Category Archives: Strategy

Oct 24 2012
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Business, Digital Strategy, Strategy

iPad Mini and The Future of Mobile

Despite the surprise launch of the next generation iPad and the brouhaha that followed it, the most important launch of the yesterday´s Apple event was still the iPad Mini. According to late Steve Jobs that tablet should never been launched:

“This size isn’t sufficient to create great tablet apps in our opinion”

The point is not that Apple is ruining the grand vision of iPad or dancing on the grave of Steve Jobs. The launch of iPad Mini is just a reflection of the current market situation. People do not necessarily want to have great tablet apps, they just want to read e-books with the tablet. Kindle Fire and Nexus 7 have shown that there is a great demand for smaller tablets which are designed mainly for content consumption (such as text, videos, audio and basic casual games). Judging by the strength of Apple´s content ecosystem (iTunes, iBooks), it is likely that iPad Mini will be successful. The biggest concern is the higher price, but that does not really have stopped Apple buyers before either.

The launch of iPad Mini is a good indicator of where we are moving in the mobile sphere. Here are four predictions what will happen in the near future:

1. Apple will release bigger iPhone.
If (when) iPad mini will be a hit, we are quite likely to see bigger iPhone. The success of Samsung Galaxy S III has proven that the traditional heuristic of “it has to fit the pocket” do not really apply. We have the need to communicate and consume content. For those whose urge for the latter is bigger, would want to use bigger smartphones. And they just put it in bag instead of trouser pockets. Or get bigger trousers.

2. The Tablet+Dock hybrid will be the laptop of the future
There has been flood of new device announcements with Windows 8 OS that are not traditional laptops. Instead they are hybrids, merging tablets and laptops. These devices might not be the future yet, but the thinking behind them will be. It is odd and inconvenient to carry around smartphone, laptop and tablet with you. I would presume that the separate bigger tablet would be the one to go. Smartphone would be the urgent communication vehicle; the separated tablet for mobile content consumption and that powered with the dock would be for work.

3. Mobile is the driving force in technology usage of the consumers
Also with the launch of Windows 8 OS, there has been quite a big surge of touchscreen laptops. The way we use mobile is shaping how we use other devices. Mobile is all the times with us, so we expect the same user experience with other devices. That is also reason why companies are struggling with mobile. They view it as an add-on, when it should be the core of what they are doing.

4. Forget the different devices, it is about integration of screens.
In the near future, we will not talk about mobile, tablets or laptops. We will just have different screens, which are integrated together and serve different purpose. The company who will master this integration most fluently will be the winner of the technology race. We will have screens for home, work and mobile (enabling both work&entertainment) and certain devices that enable us to use these screens. What devices those will be, remains to be seen. One certain consequence will be that there will be renewed interest to TV screens, which have and still are the default home screens for the majority of households.

iPad Mini will not be the last interesting technology launch in the near future. There is still plenty of white space to discover while consumer technology usage is changing. The one who understands the consumer experience and “the integration of screens” most thoroughly will be able to find and conquer that white space.

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Oct 23 2012
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Advertising, Business, Planning, Strategy

Rethinking The Advertising Agency Team Structure

World is changing rapidly around us. Digital revolution has shaken up all the industries. Revolution brings opportunities, but only for those who are willing and able to change within the times.

Amidst all the change, advertising agencies have been surprisingly static in their way of work. The basic advertising team structure has remained pretty much the same in most of the agencies (certain expectation to that rule). Usually core team has just been extended with channel specialists, because core team does not get digital. This has been one of the reasons why advertising agencies have lost their role in current business environment. We have hammers to solve your problems, but those problems have altered from nails to screws.

That is why it is mandatory to rethink the agency teams, to achieve the following goals:

1) To expand agency offering beyond traditional campaigns.
2) To find new business models in addition and to replace traditional retainers and project fees.
3) To create environment, which creates tangible creative products faster and more agile.
4) To enable flexible way of working to reduce over bloated organizations and bureaucracy.

New advertising agency should consist of generalists, who are accompanied with network of designated specialists. As the channel & technology knowledge gets more and more specified, the need to have the big picture is more vital than ever.

All the work is based on consumer insights and everyone has the responsibility to start their work from insights. That is why there are no separate planners.

