Marketing of the moment

More and more often what really matters in marketing and in communication is the moment. Indeed, communication is becoming faster and faster.

Now customers want everything at once. There are a lot of solliciation and they want the right answer at the right time. This is an explanation why 360° communication is so popular.

There are many trends that pushed this importance of the moment:

• Instant Messages: Twitter has based its success on the ability to provide information that happens right now. The best Tweets might be far in your thread, but actually what really matters, is the information that has been posted within the last few hours. What happens at the moment matter more than the actual value of the information.
• The First moment of truth: Advertisement on the point of sales is very important. Because a customer make his decision making process in front of the aisle, it is important your product stands out, and that you provide the accurate information at the right time.
• 
  
• This is the same thing for CRM: What really matters is when you are able to provide the information. I like the VRM concept. The Vendor Relationship Management is somehow a reverse CRM. A customer exposes his needs for a product, and the brand gets in contact with him to provide the accurate information, via social media or its website. This is the reason why community management is getting so huge.

Marketers need to pay more and more importance about the customer experience to provide the appropriate medium and message to customers in order to trigger the purchase.

My opinion about the Ipad

Of course, yesterday everybody was buzzing around Twitter about the new Apple innovation, the Ipad. Reading through my Twitter, I have seen very different kind of comments and feedback about the product. I wanted to share with you my opinion about Steve Jobs presentation and the product:

Steve Jobs presentation
It has been once more outstanding. Recently Steve Jobs has been named the best CEO of the decade due to its fantastic results with Apple. But I believe he has been able to perform so well mainly due to his exceptional skills to present and create enthousiasm. He knows how to perform in such presentations. He has been able to introduce his product clearly, creating a whole show around it.

The name Ipad.
I don’t know if the name has been properly picked. I mean, pads could have some different meanings and could create tons of plays of words. I understand that Steve Jobs didn’t want to call it tablet, because he has the will to be different and to create a brand new type of products that won’t be able to be comparable to other products. But Ipad, I am not sure.

The product by itself.
The Ipad is pretty nice. But the main critic is it could be better. It is not 3 Gs, this isn’t sure if there are automatic synchronisation, if it is bluetooth empowered, and so on.Also One of the main weakness is for sure the fact it is not multi tasking, while this is necessary as people switch very easily from applications.
The product might be nice to consult and read, but what about interacting, writing notes for example?

The market
A lot of questions remain unsolved about the Ipad’s market. Indeed, the tablet market is going in limbo. The Amazon’s Kindle seems to have promising sales, and remain alone in the competition. That was important for mac users to propose a solution. Now it remains to see how Apple will market its online library. The challenge is to transform its media users of Itunes in book downloaders. I don’t know if the target is the same, but that would be interesting to see.

The future of Ipad
I don’t see the Ipad as a revolution. A revolution is something that stands out of ordinary, and the Ipad might do. But I see in a near future some new technologies that would be 10 times better than this one. I especially think about Nokia’s Morpheus project. I believe that instead of owning such a large pad, it would be better to have something you can fold or that would be retractable. It would be easier to use as this pad is not really a mobile device.


I don’t think we can expect the same kind of success than the Iphone. The Iphone was responding to an actual demand and the product was at the top of the line of technology. The Ipad remains a large Iphone, with not even the same deep range of uses, as it is not a 3G device.

And you what do you think about it?

