The power of storytelling

Do you ever wonder why your great ideas sometimes don’t resonate and become adopted while some other seemingly mediocre ideas are embraced? The way they are communicated may have a lot to do with it.

While preparing for an upcoming presentation, I found myself searching for more compelling ways to communicate an idea. I came across the work of Nancy Duarte, a communication expert who is behind some of the world’s most influential business communications.

According to her, ideas are conveyed most effectively through stories. In the above video, she uncovers the “shape of a story” from renowned works of cinema and literature, and then demonstrates how to incorporate stories into your presentation.

Peter Guber, the author of “Tell to win” supports this view saying that stories can act as Trojan Horses. He argues that, when absorbed in a story, people detect fewer inaccuracies and inconsistencies. More importantly, they don’t seem to care about the errors. However, when reading dry and factual content, people seemed more critical than when reading a story.

But why is it that humans seem to be “wired” for stories? Why are they so effective?

As we explored in a previous blog about neuromarketing, people make most of their decisions based on unconscious emotions as opposed to rational logic. Data dumps, dense PowerPoint slides and pure stats do not emotionally connect people with your idea. The best way to do that is with “Once upon a time…”

Neuroscience also shows the brain works by associations producing webs of interrelated concepts. Countless mind mapping tools and techniques are founded in this simple fact. By linking your ideas to commonly known stories, you are leveraging a previously established neurological path in your audience’s memory. They will be able to more easily associate your ideas with that known path provided by stories. This way your ideas become more meaningful and memorable.

What other insights do you know about stories and presentations?

Adriana Heinzen Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

SodaStream vs. Coke & Pepsi

SodaStream’s direct stab at Coke and Pepsi with its original Super Bowl ad saw them having to replace it with a toned down version, which in turn generated more awareness for the brand. The replacement ad featured generic soda brands upon request from broadcaster CBS, which wasn’t keen on causing a stir among some of its largest supporters, namely Coke and Pepsi.

The ad had a strong single minded proposition: when customers make their own soda with a SodaStream, they don’t waste plastic bottles. The insight of billions of bottles ending up in landfills every month provided the basis for a compelling brand story.

Leveraging the David vs. Goliath narrative, SodaStream is a classic “challenger” brand. According to Adam Morgan, author of “Eating The Big Fish” and expert in the field: “The narrative is that through being fleeter of foot, more innovative and creative, possibly by being an out-and-out maverick, a small business can take share from a larger one.”

In the Master of Marketing consumer behaviour lectures, we explored different brand archetypes, including “The Irreverent Maverick”, which is often associated with challenger brands. It defies social conventions and challenges “normal” behaviour with wit, humour and even shock tactics.

In the end, the controversy around the Super Bowl ads created a huge awareness for the unaired ad with over 4.5 million views on YouTube, while the official Super Bowl ad had just about 200 thousand views. With large business proving they can also benefit from challenger thinking such as Unilever’s Dove “Campaign for real beauty”, I’m keen to see how Coke and Pepsi will react.

What lessons can large corporations learn from challenger strategies?

Adriana Heinzen
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

Google and Amazon battle over online shoppers

"Amazon wants to be the one place where you buy everything. Google wants to be the one place where you find everything, of which buying things is a subset" setting them up for a natural collision as Chi-Hua Chien, a partner at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, has it.

As many as 30 percent of US shoppers started their product search in Amazon.com compared to 13 percent who started a purchase search in engines such as Google in 2012 according to Research firm Forrester. Two years ago search engines were the preferred starting point for purchases search and Google is now on a mission to recoup online shoppers as much of its business depends on product searches and related ads.

Google’s product search engine, Google Shopping, was recently modified charging retailers a fee to be listed in the results. By turning top search results into paid ads, Google addresses allegations of biased search results by its rivals. This is clarified to customers by a discrete disclaimer on the top right corner “Google is compensated by these merchants. Payment in one of several factors used to rank these results”. Google also recently bought BufferBox, a company with a network of lockers that customers can use to receive parcels, which further emphasises its intention of playing a larger role in online retail.

Amazon, in turn, is selling ads that are displayed to the side of product search results on its website. According to comScore, the number of ads has more than tripled compared to 2011 figures. Although still a fraction of Google’s ad business, Amazon is using newly developed technology to leverage the customers purchase history and allow marketers to target ads at specific segments on Amazon.com and on other websites. This is invaluable data to advertisers as it tells them what customers have just bought and what they are trying to buy right now.

Other online giants have their eyes closely focused on Google and Amazon’s cat fight. Facebook, with its own search and advertising ambitions, has been lurking in the shadows, while Microsoft has put its gloves on with an anti-Google campaign launched last year. Having accused Google of "unfair pay-to-rank shopping practices", Microsoft has gone as far as putting up a site named “Scroogled” in a bid to deter customers from using Google’s new shopping service.

So far, Google Shopping has been seen by many customers merely as a showroom to figure out what items meet their criteria, a similar role to the brick and mortar retailers nowadays. Once customers figure out the brand and item they are searching for and get an idea of the average retail price, many still head straight to Amazon or eBay to make the purchase. The main reason is convenience and trust. Shopping direct from the vendors is still largely seen as a hassle due to the many steps involved in filling out forms, addresses and giving away card details to yet another unknown entity.

Google has pushed vendors to step up their customer experience last year when it released a series of humorous videos parodying customer’s frustration when shopping online. Now it seems to be taking matters on its own hands with a certification service highlighting merchants that ship quickly and up to $1,000 in "purchase protection" as well as its own Google Wallet payment service. In our Internal Marketing lectures, we looked at many service companies initiatives to ensure a consistent brand experience at every customer touch point. Google Shopping is still far from Amazon’s streamlined service but it is certainly heading in that direction. What other advancements could Google Shopping employ to improve customers’ experience?

