Hair Style - New way to Influence

The word 'Influence' is becoming relevant and apt for every action in our life be it personal or professional. How can we influence somebody to achieve our goals or how can I persuade somebody for mutual benefit seems to be the perennial thought.

Dr.Robert Cialdini is a seminal expert in the rapidly expanding field of influence and persuasion.In his book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Collins Business Essentials), he refers to 6 distinct ways through which one can influence to acheive his goals. One of the ways is "Liking".Without getting into details on this technique, just wanted to highlight one key consumer insight - " Although it is generally acknowledged that good looking people have an advantage in social interaction, recent findings indicate that we have sorely underestimated this advantage. A halo effect occurs when one characteristic of the person dominates as a result of which we would automatically assign favorable traits such as talent, Kindness, intelligence, street smart to the good looking person".Looks like "looking good" will be  a useful influence/persuasion technique.

Scene change. Traffic is one of the biggest problems we face in our daily life.Traffic on the road is a bane due bad infrastructure and indisciple of motorists. Thats not what I was referring to.. Driving relevant traffic to the physical store or to the online store is one of the biggest challenges business face..Some of the metrics that businesses track includes footfalls, store productivity, week day traffic, week-end traffic,ticket size per customer, repeat visits,store utilization to name a few..

Will try and use this insight " looking good to Influence" and address a business problem-TRAFFIC for one of the business which is going through a huge transformation, atleast in India..

Hair Salon Business

From a mere neighborhood shop with no branding, they have moved to become hair stylist to beauty salons to beauty salon chains focusing on hair care,skin care and have become lifestyle brand.A lifestyle brand is a  brand that attempts to embody the values and aspirations of a group or culture for purposes of marketing.

 Why are salons going through this transformation? It's mostly market driven.

 According to the Census of India, 2001, we have almost 20% of our population in the age group of 15 to 24 — that’s what actually ought to be considered the core youth target group — and around 27% in the age group of 15 to 29. 

Opportunity:

• The group with the good propensity to spend..  
• The group which is always on look out for every opportunity to look good or  to differentiate themselves in the crowd to gain acceptance or influence. Some examples
• Street smart salesman trying to influence his prospect
• Job seeker trying to impress the potential employer
• Guy try to impress a girl or the other way around
• Looking good to gain acceptance in a peer group

Challenges:

I had a chance to speak to few people in the salon industry and some of the stated problems:

• Weekend is always full house but week days have minimal footfalls.How to get visits during off peak hours?
• With many stores coming in each neighborhood, what does the salon need to do retain its customers?
• With significant investment on branding and new stores, how to get their return on investment?
• How to generate new traffic to the store?

Insight:  " looking good to Influence"

Trigger feature:How many times have you walked out of the salon with a wonderful hairstyle after the hair cut but not able  reproduce the same style the next day 

Solution: Salon should use this insight  & trigger feature and create a new promo.Instead of just focusing on haircuts and related service to generate business, how about "Hair Style for the day".. 

• The program will be run from Mon -Friday between 9am - 5pm ( only during off peak hours)
• To any customer, walk into the store and get a new hair style done in just 15 mins for just Rs.50... just before your interview or before your date or before your crucial meeting and look good
• The salon can run daily/weekly theme promos like SPIKES for men, Curls for woman
• Flavor of the month:Popular  Hair styles of hero and heroine from latest movies
• Benefit for the customer/visitor - an opportunity to look good which will inturn help to influence or atleast feel good.
• Benefit to the business: additional traffic during off peak, new customers, start new relationships by starting small
• Extension could be mobile hair style salon in the popular hangouts like mall,multiplex, office complex etc.

This will generate significant buzz for the salon especially with  the right Target Audience. If this promo is a success , then all the above business challenges will potentially have answers

Remember, everybody is looking for an opportunity to impress or influence.Do it in Style!!!!

Restaurant 2.0 - New way to build customer relationships for a restaurant Biz

In one of my previous post,I did discuss about customer 2.0, celebrity 2.0, markets 2.0. There is a radical shift in every possible interaction that we are having in our daily routine, be it our work place, leisure, entertainment etc. If the interaction isn't remarkable, chances are that the business could be on the downward movement. 


