The Truth About Customer Relationship Management

It is always tricky for CRM professionals to aboard the term of “Customer relationship management”. Indeed, the trade is vast, and encompasses several different activities, which are most of the time managed by different entity:
Data base management: It requires IT knowledge and engineering skills. Data base management is very important as a clean data base allow data mining which ultimately leads to improving return on investment on marketing campaigns.
Communication: Communication is very important. As a customer oriented company, you must explain the steps you take in order to insure high customer service. Also, while developing complex loyalty reward program, it is essential to communicate on it to make it simple and understood by the customer. Moreover it is important to be consistent in the brand messages and to have a powerful communication.
Call centers: Call centers is the human voice of the brand. They need to deal with customer service and complaints, and they have a very important role in the CRM process. A complaining customer which you satisfy is much likely to become your ambassador afterward. Hence, it is very important to deal properly with those complains. Also, with an appropriate CRM software, call centers can provide you very interesting data to complete your existent data base.
Community managent: It is the new bee in the loop. But its importance is going to increase the next few years. Community managers are in charge of the company’s conversation with customers. It can of course be online, on social networks such as Facebook, Hi 5, or My Space, but also on social media like blogs, Youtube among others. Also, community management can expand its work far away the web. We always consider community management online, because it is the hype, but it could also be outside the web. The best example is Harley Davidson which organizes events among customers. Community management has an important role, but it is far apart what a data base manager would do, or a communication expert would.
Sales force: The sales force has a clear impact on CRM. Nevertheless, it is most of the time the department which is neglected by customer relationship management strategy. As CRM project are either conducted by IT or marketing department, the sales force is most of the time forgotten. However, sales force is also most of the time reluctant in adopting CRM solutions, as they see it as taking a part of their job away. CRM and, especially sales force automation is a tool to help them being more efficient.

As you can see, the customer relationship management effort of one company implies different departments, skills, and know how, which makes it difficult to catch. This is the reason why a lot of CRM professionals are reluctant in using the term “CRM”. I understand why.

The Second Market: When Internet Creates Its Own Stock Exchange

It has been a while that users may exchange stock online, thanks to services like etrade. Actually, it is very convenient, and as a global network, Internet has enabled millions of people to speculate on stocks. Nevertheless there are some assets that can't be accessible on line. Also, these trades are made on the Internet, but through existing markets.

Now The Second Market has changed this statement. The second market allows people to buy and sell illiquid assets. Moreover, added to asset backed securities, it also allows people to buy shares of companies which are not in World Street.

It is very interesting because The Second Market builds a brand new ecosystem, which is separated from the brick and mortar stock exchange markets.

Système de fidélisation : Parier sur les retraites

Les retraites restent le sujet majeur de l’actualité en France. En effet, les grèves continuent alors que le gouvernement a pris une décision impopulaire. Cependant, j’ai trouvé un article très intéressant sur une entreprise qui a choisi d’utiliser le sujet des retraites comme axe principal de leur stratégie de relation client.

Avec Futureo, les enseignes récompensent la fidélité de leurs clients en plaçant de l’argent pour leurs vieux jours. 65% des Français admettent «ne pas faire ce qu’il faut pour préparer leur retraite»*. Le manque de moyens en est la raison principale pour 58% de nos compatriotes. Un actif sur deux seulement a commencé à se constituer un supplément de revenu! Futureo, une start-up innovante, s’attaque donc à l’une des préoccupations majeures des Français.

Le programme repose sur une mécanique d’affiliation, une carte de paiement MasterCard, un compte épargne Generali, et un principe simple qu’on peut résumer à «plus je consomme, plus j'épargne».

En devenant partenaires, les enseignes de la grande consommation, y compris online, décident de reverser un pourcentage du montant des achats sur le compte d’assurance vie, lorsque les clients paient avec la carte Futureo. Chacune choisira son taux de «générosité», de manière continue ou ponctuelle, par exemple pour soutenir une opération promotionnelle.

L’idée est bien pensée, tout le monde y gagne. Les distributeurs peuvent continuer à inciter les consommateurs à les préférer tout en donnant du sens à leurs programmes de fidélité- signe des temps, c’est la première fois qu’un dispositif permet à des enseignes de récompenser l’assiduité de leurs clients par un acte socialement responsable- Et les clients, en échange d’une faible cotisation (45 Euros par an), se constituent tranquillement et concrètement un complément de retraite.

