Marketing Begins At Home

What other kind of wounding is there?

All over the news yesterday was a conviction for unlawful wounding. The phrase got me thinking and wondering if there was any other kind?

Wikipedia lumps unlawful wounding and grievous bodily harm together and references back to an Act put on the statute books in 1851. There is also detail on the different kinds of charges on the Crown Prosecution Service web site.

Finally I came to the realisation that doctors and dentists "wound" you in the course of treatment, if "wounding means the breaking of the continuity of the whole of the outer skin, or the inner skin within the cheek or lip". Mystery solved.

One simplistic technique?

I was visiting a marketing website today and was struck by the number of articles that had numbers attached. 7 Secrets, 5 lessons, etc. While I am sure that quantifying and making lists of things does help to get attention, it seems to me this particular trick is being overused.

Forcing your messages into boxes may be necessary in this cluttered world but once you get beyond a small number, do you really expect people to remember all of them? And if they can't remember all of them, perhaps you need to simplify your message?

The reluctant business traveller and enthusiastic team builder

I've travelled a lot over the years. Mostly for business, and often in tight bursts with longer gaps in between. I think I just figured out why. Right now I am spending more time working from home. Apart from driving my wife crazy, it has substantially changed my working patterns. I rely on the modern electronic methods of communication and much less on face to face. When I do go to the office, I spend way more time walking around and talking to people, and virtually no time at my desk.

I travel whenever there is a new team or new group that I need to meet or a new context or relationship with people I know less well. I didn't get this until very recently. That's because i can work quite effectively with people that I have a good relationship by email, im, phone and conference call. But for me to be truly effective, those relationships have to have been built with a personal meeting and working together.

Otherwise there is just way too much misunderstanding possible. Especially if there are different cultures involved. Right now I am having a lot of trouble with someone in Korea. I know them, we have worked together, but we don't know each other in the current context and we haven't been physically together to work on current problems. For it to work going forward, we will have to get together. Someone is going to have to travel, and we need to work together on solving both the business problem and the relationship problem. Or it won't work. I should be smart enough to avoid the cost and the hassle of getting on an airplane, but for me there is no substitute for face to face.

When is an express not an express?

I recently had to take a flight from Terminal 4 at Heathrow and took the premium priced Heathrow Express. Well, express it is not. They claim a 15 minute journey time from Central London. Their own web site admits that you now need to change trains at T123 and that "the frequency of the shuttle services between Terminal 4 and Terminals 1, 2, 3 is every 10-20 minutes".

My 15 minute journey actually took 45 minutes. The reason given is that because BA haven't moved their flights from T4 over to T5 there are more people wanting to go to T4. I am sure that the airlines scheduled to move to T4 will bve thrilled to know that their customers will have a slower journey. BAA want to move more flights to T4 and T5 so that they can refurbish the oldest terminals at Heathrow.

Heathrow Express have decided to go to T123, then to T5. Previously they went to T4 directly, so there is no reason that they couldn't today. But they decided not to. Instead they ask you to change to their competitor, Heathrow Connect.

All of this could have been avoided if the route had been planned properly and a nice circular route created between the terminals. But for whatever reason, this was not done.

The right answer is to recommend that anyone going to T4 should use Heathrow Connect from the start. You don't have to change, and the journey time is slower, but less hassle for people carrying baggage. Why isn't that advice given impartially to travellers? Also why haven't they increased frequency of service to reflect the increased need?

How are you perceived?

Part of being a politician is being in the public eye. British politicians have been fighting to keep their expenses claims private recently. What most people will remember is that they went to court to keep information private. Part of that information was the address of their second home. Unfortunately that is not what people will remember.

Instead they will remember that MPs were forced kicking and screaming to reveal information about how they spend their allowances. Allowances are important to them and they do incur real expenses in going back and forth to their constituencies.

Now, however, the perception is that a number of MPs are desparately trying to cover up the fact that they were slack with their claims and perhaps claimed marginal or inappropriate expenses. Why would they risk their careers over such relatively small amounts of money? What does it say about the integrity of these people that they are spending our tax money in court to protect their secrets?