Offres d'emplois dans le marketing mobile

Le marketing mobile est en pleine expansion et ses métiers sont passionants. Nicolas Clairembault est un bloggeur connu qui vient de lancer sa nouvelle société, ikomobi, cherche de jeunes talents pour l'aider à développer sa société. Voici l'annonce:

Pour accompagner son développement rapide, iKomobi recherche plusieurs profils pour renforcer le pôle marketing dans le cadre d’un stage.
Missions :
Sous la responsabilité du Directeur Marketing, vous serez amené à travailler sur les sujets suivants :
- Veille concurrentielle du marché des applications mobiles et de l’achat d’espace mobile en France et à l’international
- Mise en forme de recommandations sur-mesure pour les prospects et clients de la société
- Brainstorming et formalisation d’idées d’applications et de fonctions innovantes dans un but marketing
- Formalisation de plans médias mobile/web pour les annonceurs
- Gestion/reporting/optimisation des campagnes de marketing online et sur mobile
Les missions proposées sont susceptibles d’évolution en fonction de vos compétences et de votre implication.
Profil recherché :
De formation Ecole de commerce, Maîtrise spécialisée dans le Marketing Online, e-commerce, nouvelles technologies…
Vous aimez surfer sur Internet et avez un réel sens du marketing sur les supports web et mobile.
Vous êtes curieux(se) de nature, et aimez trouver des idées nouvelles.
Vous pratiquez la veille online et êtes à l’aise avec les flux RSS, blogs et médias sociaux
Vous êtes familier des Smartphones nouvelle génération (iPhone, Blackberry, Android), et en êtes idéalement utilisateur.
Vous avez une bonne maîtrise de l´anglais opérationnel.
Vous aimez l’autonomie, la prise de responsabilités et avez envie d’intégrer une structure innovante.
Cette expérience peut déboucher sur une embauche.
Si l’aventure vous tente, merci d´adresser votre candidature et CV à l´adresse e-mail : recrutement@ikomobi.com en précisant «Stage Marketing» dans l´objet de votre message.

Date de début : A pourvoir immédiatement
Durée : 3 mois minimum
Type de contrat : Stage conventionné
Rémunération : Selon profil
Lieu de travail : Parc de la Haute Borne, Villeneuve d’Ascq

Relation client pour les fournisseurs: Programme de fidélité vs jeux concours

Lorsqu'on est fournisseur, il est souvent difficile d'établir des stratégies de relation client avec les consommateurs finaux. En effet, les vrais "clients" des Danone, L'Oréal ou Coca Cola sont les distributeurs, les personnes avec qui elles contractualisent, afin d'avoir leurs produits en linéaire. Néanmoins le client final reste la principale préoccupation du marketing de ces entreprises. C'est grâce à leurs capacités à attirer ce grand public par leur effort de gestion de marque et de communication, que les distributeurs vont décider des volumes d'achats.

En effet, les produits de marque distributeur possède bien souvent intrinsèquement plus d'intérêt que ceux des marques, en terme de rentabilité. C'est pour cela que les fournisseurs pensent et établissent de plus en plus des stratégies de relation client.

Ils se confrontent néanmoins à un mur: comment entrer en contact directement avec ses consommateurs, et surtout établir une relation à long terme avec ses consommateurs, alors qu'ils ne peuvent absolument pas avoir un fichier client complet: Les statistiques clients sont détenus par la grande distribution, qui eux peuvent comptabiliser les passages en caisse.

Cependant, les marques possèdent trois vecteurs de communication, dont un qui a le formidable potentiel de permettre ses mesures:

• La publicité: Les marques ont réussi à établir leurs crédibilités et leurs performances commerciales grâce aux publicités, qu'elles soit télévisées, ou bien en affichage par exemple. Ce savoir faire est extrêmement important
• Le packaging: Les emballages deviennent de plus en plus un outil marketing principal sur le point de vente, comme j'en avais déjà parlé sur ce blog. Et oui, il peut être utilisé à des fins CRM.
• L'Internet: L'Internet reste l'outil le plus facilement utilisable pour entretenir un fichier client viable, car il est accessible par une majorité de la population et donc de vos clients.

