The agony and the selling lesson

Melbourne Herald Sun, Thursday August 29, 2013

A few months ago, losing my mobile phone turned into an agonising experience - that became a deep le

sson in selling.

Shopping for a new one, I spent hours on hours questioning the internet, visiting phone stores, talking to salespeople, asking friends, because I wanted to "get it right".

Lots pointed me to an Apple iPhone, but too often their own were patched with sticky tape over the cracked screen or looked scuffed, and I was warned they were fragile. Besides, I liked the sound of the Android system. But the HTC or Samsung felt too big and Blackberry were launching a whole new platform, and I've learned to not be the first in anything new in computing.

Can you see what my problem was? Not a lack of choice - it was having too much choice, making my head spin.

Choose: durability versus ease of use; long battery versus loud music; old faithful Nokia or born-again Blackberry? And of course every brand sported half-a-dozen model numbers.

Then there were the dealers themselves. Telsta or Optus, Vodaphone or Virgin, Dodo or Lyca or Boost? And by the way do you want broadband with that?

In the end I confounded everybody, including myself, with a Motorola Razr. It was small but strong - Gorilla Glass screen, Kevlar case - I liked the idea of a bullet-proof phone. I'd had Motorolas in the past without problems, so it ticked a lot of the boxes.

But revealing to me was the sales process. I felt that all the way from the manufacturers to the dealers to the sales staff, nobody grasped the degree of confusion in customers' minds. The vendors live with, and understand, all the maze of details - phones, systems, plans, pros and cons - so why shouldn't we?

Here's why, in a quote from the guru of marketing, Steve Jobs. The man made billions following this simple philosophy: "People don’t know what they want until you show it to them."

Forget all that you already know, wipe the slate clean and look from the position of the customer. Here I'm not just talking about mobile phones. It might be cars, or fridges, a house or an evening dress. Choice can be an agonising process, and as a good marketer your job is to help the customer handle the pain.

Don't leave them struggling through a jungle of vines and branches, gasping and confused. Find out what the customers is looking for. Take the time to listen closely, ask questions. Get them to picture what they want - giving a little guidance to the process. Don't hurry or push, a good sales assistant is never in too much of a hurry to give you full focus.

Then lead them into your grove, point and say, "This is what you need, isn't it exciting?". If you read them right, they'll say, "Yes!"

Take a lesson from Jobs. He did this again and again with the iMac, iPhone, iPod, iPad - each a basically simple product that said, "I am the answer to what you need".

If one of the many phone salespeople I met had done this with me early in the piece, I would have meekly followed and the process would have been completed in hours, not days.

It's the same when you create any marketing campaign. Think yourself into the position of the customer entering your shop (or office or web site) for the first time. What do you see? What don't you understand? From that initial point of view, you can build a campaign as big as you need.

It's your office: who cleans the cups?

Melbourne Herald Sun, Thursday August 22, 2013.

You're the boss and you walk into the office kitchen and the sink is full of dirty cups. What do you do?

You can't call your secretary to clean things up - a) you don't have a secretary any more, you have an "administrative assistant", b) she or he is far too grand and well-educated to risk their manicured fingernails in a dirty sink.

You can't shout at the nearest employees because in this modern, post-feminist egalitarian world, the wrong words can see you in jail or sued for squillions. So what is the modern kitchen etiquette?

Once there were tea ladies who'd push their trolleys round mid-morning and afternoon bringing beverage and biscuits to your desk and whisking away the dirties. But they have long been sent to their retirement villages.

They were replaced by "café bars", with finger-burning plastic cups that did not need washing. Then people started bringing in their own mugs, but were always too busy to clean up afterwards. So the grot grew.

Nowadays you also get microwaves, stoves, elaborate espresso coffee systems - but still too few people to wash up afterwards. The cleaners blow through like dervishes in the night, changing the garbage bags and waving the back-pack vacuum wand but coffee cups aren't in the job description.

So what's the tea-room etiquette? One idea I spotted in my travels was a kitchen notice that said you were responsible for your own cup - but if there happened to be another in the sink, do that one at the same time. Not all the dirty cups, just yours plus one more. If everyone did that the area would be kept clean, with minimal anger directed at the slobs. (However many notes you pin up, there will always be slobs.)

The other problem area is the bathroom - especially in the smaller offices where men and women share. Inevitably there's the Dragon Lady who marches up and loudly declares, "OK, who used the toilet last and didn't flush properly? I know it was a man because the seat was left up." The men in the room bury their heads behind their computer monitors, muttering "It wasn't me!"

She has a point though. Look back before you exit. And don't be afraid to use the provided brush on stubborn stains, that's what it's there for. Etiquette.

Wash your hands and if you have paper towels, give the hand basin a quick wipe around. Like they used to ask you to do on aeroplanes.

Finally, notice when products are running low, whether it be the tea bags or coffee or toilet paper. Replace the empty ones from the store in the cupboard, or make sure, a few days before, that the cleaners know they have to bring in fresh supplies.

The point is, if you noticed it, take responsibility for it. Don't just ignore it thinking that "someone" or "management" or "admin" will fix it, because the chances are they won't, or they'll take a week to notice.

Where there once were office managers or department administrators, as often as not these jobs have gone with the great middle-management purges and redundancies of recent years, leaving the workers to look after their own space.

You may not be the boss, but you spend a third of your life working in your office or factory, it's as much your home as the one you pay a mortgage on. So take responsibility for it, keep it clean and tidy - own it and observe the etiquette.


ray@ebeatty.com

The hackathon: growing ideas worth millions

Melbourne Herald Sun, Thursday, 15 August, 2013.
Can winning ideas be pulled out of the air? Can creativity be grown? Well I've got a new word for you to learn: the Hackathon. In the decade since it was coined, the idea has started to take off, big-time.

The word is a combination of hacking, as in computers; and marathon. It's a lot of people working to solve certain computer problems, in teams, for a set period. Sometimes they tackle specific problems. Sun Microsystems invented the name for a conference that worked on applications for their Java program.

The idea spread through north America and Britain. One spawned a company called GroupMe in 2010 that was sold a year later to Skype for $85 million. (See? Suddenly you're interested.) Another created Nitobi, sold to Adobe for a secret sum.

Some run a contest for a weekend, some a week, with several groups competing and judges selecting a winner, usually presenting a prize or a development grant. If you participate, don't expect much sleep - bring your sleeping bag - and be ready to live on pizza and Coke for the duration.

Success is driving the idea into wider circuits, outside the programmer arena. In June this year the City of Palo Alto put on its Civic Hackathon and attracted 5000 participants. They called it, "An event where technology, entrepreneurship and innovation come together to help shape the future of our community." The city’s downtown was transformed into City Camp Palo Alto. Families came to view the latest in robotics, take part in art activities, enjoy food and live music.

Individual companies are looking at hackathons as a way to improve thinking and relationships, and maybe come up with some ground-shaking ideas. All for the price of a few pizzas.

A group called London Green Hackathon ran a weekend last year where they developed programs on "Energy efficiency in buildings","Real time carbon emissions", "Kindle energy dashboard", and the like. The last reprogrammed a Kindle reader to download freely available data from the active power grid, and give you a real-time analysis of energy use nationally, or within an area, or just at your home.