Are you tired of being consulted?

I heard Gordon Brown yesterday talking about a new consultation on ways to fund elderly care. This appears to involve a compulsory new age insurance scheme (careful, don't call it a tax) to pay for the looming gap in caring for people who are living longer.

Allegedly there are no fixed ideas about how the scheme will work. So there will be forums for listening. Bottom line here, we have to fund our dotage somehow. The choices are either for people to save privately, the government to divert existing revenues, or raise new ones. The problem for the UK government is that people are not saving enough privately. That's because their taxes and cost of living are high enough that early in their careers people are in debt and don't get into the habit of saving.

Well, I'm tired of being consulted where there really is little chance that my opinions will be heard or will change anything. If you really want new ideas, fine. If all you want to do is sell the thing you have decided upon, don't call it a consultation.

Also recently there is a proposal to change the title of some Financial Services Advisors to sales people if all they do is sell one company's products. Good idea. Gordon, why not call your consultations something more honest? Sales meetings?

Shocking Statistics

Shocking, but probably not in the way that you think. If you read the recent UK housing news, you might remember that repossession orders have climbed 17% in the first quarter over the same period last yeat. Shocking....but the really shocking thing is how FEW people are affected, not how many.

Digging through the story, the following figures emerge. Mortgage claims are the triggering of the process that may ultimately lead to reposession, although often there are alternative arrangements made. And it is clear that mortgage claims are rising.

	Q1 2008	% of mortgages	Q1 2007	% of mortgages
Mortgage claims	38,688	0.33%	33,344	0.28%
Mortgage reposessions	27,530	0.23%	23,438	0.20%
Number of mortgages	11,800,000		11,800,000

But would you be shocked to learn that only 0.23% of mortgage owners got reposessed? One quarter of one percent of mortgage holders had to hand in their keys. Admitted that this is quite a lot families affected - approximately 27, 530, but given that nearly 12 MILLION mortgage holders are managing to pay their bills and keep their properties, it isn't a lot.

It also might not surprise you to know that where you live in the UK has a pretty big impact on the repossessions. The Midlands, North West and Wales are reposession hotspots, so what is it about those areas. It isn't unemployment, at least officially. They are around the national average. GDP per head in Midlands and North West are lower than average but not as low as the North East which has very little growth in repossessions.

Regional breakdown of possession orders and claims

Region	Possession claims: Annual change since 2007 Q1	Possession orders: Annual change since 2007 Q1
London	-1%	-6%
Midlands	22%	22%
North East	20%	1%
North West	24%	23%
South East	13%	9%
South West	17%	11%
Wales	21%	26%
Source: Ministry of Justice. Figures are not seasonally adjusted

The service called you

We have been thinking about completely renovating our flat in London. Most recently we asked a young architect and her partner if they would be willing to work with us. Because there is a connection we were pretty informal about the engagement. What they presented were three variations on a theme, all of which had some very interesting ideas.

If you feel a "but" coming, well here it is. We had agreed a price for the work, but the invoice ended up one third more than we expected. It turns out they charged us for the presentation of the work. They also charged us VAT. The invoice also included a 1.5% per day interest charge for late payment. Taking a look at the invoice, it didn't include the right details for a VAT invoice in the UK. We were offended by the usurious terms for late payment; the fact that they didn't include the right VAT registration details was perhaps inexperience, but seemed pretty basic. The financial issue was that they didn't understand that paying VAT that we could not reclaim made a huge difference to the bill. 

Sadly, the experience with the invoice left us with uncertainty about whether this very nice couple could in fact deliver work that was the right quality and could keep to a budget. The invoice triggered all kinds of doubts that had nothing to do with their professional qualifications, their design skills, their empathy with what we were trying to do. It is so easy to devalue your brand, and very hard to recover the position.

STOP PRESS - good news. I sent an email, they responded very positively, we cleared up a misunderstanidng, and got a solution that both of us could live with. So did they recover 100%? No, but they did achieve a successful outcome and the best they could hope for under the circumstances.

