Author: Suresh Dinakaran

DREAMKETING

DREAMKETING
We are under prepared. The rant is, that we are still mired in Old Economy, Old Product Thinking. But, we must, in fact all of us, take a cue from the likes of the Virgin Group or Tesla and the likes- and come to grips, strategically, with the fact that Winners in the New Age Economy will be …Masters of the Dream Business.
What would that entail; Totally ‘ insane ‘ schools, hospitals, enterprises, retail..going way way beyond the normal suite of services to be in the realm of impossible made possible dreams.
The stakes are high. In fact billions and billions of dollars. So, lets stretch the narrative here.
Digging back on a presentation that Ferrari North America CEO Gian Luigi Longinotti-Buitoni some years ago in Mexico City. Dreams are his mojo. To quote him from the presentation ” A dream is a complete moment in the life of a client. Important experiences that tempt the client to commit substantial resources. The essence of the desires of the customer. The opportunity to help clients become what they want to be. “
Longinotti-Buitoni preaches the  ” marketing of dreams ” – an idea that he compressed into a word of his own coinage: Dreamketing

​

To guarantee anything in a world gone nuts is well..nuts. So, suggest we take the leap.

Dear Mr CMO, Dear Finance Head, Dear Ms Retail Store Owner. Get an extended lease on your professional life. I will tell you how. Expunge, excise, remove​​ the terms ‘ product ‘ and ‘ service ‘ from your vocabulary. When either of these two words come to your lips, substitute them with ‘ experience ‘ or ‘ dream ‘. That’s all.

This is not a pie in the sky spiel.​ This is a strong business message being sent out by someone, a very practical businessman who has created and enhanced some extraordinary franchises. So, its worth listening to his argument if you are in sync with the fundamental argument that the call of the hour is Totally New Sources of Value Added..in a Totally New Economy.

To ratify, lets put out a grid of ‘ Common Product V/s Dream Product ‘

Common Product     V/s          Dream Product

​Maxwell House                            Starbucks​

Hyundai                                         Ferrari

Suzuki                                            Harley Davidson

Carter                                             Kennedy

​Connors                                        Pele

New Jersey                                  California​

CNN                                               Game of Thrones

​Nothing wrong with the brands on the left of the grid. Each offers regular, solid, every day​ response to some need or another. On the right though are brands with a dreamlike power that go beyond the realm of mere ‘ need fulfillment ‘.

So, dramatically alter perspective. Do not rest until that project passes the test of imagination(or Dreamketing). Raise the bar. WAY, WAY UP! To become what you or your client wants.

ENDS

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Decibel V/S Gospel

We have all done our bit of time management drills. Segregate the routine from the urgent from the important. What is urgent need not be important and even the other way around.

Distill the wheat from the chaff. The signal from the noise. Indulge in ‘ Essentialism ‘- separate the trivial many from the vital few.

Hearing and listening are not synonymous.

Given the surfeit of digital and social media options today, the noises that you hear can be overwhelming. It’s easy for anyone to be loud and consistently at that. The Big Bold all uppercase attention seeking subject line for example. Falling innocent prey to these high decibel badgering is a strong possibility.

What would be vital to understand is who are these loudest noise makers to whom you are lending your ears to ? And are you overlooking the more important constituents in your customer universe as you do that? Well worth an introspection.

The once in a blue moon random customer with Cartier expectations and Naif Road budgets might be the noisiest for sure but do not confuse them with the silent, committed, long term customer who delivers you over 90% of your business.

It’s not about the Paleto Principle. Neither is it about profitability and revenues but identifying, respecting and understanding whom we have set out to serve. And serving them the way they ought to be.

A loud noise will not be important and an important voice need not be loud. If they are well heard, they can be well healed. And leave you well heeled! And then it’s business as usual.

Distinguish the decibel from the gospel. Then all would be well.

ENDS

www.groupisd.com/story

www.brandknewmag.com

 

 

Tango with a Few; Create the Phew!

Small is beautiful. Address the few. It’s worth the phew. And it can be big!

So select few!

