Doug Molitor's Professional Blog

2012-01-06T11:04:00.000-08:00

Target Pricing, Niche Marketing
It’s a Bitch

This shiraz is a bitch. It says so on the label. Royal Bitch is the name of the wine, one of a sisterhood of budget-priced cabernets and chardonnays from a variety of producers with labels like Sassy Bitch, Jealous Bitch, Tasty Bitch, Happy Bitch and Sweet Bitch. In 2004 a grenache named, simply, Bitch got the postfeminist ball rolling. Then came wines labeled:

Ball Buster, a beefy shiraz-cabernet-merlot Australia.
BigAss Red, from California.
Stench, an Australian sparkler.
Fat Bastard, a line of wines from France, sold 425,000 cases by 2004, making it one of the most popular French wines in the United States.

Ah, the target marketing; Bitch grabs the attention of a certain type of consumer, primarily young women en route to a bachelorette or divorce party, or looking for a special way to say, "I love you" on Mother's Day. Ball Buster is said to make its way to a lot of lawyers from their clients.

Original article January 4, 2012, by William Grimes, New York Times

2012-01-06T10:54:00.000-08:00

Every Picture Tells A Story
A Not-For-Profit Side of Aggressive Labels is Cleavage Creek.
In October 2007, Budge Brown released the first generation of Cleavage Creek wines. The label of each bottle of Cleavage Creek wine features the image of an actual breast cancer survivor whose story is told on the Cleavage Creek website. “Putting a face on this disease and telling the stories of those who are dealing with it personalizes this and hopefully inspires everyone to take on the crusade,” said Brown. 10% of gross sales is donated to cutting edge research to fund a cure for breast cancer. Brown died in a plane crash in 2011.

DoD Becoming Leading Buyer New Energy Tech - The Military’s Plunge Into Renewables

2011-08-17T11:35:00.000-07:00

One out of eight U.S. Army casualties in Iraq was the result of protecting fuel convoys.
It costs up to $40-a-gallon to get fuel into remote and dangerous places.

This statistic is a driver behind the U.S. military’s plunge into renewable [generate on site electricity] energy. The DoD is quickly becoming a leading buyer of cutting-edge renewable energy technology.
War zones present to a different set of cost-benefit calculations than civilian life – such as the lives lost protecting fuel convoys and the $40-a-gallon price tag. For the armed services, the benefits of generate-on-site electricity extend beyond reducing fuel convoy causalities. A fighting force that isn't restricted by the reach of a tanker truck or weighted down by heavy batteries is more nimble and, as a result, more lethal. It’s the lesson of Rommel in North Africa, 65 years later.
For renewable energy companies, the military is proving to be a vital customer, buying the latest technology and encouraging private investment. It you liked ARPANRT …
Target-Rich Environment: "We view ourselves as a target-rich environment," Secretary of the Army John McHugh said in announcing plans to provide wind and solar developers with Army land and long term agreements to buy their electricity.
FYI: The military accounts for 80% of the federal government's overall energy use and spends $15 billion a year on fuel. Also, for entrepreneurs, the military is a great reference customer, if they let you talk.
Sources: Steve Hargreaves, CNNMoney Tech, August 17, 2011
THE WHITE HOUSE BLOG: Energy for the War Fighter: The Department of Defense Operational Energy Strategy. June 14, 2011

High Heat & Enthusiasm In Clean Tech

2011-07-21T09:44:00.000-07:00

Seeking The Future, Now, At Three Trade Shows & A Seminar

Last week I attended both the InterSolar show at Moscone in San Francisco and then later in the week the Cleantech Open National Investors Conference in San Jose. In addition, the previous week I went to a graywater seminar hosted by the BuiltItGreen.org.
Most disappointing was InterSolar. From a 10,000 foot view above Mosconi, solar technology still comes from Germany, plus a few isolated spots in the US. Meanwhile, China is striving to drive photo voltaic (PV) cells and panels to the commodity level. Besides, right now China is its own best market.From the US vendor perspective, it was a pick-up-truck-driving contractors show, with solar system installation the #1 business; “We got panels; We got mounting systems.”
While InterSolar was 200 watts brighter than the nearby Semicon IC show, it there was little enthusiasm. Gone was the solar evangelism and solar fervor. Totally missing was anticipation for the next-big-thing in the industry. This is probably because the global solar industry is entirely dependent on government subsidies and in the current Western economy, you can pretty much guess that subsidy action is waning.
High Heat: A day later the Cleantech Open National Investors Conference was a ferment of enthusiasm and hope. Here the halls were alive with ideas, entrepreneurs, investment angels, VC and “future-tech” executives from firms such as Chevron to Gundfos pumps to Walmart.
Leading off, author Geoffrey Moore exclaimed an analogy, comparing energy to healthcare in complexity. The difficulty for an energy start-up, he said, is that the buyer needs a complex system, not a product. Whereas most start-ups must aim for serious pain with their product.
As if to prove him wrong Reenst Lesemann of Columbia Power Technologies, talked about progress in ocean-wave energy converters for early adopter utilities in the EU. Other clean tech start-ups presenting included Grant Ricketts with a software tool to track and measure results and Derek Zobrist with a $2,000 valve for reducing energy consumption in hotel and apartment water heating systems.

