Case Study: MapSherpa
"We have been fortunate enough to have worked over the past nine months with Francis Moran and Associates to deliver virtual CMO services for our company, and so far it has been highly effective. With this relationship, we get access to a level of experience and expertise which would be unaffordable to us if we were to hire a full-time equivalent." Dave McIlhagga, Founder and CEO
Case Study: Singletouch
"When I hired Francis Moran to lead our marketing efforts in 2011, I had very high expectations. We needed to completely rebuild our marketing from the ground up. Francis and his team not only met those high expectations but exceeded them. He brought a very high level of strategic thinking, professionalism and creativity to our organization that will be felt for many years to come in our quest to build a successful IT company." Marty Hilsenteger, Founder and CEO
By inmedia
Wired has announced that it will be releasing a style manual exclusively for web journalism, addressing the etiquette and ownership issues that aren’t covered by traditional style guides like the Chicago Manual of Style. The line between journalism and blogging, something we have long considered a fiction, becomes even more blurred.
By Linda Forrest
Today on MediaBistro, I was directed to a piece on Portfolio‘s web site that talks about WashingtonPost.com‘s tinkering with its links on several microsites to enable instant pop-ups of additional data on mouse rollover that doesn’t necessitate leaving the site. This is nothing new to those of us familiar with WordPress blogs as the Snap feature currently used on this site and others does the same thing. Some grumblings in the media about the glut of interactive content on online news sites fly in the face of the theory I introduced yesterday in my post about online news and the process being the product. Is this indicative of a widespread dislike for too much dynamic content or a holdover of viewing the new media with old media sensibilities, the very point of the Buzz Machine article that spawned yesterday’s post?
By Linda Forrest
I read an interesting blog post today at Buzz Machine on the changing nature of the media. The post illustrates that news, unlike in the print-only days, has mutated online such that it’s a collaborative endeavour best summed up by the following Marshall McLuhan-esque line from the article, “In print, the process leads to a product. Online, the process is the product.”
The post has a number of charts and diagrams to help illustrate this point and it did get me thinking with the axiom that with online media, the process is the product. Indeed, since I began my career in media relations close to a decade ago, generating media coverage has changed considerably. It used to be that this was a clearly defined process and that once the article had been published, that was that. Now, with the organic nature of the web, a variety of other voices can be added to the piece in the form of comments, opinions, corrections, links, and any other range of inputs.
Well-known technology blogger Om Malik stated a month ago, “I have often said that the real value of blogs lies in the intelligence embedded in the comments.” and perhaps it is fair to extend this to online news as well – the news isn’t in the news itself in the traditional sense, but in the conversations that it starts and the resultant collaborative coverage as a whole. If indeed this is true, the challenge then becomes managing one’s brand and messaging as other inputs raise their voices and add to the conversation.
By Francis Moran
I had one of those conversations last week that frustrate the hell out of me and leave me wondering when, if ever, some technology executives are going to come to their senses.
I was at a session of the Ottawa Wireless Cluster on Thursday evening and I took advantage of the networking to renew an acquaintance with a seasoned CEO, someone who has helmed at least a couple of companies, bringing one of them public.
As usual, I asked him how things were going with his latest venture, now about four years old. He said things were alright, but that it had taken about twice as long as he expected to reach the level of business he currently has. Naturally, I asked him what he was doing to acquire that business. Such as, oh, I don’t know … marketing?
With no apparent awareness of the bitter and tragic irony at play, he proceeded to tell me his new company didn’t need — indeed, didn’t want! — marketing because it is the little upstart in the sector and he doesn’t want to tip off his competitors to what he’s doing. He said he gets customers through word of mouth, or by identifying prospects and going after them.
Now, I have nothing against a sales-driven customer-acquisition strategy and there’s no more powerful a channel than fabled word of mouth, but if it’s taking you twice as long as you expected to acquire those customers, maybe the direct route could use a little help. Such as, oh, I don’t know … marketing?
Naw, he said, don’t need it. In fact, don’t want it because, until very recently, his company was in “stealth.” God, I hate that word. Check out what I wrote about it in Mass High Tech Journal a while back. I have never been able to fathom why companies elect to be in so-called “stealth mode.” I have yet to come across one that was truly stealthy; that is, hiding itself from every prying eye. Most are talking to just about everyone — potential investors, candidate employees, suppliers, landlords, bankers, you name it — everyone except potential customers. In other words, they are simply failing to invest in marketing, and excusing it to themselves by pretending they’re doing something exotic and daring.