If we pay maximum attention to creating and appealing to a minimum audience( popularly referred to as ‘ niche ‘), the only momentum that you get is forward, upward and onward. Excellence comes annexed with such an approach. Customer delight is a natural corollary in such instance.

Also, on the way you discover that:

a) the minimum size is beyond a decent quorum, much more than you envisaged &

b) they create a ruckus and spread your word– brand advocacy comes in built.

As compared to conforming to the ‘ mediocre ‘ when appealing to a mass. And still struggle for viability. So, don’t miss the point.

So take your pick! We are in an era of many possibilities. And delighting an ‘ audience of one ‘ is one of many.

ENDS

www.groupisd.com/story

www.brandknew.groupisd.com

 

Marketing is having a Listening Problem!

Is Marketing having a Listening Problem?
Yes, you heard that right. Marketing has a listening problem…definitely looks like- but the problem isn’t a matter of not hearing the voice of the customer. The problem is understanding what all the noise actually means.
An unintentional tone-deafness has led marketers to realise that they are not just struggling to aggregate the right data or struggling to identify the moments of opportunity to deliver exceptional experiences to their customers. Marketers admit that the biggest challenge the organisation faces while working to develop lasting customer relationships is actually remembering the relationship itself and not solely focusing on getting campaigns out the door.
 
Organisations have settled for passive hearing instead of active listening.
When it comes to aggregating the true voice of the customer, many marketers continue to rely on passive channels bringing in reactionary signals intentionally sent to the organisation. This leaves little opportunity to aggregate, let alone understand, real-time behaviours and cues being left behind by the customer across the omni-channel landscape. Consider where marketers believe insights, cues and indicators are being left: Email, Social, Sales Rep Interactions, Forms, Service & Support. While this list seems reasonable and an appropriate collection of customer signal sources, when sorted into categories of active, realtime, customer-driven signals versus post-engagement, reactionary or company-controlled environments, the picture of where marketers listen for signals begins to point to channels of known, structured comfort.
Where do customers actually leave cues?
Not in the known, structured comfort but in places like Social Media, User Generated Content, IoT Sensors, Chatbot sessions, Mobile Device detection etc
Data doubts are holding back advancement of the omni-channel experience. 
Without question, marketing has spent the past decade (or more) actively investing in expanding the omni-channel toolkit, identifying new ways to reach and engage with the connected customer. Each experience advancement heightens the need for actionable insights and a clear signal based on customer voice and data. But few marketers feel they are able to unlock the opportunity in the channels and the data already in use. This doubt is contributing to a hesitancy to expand and further explore what is new in omni-channel engagement.
Getting small could get us back to the customer.
 
The criticality of small data sits with the insights that reveal the “why” – why is the customer here today, why are they searching, why are the buying, why are they NOT buying? 
Marketers are waiting for complaints or opportunities to improve experiences through answering issues or questions rather than leveraging more complex data to proactively meet the customer with experiences that add value and delight. But marketers are also looking to get a better view of what the customer actually wants. Marketers need to understand the “why.”
Are they most prepared to take advantage of small data to turn noise into signals from the customer. Marketers are also confident they will finally reach the “why” behind customer’s actions and behaviours.
“Why” is also fuelling the marketer’s aspirations. When you try to identify brands across any industry that customers admired for their ability to deliver on real-time, personalised customer engagements, some key brands consistently rose to the top: Amazon, Apple, Google, Starbucks and Nike. 
What these brands also do well is connect with people and engage with customers like individuals, not just transact with campaigns.The biggest differentiator of these leading brands is their ability to treat every individual like a friend or confidante.The ability to initiate conversations in a manner that reflects the customers needs helps differentiate the brand. In essence, these brands never loose sight of the fact that their customers are core to their business…and that their customers are people first, buyers second.
It is time for marketing to lead the charge to treat people like people. It is time for marketing to champion being human. It sounds fundamental…that our customers are people. But as we have already seen, marketers admit that remembering that the organisation is engaging with people and not just data sets or individual records can be challenging.
The tools and technology are available. The data is abundant. The missing piece has been the voice of the customer. It is time for Marketing to champion the shift back to human…driving profit and opportunity along the way.
ENDS
 
www.groupisd.com/story
 
www.brandknewmag.com

Your call (isn’t) important to us and will(not) be attended to shortly!