La pubicité et le packaging peuvent être des vecteurs de communication afin de pouvoir recruter et animer une stratégie CRM et de fidélisation. Il existe ainsi deux types de stratégies différentes afin de pouvoir recruter ses clients dans son programme:

• Etablir un programme CRM: C'est certainement l'exercice le plus difficile, et bien qu'ayant vu quelques exemples, je ne suis pas sûr d'en avoir un réellement sortant du lot. L'idée est d'établir un programme à point, ou en tout cas offrant une promesse forte, qui va convaincre le consommateur de participer sur le long terme. Cela peut ainsi être un programme objectif, avec des points et des valeurs de lots clairement défini au moment de l'inscription, mais cela peut aussi être un programme offrant plus de souplesse pour la marque, mais qui doit s'attacher à être dynamique en offrant fréquemment des promotions diverses.
• Réaliser des jeux concours: Ses jeux concours sont certainement la manière la plus simple de recruter des clients, du moment où les dotations sont attrayantes. Néanmoins, je ne vois pas sur le long terme comment cette politique peut devenir une relation client forte.

Maintenant, le défi principal de la marque reste d'évaluer les performances de son outil CRM. En ce sens, il me semble difficile d'avoir des statistiques représentatives de ce qu'apporte réellement le programme de relation client, puisqu'il est difficile d'avoir les retours d'utilisation du système. Néanmoins, sur un plan temporel, une stratégie relation client proprement préparé pourra montrer une augmentation de ses performances.

Avez vous déjà travaillé sur ces problématiques? Je serai ravi d'en discuter avec vous.

Steve Jobs Named Best Performing CEO

The Havard Business Review Named Steve Jobs the Best Performing CEO in the world.

A lot of people have blamed short-term thinking for causing our current economic troubles, which has set off a debate about what time window we should use to assess a CEO's performance. Today boards of directors, senior managers, and investors intensely want to know how CEOs handle the ups and downs of running businesses over an extended period. Many executive compensation plans define the "long term" as a three-year horizon, but the real test of a CEO's leadership has to be how the company does over his or her full tenure. This article contains a list of the 50 CEOs of large public companies who performed best over their entire time in office--or, for those still in the job, up until September 30, 2009. To compile the results, the authors collected data on close to 2,000 CEOs worldwide. They asked, Who had led firms that, on the basis of stock returns, outperformed other firms in the same country and industry? The ranking combines three measures: country-adjusted return, industry-adjusted return, and change in market capitalization during tenure. While it may come as no shock that Steve Jobs of Apple tops the list, the ranking does contains a few surprises. You'll see some relatively unknown faces at the top. The inverse is also true: Some obvious candidates based on reputation don't make the top 50. The authors' analysis of the factors that increased the likelihood that an executive would place high in the ranking turned up a few more surprises. Although one might expect context to have a big effect, they found a wide diversity of countries and industries represented in the top performers. The CEO's background did matter, however, as did the situation left behind by his or her predecessor.

The Havard Business Review hence made a pretty objective result, which makes sense. But what would be interesting is to dig to find out what makes Steve Jobs the best CEO. I have watched not so long ago the video herein, about how Steve Jobs makes great presentations. And I believe that it is first due to its passion, but also mainly because he is able to create enthousiasm. "Nothing Great has been accomplished without passion". And I believe this is what he vehicles, and how he motivates people.

What do you think? What are the reasons why he succeeded so much?

L'epub résiste à la crise?

Selon la Newsletter de CB News, l'epub aurait résister à la crise en 2009. Ainsi le taux de croissance de ce marché a été divisé par 4 cette année, mais a tout de même augmenté de 6%. Je ne suis pas sûr que le mot résisté soit le plus approprié à cette progression.

De même, pour avoir parlé à plusieurs exécutifs ces derniers mois au sujet de campagnes de publicité en ligne, et aussi de la manière de monétiser le traffic de sites Internet et de blog, la plupart ont l'impression que le marché est en train de se détériorer et que les revenus issus de cette activité ne sont plus viable. Bien sûr, il y a eu une phase de "hype", ou bien de spéculation sur la valeur de ces publicités qui a été grandissante. Cette spéculation a aussi été portée par les problèmes connus par les média de masse tels que la télévision, qui voit s'effriter ses taux d'audiences au profit de nouvelles chaines TNT et du transfert d'audience vers le web et la video on demand.

