LaughlinOutLoud

We, as marketers, are accountable for value. Measured. Assumed. Attributed. Demonstrable. Everything we do should have a basis in moving needles. Two weeks ago, I wrote about brand community value. Asking “What’s the ROI of marketing?” seems to be the equivalent of breathing.

What’s the ROI of social media? Of TV? Of PR? Of a successful customer service program? I once heard someone observe that one of the cruel ironies of advertising is the number of people who chose the profession as a way to avoid math. On a related note, I have an urgent announcement to college juniors struggling with Accounting. Advertising is no longer as clear a career path.

Which brings me back to math. High school math, to be specific. One of my most clear memories of Algebra is as applicable a lesson to the ROI of marketing as I’ve heard. The more variables you know, the easier the equation.

The same goes for the ROI of your marketing program. What’s the ROI of social media? It depends on a number of factors, including but not limited to: What’s the value of a visitor to your website? What’s the value of a qualified lead? What’s the value of positive customer experience? What about the lack of negative buzz?

When you understand the value of your variables, the ROI equation gets a lot easier. As you walk slowly to the chalkboard, start by figuring out what you already know.

I’ve always thought the phrase “math problem” was a misnomer. The only math problem I know of is if you think you don’t like math. Math is a tool that can help prove your worth.

Farecast Technology is pretty incredible. Type in your itinerary and Bing Travel recommends whether you should buy your tickets now… or hold tight just a bit.

They’ve aggregated data, developed algorithms and built predictive models. All towards the end of understanding what the airlines are going to do with their prices before the airlines actually do it.

I have a feeling that airline fares are just the beginning. Case in point, Murphy USA just released an app that helps you find the cheapest gas in your area (something Progressive has been doing with insurance for years). This type of technology can fundamentally change how Price Wars work. Your next move depends on what kind of brand you have.

Scenario One: Cutting prices is a necessary evil of the sales cycle. Things just got worse. The old adage – If you offer a sale, consumers will learn to wait for a sale – is taken a step further. “When is the best time to buy this? Wait, let me check.” And if I can predict if and when you will lower your price on that widget, your brand matters more than ever. And my bottom line is this: Can you justify your higher price or should you just skip to your final offer?

Scenario Two: Sales are a part of the brand experience. Things just got better. Bargain hunters have acquired another tool and the game just got more fun – a new study from Deloitte shows just how fun it is to save. “How can I stretch my dollar the furthest? Wait, let me check.” And if I can predict that next Saturday is the day where I’ll be able to work my most magic, your brand becomes more important to me than ever. Because you offer me the ability to succeed on whatever measure I choose. It’s no longer just about a sale, it’s about a brand experience.

The oft-cited Theodore Levitt marketing axiom goes like this: “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill, they want a quarter-inch hole.” Said another way, consumers don’t buy features, they buy benefits.

I was reminded of this when I saw a recent study by Chadwick Martin Bailey that found Americans are more excited about “the prospect of content delivery than they are about the devices the content may be carried on.”

A real world example: The World Cup discussion at our office last week focused as much around the fact that @laughjon watched the game in the backseat of a car on the drive up from Chicago as it did around Donovan’s goal.

These are our OnDemand Lives.

There is an important lesson here for marketers – one that goes beyond “focus on the benefit.” In an age where brands win by providing utility, how the utility is delivered makes a big difference. Is it simple? Intuitive? Noteworthy? Memorable?

For content creators – and we’re all content creators – the days of people beating a path to your door for the better mousetrap are over. Great content will always be an essential. But now its context and delivery are competing for attention.

One of my favorite definitions of creativity is “not knowing where you’re going to end up when you start.” By that measure, it’s easier and easier to be creative these days.

And creativity matters. It cuts through clutter. It touches emotions. It solves problems. A new report out from The IPA found that, overall, campaigns that had been rewarded with the greatest number of accolades for their creative work were more successful in delivering positive results in the area of effectiveness (boosting market share, sales, profit and loyalty). Creativity delivers results.

And, just like everything else, creativity is evolving. The cover story of June’s Fast Company reports on its 100 Most Creative People In Business. The first thing I was struck by was the amount of very non-creative job titles (Research Director, Senior Software Engineer). But my big takeaway was that  – from the Fast Company perspective – a full quarter (27 of 100) had the title CoFounder or Founder. Creativity isn’t just “not knowing where you’re going to end up when you start.” It’s having a vision and executing on it.

Having ideas isn’t being creative. Recognizing and activating the game changing ones is.

You may have seen the story a few weeks ago of Armando Galarraga. A pitcher for the Detroit Tigers, his perfect game was lost on blown call by the first base umpire. The play (and its subsequent hundreds and hundreds of thousands of replays) caused a media firestorm. Should The Office Of The Commissioner reverse the call? How should the umpire be held accountable? And, if we have the technology to make sure calls – especially important calls – are accurate, why aren’t we using it?

