Profitable Marketing

The Layer Cake or... The Eight Levels of Analytics?

Ron Shevlin once again has some great comments on some confused article in the 1 to 1 blog.
The article presents an implies hierarchy for analytics that lumps analytics (and a wide range of those) with reporting, leading the reader to believe that there is some kind or hierarchy or continuum in these.
Aside from Ron's remarks, here's a stab at straightening these ideas. Reporting is more conveniently divided into the following main groups:

• Pre-defined reports - this corresponds to "canned reporting" that is issued on a periodic basis and in which the reports and their content have been pre-defined. The user has little to no freedom in changing them (an exception is if the reports are issued as a spreadsheet - a bad practice that should be discouraged unless the client explicitly asks for it). These reports seldom have interpretative comments
• Campaign or activity reports - issued at the end of each campaign (again, interim reporting sometime during the campaign is also to be discouraged) and that summarize the results, present the conclusions from whatever tests took place. These reports are issued in a pre-defined format and only the content changes
• Summary reports - quarterly, semi-annual or yearly reports that summarize the results for the time period that they cover. These are an extension of the pre-defined reports with the main difference that they tend to be heavier on interpretation and tend to refer to trends and also track results to targets
• Ad-hoc reports - as the name implies, these reports are single instances or very infrequent instances at best. Their content and design is custom for each.
• Self-serve reports - generally OLAP or some similar variant, these reports are generated by the end user, at will and according to a pre-defined set of measures, attributes, dimensions and levels. There is little to no commentary from the analyst in these reports.

And now I have more content for a post tomorrow: types of analytics!

Via - Instant Starbucks Strategy

I am sure that this post will generate some hits: every time I post about a major brand, the visit count to the blog takes off. But that aspect aside, I've blogged on and off about Starbucks, and some of those posts were not exactly flattering, but the upcoming national roll out of Via - Starbucks instant coffee provides us with a great opportunity to speculate about the future of the company: odds are, this is a great move. More than before, success now will depend on the quality of the new product and on its pricing, the instant coffee has to be head and shoulders above the competition but priced economically enough to be attractive to consumers.

Let us see why this is a great move for Starbucks:

• publicity - this is one aspect of Starbucks marketing that was not working lately: relying solely on the customer experience and on PR was becoming a wearisome, particularly due to less store visits, a tired look and a fragmented media market. The PR spigot is very likely to become active again with the launch of a new product, add to this a national TV campaign and I'd be surprised if the brand is not invigorated... at least in the short term.
• line extension - after commanding a significant share in artisanal and pre-packaged coffees, it makes sense to after this vast corner of the coffee market
• utility and market acquisition - instant coffee is popular in Europe and in the rest of the world even though its quality is noticeably inferior to the drip or espresso variety; assuming that Starbucks' is a much better product, it is very likely that it will capture significant market share from the competition. The only problem here will be Starbucks classical greed in pricing its products: even though it offers a better product, it will be interesting to see if the product prices itself out of the market.

The only hurdle I see is exactly this last aspect: Starbucks tends to come up with good products that customers love, but prices itself into near-irrelevance.

Avoid Do It Yourself Qualitative Research

More than with any other analytical tool, there is something about qualitative research that makes everyone an instant expert, and this is not necessarily a good thing. The design of qualitative research projects is a specialized skill that is learnt and honed, just as the ability to formulate a targeting model is a specialized skill; the fact that the former does not normally resort to mathematics does not make it less analytical in nature.
Ideally, an analyst would be given a business problem and a budget with which to design a study. He would then decide on the best type of study, the scope, the sections of the study as well as the details of the execution. There should be some close dialog with the other stakeholders to verify that the all the requirements are being addressed, but - in this ideal universe - the non-analytical stakeholders provide only inputs (i.e. the formulation of the problem) and evaluate outputs (i.e. does the study answer the questions that I want answered and does it raise further, useful questions?) but refrain from dabbling in actually designing the research study.
Unfortunately, however, there is the pervasive view that qualitative research is mostly "a matter of common sense", and that everyone is qualified to design it and, to some extreme, to execute it. The risks of this approach are:

• biased results - a poorly constructed interview or focus group may lead the respondent to answer what we expect her to answer, and frequently confounds aided recall with unaided
• compromised creativity - too rigid a discussion plan keeps participants from straying off into some creative perspectives about the problem being researched
• creativity overdose - this is the exact opposite of the previous case: in some cases it is preferable to tether the conversation to a line of inquiry that discourages respondents from wandering off topic
• non-sequitur - section B does not follow from section A and section C does not follow from section B, creating smooth transitions within a discussion is an art that takes some time to develop, when transitions are brusque, respondents tend to require some "adjustment time" that may or may not have been accounted for in planning the length of the session, I have seen cases where the transition was abrupt enough that the participants had to be briefed about the details of the new topic being discussed. In an extreme case a non-sequitur comes from trying to investigate more than one topic in the same session... bad idea.

