The collapsing distinction between promotion and information

Yesterday, on my favourite radio interview program (CBC Radio's show Q), host Jian Ghomeshi  intreviewed Hayley Phelan, Fashion News Editor at Fashionista.com about her online story, 'Can You Trust the Editorial Integrity of Personal Style Blogs? A Closer Look at How Bloggers Make Money.'

The segment got me thinking about the larger issues of ‘independent thought’ and the blurring of ‘promotion’ and ‘information’ in contemporary culture.

Witness the growing popularity of advertorials in reputable newspapers and magazines, in which corporations or special interest groups pay to have ‘editorially formatted copy’ written about them to surround their advertisements, all bearing such headings as ‘sponsored supplement’ or ‘special information feature.’

Count the number of well-known brands that we are exposed to in a typical Hollywood movie or TV show. Product placement is big business.

The burgeoning field of branded content, accelerated by social media, involves brands creating their own editorial or entertainment-style programming that, to a greater or lesser extent, allows them to focus attention on their own products without the clutter of competing brands.

The prevalence of celebrity endorsements for products ranging from fragrances to fast food suggests that many consumers crave reassurance or status when making purchasing decisions.

For me, the most practical way to cope these days is to carefully choose brands that you identify with and trust, whether it’s a newspaper (in my case, The Globe and Mail), a clothing retailer (L.L. Bean) or a line of haircare products (whatever my stylist at Fiorio on Bayview recommends). 

Just don’t expect that your choices will yield “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

Water-glasses with balls... a 'Real Sports' highlight!

This evening, my son and I treated ourselves to watching the Toronto Maple Leafs vs. Buffalo Sabres pre-season hockey game on a flatscreen TV from the comfort of a booth at the wonderful new Real Sports Bar and Grill, located adjacent to the Air Canada Centre – a sensitively renovated Art Deco building, by the way!

As per my family's lunchtime visit a few weeks ago, the food was excellent, the staff friendly, the service attentive and the atmosphere lively due to the presence of many groups of sports fans. These are the necessities for success in their competitive business.

But Real Sports recognizes the need for extra little surprises that help create the truly memorable customer experience.

The interior design features eerily lit decorative chandeliers made from hundreds of fanned-out hockey-stick blades. Above one of the bars is a ceiling patterned on a giant basketball net, with tabletops featuring real parquet flooring from the ACC. And your side-order of French Fries comes in a little metal basket that's a miniature copy of a real french-fryer basket!

But what was the highlight for me was discovering that the bottoms of the water-glasses contained small recesses in the form of sports balls – baseballs, golf-balls, footballs and basketballs.

Side view of 'golf-ball' water-glass held up in front of our booth's TV screen showing Leafs game.

 In my view, demonstrating such care for even the subtlest aspects of the customer experience is a sure-fire way to win the hearts of even the most demanding fans!

Duh, it's about the customer!

Kudos to Alexa Samuels for laying bare the dangers of not being customer-centric when creating your communications – Is your marketing making the customer think too much?

Begin with the mindset of: Where's my customer's head at regarding my product? and you will, at minimum, prevent customers from bypassing your message since they'll recognize themselves in your piece. At best, you will have gained new brand advocates since you've solved a problem for them and demonstrated respect for their intelligence and time.

On the other hand, if you launch your communications thinking: Hey everyone out there, lemme tell you all my detailed news!, you will likely confuse people who aren't as close to things as you, or worse, create a lasting negative impression of your brand.

Remember the old saw that it takes 100 contacts to create a good impression, but just one to break it!

A truly smart brand...

When shopping in-person at Indigo yesterday, I bought the latest in my series of (insert topic here) For Dummies books.

This one is iPad For Dummies, purchased to help me get the most out of my new 'essential business tool / really cool toy' – it really depends on who in my family you ask!

In the early days of Glue, I bought several of the books to help me learn about and run the business: Consulting for Dummies, Accounting for Dummies and Managing Business Change for Dummies. Since then, I've picked up several others – iPod & iTunes for Dummies and iMovie '09 & iDVD '09 for Dummies – to help me exploit specific new technological tools.

What really impresses me about 'For Dummies' books are their consistency:

• Packaging – the books are easy to spot on the store's shelf (helps me buy 'em), and each one is to distinguish from another on my bookshelf (helps me use 'em).
• Organization – each book follows a standard format (e.g., Contents at a Glance, Table of Contents, 'The Part of Tens', road-sign icons, detailed index), so I know what to expect and where to find stuff.
• Tonality – all the Dummies books I own have the same folksy language that's occasionally laced with gentle puns, but always very clear in delivering its message, making me feel comfortable when learning.

