Category Archives: Strategy

Dec 07 2015
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Strategy

Learning How To Lose

I ran my 16th marathon last Sunday (exactly to my target 4:00:00). Coincidentally I came across this paragraph from J.M. Coetzee:
“Sport teaches us more about losing than about winning, simply because so many of jus don´t win. What it teaches above all is that it is OK to lose. Losing is not the worst thing in the world, because in sports, unlike in war, the loser doesn´t get to have his throat cut by the winner.
…
Because that is the great lesson of the sport. You lose most of the time, but as long as you stay in the game there will always be a tomorrow, a fresh change to redeem yourself. “
–J.M. Coetzee (Letter to Paul Auster, October 21, 2010)

Although I generally share the sentiment of Coetzee, where I differ is the line “it is OK to lose”. I think what sports teach us that it is never OK to lose, but it is normal to lose. There is a huge difference in that. Practicing sports helps us to deal with setbacks in life in general. It does not matter how many times you have been knocked down, it matters how many times you get up.

Whether it is my recreational running, weightlifting or pick-up basketball, I want to win. Depending on the sports it is against a real opponent, imaginary opponent or just myself, which I guess is a mixture of both. More often than not I´ll lose, but that does not mean the losing is ok. It happens, but you should not tolerate it. It just makes you want to win harder. I have never understood people who just run, or just play and don´t want to win.

If you do not care about losing or winning, you do not care about anything in life.

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Nov 16 2015
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Advertising, Marketing Strategy, Planning, Strategy

Advertising is Just A Shortcut For Product Selection

“Brands are not the rich sources of differentiation marketers like to think of them as, but short cuts through the complexity of decision-making.”
Ian Leslie

I have been fighting against the lofty term engagement for a long time.

There is time and place for marketing activities that are not only aimed at reach. However, they should be approached like investing and with the notion that those activities will most likely fail. In terms of majority of marketing budget, you need to focus on top-of-mind. There are too many alternatives out there to every product imaginable so as a consumer you cannot be bothered. You want to buy your stuff and focus on other more important things in life. Advertising provides a shortcut for product selection. Therefore it is crucial to keep reaching people all the time, be consistent and be different than your competition.

In your next social media seminar there will be an annoying social media guru waxing lyrical about engagement. On that instance, close your ears and keep in mind these essentials:

1.Focus on light buyers.
Like professor Andrew Ehrenberg nicely put it: “your customers are customers of other products, who occasionally buy your products”. If you are doing consumer goods, you are mass product and you need to do mass advertising.

2.Focus on socially inactive audience.
1% of the people actually create content, while 99% are lurkers. Not all your activities should be focused to lurkers, but majority. 1% rule applies to general content in Internet. People who are creating content about your brand are on your payroll or they are crazy. Or both.

3.Focus on being focused.
Marketing directors and advertising agencies have short attention span. They feel the need to fix something that is not broken. They feel the need to tinker a brand that is in good shape. They want to innovate when they should stick to their guns. If you want people to remember you, you have to be consistent.

If you will keep your focus, you will be doing effective advertising.

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Nov 06 2015
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Insight, Planning, Strategy

Elevator Repair is The Best Corporate Wellness Program

Everyone knows that if worker´s are in good health, it will be beneficial to the company. There are different corporate wellness programs, but because people are motivated differently their results are not always so successful. In our office building there has been one major change, which most likely will have the biggest impact on the well being of workers. This is not any corporate wellness program and not even run by HR, but it has suddenly got people moving:

Best corporate wellness program

Best corporate wellness program in action

If you want to get your workers to exercise, break down your elevator.

Instead of three elevators, we are currently down for only one. It currently takes around 10 minutes to wait for an elevator, so majority of people have switched to walking stairs. We are nine floors high, so some of the people will actually quite good exercise by just walking the stairs. Instead of trying to get people to exercise, you make exercising more desirable option instead of waiting for the elevators. Of course some people are waiting for the elevator, but most likely they would not start exercising in any case.