Mais maintenant le marché semble s'être calmé, et comme un produit qui arrive a maturité, je pense que la prochaine année qui nous attend va confirmer cette tendance de stagnation des revenus issus de la e publicité, ce qui va forcé certains acteurs à consolider leurs activités (via des fusions, des aquisitions, ou bien même des disparitions d'acteurs comme mybloglog, entre autre).

Mais l'epub est bien un marché d'avenir, qui a certainement connu des résultats exceptionnels ces denrières années en terme de taux de conversion et de retour sur investissement, qui ne seront peut être pas aussi avantageux dans le futur, mais qui vont définitivement prendre des parts de marché conséquente aux autres marchés de la publicité télévisée entre autre, ou de la presse.

Finalement, c'est une très bonne nouvelle, ce ralentissement de croissance, car cela va peut être motivé certains acteurs d'accordé plus d'importance à ce marché en augmentant la pression concurrencielle.

Le e-commerce continue sa progression, de même que le taux d'équipement des français en Internet haut débit, avec des offres de plus en plus avantageuses pour eux.

Et vous que pensez vous de cette nouvelle?

Auchan Launches An Iphone App

French retailer Auchan, one of the largest grocery retailer in the world, has just launched a new Iphone app, allowing customers to dictate on its Iphone their grocery shopping list. The application recognize about 260 products already preset in the system.

Auchan has been for the longest time an innovator on the hypermarket business. They have been the first ones to launche a drive thru concept where you shop your groceries on line and then pick it up at the store direct in your trunk. They also have been the first one to opt for a self scanning system, where customers get a scanner at the entrance of the store and scan products while shopping.

Auchan has clearly understand the importance of mobile devide in the customer relationship management process, providing an improved customer experience.

Twitter Case Studies: Example of Brands Usage

As 2009 was the year when companies started to use Twitter, trying to define the different usage and benefits they could get from it, some companies have already succeeded in getting some audience and results from Twitter. As a communication medium, working both ways, it is therefore a great way to improve a customer relationship strategy.

Here are some example found on the web:

• Subway: Subway’s Twitter presence, @subwayfreshbuzz, attracted more than 6,000 followers in less than six months. The sandwich shop franchise uses Twitter to interact with Subway fans two ways: sending out product and promotional news and monitoring Twitter for buzz about its brand.
• McDonald’s: McDonald’s operates two main Twitter handles. @McDonalds, which has more than 4,700 followers, is used for brand news and information as well as customer service. (Internal research shows that the company is mentioned every 10 to 20 seconds on Twitter.) @McCafeYourDay promotes the company’s line of specialty coffees.
• 7-Eleven: Convenience-store giant 7-Eleven launched its first Twitter campaign at @7eleven in September, when it created an online game to promote its Brazilian Bold coffee to 18- to 34-year-olds. A few weeks in, the game has scored about 100 followers and counting, but it has also generated a wave of buzz online and will be followed by more promotions.
• H&R Block: H&R Block uses @HRBlock, launched in November 2007, as a customer-care and question-and-answer tool more than a marketing vehicle. Although the company posts info about tax law changes or company news, it more frequently answers tax questions, solves log-in issues and helps connect its more than 3,600 followers with the expertise they need to get their taxes filed.
• Dunkin’ Donuts: In a little more than a year, @DunkinDonuts scored more than 38,000 followers by creating a place where people can share their Dunkin’ Donuts experiences. The company focuses on creating a place where people can talk about how much they love Dunkin’ Donuts products.

Of course, I have also talked about Starbucks, which in overal makes a great use of social media. By these different example you can draw three main uses for Twitter:

• Customer service: providing information about how to use products, or what to do in case you have a problem.
• Coupons/discounts advertising: Sending coupons online thanks to Twitter to your community
• Information/branding: Providing information about you and your mission statement, but also providing information that defines your positionning.

