BEYOND THE GATEWAY RECESSION: WHAT CEO’S WILL FACE NEXT

We’ll look back on this recession as much more than an ugly economic moment. History will view it as The Gateway — a portal connecting two very different eras.   When the economic clouds clear, many prevailing elites will have been swept away, organizational structures will have fallen, and many who were formerly in control will have lost power. Those who can speak digital will thrive, and those who cannot will finally get the message and retire.

The signs are everywhere. Post-Gateway players: Obama; Amazon; Zappos; Jet Blue; Twitter; Facebook; blogs; Craigslist; broadband; Wikipedia; DVRs and iTunes. Pre-Gateway: GM; the New York Times; the Republican party; shopping malls; print advertising; excessive executive pay; TV networks; boards of directors full of aging plutocrats; and the TV-centered Washington chattering classes. Like the US Civil War, which separated an agrarian society from an industrialized economy, or World War I — a death knell for many European elites — the Gateway Recession is exposing fundamental weaknesses in long-standing political, cultural, and economic institutions.

Here are the new challenges and rules that await CEOs on the other side of that door:

1. Digital will be mandatory, not a choice. Pre-digital CEOs could get away with IT/BT (information technology/business technology) ignorance. No longer. Tech will be key to how you sell, connect to customers, become more efficient, and lower costs. Why is Amazon so powerful? Because it combines two old-world attributes, great customer service, and superb execution with a critical post-Gateway attribute — digital. In the new world, CEOs of all stripes will have to have it all, in the mode of Amazon.

2. Brand loyalty will be limited. For five years, Forrester has been tracking the precipitous decline in brand loyalty — particularly for complex products like cars. Brands will afford only limited protection for your company in the new world — because choice has been radically expanded. All brands are subject to consumer testing, discussion, disclosure, and transparency. You can no longer own your customer — your customer will own you.

3. Customers will look very unfamiliar. They will learn, play, work, and live differently than you or the customers you studied in business school. In the US, 18- to 27-year-olds spend 30% less time reading magazines and newspapers than 28- to 40-year-olds. They spend twice as much time playing digital games, 53% more time on cell phones, and twice the amount of time on social sites like Facebook. You may not like it, and you may not understand it, but your customer is being changed by technology — and your customer will change your company.

4. The war for people will be intense. It’s a counterintuitive thought at this moment of high worldwide unemployment, but the post-Gateway era will be distinguished by a pitched battle for good people. Basic demographics are at work — in the next eight years 35% of nurses and 40% of federal government workers will retire in the US. Already-low fertility rates in Europe will continue to fall. Yes, the baby boomers’ kids will fill the gap but not for another 20 years. CEOs will fight for people on three fronts: 1) Attracting and winning the best and the brightest takes world-class offices and factories, the best internal technology, and truly compelling corporate purpose and values; 2) retaining the best workers takes a great corporate strategy, excellent leadership, and inspiring management; and finally 3) getting productivity from the limited workforce you have — again, this loops back to nailing the technology imperative.

5. You will sell differently. You used to advertise in the local newspaper, BusinessWeek, CNN, Le Monde, or the Wall Street Journal. Many of these channels won’t survive in the new era — because the new consumer won’t pick them up or tune them in. You will have to reach customers in new ways — blogs, Facebook, Google, Twitter, and whatever supersedes them. 

6. The way you innovated is dead. The era of black-box innovation has passed. Look to P&G for the new model. CEO A.G. Lafley searches for product ideas all over the world — competitors, customers, China, and India — then partners to bring the new innovation to market. The biggest change will be the involvement of customers in building your products — a concept that I call “social sigma” (with apologies to Six Sigma). The idea is that the customer, through social technologies, will spec the new product — that the customer will be an active participant in broad aspects of product development.

