Does Marketing Need to be 'Official'?

So it’s official.  Relationship building websites work. At least that is the finding of a study on P&G’s customer experience website in Greece (the equivalent of www.supersavvyme.com).

This was one of the papers presented at the Academy of Marketing Conference, a convention of academics who study and research what we practitioners do for a living.   The paper showed that broadening the customer-company relationship via the website increased positive word of mouth towards the website, and intentions to increase purchase of the company’s products.

So far, so good.  Except they haven’t compared it to other relationship building websites.  Or outside Greece.  And the statistical differences are so miniscule you’d need a microscope to see them.

A second paper looked at whether loyalty cards increased customer satisfaction and loyalty.  Answer?  Not really.  The reason being that all stores have loyalty cards so it’s a must, not a differentiator.

What was interesting about both these papers is that the research process (which is incredibly robust, uses lots of very complex terminology and some graphs that make you glad you’re no longer at school) revealed what I would argue most marketers know by gut – that making an effort to broaden your customer’s interaction with your brand or company (as long as it’s relevant and useful) is going to make them more likely to want to do business with you.  And that marketing’s job is to keep ahead of the game constantly.  Once you have a good idea (like storecards) your competitors will catch up – meaning you have to move ahead of the pack again.  That’s what makes our jobs so stimulating.

However, wile the academic community is pontificating about whether 0.03 is a meaningful statistical difference we are judged by whether it actually made any difference to the success of our client’s companies.  So it’s left me wondering why we marketers are so desperate to have our ‘gut instincts’ validated by research?

Would welcome anyone’s views.

Room for Foursquares?

A few weeks ago, Shane Richmond published a post on The Telegraph's blog questioning the point of Foursquare. Having previously been searching for similar answers, I had suggested to him a presentation by US agency JESS3, on where location-based tools might change for the better. Shane very kindly credited us with the suggestion in his post as he searched for his answers (thanks, Shane!).

I have been playing around with location-based networks to further understand them and their relevance in business (if you stop by Omobono HQ, check in on both Foursquare and Gowalla!). There is a clear application for consumer facing brands but is it the same for business-to-business?

So, I  put this question to you: what is the point of Foursquare, etc. and is there space for location-based networks in B2B's growing portfolio of digital tools?

A Rose By Any Other...Logo

A few weeks ago, Communicate Magazine asked us of any visual identities we thought missed a mark. Our Creative Director, Chris, stepped forward and shared his thoughts on the London 2012 logo:

“It isn’t clear what the identity represents. That’s a big trick missed when the purpose of creating a visual identity is to represent a brand by evoking emotions.”

What do you think – how much weight does a logo hold in brand perception?

I'll Tell You What I Want, What I Really, Really Want...

At the beginning of the 'recession' I was interviewed by BBC Radio 4's 'The World This Weekend' about what we wanted the Chancellor to do in his first recession budget. I said nothing.

I don't mean that I didn't say anything, I mean that I said could he please leave us alone. Instead they increased NI to a laughable amount which penalises anyone like us who wants to hire people and put up taxes for high earners (great, thanks for that).

Before the last election, I asked my local MP (Jonathan Djanogly, Conservative) what they will be doing for business if we all vote for them. Answer? Reducing red tape for start ups, helping people in Social Housing start businesses and stopping the government foreclosing businesses because they owe small amounts of back tax.

All of which is good no doubt, but none of which helps our business as it's been going 10 years, we work in an office and (sadly) our tax bill is rather higher than 48p.

So what I want is this:

1. The cost of employing people to go down. NI is a shocker and I'd rather it went in the pockets of our employees.

2. The ability to move around the UK easily (particularly on public transport).

3. Uniformly high quality skills from graduates. Am fed up with interviewing so called graduates who can't spell.

4. An improved technology infrastructure. Annoying still to be in some areas of the UK and not be able to get a mobile signal.

5. A more level playing field for public sector contracts involving far less timewasting on the PQQ level.

Be interested to hear what other people in the business really really want.

Singularity Summit Promises to Stimulate Your Brain

The Singularity Summit, held in San Francisco this past weekend, is not new to me since I helped market the very first one, which was held at Stanford in 2006. The goal of the first Summit was to further the understanding and discussion about the Singularity concept and the future of human technological progress.

The idea over time is to improve people’s thinking about the future and increasing public awareness of radical technologies under development today and of the transformative implications of such technologies understood as part of a larger process.

It was founded as a venue for leading thinkers to explore the subject, whether that be as a scientist, enthusiast, or skeptic.

Speaking of skeptics, the last talk of the event was by James Randi, who some think of as a magician, but he is also known as a debunker.

