Monthly Archives: February 2015

February 27, 2015 · 12:11 pm

The Real Thing

The topic is syrup this Foodie Friday – maple syrup specifically.  You might know that I’m a fan of the work done by the Cook’s Illustrated folks.  Despite their incessant hawking of yet another Cook’s product, the work they do is always spot on and I’ve never made anything using one of their recipes that hasn’t been delicious.

Grades of Vermont maple syrup. From left to ri...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

They do product tests as well and one of them concerned maple syrup.  To me it also contained a business lesson.  I’ll let them describe the test:

Sold side by side, genuine maple syrup and so-called pancake syrup (made with high-fructose corn syrup) can range from more than $1 per ounce for the real deal to a mere 14 cents per ounce for an imitation. But, price and product names aside, which tastes best? To find out, we pitted four top-selling national brands of maple syrup against five popular pancake syrups, hoping to find the best one for pouring over pancakes or using in recipes.

As you might guess, there was no comparison.  Genuine syrup was easily distinguishable from imitation and was universally preferred in the taste test.  As the Coke people learned a long time ago, consumers can spot and usually prefer the “real thing.”  Fake brands taste “off” even if they are more friendly to the consumer’s pocketbook.  Not only does authentic taste better but it sells better too.

The concept of authenticity has been researched.  A recent paper in the Journal Of Business Research found that quality commitment, sincerity and heritage all contribute to consumers labeling a brand as authentic.  Many brands ranging from food products to vodka to shoes use this notion to market their products and it works.  As a story in the Times reported:

Several studies have shown that authenticity — real or perceived — can affect the bottom line. Brian Wansink, a marketing professor at Cornell University, found that when menu items had geographical or nostalgic labels (“traditional Cajun” red beans with rice, “Grandma’s” zucchini cookies), diners bought them more often and said they tasted better.

The real maple syrup just tasted better.  Isn’t that something we’d want for our businesses too?  We can get there by being real in all of our communications with consumers and holding our products to high standards, even if it means they cost a little more.

Make sense?

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February 26, 2015 · 1:17 pm

It’s Not Just Big Brother

Another day, another horrible bit of news on the privacy front.  I’ll take it as a sign that another post on data collection and privacy is called for.  I think that by now we all know that everything we do in a digital world is collected and that nothing collected in a digital world is private.  Oh sure, maybe your Aunt Sally can’t see your phone records, but someone can, and it’s probably not someone who needs to know that you called a suicide prevention hotline 4 times last month.  As one writer put it:

Collection means access, period. Someone who wants information can always find a way to get it, and yet we’re only expanding methods of information collection: trackers, cameras, beacons, glass, drones. This puts all of us in a very public place, constantly.

Amen, and it’s a thought each of us needs to keep more forward in our minds.  The Pew Internet folks have been doing an ongoing survey with respect to privacy and the latest report (which you can read here) contains the following quote:

An executive at an Internet top-level domain name operator who preferred to remain anonymous replied, “Big data equals big business. Those special interests will continue to block any effective public policy work to ensure security, liberty, and privacy online.”

I’m not really aware of any recent business model that isn’t centered around data collection and monetization at least in part.  Retail, health care, entertainment and media, finance, and insurance are sliding their models to revolve more around robust data collection and usage.  We as consumers can say “fine, I will gladly give up data in return for convenience, better pricing, or an improved product”, but that’s a choice WE make, not the provider.  It implies informed consent.

The latest fiasco to which I referred earlier comes from Lenovo, which, as Ars Technica reported:

…found itself in hot water last week when researchers discovered that pre-installed adware from a company called Superfish was making users vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks. The adware installed self-signed root HTTPS certificates that made it easy for Superfish (as well as low-skilled hackers) to intercept users’ encrypted Web traffic.

In other words, by buying a Lenovo computer you made data which you thought was secure and private very much not so.  That’s the sort of corporate bad behavior which is intolerable.  But in order to respond, we have to be aware, and I suspect that this is only one example of this behavior.

OK.  Rant over.  The take away is this – if you’re a business, act responsibly and transparently.  If you’re a netizen, pay attention.  It’s not just Big Brother who is watching.

Thoughts?

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February 25, 2015 · 9:02 am

Flying Blind

The latest edition of the CMO Survey from the Fuqua School at Duke is out and it’s baffling, at least to me.  You can read the data here if you care to but here are a few points that caught my eye.  Maybe which raised an eyebrow as well.  

The good news is that there seems to be an awareness that we live in a data-driven age.  The report shows that CMOs expect to nearly double the share of their budgets spent on marketing analytics over the next few years. That said, current levels of spending are actually down. Unlike computer chips, it hasn’t been my experience that you can buy more for less in the analytics field so that’s kind of baffling.  In addition, there may be more data around but it seems as if it’s getting used less.  Overall, CMOs reported that just 29% of projects used available or requested marketing analytics, down from 32.5% a year earlier and representing the lowest figure since August 2013.  Huh?

The strange news doesn’t stop there.  Despite the fact that we’ve been using social media in marketing for at least 5 years, social media remains poorly integrated with marketing strategy.  When asked “How well is social media integrated with marketing strategy?”  23%  reported a 1 or 2 on a 7 point scale.  That lack of integration isn’t restricted to social media either.  When asked “How effectively does your company integrate customer information across purchasing, communication, and social media channels” the average score was  3.7, down from 3.9.  In other words, flying blind.

That has an effect on how well CMO’s can track results.  They were asked about the impact of their social media spending, the same social media that isn’t properly integrated into their marketing strategy.  14% reported that they have proven the impact quantitatively.  41% said that they have a good qualitative sense of the impact, but not a quantitative impact.  Nearly half – 45% – said that they haven’t been able to show the impact yet.  Anyone wondering why?

One final rant.  Most marketers have low levels of concern about the use of online customer data.   When asked “How worried are you that the use of online customer data could raise questions about privacy?”40%  answered either a 1 or 2 on the 7 point scale.  Not very concerned, in other words.  Really?

I find much of the above indicative that many marketers are still flying blind.  What’s your take?

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