Some Thoughts About Dell's Sales With Twitter

You must remember how a Dell has grown while it announced it sold for $6.5 million thanks to Twitter the past year. Indeed, it was the evidence that Twitter could become a viable distribution channel, and it was worth developping a community management force to leverage this potential. Dell set 35 Twitter channels like this one, which speaks to 1.5 million followers (which is a $4.1 revenue per users). I have read this article relating this fact, and raising skepticism about it.

As with anything vaguely interesting or popular that grabs the public imagination, it's never long before Big Business is eyeing the prize and desperately trying to turn a buck. Twitter spam - should that be 'twam', or maybe 'spitter'? - is already clogging up the Internet and every corporation with a PR department worth its salt is tripping over itself to jump on the tweeting bandwagon.

A recent report on the übercapitalist website Bloomberg crows about PC box builder Dell clocking up $6.5 million worth of sales directly attributable to corporate tweets sent to the 1.5 million followers of its 35 channels. Even though that's a tiny fraction of the company's $61 billion in revenue last year, it's still a worrying development for Twitter and its waning street credibility.

The simple fact of the matter is that, once the corporate world gets its claws into the kind of social phenomenon that Twitter has rapidly become, those in the know will rapidly move onto the next new thing, one which has yet to be mired in intrusive advertising and corporate nagging.

Could Dell have signed the death knell for Twitter? Only time will tell, but we'll certainly be looking elsewhere for our celebrity-sourced chit-chat fix sooner rather than later.

So there is two main things about this article I would like to comment.

First, about the fact that $6.5 millions is worthless compared to the large $61 million sales Dell has accomplished in overall.There is no doubt about that. Now Twitter is young, and Dell's participation in it is even more recent. Twitter world is brand new, and brands need to create their own territory and use of the tool. This is 0.1%. But beyond figures, what has been shown is that Twitter can become a retail channel. Foremost, what I would like to see is how profitable this channel could be. Indeed, is it costly? I don't think it requires a large bandwidth and a lot of server capacity like a ecommerce website would, since it is hosted by Twitter. I'd like to know:

• The staff that takes care of these Twitter account. 35 people? I don't think so, but I'd like to know how qualify and how numerous the staff is.
• I believe they did not create new CRM/ sales software, and might use the very same one they use for their call center.

I believe the conversion rates might be high. But if you are part of this project and you read this blog, I'd love your experience to be shared.

The other part wants to say that now that companies are using Twitter, it could be referred as "Twitter spamming", and could be the edge of the death of Twitter. This is totally the opposite. Once brand and companies will be convinced of the interest of this social media, then Twitter will be able to monetize their service, become profitable, and then secure the future of Twitter. I believe actually this should be the emergency for Twitter. With other companies that have failed to monetize their large audience and the end of the web 2.0 hype, they must find partners and people who are willing to pay to use Twitter's potential. If not, there is no way Twitter will never be profitable. I believe actually that one of the weakness of Twitter and other web 2.0 services has been to believe that when they'll reach the critical mass, they'll be able to make money, whatever happens, without even thinking about how to incorporate advertising or for example premium service to their offer.

As I have said, I am not really the most optimistic about Twitter as a company by itself, because they have failed many times to deliver its service in a dramatical way, but also because they have failed to show monetization potential yet.

Anyways, Dell's contribution on Twitter is huge, and I give them a lot of respect for that.

La publicité télévisée va mal

L'industrie de la publicité télévisée va mal. Voire très mal. En effet, due à la crise, les annonceurs ont diminué leurs budgets communication, et ainsi arrêter le plus coûteux d'entre eux, la télévision.

TF1 et les autres chaines privées vont mal. Ils doivent affronter la montée du média Internet, où un réel transfert d'audience s'opère.

