A job-it' s tale:from zero to hero and back again

"A Job-it's tale: from zero to hero and back again "
or the fluctuating value of experience (apologies to the estate of JR Tolkien)

When you start your professional career, looking for an entry level graduate position is the likely first step and also the first hurdle. It seems experience is often valued above academic achievements, which is nuts. People looking for entry level professional positions are likely by definition to be inexperienced.

As your career develops, experience is still a valuable currency ,as increasingly it demonstrates accomplishments as well as serving as an indicator of development potential.

When you get to be very experienced however you generally find at a certain point that your accumulated experience becomes pretty much worthless, perhaps as it tends to come with accompanying years on the clock. There may be a few exceptions such as post acquisition ,where the acquiring company sucks up the experience and knowledge DNA of their acquisition , followed normally by disposal of those same people.

I think it is great to see so many successful young entrepreneurs ,often straight out of university, but I wonder about their lack of real life business experience and the impact on the advice they are selling... is experience not seen as either necessary or a benefit;or do they tap into it via mentors , non executive directors or external consultants ?

Before I reached 30 ( which was 6 years into my career/ experiential learning curve) ,I was told I was too old for a career in consulting . By the time I was 40 I was told I was too old to be considered for admission into an MBA course by a highly rated Business school...

Before I go for my afternoon nap I would like to clarify that I put talent above in post seniority in almost all cases. Experience without talent , application, relevance and a thirst for continuous learning and growth is of limited use in business,or in life generally .

So what about using that body of experience of the many people who like me are no longer necessarily looking to work full time ,but wish to leverage their experience and to continue to learn, to be challenged and rewarded? A previous employer of mine BESTFOODS had a great scheme ; it created a corps of retired colleagues who were drafted in to carry out temporary , ad hoc business projects globally wherever there was a specific skill and experience need that matched the profile of a particular person.

My business Brandbuilder consultancy Ltd was set up after I fell out of corporate life for the last time after 30 plus years , in order to give businesses of all sizes bespoke access to my strategic and operational brand marketing skill, experience and passion on a completely flexible basis. From facilitating one off strategic planning or ideation days , project work , helping new market entry , mergers and acquisitions ,or periodic strategic input .Check out my profile on Linkedin and contact me for an informal chat about your ideas and whether I might be able to make a difference.

Successful Brand equity development..in Atlantis

Successful brand equity development ( in Atlantis)

2018 has begun with a lively debate around the latest moves in the carbonated soft drinks arena by the the folks from Atlanta ( or should they be called Atlanteans?) as they seek to ride current market trends including reducing the intake of empty calories, sparkling flavoured waters and ,um ,Millenials, whatever that means...

This has raised questions about their strategy for managing brand equity on what is without doubt one of the most successful and well managed brands in the world, something which has assumed greater significance in the face of structural market changes which pose a real and growing threat to the long term future of the category and potentially this iconic brand itself.

A successful brand must have a compelling core benefit or reason for being , one which is easily and intuitively understood by consumers. I would also suggest that in some cases brands must and can succesfully adapt , abandon or even completely reimagine their brand ,including host product category on which it built it's name ..Lucozade being a great example.

The temptation which marketers face , especially those under pressure in the boardroom , is to try and stretch that core meaning through portfolio extensions beyond the owned sphere of core competence and consumer permission . Self evidently brand extension brings marketing investment synergies and lowers barriers to trial when the core benefit is fully transferable , and brands such as Dove have mangaged this incredibly well. The flipside ,when this is not properly orchestrated is brands which are famous in name only , appear across many loosely related categories but which are in effect Houses of brands, acting as generalist guarantors of quality without clear brand meaning or equity of their own in the minds and hearts of consumers.

People however ( bless them) rarely think the same way about brands as corporate or us marketing types when it comes to shopping across disparate categories, certainly not in my experience of so called umbrella brands in food, and promotional attempts to spur cross category buying never worked for me.

Muddying the water further is of course the retailer private label question. Just because my retailer of choice can and does put their name on items as diverse as underwear as well as fine wine and hand cream doesn't mean manufacturer brands can do the same; it merely confirms amongst other things the transactional nature of much shopper behaviour in everyday purchases like grocery shopping.