The overall investors-choice for the conference was Puralytics, which designs and manufactures a water purification system that eliminates organic and inorganic material, including most toxic waste, heavy metals and the growing list of synthetic endocrine substances in drinking water. According to CEO Mark Owen, Puralytics is, “Way ahead of the FDA on the endocrine destroying substances now found in American drinking water.” [Puralytics molecular diagram: Direct disassociation of contaminants by high intensity UV light, including atrazine, amoxicillin, DEET, and all estrogenic chemicals.]
The previous week, at the other end of the technology scale was the gathering of graywater professionals. Graywater systems, most easily understood as reusing laundry water for garden irrigation, became legal and permit free for California homeowners with a change to the building code in 2008.
-doug

Water & Energy Are The Big Dogs

2011-04-20T11:13:00.000-07:00

My life in song, Doug Molitor: “I've been so many places in my life and time.” This includes presidential advanceman, Intel fabs, Harland County underground coal mines, Mac assembly line, IBM storage lab, Sacramento River Shell refinery, Berkeley OS shop, zinc smelter, software start-ups, fuel cell plant and 25 board rooms seeking funds.

Today I am obsessed by water and power/energy. Water because it is the issue, almost a moral issue, plus a huge emerging inevitable business in clean water and infrastructure. Power and energy is the other big dog. This is where the money is. An almost unlimited arena in conservation now, alternatives soon and new ideas coming from, dorm rooms, labs and start-ups around the world.

But how does a company/technology get customers & investors?

We know is that the internet drives our thirst for narrative. This is key to the diffusion of technology and the adoption of new products. Every established business and all start-ups requires a story. With start-ups people remember the story long after they have forgotten product specs. Examples include, rebel engineers at Intel, Pez dispensers at eBay and college roommates at Microsoft, Google, Facebook and others.

All good salesmen know the story is as important as the technology.

[For putting across the message, watch this.]

Top 5 PR Buzzwords

2011-03-25T16:48:00.000-07:00

Last month, a PR guy took 25 of the most overused buzzwords in marketing and PR—he compiled a list of the top 100 in June — “Solution” led the pack with 243 appearances.

[Correction] Shortly after he published the post, PRFilter set the record straight: “Solution” did not appear in press releases 243 times; it appeared 622 times — and it was the second most common buzzword. The most common word is “leading,” which showed its face 776 times—in one 24-hour stretch.

Top Five Buzzwords

1. leading (776)

2. solution (622)

3. best (473)

4. innovate / innovative / innovator (452)

5. leader (410)

Compiled by Adam Sherk and PRFilter

Much Like Many Barroom Braggarts -- Twitter Not As Large As Estimates

2011-03-25T16:41:00.000-07:00

Twitter users are a sizeable and growing bunch, but their numbers are considerably smaller than those disseminated by many media outlets and Twitter itself,” said Paul Verna, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, “Twitter Users: A Vocal Minority.” “In the US, this means tens of millions of users, as opposed to hundreds of millions.” March 2011

Social Media Marketing, Count the Survivors

2011-01-29T11:34:00.000-08:00

Place Your Bets, Here Are A Few Tips On How To Begin SocialNet Marketing

As we all have experienced, here are many socialnet options on the web. They grow and crumble, at a gold rush-like pace. For all organizations the first key questions are:

Do we want to participate? (Do We have any choice?)
Are we willing to commit the resources to be successful?

In order for organizations to realize the benefit from social media marketing, there must be some level of understanding about the nature of online communities, social media sharing web sites and applications . The questions below provide a starting in understanding an organizations willingness to take on social media marketing.

What are the goals we hope to achieve social media marketing?
How will we measures and evaluate a social media marketing program?
What are our current socialnet channels and web sites/pages?
Have we seen any preference by our target audience?

The more informed your organization is about the social web, the more successful you will be at social media marketing.

