Posts Tagged ‘Events’

20 July 2010

Reflections on Shopper Insights

by Bill Alberti and Julie Wittes Schlack

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From: Bill Alberti
Sent: Friday, July 16, 2010 1:59 PM
To: Julie Wittes Schlack
Subject: Reflections on Shopper Insights…

Whadidja think?

From: Bill Alberti
Sent: Friday, July 16, 2010 1:59 PM
To: Julie Wittes Schlack
Subject: Reflections on Shopper Insights…

Whadidja think?

From: Julie Wittes Schlack
Sent: Friday, July 16, 2010 2:02 PM
To: Bill Alberti
Subject: RE: Reflections on Shopper Insights…

Well, my conscious and rational mind says that the Shopper Insights conference was all about dichotomies – conscious vs. unconscious, planned vs. unplanned, habit vs. change, what people think vs. what they feel, etc.  But since according to one speaker, 84 percent of what I do is unconscious, what the hell do I know?

From: Bill Alberti
Sent: Friday, July 16, 2010 3:42 PM
To: Julie Wittes Schlack
Subject: RE: Reflections on Shopper Insights…

What YOU know is just point … what you know, how you act, how you feel … My big takeaway was about treating shoppers as unique from one another and getting intimate with them. From understanding how their brains work, to exploring the richness of the emotional territory of their lives, you quickly realize that data alone just doesn’t cut it anymore. You need to get intimate with customers to earn permission into their lives to see their experiences from their points of view.

From: Julie Wittes Schlack
To: Bill Alberti
Sent: Friday, July 16, 2010 4:01 PM
Subject: RE: Reflections on Shopper Insights…

Amen, brother! Understandably, a lot of shopper insights work focuses on measurement, because this is one domain in which measurement is not only strategically important, but relatively easy. So there’s reams of data on what SKUs are moving and how quickly, length of time in aisle, where shoppers eyes are roaming – on WHAT people are doing … but not on WHY they’re doing it. The neuroscience work aims to get at the latter in an objective way, and it is fascinating and powerful research.

But what struck me as I listened to several presentations is that while a variety of sensory cues may inform the unconscious and stimulate the desire to touch or acquire, ultimately the act of purchasing is a pretty conscious, intellectually mediated act. That’s why shopping is one behavioral domain where self-reporting and reflection – affording people the time in space in which to wonder aloud, “Hmm … why DID I not only have the impulse, but follow through on it?” – is really important. Reflection is a powerful insight-generation tool.

And so is Dan Arielly. My other big take-away, in fact, was a deeper appreciation for just how daunting, even paralyzing, choice can be. I’m heading out for vacation in an hour, but as I weigh the question of beach vs. pond vs. hammock next week, I’ll reflect a little more on that… :)

From: Bill Alberti
To: Julie Wittes Schlack
Sent: Friday, July 16, 2010 4:44 PM
Subject: RE: Reflections on Shopper Insights…

And that’s why I asked … always very insightful to hear your perspective.

Enjoy your vacation. When making your decision, you may want to throw in the “decoy” option of beach minus a beach blanket. The asymmetrical dominance might make the decision for beach (my preference) unconsciously easier ;)  See you next week.

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6 July 2010

Another Reason To Hate The Yankees

by Guest Blogger: Patrick Griffin from Griffin York & Krause

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Every April, hope springs eternal for all 30 teams across Major League Baseball. For some teams, that hope can peter out after a poor couple of months. The knock on Major League Baseball is that the same few teams make it to the playoffs every year, without the parity seen in other leagues. like football’s NFL.

But today, in July, MLB wants to give you a reason to believe in your team. More specifically, they want you to give them some cash to give you a reason to believe in your team.

Every April, hope springs eternal for all 30 teams across Major League Baseball. For some teams, that hope can peter out after a poor couple of months. The knock on Major League Baseball is that the same few teams make it to the playoffs every year, without the parity seen in other leagues. like football’s NFL.

But today, in July, MLB wants to give you a reason to believe in your team. More specifically, they want you to give them some cash to give you a reason to believe in your team.

