Commentary by blog and social media consultant Josh Hallett on the use of blogs for public relations, media, marketing, communication & branding and from time-to-time the unsolicited opinion.
My blog reading habits, my blogging and my blog readers are primarily a mix of a social media & public relations slant, so it was fun to cross the aisle so-to-speak into the marketing world at Mplanet 2006.
Overall the Mplanet speaker line-up was impressive. When you have the marketing leaders from Sony, Nintendo and Nokia sitting on a panel together you're in for a treat. End the day by hearing from IBM CEO Sam Palmisano and it doesn't get much better. Seeing Chris Anderson share the Long Tail vibe with the marketing audience was also something special. It's really hard to pick a favorite session.
Social media is what I do, and with many of the sessions focusing on the new medium it was a bit of, "seen it/heard it". However, it was seeing the attendee's reaction to the speakers which really intrigued me. The audience was a mix of corporate and agency, many of which are still trying to come to grips with a loss of control.
If anything, social media, like WOM is a common ground for advertising and public relations. There are aspects of relationships, trust, influence, viral and marketing all wrapped up in one. A refreshing trend is to see that things can't be faked anymore. Over and over a CMO would say that if they ever tried to force something it just wouldn't work.
Previous meeting engagements are forcing me to leave Mplanet early, so I'll be missing the final two sessions of the day. It's been a busy two days of blogging (15 posts and 163 photos) and I'm looking forward to a break :-)
In his talk at Mplanet today Peter Kim from Forrester talked about the role of social computing in today's marketing world. He suggested adding a Fifth P to the famous Four P's of marketing.
The Friday late morning Spotlight Sessions at Mplanet 2006 allowed attendees to choose from nine different options. Keeping on the Forrester train (I attended Brian Kardon's session yesterday) I selected a session lead by Peter Kim titled, "Reinventing the Marketing Organization". (You can check out Peter's blog at Being PeterKim.com)
The underlying theme of Peter's talk is that customers must be your organizing principle. Many companies say they are customer-centric, but they aren't. What Peter is going to be talking about is creating and managing a Customer-Centric Marketing Organization (CCMO).
Forrester has done significant research to determine if marketing organizations (MO) are broken and there is a consensus that things are broken. One of the issues is that most marketing organizations only control one of the four P's. 76% of organizations they surveyed said that customer service is not under the control of the marketing organization.
New skill sets are required for success. Strategic thinking of course a valued skill but creativity has a diminishing role. In Forrester's analysis there is a cluster of core skills required: Quantitative Analysis, Business Acumen, Financial Analysis. Often though, MO's rely upon other divisions such as IT, HR etc to help fill those gaps.
Product and channel groups are not the answer. In a product-group model there is often a duplication of efforts across the products. On the other hand a channel organization overemphasizes efficiency and lacks the visibility of cross-channel customers. All of these efforts leave the customer with a fractured experience since each option product/channel is separate.
When you think about your media consumption habits, you wake up read the paper, watch some TV, check your e-mail and browse the web on your mobile phone. In each case you're using a different channel which is something that marketers often keep separate, but that's not how the customer looks at things. The customer didn't consciously say, "I want to look at different media channels"...they just did what they do.
Media presence is no longer a given. In the 1960's there was a true mass media with a limited number of channel options. Today there are an overwhelming number of media options. Now there is social computing which has diversified the channels even more.
Alignment based upon products, channels or geography are ineffective. A market structure in which customer alignment is the primary organizing structure.
You look at your customer from a persona or lifestyle perspective, not from a product perspective.
Just like Chris Anderson's session yesterday.....I am getting behind......
Friday morning at Mplanet 2006 featured three different forum sessions, I chose to attend 'How World Class Organizations Innovate in B2B Markets'. The panel included:
Dan Henson, VP and CMO, GE
Kathy Button Bell, VP and CMO, Emerson
Michael Kullman, Director, Corporate Marketing, DuPont
Anil Menon, VP, Marketing & Strategy, IBM
Dan opened the session with some remarks about the current state of B2B and innovation. Today's media climate has painted this picture that we must innovate or die. Another issue is that often the marketing 'stars' are more B2C campaigns. People love to talk about the iPod or Starbucks, but they are not B2B plays.
As a CMO he sometimes has to look at what GE is doing and think about how they might need to change their thinking. Google is somewhat of a media darling for being 'innovative'. During a recent CNN profile they showed Google employees playing pool in their office. Dan remarked that in his entire career at GE he's never seen a pool table in an office, does that mean they're not innovative? nope. If you remember they invented that light bulb thing and they continue to innovate.
