Notes from a marketing round table

I recently attended a very interesting round table event with senior marketing executives from Microsoft, Toshiba, SAS, Global 360 and McAfee among others. The conversation covered the impact of the recession on how their marketing teams operate.

Most people agreed that as marketing teams have been cut, and the workload on the remaining staff has increased, maintaining staff morale has become a major priority for team leaders and managers.

Another interesting change is that as development budgets have been reduced, product lifecycles have been extended. For marketing, this means that teams that were almost exclusively launch focused, getting one product out of the door and moving straight on to the next launch, they now have to sustain demand for products over a longer period. This involves running mid-life kicker campaigns and other activity that some marketing teams, especially in consumer hardware markets may not have been involved in for several years.

Alliance and partner marketing campaigns are now much more in favour than they were 12 months ago. As budgets have been squeezed, it makes sense to combine resources with a close partner and run joint campaigns on a shared cost basis. Of course, there are many other upsides to running good partner campaigns but it was generally agreed that few marketing agencies are strong in this area.

Everyone in the room was working harder to justify their marketing budget with a much greater emphasis on measurable activity that had a very clear set of success/failure criteria set well in advance. The same was true of customers who now had to produce far more detailed business cases in order to get budget approval on major capital purchases approved by their board. This meant marketing having to work more closely with sales to provide them with the more focused and more detailed collateral required to support the sales cycle.

Outside of the public sector, environmental messaging has been toned down because it is harder to convince businesses that “green” products have a strong, short term ROI. Messages about consolidation and virtualization are now more focused on the reduced cost aspect of simplifying your IT environment with less emphasis on the reduced power consumption and reduced carbon footprint.

The general feeling was that things have now stabilized and they were likely to be operating in their current form for the rest of this year with things starting to change in the first half of 2010. It was a very interesting meeting and the overall feeling was positive although everyone agreed it will be a challenging year and hitting targets will require lots of hard work.

When a business ignores the customer...

I have been following the Formula 1 shenanigans for the last few months (years) and it really reminds me of some businesses I’ve worked in. For those not close to the sport, Formula 1 is basically the pinnacle of motorsport. The world’s major car manufacturers compete to build the fastest cars in the world using the very latest technology. The world’s best drivers then race each other to produce an incredible spectacle (if you like that type of thing). However, there is another side to Formula 1, which is the business side; it is one of the world’s richest sports, generating billions of dollars of revenues each year with each team spending hundreds of millions pounds per year on building the ultimate racing car.

Over the last few years the owners of the commercial rights have been trying to take the sport in a slightly different direction by capping the team budgets and making it easier for new (less technically sophisticated) teams to join the series. The major motor manufacturers like Toyota, Renault, Ferrari etc are opposed to this and so they have now announced they are setting up a rival series. The commercial rights holders want more revenues and a bigger starting grid, the car manufacturers want to build and race the ultimate racing cars as part of a huge branding and marketing exercise.

I can’t help but side with the current Formula 1 teams. As a spectator I want to see the ultimate cars being pushed to their limits by the world’s best drivers. For me, it’s not about the size of the grid or the number of teams in the league, it’s about the quality. The current commercial rights holders don’t seem to get this and seem intent on doing everything they can to maximise revenues from TV rights regardless of how the customer (me) feels about it.

I’ve worked in companies like that. They have done the things that they thought were good for their business, or that they wanted to do, such as adding new features that were interesting to develop or withdrawing a mature product from sale in favour of a newer version, but they didn’t ask the customer what THEY wanted. I am a firm believer that with only a few exceptions, doing what the customer wants is the best thing a business can do, regardless of what anyone else inside or outside the company may think. In an era when running an online survey or a forum is cheap and easy, there really is no excuse for not talking to every customer and getting their feedback. In fact, I’d say it is now essential for business survival, as the Formula 1 commercial rights holders may be about to find out!

Everything’s different now...

I left the UK in September 2001 and have just moved back after lengthy periods in Texas and then Paris. Obviously I have been in the UK repeatedly in the intervening period but they were always short, busy visits. It is only since I have fully moved back that I have really had time to notice some of the changes that have taken place.

