outside-in

Attack of the Clones

Several months ago I conducted a straw poll amongst friends and colleagues and found that over eighty per cent had at one time or another owned a Nokia phone, but that fewer than one in twenty did so now. More worryingly for Nokia virtually no one had Nokia, even post Microsoft partnership, on their consideration list for their next phone. Rumours and the experience of those who have used the Window’s Mobile 7 powered phones suggest that the next generation of Nokia’s phones will attract interest and sales, but perhaps there is a deeper issue as well.

Recent press coverage and online commentary has highlighted the increasingly heated battle between iOS, Android, Blackberry OS and WM – and it seems that the operating system has come to the fore in phone purchase decision making. A quick survey of local phone stores confirms that people decide on OS first and then device.

So what does this mean for Nokia and the other device manufactures? Apple and Blackberry are the exceptions since device and OS are exclusively and tightly bundled. But for the rest is there a danger that they become generic and commoditised? It is already apparent both from a glance around your typical phone shop, and from the slew of patent-infringement claims, that there is actually little difference between the vast majority of handsets. Nokia was possible the last to have a distinct style to its handsets. Now, my guess is, that the dominance of the iPhone as well as the demands of conforming to a common operating system, are creating ranges of look-a-like phones.

The beauty of this for Google in particular, as developer of Android, is that although we’ll upgrade our phones every couple of years, we are increasingly loyal to one operating system. It’s not just the way the OS works and our getting accustomed to that; we are effectively locked in by the ease of transferring data, contacts, photos etc. between handsets using the same OS. The flip side is that as phones become smarter, and the amount and importance of data they contain increases, the hassle and risk of switching OS increases. The value of this data, plus the opportunities to capture more and us it to target advertising is the obvious overall benefit to Google.

Once we’ve ‘bought in’ to a particular OS the way we select a handset becomes more and more of a lottery influenced by brand advertising and the advice (possibly determined by commission level) of the sales assistant.

So, will the mobile device market go the same ways as that of computers: manufacturers churning out clones of a standard spec at low margin whilst the software developers reap the benefits? The signs are there, as noted above. However, there is still plenty of room for innovation. Phones are increasingly multi-tasking devices, but have retained a form factor similar to the ‘traditional’ mobile phone albeit more screen-centred. However, there could be numerous other options – depending on personal use and preference.

Almost a decade ago I saw a reference design by a company called IXI Mobile that deconstructed the ‘phone’ into a selection of individual devices that communicated via Bluetooth. At the heart was a GSM device the size of a matchbox that contained the SIM and acted as the hub of a personal network of devices. Depending on your needs you could use it with a headset, a flat screen, a keypad or several other devices. Each worked singly or as part of a cluster, all communicating through the hub. I don’t know what happened to IXI, but it seems to me that the time is ripe to break away from the generic clones and re-think the mobile handset.

How do Digital Leaders Use Social Media?

Broadcast and national media coverage still lead the way in building reputations – even in the age of social media.

MHP recently supported the Media Momentum Awards, hosted in Barcelona by GP Bullhound, a leading international investment banking firm. As part of this I was given access to senior influencers in the fifty, fastest growth digital media companies recognised by the awards. I was interested in how these leaders in the sector used and regarded social media as a tool to manage reputations.

As my white paper “Reputation Management in the era of social media”  shows social media is now, to quote one of the participants,  “[no longer a]choice, but rather a given – a hygiene factor.” However, although significant percentages agreed that most social media platforms were important, and likely to become more important channels of communication, they also cautioned about the credibility of information found through them.

For example, whilst over 50% felt that Facebook was relevant to their business communications a similar percentage also agreed that information found on Facebook could not be judged to be credible – seven per cent felt that it was not credible at all.

When it came to generating reputation traditional media won hands down.
Broadcast coverage was felt to have huge or significant impact by virtually all our respondents - 93%, whilst coverage on influential blogs was seen as hugely significant by 23% and significant by 50% - beating the impact of trade coverage, but lagging behind national newspapers. Perhaps surprisingly, considering the recent controversies over its role, Twitter fared even worse with the majority reporting that it had little or no influence.

Given that the people we spoke to were all entrepreneurs in the digital space we believe that they can be seen as good exemplars of current practice - and their insights make interesting reading. There are a number of pointers towards best practice as well as some ‘blindspots’ from which even they seem to suffer.  The Reputation Management in the era of social media report can be downloaded by following the link.