Everyone also has to come up with ideas. Agency is as creative as its least creative link. The unified mindset is to produce things. Everyone is a producer. You will be judged by the actual stuff you are able to produce. No more room for free-riders.

Also the media knowledge should be in-house. In this day and age, you cannot separate creative work from the actual channels.

CORE CLIENT TEAM
The core of the agency client teams is built around self-guided generalists, who are insight-driven and obsessed about creative output. Ideas are teamwork and have no ownership.

Strategist
Job Description: Dual responsibility on both external & internal strategy:
How we improve our client´s business? How we improve our own business?
From my viewpoint you cannot ever separate strategy from the billings. That is why the business & strategic responsibilities are combined.
Mash-Up: Account director/Planner
Responsibility: Strategy

Presenter
Job Description: To ensure that all the products that are done to the clients are as persuasive as possible. Verbal persuasion is not limited to traditional copywriting, but is extended to all channels and to internal level as well. As the lingua franca of business world is PowerPoint, agencies should be master of that vehicle as well. Good ideas have been ruined with bad presentations. That is unacceptable.
Mash-up: Copywriter/Screenwriter/Planner/
Responsibility: Persuasion

Visualist
Job description: To ensure that all the products that are done to the client are aesthetically as beautiful as they can be. As the world is getting more and more visual, this role is increasingly more important. If you do not look good, you do not exist. Or at least, lack the quality.
Mash-up: Art Director/Film Director/Planner
Responsibility: Beauty
As you can see, these two roles are closest to traditional copy/ad-couple. There are two reasons to that. Fist, I find that pairing still the most effective unit in agencies. In majority of cases, two heads are better than. Secondly, I believe that we still need visual & verbal thinkers, although on more broad term. Usually they are two separate persons, but with certain individuals these roles can be merged.

Consumer Experience Designer
Job Description: To map out consumer journeys and find the most effective places to interact, help and to affect the consumer. As you cannot sugarcoat bad customer experience with flashy marketing communications, the customer experience should be in core of all the client teams.
Mash-up: Digital/Engagement/Media Planner
Responsibility: Consumer Experience

Creative Producer
Job Description: To ensure that the actual products will be produced. Leading the specialist network. Heading the prototyping in the agency. Creative producer is the catalyst of the new agency and the main change agent in moving to the age of experiment.
Mash-Up: Creative/Producer
Responsibility: Creative products & prototypes

Client
Yes, you read right. Client should be an important team member. In order to reinvent agency model, we should also shift our working methods more towards collaboration instead of traditional buyer-subcontractor-model. To disrupt the usual brief-creative brief-creative execution-production-cycle, we should collaborate on earlier phase. Advertising agencies should strive to be the best advisers the client can have. That requires ability to tackle problems, which cannot be put on a single brief.It is also important to look beyond just challenges, agency should be also spotting opportunities on a constant notice. From my experience, with best client relationships this works and comes also quite naturally.

EXTENDED TEAM
The generalist core team is helped by a group of specialists. These are used on case-by-case-basis and majority of them are not necessarily on the agency´s payroll. There are also certain agency-wide specialist roles, which are helping all the agency. These roles are following:

Creative Social Anthropologist
Job Description: Creative anthropologist gives unfiltered view of human behavior for the core team and keeps the whole company up-to-date with emerging audience trends. Heads the consumer research that is based on actual human behavior. Works in close cooperation with data miner.
Responsibility: Human behavior

Data Miner
Job Description: Data miner finds human patterns in big data. Helps core team and especially consumer experience designer to find ways to improve client´s business. With creative social anthropologist is creating the trend studies for the whole agency.
Responsibility: Mastering the Big Data

Creative Technologist
Job Description: Creative technologist role is two-folded. When working with core team, she helps to solve client´s business problems with technology. The other role is educational. Creative technologist keeps the whole agency up-to-date with the technologic change. These technologies are also actively tested within the agency.
Responsibility: Technologic change

Creative Lawyer/Creative Financial Personnel
This might be sound far-fetched, but if we really want to find new revenue sources in agencies, this will be mandatory. We have to expand the creativity to traditionally “boring” functions as well. And when I am talking about creative financial, that does not mean Enron or anything like that. Instead of traditional cost-cutters or salespeople, these people are seeking creative ways to improve company´s bottom line with new billing and contract models. Certain examples of these which have been already tested are revenue-share models, leasing IP-rights and creating own properties. There is plenty of room for improvement in this category.
Responsibility: Find new business models and revenue sources. Improve the agency processes.