The list of problems that can result from poorly planned and executed qualitative research is longer than shown here, the solution is simple: let your analysts know what you need to know from the market, outline the business questions you want the research to answer, and then let the analyst use her experience and knowledge to design a solid research plan.

Advertising in Collision Course with Reality

I've ranted in the past about how advertising photos idealize the products being promoted to a point that makes them unrecognizable... or that keeps us from identifying those products in real life.

The German website PUNDO300.com has taken this concept to an extreme (check out "projekt 1" on the site), and after collecting a a sizable set of photos that compare real -life products with their intended representation, it is now publishing a book with the results.

Let us not get too far afield with comments about snotty-looking cheese burgers or disgusting looking rice pudding, the lesson here is quite simple: marketing - even very bad marketing - can sell a product at least once, but only the quality of the product will generate repeat sales.

Forget ROI When Selecting a DM Agency

When selecting a DM Agency be less concerned about ROI, response rate and other hard measures than about the quality of execution of the Agency. After all, the market is now so commodified that any company can claim jaw dropping results from their efforts, these top line results are un-differentiated across the segment. What differentiates DM companies these days is no longer top-line results but risk management: low error rates, fast turnaround times, the ability to begin generate reports even before the database is up and running, etc. The ability to execute flawlessly is the true differentiator in this market.

Blogging Again

After having stopped blogging approximately a year ago, I've decided to get back in the saddle and pick up blogging again.
I may expand the scope of my posts and my objective is to have a approximately a post a week for the upcoming year.
Thanks to all that stopped by even when there were no new posts.

The Power of PR - Starbucks Goes at it Again

I've blogged in the past about how Starbucks has been so adept at using PR instead of advertising to keep its brand front-of-mind for most consumers, and now an much advertised three hour closure tonight represents one more successful attempt at using the news media as an advertising vehicle.

Howard Schultz had announced that the quality of the brews had to improve, and to do so, the "baristas" (Starbucks lingo for the folks that mind the coffee machines) have to go through a three hour training session. What is interesting is that the training session is supposed to take place at the same in each time zone; that is, every Starbucks location will close from 5:30 to 9:00 local time throughout the Nation. Other than generating some media buzz, it doesn't seem like this bizarre schedule has any other practical purpose. And it is also unclear what "improving quality" actually means let alone how it is measured.

The Best Online Manifesto You've Ever Read

Event though I haven't posted for a while, I've just recently had a small "manifesto" published online by Change This. Check out their site and download as many publications as you want; they are free and there is a very wide variety of topics represented.
My "manifesto" is actually more of a set of guidelines for effective problem solving, you can use the guidelines for general problem solving as well as for groups. I hope this is of value for my readers.

Will Google Kill Wikipedia?

Most likely not. Google has set out to deploy knol - it's Wikipedia-killing service, the question is how successful will this service be? Google has rolled out many a service whose success or adoption has been less than stellar (pick your own example) and knol may just be one more.

From a marketing standpoint this is a classic case in which a brand defines a category and Google = search whereas Wikipedia = online encyclopedia. Also, Google is not trying to grow by adjacency (i.e. by rolling out product extensions that are close to its core brand identity of "search") but by leaps into further categories (e.g. productivity software a la MS Office that is not close to "search"). Add to this the fact that Google has lacked Microsoft's persistence in succeeding in categories it choses to win, and we have another product that seems geared more to satisfy Wall Street analysts than to actually dominate a category.

Book Review - I'm on LinkedIn -- Now What???

Ever wonder what to do with LinkedIn - or with other "social network" sites for that matter? Check out Jason Alba's new tome I'm on LinkedIn -- Now What??? and get some pointers.

This review is long overdue. Back in July Jason announced the publication of his book and although he made a galley available for review, I haven't been able to review it until now... my loss - the book starts with the basics of setting up a profile and quickly evolves into covering the more esoteric uses for the platform. I like Jason's examples and the fact that he never belabors his point. Jason has great expertise in Personal Branding and this book goes a long way towards helping readers burnish their brand.