All posts filed under: Purpose

Human marketing

By Mark Di Somma

This highly informative post from James D. Roumeliotis on Customer Devotion introduces to me the expression “human marketing” which I am much taken with. Not only does it speak to the necessity for everyone within the organisation to think and act like a marketer, it’s also a reminder that, ultimately, people deliver some of our most powerful and memorable consumer experiences – and insights. People have an instinct for people that simply cannot be duplicated any other way. In the rush to mechanise and socialise, it’s easy to overlook the need for brands to continue to humanise their offering – to make it easier, more enjoyable, more fun etc for people to interact with. Powerful brands feel human. There is a real sense of people behind what’s on offer. And that I think is Roumeliotis’ key point: you can’t build and run a great brand if you don’t have a culture that loves people – as staff, as suppliers and as customers. In that regard, while much is made of the need to monitor and …

The Balanced Brand: some preliminary thinking

By Mark Di Somma

What is it with me and earthquakes? Last Christmas, I was in Christchurch for the Boxing Day shake. This year, I was there on Friday, and it happened again. They are scary – and it’s interesting how different people are scared about different aspects. For most, the fear of death and injury is prevalent as you’d expect – but almost as distressing for others are the noise, the shaking itself and of course the damage that brings silt to the surface, breaks possessions and puts everyone on edge. To all those in Christchurch, including of course my own immediate and extended family, my prayers and thoughts are with you. We all live with fears I guess, and they come to the surface at different times. That’s as true for business as it is in our personal lives. Today’s obsession with growth has it seems to me often overshadowed the more important strategic question of what do we want our organisations and our brands to grow into – how will they evolve, and how will the …

Brands only work locally

By Mark Di Somma

Really enjoyed this piece by Pankaj Ghemawat on the myths surrounding global brands. His point that only 16% of the top 10,000 brands on the Milward Brown database are recognised in more than one country, and only 3% are recognised in more than seven is a reminder that the world is not as open as many of us would like to think. Indeed Professor Ghemawat points to what happened to Coke as a sure sign that Ted Levitt’s principle of increasingly homogenous markets was incorrect. After steadily pursuing a process centred on standardisation throughout the 1990s, Coke has since shifted almost 180 degrees. Today, the company offers a diversified product set, market-specific price points, localised production and distribution and clear distinctons between the approach it takes in the States and internationally. And those same principles of distinction and specification that now influence a mass market brand like Coke are extending to other brands looking to build share in markets away from home. Ghemawat’s advice? Focus on the cultural, administrative, geographic and economic differences between markets …

How brands lose sight of customers

By Mark Di Somma

Interesting observation in a meeting yesterday from Richard about service organisations, and specifically large service organisations and why they often lose sight of the customer and the shifting demands of a dynamic market. Everybody says they’re in business to serve the customer, but the people who are actually customer facing and customer serving are often those with the least experience, the least knowledge and the least authority because that lowers cost-per-serve. Unfortunately, it also lowers quality, depth, flexibility and engagement, compromising the brand experience and making service a commoditised set of processes that frontline staff are judged on their ability to conform to. The situation should logically resolve itself as people become more valuable to the organisation, and therefore gain what has been missing when they were on the frontline – experience, knowledge, authority, influence and networks. But what actually happens is that those people are shepherded into talent programmes that promote them further and further away from a direct relationship with customers – which is an increasing juxtaposition in itself – and their focus …

Not worth the paper it’s written on?

By Mark Di Somma

What do you do with a toxic brand? If you’re News Corp it appears, you opt for euthanasia, perhaps in the hope that the sheer ‘shock’ of stopping a 168 year old institution dead in its tracks will be enough to divert the rest of the media from your crown jewel assets and side-track regulators and other scrutinisers into believing you’re done enough to warrant completing other lucrative deals. Consumers can be remarkably forgiving, especially with brands that forge a ‘bad-boy’ reputation. But, as in the case of News of the World, there comes a point where they over-step the mark and brands pass through a thin veil from scandalous to unacceptable. The paper seems to have gone there, in the public’s mind, with its actions over Milly Dowler. Then what should they do? The problem with dramatically wiping the brand from the face of the Earth by way of a response is that you bury the problem, and are seen to do so – which doesn’t address or resolve the deeper and more troubling …

Would you be a fan?