Fortunately, I also had the chance last week to at the same OWC event to conclude that conversation and go listen to a tech company CEO who really gets it. The featured speaker at the event was Nick Quain, founder of Cellwand, a gorgeous little company that has rolled out one of the wireless sector’s first premium directory assistance products, #TAXI, with others in the wings. I could write a lot about the product and the company’s strategy but for the purposes of making a stark contrast, suffice it to say that Cellwand executed effectively on the technology requirements and has racked up phenomenal success securing partnerships with wireless carriers to the point that the company now has blanket coverage in Canada, where it started, and is available on 150-million phones and counting in the U.S. It’s a textbook case study in building the right product and the right channel to market, and Nick did a great job of sharing the lessons he has learned along the way.
But, get this: He insisted that, phenomenal product, great carrier partners and blanket coverage notwithstanding, Cellwand is dead in the water without one more key ingredient. Such as, oh, I don’t know … marketing?
The CEO I spoke with before Nick’s presentation began was still there when it was over. I sure hope he was paying attention.
By Francis Moran
I wrote earlier this week about Sprint’s new all-you-can-eat rate plan, and the excellent black-and-white television commercial I saw announcing it. I wrote that I was particularly impressed that Sprint CEO Dan Hesse’s personal email address flashed on screen at the end of the commercial, a clear invitation, it would seem, to engage with Hesse.
Alas, it was not to be.
I took Hesse up on his implied invitation and dropped him a line. My colleague Danny Sullivan was closer to the truth when he said the email address might as well have been info@sprint.com, not dan@sprint.com, because sure enough, I did get a reply but it was bland pablum from some peon named Cindy.
An all-you-can-eat rate plan from a North American wireless carrier might indeed qualify as a “revolution,” as Hesse claims in his ad. But while I applaud Sprint’s move, it’s a sad commentary that what has been standard fare in most of the rest of the world when it comes to mobile phone rates passes as revolutionary here.
As a signal that Sprint was going to engage with its customers in a new, revolutionary way, though, it was strictly business as usual. Not revolutionary. Not awesome. Not even close.
April 11, 2008 by Danny Sullivan
By Danny Sullivan You may have heard the news this week that the European Commission has cleared the way for in-flight use of mobile phones. I’m sure that within a year or two, this will be standard on airlines the world over. As a busy professional, my reaction was initially positive. When you work in […]
Read more... -April 10, 2008 by Linda Forrest
By Linda Forrest I can’t help but share what I think is a brilliant PR campaign by Dr. Pepper. The company has agreed to give every person in America, except for Slash and Buckethead, two guitarists who have famously quit working with Axl Rose in various incarnations of the band Guns ‘n Roses, a free […]
Read more... -April 10, 2008 by Francis Moran
By Francis Moran With one foot of this agency firmly planted in Scotland but with a long and fond personal attachment to Cape Breton, the heavily Scottish-tinged northern part of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, I am loath to choose sides in a trademark dispute that earlier this week saw the Federal Court of […]
Read more... -April 09, 2008 by Linda Forrest
By Linda Forrest This is one of those posts that as I’m writing it, I am second guessing my usage of both punctuation and grammar since in this post, I’m hoping to highlight the fact that everyone needs an editor. I need not worry too much since this, like all materials we write here at […]
Read more... -April 08, 2008 by Francis Moran
By Francis Moran Regular readers of this blog will know that we have many a beef with the wireless carriers that operate here in Canada, and we don’t believe the options available south of the border are all that much better. (See here and here.) So I was delighted to see a television commercial Sunday […]
Read more... -April 03, 2008 by inmedia
By inmedia I wrote a quick post yesterday about the horrible things that can go wrong at a trade show. Gremlins, clearly, are equal opportunity mischief makers since everything can fall apart at even the most professional and highest profile of events. Check out this story from the BBC that my colleague, Danny, drew to […]
Read more... -April 03, 2008 by Linda Forrest
By Linda Forrest Today, I’m doing a lot of work that’s invisible to the client’s naked eye. Having previously posted on database maintenance, a “behind the scenes” task that is incredibly important to the integrity of the PR campaign, I thought I would post a few other tasks that your agency is regularly undertaking on […]
Read more... -April 02, 2008 by inmedia
By inmedia As PR practitioners, we here at inmedia have spent enough time in trade show purgatory to expunge a lifetime of sins. Still the circuit remains a critical element of the marketing mix for many technology companies and we expect we’ll hang many a lanyard around our necks before our time is done. What […]
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