Remarkable

I read a great Seth Godin piece once that spoke about the need for products and services to stand out, to literally be remarkable.  That is, provoke people to say something about it.

As we look at all the marketing knobs from our top level goals down the creative and copy used in campaigns, it sure helps when what you are talking about is remarkable.

From a startup perspective, this is so critical.  Sure, you can always slap some lipstick on the pig.  What is much harder yet has much more impact is to look seriously at your product or service, the business needs, the user needs, and technology or real-world opportunities and limitations and truly improve it.

And, differentiate it in a meaningful way.

When your product is truly remarkable, it will speak for itself.

Don't Call Us, We'll Call You

We brought the kids yesterday to Bass Pro Shops, where to my metrosexual amazement, my son was in redneck heaven.  It was like watching a pig in mud.  Don't know where he gets the passion for fishing and hunting from, but I should likely administer a DNA test, because its not from me.

Watch out for sharks and gators...

Let it be known, the lessons we learn in the new digital and social marketing world that we live in are always applicable in the physical world, and vice-versa.  For example, as we were walking from guns back to bows to the waterfall, where parents were gathering with their kids for Aunt Mikki's Kid Fishing in the pond around back, we were not-so-subtly accosted by a gentleman.   I thought he was just providing directions to where we should congregate.  No, actually, he was selling discounted rooms at some family lodge Bass Pro Shops owns in Branson.

The lodge looked nice enough.  He wanted everyone to pay attention, even my son, who just wanted to put a worm on the hook of his fishing pole and fish.  Still, I let him go through his pitch, out of courtesy and curiosity.  I said, "thank you", but we don't have the money right now to buy a vacation, and that I would be happy to take some information to talk with my brother and his family when we planned our next vacation.

I'm not sure I could have said something that should have turned off a sales person more that, "I don't have money to spend."  But, that wasn't enough.  He would not let us go.  I then politely mentioned that my son was itching to go to Aunt Mikki's Kid Fishing activity, and I was not going to plan a vacation right now.  Only after a little more cajoling did he let us go, expecting us to come back after the fishing.

Intent is just as important in the physical world as it is online.  He could have spent that time with someone who gave a poop.  I mentioned specifically, I plan these sorts of family vacations with my brother and his family, so in a way, I was not the sole decision maker, and certainly, though an advocate, my son was not.  This is something you can find out in the physical world that you most times cannot in the electronic world.  Lastly, I had somewhere else urgent to go, so he did not respect me as a customer, which is as critical in the electronic world as in the physical.  Pushy sites are just as bad a pushy sales people.

As I think back, the only question he asked all of us is what we like to do.  He should have asked if I was planning any family vacations in the future and he would have been able to cut the sales call down to 5 seconds and everyone would have been happier.

An Amazing Concept

When I grew up, we received 4 TV channels.  I remember my brother and I, in the winter, watching TV together, lying down in front the TV with our feet on the baseboard heater, probably much too close to the TV, which has undoubtedly caused permanent damage in later years.

free comic book...you know you want it...

As Seth Godin has said about the TV Industrial Complex, communication and marketing to consumers has changed.  When I grew up, when there was a commercial on TV for Captain Crunch, it was obvious that we needed to go to the store immediately and buy some Captain Crunch.  The TV said so.

In the current age of information overload, spam mail, spam email, and getting Groupon'ed to death with emails and mobile notifications, people don't have the time and patience for outbound marketing anymore.  We fast forward through most TV commercials.  We read out news in 141 character bites. It's a huge challenge for many brands, but I would contend that this puts the largest stress on the most important element for brands to keep their customers engaged: a great product or service.

I know.  I'm amazing.  Hold the applause, please.  Hey, having other reasons for customers to come back for great content is awesome, but if you don't deliver on the goods they care about the most, ain't no one gonna care anyway.

