A 'release' rather than a 'launch'!

Trying to conjecture on what is behind this iPhone frenzy and what does it say about the future of marketing/promotion?

My feeling is that in categories with very high rate of innovation, the template for marketing increasingly follows that of film promotions, where you maximize returns in a short span through a sensational build-up of curiosity. Mr. Jobs introduced the trailer to iPhone 6 months back and since then with selective dissemination of information/rumor/trivia etc. the audience has been kept sufficiently appetized. Now, the off-take needs to be maximized before a Nokia or a Motorola introduces the next great thing in mobiles and therefore all the hype and the mega-event of the release.

Incidentally, films are also seeing an interesting phenomenon. A recent Economist study shows how the highest grosser these days are grossing much higher amounts in much shorter time compared to say 8-10 years ago. People do not remember the movie 3 years down the line but consistently the record for gross collection is getting broken in successive years.

According to Shekhar Kapur, the day is not far when a movie will be launched as an event on the net - say Steven Spielberg's next big movie will be available for a download between 12am and 3am on XYZ date against a payment of K dollars- which will reduce the distribution cost to zero, eliminate any loss due to piracy etc. and curiosity of the early adopter will ensure that people across the globe will get online and download it.

With the explosion of creativity in category after category, this phenomena is only going to get accentuated as a brand's ability to be the in-thing is only as long or short as the launch of the next innovation. And personal gadgets (Faith Popcorn calls them 'accessible luxury'), in particular, have become central definers of personal identity leading people to heightened levels of desperation to acquire them to live up to their self image of being with-it!

Brand Buildup!

The frenzy around the recent launches of the iPhone and Harry Potter book provide exciting ossibilities for brands. Personally, at one level, i cannot fathom what makes people queue up three days in advance to buy their piece of the phone or the book, but to each his own. I've queued up outside my son's school at 4am to get the admission form, waited in a stampedesque queue for 4 hours at Tirupati...

However, both iPhone and Harry Potter are aimed at the elite and if people at that level in the society can put themselves through so much to get their hands on the brand, it says something about the sources of personal identity.

It completely alters the hierarchy in the consumer-brand relationship--as marketers we are trained to earn our consumers but when the consumer has to earn the brand, one can only gape at the power of these ingenious marketers!

Some Research on Quali Research!

For the believers of quali research, it's been getting increasingly difficult (particulary in India) withdemanding respondent criteria from clients, shortage of genuine research talent and extremely suspect field work. The fact that most clients feel comfortable with the tangibility of numbers makes the task of convicing them about the validity of findings even more challenging. The proverbial 'searching under the lampost for keys not because you lost them their but because that where the light is' phenomena is inescapable in the research context.

Two relatively recent works propose a couple of interesting directions quali research could take. Firstly Doug Holt's How Brand Become Icons?, looks at the cultural role brand play and in the process some become symbols of their times in a society a la Beetle, Coke, Bud, Apple etc. The other very interesting work is by Dr. Clotaire Rapaille called the Culture Code and recommends a semiotic/psychoanalytic approach to uncovering the hidden codes and symbols at the heart of a category. Both these books put enormous emphasis on the societal/cultural aspects in which the brand or the category is rooted and going into lives of the consumers to uncover the meaninsg they attach to using these products.

Both these methods require very high level of skill and specialization and focus on going deeper rather than broader in terms of understanding a phenomena. Both the methods require talking to a select few respondents and going beyond the superficial or spontaneous responses.

Doug Holts recommends studying the societal conflicts that define a certain time period and peg the brand as a reconciliation of that conflict while Dr. Rapaille's methodology belives in going deeper into the lifescripts of consumers and getting them in touch with their earliest memories and associations with that brand/category.

Both are extremely compelling arguments that make enormous sense in explaining a lot of the complexity behind how people interact with brand s and why some become more successful than others. However, the execution of this kind of research (including interpretations) is complex and demands qualifications that very few quali researchers lay claim to.

However, I see it as the future of research as the easy gains that come in a high growth economy dwindle and brands would need to pull off something extraordinary in order to justify their premiums. It is agreat opportunity for research firms to decommoditize themselves and occupy a place that is as valued as any upstream consultant's.

The question is - how many are up to it?...afterall easy gains are easy gains for all and god is the enemy of great!

Being the Brand!

Can a corporation/a brand, in these complex and dynamic times with short managerial tenures realistically aim for long range strategic planning and 5-10 year objectives with roadmaps? Can they hope to get some where that is clearly articulated way down into the future or do they have to decide and be in that space from day one? Are great brand built as a result of getting somewhere or being someone?

I am deeply sceptical of long-term planning lead approaches...do we even know what course our life will take 3 months down the line (provided we are playing a dynamic game)....

The only approach for corporations would be to discover and articulate 'a way of being' for themselves that inspires them to be at their best. Lets look at a few illustrations of the way of being- Apple is being creative all the time across all its functions- whether it is designing a pc or launching a new product like ipod or conceptualizing its retail experience, TATA is about being responsible, Reliance is about being wealthcreating... the more consistently a corporation is being itself across all its activities (and communication is just the front end) the greater its chance of achieving true uniqueness...so now the question arises how does a brand discover its way of being! Can you look at the most powerful, iconic brands and distinguish a consistent way of being?

Watch out for more on this as this space unfolds...

The Halo Effect

It's been a while! Need to be more regular with this baby.

After a long time stumbled upon a great management book called the Halo Effect, which critically analyses the claims of scientific rigour and empirical evidence iconic management books like Built to Last and Good to Great make.

Personally, i have always felt the discomfort in the absoluteness with which these books dish out recipes for success. Built to Last was still important from the point of view of uncovering a blind spot in Corporate Brand Building and the significant role for a corporate ideology in it. However, in my opinion the findings and recommendations of G2G are motherhood at best and force-fits at worst.

The Halo Effect, for me has been another addition in a series of readings i have found useful over the last year or so starting from Mintzberg's Rise and fall of Strategic Planning to The Witch Doctors to a lot of writing from David Maister. These have all questioned the simplistic, formulaic management writing and emphasised the need for multiple perspectives and thinking on the feet.

As an advisor to companies, it has resonated with my idea of the role i need to play as not a person with answers but as a person with multiple perspectives and empathetic listening. We are there to act as mirrors to our clients and reflect back what is occurring from the outside as a result of their actions so that they can readjust their organizational functioning in line with what they wish to be seen as.

Unfortunately there is also a school which believes that clients are buying a consultant's conviction rather than advice...which leads to the salesman in them take over the advisor.

The Halo Effect is a must read for anyone wanting to know how little we know and how complex real-world management is for anyone to zero in on a magic pill for guaranteed success!