Customer journey. Customer experience. Customer expectation.Customer delight. Customer service. All old wine in new bottles but as should have naturally been the case, things have not matured with age. On the contrary, getting genuine attention(just like paying attention) in an attention starved economy is becoming increasingly difficult and going from bad to worse.
As ordinary mortals, often times we have to deal with banks, financial services, utility companies, car rental brands etc. And we reluctantly take a call on making a call to the epicentre of under delivery– the omni present but care absent  ‘ call centre ‘.
Technology has made rapid strides and from a security perspective ‘ voice recognition ‘ is the harbinger of hope( or so we hoped) for customers expecting to avoid the seven and a half minute hold listening to tastelessly chosen recorded music. And you thought your voice will be heard– tough luck- once you are past that process, you go back in time(yes, literally) and field the 5 security questions to ensure that you are who you are and you are not from a different mother as originally envisaged. And you are left wondering why was the voice recognition used in the first place if the process was to lead to further questioning and endless hold. A lot of questions and certainly no convincing answers.
Pardon my sequencing here- I overlooked to mention the two biggest lies floating around that brands have been propagating blatantly, namely:-
– Your call is important to us and will be attended to shortly
 
– This call maybe recorded for quality and assurance purposes
I say these are the biggest lies for a couple of reasons:
– When was the last time you actually found a call centre personnel sufficiently empowered to resolve your problem? Even if your imagination runs riot, you will be chasing a mirage only.
– On multiple occasions we have put forth our suggestions, frustrations etc on these ‘ recorded for quality & assurance purposes ‘ calls and the customer experience slide has only degenerated further south. Maybe it was ‘ just for the record ‘.
– Have you ever received from a ‘ Relationship Manager ‘ of your bank based in a distant call centre(who is clueless about where you are based) on a Friday afternoon when you have just settled into your afternoon weekend siesta? I have, many times over. This after copious amount of information has been shared to them in the KYC(Know Your Customer!). It should be more like NO, YOU DON’T KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER!
– Have you received calls from an over enthusiastic telecom provider calling you three times in a day(atleast) to ask you for payment(which falls due two weeks hence)? I have. It leaves you wondering ‘ Do(I let phonetics play its part here in let you deciphering who) they have to do that? ‘
Of course there are exceptions and we have heard about the experiences that the likes of Zappos etc provide to their customers that is now part of folklore. But all that seem to be happening on a different planet.
A caveat here before you may misinterpret my vitriol: I don’t belong to that tribe who echoes the sentiment ‘ The customer is always right ‘- its certainly not the case.
The sanctum mantra that brand owners, marketing heads and guardians have been acting on endlessly has been ‘ call to action ‘. But, when the shoe is on the other foot, it seems more like a ‘ call to inaction ‘. And you just can’t seem to shoe that away!
ENDS
 
www.brandknewmag.com
 
www.groupisd.com/story
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POVer Shift:From POV(Point of View) to POV( Power of Vulnerability)

