My go-to-guy when it comes to Finance, Richard Quest, takes some time to talk about why Apple does to be so profitable.
Posts Tagged ‘Brand’
Quest on Apple
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009Don Livingston – The Last Lecture
Monday, October 5th, 2009I took my Saturday night off from studies and friends to consume some lectures found on iTunes U. Randy Pausch’s “Last Lecture” – discussed here – inspired Western Carolina University to have one with political science professor Don Livingston. I won’t talk too much about his character – his southern dialect, he humbleness towards he’s statues, knowledge, and for his speech on receiving a teacher’s award. A tear or two might have fallen from my eyes when he explains that the best day’s work he ever did was when he married his wife. A true inspiration, that’s all I can say.
I will, however, talk about the things he brought up concerning friendship, kindness, and business – and I will try to apply it to marketing and branding.
For more information on Don Livingston, please visit his page on Western Carolina University.
Podcast can be downloaded via iTunes – here
From the lecture
”If you find a turtle on the top of a fencepost, chances are it did not get there by itself”
Quote by Bill Clinton – told to him by a relative.
If you see someone who has reached far, chances are that this person has received a lot for help getting there. Few make it to the top alone.
When you have a successful company to manage, or you are seeing a sudden change in your brand value, changes are that it is not you, or your small team of people who made this happen. People helped you, so make sure to find as many of these people as possible and reward them.
Example could be of Apple giving one free song to every customer who has bought a computer the last three years. The company has a good cash flow, and a lot of people buy many products out of the Apple portfolio. It’s a small thing, but as a small token of appreciation.
“It is a huge difference in using one another, and abusing one another.”
Everybody USE someone – to get a name on a resume, maybe a recommendation for a job. That is okay. Make sure to thank those who help you – or else they will feel abused.
“People matter – And people count“
Obama knows this! And one unsatisfied customer might make a bigger difference than you can imagine. The customer is the one who buys the product, make sure to listen when they are not satisfied, they might give you more if you ask for it.
“We can learn something from anybody, even an axe murderer – ask how s/he sharpens his/hers axe!”
You might know how your customer thinks and acts, but sometimes you might need to go far away from your perceived market to find a missing piece. Don’t be afraid of new things or updating it.
Nice tips for the road!
“Cheerfulness & Optimism are contagious”
- Ronald Reagan
“Courage is when you are scared to death, but still saddle up!”
- John Wayne
“Showing up is half the battle – being prepared is another quarter!”
“An environmentalist sees a hill top and says that s/he thinks that we should preserve this beautiful thing. A lumberjack or an industrial investor sees something else. It’s nothing wrong with that – just make sure that you respect the others’ opinion”
Fredrik Törn – Challenging Consistency
Monday, August 3rd, 2009I do not know how much, but ask any professor in communication and s/he will tell you that any human being in the western world are attacked every day with different kinds of attention-seekers. Be it commercials, other humans, and what not.
Fredrik Törn released his doctoral thesis on “how established brands can enhance their strength, interestingness, and vitality.”
All in all, it is six articles and I do believe he might have broken some new grounds in this one.
Notes:
Incongruent: When ad and brand are not corresponding with each other.
Quote from Keller on the importancy on maintaining consistency in ads:
It is important when building it, however, not crushial
It takes time to understand the incongruency
To uphold realism in a brand study, one should follow what McQuarrie (1998) found in order to get a result as close to reality as possible, using the
The Six Factors of Reality
- Advertisements are embedded and not the focus of attention
- Advertisements attempt to influence choice
- Advertisements are subject to competitive interference
- Advertisements must influence choice after a delay
- Advertisements may be repeated, and
- Much advertising is for familiar brands
- Effect of student sample (Fredrik Törn added!)
The methods which are successful to build brands equity (for new brands) may have to be revised when moved to enhance well established brands.
A brand with an incongruent connection between ad & brand will get more
- Attention,
- Emotional response,
- there is a more sophisticated process of brand association,
- a better brand recall
- it is more latched into the viewers memory, and
- the belief will be largely unchanged
Ad attitude and Brand attitude is weaker for familiar brands than for unfamiliar brands
An incongruent ad works less the second time, since the viewer has connected the ad to the brand, thus it is congruent in this person’s mind.
Though most studies done by mr. Törn showed that this will help a brand to be recognized and get attention, one study, however, showed that the brand attitude and the purchase intentions were remained unchanged.
Using an incongruent celebrity endorsement worked for market-leading brands, as well as for a second-tier brand, however, as with the other, the connection has to make sense. Tiger Woods being an endorser for diapers makes sense if people understand that he has children, but not if he’s a bachelor running around “getting tail and being protected”.
Service
Monday, August 3rd, 2009The other week I wrote about how me and Malin had a not so nice encounter with Norwegian airline, and because of this I questioned why one have to cut back on expected services just because the price is low. I’m still tossing and turning this whole thing back and forth, but, I just witnessed when three institutions really made my day 300% better.
