GET TO KNOW A CMO:

Marketing Magnified:  Gary, is your role worldwide at Playtex?

I’m the Senior Vice President of Marketing and CMO for Playtex and am based in Westport, Connecticut.  I head marketing for U.S. operations and am also a member of the global executive team.  I facilitate dialogue and sharing with U.S. marketing and our international teams.   We have nearly 80 people in U.S. marketing who support our three businesses:  Skin care, Infant care, and Feminine care.  There are vice presidents of marketing for each product line who report directly to me as well as a vice president of marketing operations who handles research, packaging and graphics, category management, Internet/Web-based activity, and consumer promotion.

Marketing Magnified:  Our topic focus for July is growing customer knowledge, insight, and conversations.  How does Playtex go about gathering customer intelligence?  

Well, our main focus is on the consumer…consumers drive our business.  We take a multi-faceted approach to Identify consumer targets and segments through consumer immersion.  We identify core targets by product category and segments and then spend time with them at retail, at home, and through consumer panels.  For example, our Mom’s Council for our baby products is a means to have regular sessions with moms who are heavy users to gain needs and wants insights.  We have found that heavy users will invent ways to use your product.  They are the best source of information for claims and new products.  We started with infant care and are now using this methodology with other product lines.   We are consistent with other leading companies that are doing very targeted insight gathering, like using ethnography research against heavy users and other identified target segments.

Marketing Magnified:  How do you glean insights from your customer intelligence?

We find that internal session brainstorming with cross-functional partners is a great way to uncover what we call “hidden truths” after listening to consumers through our process.  Finding these “hidden truths” is the best way to establish differentiation.  We start with a large pool of insights that is then filtered down to actionable information.  The test is how pure are the insights and can they provide competitive advantage.  It’s important that the whole company is trained on how to gather insights, how to understand target audiences and segments, and have the ability to recognize “hidden truths.”  The process also requires getting agencies and R&D involved and getting competitive benchmarking within our product categories and getting analogous comparative work for our categories.

Marketing Magnified:  What interactivity do you have with your customers and consumers…how do you engage?

As I discussed earlier it begins with consumer immersion.  Our goal is to get all functions within the company that impact the product to focus on the consumer and understand their role with the consumer.  For example, our sales people have taken buyers on store checks.  We also do a lot of qualitative research using ethnography techniques like shop-alongs and in-home visits.  And because of our infant products, we collect a lot of information from online sources and consumer ratings services, which are very informative but they have to be judiciously filtered.

Marketing Magnified:  How does Playtex marketing measure effectiveness?

It varies by product categories.  Typically we measure marketing mix, promotion effectiveness, sampling pay back, and other key areas where we have the most consumer information through syndicated data, tracking studies, trial and repeat studies, household panel info, etc…  We do regular performance updates on what we can measure both monthly and quarterly for the executive team.  At this time we have no formal dashboard, but we are working towards that implementation.

Marketing Magnified:  Gary, what are your top three marketing challenges this year?

Our challenges start with building our brand, developing a process and pipeline for innovation, and training our organization on brand building and consumer immersion and insights.  This leads to innovation.  We’re in various stages of implementation to meet these challenges and are selectively bringing in outside experts to train our trainers and to help with our internal implementation.

POINT OF VIEW: KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER: USING INTELLIGENCE TO BUILD AND MAINTAIN A STRONG CUSTOMER BASE

In today’s competitive environment, products and services are no longer the only differentiator for companies, and building strong customer relationships have never been more important.

Equipped with the right knowledge about their customers and their customers’ needs, sales and marketing professionals can build credibility, becoming trusted advisors to their clients. The more organizations understand about their customers or prospects, the more value they can deliver.

Opening the door to opportunity: Sales intelligence

For sales professionals, the way to make a distinct impression on prospects is to demonstrate a thorough understanding of the potential client’s business and its needs. Unfortunately, this can be challenging because information is so abundant and widely dispersed. Even incredibly organized sales professionals can find themselves spending an inordinate amount of time trying to pull together the resources and information they need, resulting in less time in front of customers. Worse, there’s no assurance that they are getting all the information they need.

There are effective ways of collecting and delivering information when, where, and how people need it that have been very successful for companies like Dow Jones. New sales intelligence tools that combine Web 2.0 technologies with knowledge-management practices can make it easy for sales professionals to create forward-thinking strategic account plans, capitalize quickly on new opportunities, and proactively manage competitive threats. By integrating information - such as news and data - into the sales portal, sales force automation (SFA), or customer relationship management (CRM) applications that sales professionals use every day, organizations can unite their internal customer data with rich market intelligence. Coupled with new visualization and mapping tools for territory definition and prospecting that make large volumes of data instantly understandable, these tools increase sales impact and overall productivity.

