Planner Survey 2011. The State of Marketing-Strategy Worldwide.

September 18th, 2011 • 1 comment Strategy
Tags: Agencies, Jobs, Money, Planning, Report, Salary, Strategy, Study, Survey, Truth, World

I have to admit I am a bit late with this post. But I have been travelling so please forgive me if you know about the ‘Planner Survey 2011‘ already. Many of you know this survey which my colleague Heather LeFevre conducts annually. Heather is Head of Planning at Strawberry Frog Amsterdam and for the seventh time she has tried to shed some light on the state of Marketing-Strategy worldwide – a remarkable effort for such a niche ‘industry’ within a ‘niche industry’.

I don’t want to say anything about her research. Just check out the 2011 document below. But I really want to thank Heather for her continuous curiosity in this topic. Great insights. I particularly the more localized character of this year’s survey compared with 2010′s data.

By the way: If you want to follow Heather on twitter, do it here.

Consumer Love. IBM shows how not to ask the right questions.

August 15th, 2011 • Reports, Social, Social Business, Strategy
Tags: Adaptation Marketing, Facebook, IBM, Media, Prediction, Presentation, Report, Research, Social Influence Marketing, Social Networks, Strategy, Trends

IBM has just published a study called ‘From Social Media to Social CRM‘ (PDF download). I first liked it because it was not boring. It did not repeat the same old shit that you read anywhere else. In fact…it seemed quite uncomfortable and innovative. At first.

So at first some of the study’s claims did not sound very surprising, nevertheless heretic for many people in the industry. IBM found out that most people are not so much into learning about your next campaign on social networks. They are actually almost exclusively interested to meet their friends. And pretty much the only reasons why they friend a brand – according to IBM – is VOUCHERS.

Yes. All of us hate these types of relations.

Who wants to date a girl that only spends time with you because you pay all the restaurant bills?

IBM has got an explanation for you why you spend time with this girl (the social consumer): Simply because you want to think the girl loves you.

Businesses are three times more likely to think consumers are interested in interacting with them to feel part of a community. Businesses also overestimate consumers’ desire to engage with them to feel connected to their brand. In fact, these two activities are among the least interesting from a consumer’s perspective.

Consumers are willing to interact with businesses if they believe it is to their benefit, feel they can trust the company and decide social media is the right channel to use to get the value they seek. That value could be in the form of a coupon or specific information. Engaging with a company via social media may result in a feeling of connectedness for consumers – an emotional, intangible gain – but the wish for intimacy is not what drives most of them.

I agree with the latter claim even though IBM streamlined the study to make sure everyone understands VOUCHERS as the key consumer desire. How? By benchmarkting the girl’s (social consumer’s) top reasons why she dates you compared to your top reasons why you date her. The result could not be much different. And yes: According to this study most of her top reasons to date you are connected to restaurant bills.

So does that mean all of us should forget about investing into next year’s social activation? Definitely not.

Read more »

15 Years Later. A Conversation with my first Creative Director, Steffen Herbold.

Juli 24th, 2011 • Allgemein, Social, Social Business, Strategy
Tags: Agencies, Experimental, Germany, Interview, People, Social, Social Influence Marketing, Social Media, steffen herbold, Strategy, Trends, WOB

A couple of weeks ago I talked about first jobs with a friend.

WOB was/is the name of my first employer/agency. And before anyone asks: Yes, Werbung und Organisationsberatung sounds awfully German. But I still think this dedicated B2B agency from the south of Germany is one of the most professional agency brands I ever worked for. B2B is tough. B2B is rarely considered as cool. And even though marketing Supply Chain Management Software or Nanotech solutions is definitely not for everyone, I am still happy I took my first steps in the agency world as part of the team from Viernheim (yes, Viernheim). It was one of the best ‘schools’ for a young marketing guy like me.

Back in the days when I realized I am better in copywriting than in Project Management there was one guy who thought I might be right. Steffen Herbold is Creative Director at WOB (pretty much since God created the Earth). He is a great copywriter, a very, very smart man, and he is one of the people I definitely do not meet as often as I should.

I kind of rediscovered Steffen (sorry Steffen) two years ago. After not being in contact for a while, we connected on Facebook and hold a steady dialogue since then. I was really interested to find out about how a dedicated B2B agency like WOB perceives the challenges by the Digital revolution in general and the social web in particular. And Steffen was so nice to answer a couple of questions. I am sure if you leave a comment he will gladly answer your questions as well.

Hi Steffen. Which role does Social Media play for a B2B agency like WOB nowadays?
A big one.

How different are B2B and B2C in this regard?
Well, obviously buying a chocolate bar and a ERP software have absolutely nothing in common. Apart from one thing: There are emotions involved. But whereas the purchasing processes of FMCG’s are individual and impulsive by nature, the buying process in a btob context is collective and reflected – so it is no wonder that these differences become manifest in social media too. I would put it this way: In b2c social media are capable of creating something like a “virtual nearness” between a brand and its target group, in b2b they’re an adequate tool to truly deepen existing relationships. You might as well say: b2c is brilliant flirting, b2b is serious marriage.
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google Plus. Why it’s not about becoming another Facebook.

