Every single contact your organisation has with its customers either cultivates or corrodes the relationship. That includes every letter sent, every ad you run, and every phone call made. This includes every employee contact, from the CEO to technicians, sales force, support staff, and maintenance crews.
Your business success is only as good as your worst employee. How well are you training your employees to cultivate your customers? Is anyone too high or too low to count?
Here are some of the ideas we used in a recent training program. Hope you find them useful
1. Make heroes of your employees - not scapegoats or villains.
You will get better work and responses from committed members of a team - not ostracised outsiders. One of the goals of really good customer service training is to instil in all your employees the sense that it is their business, too. Build a sense of ownership.
2. See yourself through your customers' eyes.
You think you are emitting a golden glow? Think again and check it out with your customers.
The best strategies are usually the simplest aren't they? Everyone makes a difference. No one is too important or unimportant to leave out of the positive performance loop.
Have a good day - and have a look at our last article on Brand Management in this edition
Brian Monger
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Australian Retail Icon Likely to Be Sold.
Law Change Could Boost Regional News
Mitsubishi Australia's $588m Loss
What Women Want In Advertising
Dell Error A Bargain For Buyers
Ad Revenue Tipped To Top $12bn
U.K Budget Cuts Sign Of Things To Come in Oz?
Gen iPod Make Retailers Work Harder
Bald, Fat And Ugly Is Good In A New Era Of Booze Ads
MAANZ Members and Subscribers offered Free New Service
Successful Brand or Also-Ran Commodity? Your Choice
How to Move away for Commodity Thinking
Step #1: Analysis - Conduct a comprehensive audit
Step #2: Find and define points of differentiation in your value offering
What can serve as the basis for differentiation?
What can be used as points of differentiation?
Step #4: Eliminate the reasons for your customers not to purchase from you
Step #5: Create a powerful image for your brand
Innovate - Look to Going Forward
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Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius."
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
"I have dreamed in my life, dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they have gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind."
- Emily Bronte
An idea is a point of departure and no more. As soon as you elaborate it, it becomes transformed by thought."
- Pablo Picasso
"
Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart."
- William Wordsworth
No grand idea was ever born in a conference, but a lot of foolish ideas have died there.
- F.Scott Fitzgerald
He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I have ever met.
- Abraham Lincoln
Heed the lion tamer school of management: Keep them well fed and never let them know that all you've got is a chair and a whip.
5th Annual Integrated Branding and New Product Innovation
15th & 16th September 2005
Park Hyatt Hotel, Melbourne
Marcus Evans
With many companies embarking on a more process-driven and methodological approach to NPD, success is increasingly flowing to those who integrate and align their customer research, branding and NPD launch marketing strategies
Member Discounts Apply – save twice your annual MAANZ membership subscription
More information here
Australian Advertising & Marketing Summit 2005
21st & 22nd September, Sydney Convention & Exhibition Centre
Association & Communication Events
Very well regarded annual event that attracts many industry people
Member Discounts Apply – save more than twice your annual MAANZ membership subscription
Branding From the Inside Out
Marriott Hotel Sydney
Main conference: 25-26 October 2005
Pre- & Post-conference workshops: 24 & 27 October 2005
IQPC
In an increasingly competitive business world, companies need to differentiate themselves within the market. Brand culture is shaping business success. A company’s external perception is increasingly coming from the messages and behaviour that employees portray internally. Engaging employees to act as ambassadors for the brand works to ensure increased productivity, sales and customer retention.
Member Discounts Apply - save more than twice your annual MAANZ membership subscription
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Australian Retail Icon Likely to Be Sold.
Reports indicated that the Australian retail sector is set for a shake-up with the expected sale of the Myer chain for up to $800 million. Coles Myer is also intending to sell the unprofitable Megamart chain. Australia's biggest retailer posted a 13.3 per cent rise in full-year sales to $36.3 billion. Profit for the full year is expected to meet the original forecast of between $670 million and $680 million.
The retailer plans to sell its nine Megamart stores, which posted full-year losses of $35 million, as a going concern and to focus its resources on the battle with Woolworths in the $70 billion grocery and liquor market. In the final quarter, the group's food and liquor sales grew three times faster than Myer's revenue.
Potential buyers for Myer include private equity firms such as Catalyst Investment Managers, CVC Asia Pacific and Newbridge Capital along with retail magnate and former Coles Myer chairman Solomon Lew.
"Myer operates on low profit margins and any buyer must be willing to pay a strong price and also know they can improve the margins."
A number of retail pundits suggested that the poor performance was not the result of poor management, but 'a reflection of the down turn in department stores internationally'. Results however speak for themselves - with Myer direct competitor David Jones performing much better ands has Megamart competitor Harvey Norman.
Myer has been struggling to compete against rival David Jones for a few years. Same-store sales were down 1.9 per cent in the fourth quarter and rose only 0.5 per cent for the full year.
In the year to July 31, 2004, Myer's earnings before interest and tax were $60.7 million against David Jones' return of $65 million. This was despite Myer having 70 per cent more stores.
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Law Change Could Boost Regional News
Changes to media ownership laws could help regional news services to restore local content, which has withered under the existing regime, according to a prominent regional press group. The Federal Government's proposal to scrap media ownership restrictions and introduce digital multi-channelling for the free-to-air TV networks would allow small publishers to expand into electronic media and strengthen local significance of news broadcasts.
Communications Minister Helen Coonan has met with some regional media groups to discuss the Federal Government's proposals. A spokeswoman for Senator Coonan said the government was finalising a framework for its policy on media and digital reform but it is not yet clear what changes are in store for regional media.