In the past few years things have changed in the B2B space:
- Truly global economy
- Product lifecycles are compressed
- Low growth penalty is severe
Dan was joined on stage by the other panelists. First to speak was Kathy Button Bell from Emerson. Kathy reviewed the history of Emerson and talked about some of the changes they've seen over the past few years. Kathy re-iterated a point that Dan made about the price of oil. Companies like Emerson and GE do like a higher price of oil because it doesn't break the economy, but it does force customers to look at new, more efficient technologies.
Kathy said the most important thing any organization can do to improve themselves is improve their internal culture, but this is often the most difficult thing to change. Often when a company is successful, changes are more difficult. There is the, 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' mentality.
Kathy said that Emerson makes a strong commitment to launching products and they use some of their development money to help with the launch and marketing of a product. Often innovative companies spend the majority of their dollars in the lab and research for a product and then skimp on the marketing. Kathy is glad that Emerson does place a focus on the marketing of innovation.
Next to speak was Michael Kullman from DuPont. Unlike GE and Emerson they don't like the high prices of oil. DuPont is very asset value driven and sometimes the live inside their business units. In the past when a customer would need a solution that crossed the traditional business unit lines it was messy. Today they have specific market-facing units that help customers work with all of DuPont's business units.
Recently in the automotive paint business, specifically for repairs that are paid for by insurance companies DuPont has had a successful business, but it wasn't seeing the growth they wanted. DuPont created the Business Extensions Group to help business units to extend their core products beyond the traditional customer base. To extend the business to the traditional consumer they have created a product/service called Carsmetics. The product/service is designed to repair minor scrapes and dings on cars that the owner pays for directly (not the insurance company). DuPont will be testing this in the Central Florida market over the next few years.
The final panelist to speak was Anil Menon from IBM. Anil had a great speaking style that often left the room laughing. Anil restated the fact that India is a major force in the market today. There is tremendous growth and opportunity in India. Anil joked that he left India 25 years ago and if somebody would have told him that if you wanted to be successful and make money you need to go to India he would have laughed. Not so today.
Anil talked about the change that IBM has been undergoing from a product business to a service business. Today over 60% of IBM's business is service oriented. IBM is certainly an innovative company with a record number of patents filed every year, but the focus is now on the customer.
Early in his career at IBM Anil was asked about dropping e-business from their marketing efforts. IBM's customers said stop talking to us about the technology, talk to us about what we can do with. That's their focus now, listening to their customers and helping them transform them. They try to avoid the word 'solution'. Everybody has a solution now, Anil said his dry cleaner markets himself as a 'cleaning solution'.
IBM is very fortunate that they have thousands of clients, and many of them are very innovative companies. IBM can see across all these companies and look to build relationships between their partners. That vision leads to a great deal of innovation.
The Thursday evening keynote at Mplanet was delivered by IBM Chairman and CEO Sam Palmisano. But before his keynote address, Sam was presented with the Sheth Medal. The award's namesake Dr. Jag Sheth took the stage to discuss the purpose of the award. The Sheth Medal is for leaders that take an active role in creating a customer-focused organization. Dr. Sheth said the award is anchored to the AMA because of their focus on customers.
After the medal presentation, Sam spoke about some of the changes taking place in business and marketing from a global view. In the past few days Sam has been on a trip around the world, literally. First stop was Portugal to meet with the president of that country who is also the EU president. Next stop was China. China is obviously a fast-growing market. IBM's operations in China increased 27% this past quarter alone.
If it's not China it's India. IBM is the largest global employer in India. They plan to triple their investment in that country over the next few years. China and India are the epicenter of a global demographic shift.
When Sam joined IBM they were a true global company, they had separate units in just about every major country. However they also duplicated many efforts across these divisions. Each unit had it's own marketing, back office, HR, IT, sales components. Things are changing though. What used to be considered efficient is now looked at as redundant. Globalization is forcing consolidation of these redundant tasks.
When everything is connected, work moves. However, why can't a brilliant marketing mind help anybody else in the company around the globe?
One of the reasons that many jobs have moved overseas has been cost. But cost is not always the deciding factor, if it was then there would be a one-way flow of jobs. Skills are just as imporant. Why are many European biotech firms opening R&D centers in the US? It's not cost, it's a skilled workforce.
Globalization is about tapping into the creative talents from across the globe, as said before, cost is not always the major factor.
By 2010 the world is on track to produce 10 billion processors for every person on earth. Imagine if we focussed those resources on tapping into and harnessing the collective wisdom of all those people?
