Three Signs of a Marketing Agency's Ineptitude

One of my favourite professors at Melbourne Business School was Mark Ritson with whom I took the Brand Management course. One of the reasons I liked him so much was because of the wealth of real-world knowledge that he brought to the class. In fact, that was one of the reasons quoted when he was voted our (i.e. the full-time MBA students') favourite teacher at this year's MBS Valedictory Dinner.

One of those bits of real-world knowledge was his advice on how to pick the right marketing or branding agency for your company. Actually, it was more about which agency not to pick. Should an agency talk to you or show you a PowerPoint slide about any of these three things, he said, they will have instantly demonstrated the ineptitude:

  1. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
  2. A SWOT Analysis
  3. Brand concepts other than brand positioning, brand equity, and brand architecture

I was actually going to write about these three things in more detail some time over the next couple of months but, fortunately, Ritson has written about them himself in a post called 'Three Telltale Signs of an Agency's Ineptitude' on The Branding Blog. It's a great read that I highly recommend you check out.

[Via Trevor Cook]

Deconstructing Advertisements

Ian Ayres wrote a really interesting blog post on deconstructing advertisements on the Freakonomics blog yesterday. Having taken a course on Consumer Behaviour (with Brian Gibbs) at Melbourne Business School last term, reading Ayres' post was a lot of fun because, as we learnt in quite a bit of detail in that course, marketing tactics do play a significant role in influencing consumer behaviour.

Danger = Cool

The kind of influence being used in the Silk Cut ad, as Ayres rightly points out, is of this kind:
[...] Silk Cut may even intend for viewers to think (subconsciously) that it is cool to smoke because you do it knowing its risk; smokers are courageous, risk takers who are willing to try to cheat death.

The ad agency may be trying to take the biggest product defect and re-spin it as a positive attribute. Sun-screen is for wimps, smoking is for the intrepid.

Which is pretty much standard operating procedure for advertising stuff that has the potential to be harmful to you, particularly if used in excess; such as alcohol, carbonated beverages, or energy drinks.

The rest of the blog post, which is about an earlier Silk Cut ad, goes into the fascinating area of semiotics and talks about the difference between metaphors and metonymies.

Style = Cool

All of this is, of course, a shift from the old "come for the style, stay for the taste" type of ads that tobacco companies used to run in developed countries and still do run in developing ones [1]. That particular line, for example, is from a campaign that Red & White ran in Pakistan for a number of years [2]. Pakistan has done quite a bit to limit tobacco advertising since then but, as always, it's more an issue of enforcement than of simply formulating legislation [3]. Still, it's a big step in the right direction.

Freakonomics, The Book

By the way, if you haven't already read Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, you must. It is quite awesome. And once you do, make sure you subscribe to the Freakonomics blog as well.

Postscript

Funnily enough, I have a long history with Silk Cut since both my parents smoked that brand for about fifteen years. Apparently, it is 'smoother' than most cigarettes though, of course, not any less deadly: both of my parents stopped smoking it thanks to health scares and strong recommendations from doctors. My mother switched to a 'lighter' brand before dying of cancer in 2005 (she'd been smoking since she was in college) while my father now smokes the Dunhill brand despite an incident of heart failure in 2004.

- - - - - - - - - -

[1] Though one can argue that, thanks to Hollywood, developing countries still strongly associate smoking with style, the successful completion of a difficult task, and stress relief.

[2] For more on tobacco advertising in Pakistan, read 'Why Tobacco Promotion Should be Banned in Pakistan' by the Tobacco Free Initiative's Ehsan Latif.

[3] See the Dawn.com article on 'New Restrictions on Tobacco Ads'.

Stop Writing Cover Letters...

Phil Rosenberg wrote a great article in Social Media Today called Stop Writing Cover Letters and You'll Get MORE Interviews.

He argues that it's your resume that needs to include key words from job postings since it's those that get placed into recruitment databases and, as a result, searched. Cover letters, meanwhile, don't even make it to the database so there's no point in putting keywords (or, according to Rosenberg, any effort at all) into those. In other words, resume search engine optimisation (SEO) for job description keywords is crucial. In fact, that is precisely what will get you through to the interview stage.

He has a point and I wonder how true this is for Australian companies and recruiters. It sure sounds plausible enough. That said, this is not going to stop me from writing cover letters. Doing at bit of SEO work on my resume may get me past the first cut but I'm pretty sure my cover letter will have a bigger role to play in subsequent stages. The resume SEO tip is really useful, though.

The Story of Stuff: Raising Awareness About Sustainability

As you might know, I recently took a course in Business & Sustainable Development with Jeremy Baskin at Melbourne Business School. In it we learnt that two of the biggest themes in sustainability these days are the concept of limits and the idea of sustainable consumption.

