Amazon Prime: Online Marketing by Prime – Amazon.co.uk

Amazon Prime: Online Marketing by Prime – Amazon.co.uk: by Jason Li 2013 ©
 

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT (For Marketeers Regarding Amazon Prime)

“Try Amazon Prime FREE for one month: Unlimited FREE One-Day Delivery on millions of eligible items; Express Delivery for £4.49 per item (delivery before 1pm).”

“Over 300,000 popular Kindle Books to borrow for free, as frequently as one book per month and with no due dates.”

(Taken from Amazon Prime)

 

Amazon Prime – what you have just read is about a service that is changing the world forever.

It’s the single most important business copywriting and strategic marketing reveal that you must analyse and understand if you want your business to succeed.

So Am I Promoting Amazon As A Secret Amazon Prime Employee?

No... Although - I admit straight away: I LOVE AMAZON.

For me... first came the internet, and then came GOOGLE and Amazon as the world’s most useful internet services in the world.

And it’s going to be for the foreseeable future possibly humankinds most valuable consumer supplier of goods and services.

Here’s Why (And How Amazon Prime will do this)...

Amazon has played its card in how it is going to get even more rich, and you’re about to see why this is with Amazon Prime.

What is Amazon Prime?

There’s some clue in the opening paragraphs so I’m going to state how important it is and have you read it again:

“Try Amazon Prime FREE for one month: Unlimited FREE One-Day Delivery on millions of eligible items; Express Delivery for £4.49 per item (delivery before 1pm).”

“Over 300,000 popular Kindle Books to borrow for free, as frequently as one book per month and with no due dates.”

In summary, at the time of writing in June 2013, customers get to borrow free Kindle Books and enjoy free delivery. Plus there are streamlining movies services too.

So you see, for those who understand how effective direct marketing and strategic marketing is... Amazon is going to be

The De facto World’s Greatest Direct Marketing Business!

Here’s some stats to prove it:

Amazon was launched in the United States in 2005.

(Taken from Wired.com) In the fiscal year of 2012, analysts at Morningstar suggested that Prime members grew from 7 million to nearly 10 million. Prime membership was greatly boosted by promotions to customers who bought a Kindle Fire.

In total, Amazon had about 182 million customers during the year, so Prime members make up about 4 per cent of the total customer base.

So here is the significant bit about profit: Prime customers accounted for $78 more in profit before interest and taxes per customer than non-Prime customers, as revealed by Morningstar analyst R.J. Hottoy.

And now the comparison bit: The average Amazon customer when calculating the operating profit from the 182 million customers is $10 per customer.  So Amazon Prime customers are about

SEVEN TO EIGHT TIMES MORE PROFITABLE

than a non-Amazon Prime member.

And now for the insane bit: about a third of Amazon’s profit come from just 4 per cent of customers who buy stuff on Amazon.

So how does Amazon go on to be the de facto direct marketing business on the internet?

Amazon Prime is capturing all the people in the world:

a)      Who have money to spend.

b)      Who are happy to buy direct... that is online.

c)       By offering people with money the convenience, opportunity to save money, and the service of wider selection of goods; so that it is easy to just go to one-stop Amazon to see if what the buyer wants is listed by searching Amazon’s product database.

d)      By keeping in touch with people who keep on spending by being constantly relevant...Prime members keep revisiting... and spending.

Once you’ve got used to buying books, Amazon’s fantastic web designers and copywriters make it easy for you to notice other items in other categories by:

·         Promoting other books.

·         Promoting non-book items such as brand name watches to streaming films to baby toys.

Emails

The secret power of Amazon is in emails.

Amazon sends you regular emails on all sorts of categories to tempt you to buy special offers. It’s really hard for consumers to resist.

Just think of near enough every item that are resold in retail shops (eg. Your Armani watch or Nike T-shirt) in the most popular and largest locations. Think of John Lewis, or Oxford Street in London, or even the Trafford Centre in Manchester. Amazon will likely have the item available.

Think about it, you can kit out your whole home by buying off Amazon without having to leave the sofa.

But Amazon Destroys Business

Isn’t that what locals always say when a successful innovative business comes along.

(Hey... there’s nothing better than a local business with tradition and history.)

In fact, we’re lucky we live in a free market system and innovation is here to improve customers’ buying power, or else monopolies can dictate products and prices.

So yes, you may not like your Tesco’s taking customers from local businesses, but look at it this way... if there are two restaurants on the same street, and one is busy and the other hardly has any patrons...

Is It The Restaurant That Is Struggling That Is Wrong

Or Obviously It’s The Consumer Who’s Wrong?

So the question must be posed? Is it big businesses that destroy local businesses, or consumers who are not considerate and change to shop at big businesses; or the local business who cannot be bothered to innovate and improve? Hold that thought.

Amazon Prime Innovation

Remember the paragraph describing the services of Amazon Prime?

Amazon would have spend months analysing the customer research data to come up with their new compelling strategy of capturing the segment of

The world’s most CONSISTENT SPENDERS in the online direct marketing category

During a history of innovation and technology to improve humankind, humans cannot resist technology.

You see – humans choose the easy option when faced with similar choices (a consumer psychology tip that can help you win orders by just mastering this technique alone – it’s in the ebook The Goose Bump Effect in more detail.)

Here are some examples to prove it:

·         We wore clogs and moved onto shoes.

·         Transport was once by horseback, now it’s by car, bikes, trains, airplane (and skateboard).

·         Messages were sent by letters, and now sent by text, social media or email.

