Pretty soon there’ll be too many trees

As you probably know by now, before arriving on planet CIM I lived in the world of newspapers. I left 3 years ago at a time when both national and regional titles were suffering a devastating slump in advertising revenues and I don’t think things have changed much since.

In the latest attempt to protect profits the evening newspaper in my home town of Ipswich, which incidentally is now printed overnight in Norwich to save cost, has recently changed its name from the Evening Star to the Ipswich Star and no longer prints on a Saturday. At the same time the town’s weekly free newspaper has ceased publication.

I guess this is necessary if the media company wants to survive the latest economic storm but from a consumer perspective this all looks a bit desperate.

Of course it’s not just the state of the economy that is forcing many companies to retrench. The impact of digital on virtually everything is really challenging the norm – just ask Kodak, HMV and Waterstones (with or without an apostrophe) about it.

I guess you could say this is the inevitable result of progress, but at the risk of being called a Luddite, I’m pretty sad about the demise of newspapers. The great thing about reading a newspaper, magazine and indeed a book, is that it forces you to take time out. It’s difficult to multi-task while reading (being a man I find this difficult most of the time) and anyway we all need a bit of time to ourselves to relax with a coffee and a good read.

So take my advice, put down that tablet, smartphone and laptop and pick up a paper. Switch-off, disconnect and resist the temptation to check your emails or tweet about what you had for breakfast and read a book (a real one, not a Kindle).

Make it your New Year’s resolution to try it out. Apparently it takes 21 days for a change in behaviour to become a habit so if after 3 weeks you don’t enjoy the experience, go back to the screen.

The printed word needs your support like never before – without newspapers, magazines or books I think the world would be a sadder place. And we’d be overrun by too many trees.

Hey, we’re on the same side!

The latest discussion paper entitled “Marketing and sales fusion” from the Chartered Institute of Marketing seems to have put the cat among the pigeons if the coverage given to it by Marketing Week and the comments that followed are anything to go by. I’m not about to join the debate but it does bring back memories of a previous life. Before joining the CIM as Regional Director for Greater London three years ago I was the Director of Marketing at a regional media company. I was responsible for the development of a number of valuable print and online media brands, as well as newspaper sales and distribution.

The basic business model went something like this: marketing was responsible for developing offline and online audiences to enable the advertising sales department to sell press and banner ads.

The media business is closely linked to the economic cycle – when the good times roll it isn’t hard to make money but when the economy dips so does revenue. So when things started to get tough, and our ROS went south, inevitably “marketing” took a back seat to sales. Unfortunately, at the same time that I was trying to get the Board to look at a range of metrics related to the long-term health of our brands, including net promoter scores, the only thing the senior management team was interested in was this week’s newspaper sales and advertising revenue figures.

The pressure to deliver audience numbers, whatever it took, meant that compromises had to be made and the marketing focus shifted heavily towards short-term sales promotion, despite my protests that this could damage the brands in the longer-term.

I guess the point I am making is that whether sales and marketing are “friend or foe” not only depends on the culture of the organisation but also the KPIs set by the senior management team. There has to be a balance between long-range marketing objectives and short-term sales targets for there to be any hope of the two disciplines “fusing” together for the long-term benefit of the organisation.

Can you feel the love?

I’ve been feeling a lot of love just lately – for some of the fantastic ‘social marketing’ being accomplished in both the public and private sectors.

Corporate Social Responsibility, or CSR to its friends, has been the subject of two recent CIM conferences, the first put together by the Finance Market Interest Group was quickly followed by the Good Marketing Conference staged jointly by the Social Marketing Market Interest Group and the East of England Region. See, there’s even love between the volunteer teams of the Institute.

At both events it was clear that at a corporate level sustainability was a major focus for many companies and organisations.  Marks and Spencer, Unilever, RSA, Lloyds Bank and Speedy Hire were all promoting the benefits to society of a green approach to business – the other driver of course was profitability, as building energy saving efficiencies into the supply chain is an obvious win win.

One of the highlights of the Good Marketing Conference was a presentation by Depaul UK a London based charity working with young homeless people. Their brilliant iHobo App campaign, costing a mere £6,000, took a ground breaking and award winning approach to raising awareness and generating donor income,  particularly among young people.  By downloading the App you carry a homeless young person around on your phone for three days over which time you have to look after him to help him get off the street. If you ignore him his situation deteriorates quickly. At the end of the three days you are prompted to make a donation. If you’d like to know more take a look here.

Something else you might like to look at is Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan. Also at the Good Marketing Conference Matthew Neilson from Unilever shared their vision for a better world and to spread the word Unilever has now published a guide to the Five Levers for Change.