Such sales intelligence tools are also valuable for helping sales professionals take advantage of sales-cycle “triggers” that they might not put together on their own. Triggers can be anything that can have an effect on the buying decision, including executive moves, financial results, new product launches, mergers, and more. An information dashboard collects and analyzes these disparate bits of data that by themselves seem meaningless, but analyzed together, point the salesperson to this potentially lucrative opportunity at the right time.

Closing the door to threats: Monitoring Web conversations

In addition to leveraging technology so that sales professionals can learn about news surrounding their prospects, marketing professionals are also gaining intelligence by monitoring blogs and message boards to learn what people are saying about companies, products and services in their market. Conversations appearing in the blogosphere are a valuable resource for customer opinion and could have dramatic effects on a company’s reputation. Staying abreast of those conversations is critical for understanding customer demands for improvement and identifying potential threats to reputation. Yet, few public relations and marketing professionals charged with managing their organization’s reputation have comprehensive programs in place to understand the viewpoints expressed through millions of regularly updated blogs.

According to research firm Gartner, the number of blogs will reach 100 million in 2007. Bypassing the balanced filters of traditional journalistic standards, they provide individuals with an easy and efficient way to get their viewpoints into the market in real time. Once a viewpoint about a company’s brand, products, or executives enters into the sprawling marketplace of ideas, is indexed by search engines, and delivered via feeds to millions of individuals, those thoughts and ideas demand the immediate attention of the organization being discussed. Companies need to listen and be prepared to participate in the conversation when it makes sense. Conscientious companies choose the proactive approach, taking customer requests and discontents into consideration before they develop into a crisis.

Similar to the sales intelligence tools, market intelligence tools exist that offer fast and easy insight into the blogosphere. By combining Web 2.0 technologies - especially visualization tools - these services help public relations and marketing professionals identify trends and opportunities early – while there is still time to act.

Once an opportunity or threat is identified, savvy marketers will seek to participate in the conversation. Companies ignoring the independent product reviews and discussions about service quality found on blogs will lose an opportunity to communicate with their customers. Participating in blogging conversations provides an effective way for company executives to make their voices heard in the Web-based marketplace and benefit from the reward of direct contact with buyers and customers about their ideas. It can also head off disasters. One retail store I frequent ended a near customer uprising over its return policy simply by having the CEO post an apology to the discussion group where the complaint originated.

Summary: Best practices for keeping the door open

If sales and marketing professionals want to gain competitive advantage over their competition, it is important that they use all the relevant information available to grasp the strengths and weaknesses of the market. The following best practices will help to open the door to opportunities and close it to threats:

• Use the news. Keeping track of the news to identify changes at customers and prospects and possible sales triggers can open the door to sales opportunities, giving sales and marketing professionals a reason to contact prospects and clients.
• Show what you know. Demonstrating to customers and prospects that you know and care about their business will help build solid customer relationships and loyalty while giving sales professionals a competitive edge.
• Monitor blogs regularly. Keeping track of what is said about your company, products, or executives in blogs is a regular best practice. Know what is being discussed in the blogosphere so you are provided with enough time to participate in, and even drive, conversations.
• Contribute to web conversations regularly. It is important to participate in the conversations regularly to show open communication with customers and potential buyers.
• Be timely with responses. Correct misinformation as it happens; don’t wait to respond. Inserting yourself into the discussion prevents negativity from spiraling and lets customers know that their feedback is being heard and addressed.
• Be authentic: People read blogs because they want to find an authentic and honest voice speaking about a subject in a passionate and informative manner. Avoid corporate speak and address readers honestly so that people trust what you communicate.

DO YOU KNOW WHO IS BUYING YOUR PRODUCT? YOUR VIDEO CAMERAS DO.

Marketers spend billions of dollars each year to segment and quantify customers who are most likely to buy their products or services and to design new offerings to reach customers with larger numbers or deeper pockets. Likely, your marketing team leverages consumer trend research, surveys, and focus groups to understand your potential customers’ attitudes and lifestyles, past buying behavior, new product and service needs, and purchase intentions.

With these refined consumer offerings at the ready, ad agencies and marketers then invest significant resources in TV, print, and radio advertising and point-of- purchase merchandising to make sure they reach the intended audiences and to get the best bang for their marketing buck.

So, with high-potential segments defined, products and services designed to meet their needs, and marketing targeted to reach them, all bases are covered, right? Maybe not.

RMG Founder and President Arjun Sen notes that acquiring a new customer costs 5 to 10 times more than keeping an existing one. Combine this with the average retailer’s customer defection rate of 19+% - says David Williams, Founder and President of LoyalTec, LLC - and you are looking at a significant investment to bring new customers through the door. Yet, the bulk of marketing research efforts is targeted at reaching new and different types of consumers.