In June Melbourne University participated in GovHack, a 48-hour hackathon mining the vast amount of government-funded data available in the public domain. Over 900 participants hacked away for 48 hours, developing analytical programs that made sense of these databases.

So for example, we have huge quantities of information about transport, biological data, immigration, trade, tourism and more, gathered by governments and organisations over years. Only a small amount of this data is used, we could learn so much more if it was examined from different angles.

This is called "data mining" - digging fresh understanding out of these mountains of raw information. This is what they worked on in the hackathon, designing programs that found new answers from the data, by asking the right questions.

This weekend will see Melbourne's first Create 32 Hackathon, hosted by digital shop Visual Jazz Isobar. The focus will be on near field communications (NFC) applications. This is the new data transfer link you get when two mobile phones touch each other, for example. A fast-growing field itself (another you have to get your head around).

But groups with other interests can come along and participate. VJI Managing Director, Konrad Spilva, said: "These events allow brands to reach out to a different market and community to solve a business problem."

It will be held at King Street's York Butter Factory building on Saturday and Sunday, with a prize of $12,000. There may still be room, so if you're interested chase them up.

ray@ebeatty.com

Cars need their nourishing slice of pie

Melbourne Herald Sun, August 8, 2013.

"Guten tag", "guten nacht". Yes it's "g'day" and "g'night" from our friends at Opel. In less than a year the German brand made its debut into Australia with a modest advertising splash promoting a range of five models. But by the end of last week, they took their leave.

It seems the Australian public did not respond to the cars in terms of sales - just 1530 cars sold between 20 dealerships. They suffered a classic Australian marketing problem - too much competition in too small a market.

Our appetite for cars is immense - just last month Australians bought 88,000 cars. But we attract all the manufacturers from around the world. The British and Europeans, the Americans, Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, even Brazilians. Not to forget the Australians. Even the record highs in the dollar exchange rate could not stem the inflow.

But in the end, each vendor's slice of the pie left others severely undernourished. Such was Opel. Just a few months earlier, Hyundai Australia had dropped its i45 sedan, and models quietly slip off the pages of dealers' catalogues around the industry.

Much noisier is the departure of a manufacturer. We have too few of those. Ford has announced the longest farewell since Melba, telegraphing its departure in late 2016. But for all concerned it's better than a midnight flit and a note for the milkman.

Mike Devereux at Holden has also been making warning noises, about the consequences of a decline of government support. Industry Minister Kim Carr has come waving $200 million at them on top of current subsidies, but at the same time $800 million in fringe benefit tax breaks is being pulled out from under.

With the election now in swing, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott is talking tough, ready to slash the $500 million in existing industry subsidies, presumably also pocketing Senator Carr's $200 million - but leaving the tax breaks in place.

Six of one, half a dozen of the other, this shell game has been played in Australia since before you were born.

Of course, through much of last century the subsidies were not so obvious as they were provided by high tariff walls. A mixture of import taxes, incentives and barriers encouraged motor manufacturers to make or assemble cars here. It was a very cosy, if at times confusing, relationship. And it made cars in Australia extremely expensive.

But it was an industry. Ford Australia had five plants. Australian Motor Industries had Standard Motor Company and Mercedes Benz, Rambler, and Fiat tractors. BMC had Austin and Morris. There were Chrysler, Peugot, International Harvester, Leyland, Renault, Rootes, Pressed Metal Corporation - most of the Land Rover was made and assembled here. Volkswagen, Willys Motors, White Trucks - the list goes on. Car and truck making on an industrial scale.

No doubt some of you, or your mums or dads, worked for one of the names mentioned here. At some time, the whole country was involved.

Of course, General Motors is still manufacturing, still demanding subsidies, as is Toyota. Will they still be doing so at the end of the decade? A lot of decisions will be made, a lot of lobbying - and no political party is immune.

Car makers were huge factories that built cities around them - think of Detroit, Dagenham, Wolfsburg, Turin, Geelong. These days they have had to be nimbler, more strategic.

So it is with Opel. Try it in a market, measure the sales, pull out if the results don't come in. If you were one of the Opel buyers, you're safe. General Motors promises that service and guarantees will be met through Holden.

ray@ebeatty.com

Who's the Richest In the World?

Melbourne Herald Sun, Thursday August 1, 2013

I'm always fascinated by these "Richest Person in the World" lists. Let's face it, they are pretty meaningless - if someone has $1 billion or $40 billion, it does not make much difference from my perspective - or yours either, I imagine. It's still a hell of a lot more than we will ever possess.

But on the other side of the coin, imagine losing it - like Eike Batista, who lost $33 billion over the last year. Yup, this Brazilian entrepreneur was pushing towards the world's top last year, now he's down to 100 on the Forbes Richest 100 list.

Of course it's all figures in a computer, just how much anybody actually owns. Look at a character I've featured before, Ingvar Kamprad (add an E and an A to those initials and you'll know who I mean). He passed from the top of the list to the - well - lower middle. Then he was worth $42 billion and is now a mere $3.3 billion. Not that the money has gone - it is now tied up in complex trust arrangements in Luxembourg and legally not his, though I'm sure they'd provide him a room if he ever needed it.

These rich do enjoy giving their money away - and seem to end up with more than they started with. Take Bill Gates, the world's most generous philanthropist. His world-girdling Bill Gates Foundation has now given out more than $28 billion, yet Forbes reports him as the world's second-richest person at $67 billion. So you can't even throw it away.

By the way I'm quoting US dollars here because with such stellar figures, a few cents in the exchange rate won't really matter to you or me.

The richest man once again is a Mexican, Carlos Slim Helu. At a net worth of around $73 billion he has held top spot for three years and his communications empire, based in Latin America, is rapidly expanding into Europe and the United States, so expect to be hearing more of him.

In retail, do you make money out of lots of low-cost sales, or less high-cost items? Well looking at the rich list, both are true. Number three is Amancio Ortega, the Spanish grandee of Zara. His fashionable, timely, but affordable stock has generated phenomenal sales around the world. From New York to Tokyo, Sao Paolo to Sydney, it seems every smartly-dressed woman has contributed to Ortega's billions, even some well-known royals.

But the higher-priced items can also make you rich. Liliane Bettencourt stared as an apprentice mixing perfumes in her father's factory at the age of 15; now at 91 she ranks as richest woman in the world, with some $30 billion.

Her empire, L'Oreal, is the biggest cosmetics company in the world and controls brands like Yves Saint Laurent, Armani, Lancome, The Body Shop, Ralph Lauren - far from the cheap end of the market.

The truly luxurious brands also come from France. Bernard Arnault is boss of LVMH, which you have to roll out with a rich French accent: Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy. There is a little dispute about whether his wealth is $30 or $40 billion - no-one is readily offering a ledger for outside scrutiny.

The richest person in Asia is Li Ka-shing of Hong Kong. Worth $31 billion, he is the world's largest operator of container terminals.

Americans round off the list - oil and engineering brothers Charles and David Koch of Kansas; Larry Ellison of Oracle; and of course Warren Buffett, the magician who can seem to make any upward or downward stockmarket trend create him ever more billions.

ray@ebeatty.com

Raising the Dead to Make a Pitch

Melbourne Herald Sun, Thursday July 25,2013

In his latest TV commercial Bruce Lee looks you intently in the eyes and advises "Follow your instincts, it's the most honest path." He dips his hand into a pool of water and lets it trickle through his fingers, "Be water, my friend".

