Steve Jobs got a lot of press for his recent reinvention of the cellphone. The thing about the iPhone is that it doesn’t really re-invent the cellphone. Mostly, it mashes a cellphone together with a few other devices (doesn’t mean I don’t want one).
The thing about the iPhone is that it is designed to better connect users to the network. You can check your voicemail in a random access way, like email, for example. But what it doesn’t do is actually re-invent the very thing that makes cellphones magical: how you connect with other people.
Here’s a few things a reinvented cellphone might be able to do:
- Let me leave voice mail for groups of people all at once.
- Let me initiate conference calls with groups of people with just one directory entry.
- Let me call friends based on where they are at a given moment.
- Initiate calls with strangers based on their web of relationships (Facebook style) or their physical proximity and status. If there are friends of friends in the airport while I’m waiting, let me see them! Talk to them?
- Put a dating site into a phone. Pictures and status and location and boom, you can talk.
- Allow marketers to pay money to interact with consumers who opt in, based on needs, location or just plain boredom.
- Let me queue up people who want to talk with me and work my way through the list in a way that works for both of us.
January 13, 2007
Chris writes in about his work at Glass House Denver.
1. We placed a site sign at the construction site directing people to a website (not the one that exists now).
2. At that site, we ran a short slideshow of what I would call benefit pictures – no renderings of a pool, just a guy sitting by a pool.
3. Once the slideshow ended, we offered people a chance to "get on the list" for more information.
4. When we had permission from these people, we began updating them on our progress once a month, including revealing in more detail each feature of the building.
5. By the time we began the next step, over 5,000 people (I can’t remember the exact number) had signed up (85% saying they were recommended by a friend.)
6. About 500 of those people had come by our office and REALLY expressed interest/granted permission.
7. We had about 45 cocktail parties for those people, about 15 at a time, at a restaurant in our neighborhood. In essence, we invited them in for drinks. We brought no collateral. No models. Instead, we just spent time with them. Answered their questions. Filled them in on the details that mattered to them.
8. Then we created a private website for those people who had expressed interest answering the most common questions we had heard in our cocktail parties.
9. From there, using a system that met some pretty stringent real estate law requirements, we offered those people who had expressed the most interest in Glass House an opportunity to purchase.
10. We’re moving the first people in and are completely bought out – 389 residences before the completion of construction in a market that is decidedly not booming. (Don’t get me wrong, this was a good building priced well in a great location. But, our marketing was the x factor in making it work.)
It all adds up to about $140 mm in revenue. Chris says it was this book. I think it took a lot of style and discipline and investment.
I just got a spectacularly insightful and honest e-mail from Scott. Here’s the money quote:
We’ve "tried everything," by which we mean we’ve tried a few things that everybody else has done as long as they didn’t involve doing anything differently from what we normally do.
January 12, 2007
Ben points us to: Hee-Haw Marketing: HURRICANE KOHLS!.
The message isn’t that Kohl’s doesn’t care, Kohl’s has lousy management or Kohl’s is messy.
The message is that with 60 million camera phones in use, we notice.
I don’t write often about the marketing of politicians, but it really hit home with me the other night.
Along with 80 other people (about 1% of my town’s population) I attended a zoning hearing in my little town. I was astonished by the way the five trustees, including the mayor, Lee Kinnally, Jr., treated the voters who were there.
The meeting was called for 8. At about 8:10, when the trustees were seated and ready (and the room was packed) the mayor decided to take the trustees and leave the room for a private session on a matter unrelated to the issue at hand. We all sat quietly for more than fifteen minutes. During the entire time, each person was saying to himself, "I will never ever vote for these rude people ever again."
During the hearing itself, eye contact was in short supply and at one point, a trustee even berated an applicant. Emotions were running high, voters were paying attention and the politicians completely dropped the ball.
All it would have taken were a few encouraging words and some appropriate body language.
Every day, politicians do mundane things. They sit through hearings or review boring proposals. But here, in front of the voters, voters who cared deeply about a single issue, each politician had a chance to really shine. And they failed. Miserably.