In Singapore you are automatically opt-in for organ donor program (which should be the case in every country). You have to make effort to opt-out. This naturally has resulted on high organ donor rates. If you want to nudge people towards certain behavior, you should make the alternatives less desirable, more cumbersome or even totally impossible.

Hopefully people continue walking the stairs, when elevators have been fixed. Especially those lazy bastards on first and second floor, you should walk the stairs every day no matter are the elevators broken or not (I am at fifth floor).

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Oct 29 2015
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Advertising, Insight, Strategy

Millennial Dilemma

Although I actually quite like Hotline Bling and the memes involved, I also have recognized that I have become quite old.

Technically I am earliest installation of Millennials. What that means is that, we can use digital devices but had to learn how to use them. It is not something that has always been part of my life. Majority of my friends are from Generation X and my frame of reference has always been more from that side. So to put it to movies context, I am more “Straight Outta Compton” than “We Are Your Friends”.

Age is nothing but a number, but generally I found that there is more to learn from younger people than old geezers. Old age brings experience. Experience brings predictability. Predictability brings cynicism. Which means that every year brings you closer to become a truly whiny and bitter bastard. No need to beat around bush, that is where we all are eventually heading.

The behavior of real millennials (not from older end, like me) is shaping the future. If I think about my own parents they have eventually turned out to all things early adopters first pioneered, whether it is Netflix, smartphones or Finnish hip-hop. You cannot learn about stickers by reading about them, you have to observe people who are actually using them. There are lots of things to learn from younger generation, but how to meet them? I have three methods to try to pick brains of millennials:

  1. Be available mentor

Whether it is a company initiative or someone is approaching you for help, try to be available and meet different people. Bad experiences are valuable experience as well and when you mentor someone you most likely learn even more from you mentee. Millennials might think that you have something valuable to contribute, so be helpful. One coffee can make a big difference.

  1. Try to talk to the students

Today I was talking to marketing students in SMU. They were super active and smart bunch. Questions were sharp and made me also think from different angle. When you are at beginning of your marketing career it feels that you are actually thinking more straight and clearly. All the marketing jargon has not yet totally polluted your brain. Well, there is time for everything.

SMU

Selfie with SMU students taken by our HR Director, Kevin

  1. Go where the young people are

I don’t actually know where young people nowadays are and I would not dare to go there even if I know. And I don´t really want to know. Clubs are too noisy. I just want to hang out at home, listen to vinyl records (from when I was teenager) and enjoy a good glass of wine. So two out of three is ok as well.

If you don´t know what millennial is and you don´t know if you are one, check this Vanity Fair guide. Funnily (or sadly) in the latest Vanity Fair, there was a letter to the editor by (younger) millennial. She referred to VF as a magazine, she envisioned to be reading when she would be over 30. Damn, I have read VF from when I was 20.

I must be the most failed Millennial in the world.

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Oct 28 2015
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Advertising, Insight, Planning, Strategy

Sushi Train: The Best Ideation Exercise For Workshops

I have probably spent quarter of this year (or even more) in workshops. And I love it.

The collaborative boiler room environment is something I truly like. You generally come to the solutions faster. All the important stakeholders are present, so participants are more involved and invested in actual results.

Because of the sheer volume of workshops I either attend or moderate, I rotate quite a bunch of different idea exercises. Some exercises work better than others with different groups, and one size does not fit all. One of my current favorites which seems to be generating golden ideas every time is the following:

Sushi Train (group exercise 5 to 10 people)

sushi train

Ideas just keep on piling and piling up…

What you need?
– blank paper (A4) for every group member
– pen
– timer
– fresh ideas
– hopefully readable handwriting (my biggest challenge)

How long does it take?
Depending on the group size, i.e. 5 member team takes 5 minutes to write ideas and about the same to share. Good to have about 30 minutes for this exercise.

