MyToys.de:::Three dimensional QR codes

MyToys.de is one of Germany’s largest online toy stores. It wanted to promote Lego, one of the company’s leading products and drive people online to the Lego section of the website.

MyToys.de created an interactive outdoor campaign that incorporated the playful elements of Lego. The campaign created three dimensional QR Codes using real Lego bricks. Passers by could take a picture of the QR code with their mobile phone which would be decoded into a message revealing a suggested imaginative constructions that could be built with the Lego bricks that made up the code. There was also a link to the MyToys.de site with an option to buy the corresponding brick set.

Some 49% of all online visitors to the Lego section of MyToys were achieved through the campaign, with the Lego brick boxes outselling the non-advertisers Lego by 100%.

BRAND:MyToys.de

BRAND OWNER :MyToys.de

CATEGORY:Retail

REGION:Germany

DATE:2009

Agency:Lukas Lindemann Rosinski

MEDIA CHANNEL

Five ways to manage customer loyalty

Managers are typically taught to things that can be easily quantified and reported on a balance sheet. Stop for a moment to answer this fundamental question: "What is the purpose of any business?” On the face of it, this question seems pretty easy to answer. Most managers would answer: "To make a profit."

But that's the wrong answer. Profits are an outcome. They only tell us if our business strategy and execution are viable.

Peter Drucker, widely considered the father of modern management, argued that the common belief that creating profits was purpose of a business was not only wrong, but harmful. It causes us to make bad business decisions and lose sight of those things that delight customers. He summed up the actual purpose of business this way: "There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer."

The mark of success for a firm, and therefore the ultimate objective of its strategy, is to satisfy customer needs and wants at a sustainable profit. Whatever strategy and tactics we employ to gain competitive advantage must ultimately be based upon our profitably providing a better solution for customers.

Managing Customers as Assets

Customers are the ultimate asset for all profit-making organizations. They provide all of a company's real value. Paradoxically, customers are one of the few aspects of a business that are not managed as an investment. This oversight negatively impacts profits in multiple ways, including inefficient resource allocation (via suboptimal company-customer interactions); product design and launch failures (via poor fit with customer needs); and unstable cash flows (via increased customer defections and price sensitivity).

Therefore, if customers are the primary asset, the ultimate aim of any business strategy should be to maximize the net present value (NPV) of customers to the firm. While on its face such a statement may seem academic, this is much more than a theoretical maxim. Researchers consistently find firms that adopt a customer lifetime value framework for customer selection and resource allocation strategy significantly outperform their competitors in profits and shareholder value.

But this doesn't just happen. It requires the successful integration of all areas of management -- accounting, finance, marketing, operations, and human resources -- in profitably addressing the needs of customers. Below is a good place for us to begin.

Accounting. Analyze the profitability of your customers. Research conducted by the Harvard Business School finds that most customers for most firms do not produce an acceptable rate of return (i.e., they are not profitable). In fact, for most companies, the top 20 percent of customers in terms of profitability produce all of a company's profits, the middle 60 percent break even, and the bottom 20 percent lose the company money. Paradoxically, revenue is a terrible predictor of customer profitability. The highest revenue customers tend to be the most profitable or the least profitable.

Managers need this information to effectively run their businesses. They need to know who their profitable customers are and what behaviors are associated with profitability.

Finance. Incorporate customer metrics in your financial models when making investment decisions. When prioritizing investment decisions, pay attention to the projected impact on the future value of customers to the business. Analysts cannot consistently beat (or even meet) the market -- in the language of finance, they don't add alpha. Research finds that this is because intangibles that reflect the strength of the company-customer relationship are excluded.

For example, analysts are generally skeptical of the impact that customer satisfaction has on a company's market value. Analysts tend to view customer satisfaction information as "soft" data because they don't understand how satisfaction data links to a company's bottom line. Because it is intangible, they frequently regard it as a money drain.

Our own research found that incorporating customer satisfaction into standard models used in investment finance significantly improved the ability to pick winners versus losers. And the winners dramatically outperformed the market by 2 to 1.

