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By Stephen Crooks, on February 18th, 2010
 - People still see your ads, even if they don’t respond by visiting your website.
Modern Advertising has been dependent on the concept of mass awareness – dumping ads to a wide audience hoping their key demographic is paying attention. And it works. Yet something peculiar happens for some clients (especially those with limited resources) when they enter the world of online advertising – they seem to think conventional advertising techniques no longer apply.
Just because people aren’t clicking on your ads doesn’t mean your campaign is a failure. Depending on ad placement (did the people see your ads?) your campaign may have effectively reached your target audience even with zero interaction with your site.
I can recall ads such as Sony’s e-reader (which I see on the Toronto Star mobile site), University of Arizona, amongst others – yet have never visited their website.
But when I do a search for digital books or online university and I see either organization in the search results – I’m more likely to respond to their ads because of my familiarity with the brand.
Yet a client who analyzes results strictly on a click by click conversion basis will not see the value (and long term value) of the impressions they generated. So take advantage of Cost per Click (CPC) campaigns
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By Stephen Crooks, on February 17th, 2010
 - Apple’s original PDA, helped establish the market Palm took over, in part due to major innovations the company made.
Leapfrogging – It’s a phenomenon that I see occur time and time again, where the industry leader is blindsided by a leap in innovation – an innovation they should have owned. Yet so many organizations still only make marginal/incremental enhancements to their products or services. But in this globally competitive world minor tweaks and updates aren’t going to keep your company at the top of the pecking order.
In Canada there are a lot of companies that hit it big with a one-off idea. Which they do very well with is during the growth cycle – but once the market becomes either over saturated or is on the decline where you really start to see the “hold the fort” mentality. Their original “winning formula” is really what prevents the reinventing of the wheel. Being market leader in a dying market to most would seem to be a losing proposition. Ideally a company should position itself as leader in a growth (or stable) market. But time and time again we see organizations that through indecision or paranoia fail to grasp the concept of radical change – until they wake up and can’t figure out why their stock is worthless.
This happened recently when Toronto based CD/DVD maker Cinram lost the contract with a major studio. It should be no surprise to anyone that the concept of the pressed disk is dying – fast. And this is something that was easily predictable when iTunes or Napster first launched. But here you have a company that once was trading 5 years ago in the $30 range, now sits in the $1.20 range. Not to pick on any one company – but what was their plan 5 years ago to deal with the change in markets – what was their leapfrog strategy? Without one marginal changes won’t grow the company.
Another example is Palm, the makers of handheld PDA’s. This company essentially invented the concept and the market for the smart handheld device, but a company that once was market leader has since been very quickly trounced on by Apple. The iPhone/iTouch isn’t any Sci-fi alien technology – it’s all off the shelf, available to anyone. What Apple did is they effectively re-thought, re-engineered the concept of of a PDA. But because Apple lacked any attachment to previous designs, standards, ways of thinking – they were able to leapfrog Palm and come out with a better device.
Leapfrogging as a concept is not that hard to understand – but it means a company has to ditch what it knows now and embrace blue-sky thinking. The question of organizational strength is whether or not a company is capable to get past the silo thinking and be progressive enough to go to the next level.
Leapfrogging Techniques:
- Look 5 Years into the Future, and not at what pundits or commentators are talking about – but rather what are the geo/political/social/technological developments that you see as becoming a huge trend.
- Forget everything you know – depending on if you offer a product or service – depart from your offering in brainstorming sessions. Think more holistically about what it is your company has been put on earth to solve. Off the top of my head: Palm = your data where ever you are. Cinram = Permanent content storage.
- It’s about evolving not finding one off fixes. As much as the iPod was a major leapfrog device – the product continued to evolved incrementally, and so too with the various subsequent leapfrog devices Apple has since released.
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By Stephen Crooks, on February 3rd, 2010
Is Your Bricks and Mortar Store Ready for Digital Invaders?
