Author Archives: Peter Buechler

The World’s Best Blog Post

Leading tech columnist David Pogue begins his review  of Amazon’s latest line of tablets with, a decidedly not technical sentence:

I’m not exactly sure what’s been seeping into the water supply at Amazon’s Seattle offices, but it’s making the executives a little loopy.

His point is that Amazon’s claim that new Kindle is “the best tablet at any price” is so exaggerated at to be delusional. Seriously?

I haven’t tried the Kindle (I am writing this on a iPad), to which Pogue gives a generally positive review. What’s surprising is that he’s surprised by Amazon’s accompanying hype. It reminds me of the classic scene in the movie Casablanca, in which Captain Renault (Claude Rains) is “shocked” to find gambling in a casino.

As long as there have been commercial products there has been puffery. From World’s Best Cat Litter™ to the world’s best cannoli, over the top claims abound. What makes them puffery instead of fraud is their vague and general nature. They are inherently meaningless and hence not verifiable or refutable.

Does anyone old enough to have a credit card believe these or think anyone else does? Not even the courts?

If all Amazon had were blanket claims of superiority, the Kindle would be a non-starter. Their campaign does not hinge on claims of world’s best. More often than not, a marketing campaign based on puffery makes its sponsor look silly. Don’t worry about competing against the Best In The Universe.

 

Who’s listening to the call to action?

The recent Republican and Democratic National Conventions (RNC/DNC) consumed much air time and resources for what were in essence three day infomercials. Did they advance the Romney and Obama brands and who, if anyone won?

Some data are suggestive. Nielsen estimates that Romney’s acceptance speech had 30.3 million viewers vs. 35.7 million for Obama’s. The DNC also garnered more Twitter and Facebook mentions than the RNC. So Democrats had a bit more reach, but to what effect? After the speeches were over and the balloons deflated, did either party gain uncommitted voters?

The Conventions no longer choose the candidates and so offered neither drama, suspense, or surprise. This is a competitive disadvantage for Romney as a newer and less familiar product. Both parties, but especially the Republicans have benefited from unprecedented funding. While this could be an advantage, it has resulted in a series of disparate messages without a unifying theme.

If we try to distill the value proposition, positioning, big idea, or packaging – we, and such voters who are in play, have a hard time. Neither side seems able to resist adding disparate benefits into the mix. From a content analysis of such Romney and Obama collateral, as were easily available we get distinct, though not distinctive messages.

For Romney it’s his banner phrase “Americans deserve more jobs and more take-home pay, or “I’m a mom for Mitt,” or “We believe in America,” or “We built America” and its cousin “Built by US.” These are anodyne to the point of being soggy. Only the last has bumper sticker potential, whatever it might mean.

In 2008, Obama hit the sweet spot with “Hope” and “Yes We Can.” This has been vitiated with the liked of “We don’t turn back. We leave no one behind. We pull each other up.” [homepage banner 9/7] and “Forward.”

Neither campaign has yet articulated a theme, which moves undecided voters.

The content from speeches to web is professionally written. That’s the problem. As Elmore Leonard observed:

“If it sounds like writing, rewrite it.”

How Mobile Do You Look?

According to the latest research from the Pew Internet and American Life project, 46% of American adults 18 and older own smartphones. This has grown from 35% a year earlier. Desktop computer ownership, on the other hand, has continued to decline. Only 55% of adults now own desktops.

As these data show, the country is going mobile. Many of your customers probably are accessing your content through their phones. This begs the question – how does your site look, and more important work, through a mobile browser?

Many larger companies and organizations seem to have figured this out. The website of IBM, HP, Home Depot, Whole Foods, REI, and Harvard University are fundamentally different when visited from a desktop or laptop vs. when visited from a smartphone.

On a mobile aware site, a graphically busy multicolumn layout festooned with badges and banners can become a simplified and cleaner single column display. Now how does your site look?

Not every large organization seems to have considered the mobile visitor and the results can be unsightly not to mention unusable. If you need to get some information from the IRS or Chase Credit Cards from the browser on your phone, you’re in for a lot of pinching, panning, scrolling and zooming.

