It’s true! For all you 21^st century globetrotters, Stopwatch Marketing is now available in Korea. Actually, the English version has been available there for some time, but now, the locals can get it in their own language.

For this week’s pop quiz, can you tell which of the above is the new Korean edition?  Which is English?  Which is Japanese?  No hints.

And questions for my friends:

CK – can you set up a Social Media program for Stopwatch Marketing in Korea?

Gavin, Drew – do we have Korean and other language rights for AOC 2010?

Tom - I know you’re headed to Asia on Ruskin business soon…I expect a full report on retail distribution in Seoul.

Bill - Isn’t Globalization the result of the Most Powerful Idea in the World?

And for everyone else, don’t forget that Drew’s book is also a very, very, good marketing book.

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  • Invest in today and tomorrow will take care of itself.  Now is not the time to extinguish your advertising, promotion, research, and innovation budgets; now is the time to wisely use your budgets to better understand your consumers so your offering remains meaningful in the present and the future.
  • Go-to-market together.  As marketing budgets must be maximized in the new year, marketers should consider partnering with complementary brands (for example:  Heinz ketchup and French’s mustard) to share in research costs, advertising dollars, in-store displays, etc.  Knowing how your consumers shop (e.g. what else they buy and/or use with your brand) will help you identify appropriate brands to consider approaching for collaboration and coordination of your precious marketing budgets, calendars, and initiatives.
  • Aim for customer monogamy, not just customer loyalty.  Loyalty means that your customer is shopping in your store, your category, or your brand most of the time – and probably your competitors on a less frequent basis.  If you truly want to maintain and grow your heavy user base, aim to deliver on all of their needs so your customer has no reason to be tempted to switch.
  • Make customers feel good about shopping.  Right now, shopping (except for everyday necessities) feels wrong, foolish, and indulgent when news headlines continue to communicate economic woes.  Appeal to your customers’ emotions that they are doing the “right thing” with their savvy purchases.
  • Understand that “value” means more than “cheap/low prices.”  Consumers are savvier than ever and want the best value for the time, money, and effort they spend shopping and using the resulting goods.   Reward their efforts by making it easy for them to shop your store, your category, and your brand.
  • Walk in your customers’ shoes (or boots).  You rely on research to ground yourself in the facts about your customers – the demographics, psychographics, purchase behavior, purchase interest, brand preference, etc. that lead you to the insights used for strategic decisions.   However, you need to also look up from the numbers once in a while and  look at the people behind the numbers.  Observe how your customer lives – walk around their neighborhood, watch them deal with traffic headaches,  note their mood when they walk into their office (vs. when they leave their office), shop in their stores, and eavesdrop on their in-store purchase decisions.  Remember that your target more than likely lives a life that is different than your own and that he/she will make choices different than you will.   Respect their footsteps and their path in life.
  • Remember that shopping isn’t just an in-store or online activity.   In some way, consumers never stop “shopping” – they are always recognizing new problems or dealing with recurring problems and looking for solutions.  Sometimes, consumers are merely asking friends for quick advice; other times, they are going online or to a store to look for an actual solution.  At its essence, a marketer’s role is to be a problem solver.  Identify when your customers start to think about the problem that you solve and remember the rule of “rights” – right product, right placement, right message, right timing, and right price. 

All the best for a successful 2010!

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The Four Pillars of Profit-Driven Marketing is, indeed, another book just as good as Stopwatch Marketing. In fact, it’s an outstanding book that deals with the most important issue in marketing today. I meant that last comment: I do believe that developing some discipline around the measurement of productivity – ROI – of marketing efforts is more important than “understanding Social Media,” or “marketing in the downturn,” or “tapping into Gen Y,” or “outsourcing,” or “media fragmentation,” or any one of a number of other issues marketers confront today. In fact, measuring performance and using it to guide future marketing decisions is the critical issue that affects all those others. It is certainly representative of the most frequent question I get from my clients: “How do I measure success of marketing efforts?”

