Category Archives: Consulting

January 23, 2015 · 11:28 am

Mr. Kanso

Foodie Friday, and today we have something a little on the weird side.  It’s a chain of “restaurants” (you’ll see why I’m using quotes in a second) in Japan called Mr. Kanso.  The first one opened in Osaka in 2002 and became so successful that it now has 17 other locations across Japan.  This is a pretty good summary of the business:

Mr. Kanso has no menus, only shelves stacked with hundreds of different types of canned food from across the globe. Customers choose from such delicacies as “Todo niku kare” (sealion curry), canned cocktail sausages, French salad, and whale meat (tut tut, Mr. Kanso) – all served cold in a can and gobbled up with plastic cutlery.

That’s right – diners visit Mr. Kanso and select their food from a shelf.  It’s not heated up, just opened.  As best I can determine, these are not the same cans one can find in a market.  All of them have a Mr. Kanso label so I’m assuming the chain has them made to their specifications.  I don’t get it from a consumer perspective although I guess if the contents of the cans are really yummy it makes a bit more sense.  Honestly, Hokkaido bear curry isn’t really my can of tea but apparently it’s the variety that keeps customers coming back for more.  There is, however an interesting business point here.

Think about it.  No cooking means no kitchen and no cooks.  The start-up costs are substantially lower than those of a regular restaurant.  The food doesn’t spoil, at least not in days or weeks.  The food is reasonably priced – drinks run about $5 and the cans cost between $2 and $20 (I’m not sure what that one contains) and the margins must be excellent.  The cutlery gets thrown away so no dishwashers.  In short, it’s a low investment cost, high margin business.  As long as the appeal is there, and it certainly seems to be, this is exactly the sort of model any of us can emulate.

Honestly, if a Mr. Kanso came to my town I’d probably go check it out.  Reasonably-priced food with an amazing selection has some appeal even if the dining experience has less.  The business appeal, however, is first-rate.  Thoughts?

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January 22, 2015 · 9:44 am

To Whom Are You Speaking?

Everywhere one turns these days there is content. In the old days that content was sourced from entertainment or news organizations which had the consumer’s tastes in mind. After all, the program distributor paid the content creator based on how many eyeballs that content could attract.
Lately, of course, everyone is creating content. You, me (that’s what this is!), and brands. I don’t really have an issue with that. The digisphere is a bully pulpit with room for lots of us. There is something with which I do have an issue, however.

Content assembled by brands comes in two forms. One is the advertising many of you have been trained since birth to avoid. The other is that “branded content” that shows up via “content marketing.” No, not another rant on that subject – I’ve bored you to tears with them already I’m sure. This rant is different.

Here is a tidbit from the folks at Corporate Visions:

More than 70% of respondents do not follow a clearly defined message development process within their organization, while a 10% reported they aren’t sure what their company does at all.

In other words, chaos. Into that vacuum usually steps some well-meaning sales-type who pushes the messaging toward “sell.” This is company-centric messaging. I can’t imagine anything more boring to most people. “We’re better because blah blah blah”. Boring.

Smart companies that have their message creation together do customer-centric messaging. They focus on identifying customers’ and prospects’ unconsidered needs.  They’re there to inform, to entertain, to listen, to help; not to sell.  They’re speaking to the consumer, not at them.  They’er certainly not speaking to their own needs or to make themselves feel as if they’re got the message out there.

So to whom are you speaking?

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January 13, 2015 · 11:50 am

Hitting The Bullseye

I spend a lot of my day working with clients on tech.  If it isn’t about how to implement the latest and greatest platform in other marketing efforts, it is about using the data we’ve gathered via web, social, and other business analytics to improve tactics and guide strategies.  We look at a lot of numbers and at a lot of methods with which to gather more.

One of the things I feel it’s critical for me to do is to play the role of a Cassandra of sorts – to see the future but to hope I’m believed a lot more than was the figure from mythology.  The one thing I keep “prophesying” to them is that we can stay on course and out of trouble if we keep our eyes focused on the customer.  They can’t become just aggregations of data.  They’re not just numbers.  They are the reasons why we’re in business.  They have names, faces, significant others and maybe even children.  They’re us!

Much of the ad and marketing technology today has little to do with the customer.  You might think that odd since much of it is based on getting to know the customer on a very granular level.  That’s true, except the focus is on the technology and data, not on the customer.  Thinking about social media is important but only after we’ve spent time thinking about the customer.  Are they on social platforms?  Why?  What are their expectations when they use them?  How do they want to interact with brands in that space, if at all?  Sure mobile is important but a discussion of mobile apps needs to begin with an investigation of how your consumer base behaves on that platform.  “Build it and they will come” is tech centric, not human centric.

Start with your business objectives and your consumer needs.  Move to technology and data after that.  The consumer is the bullseye, not the platform.  Thoughts?

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