Free Beer

I live in Texas, and I’ve dreamed of improving my guitar skills, starting a band, and leaving the marketing and technology world behind.  I would name my band Free Beer.  We’d play Texas Rock, some Blues, and throw in an occasional Radiohead song to keep the audience on their toes.  You’d drive down the local Farm-to-Market road by Joe’s Roadhouse, and the sign would read, “Free Beer Tonight.”  Sure, we might need to find a new town to play in, every night, to make the marketing ploy effective, but, hey, Texas is a big place!

Jamming or constipated?

Yesterday, our excellent Marketing Director sent me a link to a new mobile app produced for Moosejaw outfitters, called Moosejaw Xray (Android, iPhone).  Download it.  It corresponds to their winter catalog, and it uses augmented reality to give shoppers a more risqué view of the models in their catalog, without all those puffy, winter outer garments. 

As the male of the species, I found the marketing ploy intriguing.  I must study this catalog, intently.  As a marketer, however, I wondered if their budget would have been better spent elsewhere.  Hey, I admit, I downloaded it and looked at their catalog.  I even tweeted about it, and now I am writing a blog entry, referencing their campaign.  It’s got sexy women in lingerie, for Pete’s sake, what am I supposed to do, ignore it?

The reality is, however, they don’t sell the under garments, from what I can tell, so the campaign is really about generating buzz and brand awareness.   I don’t know Moosejaw, but I’d guess that the campaign is in line with their brand, as well.  It’s probably not a bad idea, in the end, but I just wonder if they will need to find a new town to play in the next time.

3 Fatal Misuses of Market Research

I'm not blogging to knock audience measurement or market research.  It put bread on my table for 3 years, while I worked at The Nielsen Company.  My advice, if the numbers don't help your story, turn the graph 90 degrees and check again.  You won't be the first marketing person to do so.

Do blogger moms think I'm sexy?

Having seen the sausage being made, I can say there is more science to it then some would care to recognize, but, still, I see people quote stats all the time and make three fatal errors of market data usage:

1. Asking and understanding the methodology: What were the questions asked, or sometimes, more importantly, what was asked?  Who did they ask?  How many people did they ask?  Was the sample representative?  One classic case you see in reporting on mobile phone sales is comparing sell-through numbers with sell-to numbers.  What's in consumers hands vs. on shelves.  Big difference.
2. Market research is only directional for the innovator: If research data could predict the future, a lot of Nielsen, Gartner, Forrester, IDC, etc. analysts that I know would be retired on a beach somewhere.  They're not.  Data can definitely give you both a status of where the world stands today, and trends, so they offer great directional insight.  When it comes to innovation, however, that's probably the limit.  I've had people ask me if I had research which would validate the innovations they had planned.  That's equivalent to expecting people to say they wanted the Facebook before it was available.
3. Cite your source: If you are going to use some data, cite the source and date of the data.  Otherwise, I can assume you made it up, or its 3 years old, which is okay if your nostalgic, but not so cool, if you are trying to make informed decisions.

Have a good weekend.  I don't have the data to prove that it's going to be good.  I just have a feeling.

Me, Myself and I

Nothing that Mike likes talking about more than Mike.

"Your customers are mobile, are you?"

If you are really a glutton for punishment, or maybe high and need a giggle, and you missed ad:tech New York City, you can check out my two sessions on Tablets In Marketing:

How We Really Use Them
Innovations Beyond the Screen

Touch Me

No, we're not talking Penn State football today.  Is it too soon to joke about that?

We are doing many campaigns at work that integrate SMS or scanning of Quick Response (QR) codes that allow shoppers to engage more with retail or brands, while shopping.  Sometimes, it's additional information or comparisons.  Other times, its to get a quick link to something else, like an app download.  I do like this idea from J.C. Penney which effectively is a voice-card for holiday gifts that is recorded and activated through QR and your smartphone.  As I've said in the past, however, QR, as a technology has challenges that probably limit is shelf-life.

