Astonish Your Customer(s)

What does a teacher make

When you are getting ready for work do you ever think to yourself - "Today, I am going to teach".

How many marketers think of themselves as a teacher - for their customers, co-workers or superiors?

It's a bit intimidating and haunting to realize that part of your job (at work and in life) is to teach and to teach in a purposeful and overt way, to raise other's up.

Teachers make a lot - see here.

O.D.O.o.O.D.B.  

11 year old girls strike again

So, if you are parent of kids ranging in age from mid-teen to kindergarten, how much money have you spent on Silly Bandz, the animal and other shaped rubber bands that are worn as jewelry? I think we're about $20.00 in so far.

Let's see what this product has going for it, as it relates to the aforementioned 11 year old girl strategy?

• Visible - worn on body
• Color - wrist looks like a rainbow when you were the requisite 10+ bandz
• Bragging rights & Competition - who has the latest and hardest to find shape
• Collectible - do you have the most or all the varieties  
• Ubiquity - retailers are promoting it and giving it lots of visibility before the fad burns out
• Status - you are uncool or your parents are cheap if you don't have them
• Cheap - Mom is willing to buy, although it is the most expensive rubber band ever purchased

I just know I have a Silly Bandz idea lurking inside me somewhere.

O.D.O.o.O.D.B.

How simple and clear can & should you get

The TV game show "The Price Is Right" has been running for over 30 years, and primarily with one host, Bob Barker, and the same studio sets.

The entire show has revolved around one question, "How much does this cost?". The show has over 100 different ways to ask that question but it always boils down to that question.

As a brand, the show knows what it stands for, what appeals to the audience and then innovates, in a consistent manner, around that one clear concept.

O.D.O.o.O.D.B.

TY: Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hannsson  

Grease & Oil

DAWN dishwashing liquid by P&G does $1 billion in annual sales. The brand was built on one word - GREASE. In relation to brand positioning, it is Ideal to own one valuable word (or concept) in the consumer's mind and Dawn has owned Grease smartly and persuasively for decades. 

P&G bought Oil of Olay almost 30 years ago when they purchased Richardsons-Vicks. At that time, Oil of Olay was a skin cream for old ladies. P&G spent the next 15+ redefining Oil of Olay as a premium beauty brand, even renaming it just Olay - for, among other reasons, to drop the connotation of oil, which is not a positive in relation to beauty. Olay is another $1+B brand for P&G and another example of their ability to focus and build a valuable a brand.

Now DAWN and OLAY have merged, so to speak. Now you can buy Dawn dishwashing liquid with Olay inside.

That's right. A beauty brand that wanted to disassociate itself from oil is now prominently linked with a brand that fights kitchen grease. Get it? I don't.

O.D.O.o.O.D.B.   

Madness Delivered

March Madness, the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, is a runaway success, every year - every year - in terms of audience size and audience enjoyment! Can't say that about any other USA sports - the World Series, Super Bowl, NBA Playoffs often disappoint. Golf events like the Rider Cup and Majors like the Masters are the only thing that comes close for US fans, except that not many Administrative Assistants are filling out office pools for golf events. 

Why does Madness consistently deliver?

• Audience - every major geographic region has at least one team playing
• Authentic emotion - the thrill of playing, the joy of victory, the agony of defeat  
• Drama - David & Goliath is not just a hope ... the favorites often get toppled
• Quality - the play is superb, the teamwork tangible   
• Simple - everyone understands basketball
• Pace - the frenzy of games
• Newness - the players and teams change every year
• Fans - rabid, involved
• Buzzworthy - did you see that shot ... that game ... that finish
• Bragging rights - who's winning the office pool   

If you wanted to get your fans involved in your brand, could you put together a program that resembles March Madness?

O.D.O.o.O.D.B. 

Duplication & Shopper Marketing

Walmart has begun to reinstate skus it cut in their effort to improve sales and margin, while improving the shopping experience. The move to reinstate was in part fuelded by poor financial performance in Q1. 

