Business Inspiration for the New Year

As I was catching up on my RSS reading, two posts by Seth Godin and Fred Wilson really caught my attention as inspiration for the New Year.

In the first, Seth Godin posed the question, “Do ads work?” In particular, Seth is asking about digital ads where he feels the mindset of marketers should be “We have an unlimited budget for ads that work.”  In his own words:

Digital ads are different (or they should be). You should know cost per click and revenue per click and be able to make a smart guess about lifetime value of a click. And if that’s positive, buy, buy, buy.  And if you don’t know those things, why are you buying digital ads?

Seth goes on to give the example of Amazon during the Dot Com boom of the late ’90’s.  He says that during this time, the mantra at Amazon was $33. “They would buy unlimited ads, of any kind, as long as they generated new customers for $33 or less each.” Was $33 too high of a number to be sustainable?  Possibly.  But their internal ROI showed that $33 was the magic number and there was unlimited money to buy ads under that figure.

In other words, don’t use the excuse that you don’t have the budget.

Any idea that you have proven will build your sales and share should be invested in…and it should be invested in at the expense of ads that aren’t proven.

In the second thought-provoking post, Fred Wilson talked about creating a great business team in “Putting the Band Back Together.” Fred has noticed that as times get tough, many successful serial entrepreneurs are rejoining people they have worked with in the past.  Or as he puts it, “they are getting the band back together for awhile.”  Fred sees this as an encouraging sign because:

Teams that have worked together successfully before know the strengths and weaknesses of each other and they know how to get along, make hard decisions, and move the ball forward each and every day.

I think this is a brilliant insight and one that most businesses don’t think about often enough.  Think about your own brand team at work.  How long has the most junior person been on the team?  Or how long have the most senior members worked together?  What about your agency?  Have the same people been on the account as long as the Brand Manager or Marketing Director?  I’d be willing to bet that there has been considerable change over on both sides.

I think more brands need to follow the advice of Fred and “get the band back together.” 

If you have a successful brand and agency team, then practice continuity and keep them working together.

Business is a game of teamwork and it takes time to develop good working relationships.  In sports, All Star games are boring because the best players don’t practice together every day.  So when you throw them together, they don’t know how to work together.  Just look at what happened to the USA “Dream Team” in 2002 – 2004 when we lost to teams that had played together for years.

The same thing might be happening to your brand when you change the players every year.

Weekly Round-Up: 8-19-08

Another crazy week of travels, this time to Cincinnati for house-hunting and some really interesting digital meetings/trainings.  In the meantime, here is what caught my eyes the past couple of days:

• CPG Brands Better Buy Paid Search– Yahoo and Mediavest just released a study that said “brands generated an average 160% increase in unaided awareness by being present in standard sponsored-text search results compared with when consumers weren’t exposed to their search ads.”  This backs up results released by Google a couple of weeks ago as well.
• Map of Pop vs Soda vs Coke in US – This is one of the coolest graphics I have seen in awhile.  As a “pop” guy living in the heart of “Coke” country, this just fascinates me.  What can I say, I’m a nerd.
• Techno/Marketer: The Face of Facebook e-book– Matt Dickman of Fleishman-Hillard provides this simple “snapshot of what the real face of Facebook looks like on a Global and US level.”  A perfect, quick read for marketers and Brand Managers.
• Web Strategy by Jeremiah: The Evolution of Brands on Twitter– Jeremiah Owyang is consistently one of the most rel event and interesting reads on-line for marketers.  He does it again with this easy walk-through of how a brand should wade in the waters of Twitter.
• David Armano: The Micro-Site Isn’t Dead (It’s Just Not Useful) – A must read for every Brand Manager and marketer, especially since this is coming from an agency guy who works for a company designing a lot of micro-sites for brands (including P&G brands).

Weekly Round-Up: 8-13-08

It’s been a busy couple of days here and due to get even busier with some visitors in town from Cincinnati and a weekend getaway to Dallas with Cindy after that.  In case i don’t get a chance to post with all of that, here is some great posts to keep you busy:

• Coca-Cola’s Conversations Blog – In Mack Collier’s Company Blog Checkup this week, he rated Coke’s effort the best one yet in his ongoing blog series.  Their effort is an interesting twist, as the blog author is Phil Mooney, who describes himself as “the historian/archivist for The Coca-Cola Company for the last 30 years.”  Given the popularity of Coke memorabilia, this is a great way to tap into an existing community and provide an authentic voice within.
• Guy Kawasaki: “The Art of Visual Thinking” –   Guy does it again with a stellar post on how the best ideas should be simple… so simple that they can be drawn on a napkin.  For instance, the image at right describes the basic idea of Southwest Airlines.  No fancy buzzwords, no financial charts and no SWAT analysis.  Just a simple idea, brilliantly brought to life with pen and paper.  Can the idea behind your brand be this simple?
• Shiv Singh: Avenue A / Razorfish introduces AdLife – I am really intrigued by this new offering (done in partnership with Pluck), which Shiv says “will inject social media features like customer comments and user-generated content into digital advertisements such as banner ads or microsites.”
• Ryan Jones: Interview with CEO of Dynamic Logic – Fellow P&G Marketer Ryan Jones provides a great interview with Nick Nyhan, the CEO of Dynamic Logic, on everything to brand ideals to social media measurement. 
• TechCrunch: ToAnswer is Twitter Meets Yahoo Answers – One of the best ways to use Twitter is to ask your network random questions / recommendations.  Fred Wilson of a VC is particularly fond of asking these Twuestions as he calls them.  Now a new site lets you see all the questions being asked across the Twittersphere.  Pretty cool stuff.