My good friend Loïc Hamon is Vice President of Marketing at InsideSecure, one of the world's largest providers of contact-less technologies, like Near Field Communication (NFC).  He rightfully looks at NFC not as a payment mechanism but more fundamentally as a new user experience, enabling the smartphone, in effect, to be a new form of mouse, or interactive device.  The NFC user experience is easier than QR: just tap to get more information, to take some action, to swap pictures or apps, or to pay.  They've been doing it in Japan for years with FeliCa, allowing people to tap their phone to get into the subway or make small payments at convenience stores.

At the heart of it, the use of the camera by QR or Augmented Reality (AR), while interesting for those apps, is a use for the camera that was not its original intent, so the user experience will always suffer and be more burdensome.  Unlock your phone, open an app, align a camera to an image...am I taking a picture or scanning something?  

I say, "just tap and go."

Free Beer

I live in Texas, and I’ve dreamed of improving my guitar skills, starting a band, and leaving the marketing and technology world behind.  I would name my band Free Beer.  We’d play Texas Rock, some Blues, and throw in an occasional Radiohead song to keep the audience on their toes.  You’d drive down the local Farm-to-Market road by Joe’s Roadhouse, and the sign would read, “Free Beer Tonight.”  Sure, we might need to find a new town to play in, every night, to make the marketing ploy effective, but, hey, Texas is a big place!

Jamming or constipated?

Yesterday, our excellent Marketing Director sent me a link to a new mobile app produced for Moosejaw outfitters, called Moosejaw Xray (Android, iPhone).  Download it.  It corresponds to their winter catalog, and it uses augmented reality to give shoppers a more risqué view of the models in their catalog, without all those puffy, winter outer garments. 

As the male of the species, I found the marketing ploy intriguing.  I must study this catalog, intently.  As a marketer, however, I wondered if their budget would have been better spent elsewhere.  Hey, I admit, I downloaded it and looked at their catalog.  I even tweeted about it, and now I am writing a blog entry, referencing their campaign.  It’s got sexy women in lingerie, for Pete’s sake, what am I supposed to do, ignore it?

The reality is, however, they don’t sell the under garments, from what I can tell, so the campaign is really about generating buzz and brand awareness.   I don’t know Moosejaw, but I’d guess that the campaign is in line with their brand, as well.  It’s probably not a bad idea, in the end, but I just wonder if they will need to find a new town to play in the next time.

Come see me and other industry leaders from Sam's Club, BBC America, The Daily, Ogilvy & Mather, Nutro, The Weather Channel, and Starcom Mediavest talk about tablets in marketing at ad:tech New York City this Thursday at 3:00PM Eastern and 4:30PM Eastern.  If you can't make it, tell a friend and live vicariously through them!

Tablets in Marketing at ad:tech

Come see me and other industry leaders from Sam's Club, BBC America, The Daily, Ogilvy & Mather, Nutro, The Weather Channel, and Starcom Mediavest talk about tablets in marketing at ad:tech New York City next Thursday at 3:00PM Eastern and 4:30PM Eastern.  If you can't make it, I'll miss you, but tell a friend who can!

$5

I was walking into Whole Foods Market the other Sunday, and I saw a $5 in the parking lot.  I picked it up and looked around to see if it would recognize its previous owner, and, alas, it did not.  Nothing like finding a $5 bill to add some unexpected joy to the day.

Marketers can find that mobile can offer that same level of surprise, when treated with respect and a understanding of their customer.  No need to search farther than their pocket or pocketbook for the delight.  Not many retailers or brands have gotten to this point, yet, but it will come.  The more that they know the consumer holistically, across online, mobile and physical retail, the better.

To get to this point, however, the retailer or brand has to earn the trust of the customer to begin with.  This is nothing new.  The mobile or tablet or online channel are just that, channels, and equivalent to another physical store.   They offer specific capabilities and opportunities, but like any other channel, if the customer has a great experience, and it adds to the total customer equity.  If they have a bad experience, and it could affect the equity across all channels.

