Category Archives: Insight

Jan 12 2015
Leave a comment
Business, Insight, Strategy

The Rest I Have Learned About Business is From Basketball

joshsmith

Everything I have learned about business, I have learned in basketball court (with some additional help from Wu-Tang Clan). Whether it has been great (or usually horrible) leadership, importance of the team or the value of hard work. This recent incident is a good proof of that:

Detroit Pistons waived their highest paid player and star Josh Smith at the end of December. Waiving is not a little feat, because waived player is included in team salary. The results have been interesting: Pistons has been on a 8-1 winning run only losing to the hottest team in NBA right now: Atlanta Hawks. Interestingly Josh Smith has been good with his new team Houston Rockets as well, so currently it has been win-win for both the of the participants. What can be learned from this whole episode?

1.Don´t play safe: bold moves will be remembered
Sometimes you have to wake up your whole team with dramatic actions. Stan Van Gundy is not just a coach for Detroit Pistons; he is also their president of basketball operations. Waiving Josh Smith was a demonstration of his power and also a dramatic call for their team to wake up. Was it exactly wise is an another question. He had to do something to catch attention of the team. Off-the court jury is still out for Van Gundy´s strategic perspective but on the court his defensive instructions on the video below have strategic clarity that only a few business leaders (or even coaches) have:

2.Even a bad plan is better than no plan
You cannot totally fault bad Pistons season start on Josh Smith and to say so is ludicrous. They did not have proper plan in the place for the team when he was there. Josh Smith had to play a role that did not suit his skills set. When he was waived from the team, Detroit Pistons was forced to have a different game plan and missing one key player made putting a coherent plan into action much easier.

3.Take the responsibility: You either sink or swim
You can never underestimate the importance of mental aspect of sports or business. You need to feel that you are contributing to the team. Because Josh Smith was gone, the rest of the team had to rise up. Other option would have been to tank. The season is now on halfway, so the newly established Pistons can still be a boom or bust. Currently it seems that they have regained their self-esteem and if they continue like this can even make it to the play-offs.

4.Failure is an opportunity to reborn
I like Josh Smith as a player, when he is playing right role. No one denies the physical talent he has, but his attitude to the game has been a question. He has showed maturity by asking to come out of bench with Rockets. Being waived is definitely a slap in the face and you definitely want to show that you still have the skills to be a great player.

5.Team can be more (or less) than its parts
Basketball and advertising industry are similar in a way that you can fill your company or team with stars and still suck. Chemistry plays crucial role. Josh Smith is playing in Houston with his longtime friend Dwight Howard, which probably will be a good thing. Sometimes there can be only one rooster in the coop and if there are too many stars fighting for the attention the end results can be disastrous. Many combinations can work on the paper, but if it does not work on the court it does not really matter. Therefore crazy-sounding ideas like waiving your star player can actually make sense on the long run.

How the episode will pan out, we will see at the end of the season. Currently it seems that everyone seems happy with the end result.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,
Jan 08 2015
Leave a comment
Advertising, Insight

Anatomy of An Insight: Norwegian Airlines “The Flag of Flags”

The week filled with flying and airlines continues.

Having been part of the team doing Norwegian launch in Finland, I am delighted that there is still creativity behind the brand in Nordics. This  brilliant print ad comes from M&C Saatchi, Stockholm (probably the first print I have featured in here):

norwegianflagoftheflags

Insight: There are over six flags (Indonesia, Poland, Finland, France, Netherlands & Thailand) in the flag of Norway. Norwegian Airlines is Norwegian company (duh) and after 2013 they are also flying long haul to Thailand (European cities being short haul. What would be better way to showcase new flight discounts than put them inside the Norwegian flag?

Is this original idea?

Definitely not.

Is this a great advertisement?

Definitely yes. It has the element of surprise and delight that great advertisements have. Besides great creative hook it still does the hard sell as well. Although you would not get the trick of the ad, you would still get the fare destinations and discounts. This separates this particular ad from certain previous ads playing with flags inside flags.

Tagged , , , , ,
Jan 07 2015
Leave a comment
Business, Digital Strategy, Insight, Marketing Strategy, Planning, Strategy

Skiplagged Sends Airlines to Hell

This week seems to be all about airlines and flight industry.