Adriana Heinzen
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

Can Alicia Keys help Blackberry to “keep moving”?

Blackberry has launched its largest campaign ever for the make or break new operating system OS BB10 and a new range of products. The campaign will carry a “keep moving” theme to demonstrate the software’s capabilities. Among the central features are a smarter predictive keyboard and a “hub” for notifications from email, Facebook and Twitter.

The campaign
The mobile manufacturer announced on its launch event that Alicia Keys would act as its global creative officer. The 14-time Grammy Award winning singer, songwriter and entrepreneur will be joined by film director Robert Rodriguez and author Neil Gaiman in a series of online films demonstrating how they engage with their BB10 devices and inviting users to share their own stories. The heart of the campaign consists of a real-time marketing drive across search, video, direct marketing, social media, CRM and mobile.

How it will be assessed
According to BlackBerry’s CMO, Frank Boulben, the central measure for Blackberry success and market share will be the Net Promoter Score (NPS), adding “we want the first customers using BlackBerry 10 to recommend to friends and family.” As seen in our Marketing Performance Evaluation lectures, NPS measures the "willingness to recommend" a product and is usually adopted for higher involvement products, where opinion leaders and WOM is in play. It is becoming an increasingly popular customer loyalty measure with growth of social media. Although all companies have their favourite metrics, some going for the traditional Customer Satisfaction measure while others adopt the famous NPS, the growing reliance on a simple single customer metric won’t provide them the full picture and can be dangerous trend.

Target market
BlackBerry’s global market share fell from 20% to roughly 6% in the last three years and many see this as a last resort to recapture old and new users. The company is aiming to expand beyond corporate users and appeal to working moms. Boulben described Keys as the embodiment of a "very typical BlackBerry user" who is a "working mom" and runs a small business.

"Faced up against guys with significant market share, BlackBerry needs to find areas where it can make headway in. They can't compete broadly and they can't compete everywhere," said Stephen Baker, a VP of industry analysis for consumer technology at NPD. "If they think women is how they can do that, and it's a big enough segment and there's an opportunity there, then God bless them, they should go for that."

Celebrity endorsement
Celebrity endorsements are nothing new and they can often be an effective marketing tool if the company can find an authentic advocate for their brand. Alicia Keys seems a good fit with their new target audience; however, some analysts question her suitability as an endorser for Blackberry. To make matters worse, her official Twitter account showed her posts just days before the launch event were published from an iPhone and used Instagram to share all photos — an app that’s not available on BlackBerry according to a recent NYT release.

How NOT to do it
BlackBerry isn't the first tech company to employ a celebrity to boost its credibility. Three years ago, Lady Gaga was named creative director of Polaroid and she even designed a printer for the company. Two years ago, Will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas was announced as the director of creative innovation at Intel. These high profile job titles attempted to make the relationship more authentic when it involved little more than just posing beside the product in exchange for a large cheque.

A different spin on product endorsement
To distance itself from those claims, Boulben has stated the Alicia Keys hire is different from “traditional product endorsements” as it is based on user experience. "You won’t see the celebrities in the 'Keep Moving' campaign on TV. The 'Keep Moving' TV campaign is all about showing the product experience in the flow of your professional and personal life." Activity will include Alicia Keys creating a video in each city where she is performing her “Set the World on Fire” tour, with each customised video based on ideas she receives from fans.

Is it this kind of celebrity endorsement a good investment?
Do you actually need a famous creative director when you truly have great product design? Why doesn’t Apple have a celebrity creative director? Do you think the women audience targeted by Blackberry could be better inspired by an authentic ambassador, such as a young mother who genuinely loves the product, sending the message that it is the users who really matter when it comes to the design process?

The global mobile market could really use more competition right now; let’s hope Blackberry can “keep moving” with its ambitions.

Adriana Heinzen 
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

The Spiegelworld Empire – reimagining the world of circus

With the Sydney Festival celebrations taking over the city, numerous world-class acts steal audiences’ imagination and defy the world as we know. Reinventing the traditions of circus, cabaret, variety and burlesque for the 21st century audience, Spiegelworld has brought its new show, Empire, from New York to Sydney for this month’s festival. Following a sell-out in Broadway, the mind-altering show takes audiences through the underworld of kinky contortionists, rich impresarios and daredevils inside an authentic Belgian spiegeltent. The acts are played out almost on the laps of the audience as performers are squeezed on a 9-foot diameter stage adding to the intimate atmosphere nowhere to be found in large mainstream shows.

The Empire has been described as the early days Cirque du Soleil, when the shows had no storyline and were purely centered on emerging raw talent. Back in October, when the Cirque du Soleil was in town, we wrote a blog about the challenges in envisioning the Cirque du Soleil strategy for the next 10 years, a case study from our marketing strategy course. In the same way, I now invite you to envisage how a show like the Empire can grow without losing its grungy, cheeky and fresh appeal.

When looking into the future, niche arts companies face the challenge of potentially losing their “cool” in an attempt to attract larger audiences. This would in turn open space for new upcoming acts to fill the demand for underground and independent art performances. The Empire show is definitely not for kids and family. How much would they have to trade-off to capture that part of the market? Another alternative for growth would be to continue to focus on the same target audience and expand their range. Bringing new types of acts that cross the circus border seems like a more feasible option. In fact, by hesitating to use the circus designation and calling themselves a variety show, or simply “spiegelworld”, they seem to be heading in that direction.

