Disruption Tour --- Run To Survive

5 New Strategies in Loyalty Marketing

More of the article here
http://tmt.targetmarketingmag.com/story/story.php?sid=113957&var=story
From Target Marketing

In our uncertain economic climate, loyalty programs play an increasingly important role for direct marketers. Customer loyalty programs have been around for nearly 30 years in most developed countries in the world, including the U.S. and most of Europe. As a result, it’s a saturated market.

COLLOQUY, which comprises a collection of resources devoted to the global loyalty-marketing industry, conducted research last year that showed the average U.S. household was a member of 12 loyalty programs. “That seems unlikely, but it’s because a lot of folks will sign up for the initial offer but then not re-engage with it again,” explains Rick Ferguson, COLLOQUY’s editorial director. He says that in terms of programs that customers actually pay attention to and participate with, that number falls to about four. “That presents a challenge for loyalty marketers. If you’re not one of those four, then you’ve got problems—you’ve got a lot of disengaged members.”

The trick, of course, is getting your program to stand out. “The way you do that is to understand your customers, your community better than your competitor does,” states Ferguson. Here’s how to do all of that better.

1. Take a Good Look at Your Customer
Any customer loyalty program provides a lot of information about the customer, and that’s the reason to run it in the first place. “You’re giving value to customers, and in exchange for that value, they’re allowing you to track their behaviors,” comments Ferguson.

Whether we’re talking about a retail loyalty program, a credit card with a reward program or a frequent flier program, the operators of these programs should pay attention to customer behavior: what’s bought, how much is bought, the channels via which the purchases are made, survey participation, requests for information and so on. “Most program operators are sitting on a mountain of information. But, for the most part, we haven’t done as good a job as we should using that information,” says Ferguson

Bounce The Art of the Comeback

Check out this interesting clip on Barry's book Bounce The Art of the Comeback  on CNBC's "The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJIpmyowmJU

More on the show at http://www.cnbc.com/id/25465586/site/14081545/ and the blog entry: http://www.cnbc.com/id/25464626

The Future of Advertising: There Is No Advertising

The future of online advertising captures the headlines and attention
when the likes of Microsoft courts the likes of Yahoo. And Wall Street
still has a hard time figuring out how much Google is worth, based on
just those little text ads next to search results. But the future of
online business has a lot more in store than advertising as we know it.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/63102.html

Simplexity

There's a new word making its way into the lexicon of busy lives. It is a word that strikes a chord for those looking for less busyness. (and it's not lottery...)

Simplexity.

Wikipedia describes simplexity this way: Simple interfaces tend to improve the usability of complex systems.

Think of simplexity as simple solution to the complexity of convergence. It's something that you might not know you need. Let's take your phone life for example.

How many phone numbers can people reach you at? Of each of the phones you could answer, does the technology all share the same information? Can you access the phone list in your cell phone on your home phone? If your cell phone or address book were lost do you have a digital back up? Does the operating system at your work phone sync with your cell phone? Does your phone easily store inbound and outbound calls in a database for future use? Can you redirect phone messages to any phone or email address? Does your cell phone signal get four bars in your own home or office?

There are a thousand other functions and combinations I haven't even mentioned but you get the point. The more technology that we adopt in our everyday lives, the more complex our lives become. Wouldn't it be nice to simplify all this?

If your entire phone life was simple and unified you would save all sorts of time looking for numbers, calling information or checking messages on multiple lines. If you could have your phone life simplified, how wonderful would that be?

The phone, cable and digital satellite companies are well aware of this. And it's not all about making their customers happier. It's also about a share of your wallet. If a company could simplify your life with a suite of products then you are more likely to give all your business to them. There are offerings of wireless, video and broadband bundled with wireline voice. But simplexity has not come of age... yet.

For these companies looking for the solutions there are three simple steps. Step one, fire all the engineers that are convinced that more buttons means more value. Step two hire engineers who will embrace simplexity. Step three, stop and listen for the sound of leather satchels unfolding.

Ahhhh, if it were that easy. If it were, it wouldn't be simplexity.

Until next week it’s full speed ahead,

Vince Poscente
New York Times Bestselling Author
Speaker Hall of Fame and Olympian
April 30, 2008

we are internet toddlers

 

jon burg futurevisions.com

The internet is nothing new... yet everyday there is something better and greater being developed.

• 15 years ago I remember dialing into Prodigy and thinking... here we go.

