On a recent airport layover I picked up a copy of Business Week with picture of a Model T on the cover. The cover story was about Ford’s efforts to revamp their company, their brand and their marketing department.
After reporting record quarterly losses and a 50% reduction of market share since 1995, the company identified its marketing operations as those that could revitalize the slumping auto giant. So it hired a chief marketer away from Toyota - a creative and innovative leader among US car brands - and set on a new course. Put simply, James Farley’s task is the epitome of the “easier said than done” mantra: Infuse a market culture into the Ford Motor Company.
What did he do?
- Restocked their creative agency, WPP, with fresh, accomplished brand gurus from around the globe
- Invited 30 of their most influential sales dealers for a candid series of focus group meetings on everything from branding and slogans, to advertising and sales incentives
- Reorganized his team with brand managers reporting directly to him - ensuring bureaucratic procedures don’t fracture the new brand messages
The result is a renewed faith among the iconic auto maker’s faithful. Rising gas prices and decreased consumer confidence can be a death blow to a company that introduced the SUV and whose sales are decidedly pick-up truck-heavy. But with a few fresh ideas and a new commitment to sound marketing tactics the future appears brighter than it has in years.
Categories: Market Culture in Action
Tagged: Branding, car, Ford, leadership, reorganization
A little while ago I read this blog post by Jeremiah Owyang and was pleased to see another blogger take on an issue that we recognize everyday. Is your company market-driven or product-driven?
What’s the difference? Product-driven firms spend their time, money and best talent on creating unique or new products, or on increasing the amount of features that differetiate them from their competition. Market-driven firms spend the same on market research, segmentation and communication efforts.
One trend we have noticed is that many of our customers are often those firms making the transition from product-driven to market-driven. This may happen for a variety of reasons. Sometimes engineers are promoted into product management roles and they lack the market analysis skills to do proper marketing. Sometimes product-driven companies find themselves losing market share and realize they’ve lost touch with their customer. Have you ever been tempted to say, “we’ve got the best one out there but no one knows it?” It’s a classic symptom.
For whatever reason it comes to be, a product focus at the expense of market focus is less than ideal. (If we assume a zero-sum gain.) Jeremiah points to some tech-first success stories, but I’m of the opinion you minimize business risk by focusing on a demand that needs to be met than a tech that needs to be sold.
Categories: Innovative Thought
Tagged: Jeremiah Owyang, product
On my way in to the office today I heard an interesting story on NPR. Apparently services have popped up in New York wherein small business owners, freelancers and other self-employed types can work together in the same space. While one tennant (right word?) admits it cuts into his productivity a bit, the value of (1) interacting with others, and (2) network with other entrepreneurs more than outweighs the downside.
Here’s the link to the story, which you can read or listen to.
In this area we have a similar concept over at the Marina Technology Cluster. While it was set up as a business incubator to vitalize a community in dissaray after a military base closing, radio ads definitely emphasize the value of the collaborative environment.
Categories: Innovative Thought · Market Culture in Action
Tagged: collaboration
Using videos to interact with clients has always been powerful. A video report at an annual shareholder or sales meeting will hold attention better than most, if not all speakers. And back in our younger years, how much more interesting was a watching an educational film than listening to the teacher?
Over the last number of months we’ve seen that video can enable conversations that just wouldn’t happen otherwise. I’m talking about online video.
Example 1 - Jemima Kiss is an online journalist for the UK publication, The Guardian. Excited about the upcoming Indiana Jones movie, she recently posted questions via Seesmic.com to Steven Spielberg and Karen Allen (Marian in the 1st & 4th films) … and got responses! Click here to read her article and view the videos. From her home in London she was able to speak directly to these Hollywood celebrities, and she was rewarded with a couple of direct answers. Pretty empowering. As she puts it, “The best thing about it is that it bypasses the Hollywooid/Cannes schmaltz and gets straight into a conversation.“
Example 2 - Baron Davis, NBA allstar, sent out a “dare” directly to some of his fans via iBeatYou.com a site that elicits video responses to fun and outrageous challenges. He directly challenged a teenaged fan to an online staring contest. That teen then responded and further challenged Jessica Alba (star of the Fantastic Four movies) and she responded. Now these videos are not really that interesting, and the whole thing is just a lot of fun and nonsense. But the bigger picture is that here is a teenage fan that gets to play a game with two of his favorite celebrities. That’s pretty neat!
We’re still very much in the early adoption stage of online video, but what other opportunities does this provide us and the companies we work for? A more personalized message for one. A lot more meaning and understanding can come from a video conversation than can over the phone, or worse, email. Enabling video chat raises one’s “cool” factor.