Written by a couple of Booz consultants, Leslie H. Moeller and Edward C. Landry, Profit-Driven Marketing offers an easy-to-understand rationale and approach to answering that question and, more importantly, institutionalizing an ROI-driven attitude into marketing departments.

Like all genius, the Four Pillars themselves, seem simple and straightforward, prompting one to ask, “Why didn’t I think of that???” They are:

1. Analytical Understanding

2. Decision Support Tools

3. Embedded Processes

4. Aligned Organization

    

The book contains a few well-chosen case studies to demonstrate the effectiveness of embedding a disciplined, ROI approach. Capital One’s rise to the upper reaches of consumer banking – and reasonable success surviving the current crisis – was driven by clear-headed focus on documenting and acting on the ROI of each marketing program, consumer segment, promotion, etc.

More illuminating for traditional marketers may be the Kellogg’s TPE (Trade Promotion Excellence) program. This program, built on ROI models of each cereal brand and trade promotion, empowers local sales representatives to pick and choose among a menu of trade promos (rather than a single national one) in conjunction with their retail buyers. So, Jewel and Dominick’s or Shaws and Stop & Shop make be promoting different cereals / sizes at the same time, based on disciplined analysis of each chain’s customers and needs. Now here’s the kicker, pay attention: Moeller and Landry’s ROI-focused approach is emphatically NOT REPEAT NOT a surrogate for driving marketers to more easily measured marketing tactics: The Kellogg’s TPE program “…enabled Kellogg’s to divert investment dollars from trade promotions to brand building and new product innovations.” That’s right, FROM trade promotions. For all those old-fashioned marketers who avoid detailed, ROI-driven measurement protocols, here’s what you’ve been looking for: If you build an appropriate and effective model and IF you are right – brand building trumps trade promotions – then the model will prove the effectiveness of your long-term gut instinct and arm you with the tools to do that brand building!

Bottom line, you can’t be disciplined enough and you can’t get by today without an effective, quantitative model of the marketing efforts you are working with. In our own work with clients on new product development, we have built an very nice business with our Desktop Strategizer^SM model that empowers product development types to run endless “what if” scenarios that predict the ROI of the anticipated product intro.

This is an excellent book, and belongs A) in you briefcase for your next airplane trip and B) next to Stopwatch Marketing on your bookshelf.

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Yes, it’s true! Stopwatch Marketing is now available in Japan. A great client, and friend, currently based in Tokyo alerted us a month or so ago that he had seen the book positively reviewed in the Nikkei, Japan’s most respected business newspaper. More recently, we received copies of the Japanese edition, pictured above.

For those of you so inclined, below is the link to the Amazon.co.jp page:

http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/4798117749/ref=s9_subs_gw_s0_p14_i1?pf_rd_m=AN1VRQENFRJN5&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=1VTD021E1NDY94C3ER5J&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=463376756&pf_rd_i=489986

What an exciting moment – especially since AnnaMaria is, as I write this, off to a meeting with yet another of our Japanese clients, Takeda, the huge pharmaceutical company.

Note to Gavin Heaton and Drew McLellan: Do we have foreign language deals on Age of Conversation?

Japan is, of course, my favorite foreign country (not only because of our great clients there). A few years ago, I promised my sons that if they got straight A’s, I’d take them with me to Japan. One of them made the grade and, in a burst of surprising integrity, I delivered on my promise. Here’s a picture of me explaining some arcane, esoteric, and generally useless fact about the palace in Kyoto to my son. He looks so proud to have me for a father, doesn’t he?

And here we are at the summit, having climbed Mt Fuji. Pretty cool, huh?