That’s why they introduced Postseason Ticket Reservations, the newest and boldest ruse by MLB to get fans (along with their wallets) involved in the game. Pick your favorite team, and pay a fee ($10–$20 per reservation) to reserve the right to buy tickets for specific playoff games at face value. The fee is the same for every participating team — so yes, it costs the same to reserve a ticket for a Red Sox playoff game as an Orioles game. (I had to retype that last part a few times — I can’t type when I’m laughing.)

Anyway, every team participates, except the Yankees (shocking). The fee is not refundable, as you might expect. So if a Baltimore fan pays $41.00 for the chance to buy a couple of World Series tickets, and the team loses 112 games, the bookkeeper … err, uh, MLB pockets your money. It’s easy to complain about the League’s greediness here, but really, they are giving the average fan a chance at a unique experience and a monetary reason to stay involved through the dog days of July and August. Except for Yankees’ fans, whose team doesn’t seem to care about them.

So, do you like what MLB is doing here? Will you be betting on your team’s playoff future?

*Pat Griffin is the author of Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Curtain where he explains how we have arrived at the confluence of media and technology, and how under this new paradigm neither will ever be the same.

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1 July 2010

FIFA Fever: Athletic brands take front stage

by Lorena Leonard

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All posts by Lorena Leonard

The World Cup has always been surrounded with ad campaigns from various brands trying to get a piece of the action, and this year is no exception. Some of the world’s top brands that have partnered with FIFA include Coca Cola, McDonald’s, VISA and SONY, to name just a few. In an event of such magnitude, athletic companies compete for center stage. Adidas is FIFA’s official partner but other companies have done their part to make themselves visible to the worldwide audience the World Cup draws. PUMA is one of these athletic brands that created an elaborate campaign to attract global audiences.

The World Cup has always been surrounded with ad campaigns from various brands trying to get a piece of the action, and this year is no exception. Some of the world’s top brands that have partnered with FIFA include Coca Cola, McDonald’s, VISA and SONY, to name just a few. In an event of such magnitude, athletic companies compete for center stage. Adidas is FIFA’s official partner but other companies have done their part to make themselves visible to the worldwide audience the World Cup draws. PUMA is one of these athletic brands that created an elaborate campaign to attract global audiences.

PUMA enlisted the collaboration of much sought-after artist Kehinde Wiley to create four original pieces of artwork featuring three of the best football players in Africa –Samuel Eto’o of Cameroon, John Mensah of Ghana, and Emmanuel Eboué of the Ivory Coast. The theme of this campaign was “African togetherness.” The company also created a unity uniform for African national teams.

PUMA has differentiated itself from the other athletic brands by relying on their long-established relationship with African football. Unlike the other brands, PUMA has had a presence in Africa for over a decade, sponsoring football teams in many African nations. Because the 2010 World Cup was held in Africa, creating this campaign was a clear fit for PUMA.

Additionally, the company introduced The PUMA Africa Collection, an apparel line inspired by the Kehinde Wiley portraits. And as part of their social responsibility efforts, PUMA is donating a portion of the Africa Unity Kit sales to programs in Africa that support diversity.

 With such efforts and immense amounts of cash that go into campaigns aimed at huge sporting events drawing even bigger audiences, as we are seeing in the World Cup, I can’t help but wonder how effective this particular sponsorship is in terms of revenue. It is clear that supporting a social cause, like the one PUMA is doing with diversity programs in Africa, is viewed positively by the consumer; but does this actually translate into dollars for the company? Will consumers buy the Kehinde Wiley-inspired items because of the “African togetherness” theme this campaign communicates or simply because the styles are appealing to the consumer? Or is it really just FIFA fever that is driving consumers out to their favorite sporting goods stores to buy World Cup apparel? 

I encourage everyone to chime in. From a marketing perspective, do you think these types of sponsorships really bring in big money for a brand or are other factors playing a role? Have you purchased World Cup apparel? Why? Do you support one brand over the other? Are social responsibility efforts important in your purchasing decisions? Or did you just like the style, regardless of the brand or the company’s support for socially responsible causes? 

If you’d like to see the portraits, merchandise, and making-of videos of PUMA’s campaign visit: http://africa.puma.com.