That last one is a relevant question for marketers.

If we look critically at baseball, we may not need umpires any more. At least in the roll they’ve traditionally played. Cameras can determine whether the pitcher throws a ball or a strike much more consistently and accurately than any human being. Sensors can measure the relative impact of a foot hitting a base and a ball hitting a glove. Why not take advantage of these to make the game better?

But if we stop for a moment – and look at our own corners of the world – we are often guilty of overlooking the same types of progress.

Baseball keeps umpires on the field because it’s the way things have always been done. We don’t have that excuse in marketing. And just like baseball, some of the technology we would need to rethink how we do things already exists.

Unilever is using facial recognition software to help make low-fat ice cream more appealing. The United States Postal Service uses augmented reality to help you ship your package successfully. Google’s Goggles program let you search not only with words, but with pictures.

A question worth asking and, with the speed of new advancements, asking often: What technology aren’t we using?

What perfect game might you be erasing from the history books?

I tweeted earlier this week: “Okay, Soccer. You win. I’m all in for the World Cup. Don’t let me down.” And I meant it. For a sport I’ve barely watched before, I couldn’t be more excited for what a good friend calls “a month-long celebration of awesome.”

But I find how I got here interesting. I’ve always known about the product of soccer. I played it for more than a decade. Marketers take note, it’s not the game of soccer that sold me on the tournament. It was the technology and the advertising.

Technology Changes The Game. It was just announced that AT&T Uverse will be launching ESPN 3D in time for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. I don’t (yet) have a 3D TV, but  HD already makes the experience thoroughly enjoyable. It makes things that were previously uninteresting to me imminently watchable. Case in point, I have recently enjoyed both hockey and curling for the first times ever. Technology, quite literally, changes the game.

The Power of Advertising. From McDonald’s to Nike, big brands have drawn me in with emotional messages. Especially Nike. The “Write The Future” campaign is so good, I think it could redefine the role a corporate sponsor plays – I hope FIFA paid Wieden + Kennedy handsomely. [Update: Nike is not an official sponsor. Which doesn't change my feelings about FIFA paying them.] Before I’ve watched a minute, I know some players and I am emotionally invested in the fates of not only the athletes, but their fans. That’s the power of advertising.

Until the technology and advertising changed the game for me, I was never a fan of the “product.” We’ll see how the next month goes. But fanaticism (and its ensuing loyalty) does not seem out of the question.

Being customer-centric is not a luxury. The empowered consumer is well-documented. So understanding his or her needs and motivations is more important than ever before. But that’s only half the battle. Most businesses are for-profit. So meeting – or exceeding – the consumer’s expectations can’t only be done on their terms. It is essential to tie consumer insights to business strategies.

One of my favorite recent examples of a job well-done is Ace Hardware and their ship-to-store model.

Study after study shows that consumers want free shipping. That’s not so much an insight as an observation (really, who wouldn’t want free shipping?) But rather than (a) biting the bullet and taking a lower margin, (b) upcharging the purchase to cover costs or (c) saying “no, it’s too hard,” Ace makes an offer that seems to work for everybody. FREE shipping… when you choose to Ship-to-Store.

And it’s working. In a recent eMarketer webinar titled, “The Advantages of Multichannel Marketing,” it was reported that 73% of Ace Hardware’s web orders are shipped to stores and these orders account for 80% of its online revenue. So, the numbers indicate it seems to be working for the consumer. And a noteworthy 33% of those customers who pick up an order in-store make an additional purchase. So Ace wins, too.

Ship-to-store isn’t rocket science. It just isn’t the way most marketers think of ecommerce. But the process to identifying this as an option isn’t a complicated one. Start with a consumer insight. Develop solutions that tie to both consumer needs and motivations your business’ strategic objectives. Execute. Win, win.

Addendum: In addition to free shipping, “ship-to-store” also addresses another consumer motivator – protection of time. Customers no longer have to be concerned of whether the product will be in stock when they go shopping – it will be, they made sure of it. Every week 25,000-30,000 Borders customers reserve online and pay in-store. A customer need is clearly being met. And Borders reports a similar figure to Ace Hardware – saying 35% of customers who pick up an order in-store make an additional purchase. Another win / win.

May is an odd time for a Year In Review post. But it was 52 weeks ago that I started writing a weekly blog. I spent some time this week going through my first 51 posts to see if I, in fact, had a point.

