The Brainzooming Group

I wind up in many conversations with people who view themselves as strategic and expect to be more strategy-oriented in their jobs, but don’t feel as if they are.

What innovative things can you do if you find yourself in this situation? Here are four ideas:

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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Tony Vannicola started working in marketing soon after me early in both our careers. We quickly became friends, although unlikely ones, since there were stark contrasts between us:

• Tony was with the company in field sales and knew many people at headquarters; I knew no one.

• In sales, he was used to having lunches with others; as an introverted researcher, I ate cheese crackers at my desk.

When Tony arrived several months after me, he began dragging me to lunch. We usually ate with guys Tony knew from operations, the equivalent of “manufacturing” in our service company. The conversations frequently focused on how the company’s operations worked. By osmosis, I received a great schooling in the company’s inner workings, the fundamentals behind providing service, and the vital practices and metrics to driving profitability.

I’m not sure I realized it then, but Tony provided two important gifts for my career through those lunches. The first was the importance of fundamentally understanding how a company works and makes money. Many marketers view their companies superficially, focusing on classical marketing areas, leaving themselves ill-prepared to fully contribute. Absent these lunches, I might have fallen into this trap.

Secondly, the lunches reinforced the value of opening yourself up to learning by interacting with others. That’s still a challenge for me (I’ve reverted to eating at my desk again most days), but the value is clear as I’ve tried to actively increase my network and interactions with others in a whole variety of ways daily.

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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If you’re stuck with an uncreative attitude, exercise can be the perfect restart. Recently, I’d spent the entire day in our home office working on the computer – a sure thing to put me in a grumpy mood.

Before I’d started exercising, it would take quite some time to work through that mood.

Now, spending 30 or 40 minutes on the elliptical trainer triggers all those body chemicals that make me (or you) feel good.

Try it yourself to recharge your mental perspective and work off Thanksgiving dinner!

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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Someone forwarded a statement made by GE CEO Jeff Immelt at the Business for Social Responsibility Conference in early November 2008:

“The economic crisis that we’re going in right now doesn’t represent the cycle. It represents a reset. And I think people that understand that will prosper in the future, and people that don’t understand that will (I think) get left behind. The era of transparency, accountability for corporations, responsibility is profoundly different today versus where it was even six months ago . . . I think when we come out of this fog this notion that companies need to stand for something and need to be accountable for more than just the money that they earn is going to be profound.”

He went on to talk about people being afraid and the importance of leaders to help shape fear into self-confidence.

Very true words.

So what do you do to get through the reset as strongly and innovatively as possible? Three suggestions:

1. Although some things have diverted from the expected path, determine what important fundamentals are still in place from which to move forward.

2. Imagine the range of relevant possibilities that may yet unfold. Amid what may be presented as tremendous uncertainty, look for common elements among the possibilities. Figure out actions you can take that make sense irrespective of which scenario plays out.

3. Identify what everyone else is doing in reaction to short-term swings and irrelevant possibilities. Then dig deep (maybe pray hard) for the fortitude, wherewithal, and mental composure to move forward relative to the long-line with your sights focused beyond the “fog.”

That’s my strategy.

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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To wrap the week, here are some quotes and notes from the marcus evans Customer Segmentation conference last week:

• “If you could say it in words, there’d be no reason to paint.” – American artist Edward Hopper from an airport billboard at arrival
• “If I’d asked people what they wanted, they’d have said ‘faster horses.’” – Henry Ford from Sheryl Connelly’s consumer trend presentation

Several quotes from “Connecting What You Value to What You Do” presented by Kevin Clark, Brand & Value Experience at IBM:

• “FUMIFU – First Use Must Inspire Future Use TM” Polyvision Products, a Steelecase Company
• “You can tell you have good scenarios when they are both plausible and surprising; when they have the power to break old stereotypes; and when the makers assume ownership of them and put them to work. Scenario making is intensely participatory, or it fails.” – from Peter Schwartz’s book, “The Art of the Long View” , which both Kevin and Sheryl recommended
• “People forget what you say, forget what you did, but never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou

That’s a wrap for the conference recap. It was great to meet everyone there and thanks to Ana Bardelas for producing a great event and making everybody attending feel very welcome!

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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Today’s post from last week’s marcus evans Customer Segmentation Conference highlights fundamental market trends, described by Sheryl Connelly from Ford as “manifestations of shifts in consumer values, attitudes, or behaviors.”

