Predictably Irrational

I have just finished reading Predicatably Irrational – The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions. I enjoyed the book although personally I think in places it is rather predictable and that some of the findings seem fairly rational to me!

The format of the book also can become a little repetitive. Every chapter is basically, I thought this or questioned that, so I did an experiment with some MBA students, and here is the result that you were not expecting (or sometimes expecting in my case!).

The areas I found most interesting were around people’s perception of price and how this can be dramatically altered by creating a different environment or a different set of benchmarks for what the price should be. The exploration of why things hold more value once we own them, and why price is different to cost were also interesting. Less interesting were some of the chapters around human behaviour, which to me were fairly obvious conclusions – we are animals and therefore sometimes we don’t behave to a mathematical pattern which is entirely predictable. The observations about honest and human behaviour are also interesting but again in my view perhaps not so radical. More interesting was the research around our decision making and how peer groups can affect that. Overall some useful stuff, (from the perspective of a Norwich marketing consultant) particularly when considering how to stimulate sales or build a new proposition for potential customers, but not as exciting as Freakonomics!

So, you open your fridge and someone has left some Coke and some cash.  If you are thirsty maybe you will take the Coke, but if you need some cash, you still don’t pinch what’s in the fridge.  Predicatably Irrational…… you tell me?!!

Norwich City Of Culture Bid

What a shame Norwich didn’t win the City of Culture bid. Following the impact in Liverpool, who won the European Capital of Culture in 2008, clearly it would have given the city a great boost at a difficult time. The competition was tough, Birmingham, Sheffield and Londonderry are all great cities. I haven’t been to Londonderry, but I have visited Birmingham and Sheffield many many times and they are terrific places full of culture. That said – so is Norwich. We are smaller, perhaps a little more remote, and at times perhaps a little slow off the mark. On the other hand, we are independently minded, original, entrepreneurial, friendly and welcoming, imaginative, creative, successful, skilled, and knowledgeable. We have a great heritage of buildings, of places, of events and celebrations. We have some great musicians, artists, writers, photographers and actors. We also love coming together and have a history of producing great food and drink in all manner of different ways. Norwich has two amazing Cathedrals, two beautiful rivers, a historic market, a castle, a superb and technically advanced university, and one of the most respected Art Colleges outside of London. We also spent considerably less money on putting our bid together than the other cities did.

Although we didn’t win the honour, I think the process reminded a lot of people just what a special place Norwich is, it got a lot of the arts community in Norwich talking and working together, perhaps marketing Norwich properly for the first time, and it laid the foundations to make Norwich a city of culture not for one year but on an ongoing basis.

Freakonomics!

I have just finished reading Freakonomics. What a thought provoking and interesting read. When I first became interested in Marketing professionally I did dabble a little in economics and this book reminded me what a fascinating subject it really is. The writers describe economics as the study of incentives: how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing. It asks the question, what is the precise incentive needed to trigger an exchange between two people? And the scary thing is that the incentive required may not always be what you think it is. By looking at a wide range of topics (including gun crime, sumo wrestlers, education, and the naming of children amongst other things) some unusual comparisons, and some clever contexts, the book demonstrates how deeply you have to look at things to truly understand the correct incentive to offer up to make something happen.

The book is fun in places, but difficult reading in others, perhaps because there is a side of human nature which is disappointing to us all. Easy to read and very thought provoking…. I recommend!

Build A Brand In 30 Days

I have just started reading Simon Middleton’s book – Build A Brand In 30 Days. I met Simon a few weeks ago when he gave a presentation to my Common Purpose team in Norwich. By coincidence I met him on the train the following morning, and again in the evening at his book launch in Waterstones. Simon is a great communicator and is able to really inject enthusiasm and passion into his discussions and presentations about branding. That ability to really capture the attention and imagination of an audience is such a great gift to have.

I have only read the first three chapters of the book, but I like the easy to read style and language, and the relevant examples that make it easy to translate his ideas into story’s people know and can relate to.

Personally I am not sure that you can build a brand in 30 days – even if they are spread over a longer time period. That is because I don’t think one person can build a brand. I think brands are built by consumers, consumers who pester customers to buy on their behalf – even if that is just another part of their own conscience, and customers who demand more from their brands. Perhaps more products, features and benefits, perhaps better packaging design, perhaps better language or tone of voice which suits them, or perhaps a simple demand that the brand pulls itself together! The greater the enthusiasm with which consumers and customer do this, the more powerful your brand is. I have been privileged enough to manage some great brands – but I never thought I owned them or built them. I did some stuff to keep them in good shape, to keep them engaging with their audiences, and to keep them relevant. Perhaps I did help in some small way to build them, but I was only a small part of an architectural team, the people who did the building were the guys how bought the products, who emailed me when my products weren’t quite good enough, who mentioned the irritations in something that wasn’t quite right, who said when they did or didn’t like our advertising, and who pointed out when a competitor was better than us.