When the cross-media restrictions were introduced by the Labor party in 1987, newspaper companies were banned from owning a television or radio network in the same market.
Local news in rural areas dwindled when the Federal Government introduced aggregation in the late 1980s, introducing three commercial TV services to large regional areas. Regional newsrooms across the country shut down and there are concerns that local content levels remain inadequate.
The Age
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Google and Yahoo, two of the internet's most important pioneers, are to do battle over a deal that would see them embracing the world of "old" media for the first time.
The two US-listed companies, which between them had a market value of more than $US98 billion ($130 billion) at the close on Friday, are each understood to have approached Trader Classified Media, a Euronext-listed owner of 575 print titles, ranging from Canada's Auto Trader magazine to Buy & Sell Chinese in the US, about a possible corporate tie-up.
The interest by Google and Yahoo underlines the continuing land grab in the global classified advertising market and the desire of internet firms to create online communities in local markets throughout the world.
Sources say that other firms, possibly including the online auctioneer Ebay, have also made approaches.
A public row broke out last week between Google, the world's largest online search company, and Yahoo over which one boasts the greater search capability. The move fuelled speculation that the company was building a war chest for non-organic expansion.
"Google is always on the lookout for interesting opportunities that complement our business and mission," a spokeswoman for the firm said, without commenting specifically on Trader. Yahoo declined to comment.
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Ever wonder if that the person on the other end of the phone is really paying attention? The Jerk-O-Meter may hold the answer. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are developing software for mobile phones that would analyse speech patterns and voice tones to rate people - on a scale of 0 to 100 per cent - on how engaged they are in a conversation.
Anmol Madan, who led the project while he pursued a master's degree at MIT, sees the Jerk-O-Meter as a tool for improving relationships, not ending them. Or it might assist telephone sales and marketing efforts.
"Think of a situation where you could actually prevent an argument," he said. "Just having this device can make people more attentive because they know they're being monitored."
The program, which Mr Madan expects to finish in six months or so, uses mathematical algorithms to measure levels of stress and empathy in a person's voice. It also keeps track of how often someone is speaking.
"It's an academically proven thing," Mr Madan said of the mathematics behind the measurements. "There are a bunch of academic papers published about this."
Associated Press
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Email authentication standards aimed at reducing spam have been dogged by rivalry between vendors. But fresh hope surrounds an open technology encryption technique that has considerable support.
Yahoo! and Cisco Systems are the lead vendors behind a new email authentication specification that will be considered as a possible industry standard by the Internet Engineering Task Force at the end of this month.
Called Domain Keys Identified Email (DKIM), it represents a blend of previous attempts by the companies to tackle spam and its most virulent form, phishing, which uses spam to redirect online banking users to fake sites.
DKIM merges the Yahoo! DomainKeys system and Cisco's Identified Mail system. DomainKeys had made the most headway. Yahoo! says it receives 350 million emails signed with it every day.
DKIM puts electronic signatures on outgoing email. It uses cryptographic keys to give each email a unique signature that enables its source to be identified. Each email domain owner holds a public and private encryption key. The public key is held on record and the private key is stored on any DKIM-enabled mail server. When an email is sent, the signature is added to the email header. On arrival at its destination, a DKIM-enabled server reads the signature and verifies the source from the domain system.
The end result could be that only those emails with a verified source appear in your inbox. The rest would be held in quarantine.
Yahoo! and Cisco believe DKIM could cut out spoofing, whereby spammers use the header information to make it look like the email has come from your bank or other confidential source. The list of supporting firms includes Sendmail, SPG, Alt-N Technologies, AOL, Earthlink, IBM, Microsoft and Verisign.
Most industry watchers believe the specification has momentum so long as it remains open.
And if DKIM gathers momentum, the emphasis may shift from earlier approaches, most notably Microsoft's Sender ID, which is making its way through the standards process. It uses what is known as Sender Policy Framework record from each server - in essence, a list that matches mail servers with a unique IP address. Instead of signatures, it examines the domain from which the message originated and checks it has come from an authorised server. Sender ID was knocked back last year after Microsoft refused to allow it to be used in open-source applications.
The Guardian
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Transport giant Toll Holdings might make a $4 billion play for rival transport giant Patrick Corp. Transport group Toll Holdings is believed to be mulling over a $4 billion plus takeover bid for its main rival, Patrick Corp.
Any possible takeover of Patrick - with which it jointly owns rail group Pacific National - would result in Toll becoming Australia's dominant freight and logistics company on the nation's roads, rails and docks. But with Patrick saddled with an underperforming airline, it has been suggested Toll might want to find a buyer for Patrick's 62 per cent stake in Virgin Blue.
Both Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group and Singapore Airlines has been cited as a possible buyers.
Toll has considered possible acquisitions in Asia to lower the cost of transporting goods from Asia to its main retail customers in Australia. Having a strong presence on the nation's ports, a key element in the supply chain, would aid it in that task.
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission spokeswoman said: "The ACCC would certainly have a look at it."
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Mitsubishi Australia's $588m Loss
The Adelaide-based car maker Mitsubishi Australia has posted a massive $588 million loss.
In contrast, the other three local manufacturers have all posted healthy profits. Holden reported a $216.6 million profit for 2004 on the back of strong exports and Ford Australia made a $185.6 million profit for the year as the strong sales of the new Territory crossover kicked in.
Toyota, which is the best selling brand in Australia, posted a smaller profit of $76.6 million for the Japanese financial year ending in March.
The $588 million Mitsubishi loss is another blow for the battered Australian operation, which faced possible closure last year and has just shut its Lonsdale engine plant.
Mitsubishi says the latest loss will not affect the new car that will be launched at the Australian Motor Show in Sydney.