Given that - according to Marketing Metrics - the probability of selling to a new prospect is only 5%-20% while the probability of selling to an existing customer is 60%-70%, it follows that brands would be wise to focus their marketing research efforts on existing customers. Wouldn’t knowing more about your buying customers (and lost customers) help you optimize your marketing investment?

If your customers buy with credit or as part of a shopping club, you likely know a good deal about who is buying your product. You may have used consumer ethnography, even video ethnography, to help understand how a targeted sample of your customers shop, how they engage with your product, and what they buy. But a new generation of advanced video analytics (called Video-Driven Behavior Analytics or “VDBA”) is making it possible to do what may have seemed impossible before: quantify the consumer profile and shopping behavior of thousands of your customers and potential customers that choose not to purchase your products. It has been described as qualitative data “on steroids.” So, what could you know from VDBA that you don’t know today?

• Real customer profile. Video analyst judgments of real consumer profiles converge over 80% of the time on consumer ethnicity and over 90% of the time on consumer age. This means you can get accurate and quantifiable data on which specific consumers are purchasing or engaging your product and whether or not they match your projected buyers. Video Driven Behavioral Analytics can also provide a second layer of insights: the size and composition of the party that is buying your product. These enhanced consumer profiles can help you assess how “on target” you are in your current marketing efforts, and even more importantly, which consumers you can target more heavily to optimize your marketing efforts.

• How your product stacks up. Widely available consumer purchase data --- from credit card reports, shopping clubs, and POS systems --- can provide critical insights into what customers buy, in what amount, and in what combination. What you likely don’t know is which other products or services potential customers purchase instead of yours. Or which products they consider, but don’t buy at all. VDBA provides unique insights into the other product and service choices specific types of customers make and improves your opportunity to convert interested customers into buying customers.

• Play by play of customer behaviors. Knowing more about how your customers shop versus only what they buy can provide unique insights into how to reach them. VDBA has provided marketers with a deeper look into how product placement impacts contact with the product, where and how customers engage their merchandising, and how specific aspects of the store layout impacts customer flow (e.g., aisle size, queuing, signage). In fact, it can provide near real-time insights into how customers are responding to new products and merchandising in order to make targeted changes.

• Customer conversion rate. Are you leaving a lot on the table with near misses? VDBA allows you to see and quantify the customers that consider your product but don’t make the choice to buy. This insight can translate into other targeted marketing tactics to reach these consumers and convert them into buying customers you can keep.

• Employee engagement and support. Do you know how your employees or the retailer’s employees impact your customers’ choices and overall experience? VDBA is providing retailers useful insights into how employees engage with customers, as it relates to product recommendations and support, as well as overall level of service. This unique view into consumer and employee interactions can serve to improve staffing, scheduling, and training interventions that ultimately impact the movement of your product.

So, how does VDBA work? Using strategically deployed video cameras and microphones (and frequently leveraging security systems that are already in place), video and audio of customer and employee behavior is captured and stored. Digital Video Recorders are used by teams of analysts to playback selected channels of video and audio, and to identify and code customers and their behaviors. Then, in subsequent reviews of the same video, analysts can zero in and uncover meaningful patterns and context of these behaviors.

At the core of successful VDBA is the quality of the customer coding schemes, which are built with your marketing experts and with preliminary reviews of your video data to answer the specific questions you have. These can be modified over time as you learn more or as your questions change.

Sound daunting? It shouldn’t. Customized coding programs allow for streamlining the potentially overwhelming task of reviewing and coding thousands of hours of video. Analysts are able to forward to and sample time periods for a meaningful window into the experiences of your customers (by store location, time of day, staffing situations, product handling or purchase, etc.). And the data adds up quickly. One retailer’s recent research yielded data on 300+ customers’ behavior across 3 outlets in just one week’s time.

How does VDBA stack up against other customer data collection techniques?

Generalizable. Larger pool of customer observations and careful sampling generates more insights and confidence in your results across dayparts, customers, outlets, and markets.

Precise. Reliable data coding schemes allow for more accurate customer measures that can be validated with multiple analysts.

Scalable. The technology can be used to address targeted questions about your consumers or to assess the success of large-scale marketing strategies.

Flexible. Additional coding (versus additional data collection) allows marketers to build more detail and nuance into the quantification of observations. Different levels of coding sophistication can be used depending on your particular marketing question.

Actual behavior. Systematic coding helps to “quantify” actual customer and employee behavior in a way that has more fidelity with the real-world stakeholders than numbers alone.
 
Repeated queries. The video exists as a permanent record that can be reexamined to answer deeper questions, even after your initial research is complete.