There’s also some great work on health and obesity. The Fit for Life campaign, for example, is still going strong despite the cuts to marketing budgets introduced by the coalition government. However, I couldn’t help thinking that there was something missing from all this good stuff. I believe youth unemployment is the root of many evils so couldn’t leading CSR advocates put some of their energy into creating new job opportunities for young people too? Just a thought.

Paid, Earned and Owned

I remember the days when media planning was relatively simple. Press, outdoor, radio, TV and other Above-The-Line media would dominate any marketing communications plan with a bit of PR thrown in for good measure.

Today’s marketer now has to struggle with a plethora of digital channels as well so it has become much more complex.

But I still think simple is best – which is why I like the Paid, Earned and Owned approach to defining media developed by Forrester Research Inc and others. In a nutshell ‘Paid’ relates to channels you have to pay for – TV, radio, PPC, banner ads – and ‘Earned’ includes advocacy, word-of-mouth, social media and peer reviews, where your customers become your best salespeople (this assumes they like what you are doing).

But what really got me excited the other day was the way Pret A Manger leverage their ‘Owned’ media. In other words the way they utilise the assets they already own to deliver brand and promotional messages.

I have to admit to being a bit of a Pret advocate – I buy into what the brand stands for and I also like their coffee and food for which I am prepared to pay a price premium. So much so that wherever I go I always have one eye on the lookout for a Pret. The week before Christmas last year I drove my wife bonkers over a two day city-break in central London pointing out all the Prets I had eaten in and the ones I had not yet visited.

A couple of weeks ago we were in Windsor and found a nice Pret in the town centre for lunch. Instead of the sort of generic pictures of coffee beans you might find on the walls in other similar establishments Pret display unique and often amusing images of the ingredients they use which cleverly promote their brand values. If you are unfamiliar with Pret this is what the brand promises:

“Pret creates handmade natural food avoiding the obscure chemicals, additives and preservatives common to so much of the ‘prepared’ and ‘fast’ food on the market today”

But it didn’t stop there. Wherever we looked, on the coffee cups, plates, packaging and even on the inside of the cardboard ring wrapped round my baguette we found brand messages being delivered consistently.  The staff were also used as an ‘Owned’ media channel  – not only do they make good eye contact, have a nice smile and deliver efficient service but they also promote the Pret brand on their clothes front and back.

A couple of other good examples of ‘Owned’ media thinking: Metro Bank has a branded van that drives round London delivering stationery to their branches. The same idea is used by a firm of Solicitors in my home town of Ipswich, which has a small fleet of vans in corporate colours displaying the company name and logo. And how many of you have business cards that are blank on the reverse side?

I’m sure you can think of plenty of ways you can use your organisation’s owned physical and online assets as a media channel. Be inventive like Pret A Manger – what have you got to lose?

4:30 pm is the new 5:00 pm

I think I am turning into my father because I find myself getting a bit grumpy too often these days over seemingly trivial little things. Particularly if my experience as a customer falls a bit short of expectations.

Last month I wrote about the outstanding service provided by the staff on the Celebrity Eclipse – a text book example of exceptional Customer Experience Management. If you missed my ramblings you can find the article here.

This month, alas, I am not able to write quite so glowingly about my favourite coffee shop (or to be more precise my ex-favourite). I wouldn’t want to name names but, apparently, there are now more of these coffee shops in the UK than there are McDonalds outlets.

I had been a dedicated customer of their Ipswich Buttermarket outlet for a number of years; I was even one of the early adopters of their loyalty card, so what have they done to make me reject them?

It has always bugged me that they rarely clean the place except for the last half an hour before closing when they erect barricades with tables, chairs and little yellow plastic warning signs to stop customers using areas of the coffee shop they want to clean. This does nothing for the ‘coffee drinking experience’ but three weeks ago this premature customer part-eviction took a new sinister twist.

It was at 4:35pm on a Sunday, when the coffee shop shuts at 5:00pm that I asked for a small cappuccino and a small americano with milk. The barista informed me that the drinks would be served in a paper cup because the place “closes in half an hour”. She wasn’t joking.

I was a bit flabbergasted but composed myself before replying that I did not want my drinks in a paper cup and that I thought it was unreasonable to stop using real cups half an hour before the place shut. Nonetheless she insisted that it had to be a paper cup and that “at least I told you before we made your drinks”.

I was about to walk out when one of the other baristas, sensing that I was not happy, said he would use real cups. Too little too late I’m afraid, and I haven’t been back since.

Actually I don’t blame the staff – no doubt they are only paid to work until 5:00pm on a Sunday so why should they stay behind unpaid after closing time to clean up? Which prompts the question who is responsible for the ‘customer experience’ – is it the marketing department or HR?