Nespresso Enters the U.S. Market

This is a great news for coffee lovers in the United States. After Miama, Premium coffee capsules producer Nespresso (part of the Nestlé group) is opening its 2nd store in New York city. Nespresso has encountered a huge success in Europe with its special espresso machines. Its unique machines can produce the highest bar pressure in the market, which ensures the most flavour to its coffee.

The brand became famous by using Georges Clooney as the embassador of the brand.

While I was in the United States, I remember I found Nespresso providing services to businesses. I remember we barrowed for free a machine as a try out. It was actually pretty cool and every one seemed to like it. Nespresso is going to fight versus Starbucks coffee which rules the US coffee world. Actually switching from Starbucks coffee shop to home capsules is pretty tough. Coffee capsule consumption is not as big in the US as it is in Europe.

Nespresso is known to be the ultimate customer relationship management model. They master their whole CRM, as they distribute their capsules by their own mean:

• Website



• Iphone application



• Phone orders



• Shops

A wide range of distribution they totally own. Therefore they have complete and extensive data about their whole clientele, which allows them to outperform in terms of direct marketing campaigns.

I wish them the best in this new adventure.

Pierre Bellanger, directeur de Skyrock rédige une lettre sur la jeunesse

Les jeunes sont une cible marketing de choix. Ce sont des sur consommateurs la plupart du temps. De plus, dans une optique de gestion de la relation client, le jeune est le futur client fidèle. Il représente donc un intérêt certain, notamment en se basant sur le concept de customer lifetime value : le jeune, du fait que son histoire avec la marque a des chances d’être longue, possède est hautes :
• Ses achats vont augmenter au fil du temps en valeur.
• Plus tôt il sera fidèle, plus dur il lui sera de briser cette relation.

Néanmoins, il n’existe pas réellement de catégorie « jeune ». En effet, il est trop simpliste d’identifier cette catégorie d’âge comme homogène. Il suffit de regarder le type de musique qu’il peut écoute, le type d’étude qu’il entreprend, etc…

Pierre Bellanger est le président fondateur de Skyrock. Aussi il connait très bien cette catégorie, puisqu’elle représente son cœur d’activité. Il a ainsi rédigé une lettre très intéressante sur la jeunesse.

En effet, il n’apprécie guère qu’on stigmatise cette population, en la considérant comme homogène.

"La jeunesse, en tant que classe d’âge, est un mythe dangereux. Dangereux pour les individus traversant cette période de la vie, car, ainsi catégorisés, ils perdent leur identité de personnes uniques pour n’être plus définis que par leur âge: on dit un "jeune", comme on dirait un cheval. Dangereux pour ceux qui ont affaire à la jeunesse, car, le regard faussé par l’abstraction, ils perdent de vue la complexité hétérogène d’une somme d’individualités."


"Toute typologie qui nie la personne est périlleuse. On parlait comme cela des «femmes», il arrive que l’on parle ainsi des "hommes". Nier l’individu, au profit de la catégorie, est anxiogène, car cela fonde une illusion: celle d’une foule étrangère, influencée par un instinct d’espèce qui l’animerait de façon aveugle…"

J’aime beaucoup son acte. En effet, il prend la parole afin de protéger une certaine jeunesse qu’on ne considère pas à sa juste valeur. A vouloir la considérer comme un tout, on nie sa richesse et les attributs qui la compose réellement. Je vous invite à lire ce très bel article.

Greenpeace utilise une campagne de buzz pour menacer Facebook

Facebook est devenu un titan dans le monde d’Internet d’aujourd’hui. Il compte plus de 500 millions d’utilisateur. Facebook est ainsi loin maintenant du statut de « start up » qu’il aurait pu revendiquer il y a quelques années. Et depuis ce brutal changement de taille et de statut, Facebook se doit d’appliquer les mêmes pratiques que les autres entreprises responsables de taille mondiale. En effet, il est difficile de s’adapter si brusquement a une modification de structure si soudaine.

Ainsi, Facebook est maintenant dans le colimateur de Greenpeace. En effet, Greenpeace est depuis de longues années engagé dans le combat contre les gaz à effet de serre, qui sont en partie responsable au réchauffement climatique. Greenpeace a donc lancé sur Internet la vidéo suivante.


