birddog

Mobile – It’s the new black

I can’t begin to tell you how excited I am about my new iPhone. It is a thing of beauty that I, quite literally, take to bed with me and, more than once, have found myself licking with affection. When I finally converted from my totally unusable Sony Ericsson, I was accused of simply being a sheep and following the herd, but I care not a jot, I’m in love. The best part of course, is that I don’t have the slightest inkling how to use the damn thing and am only just starting to discover the possibilities. Which are endless.

My wife has already banned me from holding it when I’m talking to her because, apparently, I’m more interested in the content on my phone. She actually hides it when we have visitors to the house because, “Sitting on the sofa with your phone and grunting occasionally does not count as joining the conversation…” Of course, I am actually fully engaged in the conversation, just not hers.

So, whilst clearly not first to the bar at the SmartPhone party, I find myself fully committed to the future of mobile internet delivery. It’s an area of the marketing mix that has been woefully underexploited in the business community, but it’s OK, you can relax, I’m going to fix that.

Having started to explore the opportunity, it came as no real surprise that users’ appetite for mobile content is far more advanced than brands’ understanding of the technology and capabilities, or limitations. Despite the Credit Crunch, over 40 million G3 Smartphone devices had been sold worldwide at the end of 2008 with some of the top manufacturers still posting sales growth of over 80% pa. Whilst the recession may be hurting large parts of the global economy, the mobile market is growing – at speed.

And yet businesses have failed to capitalise on the ability to deliver their digital content to this rapidly growing mobile audience in anything like a compelling way. If I want to access a website from my phone (and I do, all the time…) I can do it, but the experience sucks. On a 3×2” screen, I really don’t care about your flash animations and your searchable, keyword heavy content that appears in 0.05 point type with fifteen dropdown navigation tabs that I can’t read. I couldn’t be arsed to pinch and slide and zoom and scroll – I want and need better delivery of your content on my mobile device if I’m going to engage with your brand. And I’m not the only one. There are 39.99m others who would like a better experience too.

In the next couple of years, I predict an explosion in the development of website content for mobiles. It started with, “There’s an app for that…” where iPhone users could enjoy bespoke applications, easily accessed, with simple, intuitive functionality, but fell short when links from the app led straight back to standard web page content on the main brand website. That needs to change. We need to differentiate between static delivery of web content (large format screens), and mobile devices (SmartPhones, NetBooks, PDAs). The difference is obviously the size, but also the needs of the audience using the device and the environment in which they are using them. Speed, clarity and simplicity of content will reward the brands who move boldly into this space with the customer attention that they need to secure.

Options at the moment, however, are limited. But that’s the opportunity. Brands can use their own IT department to deliver mobile internet (the BBC has made a good job of it) but it takes time, costs are high and it may not work across all mobile platforms. Or they can tap into the expertise of others – Mobestar is my favourite. Mobestar’s mLite suite is, “…the first packaged product to automate mobile website production.” I liked it so much, I joined the company. Far from being a sheep and following the herd then, I believe I’m actually leading the pack. So flock ewe.

Scot McKee
Managing Director
Birddog Ltd.
+44 (0)20 7323 6666

Crowdsourcing for B2B Marketing

I’ve been talking to people (anyone who’ll listen actually) about ‘crowdsourcing.’ They’ve listened to me, mostly, and then looked at me like I’m a twat. So I started to doubt my own visionary forward thinking brilliance and thought maybe I’d best just shut up and sit down. But then again, I’ve never been one to run from a stupidity contest so I thought I’d persevere. In years to come you can all look back and say, “That McKee bloke – genius.” Or, alternatively, “twat.”

Crowdsourcing is a term first attributed to Jeff Howe in 2006, a tech writer for the US magazine Wired. It broadly means using the power of many to solve problems. Rather than rely on a single person within an organisation or even an entire department, whole companies their clients and people you don’t even know can contribute to solving a particular corporate challenge. It’s all served up on the interweb via your website or chosen flavour of electronica (intranet/extranet/landing page/microsite/social media/forum…) and the corporate entity gathers opinion and content from far and wide. Think of the principal of opensource applications and you’re on the right lines. If thousands of developers around the world can freely contribute a little bit of code in their spare time, it doesn’t take long to produce an entirely open/free platform to challenge the likes of even Microsoft. The same principal can be applied to any challenge where many hands can make light work. It’s a bit of a big deal. One that the B2B marketing community has thus far almost wholly ignored.

