Ray in Academia

The consumer has spoken again! I really like the idea that Sun Chips was moving forward with their biodegradable bag and I actually bought one this week. It is interesting that since introducing the bags sales have diminished primarily due to the how noisy the bag is. Here is a link to the Wall Street Journal article (link). I’m thinking as a company Sun Chips (aka Fritos-Lay, aka PepsiCo) is in the salty snackfood business of creating value for people by providing them with Salty Snack Foods. And although the biodegradable bag is a nice touch most consumers of salty snack foods might perfer more stealth for their “small indulgence”.  

To be honest I’m more interested in your thoughts, so please let me know. Are you surprised by this change of direction by Fritos-Lay? Is it a good decision or a bad one?

With a spark of coffee I’m back!

Have you ever taken a marketing course, or heard of the 4P’s also known as “the Marketing Mix“? In summary, it is a theory of how we create value for our customers; through the use of Product, Price, Place and Promotion. We can combine them in a number of ways to create value: Product – we can add in features that benefit our customers. Price - we can set low to create the everyday value or high to perhaps limit the quantity or demonstrate quality. Place - think about where you shop, is it convenient? Promotion – is how we communicate with our target market, advertising, direct Mail, personal selling, public relations, sales promotion to name a few. It is here in promotion that social media has been grouped into and it is a here that I would like to discuss the evolution of the 5th P “People”.

When we create a marketing mix we do so to create value for our customers. If a company’s use of the 4P’s is not unique (ie. similar use of the 4P’s but under a different brand name), we can say that the two companies have similiar ”positioning“. In other words they are both positioned the same in the minds of consumers. An example of this might be Under Armor and Nike, both have a similar price, are available in similiar if not the same locations, offer similar products, and communicate with us typically in similar ways albeit with a slightly different message. Those planned company promotional messages ideally are consistent communications that are well executed to reinforce a company’s brand positioning to the customer (see integrated marketing communications for more on this). It is here that the 5th P-People emerges.

When I refer to “People” I’m referring to customers and people who leverage social media to convey their opinions in mass. In my opinion, to use the term “People” to refer to individuals within the organization is redundant with the first 4 P’s. For example the engineers who design and create features to benefit our customers (Product) or marketers who create messages to communicate with our customers (Promotion). What is different about the 5th “P” is to chose to engage with your customers in unplanned two-way communication, and by doing so create value for customers. However, because of the unstructured nature of these communications I believe it falls outside the traditional roll of controlled “Promotion” and hence deserves a “P” of its own. Further, I sincerely believe this will become a bigger issue for Human Resources departments in the future as companies come to terms with how to deal with unplanned messages from employees through social media about a company’s brand.

What do you think, do ”People” deserve their own category so companies can be more aware of how they an engage in two-way communication to create value for consumers?

Thought I would pass this along in case anyone is eligible for this award…..

There is an application form for a $3000 student bursary from the 2010 Alberta Export Awards in T501C.  Criteria are strong academic candidate involved in international business activities (primarily export).  Applicant must submit application, two page essay, letter of reference, detailed Resume, and official transcript by September 3.  Stop by T501 to pick up a copy if you can think of a student you want to forward it to.  Available as well at http://www.albertaexportawards.com/

Good Luck!

Have you had much experience on Twitter? Last year I was one of the many people who signed up for it and after a few weeks found myself returning very infrequently. This year I have changed the way I use Twitter, no longer is it a Facebook status box, now I use it to share insightful articles and quick thoughts with like-minded people.

By taking this new approach I have been enjoying the wisdom shared from people around the world. One of the interesting links shared on Twitter lead me to a Microsoft persons blog. In it he was passing along advice for making decisions. I was thinking of our Graduates and thought this might be some sound advice. Sadly, I could not find his original blog post so I can’t give the fellow proper credit. However, I will try to recall the advice he shared.

When considering making important decisions consider the 5 F’s: Finances, Family, Fun, Friends, Future.