Reduced cost. The cost per product or customer observation is substantially lower compared to other observation methods such as live observation, customer ethnography, or secret shops

High-fidelity. Video offers a repository of examples of customer insights that are irrefutable and communicable to stakeholders such as market researchers, product designers, marketing agencies, creative professionals, and business analysts.

Looking to get more bang for your marketing buck? Who isn’t? To optimize your marketing investment VDBA can be used to take a deeper look at your buying (and lost) customers.

Used as a tool in your marketing research portfolio, VDBA can quantify insights into who is (and isn’t) buying your product and can focus your marketing efforts to keep and convert the right customers.

FORGET MARKETING ROI. A BRAND IS A NAME.

A very wise and innovative client of mine – the chairman and CEO of a very successful family-owned enterprise - once shared this observation with me while reflecting upon his serial success as an industry innovator: "I never chased a trend. I've always found the future in the counter-trend." He's right (and, by the way, he's also filthy rich).

In the world of brands, a counter-trend is afoot. For years, I have repeated a mantra to my students and clients about branding. It is this: A brand is not a name. It is an experience. This has been a trend in marketing circles for many years now, but times have changed. While the experience mantra is still very much alive and relevant, there is an emerging story to be told: licensing.

Licensing

According to the Licensing Industry Merchandisers' Association (LIMA), licensing accounts for $175 billion in global retail sales. Not only is it a big business, it's a lean business. By way of example: a restaurant chain for which I've consulted, derives 40% of EBITDA from licensing its name. And here's the kicker. The total number of employees in the "licensing department" is two. With leverage like this, is it any wonder that LIMA's membership has grown from 12 to 1,000 organizations in the past 20 years, since its founding in 1985?

As it turns out, a brand is a name - a potentially very valuable name. While marketers around the globe continue the hunt for the Holy Grail that is marketing's ROI (Return On Investment), I believe that if you really want to get senior leadership's attention - to deliver on their unarticulated needs - stop trying to convince them that your work is worth the effort and start showing them the money locked-up inside your under-appreciated brands. Show them what you've built, not what you're spending. Change the conversation.

Why ROI?

The reason ROI has become such a hot topic in the field of marketing in recent years is two-fold. First, it’s because new media provides mechanisms for measurement (and therefore, we expect old media to play catch-up). Second, it’s because, for the past several years, organizations have been 'fiscally stringent.” Senior executives have been looking to cut everywhere and everything. However, as most organizations are beginning to realize, you can't cut your way to growth. It's a diminishing returns game. It's why innovation is back in play – again - and why innovation will always be in play. Ideas are what make the world go 'round. Licensing is an idea that brand managers around the globe should take seriously - very seriously.

Making money while you sleep

Consider the value of a name according to Interbrand's 2005 list of the 100 Best Global Brands by Value: #1 Coca-Cola ($68 billion); #2 Microsoft ($60 billion); #3 IBM ($53 billion); #4 GE ($46 billion); #5 Intel ($36 billion); #6 Nokia ($26 billion); #7 Disney ($26 billion); #8 McDonald's ($26 billion); #9 Toyota ($25 billion); and, #10 Marlboro ($21 billion). My favorite brand is the one that rolled out of bed at spot #38, Google (at $8 billion). Why is the Google brand name (not just its stock) a marketer's dream? Get this: Google spent all of $5 million in marketing in 2004.

Ok, so those are some good numbers. Names are valuable. But consider how the leader of the licensing pack - Disney - plays the game.

A Name Is worth a thousand pictures

Disney is no Mickey Mouse licensing player. In fact, Disney Consumer Products dominates the licensing industry. DCP accounts for $23 billion in global retail sales (that's 13% of the entire licensing industry worldwide). And here's the reason: Walt "got it" in 1929. Walt Disney was branding while the rest were marketing. His very first deal was a marriage between Mickey Mouse and a kid's writing tablet.

And, licensing a brand name is not just for entertainment products. In fact, corporate brand licensing is the second largest category in the global licensing industry (accounting for $35 billion in global retail sales in 2004, just behind entertainment/characters at $60 billion). Corporate properties at the 2006 licensing show included American Greetings, AT&T, Procter & Gamble, Ford Motor Company, Daimler Chrysler, General Mills, and Crayola. As LIMA suggests, "As more and more corporate brand owners realize the power of licensing, it becomes increasingly important for brands of all sizes to understand how to best develop suitable licensing programs. No brand is too small to take advantage of the licensing industry."

Questions for you to think about

• Do you know what your brand really means to people - not just your customers, but also the population at large?

• Do you know what your brand is worth? (Net Present Value of cash flows attributed to the brand).

• Do you know what your brand's potential is in categories outside of those in which you currently sell products?

