Brand MangeCamp 2013

Notes on “Grow the Core” talk by David Taylor

Written up by Cristina de la Cierva

·         The common belief is that the best way to grow business is to expand into new markets.  That said, top performing companies achieve superior results through the more profitable and less risky path of growing their existing position in their core business (i.e. When Howard Shultz came back to Starbucks and refocused the company on its heritage and expertise in coffee, the stock grew 400%). 

·         Examples of brands that have followed the “innovate or die” mantra and forgotten about what made them famous in the first place include Land Rover when they expanded into coffee, Cosmopolitan magazine when it expanded into yogurt and Bausch & Lomb when it expanded into toothbrushes.  In Bausch’s case, competition came in and attacked its core when it diverted its attention to new products and its share position in contacts fell from #1 to #3.

·         Over time, you can refresh your Core to maintain consumer relevancy but its important to maintain consistent brand properties.  An example is the Bond movie franchise, which released 25 editions over 50 years.  Since the 60’s, the brand properties of cars, girls, music and 007 Bond have stayed the same but these elements have been refreshed with new actors, new models of cars, and new singers of the theme song, etc.

·         Another way to refresh your Core over time is through premiumization.   This can include new packaging (i.e. Heinz and upside down squeezable bottle) and Gillette razors (i.e. newer version of the product launched over time with improvements that demand a price increase)

·         One of the most classic examples of a brand staying true to its Core is Burberry with its trench coat.  This product guides every decision that the company makes.

·         Thinking about our own clients, CVS has an opportunity to really own its Core pharmacy business and steal share from Walgreens as they look to expand their front store services with beauty bars, sushi bars, etc.

Real Life Shark Tank

Many of my friends and I have been hooked by a reality show called Shark Tank, in which budding entrepreneurs pitch their business ideas to a panel of seasoned business people including Mark Cuban and Barbara Corcoran and see if any of them will bite. A particularly interesting panel from today’s event was a real life, real time version of that exact program up on stage. 

Four startups, each in relatively different industries, had five minutes to pitch their ideas and general business model in front of a panel of four venture capital investors who ultimately crowned a winner. The businesses included a web tool that helped users identify and turn off any cookies they have on the web, a website that helped customers order online delivery from restaurants and food trucks, a company that helped build paywalls that were dismantled through video viewership rather than direct payment, and a job matching firm that connected prospective employees with opportunities abroad. 

Watching the pitches and subsequent judge grilling was both vastly entertaining and extremely interesting. As a member of the SIG team at Arnold, I was really excited to see how the model we use for any new business pitch, marketing plan, or client project, applies to the building and development of a startup, covering all the vitals that the investors were curious about. Making this connection helped me see that a strong foundation in the key areas of a business might not guarantee startup success, but it helps pave the path to that ultimate goal.  

A Higher Calling for the Interwebz

While the internet and smart phones are often seen as outlets for recreation, procrastination, and distraction, could it be that they serve a purpose beyond memes and Snapchat? Geoff Lewis, Principal at Founders Fund certainly thinks so and stressed how vital the web and mobile were for solving big, meaningful, real world problems during his keynote.  

Lewis spoke about the intersection of technology and healthcare as well as the burgeoning number of apps that have moved into this space and noted, “Just developing an app is great, but it’s not enough.” His argument is based two of many things: the ease with which apps can be copied, so their staying power and reach are tough to maintain as well as the fact that an app is often an ancillary part of a project tackling a larger challenge.

 “Specifically in the healthcare space, there are a lot of tough problems—we still need breakthroughs in the field of genomics, medical records digitized, how we treat insurance,” said Lewis, “Maybe these apps could be interesting combined with an incentive program from an insurance payer.”

The impact of digital can often feel lofty and hard to quantify, making it easy to forget the magnitude of its capacity for real, substantial change. Lewis’ talk was a inspiring call to action from someone has seen so many pitches, business plans, and idea s around technology and its potential. He emphasized that it’s become less and less common to see something truly new and unique versus a copycat or a flash in the pan or something that’s simply cool, but not translating to tangible utility or impact. 

