Search results matching tag 'sales'

Living in the Age of Extreme

628994 — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 13:26:00 GMT

Mid-tier brands will require intensive care in the next 12 months unless they rewire their sales & marketing now!

This stark warning will be delivered by Dr Erich Joachimsthaler, CEO, Vivaldi Partners in his key note address to the Global Brand Forum 2009 at Cass Business School, London next month.

Joachimsthaler argues that emerging brands such as TATA’s Nano, which will sell for under GBP 2,000 will cause turbulence within the global motor industry and the effects of this will be felt more widely outside of that sector.

“What we’re witnessing within the global motor industry is the emergence of brands that are able to develop a global platform that works at the extreme ends of the market. So Toyota and Honda with mid-market strategies are likely to come under greater competitive pressures.

“Looking at the global picture right now, the key to profitable growth for consumer brands is to cross-leverage capability at both ends of the customer market – at the high and low ends,” says Joachimsthaler.

As evidence for this trend, Joachimsthaler points to the change of strategic marketing direction within Proctor & Gamble.

In the past, P&G’s strategy was to trade up consumers to more expensive brands at a time of affluence. That strategy no longer serves the needs of the business and now the focus within P&G is on ‘affordable luxury’ for hard pressed consumers.

Sales & marketing efficiency within this context means producing a quality product at a lower price point that will attract more consumers rather than just appeal to smaller customer segments.

Within the retail sector, struggling mid-tier brands that are struggling to define a value proposition for themselves in this highly competitive environment include Karstadt in Germany) and Macy in the US. Both are on the ‘danger list’.

“The paradox for brand owners is to think they can appeal to more consumers as a result of being mid-priced but in fact financial success over the next five years will increasingly depend on appealing to niche ends of the market,” he says.

The tequila market in Mexico is another example of market polarisation – the higher end is dominated by Cuervo and the bottom end is dominated by local 120 percent proof brands – with nothing in the middle.

Closer to home, on-line retailer Amelie Fashion is seeing a dramatic increase in demand for haute couture for women - a pair of True Religion Disco Jeans will set you back a cool GBP 200.

Successful marketers are now shifting their focus from ‘inside out’ to ‘outside in’ when looking to position their brands in the age of extreme.

“The focus for successful brand building is now on capturing a larger share of ‘consumption episodes’ irrespective of market segment you’re in, rather than focusing on building brand attributes in the hope that this will attract customer segments for the product or service or indeed historic purchase data.

“Taking an outside-in approach necessarily requires marketers to tap into actual consumer behaviour in order to drive innovation as well as the sales & marketing effort,” he says.

And living in this age of extreme, marketers need to re-think the place of the brand as a means to an end rather than then end itself – which has to be about consumption in the daily lives of consumers.

Ardi Kolah is CEO of sales & marketing training company Guru in a Bottle

Sometimes less can make a big big difference in sales

809378 — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 08:38:00 GMT

Back in 2000, a couple of researchers tested the theory that if we're provided with too many choices then we end up making none at all. They set up a booth at a posh supermarket in America and posing as employees of the shop, displayed an alternating number of products to the shoppers. Half the time they displayed 6 jars of jam, the other half they displayed 24 jars.

As you might expect, with 24 jars laid out, far more people stopped to take an interest, with 60% of shoppers stopping to take a look against only 40% for the 6 jars.

What is interesting is that of the shoppers that stopped to look at the 24 jars, only 3% made a purchase compared to 30% who made a purchase when there were 6 jars on the table. In cold hard cash the difference amounted to 12 total purchases for the 6 jars half, versus only 2 total purchases for the 24 jar half. This means that the total sales for the 6 jar half were 600% greater.

Whilst there are no benchmarks that I am aware of for the optimum number of products or calls to action that should be shown on a web page it is a cornerstone of maximising the conversion funnel not to over complicate the sales process, part of this is necessarily to not have too many products on the page. On the other hand, having too few can also act as a deterrent as it doesn't allow the customer to make a conscious choice in their selection. Only by monitoring user behaviour, page layout and the conversion funnel carefully and manipulating the process can you maximise sales.

The change of media trends in digital broadcasting

2521313 — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 14:36:56 GMT

US market reserach agency Abitron, recently reported that over 60 million Ameriacns a week listen to online radio stations and yet the UK advertising industry remains slow to bring clients to online broadcasters.