This philosophy might be a little startling - after all the 90 second ad is promoting Johnny Walker Black Whisky to a Chinese audience, and is spoken by a renown teetotaller. Even more startling for a piece shot a few months ago, Lee has been dead for 40 years.

No, this example of raising the dead is done through the magic of computer graphics - with such skill and precision that you will have to look at it a couple of times to work out that it is in fact not real.

It took Joseph Kahn nearly a year to make and he is very proud of it. Which is really saying something - Kahn has made music videos for all the greats: Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, Christina Aguleira, Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson and almost every star of that magnitude.

His key piece of practice in CGI was the video for Kylie's All the Lovers. You know, the one with hoards of near-naked couples making love in the middle of New York and ending in orgy pyramid nearly as high as the surrounding skyscrapers. He's obviously not a man for simple solutions.

But computer graphics are going to bring a lot more spokespeople back to life. In Britain a superb commercial for Galaxy chocolate features Audrey Hepburn. Once again painted in CGI, this is the young, beautiful, sparkling Hepburn of Roman Holiday, as heart-melting as she was in life. Set to the music of Moon River, just in case you neglected to sob.

The animation was a long, hard process for the creative team and not surprisingly the most difficult part was getting those eyes right. But they do, which diffuses some of the anger at her ghost being brought back. It was done, incidentally, with the permission and support of her son.

Perhaps thinking about the range of colourless celebrities featuring in current boring ads, it's not surprising that directors would search back in time for interesting personalities.

For last year's J'Adore perfume campaign, Dior enlisted four of them, one living, three dead. Charlize Theron needed every ounce of her beauty and presence to match up against her co-stars: Grace Kelly, Marlene Dietrich and Marilyn Monroe. Just to add to the glitter, this over-the-top French commercial was shot in the Hall of Mirrors, in the Palace of Versailles.

But the process doesn't always work. When an American agency resurrected popcorn king Orville Redenbacher, who had spent a lifetime pitching his wares, it cost a fortune in CGI. Except... they didn't pull it off, and his attempted jollity was plain scary. It earned him the title: "Orville Deadenbacher - The Popcorn Zombie."

In fact, presenters can be a poor way to advertise your product, unless you have the right match between the speaker and what he or she is selling. Digging up a ghost adds some novelty value to the pitch, but that doesn't last long.

What you really need is an outstanding product, and a compelling reason to buy, within a clever commercial. Then whether you use a famous person or not is a factor - but it does not overwhelm the message. In fact, surveys have shown that celebrity endorsement is unimportant in whether the ad reached the viewer or not.

As researchers Ace Metrix observed in one report, "Creative components—not celebrity endorsements—drive positive responses from viewers and resonate across demographics."

ray@ebeatty.com

It's like everybody wants a baby

Melbourne Herald Sun, Thursday July 18, 2013
Once more the world is thinking babywards, as the prospect of a future king (or queen) rises before us. As I write the royal baby is knocking at the gates, by the time you read this the world will have its answers. Or else a lot of gamblers will have lost a lot of money because the favourite date was yesterday, July 17.

Yes, everything is bettable - the date, the sex, the name. But this is just the tip of an industry that is particularly flourishing at the moment.

Many women are hearing the alarm of their biological clock and responding to the call they may have put off throughout their twenties. A stroll through Chapel St, Toorak Rd or Chadstone reveals the number of well-heeled older mothers, who are pausing their careers to put a few years into pushing elaborate baby rigs to some very expensive baby shops.

The researchers at IBISWorld have been adding up the cost of babies, individually and in total. You won't be surprised to know it's not cheap, General Manager Karen Dobie calculated $3037 per child. Being as so many of these mothers may be returning to work after parental leave, you more than double the cost when you add childcare, to $7098 annually.

This childcare sector amounts to $6.6 billion, shelled out by working parents. No wonder all political parties have targeted it as an important election issue. Too many unhappy voters see their second income go straight out in child minding fees.

Even the word "second" is debatable in these times of single mothers, and fathers, separations and divorces, same-sex parents, all struggling to meet the bills. Without even being faced, yet, by the costs to come at them once school education starts.

Not of course that this is a problem for William and Kate, nor for those yummy mummies in their designer track suits. They don't have to be royal for their baby to command luxurious treatment.

This year Australians will be spending big for the nursery furniture and toys, nappies and clothes - but also feeding their babies a regal selection of organic foods, dietary specialties, the finest imported foods. Adding up to a considerable $11.3 billion industry, grown 15 per cent in the past five years.

Nutritious and healthy food ranks high for this well-educated segment. IBISWorld have identified a surge in premium baby food. Says Ms Dobie: "Mothers are breastfeeding for shorter periods due to their busy schedules and lifestyle pressures."

In other words, get back to work, where the money is, but ensure the baby's well-being by giving it expensive care and healthy food. "This is driving sales in alternatives, organic infant formula, milk-free and gluten-free ranges", Ms Dobie said.

The other beneficiary of these older mummies is the fertility industry. The brilliance of our researchers and surgeons has attracted a prosperous flow of patients both local and from overseas, to some of the best IVF clinics in the world.

As many as one in six couples suffer fertility problems and seek medical help, with services reaching $550 million a year - a 110 per cent increase from five years ago. Last year there were 40,000 IVF cycles performed, delivering 12,200 babies. Among women aged 40-44, 15.1 births per thousand are IFV assisted.

So far royal babies have made their way into the world without external prompting, as will Princess Kate's.

Though it's a fair bet that she will not go on to emulate her great- great- great- great- great grandmother-in-law, Victoria. On top of ruling the Empire, she delivered nine times.

ray@ebeatty.com

When the electorate bought Kevin '07, they refused to accept a substitute

Melbourne Herald Sun, Thursday July 11, 2013 

It's the story of the year, I can't ignore it because it is classic marketing and the biggest purchasing decision any of us will make this year. What is the marketing campaign strategy  behind the coming Federal Election?

No I'm not being cute when I call it marketing. There is a product, up against an alternative purchase; the items have been carefully crafted by hundreds of experts, every feature and offer is extensively researched. Then there are huge investments made into the promotion of the products, their presentation and distribution. And in every corner are planning teams of the very best ad-folk in the country.

You are being sold a political party through marketing just as thorough and scientific as sells your breakfast cereals or a new motor car. More so, in fact. Every few days a new factor is examined, a new poll unveiled.

So what has been happening over the past six years, why is there so much opinion and agitation about a topic that is not usually at the top of Australians' conversation list?

It was the fault of the Kevin '07 campaign. This was a very well produced and executed blitzkrieg that propelled Kevin Rudd's smiling image into every home in the country. You weren't voting for a party, you were voting for a man. And by the time polling day had arrived, his statements had become writ.

Only they weren't. The GFC clobbered the economy, threatening recession and collapse. Panicky measures were set in train and the Murphy principle came into its own. Things went wrong, rosy promises had to be scrapped. It looked like Kevin '07 was a dud and the electorate was disappointed.

