Monthly Archives: February 2016

February 12, 2016 · 11:37 am

Delivering

This Foodie Friday, we’ll return to the land of Top Chef.  Not only is it my favorite show on TV (House of Cards isn’t really TV now, is it?), but it almost always inspires broader thinking about business for me.  Last night was the conclusion of the annual restaurant wars competition in which two teams of contestants have 24 hours to conceive and execute a restaurant.  The losing team (and they really did deserve to lose) made some key errors, from which I think we can all learn a couple of things. 

First, their menu had no focus. Some of it was Asian inspired, some of it was Italian, some of it was influenced by the chef’s ego and nothing else.  There was no cohesiveness to the meal.  Any restaurant – and any brand – makes a promise.  I like this explanation:

A strong brand promise is one that connects your purpose, your positioning, your strategy, your people and your customer experience. It enables you to deliver your brand in a way that connects emotionally with your customers and differentiates your brand.

With no focus to the items being served, there was no connection – emotional or otherwise – to the diners. The next issue was execution. As incoherent as the menu was, had the dishes been prepared extremely well and had the service been spectacular, the dining experience might have been saved. Unfortunately, most of the dishes the losing team served were awful, led by a salad of strawberries, pickled cucumber, roasted beets, and arugula with a strawberry champagne gazpacho. The gloppy “gazpacho” was more like a desert sauce and the judges hated this dish. There was a pork belly served in a consomme that apparently was almost all vinegar. You know there is a problem when every shot of someone tasting it shows them looking like they’d just bitten into a lemon.

Great execution can make up for many flaws.  That too is part of delivering on the brand promise.  I’ve certainly been to restaurants where the food was just ok but excellent, personable service and reasonable prices made it someplace to which I’d return.

It’s one thing to make a promise.  It’s quite another to deliver.  Are you doing that?

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February 11, 2016 · 10:33 am

The Pony

You’ve probably heard the old joke about the kid and the pile of horse manure.  There are many variants, but the basic story is that a kid is digging through a huge pile of horse manure.  When he is asked why his response is “with this much manure, there has to be a pony in here somewhere.”  It’s a story a use to help clients understand the nature of data.  Any of us who are in business see more and more of it each day.  In fact, we’re probably setting up systems to provide more of it to us as well.  The unfortunate truth is that most of it is…well…manure.

a Shetland Pony. Français : Un poné (Shetland).

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We’re after the pony, or at least we should be.  The pony is the actionable insights that are contained within the data and not the accumulation of data itself,  It does take a lot of digging, and that digging can begin only after we set up systems to gather and to organize the flood of data.  Knowing that website traffic grew as measured by session count tells you very little.  Understanding how it grew or if that growth was because a bunch of referrer spammers hit it gives you actionable information (update the spam filters!). Knowing that your store sales were up 5% without understanding that you’ve lost market share can cause you to think that you’re doing well when in fact you’re losing ground.

Say “so what” to yourself a lot.  If you can’t explain why a piece of data is meaningful, you need to discard it because it’s the manure surrounding the pony inside.  If you can’t put something into a broader context, push to do so. If you can’t determine a course of action based on a particular nugget of information, ignore it and keep digging until you get to the pony.  Make sense?

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February 9, 2016 · 1:48 pm

Trust No One

I see that “X-Files” is back on the air. I’ll admit that I was never a huge fan, although maybe if I go back and binge watch the old stuff it will grow on me. Still, there was a line spoken during the series that came to mind as I read about influencer marketing: Trust no one. 

You’ve probably heard about influencer marketing before. Many studies have shown that the best possible source of product information and recommendations are from a trusted source such as a friend or family member. Those are influencers, as are some bloggers, celebrities, etc. Influencer marketing is using those folks as channels to sell a product.  Obviously, as the use of ad blockers becomes more prevalent, marketers are seeking other ways to get their messages out, and influencer marketing has become one of those channels. As a report from eMarketer says:

In the past, working with influencers was time-consuming. Brands had to find and vet individual bloggers, strike deals with them and then devote significant resources to managing campaigns. Now, there are an increasing number of talent agencies, networks and matchmaking services for influencer marketing.

I have many nice things to say about my clients but you won’t see me touting their products or services in this space, at least not without a prominent disclaimer.  We have already seen instances of celebrities failing to disclose that they have been compensated to do that and we might have seen another one at the end of the Super Bowl.  I have no doubt that Peyton Manning was going to drink a bunch of Budweiser, and the brand quickly stated that they didn’t pay him to plug them (twice that I saw) after the game.  He does, however, own two Budweiser distributorships.  Does knowing that change your perception of his statement?

I doubt many of us will be asked to plug a new restaurant or car or any other product to our friends via social media.  Still, knowing that some people are asked to do so calls almost any nice statement people make into question.  I don’t know of a way for anyone to label their own post in social media as a sponsored post but it’s a shame that we really can’t trust anyone’s good words nor any blog’s excellent review.  I’m trusting no one.  You?

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