Does it dwisott?

Translation - Does it do what it says on the tin? A great marketing phrase invented by the clever people at Ronseal that now gets applied to lots of different products and has made it into OUP idioms.

What is sad is that so often the product promise is at odds with the product experience. I've just moved doctors because I moved house, and was dreading the experience. My last surgery wouldn't issue anyone an appointment more than a day in advance. This was because if they forced people to phone up on the morning of the day they wanted the appointment, they made the government's target for seeing people in less than 48 hours. You couldn't book a non urgent appointment to suit your convenience. And you had to call between 8:30 and 9 or there were no appointments. Too bad, call tomorrow. The staff were surly, the waiting room dreary and tired, the doctor's offices pretty dire.

When I went into the new surgery in Central London there were a number of interesting differences. There was a smiling person behind the desk, but there was also an automated check in for people who were willing to use the touchscreen with large letters and a very easy to use display. Because this was my first time, I got given  forms to fill in, asked a couple of questions, and had to show some id. I had my national health card, so the nice person behind the desk said, "good, one less form to fill in" and took one of the forms back.

I'm registered. I can call any time to book an appointment. They will do non urgent appointments at a mutually convenient time. They have a vampire service (sorry blood taking service) that happens every morning for routine bloodwork. And my nic shiny new national health card arrived in the mail less than a week after I handed it in.

You know, some of the investment in the national health service might just be paying off. My wife tells me that all the doctors that she has met at the surgery are nice, competent, helpful. Just maybe the practice does dwisott.

Doom and gloom or a business opportunity?

House prices are down 1% from April 2007 according to a BBC story. That doesn't sound like a lot to me. The fact that house prices have been rising for four of the last five years is buried in the story. So now instead of being 10% above last year, they are now 1% below last year. But the graph looks much more dramatic.

It does say something that the BBC, on the whole known for balanced reporting, is using language like "sixth monthly decline in a row" and "steep decline". This is after property prices have RISEN 45% in the last 5 years.

So we are talking ourselves into a significant drop in house prices. The question really is - who is going to be really hurt? Anyone who has bought recently and not benefited from the rises. Anyone who remortgaged and spent the cash and now is sitting on a possible deficit. First time buyers because cheap and easy 100% mortgages have disappeared in the UK.

Well, first time buyers are going to be hit, but previously they were being squeezed out because prices were much too high a multiple of their earnings. Now they need a decent deposit to get a mortgage. Well, that doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

There is definitely a market opportunity here for housing that is affordable, and properly targetted at the people who are having difficulty getting on the housing ladder. Perhaps a mixture of owners and renters in professionally mainted properties with proper ongoing funding for maintenance. More commonhold properties would be a good idea. Why haven't we seen more of this in the UK. Well one important reason is that it eliminates ground rent as a source of income for developers and other sources of income from premiums for extending leases, etc. Perhaps a tax break to help encourage this important and cost effective type of housing?

Brainwave that made elevators safe

Elevators (lifts) are complex devices. But the fundamental safety device is incredibly simple. Electromagnetic brakes are held open while there is electric current. In the event of an electricity failure, the brakes are released and the elevator comes to a stop. What a great idea. Simple, positive. I love the thought that the absence of electricity triggers the safety mechanism. Its the inverse of what one might expect. Elisha Otis patented it and created the "safety elevator". How might thinking about the inverse of something create a new product or business opportunity today?

Where's the garage?

Nice story about how the people at HP have restored the house and garage where the company was founded.

But where will the young European entrepreneurs of tomorrow go to do their startup? More and more people are living in smaller and smaller spaces. No room for hobbies, no room for experiments, no room for starting companies.

As I recently found out, even the smallest office in a central city location seems astronomically expensive and has all kinds of strings and limitations.

Is this one of the reasons that European innovation has to come from institutions not individuals?

A new career as a groqiteer?

The groquit allows you to scan all your stuff, so when you go shopping you can check and make sure you don't have whatever you are thinking of buying. Oh dear.

