I predicted Blackberry’s demise about four years ago when my fifteen year old daughter asked for one. The logic was pretty simple: if  my work-related device that helped me be productive in small snippets of time was appealing to a schoolgirl, then something would have to give. And I suspected I was going to be the loser.

Now I loved (past tense) my Blackberry then because everything it did was to help me work. Email, phone and calender synched to my PC, simple document reader, natural keyboard, no distractions.

But then RIM had a bright idea encouraged by greedy shareholders no doubt: let’s pursue the consumer market and turn it into an entertainment device. So they employed software and hardware engineers who understood teenagers and leisure uses of a phone and, with BBM as the mainstay feature started marketing to them instead.

I wondered at the time what would happen to all those great engineers who understood business users and who worked continuously on developing a work-orientated device for them. Because that is where Blackberry’s real value was. But I guess they either got moved away or resources became a lot tighter so RIM took their eye off the work ball to dream instead of a large mass entertainment market.

I know this as about five years ago I got a Macbook. At the time it seemed odd that there was no Blackberry desktop manager for Mac’s so I couldn’t synchronise. And the OS version only came out in 2011 and to this day doens’t work with Entourage. Why not? If I was RIM, I had the opportunity to appeal to both PC and Mac business users especially as Apple didn’t have a phone back then.

But they took the eye off their core market, invested in a larger entertainment led one which they couldn’t ultimately defend against Apple. And because their device now didn’t perform so well for business users (cluttered as it was with games, facebook, music, video) their core customers also defected, unhappy also with the service: remember their global outage problems in 2011?.

This weekend my Blackberry software or hardware failed for the second time this year leaving me without a device on which I depend very heavily. I wonder if this and their server problems last year are indications of a business which simply lost sight of its core market position and in doing so had destroyed its core business. This chart speaks volumes:

For me, I wonder how long I’ll put up with this. But there aren’t many alternatives. I-phones have their fair share of troubles and I don’t want all their functionality. So I’m waiting  for the next great work device  to come along so I can finally ditch this once great brand.

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One of the fatal mistakes organisations make is to regard a population they serve as a homogenous mass. For example, how schools’s engage the parents of their pupils?

The first mistake schools make is to see the similarities: the parents all have children, these children go to the same school and they all need communications of one sort and another about their child.  So the systems and processes are put together that enable the school to communicate formally and informally with parents and they aim to perform these tasks as well as they can. Emails, newsletters, notes in school bags, parents evenings etc but in a one size fits all way.

But every teacher will tell you that some of their most challenging experiences at work involve parents and that this just comes with the territory. So the nervousness felt by Allan Ahlberg’s teacher in his poem about parents evening is understandable: they don’t know whether they are in for a hard time or  not.

I’m waiting in the classroom.
It’s nearly time to start.
I wish there was a way to stop
The pounding in my heart.
The parents in the corridor
Are chatting cheerfully;
And now I’ve got to face them;
And I’m nervous as can be.

The sad thing is that this state of affairs is mostly avoidable – if only schools knew where they stood.

A few years ago the DfES ran some research into parental attitudes to schools. It was hugely impressive because they set about it with a genuine desire to understand how parenst influenced a  pupil’s educational attainment. So they ran deep and wide qualitative research, paying attention to the underlying issues of behaviour and discovered something startling: not all parents are the same.

In a nutshell, they discovered that parents fell into three behavioural typologies:

1. Those that believed the education of their children was their responsibility not the school
2. Those that believed the responsibility was shared 50:50 between school and the parent(s)
3. Those that believed their child’s educational attainment was entirely the schools responsibility.

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I ran a training workshop in 2005 for the team that was about to embark on a massive market communication endeavour at BETT, one of the the UK’s largest technology trade shows.

The project team involved about 12 people, who came from a mixture of product, sales and marketing backgrounds  and as the project director I really wanted them to focus on the commercial impact we were seeking to have. And so I set the scene with insights into how to engage people in an exhibition environment and how to ensure they remembered this afterwards. This latter point was most important given we were engaging buyers, specifiers and influencers months and sometimes even years before they would actually go on to buy the technology.

I looked for interesting sources about how to embed a memory and found someone who published some insights  based on Dale’s cone of experience which went a bit like this:

Apparently, you remember:

• 10% of what you Read;
• 20% of what you hear
• 30% of what you see
• 90% of what you say and do

The source seemed credible so I went on to impress on my team the importance of active engagement and to design as many experiential opportunities as possible.