This challenge is faced my many SMEs which have a niche audience and are strategising future growth. The danger in adapting their value proposition in order to appeal to a wider audience and grow is that they will lose their sustainable advantage. Do you stick to your niche audience and present them with new offerings, increasing your range? Do you look for similar niche audiences around the world? Do you modify your value proposition to appeal to more segments and have a more mainstream offer?

With all of these questions in mind, how can Spiegelworld successfully grown in the next 10 years?

Adriana Heinzen
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

SuperBowl 2013: The Talent Show of Ads (interrupted by a game of football)

How often do advertisers get the opportunity to enter into an Ad Talent Show guaranteed to be viewed by more than 110 million viewers? Viewers however should be forewarned that the ads will be interrupted briefly by grown men in tights running around chasing a football.

SuperBowl 2013 is right around the corner for our North American ad lovers, (and also for football enthusiasts). Ad agencies across the US have been preparing for the ‘ad talent show’ for months. With 30 second advertising slots devouring up to $4 million of a company’s advertising budget, advertisers have 30 seconds to showcase their product, make it memorable and convince customers that clear benefits exists for their product. No pressure.

A few strategy savvy companies such as Coke have decided to make every one of their hard earned advertising dollars count by creating a social media buzz around their SuperBowl ad. Their campaign features a ‘pre-ad’ to be aired in the weeks leading up to the big game where by viewers can vote to influence how the Coke ad pans out on the big day. Viewers not only can vote for their preferred ending, but they can also vote to sabotage other people’s votes. This strategy adds to the level of competition and consumer engagement. The most voted ad ending will air right after the whistle is blown announcing the end of SuperBowl 2013. Another simple and memorable marketing strategy.

What marketing strategy has stood out for you in terms of SuperBowl ads?

Mina D’Souza
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

Lance Armstrong brand - the cost of winning at all costs

George Burns/Courtesy of Harpo Studios, Inc./AP Photo

After years of denial, Lance Armstrong has finally admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs to aid his record-breaking wins of the Tour de France. The champion cyclist, who became an international hero with his inspiring cancer survival story and raised many millions of dollars for cancer sufferers, is now fighting to save what is left of his personal brand.

Even though Armstrong gained millions from Tour de France prizes, his largest earnings came from his personal brand and his many product endorsements. The Armstrong brand value at the top of his cycling career was estimated to be in excess of $20 million a year, something very few brands in the world can claim according to Mark Serrano, CEO of ProActive Communications. Nike, Anheuser-Busch and bicycle manufacturer Trek, all of which had deals with the disgraced athlete, ended their associations with him after the results of the doping investigation came out and he was banned for life from taking part of Olympic sports.

Brand equity has many definitions and most of them point out to a reputation and good-will developed over time, which gets translated into higher sales and profits. After shattering the trust attached to his name recognition build across many years, his personal brand is predicted by many to be facing the death penalty. However, it is not only his personal brand which is at stake, the cancer charity Livestrong Foundation, which he represented for all these years, is now at risk of being tainted.

Although the Livestrong brand will no doubt take a hit, it is speculated that it will survive Armstrong’s doping admission. As stated on a recent CNN iReport "The effect he had on the foundation was huge, but they both should be able to stand on their own. The foundation should not be held accountable for his deception". Because the foundation was managed hands-off by experienced fundraisers, it was able to establish alliances with other organisations to fundraise and build awareness for its cause. This is said to be the reason why it still hasn’t collapsed amid all the scandals in recent years. Armstrong’s decision to step down from the role of chairman and the board will also assist in separating the charity from the cyclist’s image.

In the corporate world, companies that have their brands involved in scandals can rebrand them by repackaging these with new names and look. However, it doesn’t work that way when it comes to people. The Oprah confessional interview was the first step in trying to save Armstrong’s personal brand. A film about his life is said to follow. None of these replace sincere remorse and action to remediate what he did, may it be in the form of charity work or even helping the doping agency in their investigations. Will the Lance Armstrong personal brand ever recover? Tell us your views.

Adriana Heinzen
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

The Awards Season is here – watch out for the celebrities and brands on your screen

The awards season has kicked off in Hollywood and you will find brands disputing attention nearly as much as the celebrities. Look closer into the cars, gowns, jewellery and champagne - brand endorsements are everywhere. This kind of implicit marketing also flourishes within the films and TV shows via product placements. Even video games have brands featured in them, like the Obama campaign we saw in the marketing communications lectures. Now that people don’t have to seat through ads, brands are increasingly being shifted into the entertainment piece or choosing to produce their own branded entertainment like Red Bull.

The main advantage of product placement is the ability to establish an instant emotional connection between the audience and the brand. People develop a strong emotional bond towards their favorite series and celebrities, which creates a halo effect for the brands featured in them. Product placement is booming and spend was up 11.7% at $8.25 billion by the end of 2012, with Australian marketers accounting for just over $100 million of the total, according to Consultancy PQ Media.

Media product placement is not new, but what makes it more attractive now is the fact that the audience is increasingly watching content online. This allows them to purchase the product featured on the screen within a few clicks. As discussed in a previous blog, it has recently become possible to embed links on YouTube videos enabling the viewer to buy the products featured on that video. Now imagine women watching shows like Sex and the City and being able to add the characters’ shoes and other fashion items to their shopping basket while watching the series.

Online product placement not only improves brand recognition, but it also generates direct sales. This way companies are able to establish a clear link between the marketing investment in the media placement and the sales generated by it. What is also great about product placement in online media is that it is more transparent than in broadcasted media, where the viewer is often not aware that the brand shown on screen is a paid product placement.