Small firms often lack mobile aware sites. If they are your competition, being mobile aware could give you an “unfair” advantage. As a smaller firm, you may have fewer marketing and web development resources, but going mobile can be easier than it might appear.

An emerging company called dudamobile offers one straight forward solution. It converts an existing site to one, which is mobile ready. I’ve been testing its service for a number of clients and find it works. It’s also easy.

To make a companion mobile site, you visit www.howtogom.com/getstarted and follow an onscreen wizard. You can modify the overall look of the mobile site by choosing a number of design templates and otherwise tweak your site, without knowing any web technology. The only technical skill required is the ability to paste a few lines of code in the head section of your homepage.  The service doesn’t work if your site uses framesets, which are obsolete technology, or Flash. Otherwise you should be good to go.

Compare the versions below, of a retail website below. Which one would you be more like to spend time on? Once you’ve implemented the service, visitors on a computer will see your traditional site. Those on mobile will automatically see the mobile version. Dudamobile charges $9 per month for this but it is currently offering a free one year trial. This may mobilize you to “mobilize” your site.

Mobilized

      Before Mobilization

             After Mobilization

Forget B2B and B2C — it’s B2E

To judge by their messages, many firms make much of the dichotomy of business to business (B2B) vs. business to consumer (B2C) – be this in marketing, hiring, or packaging. Indeed B2B vs B2C can appear quite dissimilar. For example, in their choice of

  • Channels
  • Pricing
  • Media
  • Business Models

None of these differences is absolute. For marketers B2B vs. B2C is frequently not a useful perspective. Traditional hallmarks of B2B such as a high priced dedicated sales force, long selling cycles, or “rational” vs emotional appeals in branding, could apply to B2C.

Increasingly B2B vs B2C is a distinction without a difference. From the importance of social media to advertising, the two camps seem to be converging. Smart marketers seem to get that ultimately marketing is marketing. This is clearly illustrated by B2B campaigns executed in a distinctly B2C manner.

Consider the campaign from corporate IT services firm CDW. It features the redoubtable Charles Barkley. The commercial has a consumer look and feel but its message of outsourcing IT services to CDW is all business.

 

If CDW isn’t business enough, consider marketing by SAP, the “grey standard” of business to business.

 

In your next campaign, don’t fixate on B2B or B2C. Think about marketing B2E. E as in everybody.

The Luxury of Privacy

“Privacy is dead, get over it.” Former Sun chairman Scott McNealy, 1999

McNealy’s dark quip may not have been true in 1999. But since then, technologies to collect and manage vast amounts of data about where, when, and what we buy, watch, read, consume and how we spend our time, have become far more powerful and pervasive. Unless you’re a hermit living off the grid, search engines, financial businesses, advertisers, social media and government agencies know a lot about you.

Even if you’re not logged in, surfing the Web is not anonymous. For example, tracking cookies used by ad networks follow your browsing across web sites. Click on an ad on one web site and you may notice ads for the same product follow you as you surf to other sites. Depending on your browsing history, location and whatever else ad networks can infer about you, you may see different ads, offers, and prices.

Apps, whether on mobile devices or embedded in sites like Facebook, may be even more intrusive. Data about you may be revealed, not because of your actions but simply through your social network contacts.

Not all customers are aware or alarmed at how exposed they are – yet. However, a recent survey by Consumer’s Union indicated that a majority of those surveyed are “very concerned about” companies sharing and selling customer data. About 4 in 10 were concerned by personalized ads.

Some of those who are concerned, and they may be like your customers, haven’t “gotten over it.” They will want to something to reclaim their privacy. Firms such as Abine and Ghostery offer tools and services enabling them to do so. These tools reveal what information your organization’s Website is collecting about its visitors.

I’ve been testing these browser add-ons. They reveal a surprising amount of unobtrusive tracking activity. For example, visit CNBC.com and see that Abine’s PrivacySuite reveals 10 separate tracking firms.

What Happens When You Visit cnbc.com

Why give them an unpleasant surprise like this?

Instead of printing a bland “we don’t sell your information” privacy policy on your site, tell your visitors what data you don’t collect. Give them another reason to do business with you by giving them the luxury of privacy.