Swedish Embassy in Oslo
I have a re-exam in Economics that I wish to write this August, however, since I will be in Oslo by the time of the exam, I won’t be able to write it in Umeå. Once before, I managed to get a police station in Stockholm to lend me a room to write an exam in, so I thought that someone in Oslo could help me. I called the embassy, and within three minutes they had took my details, and promised to get back to me as soon as possible, but they promised that it wouldn’t be a problem.
Score!
CSN (Swedish Agency for Student Aid)
Last week I received a note from CSN telling me that I would receive money for my time in Oslo, and that it would be on my account on August 25th. This could turn out to be a problem since school starts on the 12th, thus leaving me without money for almost two weeks. I called them up, and before I had told them the entire problem, they told me that I could have the money on Thursday if I wanted to. No fuss, just had to check a box on the Internet, and it was all good.
Score!
Malmö Aviation
Once again I will praise this airline. I sent Norwegian an e-mail concerning an umbrella that I wish to bring. Since the umbrella is longer than the acquired 55cm to bring it as cabin luggage, I decided that it was better to know for sure. It took to days to get an answer from Norwegian, could have been due to this being a weekend, but in this day and age when they have full week service, I would have expected an answer faster than that. The answer I got said that I could only bring it with me if ti was shorter than 55cm, thus I had to check it in.
Before grieve too much, Malin suggested I’d call Malmö Aviation since she’ll be flying with them on Thursday morning. The answr was sure, as long as it didn’t have a pointy end, that could pierce something.
SCORE!
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As I mentioned before. Even though you are working within the service sector, selling a service, and you do it cheap, make sure to divide what is a service “product” and a service “service”. Yes, I pay less for the service-product, and thus I won’t get an in flight dinner or what not, but, I do expect to get some service-service. There’s no bigger difference between the aeroplanes that the two companies are using, but somehow Norwegian are not ready to go outside their own set rules.
Let’s see how long they understand that it is the customer who decide in the end.
Get them hooked using the cow
Saturday, August 1st, 2009There are two ways to get someone hooked on video games.
- Get them at an early age
- Use he cow riding game.
You wonder what the cow riding game is, well, it’s on Wii Play. How do I know this?
When I first bought my Wii back in 2007, Malin was not thrilled a single bit. Coming from a family who never spend a single hour in front of any video game – I had to tell her entire family that Mario was a plumber, and that he had been seen in over 200 million households, before they understood that it wasn’t just a silly game, and that might be justified to use him in a crossword as reference. Any way. After I bought the Wii, I tried to show her that it was more than just a silly video game. I challenged her in tennis, bowling, snooker – and the cow riding game.
Two days after I bought it I came home from work, only to noticed that she had been practicing.
Journalist and speculators have given Nintendo the big thumb up for the Wii for many reason, one of them is that they manage to get the female audience in on it as well. Mind you, it is still guys who purchase most of the games and peripherals, but females are getting in to it. With Wii Fit, Nintendo managed to get their idea of letting video games be used as a workout toll fully on, and being released before Christmas, there wasn’t enough to get around. Everybody wanted one.
The reason I tell you this, is that I couldn’t stop smiling that even a 47 year old man, Richard Quest, talked about the falling profits for the gaming industry.
See for yourself, what game gets him hooked?
This other clip also gives a good explanation on how the economy works, using the gaming industry as an example.
Anders Parment & Anna Dyhre – Sustainable Employer Branding
Wednesday, July 29th, 2009In their book, “Sustainable Employer Branding – Guidelines, Worktools and Best Practices”, the two authors, Anders Parment & Anna Dyhre explains why companies need to change their way on how their recruiting, maintaining and how they market themselves as employers. What used to be “Let them come to us” has now changed to a “How can we get them to stay” business. And it is the generation Y (people born somewhere between late 60’s, whole 70’s and early 80’s) that leads the change.
Notes from the book:
- Generation Y:ers are more keen to give credit to people they find competent, than people with a fancy title.
- Y:ers rather wants a job that is self-fulfilling, than well paid.
- Flexible working hours is more common, than the ordinary 9-5. A Y:er can skip work an entire day, but makes up for it during a Saturday night.
- Problem with many industries is that it attracts a certain type of person. E.g. the make up industry is likely to attract a young female with a business degree in marketing. Problem is, all companies in this industry have enough of these. What they on the other hand is looking for are employees with engineering background – a typical male job. Thus, the women who apply for a job won’t get it, or the only jobs that are asked for by the company won’t interest them. Y:ers tend then to feel hurt by the company, thus the company might loose a customer.
Talented people tend to be more…
- …flexible
- …more interested in using the pull-factor – giving the customer what it wants
- …interested in forming it’s own work-life, not what the company wants.
- …likely to have a formal relationship to authority – boss = friend
- …open-minded in finding information all over, not used via the company/CEO
A Y:er tend to change jobs more often than others, however, still this is considered not to be good if it happens too often. Every second year is considered okay.
The two authors gives three advises on how to implement Employer Branding.
Employer branding…
- …should be separated form the recruiting process
- …starts from within an employer
- …efforts should also help the employer to understand who is their ideal employee
By goal is to APPEAL TO THE IDEAL FUTURE EMPLOYEE.
