Paul Woods

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As a marketer servicing a dozen or so internal customers… all with their ideas of what marketing is and what it should be… I am inspired to pull this one out of the bag every now and then.  Whether it is a campaign or a piece of copy… I think this would get my point across!

(From the Pacifica Group blog)

This is a true story.

Steve Cosmopulos is an old art director in Boston.
(Hill Holiday Connors & Cosmopulos was his for awhile.
It got too big and he left, but he left his name on the door.)
He’s a tough little fireplug of a high-school-educated Greek guy.
Always wears a tailored suit and tie.
Always.

He walks into a presentation.
Late.
Big conference table at client offices.
Everyone sitting expectantly.
Silence.
He has a duffel bag.
Sets the bag on his chair.
He doesn’t sit.
From out of the bag he pulls a board.
With a bed of 100 nails sticking up out of this board.
Sets it carefully on table.
Pulls out an aluminum frying pan.
One of those nonstick Silverstone jobs.
Silence.
Holds up frying pan.
Silence.
Slams it down as hard as he can on bed of nails.
Repeatedly.
Holds up frying pan.
Shows dings in bottom.
Silence.
Puts board back in bag.
Pulls out another identical board.
But this one with just one nail.
Puts it on table.
Silence.
Slams down the frying pan on the single nail.
Pries frying pan off nail.
Holds up frying pan.
Hole in bottom.
Shows it slowly to everyone.
Asks:
"Now how many copy points do you want to put in this ad?"

Proof that an art director named Stavros Cosmopulos is
THE PATRON SAINT OF MARTYRED COPYWRITERS.
This is not only a Boston legend, it’s a true story.
I asked him.

I am off to buy some nails now!

… said the sign at the McDonalds at the Sunshine Plaza Shopping Centre (on the Sunshine Coast in Australia - where I have been holidaying the last few days).  Pity about the four staff on the front counter (including the manager) who didn’t believe that they needed to show off their most valuable asset.

Same thing goes for your vision or mission statement… it is all good having it up on the wall in reception..  but are ALL your staff living and breathing that statement, or the core values it represents?

Just because you have a sign up doesn’t mean it is real… especially for your customers.

Your challenge this week - make it real.

"You are turning me OFF"

Virgin Broadband… we need to talk.  Our relationship over the last six months has been a little rocky. 

Remember when we first met?  You were so fast with your HSDPA connections.  Sure, you dropped out every now and then, but it felt great to have you as my rebound telco… sticking it to that Telstra that I had stayed with for far too long.

I loved you so much with your speed, price, and lack of copper wires that I ripped up your 30 day guarantee with glee

But over the last few months, you seem to have been a little distant.  Your slowing down.  Hey, I can live with being a passenger on UTMS whilst we ride along the information superhighway.  But in the last couple of weeks it has got even worse…

GPRS…

GPRS… are you kidding me.  I can still get HSDPA on my mobile phone at home, yet all you have to give is GPRS.  I am sick of hearing "what about me, what about me, you have to pay the bill" when you can’t even give me the time of day (literally - I can’t access the time server!)

And I love you you put my "Broadband" connection on hold when the phone rings.  Just what I need when I have already waited 5 minutes for ninemsn.com.au or whirlpool.net.au to load (without images!) is to have to wait another 30 minutes when the Chief Financial Officer is on the phone to her family!

To appease the CFO, I thought I would try and call you at home… but you left me on hold for over 45 minutes.  You left me hanging for 45 minutes!  Don’t you even know me?  I’m from Gen Y - I lose patience and concentration after about 5 minutes!

I tried to ping you, but you can’t be bothered… all I got was:

C:\Users\Paul>ping virginbroadband.com.au

Pinging virginbroadband.com.au [202.139.186.149] with 32 bytes of data:

Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 202.139.186.149:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss),

"Request timed out"… are you trying to ignore me?

I even tried emailing you from work… and it took you a week to respond! 

Virgin Broadband… I thought we had something special…

You have broken our heart, and I am sure you will break my wallet when I try to get out of this contract.  I think it is time we started seeing other Telco’s. 

Any Telco’s out there looking for some love?

We are a young professional couple (I’m a Marketer, she is an Accountant) with disposable income and what will be a very large Customer Lifetime Value for a Telco that treats us right!  You can have the lot - broadband, home phone, pay tv, mobiles, our first born… whatever it takes to get good service, good speeds, and ultimately a great experience.

Optus, Primus, iiNet, Internode, TPG, Macquarie… heaven forbid even Telstra!!  Are you out there?  Will you take us back?  You can even take the money every month from our AMEX… no questions asked!  I promise not to dump you again.

