Category / Digital Marketing

by jcuene

Data Leaks: Doc Searls, Facebook data and what’s about to come

Are you you one of the folks in the digital/ad tech world trying to answer your friends questions about the “what’s going on with Facebook and all that data” situation? It’s going to get worse when everyone understands how thoroughly widespread the data-leaking problem is. Give this article a read. It’s from OG/Cluetrain guy Doc Searls, one of the best thinkers about the open web and what advertising has done to it. It’s a little over the top, but the underlying story is one we (“we” being humans on the internet and perhaps also in the digital business) should understand.

 

by jcuene

CEO’s & CMO’s: 2017 Strategic Planning Questions for Your Digital Team

While the rest of us are enjoying the fall weather, football and the changing seasons, most CMO’s and CEO’s and their leadership teams are elbow deep in 2017 planning and budgeting. In addition to all the normal business challenges, most leadership teams are probably spending a significant amount of time talking – one away or another – about digital and/or their digital transformation. Maybe its a question of how to allocate the capital budget for digital capabilities, or it could be a culture question (“How do we get more digital talent?”). Or, more urgently, it could be an existential question (“how do we compete against X and the disruption they are causing”).

Eventually, those boardroom conversations and plans will make their way down to strategic planning discussions with the VP’s of Digital Marketing, the Chief Digital Officer, Head of Digital, or Directors of Digital. Here’s what we hope those lucky leaders are getting asked in those strategic conversations:

  • What’s our strategy to use data to develop a competitive advantage? We see a lot of C-level leaders who are missing the strategic opportunity to plan for, collect and analyze data in unique ways (not just the obvious stuff) to give themselves a competitive advantage. We know of one company that bought a couple large Instagram handles from their owners, just so they could get the day to day data on likes and use the comments section to gain unique consumer insights that their competitors wouldn’t have
  • How are we using digital to create a unified experience over the whole  customer journey? Smart companies are moving on from digitizing their functions (Sales, Service, PR, brand Management)  to looking for ways to integrate and unify the whole consumer experience. They are going from good/great execution at the functional level to managing the whole customer journey in a holistic, integrated way even though there’s not an immediate ROI and dramatic changes in short term results are rare. Not only is it better for consumers, it positions companies to collect unique, potentially proprietary data along the way. It’s an easy concept to grasp, but it’s incredibly hard to execute internally unless there is a multi-year commitment from the top to keep investing ahead of results.
  • What capital investments and resource allocations do we need to make to get better data across the customer journey? See above. A dramatically improved customer experience will generate incredibly valuable data
  • What must we do to invest enough in both incremental and transformation innovation? No good leader says “no” to opportunities to invest in innovation, but few leadership teams are disciplined enough to balance short-term, functional innovation (i.e. incremental) with the willingness to pursue transformational opportunities.or instance, we know of one company that is generating a surprising amount of revenue from advertising on their digital platform; enough revenue to pay for a larger, more advanced digital team. It’s almost guaranteed that the directors and managers and coordinators on the digital team have ideas for both, but they may not be getting the support to pursue both due to a heavy prioritization of short term results.
  • How do we need to evolve our brand position and actions to be even more relevant to our customers? All leaders should by now understand how digital is transforming consumer expectations of brands. But even after years of watching brands like Dove drive great results by moving the brand to a higher, more aspirational space (and creating amazing digital content that’s getting shared all over the place), too many leaders are still(!) focused on the result (“get me something that goes viral”) instead of the characteristics of a soap brand that millions and millions want to connect with. In other words, you have to do the work to elevate your brand and your company in order to be relatable, digitally.
  • What do we need to do culturally to create the conditions for more agility and innovation in our marketing? Most good business leaders have read up on Agile, Lean Startup, and “working like a startup”. It’s thrilling to see courageous leaders try to change their companies actions. But, smart C-level folks will listen to the digital teams about what needs to change culturally to create the conditions for more flexibility, agility and innovation in their marketing model (or their business, overall). The behaviors are one thing, but the attitudes and beliefs and values and incentives are another. Most importantly, CMO’s and CEO’s should be asking: Have I created the right incentives to unlock true innovation (or  will my team still get penalized for taking risks)?
  • Are we being aggressive in looking at business model or product innovation opportunities? This is something that any sufficiently paranoid organization should be asking itself every six months: “what would a potential disruptor do to come take our business away?” Or, put another way, “how do we not get Blockbustered?” And, as part of the same exercise, CEO’s should be asking their digital team “what opportunities are we missing to use digital for  new revenue, new products, or serving our customers more effectively”? It’s easy to get a false sense of security that “we’re on it!”.
  • What do we need to do to help our employees work at the pace and speed of our customers? As the proliferation of tools and technology accelerates, it’s imperative for customer-focused companies to enable their front line people – the sales folks, the community managers, customer service – to work with the same tools and platforms that their customers are using. So, whether it’s instagram or Snapchat messaging, chatbots or Kik, CMO/CEO’s will make the hard policy changes to stay connected with their consumers

