I attended a dinner party last Friday and one of the topics of discussion was Daniel Kahneman’s book, “Thinking Fast and Slow”. For us people in marketing, we don’t need a perfect understanding of psychology all we need is a way of thinking about the way people think. One of the things that makes it really useful for us marketeers is that the book gives a very intelligent and perceptive way of doing it.
In general, people are really good at seeing the mistakes that other people make and are not so good at seeing the mistakes they are making. I am not a self-help guru but Kahneman highlights that educated gossip is a very good thing because people anticipate gossip when they make decisions. And I think if people anticipate intelligent gossip they would make better decisions than if they anticipate unintelligent gossip.
I think that during these hard times “Thinking Fast and Slow” is more relevant than ever. Over the last decade, there has never been a greater need to deepen our understanding and create new models of human behaviour. Having a better understanding of people will help us create products and services for what people want and find easy to use. Forgive me if this sounds too idealistic but I’m optimistic and want to make the world a better place for us all. Contact me via e-mail and let me know how this thinking makes you feel.
Patterns of behaviour
Demographics are the statistical data of a population, e.g. age, income, education, ethnicity, gender, employment status, etc. I think that this is old school, and it can be seen as a very useful insight into the culture of the people or a certain population that exists in a certain region. Back in the “pre-internet” days you could buy all this information from a mail order company to create marketing strategy as well as a marketing plan for your business. Psychographics focuses on collecting and analyzing the characteristics of an audience that are slightly more intangible, for example, values, habits, attitudes, interests, emotions, personality, lifestyle, opinions and preferences.
When data collection is being done properly, people are happy to have it done, for example, Netflix, Spotify and YouTube recommendations. This is because it is being done for them, not to them. With Facebook algorithms and Google analytics we can say: “This is for people who like that and this is for people who believe this.” It doesn’t matter about your skin colour or income, it’s all about what is your inner narrative. In every postal area there are people from almost every psycho-graphical perception and what we have to do as a brand marketer is say: “This is for you and it’s not for you.” Contact me via e-mail for an evaluation of your brand marketing strategy.
Finding the North Star
The definition of digital marketing has not fundamentally changed, what has changed is the relevance and the essential role of digital. Especially the relationship between the consumer and brand, and vice versa. Building a bridge between where the companies were to where they are today - in mindset, in understanding of the power of digital and in understanding how the platform is being transformed.
I think the key ingredient is that brands must ensure they keep their core values and positioning intact. The digital transformation story for your brand begins with a real need to understand your digital engagement. We can look at what is digital, from both the platform and a social standpoint. I can guide your brand through the process of moving forward from simply understanding what they need to do, to actually implementing those changes throughout you organisation. Contact me via e-mail (confidentiality is assured).
On a journey
Earlier this week I finished reading Barak Obama’s book, “A Promised Land”. Whenever I read, I am always thinking about what kind of world view would make this language effective. All marketing creates change and if you are not creating change then, you are not in marketing. I think the only chance of succeeding is to be specific in the discovery phase, asking the client about the who are the people they are trying to reach and change.
- What change are you seeking to make and who are you trying to change?
- Are you trying to change lonely people into connected people?
- Are you trying to change powerful people into kinder people?
- Are you trying to change people with one status into people with another status?
Send me an e-mail if you would like to have a fresh approach whilst figuring out your path to action.
The hard part is getting it done
The difference between getting noticed and being ignored lies in providing the right content and context for the right audience, the hard part is getting it done! Too often marketing comes at the end of the cycle in creating something, I think marketing is an intentional act and therefore should be integral in the creative process. We should say at the beginning - for people who believe this and want that - I am bringing you something that matches what you believe and helps you get what you want.
Send me an e-mail if you are interested in figuring out how to be honest in the following way:
If I was one of these people who believed in what I say and I knew what I know about this thing, would I buy it? And if one of the people you are speaking about does buy it, would they tell their friends?
It's you, uniquely you
Nowadays, small brands cannot afford to participate in traditional media buys, so social media is the only place where they talk about their brand. This morning, I realised that it’s been almost 2 months since I activated my Clubhouse account, and I still haven’t joined a conversation room. For those of you who are not aware, Clubhouse is an invitation-only social audio app. Apparently, Clubhouse is the home for people who are disillusioned with social media censorship and unequivocally condemn all other forms of racism and hate speech.
This new storytelling approach which is not visual will take a little while to catch on. As the Clubhouse rooms disappear after they are over, and as recording a room is against the rules - “going viral,” in the traditional sense, isn’t really possible. I think the Clubhouse app could help brands to attract new clients, as it’s an ideal platform to consistently define, express and communicate who you are, who you serve and why you are currently dedicating your life to serving your target market.