Mitsubishi says it lost $108 million from ongoing operations as sales of its ageing Magna large car and other models slumped as rumours swirled Mitsubishi Australia and even Mitsubishi Motors globally could shut down.
Mitsubishi Australia spent $95 million on redundancy packages to cut back its Adelaide workforce, including workers from the Lonsdale plant. The biggest chunk of the net loss was $388 million that has been attributed to asset write-offs including the closure of Lonsdale and investment in a long-wheelbase export model that was cancelled last year.
A global restructuring plan was announced early this year, with investment from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and other companies.
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Strong demand for slim-line televisions and portable music players has boosted annual profits at electronics retailer JB Hi-Fi, despite the slower retail sector.
After announcing the record result yesterday, JB Hi-Fi forecast that sales would increase by about a third to roughly $1 billion in 2005-06, based on the roll-out of new stores. The retailer announced a $20.7 million net profit for 2004-05, up from $13.8 million in the previous year.
Chief executive Richard Uechtritz said it was a good result, given the slow-down in the retail sector in the first half of 2005.
Mr Uechtritz said he was confident JB Hi-Fi would continue to grow strongly.
"With the maturing of the 19 new stores opened in the last two years, together with 12 stores to open before this Christmas, we expect to report a solid six months' sales performance to December 2005," he said.
The company was planning to open about 17 JB Hi-Fi stores in 2005-06, up from 11 opened last financial year. No new Clive Anthony stores were being planned for this financial year, he said.
AAP
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What Women Want In Advertising
Australian women are reportedly fed up with seeing stick-thin bodies in advertising and want to see models with natural looks and real curves, national survey results released this week reveal. They are rejecting images of airbrushed perfection, almost half those who took part in the poll told researchers that most beauty advertising made them feel bad about their own bodies.
A-list actresses and flawless supermodels also got the thumbs down from men aged between 18 and 35, with 82 per cent of blokes in the Newspoll survey saying they would also prefer to see real women in ads.
In response to the call for fuller figures and natural beauty, the Dove skin-care company which commissioned the research is launching a national competition to find curvaceous women aged 18 to 35 for a calendar planned for 2006.
The new pin-up girls will be photographed in white underwear emulating the company's controversial UK ad campaign which featured a line-up of women in their smalls.
When 535 women were polled in the Newspoll survey last month, 88 per cent agreed that advertisers should use curvier women rather than airbrushed models.
Forty-nine per cent of women said beauty ads made them feel bad about the way they looked and 87 per cent of people said they thought models were an unrealistic representation of women. Of the 272 men surveyed, more than eight in 10 said they thought women with more comely figures should be used in beauty ads.
Figures women like
*79 per cent want to see less airbrushing in photographs.
* 87 per cent want real-looking women in ads.
* 72 per cent want full-figured women in ads.
* 49 per cent of women said if they saw ads featuring a more full-figured women it would make them feel more accepting of their own body.
businessnetwork.theage.com.au/articles
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Dell Error A Bargain For Buyers
Dell Australia customers who successfully ordered and paid for hard drives mistakenly advertised at almost $A600 less than the actual price are legally entitled to receive them, the NSW consumer regulator said today.
A website blunder allowed hundreds of customers to order 250Gb hard drives from Dell for $A8.80, instead of the usual price of $A592, after the error was promoted on the Whirlpool and Overclockers Australia online forums.
Dell later admitted that the advertised price was a "clerical error", and was actually the shipping price for the hard drive.
Since the hard drive was removed for sale on Tuesday, Dell has been contacting customers to inform them of the error, giving them the option of refunding their money or paying the full price for the hard drives.
But the NSW Office of Fair Trading said today that Dell had a legal obligation to provide hard drives to credit card customers they had charged for the incorrectly priced hard drives.
"Our interpretation of the Sale of Goods Act is that the consumers who have had their credit card debited have entered into a contract with Dell," a spokesman said. "The transacting of the money constitutes a contract for sale."
The Office of Fair Trading spokesman said customers who had received transaction confirmation emails from Dell after paying by direct funds transfer may not legally be in as strong a position as those who paid by credit card.
"Under the Act, you've got your offer, your got your acceptance, you've got the consideration (of the transaction)," he said.
The conditions of sale section of Dell's website states the company is not liable for errors on its website, but the spokesman said this was not legally binding for affected customers.
"That's where the tribunal would have to rule as to what might carry more weight, but under the Sale of Goods Act they've completed a contract," he said.
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Native Australian animals, including kangaroos, wallabies and kookaburras, are being sold over the internet as pets in the US.
Conservation groups have labelled the trade in exotic animals as "devastating" and "inappropriate".
Some of the animals are bred in the US, while others are exported from the Philippines and New Zealand. Wallabies are offered for sale for as little as $1000, while red kangaroos start at around $2000. A Manhattan pet store has a kookaburra for sale for $2000.
Breeders and pet stores must be licensed in order to sell the animals but there are few checks on buyers. Confused and inconsistent legislation from state to state in the US means that buyers rarely come under scrutiny.
"In some states you can't own a crocodile, but you can own an elephant," said Chris Cutter, from the International Fund for Animal Welfare.
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Since Amazon owned up last year to a startling statistic in Wired that more than half of its online book sales came from outside its top 130,000 titles, thousands of digitally minded mavericks have been reassessing the potential of old and non-mainstream content.
Some of the conclusions so far are that the internet and new digital devices have kicked life back into old content - known otherwise as the back list, or the long tail - and that spells more trouble for the survival of mass markets and mass audiences.
New media whiz Richard Titus, a co-founder of digital content shop Razorfish and now president of Schematic, a Los Angeles business, predicts the rapid arrival of the "micro audience revolution" and the demise, but not death, of media and entertainment content for the masses.
