Category Archives: How To

Casey Flanagan

Value Your Time

Posted: by Filed under: How To, Ideas

Finding an answer takes less time than figuring out what it means.

Having ten good ideas takes less time than crafting a great one.

Writing an email takes less time than communicating an actual point.

Telling someone how to do something takes less time than teaching them why.

Getting it done takes less time than getting it done right.

Thomas Friedman wrote a great piece in the New York Times this week called Average Is Over. But average is often what we’re asked for – find an answer, write an email, get it done.

Want to invest in making sure you stand out? Value your time.

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Casey Flanagan

How To Start Simple: Just Start

Posted: by Filed under: Branding, How To, Ideas, Marketing, Tracking

Two weeks ago, I wrote a post titled “Start Simple.” My focus was on the word “simple.” Equal attention should be given to the word “start.”

Starting is hard. It’s hard because if you haven’t done it, you won’t know what it’s going to take. Or where it’s going to lead.

A case in point comes from the eMarketer webinar I attended earlier this week – “Measuring Social Media Success.” 39% of worldwide retailers don’t measure social media marketing.

I’ve not talked to those 39%, but I would bet they haven’t started because they don’t know the right way.

Here’s the secret: There isn’t one way.

Now, there is a right way for your company. But your organization’s culture, available resources, strategic vision and short-term goals – among other things – must all be considered. And the only way to figure out that “right way?” It’s simple. Start.

Prototyping isn’t just for products. It can be used for research methodologies. For ideas. And even for processes. Processes like “Measuring Social Media Success.”

Start by being clear on goals and objectives. Start by articulating the right questions. And then start figuring out the right answers from there.

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Casey Flanagan

New Year’s Resolution For Your Business: Use More Of Your Brain

Posted: by Filed under: How To, Ideas, Tracking

Do people really only use 10% of their brain? Scientific American says no. Actually, they report it as “laughable.”

Do businesses use 10% of their brain? It’s a question worth considering.

As I wrote two weeks ago, Data Is A Numbers Game. And as businesses capture more and more data, they need to be careful they aren’t just using a smaller and smaller percentage of it. Remember, 60% of respondents to a MIT study responded that their “organization has more data than it knows how to use effectively.”

So, what are the steps towards tracking your tracking? They aren’t complicated.

Take an inventory. What tools do you have at your disposal? Ask your co-workers / team members what tools they’re using, too. The demands for your attention have increased. You might be surprised at what you’ve actually forgotten.

Prioritize. What questions you are able to answer with those tools? Which matter most to your success? Call the tools that provide these critical answers your business’ “Brain.”

Be honest. How effectively are you are using your Brain? How much attention do you pay to it? How often do you access its insight? As often as appropriate? Or, maybe, sadly, less so?

Make a new year’s resolution to boost your Brain’s power. Feed it. Grow it. And make sure you are paying it its due attention.

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Casey Flanagan

Sweat The Small Stuff: Little Changes Can Make Big Differences

Posted: by Filed under: Branding, How To, Ideas

Seeing as every post this month has been about change, I thought I’d keep the streak going. And in the spirit of the holidays, I’ll speak to two changes I’m thankful for. But not without a long-overdue nod to Steve Jobs.

I enjoyed Malcolm Gladwell’s recent piece in the New Yorker on Steve Jobs. It’s titled “The Tweaker.” Gladwell’s thesis can be summed up by a single line from the article: “Job’s sensibility was editorial, not inventive.” I tend to agree. And you can’t argue the results.

Small changes – meaningful changes – can make a big difference. Our culture has taken Richard Carlson too literally. We’ve stopped sweating too much small stuff. Two brands that haven’t:

The Pret A Manger brownie. I love Pret A Manger and their “Made Today, Gone Today” philosophy. I think we’ll be seeing a lot more of this approach in years to come. But its brand position is more revolution than evolution. Instead, let’s focus on the brownie I enjoyed there recently. The note on the back of the packaging says it all: “The never-ending development of our brownie is typical of Pret. We’ve improved the recipe 36 times over the last few years. Each change is minuscule but detectable. John D Hess said, ‘A race horse that runs a mile a few seconds faster is worth twice as much. That little extra proves to be the greatest value.’ Same with our Brownie we think.” It’s paying attention to details that makes a big difference. This is true… from brownies to brands.