Top global brands are not the only ones opting for this kind of marketing tool. Product placements can be as diverse as the media audiences, so there are opportunities for all kinds of brands. The Green Product Placement agency in the US specialises in placing green, sustainable, socially responsible and local brands across different media. They have placed green brands in popular shows like Gossip Girl and The Good Wife.

All these great promises about product placements will go to waste, unless it is done properly. What we mean here is for the brand to be well integrated with the storyline; otherwise it can backlash like in the latest James Bond movie. Fans were left frustrated with the sight of agent 007 electing to drink a Heineken beer instead his signature vodka martini.

Numerous other brands were featured in Skyfall including Coke, Sony, BMW and Omega watches, which points out to another risk concerning the use of product placements. When overdone, this marketing tool has the potential to annoy viewers, which may result in the audience developing negative attitudes towards the brands. The saturation of brands placed in media could result in people developing the same resistance to product placements as is seen today with traditional ads.

What does the future hold for product placement?

Adriana Heinzen
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

Neuromarketing – a look inside your audience’s head

Ask Apple followers why they love their iPads and they will answer: design, convenience, versatility etc. But what if they are just rationalising their choices? What if the choice was made based on emotional associations with the brand, other users and memories that they are not even aware of? And what if Apple had access to this knowledge and tailored its communications to induce more of those warm fuzzy feelings its users experience when interacting with the products? You may be surprised to find many companies are already doing this.

Neuromarketing is a fascinating new field specialising in understanding people’s emotions and attitudes towards brands, products and services by combining neuroscience, psychology and marketing tools. These tools go beyond conscious thought and identify non-conscious responses in the brain. What makes this so relevant is the fact that 75 to 95% of the brain’s processing goes on below conscious awareness, including emotions and feelings.

Current research on consumer behaviour suggests that most purchase decisions are based on minimal conscious thought and are largely driven by emotional responses and feelings. A recent study conducted by the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences revealed our decisions are made up 10 seconds before we become aware of them. John-Dylan Haynes, the co-author of the study, stated: “Your decisions are strongly prepared by brain activity. By the time consciousness kicks in, most of the work has already been done.”

With this in mind, traditional research measures, which rely on the conscious level, are missing a large portion of what drives purchase behavior. Because emotional responses are unconscious, it is practically impossible for people to identify what caused them through conscious methods such as surveys and focus groups. It is also known that by simply asking a person to tell you how they feel automatically changes the feeling. No wonder eight out of 10 new product releases fail regardless of the estimated $4.5 billion USD global annual spend on qualitative market research.

So how are these emotions and feelings measured? Researches essentially put a cap covered in electrodes or magnetic scanners on people’s head, which measures brain impulses and continually tells how much attention they are paying, what emotions they are experiencing and what memories are being retrieved. Neuroimaging is also combined with biometrics such as eye movement, face reading and heart rate to paint a more accurate picture. This knowledge is then used to support a myriad of marketing activities, from new product design to what type of scent to use in a store as well as the effect of celebrities in advertising.

The Nielsen Company, a global leader in market research, bought California-based NeuroFocus in 2011 to tap into this fast growing market. NeuroFocus exhibits a list of high profile clients such as Google, Microsoft, Intel, Facebook and PayPal. The latter was admittedly sceptic about the new method to start with; however, became convinced after seeing click-through rates improve by more than three times, something unheard of in the world of direct marketing. Other companies like McDonald's, Unilever, Procter & Gamble and GlaxoSmithKline have also jumped on the neuromarketing bandwagon with the rival UK consulting company, Neurosense.

The question in everyone’s mind is what are the ethical implications of this? As fascinating as advances in neuroscience do sound, when combined with marketing, it can get a little scary. Neuromarketing has been largely criticized on the basis of manipulation; however, late last year the industry Code of Ethics was announced by the NMSBA as a first step in adopting international standards for applying neuroscientific methods to advertising campaigns and product design.

This topic can go on and on, there is so much that can be discussed on the implications of this research. We will definitely come back to this topic on future posts. But for now, do tell us your views on it from a consumer as well as a marketer’s perspective. As to how you feel about it... well we would have to get some brain scanners to really find that out!

Adriana Heinzen
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

Reinventing the Walt Disney experience with RFID

Imagine if visitors of the Walt Disney parks could make all purchases with the swipe of a wristband - souvenirs, hot-dogs, meetings with the characters and bookings to see the parades would all be hassle free. On top of that, what if they received alerts on their smartphones when it was time to go to the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction without having to wait in the queue?

It may sound like fantasy, but this is part of Disney’s ambitious new management system “MyMagic+” predicted to transform the way people consume experiences in a few months time. The investment is estimated to be between $800 million to $1 billion USD, but they have a lot to gain from it in terms of consumer behaviour knowledge.

Visitors will carry a “magic band”, which will act as room key, park ticket, fast pass and credit card using NextGen technology. It will also contain a Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) device enabling the service provider to store data about individual visitors. This will allow guests to enjoy personalised experiences such as having Mickey Mouse call their kids by the name and know if it’s their birthday. By tracking guests’ preferences, like how many times they have gone to certain rides, promotions can be tailored to them improving their experience in the park. Disney assures all of the data is secured but, if people are uncomfortable with conceding personal information, they can opt out of the data tracking option or at least disable their kids from being tracked.

Seamless transactions without interrupting the magic of the moment also allow for improved consumer experience. However, cashless purchase decisions, the aggregation of all expenses into one bill combined with high emotional involvement lead to people being more careless with spending as demonstrated by many behavioural economics experiments, which we looked at in the Master of Marketing.