For $95 you can have a device and run around scanning your cds, dvds, books, etc etc and then see if there is a match for your barcode when you get ready to hand over your mastercard in the shop.

My problem with this is that the amount of effort to get all the data into the device isn't worth it. Its a solution looking for a problem. And in most civilised countries all you have to do once you realise you have purchased a duplicate is take it back. Most retailers are very cooperative that way. After all its no skin off their nose. The manufacturer usually pays.

So would I groquit? (rhymes with rocket apparently) Thanks, but even if I lose my job I can't imagine putting the effort in to scanning my collections. I'd rather rely on my fallible memory - and the good will of my favourite retailer.

Great marketing absorbs place and time

Over the weekend I went to an exhibition at Tate Britain of pictures by Peter Doig.

This is one example, called Blotter. Peter Doig says that "The title refers to (amongst other things) the notion of one's being absorbed into a place or landscape, and to the process through which the painting developed: soaking paint into the canvas."

It was a fascinating experience because the paintings evoked real nostalgia for Canada in me. Peter Doig was born in the UK, and spent significant time growing up in Canada. The paintings were mostly done while he was resident in the UK and some done in Trinidad where he now lives.

Blotter is fairly easy for anyone to deconstruct but most of his paintings do have enormous extra resonance for anyone who has lived in Central Canada. The subjects, the detail, the use of reflection on water all provoked  intense reactions from my wife and myself. I doubt that they will achieve the same effect for anyone who has not spent a lot of time there. It's that extra resonance that great marketing achieves and does evoke time and place. How about the iconic volkswagen print ads? The Apple 1984 TV ad? Everyone can relate to them, but they have an especially powerful effect on people who remember the original context.

How old is your airplane?

American Airlines apparently has jets with an average age of 18 years old. Now given that they get maintained and rebuilt a bunch of time during their career, does the age of your airplane matter?

An interesting coalition of groups including the Teamsters and the Business Travel Coalition, have a real bee in their bonnet about where aircraft are maintained. They don't seem to like the fact that it is being done in Korea. Now I understand that the Teamsters worry more about domestic jobs, but why would people who represent corporate travel departments care? After all, many of their companies are busy outsourcing large chunks of work to low cost environments.

We seem to have great difficulty understanding that  price does have an effect and that services do cost money. In this case, how much was paid for the ticket and how old is your airplane are related. I find this ironic - after all my corporate travel policy forces me to choose these carriers. They do so because the "discount" price they get off the "retail" fare means that I get to pay more as an individual when I fly so that the corporate travel folk can save money. But now they are surprised when the airlines do what they can to squeeze cost out of the equation so that they can offer "discounts" to "corporate customers".

But will it change our behaviour, let alone those of our corporate travel departments? Or in fact are we behaving like rational economic animals. After all, technical failure is only responsible for 20% of accidents and only 37.28% of accidents are commercial flights. 2007 was one of the safest years on record.

So if you are of nervous disposition - fly in Europe, fly on a jet. North America accounts for 32% of crashes. Hmm. Maybe the Teamsters have something after all.

Why Apple won't worry about iphone clones

Right now a lot of mobile phone companies are trying to design a competitor for iphone. So they are either looking at making it cheaper, faster, more features, bigger camera, bigger memory, bigger storage. Whatever. They might even make a better iphone.

They're missing the fact that they can't overcome Apple's position. OK, Apple might not have hit every feature right on the head when they launched the iphone, but competitors aren't going to be successful with incremental steps. That's because Apple has won the position in the minds of consumers for their phone. Not everyone will buy one, but everyone knows what it is. And they know that the future versions of iphone will contain the incremental steps. So most of them will buy another iphone, and convert more friends as well.

So what is the mobile phone company to do? Easy. Do what Apple did. Pick a consumer segment, meet and delight it, and you have something. Just one example - the way that the iphone screen flips from vertical to horizontal. Cool, practical, intuitive all in one. The little gizmo that is inside the iphone that does this has been available for some time. I remember getting pitched by the company that makes it. I thought it was cool but too expensive for the products we were thinking of making. I still think I was right, but I missed what the Apple team didn't. Combined with a touch screen, fast software and a good operating system it works like a dream. Apple probably weren't the first company to see the pitch. But they "got" it and made it core to the iphone.