If you’re the VP or Sr Director of Digital, the Head of Digital or the Digital Transformation leader and these questions aren’t coming up in the annual operating plan discussions, you should set up time with your CMO and CEO and push these issues forward. It’s your chance to lead “up” and push the thinking of your organization and, ultimately, position your team to drive even greater impact in the organization. And, to make life a little better for your customers in 2017.

by jcuene

CMO’s, Brands and Innovation: The Factory, The Lab & the Studio

It’s great to see smart brands investing in “Labs” as outlined in this recent Adweek article about pushing the frontiers of retail. You could also look at Kraft, Nike, Mondelez and even good old General Mills (but, their Marketing Lab is now defunct based on what i’ve heard recently). It’s easy to see why a big company would want to create a “Lab”:

  • Try out new technology (without committing to long term support and integration)
  • Try new approaches, methods and processes (without committing to roll them out across the rest of the company)
  • Try new partners (without having to form long term relationships)
  • Try new business models (without committing to long term capital)

And a bunch of other benefits.

I’ve been thinking about what a modern marketing team really needs, going forward. The forward thinking CMO’s will recognize that the “Lab” is a critical piece of a larger transformation effort. But, it’s not the only one. The CMO office will need to drive change through three pieces working together:

  • The Lab – The place to, literally, experiment. Try new things, new tools, new skills, etc. This is where real innovation is found and validated.
  • The Factory – This is where the content/marketing gets made at scale, efficiently with a core focus on delivering immediate impact, now. In general, this will be delivered by the current roster of agencies and other partners who are on the hook for content and brand building materials. CMO’s will need a way to inject the innovations created in the “Lab” into the Factory. Smart agencies will be actively looking for ways to translate what works in the lab into their everyday work.
  • The Studio – The Studio is about craft, art and excellence. Generally, this is the content that is small, well crafted, and focused on making more of a statement. If brand content has the possibility of being art, the studio will craft it. Where the Lab is all about the “new” and “better” and the Factory is all about the “Scale” and “Efficiency” and results, the “Studio” is about delivering the highest quality possible.

The job of the Chief Digital Officer (or the CMO herself) would be to integrate the three really effectively to deliver the results any good marketer needs:

  • In Market results, now – The traditional results that marketers and business builders really need: Reach, frequency, depth, conversions, loyalty, advocacy.
  • Better consumer knowledge – Data about the consumer and their interaction with the brand and the insights that come from the combination of data analysis and good old fashioned intuition
  • Better operations – New ways of working, new techniques & tools to do the job better
  • A clearer sense of what’s coming next – Stronger intuition about how the marketer can better serve the consumer AND build a longer term advantage for her brand or her company

This is pretty much thinking out loud. I hope to come back and work on these ideas.

by jcuene

(Updated) Um, Facebook, This isn’t Great

Engagement with brand content is evidently dropping  pretty dramatically. As a guy that went all in on Facebook when i was in a seat to influence a lot of media spend, this is concerning. For brands, it’s obviously bad. For consumers, it’s probably a win of sorts.

These numbers are even more striking when you consider engagement is significantly down even though brands are almost certainly spending more money to promote their posts to combat plummeting organic reach. Facebook’s ad revenue reached $2.27 billion in Q1 2014, up 82 percent from Q1 2013.For brands on Facebook, these are dark days. They can choose to spend more money to reach fans they had already accumulated in the past, but Facebook will likely decrease branded reach even further.

But, this also speaks to challenges in the FB ad model from the brand perspective. It seems like Facebook is  resorting to limiting organic impression supply (by tweaking the algorythm to lessen brand reach), making it more important for brands to pay to get the exposure.  The main reason i believed Facebook was a great platform was the  combination of organic and efficient paid reach. With the constant tweaks to the organic reach black box, that mix (of organic and paid) gets less attractive and FB becomes just another paid ad platform.

UPDATE 6/18/14: I think i buried the lede here. The point i was REALLY trying to make is that it looks like Facebook is losing one of the aspects that made it so attractive in the first place: It enable brands to build deeper relationships (that’s good) while also building a more modern media mix, one that delivered a beneficial combination of owned and earned media and paid. The less organic reach a brand can generate, the more they have to pay to get the reach, the less attractive the original value proposition is.

via New Report Reveals Just How Drastically Brand Engagement is Plummeting on Facebook | The Content Strategist, by Contently.

by jcuene

Lessons For Marketers in the NYT’s Leaked Innovation Report

The New York Times 2014 Innovation Report is an extraordinary document. Extraordinary in that it  exists at all, for one thing. But, also extraordinary for the honesty and candor in the analysis provided by the authors.