Ruling factions in the ALP panicked at the falling opinions. Rudd was an undiplomatic diplomat toward his fellow members and they had no patience to re-educate him, so he was tumbled. Julia Gillard won the party room - but not the electorate.

They had bought Kevin '07. They were robbed and were angry. Fanned on by a loudly hissing and booing Opposition, they demanded that they be given back the product they had bought.

We only have to cast our minds back a couple of weeks to recollect the anger in the high street, office, workshop. I believe Gillard is one of the most intelligent women in the country, but this had nothing to do with smarts, it was pure emotion - 'We wuz robbed!'

In the end even the hard men of Labor could not withstand the battering. They crumbled and fled the party. Caucus restored Rudd - and listen, can you believe the calm? It won't last long of course, but the silence is deafening.

I've been out talking to people in the high street over the past weekend and suddenly they're not mad any more. It's almost as if the first half of this year is already being forgotten.

Now we have a level playing field again, the two main parties battling the major issues with loud noises from the cross benches. Once more the parties are up on the market shelf, offering their alternatives to the customers. This time, the selling is not going to be as emotional or irrational, and perhaps people will talk to each other and listen in turn.

Then we can make a sound marketing decision, having been sensibly thought through. Which product are you going to pick off the shelf, and will you be happy with your choice? Remember that if you get it wrong, you can't take it back for three years.

ray@ebeatty.com

In Japanese business, the samurais rule

Melbourne Herald Sun, Thursday July 4, 2013
A career in Australian advertising inevitably means, at some stage, working for a Japanese corporation. Be it autos, electronics, machinery, watches, graphics, audio - they have created themselves as the technical miracle of the last half-century.

But something that long puzzled me has just been revealed. Let me tell you a story.

Our huge Japanese client called us into a meeting to show their latest product. A wonderfully designed machine that the engineers were proud of.

"Lovely. Who is going to use it?" we asked.
"Everyone," was the reply.
"No," we persisted, "what was the marketing reason for this product, what do you see as its niche?"
"Oh that's what you're here for. Here's the budget allocation and all the technical specifications..."

The engineers were excited by the product, the national offices around the world were allocated quotas, and in each country we had to go out and sell them. What is the large hole in this picture?

Yes, marketing. Why does the public want it? What market opportunity does it fill? Who will use it? What is the competition? How realistic is the pricing?

But no, the marketing that you need to do before you so much as draw a plan, was still not thought through as the boxes left the factory.

A recent article by Japanese specialist Robert E. Peterson of Wickaboag Consultants, Tokyo, who has advised Japanese companies for 31 years, explained a lot to me.

As I had personally observed, many high-level executives - particularly those in Japan head office - did not understand marketing. Even now, it is not a core part of their business education. The job of marketing executive is often filled by younger executives rotating through the company for experience, rather than being a key management post in the company.

So there is little opportunity for an executive core with developed skills, knowledge and experience based on a collective memory of past experiences.

Peterson introduced me to the Japanese business caste system of shinokosho. A large Japanese manufacturing corporation is run like a fortified empire of old. They may not stride around with a katana sword strapped on their backs any more, but the corporation is commanded by the highest social group, the samurai.

These are the engineers, and if you've ever worked with a Japanese company you will immediately recognise the deferential way these lords are treated. Second come the farming peasants, who grow the food. Third, the artisans and craftsmen. These fulfill the jobs of manufacturers, process workers, drivers, clerks - all the essential jobs in the middle.

At the fourth, bottom level, are the merchants. In Confucian terms they have the lowest moral purity as they produce nothing but only sell the products to make money. And guess what - that's where the marketers are. With baskets hanging off their bamboo yokes, metaphorically speaking.

Peterson claims that Japan's university education in marketing is poor, and the corporations do not have well-provisioned training programs for their recruits.

But meanwhile Japan has been suffering, financially and socially. As its population ages, the public's willingness to embrace a constant flow of new products diminishes. Reaching outside of Japan has become an imperative for the nation's future prosperity.

They have to seek new markets out in the huge growing world. We all know the skill they have to create wonderful products. But before they can be invented, manufactured and sold to eager customers, companies have to create a need for these products. The customers have to feel a desire for them and a willingness to pay. And that is generated through marketing.

ray@ebeatty.com

To bag your Lion, you need a brave client

Melbourne Herald Sun, June 27, 2013
The champagne corks have been popping in St Kilda Road this week as the victorious news has rolled in from the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. If this were the Olympics they'd be organising the tickertape parade.

The hit of the festival was a commercial we first saw last year: Metro Transport's "Dumb way to die" animated jingle. This jolly ditty sings about decapitation, setting fire to your hair, being eaten by grizzly bears and piranhas, all to tell you lessons - obviously not known to many of our citizens - that it's pretty dozy to stand near the train track with your ear plugs in.

McCann Melbourne not only won the Grand Prix for Best Film but another four prix for PR, Direct, Radio and Integrated. An unprecedented five lions in the bag. This news has been broadcast wide now, but what caught my eye is that of the dozen gold lion and super lion awards, there was hardly any display of the "product", in the sense of a physical pack shot, in any of them.

Clemenger BBDO's Carlton Draught commercial - a very funny cops and robbers chase through the streets of Melbourne - displays the beers in every hand, as the whole cast runs, each holding a full glass of beer reverentially unspilled. But you barely glimpse the logo.

Metro Trains does not show off its gleaming trains or stations.

Dove has a wonderful commercial of women hiding their faces from candid home video shots, with the killer tag: "When did you stop thinking you're beautiful?" But no bar of soap on the bathroom sink.

Smart Car shows off what a rotten car it is for offroad driving, bogging on muddy tracks and drowning in streams. But how it comes into its own when you need to park in the city.

The point is that these advertisements worked brilliantly well, but they won because they were the very few that took risks.

I've been very critical of much of current advertising, finding it so dull and boring. And I ask, is it the clients' fault?

"Marketing teams are constantly asked to do more with less, that makes them risk averse," said Adrian Mills. He's Account Director for Metro at McCanns, so carries the duty of bringing the creatives' ideas and the client's budgets onto common ground.

Great ideas don't have to be expensive. Neither the Metro animation nor the Dove candid shots needed big budgets. But they do need strength and intelligence both from the agency and from the client. "There's a lot to be said for experienced heads in a room," said Mills. And he tipped his hat to a former rival, "Someone like Russell Howcroft knows how to work a room."

As you work with a client you develop trust in each other's teams and the good work starts to flow more easily.

One problem in recent years has been the shrinking of middle management and the way large companies move their people around so quickly.

Where once a marketing manager might have been in power for ten years, these days he is more likely to be moved on after three. With no time to develop experience, trust, and a success list.

Oh, and he has to learn the intricacies of marketing through Google and Facebook and Twitter and peer to peer and international mail order, as well as conventional TV and print. All with shrinking budgets.

Victories like Cannes show that there is no shortage of talent here. And as Mills said, "Success like this creates an appetite to be more adventurous." I hope he's right.

Flying Pigs and Supermarkets

Melbourne Herald Sun, June 20, 2013
How do you shop - are you a bulldozer driver or a hunter and gatherer? The 'dozer lowers her scoop, throws the tracks into high gear and ploughs through the supermarket in minimum time. When she says (it's usually a she) "I'm out shopping, be back in an hour," she means it. Back she comes with half a dozen stuffed bags hanging off each hand.

