Archive for March, 2008

Mar 31, 2008

David Armano

Published by
David Armano

Topics
Brand Experience and Organizational Implications
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The Cobblers Children: Are We Investing In Ourselves?

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The story of the Cobblers Children is an all-too-familiar one. The town’s Cobbler is a busy man—he’s so busy making shoes for his paying customers, that he neglects his own children. It’s a story based on truth and while common sense tells us that the Cobbler should take care of his children as well, reality tells another story. As a follow up to Dave’s recent post about “lights out” and the feedback we received on our blog design, you should know that we heard you and would have even acted sooner—if it weren’t for those clients who pay the bills. ;-) Truth is, this is a topic worth thinking about. In the race to exceed client expectations, can we sometimes lose sight of our own “children”?

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Mar 31, 2008

Dave Robertson

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Dave Robertson

Topics
Compelling Experiences
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Who turned out the lights?

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Earth Hour almost made it under my radar.

Thanks to the 30+ emails to “cmassother” last Friday, Earth Hour became pretty hard to ignore. Cmassother is one of our internal listservs and a company free-for-all where CM’ers sell things, ask for advice, share p-chopped files and debate stuff like hockey (apparently the Leafs are going to lose - again). There was no shortage of debate about Earth Hour.

But like the responsible Canadian I am, I spent Saturday evening at home, in the dark, snoozing on my couch. If I was a real Canadian, I would have been hiding under a blanket with my television so the neighbors wouldn’t see me watching “Hockey Night in Canada”. However, I don’t like hockey. My wife did yoga by candle light. My son read a novel. It was so pleasant and quiet, my son suggested we do it next Saturday night. We’re all sold.

Wow - a marketing campaign that sells something that costs less than nothing. More on this later in the week.

And speaking of the lights - we’ve heard our readers and we’ll be making some changes to Experience Matters later this afternoon. For those of you who have had difficulty reading our posts after the release of our recent re-design, we’ll be moving to a more traditional, high contrast look that should be much more readable.

Thanks always for your feedback (particularly Joe Szabo who made the “lights out” comment). We’ll be looking for more after this afternoon’s update.

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Mar 30, 2008

Scott Weisbrod

Published by
Scott Weisbrod

Topics
Brand Experience, Compelling Experiences, Customer Insight and Methods of Work
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Weekly Points of Interest 2008-23-03

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Sites of the Week

Mar 28, 2008

Heidi Skinner

Published by
Heidi Skinner

Topics
Organizational Implications and Uncategorized
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Venti, Non-Fat, Iced Frappacino Storm

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Last week, Starbucks launched My Starbucks Idea. Many have likened the social site to Direct2Dell, or more recently, Dell IdeaStorm.  I think any brand who creates a forum to sincerely listen and proactively and consistently respond to all types of ideas and/or complaints deserves some applause.  The consumer side of me really commends that.  

The marketer side of me, also supports the initiative, but notices a fundamental difference between the two corporate forums listed above.  Dell’s IdeaStorm fosters communication on product development for items that have a lifecycle once purchased by a consumer, versus a Starbucks purchase and consumption which arguably starts and finishes over the course of thirty minutes.  It will be interesting to see if MyStarbucksIdea can offer a sustainable idea-generating community given that very short purchase cycle. Along the same vein, it will also be a challenge for Starbucks to offer ‘acceptable’ solutions to consumer concerns with such a low-price product. I know what you are thinking – a $5 coffee is not ‘low price,’ but in comparison to how a consumer feels about purchasing a vacation, a vehicle or mobile phone service – there isn’t a lot of thought put into the research and consideration phase of the purchase.   

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Mar 26, 2008

Heidi Skinner

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Heidi Skinner

Topics
Brand Experience and Emerging Technology
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iMedia Breakthrough Summit: Is this the year of mobile?