Whilst online digital radio is still relatively small, it is a massive growth area and our stationb for example has attracted two former BBC Radio ONe DJ's and a top comedian as presenters in recent weeks.

We will be in a large Winnebago backstage at this year's Glastonbury Festival entertaining the great and the good and yet still the larger sponsors and advertisers are not being pushed in our direction.

Perhaps some of you good people out there would like to consider us as an experimental option!

We get over 5 million hits a month to our website and our audince is surfing the web whilst listenng into Glastonbury Radio, with a credit card in their hand ready to spend money! We are not about just "brand awareness" like FM radio, we are about ACTUAL SALES!

Glastonbury Broadcasting Ltd shares have increased in value ten fold in the past three months - so somehing must be right! Tune in at http://www.glastonburyradio.net

Rock on people!

Ross Hemsworth
Managing Director
Glastonbury Broadcasting Ltd
http://www.glastonburybroadcasting.net

Sponsorship industry puts on a brave face despite slowdown in growth

628994 — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 13:34:00 GMT

According to the latest figures by The World Sponsorship Monitor (TWSM) Annual Review for 2008, produced by Sports Marketing Surveys, sponsorship deal volume of new deals recorded a 17% increase on 2007 deal flows, from 1,196 to 1,446.

These results reflect reported sponsorship deals with a minimum value of $75,000 (£52,000) and don’t take account of any expenditure incurred in activating those sponsorship rights.

The figures also show a rapid decline in new sponsorship deals in Q4 as the credit crunch started to bite into marketing budgets on a global basis.

In the US, researchers IEG estimated that spending on sponsorship rights fees globally was around $43 billion but this figure included pre-existing sponsorship deals rather than just new deals so looks inflated.

And in June last year, PWC provided an upbeat global outlook for 2008-12 that placed the value of the global sponsorship market at $60 billion by the end of that period.

However, PWC is sensibly in the process of revising its predictions for 2008-12 given that these were based on research and analysis that would have started in October/November 2006, running up to the publication date last year before the global economy went into meltdown.

Given that GDP and corporate profits are core underlying assumptions in any advertising or sponsorship forecast, then its likely PWC’s new predictions in June this year will give the sponsorship industry less to cheer about.

But this hasn’t stopped the sponsorship industry putting a positive spin on the market.

“Sponsorship can perform many marketing functions and is also a very effective way of tackling today’s important issues such as Corporate Responsibility, social education and sustainability” trumpeted Karen Earl who was recently listed as one of the most influential voices in the world on sponsorship.

But with respect to Karen, she’s not quite right on two points.

First, sponsorship is a basket of intellectual property (IP) rights – not marketing functions.

Sponsorship is a platform for marketing and requires a level of activation – using above and below the line activities – in order to achieve a return on objectives and a return on investment for the brand owner/sponsor. Fundamentally, sponsorship is a subset of marketing, not a substitute for it.

Second, Corporate Responsibility is often the by-product of a sponsorship programme rather than the focus for it.

Given that the sponsorship market is dominated by sports - around 84% of all new reported deals - and most of these are to do with football team sponsorship which is largely about brand marketing/awareness – then there’s still a long way to go.

One area which is growing (albeit modestly) is education sponsorship, with the value of new sponsorship deals at around $7.8m, up $1m from 2007.

The marketing support and sponsorship of educational material and education ‘product’ provides brand owners with a highly targeted and cost effective route to a well defined but notoriously difficult to reach customer segment of children, families and young people.

The other advantages are reputational as having access to these customer segments through the school gates helps brands build trust with these groups well into the future.

But perhaps the biggest wake up call for the sponsorship industry is found in the length of sponsorship deals that brand owners are prepared to commit to in the current economic climate.

In terms of all new deals analysed last year, TWSM reported that 53% (766) of these deals were for 12 months, with 11% for two years and 15% for three years.

This may reflect the growing trend amongst marketing directors to think of sponsorship as a short-term tactical fix rather like the marketing tie-in with a Hollywood film that can help shift product over a six month period.

The problem is that in many cases the benefits of sponsorship may come in year two or year three rather than immediately in year one.

And there’s also the question of dialogue that the brand owner has built with fans, spectators, supporters and the public at large – and the trust it has created as a result of its sponsorship activity. All of this can evaporate if the brand owner isn’t seen to be in it for the long term.