According to both Mike Ashton and Anthony Thomson, Chairman of Metro Bank, who spoke at the recent CIM GLR event on Customer Experience Management, it starts at the top and cascades down throughout the entire organisation.

Wouldn’t we all want to receive customer feedback like this (from a very satisfied Metro Bank customer).

Redemption

Of course there’s only one thing to write about this month … my summer holiday. I have just returned from two weeks bobbing about in the Mediterranean on a big boat. The big boat in question was the Celebrity Eclipse, a 122,000 gross tons floating luxury hotel cum resort catering for nearly 3,000 demanding passengers.

This wasn’t the first cruise ship my wife and I have been on – over the past 8 years we have been happy to spend as much of our children’s inheritance as we can on cruise holidays, alternating between P&O and Princess Cruises, but this year we fancied a change.

We chose the Celebrity Eclipse not necessarily for the itinerary, the service, entertainment, bars, restaurants, gym, casino, pools, cabins or the cost. The other cruise ships we have been on all offer similar facilities and services. What did it for us was the attraction of the Celebrity brand – and in particular the contemporary, genuinely exciting and unique design of the ship itself.

From the fully grown tree suspended in mid-air in one of two 12 deck atriums, the modern art and sculptures that adorned the stairwells and The Lawn Club (it really was grass) on deck 15 where we played boules each evening before getting ready for dinner, the only way to describe the on-board experience was “cool”.

I think it was Tom Peters who once said, “Design, as I see it, is arguably the #1 determinant of whether a product-service-experience stands out … or doesn’t”, so making something “cool” seems like a pretty good marketing strategy to me.

But if you are really going to win hearts and minds you have also got to deliver exceptional customer service as part of the whole package. This is where Celebrity Cruises also excelled – or to be more precise, redeemed themselves.

The second part of our cruise experience story relates to the Pool Butler “service”. On the basis that there were not enough sun beds for every passenger Pool Butlers would remove towels from any beds that were unoccupied for more than 30 minutes – freeing them up for other passengers to use.

Not a problem if you are taking a quick 10 minute dip in the pool, but what if you want to take more than 30 minutes for lunch and don’t want to have to search for another premium spot on the sundeck when you get back? You are on holiday – you don’t need this stress! Why should you have to leave a note on your bed saying “Gone to lunch, back soon” (yes, I actually tried this).

To cut a long story short, on two occasions my wife fell victim to over-zealous Pool Butlers removing her towel from her sun bed even though she had not exceeded the 30 minute limit, and when she complained to the officer in charge of the sundeck she got little sympathy.

Fortunately, guest relations were more understanding and not only apologised but also instantly provided us with two large, extra-soft gold coloured bath towels, normally reserved for passengers occupying suites, to use on our sun beds for the rest of the cruise. We were assured that the Pool Butlers, or “Pool Bullies” as we nicknamed them, wouldn’t dare remove them, even after 30 minutes. That evening they also sent a note of apology to our cabin accompanied by a bottle of champagne.

So next year we will be cruising on the Celebrity Silhouette, the newest ship in the fleet – essentially the result of a luxury brand living up to and exceeding its promise. We just need to buy a couple of large, extra-soft gold coloured bath towels and we will have another stress-free holiday.

If you are interested in the subjects of Customer Experience Management and Design keep your eyes peeled for two CIM events taking place in London. The first is on 29 September when leading customer experience consultant Mike Ashton, former Senior Vice President, Marketing & Brand Management of Hilton International and Anthony Thomson, Chairman of Metro Bank take to the podium. And early next year the CIM Creative Communications market interest group hope to run a session on Design in partnership with the Design Business Association.

Last night I watched “Made in Dagenham”, the true story of the late sixties campaign by women at the Ford car plant in Dagenham for equal pay. It wasn’t until 1970 that the Equal Pay Act was passed by the UK Parliament – a fundamental right that we now all take for granted.

It was really a story about reward and recognition – it wasn’t just about the money, but about the company recognising that regardless of gender there should be equal pay for men and women doing the same job.

So reward should go hand and hand with recognition. To quote a line from Love and Marriage, the 1955 song made famous by Sinatra, “you can’t have one without the other” if you want a relationship to last.

This was certainly the message given by Giles Pavey from dunnhumby at the CIM Summer Marketing Conference in Chelmsford last month. Giles talked enthusiastically about the good old days when the owner of the corner shop knew all his customers personally and this desire for detailed customer insight is really the driving force behind the success of the Tesco Clubcard.