Mental accounting rules based on Kahneman’s Prospect Theory show how people tend to combine gains and losses in particular ways in order to maximise happiness. While multiple gains are maximised with segregation as in the popular saying “don’t wrap all the Christmas presents in one box”, losses (i.e. expenses) are less painful when integrated. By adding up all of the park expenses into one bill, suddenly a Mickey Mouse pair of ears seems like nothing compared to what one has already spent just on that day, who hasn’t been there? In addition, separating the payment from the consumption with the “magic bands” reduces the perceived cost of the activity.

There is a fine but crucial line between making the audience’s experience more personalised and satisfying, and using personal data to exploit them. What is your view of the Disney “magic bands” development? How do you feel about having your personal data collected to serve you better? How is this different from promotions targeted to you via your smartphone using geo-locator when you walk into stores, or when you scan your flybuys card at the counter to get discount on chosen items, or when customised ads are displayed on different sites using your browsing history?

Adriana Heinzen
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

Protecting individual privacy in the big data era

With the explosion of e-commerce and social media, online privacy has become a hot topic in today’s media and legislative agenda. As technology, consumer attitudes and legal requirements change, many questions are raised.

What’s the right balance between better online services and protection of privacy? Are people aware of how personal information they are giving away? How much private information are people willing to trade off for something of value such as a free service? A recent event co-hosted by the University of Sydney Master of Marketing and the Association of Market and Social Research Organisations (AMSRO) addressed these and many other questions around data privacy, marketing, research and the consumer.

The ethics and regulatory lectures at the Master of Marketing had opened my eyes to issues concerning data privacy, and it was fascinating to see first hand how Australian leaders are tackling these challenges. The Privacy Commissioner, Mr. Timothy Pilgrim, addressed the audience with an up-to-the-minute overview of the data privacy state of affairs. Below I will do my best to fill you in some of the very interesting points he has touched on.

When considering much of the personal data available online is uploaded by individuals themselves via social media and how readily they trade their personal information in return for convenience or the use of a service, it’s not surprising for some people to question if privacy matters or whether it can even exist?

As pointed out by Timothy, the issue is that it’s one thing to share your personal data on social media with friends and followers but it’s likely, if you haven’t actively adjusted your privacy settings, you may be publicly sharing more than realised and intended. In addition, he emphasised the issue of Internet tracking and profiling creating accurate profiles of users. The more access businesses have to this information, the better they can target consumers with advertisements that match our areas of interest.

This was supported by last year’s World Economic Forum, which described personal information as the new asset class, the new oil, also referred to as big data. He reminded us that aggregation of personal data from search engine history, email content and other personal transaction such as apps downloads often occurs without the user’s understanding it’s happening. And at the very foundation of big data is the fact that it’s personal information and concerns to our right to privacy.

Acceptance of unread terms and conditions with the click of a button takes the relationship between company and the customer in terms of profiling and marketing to a whole new level. People are at the risk of losing control if they are unaware of how their data is being used.

Having in mind personal data is fast becoming the new currency in the digital space, and people are more and more concerned about how it’s being used, do you think companies that have transparent privacy practices will have a competitive edge over others? Do you read privacy terms and proactively adjust the settings of the social networks you use?

Adriana Heinzen
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

Facebook Privacy Changes

Shortly after the Data Privacy forum jointly organised by the University of Sydney and AMSRO, Facebook announced changes to its privacy and governance policies shedding light back on the use (or misuse) of personal data by organisations.

The world's biggest social media company is proposing the end its practice of letting users vote on changes to its privacy policies in favour of Q&A sessions and live webcasts with its chief privacy officer. Under Facebook’s current privacy policy, a vote is triggered if a policy change received more than 7,000 comments, and votes only counted if more than 30 percent of all active users take part. However, this did not happen in the last vote held by the company and is unlikely to do so given that more than 300 million people would have to participate now that the number of users is close to China’s population.

One aspect of the new rules has not received as much attention as it should: Facebook’s plans to use the data it has about users’ liking behaviour to show them ads outside of the social platform by rolling out an external advertising network. This strategy has proved successful with Google’s multibillion dollar Adsense and is aimed to support Facebook’s revenue-growth strategy in order to keep investors happy after the $50 billion market capitalization.

Facebook’s chief privacy officer confirmed their policies intent on a statement to Forbes magazine:
“Everything you do and say on Facebook can be used to serve you ads. Our policy says that we can advertise services to you off of Facebook based on data we have on Facebook.”

However, a large amount of users’ lack of awareness of Facebook’s terms and conditions were demonstrated by the viral spread of meaningless copyright disclaimers recently posted by users on their walls stating they owned copyright over everything they posted on the social network. Hopefully they have become aware by now that, by signing up for a Facebook account, they have already agreed to allow Facebook to use their intellectual property.

PwC have released a research saying 73 percent of Internet users are comfortable disclosing information about themselves online if they receive a tangible benefit for that in return. However, as one of the panellists of the Data Privacy forum has reminded us: “When something online is free, you’re not the customer, you’re the product.”

People are giving away their data in exchange for rewards and services without fully understanding the practical implications. An example raised on the debate was that many customers promptly agree to Flybuys terms and give away their shopping data without realising this can result on them being charged more than others for certain goods on their shopping list. This is something very few people would willingly consent to.

In the industry defense, online businesses will only survive if consumers trust them. If customers don’t, they will use other services, which is a self-preserving notion. However, as the companies that handle online data are getting bigger, people are getting less and less choice. In the case of Facebook, if someone wants to be able to effectively communicate with their overseas friends via a social platform, do they really have a choice? Arguing companies will mostly act in their self-interest and towards profit maximisation, other panelists reasoned data privacy responsibility ultimately lies within government regulation.