Michael Marx, VP of Research Services from Visa, began the conference covering how lifestyle insights create greater business initiative success. Among the intriguing macro trends he shared:

• Baby Boomers generally see themselves as 12 years younger than they are as people in their early 60’s view themselves as being in their late 40’s. Their consumption patterns thus resemble those of younger people as they display a willingness to change brand preferences in ways that previous generations wouldn’t have.
• The “Monopoly Board” generational pattern has been altered dramatically. No longer do specific life events happen in similar sequences and within fairly narrow age ranges for most people. Ethnic, lifestyle, and life stage diversification has caused people to not only do things non-sequentially (i.e., having children before marriage), but at different stages (i.e., the prevalence of second families starting at much older ages).

Sheryl Connelly, Global Trends and Futuring Manager at Ford Motor Company served as the conference chair and related her perspectives in trying to help Ford make a comeback, in part, by adopting an outside-in strategic approach. Some of the trends Sheryl highlighted were:

• The aging population – recognizing this trend is playing out differently in different country markets
• Changing physiology worldwide – with larger people (weight and height) in much of the world
• Demands for customization and the means to deliver it – a recurring topic at the conference
• Increased desire for safety and security – people seeking greater reassurance amid a sense of greater uncertainty in society
• Ethical consumption – increasing concerns over purchases and the impact of consumption. Sheryl sees this as the most important trend she’s tracking.

A key take away is that demographic-based trends can be foreseen and planned for more readily than other types of trends.

Additionally, Sheryl offered a key question that’s an interesting one in strategic efforts: “What are things we can’t control that can affect our brand?” It’s a challenging question but one that’s worthwhile for all of us to address in our business situations.

Tomorrow, we’ll recap customization-oriented presentations from the conference.

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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With many great strategy and branding insights at the marcus evans Customer Segmentation Conference last week, we’ll take several days to recap them. Brand building lessons abound, even if you’re not in a brand’s traditional target market. Two great examples were featured at the conference: Food Network and Bliss Spas. Both address customer segmentation and its branding impacts.

The Food Network

Michael Smith, Senior VP – Marketing, Creative & Brand Strategy from Food Network covered its dramatic 10-year growth (from 42nd ranked to 19th ranked network) driven by segmenting a niche market and programming to reach non-traditional viewers. Its initial target was gourmands. While an attractive audience, it didn’t offer particularly attractive growth.

Following several customer segmentation efforts, the network saw opportunities to broaden its audience through other segments:

• “Pressed for Timers” wanted quick recipes and meal prep solutions
• “Adventurers” combined food and lifestyle interests seeking entertainment, escape, and discovery

This customer segmentation helped create day part-based sub-brands addressing these needs. “In the Kitchen” became the daytime sub-brand, with learning-oriented programs delivering meal solutions. “Nighttime” programming links food to travel, history, and reality TV styled competitions. Hosts cross both sub-brands to link the network’s programming.

Bliss Spa

The Bliss Spa case study was presented by Kerry O’Day, its Marketing & Publissity Director. The Bliss Spa story is a great example of tying all customer experience points to the brand’s foundation to maximize branding impacts. With a vision of making people’s lives more relaxed, fun, and less stressful, the brand’s personality embodies being:

• “Tongue in chic” (to make people smile)
• A spa-thority (using its credibility as a spa service provider to extend into products)
• A place for “You Time” (playing on the emotional benefits of its services and products for target consumers)

The Bliss brand, with limited dollars, was originally built on public relations and unconventional marketing. Even with more dollars now, its unconventional approach is an integral part of Bliss. One example? The spas serve small brownie bites – an indulgence that doesn’t feel that way since they’re so tiny! Bliss turned the challenge of finding local bakers into a contest, creating customer participation in brownie selection and driving website activity.

Three Take-Aways on Customer Segmentation and Branding Impacts

• Michael Smith said successfully identifying and implementing segmentation is as much art as science. While Food Network did a lot of segmentation work, creating the specific sub-brands and programs came down to making solid, insight-filled business decisions and accepting risk.
• I love brands where everything comes from a strategic foundation (Southwest Airlines is a favorite example). Given it’s still growing, Bliss accomplishes this through continuity in people around at its start, hiring people fitting its brand personality, and doing creative in-house. It will be fun to watch how its brand continuity plays out amid future growth.
• There’s always value in guerrilla marketing (or as Bliss would probably call it, “Girlrilla” Marketing). Check out this link for questions to help enhance your list of guerrilla marketing tools. - Mike Brown

The Brainzooming Group helps make smart organizations more successful by rapidly expanding their strategic options and creating innovative plans they can efficiently implement. We draw on our varied strategy experience in defining new brands, jump starting lagging ones, and  rehabilitating battered brands. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we can help you enhance your strategy and implementation efforts.

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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