The forces of the recession will trigger many of these changes. But the end of the Gateway Recession will also usher in a new technology era. Tech and the Internet have been around for decades, so why is their impact felt post-recession? Because while technology changes quickly, people don’t. It has taken 15 years of cultural fermentation, generational transitions, and habit breaking for society to catch up to what technology can do. Pre-Gateway, society wasn’t ready. Post-Gateway, technology and human behavior will align to create a powerful brew.  Elites will die, but new ones will take their place.

The Sulzbergers will fade from view, but the Brins and the Bezos will fill the void. New companies (and therefore new elites) will aggregate around three areas: 1) new healthcare; 2) new forms of energy; and 3) technology. As CEO, you’ll have to drop your connections to the dying elites and figure out how to form connections with the emerging ones.

This article was written September 28th, 2009 by George F. Colony, CEO of Forrester research.

GAP’S “BORN TO FIT” SOCIAL CAMPAIGN

The digital campaign for Gap’s 1969 Premium Jeans —‘Born to Fit’— marks a first in the fashion industry as Gap launches one of the most robust consumer experiences to-date using a range of social media platforms. By harnessing the most popular social media platforms, the ambitious digital campaign developed by AKQA aims to reach fashion leaders and fashionistas, Gap customers and even skeptics to encourage conversations around Gap’s reinvented line of jeans.

           

Facebook

Gap partnered with Facebook to transform its Fan Page into the ultimate jeans destination. Developed by AKQA, www.facebook.com/borntofit acts as the central hub for the campaign, where visitors can engage and express themselves. The interactivity encourages users to find their ideal 1969 Premium Jeans fit and includes:

• A Born to Share interactive gallery with pictures of Gap fans telling the world what they were born to do. Visitors can also participate by creating and uploading their own “born to” expression.
• A virtual, moving runway where fans can watch models sport each fit of jeans in three different ways. Visitors can also click through to Gap.com www.gap.com/> and purchase their favorite outfits.
• A Fit Spotlight where users can explore the jeans up close and hear commentary about each of the styles from Gap’s head designer, Patrick Robinson.
• A video of Rada Shadick , Gap's Fit Engineer, discussing the craftsmanship and details of the new jeans.      

Mobile StyleMixer iPhone App

Recognizing that Gap customers are often on the move, AKQA also developed a StyleMixer iPhone application. This social shopping tool enables users to mix and match clothes, find inspiration, get advice and more.  

StyleMixers can organize outfits, get feedback from Facebook friends and the iPhone StyleMixer community, take, upload and integrate images of clothes from their own closets and get ideas from other community members. Leveraging a relatively untapped iPhone technology, the app unlocks surprise offers when users are near a Gap store.

             

 “Our ‘Born to Fit’ digital campaign enables customers to get as close as possible to the jeans without actually touching or feeling them – it’s a way for them to experience the jeans digitally from our point of view. Then once they’ve had a chance to try the jeans on, we encourage them to come back to our ‘Born to Fit’ community to share their opinions, style tips or even create their own ‘Born to’ expression.” (Gap’s EVP of Marketing)

             

GAP’S SUPPORTING social CAST

Further opportunities for Gap customers to express themselves via social media are:

• Style advice video content and celebrity videos are available on YouTube.
• A Gap Twitter feed will keep followers up to date with tweets on celebrity encounters, exciting events, styling recommendations, and upcoming collections posted daily.
• The ‘Born to Fit’ campaign additionally partners with the influential fashion community, Polyvore, to bring to life the jeans in the style tips section.
• Rich media ads will run on NBC.com, Fox.com, the NYTimes.com, and the Glam and Sugar networks, with an exclusive launch partnership for Perez Hilton’s new fashion-related site, CocoPerez.com.

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OUR SOCIAL MEDIA PROCESS

Process might sound a bit impersonal. We know though, that every project is different and we tailor them accordingly. Our Process was developed after multiple campaigns and striving to define ways measure the reach and business impact of each online activity.  This methodology was refined as an overarching means of extending a unified brand message across multiple channels in parallel, either as a standalone social media campaign or as an integrated marketing or public relations campaign.