The CrayAngle triangle crayon. How many times has a crayon you are using rolled around – and then off – the table? What about at a restaurant with a table with a wobbly leg and a maple-syrup-infused four-year-old? There is no reason this simple idea had to wait this long to make a difference. Except for the very likely facts of “Because we’ve always done it this way,” “This is the way we do it,” and  “There is no reason to think about doing it differently.”

What if you thought about your business this way? What if you picked a product and made 36 improvements? What’s currently circle but could use three sides? What changes can you make for the better?

Sweat the small stuff. And it’s all small stuff.

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Casey Flanagan

In-Store Purchase Abandonment: Price vs. Value

Posted: by Filed under: Branding, How To, Ideas

In 2009, McKinsey reported that up to 40 percent of consumers changed their minds in-store because of something they “see, learn, or do at this point… packaging, placement, or interactions with salespeople.” Because the world had become so complex, consumers were holding off making their decisions until they got to the store and could hold the product or – better – see it in action.

That complexity is now being complimented by greater transparency. You can find out even more just by scanning a code. Or by simply asking Siri. As shoppers with mobile devices continue to realize they literally have the world at their fingertips, the world is going to change drastically. More and more, shoppers will know exactly what all of their options are.

The results are predictable: The drum will be banged for the importance of price. Take Mary Meeker’s recently released Internet Trends 2011 Report. According to the report, the #1 and #2 reasons for “in-store purchase abandonment among USA smartphone users” were “I found it online for a better price” and “I found it at another store for a better price.” The results appear to come from a comScore survey. But it appears that in asking about in-store purchase abandonment, they asked only about price – not value.

I won’t argue that pricing matters. It does. But there can only be one low-price leader. And its benefits are far fewer and farther between than just about any other position.

Value matters, too. Or, in the words of the presentation slide, Value Matters A LOT! And, for marketers, I’d argue that value matters more. Nielsen’s 2011 Global Online Survey found that consumers favor value over price.

In this changing, mobile-ized, transparent world, marketers still have two basic paths:

  1. Invest in lowering price. And then, likely, someday soon, lowering it again.
  2. Invest in increasing value. This can be done in any number of ways, including the product, perceived value, community of advocates or experience. It’s worth noting, price wars don’t have to be a negative. They can be fun for the consumer, but that’s as much about experience as pricing.

I think we’d see more brands investing in the latter if we also invested in a new survey – one that considers value alongside price.

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Casey Flanagan

Brands In The Blue Zone: Have A Purpose #iha2011am

Posted: by Filed under: Branding, How To, Ideas, Marketing

I had the pleasure of speaking at the Iowa Hospital Association this week in Des Moines. My talk “Does Hospital-Defined Quality Matter In A Consumer-Defined World?” built off some of the themes we discussed at last year’s SHSMD conference.

I also had the opportunity to see National Geographic writer and best-selling author, Dan Buettner speak about his concept of Blue Zones. Blue Zones are the parts of the world where people live the longest and report the highest levels of well-being. His passion for the topic and ideas about how to turn the tides of public health were inspiring and, as importantly, actionable. Buettner had nine keys for living longer and living better.

One of his keys in particular got me thinking about Blue Zones for brands. Buettner reported people who Know Their Purpose live an average of seven years longer than those who don’t. And they don’t just live longer, they live healthier lives. I think the same applies to brands.

Author Jim Collins would agree. He found that purpose-driven companies outperformed traditional ones by up to 7:1.

Defining your purpose needn’t be complicated nor, necessarily, pious. Knowing your purpose comes down to knowing your values, your passions and your talents. Figure out how to share them consistently. And start enjoying a longer, healthier “life” than your competition.