• Mostly importantly, who in your organization is responsible for licensing? Find him or her and ask them: "What is our licensing strategy?" If you don't have one, get one.

PACKAGING FOR THE PLANET

Everything in our society is packaged. With the huge increase in global consumer goods consumption comes a large increase in packaging waste. This has created stress in community landfills around the globe making it more incumbent on companies to use biodegradable as well as recycled materials as much as possible. Sustainable packaging should be embraced, not only for marketing leverage, but because it’s the right thing to do.

It’s great to see that many companies are behaving like responsible corporate citizens when it comes to sustainable packaging. Much has been made of this topic in professional journals. While important to the discussion, much of this is too scientific to be easily grasped by most of us. So what is sustainable packaging all about?

The Sustainable Packaging Coalition cites that according to conservative estimates the worldwide packaging industry is valued at close to $420 billion and gives employment to more than five million people globally. In the U.S. alone, consumer purchases of durable and non-durable goods and services account for 70% of the GDP. That makes product packaging a big deal!

With a finite amount of nonrenewable natural resources, ever-rising energy costs, and rapidly filling landfills, sustainable packaging is becoming an increasing necessity.  Many CPG companies and retailers are embracing eco-friendly packaging as never before. Wal-Mart, for example, has instituted a Sustainable Packaging Scorecard. The retail giant expects its 60,000 suppliers to fill in substantial information concerning their packaging. This information is shared so that suppliers can see how they “stack up” against all of Wal-Mart’s other suppliers.

Employing what Wal-Mart refers to as “The 7 Rs of Packaging - remove, reduce, recycle, renew, revenue, and read - the company feels it is moving in the right direction with its supplier partners.

This kind of initiative has an understandably large ripple effect throughout the CPG industry. It also provides a catalyst that spurs many companies to take action. Understandably, sustainable packaging is new to many companies and it isn’t possible or reasonable to do all of these things at once, if ever. Yet, whatever measures companies can implement will have a direct impact on our environment. The point is to have a “win-win” proposition: save on energy, natural resources, and environmental waste, while doing it profitably. With some smart thinking and planning, these measures can have a positive impact on corporate revenue streams.

For many decades, products and packaging have both been designed in a “cradle to grave” system; that is, they have ended up in landfills at the end of their useful life cycles. While some product components and packaging have been made biodegradable, a substantial amount is not. The best scenario avoids damaging the ecosystem altogether.

Numerous organizations have been formed to assist companies in reorienting their product and packaging development into a new “cradle to cradle” system. Products and packaging created in this manner feature materials that are perpetually circulated and reused in what industry experts refer to as “closed loops.” This extracts maximum value from materials already in use without ever ending up in landfills, damaging ecosystems.

There are various aspects that make packaging sustainable. Manufacturers can institute some, if not all, of these environmentally friendly packaging solutions for their products:

• Cut down on excess product packaging. By creating packaging that is the right size for products, and not adding any extraneous material inside of packaging, there are huge savings in costs and waste.

• Use materials from renewable resources sourced from well-managed eco-systems. There are alternative resources for environmentally safe packaging components and packing materials.

• Use recycled materials to reduce the environmental impact of virgin materials that must be manufactured (the latter uses additional energy and natural resources). Procter & Gamble, Kraft Foods, and FedEx all use 100% recycled paperboard. Companies can get information at The 100% Recycled Paperboard Alliance.

• Use non-toxic lead-free plastic packaging. Cargill Dow’s NatureWorks PLA plastic packaging made entirely from field corn and NatureFlex biodegradable and compostable film made from wood pulp, supplied by Surface Specialties UCB.

• Use biodegradable materials and soy or water-based inks that will not do damage to the environment.

• Purchase packaging materials that have been made with as little energy consumption as possible and that have emitted the fewest greenhouse gases in manufacture.

• Use packaging that has shifted away from petro-based chemicals to corn and potato starch components in biodegradable resins. These starches actually compost when degraded. Starch-based biodegradable foams are available from KTM Industries.

• Use biodegradable cornstarch peanuts as packing material in cartons rather than foam peanuts or packing pellets made from starch-based cereal grains made from Clextral.

• Find out about cradle-to-cradle product and packaging components and use them whenever possible.

Added to packaging issues are myriad supply chain issues. Getting packaged products to the retail marketplace is a huge area of focus at present. According to an August 2006 report in the ProLogis Supply Chain Review, more logistics experts are working to maximize cube utilization better than ever before, given transportation costs. Better cube utilization simply means that manufacturers and retailers are seeking more efficiencies in trucking their products to consumer channels. By optimizing carton to pallet space ratios and filling trucks to capacity, transportation and energy costs are cut down.