Me, I'm a hunter. This is my weekly adventure. I have favourite butchers, greengrocers, delicatessens, all down the shopping strip. I love the diversity that comes from these little shops, even if they do cost - occasionally, not always - a bit more than the supermarket.

Of course more than half the shop is still done in the supermarket, but this can be a slower hunt. You see I make the shop difficult because if I can possibly avoid it, I will not buy the store's own-brand merchandise.

This can be difficult because the chains are pushing more and more of their own products onto the shelf. It used to be the vegetables and the meats that were anonymous. Then milk and bread at "lost leader" pricing. Then jams, pickles, cereals, dog food and ice cream.

Currently Coles and Woolworths are being investigated by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission for screwing down the prices of their suppliers. I believe it's more serious than this. In a mindless contest to own more market, they are destroying the brands we have known all our lives. And that many of us have depended on for work.

Right now the two biggies hold a 70 per cent grocery market-share between them. They wholesale, distribute, retail, and even sell the transport fuel. Once they have taken over most of the manufacturing as well, Australia will be a two-shop stop.

But sometimes they can trip over themselves, when they get so big the right foot doesn't know where the left foot's going.

Coles, no doubt wishing to give itself the appearance of a social conscience, gave support to Animals Australia's "Make it Possible" flying piglet campaign.

This highly emotional, professional advertising uses Babe-style animation to make piglets and battery hens sing, in a commercial which has drawn huge internet viewing and TV exposure. Coles put the flying piglet shopping bags on sale in 500 national supermarkets.

Only problem: Coles is also a farmer and food manufacturer (owned by Wesfarmers, remember). A campaign against factory farming of pigs, chickens and eggs involved shooting against its own side. And into its own foot.

The National Farmers Federation was furious, its leaders thundered at Coles management and its members threatened to boycott the stores. Where to turn?

Animals Australia came to Coles' aid and removed the bags. But the very action has brought a blaze of publicity to the campaign, spotlighted the factory farming problems, and has generated donations to pay for the singing commercial's return to TV.

Coles now has another misadventure. For some months Jeff Kennett has been claiming Coles' fresh bread (and for that matter Woolworths' and IGA's) is in fact frozen dough bunged into the oven - some of it brought all the way from Ireland.

ACCC chairman Rod Sim has now taken Coles to the Federal Court over its ''baked today, sold today'' claims. He calls its advertising and logos ''false, misleading and deceptive'', pointing to the independent bakeries that are often close to the supermarkets. ''That is putting those bread shops at a disadvantage, if they are themselves making their bread from scratch.''

When you get too big, it can be hard to spot the Irish dough and flying pigs.

ray@ebeatty.com

Zombie fags rise from the dead

Melbourne Herald Sun, Thursday June 13, 2013


  There has been a fashion flurry of vampires and werewolves in the popular media in recent times. But what I had not realised is that quietly, but rapidly, our marketing world has been invaded by a crowd of glowing zombies.
  Now, with announcements by some of the world's biggest companies, these zombies may be about to burst back onto our advertising screens. Yes, it's amazing. The cigarette is alive and smoking and back from the dead.

  Smoking seemed to have the stake through its heart over the past three decades. Not dead but ever in decline as its dwindling slaves huddled in lanes and doorways, holding packs with pictures of grotesque diseases. Meanwhile "Big Tobacco" was cut down by million-dollar lawsuits around the world. How could even the biggest businesses survive such attacks?
  But, particularly in the past year, tobacco companies have started to look very seriously at the once-gimmicky "electronic cigarettes". Originally produced by small start-up companies as smoking substitutes - like patches and chewing gum - a growing number of smokers began to transfer their addiction.
  In the United States, Lorillard bought the biggest electronic cigarette company, BluCigs, for some $135 million in 2012. They now claim 40 per cent of the US e-cigarette market.
  In Britain, Imperial Tobacco is the world's fourth-largest tobacco baron. Its chief executive, Alison Cooper, also threw its hat in the ring, stating in February that “We’re looking at opportunities and we’re actively developing in that area at the moment”.
  British American Tobacco established a company called Nicoventures in 2011 to research e-cigarettes, while R.J. Reynolds, the second-largest tobacco company in the US, launched its own brand, Vuse, a “digital vapour cigarette.”
  Next month it will begin marketing in Colorado - the first state in a planned national roll-out. This is where the advertising comes back, in print, TV and direct mail. Being Colorado, will they put a cowboy on a horse, with a cigarette in his mouth? Sounds familiar.

  There are plenty of people, especially amongst the developers and manufacturers, hailing e-cigarettes as a way to manage the nicotine habit without the dangerous tar and carcinogens. Advocates claim that it tastes and gives all the satisfaction of a cigarette without the downside.
  The cigarette itself is roughly 60 per cent battery, a small container of nicotine or other liquid, a heated atomiser pump. All within a cigarette-sized tube. Put it to your lips and draw: the liquid is vaporised and heated, forms a smoky mist which you suck in and then blow out in a plume just like Bette Davis used to do.
  Some doctors and researchers believe it is safe - certainly considerably safer than normal cigarettes. The TGA and AMA are not so sure.

  The Australian Government is not about to give the green light until their therapeutic goods credentials have been established, and that has not happened yet.
  However, perhaps if you use them not to stop smoking, but as a different way to smoke with no medical intention, does that make them permissible? While the regulators and health authorities ponder the question, the retailers are hopping in quick.
  The tobacco chain Cignall reports doing brisk business with a range of e-cigarettes. A number of different starter kits are available, they price around $10 per unit - which gives you the equivalent of 40 cigarettes.
  Supporters claim to have reduced their smoking bills to a quarter of what they paid, and with no complaints from spouses or co-workers about ash, smell and soggy butts.
  Will cigarettes return in their plastic disguise? Well it's not easy to keep a zombie dead.
ray@ebeatty.com

When I ask for help they laugh at me

Melbourne Herald Sun, June 6, 2013

There are some programs on my computer that if I ever have to call the publisher for support, I get greeted by disbelieving laughter.

This, I can smile back and live with. The real problem is finding someone in the organisation who has ever used - let alone fixed - the programs. You see, they are over 20 years old. Nearly as old as half their staff.

The prime example is Tracker, invented in Melbourne back in the 80s. I handled their advertising for a few years. To write about it I had to use it, and soon became addicted. This continued several years into their Tracker II release.

It's a contacts manager designed to look like a 200 x 150mm index card. There are places for all the names, addresses, contact details, as you'd expect, and an unlimited notes function where you can write in every discussion and meeting you have ever had with the person.

So, yes, it's just like any other contact system. Except that it is so simple and robust that it never lets you down, it just keeps going and growing. Where I've needed support is when the operating system changes and I need to find a programmer who can fit Tracker II into the newest Windows.

Now I'm not some doddering novice. I've tested lots of contact managers, even written reviews on them. It's just that Tracker is like a favourite pair of carpet slippers, moulded to your feet by time. I don't have to learn anything, I don't have to think, and in its depths are long-forgotten conversations I had twenty years ago. One click and I can relive them again.