Facebook : Greenpeace vous invite à abandonner le charbon!
envoyé par gpfrance. - Regardez les dernières vidéos d'actu.


Ainsi, Greenpeace demande au public de faire pression sur Facebook afin de l’obliger à considérer de nouvelles sources énergétiques plus « vertes » afin de faire tourner les gros serveurs de Facebook.

Greenpeace avait déjà mené une campagne similaire sur Nestlé, par rapport à l’utilisation industriel de l’huile de palme, très peu cher, mais posant aussi bien des problèmes nutritionnels que environnementaux. Nestlé avait du agir dans le sens de Greenpeace.

A l’heure des réseaux sociaux et de la prise de pouvoir des consommateurs, il est intéressant de regarder comment Greenpeace utilise au mieux ce courant de consommateur-acteur, soucieux de consommer mieux, afin de faire pression sur Facebook. Car il n’existe pas de meilleur arme contre une entreprise que de créer une rebellion de la part de ses consommateurs. No customers = no business.

Est ce que cela va marché? En effet, les utilisateurs de Facebook peuvent être considérés comme des clients fidèles. Et à l'heure d'aujourd'hui, le principal avantage concurrentiel de Facebook est sa taille, soit le nombre de personnes avec qui un utilisateur peut intéragir. Il est donc difficile pour un consommateur "d'aller voir ailleurs", car il n'existe à l'heure actuelle pas vraiment de compétition avec Facebook. Néanmoins, un mouvement de masse peut très certainement influencer Facebook.

On a déjà vu par le passé Facebook revenir sur une décision, notamment lors du changement des conditions sur l'utilisation des données privées, après une fronde de ces utilisateurs. D'ailleurs, je pense que nous pouvons saluer la manière dont Facebook est capable de remettre en cause ses décisions par rapport à d'autres sociétés (peut être des restes de l'état d'esprit "start up").

Il sera vraiment intéressant de voir comment Facebook réagi.

Twitter Followers Purchase More Than Facebook Fan.

Social media figures and charts are pretty rare, at least the ones that really matters. But I found this very interesting study. It aims to show how social media campaigns could generate sales. The idea is to compare in a poll how likely Facebook fans or Twitter followers are willing to buy or recommend.

It seems that Twitter users are at least twice more likely to purchase from a brand after becoming a follower than it would be if he would be a Facebook Fan of the brand. Also very interesting is the fact Email have great results. As a matter of fact, while you accept a brand to send you emails, that means that you allow him to access your main feed, which remains your email account. Email is still the most commonly use tool to connect with other. Also, brands know better how to use emailing than social media so far.

Now another interesting chart: Twitter followers seem to be better at referring to peers than Facebook's.

So what conclusion can we establish. Well, it is difficult to draw anykind of analyzis. It seems that Twitter is better to boost sales. I agree with this fact. But as explain the writter of the main article, Facebook fans might be more difficult to convince to buy more because the fan status is more engaging than following a brand. Showing out you are fan of a brand mean it is part of your everyday life. At some point, it is like you are already a great customer. Twitter followers might buy more because Twitter is more adapted to generate sales, but on a customer relationship management point of view, Facebook is an awesome tool.

Actually those results are great for both community manager and CRM people. That means that inside social media exist two very different kind of media which could be used for different purpose. It shows the complexity of social media, but also why it is interesting to invest into the conversation.

And you, what do you think about it?

Internet is a real multi channel marketing tool

I have always been taught during my studies that since Internet appeared, multi channel marketing campaigns were the most effective as they were able to reach customers with different approaches, which make the overall communication more efficient.

This is true. Media have different purposes and advantages. You can't design a TV commercial as you would define a direct marketing campaign.

• TV provides you high exposure, branding potential, and artistic possibilities
• Radio leads traffic into point of sales, and allow to set the audio print of your brand.
• Direct marketing gives you the opportunity to reach specific customers segment, and therefore be more precise and establish a stronger relationship.
• Internet gives you a wide environment to explain and discuss everything about your company and products

Now I'd like to stop with the last of these media: Internet. As a customer relationship management expert, I always refer Internet as one of the most powerful tool, especially now that it is available on mobile devices. I was watching this great video of Loic Lemeur about how to build your brand with social media.

What is very interesting is that he explains emailing is not dead, and that actually it is a strong tool to manage your community. I believe he is right. It is like multi channel marketing campaign: Emailing has some attributes that other social media hasn't.

