BrandDigest

Parkinson's Law (1955 - still fresh as a daisy)

Parkinson's Law is a purely scientific discovery, inapplicable except in theory to the politics of the day. It is not the business of the botanist to eradicate the weeds. Enough for him if he can tell us just how fast they grow.

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From The Economist print edition

(...)
Omitting technicalities (which are numerous) we may distinguish, at the outset, two motive forces. They can be represented for the present purpose by two almost axiomatic statements, thus:

Factor I.—An official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals; and

Factor II.—Officials make work for each other.

We must now examine these motive forces in turn.

The Law of Multiplication of Subordinates

To comprehend Factor I, we must picture a civil servant called A who finds himself overworked. Whether this overwork is real or imaginary is immaterial; but we should observe, in passing, that A's sensation (or illusion) might easily result from his own decreasing energy—a normal symptom of middle-age. For this real or imagined overwork there are, broadly speaking, three possible remedies

(1) He may resign.

(2) He may ask to halve the work with a colleague called B.

(3) He may demand the assistance of two subordinates, to be called C and D.

There is probably no instance in civil service history of A choosing any but the third alternative. By resignation he would lose his pension rights. By having B appointed, on his own level in the hierarchy, he would merely bring in a rival for promotion to W's vacancy when W (at long last) retires. So A would rather have C and D, junior men, below him. They will add to his consequence; and, by dividing the work into two categories, as between C and D, he will have the merit of being the only man who comprehends them both.

It is essential to realise, at this point, that C and D are, as it were, inseparable. To appoint C alone would have been impossible. Why? Because C, if by himself, would divide the work with A and so assume almost the equal status which has been refused in the first instance to B; a status the more emphasised if C is A's only possible successor. Subordinates must thus number two or more, each being kept in order by fear of the other's promotion. When C complains in turn of being overworked (as he certainly will) A will, with the concurrence of C, advise the appointment of two assistants to help C. But he can then avert internal friction only by advising the appointment of two more assistants to help D, whose position is much the same. With this recruitment of E, F, G and H, the promotion of A is now practically certain.

The Law of Multiplication of Work

Seven officials are now doing what one did before. This is where Factor II comes into operation. For these seven make so much work for each other that all are fully occupied and A is actually working harder than ever. An incoming document may well come before each of them in turn. Official E decides that it falls within the province of F, who places a draft reply before C, who amends it drastically before consulting D, who asks G to deal with it. But G goes on leave at this point, handing the file over to H, who drafts a minute, which is signed by D and returned to C, who revises his draft accordingly and lays the new version before A.

What does A do? He would have every excuse for signing the thing unread, for he has many other matters on his mind. Knowing now that he is to succeed W next year, he has to decide whether C or D should succeed to his own office. He had to agree to G going on leave, although not yet strictly entitled to it. He is worried whether H should not have gone instead, for reasons of health. He has looked pale recently—partly but not solely because of his domestic troubles. Then there is the business of F's special increment of salary for the period of the conference, and E's application for transfer to the Ministry of Pensions. A has heard that D is in love with a married typist and that G and F are no longer on speaking terms—no one seems to know why. So A might be tempted to sign C's draft and have done with it.

But A is a conscientious man. Beset as he is with problems created by his colleagues for themselves and for him—created by the mere fact of these officials' existence—he is not the man to shirk his duty. He reads through the draft with care, deletes the fussy paragraphs added by C and H and restores the thing back to the form preferred in the first instance by the able (if quarrelsome) F. He corrects the English—none of these young men can write grammatically—and finally produces the same reply he would have written if officials C to H had never been born. Far more people have taken far longer to produce the same result. No one has been idle. All have done their best. And it is late in the evening before A finally quits his office and begins the return journey to Ealing. The last of the office lights are being turned off in the gathering dusk which marks the end of another day's administrative toil. Among the last to leave, A reflects, with bowed shoulders and a wry smile, that late hours, like grey hairs, are among the penalties of success.

(...)