How can personal data be protected and who should be responsible for it?

Adriana Heinzen
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

Royal prank call impact on brands

Since the 2Day FM DJs prank call to a London hospital where Kate Middleton was being treated for Hyperemesis Gravidarum (we all know what that means now) and the unfortunate death of the nurse who transferred the call to the duchess ward, much has been debated about the regulations, codes and moral standards breached as well as who is to bear the blame. The radio presenters, radio station, hospital staff and the nurse’s former mental state are now all being scrutinised in the search for answers.

 Here we’ll take a look at the marketing implications for the brands involved in the incident, in particular the Southern Cross Austereo corporate brand, the 2Day FM music station brand, the Hot30 Countdown show brand and the individual radio hosts’ brands. Channel Ten has approached Professor Charles Areni, from the Discipline of Marketing at the University of Sydney Business School, to comment on the case from a brand perspective, and he has also shared with us some of his views.

According to him, the Southern Cross Austereo as well as the 2Day FM brands are unlikely to face serious damage as corporate brands tend to sit in the background preventing high exposure and associations with events like this. On the other hand, it’s probably the end of the road for the Hot30 show brand but, like any discontinued product brand, it can easily be replaced by a new brand tailored to the same target audience.

The focus of the blame and damage is clearly being directed towards the personal brands of the presenters, Michael Christian and Mel Greig – whether or not it is justified. It may seem like the end of their careers in media; however, history shows personal brands of other media presenters have been able to recover from similar backlashes and restore their value in the long run.

As pointed out by Prof. Charles Areni, American sports caster Marv Albert, commonly referred to as ‘the voice of basketball’, had his broadcasting career shattered in 1997 after pleading guilty to misdemeanour assault and battery charges involving bizarre sexual conduct towards a 42 year-old women. NBC, for whom Marv worked for over 20 years, fired him shortly after the incident only to bring him back onboard less than two years later.

Similarly, American sports radio host, Jim Rome, was the focus of a media frenzy in 1994 when he repeatedly insulted NFL quarterback, Jim Everett, a guest on his ESPN2 talk show. The host’s inappropriate comments prompted the player to attack him on air overturning the table between them and shoving Rome to the floor. The presenter admitted the event was an early career mistake and was able to bounce back ranking as the 29th most influential talk radio personality in 2008 according to the Talkers Magazine.

Can you think of any other brands that were able ‘resurrect’ after public backlash? What factors in your opinion have contributed to their come back?


Adriana Heinzen
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

Celebrity worshiping lessons for marketing

If you think university learning is all about textbooks and journals, think again! This year we had the chance to learn about consumer behaviour from a professor who is also an accomplished film director and runs a production house within the Sydney University called Thinkbox. Marylouise Caldwell has been the recipient of six international awards for her film works.

Her documentary ‘Walk the Talk’ shed light into a pageant in Botswana, which was designed to stop the aggressive spread of HIV infection and promote dramatic lifestyle changes, and won the jurors' and the people's choice awards at the 2010 The Association for Consumer Research Conference. With all this richness of experiences, there was never a dull moment in class!

Her studies on celebrity worshiping led to the development of the ‘Living Dolls’ film based on the behaviour of the Cliff Richard Fan Club members in Sydney, which also won the people’s choice award at the 3rd North American Association for Consumer Research Film Festival. Entertainment factors aside, you may ask what celebrity worshiping studies have to do with marketing?

Everything! Fans engaged in the worshiping of celebrities enact consumer-brand relationships. Studies on consumer-brand relationships are critical to understanding marketing exchange. The celebrity worshiping behaviour also provides benefits beyond those directly linked to the famous person, for example, by creating an extended social network of people who engage in social activities and provide each other with emotional support. These are key elements of successful brand communities as mentioned on a previous blog post.

So what brand comes to mind when you think of worshiping behaviour? You got it, Apple and its countless evangelists, fans and followers. Apple, the brand, is indisputably a celebrity, possibly the biggest brand celebrity in history... What can you learn from it in terms of creating your own brand followers?

In the same way music celebs create a lot of secrecy in the development of an upcoming album, Apple goes to incredible lengths to preserve confidentiality during the development of its new products. Apple is the master of teaser marketing campaign building suspense and media buzz for months before the release of a new iPhone.

The illusion of scarcity around Apple’s new products also enacts the limited amount of tickets for coveted music gigs. Scarcity increases the value of the product and prompts procrastinators to jump on the bandwagon and secure the purchase. During the release of iPhone 5, which beat records of first-day sales, Apple only allowed pre-orders. Then, an hour after it went on sale, Apple announced the heavy demand resulted in delayed delivery, adding to the difficulty and desirability of owing the new iPhone.

What other similarities do you see between the brand-consumer relationship and the interaction between celebrities and fans?

Adriana Heinzen
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

Privacy Data: Are Companies doing the Right Thing?

Every day, Australians provide enormous quantities of information about themselves to a wide range of organisations – to retailers, bankers, insurers, health funds, government departments and agencies and countless others. What do we know about how this data is protected? The short answer is that most of us know only “a little”, a handful claim to know “a lot” and an appreciable number say they “know nothing” about it.

A national poll on public attitudes towards privacy conducted late last month by the Association of Market and Social Research Organisations (AMSRO) shows that just under ten percent of those questioned claimed they know a lot about how companies and organisations protect their personal information while a quarter claimed they knew nothing about it. Between these extremes, close to two thirds of the population said they knew “a little” about how these organisations protect personal information.

