Alberta Business Marketing

Canada and U.S. diverging on where to set policy

Tags: Bank of Canada, BizBeat - Editor's Blog, dollar, interest rates, loonie, Mark Carney, U.S.
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Wall Street was on the big screen. Big hair bands were on the music scene. And traditional media ruled. Fast forward to 2010 and oh what a difference a few decades make. I lived the traditional media craze. If you had the numbers you had the advertisers – big business, government, franchises, retailers – everyone was clambering (will not quite clambering) but certainly willing to hear your story and pay your prices to have their message reach the masses.

A funny thing happened when technology i.e. the internet came on the scene. No longer were you forced to love what the majority loves; you had options. Think 70’s television – 3 networks – prime time, a hit show – bingo you’ve reached 70% of America. Try to reach that same audience today - with over 100 television stations and a myriad of entertainment options – prime time television ain’t what it used to be – your cost would be through the roof.

So what does this mean to business/advertisers? If you’re media plan hasn’t changed a lot you’re missing a ton of opportunities. I know of a restaurant that funnelled a good chunk of their ad dollars into the yellow pages – not online yellow pages – traditional phone book yellow pages. Unfamiliar with google ad words they were sceptical that the internet could actually bring in customers and astounded that you don’t pay unless people click and view. Six months later with a new web-site, a face book fan club, an e-newsletter and google ads the web is outperforming their traditional media in leaps and bounds. They’re attracting customers from a much wider geography and customers are dining their more often.

Don’t get me wrong I’m not suggesting you ditch all of your traditional media. I am suggesting you get really clear on your target market or as my friend Marty refers to it your “unique buying tribe” and connect with them where they hang out so to speak. You wouldn’t think of wearing big shoulder pads with a bad perm and a matching suit and earrings – think Working Girl (if you’re female) or donning a pink tie and puff (if you’re male or of course Donald Trump) today so why would you stick with the same advertising strategies? Fashion and advertising in 2010 is very different and hopefully more ah tasteful.

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Is your business at risk of being broadcasted as some who pays their bills late?  More and more immature businesses are turning to social media to air their grievances with those who they serve.  Right or wrong it is happening and what is the risk to your business if would happen to you?

I was speaking with a client of mine on Thursday about a rough spot he is in with a cloud-based data provider.  For a number of years he contracted a cloud-based Customer Relationship Management solution from a vendor who supplied this service.  All was great while my client and his service provider got along and bills were paid and services were provided.

But, one day the relationship soured and continued on a downhill slope until the day, yes the day, Solicitors may get involved.  And everyone hates when we need to do this, because you know the old saying…the Lawyers are the only ones that win.  Differences started to appear in how the contract was interpreted and my client terminated his agreement with his data provider.  He gave them several months notice and ended the relationship at the end of the calendar year, as per the agreement.  All he wanted was his own business data back from the database, however the Internet application provider wasn’t prepared to hand over this critical business information.  Thus, the firestorm began to spread, and the hosting company turned to blogs and social media to tell the world how bad of a guy my client is and how he was treating poorly.

Are we all at risk of having our soured relationships exposed on Social Media?

What type of person turns to a blog to voice his or her concern about something as sensitive as Accounts Receivable?

In discussions with many of peers on this topic every one of us came up with the same conclusion.  The person who posted the negative items is the one who risks alienation in the business world, not my client.  Would you do business with someone who has a track record of broadcasting your affairs with them on a blog or via Facebook?  I believe this guy just shot himself in the foot.

Would love to hear what you think…just add a comment.

Tags: Business, Business Success, Business/Finance, corporate reputation management, economics, Facebook Inc, Goods, Internet application, online business, Peer-to-peer, service, Technology/Internet
Posted in CRM, Marketing | | Comments Off

Kev (my business partner) and I were chatting about the influence of design in marketing. He has great insights into design intelligence. Like most great insights, it's stuff that is floating in the back ground of our minds but too often we don't let it come to the forefront and really impact our work. He sees design intelligence for marketing as one of the most critical components for impacting and motivating choice. But too often marketing teams don't use design intelligence. Some designs are totally consumed by layout. That's the technical skill behind great design: white space, typography, use of colour, clean lines, careful attention to grids. While great layout makes the piece pretty -- it's doesn't push the edges towards brand personality, marketing principals and offer insight.

On the other extreme are the marketing teams who sacrifice design intelligence for fine art. Fine art is focused on the visual experience -- not the message. The message is often subtle or determined by the viewer. It belongs on living room walls and museums. Great marketing motivates and inspires action. Design intelligence starts with understanding the overall goal, the underlying challenge, the audience, human motivations and, maybe most of all, takes the designer out of the picture. As we were chatting, we were musing about a piece that we did for a client many years ago. Both of us hated it. While the offer was intact and the design intelligence was strong in understanding the overall brand and the motivations of the direct audience -- our visual minds were really turned off. It was the second highest performing acquisition piece that year. That taught us a lesson.

Our overall goal was to communicate to the audience. Frankly, neither of us were the audience. While neither Kev or I would be motivated by this piece -- we were not the people the client wanted to motivated. The biggest mistake marketers make is to allow our own preferences to interfere with truly understanding the audience. One more story.... when my son was about 2 years old my husband and I worked in a kid's program. One of the features of the program was a dorky beanie that had a helicopter blade on the top. On the way home I was nattering about the lack of sophistication of the premium when Chris piped up from his car seat: "I can hardly wait until I can get one of those hats!" The designer of the program was bang on in assessing the level of sophistication of the audience. Design intelligence refuses to be tainted by personal taste. It is objective, rational and results oriented.

Barefoot Creative is looking for a designer as I write. Without a question we are looking for a designer with design intelligence!

Gayle Goossen

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The Golden Ears Bridge across the Fraser River in British Columbia has been in operation for 9 months now. It was being constructed for almost two years before that. Unfortunately it has been invisible in Google Maps until now. Many have commented on the invisibility of the Golden Ears Bridge, which is a major landmark. Although repeated messages have been sent to places where Googlers congregate such as the Google Maps Forum, the organization seemed blind. As usual, they seemed to be relying on computer-generated data rather than inputs from humans.

It was said that the reason for the delay was that the Golden Ears Bridge had not been included in the database used by Google Maps.  One of these is maintained by TeleAtlas.  However the Bridge was added to the database as of March 31, 2010 and still there was no change.  MapQuest, the Google Maps competitor, was not asleep at the wheel and almost immediately included the Golden Ears Bridge in its directions information.

It was only this morning that finally Google has registered the Golden Ears Bridge in its database.  Use Google Maps to help you find the way across the Fraser River from Langley to Pitt Meadows and here is the route that Google will provide.

It was good to finally see the Bridge taking up the important role it now has in Fraser Valley transportation.  However in a somewhat ironic announcement, Google later in the morning announced that it was now Keeping Canada’s map current.

The map of Canada is constantly changing – new roads are being built, highways are being renamed, and bike trails are opening. To keep up with all these changes, we’ve started using new map data in Canada. This new base map is built from a wide range of sources, just as we recently announced for the US in October. In Canada, we’ve made use of data from organizations such as the National Hydrography Network and Canadian Council on Geomatics. Once again things like satellite imagery and Street View were also helpful to make a rich, thorough base map.

That’s all very well.  However if only they had worked more promptly in synchronizing with their existing map database contributors such as TeleAtlas, perhaps the Golden Ears Bridge would have been on our screens at least a month earlier.

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Golden Ears Bridge BC now on Google Maps

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Tags: google, Google Maps, Langley, MapQuest, Pitt Meadows
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