Don’t Overspend Brand Capital

Ken Musgrave wrote a very good article about the power of brand for Leica in a piece for FastCompany Magazine in which he compared a Leica model with an indistinguishable model from Panasonic.    Ken expertly delves into brand power from the consumer point of view and resonates the sentiments and effects often seen among brand loyalists who enhance in their own the value, and even the fetureset, of their beloved product.

However, the practical view of this situation has to take into consideration the pricing, as the punch line is that the Leica cost 50-100% more. Yes, we’re in a recession that is generally know to be temporary, but many deep thinkers are saying we’ll never return to the conspicuous price-be-damned spending habits of the pre-2008 period.  Value is now key and may be for some time.  How many of those brand loyalists will conclude that the step up from $500 for the Panasonic to $800 for the Leica is worth that banana-split satisfaction in the Leica brand ?  Some will.  Some won’t.  If you’re on the top of the world with a killer product, you may forget about the elasticity of price – but do so at your peril.  How would such a decision come out with brand loyalists of your best products ?

Take-Aways:

• Creating brand capital that translates meaningfully and consistently into revenue dollars and revenue stability over and above the market baseline is every PdMgr’s dream, but can be overdone
• If you find yourself in that enviable position, DO NOT take it for granted, and DO maintain a close monitoring with the real customer base (long-term, short-term, user group) not a focus group
• Capitalize on that loyalty by mentioning it in additional to all your whiz-bang engineering specs and awards at every opportinity

URL shortening is great but has a dark side

There are lots of services out there that provide URL shortening, which turns long and nasty-looking URLs (often CMS-derived) into something requiring less real estate like http://tinyurl.com/kno6a3 which will take you to this blog.  Very handy and many folks have caught on – including phishing-spammers and other nasty folks.

Why ?  Since many email recipients now know better than to click on links to numeric IP addresses, to unknown sites in China, Romania or such places, or to URLs in misspelled DNs, phishing pholks love the idea of disguising questionable URLs with the same URL shortening tools.

I have been advised by a very good source that even the leading URL shortening services don’t check out users or sites whose URLs get shortened.  Admittedly, that would be a pretty big task.  But, it is easy conceivable that a movement by some combination of of technology experts, security firms and government agencies exercising new powers might create, promote or even enforce standards that would effective put many of these service providers out of business.

So … if one of the existing URL shorting service providers, or a new player, would check out new entrants into its database, they could stop that – at least shortly after generation if not at the same time.  I’ll leave the details to the technical experts, but generally we could be talking about :

• checking the submitter or submitted URL for matches on a list of known phishing or malware-affected sites, including source addresses or service provider’s address space
• challenging submissions for numerical IP addresses or misspelled DNs
• actually crawling submitted sites looking for issues
• integrating with tied to government and commercial investigative resources for both vetting the sites and connecting complaint systems

Some will say that the existing providers cannot possibly afford to do all of this since they are mostly hobby sites or operating on advertising.  But, it is a service function that is proven to be valuable by its popularity (spread across dozens of providers), and that would have distinguishing, hard-to-copy merits if done as described here.  Sound like a business opportunity ?  Are you listening, Eric ?

Perception counts

There are several service provider that help people share deep links into web pages (especially those under elaborate Content Management Systems, or CMS) by storing the very long URLs on the site of the service provider and generating a much shorter URL that gets re-vectored by that service provider every time someone clicks on the shortened URL.  TinyURL.com may have been one of the earliest, and I’ve found it very useful.  Budurl.com is also very popular.

A similar site gaining in popularity is one that uses a Domain Name in the .ly TLD assigned to the country of Libya.  The firm also uses a variation of its primary URL in the  .com TLD but both URLs resolve to a start page with that primary URL at the top of the page.

While Libya has been taken off the most restrictive list, it is still subject to some serious export restrictions and the intelligence community still regards Libya as a prime area for surveillance.  Even at this level, the export restrictions can be difficult to fathom and many companies have been fined for doing business as a part of a chain that ends up in a restricted country.

