Customer Listening Blog

Crowdsourcing getting traction for NPD

In line with my recent post about the trend of consumer driven advertising, consumer insight lead new product development initiatives get more and more traction. Indeed, marketers now view crowdsourcing as a more effective way of creating new products and services than consulting or internal R&D, according to a survey by the Marketing Executives Networking Group (MENG).

The percentage of respondents who saw crowdsourcing as effective or highly effective for new product and service development shot up from 62% a year ago to 75%, overtaking R&D which fell slightly from 73% to 72%.

The percentage who rated traditional consulting and professional services firms as effective or highly effective fell from 54% to 49%.

In the same period, familiarity with the term ‘crowdsourcing’ – which describes organisations using web 2.0 tools to tap the knowledge of stakeholders and experts through open invitations for help and ideas – rose from 30% to 72%.

Richard Guha, chairman of MENG, said: “Tapping the wisdom of crowds over the internet can be enlightening for an organisation in many ways, providing marketers with valuable insight to expand their brand mind share and market share. However, like any good customer insight, interactive ideation or predictive analysis effort, it’s important to frame the issue, manage the process and carefully assess the value of the collective data.”

The survey was conducted last month in association with online social network Crowd Forum.

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Happy New Year... for Web Analytics...

Web Analytics Market Set to Defy Recession

January 9 2009

In the US, a survey conducted by the Web Analytics Association (WAA) has found that more than 96% of respondents plan to increase or maintain current spending on web analytics during the year. While the survey of more than 650 marketing and analytics professionals highlighted that more than 40% of respondents see funding as their biggest challenge, WAA says that the investment outlook is positive. Around 8 in 10 (81%) plan to invest in consulting and staffing to help make the most out of their existing analytics tools, and take action on the data they provide to improve web site performance. Also, 41% say they will be investing in add-on tools, such as those for behavioral targeting and paid search. Results also reveal a demand to have business decisions driven by analytics, with 65% of respondents claiming this as their top web analytics initiative in 2009. Other top priorities identified include best practices implementation, KPI development, process development and getting executive management awareness and support on web analytics. Both WAA members and non-members took part in the survey, and respondents represented a wide range of job functions from the US, Canada, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Asia Pacific. The full results are available at: www.webanalyticsassociation.org .

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Présentation au Club du Marketing Client

Ce soir, mecredi 19 Novembre 2008, et suite à l'invitation de Yann Claessen d'ETO et fondateur du "Club du Marketing Client" (dont le dernier billet sur son blog est en plein avec le sujet du jour, coincidence ?), j'aurai l'occasion d'intervenir sur un thème qui m'est cher... :

Le site Internet de marque : point d'écoute capital pour engager vos meilleurs clients.

Nul doute que les experts clients de ce club tout à la fois sympathique et dynamique pourront largement contribuer et débattre sur le thème.

Si vous êtes interessés par la présentation et le white paper, demandez les ICI.

(sélectionnez le white paper: Site de Marque: Un Hub Marketing)

NB. Merci à Nathalie Lemonnier pour l'organisation de dernière minute et à Marie Estelle Carasco pour l'acceuil dans les locaux de Microsoft.

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Wepc.com: crowdsoucring the Asus & Dell way...

An other "crowdsourcing" initiative this time from Asus & Dell..."it starts with one simple Idea: Yours" says the site... Again Co-Creation..but in my mind, Communication rather than Co-Creation to start with really... Co-Creation may be coming in later but the initiative serves first of all a purpose of Communication both on the media scene and among end users: Word of Mouth.

Will be interesting to see where things go from there, and for sure how strongly creating user driven machines will be delivered...key to harvest word of mouth benefits at its best, or to overclaim co-creation without really the means to deliver it...

To visit the site: www.wepc.com 

Marketing and Advertising Week in Helsinki, Finland

I've been invited to be a keynote speaker at the marketing & advertising week in Helsinki in Finland (week of October 27th 2008).

It will be my first there, and I will be happy to share though and data from SiteCRM around one my favourite topics: "Digital today and tomorrow: the Brand website as a marketing hub"?