Ainsi, j'ai vu à la télévision la campagne suivante:

Bien qu'il est souvent de mauvaise augure lorsqu'une entreprise arrête de communiquer (le budget marketing est souvent le premier coupé, le plus facile, alors que souvent c'est celui qui est le mieux placé pour endiguer la perte de parts de marché), cette publicité sonne à mon sens comme un chant du cygne. La publicité fait sa pub?

Je pense que la publicité télévisée va devoir changée profondément. En effet, autant le paysage des médias en France a changé avec l'arrivée d'Internet, mais aussi il va se parceller. Les offres Adsl permettent d'avoir de plus en plus de chaine et donc d'augmenter la visibilité des anciennes chaines du cable. De même que la TNT a aussi apporté son bouleversement.

La télévisée n'est plus un média de masse, il va devenir de plus en plus spécialisé, et donc les messages devront être de plus en plus précis, plus en plus tourné vers le call to action, comme cela est le cas aux Etats-Unis.

Et vous que pensez vous de cette publicité?

Testing Ping.fm

PLV et technologie: Lego innove

La publicité sur le lieu de vente ou PLV a le vent en poupe ces dernières années. Elles sont ainsi parmi les meilleurs outils marketing et de communication dans la distribution, maximisant la visibilité de la marque durant le first moment of truth, mais aussi peuvent améliorer l'expérience client. Ainsi, autant je considère que le packaging peut avoir un réel impact sur la gestion de la relation client, la PLV peut s'avérer un outil très puissant. Surtout lorsque l'innovation et la technologie lui offrent une nouvelle dimension.

C'est le cas de cette nouvelle campagne réalisée par Légo.

Cette PLV est basée sur la technologie de la réalité augmentée. Cette technologie permet d'associer grâce à une caméra vidéo une image bien réel, et un élément virtuel associé. Dans cette vidéo, la réalité augmentée permet de voir le jeu tel qu'il est lorsque monté.

La PLV a pour ambition de déclencher l’acte d’achat, et il y a peu de doute que celle-ci fasse exception, il y a même tout à parier pour que ce dispositif, mis au point par Metaio, soit particulièrement efficace.

Il y a fort à parier que le monde de la PLV soit profondément bouleversé par ce type de technologies, auxquels ils conviendra d’ajouter le RFID, le Bluetooth, et de nombreuses autres pour avoir une idée de ce qui va s’abbatre sur le secteur dans les années à venir.

Je pense effectivement qu'on en ait encore au début, et que ces technologies nous réservent bien des surprises.

Best Buy: Innovating In The Pick Up Options For Optimizing Multichannel Advantages

Multichannel is becoming a norm nowadays. Either brick & mortar companies are going online, or pure players are finding ways to reach their customers in the real world thanks to pick up options. What is for sure is that multichannel is starting to become a norm.

But there is still room for improvement as the Internant and brick & mortar world are still struggling to click.

Best Buy hence has innovated:

• Customers may now pick up their products at the company's warehouses. For a national chain like Best Buy, it is very interesting to provide this service, as they may own several warehouses across country. Pick up at the warehouse may also decrease the logistic costs, as some part of the merchandise will not need to transit through the stores. The consumer electronics retailer also is letting customers pick up purchases directly from its warehouses to avoid delivery charges and scheduling conflicts for large items such as appliances, or to save time on orders that must be shipped to a store.

  Best Buy says it launched the new delivery options, which it calls Store Pickup Plus, to expand on the free shipping promotions it periodically offers online, as well as to allow consumers to avoid shipping fees, receive products more quickly, eliminate concerns about package delivery and increase confidence that products will be available.

• Thanks to a top of the line supply chain information system, they are able to tell to customers to pick up some of their orders 45 minutes after having ordered them online.

Now, I wanted to add something else about multichannel retailing. In France, drive ins are getting very popular for hypermarket chains. Some other type of retailers have started to use this system, like an optician in the north of France. But what about ecommerce? Wouldn't it be an efficient system to equip warehouses of these type of drive ins, in order to turn their warehouse into stores?

What do you think about it?