Jana Bennett of the BBC agrees and says the Beeb is already tackling such issues, repackaging the BBC's back list, pre-releasing episodes online for new TV shows, allowing broadband internet downloads and internet TV simulcasts of existing free-to-air programs, and providing "hybrid" BBC content for mobile phones.
"We are not consuming mass market content like we used to," Titus told the annual Screen Producers Association conference on the Gold Coast on Monday. "The more we're allowed to have opportunities to consume content away from the mainstream, the more our taste develops in that direction. As an audience we are moving away from the centre."
Titus reasons the shift to micro audiences is down to software tools like the "recommend" features on sites such as Amazon, Netflix and music streaming service Rhapsody - all of them, he says, are seeing intensifying public demand for more diverse and older content, thanks to software systems which make broader suggestions to Amazon customers based on the purchasing habits of like-minded people.
"Some strange things are starting to happen," Titus says. "Fifty per cent of revenues for Amazon are from non-hit content. Specifically, for books, half the sales are from books no longer available in retail shops. That defies most of the laws of economics when I was at school. Only 10 of the top selling 100 albums of all time are from the past decade."
Titus says "hybrid content" is another area to watch, citing DJ Danger Mouse's giant-killing, illegal "mash-up" of The Beatles White Album and Jay Z's Black Album to create what Danger Mouse called The Grey Album.
"This record is the most downloaded in the world," says Titus. "You can't purchase this record anywhere. He's been sued in 148 territories and he lost every single case. Everyone knows you've got $250 million movies being created right now but what we don't talk about is the mutation happening in the content world."
Titus warns content boundaries will only c
ontinue to blur and the BBC's Bennett concurs: "We have to work out how we meet the new generation's expectations of such rapid access to content," she told SPAA delegates. "The next step for us is TV becoming more mobile, convenient and available on demand. There's a lot we don't know about what viewers really want. We have to be very humble and respectful in the way we find out in the experiments we are doing."
Ultimately, Titus says, businesses will be forced to wait longer for profits as micro audiences gain the ascendancy.
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Many organisations are eager to discover what drives 20-somethings. In your 20s? Chances are you, have a circle of friends that encompasses the globe and are more content spending your money on entertainment, clothing and your mobile phone bill than saving for a home deposit.
As one market researcher puts it, you're probably enjoying a decade of delay. We're told that, collectively, you are a difficult group to reach, inquisitive, well educated, and keen to buy into a lifestyle that reflects your identity - even if that means racking up credit-card debt.
However, you're cynical of big corporations and not afraid to ask the big questions, in both the retail space and workplace.
With increasing regularity, research studies are being released promising to debunk the mystery that is generation Y. But are young people, in the age of the internet, really so different from their forebears? Have we really become so difficult to understand?
The purchasing power of children extends 10 times beyond what they actually have, according to a World Advertising Research Centre study, published in the International Journal of Advertising and Marketing to Children (now Young Consumers) in 2002. Extrapolate that to people in their early 20s - when young people are likely to be working but living at home, further increasing their net worth - and that gives this group considerable influence.
Because of their understanding of media and advertising, generation Y are skilled at filtering information and selecting only what they need. "[They're] not afraid to ask questions: why am I here, what are you going to give me, how are you going to deliver what am I paying for? They are not as willing to spend their money on things they're unsure about, [so] the benefit of what they're getting has to be well defined."
Traditional advertising campaigns are not only ineffective at reaching the trend-setting generation Y, researchers claim, but they also fail to cater for the sub-sectors or "tribes" within the group.
The Spin Sweeney Report identifies six "tribes" of young Australians - each with their own traits and idiosyncrasies.
"Life Junkies" are defined as those who pack as much into their lives as possible, while "Burbanites" have traditional values and place family relationships ahead of material gain.
"Drifters" are detached and introverted and have relationship issues with their parents or partner, while those known as "Glitterazzi" live for now with next to no social conscience. "Life mappers" (focused on career and material accumulation) and "renegades" (who live life on the edge and reject responsibility) are the remaining groups.
http://www.businessnetwork.theage.com.au
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An Indian firm has launched a vitamin-rich beer which it says protects the body from the harmful effects of alcohol, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.
Ladybird Bio Beer contains aloe-vera extracts as well as the normal ingredients of barley malt and hops, said its inventor B. Srinivas Amarnath.
He said research showed that it did not harm the liver or cause ulcers and gastric illness.
"The results of human clinical trials have shown aloe vera increases the bioavailability of vitamins like B1, B6, B12, C and E," said C.B. Jagannatha Rao, senior vice president of Khoday group of industries.
The beer was launched in the southern Indian state of Kerala today by Khoday in partnership with Amarnath's firm, Advaith Biotech.
Agence France-Presse
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In the past three years, Clyde McConaghy, director of Beonic, has had executives leaning back slack-jawed over the poor sales conversion rates and dud marketing campaigns as revealed by Traffic Light, his product for analysing people traffic flow.
Now the company has launched its latest addition to its product suite, QEW - the Queue Early Warning queue-busting and rostering productivity system - launched last month. At the test site of one of Australia's largest retailers, QEW revealed that staff were incorrectly rostered more than 50 per cent of the time.
Mr McConaghy clarifies the repercussions: "The average staff cost for any supermarket or department store against their annual revenue is probably between 30-40 per cent of their total operating budget . . . $25 million a year is probably the average turnover for a supermarket . . . 40 per cent of that is $10 million worth of staff costs and if half of that relates to occupying the checkouts, that's $5 million.