Take-Aways:

• Even if it’s only a question of an attempt at humor or counterculture cred,  the world does act on perception.
• If the NSA is part of your SEO plan, you might want to find a new SEO consultant.
• Let practicality prevail.  When there is an alternative with zero (even controversial) issues, like http://tinyurl.com, use it.

(Full disclosure:  I have ZERO financial or other ties to http://tinyurl.com and many similar sites can be found here.)

See also another entry on URL shortening sites here.

Between the solutions

<aside> It may seem like I encounter an inordinate number of issues with products and product companies, but it could also be that I just see them in a particularly analytical light.  But, I’ve also been storing these things up for a while until I got the trigger (nerve) to blog.

<aside 2> Not all insight comes from cases studies exactly like one’s own industry or product category.  In what ways is a whole store managed into the marketplace as products are ?

Let’s look at Target – the store, not the generic bulls eye thing.  But, that’s an apt label for the point here.  Target decided to create a store model between the ‘normal’ store and a Super Target that has some groceries.  Emphasis on some with all its vagueness.  The truth is that the range of stuff in these stores in somewhere between that of a modern suburban convenience store and that of a real grocery store.  No produce or fresh meat.  No flour or corn meal.  No chili powder or molasses.  Maybe two kinds of marinade – while we in central Texas are used to seeing 37.  And the brand range in most categories is narrow.  To be fair, I expect that the decisions on their inventory, or “set” were made with a strong input on internal buying opportunities and Target’s distribution factors.  But what about the mind of the customer ?

Bear in mind that the voice of the customer begins with the mind of the customer, and grocery store choice (as opposed to brand choice inside the store) in the mind of the customer is largely about location, connected with two kinds of convenience – in-route, and destination.  Is it a place that I drive past frequently ?  Is it near my home for a short single-purpose shopping trip ?  One of these Target stores with some groceries fits both convenience factors for me, so I went into that store looking for single items, or with shopping lists, probably 5 times.  Every time I did so, I left disappointed because they did not carry something my regular grocery store carried.  How did they decide which subset of grocery items, between the convenience store and grocery store models, to stock ?  While it might be possible for me to figure out and document the subset of stuff they sell so that I could work that Target store into my overall grocery shopping routines, why should I ?  I know generally what I can buy at the convenience stores on every corner and there is a full-model grocery store 150 yards away from the Target.  Why would I choose to go into that Target or any store without good confidence that I’ll find what I want ?  And, this issue spills over into both the relationship and transactional buying mentalities (thank you, Roy Williams).

Maybe Target is thinking that someone coming in the door for something else (clothes, watch battery, screwdrivers, toys) might wander into the grocery aisles and buy something.  But aren’t many people getting away from the pure “shopping” mode (wander, look > impulse, buy) ?  OK, maybe it’s just me not having that kind of patience.  But, I still imagine that Target has to succeed on mass volume and the broadest of behaviors.  I wish them success and would like to see their performance numbers, but I have a very hard time understanding how that limited grocery stock, with all its cost factors, could be performing for them.

Take-Aways:

• Recognize that various kinds of solutions surround and partially overlap the user/consumer’s problem space and often form some pretty firm mental boundaries.  Breakthroughs (from new technologies, marketing genius or plain luck) forming wholly new solutions types do occur, but they are rare and still require a lot of work.  If the product, brand and PdMgr cannot do that, don’t place your product and its story in between the familiar existing spaces where user/customers already can expect to find happiness.
• Even if you are using user scenarios, user stories, task analyses or other techniques for getting close insights into what the customer needs from a product, you need to take a step back, look at the broader picture and ask how that task fits into the targeted user’s job, life or other operating role.  It is too easy to make a self-serving assumption that the user will be “inside” the particular solution space with the ease and frequency the PdMgr needs.
• It is possible to succeed in the short term on klitsch or buzz, especially with today’s social networking power, possibly to morp into a different thing for the longer-term.  But sustainability usually means operating within, not radically reshaping, core or fundamental behavioral tenets.