Source: TopRank

Mobile Applications - Before You Leap

2010-10-23T12:44:00.000-07:00

Fueling the rapid acceleration of mobile customer pull and sales is the extraordinary growth of sophisticated smartphones such as iPhone, Blackberry and Android-based phones. With geo-location and growing data networks, these phones are the newest electronic method to bring customers into your winery.
One benefit mobile site is that these applications can deliver current news, product information and offer a coupon/bar code as to pull people to your winery.
The key to any mobile web site is to “keep it simple,” because web access on a mobile phone is slower than a home or business broadband network. Thus you just cannot move your current web site for mobile users. Instead, focus on what counts, bringing people to your store or winery. If you haven’t yet gotten rid of your flash intro with its birds and vineyards, please don’t move it online, as it’s a bandwidth hog. Concentrate on key data for the traveler – your differentiation, products and directions. “We got cab” will not cause anyone to turn round to find you place. The hospitality folks can do a real time survey of visitors to provide you with information users want.
The Fine Print. Mobile commerce applications should be written for all of the big three mobile operating systems iPhone, Blackberry or Android. (The type of mobile device being used is detected and the server responds with the appropriate version of the site.) Screen size and speed of browser speed are additional decision elements of each mobile design. An alternative is m-commerce application which launch in the phone. Again the three smart phone applications are required.
Remember mobile data is a rapidly changing business. For example, the iPhone is in it’s fourth generation since you put the 2007 harvest to bed.

Coffee & Wine Life’s Earth-Bound Passions Building Brand Around Sustainability

2010-09-15T11:09:00.000-07:00

Starbucks Shows The Path To Customer Preference For “Sustainability”

The path that Starbucks created with and for the concept of sustainable agriculture demonstrates how a business can increase brand preference by latching onto a trend or cause. Then, because of its size, Starbucks both advances societal good and sells more coffee. That idea may be a bit obtuse, but the analogy is Burger King turning it’s stores into a promotion for Mutant Ninja Turtles, to sell more movie tickets and burgers.

The stage is set for action: Coffee & Wine

Two popular drinks where differentiation among varietals and preparation are distinct
Two products that are wholly dependent on soil, location, climate and the care of the grower.
Two global agricultural crops where sustainability has a market value.

Starbucks has educated many folks on the value of sustainable agriculture. Now is the time for the savvy wine marketer to swoop in behind, leveraging that education, illustrating its value in fine wine, and their brand in particular.

For the vintner, the question is how does his brand merchandise sustainability. Since most wineries are beyond ignorant in merchandising, that’s a moot point. For vintners, sustainability is real commitment, but when it comes to selling wine, sustainability is relegate to a page on the web site, only barely more important than the stainless steel fermentation tanks when it comes to selling product, (he said sarcastically).

Still the opportunity is real.

Can Your Brand McChrystal

2010-06-25T12:41:00.000-07:00

Fast, overwhelming, decisive: It's a case study in how tightly connected 21st-century media can whip a story into a full-on tsunami, with startling consequences for individual careers and national policy. It began as a scattering of acid remarks within earshot of a Rolling Stone reporter. But - thanks in large part to Twitter, the Web, and cable news - barely two days after those remarks were disclosed, a media firestorm ended General Stanley McChrystal career as commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. (Many thought his career should have ended with his cover-up of the friendly fire death of Pat Tillman.)

Three Words Is Not A Brand

2010-05-02T15:11:00.000-07:00

“You have to be able to describe your brand in three words,” some idiot said. I don’t think so. The Brand is the customer’s experience with the product. A bottle of Zin, friends, a spring afternoon on the porch, that’s all part of the brand along with the first taste, the vintner’s reputation, & more...

Beer ads all show people having fun with friends, not crushing cans alone in front of the TV, because it is the experience.

Three word are tag lines, not brands.

Below, match the three word tag lines with the company.

It’s The Cheese
German Engineering
We Know Drama
25 – 50% Off Swimware

Victoria’s Secret
TBS [Itself a acronym for Turner Broadcasting System]
Bayerische Motoren Werks [BMW]
California Milk Producers

Note that each organization has brand values and associations that go deeper and more long serving than just three words. The three words are an attempt to roll-up and draw upon brand values your mind. My point is that there is way-more to brand than a tag line. Personal examples:

- Victoria’s Secrets. I’ve always wanted one of those posters of an oiled-skin, dream girl in a bikini, for my office.

- TBS: I watch TBS for the classic Astaire, Rogers, Kelly dance. That's what TBS is to me.

- BMW is sleek convertible, but high maintenance, just like an oiled-skin, dream girl.

- California cheese: Big bricks from Safeway for lunches and small artisan cheeses from the farmers market. A huge range.

Three words is not a brand.