Marketing. Put more focus on current customers. Marketing activity has largely focused on persuasion -- the ability of the company to change someone's attitudes or behavior. And while that is a critical role of marketing, too often this gets translated into simply persuading someone to try something for the first time. An old saying goes, "A good salesman can sell anything once. The trick is getting them to buy again."

But it is not as simple as focusing on customer retention either (i.e., getting them to come back). Today, customers buy competing products from multiple companies with seemingly no real loyalty. In other words, customers divide their wallets among competitors.

Consequently, one of the most important elements in improving financial performance is getting customers to allocate a larger share of their wallets to the firm. A McKinsey study found that focusing on share of wallet had a 10 times greater impact than focusing on retention alone. Research demonstrates that the strongest driver of share of wallet is customer loyalty.

Therefore, the primary goal of marketing must be the creation of loyal, long-term customers out of first-time or occasional buyers. Accomplishing this requires a clear understanding of what makes customers want to be loyal. Gathering and understanding customer needs is the job of marketing.

Operations. Make certain that company-defined quality and customer-perceived quality are aligned. Because operations are often focused on the creation and distribution of products and services, there is a natural tendency for managers to focus on meeting technical specifications.

While the quality movement of the 1980s has done a great deal to establish standards of technical excellence, we have a long way to go to achieve user-defined excellence. It matters little if a firm is meeting its internal guidelines if these are disconnected from the customer.

We must always remember that the customer did not design the process, and they don't care that the system we have designed makes our lives easier. It needs to make customers' lives easier. So when designing and implementing any process, we need to experience the offering as customers do (i.e., shop our own stores).

Human Resources. Establish a climate for service in the organization. By service climate, we mean the procedures and behaviors that get rewarded and supported within the company with regard to customer service. Research consistently demonstrates that service climate is positively linked with lower turnover, higher customer satisfaction, and improved financial performance.

While we all pay lip service to the importance of employees in serving customers, too often we manage in terms of their operational productivity at the exclusion of all else. How many employee evaluations actually include customer metrics as part of the formal criteria? The reality is that most employees are rewarded for completing tasks. Few, however, are rewarded for making customers happy.

A Holistic Strategy

Too often we as managers think about strategy in terms of our own functional area: marketing strategy, operations strategy, finance strategy, etc. But each of these strategies should exist as part of a holistic company strategy. A winning strategy focuses everyone in the organization to come together for one cause: to profitably create and keep a customer.

Timothy Keiningham is a world-renowned authority in the field of loyalty measurement and management, and Global Chief Strategy Officer and Executive Vice President for Ipsos Loyalty, one of the world’s largest business research organizations.

Lerzan Aksoy is an acclaimed expert in the science of loyal management, and Associate Professor of Marketing at Fordham University. They are coauthors of a new book, with Luke Williams, entitled Why Loyalty Matters and creators of LoyaltyAdvisor, a web-based tool that analyzes your loyalty across multiple dimensions proven to link to your success. LoyaltyAdvisor is the product of a global effort, the most comprehensive study of loyalty ever conducted.

Consumer Power

The Cola Bull

Wherever you go, the name of the game is known in the cola world, Coke vs Pepsi.

Except the USA market, the market share difference is amazingly spacious in most of the world markets where the major 2 players are present.

For example, in Lebanon, Pepsi dominates 75% of the market while Coca-Cola barely manage to get the leftover of 25%, without forgetting about the many players that entered and left the market and with no extra harassment to the big guys, left without making much noises, while some others are still there and gaining market shares in remote locations where brands does not mean anything to the consumer.

2 side players made it to the Lebanese market. Virgin Cola was there in 2003/2004, I still remember the big dreams of the importer while meeting him over a job interview, he wanted to beat both big brothers and be #1 in no time, unfortunately, without knowing any specific reason, the whole brand evaporated from the Lebanese market.

Another player came back in 2008 after exiting the market for so many years, its RC-Cola (check my previous 2 postings about this : http://tr.im/rLFB and http://tr.im/rLFX), but contrary to Virgin guys, RC-Cola is distributed thru the correct channels along with other drink products, mainly juices.

