Blog o' RAMA

Congrats to the MOY Award Winners!

Download RAMAPresentation-Marvel-PeterCuneo.pdf (558.0K)

Keynote speaker Peter Cuneo from Marvel promised his powerpoint presentation from his keynote at our MOY event this week - since there was little time for him to actually present it: see above.

I know all who attended will rave for weeks to come on what he did talk about: Ironman production (complete with the Ironman fantastic trailer!) and The Incredible Hulk, my personal favorite, with amazing trailor video, and how the brand image of Marvel's characters is handled (hint: as if they are human), and how they are each separate unto themselves, but all part of the bigger whole.

His experience turning Marvel around, creating a brand power-hourse from the ashes of a group of burning comic book heroes, is just one of many he could have told us. He's the turnaround King and we all hope he'll come back to do the real presentation - the "here's how I did it" presentation, someday. More on Peter another time...stories of movie production and Robert Downey Jr. and Gwenth Paltrow.

But, let's move on to the MOY Award Winners for 2008 who were presented with their awards at the Rochester Riverside Convention Center on May 7th - with our sincere appreciation to ALL who entered. Every entry deserves congratulations for a job well done. Rochester's rich talent for all forms of marketing was evident in each and every entry. And the winners are...

Brandjam the RAMA Way

We hosted brand expert, Marc Gobe, yesterday, at the Riverside Convention Center. He was marvelous!

The focus was introducing a new concept to marketing - that of the Brand jam (in honor of his book, which was given to every attendee). In other words, more minds at the table create more opportunity to touch customers with an emotional message. A true jamming session. Can't you just hear the music?

I polled the RAMA board and got some immediate responses. Here are the two questions I asked, with answers from our illustrious president, Denis Caysinger, and from one of our program chairs, Katharine McMahon.

I asked, "What was the biggest/best take-away idea you got from the presentation?

And, "Will you be sharing your experience from yesterday with co-workers and business colleagues? How?"

Denis said, I was surprised how much he he uses market research, while at the same time understanding the limitations of research.  Their agency has a really good process to uncover insights at a much deeper level than most agencies are ever are able to do.

I've already talked to one of my co-workers and told her she should have been there to hear the talk.  All of the information about social networking, emotional connection, etc. is something she would have been very interested in.  Her loss!

Katharine said, "The integration of supliers/vendors into the brandjam and how that can amplify the results."

I have already given the book to a couple of people who couldn't attend, and I sent the link to the blog interview to a couple of my clients.

How Does Diversity Impact Your Marketing Plans?

Recently my employer, Eastman Kodak Company , hosted Luke Visconti, one of the founders of DiversityInc.  Quoting from the website, "DiversityInc's mission is to bring education and clarity to the business benefits of diversity."  Kodak has been active in their thinking about diversity for over ten years now, and for good reason.
As Luke presented, I made a few notes that you might find interesting as marketers.  One of his assertions is that "mainstream marketing" is dying.  Companies who are most successful today have adapted to understand the needs of diverse consumers, while other companies are stuck in the past, creating products that cater to the traditional "mainstream" market which are not of interest to the fastest growing ethnic groups in the U.S.

Did you know that children in our country are already five times more racially diverse than our population who is over 70 years of age?  Did you know that the incidence of families in the U.S. that are multi-racial have increased significantly over the past ten years?

I'm amazed at how quickly this transformation is taking place.  I had been sensitized to this transformation a few years ago, and this recent update by Luke showed I've been out of the loop and not paying enough attention to this.

What is your business doing to recognize and adjust as the U.S. becomes more diverse?

RAMA Board Member, Bill Ward, Quoted in NY Times

The announcement in the NY Times a week ago that Chrysler L.L.C. has hired Deborah Wahl Meyer, from Toyota, as its new vice president and chief marketing officer, to start Aug. 28th, carried some local attention.