Assessing Word-Of-Mouth Marketing

2010-04-20T09:30:00.001-07:00

Often What Really Makes Up A Buyer’s Mind Is Not Only Simple But Also Free: A Word-Of-Mouth Recommendation From A Trusted Source. This Is Especially True In Experiential Products Such As Wine, Personal Electronics Or Movies. from McKinsey Quarterly

Google News Room & Twitter Microblogging + Geolocation

2010-03-11T10:02:00.000-08:00

If you are wondering where to invest your time to learn new tricks of the trade, here from mashable.com are three updates in an overwhelming barrage “interesting stuff” which might help but are sure to complicate.
1. Twitter has just flipped the switch on geolocation within Twitter.com. Now users can pull up location-based information from individual tweets on the microblogging website. here
2. Google has just released an alternative player for Google Reader that gives those with a penchant for browsing news the ability to do so in an image-heavy, TV-like fashion. It’s like being in a TVcontrol room. here
3. YouTube will now display BANNER ADS on the mobile version of its website. Google made the announcement in a blog post, enticing would-be advertisers to sign up by saying that users of its mobile video website are tech-savvy early adopters with cash to spend — the ideal ad demographic. here

Social Net Relevance Keep Growing With Network

2010-03-08T12:41:00.000-08:00

FBI's most-wanted list

There’s app for that

As FBI's most-wanted list turns 60, organization turns to social networking to help in search

Using an iPhone app users can have the faces of the most wanted, as well as top terrorism fugitives and missing children, right in their pockets. They not only can have the images, but also can press a key to immediately e-mail a local FBI office with their GPS location.

“When (posters) were in the post office, it was because a lot of people were in the post office,” said Nancy Beaton, a spokeswoman for NIC Inc., which developed the iPhone application. “These days, people spend a lot of time on their mobile phone, and it is the place to be.”

The bureau also has a small e-mail distribution list with 150,000 addresses for updates on the list, and it has turned to Facebook and Twitter to augment Web use.

Source: Dane Schiller, Houston Chronicle

2010-02-15T18:09:00.000-08:00

Personal Note: In the 80’s in Silicon Valley I had the opportunity to meet a host of genius-level individuals who would become brand names of technology: Andy Grove, Gordon Moore, Bob Noyce, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, John Hennessy and on a minor note, my former neighbor Geoffrey Moore. I also had a consulting gig at Oracle where I met Larry Ellison.

So Congratulations Larry. You won it.

As the Associated Press wrote, “Ellison’s fortune made the victory possible, but the true star was his monster black-and-white trimaran and its radical 223-foot wing sail, which powered the craft at three times the speed of the wind, sending its windward and middle hulls flying well above the water.”

Social Media ROI

2010-02-04T10:42:00.000-08:00

Today, some of the largest brands worldwide are using social networking platforms to become part of the conversation both on and offline, interacting with a massive community of users. For this reason marketing types are interested in defining the ROI

[This is for the, “If you can’t measure it …”, school of engineers as executives. – Doug]

Google on measuring ROI from Social Media

Average lifetime value of a typical account x expected new lead close% = LEAD VALUE

Next, calculate whether your social media efforts are paying off. Here’s an easy-to-use method. Choose a consistent time period for each calculation (monthly, quarterly or annual):

Hours invested in social media activities x average hourly rate = SOCIAL MEDIA COST
Social media cost ÷ target contribution margin% = BREAKEVEN
Number of social media leads x lead value = SOCIAL MEDIA GENERATED REVENUE
Social media generated revenue ÷ breakeven = SOCIAL MEDIA PAYBACK INDICATOR

If your social media payback indicator in step 4 is greater than 1.0, you are on track to experience a positive return on your investment.

Is Facebook the frog in the pond?

Facebook: “In a digital world fueled by social media, the prospect of translating large social networking audiences into solid earnings presents more possibilities than disappointments.”

[Very Zen: “Little onion, life is filled with more possibilities than disappointments.” – Doug]

Twitter states, “We are finding the brands that most effectively embrace these new opportunities are able to drive return-on-investment levels that compete with television in brand building and with search on performance. This combination, along with the scale that is represented, is a new and exciting world for advertisers, and we are just seeing the beginning of the opportunities that will exist.”

[Or is investing in Twitter like investing in FM radio at the dawn of television. – Doug]

Social media with its scale represents another new frontier for PR, advertising and the rest of an expanding marketing mix.

Source: relationship-economy.com

Brand Delivers

2010-02-03T13:05:00.000-08:00

Brand is a powerful carriers of values. -- To the painting on the caves in Lascaux, the history of the Inuit, the Dead Sea scrolls, modern man will add Dianna Ross singing, "Baby love, oh baby love, won't you be my baby love…."