2 Responses to “FIFA Fever: Athletic brands take front stage”

  1. Janet Bednarz says:
    July 4, 2010 at 2:47 pm

    Lorena – This is a true confession of a born-in-America Baby Boomer: the World Cup is barely on my radar screen. My brother-in-law is from Spain, and every four years he rattles the chains of his provincial in-laws to get with the World Cup program! But we barely do. I keep an eye on the headlines to see how Spain is doing – but that’s about it. So…I have not purchased World Cup apparel.

    I do pay some attention, however, to the socially responsible actions of sports apparel brands. For example, I avoid Nike products because a number of years ago they were exposed for engaging in exploitive sweatshop practices in oversees manufacturing facilities. Their continued endorsement of Tiger Woods as a Nike spokesperson has alienated me even further.

    Patagonia, on the other hand, is an excellent example of being an environmentally and socially responsible business, so I try to buy their sports gear when I can.

    I like what PUMA is doing in Africa. Will it give them a good return on investment? Probably not with American-born Baby Boomers like me. But perhaps yes given the rich diversity of World Cup enthusiasts around the globe.

  2. Lorena Leonard says:
    July 6, 2010 at 8:58 am

    Janet, thanks for your message… your point of view is quite interesting! I wasn’t aware of Nike’s involvement in sweatshops and I’m glad you brought that up. I don’t necessarily lend all of my support to a particular brand because of their social responsibility efforts but it does help. However, I am appalled by companies that are involved in immoral manufacturing practices and I try to boycott these -such as Guess, whom I’ve been boycotting since the 90’s for having children in sweatshops in Central America.

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29 June 2010

An Exercise in Social Media Connectivity (aka “AAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!”)

by Jack Cahill

4 Comments »
All posts by Jack Cahill

Like most people, I have always wanted to jump from an aircraft at 12,000 feet and free fall towards the Earth at nearly 60 miles per hour while putting my survival in the hands of a complete stranger. However, I was—for some reason—a bit frightened about actually doing it. And every time I turned to people around me for encouragement and participation, I found no one.

Like most people, I have always wanted to jump from an aircraft at 12,000 feet and free fall towards the Earth at nearly 60 miles per hour while putting my survival in the hands of a complete stranger. However, I was—for some reason—a bit frightened about actually doing it.  And every time I turned to people around me for encouragement and participation, I found no one.

But last winter at dinner with friends, one of them actually said she’d do it.  So I wondered—what would happen if I threw the idea out on Facebook and Twitter?  Would I find others who might be interested in joining us?  So I decided to perform a little exercise in social media connectivity and did just that.  I posted a Facebook link and invited people (anyone) to join me.  I also posted it on Twitter and our workplace bulletin boards.

My objective was to recruit a few people to accompany me on this “Bucket List” adventure and be available to push me out of the plane if sanity took over at the last minute.  I thought I might get two others.  What I got instead was a huge surprise.

Within three days I had 15 people who expressed serious interest, and several others who were on the fence, but not quite ready to take that plunge (get it—“plunge”? OK…sorry).  Encouraged, I went ahead and contacted a local jump school that provides tandem jumping.  After cost and scheduling issues were resolved, we had a group of 11 people who had connected to participate.  I was floored.  The Jump had turned into An Event!

The group was a collection of people who maintained different relationships.  Some had never met before the day of The Jump.  But most of us shared one thing in common — we were all incredibly nervous.  Fortunately, one had jumped before, and his encouragement (and the festive atmosphere of the place) kept our nerves in check.

Despite those nerves, we all did it (and loved it—check it out).  Afterwards, when we all gathered at a local eatery to drink and come down from the adrenaline high we were riding, any outsider would have had difficulty telling that most of us had only just met.

It is kind of hard to jump out of a plane with someone and then not feel a strong connection with them — even if you don’t know them.  We’ll definitely do this again…

4 Responses to “An Exercise in Social Media Connectivity (aka “AAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!”)”