We’ve all watched the news business getting transformed over the years by blogs, the web, Google, etc. Now we can read the report from inside a pre-eminent news organization, written by a handpicked group of leaders given the mandate to tell the truth to power (well, their bosses).

But, at the same time, it’s an exceptionally useful document for marketing leaders who are struggling to thrive in a time of rapid, seismic changes. Digital, however you want to define it, is creating almost unlimited opportunities to create new growth, reach new audiences, and work in different ways. Call it creative destruction, transformational innovation, or just reinvention; we’re all going to have to deal with it. The news business is at the front of many of these changes, but eventually all business, from cars to cereal will have to deal with them. So, we can learn a lot about what to do (and what NOT to do) by reading this report carefully.

While it was unfortunate that this document was leaked, we nonetheless have it as a story of a great organization at the mid-point of a life-or-death struggle. Here are just a few lessons  brand builders can take away.

Be Honest With Yourself, First – One of the more remarkable things about this document is that it doesn’t seem to hold many punches. It calls out specific projects, departments, etc. Its a seemingly honest assessment of what’s working and not working. Not self-flagellating, but also not overly optimistic about what’s really going on. Marketing leaders should take on this kind of assessment every other year, at least. A hard look, done by trusted mid-level leaders, those with enough understanding of how things really work on the execution level but also have a broader strategic sense about what the organization can be and needs to get there.

Understanding how Disruption Works is the First Step to Disrupting Yourself – With everyone talking about innovation all the time, you’d assume everyone understands what “Innovation” really is. But, wisely, the writers spend a couple pages outlining Clay Christensen’s Disruptive Innovation process. And, they even provide a cheat sheet for their new competitors. As leaders, we should understand that disruptive innovation actually is kind of predictable and it will hit every industry at some point. Get your teams to understand this, and it’s the first step to creating the kind of innovations that disrupt the business on your terms vs. waiting for someone else to do it to you.

Reconsider What You’ve Always Taken For Granted – The report advocates a recommitment to audience development strategy, to re-examine how they are getting the news in front of people.  For generations, the Times could assume an audience existed, was reachable in a predictable way, and cared about the product. But, that audience is easily swayed, distractible, and, in the end, not so easy to reach. Now, the Times has to re-learn how to reach it’s audience, weaving a news set of skill into the newsroom. All leaders should be rethinking the parts of the model they’ve always taken for granted.

Digital First is Much More than a Buzzphrase – For the times, it’s a flip from “a newspaper that also produces a rich and impressive digital product” to “A digital publication that also produces a rich and impressive newspaper”. That’s over-simplified, but that mental model flip is one that most marketing organizations need to make if they haven’t already made. A mobile, digital way of building the brand that is amplified at scale by traditional media is  “digital first” for most marketers.

Culture Change is a Mofo – This is really a document describing wrenching culture change in slow motion. The capabilities, the technology, the tools will all be relatively easy to update. But, the talent, the leadership, the skills, the mindset needed to thrive in a digital-first world at the Times will be incredibly difficult to weave into the organization. The leaders will have to remake their culture from the inside without losing the best of what got them there.

Finally, the real story here is that the leaders of this organization recognized they were out of synch with their times and they turned to 8 trusted insiders to figure it out. That’s courage. We can all learn from them.

There are dozens and dozens of smaller nuggets in the document. It’s so rare for a business leader to get a peek into another organizations’ strategy development process that i imagine this will be a document i go back to and re-read multiple times.

Here are a couple other great writeups:

by jcuene

Stay Golden, kid: Meet The 20-Year-Old Millennial Making A Living Off Facebook

I love stories like Koby Conrad who is hustling and growing his hemp business on Facebook (uh, it’s growing like a weed?). There are so many good, smart little businesses grinding it out and supporting jobs. I wish more of the business press would focus on this kind of story (a la “Bootstrapped and Profitable” from 37Signals.)

He’s a kid with limited technical expertise, who is using the Internet to build a fast-growing, small business.

He’s the kind of hustling, hard-working person the experts say doesn’t exist in his “millennial” generation.

“Everyone always tell you to be scared,” he says.

“Be scared of things going wrong, be scared of things not working, be scared of the people you meet online, but no one ever tells you that it could all actually work.”

via Meet The 20-Year-Old Millennial Making A Living Off Facebook – Business Insider.

by jcuene

Managing Startups: Best Blog Posts of 2013 | Platforms and Networks

Managing Startups: Best Blog Posts of 2013 | Platforms and Networks.

This is about everything you need toread for the next couple weeks. Tremendous resource for anyone thinking about working in a “lean”, “agile”, “fast”, “iterative” or whatever mode.