Two things in particular struck me within the first few days of being back. The first is that quality of food in the UK is now excellent; at least as good as that in other countries if not better. The choice is huge and the prices are very reasonable (especially compared to Paris). This observation applies to both raw food supplies for home consumption and also to catered food in restaurants and bars. Ten or twenty years ago the UK was a laughing stock when it came to food. Today, it would be easy to argue that the food in London is better than any other large city in the world in terms of choice and value.

The second big change I have noticed since my return is how the skyline of the average suburban street has changed (does my neighbourhood of Richmond Upon Thames count as average?). It seems that almost everyone has converted their loft into useable living space. I was amazed at just how many extensions and conversions have been carried out in less than 10 years. The huge growth in property prices has forced everyone to make use of every inch of space and has also allowed them to borrow money to fund the developments. If you didn’t live through this change and adjust your perception over time, it hits you hard and the new view makes you think of England as being crowded.

I am sure there will be lots of other changes I will notice over the coming weeks but these stand out for me after just a few days in my new home.

Why do I hang onto things?

I am in the process of packing up an apartment full of stuff ready to leave Paris and move to the UK. I have lost count of how many times I have moved house in the last 10 years but every time, I find myself packing up large collections of things that I never use.

For example, I have about 900 CD’s that I burned onto my PC some years back. I play all my music from my PC or my iPod and I don’t actually have a dedicated CD player anymore (although the DVD can play them of course), and yet I still drag them around with me. I also have about 500 books, some of which I have had well over a quarter of a century and I spent most of the day yesterday packing these into boxes and moaning about it to my friends on Facebook.

So, if I play music off my PC and iPod and if I have a backlog of new books to read that stop me reading my old books for a second time, why do I lug these things around the world with me repeatedly?

In the case of the CD’s I defend myself with the argument that I like the sleeve booklet and enjoy looking through the packaging to read all the lyrics and thank-you notes and that if I lost the contents of my PC then I would need them again. Both arguments are complete rubbish of course; I never look at the sleeve notes and my PC is fully backed-up.

When it comes to the books I suppose there is a bit of a stronger defence in that it is more difficult to back up a book and that it is traditional to keep a library of one’s reading collection. However, I know for a fact that I will never read the vast majority of my collection again; some are simply the wrong genre and others were rubbish the first time I read them and they are unlikely to improve with a second visit. When I was a teenager I read a lot of science fiction and these days I struggle to get past the first page of a sci-fi book, so really there is no excuse and they need to go.

So the question is; why am I so attached to these large collections of things I am highly unlikely to ever use again? In both cases I could probably turn them into money if I put a bit of time into selling them.

I hate to admit it but I think I am a hoarder. It is only the fact that I have moved house every couple of years that has stopped me having a yard full of lumps of wood and bits of metal that “I never know when I might need”, and a garage full of broken electrical items that “will come in useful one day”. It is only the fact that my better half has a sense of fashion that stops me keeping clothes from 20 years ago on the basis I will wear them again when I walk the dog around a muddy field on a rainy day. (The fact that we don’t have a dog is irrelevant).

If you know of a tablet I can take to cure me of my hoarding then send me the details. In the meantime I am off to pack up the last of my books before we move...

What happened to old fashioned service standards?

Twenty years ago, I remember seeing a few jobs in the paper that appealed and applying either direct or via an agency. Of course, way back then, you had to use a new fangled word processor to put together your covering letter and CV and then you’d use snail mail to send it to the company in question.

Without fail, a few days later, a smart looking letter would arrive back, thanking me for my interest in the company and the position and advising me when the company would start the review process, and letting me know when they would next be in touch.

Over the last few weeks I have seen a few jobs listed in places like the Sunday Times or online on various job boards and I’ve taken time to craft a letter and send it off. These days the word processor is not such a mystery and the application is sent by email. In many cases, the company actually use automatic content scanners to review CV’s and extract the contents into the format they like to hold it in.

However, with very exceptions (you know who you are but I will mention Calibre 1 and VMware who were exceptional) no one has even acknowledged receipt of my application. In almost every instance my application, even when sent to a named individual, has simply disappeared into a black hole.

What is wrong with HR departments and recruitment companies these days? Don’t they realise that applying for a new job is a very big thing for most people? We need to know you received the application and it was readable. We need to know when you are likely to start short listing people.

In most cases I have been applying for fairly senior jobs in reasonably large, professional organizations. I am assuming these positions are important for the hiring company and they want to set the right impression and be seen as a great company that treats its staff and customers in a way that shows they care. Simply ignoring people who have expressed an interest in working for the company just doesn’t set the right tone!

