FRANKthoughts

Isn’t it funny the reason people criticize because deep down, they really care. If they didn’t care, why would they bother?

The same applies to your Brand.

There will always be customers who complain that the service is too slow, staff are not friendly, it’s over priced, etc. They criticize because they believe your brand can be better.  They want you to succeed. They want you to be a better brand so they can engage with you.  Perhaps fostering a positive relationship.

So don’t dismiss critics and complainers. If you can listen to them and address their concerns, you may be able to switch them to powerful advocates for your brand. A great story for them to tell their friends.

The FRANk team is totally amazed by this superb work from The Hallway & Happy soldiers, Sydney based agencies for online travel goru Zuji. Starting with the concept: “We want people to take more holidays”, They decided that instead of just advertsing/shouting they can help people save for these extra holidays. Clever user centric idea, excellent execution and a brave client make this piece of work much more than advertising.

No more words are needed. just click play and enjoy:

 A thought of the day:

Influencers broadcast and advocate a brand or product to their friends and peers. It happens at home, it happens at work, and it happens online. They have an active role in influencing your customers in purchasing your product.

Influencers are typically hungry for information… more so than your average joe. They seek the latest news, to be first in the know, and consume information continuously. They also enjoy sharing this information… proudly in social gatherings, emails, blogs, among peers…. they are great story tellers of your brand or product.

So, there must be a need to feed the influencer’s hunger. Why not give them a story to tell through content (eg. blog or video) and experiences (eg. online and in-store). Help them share their stories with utilities and tools (eg. social media and mobile).

1. Because your website is a marketing tool. Many think that building a website means people will visit it. The truth is that a website is like a store. You still need to advertise the fact that you have one. So the best way to start building a website is planning. Not only where the buttons go or which information we need. We want to find out how we can differentiate from our competitors, give our customers what they want and keep them coming back. Think about it this way: A website without a strategy is like a building without an architect.
2. Because a website is not enough anymore. The internet has grown a lot in the last 3 years and today we know that having one touch point online is not enough. There are many things you can do online and your strategy should have a mix of them. This can give you a few touch points on the first page of google and will make sure you’re catering for first time visitors as well as people who already know you.
3. Because your audience is not the same. Today’s audience is savvy, time poor and used to advertising. And if attention is the new currency we need to make sure people will pay attention to our offering. Another flash website won’t do it. How about regularly updated content or some sort of community or social game? These are things we need to think about before the website functionality.
4. Because of money, time and your goals. There is no point building a website for $30,000 and then find out it’s not achieving your goals. The first thing we need to do is to come up with a plan that will save you money and get you to where you want to be.
5. Because its not done when it’s done. Building a website is only the beginning. How will you market it? Who will contribute to it? How will people engage with it? How easy it is to change? Will it be out of date in 2 years? There is no point building a website until you can answer these questions.

I usually wonder about the future of the web and yesterday I stumbled upon this little nugget that got my brain juices flowing (thanks Techcrunch). Weblin is a service that lets you have an avatar online, traveling with you to every page. You’ll be able to chat to other people that are currently on the same site making your websurfing a social experience. The service also has a currency called “Kala” and I guess that soon enough people will start using it to buy virtual goods or even paying for real services. These kind of browser platforms are opening a whole new area of interaction online. Few questions that came in mind: How can this help with your online transactions? (talking to your banker avatar when you’re searching for a mortgage), How can this be used as an internal tool? (your employees can communicate & collaborate when they’re online), a branding tool? (branded avatars surfing the web?) and what will be the future of currency when every platform has it’s own? (Where can you get the Kala/Linden exchange rate?).

You only have to look at the phenomenal success of social communities and the booming of gaming, animation and virtual worlds to realize this isn’t just a game. For more similar services visit Techcrunch.

Real estate agents top the list of sleep-deprived professionals.

Property dealers manage to sleep just five hours and 50 minutes a night, according to a survey of 4000 workers commissioned by the budget hotel chain Travelodge.

Truck and taxi drivers, hit by soaring fuel prices, sleep just six hours and 16 minutes a night, ahead of bankers, who average six hours and 23 minutes of shut eye.

The poll found media professionals get the most sleep - seven hours and 12 minutes.

Source: http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23948663-5012749,00.html

We had a recent debate internally about the role of Web2.0 (such as communities, social networks, blogs, etc) for clients. Who is doing it? Who is leading clients to do this? The media agency? The creative agency? The PR agency? The comms strategy agency? Each in itself is limited to effectively review, recommend, implement, and most importantly, maintain a Web2.0 strategy. A constant Beta evolving creature, it is often neglected because of it’s complexity. A well implemented Web2.0 strategy does not have an “end campaign life” and sometimes have slow initial build up (communities) which makes it tough to integrate into a standard campaign brief with traditional media.

A quick review of the 2007 Top 50 advertisers in Australia (a very rough snapshot and does not include all advertisers), we can see Interruption vs Web2.0 strategies at work. Adapting S&P’s Brand Presence Matrix, the Vertical is Traditional “Interruption” SOV and the Horizontal is Web2.0 “Conversational”.

About 90% of the Top 50 advertisers in Australia still play in creating large SOV through traditional interruption model. TVs, Radio, Outdoor, Banners, Press, etc. Jostling for the best spot approach. We called the top left quadrant Visible Brands. There also exist Invisible Brands such as Caltex and Toshiba who we are familiar with but are quiet in the advertising space. Perhaps the most desirable place to exist is in the Magnetic Brands space. Where big ad $$ are still being spent but they are also heavily active in the Conversational space. In Australia, we have seen limited use with more “novelty” approach of temporary communities that dissipate at the end of a campaign.

The most intriguing are Remarkable brands who spend little or no ad $$ but are active in communities. They command great brand advocates and hear of positive WOM from their users. Admittedly, I struggled to come up with local brands in Australia that play in this space… which is a pity and also demonstrates the market’s lack of ability to develop Web2.0 strategies. I believe the greatest reason is the lack of an acceptable model by agencies and marketers to adapt into existing ad “interruption” models. The increasing fragmentation, rising cost, and the trend of decreasing returns of traditional media will force a greater reliance on Web2.0 strategies.

After attending PubCamp Melbourne I was thinking about business models and how they will change. Yes, we always had advertising and subscription based models (These were covered at Pubcamp in length) but what else is out there? Well there is the “Pay what you like model” and the “invest in something model” or the “Micro payment model“.

Now here is a bit of a mystery. Carrotmob - something that started as a non-profit now has a business model. Watch the video to see what Carrotmob is about and see if you can guess how this can be monetised:

I was running this workshop last week at the User Centric web2.0 conference.

It was a great opportunity to check the 2.0 pulse and I’m happy to say we have a live one.

Here’s the workshop (adapted to Slideshare):

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