Meta comment: Eisenmann’s blog is a great, living reminder of the power of blogs. With all the focus on shorter, faster, more ephemeral media (i’m looking at you Snapchat, instagram, Twitter), it’s very worthwhile to reflect on the core idea behind blogs, blogging, great posts and the whole concept of publishing for an audience.

 

by jcuene

Why Didn’t Honeywell Invent Nest? The Value of Purpose

Evidently, Nest is worth a couple billion dollars in the minds of investors. That company didn’t really exist a couple years ago, but investors see the potential and Nest is a good example of how a purpose-lead company can spark new growth by reimagining old businesses.

But there are higher risks, of course, with hardware-focused products like Nest, compared to software-only investments, due to the more costly ramp up for such products. But said one investor, “This is a company that could change how we live our everyday lives,” noting the tight integration with mobile phones was a key step in the evolution of such devices.

via Nest Raising Huge New Round From DST, Valuing Smart Home Startup at Upwards of $2 Billion | Re/code.

Why didn’t Honeywell invent Nest? There is no doubt the halls of Honeywell are filled with incredible technologists. They have installs in god knows how many homes in the US and around the globe. Is it because their business model is so heavily focused on resellers and contractors? Is it because they forgot what business they are really in (e.g. “we’re in the comfort business” vs. “we’re in the thermostat and electronics business”). Is it because the actual product would have cannibalized the rest of the line? Perhaps the actual Nest product wouldn’t have been a big enough opportunity for a 72Billion dollar company. Finally, perhaps the leaders at Honeywell have a really healthy and profitable thermostat business already in place and didn’t see a chance for a significant change in their growth curve from real innovation from their core products.

Here’s a clue,  from Nests “about us” page that reveals how purpose guides their approach: 

About_us___Nest

Simple. Beautiful. Thoughtful. They’re focused on “unloved” things. They know no one loves their thermostat.  But, their purpose is to make things you’ll reconsider and then fall in love with. It’s a design approach and a laser focus on the consumer mindset. They are an end user oriented company that has empathy as their core lens. Tech, coding, sales, marketing and everything else come afterwards. Rethinking old problems to help consumers is core to their culture.

Now, check out Honeywell’s “About us” page (actually, there are a number of Honeywell “About us” pages. This one is for their consumer products):

About_Us_-_yourhome.honeywell.com

While it’s great that they are customer focused, it’s pretty clear that their customers are NOT consumers. They’re focused on resellers, builders, etc. They are designing products they know their real customers will buy, not products consumers are going to fall in love with.

Business school students will be reading case studies about Nest for years to come. It’s going to be interesting watching Honeywell’s response. Not only do they have a product challenge, but they are going to have a business culture problem, as well. They can compete on technology, but will they be able to get over the internal cultural barriers that will make it difficult to truly put the consumer needs first? Will they be able to reconnect with their core purpose as a way to re-orient their product and marketing efforts?

by jcuene

A little glimpse into the Future of Brand Building

I was part of an interview that AdFed did w/GoKart Labs for their year end wrap up. I’m really excited about where this GoKart team can take brands. We’ve got the talent, the ideas, and the capability to make a real difference for brands. Should be a great 2014!

 

We are excited about modern brands that are moving beyond simple “messaging” (i.e. ads) to actually making apps, services, platforms and utilities that create deeper connections with their current fans in more useful, relevant and participatory ways. New users, new buyers, will become aware of brands and business through the things their friends do *with* these platforms and the content. These investments in useful content and services create organic growth for brands, whether its deeper loyalty, sharing or even offline word of mouth.

via AdFed – Made for those who make.

by jcuene

Why Food? — For Positive Change in the Food Industry by Yvon Chouinard – Patagonia Provisions

This is another great example of a purpose-lead organization finding new growth (new products, new categorys, new customers) by starting with their purpose, and using that to inspire invention. In this case, their entry into the food space.

So it only makes sense that we’d want to share some of our favorite food with our customers. But that’s just the beginning; we also believe there is great opportunity—and an urgent need—for positive change in the food industry. With Patagonia Provisions, our goals are the same as with everything we do: We aim to make the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, and perhaps most important, inspire solutions to the environmental crisis.

via Why Food? — For Positive Change in the Food Industry by Yvon Chouinard – Patagonia Provisions.

Brand purpose is often the best place to start when seeking new revenue growth. By recommitting to your core purpose, you can start envisioning whole new ways to play in your own business landscape. Or, like Patagonia, you can move into whole new categories with completely new products. Operational and business model complexities aside, to consumers, moves like this make sense when there’s a clear purpose behind the brand to tie them together. Invention (identifying new ways to grow like new products and services) comes fastest when there is a clearly articulated brand purpose guiding the explorations.