MBA Geek

I went to an interesting talk earlier this week and I was introduced to an interesting personality matrix called Firo-B. It stands for Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation and is theory useful for analysing interpersonal relationships. It’s based around three different criteria which are Inclusion, Control and Affection, where people exhibit both Expressed and Wanted traits. Different people operate across different measures of these scales and it was interesting to see how these factors affect people’s behaviours.

It was interesting to see how different personality traits will affect behaviour. Obviously, these are all intrinsic factors, but there are others that also take their toll. The interesting thing is how you can apply these ideas to marketing. Say you’re trying to sell the best acne treatment around. You can appeal to different people based on their behaviour and what they’re looking for. You may consider it all psycho-babble, but if it can help you market your product better, it’s worth taking a look.

How many brands can you list off the top of your head? Well, I’m sure there will be quite a few in the list of Top 100 Best Global Brands of 2009. The last on the list if Campbells, but you might be interested to know the top 10 which are:

• CocaCola
• IBM
• Microsoft
• GE
• Nokia
• McDonalds
• Google
• Toyota
• Intel
• Disney

It’s interesting to see just how many technology firms there are in the list. You’re probably not going to find mundane items like companies selling FMCGs or fat burner in the list; the companies that make it have to be on everyone’s lips; so it’s a pretty prestigious list.

I came across a really amusing marketing piece by the Weetabix Food Company where an advert on TV shows them using a minimising gun to make their mini Weetabix and the operator accidentally gets minimised. The advert encourages you to help Find Nigel by visiting a purpose built website. The website guides you through a few inane games, but always reinforcing the chocolately goodness that the new Weetabix Mini have. I thought it was a really good and cohesive marketing piece which immerses the viewer in an experience that would be too hard and expensive to convey by TV alone.

Obviously, different products would have different ways of encouraging action from views. A company selling information and cures for Mesothelioma cancer for example, would find it pretty hard to engage in this way. But for FMCG tyle products (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) I thought this was a genius campaign, both in its viral aspects and in terms of the depth of consumer immersion.

Great work guys!

I was thinking about my previous post, which was about our recent visit to Butlins and was thinking about the pointers that I picked up from the trip. I think the major take away was the success of Marketing as an encompassing function. You see, many organisations see marketing as a means to an end, a way to get clients through the door, a way to attract their attention. The great thing about our experience seemed to be the fact that marketing seemed to be engaged with the entire customer experience.

Does this mean that marketing should dictate how a company is run? Well, it depends. If the merits of your company isn’t based around the customer’s experience, then maybe not. For example, selling industrial equipment supplies is more than the customer experience. It’s about reliability and performance. But, if on the other hand, you’re engaged in delivering a valuable experience to your customers, then marketing SHOULD dictate the where and the wherefores of how the service is run.

What do you think?

We spent a weekend at Butlins in Skegness recently and it was interesting to see some of the things their marketing team and strategy have put in place. Here are some great things I saw:

• Focusing on the target market: First of all, who are the target market at Butlins? Well, they have a number of segments they attract, but each of these was catered for individually. If you’re a kid, there’s a whole selection of things to do. If you’re a parent, there are loads of things to keep your kids amused and give you some space. If you’re into live entertainment, there’s something new every evening. If you’re into gambling, there’s a whole selection of slot machines and bingo you can lose yourself in.
• Deliver: The delivery of the service Butlins provide is excellent. Do they provide accommodation? food? entertainment? In part, yes; but the real deliverable is a complete holiday experience. Everything I saw was aimed at delivered a great experience to the holiday makers, from the hassle-free check-in, through the selection of entertainment options, all the way to the cordiality and approachability of the staff. For example, when there’s entertainment put on in the evening, a number of staff members are present who’s sole role is to entertain the kids. This means that the kids have a great time, and so do the parents because they don’t have to hassle about keeping their kids in check or worry what they are doing.
• Leverage the great experience: I think the greatest takeaway though was the fact that Butlins will try to keep their customers engaged and encourage them to book their next holiday while they are still there. There’s no better way to sell something to a client! There are reminders around the complex offering incentives if you book your next holiday and I could have sworn that these changed on the last day to “If this is your last day, you might want to book your next holiday”

All in all, an enjoyable stay at Butlins, and some great lessons learnt.

How do you communicate with your clients? Your suppliers? Your stakeholders? If you take a look at your organisation, you’ll see a very different picture to the one you would have seen 10 years ago, heck, even a couple of years ago. The world around us is changing and the way we view and consume information changes even more rapidly than ever. I came across a really good post that talks just about this information consumption pattern with respect to consumers and the different channels they have been using to consume information. Here’s a graphical view of what the post talks about:

One particular aspect is the prediction of how things will change over the next 10 years with a greater push towards social channels and the demise of traditional media. The net effect, however is that organisations need to take a long hard look at the ways they disseminate information to their stakeholders and how this trend is going to affect them. It doesn’t matter if you’re selling garden planters or ballet shoes or golf clubs, interacting with your customers on the channels they inhabit is critical to the success of your company, service or product. That’s why this information is so poignant, which is put quite succinctly in the opening paragraph of the piece:

These days, everyone is trying to figure out how to connect with other people. It used to be simple, you just placed some ads in whatever newspaper that was most suited to your product, but now that world is becoming ever more irrelevant. So how do you connect with other people today? And more importantly, how do you do it tomorrow?

Read the complete post here: Where is everyone?