From Skiplagged website:

Update: Dec 30, Skiplagged is facing significantly higher than normal traffic. Please try again later if you encounter any issues–you will be amazed. Thanks.

The odds that you had heard about Skiplagged before Orbitz & United Airlines sued them last November are quite slim. After that, their visitor count has skyrocketed through the roof. Sometimes all publicity is good publicity.

Lesson #1: Getting sued is a great way for free promotion

Skiplagged effectively helps you to find cheap flights by using “hidden city ticketing”. The direct flight from Singapore to Helsinki can be more expensive than the flight from Singapore to Paris with stopover in Helsinki. Then you just hop over in Helsinki and just don´t use the last flight. This is only recommend to one-way flights because usually your ticket is cancelled afterwards. I have not (yet) tried out hidden-city ticketing, but I have done throwaway ticketing once. It just feels completely odd that if you want to travel one-way you have to pay double the price of return ticket. Actually when I did it, I did not even know that it was not approved. Aktarer Zaman, the founder of Skiplagged explains:

When you are searching for tickets, your market is just to go from this city to this city to this city. And you are shown a price. You are buying this flight when you are buying a ticket. So this is a service you are buying in. Consumers should have the right to partially use the services they buy.

I agree to most extend with the sentiment in here: when you buy something you should also decide not to use it. Not to mention that sometimes you are forced to not use the flights. There are certain arguments that using these loopholes in large scale might increase the costs of airline travel. It might also hurt smaller airline destinations as well. Eventually I feel it is quite fair game though. Airlines try to maximize the money out of us; meanwhile we are doing the opposite. In the bigger picture I think they are in better position to screw us over.

Lesson #2: Digital makes your business model eventually more transparent

Doing different airline booking ploys has been around longer than Skiplagged, but it naturally has done it faster and more effective. Exploiting these loopholes is definitely not illegal, but in can result in losing your loyalty program points. Based on the increased interest to Skiplagged and rising popularity of budget airlines this does not seem to be the a big concern for the majority of users. Consumers are not essentially stupid and millions of loyalty programs and cards have just led to more disloyalty. Also it has lead to increased focus on price especially with airlines.

I was just talking with one friend who mentioned that even with their corporate discounts with major commercial airline, it is still cheaper for the company to fly short-haul with budget airlines. And so they are doing. Consumers are doing the same. Flying has become so commoditized that you do not really care what airline you are flying if is deemed relatively safe.

Lesson #3: Price trumps the loyalty for the majority of consumers

After the lawsuit, Aktarer Zaman put up a crowdfunding-site up to cover up the upcoming legal bills. He has already raised over 60k. The response has been overwhelmingly positive for Skiplagged and quite vicious towards the airlines. One person donated $666 dollars and commented: “send them to hell”.

Lesson #4: People hate airlines

It is interesting to see how this will pan out, but again this a manifestation that no business is “safe” from digitalization. If there is a market fault, it is just easier and faster to point it out and also solve it digitally. That might create a totally new business as well. In the case of Skiplagged, it will be a zero-sum game. Either one will win. Time will tell will the Skiplagged send airlines to hell or will they sue Skiplagged to death.

Lesson #5: Always keep evolving

Tagged , , , , ,
Jan 06 2015
Leave a comment
Insight, Planning

Why You Should Not Fear Flying?

I was flying to Jakarta on New Year´s eve. About midway on the flight there was quite heavy turbulence quite close to the area of AirAsia crash. Nothing I would usually be worried about. When other passengers started praying and doing cross signs, I have to admit that I started to feel a little bit queasy as well.

Being afraid of turbulence after major accident is human, but it is not rational.

Although this year has been horrendous for airline industry (especially for Malaysian airlines), it is quite far from the most morbid years of aviation. Especially in relation to the skyrocketed in recent years, the flying still remains the safest way to travel. The most dangerous part of commercial flying is the drive to the airport.