The trickier and more costly route for brand equity growth by contrast is to obey the first rule of strategy which is that it implies making choices about what your brand stands and does not stands for, its' Prime Directive if you will...stay true to the core brand truths.

My criticism of the the latest episode of the cola saga is that the previous "one brand to control all" ( sorry ) which aligns for me at least to the theory of the book "How Brands Grow" by Professor Byron Sharp has been replaced by a discordant ,double pivot outside aspects of the brand core ,targetting non cola flavored sparkling water(brand heresy surely, like syrups in coffee), ditching a sizeable amount of core brand design equity thereby weakening impact at point of sale in the process....
at the same time the corporation has seemingly lost potential first mover advantage in the increasingly high profile arena of environmentally friendly packaging to the Evian brand , something held especially dear we are told amongst the millenial audience supposedly being targetted by the newly launched fruit flavoured products.

But ultimately the biggest failing here is in not facing up to the possibility that the brand might need in the not too distant future to pull off a reimagining as epic as the Lucozade one in order to retain the colossal brand equity it enjoys today.

Exciting time to be a brandbuilder!

Trust ,Transparency...and talking Trash

Trust, transparency .... and Talking Trash.

We are living in a time of reduced if not a total rejection of many of the institutions , societal, political or philosophical constructs and beliefs we use for personal and collective value systems.

In 1966 John Lennon famously claimed the Beatles were "more famous than Jesus..." ( source: wikipedia) and whilst a deliberately provocative statement at the time , it is also true today that successive generations have progressively turned away from unquestioning belief in the trustworthiness of the state and its institutions ,figures of authority like politicians, or the media ,placing successively and generationally firstly more trust in certain brands and subsequently currently giving the most weight to the opinions of friends and social media feedback.......the most likely only truly disruptive legacy of social media ..?

On a personal level I prefer to believe we have not entirely replaced rational, evidence based discourse with celebrity and fake news, community with self ,and post WW2 aspirations of peaceful ,global ,borderless citizenship and thinking with unfettered Tribalism and "walls" of all kinds....but that would be straying into politics which is fair game for Twitter rather than Linkedin !

When we address the issues of rebuilding that diminished brand trust I think as do many others that it is obvious that not only do consumers have more choices and information than ever , but that the dynamics of these relationships have been altered beyond the comfort zone of many established businesses by today's technology and the accompanying paradigm shifts in access to new routes to market which consequently opens markets to nimble ,small startups.

It is not too much of an exaggeration to say many across any generational or economic divide believe the state and unrestrained capitalism have to varying degrees failed them ; worse still these people feel that "Big business" is actively and knowingly deceiving and even harming them in the pursuit of profit ,be it in food or indeed the world of pharmaceuticals for instance.

So what is the future for brands that wish to genuinely connect or indeed reconnect , as opposed to simply jumping on the latest bandwidth borne bandwagon....?

The answer is the same as in truth it has always been in any relationship with pretensions of durability and equality..It's more about the real person behind the facade , what you actually do and what you stand for, looking out for them.

Build trust by behaving and espousing values your consumers subscribe to , by delighting your consumer , delivering what you and you alone can do spectacularly well every time.

Like in all the best relationships , there is no room for secrets , silences or half truths; be transparent in what you do and why, respect my aspirations and beliefs..if I say I want organic food in sustainable packaging for example, be totally transparent in providing easy access to all the evidence , because it makes for a happier more durable relationship, and because it builds trust over time. It is no longer acceptable to simply demand trust , provide partial truths , or ignore my questions.

Trust needs to be earned and earned again each time I buy your brand.
Treat consumers with respect and take time to get to know what is important to your consumers if you want a meaningful relationship..I have been pretty disappointed on a number of occasions this year by what I saw as a most corporate type of response to my communications... no evidence of any human voice..
A customer experience /customer journey is more than just a new app, or a new chief customer delight officer, it's about a tone of voice, a way of treating consumers with respect, as in any relationship. Self evidently if you treat me like I have no value to you then we have no relationship going forward...