Vast masses of statistical evidence have been collected and it is from a study of this data that Parkinson's Law has been deduced.

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This is only an excerpt. Read full article here.

Published in Economist.com July 29th, 2009 - originally printed in The Economist Nov. 19th, 1955

Ten reasons you should care about the shopper

Retailers are battling for shoppers and seek manufacturer partners who bring insights about how people shop that translate into ideas that increase traffic, category and aisle sales.  Manufacturers must master shopper insights or they will not be chosen as “category captain”.

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By Joel Rubinson

For consumer insights teams, shopper insights research feels foreign; it requires a different set of approaches and a totally different mindset.  Shopping is about action more than preferences.  It’s about the shopping trip rather than a single product category. Yet, shopper insights are critical for making shopper marketing work for your brand, enhancing your relationships with retail customers, and if you’re an agency, having a complete offer.

Here is my list of 10 reasons you should care about the shopper.  Please add your own reasons to the list.

1:  50% or more of product and brand decisions are made in-store; numerous shopper insights studies agree (e.g. POPAI, Ogilvy Action). When shopping for a new car or consumer electronics, people consider multiple brands. Why isn’t brand equity enough? Why are people still deciding in-store?  What is influencing them? You need to learn how to win more than your fair share of purchases that are up for grabs.

2: Shopper marketing offers immediacy and reach and is projected to be the fastest growing part of the media mix over the next few years.  Wal-Mart offers a bigger audience than any prime time show. Target is up there too. In the era of fragmented media audiences, delivering a huge audience, right at the “first moment of truth” should not be ignored.

3: What people care about as shoppers is different.  As shoppers, people are in action mode.  They are making many decisions during the course of a shopping trip, filling their cart with diverse products, taking only seconds per decision.  When people are shopping they are motivated by different messages than they are as consumers (more price-related and solution-based).  Shoppers want a highly shoppable environment which is tricky because 99% of the products in the store are irrelevant to the shopper’s mission on a given trip.

4: Shopper marketing gives you unique opportunities to be relevant. Retailers have different store formats that are geared to serve their local clientele. Some formats match the local ethnic concentration. How will your brand presentation be customized in each store format?

5: Product marketers are getting into retail. Apple, Coach, Estee Lauder have all been successful.  Procter just bought specialty retailer chains and a number of marketers have been using pop-up stores. If you do not study shoppers, you will not see this opportunity.

6: Shopper insights are currency for building strong customer relationships.  Retailers are battling for shoppers and seek manufacturer partners who bring insights about how people shop that translate into ideas that increase traffic, category and aisle sales.  Manufacturers must master shopper insights or they will not be chosen as “category captain”.  That means that a competitor of yours will work directly with the merchant to determine your place on the shelf…if any.

7: Advertising agencies must master shopper marketing to have a complete offering: those who do not offer shopper marketing services will be viewed as incomplete in their messaging and media planning approaches.

8: Shopper insights and consumer insights are different things. Consumer insights study the relationship and expectations a person has regarding brand alternatives.  Shopper insights study how people put preferences into action in the context of replenishment needs, search for solutions, promotional offers, and the retail environment.  The research tools, questionnaires, and mental models are all different.

9:  Studying the path to purchase offers a new approach to media planning.  Some product categories are characterized by brands being decided on before entering the store (e.g. cigarettes, soft drinks, iPhones).  For them, shopper marketing is less important and off-premise is more important.  Other brands are chosen in-store mostly (store brands, lower priced alternatives, impulse items) and shopper marketing is a must.

10: The recession is leading to big changes that are SHOPPER-centered. For example, how people plan their shopping trips, their increasing purchase of store brands, retailers de-SKUing all reflect economic pressures.

If you’re still not sure how important shopper insights are, consider what was just reported in Ad Age:  “Walmart has launched an aggressive push to have marketers divert their consumer media and marketing budgets into the giant retailer’s growing ad budget and in-store marketing programs, using a simultaneous push to clear underperforming brands off its shelves as extra leverage.”