Emails remain one of the main activity we have in our daily life. It is strongly settled in our life. It is like an information feed which is pretty complete.

But if we look wider than the social media spectrum, you may notice that the whole Internet environment is actually a multi channel space by itself:

• Brand websites build links between your products and your corporation
• Social media allow you to have a conversation with your customers, to interact with them.
• Emails is a great tool to strengthen your relationship with customers by leveraging data to deliver customized messages.
• Keyword campaigns give you the ability to reach specific segments, and hence to deliver an accurate message.
• Blog allows you to explain your role and your attributes. It can actually replace at some point public relations.
• Forum, and other kind of online customer service gives you feedback in order to enhance your customer experience or products.
• Display ads, if used on a large scale, can look like a mass media campaign
• Mobile and geolocalization tool can drive traffic in retails.

It is important therefore while considering an Internet strategy to have this idea clear in your mind: You need to make the best of all those different tools. You need to be able to leverage the accurate item upon circumstance. This is the reason why it is so interesting to work on those topics.

Diaspora : When People Want To Take Back The Control

Facebook is now pretty settled down. Its use has changed the way people interact with each other. A whole new online life and activities have emerged, and it is difficult to see the future without social media.

However, Facebook has made the headlines of plenty of newspapers, due to privacy concern. Private data is a very touchy issue, and Facebook knows it. Facebook owns a large amount of users data, which makes it dangerous. Indeed, an appropriate use of private data by Facebook could be devastating. Hence in Ireland, a group has created a website which was identifying people’s status updates, letting know when they were away from home, to underline the problems that could occur if personal data goes into wrong hands.

Despite these private concerns, social media remains important into people’s life. Therefore, in order to keep control over personal data, a new project showed up not so long ago, which is call diaspora.

The idea is to create a Facebook like, which won’t be own by a private firm, but built on an open source model. By doing so, it will be impossible for no one to impose any kind of uses of private data. The concept is very interesting because it empowers user, as VRM would empower customers.

Now will it ever appear? What is fore sure is that they are very late on this. Facebook counts more than 50 million users, and the more users they will get, the harder it will be to get users interested. Right now, it is obscure what Diaspora will look like. The project is ambitious, but being so late on the market is definitely a handicap.

And you, what do you think about it?

Google's Secret Figures Revealed

Google has become over the years the Internet tycoon. Facebook and Twitter might get a lot of hype right now, but Google still rule the web, thanks to its

multiple online activities. A secret document has been found by searchengineland, which reveals very interesting figures about Google.

• $574 million was spent,
• Out of it, 1,356 advertisers spent between $10,000 and $100,000
• AT&T was Google’s largest AdWords
  customer in June 2010.
• AT&T spent over $8 million in June, Expedia almost $6 million, Amazon $5.85 million and eBay $4.25 million.
• BP, who spent $57,000 a month is now spending $3.6 million per month. Yes, BP has been using search ads to help their image with the oil spill, but the amount they spent makes me wonder if Google turned the other way when they were violating the AdWords terms or if it was indeed just an error?

This last fact about BP is very interesting. Indeed, keyword campaigns are not known to be efficient for institutional campaigns nor branding purposes. But I believe the approach is very interesting as the medium is getting more and more powerful.

sources:
http://searchengineland.com/googles-top-adwords-advertisers-leaked-document-reveals-advertising-dollars-49918

http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=145720

Carrefour Planet: My Thoughts (2)

I wanted to write a new blog post about Carrefour Planet. Indeed, the new hypermarket concept conceived by Carrefour has made the headlines of many French business newspapers, and of course all the professional magazines have dedicated special editions to it.

All the business journalists claim how wonderful and successful this new concept is. They are praying the genius of Lars Olofsson, the new Carrefour CEO, which was not scared of saying what needed to be said: Hypermarket doesn't work anymore. It takes a lot of courage to say it all loud when you get the leadership of the second largest retailer in the world, and on top of it, the creator of hypermarket.

Nevertheless, I believe the whole hype around it is too much. First, I like the comment on Henri Kaufman's blog, which actually wrote an article on it.