Just as teleconferencing with our coworkers in other offices reduces confusion and builds comrodery - put a face to the voice - online video enables that powerful connection with anyone out there, including our customers.
Categories: Customer Value · Innovative Thought
Tagged: collaboration, customer interaction, video
In an article entitled Seven Winning Tactics During a Downturn, MarketCulture chairman Linden Brown outlines some tactics to use during a downturn that help grow market share and improve the value your company provides its customers. Chief among them:
- Take another look at your firm’s mission. How well does it emphasize your customer?
- Reconsider the team you have in place, and trim only those that don’t provide customer value. Across the board cuts miss this point.
- Spend more time researching your customer and the competition.
- Price strategically. Resist the urge to drop prices.
Be aggressive during a downturn and focus your team’s energy where it needs to be: On building profitable consumer value.
See other articles on our Publications page.
Categories: Innovative Thought · Market Culture in Action · Publications
Tagged: article, customer, published articles, recession, Seven Winning Tactics during a Downturn
Corporate culture comprises the attitudes, experiences, beliefs and values of an organization. It can be measured, it can be focused around the customer through training and focused efforts.
This is the premise behind our new article published in the IndUS Business Journal. I for one am very proud to be represented in international business journals, given the wide range of business cultures around the world and the significant impact culture has on business performance. Based on what the research tells us, it is one of the most important drivers of your firm’s success or failure.
Fostering a strong market culture in an organization makes sense, yet most CEOs don’t see this as an important competitive advantage and something to:
- Measure
- Manage
- Instill at all levels of the organization
It takes a well conceived and articulated strategy to build and maintain a strong market culture in any firm, large or small.
Categories: Innovative Thought · Publications
Tagged: business, culture, IndUS, journal, article, publication
Yesterday afternoon we had an SVAMA-sponsored lunch presentation by Carmine Gallo. He presented topics from his new book, Fire Them Up via (Amazon), which discusses great communication techniques. However, more than simply summarizing his points, we were able to put the pieces into practice.
After explaining 7 components that fill in the acronym “INSPIRE” participants were asked to practice their elevator speeches, and the group and Carmine offered critiques. It was funny, one after the other the pitches improved: Bad pitch, critique, better pitch, critique, great pitch. I was reminded of the book Made to Stick which gives a similar set of techniques that anyone can use to improve the resonance of their message. I do appreciate these techniques that work no matter who uses them.
The INSPIRE acronym:
I - Ignite your own enthusiasm
N - Navigate the way with a consistent memorable vision
S - Sell the benefit by putting your listeners first
P - Paint a picture with powerful, memorable, actionable stories
I - Invite participation by asking for input and dealing with objections
R - Reinforce an optimistic outlook by becoming a beacon of hope
E - Encourage people to reach their potential by praising and investing in them
Categories: Affiliations · Innovative Thought
Tagged: carmine gallo, fire them up, inspire, made to stick, motivation, svama
So often we talk about a Market Culture as being something that an organization (company, business unit) possesses. We forget to mention that the actions that define this way of business life start at the individual.
Personal Culture => Group Culture
Your Market Culture => Your Company’s Market Culture
So every day ask yourself, “What have I done today to be a strong Market Culturalist?“
- What new Customer Insight will I gain today?
- What new Competitor Awareness will I have today?
- How will I Collaborate today? Both internally and externally?
- Will I take into account the Long-Term Impact of my decisions?
- Will I encourage and display Leadership today?
These questions will not only help lead your day to day activities toward those best for your business, but will provide a “leading by doing” example for your coworkers.
Categories: Innovative Thought · Market Culture in Action
Tagged: components, individual, market culturalist
February 12, 2008 · 1 Comment
In my last post I introduced the term “market culturist.”
In case you’re wondering, a “market culturist” is a new term I’m making up to describe someone that shares our philosophy — someone who gets what we do. There are a number of you out there. Perusing the Internet, I came across a great piece from the Church of the Customer, who are very much in sync with the customer side of “market culturism.” The article highlights Mark Cuban’s view on creating the right internal/team culture:
“You have to set the culture because that’s how people make decisions,” he says. “If you don’t know what your cause is, if you don’t know what your culture is and what you’re rewarded for and what’s respected and what’s expected, then you’ll make mistakes when you let people make judgments. Then you get all kinds of autocratic environments that don’t succeed.”
Categories: Market Culture in Action
Tagged: church of the customer, mark cuban, market culturist