But, treat your peeps right, and what joy they will have when they find their own 5-dollar bill in their pocket.


Come see me and other industry leaders from Sam's Club, BBC America, The Daily, Ogilvy & Mather, Nutro, The Weather Channel, and Starcom Mediavest talk about tablets in marketing at ad:tech New York City next Thursday at 3:00PM Eastern and 4:30PM Eastern.  If you can't make it, I'll miss you, but tell a friend who can!

Mobile, Tell Me Something, Quick!

During the day, I run the mobile practice at a digital agency.  Mobile includes tablet, although I don't consider tablets to be "mobiles", as much as I don't consider tablets to be PCs or TVs, though I can browse the web on them or watch videos.

Where the two can offer similar apps and services, it pays to optimize a mobile experience for quick hitting information and click-to-actions.  As the dialogue from the robbery scene goes, "In and out, no one gets hurt."  I might play games, check information and even browse content on my mobile at work and at home, but its highest value is on-the-go or at my particular destination.  Optimized user experiences allow me to find the nearest deal or location, look up comparison pricing, check ratings and reviews.  The quicker I can get the phone started, initiate the query and get to relavent information, the better.  In the moment.

Tablets offer a more relaxed browsing experience.  Flipping through the web, media, or catalogues while lounging at home (sipping a vodka gimlet, of course).  Time is not necessarily of the essence, and neither is screen real estate.  Richer, more engaging content can soak more time from the viewer, shopper, or fan.  While it could be done, I don't see many people up and down the aisles at big box retailers aiding the shopping experience with tablets, or people in the streets holding their iPads above their head filming protests.  Tablets offer the opportunity for deeper engagement at times when people can spare their attention.

Come see me and other industry leaders from Sam's Club, BBC America, The Daily, Ogilvy & Mather, Nutro, The Weather Channel, and Starcom Mediavest talk about tablets in marketing at ad:tech New York City next Thursday at 3:00PM Eastern and 4:30PM Eastern.  If you can't make it, I'll miss you, but tell a friend who can!

GroupOff

So, I finally actually used GroupOn.  I've been signed up for a while, mind you, but there's only so much Botox and Circus School that one person can do in their lifetime.  Having said that, the daily GroupOn email flashed up on my iPhone's screen this week with a very intriguing offer: $20 iPhone screen repair.  Say what?!?  $20 iPhone screen repair.  Yup, I just wrote it, again!

Score!

First, it's a great deal.  I've had my original iPhone 3G in a drawer with a broken screen for about a half-year and did not know what to do with it.  Now, we can use it as our home phone and cut the cord, or give it to the kids (who would scoff at us, since it's 3-year old technology), or sell it.  Go ahead, make me an offer.

Second, it's the first deal that I have seen on GroupOn that:

1. was something that did not make me giggle.  I was serious about the circus school offer.
2. was something that was actually useful. 
3. was something actually targeted towards me: male, 40s, nerd.

I'm not necessarily sold on all the latest fad of electronic promotion companies that have arisen, but first and foremost to be useful, they need to be contextually relevant.  I'll admit I might be looking at some of the deals that are not relavent to me, but would be for my wife and buy them for her.  Still, I think companies like GroupOn are currently selling audience for small and medium local businesses, when I think the larger opportunity is to sell electronic loyalty programs.  

I might run across town once for a great deal, but what gets me coming back to businesses frequently?

3 Fatal Misuses of Market Research

I'm not blogging to knock audience measurement or market research.  It put bread on my table for 3 years, while I worked at The Nielsen Company.  My advice, if the numbers don't help your story, turn the graph 90 degrees and check again.  You won't be the first marketing person to do so.

Do blogger moms think I'm sexy?