Even a basic auto-responder that sends out a standard response acknowledging receipt is better than nothing.

That’s my rant for the day. (And there goes any opportunity I had of getting another job!)

A trip back in time...

This week, to help a friend out, I went and stood on an exhibition stand in London’s Olympia for a couple of days. The event I was attending was called “Screen Expo 2009”and was aimed at users of Digital Signage.

Digital Signage is a relatively new marketing technique (also called DOOH - Digital Out Of Home). Basically, marketing messages can now be delivered to remote displays located anywhere – on streets, on building walls, in stores and so on. Marketers have been showing their adverts to people waiting in Post Office queues for years but modern Digital Signage goes far beyond the simple display of television adverts on screens located in waiting rooms.

Firstly, digital signage can be interactive. For example, images can be projected onto the inside of the glass in a shop window and then a viewer standing on the other side (in the street) can touch the glass to interact with the image, maybe to zoom in on something or to get more information or to view the image from a different angle.

Also, digital signage is starting to become “intelligent” and many displays now include sensors that use some sophisticated software to gain an understanding of who is looking at the display. If the software detects that the viewer is male (or predominantly male in the case of multiple viewers) it will select male relevant content to show on the display. A good example would be a car showroom where images of a car may be being shown on a wall display. If the display detects that a woman is watching, it will start showing family and safety related content. However, if a male is watching, it will show more performance related content. Digital signage brings together almost every part of a company’s marketing activity such as their online web based content and puts it in the heart of a store or on the street. Instead of just showing adverts, the content can educate or entertain and really engage with the viewer.

So, why did such 21st century wizardry take me back in time? Well, the exhibition I was attending reminded me of the computer industry 20 years ago. The exhibition hall was packed with companies offering various components of the solution, each with the expectation that the prospects wandering around the hall would know what they needed and would be prepared to put it all together.

Some years ago, the computer industry sold its products to people that really understood how it all worked and how it all went together. The marketing was all aimed at the tech savvy buyer and was highly technical, feature driven and complicated. Can you image buying a car by deciding which engine you want and I don’t just mean what size, I mean would you like an engine from manufacturer A, B or C and then deciding what size you wanted. Then you would choose your transmission system supplier, your chassis supplier and so on and you’d hope all this stuff worked together. You’d either be a highly skilled mechanic who could build the finished car yourself or you would need to employ the services of a specialist company that would put all the component parts together for you.

Even though car manufacturers themselves make only a small part of the vehicle these days and rely on component suppliers to provide them with everything from spark plugs and batteries, switches and tyres, they still deliver you a complete finished product that you can simply drive away from the showroom without needing to do anything more than sign the hand-over form.

These days, you can buy many computer systems in a similar way. A large manufacturer sources components from the likes of Intel and Microsoft and they deliver a system that is just about ready to go in just a few minutes with the systems pre-configured as ordered and all the software pre-installed.

Well, the digital signage industry is nowhere near as advanced. In order for a large retailer to start using digital signage in their stores they need to be experts in so many technologies and marketing techniques that it is not difficult to understand why such a powerful technology is struggling to gain real momentum.
I am not even sure it is a technology sale. Having spoken to some of the confused and dazed delegates at the event it was clear that what they wanted to do was have a marketing conversation about how to convert window shoppers into in-store buyers or how help customers understand complex products without employing an army of highly trained shop assistants. They were not in the least bit interested in discussing which cabling topology or wireless standard to adopt or which display mounting arrangement worked best with large format plasma displays.

My friend’s stand (Rocket Communications) was offering an end-to-end service that included content design and it was like an oasis in the middle of a hi-tech battle ground. Marketing folks wandering around looking for a way to up-sell cosmetics in the concessions area of their department store suddenly found themselves talking to people that understood marketing and who wanted to discuss messaging and all the things they worked on every day. They would engage with us for a while and talk to humans in plain English before they had to step off the stand and head back into the world of speeds and feeds and digital multi channel encoders with HD signal splitters and signal repeaters.

Once the digital signage industry starts talking to its customers in a language they understand and offering solutions they can actually use, without needing to recruit a translator, I think we will all be amazed at how clever some of the solutions are and how much more interesting they can make a trip to the shops.