By the way, that Japanese client who alerted us to the book review in Nikkei is none other than Hidenori Nishi, recently named COO of Kagome CO, Ltd. It’s a truly great company – the next time you are in Japan, try some of their fruit & vegetable juices. Below is their corporate credo:

I’m currently trying to figure out how to take credit for Stopwatch Marketing principles in launching and driving Nishi-san’s stellar career at Kagome. And, be sure to pick up a copy of Stopwatch Marketing in Japanese and be visible reading it on the subway!

Finally, our weekly quiz: Which of the following is AnnaMaria, which is my favorite Buddha, which is Nishi-san of Kagome, and which is me?

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All ideas are BORN, not created in their initial stage. That means they are like babies. Babies are very fragile, very easy to kill – or, at least, to dislike. They are very messy; they exude liquid from multiple orifices. They are smelly when they do that. Life is much simpler without them. Yet, for life to continue AT ALL, they are necessary. In fact, it is necessary to protect and nurture them at least beyond adolescence. Just as new (baby) ideas are messy and disruptive for our organization – they require us to do entirely different things and think in very different ways. They threaten our habits, our comfort. But they are necessary if our company is to thrive. In fact, we have to nurture them at least until adolescence.

Consequently, I was quite happy to see that one of my favorite recent advertising campaigns, the e-trade baby, has been nurtured, refreshed, and continued into 2009.

All too often, the advertiser becomes fatigued with a campaign long before the public does. Especially when the advertiser reorganizes every year. Some stupid brand manager, out to make his/her career in advertising (not management!) decides that “The answer is…we need a new ad campaign!! Very soon!! Now, what was the question?”

I learned this lesson early in my career at the Quaker Oats company, owners of one of the truly classic commercials of the 1960’s & ’70’s – “He likes it, Hey Mikey:”

This was a spectacularly funny and successful ad, propelling Life Cereal into contention with the humongous brands from Kellogg’s and General Mills. Rather than ride it very hard for a decade, or upgrade and refresh it into an ongoing decades-long campaign, the company got tired of paying all the royalties the actors were receiving and moved on to some other (less successful) ad campaign.

What a waste.

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“We will not participate in the recession!”

Those words were spoken by Tom Edwards, the president of Ruskin Air and Sound Control, a fifty year-old, Kansas City-based company at whose annual sales meeting I was recently asked to speak. While my topic was, of course, Stopwatch Marketing, I couldn’t help but be blown away by the actual work of this meeting – and of this special company. Consider:

1. They manufacture – and successfully market – traditional, industrial HVAC products such as Air Measuring Products and Industrial Dampers:

    

2. Much of this manufacturing takes place in North America

3. They are completing a record year

4. Ruskin has added enormous amounts of new materials and electronics technology to their systems to improve energy efficiency and improve control and diagnostics of system performance

5. They employ 3,300 people around the world

6. They plan to continue investing heavily in people, technology, and marketing to make sure that they not only “refuse to participate in the recession,” but come out the other end of it poised to unmercifully exploit the infrastructure boom sparked by the Stimulus Plan

It was, indeed, a pleasure to be with these guys for a couple of days. “These guys” includes their independent reps, consulting engineers, architects, etc. from around the world. Not once did I hear words like “survival,” or “scary” when they referred to current business conditions. This was as can-do a crowd as I’ve been with for a while. It was also a pleasure to talk with them about their vision for the future of their industry – this is a group that is actually doing something to radically reduce energy use AND save lives (that’s what they do…air handling, energy transfer, smoke and fire protection, etc.), as well as producing ever more effective and intelligent systems for the buildings we all take for granted. And, to repeat, they do it by engineering and bending metal in North America, not financially engineering subprime mortgages, outsourcing call centers overseas, or importing videogames.

Their website is worth looking into, if for no other reason to enjoy, as I did, the simplicity with which they communicate their vision and their reverence for the performance of their products. If you wish to participate – as I do – in their future prosperity, check out the stock of their corporate parent, Tomkins PLC (TKS).

Finally, our periodic quiz: Which of the following is their president, Tom Edwards, which is AnnaMaria, and which is me?