Shopper marketing is real and the need for shopper insights is acute.

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Originally posted in Joel Robinson's blog, July 21th. 2009. Read here.

Joel Rubinson is Chief Research Officer at The ARF (Advertising Research Foundation), where he directs the organization’s research priorities and initiatives on behalf of more than 400 advertisers, advertising agencies, associations, research firms, and media companies.

How to Grow Your Business When Everything Else Is Shrinking

Today, brands are built by communities of like-minded individuals who share their brand experiences with others and those with whom they have some connection. Pinpoint those communities -- or markets of business opportunity -- and find creative ways to get them to help recruit your next customers.

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Let the '4% Factor' Help You Tap Into the Right Data to Create New Opportunities

by Scott Morgan

What marketers are starting to discover is that the target universe is smaller than originally thought. So small, in fact, that 4% of a brand's consumer base is driving most of the business. This deeper dive into audience targeting is what I call the 4% Factor. Simply stated, it is another level down from the typical 80/20 rule of prioritizing (80% drive, 20% of the business) because, well, everything is getting smaller.

Four is the significant digit because it is this relative number that seems to rise to the surface every time a study is conducted or a program is measured, proving that those impacting your brand (typically characterized as volume, margin or advocacy) tend to be a relatively small number of the whole customer universe.

Examples as to the success of using this strategy are becoming more prevalent. For instance, Catalina Marketing, with its Checkout Coupon system, recently identified that 1% of Iams' pet-food buyers accounted for 80% of the annual volume of the brand's sales via the supermarket channel. And other marketers have experienced similar results, such as LaRosa's Pizzeria chain, in which a small percentage of pizza consumers account for significant portions of various menu items (for example, 4% purchase 65% of calzones).

So what do you do about it? Embrace it. Start thinking about ways to employ addressable media, digital media, one-to-one marketing and, of course, social media to reach that core 4% of consumers who have the greatest propensity to identify and recruit others to your brand franchise.

The 4% Factor goes well beyond a loyalty strategy -- it is a penetration strategy -- designed as a competitive approach to protecting and growing your business. Simply put, start smaller to get bigger faster. It also tends to be a much more sustainable approach than traditional strategies of casting a really wide net, going through trial and then hoping to retain a percentage of new customers.

If you want to grow a business or product line that can react and adapt more quickly to future opportunities, consider these specific steps:

• Find: Discover and define your main source of volume, margin or advocacy by tapping into existing customer data. Combine that with outside resources such as enhancement data (information that can be appended to consumer profiles to shed additional insight about their demographics, psychographics and potential purchase behaviors) and details gathered via social media and other research tools.

• Filter: Sift through the data and intelligence by segmenting, profiling and using predictive modeling to develop a pool of target segments and markets.

• Magnify: Examine, select and prioritize the top three to five target groups. Test and refine through methods, such those found at iModerate, a company with research technologies that allow moderators of online conversations to dig deeper and go beyond the standard questions to gather detailed insights, as well as other primary interactions.

• Expand: Build out the selected communities via holistic communications strategies ranging from broadcast to social media in order to establish dialogue and grow the universe of new entrants and new advocates.

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This concept might not sound new, but this way of thinking used to be categorized with "below the line" strategies. It needs to become "above the line" to enable social media, mobile marketing, proximity marketing and other one-to-one approaches to be viewed as critical to brand and business building, as broadcast and print used to be. Call it a reordering and rethinking of the marketing-tool hierarchy. That is what I would call a smarter and faster way to grow, particularly in these economic times.

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This is only an excerpt. Read full post here.

Published Adage.com/cmostrategy : July 15, 2009

Scott Morgan is president and partner at independent, full-service agency Brunner, whose clients include GSK consumer brands, Cub Cadet outdoor power equipment, Golf Pride club grips and Zippo lighters.

Fluent: The Razorfish Social Influence Marketing Report

Social Influence Marketing is about recognizing, accounting and tapping into the fact that as your potential consumer makes a purchasing decision, he or she is being influenced by different circles of people through conversations with them, both online and off. It is not enough to market to the consumer anymore; as a marketer you also have to market to each individual’s social influencers throughout the marketing funnel.