After 9-11 over 1.4 million people changed their travel plans to avoid flying opting for driving. This caused over 1000 additional car accident fatalities. The most vivid fears are irrational, but easily explained:

1. We fear things we feared in Stone Age.
Although we should probably be more worried of our mobile phones in our front pockets, we tend to fear snakes, insects and spiders, which are quite minor threat nowadays. Being afraid of heights and flying made sense before the time of airplanes, not that much anymore.

2. We fear things we can´t control.
Everyone thinks that they are above average driver and the rest of the drivers are morons. We constantly overestimate our grip of the situation and underestimate the other people.

3. We fear things that are immediate.
Smoking kills you. It just does not kill you right away. Small odds add up and we fail to see them. One cupcake occasionally does not harm you. One cupcake a day might add few extra pounds. One cupcake after every meal might result in obesity and diabetes.

4. We fear things that are fresh in our memory.
After flight accident we are more prone to react to the turbulence. Because newspapers seldom write about people dying to diabetes, we overestimate that homicide is more lethal than it.

So there should be nothing to fear about…

Even though I know all of the above things on that particular flight, I was still a little bit worried. This is an important lesson about human behavior. We might know all the rational facts but still end up acting irrationally. Then we try to post-rationalize those irrational decisions.

Especially when asked afterwards in focus groups.

Tagged , , , , , , ,
Dec 23 2014
Leave a comment
Advertising, Business, Digital Strategy, Insight, Marketing Strategy, Planning, Social Media, Strategy

My Greatest Hits 2014

Last day at work for this year, so it is good to take a look back at this year.

I was quite happy about the productivity in my blog this year. I am actually quite fast writer, but my biggest problem is always an inspiration. Usually my mind is just blank, regardless of constant stimulation (books, movies, exercise, other blogs) I try to give it. If I get an idea, the actual writing does not take that long. That is why I have just tried to force myself to write posts even with half-boiled inspiration and it is starting to pay off now. The readership has been also increasing steadily, which is nice to notice as well. Majority of visitors come from LinkedIn, but when something takes off in Twitter, it might result in much bigger audience. I think that showcases that LinkedIn influencers do not have as wide reach as Twitter ones.

Below are the ten most-read posts of the year. If I think about this blog, there are two distinctive types of posts in here. Other ones are I just blow off steam and rant about something quite random. The other one is that I am obviously working on something and want to get more clarity around it by writing and putting my research on more concise format. It is quite good balance with both of them on this most-read list, so I will continue the next year with the same strategy.

Top 10 Most Read Posts 2014

1. Psst…Can I Whisper You a Secret? Anynomous Mobile Messaging Apps
These types of posts are the most demanding from research-perspective, but also most useful on the long run as they have longer shelf life. This has served as my cheat sheet every time someone has asked me about anonymous chat services.

2. Going Nuts about Macadamia Nuts
Topical post with one clear idea usually goes down well with my readers. Good example of post you have to write immediately when you get the idea, otherwise you just forget it or start over-intellectualizing it.

3. Never Skip Your Lunch Break
Quite seldom I get personal feedback about my posts, but this post has prompted numerous people to forward their approval. It is nice to hear, as I take my lunch breaks seriously.

4. Marketing At The Speed of Culture
I don´t even remember this post, is probably not that good either.

5.Anatomy of An Insight: Edeka Supergeil
Great ad and some post-rationalization, always a certified hit in Stand-Up Strategy.

6.#Cockinasock and Twisted World of Male Charity
It is about male genitals stuffed in sock, who would not read it?

7. How to Know When It Is Time To Quit?
I almost did not remember what this post was about, but reading it again it gave vivid memory of that dork banging on the wrong door at the middle of the night. Human tragedy for me makes perfect comedy for you, dear reader.

8. Why Don´t I Use Data On My Smartphone?
It is always interesting when digital professional reveals something about his own technological handicaps.

9. 9 Tips On How To Be Interesting Conference Speaker
These types of posts used to be my staples back in Finland. List about how to become better at something. I have not really done these for a while, so this was more of a test about could I do classic list-type of posts.

10. Sharing Economy: A Threat or An Opportunity For Your Business?
Again longer compilation about bigger trend: took some time to research again, but has proven to be useful later as well.

