Category Archives: Marketing Strategy

Jan 21 2014
1 Comment
Advertising, Insight, Marketing Strategy, Planning

Anatomy of An Insight: Denham Psycho

Although making fun of “hipsters” starts to be quite passé, this video still gets a pass. This brilliant piece showcases one hipster doing his best Christian Bale impersonation while having product integrally in the film as well:

Insight: If you do branded content, it has to be interesting content first and foremost. Brand comes later. If you are paying homage one of the nihilistic and violent movies of our generation, you have to be violent as well. Denham is not competing against other jeans brands in YouTube. It is competing against all the content out there. The quality criteria of our target audience has gone up and we either match it or become obsolete.

Denham Psycho is not everyone´s cup of tea. This is not a concept getting lukewarm reception in meeting room. You either love it or hate it. And that is how it should be. Advertising should be discriminating. Your marketing communications should make a clear distinction between them and us. Messaging strategy is not only about thinking to whom we are talking to. It is also about deciding, who you will leave out of your party. If you do not get popular culture reference to cult movie, maybe you are not Denham target audience to begin with.

When creating branded content, it is balance act between brand relevancy and brand controversy. As a jeans brand, Denham is in in the lucky position to dial up the tone to the latter spectrum.

Tagged , , ,
Dec 16 2013
1 Comment
Business, Insight, Marketing Strategy, Strategy

How to Disrupt the Marketplace like Beyonce

“I didn’t want to release my music the way I’ve done it. I am bored with that. I feel like I am able to speak directly to my fans. There’s so much that gets between the music, the artist and the fans. I felt like I didn’t want anybody to give the message when my record is coming out. I just want this to come out when it’s ready and from me to my fans.”
-Beyonce Knowles

Sometimes the best marketing is just let the product speak for itself. Just as the speculation for the albums of the year seemed to slow down, Beyonce dropped a bombshell. In this era of leaking albums way ahead their release dates, Beyonce actually was able to release her record “in a secret”. Last Friday morning without  advance single, marketing campaign, radio airplay or TV performances. That naturally was not a secret for long as every media jumped to cover that. What is also notable that the album is currently sold only as an album exclusively in iTunes. What can we learn from this approach?

1.    Reward your fans first
As the average life cycle of hit song is only weeks at best, who actually buys albums anymore? Who remembers that Harlem Shake happened this year? Beyonce is one of the few artists who still have a fan base big enough to move considerable amount . Why you should not treat your most loyal customers well and give them something they hold in high value? The approach has been successful: the album sold 430k units on one day. The rest can cherry-pick their songs later (see point 3)

2.    Good content is the best marketing
When you are superstar and you really believe in your music, it is only natural to believe that every song in that album is a potential single. The most-sold and most solid pop album ever Thriller was quite close to it: having seven of the nine songs as singles. Beyonce has done video out of every song of her new album (17). Actually some radio stations are currently having all the songs in rotation. Don´t be misunderstood though, this is not cheap way to do it. Although you save a little in media spend, having Hype Williams to produce your video is still costing you quite a much.

3.    You do not really need to disrupt everything, just one thing
What is really brilliant with Beyonce-approach is that it is rare instance when you can have the cake and actually eat it too. Beyonce just skipped the pre-launch PR & advertising bits. The download is album-exclusive only for a week. Then it is back to the usual: streaming services start, there will be singles from the album and I bet that Beyonce will not decline interview requests.

4.    Finding the right partner is crucial
Beyonce partnered with iTunes to make this happen, her husband Jay-Z partnered with Samsung to make other hyped album launch of the year. From the bigger artist perspective, the music business is increasingly more B2B than B2C:

5.    Understand what business you are in
So what is music business nowadays? It is not about selling albums or even singles. It is about creating experiences. This is obvious when analyzing how much the biggest artists get from touring. Experiences are not limited to real-life, but are happening more in digital. Before you made music video to promote the song. Now you do song to be able to do the YouTube-video.

To pull something like this out and with this effect, you need to be an artist of Beyonce-calibre (there is not that many) and also you have to be first to do it. Free publicity of the stunt is something you cannot duplicate. So this approach per se is not the future of music business. What is the future, that the money does not come from only music, it comes from the whole package.