In writing this post, I've just discovered that there's a FREE For Dummies online reference library of articles and instructional videos on a vast number of topics, ranging from the six-step 'How to Unclog a Drain with a Plunger' (illustrated with still photos!), to 'How to Create Smart CD Playlists in iTunes' that includes helpful screen shots. Heck, you don't even have to buy this company's stuff to learn things!

Overall, I believe For Dummies books exemplify effective branding: they make a clear and relevant promise ('A Reference for the Rest of Us', now apparently updated to 'Making Everything Easier') and then repeatedly deliver on that promise.

Now that's smart business!

My new iPad: The thrill, the disappointment and a delightful surprise

My first Apple computer!

As a nearly 30-year user of Apple technology (remember the Apple II Plus anyone?), the time finally arrived when I was able to purchase an iPad. (Being the prudent person I am, I also bought an ICON screen protector, and after being nearly overwhelmed by choice at my Best Buy store, a padded black nylon Brenthaven carrying case.)

Naturally, there was enormous excitement when I unpacked the silent, shining black-and-chrome iPad.

The designer side of me relishes the simplicity of the all-white Apple box with its vacuum-formed insert and clear cellophane wrappers (that even have micro-sized dots on the flaps to tell you where to pull to remove).

Cardboard stiffener = cupholder tray!

But the eco-consumer side of me – disappointed by the lack of recycle-ability of much of the iPad packaging – was thrilled that the cardboard stiffener inside the Brenthaven case (which itself was packed inside a simple, recycled paper sleeve) was designed to be reused as a cup-holder tray! Its instructions read: "In our efforts to reduce, reuse and recycle, please punch out cup holders and recycle the rest. Thanks. Brenthaven."

So while I've (predictably) extended my engagement and passion for the Apple brand, I have become an instant convert to the eco-friendly Brenthaven brand and its Zero Impact commitment to the environment.

Do you think the time will come when Apple's commitment to user experience will catch up with today's ground-swell of eco-consciousness, and will lead the company to evolve its distinctive packaging into something less polished and sleek?

Max and Kelly and me: Two customer-service stories

I spent the best part of this afternoon engaged in two rather different customer-service experiences, both involving the internet.

The first involved money – trying to get my hands on a simple electronic copy of a Bell Canada phonebill that had been posted in my epost account.

The second involved happiness – more precisely, ordering tickets to an interesting breakfast session to hear Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com and author of the book Delivering Happiness.

The Bell bill saga took me into an online chat with a fellow named Max. Based on the seeming lifelessness of the replies, it appeared the chat service was a very sophisticated automated response system, but in fact Max was a real fellow based in India (he wasn't permitted to tell me his age). I found it rather frustrating trying to explain to Max, keystroke by keystroke, about my desire to put my (backup) dial-up internet service and two landlines into the same MyBell.ca account with a single password. Shortly into the process, I asked Max if we could stop 'chatting' and actually speak in person, as that would be a lot easier for me, but alas, he wasn't permitted to do that. In the end though, we got the account updating done. Sadly, my prejudices about the inflexibility and non-customer-centredness of Bell were confirmed.

Contrast that with the experience that I had with a gal named Kelly (I'm pretty sure that was her name) from the customer care team at Globe Recognition.

Although they didn't get back to me until I hounded them, Kelly (a live voice on the phone!!) was very keen to help, and managed to dream up and execute some behind-the-scenes administrative magic that updated the antiquated email address in my account profile so that I could login and order my breakfast session ticket.

It strikes me as more than ironic that the ultimate intent of this second exercise was to hear about business of delivering happiness from the representative of a company whose slogan is 'Powered by Service'!

Building a customer-centred business

Some solutions on how to put the customer at the centre of your organization.

I was pleased to participate as one of nine panelists in a kitchen-table dialogue on June 23, 2010 – led by moderator Alan Kay of The Glasgow Group and hosted by Rick Wolfe of PostStone Corporation – about how companies can get past thinking about brands and become truly customer-centred.



