The future might be free but dirt cheap is not the secret to success for brands wanting to capitalize on the recession zeitgeist writes Chicago-based blogger DJ Francis, who daylights at the internet consultancy Critical Mass. If buying is all about the experience, then don’t cheapen the experience by falling into what Francis calls the “discount trap.” He offers a political analogy:
It reminds me of an important lesson I learned during my time in politics. We were sending emails and soliciting donations for our cause. I noticed that when we emphasized the smallest donation, our overall yield was far lower than when we placed higher donation values above the fold.
Why was this happening? Didn’t people want to know the value option – that we would take whatever we could get? It turns out that they didn’t want a value. Even in a pinched economy, our donors weren’t giving away money to a worthy cause – they were investing in us, our candidate, or our mission.
When an ideal translates into tangible money, people don’t want to toss pennies, they’d rather palm you $100 you can really use.
There is nothing inherently wrong with tweaking your brand to reflect the recession. But like most things, it’s the execution that matters. McDonald’s “Appetite Stimulus Package” is the same old value meal, wrapped up in slump slang. It’s lazy to slap a recession veneer on your brand; instead, strive for a deeper connection with your customer. Target’s “Brand New Day” ad series, for instance, is pitch-perfect. Recession-era products (i.e. hair clippers, self-tanner) are introduced as means to interact with the family. Thrift has never been this fun. “Dirt cheap” isn’t a long-term strategy; aspirational partner is. Ensure that brand tweaks make consumers feel like savvy shoppers, not scroungy skinflints.
You’ll recognize some of the global brands that make an appearance on PSFK’s new Good Brands Report. Do Skype, Facebook, Kindle, Ikea sound familiar? The survey looked at companies that were paragons of innovation, while doing social and environmental good.
We profile the Vancouver multimedia firm Engine Digital in “Not-so-Mad Men.” What was interesting about Engine was that they’re not contracting in the recent recession. Being a small shop, they’re able to weather a brief economic storm, and they’ve got a future-thinking plan that may even see them expand in 2010.
Coincidentally, everyone is going to be watching or visiting Vancouver next year for the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games. That will mean more people using the city’s infrastructure and services, and those services include telecom providers such as Telus. Also coincidentally, Telus happens to be one of Engine Digital’s biggest clients.
Engine has a great website. I especially like the anatomy of their pitch as they head in to meet Telus execs. Check out Engine Digital’s Anatomy of a Pitch. Then scroll over to check out their Bobble Hockey campaign for Hockey Canada.
McDonald’s is one of the examples that marketing guru Seth Godin gives when he writes about how young businesses can make the quantum leap beyond their competitors. Develop your business with stealth and frugality, building and establishing your brand store by store or office by office until you “suddenly” have a national profile. You can do other things such as buy yourself a huge head start, that quantum leap, with a big chunk of research and development money. Or toil in your basement on that brilliant idea that no one else has — though I’ve found that entrepreneurs of start-ups will often caution against this.
I met recently with Mark Holtom of Innovequity, who have raised $2.3 million to develop inventor Ben Bertrand’s innovative geometric construction system, which will automatically manufacture walls and floor complete with wires, plumbing and HVAC. The cost- and time-savings opportunities for construction developers are enormous. But that good idea generated in Bertrand’s basement wouldn’t come as far as it has without everything that comes after: the business plan, the consultations with industry veterans and the funding. Those basement inventors might have the ideas, but not the business sense, to bring their ideas to fruition.
The trick, Seth Godin writes, is to widen the gulf between you and your competitors, the way that Amazon or McDonald’s has done. It’s the difference between the musician who makes a modest income from a local following, touring to small clubs and the Justin Timberlakes of the world who fill stadiums.
Every day at noon (U.S. Eastern Standard) a new product makes its debut on the curated stage of the Daily Grommet, a Massachusetts-based website dedicated to presenting fresh finds with a focus on their origins. Here’s an excerpt from the site, a short and sweet backgrounder on the company’s goal:
Our story is really simple…because it’s not about us. It’s about finding really fresh products and telling their stories. Those products, and their creators, and the people who love them (the products, that is) are the real heroes at Daily Grommet.
And then the best part is, when we tell the story of a great product (or what we call a Grommet), people all over the world share the story, and help the Grommet get discovered, enjoyed, and dare we say, loved.”
Currently in beta, you can follow the evolution of this curated marketplace on founder and CEO Jules Pieri’s blog. Or, if you’ve got a great product you want to tell the world about, why not let them help you?
Canadians are sinking deeper into the pit of debt faster than ever. Combined Canadian debt is a whooping $1.3 trillion, up from $1 trillion last year. That’s a significant increase in debt, up 30 per cent over a short period of time. In the new podcast version of Rich by Thirty, I’ll talk about some things you can do to manage your debt.
More tips to manage your credit file
UPDATE YOUR INFO Check your credit file every one or two years to make sure all the information is accurate. You can order your credit report online.
CHECK YOUR RECORD
Make sure the credit bureau’s records match your own. Watch out for identity theft, corporate reporting errors, loan defaults and other signs of wonkiness.
PUT IT IN WRITING
If you have a question or inquiry, send a written request (with official receipts and paperwork) to the credit bureau and they will investigate the matter for you. If an error is discovered in your file, the credit bureau must correct it. Ask them to send copies of the updated file to the creditors.
DON’T “NOT PAY”
The bank looks at your credit report to determine if you’re a risky person to lend to. If you’ve had a history of financial irresponsibility lenders may decline your credit applications.