Moving the Needle from From POV(Point of View) to POV(Power of Vulnerability)!
In today’s context, to say that social( in the sense of the term social media) has gained significant currency would be a gross understatement.It’s all pervasive, inescapable and deep rooted, one can safely assume.
Once upon a time the theory(espoused by Kevin Bacon) that was floating around was about ‘ The Six Degrees of Separation ‘ where one individual could connect with any other individual in the world irrespective of level, status or complexity through a chain of six human connections. That seemed a feat in itself. The advent of social media networks like Facebook apparently brought that number down to 3.57.
Now add another theory to the above. We are the average of the five people that we spend maximum time with is what we are being given to understand for some time now.That was in a physical world. Now, move that to a virtual scenario wherein our social media contacts run into hundreds if not thousands of connections and we are all observing, contributing, silently following one another and not always for the right reason because the swell of opinions and information is just too over powering for one individual to withstand. Distilling the wheat from the chaff is easier said than done. There is ‘ status anxiety ‘. There is the FOMO at play(Fear of Missing Out) as well. In the relentless avalanche that straddles social media platforms, where is the real ‘ you ‘, the individual? Is your POV(Point of View) actually your point of view? Or conditioned(by AI/Machine Learning etc), pulverised, calibrated, engineered, manipulated to suitably conform, comply, stand in? Or are we falling constant prey to the supposed ‘ wisdom of the crowds ‘?
Have we moved our butt so much from but naturally to bot artificially?
We seem to be in a sordid vortex of an ‘ authenticity drought ‘. Trying to project a chimera that is certainly not a wilful representation of our true self. The power of ‘ onlyness ‘ that creates the distinct individuality the world so badly needs from you is just a fleeting mirage.
Given the context, a huge opportunity looms large. That is embedded in another similar acronym POV but with a radically different meaning. Power of Vulnerability. The true you, with all it’s mortal encumbrances. With the courage ‘to stand naked in your own truth’. No excess baggage of trying to be whom you are not. The YOU that only you can be and WANT to be.Where failings and weaknesses are welcomed as normal just as all the super Machiavellian in us. Where the human is permitted and motivated to be humane. Can we circle back to leverage the opportunity that is unfolding?
For organisations, brands, marketers, behavioural economists and all of those involved in ‘ social listening ‘, data science and analytics, what option would you prefer? An ambiguous amalgam of over, untrue or misrepresentation or a predictably irrational version of what we humans normally are. The jury is out!
‘Tribe mentality‘ is absolutely fine. That is the way we have evolved over the centuries.  But don’t let that scuttle the ‘ onlyness ‘ in you. As you move ahead in life, don’t forget to take yourself along with you in the journey! That is the only baggage you may need. And there won’t be anything ‘ excess ‘ about it. It will be all ‘ access ‘.
ENDS
 
www.groupisd.com/story
 
www.brandknewmag.com

Your brand’s worth is in your own hands!

Your brand’s worth is in your own hands!
You do not have to look far ahead into the horizon to read that businesses are facing an uncertain economic landscape across multiple markets around the globe. We are amidst a landscape in which brand worth has never faced fiercer scrutiny.
 
Moreover, in this environment, a power shift has taken place as price-conscious shoppers have seized control. Price loyalty or brand loyalty?
 
The done to death strategy(dare we call it that?) that brands have been resorting to, to drive volumes has been, no prizes for guessing, discounting. Not only is it a short term strategy but it also does both the brand and the business serious damage in the longer term. Turning the model upside down, research has shown that a 1% price increase can drive a 12-15% increase in profit. That is three times the profit increase seen by boosting sales the same amount. Which shows that the commercial impact of protecting prices can outweigh cutting them to drive volume.
 
Just like most buying decisions are not rational, so is consumers perception of price, which too leans towards the irrational. Behavioural economics studies show that when you flip the context, re bundle your output and shift the focus from price to value through added layers of experience, consumers are willing to pay disproportionately more for it. This, in some way, also endorses the oft used observation that price is the yardstick of quality.
 
By combining data-led pricing strategies with the creativity and behavioural science of a modern agency(be it ISD Global or any other), brands can dramatically outperform the competition in a commoditised market. 
 
Brands can increase their price perception in the eyes of the customer through a 3C Model of Create(through rituals, theatre, value added services)-Connect(establish a culture where customers are happy to pay more like Frappuccino from Starbucks)-Convert( Optimum sales balancing value and volumes, omni channel, something like what hotel chain IHG does).
 
For the community of marketers everywhere, it is time to seize back control of the most ignored, most impactful lever in the marketing mix: Pricing.
 
 
ENDS
 
www.groupisd.com/story
 
www.brandknewmag.com

Time to change your default settings!

A legacy approach might be stifling you, without you even realising it.Best practices may not be that best(or better) at all. In fact there is scope to abandon best practice as the ‘ practice ‘ as it used to exist has changed altogether.