• 10 years ago I recall sitting at my cousin's desk as he created his first online store thinking... here we go.

• 5 years ago I remember my parent's amazement at the growth of Tivo (after I had already demonstrated the concept of time-shifting digital recorded live tv on my old computer years earlier).

• 12 months ago, our industry was fretting over the potential future of 3D worlds, mass media was predicting the end of real world interactivity, and conservative groups were fretting over adult content in video games.

• And in 12 months from now, we will still be waiting for mass deployment of IPTV.  We will still be wondering, we will still be wowed, we will still be open mouthed - both as end users and as marketers.

The world is changing.  And it's going to keep on changing.

Those who can strategically embrace and encourage change, those who are forward looking, those who are ready to trailblaze... will laugh at where we are today... in 5 years time.

The world is perpetually changing.  And there's nothing you can do to stop it.  The only question you can ask yourself is - are you ready for tomorrow?  Are you ready for change?  Are you ready to take a short-term loss and gain a lesson learned?  Are you encouraging creativity

Crossover Camera

Will a new low-price, high-def video camera make traditional still cameras obsolete?

A culture war is brewing in the world of digital photography, with a handful of enthusiasts arguing that high-definition video tools are making traditional still cameras all but obsolete.

In a field where traditionalists are still debating the merits of film versus digital imagery, this contention naturally produces sparks. But growing numbers of photographers are already experimenting with HD camcorders to produce professional photos, with results now even being published on the front pages of newspapers.

Technologyreview.com click here for more of the article

ON THE GLOBAL FOOD CRISIS

from mashable.com

thegies writes hmmm...175 Billion spend on advertising in the US in 2007 and $165 Billion being thrown in the trash or into landfills due to ineffectiveness.  I wonder what a difference reallocating this money would make to many social issues? Check out http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=323832500

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

The Economist has a timely cover story on the current global food price inflation and resulting unrest.  Here's how they describe the harsh human reality:

"...by almost any measure, the human suffering is likely to be vast. In El Salvador the poor are eating only half as much food as they were a year ago. Afghans are now spending half their income on food, up from a tenth in 2006.

On a conservative estimate, food-price rises may reduce the spending power of the urban poor and country people who buy their own food by 20% (in some regions, prices are rising by far more). Just over 1 billion people live on $1 a day, the benchmark of absolute poverty; 1.5 billion live on $1 to $2 a day.

Bob Zoellick, the president of the World Bank, reckons that food inflation could push at least 100m people into poverty, wiping out all the gains the poorest billion have made during almost a decade of economic growth."

In particular the article does a good job on outlining the myriad market forces than have brought us to this point, and an cogent examination of how market forces may get us out.  As the article points out:

"In the short run, humanitarian aid, social-protection programmes and trade policies will determine how well the world copes with these problems. But in the medium term the question is different: where does the world get more food from?

If the extra supplies come mainly from large farmers in America, Europe and other big producers, then the new equilibrium may end up looking much like the old one, with world food depending on a small number of suppliers and—possibly—trade distortions and food dumping."

But the longer-term answers are not that clear, given the complexity of the many disparate global trends that are coming together at an inopportune time. We need to understand the issues and the problems before we can start to figure out the opportunities and solutions.

Definitely worth a weekend read.

Widgets: The Future of Online Ads

Look to the evolution of television advertising to understand the necessity of widgets in today's online world

by Peter Yared

SPECIAL REPORT

CEO Guide to Widgets

• Building a Brand with Widgets
• Why Widgets Don't Work
• Widgets: The Future of Online Ads
• A Widget Mogul in Between Classes
• When Facebook Ads Flop
• Podcast: The CEO Guide to Widgets
• Video: Making Money from Widgets

Editor's Note: This is one of two perspectives on the marketing usefulness of widgets. Check out the counterpoint, "Why Widgets Don't Work."

The sheer volume of Web sites has grown so overwhelming that an increasing number of consumers—not just those in their 20s—are adopting multipurpose tools to help them manage and personalize the vast amount of data thrown at them every day. The mainstream adoption of online social networks such as Facebook and MySpace and personalized home pages such as iGoogle and Netvibes reflects attempts by consumers to make the Web more manageable. This new mindset, not surprisingly, also holds for the way in which the audience is willing to engage with ads.

Advertisers, many of which have only just begun shoveling more of their marketing dollars into promotional banners and boxes on Web sites, had better heed this shift sooner than later. Some Web trends prove to be fads, of course. But when hordes of consumers start shifting from one technology to another, it's a good bet "old" marketing strategies will grow less effective. (Or so I say, which is why I started a new company called iWidgets last year to help advertisers develop campaigns that embrace the new mentality.)