Voici donc le lancement tant attendu. Evidemment, nous autres, on attend cela avec circonspection. l'ex monsieur de chez Nestlé devrait savoir que les courses sont considérées comme une véritable corvée. Réanchanter le quotidien est une gageure. Carrefour va t-il réussir son tour de force ? rien n'est moins sûr. A mon avis il y a fausse done. Je ne vais pas refaire mon couplet sur la confusion conceptuelle que les gens de marketing font entre le désir et la pulsion consumériste....Moi, je parierais plutôt sur un échec.

This French comment is right: there might be a gap between what the professionals are dreaming of and what actually need the customers. As an evidence, French professional magazine "Points de vente" released a study about French top retail concept. And the results are quite interesting. Hard discounter Lidl seats before Carrefour or Auchan. That means customers are focused on prices, fast shopping, which is actually not the direction Carrefour has taken with enchanting commerce.

Also, in the very same magazine, the journalist is blasting Carrefour with compliments, as Carrefour has done such a great job, they have invented the future.

Isn't it too soon to draw conclusions? I mean, there are no results of improvement that yet can be analyzed! The concept has not yet a month of existence!

Now, don't missunderstand me. I believe Carrefour made a wonderful job. I also believe they made the best out of the bigger format of store they have. I have been part of Auchan Velizy's transformation, one of the largest store in Europe in terms of sales. Strong investments have been made to turn the store into a flagship concept, with a lot of innovation I find now in Carrefour Planet. And I believe the right decisions have been made.

Nevertheless, social and customer behaviors changes are deep, and it is not said this Carrefour Planet will be the solution.

I can't wait to visit the store, but I believe we should wait at least a whole year to get results and actually see if Carrefour's choice has been efficient or not.

And you, what do you think about it?

Quelques astuces pour s'organiser

Astuces pour agencer votre planning

1. Agenda.

Travaillez avec un agenda. Notez-y vos tâches et vos rendez-vous. Prévoyez suffisamment de temps entre chaque élément pour les éventuels dossiers inattendus et autres activités imprévues qui vous coûteraient du temps.

2. Planning.

Faites une différence entre votre planning à court terme et votre planning à long terme.

3. Prioritisation.

Etablissez vos priorités. Distinguer les tâches importantes des tâches secondaires.

4. Déléguez si possible

Faites-le si les autres sont capables de bien gérer leur planning aussi.

5. Isolez-vous.

Pendant les moments plus chargés, coupez le téléphone et fermez votre boîte mail pendant une heure ou deux pour pouvoir travailler sans dérangement.

6. Respectez vos temps de pause.

Travailler trop longtemps intensivement a un impact sur votre concentration et votre précision. Quittez votre bureau pour faire une pause physique et mentale et allez prendre un peu l’air. Votre productivité s’en trouvera augmentée.

7. Bonus.

- Travaillez avec une liste de ‘to-do’s’ et tenez-la à jour. Pouvoir barrer ce que vous avez fait vous donnera une satisfaction très bénéfique.

- Prévoyez des petits pense-bêtes à des endroits visibles.

- Demandez éventuellement à vos collègues de vous rappeler quelque chose.

Questions à vous poser pour constituer votre planning

1. Comment gérez-vous les délais?

Si vous remarquez que vous êtes quelqu’un qui entre en action à la dernière minute, il est important de diviser votre projet en plus petits projets. Pour arriver à vous y tenir, vous pouvez organiser de petites réunions avec vos collègues pour faire le point lors de ces “délais intermédiaires”.

2. Reportez-vous à plus tard?

Les gens ont tendance à reporter les tâches qu’ils n’aiment pas. Ce n’est toutefois pas une solution car la tâche continue à vous turlupiner. On prolonge ainsi le ‘temps des tâches moins chouettes’. Commencez donc plutôt par les tâches qui vous rebutent le plus. Une fois que vous vous y serez mis, vous verrez qu’elles ne sont pas si terribles que cela.

3. Avez-vous du mal à clôturer?

Peut-être avez-vous remarqué que votre planning se retrouve souvent compromis parce que vous avez du mal à terminer les tâches. C’est peut-être du à un perfectionnisme très poussé. Le résultat n’est jamais assez bon. Les gens qui ont peur de l’échec y sont souvent confrontés. Essayez de planifier les tâches sur lesquelles vous restez ‘coincé’ à des moments où vous avez peu de temps, par exemple la dernière heure de la journée ou pendant votre trajet en train. En délimitant le temps disponible, vous reprenez le contrôle et la tâche vous semble plus facilement gérable.