The overall purpose of the speech is to push advertisers and brands to further develop pull and listen strategies rather than relying too much on push and “talk” strategies.

Markets have always been “conversations”, and now more than ever, with the rise of social media, the Internet has accelerated this trend to a point where brands need to capitalize better on their abilities to sustain closer relationship and conversations with their core consumers. Their brand websites may be the best marketing weapon they have to reach this goal, but only if they if they start using it as a real marketing hub. We will share data, facts, and examples to support our though while recommending key action steps for brands to really embrace the digital world.

To Download the presentation, please select the first white paper from the list (in French...sorry), validate (bottom pae) and fill up your details to receive the Presentation, Thank You:TO GET the FULL PRESENTATION

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Kellogg Special K Digital ROI Surpasses that of TV!

Some really encoraging news as more marketers join the crowd of sharing more insights in the ability of digital to increase brand spending ROI. Again online spending is here well capitalized on a Special K brand website that expands the brand experience beyond what any other media can do.

Below a few insights as provided by Kellog's CMO Mark Baynes.

Source: Ad Age (Emily Bryson York)

"It's still relatively early in our learning," Mark Baynes, chief marketing officer at the Battle Creek, Mich., company told the Lehman Bros. Back to School Consumer Conference during a discussion on how Kellogg is trying to increase advertising and marketing efficacy. "But analysis of the Special K initiative of the last 18 months showed digital media exceeding that of broadcast ROI."

The marketer described the company's findings as "obviously very encouraging," and predicted they would help "drive stronger adoption across the business."

Kellogg crossed the $1 billion benchmark on ad spending during 2007, and its outlay is set to increase this year. Mr. Baynes said his company spends an additional $300 million on promotional marketing.

"For the right opportunity, the [online] space offers fresh ways to commercialize new and existing brands, target specific audiences on needs more cost effectively," he said.

Over the past year, Kellogg has been praised for sticking with its advertising spending despite the recession. The company has credited its brand-building efforts with its ability pass some of the heavy commodity-cost increases onto the consumer.

Mr. Baynes did not specify how Kellogg was measuring success of the campaigns, and the company did not immediately return calls for additional comment. While he did not address specifics of the Special K work, the company has repeatedly touted the success of its "Special K challenge," which calls for two bowls of the cereal every day for two weeks. Dieters replace a more traditional lunch or dinner with cereal, and are told they can expect to drop a full clothing size after two weeks.

CEO David Mackay has said the initiative has not only resonated with consumers, but also boosted cereal consumption outside of breakfast.

A Special K website offers customized plans for consumers, sign-ups for a Yahoo e-mail group, tips from a trainer and nutritionist and a point-of-purchase link to Amazon.com. The company has added a number of products to the Special K platform in recent years, including cereal bars, flavored waters and waffles.

The investment may continue to pay off, given the economic environment. UBS analyst David Palmer said he anticipates cereal consumption to grow during the fourth quarter, not only because of food costs, but higher rates of unemployment. More people will be eating breakfast at home because they don't have anywhere else to go, he said.

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Are Retailers just really discovering CRM and brand building?

I came across an interesting article title in Ad Age yestreday "The Newest Brands? Open for Business" by Jim Lucas. In this short article Jim argues that "Retailers have switiched gears, Marketing their stores and labels and strengthening bonds with shoppers".  Of course they have, I fully agree with Jim, but my though this has been really going on for a long time specifically in Europe as Jim points out,  Tesco in the UK for example is usually perceived as a CRM king to develop and maintain profitable relationship with its customers. Some Retailers, and in fact all of them now, finally realized that the biggest asset they have is that they are "touching consumers" and have an opportunity to know them more, engage them at least once a week (as Jim says in the US, the average U.S. household is making 150 to 200 store visits a year) what an opportunity to sell more than products!