1. CLARIFY OBJECTIVES + BUSINESS GOALS

Before embarking on any social media marketing campaigns, it is essential to set clear, quantifiable business goals and define your prospects and/or target audience. Without a clear understanding of what you want to achieve and whom you want to reach, your promotional campaigns will not be focused and the results may be fragmented and weak.

2. DEFINE + SELECT SOCIAL AUDIENCE

Define all traditional and non-traditional prospects, constituents, and influencers to ensure you extend a compelling, actionable brand experience.

3. AUDIT

Perform a thorough competitive social audit to ensure your brand is differentiated with a clear value proposition over competitors.

4. ARCHITECT

With a clear understanding of goals, objectives, audience, and competitors in place, a Social Content Distribution Strategy document is developed to define the intended execution path including choice of tools, channel selection, media, resources, lifecycle, methodology, Integration, and metrics.

5. IMPLEMENT + AMPLIFY

We’ve learned a little momentum goes a long way in optimizing reach online.  Ensure any first-time initiative has a formal launch + PR amplification piece (minimally) for maximum results.  

6. AUDIENCE MONITORING + ENGAGEMENT 

7. MEASUREMENT OF RESULTS

We’ve learned a little momentum goes a long way in optimizing reach online.  Ensure any first-time initiative has a formal launch + PR amplification piece (minimally) for maximum results.  

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ON THE MERITS OF SOCIAL MEDIA

Social media differentiates itself from other media by being both actionable and participatory.  It simultaneously allows brands an opportunity to listen, collaborate, communicate, educate, and entertain. While any given creative, campaign, or promotion may have a limited lifecycle---social media is ongoing.  

It is also the only consistent variable across all media platforms and initiatives from year to year building a constituency while extending a sense of community, belonging and identification.  More important is that it evidences to the world an interest in corporate transparency and accountability. 

As Marketers, to appropriately support these objectives, we should therefore look to:

1. Support, extend and amplify all ongoing campaigns, promotions and brand activities using social tools,
2. Build and foster ongoing (long-term) brand communities.

 Looking to get started?  Feel free to use our Process Model as a framework.  

Have questions?  Send us an email. ;)

GUINNESS' ADDS TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION TO ITS LONG-STANDING ASSOCIATION WITH RUGBY

Back at the start of 2009, Contagious featured a piece on Guinness' quiet development of RFID technology in association with ball manufacturers Gilbert and the technological whiz kids at the Fraunhofer Institute in Nuremberg.  The innovation, conceived by Red Urban in London, saw an RFID chip placed in rugby balls and sensors situated around rugby pitches which can monitor players and the ball itself to log a startling number of statistics such as accuracy of passes and strength of tackles. Potentially, Guinness and its fans would have access to a vast amount of data that could have a huge affect on enhancing the game itself.

A year later, Contagious updates that it looks like the innovation is coming to the fore in an interactive hub and TV spot entitled Area 22, directed by Rory Kelleher and produced by Company Films, Dublin and Believe Media, London. The spot shows a futuristic rugby training ground and concludes with a link driving viewers to Area 22, a site hosting a plethora of rugby information including an iPhone app that aggregates different rugby news feeds, a pub finder that uses google maps and a rugby kicking game. A Facebook Fan site for Irish Rugby supporters has the option to send gifts of team jerseys to friends, (and has gathered some 4,000+ fans to date).