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EVERY time a huge American industry starts to go down, there are calls – often successful – for the government to step in and save the strategic, historic, imperative, too-big-to-fail, etc., industry. For the record, that is why the Department of Agriculture exists at all.  It was not considered necessary until the 1880’s when industrialization and urbanization started the (still continuing) migration of people and jobs from farm to city.  Two useful facts:  1) U. S. agriculture is still an incredible food-producing machine accounting for billions in exports…we just do it with 2-3% of the population instead of 50-60% of the population as in the 19^th century.  2) In fact, the U. S. Department of Agriculture now employs roughly one person for every 9-10 farmers in America!  George Will once pointed out that we are approaching perfection:  every farmer will soon have his/her own personal representative at the Department of Agriculture.

Fast forward to the 1960’s and ’70’s and you see the same thing:  Railroads were rapidly going under and this industry was considered not only strategic but a critical part of our history and way of life.  Voila! We got Amtrak and Conrail.

Past Bailouts:

Why, by the way, are all the former bailout companies’ logos in baby blue? Is that some secret codicil of bailout agreements with the U. S. government? Our does it simply reflect the emotional state of the talented graphic designers left behind at these formerly bankrupt companies?  GM, obviously, was quite prepared in advance, yet another demonstration of their incredibly perspicacious management and long-term outlook:

If I ever return to the dictionary business, I will make certain that the entry for “sinkhole” includes “Amtrak” as the primary definition.  I have good friends in Southern California and I know some people there do, indeed, commute by Amtrak up and down the California Coast.  My San Diego friends: Don’t let the voters of Michigan learn this – they will use it as an example of how their tax dollars are being used to subsidize YOUR lifestyle, so, in fairness, why shouldn’t YOU be taxed to subsidize THEIRS??? Perhaps by bailing out GM and Chrysler.

NOW…let’s fast forward to 2058. I really do expect the following news report fifty years from now:

“Malia Obama, daughter of the late President and long-time Senator from the State of Illinois, rose in the Senate today to defend the planned bailout of Google and Microsoft. ‘Software and Search are the very foundations of the great American economy. In fact, it is not too much to say that this country was built on the backs of the very hardworking people over the decades who did so much to build our Software and Search industries. At this critical time in our nation’s history, we simply cannot afford the layoffs – and emotional pain – that would occur if we let these two great, historic companies enter bankruptcy proceedings. Moreover, I firmly believe that, given time to adjust and reorganize, Google and Microsoft will make the hard choices and strategic moves necessary to compete in the new world of nano-sized PC implants in the ear and move away from their long-term reliance on old technologies such as the internet and voice recognition. While I would, in normal situations, oppose bailouts of greedy corporations and their overpaid management, at this very important time, I must encourage all my respected colleagues to vote in favor of the $45 trillion appropriation as a bridge loan to Google and Microsoft.’”

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Some very good news, at least for AnnaMaria and me as we head into the holidays: Stopwatch Marketing has been selected by Harvey Schachter at the Toronto Globe and Mail as one of the Top Ten Business Books of 2008!

What an honor and a pleasure to be recognized as one of the “Best of the best: intelligent, clear, filled with advice“

Here’s the link, just in case you’re interested in the other nine books:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20081217.CABOOKS17/TPStory/Business

Harvey Schachter, by the way, is an accomplished business author in his own right. He has written or edited several books and articles. These include:

Memos to the Prime Minister: What Canada Could Be in the 21st Century

And

Employee Ownership: The New Source of Competitive Advantage

I remember looking over “Employee Ownership” when it came out a few years ago and being compelled by some of its very good arguments.

More importantly, he writes a column for the Globe and Mail called “Monday Morning Manager Harvey Schachter’s guide on how to handle everything from overflowing e-mail to meeting overload.” It’s chock full of useful advice and help for harried (or talented) managers. One of my favorites was a review of Bo Schembechler’s management secrets (he, too, did a book…shortly before passing away).