Although for this week, we can try to believe that music album still matters like in 1980´s. The album is actually quite good, but naturally not the Thriller.

Tagged , , , , , , , ,
Dec 13 2013
Leave a comment
Business, Digital Strategy, Marketing Strategy, Planning, Social Media

Social Media Trends 2014: The Truth According to Me

Good folks at Kurio Digital Marketing Think Thank asked me (again) and 21 other Finnish digital dudes & dudettes some views of social media trends in 2014.

In many ways the social media scene has matured and the shifts are not as radical as they were few years back. Many of my answers from last year would not be out of place this year (last year trends can be read here). As majority of the readers of my blog cannot read Finnish, I have translated my predictions below. If you can understand Finnish, the report is highly recommended read.

Before going to my answers, it is important to make the distinction between a fad, a trend and a commodity. Every new thing starts out as a fad (i.e. Snapchat is in that phase). Majority just stay as fads (Chatroulette), but certain things evolve to trends (i.e. brands building their Facebook pages few years back). Only very few make their route to become commodities (Facebook, Twitter, Youtube at the moment). Trends do not pay the bills, so usually only when something is commoditized it starts to make safe business sense. In that way you should approach your social media marketing efforts like investor:

70% of investments to commodities (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube)
25% to trends (Taking selfies)
5% to fads (Snapchat, Vine)

This is naturally subject to your risk tolerance and your business majority. If you are start-up with nothing to lose, it might sense to flip it other around. And do not get me wrong, my view is that brands should try to ride the trends and fads more proactively. It is just important to realize their business role (such as learning, gaining the opinion leadership, creating the future competitive advantage). Riding on the fads seldom is the way to reach masses.

So with that caveat my social media trends (with couple of commodities and fads thrown in as well):

 1.Biggest Social Media Trends in 2014: Monetization & Mobile-First
There is two big paradigm shifts which are not really trends, but changes which have already happened but keep
a) Money (Show it)
Twitter did the IPO this year, which will affect the user experience. I doubt that the success will not be as good as with Facebook. Mass social media channels are increasingly more bought media than earned media. Therefore community manager or social media director without also access to bought media budget is a position without any real power. In many ways the advancements in bought media (i.e. programmatic buying) have also been way more interesting in recent years than say in, content marketing.
b) Mobile (First)
The switch to mobile is not a trend, it is a change which has already happened.  Consumers  switch wildly between different channels, platforms, devices and even use them at the same time! This puts extra pressure to understanding the consumer journeys. You cannot really understand those journeys without constant testing, measuring and optimizing. Secret to crack the mobile-first challenge is to think holistically consumer-first.

 2. Social Media platform to look out for in 2014: Anything related to visual storytelling
I have talked about selfies before in this blog and they will not go anywhere next year (hopefully twerking will not disappear either). All the applications, which help you to modify and enhance will be hot items next year. China will show the way in this trend. Also, we have to also remember that selfie is a communication vehicle as itself. Combining IM and visual storytelling will be a big thing. Instagram has actually addressed this already with its Direct offering.

3. Biggest challenges in doing social media marketing in 2014: Processes block the real-time success 
Old processes stand in the way of the really great real-time executions. Year 2013 was disappointment in terms of real-time marketing. There were couple of nice stunts, but we should be able to do better than just dunk in the dark (Oreo is still pretty much the only proper case study example). The briefing process that is suitable for traditional big brand campaign just does not fit faster requirements of real-time marketing. My personal New Year promise is to concentrate even more in creating and executing more streamlined, collaborative and more agile way to make real-time success stories next year.