Finances is one of the most obvious, but make sure you are looking at not only the financial compensation but other factors like benefits, holidays, and pension.

Family: This has always been a big factor in my life, I am quite fortunate to have a great family that I love being around. When we make a decision we should factor in how that decision will effect our families.

Fun: This is the lifestyle part of an opportunity. Will you love what you do? What will you be doing when you’re not working? What do you love to do?

Friends: With Facebook we can stay in touch with friends more so than in previous generations, but it’s still nice to meet up with them, maybe go for a jog, have a coffee/wine.

Future: If you take this opportunity will it be a stepping stone in the direction of your 2-3 year goals? Maybe your 5 year goals? Where do you want to be in 5 years?

Well I hope I did justice to the 5 F’s perhaps it will help make some of your decisions easier.

Congratulations to all our Graduates and to all our students for working hard and sticking with it!

What is one of the best skills to work on, perhaps over the summer? Reading.

And I don’t just mean great books like, Outliers or fascinating marketing books like the ones from Seth Godin, I’m suggesting reading about anything that interests you.

So I recently had a question posed to me, “what makes a company name a strong company name?  In other words, what makes a good company name good?”

Here is my reply.

The greatest predictor of the future is the past. Hence, a good company name to me is one which I have had a number of positive experiences with because it is very likely my next experience will be a positive one as well. That said a positive or negative experience is often directly linked to our expectations. Ever gone to a great movie after hearing how great it is only to leave after it feeling disappointed? Ever gone to a movie that you heard was not great and been quite happy with it? Ever drink Buckley’s? I love the Buckley’s example here, Buckley’s promises two things, this is going to taste awful and it’s going to work. Well I can testify that as soon as that Buckley’s hit my tongue I was halfway satisfied already, yup it tastes awful. And I have bought it again because it met (and perhaps exceeded) my expectations. Did it work, you ask? Well I don’t really recall, I think my throat did get less dry and I did eventually get better.  

This is true  with a brand as well.  For example why is the IPod such a strong name (and if you don’t think it is have a look at the IPod Socks$40 for the top of 6 socks and 1096 people have reviewed them and gave them 4.5/5 stars!). Well I believe the IPod brand is a product of both great marketing and great timing. The mp3 player was past the point of just the innovators (2.5% of the population) and the early adopters (13.5%% of the population) purchasing them, and was at the point where the early and late majority (34% of the population each or 68% in total) were looking for an mp3 player. These two groups are typically less well read on new products but in this case could definitely see the relative advantage of owning an mp3 payer. The IPod’s timing as a simple, reliable, well recognized solution used by the early adopters, fit perfect with what the early and late majority were looking for at a time they were looking for a solution. Guess what, the iPod met and exceeded expectations for many of them! Solid state no skip technology that allowed you to store hours of music, with a rechargeable battery and what’s this torrents thing!? So the IPod has a great following. Notice how many products are carrying the “I” name. Even Apple recognized this when they launched the new IPad, not the Macpad.   

Some say, “your Brand is your promise” or they describe it as, ”reputational currency” “once you lose it it’s very hard to get back”. This is the same idea said in a different way, once people have had a negative experience with the brand you it is difficult to replace that negative feeling with a positive one. We can also take this fundamental idea and apply it in a positive way to ourselves.  Ever review a résumé? Isn’t this what we are looking for in a great résumés? We are looking at a persons past to determine how they will perform in the future with our company. Things I will consider will be how long they stayed with the previous company, is there natural advancement within the company, and I’ll call references to check the accuracy. Which is why I push my social media students to blog or tweet. Want to know how I’ll perform on the job working for you for the next year or so? Here is a link to the insights I have gains and some experiences I have shared through my blog over the past year, and here is a link to my tweeter account where I share current industry news with other thought leaders in our industry so that we are all always current.

Did you look at a company’s Mission Statement before applying for the job or calling on them as a customer? I think a mission statement can be quite revealing.

Take Google for example, Googles mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Does Google do this for you? Could this help Google staff better define what else they should be working on besides Googles search engine?