The site will also be filled with stats thanks to the new technology, when Ireland starts its Six Nations campaign in February. The campaign was conceived by IIBBDO, Dublin.  All this, of course, is still a prelude to the Rugby World Cup in 2011, when we expect to see Guinness' sponsorship and long established brand association with the sport become seriously mainstream. 

http://www.contagiousmagazine.com/

Martin Lindstrom | Moments of Brand Zen | January

easier, faster and more relevant

Nothing has made access to brands easier, faster and relevant to consumers than technology.  GPS-based messaging by NTT Docomo in Japan takes it to a whole new level. Their LBS (location Based System) pinpoints and suggest shops, restaurants and whatever else you may require – to within 50 meters of your location – wherever you are! For consumers, the real rewards are contextual and relevant messages that recognize who you are, where you are and what you need – all the right moment.   Watch Video 

using sex to market your brand

If you’re planning on using sex to market your brand and get consumers to engage, you’d best be prepared for what comes next. When clothing and accessories retail giant XOXO decided to parade 2 sexy young women in a 5th avenue window around peak Christmas shopping time, it seemed they knew just what they were doing. Or did they? It’s risky business using sex as a means of luring consumers in to your brand, for the simple reason that inevitably it is not the sex that’s working for the brand, but the hype being caused. In this video I examine this precise issue, looking at some of the do’s and don’ts when heading down risqué promotional avenues.  Watch Video

For the Love of Tim

Forget Wayne Gretsky, Celine Dion and Dan Akroyd. Canada’s hottest new export to its southern neighbors is Tim Horton. This is a Canadian success story (2,700 stores coast-to-coast) that has carved out a niche in a market that is neither fast food, nor specialist coffee either. What is it then?  Watch Video

SUBWAY GOING GREEN

The recent Tokyo Designer week, which integrates the aspirations of design, technology and the environment in one show, and which provides a sneak preview of the future, left visitors with one powerful impression – brands will not survive if they cannot demonstrate real environmental support.  Watch Video

Viral Marketing Put to the Test

Explains how the strategy of spreading a video to as many popular video websites as possible.   The results? It was quickly available on 400 websites, including 70 versions on YouTube alone.  Watch Video

Viral marketing strategy?

Did you know that today only 5% of the global brands have a viral marketing strategy?  Three things have to be present to build at powerful viral video: First of all it needs a talking point, a content that makes people talk about it, secondly it has to be a bit sensational and cross the line that makes it too extreme to be shown on TV, viral videos belongs to the Internet. Finally it has to have a "soap" element around it, so the target group can get their video-input on a regular base, and it is only an advantage if the video contains humour, irony and sarcasm as a part of the message.  Watch Video

TOPPS KICKS OFF 2010 WITH THE INTRODUCTION OF AUGMENTED REALITY FOOTBALL CARDS

PREMIER LEAGUE football's biggest stars have entered the realm of Augmented Reality (AR) in 2010 thanks to a new deal between Topps Europe, the publishers of Premier League sticker albums and trading cards, and AR pioneers Total Immersion.

For the first time, Premier League football collectors' cards include an Augmented Reality (AR)  element, with Wayne Rooney, Theo Walcott and Frank Lampard featured on three special collectors' cards. Football fans can watch each player showcase special moves in AR animation and even challenge them in a free-kick game via the Topps' website.

The Topps Total Football 2009/10 series features more than 450 collectors stickers, including the three 3D Live stickers. To use the interactive animation technology, fans log on to the website and select the player on the sticker. Once the programme has started, users simply place the sticker under their web cam and the player comes to life.

Once activated, each of the AR players can be rotated around and their movements controlled with a single keystroke.

To accompany the 2009/10 Total Football series, Topps have created a special collector album with an augmented reality front cover.

Read Full Article

HOW CONCEPTS AFFECT CONSUMPTION - SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

by Dan Ariely and Michael I. Norton

                       

Our prehistoric ancestors spent much of their waking hours foraging for and consuming food, an instinct that obviously paid off. Today this instinct is no less powerful, but for billions of us it’s satisfied in the minutes it takes to swing by the store and pop a meal in the microwave. With our physical needs sated and time on our hands, increasingly we’re finding psychological outlets for this drive, by seeking out and consuming concepts.

