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Leaning away from the list

By Mark Di Somma

Further to the last post on Michelin.

Over at The Domino Project, Seth Godin and his team are clearly having the same misgivings about the publishing industry – that when you work to a prize (in this case a place on The New York Times list) that prize can have a huge influence on swathes of what you do, and the influence isn’t necessarily positive. Here’s two excerpts from their piece on why they will not be courting popularity with The New York Times Bestseller List:

If you publish books (or write them) aimed at a mass audience, the Times list is never very far from your focus. It’s not just an indicator (the proverbial canary, indicating what’s going on in the mine) but it’s also an amplifier, a spark that can lead to ever more sales, conversations and credibility …

… But there’s a cost. The cost is that you have to write differently, promote differently and do business differently. Simple questions about rollout, promotion, pricing, packaging, titles and distribution sooner or later come down to, “will it hurt us on the list?”

Staring at stars

By Mark Di Somma

The temptation to excel at what you do and, just as importantly, to be recognised for that is huge. It’s not always a good thing. Last night, finally got a chance to watch Michelin Stars – The Madness of Perfection, William Sitwell’s look at how a guide that started out as a simple way for motorists to find something to eat has evolved into a gastronomic obsession that makes and breaks restaurants and chefs.

(The Michelin star story itself is actually an amazing story about the evolution of a brand, but I digress …)

I saw immediate parallels with the advertising and design industries, where the drive for gongs can be equally strong and can also lead to an obsession with detail that any beyond the industry, and many within it, simply do not see, and certainly do not care about.

As one creative director used to say, never forget that most consumers are watching your “art” with their tea in their lap. In other words, they have no interest in the kerning of headlines or the particular way that a photo was retouched or the animation technique you used to curl the logo through the open window of a car speeding at 140 km/h over an ice face … They’ve just waiting for the next bit of the news.

The temptation though for creative marketing people, just like with chefs, is to shift the goalposts to align with what the industry is looking at rather than what the consumer sees; to become so interested in ‘getting it right’ (supposedly for the customer) that ironically the whole point of the project – to tell a story to a consumer in a way that makes them feel impelled to act – gets drowned in a surge of technical amazement.

Of course there’s a payback: the right to put a credential beside your name, and maybe a cup on your mantle, that so many others cannot claim. At least not this year.

Exclusivity is a siren – it distracts people, some of whom are already amazing at what they do, to hunt for that amazing song. In the case of Michelin, the Sitwell programme suggests, it even takes some out of the world of bringing people happiness (the whole point of cooking) and into a world of relentlessly seeking credentials. The plot is lost. So much so that, as Marco Pierre White pointed out, these culinary adventurers don’t even cook anymore. Instead they pursue empires built, in the case of Michelin endorsement, on one, two, three little macaroons on a page. Empires that surge and ebb on the basis of those little marks – as diners too feed on the Michelin mania.

I’ve certainly got nothing against prizes. I am a radical meritocrat. But it is one thing to win for your work, and quite another to work for what you will win.

My job as a marketer is to make people fall in love with inanimate objects. Nothing less. But, as the programme last night reminded me, nothing more either.

My thoughts on developments at MySpace

By Mark Di Somma

Another reminder this week that the social media space – just like every other market – is not one consistent goldfield. While the likes of LinkedIn and Facebook continue to build powerful brands and potentially public business models, MySpace has lost a lot of ground, and much of what I see here takes me back 10 years to the boom and bust of the dot.com times. Some parallels I noticed:

  1. Participation is not enough. If you don’t have a distinctive, clear and evolving money-model for your brand, it’s not enough to be in the same arena as those making money. You will be overshadowed and outperformed. Cash cows are grown, not born.
  2. The purchase price is no guarantee of anything. In the case of the $580 million that News Corp paid, it’s not even a barrier to entry for others. It just means you paid a high entry fee based on a perception of what lay ahead. There’s a recurrent warning in there too for valuing “new models”. In terms of fundamentals, there are no new rules.
  3. Another thought that harks back to dot.com. While the acceleration rates for online businesses can be amazing, their brake speed can be equally dynamic. The model is community powered – and the assessments of value and potential are often based on those numbers. But if the community leaves or is distracted elsewhere in sufficient numbers, momentum dies. This is perhaps as close as one gets, so far, to a ‘frictionless’ market. There is nothing to lose as far as visitors/customers are concerned. Leaving, just like arriving, is simple, quick, painless and, at a time when connections are instantly reset at the new congregating ground, non-consequential.
  4. Resources are costs not reassurance. If MySpace think they can run still business on half the staff they had, and get it ready for sale, why did they have so many staff in the first place? Did they need them now, or were they arching for the future. And what does that now hand potential buyers or partners – a streamlined opportunity, a going or a concern?

One to keep an eye on.

There’s a language for that

By Mark Di Somma

My lawyer friend Nicola used to say that a sure sign of a market coming of age was when the litigation started. I suspect she’s right. In which case, Microsoft’s petition to block Apple from trademarking the term “app store” is perhaps a sign that many can see a very bright future – perhaps the future – in this idea.

Having successfully quartered “there’s an app for that”, Apple clearly identified, way back in 2008, that when you have dibs over the language around a concept, you potentially get to own the mindshare around that idea as well. You essentially force others to express their offering in language that the market sees as stemming from you. (The fact that an “app” is an abbreviation of Apple – coincidental or not – is inspired.) That of course is what Apple are so keen to protect and Microsoft so determined to challenge.

Leading the conversation is hard. It’s risky. There are so many things that can of course go wrong. But there are benefits. You get discussed a lot, even if, in the case of Apple, you don’t have a significant social media presence of your own. And you get to decide and define the terms and ideas that frame how the world talks. Word of mouth – quite literally.

Plotting what counts

By Mark Di Somma

Interesting isn’t it how we see numbers. I was reflecting on this yesterday after someone made the point that whilst all of us would agree that words tell stories, we tend to forget that numbers tell stories too.

Instead, we class numbers as facts or patterns or targets or science. We use them to add logic, objectivity, reinforcement. We make them a goal in themselves. We ask our people to report to them.

But the numbers are not the business. They reflect what’s happening in, around and for the business. And they won’t fix themselves.

They are a storyline – of growth or decay, belief or disbelief in the on-going value of something, levels of demand, people coming together … And what I always try and do is to link them that way. This isn’t a 5 year sales comparison, it’s a movie script. What is this P&L telling me has happened so far – how, why, and where were the turning points?

I find that when you do that, you’re soon looking behind what’s in front of you to what is going unsaid. As marketers, it’s easy to overlook the fact that so much of life goes unannounced. People don’t always tell you much. But they do leave crowd markers – collective surges and ebbs that serve as the emotional evidence that something has happened for them. Some are more obvious than others.

Often the fastest and most effective route to the solution lies in finding the humanity in the problem.

Coffee’s cold …

By Mark Di Somma

I’m getting some mixed messages off Starbucks’ decision to par its logo back to an emblem. I’d like to think this is a sign of evolution. And at first glance that’s how it looks. Dolly up the icon, drop the name, drop the association with caffeine. Simple, clean, single minded, international.

On reflection though, I’m more than a little concerned that Starbucks have once again lost their way and are trying to bridge their way to another strategy. I just can’t for the life of me put my finger on where or why.

The market’s already been told that Starbucks is looking to diversify. This from the company blog dated 5 January:

“… we see a world in which we are a vital part of over 16,000 neighborhoods around the world, in more than 50 countries, forming connections with millions of customers every day in our stores, in grocery aisles, at home and at work. Starbucks will continue to offer the highest-quality coffee, but we will offer other products as well – and while the integrity, quality and consistency of these products must remain true to who we are, our new brand identity will give us the freedom and flexibility to explore innovations and new channels of distribution that will keep us in step with our current customers and build strong connections with new customers.”