4. Social Media Buzzword, which hopefully disappears in 2014: The whole talk of the social media
If you are still in 2014 talking about social media as a separate unit, you are more old-school than the person still using FourSquare. Consumers switch smoothly between devices and platforms and between virtual and real-life like it ain´t no big thing. What is actually the difference between digital and real-life nowadays? How can your firm address the needs and the behaviors of these consumers in every relevant touchpoints? To separate social media from other digital activities or other activities is just laziness and shutting your eyes of the reality. Digital scene is more fragmented than every before. Therefore it is more crucial than ever to create a big picture of those fragments. We do not need any more social media specialists (or digital specialists for that matter). We need 100% digital people who live and breath like their consumers and have the understanding and empathy to connect with them (and also means to be in the right touchpoints).

 5. Biggest social media hope for the next year?
I do not hope, I just do. And measure, optimize and do it again.

Predicting the future is too much work, I rather create history.

Tagged , , , , , , , ,
Dec 06 2013
Leave a comment
Business, Insight, Marketing Strategy

Cut The Bullsh*t: What Cutting Your Hair in Subway Station Can Teach You on Innovation?

Besides my grocery shopping habits I have changed my haircutting habits as well. Before I used to spend quite a lot time and money to fancy barbers, but as the time is tighter in fast-paced Singapore, I have found my new favorite business venture QB House. They are fast barbershop located in MRT stations and offering just cut really fast and really cheap.
 
Today while taking my haircut, I started to think what all the other categories could learn from their approach:
 
1. Concentrate on essentials
Especially for the guys you seldom need washing the hair or coloring services. You just need the quick cut. Many times the route for drastic category reinvention is to start taking things away. Crossfit is great example of this in sports category (having higher margins though as well). Think about budget airlines. Do we really need airline food? For many of us, the answer is resounding no.
 
2. Make it faster in slow category
I used to spend altogether almost two hours to my visit in Barbershop. Reserving it was a pain in the ass and it took weeks of time. Now I just pop to QB House on my lunch break and does not even think about it. What if you could get your glasses in a hour? Or your car in one day?
 
3. Give bold promise
“10 minutes just cut” is the tagline for QB House.  I have actually timed the experience in QB House and many times it goes a little bit over it. I don´t really care about that. The bold promise gives indication that it is fast and something you can do within time restraints of your lunch hour or when you are waiting for subway. What bold promise you could give in your category? We give you credit card in an hour? We give you a loan in an hour?
 
4. Be cheap
Until last year the QB House promise was even more compelling from price-perspective: 10 minutes and 10 Singaporean dollars. Now the inflation has taken its toll, but price is still reasonable: 12 Singaporean dollars (7 €/9.5$). Price is totally connected with cutting all the unnecessary bits away. What is the core of your business and what are just the add-ons?
 
5. Be consistent
Instead of being loyal to specific barber or even specific location. QB House is located in MRT stations and strategic mall locations, which means that I can actually visit barber no matter where I have to go. The process is so fast that I can accidentally pop by. Before having the haircut defined my whole day routine. QB House is the McDonald´s of barbershops. You always know what to get. Again consistency and strict processes contribute to two things: effectiveness and familiarity. Effectiveness makes business sense for company and familiarity makes the consumer to come back. Although I never get the comb they offer me, it is still a nice gesture. And actually because the barbers cut so many people, the quality is actually really consistent as well. But to be honest I would not try to get new hairstyle from QB House. I don´t think they would want that either. Stick to the essentials and be consistent.
 
Actually I go more often to barbershop nowadays as well (every three weeks, might also be that I am rocking the undercut), so the new way of doing things has actually altered my behavior as well. The yearly customer value adds up though and I bring over 200 dollars for QB House yearly. You do not even think about it, because the single transaction is so low.
 
If your category has done things certain way for a long time, it is good indication that you could do it differently. How could you be faster, cheaper and more revolutionary on your category?

Tagged , , , , ,
Dec 02 2013
Leave a comment
Business, Insight, Marketing Strategy, Planning

Nose-to-Tail Guide to Marketing

Recently there has been lots of buzz around restaurant called Wolf here in Singapore. They embrace “nose-to-tail”-ideology, which was coined by Fergus Henderson, whose restaurant St.John has been the culprit of the movement. Basically nose-to-tail eating means that you utilize all the parts of pig (or other animal).