Until then… I guess we are stuck with this no hoper

At the moment I am participating in a little experiment called "Use New Marketing to Prove New Marketing" (UNM2PNM) being run by Joseph Jaffe.

What is Joseph trying to achieve?  Apart from spreading his ideas and selling a few more copies of his book, ultimately it is about proving if this whole social media thing actually works, if it is measurable etc.  Pretty interesting stuff for a marketer like me.

Here is the deal - Joseph asks for people to participate (I put my hand up).  His publisher sends a copy of the book (free book for me!), I read it, write a review and post it online.  He gets link love, I get link love.  He gets free PR, I get a free book and a good read.  He gets rich, I get smarter (hopefully!).  Now that is new/social media at work.

My copy of Joseph Jaffe’s book "Join the Conversation" arrived at work yesterday (the one thing holding back society as we know it is the fact that it takes 4 weeks for stuff to ship from the US by snail mail!)… so it is time to hold up my end of the bargain.  Stay tuned for my review of the book, coming soon.

And if you are interested in reading the book - buy it here - proceeds are going to charity

The other day Microsoft launched its latest round of big ticket products - Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, and Visual Studio 2008. 

For the last few months, a few of the team at Data#3 (where I work - a big Microsoft partner in Australia) have been working on our campaign to support of the launch - in particular around Windows Server 2008.  Basically we are positioning Windows Server 2008 as the core foundation of an organisations Managed Operating Environment (for all the marketers out there - a Managed Operating Environment basically means a really well run and managed fleet of desktop computers, laptops, mobile phones etc in your organisation - the advantage of that is much lower IT support costs, and being able to give end users the tools they need to be more productive a lot faster.)

The first event in Australia was in Sydney this week, and one of my colleagues Jo Cass (pictured here*) from our Sydney office tells it like it is on Mike Heald’s blog.

"Data#3’s Project Deploy, our Integrator of the Year movie headline & our Popcorn stand was a huge success at Microsoft Wave 08 - Heroes Happen."  Read more on Mike’s blog

In a month or two once the launch is over I might do a post campaign analysis on how Data#3’s Project Deploy campaign has rolled - from concept right through to results - stay tuned.  Being a classic B2B campaign with a B2C twist, I think the results might be interesting.

(*Photo credit to Mike Heald from Microsoft Australia)

Me

My review of the Harvard Business Review Press title "Private Label Strategy: How to Meet the Store Brand Challenge" by Nirmalya Kumar and Jan-benedict E. m. Steenkamp will be published in the AMI newsletter going out tomorrow (Friday 15 Feb).

But for all you loyal marketing tragic’s out there, here is your sneak peak of the review.  Read the book?  Leave your comments below!

Paul W

Private Label Strategy: How to Meet the Store Brand Challenge

By Nirmalya Kumar, Jan-Benedict E.M. Steenkamp. Published by Harvard Business School Press, Boston, 2007. RRP $50. 1-4221-0167-3

Reviewed by Paul Woods

Available at Amazon.com

—

Have you noticed that the generic private label brands you used to see on the supermarket shelf are no longer alone. Gone are the days of “Home Brand”, or “Savings” being your only options. With the likes of Woolworths Select and other premium private labels changing the game in the supermarket, and store brands filling shelf space in retailers such as IKEA and Target, we are in the middle of a private label revolution. And there is a reason why.

Private labels are big business. In Private Label Strategy: How to Meet the Store Brand Challenge, Nirmalya Kumar and Jan-Benedict Steenkamp predict that in 2010 private labels will have a substantial 27% share of sales in the United States, and a 22% share of sales in Australasia. Can your business afford to miss this opportunity?

The book, the first to credibly focus on the private label phenomenon, looks at the issue through two lenses – the one of the Retailer where the challenge is picking the best strategy in the midst of increased manufacturer pressure, and the one of the Manufacturer where there is a need to combat the power of large retailers and their store brands.

For both retailers and manufacturers, the authors outline numerous strategies (beyond what most start with – lower price and quality) and the impact they will have not only on the private label, but the value of existing brands as well.

The book itself, like most Harvard Business Press books I have read does get a bit dry from time to time, but that is more than made up by the numerous examples of private label strategies in the real world. And it was refreshing to see a few of those examples come from our own backyard! On top of that, listing the key chapter takeaways also helps with comprehension of the key points that the authors are making.

Whilst the obvious target audience for this book is retailers and manufacturers who live in, or are thinking of moving into the private label world, it is an interesting insight for any consumer with a marketing bent (that means all of you reading this review!).

After reading this book I can’t help looking at the supermarket shelf, and particularly private labels in different way. That old can of generic baked beans isn’t what it used to be.