 

Building Digital Counter-weights

With over 600 million members and a valuation of $50 billion Facebook is undoubtedly the internet phenomenon of the moment. Whether it is worth the price tag and realise the profits it implies is another matter. But as a global space in which conversations, opinions, comment and views can be exchanged it is unequalled. Although a glance at the most popular pages, which can be found at SocialBakers, shows that the majority of this conversation is driven by games, celebrity, music and popular culture it is clear that consumer brands definitely have much to gain from using it to build engagement with their customers. But what about b2b organisations? I'd suggest that these too need to get familiar with Facebook and what it can do for, or perhaps to, them.

There has been much written about marketing on Facebook, and indeed it is now one of the biggest advertising sites online. In addition, many brands, as diverse as CocaCola and Fiat are building Facebook into their marketing plans. But if you are not selling to a general consumer population then it is unlikely that wallposts, shared video and viral games are really going to influence sales.  For b2b players it's not about fans or likes or even having a lot of friends. But that doesn’t mean they can afford to ignore it. For all organisations Facebook can have a significant impact on reputation. The real challenge is building advocacy amongst Facebook users that may be needed later. It is about creating a digital counterweight.

The world of Facebook is a world of emotion. People share what is important to them, what interests them, their thoughts and feelings. They do not, generally, share detailed facts or balanced argument. This makes Facebook a very dangerous place for b2b brands. The social graph of Facebook creates an emotional frame through which news opinion and commentary is viewed. These frames are fragmented and self selecting (you tend towards those that reinforce your own views). People will ‘like’ views and pages that reaffirm their own views without necessarily judging the veracity of the claim, or indeed any motives of the person expressing the opinion. Search and popularity then conspire to further promote the views of those that shout the loudest.

So opinion quickly becomes 'crowd-sourced' and viral which means that evidence and the wider perspective can quickly be lost. Single issue groups can concentrate and polarise opinion irrespective of facts.

What this means is that, especially at times of crisis, brands can suddenly become very famous for the wrong reasons. Emotionally charged responses to crises quickly frame the argument and can colour the way brand is perceived not only on Facebook and online but also beyond in to wider media and other ‘off-line’ commentators and influencers. What’s more, these damaging opinions can surface from the most unlikely places – not always in reaction to a ‘real’ event or incident, but often from a perception – perhaps a rumour about poor working conditions at a supplier-firm, or anecdotal evidence of fault in a key component.

Once these comments have metastasised and spread across Facebook it is often too late to try and influence the conversation. People will see engagement at this point as a defensive sticking plaster and will doubt the authenticity and credibility of the effort to join the conversation.  

Corporations cannot hope to sway the opinions of the extreme antis, but they can provide a counterweight that may balance the argument for the moderate majority if they invest in creating their own narrative ahead of crises.

Transparency is celebrated in our wikileak world and companies should invest in demonstrating it before they are forced to. Having a presence on Facebook and using it to provide information and updates that present a more open and human view of the organisation than the corporate website, perhaps using individual stories, examples of community relations, helpful information etc, can establish a factual counterweight to more emotional commentary. In addition, not being on Facebook is increasingly seen as a crime in itself. If you are unwilling to engage and share then you must have something to hide.

Investing in this presence now in peace time as it were, means that you do have the platform and some credit should hostilities breakout. Creating these ' digital embassies' is not easy and requires thought and commitment, but it is important and may be the difference between succumbing to an entirely emotional and negative conversation and having some chance at influencing it with some rationality.

Reputation Beyond Product

It is an often repeated truism that technology is now mainstream: what is less frequently discussed is how this alters the range, reach and content of communications through which technology companies should engage their audiences. Technology PR used to be a distinct discipline with a specialist set of skills largely focused around the promotion of products through media channels. Now many technology and telecommunications firms, however large or small, and irrespective of whether they sell to consumers or other businesses, find they need to work to develop consistent, clear and positive reputations with a wide range of complex influencers. Defending and developing reputation in this environment needs a joined-up approach to communications that creates compelling stories that rise above products and work across channels.

In today’s world of contested communications it is important to know who you need to reach and to ensure that all audiences get a consistent (although not necessarily uniform) view of your organisation. These audiences could be as diverse as regulators and government departments, consumers, financiers, suppliers and partners, social and environmental groups, activists and single issue pressure groups. They will communicate and respond in widely different ways and through many different channels. Building the right narratives, getting the correct emotional register and using the right communications skills and channels, whilst maintaining consistency is essential if reputation is to be protected and enhanced so that it becomes an asset and not a liability.

Using communications to build a robust reputation beyond that associated with your products and services has both proactive and defensive benefits. By effectively creating platforms and points of view that resonate with prospects, partners, customers and influencers we increase your opportunities to communicate with these audiences.  Championing issues that are important to your audience fills in the gaps between product news and create more consistent profile. It also helps shape thinking and perceptions at a much earlier stage in the buying cycle.