It used to be that if you ran a store and a customer walked into your premise you’d have full control over the consumers user experience, till the moment they left your shop. Unless the customer has a flyer in their pocket or a photographic memory – the competition had little chance to directly interact with the customer once they entered another business. But that’s so 2006. In today’s world your competition can have interaction like never before with any other retailers potential new client. Welcome to the world of the smart phone.
The smart phone is a game changer in the retail world. Customers can now can reach-out and bypass your store all together. You go from being a retailer to a commodity dealer. I was reminded of with my last visit to a Canadian Tire in which I utilized the do-it-yourself checkout. I was struck by the idea that I now shop – in a very large store with Zero human interaction. So do I try to hunt down a staff member to ask a question? Or do I turn to my “trusted” (keyword there) smart phone for advice, pricing, comparisons, etc.
As consumers get trained to seek advice and answers from their pocket – and not the sales associates – my-oh-my how this changes the playing field.
A savvy competitor should make its move and find ways of courting the customer – whilst in their competitors store.
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By Stephen Crooks, on February 3rd, 2010
Here’s my idea of the day – for Starbucks or any other coffee joint. The idea of this is to help out staff during peak times ensure customer satisfaction. I’ve noticed that at busy peak times often all the containers of milk and coffee cream empty out. With the stainless steel thermos casing – there’s no visual clue to let the staff know if the contents have been exhausted.
Well here’s my idea to improve efficiency: containters would have a built in sensor that would measure weight (or some other permaiter). Meanwhile at the counter, a dashboard would show the status of all the containers (nothing major just a few lights). A glance of the eye would allow the staff to quickly see on the status of all their milk containers. Allowing them to more proactively address any supply issues immediately.
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By Stephen Crooks, on February 2nd, 2010
It’s interesting that I still meet people that don’t think that Online activity and presence doesn’t influence real world consumer behaviour.
I was reminded of this when I was in BestBuy on the weekend. I’m not a video game player, but I stumbled across a new sim-city type game that I had never heard of before. The price point was right – but I’m not going to take the word of a cardboard box. I pulled out my iPhone – and did a search.
Within a few moment I read a review – that gave the game 3 out of 5. Including some deterring negative points. The game ended back-up on the shelf. Sale lost.
A new way of shopping.
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By Stephen Crooks, on February 1st, 2010
A local grocery store of my is notorious for having it’s employees stock the shelves at what seems to be it’s busiest time. This results in clogged isles and frustrated customers. Clearly busy periods of the day are cyclical, so it shouldn’t come of any surprise that the store is busy at x hour. The store manager must alter the duties of his staff to mirror the influx of customers (especially at evening rush-hour).
Have the shelves ready to go, and staff out making sure their guests are finding the products they want. Have the staff monitoring areas that get picked over often – and pull the merchandise out to the front so the customer doesn’t have to.
It’s the little things that can help make for a better shopping experience.
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By Stephen Crooks, on January 29th, 2010
So everyone is bitching today that the iPad is a bit of a disappointment, that they expected something ‘ground breaking’ or ‘revolutionary’. Well, you have. What the iPad will accomplish in it’s first year is it will start to make digital data ambiguous.
Sure smart phones have started the march down the path of always on, always available data. But iPad will push it to a whole new standard – to the point where it’s culture changing.
See smart phones are singular – an entity for one, a laptop is designed for one and a desktop PC is designed only to be used by one. But the iPad goes somewhere else: it’s a collective device. It’s not easy to share onscreen information on any of these devices with others unless your under ideal conditions. The iPad changes this, you can hold it up to show people the screen, slide it across a boardroom table, flip it around, pass it back and forth, put it down, pick it up. The interface is fluid – quick, easy and efficient – therefore your not interfering with the flow of the conversation, the exchange of ideas – in and out data – no waiting for the laptop to boot, connecting to a network, getting the mouse to work, navigating a complex (attention required) interface – clicks and concentration required – and ultimately that’s the difference.
iPhones and all other computer devices to date are singular – iPads are collaborative and that makes it a culture changer.