Many companies are also teaming with other companies as “partners” in trucking, ensuring that once trucks unload their cargo, they pick up additional cargo and make additional drops on the way back so that they aren’t returning empty, consuming additional energy. Smart thinking by smart logistics managers.

By consciously choosing products that are packaged in recycled or renewable materials, consumers not only support the companies that are eco-conscious, but also do their part to lessen energy use, the stripping of our precious natural resources and environmental waste.

Companies seeking guidance and additional information on sustainable packaging can go to the Sustainable Packaging Coalition Web site www.sustainablepackaging.org or The Sustainable Packaging Alliance www.sustainablepack.org.

USING CUSTOMER KNOWLEDGE AND INSIGHT TO GROW MARKET POWER

Gaining customer knowledge, insight, and information is critical – but how do we use it once we’ve got it? What fundamental changes in our organizations are now required to grow market power?

I suggest a new business model is required. Decades of centralized control in business are about to become history. The old market pillars - the foundations of the supply chain (distribution, manufacturing, and marketing) - are all fundamentally different when seen through the filter of the Internet. The terminology we’ve used for years is inadequate to describe what is required today to be close to and meet the needs of customers. Instead, the new categories are “Creation,” “Customization,” and “Communication.”

My thesis is this: market power is derived from a company becoming more “permeable.” In a permeable corporation, success depends on how well you play with others to deliver customer value. Partnerships, collaboration and sharing are critical, not optional. In this model, the source of power comes from three areas:

Source of Power #1: Creation

We no longer play in individual sand boxes. We share ideas and focus on building on each others’ ideas so that creation is not about building the coolest widget, but building different pieces together to solve a particular need. Facebook opening its APIs to developers – and increasing its corporate valuation in doing so – is one example.

One measure of success in this area is how well you enable integration with other technology solutions, as well as how open you can be to building collaboratively. What is your level of support around developer engagement? Do you have open APIs, do you enable platforms such as Adobe’s Apollo, eBay’s ecommerce solution, and do you release content into open source or provide component enablement (www.programmableweb.com) so that others can co-create with you? Keep in mind that this kind of creation changes the definition of “partner” and “competitor.”  You may find collaboration occurs with organizations you’d never have considered before. Customers are creating value for companies by doing custom printed packaging (Kleenex). Who knows, maybe your next great seller could be created by a customer.

This new type of creation implies that you can develop and innovate faster. But it also means that you are creating something based on a particular customer set’s needs. And, you could layer other work on top of other platforms to make the solution complete. The key to market power using creation is innovation and speed. Without both, other companies will reach the tipping point faster and leave you in the dust.

Source of Power #2: Customization

Each of us is a singular person – unique and appealing to market to. But companies tend to market to big targets without really paying attention to the individual. Using the tools available to us in the Web 2.0 era, customers can become a market of one. Not that you’ll drop your focus on big targets. But everyone’s taste departs from the mainstream somewhere, and the more we find new options, new alternatives, the more we find things we like. Or rather, we LOVE. Our choices are expanded and by having more choice, when we make a selection, we have the ability to connect to that choice deeply. What is considered “fringe” to one, is of extreme value to others. These offerings, or variations of them, then get used to spice up the total product line. In addition, getting outside normal marketing vehicles and language means the communication can be better. It is one effect of the market forces Chris Anderson described so well in his book “The Long Tail.”

Solving unique customer needs is a great opportunity. Maybe this is too utopian to gain wide-spread acceptance, but I believe that customer value will become about what someone needs based on their use, their content, and their self-identification (this implies a micro segmentation based on user input). The flavors are not set by any one vendor, but rather by a marketplace where customization can take place. This is what www.threadless.com is all about. Many ideas get developed and each represents interests, desires, and needs. Some portion of those get made into product. You want to bet that Threadless is successful? Of course it is. It has the customization and flavors built into its very DNA.

This is the key source of power – getting to the point where we listen when the customer tells us who they are, what features they want, what products they need, and how we can best be of service. Don’t get me wrong – it doesn’t meant they get it all. It means you can serve more of them with different flavors.

Think about that. Think about the amount of insight that could form. And instead of me pushing out a lot of “mass” market advertising, PR, and trial software, I might instead sponsor passionate advocate-driven Web sites, or encourage user debate on topics relevant to them on my site, or “pull” the kinds of content and ideas they seek from me via tags of data rather than a highly structured Web site. Need I add that the customized offers that give me market power also empower me in my relationships with advertising and PR vendors?

Source of Power #3: Communications

In times of great change like we’re facing today, people turn to one another. They don’t turn to big groups or organizations. They turn to a guide, a trusted friend. Who will lead these people? Will it be the traditional sources – journalists, politicians, celebrities, other public figures? Probably not.