Our children are playing with super computers. Their game consoles contain an amazing amount of processing power. Put 10,000 of them together, like IBM does, and you have the world's most powerful supercomputer.
Recently Sam visited their R&D center and saw some of the new technologies that IBM's teams are working on. Coming out of that session he wanted to share these ideas and concepts with IBM's customers and partners. What could IBM and their customers/partners gain by collaborating? Collaboration is more than just having a beer with a colleague. It takes a concerted effort to have true collaboration.
Sam closed with one last question to the audience In this world of globalization, what will you do? Will you step up the the challenge? From a marketing standpoint, it's not just about taking an ad and putting into a number of languages, it's about becoming part of the culture.
Mplanet 2006 featured a dozen spotlight sessions for the late afternoon slot. I attended the session on Social Computing which was lead by Brian Kardon of Forrester Research. Brian might be the lesser known partner-in-crime with Charlene Li who blogs quite frequently in the social media/computing space.
Brian started by talking about how technology changes everything, from health, education, etc. He talked briefly about the One Laptop Per Child initiative and how technology is/can changing the world. More important to this audience though, is how does technology changes business or marketing?
Brian reviewed some of the most recent examples of social computing and consumer generated content. First up was the famous Mentos/Diet Coke marriage. His next example was the Dell exploding battery and how Dell used their blog to respond to users directly, even over the objection of the legal department.
Things change fast though, there are already signs that MySpace is on the decline within early teen adopters. There is a large amount of transience going on within the medium.
Brian talked about the AOL canceling issue, and how a single person's bad experience with a brand can become a bigger issue. It's not what you might want to hear, but take your marketing dollars and invest that in better products and better services.
Social computing: A social structure in which technology puts power in communities and not corporations.
Why is this taking place? 1. Technology has lowered the cost. 2. People are more willing to trust non-traditional sources 3. PC usage is increasing. 4. In the future everybody will be famous for 15 people.
One of the questions Brian says he is often is asked is, "who are these people and do the have a life?" (sound familiar). As a great exercise Brian asked the audience, "How many of you have written a review or posted a comment about a product or service?" Quite a few of the people in the audience raised their hands. Brian's response, "Well, there are quite a few of you, and as far as I know, you all have lives." So they are real people.
One of the questions focused on the B2B aspect of of social computing. Brian commented that traditionally 100% of people are lookers or lurkers, but 1% are commenters, so in a small B2B space just one person commenting is a lone voice.
The theme is listening to, and nurturing individuals talking about your brand - even if you aren't in control.
User generated content is created by individuals/customers/consumers and viewed by them without being sanctioned by an organization.
Customers will learn about your brand from individuals outside your organization.
In summary:
- Social Computing is here to stay. Accept it.
- Focus on relationships, not the technologies.
- Get started using the tools.
- Embrace a culture of generosity in your Social Computing efforts.
For the initial afternoon session, attendees at Mplanet 2006 had their choice of three sessions. I decided to attend the session with Chris Anderson from Wired Magazine and Jason Zajac from Yahoo!. You may know Chris from this book he wrote about the Long Tail. Jason is the general manager for Yahoo!'s Social Media divsion.
The initial remarks were made by Chris Anderson of Wired Magazine. As an introduction to his Long Tail theory Chris reviewed the history of media/distrubution, from the days of the Catholic Church (the only had one book) to the creation of broadcast media. Broadcast brought in the notion of one to many. However the cost of broadcast advertising has limited the number of companies that can participate. This brought us to the era of the blockbuster. The culmination of this was the release of n Sync's No Strings Attached album. This album set the all-time record for album sales, and it will most likely never be broken.
I'm getting lost......I want to pay too much attention to Chris, so I'm going to be just posting some quotes.....
Today we're living in a culture that is fragmenting.
Chris discussed measuring word of mouth via second-week drop off of major films. Word of mouth is spreading more quickly than ever. If a film is poor the word will spread quickly. This is customers biting back.
For the longest time the customer choice was limited by the distribution economy. Traditional retailers are scared to stock product that the mass audience does not want to buy.
What they've learned with the long tail is that for a music service like Rhapsody, half of the market is product that was not traditionally available.
We're living in a world where links bring reputation. 60% of Wired's traffic comes from inbound links. Those links are important because that link represents a recommendation, most likely by an individual.
In traditional media, we used to compete with giants, now we compete with an army of minnows.
Your brand isn't what you say it is, it's what Google says it is.
Chris was joined on stage by Jason Zajac from Yahoo! Jason and Chris began a dialogue about using some of the new long-tail specific tools. The first case-study Jason highlighted was the Nikon Stunning campaign on Flickr.
