All posts filed under: Leadership

The Feynman principle

By Mark Di Somma

A review of a review about scientist Richard Feynman in the Freakonomics blog caught my eye this morning because it also provides a simple but telling thought for every brand owner. The author of the blog post, Sanjoy Mahajan, comments “It’s not quite true that Feynman could not accept an idea until he had torn it apart. Rather, the idea could not yet be part of his way of thinking and looking at the world. Before an idea could contribute to that worldview, Feynman wanted to turn over the idea, to see why it was true, from any angle that he could find.” We don’t have to look far to see what Feynman was fighting against. Once something has been widely accepted as fact, the temptation is to absorb it unquestioned and to work with it on that assumption. What Feynman did though was to say “you may very well think that, but before I can think that, before I can actually absorb any thought into my worldview, I need to prove it to myself”. …

Going, going, Groupon …

By Mark Di Somma

You know what you think you’re worth. But what are you really worth? Some great points about company du jour Groupon in this article originally posted on Forbes. Most interesting perhaps because the article helps explain why and how value can so rapidly commoditise. Here’s what I got out of it: Success quickly generates a wolf pack – 425 competitors and counting have simply copied Groupon’s model. They did so because they could. There doesn’t seem to be any specific IP here that prevents duplication. After the rain comes the flood. Lots and lots of competing sites in turn could well create “deal fatigue” – once customers have too much of a good thing, they quickly start to feel glutted, effectiveness drops and with it market share. Why get married? Big businesses can probably replicate this process themselves rather than go via Groupon – or as close as makes no difference to the consumer. Time for the big fish. Bigger opportunities attract bigger players. As you succeed, your competition also scales. In this case, Facebook …

Which north?

By Mark Di Somma

Yesterday St John asked whether north meant true north or magnetic north. Good question. As I said, most people have a sense of what the company they work for should be like. It’s natural for people to look for tangible ways to improve things. As we all know, it doesn’t take long for employees to offer a multi-point to-do list. Listen very carefully to what you are being told. But, at the same time, be careful how you treat this information. Chances are what you are hearing is, at some level, a variation on today. It is magnetic north – the reality they are naturally drawn to. Taken literally, it’s probably an improvement on the reality people are part of – rather than an indication of where you truly need to be heading in order to be competitive. As Henry Ford so rightly pointed out, if he had asked people what form of transport they wanted before he delivered them the automobile, they’d have asked for a faster horse. Don’t get me wrong, many of …

Travelling north

By Mark Di Somma

Keith Yamashita has a phrase I love. He talks about companies and brands finding their northern star. The term isn’t astronomical, it’s aspirational. He’s referring to an ideal of your company or brand that burns bright in front of you and your staff, that leads you on, that fires you up and that you never let out of your sight … It’s the brand and the culture you dream of being. It’s what your people long to be part of. And it’s who your customers always hoped you would be and that your competitors can’t be. It’s what a company’s vision should be all about. At Audacity, we call it your ambition. Without it, you drift. So many people can see that north star in some form. When I ask people in workshops about the company or the brand they dream of working for, they can tell me, sometimes in amazing detail, what it looks like, how it feels to be part of that , what it’s renowned for. They can see it. At times, …

Beautiful adventures

By Mark Di Somma

It seems even iconic hotelling isn’t safe from convergence. Flagship Parisian hotels are now finding themselves challenged by major Asian hotel groups keen to make their mark on the Continent. For the European establishment, it seems, the Far East just got a whole lot closer to home. The effect, according to Time, will be a 40% increase in the number of luxury rooms in the city, and a classic competitive tug-of-war between iconic Gallic chic and a lighter, more cosmopolitan stay that still emphasises luxury. Two particular ideas in this story really caught my eye – one as an idea, the other as a strategy. The first – the idea – was Philippe Leboeuf’s description of the new Mandarin as a “beautiful adventure”. What a fabulous term. Now that’s an idea I can see being applied far beyond the refined world of the Parisian avenues. A beautiful adventure, at least in my head, is both elegant and exciting, it has grace and adrenalin, aesthetic and wildness … It is an idea with the potential to …