A strange thing happened to me today...

Someone called me to see how I was doing. I know, that doesn't seem so strange but think about it for a few seconds. How often these days do people use the telephone to call you up for nothing other than to see how you are? I'm not talking about a business call or your weekly scheduled call with your mum, I mean the out-of-the-blue call from someone you are not close to.

Just 10 years ago it probably happened quite frequently but these days, there are so many other ways to communicate that people seem to have stopped using the telephone.

The caller in question is a very senior executive at a large media company in London (he's a busy guy). We have done some business together over the last few years and had a beer together at a corporate hospitality event but our relationship has always been a business relationship. Imagine how surprised I was then to receive a call from him asking how I was. That just doesn't happen very often these days does it? Nowadays people twitter or blog or email or text or Facebook. Anything but pick up the phone.

I was expecting some ulterior motive, maybe he needed a favour or request for help but no, he just wanted to see how the job hunt was coming along and if he could help.

I have always liked the chap in question and found him to be a good person to work with in business. He knows his stuff, he does the things he says he will and he always gets the job done. But now I know he actually likes me enough to pick the phone up and see how I am, even though I am not in a position to give him any business right now, means a lot to me. If he is prepared to look out for me when I can't spend money with him, imagine the service I'll get when I return as a customer! That simple phone call has moved our relationship forward no end and built a huge amount of loyalty.

Another angle I take from this is aimed at all those sales people out there using all those new fangled tools to keep in touch with their prospects and clients. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MSM, Messenger, email, blogs and texts are all great but they are all limited. Nothing beats a good old fashioned chat with your contact. Pick up the phone and talk to people, you'd be surprised where a conversation can lead you. Better still, visit people once in a while. You'd be shocked at the difference real face-to-face contact makes vs. the sanitised electronic communications most of us use 99% of the time.

Yet another angle is; what happened to the rest of my 'mates'? Where are you when I need you? Call me!

And finally; I have been hunting for a packing and moving company and I have been receiving email quotes. Only one company has taken the time to follow up with a phone call to check I had received the email and ask if I needed anything else. The caller engaged me in a conversation, wormed a few questions out of me and started a conversation. I built up a bit of trust and she moved her company to the top of my list of potential movers. It works!

I have a theory...

Recessions are tough. They test every part of every system. In business, a recession exposes weaknesses and drives change. It is not only the limits of admin systems and processes that get exposed but also the limits of the people working in the organizations that are affected by the recession.

Good recruiters appoint people with the right skills to do a particular job. Obviously they also hope that new hire will also have potential to grow and develop over time. Once they are onboard a good company will get them up to speed and get them working to somewhere near their maximum potential. Over time, training courses and exposure to new ideas and processes will help the individual develop but in general, most people in good companies are working somewhere near the top of their ability at any given point in time (otherwise, they are bored and the company is overpaying for talent it is not using).

When a recession comes along, it forces change at a rapidly increased rate, maybe more rapidly than new skills can be learned. Overnight, the trading environment can change in many ways (not always for the worse) and organizations need to change to keep up or maintain and grow their lead. This requires the individuals inside those organizations to drive that change and that is where the people who were already working at their limit can find themselves outside their comfort zone. People that have been with an organization for a long time and who are working hard every day to get their job done will find it hard to suddenly start innovating and coming up with new ways to approach their job.

When a recession bites, many organizations will trim any perceived excess and if there are people who are clearly not going to raise their game to cope with the new, more demanding environment, they will be let go. That doesn’t necessarily mean their role is redundant (although their job loss may be communicated like that) and new blood may well be brought in to drive the required change.

In additional to some potential legal traps, the challenge this gives to organizations is how do they bring on new, more highly skilled talent which probably costs more, at a time when they are likely to be reducing costs? It is a brave company that increases its wage bill during a recession, but sometimes that may be just what is needed to make the most of the opportunity.

The other side of this theory works for those people that find themselves out of a job in the middle of a recession. Although many firms are letting staff go, there will still be job opportunities out there with companies that are not just downsizing but who are also changing team members. Keep looking, they are out there, and they are probably with the most forward thinking and ambitious company you could hope to work for.

I bought a new PC the other day...

