to-face contact, it is more about recognising what drives people to talk about things, then applying appropriate tools and platforms to create that engagement. British Telecom famously ran a series of adverts for their broadband service where Adam met Jane and after years of uncertainty they got married. BT cleverly tied the TV ads into email invitations and a Facebook page that encouraged the public to vote for the wedding dress, wedding car and music for the couple’s first dance. 500,000 people voted. That is some success.

Heinz have done it brilliantly with their ‘Get Well Soon’ can of soup that can be personalised and sent to an unwell acquaintance via Facebook, and my favourite of all is Blendtec, a blender company with more than 150 million views on YouTube taking requests from followers (in the thousands) to blend anything and everything. An ordinary product doing extraordinary things, creating buzz, conversation and deeper engagement.

Word of mouth is ultimately people talking about cool things, brands, events, products and stories that have raised levels of interest, regardless of tools or tech – just as I am doing now.

Keeping IT cool

Posted by mattpoy on May 20, 2011 Posted in People, People Skills Talent, Skills, Social Media, Talent, Technology Tagged Gadgets, Investment in people, People, Skills, Social Media, Talent

Gadgets are the new cool – everyone wants the latest mobile phone, iPad 2, Motorola Xoom, Samsung Galaxy and a myriad of others. In fact, at the recent CRN PartnerConnect conference at the Ricoh Arena, where we talked about cloud business opportunities and mobility, our CEO Todd Thibodeaux brought all of these devices with him in his hand luggage and showed them to the audience, which generated a combination of laughter and interest. Todd also talked about making IT cool (http://blog.comptia.org/2011/05/09/making-it-cool/) and I would like to pick up on this.

When I present to audiences about some of the trends in technology, eyebrows are always raised when I ask about engaging our young employees and utilizing social media for business. Why? The younger generation are digital natives and they live and breath the technology that so fascinates my generation. For them, it is their oxygen, a gateway to the outside world. They also understand how it works, how it connects, and how to maximize it, so why do we push back and in some cases not allow social media sites in the office during work time. My view is that we should encourage its use, and also invite the younger generation to tell us how we can build sites to target the new generation on the platforms they are so comfortable with. That is how we can tie “cool” and “IT” together, and create a new harmony in the workplace. More importantly, by doing this we make our companies a more exciting place to work and we will attract the new generation to want to work for us. Today they have a choice, and those with the skills and talent will decide whether they want to add us to their CV. They are vitally important to our success, regardless of how cool we think our company is – we must engage them on their terms, because they are both our workforce and our customer of tomorrow.

Above was the view at the Ricoh Arena from my room when I drew the curtains in the morning. What a great idea to combine corporate hospitality suites with hotel bedrooms to maximize use of the space. Another cool.