This new team model is not that science fiction, when you think it closely. When evaluating these roles, I have already met people with these capabilities in different agencies I have worked for. The problem has been that many of them have been struggling with the old-school legacy team structures. The capabilities are already there, now it is time to unleash those capabilities, maybe throw some dead weight from the way and to radically rethink the agency team structure. Because if we will not do it, we might as well be extinct.

What is your view on agency team restructuring?

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Oct 22 2012
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Advertising, Digital Strategy, Planning, Strategy

Everyone Should Be a Producer

We used to live in the age of ideas, but we have already moved to the next phase:

The Age of Experiment.

It used to be about “what”. After the digital revolution we have to stress the importance of “how”. You cannot really separate the actual production from the actual idea. You cannot have real creativity in digital without the understanding and working knowledge of the actual channels. There are million ways to kill a great idea, nearly as many ways to save good one as well.

By the time you spend on polishing that perfect idea, someone else has already done ten imperfect tests. And actually reached the perfection that way. We have to do prototypes, demos and test runs to find the perfect idea. Ideas without the actual experiments are worthless. The difference between companies will be in the agility to come up with actual working executions as fast as possible. Produce something real or die.

There will neither be separation of the “thinkers” and “doers” anymore. If you want to succeed, you have to be both. Strategy will be more and more shaped with the actions and actual outcomes, not with non-productive marathon meetings discussing some incomprehensible PowerPoint presentation. Forget the “high-level” thinking or “low-level” doing. There will be just one level: the working level.

Everyone should be producer.

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Oct 20 2012
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Business, Strategy

Treat Innovation like Investment

Think about measuring innovation as you would an investment portfolio, where you are concerned with the total return rather than individual stocks, bonds, or mutual funds.

The key is not to measure each project individually and then declare victory or defeat, but to measure total investment over a period of time compared to total output.

This pools high- and low-risk projects and encourages people to take canny chances.

– A.G. Lafley (former CEO of Procter & Gamble)

Source: Grant McCracken: Culturematic

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Oct 17 2012
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Advertising, Business, Marketing Strategy, Social Media, Strategy

Building a Successful Failing Company

Each year over 30,000 consumer products are launched. 95% of them fail.
The failure rate of TV shows is about the same 95%.
75% of advertising campaigns are failure.
(Probably the real rate 95%, but the years of crafting those Effie entries probably helped to shape that number down)

The conclusion is clear. We are doomed to fail. Or actually we have planned ourselves to failure.

Companies, who do not tolerate small failures, end up doing big ones. Perversely companies are obsessed of micromanaging the staff and punishing for minor mishaps, but eventually end up messing up themselves big time. There is too much strategy & planning, not enough doing (ironically coming from planner). The trick is to fail often and fast to avoid the big failures and to ensure big wins. Actually it is not about failing, but just doing things.

Four ways to encourage doing actual things and failing fast in your workplace:

1. Taking ownership of the ideas and making it a habit
The problem with the companies is not the lack of ideas. Not even good ones. The problem is that there is a lack of ownership of the ideas. Throwing ideas is worthless, planting and cultivating them priceless. That is why Orange idclic works. You do not just throw an idea around. You get the opportunity and responsibility to build that idea.

I remember time selling digital ideas, when clients only wanted TV ads. We always presented those ideas, even though client had not asked for them. First they were irritated, then amused, then interested and finally buying them.

Selling idea is about creativity, vision & perseverance. Mostly the latter.

If you make the habit of producing five presentable ideas to improve your business (or your client´s business) every month, you have presented 60 good ideas by the end of year. I recommend changing the client or the team, if you have not sold any of them.

2. Something Concrete/Month: Test & research with real audience
If after numerous focus groups, strategy workshops and numerous alternations to body copy you still end up messing the project, what is the real risk of just trying stuff out? Also company, which gets its Facebook status updates approved by ten different managers, cannot really be agile innovator.

