Discovering business opportunities

 Interview with Dr. Dan Herman, CEO of Competitive Advantages, a strategy consulting and branding services firm, serving worldwide clients ranging from local mid-sized companies to “Fortune Global 500″ corporations. Together with his highly trained team, he creates Unique Success Formulas, Emotionally Significant Brands and Short-Term ‘Hit’ Brands for their clients. Among the many organizations and brands, he has worked with are multinationals such as Coca-Cola, IBM, Unilever, Motorola, Roche Pharmaceuticals, Holiday Inn, Apple computers, Suzuki, Chrysler, Warner Brothers, H. Stern as well as many others. The list also includes FC Spartak Moscow and many of Israel’s leading companies in the fields of banking and financial services, telecommunications, health services, food and beverages, toiletries and cosmetics, public transportation, hotels, retail chains, the national lottery and several non-profit organizations, government agencies and political parties.

Great thanks for this interview, Dan! 

What can be said about the return on investment of a STB, when it’s compared with a LTB?  One should think more money can be made with a LTB.

I never said we should stop thinking long-term altogether. We must think long-term in the management of our companies and organizations. Even in marketing and branding we need to think both long and short-term. I advise my clients to use combinations of long and short term brands. They have different marketing roles. The long term brand inspires trust. The short term brand raises excitement. Oftentimes marketers should use a long term background brand (e.g. Volkswagen) but create excitement with foreground short term hits (e.g. the New Beetle). Most innovations are not ground breaking. They are, in our terms, Minimally Effective Innovations (MEI). In order to maximize their revenue potential it is preferable to create and market them as a series of successive short-term meteoric successes. Contrary to the traditional point of view it seems that now, as consumers are more responsive to novelty, it makes more sense to launch new brands instead of “new and improved” product versions under a long term brand.An expertly created and marketed short-term brand reaches a higher sales volume and market share than an long term brand and it is far less expensive to launch. From a financial perspective, a succession of short term brands achieves a higher average market share over time. (Read the article)

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 Interview with Dr. Dan Herman, CEO of Competitive Advantages, a strategy consulting and branding services firm, serving worldwide clients ranging from local mid-sized companies to “Fortune Global 500″ corporations. Together with his highly trained team, he creates Unique Success Formulas, Emotionally Significant Brands and Short-Term ‘Hit’ Brands for their clients.

Among the many organizations and brands, he has worked with are multinationals such as Coca-Cola, IBM, Unilever, Motorola, Roche Pharmaceuticals, Holiday Inn, Apple computers, Suzuki, Chrysler, Warner Brothers, H. Stern as well as many others. The list also includes FC Spartak Moscow and many of Israel’s leading companies in the fields of banking and financial services, telecommunications, health services, food and beverages, toiletries and cosmetics, public transportation, hotels, retail chains, the national lottery and several non-profit organizations, government agencies and political parties.

Thank you, Dan, for your time!

You recently published a book in the United States titled “Outsmart the MBA Clones: The Alternative Guide to Competitive Strategy, Marketing and Branding” (www.outsmart-mba-clones.com)? What have you got against MBA programs and graduates? And – why do we need “an alternative guide”?

I have nothing against MBA programs or graduates. I am an MBA graduate myself. However, we should remember that management is very different from, say, engineering. When you take a strategy move in the market you do not only change the situation in the market – you potentially change the characteristics of the market. For examples, your innovative service strategy can change consumers’ expectations and the market norms. Therefore, management and marketing practices lose their effectiveness when everybody is using them and they should constantly change. Despite the apparent diversity among MBA programs, they produce executives who think and act in a similar and predictable manner. This undermines the competitiveness of their companies and provides a strategic advantage to those who recognize these biases and think differently. I do not, however, tell marketers to ‘think out of the box’ as so many do. I supply them with a new and comprehensive toolbox for success. My book, “Outsmart the MBA Clones” provides a set of new concepts and a toolkit unlike anything taught in MBA schools. The ambitious promise of this book is to help managers create business strategies that will succeed and yet amazingly will not be copied by the competition, resulting in private monopolies.

(Read the article)

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Designer , writer, producer, photographer& keynote speaker Marc Gobe, is the author of the best selling book Emotional Branding. His philosophy has created a movement and forced a consumer driven thought process on how to connect brands with people from a rational to an emotional perspective.
As former President and CEO of Desgrippes Gobe /Brandimage one of the top 10 design firm in the world he brought on a new vision and approach to Design that changed Branding forever.
Now, as President and the leading force behind his new Think Tank Emotional Branding LLC, Marc brings innovation and consumer understanding into all the hidden corners of the  branding process by producing documentary films on Emotional Events that impact brands  and consumers. Sao Paulo was his first stop: a city whose mayor banned all form of outdoor advertising.
Clients such as Air France,  Abercrombie and Fitch, Ann Taylor, Starbucks, Telefonica, Victoria’s secret or Coca Cola Trusted Desgrippes Gobe to create the experiences that made their brand famous in people’s heart.