Examples of organizations that are considered customer-centred

• Tim Horton’s – a brand that’s become an icon by tapping into the Canadian experience.
• Life Choice Foods – a virtual company that offers top-quality kid-friendly organic foods.
• Amazon – an online retailer that understands past purchase patterns and presents relevant recommendations.
• Zappos – an online retailer with an explicit set of family core values.
• Zip (Netflix in the U.S.) – an easy-to-use, hassle-free home DVD rental service.
• Best Buy – uses information from employees to better understand customer preferences.
• L.L. Bean – a retailer offering guaranteed customer satisfaction across all touchpoints.

Some barriers to putting customers at the centre

• Leadership bias – CEOs/CFOs do not generally gain exposure to a customer mindset in their education or their career path. 
• Insufficient analytics – despite plenty of data, few businesses seem to have succeeded in integrating all their information to compile a realistic 360-degree view of their customers’ value to the business.  
• Organizational structure – with the Marketing department owning the brand in many ‘siloed’ organizations, it’s hard to get the entire business focused on the customer. The job of a traditional leader is to provide predictable results to shareholders, and organizations have been narrowly structured to ensure profitability.

Some solutions for being customer-centric

* Begin with the business’s existing information resources, use business intelligence to identify and understand the most valuable customers, then ask them how you can best meet their needs. (We’ve never had more capability to identify and understand customers.)

* Don’t start with your widget and then look for customers; instead, start further upstream by ask a group of prospects what they need, then design the widget accordingly.

* Start by being employee-centric:

• Hire the right staff. (North America tends to value ‘talkers’ instead of ‘listening,’ which needs to be built into the company’s value system.) 
• Inform them about the company’s progress.
• Value them by asking for their input.
• Report back to them on what you’re doing with their input (or explain why you’re not doing something.) 
• Reward them for their successes. 

* Leverage a ‘use-case process’ (a user-centric perspective, drawn from the software business) in thinking about the business:

• Who are our various users?
• Why are they coming? 
• Where are they coming from? 
• What are they trying to do? 
• How long do they stay (determined using today’s metrics)?

* Remember the singular, customer-focused vision of some of the great entrepreneurs (e.g., Jeff Bezos of Amazon; Steve Jobs of Apple; Ray Kroc of McDonald’s). But things get tough when the leader passes the torch. After a few years in the value of death after the death of Sam Walton, Lee Scott of Wal-Mart transformed the company’s focus on eliminating waste to cut prices into a focus on environmental sustainability.

* A customer-centric vision must be strongly held and acted upon by the senior leadership team, but then ‘given up’ by the leadership team and handed over to people in the organization for their input. Ask them four questions:

1. Where did our company come from? (where were we yesterday?)
2. What are we today? (how do we appear to you now?)
3. Where should we be in five years? (what would you like us to be?)
4. Do you have any ideas of how we’ll get there?

Senior leaders should be sponsors who clear barriers, but not run the team. With this autonomy, the teams will spend money responsibly to help address the improvement opportunities.

* Thanks to social media today, we can listen to millions of people for their ideas. Make the customer the expert in the changes they want made. However, be conscious of how you’ll use the input you gain!

* Be conscious of what you’re selling: the tangible product (which doesn’t change), versus the brand (which is fluid).

On brands and branding

• “A brand is not what you think you are, but what they (the customer) think you are.”
• “The brand is the value we give our customers; it’s what we stand for with them. If we can consistently present this message throughout the organization at all levels, then everyone will gets it; this is what we’re about.”

Some quotable quotes

• “Being customer-centric is a lot of work, and you can’t lie. You have to make real connections; you can’t hide behind your desk. It takes courage.”
• “Don’t confuse the ‘scoreboard’ with the ‘game.’ Profit is the scoreboard, and it’s more important to some than to others. But the game – for instance, providing nutrition to the mass market in Canada – is what’s important. If we play the game well, the score will take care of itself. The customer-focused game is what we should be take pride in.”
• “Don’t suck up [to your boss], suck down [by telling your boss what your people have done].

 Some further reading

• "But what do we want people to do?" Article by Andy Gould in AdAge: http://bit.ly/9rgP2Y 

• 
  

The Bell tolled for Ted Rogers

A few years ago, I was a fervent supporter of Bell Canada for my cell-phone and internet needs, believing all the talk that Rogers was impossible to deal with. But partly as a result of some inferior technical capabilities and sloppy customer service from Bell, I've since switched most of my business to Rogers.

Without question, the complexity of delivering flawless, uninterrupted service across various high-tech platforms makes it nearly impossible to achieve complete customer satisfaction, but overall, I've been impressed by the friendliness of Rogers' call centre folks, the clarity of their messaging... and I have to say, i ADORE my iPhone!