His point touches on the true power of digital and the ability for advertisers, companies, and entrepreneurs alike, to harness it, and make a significant difference in all fields—not only changing, but improving the way we live our lives.

               

The Content Conundrum

Anchored by hilarious and often bluntly honest keynote speaker, Joan Rivers, Day Two centered on the role of content in marketing and media and how digital channels facilitate an unfiltered back and forth dialogue around it. For Rivers, a comedic legend in stand-up and television who has since expanded her presence to the interwebs (In Bed With Joan is a 45-minute web series of interviews she posts exclusively on Youtube), digital channels represent the final bastion of true free speech. “This is the last place where you can really say what you want,” she said. 

It’s no surprise that with this kind of freedom, the chatter online whether it’s social media, blogging, or reviews, can sometimes be deafening and hard to discern—begging the question of what it all means anyway. Nielsen and SocialGuide seek to offer one answer to this question with a new Twitter ratings system they will be unveiling in Fall 2013. According to the founder of SocialGuide Sean Casey, these ratings will not only measure “activity” (quantified by KPIs like number of tweets), they will also be able to track “reach” (down to viewable impressions—or the amount of people who have read each tweet), and ultimately help to add some metrics around the conversation taking place in regards to television and presumably brands as well.

For companies like Vice and Refinery29, which are editorial in nature,  the discussion was more about the role of branded content within their publications. Refinery29 which is seeking to grow its e-commerce arm, especially, was asked repeatedly about the conflict of interest between featuring products in articles because they are inherently worthwhile or because their sale would ultimately benefit the site. Co-founder Justin Stefano responded by saying that “transparency” was vital to draw the line between branded and editorial content. 

But, in marketing and business, is this in-between becoming more and more gray? Said Neil Blumenthal, founder of Warby Parker, “I think the best retail is a form of entertainment.”

As brands grow into storytellers and “product marketing becomes content marketing,” does this shift mean the currency of ideas and to a further extent, conversation, trump all?  “With the internet, we’re able to tell a really deep brand story,” said Blumenthal. 

While his point was about retail, to push the comparison further—are advertising and entertainment one and the same? Should they be? Does narrowing the boundary unwittingly manipulate the audience or simply speak to them in a different way and allow brands to move away from being commercial to being more conversational?
--Li

Lesson Number One: Learn How to Code

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from Day One of Internet Week New York, it’s that I’m woefully underprepared for the future. In fact, it appears that my days as a relevant millennial are numbered indeed. 

Amidst talks of upending the purchase funnel into a pyramid (Google), building content that’s catching (Buzzfeed), and developing online creative communities (Adobe: Behance), a  common theme that emerged during the conference was the necessity for people in advertising, marketing, and the like, to not only be aware, but fluent in the language of all things tech. Sure, this is a story we’ve been hearing for years, but it turns out the level of fluency people need to keep up and stay ahead is higher than I had even imagined. Let’s just say, some casual postings on Vine aren’t going to cut it. 

This sentiment was perhaps best summed up by Razorfish CEO, Bob Lord. When asked what he thought what a good CMO will look like in the coming years, as digital takes more and more share of voice, mind, and (with the advent of Google Glass) certain parts of the body, he had a succinct response. “You need to learn how to code,” he said. Ad Age and B2B’s digital marketing summit, which took place in the afternoon, focused primarily on how the line between Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Information Officer were becoming rapidly more blurred and that having both skills sets would be vital for growth.

CMOs and CIOs from Motorola, Nationwide, and Intercontinental Hotel Group discussed how IT has grown far more strategic, moving way beyond the tactical to become integral to innovation.  Each company also unveiled its own updated version of the five P’s, with the “what I want, when I want it” customer at the center of every marketing decision and technological development. 

Additionally, speakers asserted that marketers have to combine their creative roles as brand managers with the agility of product managers who are able to test, iterate, change, and prioritize quickly based on user experience and response. It’s vital to move from “advertising that runs” to “advertising that learns,” said Razorfish CTO, Ray Velez. All of these observations suggest there is a new paradigm in town and although “evolve or die” might be a bit dramatic, with such high stakes, the biggest risk is not taking one.