Your website and social media channels give great opportunity to test things with real people before you commit millions of dollars behind certain idea. When you commit to test one of those ideas every month, you have done 12 prototypes a year. On a worst case you have 12 small failures. On the best case you have done couple of breakthrough successes.

3. Reaction fund: Show me the money to show that you care
World does not spin around your strategy. Your strategy spins around the world. And that world is changing rapidly.

“Ability is little account without opportunity”
-Napoleon Bonaparte

Every company should have reaction fund to react to current events. Something relevant happens in the real world, which opens the opportunity for your company. When the opportunity rises you should have budget to react to it. Whether you produce event, application, flashmob, social movement does not matter, reaction and taking the action is the key. The designated budget is also a proof that your company is serious about that agile innovation.

4. Skunk works Exchange program: Spreading the change to whole company
Big change starts with small movements. That is why it is crucial to start with task force, skunk works or lab, with progressive individuals who are hungry to change the company.

The challenge is to spread their impact to whole company. If people in skunk works are the only ones doing the cool stuff, it helps quite little the struggling company around. Thus every member of that skunk works should be member for only limited time. When revolutionizing the company for appropriate time in that small unit, they would be located all over the company in different units. This works also other way around, task forces giving new meaning to bored employees. Think of it as a work exchange, where you do not move geographically but mentally.

The future is uncertain and the failure is unavoidable. It is how we seize the opportunities and try out new things, which determines our success.

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Oct 10 2012
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Planning, Strategy

The Illusion of Hot Hand

NBA JAM
I have been playing basketball nearly all my life. I also play in two teams here in Singapore and the quality of the basketball league and how good it has been organized, has been really positive surprise. Not that positive surprise has been my shooting game, which has been uneven to say at least.

I have not had “a hot hand”, like they say.

One of the common beliefs in basketball involves streak shooting: if you have made your last shot you are more likely to make your next shot. Those who have played NBA Jam in nineties, remember that the player was “on fire” after three straight shoots.

This “hot hand” is purely a myth.

Good last shot does not predict your next shot in any way. Actually you might be more likely to miss it. Numerous studies prove this point. Amos Tversky and Thomas Gilovich went through years of NBA team Philadelphia 76ers statistics. The conclusion: Every field goal attempt was its own independent event. Jay Koehler and Caryn Conley got the same result by observing NBA three-point shooting contest.

Ok, now I know the facts. Do I believe in hot hand?

You bet, I do.
(Like actually 91% of serious NBA fans)

“Hot hand” is not based on actual statistics. It is in your mind. When you have the feeling that you are “on fire”, you tend to play better. Because simple truth in basketball is: the more you shoot, the more you tend to score. Average field goal percentage in NBA is little bit below 30%. That means that even the best players in the world miss about two out of every three shots. You need to have the illusion of “hot hand” to keep yourself positive when missing all those shots.

Winning streaks do not limit only to basketball and other sports.

People try to find patterns in random events where they do not exist. I have heard from numerous ad people that when you start losing pitches they always come in three. The reality is that every pitch is its own independent event. If you feel that you are on the roll, the setbacks feel just random mishaps. And if you feel that you have “cold hand”, every loss fulfills your prophecy of losing streak. So to succeed in business, it is important to try to be in state of streak shooter and then go with that emotion. And when you encounter losses you have to remind your rational self about the statistics and just try again.

There is not anything wrong to believe in “hot hand”, just do not fall into superstition when you are not “on fire.”

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Oct 09 2012
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Business, Strategy

How to Become a Thought Leader

Yesterday I wrote about the inflation of the term thought leadership. There is no magic potion for becoming a thought leader, but you can dissect three characteristics of a real thought leader.

Three characteristics (3C´s) of a Thought Leader

Credibility
Whether it is grounded on heritage (IBM, GE) or innovation (Zappos, 37Signals), you have to build your credibility on real actions. There is no shortcut for it. It requires hours of work and a fair amount of blood, sweat and tears.
You cannot sugarcoat business mediocrity with great writing or flashy marketing. Good (or actually rather bad) example of great marketing over not a lot of substance is BP´s Beyond Petroleum. That thought leadership campaign looked quite out-of-place with their 2010 oil spill in Mexico and continuous neglect of safety measures.