Have you also found yourself using these percentages? Well like me, you may be surprised to know that these percentages have no substance whatsoever. In fact they are a fiction, invented and adopted by teachers and in wider communication fields for the past few decades. And whilst intuitively it makes sense, there is absolutely no substantiation whatsoever for them.

I felt supremely embarassed. Worse, I used them for many years and debated their application with others  until I discovered the truth. So when I attended a seminar at my daughter’s school a few years later only to find a hugely experienced teacher also using this ‘science’ to guide the support they gave pupils at GCSE, I felt obliged to mention it. It’s at times like this that the truth can be very uncomfortable…

The story of how this happened is very well told here but it transpires that this falsehood has been perpetuated for a long time. The danger of course is that when something is printed as fact, it can take a long time to stop others from running away with it, if ever.

Luckily, the trade shows the team executed over the next three years achieved the result we wanted: SMART went on to become global market leader, Turning Point now has over 5o% of its market and Steljes profited handsomely as a result. But I learned an important lesson about bad science, the importance of going to the ‘source’ and the need for robust interrogation of supposed facts.

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On the 15th October, the trade body representing British “aesthetic surgeons” issued a press release with the screamingly inappropriate headline:

I don’t know what MP’s think about BAAPS after all their dealings with them in their enquiries. And I wonder if they experienced the BAAPS sense of humour or if BAAPS took this matter a lot more seriously than they do their press releases. Apart from anything, there is a massive cost to rectifying the breast implant problem and I suspect that people who behave like this can’t be trusted to take responsibility to pay the bill. Indeed, should they be entrusted to represent this industry at all?

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The recent success of Bodyform’s film, made in response to a Facebook post by an (alleged) member of the public, is a cracking example of great marketing in action. But the more advertisers use social media successfully in this way, the more it challenges the conventional advertising model. The stalwarts of Charlotte street and Madision Avenue should look out.

For a starter, what role was there for media buyers in Bodyform’s campaign? In a world where the cost of promotion is nearing ‘free’, when consumers can broadcast advertisers’ messages to the world for nothing, conventional media buying is under threat when there is no media to buy.

Media planners on the other hand still have a powerful role although the media agency commission model has to go out of the window. In Bodyform’s case, the idea was conceived by Carat, SCN’s media agency who it seems innovated the entire campaign.

Non-digital media owners must surely be also affected. Digital media spend  has taken an impressive share of all media expenditure (20% last time I looked) but this disguises the extraordinary incremental value derived from content creation and its free exposure. And so YouTube and other mainstream digital distributors will profit from these campaigns but at the expense of more traditional media.

Bodyform’s film also illustrate the value of intelligent content creation and where to get it from.  Film production companies for example, used to executing an agency’s idea ow have a great opportunity to perform the role that conventional agencies used to do but in a fraction of the time and a fraction of the money. In Bodyform’s case, Rubber Republic were the company who scripted and made the film  with no mainstream advertising agency involved. Which must worry the likes of WPP or Omnicom whose bread and butter business involves  spending large scale budgets on advertising.

As P&G discovered this year, whilst its advertising expenditure went up, its sales did not keep pace with rare successes involving those brands which used lower cost digital marketing. But SCA, the owners of Bodyform have shown them and other competitors how a good idea, well executed, with good PR support and  no media spend can drive a brand forward, without the aid of an ad agency

It is interesting that P&G have retained Clayton Christensen (a hero in this office),  help them with their business. Perhaps his services are also needed on Madison avenue  as campaigns like this look seriously like discontinuous innovation in action. Watch out incumbents.

PS: I don’t believe for a moment Richard’s letter that sparked this is real but who cares – it’s still a great piece of brand engagement.

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I’ve commented before on the FA and how it doesn’t adequately represent English fans. But the recent report about the 1989 Hillsborough disaster from the Independent Panel has exposed more poor  judgement from the organisation that represents English Football.

It turns out that they selected the ground for that fateful day despite the fact it had no safety certificate. And I didn’t realise that there had also been a crush outside the ground the previous year and a more serious one in 1981.

According to the report, Lord Justice Taylor wrote: “In selecting Hillsborough as the venue for the cup semi-final, the Football Association did not consider in any depth whether it was suitable for a high-risk match with an attendance of 54,000 requiring to be segregated, all of whom were, in effect, away supporters lacking week in, week out knowledge of the ground.

“No special inspection was made; no consultation with Sheffield Wednesday or the local authority took place.

“I have little doubt that, if the disaster scenario had been described to the management at Hillsborough prior to 15 April 1989, they would have said: ‘Of course, it couldn’t happen here.’ Yet something like it had happened at Hillsborough in 1981, albeit with less dire results.”