PdMgrs are PROHIBITED from talking to customers

In an earlier post, I talked about some serious PdM issues surrounding trouble in replacing HP printers with other HP printers.  When I wanted to make sure the PdMgr understood these issues from my seasoned perspective, I respectfully asked the escalation case manager to either put me in touch with the specific product manager or promise that my write-up of the situation would get relayed to him.

Amazingly, she told me she could not do that. I said I could understand the potential for being snowed under by both complaints and compliments from every single customer, but suggested there was useful information here, from an experienced PdMgr.  I asked if she could perhaps convey to him that I had some constructive input- of the kind that my clients have paid me to provide – that I would give him for free (and for the benefit of my printing expereince).  She then told me that “HP product Managers are prohibited from communicating directly with customers though either inbound or outbound contacts”.

I hope this was simply a misunderstanding in policy as it was communicated to the case manager, or that there was some criteria – like being from a $20 M customer account – that I lacked and that she was too nice to express.  But she made it sound pretty clear and pretty absolute.

At the risk of stating the painfully obvious Take-Away:

• Set-up a protocol so that the gatekeepers can still figure out which input the PdMgr needs to receive, or needs to know about to go get, and
• Make that protocol honest enough and transparent enough to convey it to customers so they can tell if they don’t qualify, as opposed to concluding that the company has become totally non-interested with its customers

When your products cannot co-exist with or transition from … YOUR other products

This is a doozie.  Really most applicable to large companies with multiple products which experience generational replacement and product-to-product crossover.  And, it’s about software.  But it’s really about taking great care of your repeat customers.  Oh, yeah, and a lifecycle view of the product performance.      (NOTE:  The knottiest PdM issues frequently have broad and interrelated parts.)

Developing, selling and supporting peripherals for MS Windows-based computers is not easy, but if a company choses to be in that business, they have to do it right.  In addition to making sure that the product (including hardware and its driver and management software) works right while in-service, it has to be installed, uninstalled and upgraded/replaced effectively by people without PhDs.  This is all complicated by the myriad stuff people install on their computers that the company we’re talking about cannot control, understand or anticipate.  That’s why service personnel are quick to throw out the disclaimer of their responsibility or liability to deal with the dreaded “third-party products”.

I had a Hewlett-Packard OfficeJet 6310 All-in-One that did the printing, faxing, scanning, copying thing.  Struggled to get it fully installed and working properly, but it never did do everything it was supposed to do.  Eventually decided to replace it with an OfficeJet J6480 All-in-One.  We’ve used almost all HP printers for decades because they do work and hold up well.  Being cautious (or skeptical) about overlay upgrades, I ran the uninstall software for the 6310 before installing the 6480 software.  The latter did not go well at all, hanging up on several attempts.  Contacted HP Tech Support, argued my way into escalation and got a tech intervening on my computer using Remote Assistance.  He found multiple files and registry keys left over from the 6310 software (which had been separately uninstalled) and suggested that several of them could confuse the subsequent installation of the 6480.  He started to suggest that this was not subject to the 2-day-old warranty for the 6480 because it was problem external to the 6480.  We got the matter escalated to a Case Manager (Julie Henderson was bright, compassionate and appropriately insightful) who authorized Tech Support to “fix it”.  After 7+ hours of the tech’s time – and my timeslicing and multitasking to watch everything – everything was working properly.  He made lots of notes about what he learned about the 6310 uninstall and subsequent 6480 install.  Since I truly wanted to help PdMgr responsible for the 6480 (if not all HP printers) I asked Case Manager Julie to facilitate that contact.  That become another story in itself that you can read about here.