I couldn’t put it off any longer, after 6 years of (almost) faithful service my Dell Inspiron was definitely about to expire. Whilst in Austin I took time out to visit Fry’s Electronics (the world’s best electronics store in my opinion) and look at the shiny new laptops. Being at the cutting edge of the internet revolution I had it in my head that I would buy one of those new fangled Netbook thingies.

A quick review of specs and a few questions to the sales associate quickly helped me decide that Netbooks are not for me. I love the portability and long battery life and low’ish price. But the poor spec and inability to beef it up beyond 2GB memory meant my 100GB iTunes music and video library was not going to work to my complete satisfaction. I was also worried that since it was almost too small for my needs today, how long would it last given the speed of change taking place in the IT world. As I am not ready to live my life with everything hosted for me up in the cloud, I guess I am not right for a NetBook.

So, I got on with reviewing laptops. Of course, Dell was notable by their absence (keep in mind this is their home town). Most of the other main players were all lined up side-by-side (except Apple who insist their kit is sold in a different part of the store) and guess what? They were all exactly the same.

I know I am stating the obvious here but they were all X86 based machines with similar specs and the same O/S and similar warranties and so nothing stood out. Except the price!

When you get right down to it, the PC is now a total commodity product. All the major manufacturers have allowed their brands to drift and soften. Do HP (Invent)still stand for innovation? Nope, not in the X86 PC world they don’t. Lenovo? Err... I am not sure what they ever stood for. Sony? Toshiba? None of them seemed to stand for anything different (although Sony was mind bogglingly expensive but I couldn’t see why).

A few years ago when I joined Dell, they were still seen as the value leader. IBM was the safe pair of hands and HP was viewed as the technical leaders. Sony used to be the style folks of the PC world. All that is gone now and none of them are differentiated in any way that I could tell. I find this somewhat disappointing given what I and most of my friends do for a living.

With Dell’s value leadership gone they are actually disadvantaged now because I couldn’t see their machine to compare it aesthetically, and had I wanted to buy a Dell (which I did due to a sense of loyalty to the many of my friends that still work there), I would have had to wait several days, if not weeks for it to be delivered.

I bought an Acer. It was at least 30% cheaper than any comparable machine (admittedly it was being promo’d by Fry’s) and it looked better than anything else. I walked out with it there and then and have spent the last couple of weeks evangelizing it to anyone that is interested enough to listen.

Any my point is? Well, the big boys need to get their brand messages back on track if they are going to raise their game and compete with the far eastern manufacturers. And Dell need to get their retail presence sorted out quickly otherwise it will be a rapid downhill descent.

Footnote. I looked up the equivalent Dell machine to my Acer on www.dell.com and it was almost twice the price!

It’s a funny old world...

There have been plenty of “unusual” stories in the news lately. A few that caught my eye included the AIG executive who resigned because he felt he was being betrayed (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7964250.stm ) and Sir Fred Goodwin, the ex head of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), who has been publicly slammed for receiving a huge pension when he was fired after RBS made the largest loss in UK corporate history.

What we weren’t told when Sir Fred was being publicly castigated was that he did not in fact receive the huge pension as part of his severance as has been widely publicised, it was something he had negotiated when he joined over 10 years previously and had been covered in the RBS annual report each year (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7949929.stm ). It also turns out the AIG executive that resigned was on a base salary of $1 a year and his bonus was his only real income, not matter how big that bonus.

Now, I am not saying it is right to pay these huge salaries, bonuses and pensions but I do feel that a deal is a deal and if shareholders and politicians are OK with it during the good times, then it is somewhat unfair to renege on the deal when times (and public opinion) change down the line.

The other thing I think these stories highlight is that there are normally two sides to a story and it is important to try and understand both sides before making a decision. That may make it a good idea to read your favourite newspaper, the one that fits with your political ideology but also to read a second paper that doesn’t. Try to see things from both sides.

Having said that, I don’t think Sir Fred or the AIG executives received different coverage anywhere – they were uniformly crucified everywhere. I’m not defending them, but I do feel there is some justification in the claim they have been betrayed if they entered into a contract many years prior to all these problems and now other people are unhappy with those contracts. I know how I’d feel.

Stop asking for more sales leads

OK, times are tough, sales are slowing, and management are worried. Just at that time when the marketing budget is being cut, sales are demanding more sales leads. Their theory is that if they have twice as many leads they will close (almost) twice as many sales. Good theory, but of course, completely wrong.