Businesses are trying to re-look at the current relationship management strategy. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) 2.0 is all about evolving from its traditional focus on optimizing customer-facing transactional processes to include the strategies and technologies to develop collaborative connections  and strengthen the relationship with the new age social customers. In this post,wish to take up an unorthodox business category and  attempt to bring in the 2.0 perspective. Restaurant!!!


This category is of high intrigue because:

• Restaurants do not have any data on consumer preferences. Every visit by a customer is treated as new visit
• Customers have no way to remember the order preferences during their last visit hence one's ability to try new things could be limited
• Consumer feedback about the restaurant is always on the overall experience and not necessarily about individual food items. Consumers do not tend to remember taste of the food beyond a day. Minimal scope to give or get feedback about specific food items at that instance
• In a busy restaurant, one ends up waiting for a long time to place an order. This leads to delay in service hence negative experience
• Consumers reviews are increasingly popular and is one of the determining factors for go/no-go decisions to visit a restaurant
• The restaurant management is always on the lookout for cost save initiatives

In a competitive environment, restaurants are looking at new ways of differentiating themselves beyond just quality, variety ,presentation of food and restaurant ambiance. Valet parking, toddler seats and other complimentary services have now become 'me too' services. Today's tech savvy consumer is expecting each and every interaction to be remarkable.


What should a restaurant biz team do to improve customer loyalty and relationship?


Enter Restaurant 2.0


I will try and attempt to provide a point of experience (PoE) solution which will help solve all the issues aforesaid for an upmarket restaurant. The solution will provide:

•  A remarkable experience for the customer as he will be able to  get reviews, real-time feedback ,recommendations using social media before making his choice
• Tons of information for the Restaurant marketer which will help  provide personalized service/campaigns to encourage repeat visits, improve ticket size and improve other relevant business metrics.

Walk through of the remarkable experience for the customer at the restaurant

• Customer enters a restaurant for lunch/dinner
• Each dining table will have a touch pad computer instead of a physical menu card
• Customer will log-in to his/family page or if it is his first visit then he will have to register
• The home page will have the menu. The page will also showcase other recommendations like top chosen food item for the month, restaurant's specific recommendations for the customer, user review about each food item, food preference of the customer the last time he visited the restaurant and other related information
• If the customer chooses to do a broadcast search on social media,he will have access to Facebook friends, fans page or any other social network to get real time opinions/suggestions 
• The consumer can place the order through the touch pad without waiting for any human intervention
• Once the food is served,the customer will have a choice to give real-time feedback about each food item ordered
• Provide feedback on overall experience after finishing the lunch/dinner
• Since the touchpad is connected to internet, the customer can pay the bill online which will possibly result in minimal service delays

This will truly be a remarkable experience for the customer and a good starting point for  strong collaborative connections & strengthening of  relationship between the new age social customer and the restaurant which is the whole proposition of CRM 2.0

I am sure skeptics will complain about the absence of human interaction with the customer while placing the order for food. The personalized home page will more than compensate for the human interaction. But am a convinced with Robert Cialdini's insight  " Civilization advances by extending the number of operations we can perform without thinking about it". This insight explains the possibility for lesser inertia for change to this new technology intervention at a dinner table.

Looking to get a much more personalized service the next time I visit a restaurant... Possibly the Restaurant 2.0 way!!!

CONNECT- New marketing program for credit card companies

One of the biggest challenges for credit card companies is to increase spends on the credit card. In order to achieve it, they do regular tie-ups with restaurants, pubs, bowling alleys and what not to offer discounts to customers.Almost every credit card company does it, hence there is too much clutter and commotion that even the greatest offer probably gets lost.More important the entire communication is one way and is very boring. As Seth Godin puts it" If people aren't discussing your products, your services, your cause, your movement or your career, there's a reason. The reason is that you're boring.


Is there are refreshingly new way to increase card spends? Are credit card companies ready to look at some trends that will help them create remarkable promotions to increase spends?