  1. Nancy P says:
    June 29, 2010 at 9:39 am

    I got an adrenaline rush just watching the video. It’s a great story and has me thinking about the power social media has for marketing businesses. You created an event without much effort. Businesses can create these events pretty easily once they’ve created a network.

  2. James Bailey says:
    June 29, 2010 at 9:41 am

    Whoa!

  3. Susan Cress says:
    June 29, 2010 at 1:20 pm

    AMAZING! I think the closest I’ll ever get is the parachute I wear for aerobatics and faking it in a wind tunnel. I admire those with the gumption to jump.

  4. carol curran says:
    June 30, 2010 at 10:08 pm

    Wow! I had a pit in my stomach just watching the video but the adrenaline rush must be amazing. Better you than me. CONGRATS!

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24 June 2010

Crabby Bill’s: A Gulf Coast legacy

by Mike Jennings

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All posts by Mike Jennings

Yesterday I was flipping through my photos and came across the one you see here. It was taken on a typical day in my career as a Gulf Coast visitor, which starts on the beach and ends at Crabby Bill’s in Indian Rocks Beach, Florida.

Some of my earliest memories are of waiting for a table while my extended family laughed, slurped shellfish and emptied pitchers of beer at the bar. Eventually we’d get seated at the long, communal picnic tables, and I’d always get stuck next to some stranger asking me questions about what grade I was in and what I wanted to be when I grew up. I didn’t get it.

Yesterday I was flipping through my photos and came across the one you see here. It was taken on a typical day in my career as a Gulf Coast visitor, which starts on the beach and ends at Crabby Bill’s in Indian Rocks Beach, Florida.

Some of my earliest memories are of waiting for a table while my extended family laughed, slurped shellfish and emptied pitchers of beer at the bar. Eventually we’d get seated at the long, communal picnic tables, and I’d always get stuck next to some stranger asking me questions about what grade I was in and what I wanted to be when I grew up. I didn’t get it.

I got older, moved from the nest and stopped attending the Florida family vacation. When my parents retired to the “Sunshine State” I started spending my major holidays there. Returning to the crab shack of my youth, I finally got it.

Lately I’ve been starting with the above – a Bloody Mary with the secret crab seasoning along the rim and a dozen oysters. Then I move to the stone crab claws, which you can get straight from the steamer with a side of drawn butter or chilled with mustard dipping sauce. After that I’ll order a grouper sandwich with a side of corn on the cob and rice.

It all gets walked off on the powder white beach across the street, where I’ll watch pelicans flop themselves into the Gulf as the sun sets on the horizon.

In a few months I’ll be heading back to Florida, and I wonder what I’ll find. If you look at the animated long-range forecast, it shows the oil staying just off the west coast of southern Florida, but unfortunately has it coming up the southeast Atlantic coast and out towards Europe. Either way, I’ll still make my pilgrimage to Crabby Bill’s, even if it’s just for the secretly-seasoned Bloody Mary.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the Loder family and all their employees at Crabby Bill’s. I know a lot of “snow birds” who are pulling for you.

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15 June 2010

BP Cares (about how much you think they care)

by Lou Tamposi

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All posts by Lou Tamposi

Besides catching up on sports scores and Blake Lively’s relationship status, I don’t really do as good of a job keeping up with the news as I should. Even in my self-centered shell, though, I’ve been hearing a lot about the BP Oil spill. It’s a terrible tragedy, not only for the environment and Gulf-area businesses, but also for BP’s Public Relations department. With public opinion of the company dropping faster than BP’s stock prices, it’s all but certain that the PR damage to the company is going to stick around long after the oil is finally cleared from the Gulf.

Besides catching up on sports scores and Blake Lively’s relationship status, I don’t really do as good of a job keeping up with the news as I should. Even in my self-centered shell, though, I’ve been hearing a lot about the BP Oil spill. It’s a terrible tragedy, not only for the environment and Gulf-area businesses, but also for BP’s Public Relations department. With public opinion of the company dropping faster than BP’s stock prices, it’s all but certain that the PR damage to the company is going to stick around long after the oil is finally cleared from the Gulf.