I like Simon’s book and thoroughly recommend it, and I shall be writing more about it from a different perspective in a couple of weeks, but if you don’t own a brand (apart from you own – watch out, this is going to be Simon’s next book!) you can still help to build one. Choose the product you love – enthuse about it to your friends, find out more about it and how you can help it to grow…. what do you get in return? A small emotional stakeholding in something that as it grows and you see it appearing in more places you will be proud of!

Rebrand or Reposition?

Perhaps it is just one of those coincidences, but recently I have heard a lot of people talking about Rebranding. “We’re about to rebrand”, “We’ve just rebranded”, “We’re going through a rebrand” or my favourite “We rebranded a year ago, but it was a disaster so now are going to do it again”!!

I am always very worried when I hear the phrase rebrand because I think it is nearly always misused and should be considered very very seriously before any business undertakes such a thing. To be really clear, I am not even sure that you can rebrand. I think you can redesign the expression of your brand, and I think you can reposition your brand, and you may do either of these things for perfectly valid reasons, but you cannot rebrand. You can throw your existing brand away and start again – but I am not sure the agencies that seem to be recommending a rebrand would recommend that with such enthusiasm and confidence.

So if you are getting feedback that your brand is becoming out of date, or tired, or slow to react, or boring, or out of touch, what should you do? A rebrand? NO! Listen to your customers and consumers, and ask what is wrong. If it is the product, work hard to update it. If it is the tone of voice of your brand, refine it and perhaps modernise it (do this only based on your customers feedback), if it is the look and feel of your packaging, consider updating the design. My point here is do not rebrand – the values of your brand should still hold true, but do consider improvements to the relevant areas of expression of your brand to keep it relevant and engaging to your audience. This is not a rebrand, or even a reposition – it is at best a refresh to the shell!

Alternatively you may be losing sales, your market may be shrinking, and even worse your share of market may be shrinking at the same time. Should we rebrand? NO! It will do absolutely nothing to improve the position you are in. I don’t want to look at all the possible scenarios which could be driving this unfortunate position in this post, but one may well be that your market is reaching the end of its natural life. A rebrand will not change that – a reposition may do though. A reposition is not about throwing your brand away, it is about making it relevant in a different context. Just as you dress differently when you go to work, when you go to see friends, or when you go to a wedding. People are always rebranding, by changing the style of language they use, the way they dress, the things they talk about. My favourite example of a reposition is Lucozade. When my grandparents were in their 70’s Lucozade was a drink for them, it gave them the extra energy they needed as they were getting older. Today I drink Lucozade, it gives me the energy I need when I go running or swimming. Lucozade has always been about giving energy, inspiring people to perform above their expected performance, but when older people realised they got more benefits from retiring early and playing in a park with their grand children than they did from drinking Lucozade, and as younger people appreciated the benefits of exercise and started to buy gym memberships, a reposition was needed – not the dreaded rebrand!

Sustainable Communities

Throughout the general election the national media has led us, or certainly me, to focus on national issues when trying to decide who to vote for. Now before I go any further I want to state that this is not a political blog, (it is about my thoughts as a Norwich marketing consultant) in fact I work hard to try and keep my personal views on politics away from the work I do as I think it can get in the way of positive working and collaboration. When trying to decide how to vote, there is so much coverage about the state of the country’s finances, the challenges in education, the state of our NHS, the need to deal with an aging population, and of course the sensitive subject of our foreign policy in the Middle East. With all this to consider, I find it easy to completely overlook the fact that actually you are not voting for a party to govern as a whole, or for the next Prime Minister, but for a local candidate to represent the community in West Minister, and work on behalf of constituents to improve the local environment for everyone. This means considering a completely different set of issues to decide who to vote for. There is local crime, concerns about street lights being turned off for half the night, the need for better local services for parents with young children, the still pressing issue of dualing the A11 and improving train transport links into London.

Last month I went to an event where I heard from a guest speaker from Inspire East. Inspire East have developed an interesting model demonstrating what they believe is necessary for a sustainable community and I think it is pretty comprehensive. Whilst the model can be used to build a new community or a new community based organisation, it can also be used to evaluate existing communities – and perhaps their strengths and weaknesses. By looking at the relative focus of each aspect of a community as they describe, one could draw conclusions about the culture and society of the community. Interesting stuff!

Although the model is primarily aimed at community development, I also think the model could be used as a template for the key considerations of a board in a business organisation. There are other models and papers that tackle the subject of an optimised board but this is a good start – and I like the colours!

It only takes a micro second to change!

There is much written about change. People who want us to change, things we want to change, and people perhaps we would like to change. Throughout the election campaign we seem to constantly be hearing about the need for change, the opportunity for change, and even when is the right time to change. Businesses are always grappling with change. As markets change businesses have to respond. Even the widest macro economic conditions are always changing, and these affect how markets behave, which in turn affects the way that organisations have to respond. Look at how cigarette companies have had to change their advertising and marketing over the last forty years – changing advertising styles, messages, and even markets. For a more current, more rapid example, look at how banks have had to change their products and branding to reflect both the products that they can actually offer and the reputation of their industry as a whole. Marketing Norwich as a creative centre for the East, as a dynamic business hub just 90 minutes from London, as a city of culture also requires cultural change locally!