I’m surprised at the limited adoption in the B2B space because I do believe I’m in love with the whole concept. Brand strategy formulation is all about gathering opinion and establishing a cohesive, compelling story that the audience will believe in. Brands aren’t about guidelines or products or services, they’re about feelings – how people feel about your brand. Rather than being restricted to the views of a few key stakeholders in a workshop and a couple of focus groups, what if you could open up the brand discussion to the people who really matter – the prospective customers – and have the whole world tell you how they feel? Well, actually, you can. How cool is that? And yet, when I offer the service to companies that I understand are seeking that very customer insight, I’m still being given the ‘twat’ look…

There are many fairly dull examples of crowdsourcing I could offer you, but that wouldn’t really inspire or excite. But by relaxing the definition slightly, I can perhaps demonstrate the power of Social Media to shape how companies can affect or be affected by how people ‘feel’ about their brand.

‘United Breaks Guitars’ started as a music video protest by Dave Carroll, a musician who had his guitar broken by United Airlines baggage handlers. United refused to pay for the broken guitar so Carroll wrote a song, produced a video and posted it to YouTube. Google it and enjoy the video. Then think about the Mashable report that the video was viewed three million times in its first ten days of release and almost doubled again ten days later. In the first 10 day period it generated 14,000 viewer comments. Not many of them were very complimentary about United. You can now download the song on iTunes. Dave Carroll was crowdsourcing – using a wider audience to gather opinion and influence brands (his and United’s).

Best Buy, the large U.S. retailer has been using internal crowdsourcing for over a year. Their ‘Company as Wiki’ YouTube video clearly articulates the benefit of empowering staff to contribute to management thinking and processes to improve the brand. A new idea for a store can be conceived by any staff member, posted to the Best Buy site for comment and discussion by other members of staff. The good ideas rise to the top and management are able to fund the best projects immediately. Best Buy is currently considering how to use crowdsourcing for its external audience.

So. I’m ready. Who wants to play? Genius or twat? Let the crowd decide…

Scot McKee
Managing Director
Birddog Ltd.
+44 (0)20 7323 6666

What You Sell -v- What Customers Buy

Our heartbeat quickens, our pulse races, our palms and brow sweat a little… that’s the change we experience when we’re buying a new car. According to Ian Armstrong, Manager of Customer Communications at Honda UK, the science of car buying is every bit as important as the art. Ian was the guest speaker at a recent Brand on the Run event and I was interested to speak to him about the day to day marketing activities that happen behind the scenes of the more glamorous Honda TV advertising. I think Honda has been delivering great television advertising for years now. They’ve had consecutive successes with ‘Hate Something, Change Something,’ ‘Cog’ (the parts/domino ad) and ‘Impossible Dream’.

Honda TV ads however, are a long way from the ‘Swiss Tony’ stereotypical style of car selling I recall from walking in to a car dealership many years ago to buy a car. Thankfully most car brand dealerships have evolved somewhat. Although now that it’s mentioned, I was slightly taken aback recently when I went into a BMW dealership only to find that I couldn’t actually look at the cars until I had ‘reported to reception’ and been ‘announced’ to my very own personal Swiss Tony. But that’s another story for another day. For Honda at least, there seems to be the recognition that even if the ad works, it can only take prospective customers as far as the doors of the showroom. There’s still plenty of work to do to ensure a vehicle is sold. Honda doesn’t seem to be leaving anything to chance.

The car brand has been undertaking extensive testing of both sales people and prospective customers within dealerships to monitor the physiological changes they go through during the process of buying a car. The research shows that our immediate ‘gut instinct’ is the primary response mechanism that people use when going through the car buying process. The ‘facts’ (car performance statistics for example) are outweighed by how we ‘feel’ about the purchase.

Honda has discovered that customers are most relaxed when dealing with a sales person who delivers exactly the customer experience they say they’re going to – not one that over promises then under delivers, and not even one that under promises then over delivers. The sales people and customers are most relaxed when they’re telling and being told the ‘truth’.