THE RIGHT TO REFUSAL
A credit bureau isn’t responsible for if they refuse an application. However, if you are shut down, you’ll be directed to contact the credit bureau to review the information that contributed to the decision.
BE AN ACTION-ISTA, NOT A RECESSIONISTA
The only true way to repair a bad credit score is to be responsible and wait it out. Nothing speaks louder than your actions. Make payments on time, don’t miss payments and don’t “not pay.” If you’re struggling with keeping up, see a credit counselor. The non-profit organization Credit Counselling Canada can help you negotiate terms with a creditor.
EDUCATE YOURSELF
Most of the increase in debt in the past year has been consumer debt. The Office of Consumer Affairs has tips on managing your debt.
I’ve always thought that Trendwatching.com takes the neologism a bit too far, and its latest, “foreverism” is a good case in point.
FOREVERISM | Encompasses the many ways that consumers and businesses are embracing conversations, relationships, and products that are never done. Driving its popularity is technology that allows them to find, follow, interact and collaborate forever with anyone & anything.
At its most basic, foreverism means that our six email addresses, two blogs, numerous “profiles” on shopping sites, news sites and so forth, will always be online. (Me, I keep a password-protected Word doc with all my passwords to various sites where my profile or personal information exists. It is currently five pages long.)Despite the nauseating name, Trendwatching.com’s report is a smart, if Cliff Notes-style, look at micro-trends under the foreverism umbrella — from the changes in B2C communication that’s lead to consumers influencing and driving corporate action to what Trendwatching.com calls “forever beta,” the neverending way that content, stories, news, websites, conversations will continue to evolve.The more complex notion to embrace (or reconcile) is that nothing will ever be done. Our life and work will always be “forever beta.”This is unsettling for people who like to draw definitive lines — engineers, say — but represents a new reality that companies who trade in innovation will be excited about. Embrace change, because nothing will every be the same again.
Dumpster diving and trawling liquor stores for (relatively) clean boxes are just two of the unsavoury realities of moving. And that’s not to mention the massive stack of used boxes that you have to drag to the recycling depot afterwards. A new Vancouver company named Frogbox has a greener alternative: stackable, rentable, ergonomic 70-litre (2.4 cubic-foot) boxes. The company will even drop off the boxes at your old place and pick them up — in its biodiesel truck — at your new place a week later. Genius.
The company, founded by 36-year-old Doug Burgoyne, is just over a year old, and so far only operates in greater Vancouver and Seattle. But this is a business idea with legs: Frogbox estimates that Vancouver residents use 450,000 boxes every month for moving just within the city; Seattle uses more than 1 million. The idea is to make money and cut back waste. Frogbox is also making its namesake’s habitat a little more comfortable by donating 1% of its gross revenues – related to the 1/1/1/ philanthropy trend [Ed’s note: see more in Unlimited’s July issue] – to frog habitat restoration programs in the Pacific Northwest.
FrogBox is currently franchising in other cities in Canada. Now if only they could figure out a way to make the rest of moving less painful.
Seth Godin, of All Marketers Are Liars fame, is a marketing and brand expert, and his own brand. His most recent book, about leadership and the tribes within organizations is called, naturally, Tribes. I came across an interview he gave to Wired back when he gave his TED talk promoting the book and he spoke about ego:
Wired: So for a tribe to succeed the leader needs to get his ego out of the way?
SG: Ego turns out not to be relevant. There are some people who do it completely without ego … and [then there's] Steve Jobs who has an ego bigger than the Empire State Building and also leads a movement. The people who are buying Apple stock don’t do it for Steve, they do it for themselves. They do it for the way it makes them feel … like an insurgent, a creative-class member, somebody who is part of something.
The implied natural conclusion is that marketing trumps personality. I don’t think it’s that simple — can we really separate the cult of Steve Jobs from the Apple movement? The cult of Oprah from the self-help movement? I’ve wondered, by the way, whether Godin and Malcolm Gladwell would get along.
If you’re a blogger — or wannabe blogger — who wants to increase readership and revenue, you might be interested in the new publishing company Triond. Launched in March and based in Tel Aviv, Triond provides web publishing services to anyone that makes the grade, whether it’s a professional writer or a stay-at-home parent. Blogs you’ll be published on are neologism-happy: Gomestic, Gameolosophy and Bizcovering. Topics, meanwhile, are broad and strange, from how to read a wine label to uncovering your past lives. Hmmm…
In a nutshell, they take care of all the technical details, including maintenance, advertising, driving traffic and targeting blog posts to the right audience. Triond’s CEO, Shahar Solomianik on the site:
We have the expertise in online publishing and making websites profitable. We do everything required so you can focus on your creativity, which is what every writer at every level wants to do. All our users have to do is create the content and we’ll do the rest.
You can see examples of the blogs Triond publishes on its website. Don’t forget to check out the post about the Woodhorn Mining Museum. Fun stuff.
Duncan Kinney is the resident type pusher around these parts. As the web editor for Venture Publishing, he’s in charge of a cadre of growing online brands. Before joining the team, he was a freelance photographer and web editor and worked on various film and television projects.
Jeff Lewis is a relative newcomer to blogging. His first job was at a small-town newspaper in northern Alberta, where he frequently penned odes to quilting fairs and tractor shows. He has written for Design Edge Canada and Quill and Quire magazines, following the completion of a post-grad journalism program in Toronto.