There are lots of business books written about change, and often change is described as something that happens over time, which happens gradually. Books often describe how change has to be understood, accepted, the implemented, then reviewed to take a positive outcome from the experience. I have recently been reading a little about the prison service and life in a prison. One of the main objectives of putting someone in prison is to change their behaviour so they don’t re-offend. So does change happen during their sentence, or if successful, does the change occur in that split second that they are released back into community. There has to be specific point in time when they go from being imprisoned to be free. My point here is simply that whilst perhaps it is entirely necessary to have a build up time period to change, and perhaps a reflective period after change, but change itself I don’t think happens gradually, it happens in a moment. Perhaps the trick to successful change is recognising that moment and encouraging it, protecting it, and celebrating it.

Introducing NLP Neuro-Linguistic Programming

Many people in business often seem to be asking what is the secret to success, or how can I become more likely to succeed. In recent years this seems to have created a new industry called business coaching. Largely unregulated there seems to be a massive variance in quality and approach of offering in this area. I have never been particularly interested in this subject area, and have been concerned when it appears to spill over into getting people to adapt or change their personality in order to fit into a particular culture or assume a particular personality or persona.

Set against this I do understand the need for positivity, the need for mental strength, and the importance of creativity in order to be successful in anything. I can also see how sometimes people limit their own possibilities and potential by looking at things through a particular frame, or by imposing restrictions or hurdles that perhaps aren’t really there. It is certainly true that if you ask ten people to consider the same circumstance or scenario, they will all see it differently, notice different opportunities, solutions and indeed challenges.

Following an interesting meeting (about marketing Norwich more effectively) last month I have become interested to learn a little about NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming). During a presentation and discussion amongst business people from Norwich I started to consider just how important ones perspective is in decision making. Introducing NLP Neuro-Linguistic Programming is a book by Joseph O’Connor and sets out many of the guiding principles in this topic. The book is easy to read and really helped me to reconsider and reappraise the way I sometimes set about tackling problems and building successful business solutions. Easy to read, particularly as an introduction to the topic.

I found the chapters on maps and filters, perception doors, anchoring, context, and strategy particularly interesting and may well investigate these particular topics in more detail – a very interesting read indeed!

Education, Education, Education

Why might someone in the private sector, a Norwich marketing consultant for example, want to look at the education sector? Well there are the obvious things about future generations and how they will shape our future, and then there is the link between young people and innovation for two reasons.

By looking at education services in Norwich, I was keen to see what was happening and perhaps just as interested to see what wasn’t happening. During a common purpose event I was able to meet a broad spectrum of young people all in very differing circumstances. Some were already using their talents to develop their own businesses and brands, some were enjoying life, learning, but still waiting to see what they would one day want to do, and others who were struggling, struggling to learn or to fit in or to move at the same pace as those around them. I very quickly realised that whilst at first glace these people could be grouped together into what in marketing language would be called segments . The problem with this approach is that everyone we met is influenced or impacted on by many other people around them in some way, and only some of these influencers can be reached through the education system to form a common goal.
I think sometimes people in marketing seek to over simplify customer groups or segments as a way to help them make sense of complex customer behaviour and the impact it has on their brands and sales. On top of this, marketers tend only to look at the primary drivers of opinion when often people’s thoughts and behaviours are an output of the people they have met and the things they have learnt.

Within the education service there is a jig saw of service providers each offering something different aimed at particular groups of people with their own needs and situations. It is a highly complex jig saw and unfortunately not everyone neatly fits into just one piece. What is interesting to me is that the jig saw has become three dimensional, because for education to work most effectively the service cannot be provided or function in isolation. The people receiving the educational service need support, stimulation, encouragement, and more from other places, other people, and in other situations.

This insight can be considered in the private sector particularly in the context of building strategic partnerships. For example it might appear strange from a paint company, Farrow & Ball for example, to form a partnership with Spec Savers – but if they worked together and developed innovative ways of helping people who are colour blind – and in doing so captured a new market through innovation, would it still appear so strange? In order to fully service a market different organisations directly or indirectly linked to the market may have to come together and collaborate to get the best results.

If everything an organisation or an individual does in some way impacts on others, surely the trick is to fully understand the impact and make it a positive valuable impact for that organisation, individual and market?

Developing your web-site!

It’s over a year since I first started to build my web-site and since then I have learnt a lot. – It is a never ending piece of work, always building, trying to do more, adapting to new ideas and new technology. Keep an eye on my site for some new pages coming soon.

The key themes or considerations on first build are always about “key messages” and getting your points across, but then with time you start considering other factors such as usability, search engine effectiveness, and how to use social media . It all takes time, needs patience, and a long term view.

Being a Norwich marketing consultant I am often asked about how new media fits into the marketing mix – I actually think the question should be how does new media fit into your customers media mix and therefore what is the opportunity