The trends:

• Thanks to social media, consumers are looking for every opportunity to network or to build relationship
• Call it location based services or Geotagging is getting popular. Twitter has launched this service by end of Nov 2009
• Consumers are looking for opportunities to spend
• If there is a web 2.0, marketing 2.0, Me 2.0 then there should also be a Promotions 2.0.. How can consumers generate promotions/offers?

Typically, every credit card company looks at discount offer as 'hero' in the communication( 20% off at the Taj, 15% at the Spa and how many more 'Me too' offers that fills up your letter box or email box),I wish to turn the whole approach on its head. If the consumers are looking for opportunities to meet/spend, Lets " CONNECT'  them. This would mean that the  occasion for the meeting should be the primary focus( 'hero') and let the discounts offered by the card company be incidental. Would like to explain this approach through a simple example. Assume I have an XYZ Bank credit card. Lets call the marketing program as " CONNECT" 

• XYZ Bank should have all offers in a website
• The portal should give me a choice to create an CONNECT ecard for the occasion
• Let's say I want to meet up with my college friend Ashok and I know he is the Chennai.
• The website should have multiple card choices ranging from formal to whacky depending on the occasion
• Once I create the ecard, I should be able to pick up a location from the list in the website.
• The ecard thus created will probably read like" Hey Buddy... Long time, Lets meet up at Anokhi( a popular coffee shop in Chennai) ". The Anokhi's address will be pushed into the ecard automatically.
• Once the card is ready, it will sent to Ashok's email id and to his mobile as SMS.
• XYZ Bank is offering a discount at Anokhi but the hero in the consumer generated communication is the meeting with the friend. The discount offer becomes incidental

If we have to take this consumer generated promotion to the next level, thanks to the proliferation of GPS enabled smart phones, an application like Loopt will help identify both my location and Ashok's location. Using this geo info, the creditcard company can come up with auto suggest CONNECT Cards based on location to meet, occasion and the availability of  discount offer. Using this info, I can send an ecard to Ashok and am sure it will sweep him of his feet. To reinforce the core of the program, the meeting between friends is the hero,discount at the store is incidental. The card company will stand to gain through this innovative promotion of ecards.

Waiting to send my ecard and create an occasion to build relationship. Truly remarkable..Lets CONNECT

Test drive a Honda in the night- Experiential Marketing

With a plethora of car launches, every car maker is looking to create a remarkable product at low cost to achieve competitive advantage. In order to achieve a tectonic shift is preferences, car manufacturers will have to go beyond the conventional market pitches like 

• Extra Power - BHP
• Fuel mileage
• iVTEc engines
• Luxury
• Status Symbols

to name a few. I am not suggesting that these are not important but are certainly beaten to death positioning tracks. Marketers have to move beyond static one way communication for positioning to more meaningful interaction with potential car buyers.

Enter experiential marketing defined as " a concept that integrates elements of emotions, logic, and general thought processes to connect with the consumer. The goal of experiential marketing is to establish the connection in such a way that the consumer responds to a product offering based on both emotional and rational response levels".

Car makers are using the concepts like test drive to appeal to the customer experience value quotient. By carefully identifying and improving the product ,service value, image & personal value and costs like  time, energy, psychic costs to customers, the customer experience value quotient can be boosted significantly. In fact, the intangible elements may be the hardest things for your competitors to copy, and therefore, surest strategy to sustainable value superiority. This can be learnt through outcome based research like ethnography to observe customers in their natural surroundings, revealing a more accurate and realistic viewpoint of the dimensions of the customer's value equation.

Test drive is certainly an excellent way to improve interaction hence experience. But wait a minute!!!what is so different about this approach? What I am suggesting is a test drive with a difference. The main focus is on experience not just at behind the steering wheel but in the rear seat as well. Why this change? Mainly for 3 reasons from a marketers perspective:

• Competitive mental angle - differentiation
• In most test drive, the men( actual decision maker) experience technical details sitting behind the steering wheel. They invariably never get a chance to sit in the rear seat and experience luxury which they offer to their families.When will he get a chance to experience it?
• More woman shoppers as influencer for car purchase - No more just Vrooom Vroom

 I suggest this plan for Honda for they genuinely make great cars and  offer luxury at relatively affordable cost.