I'm done talking trash for this year , so may I wish you all the best for the forthcoming Holidays, and ask you to contact me if you would like to see how I might work with you and build your brands in 2018. Thanks for reading my posts during the past year.
Best,
Martin

I'm a Chump ,ok, but don't treat me like one

Just because I am a chump..it doesn't mean you should treat me like one.



Recent experiences have lead me to think about customer service , and to share my contrasting experiences with various companies of very different sizes and business models.


It would seem not all companies value their customers,even if they say they do .

Some apparently seek primarily to cover their own backs if a customer complains, rather than engaging and trying to build a better basis for an ongoing relationship..

You can show respect even when you disagree with the customer. "Cover your back letters "approved by Lawyers probably won't strike an appropriately customer centric view...

Respond promptly,don't allow a complaint to fester, it becomes tougher to resolve positively.

Listen to the nature of the complaint, not everything can be solved by eg a money off coupon

In short don't treat me , your customer, like a chump, even if I know I did behave like one...

So "Hurrah and smiley emojis "for my small on line coffee supplier and for my favourite on line hotel booking site..who get more of my business going forward.

The "Are you kidding me ? "award goes to the bearers of false " failed delivery attempt " notices...we would both prefer you beaming in packages to my living room by teleportation, but failing that please do at least show up at my door when you claim to...it's bad for my blood pressure.

The "Ugly "service award goes to a car hire company ..you upsold me ,I was a chump ,I complained after I got home ,whilst acknowledging my own "chumpness" and did not ask for anything. It took virtually three months and some chasing to get a reply which said in essence: you signed the papers in three places ,all legal, our people did their job, followed process .. sorry it took us so long to get back to you, peak season and all....chump!

I was a chump on that occasion but they didn't seem to get my frustration and the point I was trying to make about upselling as a business practice... all of which made feel like a bigger Chump.



Your customer service is my customer experience and sometimes forms the defining part of your brand perception; it should be a chance to engage and strengthen your business relationship when things haven't gone well with the customer for whatever reason.


Ps : The online travel portal from whose site I originally hired the car have failed to even acknowledge my complaint, after I reached out to them some two months into my complaint to the car hire company..Won't be using them again either!


Pps : As he grew older I used to tease my Dad about his habit of complaining, and now my kids tease me for the same behaviours ;I hope he would side with me in this case . I miss you Dad.

When Tech met packaged goods

(image: the Colossus computer, the work of Alan Turing. courtesy of Wikipedia)


When you look at the above image of Colossus ( source : wikipedia)a pioneering computer built by Alan Turing in the 1940's , it is incredible to think that what I would describe loosely as "Tech" is today being marketed much like packaged consumer goods.

The daily struggles with tech that accompany most of us today however trivial or important show just how much Tech has impacted and changed all our lives since the arrival of mass market offerings and consumer adoption of items such as mobile phones in the early nineties, followed within a few years by the arrival in our homes and workplaces of the internet and personal computers of various types and footprints.

As a long time marketer of branded consumer goods, pretty much exclusively in food and drink, I have been a keen observer of marketing in other categories beyond packaged goods, but perhaps none has evolved as significantly and as quickly as Tech..I am sure marketers of fashion and beauty products which change all the time will disagree with me , but please do explain what I got wrong.

So what are the similarities , what can tech marketers learn from food, and vice versa ?

The classical similarities are all there: product range segmentation tending to hypersegmentation , brand and retailer brands ,route to market choices , pressure on shelf space, promotional noise and for some brands the investments in consumer comms. We can also see the financial pressures on brand owner companies , the emergence of on line only brands in mobile phones who then dance Dell like into omnichannel instead early on ...

Superficially at least Tech categories have a lot of things going for them that most packaged goods brands would love to have , not least the consumer frequency of interraction , the category interest and top of mind that these bring, the opportunity for product innovation compared to many types of packaged goods like food for instance , opportunities for visible self reflection , and last but certainly not least the growth opportunities that come with constant reinvention ,new tech , finite product lifecycles and geographic penetration growth opportunities in populous emerging economies.