Now back to the bigger part the game, unlimited number of companies and retailers tried to launch their Cola brands but no one really was to reach close to the global volumes of Coca-Cola and Pepsi. (wikipedia list of cola brands worldwide)
And while all these small players were trying their luck in this hard to compete industry, the big boys never stopped being so creative on their packaging (Pepsi new logo launched in October 2008 and the non-stopattractive Coca-Cola cans).

Then came the Red Bull Cola which i will call the Cola-Bull, exactly like the stock market, it will take the cola market to new heights while riding the bull.

Red Bull Simply Cola also has slightly more caffeine, at 45 milligrams per 355ml (12-ounce) can, than Coca-Cola (34 mg) or Pepsi-Cola (37.5 mg), but less than Diet Coke (47 mg) or Pepsi One (54 mg) or Mountain Dew (54 mg). The cola contains significantly less caffeine than Red Bull’s eponymous energy drink (80 mg per 8.2 ounces). It also lacks the artificial flavors, colors, and phosphoric acid commonly used in commercial colas. Red Bull Cola is packed in 250 ml (8.4 fl. oz.) and 355 ml (12 fl. oz.) cans.

As of 2008, Red Bull Simply Cola is available in Austria, Czech Republic, Egypt, Switzerland, Spain, Poland, Germany, Bulgaria, Belgium, Italy, United Kingdom, Ireland, Thailand, Romania, Hungary, Russia, Canada and the United States.

Why do I believe that Red Bull Cola will make it?

Red Bull when first launched its energy drink, proved to the whole world that a company can make it simply by having one simple product with full focus and dedication, and it positioned itself in both retail and horeca (hotels-restaurants-catering) sectors, and without any hesitation it went beyond all expectations on shelves and in night-life mode without giving a slight chance for both Burn and AMP, the energy drinks respectively coming from Coca-Cola and Pepsi.

Today Red Bull is everywhere, and has its own displays in every single retail outlet and night club across the globe, they give away thousands of fridges every year, let their branded cars run all day long on the streets, they throw millions of free cans in schools, sponsor extreme sport events and do whatever it takes to be number one.

Of course, like the Cola war, thousands of energy drink brands saw the light, some of them made it thru tiny channels some of them just died the next morning.

Having said the above, it is not gonna be hard for Red Bull to position its new Cola with an excellent visibility when it comes to retail stores, and the same technique will be applied to night clubs, where they own their fridges. An easy game for them, while the big guys will be thinking how to stop this invasion of Red Bull in the cola world and maybe even going beyond that and try to hit hard on the energy drink side in order to make them lose focus.

UPS:::'free movement'

UPS isn’t a brand one would immediately associate with the glitz and glamour of the fashion world. But, without the world’s largest package delivery company, there would be no garments for fashionistas to ogle on the catwalks.

Deciding to make more of this link, UPS sponsored a design contest at the Royal College of Art challenging up-and-coming designers to best represent the UPS brand, its culture and heritage along with the concept of 'free movement'.

The winning design – a man’s knee length jacket that could be transformed into a skirt - focused on alleviating problems faced by the urban traveller. Its multitude of zips allowed for easy item storage and judges praised the garment for its quality and flexibility -

both core elements of UPS’s brand identity. All shortlisted designs were hosted at a dedicated site www.upsalamode.com.

The RCA design competition follows successful fashion partnerships undertaken by UPS in Belgium, China, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and the US. By supporting young designers, UPS hopes to reflect the company’s commitment to serve the fashion, textile and luxury industry.

BRAND:UPS

CATEGORY:Corporate

REGION:UK

DATE:Jan 2009 - Jul 2009

Agency: Edelman

MEDIA CHANNEL

Orange:::Give and you will receive

Orange wanted to encourage young people to give back to their community. Having teamed up with pro-social production company Rockcorps in 2008, it wanted to continue the partnership for 2009 but this time in collaboration with Sony Ericsson and Channel 4. Young people are again being encouraged to volunteer in community-based projects in return for concert tickets.

To get a feel for young people’s attitudes towards volunteering, Orange conducted a ‘Society Matters’ survey, via the top student website and the RockCorps site. 1,547 16-24 year olds responded providing Orange with valuable data with which to plan this year's campaign.

In return for doing 4 hours of voluntary work, participants will be rewarded with free tickets to see pop sensation Lady Gaga and N-Dubz. As an extra incentive to young people to get involved, the celebrities will also be participating in the projects.