With patents secured for Australia, the US, Russia and Brazil, and pending in Europe, Beonic may need to do a little queue busting of its own.
Ikea Richmond, which began using Traffic Insight 18 months ago, predicts queue times up to 90 minutes in advance and can allocate staff accordingly. Jeans West, with the system in 200 stores, uses it to monitor management performance. "
The technology surpasses the traditional people-counting method of an infra-red beam that inaccurately records as one body a clump of shoppers entering a store.
Instead, Traffic Insight uses overhead-mounted military sensors and thermal technology that identifies individuals as "blobs", which avoids the added complication of privacy issues.
businessnetwork.theage.com.au/articles
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Ad Revenue Tipped To Top $12bn
The Australian advertising market is forecast to grow by 5.9 per cent to $12.5 billion in the next four years, a fraction ahead of the global ad market but nearly half that of last year's blockbuster growth, according to the latest forecast by PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Subscription television, the internet and emerging media such as interactive games will emerge as the winners.
Free-to-air television's share of the advertising market will drop from its current 33 per cent down to 32.2 per cent by 2009 although its revenue will increase by 5.1 per cent from $3.3 to $4 billion.
Likewise newspapers' share will drop from 40 to 36 per cent in the next four years while its revenue will increase by 4.4 per cent to $4.5 billion, according to PWC's Media and Entertainment Outlook 2005-2009.
The report suggests most advertisers still thought FTA television the most "efficient" way of getting the message across to a broad audience and that will remain unchanged in the years to come. However, in the next four years new media would boom, with the internet and subscription television increasing their advertising revenue by 20.6 per cent and 15.6 per cent respectively as the media landscape continues to fragment into niche audiences, said the authors.
Advertisers would continue to migrate to the internet as broadband pushes the numbers of Australians logged on ever higher and advertisers are able to replicate the quality of television in their ads online.
businessnetwork.theage.com.au/articles
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U.K Budget Cuts Sign Of Things To Come in Oz?
Marketing directors in Britain have cut their budgets for the first time in nearly two years, as fears of a recession in consumer spending gather pace, leaving the rest of the year looking gloomy, according to an industry survey.
The latest Bellwether report from the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising says that on average marketing directors cut their budgets in the second quarter, April to June, after boosting them for six consecutive quarters.
The report indicated that a U-turn had occurred after marketing directors increased budgets at the start of this year, building on strong growth from a bumper 2004.
"The buoyant confidence seen at the start of the year has been eroded over the course of the first half of the year, with the second-quarter survey signalling the first downward revision to current marketing budgets since the autumn 2003 survey," the report says.
Traditional main media advertising, including television and print media, was hardest hit, sustaining the third cut in a row and the biggest cut in two years as marketing directors diverted funds to cheaper internet and direct marketing.
Spending on the internet, which accounts for 4 per cent of marketing spend in Britain, rose sharply, but less than it had the previous two quarters, says the report, which is regarded as a reliable forecasting tool for the industry.
Budgets for direct marketing ended an unbroken rise for the past seven quarters to remain unchanged.
The Guardian
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Gen iPod Make Retailers Work Harder
Retailers are staring into the financial abyss because of a failure to keep pace with the arrival of the iPod generation and its changing spending patterns. As a result discount sales have dominated the retailing landscape in recent months. These have boosted sales in the short term, but the end result is actually a decline in margins and a devaluing of brands.
At the National Retail Forum, retailers were warned to take much closer heed of the changing attitudes and trends of the iPod generation - people born after 1980.
According to futurist and social commentator Richard Neville shoppers no longer want to be sold an item and instead want an experience.
"The iPod generation hold the key to the future. They have both good and bad news for retailers. Almost 10 per cent of them are compulsive spenders but they have a much greater understanding of how retailers are trying to influence their purchasing power and will make them work harder for a sale."
The long-held theory that certain brands are invulnerable has also been challenged by this new generation of shoppers.
They are giving the traditional baby-boomer brands, such as Nike and Levis, the cold shoulder and instead get their attitudes and information online.
ACNielsen research has also found that the majority of trips to the shopping centre are undertaking for five goods or less.
This new generation of shopper is made up of savvy consumers and the internet has given them access to even the most obscure trends as they emerge. These young consumers switch brands in an attempt to stay ahead of the style curve and they assume the worst about companies trying to coax them into spending their money.
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Bald, Fat And Ugly Is Good In A New Era Of Booze Ads
Drinks companies have been ordered to hire uglier men for their advertisements in Britain, to avoid making a link between women's boozing and sexual success.
Men in alcohol ads that target women should be "balding" and "paunchy" rather than "attractive and desirable", says guidance issued by the Advertising Standards Authority.
The authority objected to a poster that showed three women "hooking" a slim, young man in a parody of a fairground game. The authority instructed the firm: "We would advise that the man in the picture should be unattractive - ie overweight, middle-aged (middle aged is unattractive???), balding etc ... The ad is in danger of implying that the drink may bring sexual/social success, because the man in question looks quite attractive and desirable to the girls."
Press Association
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Every great product has a secret formula. Coca-Cola's legendary recipe includes "essence of coca leaf" - stripped of cocaine, of course. KFC mixes different parts of its 11 herbs and spices at three separate facilities to safeguard the Colonel's secret blend. And McDonald's hunted down its original special-sauce mix for Big Macs last June as part of its turnaround effort.
Jones Soda Co founder and chief Peter van Stolk has his own secret ingredient.
It has created a buzz, produced 30 per cent yearly revenue growth in an underperforming beverage market, drawn distribution partners such as Starbucks and Target, and brought in $US30 million in annual revenue. The ingredient: you.
