Where to now for product endorsement?

An interesting news article in recent media revolves around the validity of external consumer ratings for some organisations - 

I would see this as part of an inevitable cause and effect cycle in the marketing environment.

1. Faced with an environment where consumers are becoming more informed by the abundance of information available online as well as more suspicious about the validity of claims made by marketers, the consumers respond to a stamp of approval from some independent third party.
2. Companies observe this trend and now we have a case where independent third parties are providing questionable impartial verification on customer satisfaction (a difficult thing to measure in the first place). 
3. Consumers lose faith in the "independent" ratings and rely instead on public opinion.
4. Companies observe this trend and either pay reviewers to give good reviews or submit false reviews themselves (see this New York Times article)

The vicious cycle continues and companies need to draw an ethical line in the sand. Do they refuse to lie and possibly lose market share?

The question that intrigues me is "What is step 5?"

I believe it will still have a lot to do with recommendations, but not the kind of endorsement that a national cricketer gives to a mobile phone company. I am talking about the kind of support that your best friend gives to their favourite beer. Or the nod of approval that your son's best friend's mum gives to the headache tablets she is using. Positive reinforcement of products from people with whom you have a pre-existing relationship, nods of approval granted within small tribes.

The question now becomes, how are companies going to treat / amaze / enchant / awe these customers so that they are compelled to tell someone?

Young Professional Series : Office politics

Office politics could cause you to shake your head in resignation – it stops you getting things done, new ideas implemented, customers signed….or does it?

Office politics can be counter-productive, but only if you don’t know the rules. Taking the time to understand the workings of the office learning to navigate the politics can make you extremely effective.

Get a reputation for being effective by understanding your office. Learn who makes the sales, who signs the cheques, who makes the hiring decisions, who can get you time in the CEO’s diary and so on.

There is an underbelly of office politics - the gossip, backstabbing, non-transparent decision making and so on. I am not suggesting you get off the bench to play this part of the game but rather learn the rules at your office and which playbook everyone is reading from.

Young professional series : Do you have a social media strategy?

What is a personal social media strategy?


1. Which social media applications do you choose to use?

2. Of those applications, who do you choose to connect with?

3. How regularly do you interact with people through those applications?

4. How do you portray your brand in each of those applications?

I don’t think there is a one-size-fits-all to social media, but I do think that it is essential that you consider your strategy.

My strategy (which you are free to steal or give constructive feedback on) is as follows :

I choose to interact on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and this blog. In my opinion, these are the leaders in the social media arena and best serve my objectives of staying connected and building a personal brand.

On Facebook, I connect with friends, family and colleagues with whom I have a personal relationship. On every connection I consider the risk of the information that these connections will have access to and manage my privacy settings. The updates are usually personal : My daughter is taking her first steps, my son has learnt the letters ‘R’, ‘Z’ and ‘C’ etc… I also use it to share photo’s with friends and family. I never post anything that would damage my personal brand.

On LinkedIn I connect with all colleagues I have had a conversation with, any prospective or current clients that I have met through work, networking functions or social interaction. On occasion I will connect with people I have not met personally – but that is the exception rather than the norm. I also connect with friends that are on LinkedIn as I believe that friends are an important part of my professional network. I am NOT a LinkedIn open networker (or LION). I don’t think this adds any value to my LinkedIn network and actually exposes my connections to 2nd and 3rd degree connections of the open networkers (which could be the same as introducing my competitors to my client base). I regularly post links and news articles that I think may be interesting to my network. This is extremely simple as I have linked Google Reader to LinkedIn – whenever I “share” an item in Google Reader, it updates my LinkedIn status.

I have not really decided how I am using Twitter, I simply decided it would be good to get on the bandwagon! All my LinkedIn status updates automatically post to Twitter, so my Twitter posts are more business related than anything else. I have branded my Twitter page to match the blog to differentiate it from a standard Twitter page. I accept all connections in Twitter and automatically follow back all connections. Hopefully my Twitter tribe will keep growing steadily until I actually determine the best way to interact with them and leverage this social media asset.

My blog was created to provide an outlet for random business related thoughts. It is intended to supplement my on-line presence and form part of my personal brand. My Twitter posts appear on a widget on the blog as well as any articles I find time to write.

All of these interactions with the Social Media universe are managed in such a way that they form a constant brand message. I have the same picture on each site and try to update them all regularly.

That’s me. Like I said, I can’t prescribe a strategy for you – but I do recommend that you get one.

If a gun has a safety, why not the stock exchange?

News story

Apparently, a typo caused world stock exchanges to crash. In the space of 20 minutes, America’s top 30 firms lost billions in market value – more than they did after September 11. The pen (or PC) truly is mightier than the sword.

I find this scary, and quite frankly, unacceptable. Financial firms spend millions on virus security and firewalls, protecting against hackers and cyber terrorists.

How simple and cheap would it be to have a data validation assess each trade entry? You punch in 15 billion instead of 15 million and the system retorts “Warning : Your entered trade is 1,000 times greater than the maximum trade of this stock over the last five years. Please re-enter the amount to continue.” The warning and override should then be recorded in a log.

Please will the powers-that-be sort this out before it happens again by “accident” and someone makes a fortune out of the market reaction.

Get your base right

Youtube Clip - The Axis of Awesome

Here is a brilliant segment by the comedy band, the “Axis of Awesome” (caution – a few swear words). These guys show us that a number of hit songs have the exact same chord progression. This isn’t a new discovery, anyone learning to play the guitar could probably have told you that quite a few songs have a similar chord sequence.

I think there is a very interesting learning to be extracted from this and it is not a lecture on the perils of plagiarism.

All of these songs have a distinctive melody and lyrics which is overlayed onto the foundation of the chord progression and “sits” well there. The melody and lyrics have added a subtle difference which makes the final song unique and enjoyable to a particular group of people.

In your business, do you have a clearly identifiable foundation that underpins everything you do for all customers? This is part of your business that you have to get right. This is your core value proposition.

On top of that foundation, you are able to differentiate your customer base to offer your customers targeted, tailor-made solutions which enhance the value provided by your foundation.

Get the foundation right first, then sort out your bells and whistles.