By Mark Di Somma

What would you do with your company’s mission statement? Would you tweet it?, Brian Solis asks in this article. Just as importantly – would you retweet it? In other words, does it carry enough meaning for you, and is it personal enough to what you strive in life for that you would literally want to put your name to it and circulate it? I love this thought because it’s a great reminder to all of us that purpose isn’t about what you’re told to do, or believe or say. It’s about what you choose to share with others. Or at least it should be. The “BBQ script”, “elevator speech”, “picket fence précis” whatever you want to call it can’t just be a set of words that you roll out on cue. It can’t just be marketing. Not if you really want people to believe you, and therefore the brand you represent. Speaking of belief, let me ask you this. How much of what you talked about, thought about, met over, reviewed, presented, rationalised, advocated, defended, …

9 lessons planking can teach brands

By Mark Di Somma

1. Sometimes, there’s just no way of knowing why something becomes a phenomenon. But momentum is addictive – once an idea takes hold, it assumes a life of its own. After a time, it is because it is. The power of an idea is not in actually in the creation, it’s in the radiation and the subsequent take-up. 2. Remember though that a global idea can still be an idea going nowhere. It can be just one more thing to wile away a moment. The numbers can be impressive, but they don’t always point to something meaningful. A million downloads is often a million free clicks. That’s not the basis for a business model. 3. Life is most powerful, and perhaps becomes most alive, when it is visual. Powerful images move us to laugh, share and try. Give people amazing things to look at, and they will literally stop and do so. 4. Posts are the new fingerprints. Give people a simple but fun way to participate in something, especially one they can easily record …

Every brand must dream

By Mark Di Somma

Positivity comes with benefits if this article on the optimism bias is anything to go by. While, collectively, our view of the future can swing in synch with the news, the budget or the crime stats, a 2007 study found that 76% of respondents were optimistic about the future for their own family. According to the author, “Even if that better future is often an illusion, optimism has clear benefits in the present. Hope keeps our minds at ease, lowers stress and improves physical health.” It gives rise to phenomenon like talk of ‘green shoots’ in the midst of terrible financial depression because, it seems, we are compelled to find them. The take-out for brands is obvious. Clearly, there is merit in espousing a clear and positive view of the way forward. It’s not enough to just inform. Brands need to inspire, because that optimistic prognosis of what lies ahead holds real opportunities in terms of engaging and involving people. It humanises brands. Optimism, I surmise, also aligns directly with our worldview. In other words, …

Be happy

By Mark Di Somma

Not the best of days yesterday. Put my back out, and retired to a lie-flat position. Brain racing, body stopped … Aaaargh. To pass the time, I mused on getting my understanding of the purposes of business and branding down to their most basic forms. It led me here: What if the purpose of business, particularly a service business, is as simple as this: to make people happy. Imagine if that was the metric for your product design, your standards, your customer service, your innovation programme, your culture, your brand, your competitiveness. And what if the purpose of branding is to let people know how you intend to make them happy. Here come the objections: most of them variations of ‘we do that already’. No you probably don’t. If you did, you wouldn’t have effective competitors, you wouldn’t struggle to maintain market share, you wouldn’t find yourself locked in a pricing war. Perhaps you think they’re happy or hope they’re happy, or you word your customer satisfaction surveys so that you can tell yourself they’re …

Taking it personally

By Mark Di Somma

There are days when the commercial creative process really does feel like blinding optimism in the face of unrelenting stupidity. And that’s the problem – it’s so easy to adopt an ‘us and them’ mentality, to slip into ‘right and wrong’, ‘enlightened and ignorant ‘… The working environment for marketers and branders is such a strange mix when you think about it. The need to give so much of yourself and yet not take the inevitable backlashes, compromises, negative feedback, rejections, legal insertions, snipping and blandishments to heart. In a discipline where getting people to feel something for what you sell is everything, the temptation to become detached can be great indeed. Sustaining a great brand though relies on believing in people, both inside your walls and beyond. Once care leaves the room, everything that makes a brand compelling soon follows: passion; commitment; excitement … Branding is personal and commercial. Hard as that can be sometimes, in the B2C world particularly, it has to be that way.