Virtually everything about a Jones Soda, from labels to flavours, comes from customers. The world wasn't necessarily clamouring for another soda, even if it tastes like blue bubble gum. So how do you sell an unnecessary product? You hand the product over to customers.
It all started with the website Jones Soda launched in 1997. Hundreds of comments poured in from customers, and van Stolk quickly took up their suggestions and online votes for offbeat flavours (including chocolate fudge and green apple), wacky names (Whoop Ass and MF Grape), and neon colours.
"The more deviant you can be, the better," says Chris King. "Kids love to see you get kicked out of places.
If you're able to listen to customers from their perspective not everything they say will make sense. Not everything they do will be right. But you'll know more about what you have to do because of it.
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A $ microchip contract signed by Sharp and the Department of Foreign Affairs has opened the door for delivery of e-passports to Australian travellers from October 23.
The move will make Australia one of the first countries to issue biometric passports en masse.
The five-year agreement between Sharp and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) came into effect 8 August.
Large shipments of chips have already been delivered to passport contractor Note Printing Australia, assistant secretary of the Department's passport branch Bob Nash said.
First steps towards mass production of the so called e-passports began in July, Mr Nash said.
A trial of 2500 passports issued to Qantas flight crews has been underway since last December.
Information stored on the e-passport's chip would be little different to what was already printed on existing passports, he said. "There is no plan at this stage to store any additional information," he said.
Apart from a $19 price increase, the only difference for travellers applying for a passport would be the requirement to supply a good quality photograph that could provide a digital scan good enough to be analysed by facial recognition systems, he said.
A Customs spokesman said the second-generation Smart Gate facial recognition kiosks would be rolled out as e-passport user numbers increased, with early 2007 planned as the date for widespread installation.
Around 8.5 million Australians held passports, with DFAT issued about 1 million per year, Mr Nash said. It would take about 10 years before e-passports completely replaced the current paper documents, he said.
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According to its promoters over two million professionals use LinkedIn to find the people, jobs, and services they need through the people they already know and trust.
LinkedIn is a networking tool that helps you discover inside connections to recommended job candidates, industry experts and business partners.
Through LinkedIn, you can accelerate your business effectiveness and career success by leveraging the network you already have. LinkedIn makes it easy to receive and seek out opportunities through your extended network while protecting your privacy, your inbox and your existing professional relationships.
Professionals also get access to LinkedIn Jobs, a relationship-powered job network that allows professionals to search job listings and discover inside connections to hiring managers, HR professionals and recruiters. Employers and recruiters can post positions on LinkedIn Jobs and get great candidates recommended by their trusted contacts.
Access to LinkedIn is FREE, and is available to MAANZ members and subscribers only. Whether you use LinkedIn already or you’re new to LinkedIn, you might like to the LinkedIn MAANZ Group.
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More than ever, Brands purport to interact through our social and emotional sensibilities to make personal connections and build trust with us. Whatever the Brand sector, our senses will either respond positively, negatively or not at all, impacting our level of interaction and desire for the Brand offering.
Today, an entire industry has been built around tactile and visual processes involved in understanding and building Brands, from graphics to the semiotics of names, from packaging to colour.
There is no shortage of graphic and visual design firms specialising in these practices, as well as agencies and consultancies handling tactical execution of promotions and global research companies giving feedback on consumer response levels. With the executions of all these regimens subjected to critical company policy and benchmarking, it is no surprise that these organisations and their gurus have become critical components to a Brand's essence, ensuring that their marketing strategy delivers the level of trust and focus that consumers expect and require.
Brands In Relation To Music
Brands invest a great deal of energy and money on comprehensive research to fortify their evolving trust -relationship with consumers. They do this because they understand that if this trust is violated or misused, the customer/client is gone.
Good marketers know that the key to maximising the effectiveness of any campaign is to identify the primary targets and speak to them in a clear and original way. When Brands want to use music in commercial enterprise and really engage with its target market, context, motives and influencers that support their own profile, values and personal relationship with their consumers, are important factors to established prior to investing in elaborate mechanics, artist endorsements, sponsorships or even music for advertising commercials..
On closer analysis of many Brands' music usages, it would seem that their music strategies are almost as varied as the genres of music selected, with the focus on the mechanics and a back rationalisation for the final choice of track(s). The reality is that the delivery platform itself - the format of the end mechanic- often decides the music content, because it is held hostage to budgets and other parties' agendas, not to a set of music criteria attributable to the Brand. If we can affirm that that music is an integral part of a Brand's essence then we can affirm to construct a strategy by which these are realised.
If by definition, communities are made up of people who share values and if music embodies values, then music communities are made up of people who share values. When a Brand uses a style of music because it wants to appear cool to a specific target market, but does nothing else to put itself in the value set of that music, the result could be a community that will question not only the intention, but also a Brand's integrity! An effective alternative would be to use music that enhances the fit between the values of the music, the Brand and the consumer’s values.
|If we are to maximise the role of music in our branding we must fully acknowledge and understand the power of music and how it’s role is significant in our marketing. It is tempting when time is short to rely on the creative choices of a colleague simply because they love music and have a great CD (iPod) collection. But is this really good enough and would we take this approach in developing and protecting other areas of the brand collateral?
If Brands are really to get to grips with music branding, the content - the music itself and the carrier - which is everything from sponsored download to TV commercials, embedded CDS, audio logos, games, ring-tones, call holdings, etc, must be separated.
The essence of the music itself, its integrity, what it says and what it means must become a priority.
Brands have to be able to measure the role of the music, the influence of cultural differences both on the commercial front and consumer facing, demographics, the impact of music activity and how all of these affect their ROI..