Sometimes I'll come across someone I haven't seen for years. "Do you remember that product range we were going to promote in '96?" He'll be amazed at the clarity of my memory. If I'm really trying to impress, I won't mention that I've just scanned the notes of our dealings way back then.

The simple little card index I have, has long gone from the marketplace. Vital Software is still a successful Australian company but Contact Tracker is now a leading customer relationship manager for the world-wide automotive industry with most of its business in the US, Europe, China and Japan. Which explains why it's so difficult finding someone who remembers the original.

It's the same story with my other old favourite. Isys was also created in Melbourne. When you install it into a computer it scans all the files in all the memories and then keeps them up to date as new data comes in.

If you ever lose a file or forget a file name, enter into Isys a couple of words you can remember were in the document and instantly it will find that letter for you, however obscurely you or someone else may have placed it.

When it first came out it was unparalleled in its speed and versatility. Others thought so too, like the US Drug Enforcement Administration, Britain's Prison Service, universities through North America and Europe.

Once again success took it far from its home and now it is part of Perceptive Software, in Kansas. The dinky little home computer version has long been forgotten as it conquered vast networks - and if I ask for help, I hear sniggers of disbelief on the long-distance phone. But hey, it's a great program and still works brilliantly, why toss it aside for a jazzy successor I don't need?

One thing this reminds us of, though - Kylie, Barry and Nicole aren't the only great Aussies that conquered the world stage.

Are the experts lying about climate and vaccinations?

Melbourne Herald Sun, May 30, 2013
Is it just Australians who resist the word of "experts" and reject the facts presented to them by authorities? But come to think of it I've seen it in America, in Europe, in Britain - "Lies, lies," they cry, "they're trying to trick us."

This hit me recently, over a beer with male friends. The topic of global warming came up and to my surprise, a majority called it an invention.

"But the CSIRO has warned us" - I started to explain but was interrupted: "Ah but they're all scientists, aren't they?"
"Who else would you ask?"
"They're just trying to protect their research grants!" There was general agreement around the table.

Later, I saw a report in The Guardian, UK, that a peer review of 12,000 scientific papers found 97 per cent agreed global climate change was caused by human action. But I doubt even this would change their minds. They'll tell me only three per cent know what they are talking about.

When I speak to women, I find more rejection of experts - this time, the doctors. A campaign against vaccination has been running for some years. A particularly "scientific" report blamed infant vaccination for rates of autism, causing a sharp decline in coverage for newborns and infants. The research was proved false and the author de-registered, but the tale lives on. Somehow the dangers of vaccination are seen as greater than the diseases which once ravaged our babies.

Now we have a situation where whooping cough epidemics are spreading in parts of the world where it was almost eradicated. Washington State saw cases increase by 1300 per cent, the highest in 70 years.

In parts of Wales authorities have had to rush in immunisation programs because of an outbreak of a measles epidemic. Yet in some areas parents were still dragging their feet even as they heard the warnings.

Here in Australia there is the same problem, with large numbers of children not getting their two-month whooping cough vaccine, nor the measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox at 18 months. Warnings have gone out including the current vaccination ads on posters and TV. But the response has been slow, particularly in the wealthier, better-educated suburbs.

Ironic? Well I blame the web. When you search for data on these topics, one site looks much like another. They all boast authoritative "scientists", they all claim the latest research. The only way to identify the genuine is that they have more hesitation and less certainty. The charlatan is totally positive and totally convincing.

The web is such a wonderful magic pudding. All knowledge and information is within reach of your fingertips. But you can't be lazy with it. You have to explore thoroughly, find the 97 per cent, don't be seduced by the three per cent, even if it would be the much more comfortable position to take.

Here's an incentive: If you do the research and get a clear view of the future, you can plan your business around it.

What's the world going to do to solve its energy problems on a hotter planet? What products will be most needed? Where will we get energy that's cleaner? What sort of industries will Australia have when we no longer make cars? How can you get the most benefit out of an instantly-connected broadband network?

These aren't problems, they are opportunities. Already there are smart business people getting rich coming up with answers.

But you have to brush past the bar-room fantasies and focus on reality. Maybe even listen to what the experts are telling you. That's where the future is.

ray@ebeatty.com

A Vision Of The Future Or Something to send you mad?

Melbourne Herald Sun, Thursday May 23, 2013
Your latest nudge towards insanity has just arrived, should you care to take it, and is already generating its waves of followers and developers. I watch these things with a mixture of excitement, curiosity, and denial, but no amount of closed eyes and head in sand will make this one go away.

This latest innovation is Google Glass. Basically it shrinks a tiny internet screen and mounts it on the corner a spectacle lens, so you can wear it all the time. Now you need never be without your computer in front of your eyes. Any breaking news, or tweets, or funny YouTube cats, can be immediately transmitted to you whatever you might be doing, wherever you might be.

Google Glass is a micro computer that you wear like spectacles. It has wi-fi, Bluetooth to your mobile phone, takes photos and videos, and transmits them through apps developed by CNN.

Yes, all the serious players are there - The New York Times, Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter are in, and through Elle you can get the latest fashion advice.

There's useful stuff like Google Maps, so as you drive your friends and partners around you can pretend you really do know where the destination is, even as you are guided by your specs.

Google are trying to differentiate this service from normal social media. At the Google I/O Developers Conference two weeks ago in San Francisco, scores of code cutters came to compare notes and wear their dinky little Glass specs. Like mobiles, before long you can expect the apps to come flooding in for any task you could mention. Google provides the developers with the app building kit, encouraging them to create lots of content and make the technology popular.

Already, Elle offers you delights like horoscopes, and a chance to see Suri Cruise and her fashionista wardrobe. Seven years old and already a celebrity supermodel. Tom and Katie must be thrilled that their daughter is the subject of a blog that attracts 100,000 views a month.

Right now all the stuff I'm describing is still in a developmental stage, with Google Glasses distributed to developers who pay $1500 for their Glass Development Kit. Nevertheless there seem to be thousands of them already out there. Certainly the conference was filled with geeks wearing the one-eyed contraptions.

And knowing the speed of the computer industry, it can only be a matter of months before they start getting into eager hands. The more optimistic might put them on Santa's list.

The one thing you are mercifully spared from is advertising. Google has set a firm "no ads" ruling into its developers' agreement. Applications must also be free to download. So at the moment it is very much a plaything.

Of course once the user base has built up, expect to see the birth of a new medium.

If you check out some of the YouTube snippets already playing, you'll see how every aspect of life and fun - from hang gliding to trapeze flying, from big dippers to birthday parties - are captured by the camera sitting on the face.

One of the I/O developers was proudly showing off a hack he has developed that takes a photo when you wink. And you don't have to wear cumbersome headphones either, to receive calls from your mobile phone. The spectacles' arms transmit sound through the bones of your skull direct to your hearing.

One internet reader commented: "OMG is anyone else disturbed by this? I think I'll just wait for Release 2.0 where Google will have direct access to my ocular nerves and brain." It's getting that way, isn't it?

ray@ebeatty.com

New names at the top of the Internet

Melbourne Herald Sun, Thursday May 16, 2013
By the end of this year, what will New York, London, Paris, Melbourne, and Sydney have in common? Something that right now is quite impossible. Their own Internet top level domain address. That is, in our case, "xyz DOT melbourne".