Juli 2nd, 2011 • 6 comments Social, Strategy, Tools, Trends
Tags: Facebook, Foursquare, google, Social, Social Networks, Strategy, Tools, Twitter

Unless you have been hiding under a rock you probably have heard about google+ or you are already registered user. And just in case you hid under a rock, I let the guys from NMA News explain what google+ is…simply because I love their videos.

So after testing google Plus for two days I am as positive about it as most others I talked to. google simply built a platform with more Pros than Cons. Something you can imagine to use in the future because it combines some of the best features of everything you already use and wraps them in one platform. Ooooh…and a couple of nice new concepts come with the package: google hangout for example (definitely a winner). And I guess Facebook really jumpstarts now to get the Skype cooperation up and running. Among other things.

Stupid debates usually start with terms like (fill blank) killer. Can you remember one game changing product that was announced as the iPhone/Facebook/whatever killer and lived up to it? Not one product out there. And I think the industry has become smart enough not to put this into the focus of discussions around google+ too much. Simply because it is pointless.

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Study. The World’s Top 100 Prestige and Luxury Brands on Facebook.

Juni 9th, 2011 • Brands, Strategy
Tags: Brands, Facebook, List, luxury, prestige, Reports, Social, Social Influence Marketing, Study

Prestige and Luxury brands used to have quite a hard time to deal with this phenomenon called social media. It seemed like a contradiction to what high value brands stood for. Being very exclusive simply did not seem to fit right into this new all connected world in which everyone is included.

Times are a changing and some of the planet’s really iconic (mainstream) brands are amongst the most successful players particularly on Facebook. L2 – a thinktank for luxury brands in New York – along with the guys from Buddy Media just published an extremely interesting piece of research: The L2 Prestige 100®: Facebook IQ measures the aptitude of 100 prestige brands from the Auto, Beauty, Fashion, Watches & Jewelry, and Spirits & Champagnes industries on the world’s fastest growing social media platform.

Key findings are:

• It is still not really about size: many of the brands that have been most effective at acquiring Facebook fans have fallen flat engaging them.
• Push only isn’t cool: Brands which allow their fans to post are more engaged Facebook brands than the 20% which don’t allow it
• Products are winning over promotions: Most engagement rates were achieved through product posts not promotions
• Facebook is still considered as an island: Too few brands integrate the social graph into their digital ecosystem
• F-Commerce? Nah! Only few brands are actively engaged in social commerce on Facebook

In short – if you deal with prestige and or luxury brands on Facebook this is the study to download. Get it here.

Social Strategies. Altimeter’s great & ugly compendium.

Mai 25th, 2011 • Social, Social Business, Strategy
Tags: Altimeter, Diy, Presentation, Report, Social, Social Business Design, Social Influence Marketing, Social Networks

Charlene Li – one of the spiritual mothers of social media – has achieved two things with the following presentation: She simultaneously wins the award for one of the best and one the ugliest presentations I have seen on this topic in a while. Seriously Altimeter – I know you guys listen: I love your thoughts. But there are designers out there who can help you out with a Powerpoint template or a new logo or something… (via We are social)

Ideas, Ideas, Ideas. @Uberblond explains Strategy.

Februar 2nd, 2011 • Strategy
Tags: Agencies, BBH, bbh nyc, Cool, Ideas, Jobs, Presentation, Strategy, Truth, We like

To be honest, I neither like info visuals nor do I enjoy reading most of the smartass ‘Everything will change’ decks anymore. Over the last couple of years Slideshare has become a Powerpoint dump of well-designed and extremely superficial documents…but sometimes I still find a Gem. In the beginning I thought ‘Ideas, Ideas, Ideas’ is just one more deck that explains how cool the world would be if you only wouldn’t sit in your shitty agency…but it isn’t.

The following presentation by Heidi Hackemer (@Uberblond), Strategy Director at BBH NYC is a great example of a well explained agency process. Heidi describes the structure of a strategically-founded idea in an ideal world, the pitfalls, the team processes and the desired output. Something I would be able to give to my dad to make him understand what the hell I am actually doing.

Strategy in a nutshell. Nothing more, nothing less – just well explained. Great job, Heidi.

Platforms. A Fool with a Tool is still a Fool.

Januar 19th, 2011 • 6 comments Social, Social Business, Strategy
Tags: Media, Social, Social Business Design, Social Influence Marketing, Strategy, Tactics, Tools, Truth

Just in case you forgot…or your client forgot.

Thanks to Mark + @moral_apostel.

Insights. The Difference Between Measurement and Strategy.

Oktober 20th, 2010 • Strategy, Tools
Tags: Cool, Creativity, Insights, Philosophy, Statistics, Strategy

We all know analytics and measurement is crucial to define whether we were successful or not. But it’s not the figures that we should focus, it’s what we pull out of it. This Wikipedia article about Austria-Hungarian mathematician Abraham Wald was one of the most striking examples of the difference between measurement and strategy. The article has changed a bit but you can find it here…

See the fullsize article by clicking the pic.

Problems. A Simple Flowchart to solve all of them.

September 6th, 2010 • Strategy, Tools
Tags: diagrams, flowchart, Funny, problems, Strategy, Truth, visual, World

Life can be so easy sometimes. As a quick intro to this week I would like to remind you of this simple flowchart that basically makes you get rid of all your problems at once (via Flowingdata).