Conceptual consumption strongly influences physical consumption. Keeping up with the Joneses is an obvious example. The SUV in the driveway is only partly about the need for transport; the concept consumed is status. Dozens of studies tease out the many ways in which concepts influence people’s consumption, independent of the physical thing being consumed. Here are just three of the classes of conceptual consumption that we and others have identified.

Consuming expectations

People’s expectation about the value of what they’re consuming profoundly affects their experience. We know that people have favorite beverage brands, for instance, but in blind taste tests they frequently can’t tell one from another: The value that marketers attach to the brand, rather than the drink’s flavor, is often what truly adds to the taste experience. Recent brain-imaging studies show that when people believe they’re drinking expensive wine, their reward circuitry is more active than when they think they’re drinking cheap wine—even when the wines are identical. Similarly, when people believe they’re taking cheap painkillers, they experience less relief than when they take the same but higher-priced pills.

Consuming goals

Pursuing a goal can be a powerful trigger for consumption. At a convenience store where the average purchase was $4, researchers gave some customers coupons that offered $1 off any purchase of $6, and others coupons that offered $1 off any purchase of at least $2. Customers who received the coupon that required a $6 purchase increased their spending in an effort to receive their dollar off; more interestingly, those customers who received the coupon that required only a $2 purchase to receive the dollar off actually decreased their spending from their typical $4, though of course they would have received their dollar off had they spent $4. Consuming the specific goal implied by the coupon—receiving a savings on a purchase of a designated amount—trumped people’s initial inclinations. Customers who received the $2 coupon left the store with fewer items than they had intended to buy.

Consuming memories

One study of how memories influence consumption explored the phenomenon whereby people who have truly enjoyed an experience, such as a special evening out, sometimes prefer not to repeat it. We might expect that they would want to experience such an evening again; but by forgoing repeat visits, they are preserving their ability to consume the pure memory—the concept—of that evening forever, without the risk of polluting it with a less-special evening.

So concepts not only can influence people to consume more physical stuff, but also can encourage them to consume less. Offering people a chance to trade undesirable physical consumption for conceptual consumption is one way to help them make wiser choices. In Sacramento, for example, if people use less energy than their neighbors, they get a smiley face on their utility bill (or two if they’re really good)—a tactic that has reduced energy use in the district and is now being employed in Chicago, Seattle, and eight other cities. In this case, people forgo energy consumption in order to consume the concept of being greener than their neighbors.

We suggest that examining people’s motivations through the lens of conceptual consumption can help policy makers, marketers, and managers craft incentives to drive desired behavior—for better or for worse.

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Dan Ariely  is the James B. Duke Professor of Behavioral Economics at Duke University and the author of Predictably Irrational.

Michael I. Norton is an assistant professor of business administration at Harvard Business School.

The full paper on which this article is based is available at www.people.hbs.edu/mnorton/ariely norton 2009.pdf.

Original article

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The PUMA INDEX | A STOCK MARKET FEED WITH A TWIST

The PUMA Index is a real stock ticker, with a twist. When the market goes down, our models' clothes come off, all the way to their PUMA Bodywear.  PUMA created a free-to-download app and site called the PUMA INDEX which provides cheer to investors whose stocks are nose-diving by giving them hot male and female models clad only in Puma underwear to lift their spirits.  

The Puma Index reacts to the fortunes of the Dow, German (DAX) and Australian (ASX) stock markets: the lower the stock market falls, the more clothes they take off, so it’s targeting those who check their stocks as often as they check their mobile devices. 

Once you’ve installed the free app you can choose between a male or female guide to your index of choice, by shaking the iPhone. The market numbers will be updated automatically through the day and when it gets good enough, or bad enough, the models will be called into action.

It gets better.  If you show your iPhone with the app installed to a PUMA sales rep, you even get a 20% discount on your next purchase.  

Check out the video overview, check out the free Mobile App, or visit the PUMA Index Site.

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