I think it is an interesting phenomenon and there are certain lesson marketer can learn from nose-to-tail eating:

1. Sense the opportunity
Eating animal parts like tongue was common back in the day, because they were inexpensive. You utilized the whole hog, because you did not want waste good any edible parts. Nowadays the average restaurant visitor is so distanced from the body parts of animal, that there is opportunity now to charge high premium for previous b-grade product like bone marrow. Offal, bone marrow or even liver used to be common dishes but now they are exotic. On the other hand, average restaurant visitor is more adventurous cultural eater nowadays having been exposed to cuisines around the world. This provides great opportunity to reinvent some long lost meat dishes to paying audience.

2. Go back to the roots
Henderson did not need to reinvent wheel. Many of dishes are based on forgotten British recipes. Whereas other competitors were either looking for hypermodern approach (molecular gastronomy) or ethical cuisine for inspiration, Ferguson used the parts everyone else neglected. More often brands should really revisit what has made them unique instead of trying to revamp themselves every other year. Sometimes the answer to your problem is closer than you would believe.

3. Build the philosophy
When the money was tight, it made sense to utilize the whole animal. It strikes a chord well also with current discussion around ethicality of meat eating and always when financial crisis hits. Like Fergus Henderson concluded: 
“If you´re going to kill the animal it seems only polite to eat the whole thing”
It is not exactly going vegetarian or addressing the problems of meat production, but it is still step to the right direction.

4. Name it well
Nose-to-tail invokes curiosity and immediately tells what to expect. It is also quite open canvas to experiment as you can serve anything starting from nose ending to the tail. It does not exclude you to serve more “normal” items as well”

5. Make business sense
Making profit in restaurant business is actually about making more out of less costly ingredients instead of charging high premium of expensive items. Wagyu beef is expensive for the restaurant as well. So when done well, nose-to-tail is makes quite a much business sense as well. The premium you can charge for tongue is quite high.

 6. Deliver with passion
There are no shortcuts to excellence. Even with the five above points intact without the passion and craft for good food, Nose-to-tail eating would not be the phenomenon what it is now. In the current competitive landscape it is not enough that your product is superb, you have to tell a good story as well.

I have not yet tested Wolf, so the verdict is still out for its quality. Otherwise, I am firm believer of nose-to-tail eating.

Firstly it makes a good story and the most importantly it tastes good!

Tagged , , , , , , , ,
Nov 12 2013
1 Comment
Business, Insight, Marketing Strategy, Planning

Fart with Confidence and How There Is Demand for Pretty Much Anything

When you market is the whole world you can pretty much sell anything and there is demand for what you do. I think it is a question of point-of-view whether this thought is comforting or disturbing. I was reminded about this when colleague, whose identity I want to protect, because he was probably buying them for himself, put me up on this:

Fart with Confidence

Shreddies
So basically it is underwear, which neutralizes your farts, so they do not smell. Apparently it uses high-technology carbon cloth “Zorflex”, which dissolves the odor.  It was originally used in chemical warfare suits, but now everyone can use that technology when releasing their own private “chemical warfare”.

Chemical Warfare

I understand that severe flatulence is no laughing matter (or it should not be), but I still it hard to not found this a little bit amusing. Especially because their tagline is “Fart With Confidence”.

This odd product raise couple of questions:
– If flatulence causes you uncomfortable social situations, why do you want to use underwear product with such as a prominent branding?
– Who are those perverts who smell each other when they are farting (referring to the picture)?
– And if you have decided to practice those weird activities, what is the point of smelling the fart if you cannot smell it (referring to the picture as well)? Is it some kind of vibration thing? 
– On the philosophical tip, if you fart and no one smells it, did you really fart?
– Will they next upgrade the product to remove the noise as well?
– Have they considered using this chap as their spokeperson? Or sponsor this event?

Shreddies have big potential target audience, as normal person farts approximately 14 times a day. Also if you would fart consistently for 6 years and 9 months, you would produce enough gas to produce atom bomb. I found this in the Internet, so it must be true.

Tagged , , , , , , ,
Nov 11 2013
1 Comment
Business, Digital Strategy, Marketing Strategy, Planning, Strategy

Is SEO Finally Dead?