Googles search engine, yup makes the world’s information accessible and useful. www.google.com 

Google maps, again, very useful to me. http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/help/maps/streetview/ 

1.800.GooG.411  Free 411 service, makes the world’s information accessible and useful http://www.google.com/goog411/

Have you seen Google Flu Trends? Google tracks all the people Googling their symptoms and it turns out they are about two weeks ahead of the Center for Disease Control in the US. Useful if I’m travelling for sure, if I was working selling Tylenol Flu know I’d be making a call to Google.  http://www.google.org/flutrends/

Do these endevours hold true to the company’s mission statement? Do you think the company’s mission statement defines Google? What’s your company’s mission?

Do you ask questions? I seem to be a naturally curious person, so I ask alot of questions. Sometimes I ask questions to clarify my understanding, other times I ask more leading questions as stepping stones in an attempt to direct the conversation. Next week classes resume here at the school of business and I wholeheartedly encourage students to ask questions. In fact, read ahead in the textbook and then ask questions about topics you did not understand from just reading the book.

So welcome back, and I hope you brought your questions. They might lead you to a profession you are interested in and a career which you are curious about. Lifelong learning about a topic you are somewhat naturally curious about seems like a great way to become one of the best in your field.

Have you recently considered Blogging? How about Twitter? Why or Why not?

It seems to me that both of these electronic communication tools have very quickly evolved from simply tweeting about what you’re having for lunch to demonstrating that you are current in a field of interest.

This brings us to the current trend towards online thought leadership; specifically, clearly demonstrating an individuals expertise in a subject area by writing about it. Ideally becoming a thought leader in a subject area will lead to an increase in referrals, an increase in credibility, and ultimately should lead to yourself and/or your organization being more highly compensated, as the best in any field usually are.

I agree with this fundamentally but would add that a thought leader has to also be a doer. Let’s say you needed heart surgery which would you prefer the surgeon who has performed the surgery numerous times over the past 10 years or a surgeon widely regarded for his/her thoughts on the subject and has been published in medical journals discussing the surgery and new techniques in the field but has never actually done the surgery?

To me the best answer is obviously both.

Let me add to that one more question, if you were studying to be a surgeon which of those two individuals would you want to learn from?

I have been recently following a thread about ROI from using social media marketing (Twitter, Facebook, Blogging, etc). I thought I would share my post here as a thought du jour.

The first question you need to ask yourself before what is the ROI is “What is the objective” the second question is “What is the reach and frequency of my social media marketing campaign going to be” (Is your target audience using the medium you are?)

If you can not think of a specific objective but still feel the desire to use social media, perhaps what you are feeling is a desire for an increase in people’s awareness of your company or some “public relations”.

For me the ROI question at the moment, associated with Social Media Marketing, has to be viewed more inline with Public Relations rather than a specific Ad Campaign, Sales Promotion, direct mail or some other campaign designed with a traditional monetary return.

Increased sales, memberships, enrollment, sponsorship dollars or share price are all good objectives to have. However less tangible objectives are of value as well. For example Jay bought a logo for $200 – that’s an investment, the return on that investment might come from increased awareness of his company. Using his new logo consistently in all his marketing campaigns might make people associate his company logo with a certain “position” in the marketplace (“Healthy fast food”- Subway). If successful the logo might sell for more than $200 as Goodwill when he goes to sell his company. I would think that Goodwill came about as a result of numerous campaigns over a longer period of time and integrated with many forms of communication.

Hence at the end of the day Social Media Marketing is just an expression given for a number of new mediums or Electronic Platforms (Twitter, Blogging, Facebook, etc) all of which are communication tools. And when SMM is put in perspective in this way we can see how it can be used to create value for our customers within the traditional marketing mix (4 P’s) under promotion. And the same rules apply “Integrated Marketing Communications” being the main one that comes to mind.

Thanks for letting me share my morning coffee thought with you all. Catch me on Twitter raybilodeau (I know not very original for a marketing guy)

Best,