Finding the long tail of distribution

By Mark Di Somma

This story about how United Villages is using motorcycles, mobile phones and face to face selling to bring big brands to the smallest villages in Jaipur in Rajasthan, India is a stark reminder that tapping tomorrow’s multi-billion dollar markets isn’t about the latest fave apps at the tech conferences. On the contrary, it’s about simple things like allowing retailers to keep trading by delivering the goods to them. It’s about local reps that the retailers get to know. It’s about something as straightforward as a product guarantee. This is the real long tail of distribution – a genuinely untapped maze of villages stretching across India, China, South Asia, Indonesia, the Pacific, in fact a good chunk of the earth. As the buzz from SXSW swirls online, it’s easy to forget isn’t it that massive numbers of the world’s future brand consumers are only now moving out of the analogue age.

A brand within a timeframe

By Mark Di Somma

It is perhaps the ultimate exit strategy – a company with a closing date. This article in the NY Times talks about NPOs such as Malaria No More and Out2Play that have decided their work is done. They’re closing because they have accomplished what they set out to do. Now imagine doing that with a brand. Setting a date by which you would have achieved set business and social goals along with an agreed return on capital – and ending it there. Too radical? My friend Sam Kebbell set up his architectural practice using that exact premise – a company that would last 50 years. And brand strategist Dan Herman has already successfully proposed just such an idea with his concept of “short-term brands”: brands that focus excitement and buyer loyalty because they are built not to last. Funny isn’t it how we all acknowledge the pace of change, and how much consumers crave the new, and yet we expect brands to just keep running. Perhaps that’s why they go stale. They need continuing infusions …

Loyalty and lust

By Mark Di Somma

Over tea with Alex in the sun a couple of afternoons ago, we got talking about what you can count on in a market, and what you can observe but not necessarily depend on. I’ll leave it to Alex to share the specifics of what she talked about in her own inimitable way, but our conversation did get me thinking about the different kinds of customers that brands have today because in the face for scale, it’s easy to confuse the different levels of interest and loyalty. Let’s start with what happens when you get waves of visitors. It’s tempting to have your head turned by the massive numbers that can swarm a post, a thought, an idea, a product. Suddenly your metrics are through the roof and your mentions are running like ticker-tape. You are the talk of the world, and the temptation of course is to think you’ve made it. You have their front of mind. But that space is mercurial, and attention – one the Holy Grail of marketers – is now …

Making the second sale

By Mark Di Somma

People say the first sale is the hardest to make. You have to find the right person in the right company, you have to catch them at the right time in the right mood, make your pitch, you have to convince them to go with you. That’s got to be the hardest thing in the world doesn’t it? I’m not so sure. Because, at least with the first sale, there’s the curiosity factor. There’s the opportunity to try you out, maybe on something small, maybe on something others are struggling with or that issue they have not got round to. First sale takes determination and courage and the willingness to push through against many, many obstacles. But I think the second sale is more difficult. OK, it’s easier in that they’ve seen what you did. You have some small degree of familiarity on your side. The risk of course is also that they’ve seen what you did. They feel they know you. They’re forming their own impressions about your abilities. The real disadvantage though is …

What are you worth?

By Mark Di Somma

Some fascinating insights in this piece on how consumers are valued collectively and individually by organisations. I was amused to see how, in B2B trades, consumers were valued at much, much more than they were when organisations contacted consumers directly. Some time back I had an issue with what each Facebook customer was worth (still do). But in comparison to some of the deals mentioned, they’re being very modest. Compare for example the $1147 that AT&T is proposing to spend on each T-Mobile customer or the $4,700 that Cablevision Systems Corp. will pay for each Bresnan Communications customer with the much smaller amounts that cable, utility and credit card companies pay individuals to switch. One example quoted has Energy Plus offering JetBlue frequent flyers 3,000 points, worth around $45, for choosing it as their electric supplier. It tells me that what the market values customers at as a group and how the companies themselves value customers as individuals appear to be at significant odds. It’s almost as if as soon as they can put a …