SEO is dead.
I have never been specialized in search. I have many times worked with search specialists in various projects and I appreciate the work they do. Understanding the meaning of Google in consumer life is crucial, but SEO (or SEM for that matter) is just a part of a bigger picture. Remembering the time when clients believed that SEO is a silver bullet, I have always had my firm principals on how I approach the search:

1)   SEO is competitiveness, not competitive advantage.
Making your website search engine optimized is easy for your competitors to do as well. How do you differ from them when they have are optimizing same way as you do as well? This is apparent in highly competed fields of traffic. Tabloids or online travel portals compete head-to-head and the number one search position changes hourly. Of course if you have not made sure of the basic hygiene issues, you have most likely lost the game already. Doing search well is something that is not enough to differentiate anymore.

2)   You should create your content for people not for the search engines. 
I have blogged for almost 10 years in various instances. Sometimes I have done tests and wrote the content more with the keyword-glasses on. What I have noticed is that good content will always become popular no matter what words you use. Some of my most read posts have had actually really mundane titles and go against all the rules of the traditional “write for search engines” –rule. Of course I know that I am not Perez Hilton or Seth Godin (or do I?), and my blog post is only a tiny-tiny-tiny fraction of what is happening in Internet in general. But so is majority of the web content. Companies should first concentrate on how they can be useful & interesting, and then think about keywords. Not the other way around. Being useful & interesting is hard and there are not short cuts to it.

3)   Real Popularity is the most important optimization
Google likes content, which is popular and which is shared. After Google Panda-algorithm change two years ago, the traffic to news sites and social media sites surged whereas “content farms” really slumped (and majorly have not been able to come back). We also now that Google has increased the weight to social sharing with its search algorithm. Social media shares are harder to fake. You really have to be useful & interesting to get those shares, because they are done by real people.

These principles are still valid, and with the recent algorithm changes (like above-mentioned Panda) more accurate than ever. Google is aiming to eventually stop gaming the system and also make search to emulate more human way of searching the information. With latest Google Hummingbird there has been maybe the biggest leap in search, and the following changes will change the search game totally:

1.  Security Search is now the Default: Less visibility on why your visitors are visiting your site
In conjunction with Hummingbird-algorithm change, there was also other major change in September. All the Google searches are now secure by default. Basically this means that you do not know what keywords your site visitors have used when they arrive on your site. This change was eventually inevitable, but still makes traditional SEO harder. There are also certain workarounds to try to capture the traffic.

2. Enter the Semantic Search: Forget the keywords, give answers
More and more searches are currently made by mobile and in the future increasingly with your voice (Siri & Google Glass). Traditional “googling” is not a normal way for people to find what they are looking for. We have taught ourselves to use keywords, but what we really are trying to find is answers.
Giving right answers tailored to you is the direction where Google is going. It takes account your device, previous search history and location and gives tailored search results based on your existing and expected future behavior. Some of these developments we have already seen. Google corrects your misspelled words and proposes alternatives to what you are trying to search. Knowledge graph tries to guess what you are searching on the right side under the search bar.

The search game is totally different than it was couple of years ago.
Do we still need specialized SEO-agencies or is search business nowadays mainly SEM?

Tagged , , , , , , ,
Nov 04 2013
Leave a comment
Advertising, Business, Marketing Strategy, Planning, Strategy

Stop Being in Brand Bubble and Smell The Roses

Because I work in advertising, I focus more on the advertisements than normal person. After spending the whole day crafting strategy, I have to always remind myself at the end of the day, that no normal person really cares that much.  Serves as a good reminder before I bore non-advertising people at the dinner table. It is natural human tendency to place high value for something just because we spend much time with something. Being important for you does not equal being important to everyone, not even anyone else.

Marketers fell victim to similar thinking and end up living on their own “brand bubble”. When you live and breathe your brand everyday, you start become blind to its real meaning in people´s life. Usually that meaning is quite limited at best and totally obsolete at worst. Therefore it is always important to try to escape your brand bubble, go talk to real people and keep these five points clear in your mind:

1. Product feature is not a product benefit.
Consumer decides the product benefit, not the company. Even though you introduce product feature you have been developing for years, if the consumer does not find use for it, it is completely useless. You have to dig deep to really find why target audience uses your product or selects your brand. Sometimes the truth might be bad news for your brand (see 5.)