How does it work?
1 Min Write your idea on a blank paper. After minute is done, rotate your paper within the group to the next person to you.
1 Min Build upon idea you received from your group member. Rotate the paper. If you cannot build the previous idea, just write a new one.
…
Continue this until you will receive your first paper back.
Share the ideas within wider group.

It is generally way more effective to force people to write their ideas quietly at first, before you are going to discussion. Brainwriting is better than brainstorming, because latter favors the loudest and those highest in the company food chain. When you have to write, you have to think. And more people think, better and more effective ideas you will generate. Sushi train also encourages collaboration and is a quick acid test for ideas. If other people cannot continue with your idea, it was not probably that good to begin with.

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Oct 27 2015
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Business, Insight, Strategy

Forget the Unicorns, Focus on Cockroaches

There has been lots of talk about the current tech bubble or lack thereof. Valuations have gone over the roof and money. When we are hunting for flashy unicorns, there might be many hidden ugly ducklings with lots of potential.

One can´t help but wonder that many of the new start-ups seem to be just over glorified pizza delivery services that work on your mobile phone. Although drones, virtual reality and wearables are sexy, majority of the start-ups working in the sexy side of things are just flash of the pan.

Money is where boring is.

That is why I would turn my focus to food for the next growing category. Regardless of the latest iterations of iPhone, the last time I checked, all the people still need to eat. Every one of us have to eat to live, but to make some better margins there are quite a few people who are living to eat as well. Today´s food trend is tomorrow´s food mainstream.

The next growing food category is bugs, crickets, grasshoppers and other insects. As you might have heard, the insects might be the solution for the growing demand of food. Eating insects on various forms makes perfect sense:

There is currently couple of interesting insect protein start-ups originated from Kickstarter. Both use cricket flour in their insect protein bars: Jungle Bar and Exo Protein. Bars are one thing, but I recommend eating insects also. Little bit of butter and salt, spider to the pan and you have perfect dish.

Future of food

My first encounter with fried tarantula in Cambodia 2008

If you scorn on eating ants and spiders, it is good to remember that lobsters were once considered as “the cockroaches of the sea”.

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Oct 02 2015
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Insight, Planning, Strategy

Ideas Are Like Farts

Ideas are like farts.

You should let the flow free.

If you force them, they turn out to be shit.
You should not also force them on other people.
Even though your own ones are always the best.

Ideas are like farts.
They can come from anywhere, anytime.
But it can be tricky to capture them.

No matter what people say everyone has them.
But quite often they stink.
Although those that make the biggest noise seldom do.
But silent ones can linger with you for a long while.

Even amateur can release good one once in a while.
But it takes skill to create good ones constantly.
It takes vision to turn them into a profitable business.

There is a thin line between a truly great and a really shitty one.
And you don´t know until you have released them.
You should not be afraid to rip them apart.

It takes courage to share them to public.
But those who have that courage will always be remembered.

Ideas are like farts.

“One must never own up to a fart in public.
That is the unwritten law, the single most stringent protocol of American etiquette. Farts come from no one and nowhere: they are anonymous emanations that belong to the group as whole, and even when every person in the room can point to the culprit, the only sane course of action is denial.”
– Paul Auster (Brooklyn Follies)

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Sep 30 2015
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Business, Insight, Marketing Strategy, Strategy

What My Disdain for Grateful Dead Can Teach About Branding

Music has played crucial part of my life. It started with hiphop and heavy metal and has throughout the years expanded to almost every possible genre. One cult band that I have however never truly understood has been Grateful Dead. The hippy band is know for their marathon gigs like this:

I am not the biggest fan on The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Frank Zappa or Bruce Springsteen, but I still can get why people love them so much. I noticed that Grateful Dead was doing their farewell gig (to celebrate their 50th anniversary) on this July and that prompted me to again test some of their material on Spotify.

Nothing.

Nada.

Zip.

I totally fail to realize what makes people to devote a cult following to band so bland. Maybe it is because I don´t do drugs or have not been part of the hippy movement. On the other hand I don´t gangbang, but I still truly enjoy and find resonance in N.W.A.´s music. Grateful dead remains as a big enigma for me and to many others as well.