Your current marketing and customer strategies may unknowingly be rooted in old patterns. It may be time for a change.

The purpose of business—creating a customer—and your customers—at a human level—aren’t changing. That, irrespective of all the tectonic shifts happening around them.

But for many businesses, it’s time to make a change toward having a deep understanding of their true purpose and their customers.

The terms consumer and customer are often used interchangeably but they signify very different relationships. Etymologically, consumer stems from a word that means “one who squanders or wastes,” whereas customer stems from a word meaning “a person with whom one has dealings,” with the implication that it is an ongoing relationship.

As Stanley Marcus, of Neiman Marcus, wrote, “Customers are people; consumers are statistics.”

Marketing isn’t about selling to the customer; that’s a byproduct. As the legendary Peter Drucker observed, “The aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous. The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him and sells itself. Ideally, marketing should result in a customer who is ready to buy.”

It’s the time to break old tendencies. Its the time to be aware, to rebel, to kill old habits and to seek change.

Not changing is a default tendency. Change the default settings!

Nothing else but ONLY only matters!

PM Musings:

In the perennial quest to conform and comply, and trying to beat everyone else doing the same, we happily concede defeat and give up on blazing our own trails. Running the ‘ also ran ‘ race. You might be doing okay by normal standards, but you still feel restless, bored, and limited. True success is playing by your own rules, creating work that no one can replicate. Trying to be the best will limit you to someone else’s definition of success. Don’t be the best, be the only. Only is much better than being the best. Whether you are Mark or Taylor, tailor your own mark. Make competition irrelevant.

Give into ONLYNESS. It’s next to GODLINESS!

ENDS

www.groupisd.com/story

www.brandknewmag.com

The Big Trap for Brands: A Sea of Sameness!

The Big Trap for Brands: A Sea of Sameness
Normal needs a new normalising!
Since there is so much interest, let me start from the bottom line. It is no coincidence that damn near everything that you and me buy or want to buy, seems to have a label ‘ Made in China ‘. Now, that includes airplane wings …as well as caps!
Instant knock offs-with excellence- have become the norm. From shoes to sweaters to computers to restaurants. The quality of damn near everything is terrific. Things that work well are not unusual. Things that don’t work are unusual.
By design or accident, we are afloat, awash, adrift…in a Sea of Sameness. High-quality sameness, but sameness nonethless.
An idea that has legs ..lasts only a few weeks, a few months at best. Then the sequel. And the sequel that follows the sequel. And so on.
Sure heard this before. Herd mentality. We race around. Follow each other’s tails. From Hollywood to Silicon Valley to Madison Avenue to Jamal Abdul Nasar Street.
As Swedish business professors  Kjell Nordstrom and Jonas Ridderstrale brilliantly articulated in their book ‘ Funky Business ‘, ” The surplus society has a surplus of similar companies, employing similar people, with almost similar educational backgrounds..coming up with similar ideas, producing similar things, with similar prices..and similar qualities “. Ouch, that is painful!
The 10X/10X theory on that is that you could be 10 times better. While being ten times less different.
The basic idea that I am echoing here is that ‘ Good Stuff ‘ is commonplace.”

“. It’s no longer exceptional for stuff (anything, everything ) to work. Which means the bar for ” standing out ” has risen dramatically.

In a winner takes all world, Normal = Nothing. So time to stop being goddamn normal.
Dovetailing seamlessly into this line of thought is the Danish marketing phenomenon Jesper Kunde’s articulation ” Companies have defined so much best practice that they are now more or less identical. ” It’s commoditised. Instead, how about ” It’s yet to be practiced “?
In other words, the only way to make a difference is to, well, “ Make a Difference “.
Standing out in a world where most everything works is stupefying difficult. And yet some companies are making a go of it. How I hate the word ‘ normal ‘.
We are in a ” Don’t just sit there economy ” – so, embrace abnormal. Never mind if you are first mover, last mover, first follower or fast follower. Go for it!
ENDS
www.groupisd.com/story
 
www.brandknewmag.com