2. Do not follow your category: differ from it
I think that benchmarking your direct competitors is one of the biggest traps marketers fall. Usual fallacy is that when you conclude that your whole category is boring, you end up being boring yourself. Benchmarking should be used only in these two ways:

  1. Analyze what your competitors are doing and do something totally different.
  2. Benchmark other categories which are successful and use those tactics in innovative ways (Utilize retailing tactics in luxury products or vice versa, make your service a product, sell subscription model, etc..)

3. You compete against everyone, not just your category
Especially with digital, you are on the battlefield with the best ones in the world. On YouTube you are competing with Ylvis. On Facebook you are competing with the friends of your target audience. On Twitter you are competing with biggest opinion leaders in the world. You better be interesting or go home.

4. Being simple is being confident.
If you can make people to remember one thing about you, you have already succeeded. Usually marketer wants to tell too much. You have been spending time doing all these different features, which you mistake as benefits and want to cram them all on one banner ad. Telling too much is turn-off. You should intrigue the curiosity by letting the audience have the opportunity to find out more. Too many times we tell everything immediately, so there is nothing left to say and learn. Sexy lingerie is more erotic than nudity, because it leaves room for the imagination. You should do the same with your brand.

5. Be honest about your brand.
Does your market share represent the true strength of your brand? Many times especially with FMCG brands, you realize that the biggest selling brands might actually have quite low brand equity. They are just big because of the price point, logistics or lack of real competition. And there is nothing wrong with that if you know where the market share is coming. Low brand equity poses a threat for rapid market share loss because of the price competition. For example, your category might not yet been affected by private labels, but that does not mean it will not happen. Knowing the real health of you brand is really important, so you can prepare yourself for the upcoming challenges.

Every time you start falling too deep in your own brand world, go back to these five points and remember that you play only small role in the world on your audience.

Tagged ,
Nov 01 2013
Leave a comment
Business, Insight, Marketing Strategy, Planning, Social Media, Strategy

What CrossFit Can Teach You About Branding

Those who read my post last week will already know that I have not yet become totally cynical to the art of marketing. I fell victim to good branding once in a while. I have been reminded of this gullibility, because lately I have desperately wanted to start CrossFit.

For those who are not in the know, CrossFit is an intense exercise program characterized by functional training using non-traditional weighlifting equipment (such as kettlebells). It has been probably been the hottest thing lately (especially among guys) in exercise circles and become quite mainstream in last couple of years. Reebok is also betting heavily on the rise of CrossFit.

I am already sports crazy. I run and do circuit training every morning, play in two basketball teams and try to swim once in a while. I do not really need any additions to my sports regime. I am healthy enough. The urge to start Crossfit is not rational decision. It has been branded well. It feels natural, because the exercise is functional. It feels total antithesis of the shiny gyms: many times CrossFit-sessions happening in the old warehouses. It has strong ethos of pushing to the limit, which resonates well with my view of sports in general. Exercising is not supposed to be fun. Only pain brings gain.

However when I was searching for the alternatives for CrossFit training in Singapore, I was shocked by the steep price tag of monthly prices. You should not really pay over 200+ dollars for basic circuit training in shitty warehouse. Or should you?

This is the inner dialogue I had:

Left brain: Hey that guy just took your our basketball summer training and is now charging hundreds of dollars a month from a glorified circuit training!
Right brain: But I want to push tractor tires to feel like a man!

Left brain: You push yourself too hard even in your morning jogs, CrossFit can actually destroy your muscles.
Right brain: Whatever, I want to train until I puke.
(Actually I heard a rumour that Red Bull sales increased when there was news coverage about alleged deaths of mixing Red Bull with Alcohol. Danger attracts.Also a vast majority of the news stories about harmfulness of different sports are written and shared by people who just want to find excuses for not exercising)

Why Crossfit is currently so appealing?