Dear Marc, thank you very much for dedicating your time!

“It’s not just the skills that are important , it’s the ability to emote”.
Steve Jobs. Fortune magazine 2008

1. Today the consumer has more choices than ever and can access more information about products and brands easier than ever. In what manner the emotional branding can respond to these new business realities?

Emotional branding is about understanding people’s reality. Consumers today have more choices and more information’s but are they happier? In an economy that is inflationary and where even the cost of food and gas become prohibitive the notion of a consumer economy loses a lot of its meaning. Relying on more consumption to create jobs and survive requires a new set of rules and understanding.

(Read the article)

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Mr. Paul Chaney is Internet Marketing Director for Bizzuka.com, a web design and development firm based in Lafayette, LA.

Mr. Chaney has been an Internet media consultant for the past four years and is widely known and respected in that field. He understands at a granular level how conversational media tools can be used for marketing purposes and has worked with a number of clients assisting them in deploying online marketing strategies.

Mr. Chaney has served as Technical Editor on a number of For Dummies series books related to blogs and Internet marketing, and was contributing writer on the book Buzz Marketing with Blogs For Dummies, published by Wiley.

Specialties: Business blog consultant, online marketing consulting, conversational media marketing, real estate blogging, blogging

Great thanks, Mr. Chaney for sharing your experience!

1. What is the role of blogs nowadays? How they are changing the Internet?

Blogs were the forerunner that ushered in the social media movement and they still play a vital role. However, that role has changed thanks to the likes of Facebook, Twitter and other social tools. By that I mean you see less “day in the life” blogging and a greater emphasis on what some are calling “value” blogging. Let me explain.

In the early days, bloggers had one place to share their thoughts, ideas and opinions, and that was on their blog. Now, the more spur-of-the-moment, anecdotal posts are finding themselves being placed on micro-blogging tools like Twitter, Pownce and Facebook, leaving the more thoughtful, well-researched posts for the blog. That’s not to suggest bloggers don’t still write impromptu posts. They do. It’s just that other tools are now available allowing for greater choice and flexibility in where to publish. (Read the article)

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Geoff Livingston, CEO  Livingston Communications  (a company specialised in public relations and social media), Marketing, PR and New Media Strategist, Author of the book “Now is gone”

1. Nowadays a new (and old in the same time) term has appeared – c2c (consumer-to consumer). What is the importance of c2c marketing and how marketers should deal with?

My big issue with the term “C2C” marketing is that it assumes consumers make a conscious decision to market products. That’s not necessarily what’s happening, although affiliate programs and eBay are certainly examples of true C2C.

When Word of Mouth (WOM) referrals occur it’s because a customer believes in a product.  The brand promise of marketing has been matched by the actual user experience.  Thus, they are happy to confirm the marketing and lend their credibility to the product/service/solution.  This is third party credibility, a result of good public relations using social media tools, not a conscious paid-for-marketing action. 

Word of mouth cannot be paid for so easily.  It can be inspired, but products and services must also be inspiring.  Marketing can only accelerate the consumer’s excitement for a product they would generally like anyway.  At the same time marketing and WOM can also accelerate a bad product’s failure.

(Read the article)

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Veronique Aboghé – Speaker “Negotiation skills” in IFAG Paris, Founder, Executive Coach – CoachingLeader

Veronique is a top professional coach. Her job is assisting the company employees to better perform their work. She works with them on their potential and suggests ways of developping their professional effectiveness. Another side of her coaching activity is the assistance of the career management. As now, it is more than essential to take the career in hands and to think of the employability. It is also important of lliving better the everyday professional life. She is also a consultant in management, assisting the companies in their management transition.
Another part of her job is dedicated to teaching: in commercial school to train the students in negotiation and marketing.

1. How do you see the future of the marketing? Is there some evolution/regression?

The consumer is very powerful: he is much better informed than ever. He is more demanding as he lives in a world where the infinity of choice arises.
He is at ease in all the channels of communication and he uses them all. He is extremely reactive, he takes part fully by delivering his opinion (blog, forum, wiki…) about the products offered to him.
 He is so much at ease in his channels. He can do without traditional marketing, as he uses other platforms of social networking as my space (the musical tubes are imposed by the artists not by the houses of disc not by the advertizing) or facebook. Thus the word of mouth has become very important and the consumer shares his experience with the rest of the community.
The only evolution I see more than ever, is that the consumer is in control and it’s out of a question to try to manipulate him. (Read the article)

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