I first learned of Randi's work at TED where he spoke several years ago. The title defunker equates to his strong and very vocal skepticism, which he writes and speaks about extensively. Fascinating as ever, Randi has the ability to draw you into his logic even if you don't necessarily agree with him.

Gregory Stock is a renown biophysicist who I had the pleasure of meeting at PopTech in Maine more than five years ago. What I love about Stock is his ability to move from academic, physicist and author to entrepreneur and philosopher all within a one hour window. He also has a very engaging curiosity about random things outside his world when you talk to him one-on-one that most experts lack. He wrote the book Redesigning Humans, which is considered a transhumanist classic, now eight years ago.

You can't have a Singularity Conference without a bunch of Artificial Intelligence (AI) geeks running around, which at this event, included Eliezer Yudkowsky (also a profilic writer about human rationality), Ben Goertzel, who is Chief Scientist of AI firm Novamente and Ray Kurzweil, who joined us remotely via video and as always, delivered a rivoting and mind-expanding talk.

My favorite line all day was a Kurzweil one: "My feelings about the brain, the mind and AI - If it quacks like a duck, it is a duck. If it seems conscious it is conscious" -- meaning a conscious being.

Below Ben Goertzel on the Singularity Summit Stage

Psychologists Irene Pepperberg and John Tooby (considered a pioneer of evolutionary psychology) also brought their perspective to the table as did neurobiologists Terrence Sejnowski, Brian Litt, Dennis Bray and Demis Hassabis, who is a research fellow at the Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit at the University College of London.

"Futurists like to predict how genetic engineering and computational implants will allow humans to become a super-species, but few examine the application of similar technologies to nonhumans," says Pepperberg.

David Hanson, who I first met at TED more than six years ago, is a well known roboticist. When I first met him, he was working at Disney Imagineering and while you may not think of a roboticist as an artist, this one is. Formerly a sculptor, he has merged his artistic way of looking at the world with his left brain ability to design and develop a robot with human-like expressive capabilities. He holds a patent on Frubber, a novel material that imitates the look and feel of human skin. I had an opportunity to touch it while I was talking to their very human robot named Zeno. (a video of my experience coming later this month).

Below David Hanson and his very human-like robot Zeno, who has a sexy British accent and has accepted a date with me as soon as he is given 'legs' - I told David I'd fly to Dallas for the occasion.

Also on the agenda was Anita Goel, who works at the intersection of physics, nanotechnology and medicine, Lance Becker, a Professor of Emergency Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and Venezuelan born Jose Luis Cordeiro who is the Director of the Venezuela node of the Millenium Project. Jose, who I met at the cocktail party the night before the event, has been working in Asia. Prior to that however, he lived in Ecuador for a year around the time the currency changed over to the dollar.

Engaging and witty on stage, Steve Mann doesn't look like your ordinary professor. A pioneer in the study and practice of virtual reality, he has been dubbed the world's first cyborg. He even published a book with its name in the title: Cyborg: Digital Destiny and Human Possibility in the Age of the Wearable Computer. Together with collaborator Ryan Janzen, a Canadian researcher, scientist and composer, they demoed the very powerful and mesmorizing Hydraulophone, a tonal acoustic musical instrument played by direct physical contact with water where sound is generated or affected hydraulically.

Below Toronto-based Steve Mann is engaging, interactive and wows the audience with his examples of virtual reality and demo of the Hydraulophone on stage.

Other impressive talks from other disciplines included Shane Legg, who won the 2008 Canadian Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence Research Prize, Ellen Heber-Katz whose research focuses on molecular biology and genetics of healing, and Ramez Naam, who is the author of More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement.

Since I'm a right brain, I must admit that my favorite part of the day was playing the Hydraulophone, which I'm doing below with Ryan Janzen's guidance and interacting with Hanson's robot, the very endearing Zeno.

New Photo Books Now Out: Faces of London and Post Apartheid Kids

I've been working on a series of Photo Books of various eclectic and wonderful places around the world - from American cities and cafes to people, places, designs and architecture in Europe, Africa and Central America. The first two are now out: Faces of London and Post Apartheid Kids. Below is a little background and a sneak peak of each.

Faces of London shows the surprises you get from walking through the streets of London. If you spend enough time people watching, you'll notice a wide range diversity of cultures who now call themselves Londoners -- from countless countries around the world.

Did you know that at the time of the Roman Invasion, London was called Londinium? In Saxon times, it was referred to as Lundenwic, and during the Kingdom of Alfred the Great, the city was known as Lundenberg? It is a city rich in history, diversity and miraculous transitions.