Having seen the sausage being made, I can say there is more science to it then some would care to recognize, but, still, I see people quote stats all the time and make three fatal errors of market data usage:

1. Asking and understanding the methodology: What were the questions asked, or sometimes, more importantly, what was asked?  Who did they ask?  How many people did they ask?  Was the sample representative?  One classic case you see in reporting on mobile phone sales is comparing sell-through numbers with sell-to numbers.  What's in consumers hands vs. on shelves.  Big difference.
2. Market research is only directional for the innovator: If research data could predict the future, a lot of Nielsen, Gartner, Forrester, IDC, etc. analysts that I know would be retired on a beach somewhere.  They're not.  Data can definitely give you both a status of where the world stands today, and trends, so they offer great directional insight.  When it comes to innovation, however, that's probably the limit.  I've had people ask me if I had research which would validate the innovations they had planned.  That's equivalent to expecting people to say they wanted the Facebook before it was available.
3. Cite your source: If you are going to use some data, cite the source and date of the data.  Otherwise, I can assume you made it up, or its 3 years old, which is okay if your nostalgic, but not so cool, if you are trying to make informed decisions.

Have a good weekend.  I don't have the data to prove that it's going to be good.  I just have a feeling.

You, Sir, Experience

People always wax poetically about great user interface (UI), or look-and-feel.  User experience (UX) is a science, though, and I always appreciate the science behind everything.  Developing great UX is much more than just "look and feel", though, that sounds somewhat randy when I type it again and again.

It's no wonder I have no friends...

To the UX nerd, the depths of the science likely know no bound.  While Apple gets kudos for the simplicity of its design choices on the unibody MacBook Air or the iPhone 4, this excellent article today pokes at some of Apple's not so nice design choices and teaches us about skeuomorphic vs. metaphoric design choices.

In the case of application design, I believe that sometimes the most important decisions to affect the user experience are the features that are not included.  For example, Home Depot makes an extremely rich mobile application for the iPhone.  I'm not sure there is much you can not do on the app, but I wonder if there is much that you really won't do on a mobile app.  Removing that excess allows a focus on the features that have impact on their consumer's needs or their company's goals, all while freeing up valuable UI space for better creative treatments of what is most important.

In the world of mobile and mobile apps, beauty is indeed more than skin deep.

Innovation

On the longest and toughest days at work, it's things like Oink that can wake me up, get me pumped and remind me why I like my work and my job so much.  Innovation.  It's like a stiff drink after a long day.  It's like a unsolicited kiss on the cheek from your kids.  It's the $5 bill you find in the parking lot of the grocery store.  When it happens, it's a sure smile and new energy.

Thanks to @rfijoey for tipping me to this one yesterday.  I love the different perspective of this service.  Don't just get me to a location, help me navigate inside.  What is the place known for?  Still, like Yelp and Google, it's dependent on crowd sourcing opinions, and sometimes dog+world can give you good advice, but as has been shown through research, nothing replaces the opinion of a trusted friend or family member.  Bubs, for example, is my go-to for dining in New York City.  Should be yours, too, but she doesn't blog.

This idea of enhancing our typical web services to dig deeper, inside of the places, is not unique to Oink.  Applying electronic mapping inside of big box retailers, for example, could help consumers map their path to get in and out most efficiently.  The path data from their (opted-in) consumers could help the retailers organize their product placement.  It could help those same retailers make more contextually relevant recommendations for additional purchase, "you're going to need some jelly with that peanut butter and bread that you bought."

Specific innovations aside, it's always great to explore and see innovators in action.  Sometimes, its a hit, other times a miss.  Sometimes, it's one small step to something bigger.  And, remember, if you are not trying to disenfranchise your service, someone else is.

Gamey

The industry often talks about gamification in mobile apps.  Sometimes, it's done well, but often times, it's gamey.  I think its rare that someone wants to take their time out of other tasks to play a game, and if they do, they will likely play an actual game, with good game play and graphics.  I play Angry Birds and 9 Innings, ad nauseam.  I'm not sure big box retailer or their suppliers want the shopper's attention diverted, shooting imaginary fiends in the rafters, though.