—

Paul Woods leads the Marketing Communications team at Data#3 in Brisbane

Jon Miller over at FutureLab has updated his list of B2B Marketing blogs… taking it to a total of 138.  Good work Jon!

You can download the OPML file here

Whilst this list is a good starting point to discover like minded bloggers, I think it is getting to the scale now that we need to start categorising and prioritising the experts on this list.

That will make it easier for new comers, or folk looking for a particular niche (like B2B Technology Marketing, or B2B Professional Service Marketing for example).

I think I have seen this categorised before at a very high level, but I will still have a go at building a first cut over the next week or two… if anyone wants to help out shoot me an email.

Being the first week or so back after the Christmas/New Years, many folk at work have been taking the opportunity to take a fresh look at the way they do things… looking for improvements to drive towards their end of financial year targets.

We sat in a workshop yesterday, with one of the most profitable sections of our business.  You would think that if they were one of the most profitable teams they would have their sales pitch perfect.  As a matter of fact it was one of the worst I have ever seen!

It is a problem that I would say (gut feel) 80% of all sales pitches I have seen suffer from.  Going straight for the features and benefits, the speeds and feeds.  Sure, you will snag a few people that fall for the hype (or just the big numbers), but you can be so much more successful by doing one small thing.  In fact, if you get this bit right, you probably wont even need to worry about the speeds and feeds…

Sell the problem first.

Here is something to live buy - if you are in sales (especially B2B)… unless the prospect has budget they have to burn on that day… if the customer is not convinced that there is a problem, a risk, or a significant opportunity cost… then you have next to no chance of selling them something that solves it.

Simple.

The best part of our workshop yesterday is that the team we were talking with… they are actually solving a problem which if it occurred would cause significant business interruption.

That 2 hour workshop simply to refine a sales pitch (at next to no cost to our business) I expect will improve their hit rate quite substantially.  Conservatively by 40-50%.  Now that is Marketing making a difference!

2008 is still young… take the time to talk to your sales folk… ask them to pitch to you… and then play devils advocate… I mean the customer

Your sales people will thank you for it (maybe!)

Merry Christmas and happy new year to everyone. 

2007 was a cracker.  Hopefully 2008 will be even better!  This time last year I wrote about my new years resolutions.  I think it is time for a quick check…

2007 Resolution Checklist

1. Get fitter
   Yeah… maybe just a tad fitter.  At least I am a card carrying gym member now
2. Going back to university for some post-graduate business study 
   Hmmm… not in 2007, however it is still on the cards for 2008
3. Compete in (and finish) a triathlon
   DONE!  Admittedly it was in mid December, and I did come last - but hey at least I finished it.  No photographic evidence unfortunately, I think I was a bit too slow and the event photography had already gone home.  But you can look up my result at http://usmevents.com.au.

   Position: 578 (last finisher!)
   Paul Woods (Competitor: 1054)
   Swim (750m) - 17:54  
   Bike (20km) - 1:02:51
   Run (5km) - 43:31
   Total - 2:04:18

   That is only 1 hour and 10 minutes behind the winner!   But they didn’t innovate like I did and change the the 5k run into a  1km run/4km walk .

4. Buy our first house
   DONE!  See previous post! 

So that means I can confidently say I got 2/4 of my new years resolutions last year - not a bad effort!

So what about 2008… what resolutions are on the cards…

2008 Resolution Checklist

1. Get fitter
   Yep… just like everyone else
2. Going back to university for some post-graduate business study
   Carry over question
3. Start some sort of online business that brings in serious income
   Not  like the USD $60 that www.thenewpaperclip.com brings in every month, but some serious spending money to help pay off the house.  I have plenty of ideas, and a few that might actually work (one in a very under serviced market too) - WATCH THIS SPACE!
4. Build a Foosball table
   How else can I represent Australia at Table Football without my own custom built Foosball table?  A custom built Foosball table with beer holders, electronic scoring and webcams for instant replays?  And maybe a radar gun to clock shot speeds.  Yeah that would be awesome!

Wonder if I can improve on my 50% new years resolution strike rate in 2008… we will wait and see!

Ok… it has been pretty quiet around here lately, and over at some of my other blogs like The New Paperclip.  Why?  Well, after moving a few weeks ago, we have had to wait for my new desk, chair, bookcase etc etc to arrive from the furniture store.  Well it finally has, so my office is now set up and I am ready to get back into the swing of things.

To celebrate, I am going to relaunch this blog in the next few weeks, and look at making it much more focused… topics like Brand Management, Messaging and Positioning, Collateral Development and Management, Campaign Design, Managing Marketing Teams, Dealing with Agencies… all those things that B2B Marketers live and breath.

… watch this space.