Challenge
There is no thought leadership, without radical thinking. Thought leaders dare to challenge status quo. If you aspire to be thought leader, you should not be afraid of confrontation and differentation from the mass. Leaders are not always right, but they have a clear point-of-view and direction where they are heading. Richard Branson is a thought leader, because he dares to go against the grain. The successes and failures of his ventures are secondary. He is thought leader because he is not afraid to try and rebel against traditional ways to do business.

Commitment
The thought leadership companies commit to every piece of their business passionately. The core of successful business lies in almost maniac drive to understand your customers better. This drive correlates highly with great marketing activities. Thought leadership initiatives fail because people are not committed to them. When you are forced to write a blog post, you resent the task and produce a bland sales pitch. If you are changing the world, you want to tell about it and then writing that blog post is more of an honor than a dull task.

It is wrong to say that it is now easier to become thought leader. It is always hard task and requires dedication and determination. No shortcuts.

That being said, the rotation of thought leaders is faster than it used to be. Thought leader today, gone tomorrow. Especially the technologic disruption opens up possibilities for the brands and individuals to become thought leaders in their business. Provided that they are committed to change the world and challenge the status quo.

Thought leadership brands gain credibility by challenging the norms and committing to their mission to change the world.

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Oct 08 2012
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Business, Digital Strategy, Strategy

Read This Thought Leadership Piece

“Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms”
-Groucho Marx

Since when has a mundane B2B marketing effort become thought leadership marketing?

Blog post is not a thought leadership piece. On a worst case it does not really include any thinking in it, but is only a disguised and long-winded sales pitch for the company behind it. Just that you are sharing your thoughts does not make you a thought leader. Thought leadership is always judged by audience and not the marketer.

If you are a thought leader, whatever you do, it is thought leadership marketing. And the other way around, if you are not, no matter what you write, it is just another blog post, which no one wants to read. People should aspire to really be thought leaders and not just appear to be one.

Because we as a people are naturally lazy and trying to find shortcuts, it has not been surprise that marketing companies selling thought leadership marketing have found a lucrative market. Companies and individuals should concentrate more on doing things worth telling and doing some serious thinking worth sharing instead of buying some “thought leadership toolkit”. The actual methods to reach out to your audience come quite naturally if you have your real story in order. That story should be based on the actual truth.

Thought leadership marketing is just a contradiction in terms. Too often it lacks both the actual thinking and the real leadership.

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Sep 14 2012
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Marketing Strategy, Strategy

Decision Paralysis in Hawker Centre

Singapore is a tremendous place for foodie. I am especially fond of the concept of Hawker centres. For those unfamiliar, they are open air food complexes serving great but inexpensive food. I try to visit new stalls and new centres every week and try out new dishes.

In the beginning, my knowledge of local dishes was fairly limited. I wanted to test out new food, but as the hawker stall can be quite hectic place especially during the lunch hour, I nearly always made similar order (prawn noodles, to be precise). So after getting worried about my diet getting too monotonous, I made a simple rule to guide my lunch decision-making:

Only buy from Hawker stalls which sell only one food item.

The reasoning was two-folded:

1. If stall can make living by only selling one dish, the dish must be pretty good.

2. When you have only one alternative, your decision process is quite straightforward.

What I experienced on the stalls offering too many alternatives, was decision paralysis. And many times I still experience that. So it is probably me blocking the queue at the stall when not able to make my mind up between Mee Siam and Mee Rebus. Sorry.

The more you give alternatives to customer, the more difficult it is to make the decision and more likely that customer sticks to his learned formula of behavior. So if you have accustomed to eat chicken rice, the more new alternatives you get the more likely you are to stick with that chicken rice.

This raises couple of issues to companies. If you have only one product, the customer selection is definitely easy. It is also easy to decide against your product. So you have to have variety to address different target audience needs. However, the more you add alternatives the more difficult the selection becomes. In FMCG this usually also results to product cannibalization. The category variants do not take market share from competitor products but actually eat up the market share of your core product. Companies have to provide variety but also easy decision at the same time. Below are couple of tips to overcome this paradox.

