By Leo Valiquette
Do you remember that Knorr commercial about how it had reduced sodium in its packaged side dishes?
Global advertising agency DDB Worldwide took a clever approach to promote a relatively humdrum message by portraying the perspective of that one individual unhappy about sodium reduction. It came up with an ad that features a despondent little salt shaker neglected at the family dinner table who trudges out of the house into a cold dark world.
Such creativity, says Jeff Swystun, is the most powerful force in business, especially in today’s world where technology has fuelled social interaction between consumers and the brands they use like never before. In this new reality, advertisers and marketers can no longer afford to focus on connecting people to brands. They must instead focus on connecting people to people.
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This is the second article in a continuing series that examines the state of the ecosystem necessary to successfully bring technology to market. Based on dozens of interviews with entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, angel investors, business leaders, academics, tech-transfer experts and policy makers, this series looks at what is working and what can be improved in the go-to-market ecosystem in the United States, Canada and Britain. We invite your feedback.
By Francis Moran and Leo Valiquette
In a recent interview with the New York Times, Sean Parker, the entrepreneur behind Napster and Facebook and himself a venture capital investor, provided a rather gloomy assessment of the VC industry and the future of U.S. innovation in general.
“The risk-reward doesn’t work out in favor of putting money into venture capital anymore,” he said.
And yes, again, to confirm, Parker is himself a VC investor. He went on to say that the contraction of the U.S. VC market means that “innovation could gradually grind to a halt or at least become less effective,” a trend that could serve to erode the ambition and vision of entrepreneurs.
“Ten years ago, venture capitalists would ask the question: Do you want to build a company and flip it or do you want to build a company and IPO it? It’s a trick question. The correct answer was always, ‘I want to build an incredibly valuable stand-alone business and maybe we get bought, maybe we go public but we’re going to build an incredibly valuable company,’” Parker said. “Now it’s actually not clear that that’s the right answer. There’s a lot of venture firms that are clearly interested in building something and selling it either to Facebook, Google, Microsoft.”
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By Francis Moran
One day last week, I tweeted the message you see to the right because I was tickled by the email that came in. In my haste, however, I added a snappy hashtag and thereby made the same common mistake I often accuse marketers — even branding experts — of making.
The prospect who sent me that email remembered how I look. I will be the first to admit that a red — okay, rapidly greying — pony tail, full-but-tidy beard and what used to be a curly moustache do tend to set me apart from the average corporate consultant, even in the less-buttoned-down realm of marketing. Based on how I look, he was able to easily remember who I am.
He wasn’t, however, looking for a pony-tailed, bearded guy; he was, in fact, looking for a PR firm. And, because of whatever impression about my abilities as a PR guy that I had left with him during a past engagement, he immediately thought of me.
In that nutshell, then, you have the difference between branding and visual identity, something that, as I said at the opening, many marketers and not a few so-called branding experts often confuse.
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By Linda Forrest
A few weeks ago, as I trundled through a sparsely populated HMV, a retailer that’s rumoured to be on its way out of Canada (if not about to shuffle off this mortal coil altogether), I couldn’t help but wonder if its acronym still stood for His Master’s Voice or if its meaning had shifted and now accounts for the hats, mugs and videogames that have overtaken shelf space once devoted to recorded music.
Pair that with the intensive work we’ve been doing to launch our strategy practice and my mind turns to diversification as a marketing strategy. Wikipedia defines diversification in this usage, rather than its other recognized definition as a financial investment strategy, as “a form of corporate strategy for a company. It seeks to increase profitability through greater sales volume obtained from new products and new markets. Diversification can occur either at the business unit level or at the corporate level. At the business unit level, it is most likely to expand into a new segment of an industry which the business is already in. At the corporate level, it is generally…very interesting entering a promising business outside of the scope of the existing business unit.”
When does it make sense to branch out? How can your company go about determining if and when diversification is the right approach for you? Marketing experts like several of our Associates can provide you with strategic counsel on your particular scenario, but there are some tried and true considerations that must be truthfully answered to determine whether this is a successful evolution of your brand or a desperate move to increase revenues by trying to be all things to all people. Diversification is a risk, but it can be a calculated one.
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This is the first contribution to this blog by Associate Bob Bailly, a Calgary-based neuro-marketing practitioner.
By Bob Bailly
If you are interested in why people do what they do, why they buy what they buy, or why they behave like they do, then my contributions to this blog may be for you.
If you are interested in learning what science has to teach about the best ways to convince, communicate and motivate people, then you should also see benefit in future posts.
Or, if you’re intrigued with why the so-called smartest species on earth, whose rational thought is capable of glorious invention and sophisticated insight, is also prone to individual and group behaviour that is at times mind boggling, my posts will definitely interest you.
This is really all about you and how evolution has contrived you to be who you are, acting and feeling the way you do. It’s also about how to improve your business performance.
Ten years ago I thought knew a fair bit about marketing, I had studied brand management and, because I had spent 23 years in the advertising agency business, I believed I knew a lot about communication theory as I practiced my craft.
Ten years later, I’m not so sure.
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By Leo Valiquette