Grateful Dead

Some old hippies

“We’re like licorice. Not everybody likes licorice, but the people who like licorice really like licorice.”
– Jerry Garcia

But why would I care about Grateful Dead? Or why would Grateful Dead care about me? I am not their core audience. If you are selling licorice, you don´t need to care about people who don´t like or licorice. This is the fault that many marketers have. They mistakenly believe that their target audience is everyone, which is hardly ever the case. If your target audience is everyone the individual purchase is small. When you have focused audience, you can ask for premium price.

Brands get super touchy-feely when blogger outside their target audience says something negative. It does not matter at all. Focus on your cult following. If you want to create a cult around your brand, you have to also alienate the non-brand followers. For deadhead, there are only “we” and “they”. If your product is only meant for alpha-male blokes, why should you worry about offending women ot vice versa?

“In the 1960s, Grateful Dead pioneered many social media and inbound marketing concepts that businesses across all industries use today.
– Brian Halligan and David Meerman Scott (Marketing Lessons From Grateful Dead)

Although listening to Grateful Dead is equivalent of water torture, I have to applaud their business acumen. They were never high on the charts, but were able to focus on small devoted and lucrative audience. They kept the loyal customers happy and did not waste their efforts on trying to get new and fickle customers. Funnily enough, there are at least two books dedicated to business lessons from Grateful Dead.

Brands spend much of effort on parity. They want to make their brand easy to compare with other brands. That is the main fault. If you create your own category, the customer has only two choices: either buy or not. Love it or hate it. Ambivalence is not an option.

“They’re not the best at what they do, they’re the only ones that do what they do.”
-Bill Graham

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Sep 29 2015
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Insight, Strategy

No Sympathy For Stress

“Some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty.” 

– Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Antifragile)

I don´t believe in stress and you should not either.

When you have lots of things on your plate, it is always interesting to see what is on the menu. If you have time to worry, you have enough time for your task. If you would be truly busy, you wouldn´t have time to worry about how busy you are. If you need to get something done, give the task to the busiest person on the office.

“The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.”
Sydney J. Harris

Some people are always stressed out. I don´t have sympathy for them, because that stress is never reflective to their reality. Those people get stressed out of small and big things. They stress about strategy and the execution. They stress about the past and the future. They also let you know that they are stressed out and try to elevate themselves as martyrs of the workplace. They are also not effective people, because they loiter all their time at work. Truly effective people have life outside their jobs and are doing multiple things. Those people are working but not stressing out.

“My characterization of a loser is someone who, after making a mistake, doesn’t introspect, doesn’t exploit it, feels embarrassed and defensive rather than enriched with a new piece of information, and tries to explain why he made the mistake rather than moving on. These types often consider themselves the “victims” of some large plot, a bad boss, or bad weather.” 

– Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Antifragile)

Stress is a symptom of helplessness. It is giving up to the idea that you are not responsible for your own decisions and your own life. If you have too much work, you should be able to delegate. If you cannot delegate, prioritize. If nothing else helps, resign from your job. Not all the solutions are always easy, but there are always solutions to your life. Stress is about blaming others and utter fear of failure. If you approach things following Murphy´s Law, you will not get stressed out. Because usually things neither go as planned nor they go as bad as they could have gone.

“How do you innovate? First, try to get in trouble. I mean serious, but not terminal, trouble. I hold—it is beyond speculation, rather a conviction—that innovation and sophistication spark from initial situations of necessity, in ways that go far beyond the satisfaction of such necessity (from the unintended side effects of, say, an initial invention or attempt at invention).” 

– Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Antifragile)

One of my friend argued that children should be subjected to stress at young age, so they can cope with the future stress. Not only this stupid argument is not supported by research, but also the whole thinking is wrong. We should raise our children so that they don´t even know the concept of stress. They should embrace the chaos, hustle and bustle of the modern world and take responsibility of their own actions.