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Casey Flanagan

Marketing Best Practices Aren’t Just About Learning From The Past

Posted: by Filed under: Advertising, How To, Ideas, Planning / Research

Marketing best practices are proven. They are time-tested. They are built carefully and with great consideration – based on lessons learned from the past.

But more and more, best practices must consider what’s right now. And consider what’s next. They must make some assumptions – based on looking to the future.

In 2007, IBM predicted that the advertising world would change as much in the next five years as it had in the last fifty. We’re speeding towards the end of that line. And it feels like the change is just getting started.

In the face of rapid change, your best practices can’t become a prison to conformity.  Best practices must be discovered and adopted, but in the face of ever more rapid change, they must be abandoned with as much discipline.

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Casey Flanagan

The Axis Of Aspiration In The Age Of Engagement

Posted: by Filed under: How To, Ideas, Social Media

There’s an old saying in the world of marketing, “nothing kills a bad product faster than great advertising.” Bad products can’t be helped by great advertising, rather great advertising simply accelerates their badness. Expectations are set way too high.

This is even more true in The Age Of Engagement. A recent Google study puts the number of daily conversations mentioning a brand in the US at 2.4 billion. Social media only makes reaction travel faster.

Brand managers should take note. Will those conversationalists be talking about how they were delightfully surprised, terribly disappointed or something in between? A likely influencer of their tone is where they started. Expectations matter.

Framing your brand in an aspirational way is great because it increases “interest in.” Framing your brand in an aspirational way creates a risk that “satisfaction with” will decrease. With 2.4 billion conversations happening daily, balancing the two is critical.

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Casey Flanagan

Planning’s Job Description: Strategy Designers

Posted: by Filed under: How To, Ideas, Planning / Research

I really enjoyed Objectified, a documentary by Gary Hustwit. It examines the “manufactured objects we surround ourselves with, and the people who make them.”

The interviews with the designers are both interesting and insightful. Hearing designers talk about their craft made me think about a planner’s job. Especially the idea that good design is when users think “of course that’s the way it is.”

The point – that was mildly jaw-dropping to me – was that good design doesn’t need to be jaw-dropping. Except, perhaps, in its simplicity. The same can be said for good strategy.

Good strategy does not have to be surprising. It doesn’t need to make you think it is brilliant. Or – even – all that interesting. I like Farrah Bostic’s point about insights. She says there are no such things as insights. Her case in point? Nike+ was built on the insight that people like to listen to music when they exercise. Not exactly Nobel-worthy. But it did change a category.

One worthy bar worth striving for? Being self-evident. Strategies don’t need to start simple. But they should be made so.

Make sense of the chaos in a way that allows everyone to move forward confidently. Simplify. Focus. Cut away the non-essentials. Do it again. And – hopefully – you’ll get to a point where someone looks at your strategy as says, “of course that’s the way it is.” Being intuitive – in design and strategy – wins.

Design your strategy accordingly.

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Casey Flanagan

The Customer Can’t Always Be Right

Posted: by Filed under: How To, Ideas, Planning / Research

Questions customer responses to research are good at answering: What does your customer think of A? How often does your customer do B? If given the choice between C and D, which one would your customer choose – and why? Perceptions, behaviors, beliefs.

And these can be incredibly valuable.

Questions customer responses to research aren’t good at answering: Do we need to take a chance or play it safe? How will this affect the internal culture? The website? The sales force? What is the cost of executing well? The extendability of the idea? Its emotion? Its clarity? Its potential to breakthrough? How it connects to our business goals? Its implications for bottom line growth?

And these can be incredibly important.

As the world becomes more complex, the issues marketers face and the environments in which we face them are following close behind. We do research to make sure we understand the “voice” outside of our proverbial four walls. But the expert voices inside those walls need to be understood, too.

On these considerations, it’s important to remember, the customer can’t always be right. Instead, it’s up to you and your team.

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