Brands are a synthesis of 20th century communications and of how we as a culture recognized products and services. Future archeologists will love this era as they dig through layers of CRT screens and Styrofoam packing peanuts in order to decode newspapers that refused to decompose.
In scholarly works, those 23rd Century archeologists will spin the meaning of such icons of the late 20th century as DEC, Lucky Strike, or the United Way. They will wonder what happened to Netscape just as we today speculate on the Etruscans.
All the effort about branding centers around the fact that brand delivers. The number one driver behind branding is that brands embody a set of values that provide assurance and draw people back. Brand is the marketing tool that delivers across all media.

The Half-Life Of The Next Big Thing

2010-01-01T18:37:00.000-08:00

Waveboard 2.0 for the iPhone examples the ever shortening half-life of the Next Big Thing (NBT) by launching the mobile NBT; demonstrating that the product cycle becomes even more complicated as products need to roll-out in multiple hosting formats such as: 1/ Cloud, 2/ Desktop, 3/ Enterprise, 4/ Mobile, and 5/ maybe on some conglomerate API like Quicken or salesforce.com.
This becomes a real PR and advertising headache. Don’t tell the software guys, you this is really a form of product extension like mini-Oreos. The only people to succeed at this have big budgets to build multi-media/modal to differentiate their gold label from the light. The good news is that, the easiest group to reach are “mobile app fanatics” because they can be found.

Google Wave Positioning

2009-10-28T10:46:00.000-07:00

Developers gave them a standing ovation Shaking their laptops above their heads
-Positioning: Replace Email
-Compelling Rationale: What would e-mail look like if it was invented today?
-Creating Category: "So, now that I'm caught up on this Wave...
-Evidence: When demonstrating Wave's ability to translate between languages, in real-time, as a person types, the audience cheered so loudly and for so long that it felt like they were calling for an encore at a music festival. -Acceptance: At the conclusion of Lars and Jens Rasmussen’s demo, the developers gave them a standing ovation, shaking their laptops above their heads. Source: John D. Sutter, CNN

We Live In An Age Of Narrative

2009-03-11T10:19:00.000-07:00

Every business, foundation, or technology requires some kind of story. People remember story long after they have forgotten the experience or product specs. All good salesmen know this. The Internet drives our thirst for narrative.
+ Blogs are a narrative.
+ YouTube is video narrative. Lonelygir 15 was a narrative that millions followed.
+ Brand is a narrative -- as brand is based on the storyline a product develops with its customer. Any consumer who has brand loyalty can tell you why he or she feels so strongly about Mercedes, Makita or Kiva. The Apple narrative drives its fierce loyalty and contributes to its 23% return on equity. The same is true for your not for profits brand.

Losing The Brand

2008-07-29T10:57:00.000-07:00

Netscape, Webvan, United Way Billion Dollar Brands

In retrospect is easy pontificate .

Unproven business model: Webvan never was. It had money, trucks and a flickering business model. Business heavyweights rallied around the idea, the CEO of Accenture, quit to become CEO for a projected billion in stock. Then bam! Its expensively designed trucks were up for auction, the doors closed.

+ Today Yahoo, Facebook and MySpace have unproven business models, time will tell.

Ruthless competition: Netscape lacked management skill to prevent being rolled over by Microsoft. The guru came out to Silicon Valley from the Midwest as a hero and began a career as a technology start-up successes. The founder bailed, just as he had when SGI hit its peak. The only people to lose money we the shareholders caught flatfooted.

+ Like frozen yogurt, difficult as a stand-alone, but rather part of a whole product.

Inability to change: United Way was wounded by the shift to accountability. The organization was built to be symbiotic with the massive Fortune 500 management of the 60s, 70s and 80s. "Fare Share" – how American. Then upstart service, manufacturing and technology firms demanded metrics, and suddenly the United Way was reporting into a different management gestalt. No longer the fat cats and fiefdoms around the country, but rather a new breed of slim, open collar execs wanted to know where the Fare Share was going. What was the outcome?

+ NCAA, Red Cross, NAACP are all challenged by radical shifts within their constituencies.

Simplify Your Investment Presentation

2008-04-01T17:28:00.000-07:00

“Southwest Airlines business plan was conceived on a cocktail napkin. Compaq Computers “portable” design was originally sketched on a restaurant napkin. An investor presentation can equally be simplified by following some guidelines that offer thoroughness with simplicity,” the angel group says.

Specifically, Tech Coast Angels lays out the seven “P’s” for entrepreneurs to include on slides when pitching a VC:

- Pitch: “Gear this first slide to the proverbial “elevator pitch”: if you were able to pitch to an investor on the average elevator ride what could you say in that short time to deliver the opportunity, capture their curiosity and get a second meeting?”