Finally, Harvey does a blog through the Globe and Mail. I’ve added it to my list of frequently-viewed-and-commented-on blogs. So, I’m hoping some of you already on that list of mine will find it useful. Drew and Gavin – perhaps we can get him to contribute to AOC next year.

 Oh, and don’t forget our frequent quiz:  Which one is Harvey, which is AnnaMaria, and which is me?

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Last week, while returning from LAX to JFK on American, I tried out a new service that, depending on your point-of-view, either A) promises to turn “downtime” into productive time or B) threatens to eliminate one of the last refuges of private time in our harried lives.

The service is called “gogo.” It offers real-time Wi-Fi internet connections while in flight.

I signed up and was up and running in no time – the sign up for an account and logon procedures were essentially the same as one would find on T-Mobile or AT & T at locations like Starbucks or Borders or the flight lounges of various airlines. Once online, the system seemed to work as quickly and efficiently as Wi-Fi in my home and office, both of which are connected to cable modems. I was able to surf the net, pick up some stock quotes (sigh) and sports scores, send and receive a bunch of emails, and generally do everything online I would be doing here at the office instead of actually working, or reading.

Quoting from their website:

“…Gogo is the first wireless broadband network with wings, providing coverage on select partnering airlines across the continental United States* at speeds similar to wireless mobile broadband services on the ground. The Aircell Network provides border-to-border, coast-to-coast wireless frequency coverage for in-flight broadband utilizing Aircell’s patented technology and national, wholly-owned cellular network…”

They even provide route maps of their current airline services:

Gogo is a service provided by its parent company, Aircell. Aircell has been providing communications services like this on fancy Gulfstreams and Learjets for investment bankers and oil sheiks for a while. Gee…I guess they (Aircell) are looking for increased revenue! Full disclosure: One of the mad geniuses behind this service – the Senior Vice President, Passenger Services – is a former partner of ours here at MCAworks. Aircell was a client of Tom’s here for a while and he decided to join the company in view of the huge upside opportunity. If you try out the service and have any comments, I’m sure Tom would like to review them. You can reach him at tweigman@aircell.com.

For you marketing geeks viewing this blog, (that would be you, Drew McLellan, Gavin Heaton, (how will your down under Big Brother Senators react to the subversiveness of internet surfing IN THE AIR?!) Jay Ehret, Kaitlyn Wilkins, C. B. Whittemore, Toby, Phil Gerbyshak, Scott Gillum, Christina Kerley, and, especially Arun Rajagopal, who flies back and forth from Dubai!), there are an array of interesting marketing and business model issues on which Aircell is working. Pricing, of course, is important: I was willing to pay the $12.95 for a five-hour coast-to-coast flight, but will I pay that much on a one-hour shuttle from LaGuardia to Detroit? If the price is lowered, however, will there be enough to profitably split between Aircell, the airline, the carriers on the ground, reciprocal wireless providers, etc.? Advertising, promotion, and publicity are, as usual, also critical: right now, the service is limited to a few long-distance routes like the LAX – JFK leg I traveled. So, the marketing is mostly done on-site at airports…flyers & signage in the Admirals Club, handouts of luggage tags and coupons at the gate, etc. As the build out proceeds, when should the company move to more broad-based, if not mass, communications? When they do so, should it be done largely via direct-to-consumer (statement stuffers in my AAdvantage statement) or mass advertising?

In any event, it is, of course, a step forward for productivity – and entertainment – to be able to access the net in flight. I expect my children will want me to sign them on when we take a vacation so they can play games, or head to Facebook, or whatever it is they do. From a personal convenience standpoint, I find surfing the net in flight far more acceptable than making cell phone calls: Surfing the net is private and silent, failing, thereby, to intrude on the peace and quiet of fellow passengers. It is, essentially, READING, long the accepted form of personal diversion in flight. Phone calls in the narrow confines of an airplane or train, however, are intolerably intrusive. Emily Post agrees with me.