Today, London represents countless cultures from around the world. Regardless of what part of the city you're in, the experience is always breathtaking, energizing and stimulating. Ask someone a question and be challenge and inspired at the same time -- again and again. Faces of London shows these transitions. It shows London's diversity through beautiful, colorful shots of its people in a wide range of neighborhoods throughout the city. From east to west and north to south, join us on this colorful and artistic journey.

Below, you can get a sneak preview of Faces of London:

Faces of London by Renee Blodgett | Make Your Own Book

Post Apartheid Kids takes you on a journey through various parts of South Africa - both rural and urban - capturing wonderful and surprising moments of children in a post-Apartheid world.

Take a journey through a post-Apartheid South Africa and see it in the eyes of its children. It's a visual story of one child's face after another -- their smiles, their eyes, and their energy. Because of deeply-rooted pains of South Africa's complex past, we don't ask to forget, but we do ask for a harmonious life for the next generation.

We meander from Johannesburg, the Transvaal and Venda in the north through to Natal, Swaziland, the Orange Free State, the Highlands, the Cape and the beautiful and desolate Karoo.

Below, you can get a sneak preview of Post Apartheid Kids:

Post Apartheid Kids by Renee Blodgett | Make Your Own Book

GAMECHANGERS Sports Micro-Venture Fund

Architecture for Humanity has been partnering with Nike Inc. to fund a series of innovative sports facilities for at risk groups around the world. Architects, youth leaders and grassroots community groups came together to collaborate on design, develop and build real centers of change. They learned an important lesson: don't make local groups jump through hoops to get support - ask what they want, how much they need and partner them with a team of committed and passionate building professionals to help realize their goals.

Today, they're announcing the GAMECHANGERS Sports Micro-Venture Fund. For the next 6 weeks, they're asking for proposals for the final round of funding to support the construction of sports facilities offering programs that tackle social issues in the community. This Request for Proposal (RFP) process will award up to $500,000 in funds and is directed toward micro-interventions with a construction time line of 6 to 9 months. The majority of these grants will be $25,000 for building or upgrading facilities and completing existing projects.

The breakdown of available funds is as follows:

* Africa - 2 x $25,000

* The Americas - 2 x $25,000

* Asia - 2 x $25,000

* Europe - 2 x $25,000

* Oceania - 2 x $25,000

plus up to $250,000 in additional funding. Here's the link to apply.

Singularity University: Financing the Future

Singularity University, now in the middle of its second year of classes over the course of ten weeks in Silicon Valley, held a panel on Financing the Future last night at Kicklabs in SOMA.

Singularity University is an interdisciplinary university whose mission is to assemble, educate and inspire leaders who strive to understand and facilitate the development of exponentially advancing technologies in order to address humanity’s grand challenges. Singularity University hopes to stimulate groundbreaking, disruptive thinking and solutions aimed at solving some of the planet’s most pressing challenges.

Some observations from the panelists below, which included First Round Capital's Rob Hayes, Transmedia Capital's Michael Downing, David Rose with Rose Tech Ventures and Eghosa Omoigui, formerly with Intel Capital.

Eghosa Omoigui

"When you're thinking of funding sources, think about your options very broadly. Think of alternatives -- companies as well. It's easy to get enamored with a new technology, but you can't get too far from Economics 101. You must keep economics in mind all the way through. In green tech or biofuels, ask yourself, what does it substitute? What's the pay back? You have to have a multiplying effect on investment return - always think in the back of your mind - how will the economics work?"

"Think of investors who have the capacity to ride and take you through a lot of ups and downs. Look for people who understand they need to ride it out. Intel would invest in downside times when things are cheaper. There's one ting that is certain in my view - the cycles are becoming more and more compressed. It used to be 10-15 year cycles and now it's closer to 5-7 years. Where there's finance frenzy, it's easy to get out of control. Be very pragmatic how you build things out."

Rob Hayes

In advice to students on raising capital for longer term investment ideas, "Venture capitalists don't like to make investments with ten year returns - they want a return faster than that. If you have an idea that will take longer than ten years, you probably don't want to go through a VC."

On where the future of finance is going, "You're going to see lots of little opportunities to make money, which will create opportunities for smaller investors. Every time a bell rings, a seed fund is getting started."

"The permanent shift of what is happening is in information technology. You needed $5 million to start a company and now you can start a company on a weekend with a credit card."

"Look at restaurant deals versus a synthetic biology deals. The restaurant deal is cool; it's a 'feel good' investment and you can get side benefits versus something that will take a long time to get an exit, like a synthetic biology venture."

