Andrew Lark

Watch This Week: Sephora on Social

Brian has a great interview here with Sephora on Social. They are a brand that is increasingly "social by design" - creating programs, offers and content for the social consumer.

What is said here is important - it isn't just enough to market to this consumer, brands need to support them where they found them - in social domains -- and build loyalty programs for them. And I liked the discussion about defining and finding a social voice. 

What will Happen to Search Next

John always has terrific insights into all things search.

The largest issue with search is that we learned about it when the web was young, when the universe was “complete” – the entire web was searchable! Now our digital lives are utterly fractured – in apps, in walled gardens like Facebook, across clunky interfaces like those in automobiles or Comcast cable boxes. Re-uniting our digital lives into one platform that is “searchable” is to me the largest problem we face today.

That's One Fast Boat

Places with Purpose

I was thinking about why Bookstores got nuked by the Internet and yet Libraries live on. Perhaps it is because Libraries understand their purpose? A great read here on that purpose. Bookstores could have provided the same utility. Instead they piled books high and tried to sell them cheap. And the Internet won. 

Libraries groked their purpose and live on.

... libraries remain vital places, and many of them are more crowded than ever. Printed material, however, is not always the primary draw. “Increasingly, people can use that material anywhere that they want to, which means they come to the library for other needs,” says Jim Neal, the vice president for information services and university librarian at Columbia University. “They come to study. They come to work together. They come to use technology they can’t carry around. They come here to consult with experts, with librarians.

The pressure to accommodate “other needs” is especially strong at public libraries, which are increasingly taking on civic functions that far exceed the historical mission of serving books to readers. “Libraries are the new cathedrals of our society. They’re very important sanctuaries,” says the architect Bing Thom, whose new public library in Surrey, British Columbia, a suburb of Vancouver, was designed as a space of communal engagement. “People are living in smaller and smaller spaces, so the library becomes the place you escape to for socialization, for solitude, to take a breath. It’s the last space in society that’s free. Even for the homeless. There is a sense of democracy; it is a common space we all share.

One of those moments

I was sitting on the plane coming back from Adelaide yesterday and this lovely elderly lady and her son sat down next to me. They were having a big chat about what was in the paper and she lamented how the font was too small to read anymore and how much she missed the news. He then opened the paper and read the news to her, all the way to Sydney.

It was one of those moments when you are reminded that the great people aren't just those out winning medals, but also those overcoming everyday obstacles together and moving forward.

Frame or Die

Aaker gets at the importance of framing. Worth a read...

Framing has an impact on the purchasing (and voting) decisions people make. Studies have shown that people consistently prefer 75% lean meat to 25% fat, that an organization making a handbag will be perceived as warmer but less competent if a dot org label is attached to it, that the consumption of wine with a North Dakota label will be less enjoyable than the same wine with a California label, and that a risky decision framed as a potential gain will be preferred over one framed as a potential loss (Tversky and Kanneman’s prospect theory, reported in their classic 1979 article).

... When building a brand, instead of arguing about the superiority of the brand, focus on framing the discussion so that competitors’ arguments are not even on the radar screen, because they don’t speak to the key element of the brand decision.

MIX Mobile Coming to an App Store Near You Soon

The team at RD2 have cooked-up a great new App for Gary Hamel's Management information Exchange. If you don't follow the Exchange, it is a must read for any leader. Here's the link to the Android version. IOS is in the approval process.

Smallknot

Love this idea... what better way to find investors and get them to engage.

Fail... Like I was Saying

Loved this cartoon from Hugh which gets at my comments recently on the need for NZ to open up on business failures, celebrate entrepreneurs and to learn to fail faster.

 

Activating NZs Brand

Claire Eeles left me a really good thought on Facebook, so I thought I would share it here...

 And having only one airline service NZ directly (Air NZ) is a real restriction! As fantastic as Air NZ is, the reality is that most affluent North Americans travel/upgrade on the mileage points. Absolutely standard practice. And it's impossible to buy/upgrade a seat on Air NZ if you're not a Koru Club member!! All the Kiwis end up sitting at the front of the plane & the target affluent North American tourist needs to spend $8k+ per person for a Business Class fare. From LAX or JFK you can go absolutely anywhere for that price!! NZ is on people's bucket list...but not always #1.