Weekly Round-Up: 5-23-08

Been slammed in meetings all week but wanted to share the following links that caught my attention.  Have a great long weekend!

• Adaptive Path: “Identifying Mobile Internet Usage through PC Deprivation” – This is one of the more fascinating pieces of research I have seen in a long time.  Very cool stuff.
• Digital Next: “A Glimpse Into the Store of the Future” – The time will come that First Moment of Truth means something entirely different at the store level.
• 101 Everyday Uses for Twitter – I am fully on the Twitter Bandwagon.  Great tips to get you there too.
• Chris Brogan: “Make Your Blog Design Work for You” – I’ve been messing around with redesigning my blog since it launched and this is great inspiration.  Look for changes on Hard Knox Life soon
• mobileYouth: “7 Trends in Youth Marketing” – Solid insights from across the UK
• Ikea in-game integration with The Sims – I am a huge fan of video game advertising if done right.  This is one of the best I have seen so far with Ikea partnering with The Sims.
• Steve Rubel: “Open Files: 9 Digital Trends for the Future” – Great presentation by Rubel.  Embedded below for easy viewing pleasure.

Weekly Round-Up: 5-15-08

This week I am headed back to Cincinnati to serve my Best Man duties at the wedding of one of my great friends.  All will be quiet on the blogging front while I am away but here are a few links to leave you with that have got me thinking lately:

• AttentionMax “Why Passion Matters” – I just love this statement: “passion is not something that can be bought, outsourced or faked.”  When I think about people I want on my team, passion is #1.  You can train someone to be a great marketer…you can’t train passion though.  I’ll take the bet that the person passionate about their job and life in general will beat experience or a “pedigree” any day.
• Copyblogger “Are You Talkin’ To My Generation” – A great look at how to think about talking and getting in the minds of different generations.
• Lightheavyweight “What is Strategy?” -Simple thoughts but very needed.  Too many brands try to be everything to everyone.  Strategy needs to be simple, narrow and focused.
• Godin “We Specialize in Everything” – I missed this post until I caught a mention of it on m-cause.  I love this quote “When choice is limited, I want a generalist. When selection is difficult, a jack of all trades is just fine.  But whenever possible, please bring me a brilliant specialist.”  There is something to be said about finding yourself a niche and doing it better than anyone else.
• The Gen Y Guide to Web 2.0 Work – This is brilliant…even more so for the fact she created a killer presentation on her Nintendo DS!
• Digital Nomads and The New Workforce – Great post and something I want to write about more later.  In today’s world, great talent can work anywhere.  Companies need to start embracing this and thinking about a world where their best people might not need to live in the home office.  Save on relocation money and let them live/work where they want.  Doing so opens up endless opportunities to attract amazing talent.
• Viral Garden “Social Media: Where Have We Been, Where are We Going?” – Great summary post.  I’m actually thinking of putting together a presentation along these lines to educate my fellow Brand Managers about the Social Media space along with successes and failures.  If helpful, I’ll post here for all to see.
• Techno/Marketer “Developing Personas for Marketing Strategy” – This is one of the best summaries on the concepts of personas that I have ever read.  At P&G we talk about personas as our WHO, attaching a name to a Prime Prospect that is our target market.  Great, great summary of how to develop a WHO for your person.  When I consult, I am shocked at how many brands and businesses havent taken this step.  You can’t create a marketing plan without developing a robust WHO…it’s that simple.

Weekly Round-Up: 5-2-2008

Busy week and slow posting but here are some blog postings that caught my eye:

• What is digital and what is traditional?: The lines are forever blurring.  Digital will soon be everything and everywhere.
• Is your brand sticky or slippery?: I have been meaning to point out this post for a while.  Too many brands focus on being sticky for their digital strategy.  The point here is that you should focus on being a little bit of everywhere….be slippery.  Brilliant concept
• Not using TweetScan to manage your brand?  Think again:  Story of how Disqus had a powerful PR moment from monitoring TweetScan
• Customer Service – The most powerful branding tool ever: Simple idea…powerful application
• Cool Jobs for anyone looking: Method – Brand + New Ventures Analyst, Potbelly Regional Marketing Manager (Dallas & Midwest) 

Weekly Round-Up 4-26-2008

The best from the blogosphere this week:

• New blog discovery – Decker Marketing: As I was reading Brand Autopsy, I can across two mentions of Decker Marketing including 193 Marketing Ideas and 9 Guerilla Marketing Thoughts.  In a short time, I’ve become a big fan of this blog.
• Blogs vs Social Networks: Just caught this through a tweet from David Armano
• The Future of Advertising is Design: P&G puts a huge focus on design but we still have a long way to go to get everyone to embrace it
• Fred Wilson – A Lot Has Changed In A Century, But Not Everything: Communication overload.  I know the feeling.
• Social Media Basics for Marketers: Pretty self explanatory but a great read
• Second Life – Don’t Call It A Comeback: Second Life was all the buzz last year and it looks like # of hours spent on the site have been surging the past couple of months.
• MySpace Self-Serve Platform:  Interesting comments from Ian at Deep Focus
• Does Your Advertising Agency Get It?:  Great discussion and one I am torn on.  Traditional agencies are doing their best to learn Social Media but many dont get it.  What scares me is so many brands have such absolute trust in their agencies, that they let them try social media even when they shouldn’t.  This results in failures and bad social media marketing that turns off consumers.  Lets all promise not to do this!
• Seven Types of Highly Effective Corporate Blogs: Love the simplicity on what works (and what doesnt) with corporate blogs.

Weekly Round-Up 4-18-2008

Latest and greatest that caught my eye this week:

• The Economics of Social Media – Very interesting conference taking place in LA at the end of April.  Wish I could make it out there…
• Ian Schafer: Integrated (Big) Agency Model -The CEO of Deep Focus asks if all the reshuffling at major holding company agencies is really going to work.  Ian nails the answer when he writes “Brands need smaller, more nimble, more innovative agencies built as integrated problem solvers from the ground-up — with creativity as its religion and the ability to deliver experiences (with the results to back it up) as its practice.”
• Merging Real World and the Internet – Very interesting facts…”Gartner Group predicts that by 2011, 80% of internet users will participate in at least 1 virtual world. While Second Life has received about 99% of the media’s attention, it only accounts for about 1% of all the users globally. Globally, sales of items in virtual worlds account for $1.5 billion.”
• What I Want a Social Media Expert to Know – I would love to see a count of how many people claim to be “Social Media Experts.”
• Facebook Ads Don’t Rock -Bob Gilbreath put Facebook to test to see if advertising on the social network could drive traffic.  Unfortunately for MSFT and the $15 billion valuation they put on the site, Facebook ads didn’t deliver at all.
• A Billion Dollars in Internet Advertising is Wasted -Interesting study on where Internet advertising is going and what parts arent working at all.

Weekly Round-Up: 4-10-2008

Sorry I’ve been a bit slow with the postings this week.  I have a major presentation today but wanted to get a post out amongst the prep.  Here are the postings that caught my eye this week:

• Ian Schafer “How I Use Twitter”:  I was negative on Twitter for a long time but Ian sums up graphically why I have jumped on the bandwagon.  As he says, “[Twitter is an] efficient way to be notified of news, help out colleagues, network, and generally have intelligent, and believe it or not, intellectual conversations.”
• David Armano “The Conversation Economy”:  Armano’s poses an interesting question…has the conversation economy moved?  Sitting in the halls of P&G, I will tell you that I think it is just beginning and big brands are just now starting to wake up to that fact.
• Fred Wilson “The Hidden Return of Online Advertising”:  Fred points to a new comScore study that says online ads have a bigger impact for retailer’s offline sales than they do for their online says.  Interesting….
• Why do users flock to social network sites?:  Interesting study from IBM that summarizes why users go on social networking sites.  The breakdown is 53% Purely Social, 38% Professional, and 9% Brand Kinship.  The 9% shocks me.  What do you think?
• New TV shows coming to Xbox 360:  I love this quote from Mitch on Six Pixels of Seperation, “Traditional Marketers sit and stare at the changes taking place in the Marketing world. Here’s the raw truth: they think it’s just a fad. ”  He writes this in article about veteran Hollywood Producer Peter Safran announcing he would create original TV content for Xbox 360.
• CollegeHumor’s Secret to Success…T-Shirts:  While the guys at CollegeHumor are media moguls with a hot website and an upcoming MTV show, one of their unknown secrets of success is that they are also fashion moguls.  Their website Busted Tees sells ~30,000 shirts a month and rivals better known Threadless.com.

Weekly Round-Up 4-3-2008

Lots of great reads this week across the web:

• Fallon Brainfood “Social 10”: Paul Isakson points out a great presentation by Aki Spicer on 10 Trends Marketers Should Know About Social Networking.  Solid read that you should check out for sure.
• Digital Marketing Ecosystem:  Conversation Agent talks about how marketers can learn to understand the evolution of digital marketing instead of just learning how to exploit digital.
• Mobile Marketing Stats:  Some interesting mobile stats courtesy of Darren Herman.  My favorite….1/3 of iPhone users carry a 2nd phone.
• Top 10 Google Search Shortcuts:  Very useful tips from Duct Tape Marketing.
• Sigg Water Bottle and Monster To-Go Outlet:  These are two items that are on my shopping list for sure
• Video Game Trend Review:  Some more interesting stats.  I was amazed Madden went from being the top game in ’06 and ’07 to not even in the Top 5 in ’08