We used to ask friends and family about where to stay on vacation, what BBQ to buy, what make of car to consider. Now, we not only reference information based on who we know, but also on who is a noted authority on travel or backyard cooking equipment or cars. It may be someone who has a blog on the topic and comments frequently. At times that information is linked to purchase decisions, but many times it’s on Epinions, Amazon.com, or Technorati searches. We listen to others who are like us, people who are fans, hobbyists, or enthusiasts.

I believe we are seeing the rise of a new class of leaders. These are people who do research, who investigate, who know how to tell the good from the bad, defining by their words, photos, and videos on PCs, mobile phones and blogs the benefits of using something. Or, in the case of the infamous KFC/Taco Bell unit in New York, the rodent-infested non-benefits – viewed by almost half a million viewers on You Tube. Whatever they are called – citizen marketers, consumer advocates, key influentials, user enthusiasts – they get their message into public view without the filtration provided by your PR team or ad agency.

There will be many of these consumer advocates as leaders involved with many product categories, whether yogurt, cars, or blogging services. And whether they choose WordPress or VOX as the winning offer will define which of your products is more successful. As they’re doing that, these individuals will shape the market’s view of what your company or product stands for. If you don’t already know your key user influencers, it’s time to do so. If you’re not in dialogue with them already, what do you think is at risk?

This kind of information is wholly different from company collateral. It’s not controlled by the company. It’s not even stored in one place. Distributed content created by customers and others tends to be viral and has a life of its own. Engaging in at least a two-way dialogue with enthusiasts and guides creates a path to learn, to discern, to champion. If customers love you, you’ve got a lot of ad hoc positive comment and additional sources of communication that provide you with additional market power.

Market power happens when you create a linkage between creation, customization, and communication.

It’s time

We’re currently in the midst of a “triple witching hour” of change. Societal change, technological change, and wide availability of broadband access are enabling a worldwide community of consumers and developers. Don’t think it’s just technology that is driving this new direction. Culture is rapidly changing as well. We’re experiencing a new way of creating, collaborating, and communicating that’s different from business as we’ve known it.

Our customers have more power than ever before. And so do we. Give them more ability to be creative. Customize and communicate and you’ll have the source of market power that gives you strategic advantage.

THE DOWNLOAD

A second quarter study by Information technology media company TechTarget, reveals that IT directors and managers are primarily concerned with aligning IT with overall business requirements, growth, and modernization, superseding strategies focused on operational efficiencies, cost containment, or upgrading existing infrastructure.

The second of TechTarget’s quarterly IT Media Consumption Trends and IT Buyer Purchase Intention study – conducted in collaboration with the CMO Council – shows an increased focus on integrating IT plans with overall business goals is supported by the continued ranking of business application deployment as the number one IT department focus over the next six months. “This correlation is logical as new applications like CRM and Collaboration software drive differentiation, performance, output, and process improvement within organizations,” noted CMO Council Executive Director Donovan Neale-May. “Securing and sustaining these applications is also a critical need as indicated by the top three areas of IT organizational priority: data security/integrity, disaster recovery/business continuity, and security, with disaster recovery moving to the forefront.”

IBM, HP, Microsoft, and Dell continue to be the preferred vendors, ranking in the top four for purchase intention.

The research report is based on surveys of a cross-section of IT professionals and business decision makers from TechTarget’s IT Research Panel.  Over 1,100 technology professionals responded to this survey, revealing IT procurement shifts, indicating purchasing intentions, and defining emerging application and deployment areas. The research also provides insights into the IT professional’s preferred online media destinations and channels, and the types of content being used to facilitate corporate IT purchase decisions.

Survey respondents represent a wide range of industries, with the highest concentrations in computer service, financial, government, and healthcare segments.

To obtain a summary of the current TechTarget/CMOC study, click on this link: www.techtarget.com/mediaconsumptionreport2

Brand Study Reveals America’s Best-Loved Brands

Jet Blue tops the 10th annual Consumer Loyalty Engagement Index released by New York-based research company Brand Keys.

The Brand Keys study measured over 360 companies by polling 24,000 consumers between 18 and 60 years old, across all nine U.S. Census Bureau regions.

JetBlue beat out fellow discounter Southwest Airlines for the top airline spot. Even though JetBlue earlier in the year suffered through a customer service break down, leather seats, television sets, and its relatively hassle-free travel experience go a long way toward giving the company the benefit of the doubt after a bad day.

Brand Keys' president Robert Passikoff refers to the "Rules of Six" to define the benefits of developing a brand that consumers strongly relate to. "People who express loyalty to a brand are six times as likely to buy it again than they are to buy a competitor's, and they're six times more likely to recommend it to a friend and to invest in the company," says Passikoff, a Ph.D. who's been modeling consumer loyalty for 25 years.