Michael Downing

In advice to students on raising capital for longer term investment ideas, "If you're working on something that will take longer than ten years to yield a return, venture capitalists tend not to want to look at those since it could involve $100 million and a long wait. If you have something that will change an industry 'forever' and if you want to do something that is a game changer, then you do have value in something that is that disruptive. If may not be clear how you'll be worth $100 million in a few years, but there is value in being a disruptor," or what he refers to as a "shift storm."

"To become more relevant, people are outsourcing more. Pharmaceutical and media industries are built on the outsource model now. Things have really changed - hedge funds, individuals, corporations, venture capitalists and more and more seed funds are now funding things - it's growing and making it so much easier for you to get your ideas funded."

David Rose

"You'll see a decentralization of money now and a move in this direction more and more. The role of the broker is changing. Levels are coming down....it is so much easier to start a company today. You'll see an explosion of individuals investing. What happens when you have millions of angels and thousands of seed funds? Then what?"

Unleashing Your Fans

There's a great post on unlocking fans using social media over at VentureBeat's Entrepreneur Corner. The gist of it is below. Full post here.

Identify the right fans: Understanding and knowing who your true fans are. True fans aren’t necessarily people who are evangelists of your company. They could be proponents of the broader category of technology that you sell or could even be fans of your competitors.

Listen to your fans: Once you have identified and followed the fans of your company and your industry, listen to them. Establish a process for regularly watching the trending topics of the people who care about your space. In other words, fish your pond, not the ocean. Then, create a data feed from your fans outputs and then use search more effectively on broader terms.

Engage with your fans: Once you know who your fans are and what they’re talking about, you can more effectively interact with them. Reply to their tweets, comment on their blogs, or generate original content that addresses an emerging topic your fan base is talking about. All of this will strengthen the connections to your closer community.

Market to your fans: Your true fan list should be one of your most valuable marketing assets. As you establish these contacts, your marketing promotions can become that much more effective and viral. Keep your fans top of mind when you want to solicit product feedback, launch a product, promote an event, create a white paper or host a webinar or online forum.

Give tools to your fans: Give them tools so they can market for you. You can generate promotional items and marketing content that your fan list can get behind, promote to their own network and evangelize on your behalf.

Metrics and Peer Pressure: The Road to Real Efficiency

“Save Energy!” You’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a million times before; but what does it mean, and how do we do it? “By 2020 we will have 50% of the nation run by alternative energies”; “By such-and-such a date we will have done this great thing…” Nothing is tangible or personal, and if we want to garner, witness and achieve progress in the energy world, that has to change.

Numbers give a lot of folks headaches—and without the proper context, it’s no surprise they are dizzying. The world shouldn’t be surprised that we are running around in counter-productive circles instead of achieving forward motion in energy efficiency.

Progress fuels invested action. People won’t pour effort into a fruitless venture, but they are willing to work harder for something when they can see direct results budding. When it’s not easy to interpret your real-world impact, it’s even harder to measure your progress. For these reasons, a well-defined, comprehensible and accurate metric system should be the backbone of any energy-saving crusade.

People need to have real data presented to them in an easy-to-understand format that lets them know exactly what their personal role in the effort is. More importantly, this information needs to tell them hard and fast or not whether they’ve gained that gold star of efficiency, or if they’re going to have to work a little harder the next go around. Tangible metrics are the key to progress.

If metrics are your motivational tool, peer pressure should be your propulsion system. Harvesting all of these blooms as a result of working hard to save energy is satisfying for a while, but a bouquet is much nicer when you can show it off to someone else who appreciates beautiful blossoms.

The people that believe in and work for energy conservation need a community in which to share their successes, failures, tips and passions. This will keep the flames of those who have already caught the fire burning bright.

As for gaining new recruits to the environmental army, these facts and figures need to have a place to sit on display for outsiders to see; and get them interested in planting a few seeds of their own. If people can see the successes of others, they are more willing to follow suit.

There is a higher perceived chance that they will be successful than if they were to strike out on their own. Mostly, people want to fit in. They don’t want to be left behind. People want to be at least keeping up with the Joneses, if not joining the family themselves. Several companies are doing a great job leveraging the power of social context with the several utilities they currently serve. OPOWER is a perfect example.

Analytics will define the future of energy efficiency by providing both blunt measureable results and a community of encouragement and competition.

The above post is from guest author: Rahul Prakash, COO, EarthAid.net

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EarthAid.net is a free online platform that allows people to link their utility accounts and watch their house-wide consumption as it shifts from meter reading to meter reading, and gives people a window through which to see their progress or regression. The platform awards points for reducing your usage, which can be redeemed as coupons for local businesses.