We have the power to do it
I think that all marketing creates change, therefore, if you are not creating change then, you are not marketing. What change are you seeking to make and who are you trying to change?
Are you trying to change lonely people into connected people?
Are you trying to change powerful people into kinder people?
Are you trying to change people with one status into people with another status?
Be specific about the who are the people you are trying to reach and change otherwise you have no chance of succeeding. The challenge is to find the smallest viable audience of people who can support you, only serve them and only attempt to change them - “If you are like this and you want to get to to that, then I can help you get there.”
The science of exceptions
c/o Coca-Cola
I think that there are similarities between and biology, as both marketing and biology are a sciences of exceptions. We as marketeers sometimes spend too much of our time looking at universal laws of behaviour, unfortunately, we are using the wrong scientific tools. In biology everything is learnt from looking at oddities, biologists look for peculiarities, the unexpected and counter intuitive behaviours.
Charles Darwin learned about evolution by looking at the weird things not the things everyone took for granted. Marketing should not be measured by how do we interrupt people with advertising and sell products. Marketing is all about - who we are, what we do, and how we change the world. Coca-Cola video is a great example of how to earn attention, trust and confidence.
The customers are the marketeers
Each industry and every company have a different approach to marketing. Here are a few key questions I ask to help my clients to focus on their “new” marketing strategy:
What customer problem do you uniquely solve?
Who is your customer?
Where are those customers?
What makes you relevant to those customers?
How do you communicate your relevance?
How will you continuously measure and adjust?
How do you figure it out?
Tim Cook (CEO, Apple Inc.) understood that the majority of people don’t buy Apple products because they are better, they buy them because it raises their status. People wait in line because owning an Apple product increases their status and they feel good when other people see what’s in their hands. Apple uses the technology ratchet to turn the handle on status and luxury. Tim Cook understood this metrics and all he had to do was to watch and understand what was going on in the Apple stores. This turned Apple into the biggest and most profitable luxury brand in history.
I have spent many hours doing “mystery shopping” - watching what happens when people visit stores. Martin Lindstrom was hired by some of the world's leading brands to find out what makes their customers tick. As consumers do not tell you how they see the world, on the other hand they give it all away by the stories they tell. I would recommend that you read Martin Lindstrom’s book “Small Data” as it has many small clues that may help you uncover the next trend.
A breath of fresh air
The most common mistake I have seen marketeers make is when each of us walks around with a world view that we are 100% sure is true. Our beliefs about money, our beliefs about strangers, our beliefs about places, etc., etc. We really believe that this is true! In my experience people do not always see the world the same way as we do, they don’t believe what we believe and don’t fear what we fear. I’m sorry! As a marketeer you have to be comfortable with this, and if you are not then you cannot market to them.
To put things in perspective, please oblige me in a thought exercise - Think of every product you’ve purchased over the past two weeks. This might include food, clothing, a car wash, house plants, insurance, medicine, office supplies, toys, books … anything at all. Now, consider this list and determine: How many of these purchases were directly or indirectly influenced by a piece of company content? If you are like me, the answer is zero.
Branded content has no impact on 99.999% of consumer purchasing decisions. We don’t see this company content, and if we see it, we probably don’t believe it - let alone subscribe to any of it.
The mainstream market
The next group are the early majority, they are the key to getting a stable foothold on the market. This group are very loyal customers if you win them over and essential in securing growth and profitability. The next group are the late majority and are characterized by demanding easy to use, value-for-money products before anything else. Finally, the laggards, this group are the last to adopt an innovation. As clients they can be very tough to win and are therefore often ignored by many marketing efforts, yet can provide important feedback regarding the areas where your product could be further improved e.g. made even simpler, cheaper and more convenient to use.
The chasm is the point where the vastly different motivations for using the new product are emphasised. Visionaries seek out dramatic shifts in productivity which can enable them to quickly move forward, even despite resistance from within their own companies, the pragmatists want gradual, steady improvements, making sure no drastic changes occur too fast.
The early market
When trying to explain the Diffusion of Innovations theory to students, I always felt breaking it down to a simple analogy made it more palatable.
The first group are the innovators for whom owning the latest everything is a passion and an end in itself. The innovators proactively seek out new products to try them out, requiring almost no marketing efforts from your part. The next group are early adopters in search of competitive advantages provided by new products and services. The early adopters view technology as a means of achieving breakthroughs and aggressively gaining market edge.