217x188_SoS_Banner008 Thanks to a reference from a friend, I came across this website called The Story of Stuff that talks about both of these issues in a very approachable and easily digestible way (i.e. in plain English).

In a brilliantly-produced 20-minute video, Annie Leonard (who is behind the whole concept) tells us about the consumption-based system we currently live in: where it came from, why it's wrong, and what we should be doing instead. The video (which you can download from this page) is a little oversimplified, of course, but if you go to the Resources section you'll find a lot more information on limits and sustainable consumption. Leonard also writes a blog on the site, which is another really good information resource.

Anyway, since the point of the video is awareness raising, please tell as many people as you can about both the site and the video. The topics that are being discussed there are among the most important issues facing the world today and the video is definitely worth a watch.

I Graduated!

That's it. I'm done. I have graduated!

As of this morning, I am an MBA from the University of Melbourne's Melbourne Business School...and I can prove it:

Proof!

 

I'm even wearing the University of Melbourne lapel pin! And in case you're wondering why that's so important, that pin is given only to UniMelb graduates (exclusivity works, eh?).

This is what I looked like in full graduation regalia (fun to wear, a hassle to sit in):

In my formal regalia

 

Graduating Ceremony

The ceremony was good -- despite the fact that today was the rainiest and coldest day Melbourne has had this winter (non-stop rain, temperatures dropping to three degrees overnight).

We heard from the University's Vice-Chancellor, Glyn Davis, who started the ceremony with the traditional welcome address in which he talked about the privileges and responsibilities that come with the degrees we were being awarded. We also heard from MBS' Dean, John Seybolt, who introduced our occasional speaker, REA Group's Simon Baker (an MBS alumnus who I've mentioned before on this blog). Baker talked about his top ten business tips that he didn't learn in his MBA (good speech).

Associate Dean Mark Crosby (from MBS) read out the names of the postgraduate diploma and masters students while we walked on to the stage and got our degrees from the VC (with much hat doffing). Crosby did an excellent job with name pronunciations. Associate Dean Ron Slocombe (from the Graduate School of Research) then read out the name and citation of our single PhD graduate for 2008 who, appropriately enough, got the longest round of applause from us mere MBAs when he went to get his degree.

We then had an excellent celebratory lunch at MBS during which we ate, caught up, and met friends' families. All in all, it was an awesome day.

Valedictory Dinner

Oh, and since I haven't blogged about this before let me quickly mention that three nights ago we had our valedictory dinner. This was held at Ormond College, one of the University's oldest (founded in 1879) residential colleges. It also has the most castle-like building on campus, complete with Hogwarts-style dining hall (yes, that's an actual photo from our dinner!):

 

You can read about that, including details of the awards and prized conferred, in a news article on the MBS website (which is also where I got the photograph from).

All I can say now is: All's well that ends well and thus endeth my MBA.

One More MBS Blogger

Add another MBS blogger to the list:

Alanna's been blogging about her Melbourne Business School MBA since October last year but I came across her blog only recently. (Hmmm...maybe I should write a SEO primer for MBS bloggers).

Her blog is both informative and really fun to read so, for all those interested in what the MBS experience is like, hop on down and take a look.

Update: I've started to maintain a list of all MBS or MBS-related bloggers that I know of on a static page on this site. That way, people looking for MBS bloggers won't have to hunt through my old blog posts, they can just look at that one page. (Though I will continue to publish a blog post every time I find a new relevant blogger.)

John Armstrong is MBS' Philosopher-in-Residence

Melbourne Business School recently appointed John Armstrong as our first ever Philosopher-in-Residence.

Though this news was covered in the press, I didn't write about it here because I was really busy at the time and figured I'd mention it later. That later came about yesterday when The Guardian published an article about it. So let me do a quick recap of the news coverage that Armstrong and his appointment at MBS have received so far:

Though Armstrong hasn't started teaching his own courses yet he did guest lecture in our Business & Sustainable Development course which was both fun, as guest lectures always are, and eye-opening, if you hadn't yet looked at consumption from that point of view before.

Now that I've graduated, however, I won't be able to attend any of Armstrong's courses. Fortunately, he has given talks to MBS alumni in the past and I hope he will do so in the future as well. Regardless, I wish him all the best and hope he makes the students graduating from MBS better thinkers, philosophers, and, ultimately, leaders.

New MBS Blogger

My Google Alerts tell me that we have a new Melbourne Business School MBA blogger to add to my previous list:

He's only just started blogging, with two posts so far, and is a part-time student (our only full-time intakes are in January and September). Let's hope he keeps it up and tells us the story of his entire MBA journey.