Dr Terry Beed, an Honorary Associate Professor in the Discipline of Marketing at the University of Sydney commented on an advance copy of the results of the poll on Friday 16 November. His addressed a combined Business School/AMSRO Leadership Forum attended by over 60 applied and academic market and social researchers and special guest Timothy Pilgrim, the Australian Privacy Commissioner.

Dr Beed says, “This relatively low level of awareness has not changed much over the years. We could conclude people don’t care too much about what organisations do to protect individual privacy and are happy to let it go at that, entrusting organisations holding data about them to “do the right thing”. Alternatively, others might be alarmed they are being tracked or profiled and maybe protest about it individually or as members of organised groups. As the internet and mobile platforms become the dominant channels of marketing communication we will need a better understanding of how we feel about sharing personal information about ourselves with others”.

How do you protect your privacy on line? Is there any way that we can better protect ourselves when sharing personal details on line or over the phone in business transactions?

Terry Beed
Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Sydney Business School

Juicy Couture: Product placement meets shopping on YouTube

Sunbathing by the pool in a tiny bikini, supermodel Candice Swanepoel daydreams of fabulous parties where even the cats wear jewelry… your typical fashion video, except you can buy the Juicy Couture items without leaving the page!

YouTube has started testing a new feature that embeds external links into its videos allowing viewers to shop for products while watching the media. While many product categories can take advantage of this, women’s fashion has taken the lead. Juicy Couture and ASOS have both recently used the new capability to create YouTube videos that resemble moving catalogues or ‘shoppable’ videos.

Without going into the details of the above advertising video message, style and execution (their target clearly 20-something), the use of the technology is very innovative. For marketers, this integrates many steps into one experience – product viewing, demonstration and purchase – and has the potential for much higher ad conversions.

Advertising creatives agree the thinking is spot-on, but say the execution has a lot of room for improvement. Every time the viewer clicks on a product he/she is interested in, the video stops, interrupting the whole experience. “This is the Sony Walkman of ecommerce and video,” says Darrell Whitelaw, Executive Creative Director at IPG Media Lab, which has Google as one their clients.

While Target has produced a short-film that allows users click on products and add them to a shopping cart for later purchase without interrupting the experience, a purchase from within videos, not just add items into a cart, without busting the experience is still to be perfected.

What implications does this technology advancement have for marketing, when brand awareness, evaluation and purchase are all blended into one experience?

Adriana Heinzen
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

Beware the Generic SWOT

SWOT analysis would have to be among the most over and misused models around. I am particularly reminded of this fact around this time of the year when marking undergraduate assignments, where quite a number of them incorporate rather inappropriate SWOTs.

However, the misuse of SWOT analysis isn’t just confined to undergraduates. Most of the organizations that I worked for have also managed to equally misuse the SWOT.

One of the alluring dangers of a SWOT is its supposed simplicity. It is certainly a simple concept to grasp, but the development of an effective SWOT is quite painstaking and difficult to achieve.

The standard use of a SWOT in an organization, based on my direct experience, usually occurs two hours or so into a strategic planning weekend, right after a series of ice-breaker and team-building exercises (primarily designed to convince people that they should be giving up their weekend for the good of the organization).

To make matters worse, the development of the SWOT normally takes place within a brainstorming session, which somehow manages to be completed in just ten minutes or so to produce the infamous generic SWOT.

However, to be used effectively a SWOT analysis should be completed at the end of an extensive period of analysis and completed in detail by a number of analytical and strategic people, who may debate the issues for days to arrive at a final document. In other words, the final SWOT (for larger firms) should represent weeks of insightful analysis and discussion - not a quick ten minutes of random brainstorming.

Why is so much effort required for a SWOT? Because a SWOT is the summary and foundation position for the firm or brand that the entire marketing strategy is then based upon. And it goes without saying, that if you quickly brainstorm a generic SWOT, then you are very likely to develop a generic marketing strategy that will have limited impact in the marketplace.

So what is a generic SWOT? A generic SWOT is the direct output of a SWOT brainstorming session that produces a SWOT that is 90% identical to every other firm in the world. In other words, if your firm has used brainstorming or some other top-level technique to develop a SWOT, then I could probably predict 90% of your SWOT.

The usual starting point is strengths and of course we will usually come up with such classics as 'our product range', 'our customer service', and, of course, the always popular and politically correct 'great management team' and even occasionally we will throw in 'great staff' or 'great culture'.

Next we turn to weaknesses and usually we will identify 'product gaps', 'brand equity', 'limited target markets', along with some 'staff skills' in order to ensure that the training department has something to do for the next 12 months.

Threats are usually the easiest and often the longest list. Topping the charts here is 'competition', followed by 'environmental issues', 'rising costs' and 'technology change'.

The list of opportunities is pretty straightforward as well and will include the standards of 'new products', 'new markets', along with the more modern entries of 'social media' and 'digital marketing'.

It goes without saying that in these sessions there is the almost mandatory discussion of the difference between strengths and opportunities and between weaknesses and threats, along with the debate of whether the same issue can be on two lists. Unfortunately, this style of discussion and direction, particularly in an open and judgmental brainstorming session, is usually not helpful. And, of course, we will end up with 'technology change' being both an opportunity and a threat and an 'established product range' being both a strength and a weakness.

As you can guess, I'm not a big fan of the quick top-level SWOT. In my view, they are very dangerous and best to be avoided. However, thought-out, debated and analytical SWOTs can open the door to the development of innovative and highly effective marketing strategies that can make a huge difference to an organization’s performance.