Firstly, unless you are a miniscule company, you cannot simply double the number of leads you produce. The law of diminishing returns comes into effect in the marcom department and your cost per lead is likely to increase unless your brand awareness can be grown at the same rate (tough for a small or mid-size company). Doubling the marcom spend will not double the number of leads you produce. Once those extra leads reach sales it will become clear that the extra leads are not always of the same quality as those produced before the budget was doubled overnight. Because you have worked hard to reach the outer limits of your target market and your brand awareness and credibility is now being stretched, sales will find themselves having to cherry pick those leads they feel are closable. Result; sales will not increase as forecast.

A much better way to grow sales (at anytime, not just during a downturn) is to look at the sales cycle from beginning to end and make sure marketing fully supports each step of the sale. Most complex sales (sales that go through multiple stages and involve multiple decision makers and influencers) require a very tight integration between the sales and marketing functions within an organization if close rates are to be optimised.

How many companies still let sales people produce their own presentation materials? How many companies still allow sales folks to write their own sales proposals? How many sales folks deliver their own demonstration to their own script? The answer is far too many. By getting sales and marketing more tightly interlocked, sales will be have access to higher quality materials that are on message and work to support each stage of the sale. The brand can be developed to deliver credibility at each part of the sale giving the customer the comfort they need to move onto the next stage.

Instead of asking for more leads, companies need to close more of those they already have. Improve sales performance by tightening the link between sales and marketing, not by asking for more sales leads.

Raising your game in tough times...

Let’s think of an imaginary company during the good times...

Money is easy to obtain so in many areas, the business is just not as lean or mean as it is possible to be. Customers get away with longer payment terms than agreed. Customers may be given 30 days to pay but many companies have average debtor days of 55+ or even 65+ days. The credit control department put in a decent days work but it’s not a tough job. When the business needs extra money, the bank is falling over itself to make it available.

Then along come tougher times. Customers take longer to pay, some are even inconsiderate enough to go bust and not pay at all. Those customers that were paying in 50 days now take 60 days to pay. The bank no longer wants to lend money and so the company decides, in management speak, it has to “raise its game” and improve its performance. Management ask the credit control department to get tougher on the customers and get the money in faster. (This probably happens a few minutes prior to the same management telling their payments department to start paying their suppliers later).

At the same time customers start taking longer to pay, the credit control department get asked to reduce the average number days and get the money in quicker.

This is when things get difficult. The manager of the credit control department has been working at a good rate for a number of years and has always tried to look at ways of improving performance. To now be asked to simply improve performance overnight and deliver improved results exposes the limits of a company’s people and systems. Some people are able to rise to the challenge but many others will not because they cannot.

Companies recruit staff of a certain level to get a job done under certain conditions and pay them accordingly. When those conditions change, those same staff may not be able to deliver the changed performance the new conditions dictate.

So, what does this have to do with marketing? Well, credit control is a very easy example to give of tougher times affecting performance because it such an easy thing to measure and it requires relatively simple systems.

Marketing is far more subjective and so it is much more difficult for management to clearly see the ROI produced. When times get tough and companies need cash, they ask the bank for a loan and get turned down. They then “raise their game” and start looking at the performance of different departments in the company such as credit control. When credit control report back that getting the money in quicker is proving difficult, management then look at cost cutting opportunities and the marketing budget is always one of the first areas to be cut. In my experience, very few senior executives really understand strategic marketing and how it can be the most effective tool a company can deploy during a crisis. In tough times, maintaining the marketing budget but focusing it more on those often overlooked areas such as brand consideration rates and brand credibility can be the best investment a company can make.

For example, just as customer payment profiles will extend during a credit crisis, so the sales cycle may extend as customers look harder at their purchasing decisions and produce a more detailed business case to justify the investment. As potential suppliers come under greater scrutiny, their brand credibility becomes more important than ever before. By growing brand credibility, a company can close a greater percentage of the deals it is involved in (or lose a smaller percentage when their brand lets them down).

Making the most of every sales opportunity and maximising your chances of closing every sale is something very few companies are good at and cutting the marketing budget doesn’t help.

What did we do before social networking?

I am very lucky to have many good friends with whom I regularly have heated debates on a wide range of topics. The last few days have been no different and it has set me off thinking about the social networking craze.