There they are. If I would like that some post would be on this list, it would be this one about the future of Internet. It was actually the 12th most read post, but I still think that it has quite a lot of valid points to consider. Essentially, the readers decide the importance of post and maybe that post is just too long-winded and boring.

Well, that was it for this year. I will now focus on reading some Paul Auster, listening to the new D´Angelo album, drinking some gin & juice and just enjoying wonderful Christmastime.

See you again in 2015.

Tagged , ,
Dec 19 2014
Leave a comment
Advertising, Insight

Anatomy of An Insight: Volkswagen Eyes On The Road

Sometimes media is the message. This stunt could only work in movie theatre, but it is example of simple brilliance:

Insight: If you can demonstrate it, you do not need to say or show it.

This video has also gotten over 3M views, which I found interesting. The stunt is not that overboard to catch the attention, but it is easy to relate. You immediately and intuitively know that you would reach your phone for the message.

Tagged , , , , ,
Dec 18 2014
Leave a comment
Digital Strategy, Insight, Social Media

The Only 2015 Social Media Trends You Need to Read This Year

As the year approaches the end, it has become an annual tradition for me take a look at crystal ball and share my views to Kurio Digital Marketing Think Thank on the next year´s social media trends. For those adapt at Finnish, I recommend reading the whole report in here. If you are not interested in the predictions of 26 other Finnish digital marketers, you can also jump straight to the most important ones (mine) below.

Before going through the actual answers, I have to say that I have not been interested in social media as such for a long time. Do not get me wrong. Social plays crucial role in digital business. But I seldom think digital as a separate entity either: digital is air. Digital, mobile and social should be a part of every business. Sometimes at the core, sometimes playing supporting role and sometimes playing no role at all. Strategy is about deciding what to do, but even more importantly what not to do. If you are thinking social media as a separate unit you are missing the bigger picture. The dominance of digital universe goes well beyond our traditional silos.

Having got that off my chest, here are my most important social media trends for 2015:

1. Biggest Social Media Trend in 2015?

One-Size does not fit all
No more social media army knives. Consumers demand services excelling in one feature instead of having multiple mediocre features crammed into one. It is no longer about maximizing users in one single service (Facebook), but maximizing the time spent on the whole ecosystem (WhatsApp, Instagram, FB Messenger). How different services will or not be integrated together is big strategic question and will have implications on what channels companies should be using to reach their target audience.

2. Social media platforms to look out for 2015?

Anonymous and Interest-based networks
Anononymous chat apps (i.e. Whisper & Secret) are definitely interesting. It remains to be seen, can they do the jump to the next level like Snapchat has done.
Even in 2014 discussion forums are still alive and kicking. This is one proof that, there is demand for interest-based social network with underlying idea ”It is not who you are, but what you are interested in”. Ello cannot make it and current anynomous chat apps focus more on filth, rumors and spying. All of those activities are naturally great, but is it enough for these apps to make it to the major league is a billion dollar valuation question.

3. Biggest challenges in doing social media marketing in 2015?

Wrong teams doing wrong things with wrong budgets to wrong clients
From business logic perspective, Facebook and YouTube are more traditional advertising than social media. When you sponsor a post in Facebook, you should invest as much or even more to it than to a print ad. Emphasizing the verb “should”. Many marketers have not understood the shift in dynamics in digital marketing. Facebook is new print. YouTube is the new TV. Some marketers still have the illusion that digital is either free or cheap and you do not have to worry about production values. They could not be more wrong.
On the other hand, some marketers misinterpret the rising digital ad prices and increased resemblance to traditional ad buying logic to just pushing your TV ads to YouTube or print ads to Facebook. They could not be more wrong. Although the prices are getting closer, the creative should be drastically different.
Eyeballs cost money and you do not have loopholes for free publicity any more. If you are not ready to take risks, be honest and bold, catching the attention of consumers is even harder, almost impossible regardless of the media budget.

4. Social Media Buzzword, which hopefully disappears in 2015?

Ello
There has been a simple reason why I have not written anything about Ello in this blog. It is not interesting at all. Diaspora and Ello are manifestations that consumers are not really that interested in privacy, your personal data usage in advertising or in pretty much anything else that you should be interested as a conscious consumer. The problem is that majority of consumers are not that conscious.