There’s an excitement attached to buying a new car too. The smell of the leather, the clunk of the door, the rev of the engine. The sales person and the customer both feel exhilaration when a car is being bought.

Unfortunately, not at the same time.

Honda’s research shows that the customer is most excited about their potential purchase about 10 minutes before the sales person. That’s when they’ve made the decision that they’re going to buy the car and want to complete the deal and part with the cash. The sales person, however, doesn’t recognise the physiological changes in the customer (because they’re pretty hard things to see…) and continues selling for another 10 minutes longer than the customer wants. The sales person only gets excited when the contract is on the table and the customer is about to sign it. The danger of course is that during the 10 minute period of unnecessary selling, the customer becomes disappointed, annoyed and leaves without buying the car. The impossible dream just becomes the impossible.

In a B2B context, the analogy needs almost no further development. Whatever business market we’re in, the potential to oversell, undersell, or worst of all, not sell at all, is pretty clear. Brand guardians of every B2B market sector would do well to ensure their brand promise is properly aligned to the customer expectation and that the message is delivered to the customer in the way and in the time it is required. Not too much, not too little, just right. We should all make some changes…

Scot McKee
Managing Director
Birddog Ltd.
+44 (0)20 7323 6666

B2B Corporate Hospitality. Is It Worth It?

Corporate Hospitality. Is it going to flourish as companies try to secure the loyalty of their clients in the face of difficult economic conditions, or is it going to die a horrible and painful death as budgets are cut and redirected to the tried, tested and instantly measurable?

I’ve never really been big on accepting corporate hospitality. I don’t have the slightest idea how cricket works for instance – they’re in, they’re out, they’re not out, they play for days, then draw. Mmmm… no. I have a similar problem with the ‘Corporate Golf Days’. Take a stick, a little white ball and acres of nothingness then spend the day thwacking the little white ball with the stick to put it in a hole (where it clearly doesn’t want to go). And then do it again another seventeen times before you’re allowed a beer. I don’t think so.

So either I’m not personable enough to be invited on corporate hospitality days – harsh, but possibly fair – or I avoid them because they get in the way of, god forbid, getting on with some work. But that’s just me. Or at least, that was me. I’ve changed my mind. Not about cricket or golf which are just plain silly, but I’ve had cause to reconsider hospitality as a marketing ‘tool’ from both sides – as the provider and as the recipient.

Providing the hospitality, I took a whoop of clients to the Caldesi Italian Cookery School in Marylebone .The client reaction when we sent out the invitations was good. “What? It’s not a golf day? What happened to the golf day?” “Look, I thought we’d try something different – d’you want to come or not?” “Oh, ehh, actually, yeah – sounds great…” So then I worried that everyone was being polite and they wouldn’t turn up. Actually, it was a full house – 100% attendance. That’s never happened before. We all had a jolly good time. A bunch of senior executives wearing pinnies and covered is flour is the perfect recipe for a jolly good time. I was pleasantly surprised – not just with the day itself, but with the post-event camaraderie and the feeling that we all knew each other a bit better – and it’s just good to ‘know’ who you’re doing business with. I don’t think you can or need to put a ROI figure on that, it’s invaluable.

On the flip side, I was recently invited to a day of motor racing at the Jonathan Palmer Autodrome near Bedford. I think I can safely say that it was the best ‘work-day’ I have ever had. Ever, ever, ever. My host had invited about 100 guests for the day and we all thrashed the bollocks off Porsches, Jaguars, Renaults, Caterhams and even Land Rovers under race conditions. I suspect the cost of the day would have been moderately in excess of the National Debt, which, let’s face it, is considerable these days. Not that I cared of course. I was just pleased to have been invited and unashamedly delighted that it wasn’t golf or cricket.

But how do you measure the ROI? The simple answer appears to be that all those concerned do their very best not to. “It’s a ‘thank you’ for the value we have already had from the client…”, and, “It’s slow burn for key prospects we’re hoping to develop…” In other words, bullshit. It reminded me of the many conversations I’ve had with clients about their trade show attendances and what, if anything, they achieve out of them. “Not really sure, but we absolutely need to be there…”

I suspect that with both recession and new forms of digital communication appearing daily, budget spending on events like these might be reconsidered in favour of the more tangibly measured lead generators. I think that’s a shame. However hard it may be to measure the short term impact of corporate hospitality, we still need to keep a weather eye on the longer term future of client and prospect relationships. And there’s really nothing quite like the parp and squelch of your buttocks going into the hairpin bend at 150mph to remind you that life is more important than ROI.