- People: “Want to convey to audience that this team has the experience to deliver on its promises. Any prior examples of team members work history to reinforce that theme would be ideal here. Want investors left with feeling that the people won’t be the problem with this investment.”

- Pain: “Investor is trying to determine whether this problem is a real pain for the customer. Will the customer pay for this product? Will the investor feel that the market/opportunity is large enough for a future high multiple return?”

- Product: “This slide should give an overview of the product and how the customer would use this in their environment. It should be a description understandable to most investors, save deep technical descriptions for Q&A or later meetings. The investor wants to come away with a feeling the product is unique, can solve the problem described and customers will buy it.”

- Players: “The investor is trying to ascertain why a customer would change from what they are doing today and use a startup’s product. What will you be able to do to fight off better known and funded competitors? After this slide, the investor needs to believe the customer will see the value in this product versus competition. Again, will the customer buy it?”

- Projections: “This may take two slides (one business model/marketing/sales and one for financials). Again, give an overview you can always go into detailed information in Q&A with more slides. Investors want to see the business model and be convinced it can make money in the long run.”

- Proposition: “Detailed questions on possible terms etc. can be saved for Q&A or follow on meetings. Investor wants to know what % and price: you need to convince investor that the valuation/valuation range is reasonable, given opportunity, team and product along with comparables to other deals.

Source: Tech Coast Angels

Successful Market Entry

2008-03-19T13:29:00.000-07:00

Several years back Geoffrey Moore and I discussed attack points across the chasm. We were interested in learning about the beachhead and what criteria a firm would use to pick a new market. This also applies when non-profits target a new audience for funding.

For example, game consoles require renewed market uptake each generation, but is fairly far along the adoption curve; whereas a new security product, like an eyeball analyzer, is way to the left on the adoption/volume curve. In the same fashion as game vendors, kiva.org builds their message on top of audiences awareness (micro-finance).

Three Requirements For Successful Market Entry. In strategic communications I identified three familiar circumstances that help predict market entry success.

1/ Media infrastructure dedicated to the product. For example, a game box with a blogosphere in the tens of thousands, along with its traditional media is a huge opportunity. But, security products have only a small, traditional media following.

2/ Does the well known PR rule, editors love competition, apply? Wii versus PlayStation or Sony versus Microsoft. The story has legs due to their rivalry.

3/ Intense user interest drives growth. From iPods to In-N-Out Burger, this is true. A game box has millions of avid users, a security system has only few champions.

In my analysis, only two indicators need be present for success.

Social Networking, the Social Graph & Revenue

2008-01-14T10:00:00.000-08:00

Seems to be a lot of air in this bubble. As far as I can tell the only monetization strategy is in selling the company to Google.

I recently attended a wonderful talk by Bernardo Huberman, HP Senior Fellow and Director of the Information Dynamics Lab and was struck by his work in social network. For more information, his Web site is within HP labs.

Some firm (outside of Cisco) will find a way monetize this network activity, until then the successful revenue model is still up for grabs. It’s no news that advertising is cyclic. Check the history of the broadcast networks. For advertisers the youth demographic of MySpace and Facebook is a chimera, of consumer gizmos and beer. Their value is smoke and not sustainable. For example, paying for downloading music trends dramatically towards hits and not albums. Great for Peter Frampton, not so Madeleine Peyroux.

The money is with the aging boomers who buy cars, vacations, weddings, second homes, medical care and financial services. The Holy Grail is getting them into a captive network. Maybe the place to start is My Golden Retriever dot Net or the long tail of Rolling Stone subscriptions.

Web 2.0 Rondo

2007-07-24T09:57:00.000-07:00

Students Mimic Pros Mimicking Students

User-generated content, encouraging consumers to create advertising, promotional video clips is the current manifestation of Web 2.0. As the recent CNN presidential candidates’ debate has shown, reporters on TV may soon be displaced by citizens on YouTube.

Marketing messages that were once carefully crafted by professionals are now open to citizen/users. Among the blue-chip marketers taking following this trend are Chevrolet, Frito-Lay, Geico, Heinz ketchup, KFC, Mr. Clean, the National Football League and Verizon Communications.

Such appeal has come full circle in less that two years, with college students imitating the professional marketing people who were following the lead of college students. Fresno State, known nationally primarily for its football prowess asked their students to create video clips to attract applicants. The university called the contest the "I Am Fresno State Video Project," and put up the iamfresnostate.com web site.