Panels like this are great when one of the participants is a journalist, like Chris. You always end up with good, though-provoking discussion.
Once again, I am getting behind....I will post more notes later.
At the end of the last session, during the Q&A George Harrison from Nintendo said something about metrics. I am paraphrasing, but here is what he said.
All this focus on integration and new distribution channels is making it increasingly difficult to measure the effectiveness of all these new segments.
After a quick morning break the action at Mplanet 2006 picked back up with a series of forums. I decided to attend the Succeeding in a New World of Media session. The panel included:
This session opened with a funny video showing the impact that technology, social networks and speed have on communications. A man playing a video game in the bathroom suddenly finds himself featured on YouTube, in real time.
Tom Hernquist started the session with some initial remarks pertaining to that video. The world is changing fast. Tom noted that the same time that Hershey was developing their 2006 marketing plan, YouTube was just created. How could they have ever planned to include something like YouTube in their marketing mix?
Tom asked the audience, "How many of you are using MySpace in your marketing efforts?" Not a single hand went up.
First up was Paul Woolmington to set the stage, re: the changing landscape. Paul's first of four points was the change from the interrupt model to the engagement model. We must interact with our customers.
Next is the ability to empower. What we're seeing is firms co-create products with their customers. Third, aggregate to integrate, more channels give you the ability to tell your story even more.
Finally moving from an isolate model to an affiliate model. Rather then removing all third parties and interfering elements, work with them to build relationships. Word of mouth was the original medium, yet we're just re-discovering it. (Paul keeps butchering the name of Scoble's blog, calling it the 'Scubalizer'.)
Tom asked Paul what will define the changes we're seeing today. Paul said the companies that 'get it' are making the shift from viewing customers as targets, to viewing them as partners.
Next on stage was Michael Fasulo from Sony. Tom joked that between Sony and Hershey, the kids in his household are big fans. Tom asked Michael, "Is traditional TV dead?" Michael says no, the average baby-boomer is still viewing 13-14 hours per week. The Gen-X group is averaging around 11 hours per week, so there is still some traction there.
Michael sees the evolution of marketing in creative use of the medium. When Sony launched the campaign for the new BRAVIA line of TV's they learned that men and women look for the same qualities in purchasing a TV. They created the ad campaign to target men and women together. With Tivo they are able to change the end of the traditional commercial. Women can choose one version, while men can choose another version.
Tom pointed out that people often complain that Tivo is the end of the commercial, but Sony is taking a perceived negative and using it to their advantage. With Tivo they also have increased measurement tools. According to Sony's data 107,000 Tivo customers have watched the advertisement.
With their Mylo product they're employing more viral and non-traditional methods. Much of the distribution of the video elements is via YouTube and other video sharing sites. The customers are passing along the message. User-generated content is great, but you do lose sleep over it some nights.
Michael said one major issue with viral is talent rights/fees. (I have had two major firms approach me about this issue).
George Harrison from Nintendo was the next on stage. Nintendo, if you didn't know, recently launched a new game console. George showed a few of the recent viral campaigns that Nintendo has employed. Some where completely organic, others were started by them. George says there is a fine line between being a great marketer and being annoying.
Tom asked George the same question as Michael, "Is TV dead?" George said no, "TV still represents 70% of spending." With a game console launch there is a very short window to build awareness and TV is essential. However YouTube is becoming part of the mix. The majority of their audience is under 22. George did say he's amazed that he's now part of the YouTube phenomena. See below:
George is actively working in the social media space, specifically by creating his own MySpace profile and interacting on other levels. George realizes he can't just talk it, he has to do it, specifically since so much of their audience is living in this new world. In some cases though, Nintendo are leading their PR agency in this space.
The last member of the panel was Craig Coffey from Nokia. The mobile space is an exciting space. Craig remarked that most people leave the house with a wallet/purse, keys and a cell phone. If they forget one of them they will go back and get it. How many other products can say that a person will go back to get it if they forget?
Nokia has been working closely with influential bloggers to help spread the word about their products. However, you have to make sure you're producing the best product, because if there is a small flaw, the bloggers will find it.
In the mobile space they are sometimes at the behest of the channels. The mobile carriers outspend them 15/20 to 1. Sometimes it's hard for Nokia to get beyond the carriers.
Retail is another form of marketing for Nokia. Like many brands they are launching flahship stores. They are a place for inspiration and education surrounding their product. Craig things that people only use about 10% of their mobile phones capabilities.
