All posts filed under: Leadership

What’s in the box?

By Mark Di Somma

Marc Levinson’s book The Box explains why a “soulless aluminium or steel box held together with welds and rivets, with a wooden floor and two enormous doors at one end” was able to revolutionise trade. As Levinson points out the container is about much more than what it does, it’s about what it now represents to all of us living and buying in the global economy: an extraordinary system for moving goods between places at minimal cost and with as little complication as possible. Along the way, the humble container literally changed the world around it: new ports became valuable; just-in-time became possible; international trade accelerated; loading and delivery times shrank; trade became standardised; supply chains extended. But the economic benefits that arose from the container didn’t come from the box itself, clever as it was. The real innovation came from entrepreneurs who, over time, discovered how they could apply the potential of the container to their commercial advantage. It was those people who saw that this box with “all the romance of a tin …

Reading between the lines

By Mark Di Somma

One of my favourite reminders to every brand is – be very clear about what it is you are selling. So often, companies have a view of what they’re offering that differs from what their customers are actually buying. News that The New York Times has confirmed its pricing strategy has me wondering if they have fallen into the same quandary. The temptation when you produce a newspaper must be to believe that customers are buying news. The Times certainly seems to think so. According to the article, the new pricing strategy means readers get up to 20 articles per month free, and after that they will be prompted to purchase a subscription. That limit is designed to “draw in subscription revenue from the most loyal readers while not driving away the casual visitors who make up the vast majority of the site’s traffic.” If you get to the newspaper via social media the 20-article rule does not apply, but there is a five article a day limit for those who access the site via …

The dangers of categorical denial

By Mark Di Somma

Some things are too big to fight. If you’re planning to redefine a whole category for example, then, unless you’re already a market leader, plan on a big outlay and a long runway. You’re literally battling the millions others have already invested to define what it is, what it means, who it’s for, where it’s found, who the key brands are, what the products generally cost and so much more. If your competitive advantage is predicated on breaking one of those fundamentals, be very aware of the fight you’re buying: You’re battling the pigeonhole that your supply chain will want to put you in; You’re fighting the expectation that your customers automatically have of you; You’re asking for the competition to diss you as unimportant or uninformed; and If you somehow beat all that, and manage to get established, you just pressed the GO button for a whole bunch of imitators to copy your IP and innovation Here’s the irony. If you’re going to enter/change a category, you must provide the market with enough for …

Pleased to meet you

By Mark Di Somma

This really thoughtful post by Associate Professor Rob Cross of the University of Virginia on building valuable networks caught my eye today. Specifically, I was drawn to the final para: If we are circulating too much with people we have known forever or people who themselves are all spending time in the same meetings and interactions, then we are not getting the performance impact … The magic lies in the new ideas and perspectives that can come from connections into different networks. The same point applies in many ways to the networks that brands build with their customers. If they are just selling the same goods, or even new goods, to the same community, then there is no contagion – no reason for the brand to spread interest and influence beyond those who already know it. A circle can quickly become a wall. The opportunity for brands is to introduce new ideas into their networks and marketing that ‘stretch’ those who know the brand well, but also serve to introduce and absorb new followers beyond …

The strategy consulting dilemma

By Mark Di Somma

I remember having an animated discussion with the CEO of a professional services firm once about their right to take a market-leading position in problem solving. His resistance was based on the fact that, statistically, such work constituted a relatively small part of what they did, even though it was the work that the whole firm loved, and that they had built their reputation on. How can we claim for that work to exemplify what we do when it is a smaller proportion of our fees?, he asked me. Unless you want that trend to accelerate, how can you not make a stand in the market as the strategist of choice?, I replied. What do you want to be known for vs what you actually do the most. Or as Rolling Stone put it so brilliantly: Perception vs reality. This review of the state of strategy consulting suggests the dilemma was not his firm’s alone. Strategy is still the poster-activity for the smart set, but more and more firms are finding that strategy, while still …