Can you believe that the public Internet is only 28 years old? That's when domain suffixes were first made available outside of universities and the military. Since then we've grown used to .com, .org, .gov. There are 21 TLDs as they are called - home to 246 million domains.


The World Wide Web is even younger, released to the public by Tim Berners-Lee in 1991. How a human idea can transform the world!


Well, over the coming year the cage doors are being opened and 1400 new names will flutter out. Including .London, .Paris, .Melbourne. This hasn't been easy. Every would-be name had to go through a rigorous application process. To get into the running you have to put in $185,000, and then fill in a 360-page questionnaire. So you won't be getting your own for a long time to come.


However major corporations are already clamouring for their own presence - or at least, not to be the only company in their field who is absent. And the money for applications and lawyers have been quickly found under the whip of urgency.


Also demanding democracy are other language scripts - Chinese, Arabic and Cyrillic being obvious starters.

The international body that rules the net, ICANN, is constantly reviewing and releasing new names - there are already more applications than slots, though last week it was able to announce a guernsey for .melbourne.

It obviously has high expectations for the impact of this long debated move. ICANN's director of global media affairs, Brad White, painted an excited picture: "It will afford a possibility for innovation, creativity, branding, marketing. We know it will have tremendous impact. Nobody could predict the popularity of Skype, Facebook or Twitter. What we have done is removed a barrier to innovation."

In Australia, ARI Registry Services administers our three million .au domains, and it successfully managed the submissions, contracts and technical requirements for Melbourne and Sydney, working with a consortium of state and local governments, tourist groups and the like.

For all these, having that name is important. In Melbourne ARI expects retailers and industry to jump at the chance to use the domain.

"We're creating value for the brand 'Melbourne', like with the grand prix, tennis, footy." explained ARI Managing Director Adrian Kinderis. A business has to be based in Victoria to be eligible for the address, in fact it will be a reassurance that this is a truly Victorian business. "This will be home for anything to do with Melbourne, to take their brand on line."

You'll start to see the new names appear later this year. Companies like .Sony, .Virgin, .Canon. Interests like .golf, .shop, .rugby. Approvals trickle out from the intense consideration and are starting to be announced in batches. The most recent include .bike, .gripe and .gay.

With so many egos fighting for so few spots, you can bet that this will become a lawyers' picnic for years to come. Just the prospect of intellectual rights, copyright and patent laws raise their heads. Currently the World Intellectual Property Organisation is dealing with nearly 3000 cases - and that's just with 21 TLDs.

Expect to hear a lot about the new names later this year as they are promoted through billboards, advertising, promotions. If you think about it, having raised $360 million in application fees alone, they can afford to give it a splash.

ray@ebeatty.com

Coca Cola idea goes global

Melbourne Herald Sun, May 9, 2103


A brilliant Australian idea is moving and shaking the world's biggest soft drink on the other side of the planet.

Remember summer 2011, when Coca Cola ran a campaign with people's names on the labels of bottles and cans? Called "Share a Coke With a Friend", the company put out 150 different names on its packs, and also set up locations where those who wanted others, could have an individual name reproduced.

With the northern summer about to start, that campaign has now been adopted by Coca Cola in the UK and is about to flood the British Isles with bottles called Nicholas and Sarah - again a list of 150 names plus the opportunity of special requests at the big shopping malls.

This past summer saw the concept's first overseas trial, in New Zealand, and found that the idea worked just as well there. The Americans, of course, are watching developments very closely.

The campaign was conceived by agencies Ogilvy and Naked. Having spent a few years of my life flogging fizzy water - not Coke, but in competition with them - I know what a hard job it is. How do you generate interest? Put the kids on a surfboard, next year put them on a skateboard, next chuck them out of a plane with a parachute (one of the great Coke successes was the kids sky-surfing before opening their parachutes. Launched a whole new sport.) But then your competitors do the same thing and it gets harder to differentiate your brand.

After years of doing this, interest in the drink sinks low. It's the opportunity for the competitors to muscle in. So Red Bull and Mother, Gatorade and fruit juices, they all begin to squeeze mighty Coke on the shelves and where it matters most - in the sales.

Putting names on the cans was brilliant lateral thinking. Where soft drinks have always been personalised by the brand, here the idea was to give each bottle its own personality, making it a Mike or a Kylie. Sure enough the kids picked this up - and did the rest themselves through their mobile phones and social media. They connected with friends, swapped bottles in the schoolyard, contacted distant pals to say they had found "their" bottle. And of course they endlessly pestered Coke with "my name, my name" requests. Which there was a system set up to fulfill.

What are you trying to do when you are marketing? You are trying to create an interest in your product, awareness, start a conversation. The spark that lit this campaign - including the sacrilegious invasion of the label space by a "foreign" word - was the research discovery that some 50% of Australian teenagers had not tasted Coke. A few years back this would have been unthinkable, it needed a drastic remedy. Which is exactly what this campaign did. How can anyone resist a cold summer drink with their name on it?

In Britain the local marketers are excited by the prospects for summer. They know that in Australia, consumption was boosted seven percent. Which in a mature market like this, is huge. For years they have had nothing to excite the market. Meanwhile bovver-booted macho brands like Red Bull and even Coca Cola's own Mother have been able to flash their racing cars and motor bikes past the goody goodies in the Coke ads.

Now there will be something to get kids talking about Coke again, and tie it into the Facebook-Twitter conversations, for this summer at least. Those Aussies got some smart ideas, no wonder the Covent Garden ad agencies seem to ring with Strine accents.
ray@ebeatty.com

Losing your mobile life

Melbourne Herald Sun, May 2, 2013
There's a horrible sinking feeling when you lose your mobile phone. You search and search, running late for an appointment.

You go to the usual places: bedside table, study, kitchen bench, car. Not there, so you visit all those sites again, as if you could have overlooked a large black block of electronics.

You shake out the weekend's papers, the junk mail in the discard box, crawl under the bed, under the desk, under the couch. All sound tensely familiar? You borrow your partner's phone to ring, wondering whether your phone was properly charged last time, listening for a muffled tinkle.

Meanwhile, said partner has joined in and is offering a string of helpful advice which you take out of despair. Eventually it does turn up - in last night's suit pocket or forgotten in the children's room when you said goodnight. A huge wave of relief as you clutch the precious instrument. You are never going to do that again!

Until the next time you lose it. Only this time - after seven years in my case - it really is lost. Gone, disappeared, never to be seen again. All the hunting and panicking are to no avail.

You expect that some kind soul will find it where it dropped - perhaps while pulling a jacket on after a run in the park. Maybe they will ring a couple of numbers in memory to track down the owner. Or take it to a mobile shop where the savvy assistants will soon uncover its home.

But no, some phones just stay lost and you are faced with catastrophe. You know all the backups you have been making for years? No, you didn't back up? No-one ever showed you how?

What about the names, addresses and numbers of those important business prospects. Not the existing customers, there's plenty of data on them, but the ones you put in the phone that one time you met them. There's now a huge directory of contacts. Work, business, family, friends, clubs, members of this and that - they're all sitting in that little machine.