Learn from TV

If this shift in consumer behavior in response to information overload sounds familiar, it should. We've seen much the same with television. When there were only three major networks, people would walk up to the TV, choose a channel, and watch it for a while. When cable television emerged, people would flip through 50 to 75 channels to see what was on. But with the advent of digital cable and satellite TV, which made hundreds of channels available, many overwhelmed viewers started looking for ways to manage and filter the content. This created a market for digital video recorders, such as those from TiVo (TIVO), and on-demand programming. This in turn changed the game for marketing, as users were suddenly choosing which ads, if any, they'd watch.

When Tech Innovation Has a Social Mission

From the NYTimes.com click here for more...

Noah Berger for The New York Times

TechSoup distributes products like software to 50,000 groups a year. “We were just trying to meet the needs of nonprofits,” said Rebecca Masisak, co-C.E.O.

• Sign In to E-Mail or Save This
• Print
• Reprints
• Share
  • Digg
  • Facebook
  • Mixx
  • Yahoo! Buzz
  • Permalink

 

By JOHN MARKOFF

Published: April 13, 2008

 

Palo Alto, Calif.

STEVE WOZNIAK built the original Apple I to share with his friends at the Homebrew Computer Club, but it was his business partner Steve Jobs who had the insight that there might be a market for such a contraption. Indeed, for decades, Silicon Valley has been defined by the tension between the technologist’s urge to share information and the industrialist’s incentive to profit.

Now a new style of “hybrid” technology organization is emerging that is trying to define a path between the nonprofit world and traditional for-profit ventures.

They’re often referred to as “social enterprises” because they pursue social missions instead of profits. But unlike most nonprofit groups, these organizations generate a sustainable source of revenue and do not rely on philanthropy. Earnings are retained and reinvested rather than being distributed to shareholders.

Can m-Commerce Kill the Retail Industry?

http://disruptivewireless.blogspot.com/2008/04/is-m-commerce-about-to-kill-retail.html

Dean Bubley

Interesting post here, about the possibility for shoppers to arbitrage pricing while in-store, by texting a numerical product code to Amazon (AMZN) and seeing if they can get a discount.

Funnily enough, I actually registered a bunch of URLs in 2001 such as mobilecomparisons.com, in the expectation that this type of technology would emerge. I got bored waiting in about 2005, and let them lapse.

I can see some big advantages in this particular case - notably that it's Amazon, with whom many people already have an account via the PC (I can't imagine wanting to set up a new account on the phone), and who are also the masters of the logistical side. It's also good that it bypasses the operator (who would otherwise want to add their own margin to the price, probably negating the benefit). And it's certainly good that it charges to your credit card rather than your mobile bill.

On the other hand, even without any knowledge of the retail industry, I can think of numerous ways that this can be circumvented from the retailer's point of view:

• Work out an explicit value for "instant gratification" and make sure the Amazon discount doesn't cover it.
• Negotiate with your suppliers for slightly customised versions of products that aren't available through other channels, and which therefore have a unique UPC code or barcode that Amazon doesn't have access to.
• Put a sticker over the UPC code with a proprietary product tag only recognisable by the checkout system.
• Offer different "Get it now!" and "Free delivery tomorrow" prices for goods.
• Offering complex product bundles described on shelves & assessed at checkout ("Price of camera + memory card = $200", or even just "Buy one get one free").

I also think that some of the notions about always-on ubiquitous mobile broadband are over-optimistic, even though the US is now a bit of a special case because of 700MHz' reach. Verizon's (VZ) C-Block is 2 x 11MHz - and I'll leave it to a more techy-minded reader to work out the likely "Mb/s per square mile" based on density of cell sites, sectors/cell, frequency use & a bunch of other technical innovations like beamforming. But I'm pretty sure it's going to struggle to get to (let's say) an aggregate 1GB/s per square mile, which will then have to service all simultaneous users. Femtocells could help, but probably not in a retail environment.

Sure, the mobile web user experience will get a lot better with improved devices/browsers, and 3G/4G/WiMAX/white-space/band-sharing technologies. I can see evolutions of this technology with barcode (or even just product) photos being interpreted.

However, I can't see m-commerce killing retail, even though it may shake it up a bit, in the same fashion that PC-based Amazon already has.