Modern Marketing - Blog by Collaborate PR & Marketing

Rusbridger On 'Us Against Them'...

Alan Rusbridger, Editor of The Guardian : "BookArmy – though it avoids saying so – is an offshoot of Harper Collins. The two enterprises point in completely different directions. As it was explained to me, the point of BookArmy is to get as many avid book readers engaged as possible and learn as much as possible about their likes and dislikes. At some point in the future (the theory goes) publishers will no longer need to spend a fortune on marketing Max Hastings’ next book by lavishing money on Waterstones or in print. They will go to BookArmy and say, 'We know you have a database of the 80,000 people in the country who read books of military history. We’ll give you our targeted marketing spend instead.'  BookArmy is a telling illustration of two aspects of the digital world.  One is the ability of digital disrupters (in this case, even within the same company) to take one bit of a newspaper and do it with a conviction, range, depth and passion that a portmanteau print-based newspaper cannot match, especially in digital form. It is the unbundling of newspapers.  And the second is the only hope of matching the power of the these digital disrupters is to harness the same energy and technologies which they are using.'  See the rest here.  Excellent insights from a man right in the middle of the change being created by networked media.

The Rise Of Anti-Social Behaviour

At the beginning of last year, I helped put together an event at NESTA, where I detected for the first time an undercurrent of suspicion about social media and particularly social media consultants.  I remember the room recoiling at the suggestion that anyone in attendance was a social media advisor.  Perish the thought!  And again, at a bash I helped out with at the IPA, there was plenty of good discussion about social media.  However, also the same concerns.  As illustrated by this film - 'The Social Media Guru'.  Well worth a quick viewing if you haven’t already.  Since then, Business Week has advised wariness about ‘social media snake oil’, reporting that, ‘Critics complain that many of the new experts have adopted an orthodoxy that provides little flexibility for differing situations—or outcomes.  Their pronouncements follow a rigid gospel : Be transparent, engage with your customers, break down silos.’  Which has led one or two social media consultants to defend their practices as both professional and good value.  So why is this?  Is it just a case of caveat emptor applying to a new market as much as any other?  Or a natural backlash against the relentless hype of new social widgets and the rise of Facebook - the social world’s own 800-pound gorilla?  Personally, I wonder if this suspicion is because it’s not yet clear what role social media will have in the broader communications industry - particularly for brands.  At that IPA evening, the interesting part of the chit-chat, for me at least, was exactly on this issue.  Are we talking interesting new...

How A Stranger Decided My Pension Plan

At the end of last year my Independent Financial Adviser rang and suggested I moved my pension plan.  Why?  Because I was now ‘eligible’ for a new scheme at a fancy-pants City stockbroker – Brewin Dolphin.  Now I sort of trust this IFA guy.  I do think he knows what he’s talking about.  But, you know, I don’t always think he’s putting my interests at the very top of his daily to-do list.  Also, I’ve had a terrible experience with pension plans. Let’s just say, ‘Equitable Life’ - and leave it at that.  So I went to see said fancy-pants brokers at their mega-offices in London’s Spitalfields and listened to the offer.  It was what I expected.  Highly credible?  Oh yes.  Largely unintelligible?  Absolutely.  What to do?  Well of course, some research.  After all, the outcome of my pension is pretty important.  If possible, I’d like to avoid the ‘food or power’ choice in the cruel winter of 2040.  Into Google went the Brewin Dolphin name.  What came back was just pages and pages of corporate information.  Mostly unhelpful verbiage such as: ‘We recognise that building a strong working relationship with you is key to providing an excellent service. This personal approach is mirrored in the way we will approach investing on your client’s behalf. Our focus is on providing investment management that is as unique as each client’s needs. We have worked for generations, providing tailored solutions that help your clients to create and preserve wealth.’  Mmmm, no real insights there.  I then typed in ‘Brewin Dolphin’ plus ‘customer review’.  And the top result that came back was this.  A review written last Summer that begins : ‘I have to write a review on Brewin Dolphin as a result of my experience with them. My overall impression of using them for over 10 years (not out of choice, will explain as I go on) is VERY BAD.’  Briefly, the review is a story of how Brewin Dolphin turned 80k into 38k over a ten year period.  And here’s the part that caught my eye: ‘It is breath taking that these bankers can steal in daylight, whereas if I went into their branch in Manchester and took each of their Rolex watches, they car keys for their high performance cars and their make grooming products, I would get arrested and locked up.’  Mmmm, interesting.  What next?  I decided that...

From Like This To Buy That

A while back I suggested that the web was NICE - New Infrastructure, Culture and Economics.  Well we’ve had a revolution in the first area with the arrival of broadband and superfast groovyware and in the second with the rise of the share-and-compare economy.  This year I think we'll see changes in the economic aspect of my NICE notion.  The problem with the desktop internet was that it didn’t come with a swipe card machine.  In the early days of e-commerce, paying online felt like handing your keys to a stranger in the street and asking him to park your car.  However, the world has changed.  Facebook delivers shopping tips from our friends, the pocket browser is becoming the norm, your phone is developing a sense of direction and we all want one-click commerce.  In short, the conditions for economic innovation look ripe.  And, of course, this year money is in short supply so commercial ventures need to be, err, commercial.  I have no idea what shape this economic change will come in.  Other than that it may appear quite strange.  For example, how do you fancy sharing your credit card purchases on Twitter?  A step too far?  Not according to Philip ‘AdBrite’ Kaplan, whose service Blippy, lets you share actual purchases with your social network.  Kaplan makes it sound like the obvious next step, not an open invitation to the world’s cyber-villains: “It’s just another way of saying, 'Here’s what I’m doing,' or 'Here’s where I am,' or 'Here’s a band that I’m really into' — obviously, because I just bought five of their albums."  Or how would you feel about letting your phone choose your lunch spot on the basis of who’s offering the best local deal?  The raft of mobile coupon start-ups aim to turn internet traffic into retail footfall.  Kerching!  Then there’s Jack ‘Twitter’ Dorsey’s Square service, which turns your phone into a credit card swipe machine, meaning anyone can retail.  Or check out mobile payment services GoPayForIt and Zong, the latter of which hopes to mobilise the FaceBook Credits service.  Both aim to make micropayments a cinch.  As ever, these Shiny New Things are only where the story begins. The end game maybe odd-sounding new virtual currencies, such as China's QQ economy, where bits can be turned into regular cash and used to buy (or steal) everyday items.  Or can even be taxed!  The share-and-compare economy is booming and traded opinion is increasingly the key to purchase decisions. The maturing of digital economics may turn this opinion data into the new ‘rivers of gold’ that the media industry so desperately seeks. Or maybe it will generate more Etsy-style traders whose business is based not on people hitting a ‘Like’ button on Facebook but a ‘Buy’ button on their smartphone.