So to be truly successful and gain a clear position, you have to have a great exploring technology mind combined with a clear focus on how to deliver to consumers. It doesn't get done by committees. It does get done by small teams with both great technology awareness and consumer focus. And that's not easy to do. The best their competitors can hope for is that Apple trips itself up. Or go and really think about what consumers want from technology.

Look Ma, no tip!

5 An intriguing new restaurant called Baggers has opened in Germany. You order your food using a touch screen, the order is picked up and cooked in the kitchen upstairs, then the food is automatically sent to your seat using technology.  The presenter makes a big deal about not having to leave a tip, even though on continental Europe it is not the custom to leave a tip.

What it doesn't show is how the mess left by the diners is cleared. The idea has novelty but does it have longetivity?

Perhaps a better example of how to innovate in the restaurant business is Benihana. The marketing for the chain calls it luxury dining. Well, if you haven't been, here is what happens. You arrive, and they stack you in in the bar until a full table has been assembled from arrivals. Then you get to share a table with a group of strangers. Benihana make it attractive by creating a show with a chef while your fast food is cooked and delivered across the griddle to your plate. Then once the show is over and you have your food, the chef cleans up and leaves. This helps to push you out the door so they can do it all over again. If the preceding paragraph makes you think me unduly negative, then try it for yourself. It is a great entertainment concept with a bit of easy to prepare, fast food attached, at premium prices.

My quibble is with the positioning. Just don't believe either of them when they tell you that they offer luxury dining. They are good entertainment experiences with food attached. Why mess with that?

Which brand gets burned by Olympic flame protests?

The last two days have seen protests in both the UK and France during the ceremonial passage of the Olympic Flame. But whose brand will get most affected?

The one the protesters hope for is the China brand. Will it be badly enough affected by negative publicity to change the way in which the world views the Beijing Olympics? Does any of this rub off on current sponsors of the Beijing Olympics.

But there are other brands at stake here as well. There's the London 2012 Olympics and the impact on potential sponsors. Right now there are just two of eight possible sponsors signed up with clothing and homeware, sportswear, airline, automotive, telecoms, and oil and gas still available. The two committed sponsors are EDF and Lloyds TSB.   

There's the British and French national brands which may be affected by their ability. Locally, the British police haven't come off too well. The friendly bobby reputation isn't helped by TV pictures of yellowjackets throwing people to the ground.

And what about the personal brand of Gordon Brown? Will his reputation for dithering be bolstered by his attitude towards Beijing? He greeted the torch in Fortress Downing Street, but refused to actually touch the torch, as pointed out by the TV commentary.

What does the Olympic flame stand for now? But haven't the protesters neglected history? The symbolic and memorable protests were the ones at the games by the participants. Jesse Owens walking away with a fistful of golds in the Aryan nation; black power salutes by American athletes in 1968. Who remembers that the torch relay was first instituted ahead of the 1936 Summer Games in Berlin by Hitler to bolster the links between Germany and Ancient Greece?

Trust and Baggage Handling

A post entitled "No One Trusts Bloggers" led me to think about how trust needs to be built over time.

I subscribe to technologyevangelist.com and, because I read the contents regularly, I have built trust in the author. I subscribe to Time, The Economist, The Week and MarketingSherpa. Now, none of these are perfect, and I don't always agree. I understand where they are coming from, and what the likely slant that they might take. Time gives me a great snapshot of mainstream opinion in America, while the Economist gives a better European slant.

Both trust and understanding are built over time. There isn't a short cut. And when trust is broken, as with Heathrow's T5, it will take a long time to overcome. One of the core promises for T5 was better baggage handling. In the long term that will probably be true. But the passengers who are inconvenienced by being separated from their bags and those whose flights are cancelled won't care. And I will do my utmost to avoid T5 and BA until they have proved they have it under control.