Tellingly, the report mentions a fan writing to the FA to forewarn them of the problems the previous year at the Leppings Lane end. Not suprisingly, given the FA’s orientation, this was ignored.

Failure to listen to the market you serve is a recipe for disaster. In this case, it literally was. Unfortunately, the FA has shown once again how out of touch it is with one of its key stakeholders. And since the report came out, continues to show its lack of appreciation of its true responsibility. Otherwise, their response to the report and their management of the publicity surrounding it would have shown a lot more commitment to the fans they should be serving.

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 I came across this young brand, Moma in 2009 and had a brief look at what they were up to. Thankfully they’ve survived and become quite successful – according to their website, they now employ 30 people and seem to have gained impressive distribution. But at the time I struggled to understand their strategy.

The product, albeit nicely packaged lacked any real differentiation against more well established retail offerings and lacked a strong value proposition in my opinion.

At that time they were selling at mainline London stations from little mobile kiosks but their “heathy breakfast” proposition could be obtained from any EAT or Pret a manger  let alone the many retailers on site at the station.

Its pretty easy to tell if a company doesn’t have a coherent strategy. Simply put yourself in the customers’s shoes and see for yourself if the articulated proposition stacks up. Or put another way: do the people + the promises + the product + the reputation + the unconsious bits all build up an expectation that makes purchasing compelling?

Positioning is about occupying a place in someone’s head that causes an exchange of value. Strong brands occupy these places alone and command more value as a result than those weaker competitors which share the same space with many alternates.

Have a look at this photograph to the right? Now tell me, which of these people is the customer and which is the Moma brand representative?

(please “comment” on this post below with your answer and add any other comment you want to make).

Everyone I show this to thinks the lady is the customer; in fact, the man is.

Assuming you are not a customer of Moma, what do you now think of their healthy breakfast promise when it’s served by an unhealthy lady? Would you still be prepared to try it? Does it create doubt in your mind about the veracity of their promise?

Using my CARDS positioning analysis system, MOMA scores as follows:

1. Is it Clear? Liverpool street station is a “noisy” place at best of times but the lack of stand out and visibility was palpable. The fat lady however undermined the clarity of the message, if not consciously certainly unconsciously. Weak
2. Is it Distinct? Within 100 yards of the kiosk were ten’s of competitors with ‘healthy breakfasts’. Of course a kiosk like this is more in your face than its static competitors and so would gain some trial but an indistinct proposition is less likely to stimulate demand and encourage trial. Weak
3. Is it Salient? For me this was weak as it had functional benefits but lacked emotional value so expectations not set apart. Weak
4. Is it reliable? I didn’t taste the product but am assured its great. So lots of scope to build the brand through retention and word of mouth promotion but their lack of a strong promise means they are not calibrating the correct expectation. Weak
5. Is it authentic? Tom’s is a farmer’s son and his family are all involved in food so lots of authentic credentials here but still no reason as to why they care.  Weak

Strategy is making sure everything stacks up behind a distinctive, valuable idea. For me, the fat lady, if not a disincentive, certainly slows down the speed by which they can engage and grow a market for their brand. But fundamentally there was not then a  strong enough value proposition that would stimulate stellar growth. Three years on they have made great strides in the disembodied world of FMCG more than retail sales. On reflection, that’s probably not surprising.

So what are you doing that undermines your ability to grow? Organisations are all too often focused on getting things done and so lose sight of how this comes across to consumers. A very dangerous type of myopia.

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It seems that many companies adopt  the world ‘solution’ or its plural form when promoting their company, products or services.

And it doesn’t seem to be restricted just to the IT community where its use is commonplace. I have come across its use in many business sectors including Consultancy, Financial services and many types of Business services.  Which makes me want to reflect on my long-held prejudice that this is the laziest, least intelligent form of marketing communication. Have I been wrong all these years? Does its use convey real meaning to others?

A quick trawl through Google brought up the following page results:

• “Enterprise solutions”: 149,000,000
• “Technology solutions”: 73,200,000
• “Business solutions” 59,900,000
• “IT Solutions”: 30,400,000
• “Management solutions” 27,800,000
• “Web solutions” 23,500,000
• “Marketing solutions”: 22,500,000
• “Recruitment solutions” 7,490,000
• “Financial solutions” 6,70,000
• “Office solutions” 6,620,000

So what does it mean to the customer? According to the Merriam Webster online dictionary (or should I say language repository solution) the definition of the word is as follows:

(source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/solution)

1
a : an action or process of solving a problem
b : an answer to a problem : explanation; specifically : a set of values of the variables that satisfies an equation
2
a : an act or the process by which a solid, liquid, or gaseous substance is homogeneously mixed with a liquid or sometimes a gas or solid
b : a homogeneous mixture formed by this process; especially : a single-phase liquid system
c : the condition of being dissolved
3
: a bringing or coming to an end or into a state of discontinuity

I am guessing the marketers using this world with such gay abandon are trying to communicate that their ‘solution’ exists to solve or answer the problem. The trouble of course is that they don’t specify exactly what problem they solve or answer.