Dr. Bill Ward (they called him William J.), professor of marketing at Alfred University, and our own VP of Collegiate Relations here at RAMA, was quoted, saying, "To win customers back, Ms. Meyer must show that the company is different, not only from its previous incarnation but also from its American competitors."

Dr. Ward went on to mention that Chrysler was among "a lot" of U.S. brands that had become "kind of generic." His advice was to reconnect with cutsomers, and "establish...differentiation between themselves and their competition."

The online article shows a cute image of three kids in car seats, each one representing a different make of car. Ostensibly to prove Chrysler is forward thinking, I guess. Ready for your kids... in 15 years.

Glad to see Alfred represented by Dr. Ward, and to discover a RAMA board member doing what he does best: Sharing marketing advice.

Greetings from Wuhan, China

This is Bill Ward, RAMA Collegiate Chair and Assistant Professor of Marketing for Alfred University, New  York, reporting from Wuhan, China. I am at a "Computer Bar" near the China University of Geosciences in Wuhan (CUG) where I am teaching International Marketing to Chinese students this week.

The Bar has over 200 terminals with Internet access, digital video cameras and headphones with built in microphones. Most of the students are playing multi-player video games. There is an ad for Gatorade and the NBA on the wall above my terminal. Basketball and the NBA is very popular in China, especially with students. All of my students know the Chinese NBA star Yao Ming. The students are very enthusiastic to learn about other cultures and international marketing.

Like students in the U.S., most Chinese students have never traveled abroad, so most of their understanding comes from Hollywood Films, what they see in the media and cliches that they learn from others. One of my colleagues is working on a research paper comparing global awareness of Chinese students vs. U.S. students.  Although the paper has not been published yet, the findings show that both Chinese and U.S. students are equal in their poor awareness and understanding of other cultures and international issues so both countries have a long way to go in global education. 

It is very difficult financially and politically (VISA permission issues) for Chinese students to travel abroad but they are very interested in seeing the U.S. and the rest of the world but it is not likely that most will get an opportunity. The Chinese students would like to travel to the U.S. but are also concerned that the U.S. is not as safe as China with all of the guns, violence (Virgina Tech and other school shootings) and racism that they see in the U.S. on the Internet and television.

All of the students have mobile phones, use the computers regularly and are also interested in music, fashion and film from the West. The students do not have cars as they are too expensive and the traffic, congestion and pollution in some of the major cities (Like in Los Angeles) is a major problem.  The group I was traveling with from the U.S., France and Canada were eating lunch in Beijing and drinking Tsing Tao, a Chinese brand beer, and we noticed the Chinese at the other table were drinking Budweiser with their meal.

We have been experiencing the rich Chinese history, culture and heritage and they are experiencing more Western style culture and brands as privitization and a more market economy is opening China to the rest of the world. We also attended the Sixth Annual Wuhan International Conference on E-Commerce over the weekend. Scholars from eight countries and China presented research papers on management information systems and using the internet for e-commerce and global marketing.

Keynote speakers from Hong Kong, Germany and the U.S. presented cutting edge presentations on the future of professional supported open-source coding, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) for inventory management and the different decision making styles of managers in the U.S., Japan and China. A scholarly research presentation can be challenging even for English speaking scholars, but overall I was impressed with the Chinese scholars presenting in English.

About 15% of Chinese attend University compared to 27% in the U.S. but due to their much larger population more total Chinese are speaking English and getting college educations than in the U.S.  Their hard working ethic, including long hours and weekends, will make them a more formidable and productive force in the future.

A presentation from a professor who placed Chinese students in an internship with an accounting firm in New York City reported that their supervisors would give the students work that they thought would take two days and the Chinese students finished it in two hours. The company asked them to not work in the evenings and on the weekends but the Chinese students did anyway, with their desire to do their best for their employer, learn as much as possible and succeed. 

I will be teaching the rest of the week and will also be visiting the Wuhan mfg. plant of the French Auto Company, Peugot-Citroen.' Wuhan an important gateway city to China for France and you see many French brand automobiles in Wuhan and China.   