With credible opinions and insights resting on a strong reputation you can engage with senior decision makers and help them to understand how you add value to their organisation, rather than wait for them to discover that they have a problem which you can solve. Finally, reputation-building provides a wider set of reference points that ultimately shape decision making – it informs buyers of your wider corporate vision and values, your environmental credentials and even the ‘personality’ of your brand.

Defensively a strong corporate reputation, well communicated, can protect you if things do go wrong. A recent article by Stephan Shakespeare of YouGov showed how BA’s generally good reputation allowed it to quickly bounce-back from the negativity surrounding industrial action. Whether it is bad news, or an underperforming product, a good corporate reputation will help you weather the storm and come back quicker.

Few would disagree with much of the above – but achieving it is increasingly difficult. No one influencer has control over your reputation. The digital explosion and the interconnectedness of a global marketplace for technology means that reputation must be managed over a complex and ever-shifting network of influence. So the first step in any reputation campaign is to correctly identify and then research and understand those audiences that influence or could influence your reputation. As noted above, this could be anyone from a government minister to an activist blogger.

Identifying and mapping all the influencers that can impact your business requires experts on those audiences, rather than people who are expert in your sector. Our role as consultants is to advise on tone, channel and messages that will have the desired impact with each audience. Understanding what make them tick, what their immediate and ongoing concerns are and which issues they relate to is the essential first step in planning a reputation building campaign.

MHP builds multi-discipline teams because we believe that siloed approaches run the risk of confusing messages and undermining reputation. Bringing audience knowledge, advice and expertise together into a single team to collaboratively create stories and messages that are able to engage with the important audiences not only ensures consistency but  informs both the challenges and the solutions from a 360-degree perspective. It also allows individual disciplines; public affairs, corporate PR, CSR and internal comms for instance, to work together and deliver campaigns that feed off one another to deliver results with real business impact.

For example, for one green tech client we are combining consumer promotion of a device through national media and blogger relations, with a trade campaign promoting the service and management of data to utilities, and a public affairs programme to engage with the government departments responsible for planning the UK’s Smart Grid. All of this is delivered by one team for one fee and with one consistent theme of changing consumer habits – rescheduling as well as reducing power usage.

Technology PR is often about sales support and of course it’s essential that organisations meet sales and profits targets – whatever sector they are in. PR is a cost effective way of making sure customers know about new products, services and enhancements. It is also excellent at demonstrating how real organisations have benefitted through the use of your products. But, we believe it should do more and work harder. By building reputation, with all relevant influencers, that goes beyond your product portfolio we can help create new opportunity, defend against detractors, and add value to all your sales and marketing efforts.

Battle of the Trade Shows

A few years ago it was all about CeBIT. The global technology show where every client and every journalist wanted to be. Three days of trekking across the vast expanse of the Hanover Messe trying to link the two groups together!

Meanwhile, a small niche show in Cannes called The GSM Conference and the CES show in Las Vegas were establishing themselves on the media agenda. Both started out smaller and more niche in their appeal, GSM focusing on mobile telephone technology and CES on consumer electronics, whilst CeBIT covered a wide gamut of technologies.

However, over the past few years, as the chart below shows, both general interest (as measured by web searches) and media coverage of CES has massively overtaken CeBIT, even MWC is now attracting more media coverage than CeBIT (see 2011 chart)

Red = CeBIT / Orange = CES / Blue = MWC

So what’s happened to CeBIT? Perhaps it is more a case of what’s happened to CES and MWC. Both have undoubtedly profited from the consumerisation of IT – with more technologies now immediately targeting the general public as well as or instead of the corporate. Also the mobilisation of technology – and the increasing ubiquity and functionality of mobile devices has made MWC in particular of wider general interest than before.

In addition, there have been some key moments that have added to the fame of CES and MWC – the launch of Blu Ray technology at CES in 2004, Bill Gate’s famous ‘Blue Screen of Death demo of Windows Media Centre at the same conference in 2006 – even Apple’s decision to launch the iPhone, not at CES but at MacWorld a week later in 2008 all helped build the fame of CES.

For MWC – the move to Barcelona in 2006 and the name change to Mobile World Congress (from 3GSM) the following year, plus a series of high profile keynotes from chief execs of industry bell weathers like Cisco, Microsoft, Nokia etc helped cement the date in media and market minds.

So what does this mean for CeBIT? Well this year’s news included launches by Intel, Samsung and Asus which underlines its importance to the tech marketplace – especially serious, back office, enterprise class systems. Over the past few years these have been out of vogue, but perhaps they are poised for a return to the front pages (at least of the tech media) and CeBIT will return to its time in the sun.