One factor that caused me to reconsider Rogers was Ted Rogers's inductee acceptance speech at the 2007 Marketing Hall of Legends (www.marketinghalloflegends.ca) gala. At the close of the evening, Ted stood at his chair in the audience and enthralled us with the story of how, in the early days, he managed his clamouring creditors by drawing invoices out of a hat on Friday nights! That night, we saw a side of Ted that I suspect many of us didn't know.

I recently purchased the audio version of Ted's autobiography, Relentless, and have been really enjoying his stories about the struggles to build his company, his candour about his strengths and weaknesses, and his entrepreneurial advice.

Not surprisingly, the obituaries published earlier this week have been less flattering than his own book, but nonetheless, it's hard not to admire the ambition, patriotism and foresight of this Canadian legend. It makes me a bit more proud to be a Rogers customer.

Reflections on a career-in-progress

This morning, I braved the winter’s latest snowstorm to venture out to the University of Toronto Mississauga campus to participate in a student networking event for students studying marketing or communications.

While passing along various nuggets of advice from my own experiences, I was struck by the realization that like most things, career-planning success comes down to positioning, persistence and politeness.

Positioning, in understanding what excites you, then packaging your skills and interests into a ‘brand’ that expresses who you are and what you want to do, but is also aligned with the prerequisites and capabilities of the job you’re seeking.

Persistence, in appreciating that getting a job is partly a numbers game (first you’ve gotta get your ‘brand’ intrusively launched into the marketplace, then you need to keep on reminding your prospects about your existence until, when their need arises, you’re top-of-mind).

And finally politeness, in having the smarts to not presume that your skill-set will automatically fit the employer’s needs, but ‘taking it slow’ and respectfully asking to begin a conversation with them that ideally leads to a job.

I drove away from the session reminded about the innocence of youth, but also thankful that I’ve found a rewarding career for myself with Glue.

My faux-marble garbage can: A plea for truthfulness

The Rimrock Resort Hotel in Banff (where I arrived yesterday to help produce the employee meeting I’ve been working on for a couple of months) is lovely. The view of the mountains is breathtaking, the food is tasty, and the staff (40 percent of whom, I’m told, are Aussies) are very friendly.

Though my room is spacious and tastefully decorated, one thing caught my eye… the bathroom garbage can.

The can is made of plastic that’s meant to look like marble. Now I’ve got nothing against marble, but why would one ever want a real marble garbage can? It would be quite heavy to lift while being emptied, rather breakable if you banged it, and would do a number on your toes if you dropped it.

This humble garbage can got me thinking about truthfulness in design. I believe that on top of being functional (things doing what they’re supposed to do; being easy-to-use and durable), objects and spaces should be attractive (e.g., harmonious colours, pleasing proportions). But I wish designers would not try to make things appear to be something that they’re not. In other words, I wish things were more authentic.

Plastic is an ideal material for a garbage can, so make it look like plastic. Why not a solid colour (since it’s made from resin poured into a mould), perhaps with a texture (if the moulding process allows for it). But don’t make it look like marble!

There’s a new book out called Authenticity (James H. Gilmore and B. Joseph Pine II, Harvard Business School Press, 299 pages, $31.95) that I suspect touches on this. To be truthful (!), I’ve only skimmed the book in a store and read a review of it.

Few would argue there’s tremendous skepticism all around us these days; witness the debate about whether Hillary Clinton’s crying on the campaign trail a couple of weeks ago was a carefully staged performance, or an authentic show of emotion. As Authenticity argues, there’s a deep yearning for things to be real.

I believe the lesson for marketers is to be honest with yourself – and with your customers – about what your brand / product actually is, then truthfully present what it can and cannot do. I’m not suggesting being dull, humourless or devoid of emotion, but rather to ensure the excitement and emotion of your brand promise is grounded in believable, real-life experiences.

Tim's business-travel tips

Having just returned from another business trip out west to Calgary, it's becoming clearer to me that the 'travel' part of business travel isn't really all that glamourous. In fact, it's usually rather exhausting... you just want to ARRIVE!

Through my recent experiences, I'm learning some simple lessons that are helping me be productive and do my best work:

1. Pick a hotel that's close to the client's office. Okay, so maybe one that's actually connected indoors is a bit too close (this time, I always walked the 40 yards door-to-door outside), but not having to travel much back and forth saves time and energy.