An interesting problem BP is now facing is a satirical Twitter account called BPGlobalPR. Presenting itself as existing “to get BP’s message and mission statement out to the Twitterverse,” the account has some hilarious “updates” on the cleaning effort. A new “Adopt an Oil Plume” campaign lets you donate $25 dollars to take 100% responsibility for a plume. Oh, and you get a free BP Cares t-shirt! It also urges us to remember that “[BP is] not killing animals in the gulf, [they] are creating fossils in the gulf,” and to “[have] a little perspective.”

While this is all fun and games for those not invested in the public opinion of BP, it spells trouble for the actual PR department within the company. While the official BP twitter page has about 12,000 follows, the BPGlobalPR account has more than 10x that amount—162,000 and counting. This means people trying to figure out what BP is doing are not getting the good news that on June 13th some 15,200 barrels of oil were collected from the Gulf; instead, they are finding out that BP just dumped 40,000 barrels of “BP cares” t-shirts into the Gulf.

How much does this parody cost BP? Well, the company is reportedly spending close to $10,000 a day to make sure their PR account shows up first in search results. That might be pennies to the oil giant, but it’s still a chunk of change that could better be put toward the cleaning effort, or heck, even reimbursing local businesses affected by the spill. This just goes to show, as beneficial as social media can be to a company, it can just as easily turn against you in a painful (and expensive) way.

But what do you think? Should BP keep spending thousands of dollars fighting bad PR? Or, should they let the rogue Twitter account run its course, and hope in the end the old saying holds true: All publicity is good publicity?

2 Responses to “BP Cares (about how much you think they care)”

  1. kai says:
    June 15, 2010 at 5:10 pm

    “It’s a terrible tragedy, not only for the environment and Gulf-area businesses, but also for BP’s Public Relations department.”

    Umm…

    :)

  2. Jason says:
    June 17, 2010 at 10:52 am

    Great post. They’re in the news everyday now and it’s so hard to keep track of what’s going on. However, I just saw the ads they’re running on TV with them helping out the people who lost their jobs. I think that’s more effective than worrying about where they show up in news feeds. I think the general public doesn’t care that much as long as the whole thing just gets fixed.

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10 June 2010

Tired of Energy Fatigue

by Don Chanfrau

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It’s pretty hard to imagine now but, someday, I suppose we’ll lose our appetite for news about the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The Coast Guard could be referring not just to the federal government’s response to the oil spreading rapidly through the Gulf of Mexico (and beyond!), but also to our insatiable demand for media coverage, when they predict we’ll be “dealing with this for the foreseeable future”. Enjoy hearing about environmental disasters while you brush your teeth in the a.m.? Good. The Weather Channel has you covered.

It’s pretty hard to imagine now but, someday, I suppose we’ll lose our appetite for news about the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The Coast Guard could be referring not just to the federal government’s response to the oil spreading rapidly through the Gulf of Mexico (and beyond!), but also to our insatiable demand for media coverage, when they predict we’ll be “dealing with this for the foreseeable future”. Enjoy hearing about environmental disasters while you brush your teeth in the a.m.? Good. The Weather Channel has you covered.

Yes, energy concerns have our attention. In a mid-May survey of 1,000 adults by the Pew Research Center, when asked to consider what issues are very important for Congress to act upon in the coming months, 67% of respondents identified “the country’s energy needs”. Of those respondents, 75% are Democrats and 61% are Republicans – a mandate in today’s political climate.

Of course, it could be that the polls merely reflect the relentless news coverage of the spill and that our priorities will drift with the slicks on the water. As in the sea, there are many undercurrents at play, just in the energy space. For sure, it’s a pocketbook issue; when petroleum, natural gas and electricity prices tremble, so do we. But not far beneath the surface, other major trends are apparent. The energy dilemma is about jobs, corporate and social responsibility, national security and public policy.

It’s also about public awareness and the acceptance of advances in technology. And some very smart folks with a track record in the technology community see a very, very big business opportunity. Venture capitalist John Doerr famously suggested that his recent energy investments are focused on “cars, coal, conservation and cattle”. Cattle? Could it be? Yes, HP Labs is exploring how to power sustainable data centers with cow manure.