5. Biggest social media wish for the next year?

Wishes are for people, who do not make demands.
I actually read through my last year´s predictions and I still think they are valid stuff as well. So if you did not find trends suitable to your liking in this list, I recommend reading that one.

Happy holidays to every one! I still might have couple of posts left in tank for this year, but soon going for a deserved holiday.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Dec 17 2014
Leave a comment
Business, Insight, Marketing Strategy, Strategy

The Art (or Lack) of Selling Pt.2

As you might know, I do not belong to “do-not-call”-registry.

Mainly it is because I have a strong belief that our business is about selling. Therefore you can learn from good salespeople and also from the more inferior ones. My morning today got started with the following call:

Salesman: Do you have a moment of time?
Riku: Yes, I actually have.
Salesman: Would you be interested in this extra insurance if you get terminal illness?
Riku: No.
Salesman: It also covers up to 200k outstanding balances, if you have accidental death. Would you not be interested in this product?
Riku: I already have life insurance. (Besides if I will suffer accidental death, I think my credit card balance is least of my concerns then. Not to mention that my credit limit is only 20k in any case. If I would have 200k outstanding balances, it means that you have messed up in some way.)
Salesman: Many of our clients have also life insurances, but they also have this product.
Riku: (Many of your clients are also morons, who cannot understand even simple arithmetics). I am not interested. It costs too much as well, especially because I am already covered by life insurance.
Salesman: But accidents can happen anywhere as you seem to be travelling quite a lot. And you only pay 0.49% of every credit card bill, as there is no fixed fee.
Riku: But if I would max out my credit card limit every month, which you also try to make me do, the actual cost would be over 1k a year. I think you can get quite a lot of insurance with that money. Also percentage is harder to predict than fixed fee.
Salesman: -Silence-
Riku: So, I am not interested. (As your product is total scam and you seem like a bona fide snakes-oil salesman)
Salesman: You might also get a terminal illness, don´t you want to think about your family?
Riku: I think I am getting terminal illness by being in this call.
Salesman: Well, if you change your mind..
Riku: Well, I won´t. Bye.

Fear is sometimes good way to make you buy something. I don´t really want to think about terminal illnesses or accidental deaths first thing in the morning. It is also not necessarily wise to try to impose guilt to total stranger on a phone about leaving your family stranded if you kick the bucket. The whole call got me really irritated and made me hate my bank even more.

Unfortunately this method is probably effective. Bank business is generally about screwing people who cannot count or do not understand how percentages add up. Throw some guilt in the mix and I can see many people sign on these dubious programs. So thinking in those terms, it is great selling!

It also makes my blood boil. You should make your customer feel good about buying your products. Then it is likely that he is willing to buy more to keep that happiness. Using fear and guilt should be the last resort.

Tagged , , , , , , ,
Dec 15 2014
Leave a comment
Business, Insight, Marketing Strategy, Planning

Going Nuts About Macadamia Nuts

Sometimes people are just nuts.

If you live in this part of the world, you have not been able to miss the nutty episode in Korean Air flight. Cho Hyun-ah, the daughter of chairman of Korean Airlines Cho Yang-Ho, had nut rage, as her macadamia nuts were not served according to Korean air protocol: the bag of nuts was unopened (which is naturally totally intolerable behavior in first-class flight). Cho Hyun-ah forced the head steward to kneel and apologize as punishment and was kicked off the aircraft when it returned to the gate. The whole event delayed Korean Air flight from NY to Seoul for 20 minutes. The nut rage might just be a tip of iceberg for bigger corporate culture problem for the troubled Korean Air.

The most intriguing fact about the whole incident is that the sales of macadamia nuts have soared in Korea. Sales of nuts in online marketplaces are up 149% from the week before the incident. This reminds us of the old adage:

Any publicity might be good publicity.

Top-of-mind is the first thing you have to solve for any marketer, brand or product category. The biggest challenge is that your audience does not really know, think or care about you. Before the incident no one really thought about macadamia nuts. When you keep talking about them day after day, suddenly you start craving for them. It also adds more value to the nuts. When you serve them in meetings, you have a good icebreaker and nuts become a conversation topic. Currently macadamia nuts are the superstars of all the nuts, because they have social currency. They are not just nutrition; they are part of the popular culture.