Experts say the biggest mistakes companies make when trying to measure their image with consumers is not properly breaking down the metrics that are unique to their industries. Old staples like trust and customer service continue to play a role, but people don't choose a brand of cola for the same reasons they choose a car, nor do they like an airline for the same reasons they like a certain bank.

In addition to JetBlue, which took an airline category where customers placed the greatest emphasis on boarding and booking efficiency (above security, for the first time since Sept. 11, 2001), the other consumer engagement winners earned their spots for very different reasons. Target, which beat out Costco and Wal-Mart in the discount retail sector, doesn't really have a price edge over its rivals. But even budget-conscious consumers put a lot of importance on a store's range of merchandise and the shopping experience it offers, both areas of strength for Target.

Menu variety and healthy choices were two of the top drivers for fast food restaurant preferences, Brand Keys found. Those two drivers helped Subway past McDonald's for top honors. And in banking, where consumers chose Wachovia as their favorite, breadth of services--and a minimum of account fees--trump personal service almost every time.

Underlying it all is the expectations game, where companies that know not to overpromise stand a better chance of scoring with consumers, provided they still deliver the goods that customers deem most important. Passikoff sums up consumer spending choices this way: "The brand that exceeds expectations is the brand I'm going to buy."

Snacking on Primetime

With online video on the rise, some broadcast-TV networks have begun to discover that "prime time" doesn't always have to be between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. Between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., millions of white-collar workers are sitting at their desks -- Harris Interactive says about 35% of the nation's 172 million adult internet users are online at work -- and can be enticed to "snack" on short-form clips of popular network programs and telecasts. With savvy Web players such as Yahoo already targeting advertising to daytime surfers, the networks have started to sense an opportunity they can use their popular programs to grab a broader audience.

UPCOMING EVENTS

2007 CMO Council European Summit:
Marketing Leads to Business Innovation and Growth
Dates: November 27-28, 2007
Location: Hotel Adlon Kempinski
Berlin, Germany

2007 CMO Council Summit:
The Elite Retreat
Less Burn: More Return
Dates: December 12-13, 2007
Location: The Lodge at Sonoma
Sonoma, CA

Taking a deep dive into the theme of this year’s CMO Summit Elite Retreat – “Less Burn, More Return” – will enable participants to review and revise their marketing spend plans for 2008, and take a hard look at how others formulate, justify and account for a growing part of overall business operating budgets. Attendance is by-invitation-only and will require participation in the Marketing Outlook 2008 Survey as well as some preparatory work in advance of the gathering. more »

Red Herring Japan 2007
Dates: July 22 - 24, 2007
Location: Kyoto, Japan
Event Category: Technology

There are many events and conferences every year in Japan, but none deliver the personal touch, global perspective and unique editorial viewpoint that are Red Herring’s trademark. This event will focus on Japan but deliver insights from the global technology ecosystem. Red Herring Japan – Insights 2007 is invitation-only to ensure that all attendees are decision makers, and that they can contribute to the group as a whole. If you can only attend one event in Japan this year, this is it. more »

ClickZ Specifics: E-mail Marketing 
Date: October 2, 2007
Location: Hilton New York. New York, NY.
Website: http://www.clickzevents.com/email/fall07/

TechTarget Online ROI Summit
Dates: September 20 - 21, 2007
Location: San Francisco, CA
Event Category: Other

Learn about the latest online marketing strategies and campaign tactics from experts and peers in the IT industry. Several general sessions will incorporate expert advice on subjects you care about; latest performance data on the “new media” types that really work, including podcasts, video applications, social community sponsorships like blogs or wikis and contextual marketing. Hear Best Practices on closed-loop lead management as well as insights from leaders Google and Yahoo! on latest SEM tactics. more »

MARKETING IN MENA: CMO COUNCIL LAUNCHES GLOBAL STUDY

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has become one of the world’s most thriving financial and commercial locales. Multinationals are rapidly establishing operations in MENA. What’s more, hundreds of other large and growing enterprises are now exploring ways to capitalize on the phenomenal growth occurring in the region.

Is your company currently marketing in MENA? Does it have plans to do so in the coming months? The CMO Council would like to know. To evaluate the rapidly escalating level of business activity in MENA, The CMO Council has launched a global study focused on companies’ current and future marketing initiatives in the region. The study – Mideast Marketing: Perceptions & Intentions – is designed to deliver in-depth strategic insights. Importantly, it will provide CMO Council members with actionable guidance to help them advance their companies’ MENA marketing missions.

Please share your experiences with us by completing the brief online survey here by August 31, 2007.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION

If you would like to submit an article or recommend one, please follow these guidelines:

• Maximum 1,000 words
• Microsoft Word format
• Use Arial typeface
• Appropriate content for executive level audience
• Marketing-related content