The first two groups (the Innovators and Early Adopters) are visionaries. They want revolutionary change, something that sets them apart qualitatively from their competitors. They are the people who buy brand-new technology, before it’s been perfected or proved or before the price has come down. They usually have small companies and are willing to take enormous personal risks.
You are the one we are looking for
c/o MTV
Are you a result-driven person with solid experience in marketing and a passion for brand building and luxury brands? Are you curious, positive and willing to run that extra mile to get the job done? If so, send me your CV and I will scan it for key words before I can see whether you are suitable the position.
Simon Sinek said, “Value is not determined by the people who set the price, it is determined by those who choose to pay the price." The same statistic can be presented in very different ways to create very different reactions. And our choices reflect and determine who we are and I think individual awards come as a result of the teams success.
Our perception is our reality
Far too often we look at a group or team of people that are not succeeding and conclude that they are not capable of success. Saying the problems they face are too powerful, too irate and too ingrained to do anything about. We can make a profound difference in how well people turn out if we choose to pay attention to the constraints imposed by poverty, stupidity and attitude.
If our perception is much worse than the reality, why are we trying to change the reality? What we need to do is improve our storytelling and tell people about the reality. Sometimes our perception is faulty and we cannot really tell the difference between the quality and the environmental reasoning. I think that when we change our frame of reference and perceived value, the actual value will be completely transformed.
Pick your own truth
I think that there are two ways to create new economical value. You can either find out what people want and work out a clever way of how to deliver it to them. Alternatively, you can work out what you can deliver and find a clever way of how to make people want it. And the economic value created by these two things is just as great either way, even though they may be opposites of the same coin.
Marketing and advertising are two different things, and a simple way to test it - Would they miss you if you were gone? Most advertising does not pass this test! With marketing we communicate to people in ways they want to be communicated to and this is more valuable than “stuff”. A good example would be Amazon, as Amazon’s value is not based on their inventory, there value is based on the millions of people around the world who want to hear from them.
Marketing is fuelled by adrenaline, it’s fuelled by urgency and emergency, in the majority of cases we are not given the time to do it correctly but we have time to repeat it. We usually overcome our fear by creating an emergency and this endless emergency is caused by the fact that we are not patient in working our way to a place of relevance. I think that patiently building an asset is probably the single most overlooked thing that marketeers fail to do. I don’t think this requires a method, you just need to care.
You need to care
Sales persons, I have very bad news for you! Buyers only buy from you for two reasons:
1. Awareness - they know you exist, and
2. Trust - they trust you.
The thing about awareness is that they are making anymore of it. Nowadays, we are getting more and more focused on keeping our attention to ourselves and not giving it to whatever shows up, for example, Senate election in Georgia (USA), the most recent pandemic lockdown restrictions in the UK, etc.
Marketeers have a history of just taking attention and just wasting it, going forward I hope that marketeers will begin to treasure, grow and nurture our attention. And these marketeers will perform better than those who just go around creating panic and emergencies. Marketing campaign: “I made this and it was really hard. Look at me and buy it, as you owe me your attention.” There is no humility, there is no generosity and there is no connection. I think that it would make more sense to patiently try to earn the attention of the people we seek to serve.
Why me
I have been a director, senior leader and commercial executive with experience of running teams, and I have a proven track record of exceeding results in highly demanding environments from start-ups to corporates. Through my varied professional experience, I have gained a deep understanding how effective relationships impact the bottom line.
Over the past few years I have used my coaching, active listening and mentoring skills to help organisations to get better feedback from their customers and subsequently improving business results by changing how they deal with customers. As part of this focus, I examine strategy, culture, interaction design, customer service, branding and leadership practices.
I am passionate about spotting emerging best practices and helping companies master them and I also speak about these topics in keynotes and lecturing engagements. Contact me via e-mail and let’s arrange a non-binary virtual meeting to discuss collaboration opportunities.
Advertising works best when it is specific
Image via Kimberly Amici
I am a father, son, little brother, big brother, uncle, friend, leader, manager, mentor, coach and role model. I’m noticing this thing, here’s how I think it works and here’s how I think it may help you make things better. Would you pay me for that advice?
I made a great product, delivered wow and waited for them to tell other people. What I realised is that they will only tell other people if it will helps them, they will not tell other people if it only helps me. In order for other people to share your story, it must help their status, authority or life and then they will be more or likely to do it.
Detroit vs. Pepsi
Detroit in the State of Michigan came into my periphery as it was the home of Motown. Detroit is also known as the motor city - back in the days the Big Three car manufacturers (Chrysler, Ford and General Motors) had their headquarters there. Nowadays, it is the second poorest city in America and famous for D12 and Eminem. Well done to Pepsi for recognising the talent in the city.