The Tab Habit

Until recently the only tabs that were habit forming were the ones that came in boxes of twenty. Now several technology companies are betting that their sleek new tablet devices will be just as addictive. Based on the experience of Apple, which sold a million iPads in the first 30 days and is predicted to sell over 21 million more in 2011, the signs appear to be good. The epithet ‘iPad-killer’ has already entered the tech-jargon just as ‘iPhone-killer’ was adopted 3 years ago, as Samsung, Dell, Blackberry and many others launch competing products.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab – predicted to be the device that gives the iPad the best competition is due to launch on 1st November in the UK, presumably with the expectation that it will find itself under the Christmas trees of thousands of (wealthy) digitally savvy early adopters. The Blackberry Playbook (interestingly avoiding the tab/tablet/slate/pad nomenclature) launches just after Christmas, perhaps signalling its focus on the corporate market and more business-orientated users (playbook being US-business speak for strategy).

But, as Geoffrey Moore pointed out in the early 1990’s, getting the early adopters is relatively easy – ensuring that these devices go mainstream is the real challenge. And we’ve been here before. There have been many attempts to produce a portable, multi-functioned device both for business and leisure users. The Palm Pilot created the category of Personal Digital Assistant – but was little more than an electronic diary, Apple itself failed with the Newton, Microsoft launched and then retired a version of Windows for tablet computers and over the last couple of years mobile networks heavily promoted netbooks as the connected device for mobile data and applications. Even smart phones, in the early majority segment now, thanks to the iPhone, took over 10 years to get there!

So what prevented many of these devices ever really becoming mainstream and can the ‘tab’ overcome them? In some cases they were inhibited by the technology itself, but often, and more difficult to overcome, it is the behavioural issues that stunt the uptake of new technologies.

Even in our digital, always-on world much of what we do is still quite segmented. Computers both at home and in the workplace are still mainly for ‘sit-forward’ activities; things that need to be done and need focus. It could be shopping, communicating with friends, homework or research. For ‘sit-back’ relaxation activities we are still more likely to open a book, turn on the TV or plug in an iPod. 

Bridging this gap, crossing the chasm between expensive toy and essential tool, between technical capability and personal requirement, is the challenge faced by all of the tablet players. Getting it right requires the perfect combination of price, content, technology, service, utility and marketing. Whether anyone, even Apple, can master this, will determine if the tab becomes habit forming and changes us, or whether it falls by the wayside like so many other techno-addictions.

 

What makes a good corporate blog?

I've recently been doing some work for a number of clients looking at good and bad practice in corporate blogs. It seems that they've become de-rigeur for many organisations, but the quality is extremely variable. Specifically, I was asked to advise on the sorts of content and the authorship of a corporate blog.

There are no hard and fast rules, but this excellent post outlines some best practice. I've also noted some things that I've seen that seem to work:

• Real people writing. Identified with names and photos. As long as each has a distinct voice, and there aren't too many, I see no harm in having multiple authors.
• An insider's view. This is one area which few corporate blogs to well. Rather than just spout corporate comms messaging via another channel, use the blog to give a behind the scenes view. Who did you meet on the floor of the industry conference, what did customers say to you last week, how did you arrive at a certain decision? You could also add snippets of news that are too small for formal press releases, or perhaps additional information that did not make the main release but adds colour or insight. Obviously this needs to be tempered by what is commercially (or legally) sensitive, but interesting anecdotes make a blog different from the bland corporate channels.

An industry view. Rather than just talk about the things you and your companies are doing try and take a  wider view of the things important to all the industry.

With a corporate blog you are effectively disintermediating the media to reach your audience directly, which means you have to take on the journalist's role. That means being very clear of the audience you are trying to reach, and creating content that is above all interesting and exclusive! The trap, I believe, is to try and treat the corporate blog as if it were a old-style newsletter. Building a publishing schedule is fine, but it can force writers into rigid format -I need to write a customer story, or a product release or opinion piece for the blog. All these tend to be too long, to controlled and too corporate to work on a blog. The blog ends up just reproducing the sort of content that can be found elsewhere on the site.

Brands such as Sun and Cisco are rightly recognised for comprehensive and insightful blogs, although my personal view is that much of their interest and reputation derives from who is writing rather than what is written. Often it is smaller organisations that have the most interesting bloggers. People who are keen to make an impact with their views.

Two Harvard clients that I think have really interesting blogs are Arbor Networks and OpenPages. These guys use their blogs to air personal views, provide tidbits of information and enter into conversations that are perhaps only tangentally related to their business. They are interesting in their own right - and very readable.

So to condense my response to my clients into two words of advice - be interesting.