To get a great and sustained performance, Brands will need to make an initial investment to really understand their 'style, audience and venue'. They will need to find a conductor that can identify all the players, knows the total music score, not just one of the parts. If it is hard enough obtain answers to the questions you are currently asking, and we are to really integrate music usages into the Brand's collateral, it is really important to know and understand what questions we should be asking about music. Without this filter, Brands will continue to get hazy research that simply addresses music recall and likes or dislikes. We need not only to be looking at what music people are listening or even to where, but how and why.
Those Brands that really invest the time to understand all aspects of the "sound of their brand" and the whole language of music, will communicate in an unmistakable voice with their audience. Using Music will become more than a series of disparate tactical music executions. Awareness and impact will increase because market gaps will be strategic not opportunist knee jerks to competitors' activity or an Artist's schedule, enabling procedures and practices for purchase decisions to be made with a sense of clarity that will improve cost benefits. Brands will be able to develop music policies that give defined shapes for all who want to use music to add a dimension to the branding. By identifying their needs, Brands will find themselves with music communications that congruently and consistently reflect the Brand’s core values endorsing their Brand differentiation.
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A commodity is by simple definition an undifferentiated value offer. That is buyers cannot discern any point of differentiation between it and other offerings - except usually on the basis of price. This results in commodities being sold purely on the basis of low price and low margin.
Another definition of a Commodity is a product with a poor marketer. No value offer needs to be a commodity. There is no value to anyone in the market to market a commodity.
The following are notes from a forthcoming training package developed by the Marketing Association on the Elements of Successful- Product and Brand Management
Most organisations are now realising the importance of creating strong brands that provide real customer benefits so they can avoid the vicious practice of continual price slashing and cost reduction due to the downward pressure that exists in commodity markets. They're discovering that it is desirable to compete on more than just price and volume.
Organisations on a global scale now realise that one of the most promising paths to long term longevity, a prosperous organisation, and healthy profits is to create and manage strong brands for their products and services.
Commodity products are largely undifferentiated products that offer little or no perceived differences between competitive offerings. These are lowly differentiated value offers with high levels of substitutability and straightforward price discovery.
With little-to-no perceived difference, consumers shop for commodities primarily on a low price basis.
Producers of commodities are driven to compete on low price and high volume. In general, the product life cycle is at the point where significant customer education and assistance is not required, customers have widely adopted the product, the market is mature enough to have attracted multiple competitors, and the market expands while prices decline as consumers demand price concessions.
How to Move away for Commodity Thinking
First off you need to identify or devise ways to create unique attributes and unique promises of value offered solely by your organisation and your product offering(s). This distinction as to why your brand is unique in your category is usually referred to as your unique selling proposition.
Your unique selling proposition (USP) tells your target segment the main and most important reasons they should choose your brand over competing offerings. Your USP is a claim of a unique set of benefits not found anywhere else. Once you have defined your most important unique selling proposition, then you begin to build your brand based on it.
Let's take a closer look at steps to effective value offer branding
Step #1: Analysis - Conduct a comprehensive audit
Launch a marketing audit (the steps in undertaking a marketing are also part of a MAANZ training Package in Marketing Planning and Strategy) to understand how your current buyers perceive you and your value offer. Conduct a brand audit with primary and secondary research to understand why your prospective customers choose your value offer or your competitors Value offer. Commodity marketers are often very surprised to learn from customers that price is rarely not the most important factor - let alone the only factor.
Study your competition and examine market trends. How are your competitors products positioned? What are their brands' or products' strengths and vulnerabilities? How does your position compare with competitive positions and how will those positions be affected by market trends?
Conduct an internal audit in additional to your external audit. Find out what all stakeholders think and feel about your Value offer. What do they value in your offer? What guides their perceptions and behaviour? What brand promises do your employees and distributor employees feel they must deliver on? Are their goals in line with the brands goals (as well as your organisation and your stated mission?)
Also conduct a marketing communication audit to uncover the real messages you are sending to your internal and external stakeholders. Are your marketing communications saying the right things in the right ways consistently over time and across all media? Are your internal communications to employees and shareholders doing the same?
If you discover some inconsistencies and liabilities during this phase, don't fret - fix. Remember, the most important goal to accomplish at this point is to emerge with an accurate picture of the current state of affairs, be it pleasant or unpleasant. Only once you have accurately diagnosed any illness can you begin to prescribe the cure. Remain objective and seek to define things how they really are.
Step #2: Find and define points of differentiation in your value offering
Once you have conducted your audit and surveyed the competitive landscape, then you can make a list of all the ways you are or can be unique.
Provide other reasons than rock-bottom prices as to why you are (or can be) different and why people should buy your value offers. Even in markets where buyers say, "all of the products from us and our competitors are the same," we can find differentiation/branding opportunities.
Sometimes obvious differences will be defined in your product offering by this point. Other times not.
What can serve as the basis for differentiation?
Uncover hidden differentiators: Many things can serve as the basis of differentiation for and subsequent branding of your offer. These attributes can apply to your core offer, your satellite or add on services, your organisation, the support you offer, or other intangible buyer benefits that are (or can be made to be) unique to your total product offering.
What makes your organisation unique and preferred in the mind of the prospect might be something in the product, something in the processes, or maybe some corporate belief or philosophy.
What can be used as points of differentiation?
Look for ways to create new product features that certain customers will value. Innovate and redesign your offer to include new and unique features.
· + 1 features
"+ 1 features" are small, incremental differentiating features in products. By adding incremental features into your value offering, your brand may offer value not found anywhere else. Be wary, however, once this practice is common in any competitive environment there will come constant pressure to add + 1features while continuing to cut price. This can be a good strategy in high volume markets that are expected to last indefinitely.