That sounds like expansion but smells like a straddle to me.

So they’re not abandoning coffee but they are looking to move beyond it and in so doing to attract new customers. Are these new customers people who don’t currently drink coffee? Or perhaps people who don’t want to drink Starbucks coffee? Or people who don’t drink enough Starbucks coffee and need something to go with it?

Ten points for faith in their brand equity, but as Nigel Hollis observes in a blog entry at HBR:

“If you intend to invest heavily in offerings outside the coffee category then removing the word “coffee” is logical. For that matter, if coffee is no longer to be the core of the brand, it’s logical to remove the word “Starbucks” given how synonymous it has become with coffee. But  … If the name “Starbucks” is so strongly associated with coffee that you have to remove the name in order to launch another product, does that not suggest that the corporate strategy is out of synch with customer understanding?”

Absolutely.

Here’s my questions. The next step after moves into music distribution and instant coffee is what exactly … and where does that lead that isn’t crowded already? If we are indeed seeing a prelude to ‘the beverage formerly known as Starbucks’, which market is Starbucks going to step into that makes sense post-coffee or alongside coffee, isn’t coffee, is Starbucks enough to be Starbucks friendly without being Starbucks already, is profitable enough for Starbucks to see opportunities in yet doesn’t have plenty of powerful incumbent brands that would give the new entrant grief, and somehow hungers for products sporting the streamlined Starbucks mermaid? Food? Doubt that’s not very competitive.  Alcohol? Wow. Can’t see it myself. Electronics? Hardly. Sport? Um …

And if Starbucks feels the need to move substantially away from all that they’re known for (despite the assurances, this does feel like quite a departure philosophically), what equity are they actually banking on to make headway in such markets anyway? Where’s the proof that anyone will or should believe that passionately in a non-coffee Starbucks brand? What’s in it for them?

And if they don’t – then what?

Am I missing something or with this seemingly nonchalant identity change, did someone just bet the company?

Distinctualising: getting purely personal

By Mark Di Somma

It’s one of the great myths of the New Zealand tourism story that we have great scenery. But only in the sense that it implies other countries do not. Or that’s all New Zealand has.

Of course we have eye-wateringly beautiful sites, as anyone whose been here or lived here can attest. But so do many other places in the world. Chocolate box is global. Just like sheep. And fruit.

Many years back when I worked on the strategy that would lead to the 100% Pure programme, I remember a great presentation where we showed people scenes from around the world and asked them to identify where they were. It was sobering for all concerned that many of the places that were “unmistakeably New Zealand” weren’t in fact here at all.

What was here that everyone raved about was the emotional reaction people had to what they saw; the warmth of New Zealanders themselves; and the amazing stories that sat behind what people witnessed.

I think Tourism New Zealand have done a great job with the 100% Pure campaign to date. It’s turned New Zealand into one of the most exciting places brands on the planet against some incredible, and massively funded, competition. But I’m also looking forward to the next, more personalised iteration.

What gives New Zealand its real edge as a tourism destination is not our creativity or our proximity to the dateline or even the fact that we play the world’s toughest rugby (much as those ideas enthral New Zealanders themselves). The real offer, the massive enticement in the external conversation, is NZ’s extraordinary mix of geology, anthropology and mythology. Not one element. All three. That combination of ideas really sings to visitors when it’s brought alive with Kiwi hospitality and honesty. We can make more of that, in my view. A lot more.

It’s something to remember as the crowds disembark here in September for the Rugby World Cup.

This year, if we don’t just want to be another games’ venue in the sports calendar of life, it is time to make the stories even more personal and distinctive – from New Zealand as tellers, for visitors as listeners. Because that is what people want to share. Getting Facebook-friendly is all about the transition from available to remarkable (in the literal sense of getting people to remark to others about things they haven’t seen or felt elsewhere).

That’s not just a tourism thing, of course. Increasingly it’s a mandate for all globally competitive brands. You can’t just participate. You have to distinctualise.