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 Another very good book about marketing strategy – and, more important, growth strategy: The Inside Advantage The Strategy That Unlocks the Hidden Growth in Your Business, by Robert Bloom.

Bob Bloom is the (now semi-retired) U. S. CEO of Publicis Worldwide. He got there by starting from a small base working for his father’s ad agency in Texas. By helping his clients there to achieve spectacular growth, he did the same for his firm…and his career.

Bob’s essential insight is that “…every enterprise has at least one strategic asset – one existing strength – that can form the foundation for future growth.” This is the Inside Advantage. Too many companies – and their aggressive, go get ‘em CEO’s – get gummed in chasing after the latest fad, some hot new idea, or some such and overlook the fact that they probably hold within their current way of doing business, their current employees, and their current core customers the nuggets of how to achieve rapid growth.

“The easiest and most profitable growth will be achieved by adding additional customers very much like your current most valuable customer.” This is one of many sidebars/callouts in The Inside Advantage. Like most genius, it is striking in its simplicity, obviousness, and ease of being overlooked or ignored. To see why this is such an important insight, consider the extreme: How much time do you think the executives at spectacularly successful McDonald’s or Subway spend trying to entice Sports Illustrated Super Models (who probably consume a half stick of celery per day) into their restaurants? You’re right: ZERO. These companies understand their core customer and spend all their time trying to attract either A) more customers like them or B) more dollars from them.

Bob includes on his website four Growth Realities:

1.   A business that is not growing is a business that cannot be sustained.

2.   Inside every business there is at least one strategic asset - an undiscovered or underutilized strength - that can form the foundation for growth

3.   Finding this hidden strategic asset, nurturing it, and becoming well known for it will grow the business

4.   Growth from the inside is the surest, fastest and most economical way to expand any size or type business

Interestingly, Bob maintains a website, but not a blog. Drew McLellan, who introduced us, and I are working hard on Bob to mend his ways and start blogging. Then, perhaps, just perhaps, Drew and Gavin will invite him to contribute to next year’s Age of Conversation. And, perhaps we can enlist people like CK Kerley and Kaitlyn Wilkins on this one…it’s time they got back to blogging about marketing (or at least ketchup) and not the election.

The book includes many case studies or war stories. My personal favorite involves T-Mobile who, when faced with the need to “transition” from their old (U. S.) brand name, Voicestream, to T-Mobile might have chosen a traditional, drawn-out-for-years “evolution” plan, including ads explaining the change and all the reasons why it is good for “all of our valued constituencies…blah…blah..blah” until the entire world keeled over from boredom. Instead, T-Mobile determined to be assertive, aggressive, presumptive, and to capitalize on what they had: better prices, better service, a global brand name, and a celebrity endorser. Her picture is at the bottom. Ten points for those who guess her name.

Of course, Bob’s book does include a four-step “How to,” to which he refers as The Growth Discovery Process:

Who + What + How + own It! = INSIDE ADVANTAGE

WHO – Who is the core customer of the enterprise.  This defines the potential customers most likely to buy the product or service in the quantity required for optimal profit.

WHAT – What is the inside offering that the business will own and leverage.  This tangible and emotional customer benefit is the company’s inside advantage.

HOW – How becomes the persuasive strategy that will convince the core customer to buy the firm’s uncommon offering vs. all competitive offerings. This sells WHAT to WHO.

OWN IT! – is the series of imaginative acts that will celebrate the company’s uncommon offering and make it well known to its core customer.  Through these acts, the company or brand becomes what its uncommon offering says it is.  It’s the fun and magical part of the Growth Discovery Process.

This is a very good marketing strategy book and you can finish it on a single airplane ride. Buy it! Read It!

By the way, these are  pretty good marketing books, too:

This week’s quiz:  Which of these is CK, Kaitlyn, the secret celebrity endorser for T-Mobile, Gavin, Drew,  or me?

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