4. Quand travaillez-vous le mieux?

Chacun a un moment dans la journée pendant lequel il arrive à mieux se concentrer et à être plus efficace dans son travail. Mettez ce moment à profit pour effectuer les tâches plus compliquées.

5. Savez-vous dire non?

Vous faites partie de ceux qui, à chaque demande, ne savent que répondre par un ‘oui’, malgré un agenda déjà surchargé? Il est important de chercher pourquoi vous agissez de la sorte. Craignez-vous que votre patron ou vos collègues vous trouvent incapable ou démotivé? Avez-vous un énorme besoin de faire vos preuves. Si vous remarquez que cette habitude vous met souvent dans l’embarras, parlez-en avec une personne de confiance.

6. Planifiez-vous trop?

Certaines personnes ont peur d’oublier quelque chose et n’arrêtent plus de faire des listes et des plannings. Planifier à outrance nuit aussi à l’efficacité de votre temps de travail. Cela ne vous est pas inconnu? Gardez les points suivants à l’esprit:

- Les tâches vraiment importantes, vous ne les oublierez pas facilement.

- Si vous oubliez une petite chose, ce n’est pas une catastrophe, c’est humain.

- Faites tout simplement confiance à votre mémoire. Se fier continuellement à des listes nous fait parfois oublier que nous avons une capacité de mémorisation.

- Consultez votre planning une fois par jour suffit.

Twitter Remains Not Profitable

Twitter might be a great service and experiencing an awesome growth, it is still struggling to become a profitable activity. I found this video on CNN website.

I really dislike when Dick Costolo says "we have plenty of time to be profitable". Twitter has been created about 3 years ago, and their lack of business model remains scary. You can not create a company without a clear view on how you are going to generate a profit out of it. It was clear for Facebook they would be able to leverage the large amount of user informations they have, on top of course of the large amount of visits they have. Google has created a search engine which was easy to turn into a cash machine by keyword advertising.

But Twitter don't have much of it. Now, I have seen promoted tweets, and it does not seem to be a bad idea, but I remain skeptical about its ability to develop on the long run.

They have though good ideas about how to monetize Twitter by making it easier to convert Twitter conversations into transactions. As we have seen, Dell has been generating some sales thanks to Twitter. It seems that Twitter have good chances to turn into a distribution channel.

It seems to be a great way, as other Internet tycoons as Facebook and Google are putting large amount of money on the table to add some Internet retailing service to their platform.

Now, Twitter's optimism remains to me a non sense:

• Their service is failing way to often, and actually, right from the beginning it has been developped on wrong basis, which makes it difficult to improve its consistency.
• They are struggling to get mass marketing usage. It remains a tool for geek, celebrities, business man and some other high end people, but without a massive usage, as Facebook gets, it will be difficult to drain some interest of brands.
• Getting a lot of users, and raising the usage of Twitter is great. But having a clear vision on how to monetize it on the long run is a lack of strategy.

Nothing in this interview actually convinced me.

The Values Of Leadership

Leadership topics interest me very much. I found this great article about values of leadership I wanted to share with you. As a department manager for Auchan, I received some classes about management, and acquired some techniques in leadership. I totally agree with the following ones I found:

1. Understand your values

It’s tough to live a life of consciously-chosen values because there is relentless, seductive pressure to alter your beliefs.

Anybody who has a role for you — as consumer, constituent or manager — stands to profit from you not having a sure sense of self. After all, when you’re not on your own agenda, you’re prey to the agenda of others. It takes just a little more work to list your personal values, why they are important to you, and which ones really matter the most but it’s important to do so.

2. Get support from your people

If your employees know what your values are and care about them, then you can live them. If they don’t, you won’t. Translate your values — the meaning of family, integrity, adventure, creativity, spirituality, and health or whatever your values are — into the promise of better working conditions for your employees. If they want those conditions, they’ll protect your values to help make them happen.

3. Take responsibility

Leadership doesn’t come with a job title — and you can’t order it on the Internet and can’t just wait for it to happen to you. Leadership happens when you understand your values and understand how to enroll others in supporting them. It’s your responsibility to assume an active role in forming your values and then evangelize them to your employees.

The irreducible essence of leadership is living your deepest personal values every day at work and at home without compromise. Leaders use those values to make life better for their employees. This is why people become leaders and why people follow them.