Scot McKee
Managing Director
Birddog Ltd.
+44 (0)20 7323 6666

B2B Marketing Entrepreneur?

I’ve always been deeply suspicious of anyone introducing themselves as an ‘Entrepreneur’. It’s one of those wank words I find impossible to say out loud. Women don’t seem to like the word ‘moist’, but for me, it’s ‘entrepreneur’. Eww. I’m less disturbed when the term’s used to describe someone else. It’s strictly the self-use of the word that bugs me. So, “Richard Branson is an entrepreneur”, is wholly acceptable. “Hello, I’m Bob. I’m an entrepreneur”, isn’t. See what I mean? Wanker.

So when I walked into a client meeting I was relatively relaxed as the introductions were made and the Marketing Director said, “…and this is Bob.” It was only when Bob himself then repeated, “I’m Bob – I’m an Entrepreneur”, that I knew we were all doomed.

I’d been asked to the meeting to discuss social media, something I’m increasingly integrating into on and offline marketing strategies so I was slightly perplexed as to why we might need an ‘entrepreneur’ in the room. Was it just in case a brilliantly creative idea sprang out of our conversation and someone needed to throw money at it? Or maybe if we had a good idea, but suddenly and mysteriously ran out of creativity, we might need Bob to step in and… ‘preneur’ over everyone? His role wasn’t clear. And I didn’t like him. Mainly because of his self-proclaimed title.

I let it go for all of about a minute and a half and then said, “So, Bob, what does an entrepreneur do then?”

There was a pause while he composed his best Dragon’s Den stare and he replied, “I seek the alternative.” I waited for the subject in his sentence, but it never came. That was it. Bob sought ‘the alternative’. I admired the brevity, but I wasn’t really any the wiser. “I suppose people ask you what ‘the alternative’ is quite a lot?” I enquired oh so casually. “No” he said.

Everyone shuffled their papers and cleared their throats so I kind of knew I was supposed to shut up. But that’s never stopped me before and I wanted to understand his purpose in life. “Well, are you entrepreneurial in the social media space?” “No”, he said, “I think social media’s a complete waste of money.”

Now that, I thought, was interesting – for someone who ‘seeks the alterative’. Social media is surely THE alternative at the moment. Markets have changed, audiences have moved, tools have improved, knowledge is being shared and the world is responding to new ‘social’ methods of communication for their brands – we’re all doing at least something in the social media marketing space now even if it’s just blowing the dust off our Linkedin accounts and trying to make sense of Twitter. Of course, some brands are doing considerably more in the social space – they’re using social tools to create very active, vibrant communities online, they’re harnessing customer opinion, influencing perceptions, engaging in conversation and debate, they’re even transforming sales methods, processes and revenues.

Those companies are re-capturing audiences that had been lost to the internet and are finding new audiences at the same time. In a commoditised marketplace, those companies are achieving elusive competitive advantage by staying a step ahead of the competition and finding their social voice. And they’re doing it in truly creative ways – using music, video, photographs, conversation. What’s ‘the alternative’ anyway – another brochure? Really? Is that really going to work this time around when it hasn’t worked for the last couple of years at least? The companies that will survive and accelerate through the recession are learning to balance traditional communications strategies with the social mandates of their audiences. If the customers want it – you’d better deliver it. New, inspired, thinking and brand development starts when digital and direct strategies are properly aligned and it’s the steps forward in social media that are truly… ehh… “entrepreneurial”. Oops.

Naturally, I regurgitated those thoughts in a demented stream of consciousness mad professor kind of way and only stopped to draw breath when spots started appearing in front of my eyes and I thought I was going to faint. Waste of money? My arse. In the last 12 months the current British Government has increased the Gross National Debt by more than the combined total of Governments over the last 300 years. Now THAT’s a waste of money. I dunno – somehow I expected an ‘entrepreneur’ to know the difference. Does that make me the real entrepreneur, the alternative… or the wanker?

Scot McKee
Managing Director
Birddog Ltd.
+44 (0)20 7323 6666
Twitter.com/scotmckee