A Y:er is more likely to…
- …accept less in pay if they get the opportunity o work for their favorite company
- …be motivated
- …most satisfied and feel proud to be a part of their employer
- …stay loyal to the firm
- …be more productive
If flipped around, these are the five reasons for an Y:er leaving an organisation
- Low wage
- Lack of influence in decision-making
- Unattractive working hours
- Working environment
- work tasks
These five follow the same theme as those mentioned above, that the wage is not an issue, if the job the person is doing fulfills her-/himself. Thus, a boring job demands a higher wage. If this is not given the employee will leave the company.
Side notes:
- A bank that needs people, but has a reputation of being a bad employer – what kind of recruits will they get?
- At law and auditing firms they are, out of 100 employed students in year 0, only have 30 left in Y5 and 5-10 in Y10. Who will still be there after all these years if people knows about this?
To summaries what the authors want to say with their book, my guess is that, …
“Those who leave are the good employees. They are attractive because of their talent, … their driving force, and … their energy. They are likely to make a difference on their next employment.”
It is important, if a good employee wish to leave the firm, to keep it in the loop of the company. The book uses the term “boomerang recruitment”, meaning that the employee might comeback in a few years, if the company plays it’s cards right.
Intel, after an employee leaves, services it’s old co-worker with new computers, or printers. It also offers the employee to come back as a consultant, or invites it to company picnic, meetings, and sends it newsletters etc.
——–
For me, this book was a great eye-opener, and I know exactly who I’ll recommend to read it. The principal at my business school – the book ends with stating clear examples for how a university can do this.
I will also tell friends who works with events, especially one who is about to get started with a career fair. This is a great opportunity for companies to start their way into getting a good, solid, and sustainable employer brand.
Official site for the book, and authors.
Petrell of Sweden
Tuesday, July 28th, 2009Almost a year ago I came across a little firm in Halmstad called Petrell of Sweden. Their thing was to create one of a kind bowties and sell these over the internet. For over a year I have visited their page every now and then hoping to be first with grabbing one of their masterpieces, always to go empty handed.
But not this time.
Say “Hello!” to my new and lovely bowtie.
For a measly 225SEK + postage 20SEK – I recieved a over night delivery, handmade, one-of-a-kind bowtie.
I am VERY sure that I’ll use this couple again.
Feel free to pay them a visit – www.petrellbowties.se
Does low price = bad service
Friday, July 24th, 2009My girlfriend and I booked a flight the other day to go from Umeå to Stockholm. Usually we travel with Malmö Aviation since they land in Bromma, close to her family thus cutting the travel expenses a bit.
Since I have to go to Stockholm before I go to Oslo, and I have to bring a lot of luggage, we decided to fly with Norwegian, a low-cost company that allows their passengers to bring up to 40kg for the small price of 100SEK, add that we only pay 323SEK each for a ticket, we got away pretty cheap. Or so. We. Thought.
Turns out we did a minor error. Since we want to bring our cat, Noppe, with us, and we did not see that we could do that via Internet, I called them to add a cat-ticket to our original order. Problem was, that’s not possible! You have to book ALL your tickets via phone, thus paying an extra cost, plus the cost for the cat-ticket. I tried to sweet talk the girl I was talking to, who promised to try her best – which turned out to be squat-shit. Said and done, my girlfriend grabbed the wheel and called them up. This time, they meet stone with fire. Nothing could be done. We could choose to pay a re-booking fee of, here this 400SEK per ticket, plus some other “hoopla cost” reaching up to 1,500SEK total. Add the original price of 860SEK, thus turning our tickets to FAR LESS than cheap.
Now, I’m a reasonable guy, and my girlfriend knows A LOT about service mindedness after working as a store clerk for several years – in our world, we believe that the customer might not always be right, but as a company and especially as a representative for this company, you should make the customer feel as if they are so. Right, that is.
FAIL!
The girl we talked to said that we OBVIOUSLY should have known that this was the case, even though all of the other airlines we have flown with let’s you book your ordinary ticket via Internet, and after that you call them up and reserve a cat-ticket. The cat isn’t even that big.
We have meet this “problem” with Malmö Aviation, interesting enough is that it wasn’t a problem. They fixed it, and it did not cost a cent (öre) more. They fixed it. A ticket from Malmö Aviation cost approximately 499SEK, this includes a hot meal, 20kg of luggage, news papers, and this service.
So, what do I want to say with all this. Well, that Norwegian losses more in not being cooperative, than if they could have done their best to help us. Not to put this astronomical amounts to rebook if that would mean the fee is more than the ticket itself, and we are almost two weeks prior to the travel day.
I know that when you book a low price ticket, you might loose some of things, food, destinations, a pillow, news papers – but it is not until now that I have realized that service could be one of those things.
I will, however, let this one rest for a week or so, and come back to it. Who knows, I might see it from another angle then.
Straight from Burger King
Thursday, July 23rd, 2009My live and I, together with my syster and her family decided that we needed to explore Övik. It was an adventure. The target was Burger King, and I got my mind set up for their Transformers 6-pack!
All in all, it was an experience. The burger could have tasted better, but I guess you cannot have it all.