Test Drive Campaign with a difference:Instead of regular test drive during daytime, lets say Honda wants its potential buyers to experience luxury( beyond the regular rational benefits). The campaign should be as follows:

• The promo is for a test drive in the night - chauffeur driven car.
• The potential buyer can call up a Honda dealer for a test drive
• Honda will send a car to the customers office or a place of his choice @specified time lets say 8.30pm
• Without any surprises, given our work schedules, the customer will be drop dead tired.
• Imagine yourself as a buyer. You are drop dead tired. You have a chauffeur driven luxury car with a music of your choice and better still you are going to sit in the rear seat for a drive back home.
• This experience of luxury is very different in comparison to the regular test drive. I am sure that this drive will pamper the potential buyer that it will create a huge purchase predisposition.
• With everything remaining equal or atleast perceived to be equal, this 'campaign with a difference' will sway the purchase decision in favor of Honda.
• The marketer also gets to observe his customers in their natural surroundings, revealing a more accurate and realistic viewpoint of the dimensions of the customer's value equation.

Without doubt, the campaign needs to have a detailed execution plan. But as thought, it is a shift from normal.Now the statement '"Experience luxury" may not sound cliched.

Sample Maggi's new Pasta at the online store-'Sense'ible way

The dot com boom in 90’s was raucous with every company trying to get a whacky idea and make money out of it. One such endeavor was the ecommerce. The thought of buying and selling using the internet was fascinating and innocuous that every company which jumped into the bandwagon. The justification was solely based on appealing to one's rationales. This includes:

• Convenience
• Better deals
• Speed to market

While all these are true, the dot com marketers were up against a monster called ‘ human behavior change’. The pros of eCommerce was up against few compelling downsides:

• Absence of Touch, feel and trial
• Credit card security
• Customer Trust
• Promise vs delivery
•  Sticker shocks
•  Delays in delivery

The rationales which appeared convincing no longer holds water. Building an ecomm website, driving traffic, increasing customer stickiness, losing customer due to poor experience and trying hard to get  the customer back is turning out to be a Sisyphean element for companies. Gone are the days when customers pickup brands blindfolded. The offline brand building exercise have lead to brand awareness and purchase predisposition but the consumers tend to drift at the time of purchase.


‘Enter online customer experience’. The latest report from Razorfish( quote by Garrith Schmidt – expert in Experience Planning) has indicated that 65% of the customers are influenced by their online experience and  will eventually determine purchase. This is termed as Digital Primacy.


I am true believer that any of today’s much talked about online experiences are inspired from offline experience. In that case it would useful to look at how sale happens in a retail store and what is that we can take as inspiration. So what is the science of shopping and why do we buy? I am truly inspired by Paco Underhill’s book on ‘Why we buy’. His recommendations for a physical store is after thorough research at store fronts and is truly amazing. Some of them which caught my attention includes:

Events in a store	Offline retail store
Traffic into the store	Entrance is a runway – Customer takes time land  and to adjust to the shopping store
Exits at entrance	Cognitive drift – It is very easy for the customer to  drift given the multiple options. Potential reason  for exits
Navigation	Butt brush effect – Woman in particular get put off if somebody brushes past them while shopping .  Importance on spacious aisles( navigation)
Shopping	Sensory marketing: what appeals to the senses  and how customers  are lured to a notion  of purchase.
Metrics	Closure rate · Interception rate · Waiting rate

If customers were to buy what they planned for then the economy will collapse. So what is that the online marketer needs to do to lure the customer for more purchase and repeat purchase. What are some of the best practices that one can take from the offline store experiences. I will just take one aspect of retail shopping that will have an impact on purchase behavior and explore possibilities in the online world – Sensory Marketing


Touch and Trial are very crtical to customers shopping experince. Imagine how you would explore things in a supermarket before you buy it.The customer would expect a close to offline experience in the online shop before a purchase. How do we appeal to the senses of the user and enable purchase? If touch and trial are very vital for a purchase, how can we make it available to the online user or provide compelling alternatives ? Lets take the case of an offline multi brand retail store wanting to make an impact in the online world.I will try and attempt to give tactical solutions to solve this issue.