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The Razorfish Social Influence Marketing Report

Excerpts by Shiv Singh

Implications for Brands

• Brands must socialize with consumers. It won’t be enough for brands to craft powerful messages and push them through different media channels. They will need to participate directly in conversations with consumers and provide more meaningful value exchanges. And they will need to do so in ways that increase their relevance and value in the eyes oftheir consumers — or the brands will be completely ignored.

• Brands must develop a credible social voice. Regardless of the industry, brands will need to focus on developing credible voices for SIM. These voices will need to be more engaging, personal, humble, authentic and participatory than traditional advertising messages.

• Brands must provide a return on emotion to their consumers. Presently, loyalty between consumers and brands is asymmetric. The more consumers sense a symmetrical relationship, the more loyal they will be. Social media is a great tool for building symmetrical brand relationships, in which both the brand and the consumer reap equal returns from their relationship.

• Brands must know who influences perception. For your specific brand and industry, it is important to know what type of influencer is affecting brand affinity and purchasing decisions for your target consumers. This information should be used to focus your SIM.

• Brands must know the effect of influencers throughout the marketing funnel. It is essential to know how influence changes in each stage of the marketing funnel. That information should drive when to focus on which influencers and how to surface content from those influencers on corporate-owned digital properties.

• Known peer influencers matter most at the bottom of the funnel. This group of family members and/or close friends, both online and off, have the most dramatic impact on brand affinity and purchasing decisions. Identifying consumers’ inner circles and how those inner circles influence your consumers is key.

• Don’t forget the impact of offline influencers. It is getting more difficult to separate online peer influence from offline peer influence as SIM blurs the lines between the digital and physical worlds. As a result, it is necessary to remember the effect that offline social activity has on purchasing decisions too.

• Consumers look for brands that help them connect. People naturally gravitate toward brand
  categories that can help them converse and connect with others, such as music and entertainment, food and beverages, gadgets, arts, non-profits and causes.

• Brands aren’t connecting enough with consumers in a social environment. Our data suggests that brands need to do a much better job of engaging consumers on social platforms, as witnessed by the lukewarm reception and high level of indifference consumers have about brands in social media; nearly one-third of respondents had a neutral position about the role of brands.

• Fans of brands visit, and re-visit, those sites. Fan pages aren’t forgotten properties on social platforms. Rather, consumers return to them from time to time and, as a result, brands must put more effort into building, maintaining and encouraging conversations with their consumers on them. They shouldn’t be treated in an isolated fashion either.

• Brand must look at influence holistically. It is not enough to look at how social influencers affect brand affinity or purchasing decisions just online or offline. As the two worlds blur, brands will need to look at the role influence plays irrespective of the channel, platform or location of that influence.

• Brands must focus on value exchanges. The most influence takes place around products and services, and not in terms of affiliations with a particular brand. When practicing SIM, brands should focus on the fact that their customers are seeking each other out as they make product purchasing decisions.

• Brands lack significant credibility in the digital realm and on social platforms. Brands should explore new ways of marketing on the social platforms that help build trust and credibility first and foremost. It is no use devoting significant marketing efforts to this space unless you’ve already figured out how to serve as a trusted brand. The social platforms require a new marketing language — one that mustn’t be overlooked.

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These are only a few excerpts from an extensive report by Razorfish - published July 13th 2009.
Click here to get the report.

Razorfish is one of the largest interactive marketing and technology companies in the world. With a demonstrated commitment to innovation, Razorfish counsels its clients on how to leverage digital channels such as the Web, mobile devices, in-store technologies and other emerging media to engage people, build brand loyalty and provide excellent customer service.

via Blogs OpenForum

Gary Hamel's 25 Stretch Goals for Management

Existing management systems often mindlessly reinforce the status quo. In the future, they must facilitate innovation and change.