Reporting from China: Bill Ward Writes...

We have walked the Great Wall of China, visited the Emperors' tombs; strolled through Tiananmen Square, toured the Forbidden City of the Emperor, attended the Peking Chinese Opera and shopped at the markets of Silk and Pearl street where everything is negotiable.

The people are very nice and the food is wonderful, especially the Peking Duck. The city is more modern and clean than many European cities, so other than the language, the culture shock has been minimal.

Fortunately, my colleague at Alfred University, Dr. Wilfred Huang, speaks Chinese so we have been able to get around very easily. Construction is literally going on everywhere 24 hours a day so the economy is booming. The buses are all new and streets and subways are spotless -- so I think they will be ready for the Olympics. Very impressive. 

We are going to the Emperor's Summer Palace (see pics at link) this morning and flying to Xian this afternoon. The history and culture has been amazing but I am most impressed with how modern (Westernized) the architecture, city, and people are.

Baskins & Robbins, KFC, Buick, Walmart, Starbucks, etc. are all here. The brand marketing on the billboards, transit, TV, etc. is similar to what you would find in any modern big city in the U.S.

7 Secrets of High Google Rankings

Presented by the Rochester American Marketing Association and the eBusiness Association of Rochester, lunch with SEO expert Stephan Spencer, President of Netconcepts.

[Update: Here's a short Q&A with Stephan Spencer as an appetizer:

Join RAMA and the eBusiness Association as we all learn the 7 Secrets to High Google Rankings. During this rich presentation, spanning SEO (Search Engine Optimization) fundamentals as well as advanced tricks and tactics that only the elite SEO experts know, you'll learn how to ...

• Check your "Google Pulse"
• Estimate missed opportunity costs
• Ensure Google crawls 100% of your site, including dynamic pages
• Design your pages to dominate rankings
• Avoid getting banned by Google
• Wield invaluable SEO tools you've not yet heard of
• Build high-quality links from trusted sites, and boost your PageRank along with your rankings
• Prepare for changes to come... and so much more!

Spencer, founder and president of Netconcepts, is a frequent speaker at Internet conferences around the globe (including Berlin, London, Toronto, Santiago, Auckland, New York, Chicago...and lots more), for organizations such as the DMA (Direct Marketing Association), the AMA (American Marketing Association), Shop.org, and Internet World. He also contributes to the Natural Search blog and is a Senior Contributor to MarketingProfs, an online ezine, as well as being a monthly columnist for Practical Ecommerce.

For more information or to register, please visit our Events Page.

Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Announcing the 2007-2008 RAMA Board of Directors

The Rochester Chapter, American Marketing Association (RAMA) is fortunate to have great volunteers willing to give their time to advance the stature of marketing in Upstate New York.  As incoming President I present to you with great pride the incoming Board of Directors for the 2007 - 2008 year:

President: Denis Caysinger - Eastman Kodak Co.

President Elect:  Dawn McWilliams - William E. Simon School of Business

Secretary:  Rebecca Menendez - Wall Street Financial Group

Treasurer:  Tom Agnello - Deloitte & Touche

Past President:  John Richelsen - Eric Mower & Associates

Director Membership:  Barb Cote - Sigma Marketing

Director Programming:  Jennifer Young - Young Ideas

Director Venues & Hospitality:  Katharine McMahon - StormFrog

Director Public Relations:  D-D Flannery - Flannery PR

Director Web Communications:  Yvonne DiVita - WME Books

Director Direct Marketing SIG:  Jennifer Favata - Butler Till

Director Non-Profit SIG:  Jennifer Bacci - Hillside Family of Agencies

Director Awards:  Suzanne Seldes - Rochester Business Journal

Director Collegiate Relations:  Bill Ward - Alfred University

Please join me in congratulating these terrific people on their election to our Board of Directors.

Microsoft & Yahoo! A match made in ????