It was a fun process. I enjoyed revisiting favorite posts. And it was interesting to pick up on some themes. I find that I often – and not surprisingly – write about what I’m turning over in my head at any given moment. I use the process of writing as a way to think. In reviewing past posts, I found that the things I’ve been thinking most about this past year appear to be the value of data and the nature of answers. A 100-word recap of my year of thinking out loud:

The trouble with the truth is that it can become too permanent. Our culture now takes the unthinkable for granted. Which means, among other things, that simply accepting what were once dependable assumptions as truth is precarious. We must embrace more, if less permanent, A-Ha Moments. In a data-driven world, we must remember that statistics don’t tell the whole story. We need to question the question and ask why more. We need to become comfortable with the fact that sometimes the answer is a better question. And we must always realize that looking backward is about looking forward.

Two weeks ago I wrote that I was embarking on writing a book called “From Oooh to Aaah.” I’m considering this Year In Review recap the basis. And while I’m following the Chris Anderson model, I’m not (necessarily) shooting for a Long Tail. I’m just hoping to continue to figure things out.

Thanks for joining in so far.

I don’t watch Lost. My excuse is not a good one. I just didn’t watch at the beginning – then felt like I couldn’t catch up. That said, I have a great deal of respect for the show.

It’s an old school drama that is leading the way in a reality world. And it weaves a story so compelling that its network let it run its course despite the fact that it was only going to lose audience as it moved towards completion (really, with all the plot complexities and questions, how many people were just going to “jump in” during Season Six?).

I recently listened to an interview with Carlton Cuse, one of the show’s head writers. As he talked about Lost for an hour – again, a show I really know nothing about – I became more and more interested in what he was saying. In describing his approach to writing the show, I felt like he was describing a strategic approach to brand management.

I thought he made four points that act as good reminders for any marketer building a brand via storytelling.

Embrace the community. Cuse said the writers write with intentional ambiguity. Think about that. Intentional ambiguity works to get fans involved. The show is meant to be discussed. In the world of branding, ambiguity sounds scary. But it can be a powerful engagement tool.

Execution really matters. In television, the premise is much less important than the execution of the premise. Exhibit A: Seinfeld. Exhibit B: Friends. The concept for Lost started as “Let’s do a show about a plane crash and an island.” Great execution can make an average idea powerful. It rarely works the other way around.

Don’t over-think it. The pilot for Lost was done – start to finish – in eleven weeks. That’s unheard of. On one hand, it’s amazing it got done. On the other, there wasn’t time to think it to death. Decisions were made. The creators got to trust their vision. There is always a reason not to do something. When the potential is great, we need to find more reasons to say yes.

Evolve. Cuse’s advice? You have to be willing to try things. The writers introduce characters based on both the storyline and ideas they have for great characters. They know there are lots of pieces. The show will tell you what it wants to be. They manage accordingly. How are you listening to your brand’s story?

What do women want? So goes the question of movies, marketers and men. What Women Want, the movie, was named after this eternal query. It featured Mel Gibson as Nick Marshall, an advertising exec who experienced professional and romantic success once he was able to read the minds of women. The predictable plotline followed Gibson’s rise to demise, then back to everyday guy when he learned his lesson. (Bonus lesson:  Don’t cross-dress during a thunderstorm).

Nick relied on stealing ideas from his female colleague for campaign concepts that would appeal to women consumers. And according to She-Conomy.com, appealing to women consumers is important: Women are responsible for 85% of all consumer purchases – ranging from food to vacations to PCs.

If ‘What Women Want’ was made now, Nick would probably be better off checking Facebook statuses, downloading videos from YouTube or monitoring his TweetDeck; the rise of social media gives marketers a broader reach of what women really want. So, Nick Marshall, here a few brands you could learn from:

Medela
The breast pump brand’s site offers many ways for expectant and new moms to connect with each other and with experts in the field. There’s also plenty of information about breastfeeding, and a link to an active Facebook page featuring lots of mom interaction. Aside from being able to provide an incredibly dynamic outlet for their consumers, Medela is able to watch and learn from these interactions in order to shape the way they do business.

Kotex
The feminine care brand is complementing its “tell-it-to-me-straight commercials” for its new line of tampons, U by Kotex. A microsite with consumer interaction functionality allows women to engage in a space that feels secure and intimate for this private issue, and get questions answered by a health expert, a mom and a peer. Kotex is able to position themselves as a resource on the topic while also collecting market intelligence.

Coach
Holiday “Blog-a-day”

During the 2009 Holiday season, Coach enlisted popular fashion bloggers and vloggers to boost their holiday sales. The “Blog-a-day” program lasted 30 days, and featured a different site or video link with merchandise overviews, reviews and best of all – giveaways for the readers.  Coach was able to activate many new networks of ambassadors, interact with their audiences through credible sources and drive online sales through direct links from the featured sites.

These are just a few of many examples and we can anticipate that the way brands can speak to and interact with female consumers will continue to evolve. So marketers take heed – we are no longer just telling women what they want – they can tell us. We just need to listen.