This is especially true for the Nth American audience. And I wonder if it would ever be revealed in Market Research. Little of the factors that inhibit purchasing at the final "activation" or purchase phase get revealed through traditional research processes. Too often marketing of nations focused on perceptions of the brand rather than on activating latent demand and existing brand awareness. NZ needs to focus on activating demand.

Interestingly, the factor Claire highlights is also true for Australia, but less so due to the wide choice of airlines.

The fastest way to kill Yammer is to do this...

I'm guessing it will take Microsoft time to integrate Yammer with Sharepoint, and during this time, hopefully, the will come to their senses. Yammer is wonderful for its simplicity, ease of use and convienience. So, why would anyone integrate it with the most complex, unwieldy, impenetrebable piece of software a user could ever encounter?

Any worries about what will happen to Yammer inside of Microsoft?

You never know what will happen inside of a large company, but Steve Ballmer met with David and they both are incredibly excited. They both know that Outlook has to change and I think, over time, that there will be a combination of Yammer and Outlook. Before that, Yammer will be integrated into SharePoint.

Does Brand NZ Need a Makeover?

Damn right. The basics needs to be addressed:

1. Surges in tourism driven by events like LOTR are short-term. NZ needs to present itself aggressively in key markets as the must visit destination. There needs to be a decision driver (I am amazed how many Aussies are visiting Cuba because they think it is about to change so much once Castro dies - they want to experience the romance before the place gets Americanized).
2. Fixing the brand means every person (including us who don't live there) need to take responsibility for the product and get it right. Service is still variable. Attention to detail is missing (why do we think the first thing a visitor should encounter is a duty free liqour store?). NZ's leadership brands (Air NZ for instance) have done an incredible job of creating positive experiences to be remembered. We need more. Especially in the major cities.
3. NZ should't confuse awareness with activation. I've yet to meet someone who doesn't think of NZ as beautiful and full of firendly people. (OK, they might not know where NZ is but that is something to be dealt with later). What they need to be convinced of is that the airlines servicing NZ are amazing and its one sleep away. You can wake up in NZ, in London, In Shanghai - they are all one sleep away.
4. NZ shouldn't confuse what is important to tourists with what will motivate them to come. Every NZer should be clear on the motivators so we can communicate them. 
5. Finally, and this will be as hard as it is contentious, NZ needs to develop a "better together" value proposition with Australia. For so many, the trip downunder is the trip of a lifetime - they do it once. Why should seeing the Great Barrier Reef, Ayers Rock, the Sydney Opera House, Queenstown, Rotorua, Auckland - to name a few, involve a trade-off. Present them as a once-in-a-lifeitme package. You could easily theme them - the wine-lovers could do the Sounds, Barossa, Queenstown and McClaren. You get the idea.

What are your thoughts?

Who You Going To Call?

I'm not sure about the logic that says a company that provides a free service - Facebook, Twitter, Quora -- should also provide free telephone support. Users shouldn't confuse them not doing this with not listening - I suspect it is pure business economics.

What drives me mad is when companies like eBay and PayPal, who charge for a service can't be bothered providing easy to access support. I'm experiencing this first hand at the moment with Billmelater. Some criminal managed to use my wifes name to set up an account - wrong social security number, wrong birthdate but her name.

Now, PayPal and Billmelater clearly operate a pretty weak fraud and risk process because the crook was able to run up a good chunck of purchases. We managed to track someone down who agreed that is was blatant fraud and they would deal with it. As an aside, we can't access the account to communicate with them, becuase, guess what, the password, birthdate and SSN are all fake.

And what did they do then, referred it on to a collections agency who insists on harrassing people rather than solving the problem with Billmelater and eBay. And who are you going to call in this instance? Nobody. They'd rather just rol the dice on you submitting to the harrassment and paying towards their negligence and incompetence. We won't - but I fear many will.

I'm all for anyone with a business that takes your money in exchange for products or services on the web being required to offer phone support. But for those that don't, I'm not sure how they would survive.

What is needed is a clear standard so that the PayPal and Billmelaters are forced to be accountable to the customers they pretend to serve.

Brilliant!

Don’t work. Avoid telling the truth. Be hated. Love someone.

You can read the rest here.

What a Great Story