Of course, like the rest of us, he'll probably go silent during the last couple of weeks of each study term while he struggles to juggle work, study, home life, and (if possible) a social life...but that's to be expected :)

What Community Managers Get Paid

The Community Manager role is still relatively new and somewhat hard to pin down:

  • Does it fall under marketing communications, PR, brand management, HR, internal communications, or IT?
  • Is it an operational, tactical, or strategic role?
  • Should the person be a junior, middle, or senior level employee?
  • Will the role be managed by one person or by a team (e.g. manager, moderator, tech person)?

Because of its newness, the confusion surrounding its place in the organizational hierarchy, and the many different ways in which companies are engaging their customers and employees, this role is handled in different ways by different companies.

However, increasingly, the Community Manager role is becoming an entirely separate job position. That is, as social media has increased in usage, importance, relevance, and impact, community management tasks can no longer be simply added-on to a communications person or marketer's job description.

Okay, Now What?

But now that companies are creating these roles, they want to know how much they should pay Community Managers and, more fundamentally, what the job position's ROI is.

The latter question is harder to answer and, even if you work through the numbers, sometimes the best answer is "If you don't have someone dedicated to engaging your customers or employees, you will get left behind." Which is much like the answer to a question that a lot of companies were asking themselves in the 90's: "But why should we have a website?" :) 

Of course, all this depends on how strategically important customer interaction is to your company. Theoretically, the more important customer interaction is -- and assuming your customers are increasing their social media usage -- the more you should be investing in a social media manager.

Theories aside, however, Connie Benson recently conducted a social media-based survey on what Community Managers are being paid these days and how companies are arriving at that figure. She wrote that all up in a blog post which concludes that, in the US, Community Managers are paid anything from US$60,000 to $110,000 (about AU$64-117k). Presumably this variation represents the amount of strategic importance placed by companies on customer engagement and the social media usage of customers.

What About Australia?

However, based on the few (and far between) community management-type job openings I've come across over the last few months, I can safely say that the Australian salary range for Community Managers is significantly lower. That's mainly because social media still doesn't figure in most Australia companies' strategies. Oh well.

Hmmm...I wonder how much Telstra's Now We Are Talking site or its competitors' Tell The Truth Telstra site pays its community managers :)

Keeping Your Data Safe at the US & UK Borders

If you've been following what's been going on in the world of technology, politics, and international travel over the last few years you'll know that, if you want to enter the US, border patrol agents are allowed to search your laptop, mobile phone, or MP3 player without limitation and without telling you why. Meanwhile, if you want to enter the UK and you have some encrypted stuff on your hard drive, the UK government can demand that you hand over your encryption keys or face jail time.

In light of all this, both CNET and the EFF have come up with ways in which you can keep your data both safe and private when crossing the border. Before reading that, though, check out Computerworld's Jaikumar Vijayan's article on Five Things to Know About U.S. Border Laptop Searches.

Then read these:

Most important of all: be careful. Your really don't want to suffer Maher Arar's fate.

Enterprise 2.0 Still Mostly Misunderstood

Awesome (but very long) article by CIO magazine's Sue Bushell called Enterprise 2.0 - What is it good for?:

Canberra-based knowledge economy and social computing evangelist Stephen Collins heard a quote earlier this year that perfectly describes the Enterprise 2.0 dilemma: "If you want to find out what tools your staff are finding most useful at the moment, just go and see what your IT department is blocking."

Keeping Things in Perspective

I don't know who wrote this but a friend sent it to me some years ago. I figured it was worth posting here :)

Keeping Things in Perspective

An American businessman was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna.

The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them. The Mexican replied that it only took a little while. The American then asked why didn't he stay out longer and catch more fish. The Mexican said he had enough to support his family's immediate needs.

The American then asked, "But what do you do with the rest of your time?" The Mexican fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life, senor."

The American scoffed, "I am a Stanford MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise."

The Mexican fisherman asked, "But senor, how long will this all take?" To which the American replied, "15-20 years."

"But what then, senor?" said the Mexican.

The American laughed and said: "That's the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions."

"Millions, senor? Then what?"

The American said, "Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos."

Al Gore: New Thinking on Climate Change

I'm posting this a few weeks after it was published but, in case you haven't see it yet, make sure you take a look at the speech Al Gore gave at a TED conference in March:

In Al Gore's brand-new slideshow (premiering exclusively on TED.com), he presents evidence that the pace of climate change may be even worse than scientists were recently predicting, and challenges us to act with a sense of "generational mission" -- the kind of feeling that brought forth the civil rights movement -- to set it right. Gore's stirring presentation is followed by a brief Q&A in which he is asked for his verdict on the current political candidates' climate policies and on what role he himself might play in future.

Having just taken a course on sustainable development I know what Gore is talking about -- i.e. about how things are worse than we thought they'd be -- and it's getting scarier as time goes by but not much seems to be happening at the global level to fix this problem.

Which is the point of the presentation: unless we collectively raise a ruckus about this issue, not much is going to happen. The speech is American-centric, of course, but is nonetheless very inspiring.