A lot more can be done to offer real experiences in stores and supermarkets, the kid that will forster people relationship with store brands rather than only relying on deals, promos, coupons, etc. I am not saying they are not important, I simply think there is room for building true experiences, the ones that drive loyatly and word of mouth... However, I really think that the biggest challenge is for brands and manufacturers, it is tougher than ever to market brands (at leats in the old fashion way). In the past, pushing messages on TV and having a good product available on store will do the trick, nowadays, it is not enough any more.... What costs more is people attention. As consumers, we have less time for everything and although economic slow down is pushing people to be cost consicious, they probably also want their shopping trip to be as simple and rewarding as possible, relying more and more on other consumers' feedback and conversations (online and offline!) to shape their opinions and choices. So brands you'd better hurry to partner with retailers to shape the right experiences for end users and use every opportunity to think about your brand loyalty with a specific approach tailored to partnering with retailers beyond price...of course, retailers need to talk the same language says retailers are getting there, and eventually it is for the benefits of both brands and retailers. As Jim says in his article, they need to work toegther "It is also important for retailers and manufacturers to align business goals, including driving traffic to the store or a specific destination in the store; creating larger sales receipts, better conversion rates, solution selling and cross-selling; and improving the total shopping experience -- for example, making it easier or more engaging, entertaining, educational or inspirational to shop."

To view Jim full article on AdAge (click here)

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P&G Taps Bloggers, Moms for Unconventional Product Launch

Word-of-Mouth, Buzz Push for Crest Weekly

I came across an interesting article and initiative described by Jack Neff , in Ad Age. What will be interesting is really to find out if it really worked...as "organic" (vs marketing amplified) word of mouth is really what make things happen... See below the full artcile:

Published: August 21, 2008

BATAVIA, Ohio (AdAge.com) -- Procter & Gamble Co. is trying something decidedly new with toothpaste: launching a product designed to be used once a week.

Crest Weekly Clean Intensive Cleaning Paste is meant to be a weekly addition to daily tooth brushing, giving a 'just-from-the-dentist,' smooth, clean feeling.

The idea, of course, isn't to get people to brush less often. Rather, Crest Weekly Clean Intensive Cleaning Paste, which is set to hit stores by mid-September, is billed as a weekly addition to people's daily tooth brushing. The goal is to provide that "just-from-the-dentist," smooth, clean feeling, as P&G and some bloggers who've gotten sneak previews of the product have put it.

Little mass-media spending
Crest, long one of P&G's biggest-spending media brands, with $236.8 million in measured media spending last year, according to TNS Media Intelligence, is also taking a fairly nontraditional marketing approach for the unconventional product, relying heavily on word-of-mouth and buzz marketing and relatively little on mass media.

P&G began sending the product to bloggers earlier this month, some of whom also have Twittered their interest in Weekly Clean. And Crest is using P&G's Vocalpoint buzz-marketing program for moms to spread the word too. It sent a survey about the product's marketing to the more than 600,000 moms in the program last week.

But the product's TV advertising will be relatively light, said spokeswoman Allison Yang, consisting mainly of five-second tags on ads for other Crest products.

The product "is not necessarily intuitive," making TV ads relatively less effective at explaining Weekly Clean, she said.

Talked-about product
"What we've seen with research with consumers is that once they've seen it, they tell everybody," Ms. Yang said, another reason for the emphasis on buzz marketing vs. conventional media.

"The feeling you get is so unique, and women especially love it," she said. "A lot of times you come out with a new toothpaste flavor, and it's not something people talk about."

The product uses silica-based crystals similar to those found in Crest Pro-Health but in higher concentrations, leaving "that incredibly smooth feeling you get when you take your tongue and slide it along the front of your teeth after visiting the dentist," Ms. Yang said.

Weekly Clean is used like regular toothpaste, though it comes in smaller tubes. Ms. Yang said P&G isn't concerned any consumers will believe they can now get away with only brushing once a week. "We're emphasizing that the product doesn't have any fluoride in it," she said. "This should not substitute for brushing in any sense."

Expanding the category
Since it's designed to be an addition to what people are doing now, Weekly Clean stands to expand the toothpaste category, but Ms. Yang declined to disclose how much P&G is expecting in year-one sales.

Interpublic Group of Cos.' Devries, New York, handles public relations for Crest, and Publicis Groupe's Saatchi & Saatchi and Starcom MediaVest Group, both New York, handle advertising,and media planning and buying, respectively; Digitas, Boston, handles digital.