Touch: Lets assume that the customer wants to buy a camera at the store.This is being handled very well by most online shopping stores through interactive 3 D demo’s, product pictures in actual size to reduce dissonce, user reviews about the product etc which act as a surrgogate to touch. The launch of Apple’s iPad will further enhance it because the interactive sessions done through mouse and keyboards will be replaced by a stylus called fingers. This will get it closer to the actual touch we may desire.


Trial: Lets take for example a customer who wants to buy monthly groceries using the online shop (assuming it will happen one day). This is an ideal platform to induce trail.This can be achieved using a dextrous combination off offline and online.Lets say Maggi wants to promote its new Pasta and they have decided to do a sampling exercise. Customers never say no to incentives or freebies.This can be done either when the customer is about to check out or while he is browsing for products in similar categories. The sampling can be done as follows:

• Either at check out or while browsing for similar products show the Maggi Pasta sample to the customer
• The customer has a choice to try the sample
• Once he/she chooses the option, the sample is delivered to the customer along with the grocery
• The next time the customer logs in to make purchase, solicit feedback about the sample and check if he is interested in purchasing the product
• If yes, add to shopping cart, else seek feedback

This will be a good opportunity for marketers to induce trial and close loop with a possible sale.


‘Sense’ible way

B2B Content Marketing for SMB Businesses

A wonderful blog on B2B marketing using online medium especially through social media. This is very timely as many sceptics believe that social media marketing can be used only for B2C.The essence of this article is that B2B marketers need to focus on strong content strategy and innovative ways of building relationships. Sounds so simple... but with some dedicated efforts. Thanks Bernie for this post

B2B Content Marketing for SMB Businesses

Posted using ShareThis

Know your Customer(KYC) - B2I2C?

I had a chance to see this commercial on advertiser vs consumer.The clip was part of a presentation shown at Idea Forum 2007. Although this commercial is dated, I still find it relevant in today's marketing world.The best part is that some marketers are still ignorant about some colossal mistakes. To name a few:

1. Marketers seek confirmation to their assumptions/theories than seek information when they go to a market or talk to a customer - When you see this ad, you will find couple of instances that justifies this statement

2.Outbound Marketing or interruption marketing is still preferred over inbound marketing - Organizations may get some leads from Outbound telemarketing but end up irritating the customer. This has an impact on brand.

3. Know your customer(KYC) doesn't necessarily mean just demographics. Today, we have too many tools to understand usage, behavior etc and present relevant offer to customers.But the last mile is certainly about humanizing such interactions to make it meaningful.I remember an anecdote mentioned by my client when he visited India. He stayed in a 5 star hotel. During his first visit, he mentioned to the hotel staff that he had mosquitoes in his room. The hotel staff were apologetic and made necessary arrangements to satisfy him. The next time he came to India after 2 years, he stayed in the same hotel and to his surprise he saw a liquid mosquito repellent in his room even before he checked in. I guess the surprise part was this effort by the hotel staff and he is now a loyal customer of Taj.

4. Irrelevant retention or promotional offers despite proper tracking for personalization. Especially in website interactions, I am not a big fan of tracking every move of the customer and achieve implicit personalization.This is truly a privacy issue.Lets set it aside. Despite tracking the customer, most often customers get irrelevant offers because these are product mappings done by marketers in the cross sell/up-sell tool(CRM/ecommerce) without understanding customer expectations.

All this leads to one big revelation in my mind. In the Marketing 1.0 school, marketers did agree that KYC is the most important aspect of marketing but some how fell into the trap of using more tools and technologies without much of effort to interact with customers for better understanding.