Student Bryan Harley captured first place in the student video competition. Winning videos can be seen at college friendly video sharing platforms YouTube and MySpace. Check it out.

Short Attention Span Or Not

2007-03-28T20:43:00.000-07:00

The Poynter Institute’s recent survey The Myth of Short Attention Spans reported the following comparison:

Online readers read 77 percent of what they chose to read.
Two-thirds of online readers, once they chose a particular item to read, read all of the text, top to bottom and an average of 77 percent of the online story was read.
Broadsheet format readers (SF Chronicle, WSJ) read an average of 62 percent.
Tabloid readers read an average of 57 percent

If your marketing is bogged-down in the marketing myths of the internet like short attention span or thinking it’s all about being under 24, you may want to rethink the assumptions and underpinnings of your strategy.

Sidebar: Which takes us back to the ‘60s “think small” an all time top 10 ad campaign – which went against the marketing truisms of the era. [History of Think Small]

Sources: www.followthemedia.com − A knowledge base for media professionals www.poynter.org − EyeTrack07: The Myth of Short Attention Spans

Target Marketing for Knee Replacements

2007-02-21T10:30:00.000-08:00

The 49th Grammy Awards included five Grammys for the Dixie Chicks and this ad: “Most knee replacements don't account for the differences between a woman's and a man's knee. Only the Zimmer® Gender Solutions™ Knee matches your shape and size …”

Talk about your target marketing: Replacement Knees for Women. Nicely done.

TV ad for highly-female TV audience
The Google query has a paid ad.
Special web site: (www.genderknee.com/)

People keep asking me, “How do I communicate with my market?” I respond with two questions: Who is your customer? What action do you want? The answers are: Customer) Women with bad knees. Action) The customer is to view a gender-specific website.

The website display of Internet-savvy to establish a dialogue with replacement knee consumers including links to:

“Find a Doctor”
“Video testimonials”
“Tell a friend”
“Larger type-size for site”

Eco-System PR; Alliance Marketing

2007-02-06T11:14:00.000-08:00

By whatever name, ecosystem PR or alliance marketing the goal is to leverage the self-interest among firms, bringing together the self interested product “ecosystem” in a focused marketing campaign. Such a connected community has greater voice than any individual member. Microsoft and Apple are masters of this strategy; they create a tsunami of alliances with every launch. For example:

Microsoft launched its Vista OS with PC firms Dell, Gateway, HP, & Lenovo Group.

For smaller firms, the idea is to surf off the wake of the platform company.

During the Vista OS launch, software maker Wild Tangent boasted that “Gamers can download a free, fully-compatible Vista-ready games console…”

Advantages of building a product ecosystem:

Low-Cost Promotional Tool: A benefit is that the alliance community is larger and has greater voice than any individual member. An aggressive marketing/PR approach to alliances leverages the self-interest of channel partners in a win-win for sales.

For Acquisition or IPO: Proactive alliance management adds “Growing Sales Channels” luster to an offering, and “alliances” are always on the check-list of potential investors.

The Community is the Whole Product: In complex industries such as those of Enterprise Software, Finance, or Telecommunications, the community often delivers the whole product as no single vendor has the complete product. To succeed, firms must form alliances to go to market as a connected whole.

Photo: An eco-system: Dennis Kneale, Managing Editor, Forbes Magazine, USA, William H. Gates III, Chairman, Microsoft Corporation, USA, Caterina Fake, Founder, Flickr, USA, Chad Hurley, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, YouTube, USA, Mark G. Parker, President and Chief Executive Officer, Nike, USA @ World Economic Forum.

swiss-image.ch/Photo by Benjamin Zurbriggen

The New Product Strip Tease

2007-01-30T20:39:00.001-08:00

The New-Product Strip-Tease, Peeling off One Feature at a Time, Keeps Game Boxes in the News

When the product is late (and not having a game box for the Christmas sales season is, by definition, late), what’s left is the strip tease strategy. A company whose product doesn’t make its release date instead begins to announce product nuances one at a time until the product is eventually available. Game box manufacturers are masters of this strategy. First, they spark the media and financial analysts into droning on endlessly about key chips or new games or other aspects of the product or product ecosystem. Then, if the box is not quite ready, or if demand exceeds supply, they continue to tease.

Nintendo teased the public about the Wii with a canard about the activity/health possibilities for kids using their game system.
The XBox 2005 Christmas tease was “with or without disk drive.”

Back in the 1980’s, when I was working with Intel, processor delivery slipped and we invented, I believe, the new-product strip-tease strategy. We spent ten months revealing features and nuances such as MIPS, MHz, bus, cache, etc. to hold market interest and to keep Motorola at bay.