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Le Sens du Client selon Thierry Spencer : passion, simplicité, régularité, sérieux, et ouverture.

Il y a quelques temps déjà (début 2006), quelques semaines après la naissance de "Customer Listening" Blog, je croisais le blog de Thierry Spencer "Sens du Client", et depuis son travail, sa passion et sa dédication l'ont fait avancer, je reçois ce week end un très gentil email de l'auteur qui annonce qu'il a passé la barre des 50,000 visiteurs...: Bravo, à Thierry bien sûr, mais j'ai profité de l'occasion pour simplement lui demander à quoi il attribuait ce succès. Thierry le fait très gentillement et nous rappelle les ingrédients gagnants de son blog... Ici, sont livrées les réponses de Thierry :

Je dois le modeste succès de mon blog personnel www.sensduclient.com à un mélange de plusieurs ingrédients :

1) Creuser un sillon. Après avoir trouvé mon thème, je m'y suis tenu dans mes 191 billets. Il n'est pas rare que je ne publie pas tel ou tel commentaire, ou bien que je refuse des liens avec des sites que j'estime trop éloignés de mon thème : le marketing client. Pour un blog comme pour une entreprise, plus le positionnement est clair, plus grand est le succès auprès de la cible.

2) Rester simple sur la forme et dans le fond. Je m'impose la discipline d'un titre, d'une illustration et d'un texte pas trop long. Je m'efforce d'expliquer chaque terme, de mettre des liens pour que tout le monde saisisse les références. Rien de plus agaçant qu'un jargon d'expert ! Cet exercice pédagogique me permet aussi d'apprendre.

3) Etre ouvert et exhaustif. Je ne m'interdis aucune référence à un site, une source, un blog ou à un prestataire. N'étant lié à aucune société de service, et quand bien même je n'ai pas d'affinités avec telle ou telle personne (ça m'arrive), j'essaye de donner accès à tous les points de vue dans mes liens ou mes références.

4) Etre régulier. Chaque semaine depuis 2 ans et demi, j'écris un billet. Je note sur un carnet, je découpe un article, je prends une photo, j'ajoute une page web à mes favoris, jusqu'à trouver un lien et une matière digne d'intérêt. Les lecteurs apprécient la régularité et le rendez-vous hebdomadaire.

5) Etre sérieux mais pas triste. Je m'inspire d'études très sérieuses, de livres, de textes de référence mais aussi d'anecdotes et d'histoires qui me sont arrivées auxquelles j'ajoute une touche d'humour, d'iconoclasme et d'impertinence...

6) Favoriser l'échange. Avec crmmetrix aujourd'hui, avec d'autres personnes demain, d'autres blogs ou d'autres sites; j'adore échanger et faire témoigner des personnes d'horizons différents, d'une caissière de supermarché à un grand universitaire. J'adore l'eclectisme et la confrontation d'idées.

J'ajoute qu'il n'est fait aucune référence à l'entreprise dans laquelle je travaille actuellement en tant que Directeur marketing, ni au secteur d'activité auquel elle appartient. La cloison est complètement étanche ; je m'exprime à titre personnel sur mon blog.

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Should you Invest in the Long Tail?

A really Great article from Anita Elberse an Associate Professor at Harvard Business School. In her well documented and data full article, Dr. Elberse calls the attention on the real value of the so call "Long Tail", and really questions with accurate data the real "profitable" business opportunity that the long tail offers... Below a few paragraphs that provide key take out and recommendations for both retailers and producers... (to get the full article go the Harvard Business Review website ).

Implications for Strategy

Soon after The Long Tail was published, BusinessWeek declared that Chris Anderson's theory was the biggest idea of the year. The book was widely read, and its title entered the management vernacular. Anderson has spoken to numerous management audiences about its implications. All this has had an impact on practice: The long-tail theory increasingly influences the development and appraisal of business models, particularly in the media and entertainment sector.