Ad Age notes that Walmart made the decisions to cut based on the margin contribution and market share of the skus/brand. Well, that's one way to do it.  

Wouldn't it have been easier and smarter for Walmart to meet their financial goals, without impacting customer satisfaction, by culling based on duplication? Do you really need 6 sizes of Advil Tablets? Would a customer not buy, go to a different retailer or get PO'd if they could not buy the 50 count and instead had to choose from the 24s or 100s? It's an easily testable proposition and Walmart has a leaning lab of 4,000 stores. 

One of the lessons-available-to-be-learned is how quickly Walmart changed their mind and changed back. Walmart does not anguish about decisions and is not afraid to unmake them if they are dumb or under-productive. Walmart has the confidence to act this way because they know how to keep things simple and execute.

Brands like to talk about "Shopper Marketing" but how many brands are proposing and willing to financially sponsor test programs in a subset of retailer's stores to make both the retailer and the brand more productive?   

O.D.O.o.O.D.B.  

The Obama Care Opp or is it App

You may love it, hate it or are uncertain about it. One thing is for sure, it will change things.

The best way to win is to be first and best in a market. This program will cause monumental change and disruption and those circumstances provide a vacuum that must be filled and the one who can fill it first and best can win.

Why don't you find a way to fill it?  

The best way to create a product that will have the highest likelihood of success is to find a clearly identifiable, underserved and reachable community and listen to them. By community, I mean a group of people proven to interact with one another consistently. It is far better to create a product for a community, than try to find a community for a product you created because when members of a tightly knit community like/love your product they will spread the word for you - quickly . 

So, how does this work. You listen to this community (nurses, doctors, diabetes educators, seniors, drug store retailers, medical education companies, the uninsured, administrators, etc.) and determine ... What do they want to know about OC? What do they need to know about OC? What makes them mad? What do they bitch about? In what ways do they feel neglected? Where’s the pain/angst? What do they talk about or feel is broken? What suboptimal things are common practice or just accepted? Once you find that out, then you have to decide if solving the problem is worth it (as a business).  

O.D.O.o.O.D.B.

Learn from Lotto

The Mega Lotto game offers an interesting study in human behavior. If you don't play, you can't win. If you buy one ticket, odds against winning are enormous. If you buy two or more tickets, your odds essentially remain equally as long. Yet millions of people play because they love the feeling they get when they buy it - the anticipation, the suspense, the swirling thought of what-will-I-do-with-the-money. 

Suppose you created your own lottery, with friends, family, whomever. People would be assigned a number based on the order in which they bought their $1 ticket (1, 2, 3 and so on). At the end of the week, all the purchased numbers are put into a hat and one is picked - guaranteed payout, every week. 

Suppose you recruited people that are interested in a certain cause and included a requirement that half the winnings go to the cause, each week.

Simple and fun, while doing good.  

The real point is - could you design a product that possessed many of the same qualities of Lotto - the model works for that business and maybe it can for another.

O.D.O.o.O.D.O.  

Can't have it = Want it

Hugh MacLeod: Advice for Entrepreneurs includes the following gem (along with others in his list).

"People want what they can't have. In fact, that's pretty much all they want." 

That question would be a great starting point for a product innovation exercise.

Start by finding and listening to a community (a group of people who are proven to actively, frequently and passionately interact with one another) and find out what they want and don't think they can have.   

O.D.O.o.O.D.B.

Invisible to Infinitesimal to Tiny to maybe Small

From the founder of Sam Adams Lager Jim Koch: “We’ve gone from being invisible to infinitesimal all the way up to tiny. We’re not even small yet,” Koch said of his company, which now makes nearly 2 million barrels a year and has 0.8 percent share of the U.S. market. 

The perfect story of focus, patience, improvement, focus, patience and results.

When the industry was all about quantity, Jim was about quality. Now that quality is in vogue via the very resilient craft beer movement, he is about quality and variety and exploration.

Jim and his team give this quality product energized differentiation with seasonal offering that keep the loyalists engaged and give the not-yet-loyal a reason to give it a try.

O.D.O.o.O.D.B.