Maybe it’s finally time to get beyond the superficial Sunday morning TV ads, PR campaigns and polls. After all, we can pass into law all the federal and state energy mandates we want, but we can’t achieve the goals they establish or collectively get to a better place without a dialogue exploring solutions that consumers can understand and act upon.

That’s if we have any energy left.

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27 May 2010

Are You Treating Your Customers Like a Sustainable Resource?

by Debi Kleiman

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Usually when you think of sustainability, you think of farming or the environment right? Well it’s really not just about what you eat; sustainability is a concept that is at the heart of how the most innovative companies in all industries are doing business today. It involves thinking about how to make the most of your business using the best of your resources and ensuring those resources are well taken of – that is, treated with respect, thoughtfulness and appreciation – whether those resources are money, time, or customers. And it makes sense that customers are (or should be) one of your company’s most important sustainable resources, particularly given today’s business context.

Usually when you think of sustainability, you think of farming or the environment right? Well it’s really not just about what you eat; sustainability is a concept that is at the heart of how the most innovative companies in all industries are doing business today. It involves thinking about how to make the most of your business using the best of your resources and ensuring those resources are well taken of – that is, treated with respect, thoughtfulness and appreciation – whether those resources are money, time, or customers. And it makes sense that customers are (or should be) one of your company’s most important sustainable resources, particularly given today’s business context.

Communispace is proud to be a 2010 recipient of the ThinkForward™ Award given by the smart folks at Beagle Research. The Beagle Research Group is one of the leading analyst firms focused on customer experience and SocialCRM.  They developed the award to recognize companies that are creating sustainable business support for processes that are, among other things, “more fully engaging customers as full partners in the vendor-customer relationship.”

I think this is a really interesting take on the concept of sustainability in business – customers as a renewable business resource.  According to Beagle Research managing principal, Denis Pombriant: “If you’re in CRM this spells opportunity to re-think some business processes and use social networking to carefully listen to customers as they describe the next important things in their lives…the companies that can best understand existing customer sentiment and unmet needs will be best able to develop products and messages that drive additional sales within their customer bases.”

In explaining why they chose Communispace for this groundbreaking award, Pombriant went on to say: “This pioneer in community driven customer outreach has scores of customer success stories in which companies organized groups of customers to learn about attitudes and unmet needs…Communispace has enabled its clients to zero in on the issues that really matter to their customers at low cost as well as with speed and minimal overhead.” Thanks, Denis! You can read the full report on the Beagle Research website here.

We’d also like to congratulate the other ThinkForward winners: Brainshark, Cloud9 Analytics, iCentera, Kadient, Salesforce.com, Unisfair, and Zuora. We are honored to be in such good company.

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20 May 2010

World Cup 2010: President Obama, Please Stay Home

by Mike Jennings

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Maybe you’ve heard that South Africa’s police commissioner, General Bheki Cele, said he’ll be rooting against the U.S. in the World Cup this year. This was in response to Barack Obama saying he might drop by if the yanks do well. Citing overwhelming security concerns, Cele hopes the President will just stay home.

Maybe you’ve heard that South Africa’s police commissioner, General Bheki Cele, said he’ll be rooting against the U.S. in the World Cup this year. This was in response to Barack Obama saying he might drop by if the yanks do well. Citing overwhelming security concerns, Cele hopes the President will just stay home.

While the U.S. women’s team won their World Cup in 1999, the men have only made it to the elimination round once since 1930 (according to Wikipedia). I think this year might be different….

Last summer the Confederations Cup was held in South Africa and was considered a preview the World Cup. In one of the biggest sports upsets last year, the U.S. beat top-ranked Spain. It was a decisive victory and the U.S. went on to the finals against Brazil. They scored two quick goals in the first half and gave up three in the second. No, it wasn’t the World Cup, but this performance suggested that the U.S. might finally have an offense.

The U.S. will have already played in most of the World Cup venues, making South Africa somewhat familiar. They’ll also be prepared for those horns that sound like agitated bees.