It is undeniable that online commerce has significantly broadened customers' access to products of all varieties, including the most obscure. However, my findings suggest that it would be imprudent for companies to upend traditional practice and focus on the demand for obscure products. The data show how difficult it is to profit from the tail. What, then, are the implications of my research for practice? I have four recommendations for producers of media and entertainment goods, and four for online retailers or content aggregators seeking to profit from long-tail demand. Although my research has focused on media content and information goods, these recommendations probably apply to physical goods as well. In fact, their payoff for manufacturers and retailers of physical goods might be bigger, because of the higher production costs involved.

Advice to Producers

1. Don't radically alter blockbuster resource-allocation or product-portfolio management strategies. A few winners will still go a long way, probably even further than before.

My research suggests that the tail is long and flat, and therefore that content providers will find it hard to profit much from it. It remains to be seen whether the new media environment will indeed make many previously unprofitable niche products profitable. Online channels lower the barriers to market entry for such products, and thus introduce the possibility of additional sales, but they also lead to a flood of products all competing for consumers' attention. In my most recent correspondence with managers at Nielsen SoundScan, I learned that of the 3.9 million digital tracks sold in 2007 (the large majority for 99 cents each through Apple iTunes), an astonishing 24% sold only one copy, and 91%, 3.6 million tracks, sold fewer than 100 copies. Although increased concentration of sales may make it tougher to turn a focus on blockbusters into a winning strategy, no effective alternative strategy is readily available.

2. When producing niche goods for the tail end of the distribution, keep costs as low as possible. Your odds of success aren't favorable here either, and they will probably become less so.

The extremely low demand for the large array of products in the tail means that simply recovering the costs of producing them will be challenging. Given that obscure products tend to be appreciated less than hits, it will be very difficult to earn any kind of price premium for them.

3. When trying to strengthen your presence in digital channels, focus on marketing your most popular products.

By definition, they reach the largest number of customers, and they are also appreciated more by those who consume them. This insight is perhaps particularly relevant for content providers competing in advertising-supported markets. Advertisers hoping to reach a broad cross-section of consumers in a world of proliferating media are better off placing ads around popular products; not only will their messages be seen more often, but, because those products are generally liked better, they will be seen in a favorable context. Hit products may therefore have a disproportionately high value. No wonder, then, that large media companies increasingly insist on more control over pricing and bundling decisions involving their most popular offerings. NBC's recent spat with iTunes is one example.

4. Leverage your scale to improve online exposure and demand for products across your product portfolio. Again, hit products play a key role here.

The long tail consists of a mixture of true niche products (which, by Anderson's definition, do not meet the bar for traditional distribution) and old hits resulting from blockbuster-focused strategies. Such products can now live forever online, even if they have long been cleared from physical shelves; thus the old hits may present a real opportunity. Larger producers have an advantage in that they can use new releases to trigger demand for old ones, previous movies in which a cast member appeared, for example, or earlier recordings by an up-and-coming artist. Companies can benefit from finding ways to regularly remarket products in their back catalogs and from bundling old with newer products. The caveat here, again, is that the benefits may not outweigh the costs. Music companies, for instance, often decline to make old content available online because clearing the rights is too cumbersome. Similarly, although channel partnerships frequently prevent companies from leveraging their scale (Apple's iTunes often gives relatively more promotional space to artists from independent record labels than to those from the majors, for instance), companies can use their hit products to negotiate better terms with channel partners. Larger, better-established firms with strong pipelines should therefore benefit more than smaller companies from any increased demand in online channels.

Advice to Retailers

1. If the goal is to cater to your heavy customers, broaden your assortment with more niche products.

My research shows that even when online assortments of videos and music are enormous, and thus even the most frequent customers could easily satisfy their appetites with products in the top decile, those customers are disproportionately active in the tail. They want a wide assortment, so offering one helps attract and retain them, whether they pay by the product or for a subscription (frequent customers typically opt for more-expensive subscription plans).

2. Strictly manage the costs of offering products that will rarely sell. If possible, use online networks to construct creative models in which you incur no costs unless the customer actually initiates a transaction.