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by Gary Hamel

Preview Gary Hamel's February 2009 article in the Harvard Business Review, Moon Shots for Management.

(...) After two days of sometimes contentious deliberations, a set of "moonshots for management" began to emerge. These challenges are described in full in the February 2009 issue of the Harvard Business Review, and are summarized below:

1. Ensure that management's work serves a higher purpose. Management, both in theory and practice, must orient itself to the achievement of noble, socially significant goals.
2. Fully embed the ideas of community and citizenship in management systems. There's a need for processes and practices that reflect the interdependence of all stakeholder groups.
3. Reconstruct management's philosophical foundations. To build organizations that are more than merely efficient, we will need to draw lessons from such fields as biology and theology, and from such concepts as democracies and markets.
4. Eliminate the pathologies of formal hierarchy. There are advantages to natural hierarchies, where power flows up from the bottom and leaders emerge instead of being appointed.
5. Reduce fear and increase trust. Mistrust and fear are toxic to innovation and engagement and must be wrung out of tomorrow's management systems.
6. Reinvent the means of control. To transcend the discipline-versus-freedom trade-off, control systems will have to encourage control from within rather than constraints from without.
7. Redefine the work of leadership. The notion of the leader as a heroic decision maker is untenable. Leaders must be recast as social-systems architects who enable innovation and collaboration.
8. Expand and exploit diversity. We must create a management system that values diversity, disagreement, and divergence as much as conformance, consensus, and cohesion.
9. Reinvent strategy-making as an emergent process. In a turbulent world, strategy making must reflect the biological principles of variety, selection, and retention.
10. De-structure and disaggregate the organization. To become more adaptable and innovative, large entities must be disaggregated into smaller, more malleable units.
11. Dramatically reduce the pull of the past. Existing management systems often mindlessly reinforce the status quo. In the future, they must facilitate innovation and change.
12. Share the work of setting direction. To engender commitment, the responsibility for goal setting must be distributed through a process where share of voice is a function of insight, not power.
13. Develop holistic performance measures. Existing performance metrics must be recast, since they give inadequate attention to the critical human capabilities that drive success in the creative economy.
14. Stretch executive time frames and perspectives. Discover alternatives to compensation and reward systems that encourage managers to sacrifice long-term goals for short-term gains.
15. Create a democracy of information. Companies need holographic information systems that equip every employee to act in the interests of the entire enterprise.
16. Empower the renegades and disarm the reactionaries. Management systems must give more power to employees whose emotional equity is invested in the future rather than in the past.
17. Expand the scope of employee autonomy. Management systems must be redesigned to facilitate grassroots initiatives and local experimentation.
18. Create internal markets for ideas, talent, and resources. Markets are better than hierarchies at allocating resources, and companies' resource allocation processes need to reflect this fact.
19. Depoliticize decision-making. Decision processes must be free of positional biases and should exploit the collective wisdom of the entire organization.
20. Better optimize trade-offs. Management systems tend to force either-or choices. What's needed are hybrid systems that subtly optimize key trade-offs.
21. Further unleash human imagination. Much is known about what engenders human creativity. This knowledge must be better applied in the design of management systems.
22. Enable communities of passion. To maximize employee engagement, management systems must facilitate the formation of self-defining communities of passion.
23. Retool management for an open world. Value-creating networks often transcend the company's boundaries and render traditional power-based management tools ineffective. New management tools are needed for building complex ecosystems.
24. Humanize the language and practice of business. Tomorrow's management systems must give as much credence to such timeless human ideals as beauty, justice and community as they do to the traditional goals of efficiency, advantage, and profit. 
25. Retrain managerial minds. Managers' traditional deductive and analytical skills must be complemented by conceptual and systems-thinking skills.

This is only an excerpt. Read full post here.
Published in Harvard Business Blog, February 3, 2009

GE's CEO Jeff Immelt on "Disrupt Before You are Disrupted"

Jeff Immelt In Conversation with Chris Anderson on Disrupt Before You are Disrupted

Posted in Wired.com June 15, 2009