Andrew Lark

Brilliant!

Don’t work. Avoid telling the truth. Be hated. Love someone.

You can read the rest here.

What a Great Story

When going Mobile, Go Lo-fi

A great definition and a paper well worth a read.

“Low-fidelity mobile advertising campaigns are effective when they are for products that trigger further thought and consideration, which includes campaigns for high (versus low) involvement products, and for products that are seen as more utilitarian (versus more hedonic).”

According to the study:

“Low-fi mobile ads that, as a consequence of their design and technology restrictions, contain relatively small amounts of information are effective when used in situations where consumers have both the ability and motivation to process and elaborate on the information in a deliberate fashion.

Hat tip to Snarketing for the link.

Great brands are built on a deeper truth than merely "engagement". Brand engagement is a measure. But not the measure.

"...a strong relationship develops by supporting people in living their lives, not by driving brand involvement. As I like to say, "It's about the people, stupid."

A must read over at The Atlantic.

Bike Site of the Week

Love the layout and content over at Tokyo Fixed. And they sell T-Level bags.

Continuous Learning

Loved this post from Leo on learning. I wonder what would happen if all of us built a learning plan and stuck to it. I've been learn math and wine via The Great Courses. Also learning about Sea Kayaking, which has involved a bit of swimming.

Media Habits Evolving in Aus

Some interesting insights... all reinforce that the channels are adding to and broadening traditional distribution and reach.

Nielsen, OzTAM and Regional TAM reported that 95% of households have at least one digital TV set, up from 90% in the first quarter of 2011. Some 70% receive digital stations on all of the sets they used.

• During a typical month, the typical person watched 113 hours and 38 minutes of television, rising by six hours 31 minutes on an annual basis.
• 44% of Australian households possessed PVRs or other time-shifting technology, and the average amount of time dedicated to playing back content has grown by four hours and 31 minutes, to 12 hours, since Q4 2010.
• 77% of homes are connected to the internet, and Australians normally spend 43 hours 54 minutes using this medium on a PC per month.
• Watching any form of online video, from broadcast content to user-generated clips, contributed three hours and 27 minutes to this total.
• 49% of Australians aged over 14 years old now own a smartphone. This total has grown from 35% at the start of 2011.
• Smartphone subscribers spent 1 hour 20 minutes watching all forms of video through this route by the end of last year, measured against 35 minutes in the first quarter.
• 10% of metropolitan households now own one or more tablets, with 5% of the online population viewing video content in this way by the close of last year, up from 2% at the end of 2010.

Perhaps they got the store concept wrong

Interesting read on Bloomberg about retailers shuttering their Facebook stores. What's surprising is that they didn't try new concepts all together. Why would you shop the same experience in Facebook that you could have on the web? If the alternate store is one bookmarked click away, then there is hardly stickiness.

We've had an alternate experience at CBA - the Facebook community is vibrant and its an exciting channel. We don't want another branch in Facebook, we want Facebook to be an extension of our branches. For the two together, to create a better and differentiated experience. Ok, it's early days. And that's why shuttering stores seems remarkably shortsighted. 

It also seems to miss one of the killer elements that Facebook offers us all - a compelling and low-cost platform on which to experience and play. Play is the key factor. It is what people do when they get there. I wonder how many of these retailers tried to reinvent retailing as a game in facebook? 

We'd give Facebook an "F" for fun, and and "A" for marketing impact.

Giving Up Email

Enjoyed this read and thought this bit was spot on:

We have finally understood and came to terms with the fact that we could no longer sustain that method of working in an environment where we now know there are much much better collaborative and knowledge sharing tools out there with social software. We are finally embracing that notion that we need to smarten up in our very own use of email, even if that implies playing games, and start considering how email is no longer the king and master of the corporate world, but just another useful tool for certain types of interactions where it is rather suited for the job.

Online Banking

I'm not sure what is going on in the UK but here in Australia online banking is the norm. I'd argue banks big and small are passionately pursuing digital innovation - something that keeps us all on our toes.

There are several drivers.

First, IT and particularly smartphone penetration is amongst the highest in the world. Banking has increasingly become a companion activity. We see this every night in our data. People sit down to watch TV and start paying bills and checking balances.

Second, banks here invested ahead of demand - especially CBA. Take contactless terminals - they are everywhere. In the US you will struggle to find them. What that means is ideas like tap-and-go payments made possible by Kaching suddenly have very broad appeal. We've also invested many hundreds of millions of dollars creating one of the most modern core banking platforms in the world. What this means is instant visibility into account status and real-time payments. This not only puts people in control of their money, but makes the digital world more secure and meaningful.

We are past the digital tipping point. A new world of banking is upon us - a world that will start on small screens everywhere. The key to unlocking this innovation isn't dollars. They are important and they must flow at some point, but in reality they are realitvely small in the context of any Banks overal P&L.

The crux of the issue is culture. To fully capture the online opportunity any business needs to create a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship - one that harnesses their natural strengths in things like Risk and Security -- and applies them to new challenges. THe culture needs to be based on "yes" principles rather than "no". Most importantly, it has to be maniacly passionate about customer - about surprising and delighting them.

Once the right culture is in place and tested, innovations like Kaching and the CBA property app flow. Interestingly, culture is hard to replicate and hard to compete against.

It also makes for a pretty fun place to be.

Knowing When The Funnel Doesn't Matter

Most marketers in tech - and most inudstries -- obsess over the funnel. At what point and what rate are we converting people from awareness to consideration to buying and loyalty. There are as many funnel taxonomies as there are views on how to move someone through the funnel.

But does the funnel matter for all purchases? Arguably not. Think of a good burger - lots of awareness, lots of loyalty, not much of a funnel. The argument has long been that the funnel matters most for any capital purchase. But as Aaker points out, as industries mature and we accept basic quality and performance benchmarks exist, funnels start to collapse. Relating his experience of replacing his computer, he says "there was no funnel experience, I passed by awareness, comprehension, and preference and skipped directly to purchase. Makes me wonder about the logic of many marketing programs as well as accompanying analytical efforts to measure results."

Knowing where a funnel matters most, and where it matters less, is critical. Aaker makes a key point that for many, brand awareness up front might not even matter and can be replaced by recommendation. I've long argued that most marketers would do well to focus on replacing awareness with recommendation.

How do you drive recommendation?

Toby's Estate in NYC

For those of you looking for a Flat White in NYC, look no further than Toby's Estate. You'll also be able to experience Pro Barristas pouring hot water into a ceramic double dripper from a Hario kettle, or pulling a carefully calibrated shot of espresso from one of only two La Marzocco Strada machines found stateside.

One Work-Life Balance

Work-life balance is something I'll write about more soon. In the meantime, I just stumbled across this quote that is thought-provoking:

“Every one of us can send emails on Sunday night, but how many of us know how to go to the movies on Monday afternoon? If you don’t know how to go to the movies from 2 to 4, you’re in trouble because you’ve just taken on something that unbalances life, but you haven’t rebalanced it with something else.”

Ricardo Semler

The Way To Make Coffee

Espresso, Intelligentsia from The D4D on Vimeo.

Zero Email

Love what they are up to at Atos. While banning email might seem extreme, it might be the only way to drive change quickly.

“We are producing data on a massive scale that is fast polluting our working environments and also encroaching into our personal lives,” he said in a statement when first announcing the policy in Feburary. “At [Atos] we are taking action now to reverse this trend, just as organizations took measures to reduce environmental pollution after the industrial revolution.”