Part II will look at how always on digital will change our society.
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By Stephen Crooks, on January 28th, 2010
If BlackBerry hopes to be around in five years and not end up as another Palm – they need to do a radical rethink of their business model. BlackBerry is not going out of business and it will be healthy for the next few years – but their USP is all but gone.
My recommendation is that BlackBerry focus soley on the Business market – let the other players fight it out for the tweens and hockey moms. But in doing so, they need to recognize that they are not a content company and never will be. Once they get over that herdle, look for partnerships to provide media content to their user base. Lets face it, business users want music and movies as well. As crazy as it may sound – maybe even work with an iTunes or other similar content like storefront. BlackBerry will take their cut – and let other players negotiate with Metallica for distribution rights.
This will allow them to keep their customers happy with the fluff that most people want – and lets the company focus on it’s strengths. Win – Win.
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By Stephen Crooks, on January 28th, 2010
With the release of iPad so should come with MobileMe tossed in for free. Take a page from Google and see the value not in the user fee’s but rather the targeting advertising. Maybe offer a package of reduced services, and for those who want more features – pay a little bit more.
It’s in Apple’s business interest to keep users locked to the Apple platform, and what better way than to control the contacts and photos of the customer?
The risk to Apple is that customers switch to Google for their sync and cloud solutions (which I currently utilize- free is a good price point to me).
If Apple can make Cloud computing as seamless as they make their hardware and software – they will grow their market for even more hardware devices over time. Otherwise they may have to enter the ring with Google to keep customers with their platform – and nobody wants to take on Google.
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By Stephen Crooks, on January 25th, 2010
If you want to make any programmer instantly angry at you just utter the phrase: “oh ya, make sure it’s IE 6 compatible”. IE 6 is now an ancient browser from a company that refuses to let it die. This browser which shipped with XP SP 2 is rated by many one of the worst software programs of all time. Beyond the security holes, it was most noitorius for it’s inability to support open standards. Open standards allow programmers to easily design something that would look and function properly regardless of operating system or web browser. Yet not supporting open standards was one of the methods Microsoft deployed to destroy Netscape and other start-up browsers. By having a monoply of pre-installed browsers – MS was able to exert control. With full market share designers began to only design for IE – so sites would look perfect in Explorer – yet be completely broken in Netscape. Which browser would you use to surf the web?
And it worked very well for a very long time. Even I became an Internet Explorer fan as IE just worked – well with their non-standard coding. But over time Microsoft slowed development, new features and upgrades few and far between. Tired of being stifled by the lack of innovation and new features consumers opted for new browsers that provided consumers with new innovations.
But in recent years IE has become the browser that is impossible to design for. Sloppy coding, security holes, and so many conflicting standards. Every successive browser that gets released seems to amplify the problem, as there’s compatability issues from browser to browser. Microsoft has always been slow to make updates and release new product features. And when it finally rolls out new editions, they simply are playing catch-up with Firefox, Opera, Safari or Chrome.
Since the anti-trust lawsuits of the 90’s started – Microsoft has all but avoided any form of integration with other MS products. Which brings up the whole point of why bother? No single corporation can win against open source. A well oiled open source network has much more resources (including talent) available vs. the resources their company can allocate. The updates and improvements being made to Firefox now appear at lightning speed.
Therefore what purpose does IE serve? Pride? Clearly the trashing that IE gets in the media isn’t what you call good marketing, rather it’s the opposite. The continous security threats and never ending patches doesn’t help present the rest of the organization in a positive light. And you know you have problems when the Government of Germany advises it’s citizens not to use the browser – or when Google blames hacking of their products on compromised IE browser do you realize you have problems.
I’m sure there’s ways for IE to maintain it’s independence – but with a Mozilla Firefox core, just tweaked to be MS friendly.
Overall IE serves no purpose, it’s a distraction to the company, consumers and developers.
It’s time to admit defeat, and focus on core strengths.
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