In the Marketing 2.0 ( social Media Marketing)paradigm, the wow in the beginning was on the various social media tools, technologies and platforms( Facebook, twitter).But customer anonymity,change of market/customer dynamics has forced marketers to understand forces which influences a customer to buy and sell.This is being achieved through meaningful interactions/collaboration with customers.Guess the paradigm has changed from just B2B/B2C to B2I2C ( Business to Influencer to Customers)

KYC is a continuous process and is constantly evolving. As sensible marketers, we need to let go of some archaic approaches to survive in this new paradigm.

Human Universals vs Plurals in the 2.0 paradigm

The word xxx 2.0 ( call it Web 2.0 or any 2.0) is turning out to be truly fascinating as any form of 2.0 has given the power to the consumer.Let me quote examples from Bernie's book on Marketing 2.0:

Music 1.0: audio cassettes and tapes with content given by music power houses
Music 2.0: Music downloaded from iTunes, Napster and passed on to peers

Encyclopedia 1.0: purchased as 15 volumes of books
Encyclopedia 2.0:content generated by users and millions of pages available freely over the Internet as Wikipedia
and so does many things like software 2.0, sales 2.0 so on and so forth. What about markets,celebrities and consumers? Why not this argot of 2.0 be applied to them?

Few things that prompted me to take this topic:

1. Malcolm Gladwell's reference to Universals and Plurals in the world of mustards and Ketchups

2. Marketers shift to micro Markets over traditional Mass Markets

3. Emergence of Social Influence:"Not just friends, but friendsters, will start to matter" - Shiv Singh's reference to this term in is article titled "Trends in Social Influence Marketing"

What is wrong with the conventional marketing approach and will it sustain in the new 2.0 paradigm?

The conventional marketing is pretty much top down and approached as mass markets( markets 1.0) .This approach worked in the past as humans were/are perceived to be universals and homogeneous ( consumer 1.0)in thought process and buying behavior.Mass media is used to reach out to the customers and celebrities are used to break clutter in media and achieve AIDA (advertising model). But consumers have more choices be it the plethora of media or number of products available to address their needs and wants.This leads to possibly couple of inferences

1. With increase in disposable incomes and growing choices, consumers preferences are getting to be much more granular and niche. Ex:Consumers preferences have moved from strong coffees to cappuccino, espresso to cappuccino made from organic milk and natural sugar.Companies are moving away from demographic based targeting to more behavioral targeting. This has led to micro markets( Market 2.0). There are no more homogeneous universal products but plurals.

2.In the 1.0 paradigm, marketers interrupt the consumer than interact.The interruption was through a celebrity or a company speak to a consumer through a one-way communication channel.This has lead to discrimination of marketing messages by consumers. In an era of social graphs, consumers now tend to look up to their friends/friendsters( celebrity 2.0) in interactive channels for authentic recommendations than the celebrities used by conventional marketeres.Authenticity trumps celebrity.

3.With increased penetration of social networks,consumer clustering has moved away from demographics to behavioral( consumer 2.0). Groups formed on Facebook,Twitter and other social networks based on affinity are a good example of this fact.

While I say it is a fact, most success stories are rationalization of events/facts or as Steve Jobs calls it as connecting the dots backwards. Otherwise how can Heinz, in 2.0 paradigm, still defy the theory of plurals and continue to be a universal product.A Ketchup which is sweet,salt, sour, bitter and umami yet appeal to the mass. Guess thats what makes consumer insights a complex yet interesting area to explore.

Zero to 60: Ford's Social Media Story

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Zero to 60: Ford's Social Media Story

View more presentations from Scott Monty.

Tweets for Radio Show

I was driving my car in the morning and felt monotonous. So I switched on the radio. They were 8 channels and each one putting up some kind of a 'me too' content.The caller speaks to the RJ on some absurd topic and this goes on for a couple of mins and then you get to hear the latest song, repeated a 100 times in each of these channels. Truly uninspiring!!!!.

Suddenly, 3 disjointed things popped out of my head:
1. In the new age marketing/ Marketing 2.0( thanks to Bernie Borges for this term)content and relationships are the most important things for a consumer

2. How can I connect a Marketing 1.0 medium like radio with the buzz media/Web 2.0 channel

3. Most important of all, how can I make the content interesting, engaging and entertaining.

Big Idea:The Venn diagram of these 3 disjointed things led to an idea. MTV used to have this show in which when the song was playing, some interesting trivia's about the song, artists, music directors et al was displayed as a runner. The content was generated by the producer of the TV show.Things have changed a lot in the last 4 years. We are living in an era where consumer is generating content and consuming content.