Giles opened his presentation with this quote from Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, “There are only two sources of competitive advantage: the ability to learn more about our customers faster than the competition and the ability to turn that learning into action faster than the competition”. Which is exactly what Tesco does – it collects vast quantities of transactional data on individual shoppers and uses the knowledge it gains to influence customer behaviour in real-time by issuing personalised “rewards” in the form of direct mail vouchers, point of sale incentives and online offers.

There’s a lot more to it than vouchers and price promotions though – if you want to know more you will find a copy of Giles’ presentation on the marketing conference micro-website. You’ll find several other conference presentations there too.

Even though you may not have the resources of Tesco or dunnhumby you can still apply the principles. Basically, if you can understand what motivates behaviour then you can design incentives or interventions to influence it.

Just don’t overdo the generic promotional offers though, as they will encourage promiscuity rather than build loyalty. It can also be expensive as this recent snippet from the CIM’s weekly Cutting Edge news bulletin highlighted:

Discounting during the recession has led to an estimated fall in UK profits of more than £20bn, according to a recent KPMG survey. It says that 49% of respondents have entered into pricing wars with competitors and many feel that they don’t have enough time to create a long-term pricing strategy.

So, perhaps it’s better to personalise your product offering or customer service; or maybe just say thank you every now and then.

We all like a bit of recognition. That’s true not only from a marketing perspective but also in the workplace and in life too. Blimey, I’ve gone all profound!

Consumers are changing their habits – no change there. Right now the credit crunch is making people much more aware of where they’re spending their money, and what they’re getting for it. Impulse buys are on the wane. Charity shops are having trouble staying stocked. We’re also getting greener and more aware of sustainability. More of us are planning summer holidays in the UK rather than going abroad. No surprise when you look at the costs of travelling. UK consumers are spending – but not as much and not in the same ways as before.

For marketers, this is a new challenge. We can’t just say the credit crunch is wrecking my business. Being absolutely honest means looking at how we can change our products to keep consumers interested. For example, it could mean creating a new low-cost menu  or, it could be inventing a product aimed at helping consumers save money like the Owl™, a gadget that tells you just how much money you’re spending on electricity at any given moment.

If anything, the downturn is a test of our creativity, a real opportunity for marketers to take stock of what’s wrong with a business and take steps to make the right changes.

I’d really like to see what the marketing community has to say about this. If you have a good example of how marketing can work to counteract the downturn, now’s the time to share it.

Facebook. LinkedIn. Flickr, Twitter, blogs. The list goes on. Sometimes, it seems like social networks are taking over the world. And, let’s face it, people enjoy using them. Facebook has 200 million users – more members than some countries have people. Social networks give people a chance to communicate, share ideas, state preference and also do a lot of silly things like find out what great dictator they most resemble. But all joking aside, social networks are growing – and they’re clearly important.

We can agree that people use them. But they generally use them to connect with other people. Not look for products. When you’re sitting down for a drink and a chat with friends, the last thing you want is to be advertised to. Maybe a social network just isn’t the right place to get customers interested in your latest offering. Maybe they’ll too busy talking among themselves to listen to you.

On the other hand, people use blogs, Facebook pages and twitter to talk about products – whether they have negative things to say or positive. So there are important conversations happening. Customers and potential customers could be talking about your business and its products or services without you actually knowing. So, it’s probably a good idea to see if an I-hate-XYZ-widgets page exists on Facebook. And if it does, you might want to find out why, especially if you’re the Marketing Director at XYZ Widgets.

But running a campaign on social networks takes time and money – both of which are in short supply. After all, finding out what’s going on in your industry takes time and research. And blogs don’t just write themselves. When all is said and done, how can you prove your social networking strategy is successful? By the number of hits on your blogs? By the number of fans on your Facebook page. Or, is it the number of people who arrive at your e-tail site from a comment you dropped on your favourite forum? And how do you add all that up? Is one appearance on a popular blog equal to the same amount of space in a magazine?

So, the problem with social networking isn’t just how do we use it, but deciding how we measure its value.

Any successful social campaigns you’d like to discuss?

Mocky Khan

Case studies are great. They tell you so much in such a short space. I think the Together Campaign launched at Romford Dog Track is a good example of what marketing is all about.  It’s practical (free pooper scoopers on offer), well researched (surveys, focus groups) and it even includes a roadshow. And there’s more on the way like events, web work, print ads, internal communications … the works. Even better it’s for a good cause. – improving the local community. But what’s really exciting is that this campaign isn’t for a large corporation, it’s for a local council. It just proves how powerful marketing can be. How quickly it can change and how flexible it is. It can get directly to people and change their thinking. The campaign was developed by one of our own members. So congrats to Dominic Ridley-Moy

What do you think? Have you seen anything amazing lately?  Have any of you come into contact with this campaign? Speak your mind