How you can help clients to overcome decision paralysis?

1. Recommend

How many times have you taken Chef´s Special in the restaurant? If customer seems hesitant, ask and recommend. Whether you are hawker stall owner or webstore, you are also expert of your products. Highlight that expertise and make qualified recommendation to your client.

2. Show popularity

When showing Top 5 of the most popular dishes, the probabilities are quite high that the customer selects  some of them. Or just check the most popular media sites, they are always highlighting the most read stories. Popularity is a cue of superiority and it helps to make decisions.

3. Encourage word-of-mouth

Only times when I have varied from my hawker stall selection criteria was when I had recommendation from my friend or read a story about certain stall or dish on Straits Times. There is no shortcut for positive feedback. You have to provide good experience and the word-of-mouth will follow. In digital sphere you can make recommendations more visible with social media integration (showing Facebook likes, comments, FourSquare check-ins or Twitter updates regarding your company).

4. Help customer to apply his decision making rules

“I always buy the cheapest”, “I always buy the most expensive”, “I always try the new dish” or “I always eat beef on Fridays”. These are some of the rules your customer might use when selecting products. When you highlight those different motivational triggers, you make your customers selection easier. To exactly know the motivation and the rules for your customers, it requires constant monitoring and research of customer habits.

5.  Help customer to make one choice at a time

Some of the decisions are not always easy. There might be thousands of alternatives. Or there might be only couple of alternatives, but thousands different parameters affecting your choice. Especially with more complicated products, it helps if you break the decision to different parts. It is hard to make buying decision right away, but you can always take steps closer to it. Decision making in elections is great example of this, finding the right candidate requires variety of questions affecting various different categories (example: Republican primaries 2012).

Nowadays as I have learned more about different dishes I have ventured to stalls offering more variety. But even then I utilize one simple rule:

Always go to the stalls with the longest queue.

“More choice does not necessarily correlate with more business”

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Aug 01 2012
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Strategy

How Making Sushi Helps You Find The Perfection

Every professional, whether they like sushi or not, should see the following movie:

Jiro Dreams of Sushi is probably one of the most impressive documentaries I have seen this year. It tells the life story of 85-year old Jiro Ono, who is regarded as one of (if not) the best shokunin. That means sushi chef and also mastery of profession in Japanese. His restaurant Sukiyabashi Jiro is probably only 3-star Michelin restaurant which is located in MRT station.

The movie is not really about coking, altough you get a decent amount of food porn and sushi money shots in the film. It is about finding the true mastery, searching the perfection and finding the meaning of life (in work). While I tend to get my nigiris from the store, there are many lessons everyone should learn from Jiro. You can be shokunin in other professions as well:

1. Inspiration (Perspiration)
Becoming a sushi master takes years and years or hard work. You first start with washing dishes and gradually move to the more difficult tasks. If you have been succesful as an apprentice, maybe after a decade you are worthy to cook the tamagoyaki. This means thousands of repetitions, iterations and failures in your working career. Good example of this in the movie is when apprentice explains how he started to cry, when he finally made egg sushi which was adequate quality for the sushi masters. He had made hundreds of attempts of making it the best.
There is never shortcut for mastery, just one way: the hard way.

2. Improvisation
The menu of good restaurant changes daily, according to what is available on the local fish market. Same way the business climate and situations vary every day and are not necessarily related to you at all. You have to find ways to cope, adapt and challenge these situations. The outcome must be great in any case.
You have to able to reach perfection, despite the circumstances.

3. Innovation
Despite the strong appreciation of the traditions, good shokunin also innovates. Jiro himself has been inventor of many sushi dishes, which did not exist before him. Like the title of the movie suggests, he used to dream about different ways to make sushi and then fulfilled those dreams in his restaurant. In similar fashion as professionals we have to keep on moving and constantly re-inventing ourselves. Otherwise we end up doing the same thing over and over again. Eventually we realize that no one wants that same thing anymore.
Knowing the history is worthless, if you are not willing to change it.

Also Jiro teaches us one important lesson: there is no retirement for true master. I hope that when I will be almost 90 year old, I am still going strong and try to find perfection.

Are you shokunin in your work?

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