Geoff Fripp
Lecturer – Masters of Marketing at the University of Sydney Business School

Klout: Online Social Influence

Klout, a company that measures web analytics to determine a user’s influence across social networks, is one of those polarizing topics. Its harshest critics have mocked it with a parody site called ‘Klouchebag’, while others see it as a sign of the rising power of influence data.

From Facebook ‘likes’ and ‘tweets’, we all generate loads of data that can be harnessed by anyone interested in our time and money. Klout is just another tool that mines this data to assist a user (and businesses) in understanding how ‘influential’ he or she is. It provides the user rewards for their influence and gives companies information about potential brand endorsers, as seen with the case of John Pham endorsing the car he got to use for free over the weekend to his social network.

Klout’s CEO, Joe Fernandez, says until the rise of social media there was no way to pinpoint society’s hidden influencers, including friends and family members whose recommendations directly impact your purchase decisions. According to Mark Schaefer, an adjunct marketing professor at Rutgers and author of the book ‘Return on Influence’: “this is the democratization of influence.” He adds: “suddenly regular people can carve out a niche by creating content that moves quickly through an engaged network. For brands, that’s buzz. And for the first time in history, we can measure it.”

It is interesting to see how some of the advertising metrics we looked at the Marketing Performance Evaluation lectures, such as ‘reach’ and ‘amplification’, are now being used to measure people’s communications! People are increasingly taking the space of traditional advertising channels, with trust being the key factor. A recent global consumer trust survey by Nielsen shows 90% of consumers trust peer recommendations versus 61% trust in TV ads.

With this in mind, some of the leading marketers like Disney, Nike and Audi have incorporated Klout influencers into their marketing activities. According to Klout, each influencer in one of their ‘Perk’ programs produces an average of 30 pieces of content and millions of possible impressions. With a low cost per thousand impressions compared to other types of advertising, it’s a tool hard to ignore. Watch this space, Klout and social influence data mining is on the rise.

What tools do you use to measure the impact of your marketing activities in social networks? And, more importantly, what factors should be taken into consideration when developing ways to measure online influence?

Adriana Heinzen
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

Nike + Xbox Kinect: Gamifying your brand

The newly released Nike + game for Xbox, powered by the Kinect, allows users to train at home as part of a game while earning fuel points. The game tests the player’s fitness levels and then builds a customized program to achieve specific fitness goals. The Kinect measures the player’s every move and allows for individual performance to be tracked. It is a continuation of the Nike Fuelband campaign adding an element of play to the marketing of fitness apparel.

Gamification is a growing trend in marketing, which many pioneering brands like Nike are turning their attention to. It was brought to our attention by our communications lecturer, who is doing a PhD in the area. It basically involves the use of gaming dynamics to influence behavior, and its main advantage is allowing brands to engage with the target audience on a deeper level and lead them through the purchase intent.

You may ask why is gaming such a growing trend? Its popularity is attributed to modern age lifestyles where people get access to the things they need through fairly dull monetary transactions. Most people in developed countries actually have the luxury of boredom. As the philosopher Bertrand Russell has it: “Civilized life has altogether grown too tame and, if it is to be stable, it must provide harmless outlets for the impulses which our remote ancestors satisfied in hunting.” People yearn for excitement and gaming provides a virtual world where they have the experience of risk and elements of reward.

According to SapientNitro’s ‘Insights 2013’ report, corporations will invest as much as $2.8 billion on gamification by the end of 2016. This is a tool marketers should pay attention to as the same report pointed out to a decline in social media pages participation and engagement. As a response, they advised marketers to diversify their digital marketing activities into gamification in order to boost the engagement of their online efforts.

Before you start considering how to turn your brand-consumer interaction into a game, do you think this approach is appropriate for any type industry?

Adriana Heinzen
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

Do you really know where your food comes from?

Country of Origin Labeling (i.e. Made in Australia) can be an important marketing tool as many people are willing to pay a premium for Australian products in order to support local jobs. However, did you know that food containing imported ingredients can legally be labeled as ‘Made in Australia’?

Under the current rules, mixed diced vegetables, battered fish fillets and cured meat may all qualify as ‘Australian Made' even if all of the major ingredients are imported, as long as at least 50 per cent of the production costs are incurred in Australia and the food has experienced ‘substantial transformation’ in the country, according to Australian Made Chief Executive, Ian Harrison. In other words, the ‘Made in Australia’ claim does not refer to the origin of the ingredients, but to the food processing and packaging.

A recent survey by Roy Morgan shows nearly half of all Australian consumers (40.3%) find it difficult to identify whether a product is Australian made or grown. The ambiguity of the Country of Origin Labelling, which is regulated by the Australian Consumer Law, has many customers confused and brands in hot water.

A recent lecture on Regulatory Environment and Ethics opened our eyes to this issue and a visit to the local supermarket confirmed the amount of contradiction around Country of Origin claims on food labels. Customers are not being told the full story about how much imported ingredients are present in their food. Up until recently, unpackaged produce like beef, lamb and chicken did not require Country of Origin Labeling, a loophole the government has agreed to address after an independent review of the food labeling.

Calls for a food labeling reform have been made by the ‘Australian Made Australian Grown’ campaign and by The Greens Party. In response, the ACCC stated the core problem does not relate to the current classifications, but with people's understanding of what they mean. While a campaign has been recently announced to assist consumers to better understand the current labeling regime, it does little to assure them about the true origin of their food.

What is your view on this matter? Should brands simply comply with the current (confusing) law, or should they take a proactive approach and provide additional Country of Origin information to their customers?

Adriana Heinzen
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School