This is a key challenge that the sponsorship industry needs to address if it’s to sustain the kind of levels of growth it has enjoyed over the previous decade.

By demonstrating how it can achieve a return on objectives and a return on investment, I believe the sponsorship industry will weather the current storm and ironically emerge stronger for it.

Ardi Kolah is the author of Sponsorship Works: A Brand Marketer’s Casebook, available from www.sportbusiness.com He is CEO of Guru in a Bottle, a new sales & marketing training and mentoring company www.guruinabottle.com

Obama’s ‘Message of Hope’ and what this means for us here in the UK?

628994 — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 13:56:00 GMT

It’s easy to become cynical about politics and politicians. I was in conversation with Sir Paul Judge on this subject just this week.

High up on the 18th floor of his magnificent London pad that overlooks the River Thames in Pimlico Sir Paul was waxing lyrical to me about the need for politics and politicians to get back to what really matters – what’s best for the UK and for the constituents who elected them rather than the direction of a political party.

And this is coming from someone who was Chairman of the Conservative Party!

But I couldn’t help thinking Sir Paul had a point.

Do we really need to indulge in discussions about the allowances claimed by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith for her second home rather than thinking how many low income families will be able to afford to pay the rent next month?

Very quickly our conversation turned to the film I made for a special event at the House of Commons commemorating the inauguration of Barack Obama. You can view this in high definition by clicking on the following link:

Made in a record-breaking five days I was still rendering the film at the London College of Communication before I jumped in a taxi to the House of Commons for the live link with Obama’s inauguration, viewed on a sporadic web link via the BBC web site!

Despite the challenges this posed – including losing part of Aretha Franklin's performance! – the experience of witnessing history in the making will live with me forever.

What was interesting was the way in which people responded to Obama’s message of hope and where now everything is possible in much the same way that he has demonstrated.

Ardi Kolah is the founder & CEO of Guru in a Bottle (www.guruinabottle.com), a sales and marketing training and mentoring company that launches in a few weeks’ time. He can be contacted on 077100 77941 and ardi@guruinabottle.com

Sucks to be a daytime jock (and a local sales team?)

1841938 — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 16:42:29 GMT

News today that Global Radio have decided to jump into Ofcom's new deregulated content rules by networking parts of its Heart and Galaxy network

Heart in London, East Mids and West Mids will share everything except Breakfast, Mid Morning, Drive and one four hour show on Saturday and Sunday. And over at Galaxy Yorks, North East, Birmingham and Manchester everything except Breakfast and Drive (and that one evening show on Saturday and Sunday) will be networked between them.

Now, what i'm not going to do is mourn the loss of localism in a woe is me, weren't the 80s better way. Times change. Also Heart and Galaxy are built around a specific music proposition and whilst there are local elements that isn't the focus. Indeed, Heart East Mids bestriding Leicester and Nottingham does not at the moment bring together two groups of people who care deeply about each other.

For national advertisers it makes things much simpler. I'm sure there are a few sales execs when they book S&P across a load of radio stations dread the random selection of ROTs that return. One jock saying one agreed thing across everywhere is much easier.

However, local radio, even on these regional stations rely to a certain degree on local revenue. Especially when those poor local fellows are often charged at least three times as much as their national brethren!

Whilst clever technology will switch the right mix of spots for the right FM transmitter, commercial radio has seen and S&P and on-air plugs for web microsites become a key sales proposition. Removing more local programmes will mean its harder to 'get away' these local promos and will no doubt result in a more cluttered breakfast and drive. Something that could be bad news for local advertisers and the local sales team who've got to deliver it.

The truth about ad sales

255762 — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 14:09:56 GMT

Someone has been busy on YouTube working up a humorous take on the world of ad sales and media agencies.

It's a pastiche (a rather close one) of another effort done a few years ago, the US made Truth in Advertising, which is better.

But that said the Truth About Ad Sales definitely raises a laugh or two and is definitely worth a look. The back stabbing, the bollocks and the bullshit is all there.

The scrubbing out of one clients name on a PowerPoint presentation and the adding of another is all spot on. As is the liberal sprinkling of buzz words. That's strategy for you.

...and if you haven't see the original, well take a look.

Truth in advertising