1. Proven business model
Crossfit.inc (founded in 2000 by Greg Glassman) follows in many ways the same success formula of the rise of “Les Mills”-branded classes, best known for Bodypump-classes. They license the Crossfit name to gyms for an annual fee and certify trainers. Licensing business is one of the most profitable types of business in the world.

 2. Room for creativity
Whereas Les Mills feels more like the McDonald´s of Gym Exercise (it is the same in every part of the globe), CrossFit still feels like a rebel alternative for it. Every CrossfFit-training can be different and the possible variations for the training are infinite.

3. Perfect training type for digital office worker
No-frills type of training feels perfect antidote for the overtly digital world we are living in. Also the sessions are high-intensity short bursts, which you can easily fill even to the busiest calendar.

4. Fueled by social media
I doubt that the sports would not be as big without the connected world we are living. There are CrossFit-forums, Facebook pages and endless amount of training videos. After watching this video by Finnish CrossFit-hero Mikko Salo, it almost felt I was training myself (150k views, btw):

5. Good story to tell
Exercising should always be about your own health and development. The truth is though that many times people exercise also for the bragging rights. CrossFit just sounds way cooler than being in Spinning. No offense to Spinning.

I probably try CrossFit despite the steep price tag. If no for other reason than to give a nod for the branding well done.

Tagged , , , , ,
Oct 28 2013
Leave a comment
Insight, Marketing Strategy, Planning, Social Media

How Teens Abandoned Facebook and Other Lies You Can Find From Research

First of all, I recommend everyone to read “Wrong: Why Experts Keep Failing Us”, a brilliant book by David H. Freedman. It showcases that painstakingly big portion of scientific research is completely faulty. The book did not address the subject of marketing research, but as the situation was quite bad with scientific research, I would say that nearly all of the marketing research is somewhat inferior. That does not mean it is not useful, but you should always take it with grain of salt.

I was reminded of this when there were lots of shares in social media about research on how Facebook is not the most important social network for teens. The news coverage it got made me sad and angry because of three things. First of all, that study was conducted to 802 teens (there are 20+ million teens in US). Second, it was focus group, not assessing the real behavior online. Third, it was mainly a study about privacy, which might also skew the answers to certain direction (like the previous study about social media effect on teen purchasing patterns). If you look at cold facts, not feelings coming out from the focus groups, the truth is different:

Numbers trump feelings
The so-called popular network Twitter has 24% penetration in teen audience, while Facebook has 94%. That gives a clear signal about reality: Facebook is “only” over 3.5 times bigger than the “most-liked” social network. You rather have actual reach than likes. When you are crafting your next campaign for teens, I would still concentrate on Facebook to get that actual reach. Instagram (owned by Facebook, which is good to remember) or Twitter might be good for more engagement, but by the time of writing, something new is probably surpassing them as the social network of choice for teens.

Do not replace your common sense with research
Main takeaway from the research was that teens do not find Facebook cool anymore. That is hardly surprising and you do not really need research to get that insight. Why would teens even find it cool? Their parents are using Facebook, for god´s sake. There will be always a demand for that “new thing” amongst teens (whether SnapChat or twerking). That “new thing” enables teens to differentiate from adults and hopefully shock parents as well. When Twitter becomes popular enough, teens will “abandon” it as well. That “abandonment” does not mean that Twitter would be irrelevant. On the contrary, that might mean it is just big enough to make business sense for the target audience.

This rant is not really about the teens fleeing away from Facebook (which they actually do, to some extent). It is about that I am totally sick and tired of sloppily executed research and lazy misinterpretation of that research. You run into these bullshit stats taken out of their context everyday, whether you are reading blogs, industry press or just browsing the latest deck from the research agency. When these stats get passed on in social media without any deeper thought, I sincerely hope that people are just too lazy to check details of the research. Other alternative is that marketing people are just too stupid. Hopefully not.

Especially we, as planners, should take a stand and always dig deeper to the research and be the devil´s advocate when it comes to research. Find the occasional nuggets and gems between the lines and rip the other pieces of the research apart.

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