Air France Launches Its Low Cost Subdivision For Local Flights

Air France is experiencing difficulties to keep a leading position in the local flight market in France. Due to its high pricing policy, low cost companies have thrive on this business segment which was hence neglegted by Air France, as it was not representing a profitable activity for them.

Nevertheless, the overal airlines competition has become tougher, and with high gas prices, it is difficult to remain profitable and earn money in the industry. As we have seen, United and Continental have merged this month. And this trend has gone on for quite a while.

Hence, Air France decided to launch its low cost company, dedicated to local travels.

Now some experts are questioning this decision, doubting about how Air France could deal with such a heavy administration to cut cost and hence have a profitable low cost business.

Nevertheless, launching such a service can’t hurt: Local travels are a non profitable business for Air France, and switching for low cost could just help them to improve their market shares and to adapt to the competition landscape.

If I were Air France, I’ll try to monitor what happen with other brands which decided to launch a low cost branch. I have always found interesting to go further than your basic market to find ideas in other industries which you could adapt to your own.

Thus, some great examples of premium brands that launched their low cost subdivision :

• Carrefour owns DIA stores, and they have been able to leverage the purchasing power of the group to get great pricing.


• Esso which launched Esso Express.


• Renault created Dacia


• Levi’s created Levi Strauss Signature for hypermarket distribution channel.


• Dannon with its pack of 6 yogourhts for 1 € (which actually was a failure).


• Accor hotels with Formule 1 (which is the leader on the low cost chain segment)

It is difficult for large companies like Air France to get into the low cost business. Most of the time low cost companies have started as start ups, which gave them the ability to innovate. Bigger firms tend to be more prudent than younger ones. As strange as it might seem, large corporation, which owns great innovation budget and large R&D departments are less likely to leverage it into actual new concepts.

Also, as a company developed a strong business model, acquired a certain size, and have to meet expectations of shareholders, it is difficult for it to adapt to brutal shift in market trends. I have heard on the radio this very great phrase: “It is not stagecoach firms that invented the car”. But I believe that low cost has changed so much the airlines market that it is mandatory for Air France to find a viable way to take advantage out of it.

It is funny because this post comes after having discussed about how Esso went low cost. As I have said for Esso, as you have developped a wide range of service and customer relationship management tool, you may know which ones you may take away, and which ones are the most important.

And you, what do you think about it?

Carrefour Planet : My Thoughts

Carrefour Planet is the new store concept created by Carrefour, the second largest retailer in the world. For quite a while now the hypermarket format is going in limbo. France has always been the land of the "everything under the same roof" concept, which was actually invented by Carrefour. As a matter of fact, even Sam Walton, founder of Wal Mart acknowledged he had the idea of Wal Mart while visiting some Carrefour stores in Brazil.

Hypermarkets have thrived on the automobile boom. "No Parking = No business" was the motto. But with the high cost of gas right now, and with dramatic consumption behavior changes in France, the hypermarket marketshares are plummeting.
Hence Carrefour Planet seems to be the answer designed by Carrefour. Here are some of the new ideas that are in it:

• Some brand booth has been designed: In order to get some specific know how in certain areas, Carrefour has set partnership with leaders like Virgin for cultural products, Apple to set an Apple booth, or L’Oreal to design its cosmetic department.
• New services are proposed to customers: A hair dresser for 10€ for example.

What is for sure is that Carrefour has made a remarkable communication strategy around it. The day of the stores opening the French magazine "Que Choisir" released an article on how French customers were unsatisfied with hypermarkets. Carrefour made a remarkable job leveraging this article that made the headlines of French newspapers to provide evidences on how Carrefour Planet will solve those issues.

I can't wait to see this concept.

Imposing Your Brand Language

Very interesting article by BBC, about how Starbucks has imposed its own terminology to its products. It is of course a great marketing asset, because when your customers are accustomed to your products name, then it becomes part of their daily life.

There are a lot of companies that have been able to create their own language, and hence, control the market. A great example is the Ipod. The Ipod became the reference for mp3 players, and hence, everyone was referring to the name of Apple's product to speak about mp3s. Or of course the Game Boy is another good example.

"It is every company's dream to get their language out there and being used - it's linguistic product placement. And so the Manhattan scene probably was a reaction, albeit an extreme one, to the jargon imposed on us."

