Alberta Business Marketing

The New York Times recently lauded the success of The Economist in marketing to the sophisticated. The Brits have always been perceived as 'cool', but a British weekly publication has been a marketing success even in the U.S.A.? That's almost unheard of.

Bankers read it in first-class seats; hipsters read it on the subway on their way to work; boomers and Gen-Xers both love it. The newsweekly, a bible of global affairs for those who want to aspire to be worldly, did not become a success overnight. It took 25 years of clever advertising that appeal to the status-seeking reader to help the magazine get there.

I've always been a big fan and a subscriber for the past three years – not for the status, per se, but for its global and big-picture editorial content. I've been telling my friends that not a week will pass in my life unless I've read both The Economist and Hello Canada - the former for my intellectual curiosity and the latter for my pop culture update! I like The Economist's formal, proper English writing style and the choice of its macro subject matters.

Since the magazine first began printing a North American edition in early 1981, its circulation has increased more than tenfold. When The Economist began reporting figures to the Audit Bureau of Circulations in 1982, it printed about 80,000 copies and sold fewer than 8,300 on the newsstand each week. As of its last accounting, for the first half of 2010, the magazine sold an average of about 52,000 on the newsstand each week and had a total weekly circulation of just under 823,000. When almost every other weekly publication has been suffering a decline in circulation numbers and is struggling for survivial, The Economist's success is impressive.

As an avid e-book reader, I don't understand why The Economist is not available on Amazon's Kindle. The Kindle has been touted as a single-purpose, electronic device designed for avid readers, and that's why there are no photos on the device. Ironicially, The Economist also focuses on the writing and the reporting, with very few photos in the entire publication. With the increasing popularity of e-books, It should be just a matter of time before these two find a match for each other!

Lina Ko

Tags: This and That
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Group think is the nemesis of qualitative research. The more senior you go in any organization, the more dismissive of focus groups managers become because of "group think." And, indeed, watching focus groups, as I have done innumerable times, it could appear that group think is impacting the dynamic.

Of course, one manager's group think is another manager's consensus. I mention this as an aside, but it is true that when 6 people in a group like the concept, this is a sign of a great concept. When six people in a group dislike the concept, it's clearly group think. Of course, if you hate the concept, then this works the other way around. Which leads to:

Bernstein's First Law of Group Think: The intensity of group think in any focus group is indirectly proportionate to the degree that the group reflects the observers innate bias.

But, I digress.

Group think is the inevitable result of recruiting homogenous groups of people. Why are we surprised that people who are in the same targeted age group, same target education level and use the same products with the same frequency, share the same opinions about the brand, product, category, and so on. In fact, I would go so far as to say that if there is no group think, then the recruiters have done a lousy job. And, perhaps even more controversially, the reason why professional respondents (i.e. those who attend many focus groups and don't absolutely fit the criteria) are generally more interesting than actual respondents (those who do fit the criteria and have little or no experience withfocus groups) -- they are, in fact, not the same as everybody else in the room and are therefor are more likely to have different opinions!

Think of it like this:

In her brilliant (must read for all marketers) book, The Art of Choosing, Sheena Iyengar points out three aspects of personhood that help clarify this issue:
1. People are more alike than they think
2. What people believe about themselves (or what people would want other people to believe about them) does not vary much from person to person
3. Each person is convinced that he or she is unique

So, if this applies to all people, imagine how much these lack of differences are magnified in a homogenous group. Group think is not group think in the sense of people following a leader in spite of their own personal opinions. Group think is simply group agreement.

So what?

Couple of things.
1. The next time a client complains of group think, stick your finger in your ears and hum loudly
2. Don't recruit homogenous groups to focus groups. Try recruiting different people, try mixing the cohorts -- mix frequent users with terminal rejecters; mix 35 to 49 with 18 to 29; mix males with females; mix high income with low income. In any case you are better off doing two groups of mixed A and B than one group of A and one group of B
3. Read "The Art of Choosing" and get back to me .

And, for your added enjoyment, check out our new web site.

Laurence Bernstein

Tags: Customer Experience, Get it off your chest, Research, Strategy, This and That
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Entrepreneurs often ask me for advice on how they can thrive in a competitive market. My usual answer is "find a niche". What is the one thing you can do better than any other company?

To this, many people reply that they do not have a dominant strength. But as we look more deeply into their customer base, there tends to be recurring themes. Even if the theme is only one or two customers in a particular area.

This is when the advice comes:

"You become what you say you are."

By taking a couple of successes, you can start telling customers you are experts at x or specializing in Y.

One of the principles of marketing is to let people know who you are, and what the main things that your company or yourself are uniquely competent at. The interesting irony is, you could become who you say you are, even if you are not quite there yet.