Note: A promotional strip-tease strategy is only possible with:

Intense user interest;
Competition: E.g., Nintendo vs. Sony; Intel vs. AMD, etc.;
Entire information channels are dedicated to the end product, such as with sports, electronics, movies, and games.

Buzz Marketing With Décolletage

2007-01-30T20:24:00.000-08:00

We sometimes talk about “Buzz.” How do you create it? January is all about Buzz and the display of décolletage. Four examples:

Macworld is about owning the spotlight and focusing on one product or idea. Apple owns the spotlight, the venue, the actors, and the program.
CES is a food fight and is all about product. Nobody win at CES. The best one can hope for is a bowl of steaming Brussels sprouts to toss into the mêlée.
Golden Globe Awards is all sales. It is, as Paul Brownfield of the L.A. Times notes, “… a sales meeting, a grand and glamorous one.” It’s a promotion for the upcoming Oscars.
Detroit Auto Show is about times gone by. Once, it was the Macworld of its time. Now it is filler for print press and 45 seconds on CNN. Autos get far less coverage than the décolletage at the Golden Globes.

Most Inventive Product Launch

2007-01-30T11:25:00.000-08:00

From Our NEW PRODUCT CAMPAIGN ALERT BLOG OF 2005-06 Reviewing a Movie, Car, and Cellular Service

And The Winner Is: General Motors and its Hummer H3

H3 Builds Community. The goal of a Ecosystem or Connected Community launch is to involve all possible vendors and channels to form a Community to participate in your product launch. This works best when each member of the community benefits from the product’s success. For example, application vendors participate in a Microsoft Windows launch because they will sell upgrades and new applications.

Hummer, long loved by loyal owners and fans, and just as equally loathed by environmentalists and some consumer groups, launched a new model that it hopes will win over at least some critics, according to Don Hammonds of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Luckily for those critics, General Motors can buy its community. For Hummer, the American Red Cross and the NFL are acquired. We know that the NFL’s relationship with GM predates the birth of most of today’s players, but the Red Cross is interesting in that it gets in-kind and cash benefits as well as a new source of volunteers.

Red Cross: Under the Hummer Owners Prepared for Emergencies (H.O.P.E.) volunteer program, members of the Hummer Club are volunteering to assist the American Red Cross in disaster-relief efforts. Hummer Club members will be certified as Red Cross volunteers to be deployed in local chapter- and national relief operations. They will drive supplies and people into disaster areas that other vehicles might not be able to reach. The General Motors Foundation contributed $4 million in support of this effort.
NFL: Flexing its marketing muscle, GM kicked off its Hummer H3 launch on ESPN. H3 sponsored the official NFL Draft Pre-Party and the NFL draft-viewing parties at ESPN Zone restaurants in major U.S. cities. And, would you believe, on display at these parties were H3’s!

Geisha Goes For Oscar Impact. A blockbuster film launch is designed to create a big-bang impact to win market. Think of Hollywood with spotlights in the sky and kimono-clad actresses strutting down the red carpet. This was the opening for Memoirs of a Geisha, and the prototypical Hollywood Launch is all about impact for first weekend box office sales. Looking back, we know that Geisha bombed, as did The Da Vinci Code. Rather this was the year of the Penguins. One loud complaint was that the lead actresses in Geisha were Chinese, not Japanese. Ah! but that’s Hollywood.

Hollywood’s familiar and much-used launch process can be mimicked, although entertainment’s advantage is that it owns an information infrastructure vastly different from other industries. Witness Geisha-hype in the following articles all published on November 10, 2005: Time Magazine headlined, “It took seven years and a lot of crying.” The L.A. Times headlined, “Can Rob Marshall finally have his Oscar now.” Another article in the L.A. Times was on costume design: “Eastern Lore, Western Allure,” and was all about creating the Memoirs of a Geisha wardrobe. − All of this is a month before the movie even opens!

As we know, movies try to line up a community of tie-ins to give legs to the various promotions. “Geisha: It's the essence of retail spinoff’s,” headlined USA Today. Blended green tea and rice face-wash are just two spin-off products inspired by the film, Memoirs of a Geisha.

New Cell Phone Company Teaser. A teaser campaign is designed to arouse interest in something coming, often relying on brand to sell the message. Unfortunately for Amp’d Mobile, they are a start-up, and have no brand because there is no customer experience. Start-ups have no brand, period. Their teaser campaign is DOA: "Try not to die. Amp'd Mobile is coming."

Sure, this strategy has launched twenty new vodkas in the past five years, but liquor is a vastly different business than that of a subscription cellular company. Not to worry, with no brand recognition and no differentiation, Amp'd Mobile won’t be around for long.