New kind of Radio shows:: Lets say the program is an Michael Jackson (MJ) special. The RJ, while introducing the song, can provide one trivia to start. The show is about encouraging listeners of this show to tweet their trivia to the RJ. The RJ will then get to pick and choose the best of them and share it in the show. Mind it all this will happen real time. For example if the song to be played is 'Heal the world'. imagine if the RJ gets a trivia tweet from one of the listener as " In a 2001 Internet chat with fans, Jackson said "Heal the World" is the song he is most proud to have created". To many a Jackson fans any news about him will get them ecstatic...Am sure this will create a postive WOM for the radio shows. The obvious thing is that you get away from monotonous content and get in to engaging content which will help build relationships.. Such is the power of web 2.0 tools

So can we start hearing more tweets :-)

New Roles

Its almost inevitable that the marketing/media managers are forced to look at internet as a medium for brand building. While the inertia was high to move to Internet, thanks to the overwhelming adoption of social networks, marketers are now looking at more ways of permission or collaboration marketing than marketing through intrusion ( imagine a banner on the road screaming for attention when you are busy driving).

This gets to me to think as to how the marketing team of the future is going to look like... Some trends to justify this thought:
1.Social networks are proving to be new ways of engaging customers
2. Interruption marketing moves way for permission marketing
3. Rapid progress on the social media measurement. What is spoken about your brand in www is often asked question. Seth Godin has launched brands in public(BIP).
4. Emergence of measurement tools from radiance, hubspot gives enough opportunity for marketers to focus on the activities online.

As web 2.0 is proving to be an interactive medium, marketers are sure to put in additional resources not just money but create new roles like:

1. Chief Engagement Officer - Online( CEGO):-)
2. Engagement manager - Facebook appverdising ( applications+ advertising)
3. Customer Response Manager - Twitter ( kind of work Comcast is doing using Twitter)

Cool... Let me look for new designation :-).

Whose Word is it anyway?

Imagine a scenario.....You are computer literate, savvy to the extent that you know how to use excel, word or power point. A persona of this nature when asked to buy a computer will be quite unsure on what to do and what to buy. I am quite confident that at least 30% of the associates in a given organization will be of this nature.

The obvious thing is to reach out to a super computer savvy associate or friend to get some help in purchase. Conventional wisdom will make you believe that its the best way to purchase.

I see a challenge with this approach.

Usually as early Majority ( refer to Moore's idea diffusion curve) when we seek for referrals, we reach out to innovators or early adopters.The kind of conversation early adopter persona will have about computers includes RAM, Processor, Multimedia Card, OS ( Linux), DVD + /-RW with Dual Layer Write Capabilities, Optical USB Mouse and all possible jargons which will be confusing for the Early/Late Majority.

It will be an information overload for the buyer hence the best option is to choose the path of least resistance. Go ahead and ask your geek friend to chose the desktop for you. I am sure it will be a good purchase.

The problem is post purchase... You spend so much money to get the best configuration but you have no idea how to put it to use.. What you do is the same Word, excel Power point.. This could possibly cause discontent and may eventually create some resistance for new technology adoption.

This gap will serve as pointer for marketers who intend to build long term relationship with their customers

If a good majority of the consumers fall into this category , marketers may have to try innovative ways to reach out this segment. May have to help them take baby steps by involving consumers of similar behavior and aptitude.

The Quest is to find new way to identify the right sneezers (influencers) for the Early majority or Late majority.. Whose word is it anyway?

Tring Tring- Please Listen

I wanted to purchase a mobile phone over the weekend.Went to one of the leading stores in Chennai. I wouldnt argue that I am gadget freek but fairly technology savvy.