Of course, the purpose of the using language in this way is to burrow into the consumer's subconsciousness with one's own concepts and values.
Brand consultant Jonathan Gabay says carefully-chosen language can make a difference to consumers, but only if it is used subtly.

"The idea is that it's about more than just buying a cup of coffee - you're part of the club, using this supposedly sophisticated language, doing something a bit different," he says.
"The problem is when it's too heavy-handed and and the staff are effectively saying, 'Computer says no.' Marketing is ultimately about communication and some of these companies need to put down the guide books and remember that."

Nonetheless, there is undoubtedly method in Starbucks' approach.
Tony Thorne, King's College London's former language centre head, now a language and innovation consultant and the author of several slang dictionaries, says companies like Starbucks have appropriated the kitchen slang of 1920s New York diners to convey their message of authenticity and good taste.

However, he believes the impact of such marketing techniques is insidious.
"Some of this stuff is ludicrous in its complexity," he says. "They're not trying to turn us into food snobs - it's simply about imposing their brand values.
"It's intended to bamboozle and intimidate. I see it as a form of corporate bullying."
For their part, Starbucks have insisted that there "are no rules and customers have always been able to ask for drinks any way they want".

La relation client sur mobile

J’apprécie beaucoup le travail de GS1 pour promouvoir l’utilisation des mobiles dans le cadre de la relation client. En effet, le potentiel de nos smartphones semblent sans limite en terme de CRM. Voici une vidéo réalisée par leurs soins montrant les possibilités d’usage grâce à leur technologie de scanning.

Proxi-Produit, créez une nouvelle proximité entre la marque et le consommateur from Marc Benhaim on Vimeo.

Cela reste encore très abstrait, car, travaillant dans l’alimentaire, je ne suis pas sûr que tous les clients vérifient sur leur portable ces informations avant d’acheter leurs produits. Néanmoins, je vois la possibilité de proposer du contenu à valeur ajoutée sur les produits (recettes, conseils d’utilisation, commentaires d’utilisateurs,

Companies Are Still Struggling With Their Social Media Strategy

The hype is still very high around social media for companies. It seems obvious that social media will get a large market share of media consumption within the next decade. Nevertheless, it is very difficult for brands to apprehend this new medium, as it is very different from all the other ones. It is obviously not (or at least not yet) a mass media. It is also very far from other CRM tools. Therefore, despite some tries, a lot of companies seem to struggle with their online strategy.

I found out on the web this presentation.

Why Social Media Projects Fail?! – A European Perspective

View more presentations from BSI.

What shall we think about it? I believe that it shows that social media remains a new medium. And therefore a lot of people are still figuring out how to do. I can't blame managers which don't really know how to handle those media, and especially what to expect.

I believe that there are a lot of progress that happened. New statistics came in, new marketing success came up, and I believe that we are starting to have a good outlook of what the future will be for social media.

Promising Start For Promoted Tweets

It is never easy to create a new advertising medium. Some might seem more obvious than other ones, especially for traditional media. Now, for social network, the task is not so easy.

Of course, on Facebook you could have some advertising like display ads, or keywords ads. But it would not make the best out of the media. Indeed, you are not going to get the wonderful potential of conversation enabled by those social media.

Twitter has been looking for quite a long time a way to monetize its service. And to be honest with you, I have been sceptic about their strategy. First, their constant technical failure makes the service unstable. But also, I was questioning the fact they have never thought for the longest time how to become profitable.

Nevertheless, couple of months ago, Twitter have set up their advertising program, named “promoted tweets”. The idea is quite original: placing promoted tweets into users’ search results, which would be related to their points of interest. The idea is that the best the advertising it, the most retweeted it will be. Hence, you have the resonance effect, when people are retweeting your ads, and therefore, you may have a strong buzz out of it.

A recent study has been conducted to analyze the first results of such campaigns. And it seems quite promising:
Promoted Tweets are on average retweeted 50% more time than a regular Tweet. Some specific cases went even up 200 to 300%.
One of the main interest is that it gives to the brand clear data about campaign results. Indeed, you may know how many times your promoted tweet showed up, how many people clicked on it, and how many times it has been retweeted. It is therefore easy to have a clear view of campaigns efficiency.

Now everbody are waiting for the day when Twitter will insert some promoted tweets into users’ threads. It might be disruptive, but I believe it will be necessary to secure Twitter’s profitability.