After horsemeat scandal, the demand for the actual horsemeat soared. Again the same reason behind this: before the scandal people had not even thought about eating horsemeat (which is actually way more ethical meat than the traditional beef). Negative event actually sparked positive effects for other category. Brands miss these opportunities all the time, because they are too scared to tap into more controversial topics even though the potential gain would be huge. Real people do not live in sugarcoated advertising dreamland, but in real world with whole range of emotions (both positive and negative, and everything in between).

Brands should seize the real-time opportunities.

Brands understand the real-time marketing in a wrong way. Too often they try to ride existing fad and force their brand brand into it. In reality it works the opposite way. You inject that real-time event to your brand and add value in that way. Therefore macadamia nuts have currently much more social currency than, say, walnuts, although latter ones are arguably healthier. Walnuts did not spark crazy behavior, macadamia nuts did.

For every brand and product, it essentially boils down to the compelling story. Currently macadamia nuts are just damn interesting story. Nut manufacturers and retailers should try to seize this opportunity while it lasts.

Tagged , , , ,
Dec 12 2014
Leave a comment
Advertising, Insight, Planning, Social Media

Why Do We Need Dislike Button to Facebook?

dislikebutton
The like button is valuable because it’s a quick way to share a positive sentiment. Some people have asked for a dislike button so they can say something isn’t good, and we’re not going to do that. I don’t think that’s good for the community.
– Mark Zuckerberg

It is obvious that Mark Zuckerberg is not Finnish or even Singaporean for that matter. If Facebook would have dislike button, the usage would soar in certain countries. Disliking is much more honest act than boring liking. I would love to dislike all the boring status updates in my feed. Hiding the users seems so permanent. Dislike would be like yellow card in football: no more those inane updates or you get booted. I think the people would appreciate that as well: sometimes we get blinded by our own excellence that we don´t realize that it is not interesting in a larger scale at all.

The thing I think are really valuable is there are more sentiments just than people like something. There are things in people’s lives that are sad, or that or tragic, and people don’t want to Like them. We’ve talked about for a while how can people express a wider range of emotions like surprise.
– Mark Zuckerberg

Disdain, hate and anger are valid human emotions and Facebook has missed an opportunity because people cannot express them. The force-fed positivity of Facebook makes you like photos of people presenting their meat trophies and showing off their boring holiday pictures. Occasional dislike would put them on check and remind them that they are not so special.

Not to mention like Zuckerberg already pointed out, you can use like-button for bad purposes as well. Someone updates that he got divorced, like it. Cat has died, like it. Someone has gotten a tropical disease, like it.

How evil is that behavior?

Like is the lightest-weight way to express positive sentiment. I don’t think adding a light-weight way to express negative sentiment wou ld be that valuable.
– Facebook engineer Bob Baldwin

Why it would not be valuable?

At least dislike is honest representation of true human feeling: I do not really approve your message. You cannot be positive all the time.

Of course it might be cruel to people as not everyone has been growing their thick skin in real life, where you might get negative comments occasionally as well. It might also read to cyber-bullying and other abuse, which you cannot escape in Facebook in any case. So it will be unlikely (no pun intended) that we will get dislike button for Facebook users anytime soon. However, there is a special group that would really need the dislike:

Brands & Facebook advertisements

Dislike would be even more helpful for the brands than like. Majority of people liking comments from the brand are just waiting promotions, working in agencies or cannot read. Dislike button would be a real-time barometer of how people feel about your ads. Brands cannot get upset. Brands cannot be bullied or abused. Dislike button would show the reality for many brands. Currently as people cannot really show their true (negative) feelings in Facebook, brands have too rosy picture of the current state of their brand. Dislike button would be a much-needed reality check for the affectivity of your ads and measure for real human sentiment. It would evolve the Facebook ads to real-time research and would maybe be a business opportunity for Facebook.

I cannot wait to start disliking different brands in Facebook.
reallydislike

Tagged , , , , , ,
← Older posts
Newer posts →