I had a few specs for phone which I duly communicated to the sales person. This includes:
1. Not a heavy phone
2. Easy to Use
3. No need for a slide phone
4. Shouldnt be fragile as my 1 year old daughter may want to use it :-)

I always believed that there are too many options and I will be confused what to buy. Contrary to my belief, the sales person came back with very few options or rather non options..

What makes it even more confusing is the model numbers and the laundry listing of features which are supposed to appeal to our rational minds.

Take care to look at my specifications. It has nothing to do with 8 mega pixel camera or Document scannner etc.. No brochure states consumer terminologies.My guess is that a section of consumers are overwhelmed by these terms that they choose path of least resistance like sales person's choice or friend's suggestion.

I see an opportunity. Can these mobile companies start listening to these conversions? Capturing these adjectives stated by consumers on an ongoing basis will certainly help them get product or communication ideas..

I will try and see how to capture this conversation.After all this tring is worth listening..

Say no 2 Mass marketing - look for trenches

I remember reading an article on how New Zealanders marketed their gooseberry in USA. All they did was to call it a 'Kiwi' and put them in niche Latin food stores as Latinos use gooseberry,which is similar to mangoes and peaches, in their kitchens. If the new Zealanders had gone to WalMart's or COSTCO ( any American stores), there will be no takers. Look for the trenches and the risk takers will ensure that they market the products through word of mouth.

This inference inspired a thought. Chennai, a metropolitan city in India, has recently seen a surge in floating population thanks to IT and auto companies. Many people from the Northern part of India who come to Chennai loathe Chennai as it is hot and humid and the only thing that gets discussed is movies and only movies.

Contrary to a lot of beliefs Chennai has changed a lot. It has many multi cuisine restaurants ( Malaysian, Koren,Japanese to name a few), some excellent theatres and stage plays( both English and Hindi), pretty active night life for nocturnals.. Chennai has changed a lot...

Here is a marketing idea. Intend to launch a news letter to non Chennaites which will higlight on some of the super cool events/hang outs in Chennai. The newsletter will be titled ' F N C O' ( For Non Chennaites Only). Instead of trying out a mass marketing approach, the goal is just to target people who are in need of such information. Naturally, these risk takers will be keen to experiment and sneeze ( word of mouth). That way the proliferation will be much faster and better than launching a me too mag.

Hopefully after the launch of this news letter, am praying that people will discuss not just the weather of Chennai alone. Hope it takes away the heat from Chennai!!!!!

Enter ebusiness

As we look at the world wide web, we find organizations at different ends of the spectrum. At one end we have brick and mortar companies which use the web as brochureware and at the other end we have companies which do business in the online space..

In general, the web has moved away from a static medium which has a meager capability of static information, simple transaction to a medium which encourages multichannel buying. But traditional marketers still perceive web as a supplementary channel and not so much a standalone channel which has the capability to address all aspects of the marketing mix. Some Marketers believe that the web cannot be used to:

1. Generate consumer insights
2. used for category expansion
3. Reinforce Imagery
4. Service customers through online as there will be no personal touch

The web is doing all is this and much more. Thanks to web 2.0, consumers self expression,a manifestation of their thoughts, are well captured. Just that it is an arduous task of sifting through voluminous data. Consumers expression about products, services etc can be captured through videos, photos and comments written in youtube,flickr and blogs respectively.

Web is utilized as a persuasion medium. Lets take for example the travel industry.First time customers for a specific travel product are well enticed through peer comments, Photos, videos and ratings. Websites of car manufactures are good example of how to build imagery and encourage multichannel buying.3D demo of cars gives a good perspective of the user for color choice, interiors and dashboard appearance. The other product literatures reduces information asymmetry thus giving the control to the user as far as purchase is concerned.

Banks are good example of how they have pioneered channel migration strategies.Avatars are used to give a personal touch to the experience.Personalization as feature is provided by default to give the user a perception of familiar territories..

Thought leaders in this space are modelling the movement to online as a mimic of the real life so that the transition is seamless for the users. iPhone's user experience won rave reviews because of this aspect.

As marketers, you have a business case.It is only fair to state that for your business to succeed, a strong ebusiness strategy is a must...