The first match is against England, who’s stacked with talent and has arguably the best player in the world, Wayne Rooney. Lately though, they’ve struggled on the world stage and there are a lot of expectations for them to do well – even win the whole thing. Maybe the pressure will be too much. England’s also had some TMZ-worthy drama in the locker room, or should I say bedroom. I’m hoping they’ll be distracted.

The other teams in the group (Algeria, Slovenia) are beatable and I think the U.S. will do well in South Africa, at least in the beginning.

So President Obama, I still support you, but agree that for safety’s sake, please stay home. It’s not like soccer is even close to our national pastime. In fact, when I was growing up people called it a “commie sport” and surely you’re distancing yourself from anything remotely socialist right now.

5 Responses to “World Cup 2010: President Obama, Please Stay Home”

  1. Casey Prozeller says:
    May 20, 2010 at 3:49 pm

    Hi Mike -Most countries fit into the 1930 stat…the U.S. also happens to have a stat that puts them amongst the soccer elite, the 40/40 club of soccer if you will…the U.S. is one of SIX countries to qualify for the last six World Cups.

  2. John Ramsey says:
    May 20, 2010 at 4:36 pm

    Great post Mike!

    I’m looking forward to watching parts of a game or two at Pedro’s during work hours! Don’t worry, I’ll stay late to make up for it!

  3. Mike Jennings says:
    May 21, 2010 at 8:08 am

    Good point, Casey. I’ll add that one of the best goalkeepers is from the US, New Jersey to be exact.

  4. Mike Jennings says:
    May 21, 2010 at 11:34 am

    I’ll be watching matches at Pedro’s as well. I wonder if they have wifi.

  5. Merle Sandler says:
    May 21, 2010 at 12:27 pm

    Hi Mike

    I’m impressed that you have heard about vuvuzelas – not too sure that many people outside South Africa know about them. I like the “agitated bee” description!

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6 May 2010

India: A window and a mirror

by Arjun Chawla

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All posts by Arjun Chawla

I had the pleasure of attending the recent India Conference at Harvard Business School, a stimulating event that focused on the opportunities — and obstacles — of conducting business in India. This event provided a great window to the intricacies of the Indian business landscape. I found it especially compelling to see how this window actually mirrors issues that businesses everywhere face, particularly in the realms of CRM and new media. I’d like to present a couple of thoughts on these topics, based on insights from this event and ideas with which they have synergies.

A serious challenge for big retailers in India is competing with the endless tapestry of “mom-and-pop” stores that line every urban street. While not a new theme, I was struck by panelist/marketing guru Suhel Seth’s framing of it: He said this challenge arises because the mom-and-pop stores have mastered customer relationship management

I had the pleasure of attending the recent India Conference at Harvard Business School, a stimulating event that focused on the opportunities — and obstacles — of conducting business in India. This event provided a great window to the intricacies of the Indian business landscape. I found it especially compelling to see how this window actually mirrors issues that businesses everywhere face, particularly in the realms of CRM and new media. I’d like to present a couple of thoughts on these topics, based on insights from this event and ideas with which they have synergies.

A serious challenge for big retailers in India is competing with the endless tapestry of “mom-and-pop” stores that line every urban street. While not a new theme, I was struck by panelist/marketing guru Suhel Seth’s framing of it: He said this challenge arises because the mom-and-pop stores have mastered customer relationship management.

The importance of these “old-school” business dynamics is also conveyed in a Wall Street Journal interview with Pawan Munjal, Managing Director/Chief Executive of motorcycle company Hero Honda. In outlining the firm’s strategy in rural India, he states:

“We are visiting all villages in the country, trying to meet with the village elders, trying to convince them about the company, about its products and about why they should become associated with Hero Honda. Once the lead villager agrees the whole village follows and becomes a fan of Hero Honda.”

Isn’t this a social-media strategy? We have mentions of social networks, marketing messages, possible brand ambassadors/evangelists, leaders and followers. Customer relationship management (and perhaps cultural relationship management) is implied. The customer’s power over sales and brand culture is recognized. Thus, examples like this provide powerful reminders of what new-media strategies can learn from old-school dynamics. After all, in the words of Mr. Seth, India’s first example of social media — complete with user-group and word-of-mouth marketing — was Gandhi.

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