Take-Aways:

• Understand that installation, uninstallation and upgrades are part of the legitimate lifecycle of each given product and that those events contributes to the real reputation of the product, brand and company
• While the PdMgr must exclude from the warranty/service policy and from the testing and integration plans some part of the third-party product world, ADD to those plans the products that are strategically targeted for replacement by your product such as your own and perhaps those of a leading competitor.  Both your repeat customers and your valuable converts deserve to be taken care of.
• Make sure that the Customer Service and Tech Support people really understand how to interpret the limitations placed on them and how to apply them to minimize (or at least not create) customer outrage
• Figure out a way to convey to development, and give some priority to, requirements that go beyond in-service product features and are not voiced by customers or focus groups.  It seems obvious to say that a requirement of the 6310 should be that it uninstalls itself effectively.  This probably existed somewhere, but got chopped off by competing user features and compressing schedules.  This can really be tough in hardware-centered products.
• Ask customers about the full gamut of lifecycle questions and issues and post or escalate them for appropriate consideration.  Installation and uninstallation of software has been a weak spot for HP printers for a long time; it surely cannot be that difficult to find that out and create appropriate requirements language and data.
• Just as individual products have market requirements and technical requirements, so should a product line that is expected to win long-term, multiple-use strategic decisions.  Surely co-existence of multiple HP printers on a computer or network and transtion from one HP printer to its HP replacement should be requirements shared and supported across the entire line – or how else can HP claim it to be a product line ?

When the User Agreement / ToU doesn’t match the marketing story

Constant Contact provides a great email marketing service.  But, unfortunately, Constant Contact has chosen to create provisions in their user agreement that permit them to do what many customers might consider misappropriation of the customer’s content and workproduct.  Section 7.6 of their Terms and Conditions clearly states that, applicable to content the user “submits” to Constant Contact, the user agrees to grant “Constant Contact a non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide license to use, reproduce, create derivative works from, modify, publish, edit, translate, distribute, perform, and display such content in any manner.” [emphasis added]  The term “submits”  is not distinctly defined and seems to include sending to Constant Contact the user’s newsletters and other works to be distributed to the user’s clients.

None of the nice, interesting and fun marketing folks at Constant Contact seem to believe that the company would do anything untoward, but one has to ask, if the senior management of Constant Contact is committed to never re-use, re-publish or claim as its own the published works of its clients, why not change the agreement to clearly and unquestionably state that ?  Well, this blogger did ask and suggested language that would resolve the problem.  Outcome ? Zilch.  A couple of emails were exchanged with their General Counsel and others at Constant Contact, but then the communication dried up and the Terms and Conditions on the site remain the same as of today.

Take-Away:
When the applicable contract language seems to be at odds with the brand message and the marketing descriptions of the operations, FIX IT.  Otherwise, the company is telling its customers either:

• We, the company, want the legal lattitiude to change the way we operate (to match the agreement terms) even if that changes all the users’ perceived justification for using our products/’services, while leaving them no recourse, or
• Agreements and legalese don’t really mean anything anyway (but we sure have the upper hand in we ever decide that agreements are important).

Work closely with in-house or outside counsel

Too many PdMgrs throw anything associated with a legal point to the attorneys for exclusive and independent action.  License agreements, warranty/service policy statements, Terms of Use for web sites, Privacy Policy  really have a lot to do with managing the business and without congruence and integration with the PdMgr’s primary work can create situations, risks or customer impacts that undo the best efforts by the PdMgr.  Even if the language and background of legal matters is initially strange or uncomfortable at first, the PdMgr needs to understand the relevance of these peripherally legal matters to the product and product line.  And, as is frequently the case with the PdMgr’s relationships with other specialists in the enterprise, the PdMgr needs to ensure that the attorneys understand the nature of the product business.  Absent that understanding, and some guidance about where the business needs to take risks and concede points, the attorneys will typically take the most narrow, protective stance possible and that is seldom the optimal position for businesses.  The PdMgr needs to understand – and convey to the attorneys – that the legal endeavors are to serve the business objectives, not that the business is to be conducted around an arbitrary legal framework.  It’s an area of balance and that means understanding and working together.

Thanks

Thanks are due to all who have suggested, prodded and harassed me into blogging.  It already feels good, and I hope my posts prove to be worth reading – for informative or entertainment value.  So thanks are also due to those willing to *read* this stuff.

Cheers.