And yet it would seem to me that with the notable exception of the Apple brand family there is little or no real brand distinctiveness or stickiness elsewhere in Tech ,which means somewhere along the line that marketing is not as effective as it aims to be in building profitable brand ecosystems. As a personal example ,how many of us non Apple users are brand loyal when we change phones,tablets, pcs ? I ended up buying on functionality and price, not brand for instance and have over the years been disappointed by my misguided brand loyalty in mobile phones for instance ...

So , Tech products are more like packaged goods after all ( schadenfreude ?)... low margin ,limited brand loyalty, interchangeability and all.

Maybe the grass isn't greener in Tech after all....

Big Bad food..

Another week , another Big (Bad)Food story....

With the approach of Halloween ,yet more self inflicted outrage descends on Big Food.

Cue yet more " why did the chicken cross the road ?" type jokes... seriously food and drink industry people, what's going on?


Big Food does not automatically equal bad food, either nutritionally or ethically, and could even be a force for a better world..

The reality of an urban world which is the reality for the majority of people worldwide, is that at a basic level most of us are now essentially reliant on others to produce and distribute the food we buy.

So how come there is so much mistrust if not downright hostility to the larger companies who provide most of what we eat... and how much of the suspicion is justified?

Are the bosses of Big Food really all evil people hell bent on killing us all in the name of a quick buck? who is forcing us all as consumers into dangerous and unhealthy food choices? Is there an unbiaised and trustworthy voice out there ?

Consider GMO crops for instance..I'm not a scientist and simply can't get a clear view amidst all the invective on whether they could play a big role in combatting famine , or whether they are part of a dastardly, commercially driven plot to enslave farmers and turn us all into mutants.

There is unfortunately too much evidence of dubious practices across the production and distribution parts of the supply chain for the food industry to simply ignore or shrug them off.. More concerning is whether these failings are systemic short cuts driven by management , criminality pure and simple , or whether they occur when employees get it wrong occasionally.

Is the answer to tax,restrict or even ban all "unhealthy" foods, treating them the same as alcohol and tobacco? Or outlawing the unnecessary use of pesticides antibiotics or ingredients? Is the use of Blockchain technology for purposes of transparency and traceability as powerful a force for good as proponents would suggest ?

To oversimplify the big picture solutions: If consumers are sufficiently educated on diet and nutrition to make considered and informed decisions the demand for more unhealthy foods should begin to reduce.
Similarly ,once consumers are better informed about what has gone into the food they are eating they are more likely to reject unethical practices , unecessary ingredients and additives and vote with their wallets.

P is for.....

How many P's does it take ?

In business and especially in debates involving marketing it is hard these days to avoid reference to the notion of the" Four P's ", mostly to deride them as obsolete....

I have recently encountered reference to the 7 P' s for the first time , by the inclusion of people, process,and physical environment to the original four P's.
I will leave theorizing to others , but here is my take on it...Are we headed the way of shaving devices, with ever more blades required to complete the same task ?

Whilst it is both healthy and necessary for business and business theory and practice to constantly be challenged and to evolve in line with changes in customer wishes and behaviours,technology and competitive landscape , surely the single greatest imperative ,namely delivering superior customer satisfaction remains unchanged.

I don't wish to appear completely closed to the necessary and continuing debate about marketing and business theory , so in the interest of fairness here are a couple of other P's that others have referenced when discussing business and marketing..

Purpose... lots written ,nothing constructive to add as I struggle philosophically speaking to stay on the benefits ladder which transforms as a random but recent example fizzy pop ( beginning with P ...)to somehow changing the world for the better.

My friendly sparring partner during my time at Lactalis Mclelland Jim McGregor often referred to marketing as" ( coloured) Pencils......"and yes ,he was in charge of the ministry of Promotions.

A certain Richard Branson weighed in recently on Linkedin with the comment that he doesn't do Presentations, preferring authenticity above script; I so wish I had had the chance to work with you Sir Richard....

My personal favourite P doesn't get nearly enough love , so in closing I leave you with PASSION, without which our work is cold and grey, and unlikely to spark engagement with either colleagues or customers.....which is what Brandbuilding is about.