What a Community Manager Does

Since I've been busy these last few weeks, I've missed writing about a couple of good blog posts that I recently read.

First we have Chris Brogan who wrote an excellent post on what a community manager does:

Depending on the organization, I imagine the role of a community manager would be different, so I’m going to walk through what the role might entail for a media and events company (like mine), and see what comes to mind.

And second we have Tac Anderson who writes about the razor's edge that social media people have to walk every day:

Social media workers walk a dangerous line everyday. Everyday they walk into a battlefield not knowing what fate awaits them. One wrong word, one misinterpreted email, a delayed response to a blog comment; any of these things can start a fire storm that could ruin the reputation of the company or the social media worker.

Both are interesting and I highly recommend you read them.

And I'm Done!

And I'm done with my MBA. Actually, I was done on Friday but I took it easy over the weekend :)

This now concludes 20 months of hard work, late nights, early mornings, essays, individual assignments, syndicate assignments, case studies, class discussions, research, and exams. During this period I met a lot of great people who taught me a lot of different things. I also formally learnt a heck of a lot about many different subjects. Specifically, I took these courses during my four study terms:

  1. World of Management

  2. Data & Decisions

  3. Managing Processes

  4. Accounting for Managers

  5. Financial Management

  6. Corporate Finance

  7. Managerial Economics

  8. Economics and Public Policy

  9. Business Strategy

  10. Corporate Strategy

  11. Implementation of Strategy

  12. Managing People for High Performance *

  13. Leadership & Change

  14. Negotiations *

  15. Marketing

  16. Brand Management

  17. Consumer Behaviour

  18. E-Commerce *

  19. Information Strategy

  20. Business & Sustainable Development (half subject)

  21. Strategic Management of Intellectual Property (half subject)


Sounds like fun, doesn't it? Actually, it really was.

And now it winds to a close. All that's left is my graduation on the 17th and then I can officially say that, yes, I am an MBA from Melbourne Business School, thank you very much :)

Now to find a job so I can start my next adventure...

Speaking of jobs, by the way, I received the nicest job application rejection phone call today. It was from the job I mentioned a few weeks earlier (the one I was most excited about) and, though I'm terribly disappointed that I didn't get it, I understand that the company needed to choose the best person for the role who, in this case, was unfortunately not me. Still, out of the 200 applications they received I was one of the four people they interviewed and that's a really good feeling. Oh well. Next time, then.

- - - - - - - - - -

* I received commendations from the Dean for my participation and academic achievement in these subjects. Woo hoo! :)

Thinking of Switching to Gmail and IMAP

I am seriously considering moving all my e-mail -- including years of archives currently stored in my laptop and managed by Thunderbird -- to Gmail and, from then on, using IMAP to access it.

Right now I POP all my e-mail to my laptop. In the new setup, I'll POP all my e-mail to Gmail and will then use either its web or IMAP interface (via Thunderbird) to access all my mail. [I wrote about this in a lot more detail on my personal blog.]

I like the idea of cloud computing and the ability to access my calendar and all of my e-mail regardless of where I am and what e-mail client, browser, or mobile phone device I'm using. Of course, actually doing this will take a lot of time since I have over 2GB of e-mail archives to upload...but I suppose it'll be worth it in the end.

Here's hoping everything goes well (as it is so far).

All Done with MBA Classes!

Today I attended my last MBA class and participated in my last syndicate meeting. I now have two assignments (one individual and one syndicate-based) and two exams to do before I'm completely done with the MBA.

11:15am on Friday, 2 May, 2008...here I come!

Meanwhile, I went and signed up for my graduation regalia. Since The University of Melbourne follows the Oxford style of gowns and hoods for its formal academic dress, I get to wear a black gown (the Melbourne Business School MBA's colours are a sky blue stripe with a gold band), a hood, and a black trencher cap (with black tassel).

We have two other functions before that, though -- the end-of-term party and the valedictory dinner -- both of which should be lots of fun. I'm getting all excited about this now :)

I Can Haz Dream Job?

I would move to Seattle for this job:

I Can Has Cheezburger? is looking to hire a moderator to work in our Seattle office (Lower Queen Anne area)! You too can works for Happycat!

Moderators screen all submissions, moderate comments and help our users with the dangerous world of lolcats. This is a paid part-time (or possibly full-time position). Due to the nature of the site, moderators work non-standard office hours. You will be joining our team of 3 moderators in enjoying all the fun the Web can offer.

We’re looking for someone who lives in Seattle with a great sense of humor, a deep understanding and love of the Internets and a strong work ethic. Cat ownership is not required.

If you’re interested, email us your resume and/or cover letter at lol@icanhascheezburger.com

*sigh*

[Via Yahoo! News, via Digg]