Managing a large number of products that rarely or never sell could easily pose a problem. Long-tail products may offer more-attractive profit margins for retailers than hit products do, in part because the latter are often used as loss leaders. But extremely low demand for long-tail products, coupled with whatever it costs to make them available, presents difficulties in successfully executing a long-tail model.

Making "onesies" and "twosies" profitable may require completely eliminating any associated costs. It is therefore worthwhile to explore creative solutions for the very end of the tail. One example is Amazon's Marketplace, in which third parties pay to communicate a title's availability, and Amazon incurs costs only when a customer actually places an order. Another is having volunteers create, adapt, and manage information in web businesses. Just imagine if Wikipedia paid authors for every page created. Even if the fee were nominal, Wikipedia would probably lose a substantial sum on its least visited pages.

3. Acquire and manage customers by using your most popular products.

Precisely because hit products reach the greatest number of consumers and are appreciated most, their value as loss leaders in traditional channels will carry over into the digital realm. The seventh book in the Harry Potter series, introduced by Scholastic at a suggested retail price of $34.99 in the United States, was a blockbuster loss leader: It was sold at sharply reduced prices by Barnes & Noble ($20.99, a 40% discount) and Amazon ($17.99, a 49% discount) in an effort to stimulate other purchases.

Like producers, online retailers can benefit from bundling hit products with obscure or older products that are cheaper to acquire. Another, probably more common approach is to direct customers to the tail with recommendation engines. A third strategy worth considering is designing the flow of web pages so that consumers, even those searching for hit products, are naturally directed into the tail. The list of recommended titles can be manipulated, often instantly and cheaply, to spotlight higher-margin obscure items or to smooth demand for sought-after titles over time.

4. Even though obscure products may have a higher profit margin, resist the temptation to direct customers to the tail too often, or you'll risk their dissatisfaction.

Finding a good marketing balance between obscure and popular products is critical. Online retailers cannot expect their customers to prefer long-tail products to hits, in fact, the opposite is more likely. They should take this into account when managing customer expectations and satisfaction, which, after all, lead to long-term profitability. The continued dominance of hit products and the natural shape of demand suggest that efforts to fatten the tail by spreading consumption more evenly across titles may be fruitless anyway.

Who Will Prosper?

Without question, today's consumers have advantages that no prior generation had. Online commerce has done away with the constraints of the physical store; selections are now vast and supported by rich information. A hip-hop fan just discovering the lyrical talents of Jay-Z need not be limited to his recent hits; she can follow him all the way to his first album, Reasonable Doubt (1996), which had only modest sales, and she can easily jump to Talib Kweli and other lesser-known contemporaries, some of whom may be available only in digital format.

For Chris Anderson, the strategic implications of the digital environment seem clear. "The companies that will prosper," he declares, "will be those that switch out of lowest-common-denominator mode and figure out how to address niches." But my research indicates otherwise. Although no one disputes the lengthening of the tail (clearly, more obscure products are being made available for purchase every day), the tail is likely to be extremely flat and populated by titles that are mostly a diversion for consumers whose appetite for true blockbusters continues to grow. It is therefore highly disputable that much money can be made in the tail. In sales of both videos and recorded music, in many ways the perfect products to test the long-tail theory, we see that hits are and probably will remain dominant. That is the reality that should inform retailers as they struggle to offer their customers a satisfying assortment cost-efficiently. And it's the unavoidable challenge to producers. The companies that will prosper are the ones most capable of capitalizing on individual best sellers.

How appropriate that proof of this can also be found in management literature. Over the course of 2006, Hyperion Books, which publishes adult trade fiction and nonfiction, brought dozens of original hardcovers to market. For a handful of them it spent heavily on acquisition and marketing, hoping for the profits that only blockbusters can provide. One was Mitch Albom's novel For One More Day, which became the single best-selling hardcover of 2006. Another was a business title that had engendered an intense bidding war. Hyperion was determined to get it; New York magazine quoted an industry insider as saying that "jaws hit the floor over how much they paid." Everyone recognized it as a high-stakes gamble in a high-risk genre. But ultimately it paid off big. It was, of course, The Long Tail.

Copyright 2008 Harvard Business School Publishing All Rights Reserved

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