TiesMorskate.nl

Some interesting advertisements are listed on the following blog: http://blog.graphicriver.net/web-roundups/41-new-and-creative-advertisements/

Be sure to check them out!

At least this is what I intend to do by reading the book; he Lords of Strategy: The Secret History of the New Corporate World by Walter Kiechel III. It’s supposed to give insight in how four men were responsible for changing the business world and what influence they have left today.

It should improve my understanding of strategic decisions and help me in shaping strategies for our clients. I decided on this book because of the following review on Amazon: “I haven’t had this much fun reading a business book in many years, and never this much fun reading an intellectual history. Walter Kiechel has succeeded in capturing the detail of how strategy developed as an area of corporate focus while generously exhibiting the rich ironies involved.”

The four men discussed are:

• Bruce Henderson, founder of Boston Consulting Group
• Bill Bain, creator of Bain & Company
• Fred Gluck, longtime Managing Director of
• McKinsey & Company
• Michael Porter, Harvard Business School professor

Of course I will let you guys know what I thought of the book!

Interesting article on Molblog yesterday, Feli Halve concludes that advertising is the fee for being unremarkable. Her examples include origami tea bags and tea labels. While I agree with her statement that a remarkable product is more important than advertising I think she could’ve explored the notion much deeper. The article is written in Dutch so be warned!

Een uitspraak van Robert Stephens van de Geeksquad. Uiteraard is de werkelijkheid niet zo zwart-wit, maar er zit natuurlijk wel een grote kern van waarheid in. Het verbaast me dan ook keer op keer dat er zoveel bedrijven zo weinig aandacht besteden aan hun fysieke product en/of de customer journey. Over dit aspect zou je een boek vol kunnen schrijven (misschien moet ik dat ook eens gaan doen, als ik tijd over heb). Maar voor deze blog beperkt ik me even tot de aandacht voor het fysieke product.

Read the full article at Molblog.nl

Currently, I am making a lot of sales calls, both to improve and to sell of course. For someone who does this as well it will come as no surprise if I say that companies have huge differences in terms of interaction. The point of entry in an organization is usually their general number and you start by talking with a receptionist who’ll determine your next contact. This leads to a divide: will you help people getting in touch with you, or will you make sure people are undisturbed. The basic question is, should you value people calling you?

Company A has receptionist Nora answering the phone, the conversation goes like this:

“Company A”
“Hello, this is Ties Morskate calling from Company Z.”
“…(silence)”
“Ahem, yes, I was calling to ask about subject.”
“I’m sorry we do not give out names, e-mail addresses or function titles on the phone.”
“Okay, so how do we get in touch?”
“You can send us an e-mail on info@companya.com, the appropriate person will decide whether to respond”

As you can imagine, this pretty much ends the conversation, I know for sure there’ll be no reply, the person I had meant to reach never even had the chance to weigh my proposal. No deal which is bad for me, but what’s bad for Company A is that they lose out on information this way. Would I call if I had nothing of value to offer?

Company B has Amy answering the phone:

“Good morning, Company B, this is Amy, how can I help you? (Smile in voice)”
“(start smiling) Morning Amy, this is TM from Company Z, I was calling to ask about subject.”
“Ah yes, let me check. ”
“Take your time.”
“You would need Person C, he’s in right now but very buzy with an upcoming event. Is it urgent?”
“Not really, when would be a good time to call Person C?”
“You can try again some other time, but perhaps I could give Person C a message or you could write an e-mail?”
“Thank you, I’ll write an e-mail and call back next week?”
“Sure, I’d recommend 2 weeks though, the event ends Thursday the 11th.”
“Allright, thanks for the help.”
“No problem, thanks for calling, have a good day.”
“Same to you, bye!”

This conversation caused me to smile, and write a happy e-mail. By helping me and managing my expectations she made sure her colleague was undisturbed and could answer at his or her own convenience, which is fine with me of course, at least it gets read. So I’m happy, she was already happy and person c is happy. Everybody wins.

Company B is the biggest winner here, Person C has maximum efficiency and easy access to information but I, I have a good feeling with the company. Three years from now, I might suddenly be a buyer, or 2 weeks from now a friend will ask me about both companies, guess which one I will recommend.

After working at Kroese brands & behaviour for 1,5 months I managed to write my first article focusing on one of the major changes marketing and communication will see in the next year or more: gamification.

Gamification is the application of the dynamics used in videogames to increase customer involvement with the brand.

Before social media, companies would just buy the right to send their message to an amount of consumers, the more the better, but Web 2.0 has changed this. Now consumers go through various stages of engagement, and the most influential consumers (ambassadors) are hardest to influence directly by the brands themselves. Jeff Jarvis’ ‘Dell Hell crusade’ against the manufacturer’s bad service comes to mind. The new goal is interaction; talking to, instead of at, your customers and earning the right to do so. The game dynamics explained earlier can help your company do just that.

You can read the full article in english on:

http://www.kroese-bb.com/blog/en/entry/ahead_of_the_curve_by

Or translated into Dutch on molblog.nl:

http://www.molblog.nl/bericht/hoe-game-dynamics-betrokkenheid-van-de-klant-vergroten/

The gaming market promises to be even more of a major market than it already is. Consider this;

- To start gaming, someone only needs a computer in his house, something that’s seen as a requirement to function in this society
- The availability of games is only growing (iPhone, wireless internet, etc.)
- A greater variety of games is released every year
-  Game interface is ever changing; who could’ve imagined the Wii a few years back? or the Natal?
- Integration of gaming in our daily lives; friends meeting on WoW or for a game of FIFA is not strange or uncommon anymore

(more…)

Recent posts on various media I like; Wired’s piece ‘In Praise of the 3-Hour Game‘ and even more recently New York Times’ article ‘Video Game Makers Challenged by the Next Wave of Media‘, all seem to focus on one message: The way gaming and game development has worked for the past 15 years is coming to an end. This fact is presented as some surprising development, while it could be said to just be behaving like all the other media. Music industry anyone? Newspaper industry anyone? I could probably find plenty of examples. 

Preferably, I would take a lesson learned from this and be done with it.

(more…)