Stars and scandals

By Mark Di Somma

I’m not a huge one for the ins and outs, behaviours and otherwise of the fashion world (preferring to leave such pursuits in the experienced hands of friends like Jack), but I did take some note of the recent John Galliano scandal because it highlights the risk that brands take when they associate themselves so closely with an individual who is a brand in their own right. It’s not always bad of course. Steve Jobs turned up for the iPad2 launch, and everyone took heart. The stock price even went up. And in fashion, most would agree I think that designers like Marc Jacobs and Karl Lagerfield have done wonders for the brands they are associated with. Galliano too up until this point. But how quickly, and dramatically, things can change. Almost every brand today it seems is just one YouTube clip away from a crisis. And when things go wrong in this kind of situation, there is fallout on three levels: the individual’s brand suffers; the employer’s brand suffers; and the halo effect that …

Out-thinking the recession

By Mark Di Somma

When everyone’s in sale, no-one is. It simply means the market has reset the prices that consumers expect to pay. So I was interested in this interview with retail specialist Jim Lucas of Draft FCB about how businesses should approach recessive times. Here are my key out-takes from his interview: The lack of decline in small luxuries such as skincare and animal treats is a clear sign that shoppers will hold on to a handful of indulgences in their everyday lives just to feel normal. The secret is to scan for those opportunities in their changing behaviours. Rather than focus on the big ticket buys, look for little pleasures. Lucas says marketing is about trying to change behaviour, and a recession is a strong backdrop for that. “’You need to think of creating behaviours or new forms of regimen or rituals or routines that are going to fit into this new era.” That means, for example, calling for smaller actions: paint a wall, rather than repaint the house. Continued discounting will simply make some categories …

Four hard yards

By Mark Di Somma

Sitting in the lounge waiting to board yet another plane, it’s fascinating how many people are busy. Laptops open everywhere, conversations on smartphones everywhere (at various levels of discretion). No-one wants to miss a minute. And yet today Borders tanked, and local book chain Whitcoulls announced it’s in schtum … I wonder how many of their senior people are at work right now still believing that hard work alone will get them through … Albert Einstein once defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting things to change. Somehow, we’ve allowed ourselves to be lulled into the false security of doing. Things will just be fine if we work hard, advertise hard, sell hard. But while all this is happening – while everyone is working hard out – it’s easy to forget the real things that actually put distance between you and circumstances. 1. Look hard – at what’s really happening and ask the hard questions about what that might mean 2. Brand hard – so that you continue to …

What’s your reply?

By Mark Di Somma

“I can’t believe they got that job. We are so much better than them”. We’ve all heard that. Some of us have said it. Here’s the question. Then, why did they get it? If it was price, what did they do to their cost structures to make their price possible? If it was networks, what are they doing or who do they know that you don’t? If it was credibility, what makes them a more comfortable choice than you? So many companies respond to a competitor’s wins with excuses. The companies I like are the ones that use every loss as an opportunity to re-evaluate if and how they themselves need to change. Sometimes, decisions are a bit like email. It’s not the message you get that counts. It’s the way you choose to reply.

The real recipe for Coke's success

By Mark Di Somma

So someone’s supposedly discovered the recipe for Coca Cola. What does that mean for the world’s most popular drink? Very little I would have thought. Because the world’s most closely guarded beverage trade secret has already done its job – it has helped build perhaps the most consistently powerful brand in the world. Beyond that, its value as a formula today is questionable. Even if someone did replicate the taste, so what? They still wouldn’t be Coke. Great brands grow beyond the products they marque. They actually come to embody ideas – such as happiness in the case of Coca Cola – that the product reports to, and not the other way round. The New Coke debacle might suggest otherwise to some, but to me that was much more about changing a product that consumers held dear rather than a taste issue. Consumers expressed their apprehension by citing taste, but taste, in my reading of this particular case, was the identifier to the wider fear. What they were really saying is – don’t touch. So …