This + 1 strategy is often found in high technology markets where manufacturers will add + 1 features such as additional software pre-installed on computers, new ring tones for mobile phones, digital cameras in phone models, or Internet service providers who offer spam blocking software or personal Website storage space as part of the purchase in addition to their core product offering.
Bundling several options, features, or benefits into your package can significantly increase the value of your offering. You may be able to find ways to offer several features, services, or options and package them together to create a "bundled", value-added package. I've seen organisations offer extended warranties, a supply of relatively inexpensive consumable items as "starter kits," and enhanced support packages in order to offer greater desired value to their customers and reduce the overall cost of ownership.
Does everyone in your industry offer net 30 terms and 30-day guarantees? If so, then by offering options or even more generous terms and longer guarantees you might be able to increase the value you offer without investing significant capital toward new product features and value-added "giveaways."
Increase the value you offer your customers will increase by improving reliability. Increase Quality (remember here that quality is defined by customers not engineers and production departments) - seek to reduce your defect and return rates.
You will find different levels of risk-aversion amongst different customers. Offer guarantees or other means to reduce risk and dissonance to make it easier for prospective buyers to trust you such as money-back guarantees. Other ways to reduce or reverse risk are to offer free trials, lengthen money-back guarantees, promise free repairs or replacements, offer "try before you buy" evaluations, 100-percent-satisfaction-no-questions-asked return policies, free financing, or delaying your invoicing.
Segment your markets (potential customers) to gain better insights that you can use to build better value offers. Create different levels of value offer to different customers such as a Bronze, Silver, and Gold levels of support packages available. This will help meet the needs of those who value additional assurance while proving a low cost option for those most driven by price alone.
Actually delivering the value promised by your brand is what you are basically in business to do.
Actually getting your product to your customer in the most effective and efficient way is also basic. Find a way to get your value offer to your customers better or faster. Often by increasing your distribution network you can offer faster response and reduced delivery time. Overnight shipping, staggered shipments to meet your customers' inventory needs, more secure shipping, or available backup delivery methods might be things you can explore. Sometimes just being the person in your industry with the highest on-time delivery or fulfilment rate can make the difference.
Often innovative or eye-catching design or packaging of a product can serve as a strong differentiator and help become a part of the brand's essence. Innovative, unique, and appealing packaging can alone be the only point of differentiation you need in order to start building a powerful brand.
Brand communication is an essential part of building a strong brand for your offer. Commodity-prone products require unusually clear communication of the value offered in both economic and emotional terms.
Highly targeted and sharply focused communication must take place within the framework of an integrated marketing communications plan that includes one or more parts of the marketing communications mix: personal selling, sales promotion, direct marketing, advertising, and publicity. The brand value must be communicated clearly and consistently over time and across all chosen communications channels.
Communicating your brand promise clearly, concisely, and consistently across all marketing communications channels will enable you to build strategic awareness. Strategic awareness occurs not only when your customers recognise your brand, but also when they understand the distinctive qualities that make it better than the competition. Strategic awareness occurs when you have positioned and differentiated your brand in the mind of your market.
Only when strategic awareness is established can you hope to create brand preference within your market. Once brand preference is created, then you can increase your price.
Define and communicate the value in your offer (the core plus peripherals such as delivery, installation and training, and technical support etc.). What can you promise that none of your competitors are willing to put in writing? That, in and of itself, might make you unique in your industry… just be sure you deliver on your promises.
Ask your customers what they wish you could offer or what they would like to see and often they will tell you exactly what you can do that cannot be found anywhere else. Customers have a way of knowing what unmet needs there are and they are usually happy when a organisation comes along and asks them how to serve them better. They are comparing you against your competition constantly and will often have insights and data that you don't.
Have a clear understanding of what your customers want and need before tying your brand to what you perceive to be a customer value. Don't try to guess what your customers might respond to. Ask them! More often than not they'll tell you. Just make sure you do it in a way that is valid and statistically significant through research. You might just uncover a benefit that you never would have thought about on your own.
Intel looked to examples of component (or ingredient) branding in other markets such as NutraSweet, Teflon and Dolby for its inspiration.
Perhaps even more important than defining points of differentiation for your brand is to make sure these points offer customer value for which your targeted customers recognise the value offered. Differentiators are nice, but not worth anything to you if your buyers don't recognise them or see any value associated with them.
Why should somebody choose you over your competition other than price? The answer to this question might help you choose the best position upon which to build a strong brand.
There may be many possible positions for your brand but it is important to choose the one that is most defendable, least likely to be copied, most compelling, and most unique. Do not try to incorporate so many points of differentiation in your positioning that your customers become confused or overwhelmed. This might cause competition with yourself, cannibalise sales of your higher profit offering(s), and be very difficult to manage.
Find a way to offer something unique that cannot be found anywhere else. Your most important, unique, and least easy-to-copy point of differentiation should be the unique selling proposition for your brand and serve as the basis for your branding efforts.
Step #4: Eliminate the reasons for your customers not to purchase from you
Often organisations can unwittingly offer certain things or behave in certain ways that turn potential customers away. Be honest and seek to uncover and understand the reasons customers choose to not do business with you.
In the computer and software industry we often see customer resistance to purchasing from vendors who "lock in" customers through proprietary systems and software. Other reasons people will not buy from you might be confusing billing and/or payment terms, poor post-sale support, unfriendly sales staff, or simply your location. Identify the reasons people avoid choosing you and eliminate these reasons if you can.
Step #5: Create a powerful image for your brand
Create and build a powerful image for your brand. Once you make your value offer distinctive, build your new image through a combination of words, imagery and other devices that appeal to human logic and emotion.