However, consumer do respond to their score and how their actions affect a score.  The introduction of badges to services like Foursquare add a fun element to the check-in process.  Doesn't cost anything but engages the consumer more in the experience.  Just like the bounty that a company puts on sales, the care needs to be given on the targets, the prize, and the resultant bill.

There are even gamification movements in education to revamp the way we measure success.  Some theorize that current grading methods place caps on the levels students can achieve.  If Junior has already reached Level 12 of Chemistry Zombies, why should he be able to advance to Level 13.

It makes sense to me, as long as it doesn't mean my kids are playing Flight Control during study hall.

Making Calls with Smartphones

It's an amazing idea: the ability to make a phone call with a cellular phone!  Who would have thought!?!

Actually, jokes aside, this is not to bash on the spotty coverage of your mobile operator, but to stress the fact that mobile, as opposed to tablet or PC, at its core, is a communication device first.  When you think about it that way, it's very easy to understand which apps and usage is most popular: calls, SMS, Facebook, Twitter, or quick mobile web checks for items like store locations or phone number look ups.  It's also why email has done well on mobile since its first good implementation on Blackberry.  This also explains the typical shorter session durations in apps and mobile web versus tablets found in research.  In and out, nobody gets hurt.

This is not to say that commerce or entertainment and gaming or information management do not have a place on mobile.  Au contraire, I make quick purchases and product look-ups, play Angry Birds and 9 Innings Baseball, and my mobile calendar manages me like a general.  Which is actually kind of sad, when I read it back.  Still, mobile apps that communicate get daily engagement.  It could even be daily communication from a trusted brand.

So, actually having a call to action that's actually a call is an okay response in a mobile app or site.  Sometimes, it's quicker than going through a long web form or a series of screens.  As long as your carrier doesn't drop the call or your in a dead zone.  Can you hear me now?

Have Content, Need Connection

At work, we work with retailers on how to apply digital and mobile to their marketing and to their business.  It's a ton of fun, even if that sentence just made you yawn.

In the case of mobile retail, consumers are using their phones more and more while they shop.  To price compare.  To look up more information.  To compare products.  To get coupons.  Actually, retailers have such a large opportunity here, that is largely untapped.  Maybe in a future post here or at The Rockfish Blog, I'll talk about how the current conceptual model being applied to m-commerce is incomplete, since it is based on a shopping basket and not the person pushing the basket.

Having said all of that, there's no good having lots of on-premise electronic content, if the signal in your building stinks and you don't offer free Wi-Fi that's been tuned to give great performance where you are trying to engage consumers via links, QR codes, SMS codes, and NFC taps.  Equally worse, if the content that does load is not optimized for mobile.

Never worth it to do something half-assed.

Friction

If you clicked the link to this post thinking that I was going to be talking motor oil or sexual aids, I'm going to disappoint.

As my colleague, Eric Swayne (@eswayne), likes to say: social media is not doing anything new, it reduces the friction for something that people already do.  It's a great barometer for the usefulness and value for many mobile or digital projects.  Does this reduce the friction?  Substantially?  Was there no friction to begin with?  That's probably a sign that you are not solving a real problem.

I think its a great barometer for a lot of what we do in digital and mobile marketing.  What friction are we reducing?  I was using an online ordering site for a restaurant the other night, and it took me 10 minutes to enter an order, for what takes less than 1 minute to do by phone.  The implementation on the site was pretty, but it was clearly inefficient.  It added friction, and I likely won't go back again.

The friction of finding, flipping through, and locating the number in the yellow pages became a barrier when it was easier to find the phone number of a local business on the computer.  Now, it's even easier to find it on my mobile.  Apple implements Siri on the iPhone 4S, and if it works, it will become even easier to find that same phone number.  Smaller digital friction coefficient.

Just like electricity, people will choose the path of least resistance.  What's your product's digital friction coefficient?