I started a computer distribution company from the trunk of my car and grew that to be one of the leaders in auto ID (bar code) and point of sale in Canada. One of the ways we did this was to put on our marketing literature "leaders in bar code".

We would follow this up by attending bar code shows, and doing newsletters on bar code, doing emails on bar code, doing seminars and webinars on bar code.

At the time we said we were leaders in point of sale. We only had a couple of product lines (as a distributor you need to have relatively full range of products in order to get traction) and only a few customers. The interesting thing was that the more we said we were leaders in this field, the more customers came to believe it. Suppliers also believed it, so as such they would give us access to their lines so it became self perpetuating.

I also found by saying "experts in" or "leaders in", people would call us for advice. We would be asked to speak at events. At the same time, we would study hard and learn. And as we sold more, we became more proficient.

I had the same experience when I published my book and time management. I said "Time Management Guru" and sure enough, people would send me books and articles and soon I actually was who I said I was.

Becoming a leader in a niche is self fulfilling.

Jim Estill

Tags: This and That
Posted in Alberta Business | | Comments Off

I just read a fascinating article published by the Harvard Business Review on the general topic of leadership. Although there are countless books on the subject – this white paper stood out because it spoke in a real, practical and down to earth tone.

The idea is simple…in order to be a leader – you must first be followed. And in order to be followed, you must possess the traditional skill-sets you’d expect: visionary, energy, authority and strategic direction – but equally important are four additional characteristics:

1. Reveal Your Weaknesses
Nobody wants to work with a perfect leader – he/she doesn’t appear to need help”. Brilliant. Being human is so…well…..human. Why do so many ‘people at the top’ forget this??

2. Become a Sensor
Hone your ability to collect and interpret subtle interpersonal cues, detecting what’s going on without others’ spelling it out”. Basically, listen to what’s going on around you. Read body language, listen to what is NOT being said. Listen and watch. Watch and Listen.

3. Practice Tough Empathy
Real leaders empathize fiercely with their followers and care intensely about their people’s work.” This means not always saying what they want to hear, but saying what they NEED to hear. All with the ultimate goal of making them – or the business – the best it can be.

4. Dare to be Different
“Capitalize on what’s unique about yourself…”. For anyone who knows me, they would understand why this is my very favourite point! Celebrate your differences. Don’t blend in for the sake of fulfilling a role or assuming the nature of what you think your position requires. Just be YOU.

After reading this article it became clear to me that there are leaders all around me. Some of them already know it….some of them just need to be reminded that they have it in them. Pass it on!

Robin Whalen

Tags: This and That
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Let’s give it a shot. To the best of my ability, that’s the attitude I’ve tried to embody during my first two years in college. After all, the marketing world is notorious for its fast pace and competitive nature; it’s basically a necessity for entry-level applicants to have some dazzling extra-curricular content on their resume. So I decided to reach outside of school and make a splash. Was it intimidating? Yes. Was it sometimes challenging to balance college with additional opportunities? Sure. But was it worth it? Absolutely.

I assisted with a charity event, competed in provincial and national marketing competitions, interned for a small agency, started a blog, and even had some posts published on this very site. And while I did all of this, one thing became clear to me - connecting and developing is as easy as saying those five words: let’s give it a shot. Here’s my most recent example. Earlier this month, I was attending the Art of Marketing conference in Toronto. I saw some wonderful speakers including Mitch Joel – marketing guru, bestselling author, and “Rockstar of Digital Marketing”. I was also reading Mitch’s book at the time, and began to think about some of his concepts. So, I went home one day and typed up a little piece for my blog that referenced one of his ideas. Later that night, I got an email notification from my blog engine with the following subject line: “New comment on your post #547 "Itchin' to shoot" - Author: Mitch Joel - Twist Image”.

I’m a self-proclaimed marketing nerd, so I was definitely a little star struck upon seeing this. We began discussing the subject on the comment page and I eventually emailed him to connect. I saw another opportunity; I asked him if he’d be up for an interview for my hinky-dinky blog. On March 2nd, I was a 19-year-old student in a crowd of 1600 marketing professionals watching Mitch speak. Five days later, I was interviewing him for my blog. If that doesn’t demonstrate the power of “giving it a shot”, then I don’t know what will. I think a lot of people forget to think this way. Why? Because it’s terrifying! Whether you’re a creative director or run a hot-dog stand, you have the huge responsibility of building something, and your fate rests on the results. It’s only natural to shy away from such a reckless theory. But why not give it a shot?

Maybe there’s an initiative you’ve been shying away from, or maybe you’re a student like me that’s too reserved to ask for an information interview. At risk of sounding tacky, it goes back to that old philosophy of missing 100% of the shots you never take. So, throw caution to the wind, give it a whirl, and toss your hat in the ring; that’s the only way you’ll get anywhere – even if you stumble along the way. You might just end up with something amazing.

Brook Johnston

Tags: This and That
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