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I don’t know if I’d say the theme of last week’s iMedia Breakthrough Summit was mobile, but there has definitely been movement in the marketplace since this time, last year. There’s no secret in our industry that the mobile web has unlimited potential. Mobile is likely the most important of the emerging platforms. John Hadl, Managing Partner & Founder of BrandinHand, Inc. has been quoted as saying, “We are at the tipping point in terms of consumer adoption and the starting gate in term of marketers’ readiness to embrace the medium. 2008 is the year of rising tides … a rising tide lifts all ships.” By 2011, the mobile advertising market is estimated to be worth over $11.5 billion annually. While there were more noteworthy case studies at this year’s conference, mobile has yet to find a fixed spot in the marketing mix budget.  After talking with some of my peers, it seems like the biggest hurdle for mobile is that it is directly competing with online budgets. Should it be? Does it take the place of traditional or online media? (more…)

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Mar 20, 2008

David Armano

Published by
David Armano

Topics
Brand Experience and Customer Insight
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Experience, Social, Word of Mouth. Is it All Just Advertising?

Troy Young
Troy Young: Video Egg

I just wrapped up two days at the Ad Age Digital Marketing conference in NYC. This post will be short and perhaps bittersweet as I am about to jump on a delayed flight back to Chicago (translation, I’m tired).

The panel I took part in was the official “social media” discussion. It was a great conversation, and the conference itself conducted polls from the audience in real time. Here’s how usage of social networks broke down according to the attendees there:

Facebook: 39%
LinkedIn: 37%
MySpace: 12%
Other: 7%
None: 5%

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Mar 20, 2008

Scott Weisbrod

Published by
Scott Weisbrod

Topics
Brand Experience, Compelling Experiences, Customer Insight and Emerging Technology
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Weekly Points of Interest 2008-03-20

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Mar 14, 2008

Neil Clemmons

Published by
Neil Clemmons

Topics
Customer Insight
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Eyes Wide Shut: Filtering Signal from Noise

This morning I was walking at 5th and 52rd Street in New York on my way to a meeting. Traffic was at a standstill, people frustrated, horns blowing, due to President Bush being in town with his motorcade. As I’m walking up 5th Avenue, I encounter a blind man also walking with his cane. He looked a little flustered. With New York at a standstill, and no sense of movement, he had lost his “signal” for deciphering what was going on. Traffic was gridlocked. Congestion was outrageous. We struck up a chat and he asked what was happening and I filled him in. We chatted for maybe 3 minutes over two blocks. As the cross town motorcade passed at 55th and traffic started to move, I was amazed at his instinctive ability to regain his navigational sense – he once again found the signal within the noise as we walked. Not only could he carry on a conversation, he navigated by sound at the same time. He didn’t need an iPhone with Google maps. He didn’t need eyes, because he had internal vision. An intuitive sense based on deciphering the signal. And an amazing sense of processing that signal in real time.taxiIt’s yet another example of separating the signal from the noise. Its easy to be distracted with the technology and tools, the emerging trends, the mountains of data, the noise around us. Our customer experience “traffic sense” can sometimes seem at a standstill. Often it’s about listening, internalizing, and understanding intuitively what’s going on. Close your eyes, regain the signal and you’ll be on your way.

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Mar 14, 2008

Heidi Skinner

Published by
Heidi Skinner

Topics
Compelling Experiences
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Poster Child for Quick Reactions: Print!

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On Monday, news broke that Eliot Spitzer, the governor of NY, had seven (or more) “engagements” with prostitutes supplied by a call girl service. Spitzer was identified as “Client 9.” Virgin Mobile reacted quickly to this week’s hot topic. The day after Spitzer resigned as a result of the scandal, Virgin Mobile hit the press with the ad shown above.

The ad plays off Spitzer’s “Client #9” label, with the thought bubble reading, “I’m tired of being treated like a number.” The ad goes on to say, “…you’re more than just a number. When you call us we’ll treat you like a person, not a client. Whether you’re #9 or #900, you’ll get hooked up with somebody who’ll finally treat you just how you want to be treated.”

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Mar 14, 2008

Scott Weisbrod

Published by
Scott Weisbrod

Topics
Compelling Experiences, Customer Insight, Delivering Results and Emerging Technology
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Weekly Points of Interest 2008-03-15 (Innovation Edition)

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