The voluntary events, including the creation of a woodland retreat for residents of Tower Hamlets in London and regeneration projects around Moss Side in Manchester, will be broadcast on Channel 4 as part of its T4 summer schedule. After the London and Manchester concerts the RockCorps campaign will be rolled out to Paris.

Overall eight thousand Britons and five thousand Parisians will take part in up to 150 charity projects over the summer. Last year volunteers worked 20,000 hours at 55 projects, helping 41 charity partners. 96 percent of those who took part last year intend to volunteer on an Orange RockCorps project again, and 57 percent said they would volunteer for their local community without the incentive of a ticket.

BRAND:Orange

BRAND OWNER:France Telecom

CATEGORY:Telecoms/ Mobile

REGION:UK

DATE:May 2009 - Dec 2009

Agency:Fallon

MEDIA CHANNEL

Sony's cross-division Blu-ray marketing strategy

Sony UK is working on promoting Blu-ray, the optical disc format expected to replace DVD, by combining marketing of its TVs and Blu-ray players with upcoming film releases on Blu-ray.

The consumer electronics company will tie up with content coming from the Sony Pictures content arm.

Carl Pring, Sony's head of brand and advertising, said Sony would run Blu-ray campaigns towards the end of the year to coincide with the release of major films Terminator Salvation and Angels & Demons.

‘What you will start to see is campaigns across the various companies. We can tell consumers about the greater thrills and excitement they will see with Blu-ray releases on our Blu-ray products.'

Pring said the Blu-ray push would be the ‘first of many spanning different Sony divisions'.

Yellow Pages - Live Search Category Demonstrations

Agency: SAA/Y&R Tel Aviv

print:

THE UK'S TOP MARKETING WEBLOGS

UK	Global
1 (5)	36 (14)	Blogstorm
2 (3)	37 (7)	David Airey
3 (-1)	43 (-5)	Econsultancy's Internet Marketing Blog
4 (-1)	48 (-8)	russell davies
5 (-1)	66 (-23)	NevilleHobson.com
6 (-5)	77 (-48)	Chris Garrett on New Media
7 (2)	101 (7)	SEOptimise
8 (-1)	104 (-13)	Crenk
9 (-1)	110 (-16)	FreshNetworks Blog
10 (0)	122 (3)	Nick Burcher
11 (NEW)	123 (NEW)	We Are Social
12 (4)	132 (41)	Only Dead Fish
13 (12)	148 (67)	Crackunit
14 (8)	156 (41)	FeverBee
15 (3)	176 (12)	Rubbishcorp
16 (12)	181 (50)	Welcome to Optimism
17 (14)	183 (89)	Collective Conversation
18 (31)	186 (225)	London Calling
19 (-4)	189 (-25)	Social Media Trader
20 (-7)	191 (-41)	This Is HERD
21 (0)	202 (-6)	SEOCO Blog
22 (1)	228 (-23)	Event Manager Blog
23 (16)	234 (111)	SEOgadget.co.uk
24 (3)	236 (-8)	A PR Guy's Musings
25 (-5)	238 (-47)	UK Affiliate Marketing Blog
26 (4)	239 (32)	HERD
27 (-16)	240 (-101)	PR Blogger
28 (-14)	245 (-93)	adliterate
29 (-3)	248 (-26)	Blendingthemix
30 (-13)	262 (-76)	Interactive Marketing Trends
31 (14)	284 (93)	PR Media Blog
32 (-8)	288 (-77)	The Engaging Brand
33 (2)	296 (25)	Faster Future
34 (16)	299 (117)	The Way of the Web
35 (9)	307 (68)	Andrew R H Girdwood
36 (-4)	310 (-20)	50-Plus Marketing
37 (6)	320 (51)	Apple Pie & Custard
38 (-4)	327 (-8)	Drew B's take on tech PR
39 (-6)	333 (-29)	Modern Marketing
40 (-40)	334 (-334)	Feeding the Puppy
41 (7)	342 (59)	Life Moves Pretty Fast
42 (-4)	343 (-1)	UK Internet Marketing Blog
43 (-7)	361 (-38)	Mediaczar
44 (33)	362 (281)	Rock Star PR
45 (21)	371 (177)	further and faster
46 (6)	373 (50)	Hobo UK SEO Company Blog
47 (23)	383 (192)	Fraser's Affiliate Marketing Blog
48 (3)	395 (22)	livingbrands
49 (-12)	404 (-64)	Spinning Around
50 (-8)	407 (-39)	Make Marketing History
51 (-11)	416 (-70)	renaissance chambara
52 (3)	442 (-5)	Liberate Media blog
53 (4)	443 (24)	Sturgeon's Law
54 (-35)	445 (-255)	Technobabble 2.0
55 (42)	478 (291)	Curiously Persistent
56 (3)	480 (-8)	never get out of the boat
57 (-28)	489 (-236)	That Canadian Girl
58 (9)	517 (48)	The Ad Pit
59 (1)	522 (-21)	PPC Blog
60 (-7)	524 (-95)	Brendan Cooper
61 (13)	559 (49)	General Marketing Blog
62 (-4)	562 (-94)	Simon Wakeman
63 (6)	563 (11)	Beyond PR
64 (-64)	570 (-570)	LitmanLive
65 (21)	584 (113)	mediations
66 (24)	587 (128)	25 letters in the alphabet
67 (-3)	595 (-57)	Simonsays
68 (-68)	597 (-597)	Tamar Search Blog
69 (-6)	598 (-67)	Wadds' tech pr blog
70 (11)	612 (48)	Indolent.com
71 (16)	617 (81)	Digital Examples
72 (-72)	618 (-618)	Internet Marketing Made Easy
73 (-1)	621 (-38)	10 Yetis PR Blog
74 (-20)	633 (-200)	greenormal
75 (-10)	649 (-109)	The Web Pitch.com
76 (-3)	652 (-56)	Confessions of a Wannabe Ad Man
77 (6)	664 (11)	Brandgym Blog
78 (35)	671 (249)	Creative in London
79 (0)	680 (-31)	Nicola Davies
80 (-18)	685 (-160)	Real Fresh TV
81 (-13)	687 (-119)	Measurement Matters
82 (2)	692 (-14)	middledigit
83 (-83)	694 (-694)	AdGrads
84 (-37)	699 (-299)	The Renegade Agency Confessional
85 (-3)	705 (-42)	The Rosemont Loving
86 (-15)	706 (-128)	From PR to Eternity
87 (-31)	713 (-268)	Shiny Red
88 (0)	719 (-18)	Organic Frog
89 (-9)	746 (-87)	PR Voice
90 (6)	755 (9)	The New Marketing
91 (1)	756 (-19)	Raw Stylus
92 (-14)	764 (-117)	Digital Marketing Viewpoint from Cheeze
93 (-18)	777 (-162)	(Almost) Always Thinking
94 (13)	780 (76)	CarbonGraffiti
95 (-2)	783 (-43)	Ginger and Proud
96 (-5)	789 (-56)	Freshen me up
97 (3)	816 (-6)	Vincent Thome's Blog
98 (0)	817 (-31)	Nitmesh
99 (3)	844 (-26)	[Bluurb] stuff and things
100 (3)	846 (-26)	Norton's Notes
101 (-2)	853 (-58)	Unleashed on Marketing
102 (3)	859 (-7)	One Size Fits One
103 (-8)	860 (-97)	Living in a digital world
104 (2)	877 (-24)	Buzz Attitude
105 (NEW)	881 (NEW)	The Open Agenda
106 (-2)	897 (-58)	A Mountain Dweller in the Thames Valley
107 (1)	911 (-49)	All Things PR
108 (1)	920 (-46)	Engage: the Carve Consulting blog
109 (2)	921 (-31)	DaveChaffey.com
110 (0)	926 (-47)	The Red Rocket
111 (1)	958 (-61)	noticing
112 (4)	966 (-22)	Punch Blog
113 (2)	981 (-40)	In the Cowshed
114 (3)	1000 (-40)	PRwordSmith
115 (3)	1021 (-48)	From the Cowshed
116 (3)	1023 (-48)	Offer and Acceptance

For those who may be interested, this chart is based on the AdAge Power 150,