My suspicion (and I suspect any reader is the same) is that they simply don’t know. So rather than go through the boring process of understanding customers and their context-of-use, their catchall, ahem, solution, is to append the word after their product category.

For instance, ‘workspace solutions’ is one I have been seeing lately. What on earth does that mean? And what in heaven can I expect to get for it? “What? You can solve my workspace problem?. Amazing, why thank you so much, I have been trawling the universe  for answers to this problem and here you are with the solution.”

The trouble of course is that this is a product centric view of the world. The promoter provides ‘workspace services” for people with “workspace problems” and the easiest way to communicate this is by positioning their service as resolving customers’ problem. The reality however is much more complex. Markets break down into job-based typologies, whose strategy for resolving their problems is to find the best tool to perform the job. If you can’t define the job your product performs for them,  you are never going to compete.

So ditch the word solution, stop focusing on your product’s ubiquitous virtues and work out what people are really buying from you. Its a revelation.

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It is no accident that England can’t compete playing football internationally. Their recent exit from Euro 2012 had an inevitability about it. And even if we had survived the Italians, the Germans would have made sausages out of us.

But I am reluctant to blame the players. I spend my life talking to CEO’s about the problems they have with people. I stress their staff are rarely the problem; it is the system in which they operate that is invariably to blame. And then I look pointedly at them and say something like ‘you get the business you deserve’.

The problem is that if the system is wrong, its hard to extract high performance. And everyone knows that the FA is a tricksy organisation which is poorly led and managed.  So it is no surprise that England fail so miserably.

England football team have put in some wonderful performances since 1966. Mexico 1986 and Italia 1990 were remarkable; at Euro ’96 we also looked promising but we seem to have been in decline ever since.

So what’s at fault? It is no coincidence that funding for the Premier league started to rise dramatically in the late 1980’s and continued to rise sharply once the Premier League was established in 1991. Today the Premier League is the richest in the world but more importantly, their voice is the dominant one at the FA. Look at the make-up of the FA board and how decisions are taken? Look how many premier league chairman there are involved?  Look for the representation of the English, the supporters?

So the organisation which represents our national football team is more on the side of the Premier league which is, in many senses, competing with the national side. It’s not surprising then that the national team have suffered in proportion to the Premier league succeeding.

For me, the FA’s governance is the key issue. Whilst the board is run by the vested interests of the Premier League, the national side will never succeed. The key question is what will the FA do about it?

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Lynx is a brand that has been going great guns for Unilever over the years. Indeed its potent mix of adolescent fantasy and sexual humour has seen the brand grow to epic proportions. But at its heart is the objectivisation of women in the minds of teenagers and the promotion of sexual stereotypes that leave most members of the opposite sex feeling very uncomfortable.

I honestly don’t believe anyone at Unilever understand this. In fact, Lynx launched its female version at the beginning of this year and has appointed a female brand manager to oversee it. I trust the female population will turn their back on it although I fear the younger generation may have become immune and don’t understand the corrosive effect this has their gender.

But to me Unilever’s problem isn’t just that Lynx is contributing to social problems but that it does so with breathtaking hypocrisy. Not many people know that Unilever also have Dove in its stable and, since 2004, Dove has been promoting “Campaign for Real Beauty”.

The campaign aims to

celebrate the natural physical variation embodied by all women and inspire them to have the confidence to be comfortable with themselves.

Now I’m not an expert about why women might not feel confidant or comfortable with themselves but I’m guessing the stereotypical portrayal of women as objects in advertising doesn’t help. So it seems completely perverse that one company should campaign on one issue with one brand that aims to resolve a problem caused by another brand it also owns.

A more extensive debate exists on this subject in this excellent paper prepared by the Arthur W Page society, a US based organisation monitoring public affairs (download) 08CaseStudy_Journal

For me, I don’t need to know anymore than this:  Unilever’s sense of its corporate responsibility in the matter falls way short of what society requires of it. And no matter how you try to excuse this, every woman should feel outraged about this.

But have they stopped buying the Dove brand in protest? Have you?

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