At RAMA we want to be more attentive to what is going on not only in Rochester, but the marketing world in general.  This potential deal for Microsoft to buy Yahoo! looks very interesting to me. 

Microsoft is clearly watching Google increase their reach through acquisitions such as DoubleClick, realizing they are getting left behind.  Up until now Microsoft has tended to "grow" their internet search capabilities inside the organization, without great success.  I would guess Microsoft is a distant number 3 in the search engine business behind Google and Yahoo!.  I would also think that Microsoft is worried about being outdone in the area of advertising revenue with the Google / DoubleClick merger when that happens.

I'll bet that Microsoft deciding to go after Yahoo! was a gut-wrenching decision for Bill Gates and company. Do you agree with me?  Let's get a dialog started on this.

Customer Defection to Customer Delight

My topic today is customer service and how front-line employees can dramatically impact brand perception. I experienced this first-hand yesterday at the Sears at Marketplace Mall and want to share it with you (although it is a bit long).

I had stopped by the store to look at some patio furniture (now that Spring seems to be here to stay), and while I was there I wanted to pay my bill. Now the majority of my balance was a deferred interest account for a major purchase -- however there was also a $35 fee that had been placed in a "regular" interest bearing account. I didn't want to get stuck paying interest on that fee, so I asked an associate how I could allocate my payment to make sure I paid off the $35. Tim, the associate in the lawn and garden area who was helping me, wasn't sure and directed me to a phone where I could call the credit department and ask.

So far, this had been a positive experience, but that was all about to change. I called the credit department and asked my question, and the customer service rep said they could not designate a specific payment to a specific account. That didn't make much sense to me, but I politely asked her to tell me what formula they use to allocate payments between accounts == I figured I would just pay whatever extra I needed to in order to make sure I covered the $35 and avoid any interest. The rep didn't know and politely connected me to a supervisor, whom I will not name here.

The next few minutes completely changed my perception of Sears. No matter how nicely I asked my question or explained what I was trying to accomplish, the supervisor was rude and kept insisting that NO ONE in the entire company knows how payments are allocated. I told her that I would not pay interest on a fee, and there must be some way to make sure I paid the entire $35. She told me I would have to pay off the entire account balance including a substantial balance on the deferred interest account. At this point I was very frustrated, and told the supervisor if that there was no way to resolve this, I would not be buying the patio furniture and grill I had picked out, nor would I be shopping at Sears again. Was she really willing to risk a customer defection instead of figuring out a way to help me? Her response was very rude and needless to say, I hung up in frustration. Instead of a great day shopping I was now upset and ready to walk out of Sears and possibly never come back -- my perception of the Sears brand had changed and I did not feel they had any interest in my business. I was ready to defect ...

Then an associate in the men's department who had heard my side of the whole conversation apologized to me for the treatment I had received ... now she had absolutely nothing to do with it and no reason to apologize, but she cared enough to do so (I really wish I had caught her name -- I would love to recognize her in this post). Then, even though I had planned to walk out, I waited while she called her manager over. A shift in perception had begun ...

Sally, the manager, has fantastic. She listened to the whole situation and pointed out that the credit department (which I found out is not Sears at all -- it is Citibank) is not always consistent in their answers, so she offered to call them and see if she could get an answer for me. After a couple of tries, she got through to someone who easily explained how my payment would be allocated and told Sally what payment was needed to cover the full $35. Sally then took my payment and even gave me an invitation to a special friends and family event that included a 10% discount. She blew me away with her treatment -- this is the type of service that I would associate with a high-end store like Nordstrom, not Sears!

The lesson to me as a marketer is how much a customer service or sales team can influence the customer's perception of the brand -- and how we need to pick our partners carefully (since it was actually a Citibank employee that changed how I felt about Sears)! Also by listening to a customer's negative experience (in person, via customer service calls/emails, even blogs), we can find a way to turn the situation around and possibly even create a brand evangelist ... especially in the world of social marketing that we live in. After all, isn't that really what this blog post has been?