So don´t complain about stress, hit it in the face.

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Sep 23 2015
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Business, Digital Strategy, Marketing Strategy, Planning, Strategy

Will Ad Blocking Be The New Napster?

Apple has basically failed at the ad business and they are trying to ruin it for everybody else.

– Jeff Jarvis

Google owns the web. Facebook owns the social. Apple owns the phone. That has been the technology world order for a while.

Now that order is about to shake.

The discussion about ad-blocking has been a hot topic, because the new iOS 9 has ad-blocking features for Safari mobile browser. The strategy for Apple is simple. This is full-frontal attack towards Google. Google hosts majority of the ads in “the normal web” with other Apple rivals like Facebook and Microsoft. Apple does not play the browser ads game. However they are serving ads in iOS applications that they not “surprisingly” block. Also conspicuously Apple launched their news service at the same day as it allowed ad-blocking.

It remains to be seen how things escalate, but the following three things are certain:

  1. Widespread ad-blocking will kill publishers

The casualties of war between Apple and Google will be the content publishers. They are already losing $22 billion of revenue this year because of blocking of the ads. If content publishers are not serving the ads for the content you are consuming, they are not getting paid. If you are not getting paid eventually you go bankrupt. As the piracy shows people do not really want to pay for content, so advertising has been the only way to bankroll the content production. Only 11% in US and 6% in UK have paid for online content. So subscription model online does not really work, although people are advocating for it. Even creator of popular ad-blocker Peace, pulled the ad-blocker from App store because he had regrets:

Achieving this much success with Peace just doesn’t feel good, which I didn’t anticipate, but probably should have. Ad blockers come with an important asterisk: while they do benefit a ton of people in major ways, they also hurt some, including many who don’t deserve the hit.

–Marco Arment

Not all of the creators of ad-blockers have surely similar regrets. Even without Peace, ad-blockers have been the most popular paid apps in the new iOS 9.

  1. Generally online ads have been of bad quality

Ad-blocking is already more prevalent than ad-skipping on television. Ad industry should take some responsibility of the horrible, low quality and invasive display advertising as well. Advertising in web is democratic, which is great to certain extent but also has been the core problem. When amateurs do, it is quite often amateur quality. In TV there has at least been some quality (of varying degree and based on channel).

As people have not noticed online ads, they have become more and more invasive and making the user experience worse. Even people from the industry are skipping the ads. Therefore I actually believe more in longevity of pre-roll advertising format than the banner on the long run (although I still think there is much room for creativity when doing banners). Nevertheless, both of these can be blocked so you don´t need to necessarily endure either.

  1. Traditional online ad industry will face the same future as music industry

If ad-blocking will become the norm that will essentially kill the display advertising, as we know it. We can debate whether it was good or bad, but essentially Napster and then after the legal counterpart iTunes and Apple Music killed the music industry, as we knew it. Today´s music business is much more nimble and record labels are playing lesser role than before. Music has not disappeared anywhere though.

Killing the category is only lucrative for the killer. Apple has been the giant killer many times (helps when you are giant yourself), so I doubt that they are hesitating in trying to bring competitors (namely Google) down by any means necessary. For the consumer the fall of online ad industry does not really sound too bad. Generally all of the people (hell, even publishers) find ads annoying. Expect that those annoying ads pay for the content production online like mentioned above (and print media is almost dead already). In every change there is opportunity for innovation. Pagefair is actually serving “non-intrusive ads just for your ad-blockers”. Talk about contradiction in terms.

Modern digital marketer has to follow closely how the situation with the ad-blockers will evolve and act accordingly with your media mix. Native advertising will seem likely winner in this new era. Will that result in better content or just more bad editorials? My fear is the latter.

By the way, I don´t block ads. Maybe just to show solidarity to publishers and to be true to my profession. On the other hand I don´t tolerate sloppy and invasive ads either. We need to improve so that people would not want to block those ads on so alarming pace.

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