People don’t renew or cancel their cell phone service because of the ads (the ads that might have gotten them to sign up in the first place.) They do it based on the service and the way it makes them feel. And people don’t vote to re-elect a candidate because of her debate performance or speeches.
Voters decide because of the intense emotion they feel during isolated moments. The challenge of being a politician, whether you’re national or in a tiny village, is the same—to exceed expectations in the most intense interactions you have each day.
So, Stan Sigman, the CEO and President of Cingular, is at the top of his game. He makes millions of dollars a year (not counting bonuses), he runs the biggest wireless company in the country and he’s the boss.
If you watch the Apple keynote speech, though, Stan sure could use some help. He appears at about 1:34 into the presentation. He’s dressed all wrong. Not buttoned down enough to be a CEO, not casual enough for the Valley. And his jacket fits funny. Sort of like he’s at his son-in-law’s second wedding.
Stan gives his talk from 3 x5 index cards, which he holds awkwardly on stage. And he doesn’t really say anything.
One could argue that you can be a great CEO without having a clue how to speak in public. But why not either get better at it or send someone else in your place? If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well, and I think the standards for a multimillionaire CEO announcing a major new venture ought to be pretty high.
January 11, 2007
The folks that want (need!) an iPhone, and those that couldn’t care less. And of course it’s not just Apple and it’s not just phones. It’s every single industry in the world.
You’re not likely to convert one group into the other. What you can do is decide which group you’d like to market to. You can’t do both at the same time, not particularly well, anyway.
January 10, 2007
Inspired by this post, three years ago:
| One
|
Or and the other
|
| Getting an MBA |
Keeping your promises |
| Being board certified |
Looking patients in the eye |
| Policies |
Judgment |
| Buying an expensive front loader |
Giving renovation clients an honest estimate |
| Having a fancy building |
Hiring a nice receptionist |
| Putting a new logo on the planes |
Cleaning the peanut butter off the seat tray |
| Spending $100 million on special effects |
Leaving the ads off the non-skippable coming attractions on the DVD |
| Having a new POS computer |
Waiving the late fee because of a snowstorm |
| Offering the lowest rate for a cell phone |
Not tricking customers with a bait and switch |
| Hiring expensive executives |
Firing the ones that don’t grow and change |
| Moving the call center overseas |
Answering the phone after one ring |
| Using a state-of-the-art chipset |
Designing the device so it is easy to use |
| Hiring a brilliant tax lawyer |
Doing your books in a way that’s transparent to employees and investors |
| Making a lot of money |
Donating a lot of money (quietly) |
| Putting on a conference |
Taking a risk and making the conference interesting |
| Making the world’s best chocolate |
Charging way more than the competition |
| Having a custom WordPress blog with bells and whistles |
Writing stuff people want to read |
| Having contrary opinions |
Expressing them with kindness, respect and attribution |
| Making it to the top of the heap |
Listening to the people on their way up |
| Sucking up to the boss |
Respecting the doorman |
| Designing a six page spreadsheet for strategic analysis |
Having the guts to cancel the product or shut the division |
| Having a great idea |
Sticking your neck out |
David at Boingboing points us to: A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods.
I love the spectacular use of technology on this web page. I hate the twisted use of the periodic table (because the relationships between the types isn’t natural or elegant the way chemicals are) but it’s worth it, because it will certainly inspire you to figure out how to get out of your text rut.
The other day, I heard a parent wistfully point out that kids never act just the way they say they will in all those parenting books. "What to Expect?" Not really. Sort of like snowflakes, they’re all different.
Organizations are like that, but worse.
Or better.
There’s never been a marketing problem that turned out just the way the book said it will. That’s what makes it interesting. Sure, there’s a science. There are best practices that, more often than not, pay off. Sort of like not giving a toddler vodka… it’s just a good idea. But the art of management is in understanding that all problems are different, and that your intuition and insight are the key.
Would you have it any other way?
January 9, 2007