2. Eat a hearty breakfast. Day after day, a couple of glasses of juice, a bowl of oatmeal, scrambled eggs, and toast with peanut butter mightn't very exciting, but it does give me energy for a full morning's work (especially when I'm working in Mountain Time but waking up on Eastern Time).

3. Pack good technical tools. Although you end up with a second rolling suitcase loaded with electronic gear, I found it so handy to have a portable printer with me (Canon iP90), together with my Rogers Portable High-Speed Internet modem, USB hub, mouse, digital camera-cum-tape-recorder and of course, cellphone. I've even labelled the different power cords for each device, and got separate little carrying pouches (orange-coloured kids' pencil cases) for all the accessories, which makes packing easier and reduces the likelihood you forget essential cables or chargers. I even sprang for a second battery for my MacBook Pro laptop, which has more than paid for itself in extra productivity on longer flights.

4. Bring some office essentials. I ended up buying a mini-stapler, file folders and a hole punch at Grand & Toy, so I could keep the documents from my various meetings neatly organized. Use a few hotel envelopes to organize receipts, so your wallet doesn't get overloaded.

5. Get a good little carrying bag. I just bought a wonderful black Hedgren shoulder bag with countless zippered pockets. It's perfect for carrying all my 'stuff': pens, cellphone, iPod, retractable Sony earbuds (since untangling headphone cable has got to be one of life's great time-wasters), memory sticks, digital camera with extra batteries, chewing gum, water bottles, books, etc. Tip: Keep your boarding pass in the same pocket every time to avoid rifling through the entire bag in line-ups.

6. Pack up as you go. Next time, I'll do a better job of keeping my stuff nearly 'ready to be packed' for departure, thereby minimizing the scambling when heading home.

7. Avoid arriving home in rush hour. Just when you're finally ready to collapse into the back-seat of the limousine to get home from the airport, you discover there are dozens people ahead of you -- and precious few limos or taxis to be found. Once it does arrive, the highway home is a veritable parking lot. Lesson: try to stick to flights arriving in the evening!

8. Most important of all: smile. I'm coming to appreciate the value of smiling at the many people you come into contact with when travelling -- from airport check-in staff to restaurant servers, flight attendants to taxi-drivers, hotel front-desk staff to office-tower security guards. A warm, genuine smile or greeting makes a connection -- from one human being to another -- that shows you appreciate their efforts, and can help you get that 'extra bit' of attention or service or flexibility you may need.

Saying hello in winter

Today was the first major snowfall of the winter here in Toronto, and I walked my half-hour to the office early to catch up on work.

Over the years, I’ve observed that the first snowfall day allows normally reserved Torontonians to actually 'open up a little' and smile at strangers as they trudge past. I guess it’s an acknowledgment of our shared battle against the elements.

However, there seems to be some unwritten rules at play. If you encounter someone one-on-one, you normally say hello (or at least smile), but if you encounter a cluster of people, you are less likely to greet them.

The arrival of iPods has allowed people to further detach themselves from their social surroundings (but not yet their physical environment) and ignore such interpersonal contact.

For me, I try to still say hello, even with the earbuds in. But who knows, maybe I’m shouting when I do so...?

My Grey Cup runneth over on WestJet

I arrived home at 3 a.m. today from a business trip to Calgary (the flight home was delayed departing due to a storm at Pearson Airport in Toronto). As is my wont lately, I chose to fly WestJet (www.westjet.com) rather than Air Canada (www.aircanada.com), since as a marketer I’m always interested in watching how companies ‘live their brand.’

I was tired at the end of the busy day, and had initially hoped to sleep on the trip home. But as I boarded the flight after 8 p.m., I was surrounded in the jetway by the hoots and hollers of Western Canadian football fans heading to TO for the Grey Cup.

Although I didn’t catch a wink of sleep on the flight, I did have a brief chat with the boisterous fans beside, behind and across from me; did get some Marketing Hall of Legends (www.marketinghalloflegends.ca) volunteer work done; and most significantly, did observe the grace and mastery of the WestJet crew in their handling of my new Western Canadian pals.

Not only was I reminded of the importance of the Grey Cup in uniting Canadians, but I watched how the flight crew conducted themselves with humour, cheerfulness and humanity while never compromising the flight’s safety.

It reaffirmed my respect for the airline, and for its recruitment policies in attracting employees who aren’t afraid to ‘be real’ on the job.