I Facebook. (Or "I FB" as one friend put it recently). I am on LinkedIn. I am learning to Twitter (or not). I think I need a blog. I used to have a MySpace page. I have a mobile phone that runs the Facebook and LinkedIn applications, and I then have Yahoo's "OneConnect" application installed so I can update multiple social networking sites with my status in one go and read what all my contacts are doing in a single "stream" or "pulse" of information without having to go to all the different web sites individually.

Why?

Well, I think I have a reasonably complicated life from a logistical point of view. I am Englishman that has lived in America and France and has a very extended set of friends. Just a few years ago I would probably have lost contact with these friends once I moved away but with the new social networking phenomenon that is Facebook I am now almost as connected to each of them as if I still lived among them.

I have had about 8 jobs over the last 25+ years and over the last couple of years I have gathered together almost all of my previous business contacts in my LinkedIn address book. I genuinely use this 300+ network of people to answer questions and find resources to help me when needed.

So what did we do before these new sites came along? Well, in one of my debates with friends, it was pointed out to me that we have always been engaged in social networking. Anyone who has pinned a notice to a notice board at work or in their local shop, or who has taken time to produce a Christmas update letter that they have photo copied and posted to friends and family with their Christmas card, or even the people who have spent a half day of their holiday sitting down to write out a small pile of post cards has been a social networker but using older technology. (Credit for this observation goes to Ian Farmer who you can follow here; http://twitter.com/ianfarmer )

Instead of a notice board in the staff cafeteria at work and instead of postcards or the annual Christmas update letter many of us now use MySpace and Facebook and a whole host of other sites to keep our friends, family and colleagues up to date on a day-to-day basis (or minute by minute in some cases).

From my own point of view, I find it interesting that I have never, ever, pinned a notice to a notice board anywhere. Soon after I moved to the USA I did take time to produce an update that I printed many times and sent to a range of friends but it only happened on that 1^st year. I think I can safely say I have sent less than 5 postcards in my entire life and they were probably only purchased and posted because they were rude!

So why do I (we) spend time on these social networks?

What a simple card on a shelf can tell you.

I was attending a friend’s wedding recently in Austin, Texas and stayed at an up-market hotel just outside the City. As usual there was the ubiquitous note in the bathroom asking for my help in saving the planet. You know the one; “a towel on the floor means please replace and a towel on the rail means I will use it again.” As usual, this always prompts me to take a quick look at the hotel to see what efforts they are making themselves. In the case of the country club it was almost zero; incandescent bulbs were burning away in the light sockets, the air conditioning and lights all ran 24x7 even if I was out of the room and so on. Immediately, the request for help in saving the world was reduced to being nothing more than a profit maximising exercise in my eyes.

Normally I leave it there. All hotels make the same request and we all know that in 99% of cases it is a plea to reduce their laundry bill and has almost nothing to do with any desire to improve the health of the planet. However, in the country club in question, they really managed to offend my sensibilities in a new way. On the table in my room were two bottles of mineral water available for purchase (all I had to do was open them) that proudly bore the label “Fiji”. (The fact a small bottle was priced at $8.50 and wasn’t even in the fridge is worth its own blog entry.)

The debate about bringing water half way across the planet in a plastic bottle is not new. The almost cynical messaging by hotels that they are somehow “green” and their constant appeals to our environmental consciousness to do our bit in a way that just coincidently happens to lower their operating costs is annoying. However, the country club in question really took things to a new level.

The appeal card in question was printed in full colour and then laminated. The front had a short statement to the effect that “we did not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we have it on loan from our grandchildren”. On the back, below the appeal to save on their laundry costs were details of a series of awards they had won over the previous 2 decades for their environmental efforts. These included actions such as recycling water to use on the golf courses and so on.

As a marketer I was pained by their complete inability to understand that any claim you make on behalf of your brand has to be credible. They had worked their message up into a nice card, added some substantiating proof points to support their claims and then placed the card in the middle of the most environmentally unfriendly room I have stayed in for several years.

It was obvious; they have employed a reasonably skilled marketing person who knows how to do their marketing job but, that person is clearly quite low in rank within the organisation and is unable to really get the company aligned behind the brand values they want to push. The company doesn’t believe its own marketing hype.

All that from a simple card on the bathroom shelf!