(Also as a note, I lost count of how many times YouTube was mentioned.....perhaps too much.)
Randall Stephenson, COO of AT&T provided the morning keynote at Mplanet 2006. Randall's presentation began with a look back to a 'famous' AT&T commercial starring Lily Tomlin. Of course it was a SNL skit that some of the 'older' audience members might remember. Randall stated that the skit was of course not a real AT&T commercial, and it doesn't reflect the old AT&T or the new AT&T.
"100 million people" was the opening number from Randall. With AT&T's new Three Screen initiative they have the ability to reach 100 million people via the screens that people interact with: internet, wireless and TV. The connector between all these screens is IP (internet protocol). Imagine multiscreen campaigns that can hit all these major touchpoints, granular targeting with respect to their privacy.
Consumers are creators, customers rule, our goal is to reach them on their terms. In this new world, wireless is the most important vehicle. Wireless gives users more control and freedom, something they've always wanted. This past quarter, Cingular customers sent 138 million multi-media messages, this includes photos and videos. Cingluar customers sent 10 billion text messages last quarter. Wireless data use is up 50% this past year. If we connect advanced content with wireless and the numbers will continue to grow.
U-Verse is the latest offering from AT&T. U-Verse integrates TV and internet. What they've discovered with U-Verse is something that needs to be seen to be believed. The marketing campaign for U-Verse includes guerilla and viral marketing campaigns. They're also going to where the customers are. They have viewing events at supermarkets, neighborhoods. What they're finding is that their number one marketing allie is their customers.
The new ad model they're offering is IP Advertising. Your advertising is sent to a specific IP based upon specific criteria you select. Advertising can be sent regardless of what they're viewing. Randall stressed that the information used would be aggregate and anonymous.
IP advertising is TV plus Google plus Amazon.
Randall highlighted some of the interesting highlights of AT&T demographic reach. More than 70% of the African American population lives in local markets that AT&T serves. The same for Hispanic customers, over 70%.
Dennis said the planning for Mplanet began over two years ago. The AMA asked their membership what they wanted in this next-generation event. What AMA members wanted was smaller groups and the ability to interact with thought leaders and industry experts. The speaker's roster for Mplanet 2006 is a result of listening to their members. There will be thought leaders and experts, but mixed in will be concrete takeaways that members will be able to immediately integrate in to their efforts.
Dennis said the marketing world has been rocked by seismic changes. He reviewed some of the shifts that have occurred:
- Empowered Consumers
- New Media Ubiquity
- Advanced Fragmentation
- Channel Power
- Mass Customization
- More Commoditization
- Globalization
- Profitable Growth Quest
One of the goals of Mplanet is to help attendees deal with these issues and prepare for the future of marketing. From the social media perspective Dennis said, "To some extent, marketers no longer own their brand, the customers do."
We are at an interesting point in marketing Things started with the Production Era, i.e. you could just produce a good product and get sales. This evolved into the Sales Era, i.e. an effective marketing and sales campaign could garner results. Today we're in the Marketing Customer Era, i.e. knowing what the customer wants/needs and marketing directly to them.
Half of Fortune 100 companies now have a CMO. This brings increased expectations of marketing. This is great for the industry, but with this increased emphasis the importance of metrics and ROI are more crucial than ever.
Dennis then outlined some basic strategies that can lead marketers forward in this new age.
Start a fire, then carry the torch The CMO should in some ways be the Chief Innovation Officer. Marketing should lead innovation.
Wear the customer's shoes, create a path for them The marketing department should know the most about customers. You must deliver what the customers. How do you know what they want? Research, know your customers!
Measure with precision and prove your mettle CEOs expect marketing measurement. The credibility of marketing hinges on addressing measurement.
Run a sprint AND a marathon This is an inescapable reality. Public companies are always looking short term, i.e. the end of the quarter, but also the long-term needs. Marketers must master this dual agenda.
Know who you are and create who you want to be
Dennis feels this is the most important strategy. The external world is changing faster than companies are internally. Coordination with IT and HR is very important to marketers.
Most companies claim to be customer-driven, but when you look at them they are usually organized about the bottom line, channels, etc. Marketing must lead the charge to make this change to a customer-driven model.
I have arrived at the Dolphin Hotel at Walt Disney World for the American Marketing Association's Mplanet conference. For the next few days I'll be posting from the sessions along with a few other bloggers like: Garrett French, Robert Kingston and Ann Handley.
Everything I'll be posting will be tagged mplanet. The photos can be found here. Other bloggers are free to use any of my photos, they're all covered by a Creative Commons license.