Oh I haven't started yet. Now you have to choose a new phone. This is exciting. There are so many new wonderful models on the market right now, as I've often reported here. But what one's right for you?

Basically, with all the plans and programs on offer, all the phones cost much the same - nothing. Point to the one you'd like and they'll give it to you. So are you finally going to cross Trendy Street to Apple? Or the new well-reviewed Galaxy? Stick to Nokia tried and trusted, swing to glamorous HTC, play corporate with BlackBerry? One thing you can be sure of - everything you learned about using a phone you'll have to learn over again.

The new phones have less buttons - you have to learn which bit of glass to tap to produce the result you want. I spent 15 minutes trying to turn off my new phone's alarm clock. Nothing I tapped would stop that brain-piercing drill. It took days to figure out basics like making and receiving calls - and the blurbs tell me of the thousands of apps available. Once I learn how to install them and use them.

I admit it, it's an age thing. The phone shop assistant looks like a schoolboy and when I explain what has been torturing me for the past week, he will tap a few keys I hadn't even noticed and fix it for me.

The moral is simple. Stick to what you know and whatever you do, don't lose that phone!

ray@ebeatty.com

Blog: themarketeer-raybeatty.blogspot.com

How to sell more plane tickets - make a Kiwi homesick

Melbourne Herald Sun, Thursday April 18, 2013

It's a long jump - an expensive one - between Perth and New Zealand. So how do you sell more airline tickets? There was a very clever PR event put on last weekend with that purpose in mind. The mechanism was to gather a mass of expatriate Kiwis and drive them tearfully homesick.

Air New Zealand used a Facebook page and online media for much of the promotion, so in advertising budget terms it would have been very low cost. It's a great example of how clever PR and social media can produce spectacular results.

The 700 lonely Kiwis who responded were given a movie show at a rooftop cinema (Kiwi films only of course). Visitors received dinner, with the best New Zealand wines, cider and beers. The flight crew brought over the Tasman their favourite sweets, cheeses, chips - even a jar of boiled eggs to remind everyone of the sweet smell of Rotorua.

They also found a homesick young man whose birthday was due on the day, and with the connivance of his friends arranged to fly his mum and dad over. The whole reunion was filmed and shown on the movie night, to many a damp eye.

Homesickness is a very human condition - as was demonstrated by Chinese Hainan Airline Group earlier this year. As anyone who's visited China during its New Year knows, it feels like every individual in this massive country is going home somewhere else. The sad ones are those who can't afford the trip, and these are the ones who were courted by the airline.

A hundred young people, mostly students studying overseas or in distant provinces, were selected by the Send Love Home program and each given a return flight to their waiting family.

A typical reaction came from Peng Sijie, a violin student in the north German city of Rostock. "I made it home before Spring Festival," he said with delight on arriving in Beijing.
"Thanks HNA for helping me come home!" No doubt Dad ordered another crate of rockets and bangers (China is a very noisy place to be at new year).

Handled skilfully, programs like these can create a wide-rippling effect of goodwill. You can be sure that the grapevines of West Australia's Kiwis and China's myriad overseas students are humming with the stories and a heap of kudos for Air New Zealand and HNA.

Then there are some promotions so cool you need to carry a bucket of ice water. Since 2008 Bacardi Limited has run a world-wide PR campaign called "Champions Drink Responsibly". It is a smart way to keep themselves out of the line of fire of advancing regulators - who we talk of frequently on these pages - and also the right thing to do. It trains young adults on how to party responsibly, not be stupid, and not drive drunk.

Well this year their Champion is Spanish tennis heart-throb Rafael Nadal.  According to the promotion, he is putting on a great party in July at a luxury villa on his home island of Mallorca, Spain - called the Castell de Manresa.

All the top models and euro playboys will be there, DJs, speaker towers and a music mix selected by Rafa himself. Food and entertainment will be great and plentiful, accompanied by responsible drinking under the watchful eye of the champion himself.

Hey sounds like my kind of party - or it used to be. Only problem is that today is the last day to enter, April 18, so if you want in you'd better get to the Champions Drink Responsibly Facebook page pretty quick. I've put my entry in already.

ray@ebeatty.com
Blog: themarketeer-raybeatty.blogspot.com

Is sugar really as perilous as a gun?

Melbourne Herald Sun, Thursday April 11, 2013


What should governments ban "for our own good"? It's always a difficult question for me, as a fundamental believer in individual responsibility. Certainly slap bans on assault rifles and Uzi machine pistols and all the other weaponry Americans like to kill each other with. But do the same life threats really apply to hamburgers, lollipops and soft drinks?

Ironically, in the US media, sugar has been described as "Public Enemy No.1." It's blamed for obesity, attention deficit disorder, even called toxic. A new book claims it's addictive. The warning for marketers is clear: sugar may be the next regulatory target, long before they get around to guns.

Former Parliamentarian for the Greens, Amanda Bresnan, wrote that the host is gathering against the sweet crystals: the AMA, the Heart Foundation, Cancer Council Victoria, Diabetes Australia, VicHealth and the World Health Organisation have all called for the banning of junk food advertising in children's tv hours. It's a formidable pack that has the cooks and confectioners rightly quaking.

In particular the righteous are attacking the "pester power" commercials. You know, the ones that spark your kids to say "Mum, Mum, Dad, Dad, gimme gimme..." every step through the shopping centre.

You can't help but feel dislike for the commercials, particularly if you've ever had your kid throw themselves on the supermarket floor in an ear-splitting tantrum. But whether that makes the ad a capital offence is another matter.

Certainly we do have an epidemic of obesity, both in children and adults, with some 25 per cent of our population being overweight. It's a serious health issue but is it a legal issue as well?

Sometimes government intervention works. The fact that we do not suffer rotted teeth to match our bursting waists is mostly thanks to the fluoride added to the water since the 1960s. But 50 years later that is still causing controversy, so legislation can prove to be a blunt health tool.

What do you do as a marketer? Well you can't ignore the threat, you must be ready to cope with it if it comes.

The big soft drink companies have been readying themselves for years - "Tab", "Diet Pepsi", "Coke Zero" are in the fridge already. If the sugared drinks are ever banned, these sugarless alternatives sit waiting.

It's harder with a hamburger, for ever branded by the documentary Super Size Me, which depicted a grossly overweight America growing fatter burger by burger.

It took an Aussie, Charlie Bell, to come up with a new direction during his brief stint as world CEO of McDonalds. He brought in healthier menu choices, juice instead of soft drinks, and created the popular McCafes. All this within a year - in January 2005 he died of bowel cancer, aged 44.

However he showed that even the biggest fast food chain can put out a healthy message, and that way of eating has been taken up wherever you look.

Asian restaurants have brought us delicious Vietnamese soups and Chinese vegetables; salad counters and juice bars dot the high streets. Joggers and cyclists are a norm these days. So we have become healthier as a society - IBISWorld research shows that today two-thirds of Australians can be considered "health conscious".

So when the right choices are available to us, most of us take them. Do we really need the arm of the law to force us to be sensible?

Think of all that money that would be spent writing new laws and taxes, which would create yet another lawyers' feast. Instead, let's use it to encourage the laggardly third of our population to be more aware of the sensible options for a healthy life.

ray@ebeatty.com