·         Once we drove into town to buy books or a film... now you just search Amazon.

And this is where we are today: Innovation, convenience, better pricing, wide selection of goods and so on and so on.

That’s why Amazon Prime is the most important development in direct marketing.

Scared by Amazon Prime?

You don’t have to be. You just need to keep being systematically pro-active.

Here’s some ideas that might help your business:

·         Don’t ever stop innovating even if you are top of the tree.

·         And don’t forget the importance of direct marketing. Keep in contact with your customers.

·         Make sure you systematically collect data and research your customers.

Thanks for reading. Please share this article with friends who like Amazon.

 

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Call to Action Best Practices (including Buttons)

Call to Action Best Practices (including Buttons) : by Jason Li 2013 ©

Call to Actions (CTA) are really important...

In fact critical...

Whether it’s on a web page, sales letter, or email...

Get this wrong and sales conversions will be low...

Get good at it and your enquiries and sales conversions will allow your business to grow.

How else does Call to Action affect business?

Call today to register for the ‘Annual prize draw’ ***01234 5678910*** It ONLY takes 40 seconds! Registrations end 5pm this Friday 31st

·         Call to Action affects how many enquiries you get.


·         Call to Action provides better qualified leads.


·         (It’s unusual – but yes, Call to Action) Reduces labour costs. You see, sales people spend lots of unprofitable time cold calling or visiting prospects at the very earliest stage of the sales cycle with no idea if the prospect is ready to go all the way to conclude by making an order; especially in business-to-business and complex sales. This means working with a prospect at the low interest/enquiry stage leads to low response rates and makes the business inefficient.


·         Call to Action brings forward interested buyers because they are not sold to. Buyers can sniff out a sales pitch all day long... because they get pitched all day long. But after reading your copy, prospects that contact you have decided they want to seriously consider working with you. Otherwise, why would a CEO of a business with legal, operational, human resource, turnover, logistics, product, brand, Inland Revenue issues, and so on make an enquiry?


·         Call to Action provides your sales people more productive time on working on seriously interested prospects.


·         A good Call to Action can determine whether a prospect makes an enquiry today or in 6 months. (However, you may need to provide an incentive to bring forward an enquiry.)


·         A good Call to Action motivates interested prospects to consider if they are ready to take action now (or very soon after assessing their own situation on the spot.)

Case study: Email Campaign business-to-business using Call to Action

I manage an email campaign to certain businesses. Many businesses that receive emails from this campaign usually have a professional gatekeeper (I call them pro gk’s – I imagine if they had goalie gloves they would be brilliant because nothing would get past them). Therefore by telephone the owners are always out of reach. (It’s like trying to contact Richard Branson you would think sometimes for some sales people due to well trained gk’s.)

As the email is genuinely targeted at business owners (or directors as a minimum decision making level), the emails have to be excellent in getting their attention and them to read it (and we can’t use Meercats because they don’t work for this campaign).

Criteria for success from the email campaign:

·         Business owners get 100s of emails... so they must be very interesting to get read... I can’t emphasis this enough.


·         Ensure owners see the value of the product and services.


·         To drip feed value over a series of emails.


·         Ensure the whole offer is of better value and differentiated from competitors.


·         The email is viral enough to get passed around.


·         Different decision makers see value in the email (this allows the buyers to assess the email content and if the products and services really are compelling enough for the board room to make it a priority).


·         Generate enquiries from serious prospects (The general buying and thinking process of buyers will be to go on the website, look at competitors, speak to friends – even the wife), and carry out internal investigations.


·         Get the company in front of decision makers at an early stage and build up a relationship... even if the prospective buyers already have long standing relationships or in a contract.


·         Be a means to build up a relationship with decision makers where cold calling and sales reps can’t due to little success leaving messages and voice mail with admin staff.


·         The sales staff earns more commission and have better holidays as they are spending time on closing not speculation.


·         Sales staff are travelling less miles and in better health as time is organised with serious buyers only... bordering on order taking as much as possible.


·         After all this... the call to action must draw out interested buyers to call this company, not another, and to call sooner rather than later.

So here are some Call to Action observations:

Due to writing direct response sales copywriting, and taking part in a number of marketing communications campaigns, I have gathered some interesting titbits of knowledge about Call to Actions which may be of interest (Please note your own A/B split tests can give different results):

WIIFM Value: Your Call to Action should answer why your prospect should take an action. Remember, humans are inherently selfish. Your Call to Action must answer “What’s in it for me?” better than any other competitor.

It’s easy to do: Even if your product or service is complicated. Simplify the starting process so that prospects can get up and running in a matter of seconds. (If you struggle, some tips are in the beginners guide book ‘The Goose Bump Effect’ in the top left above Services.

Urgency: Create a time limited offer. Such as 40% discount or a free matrix/chart worth £20 if you register by X date.

Bigger is better: Generally, if your Call to Action is larger than the surrounding copy and designs... your Call to Action has a better chance.

Easy navigation: Prospects who are interested will want to get going now. If they’re sat on the fence, making it so simple to start now will also help you persuade the ones who are just “so close to registering.”

Remind them what to expect: Ideas include: download a file, request information, add a product to shopping cart, subscribe to a newsletter, navigate the next page, download a trial, submit form, request a call back, register for prize draw, and so on.

Stong guarantee: Humans are risk averse because they don’t like change. We’re programmed to avert being hurt. A strong guarantee reduces this worry.

No links, ads or cluttered text (on web pages) next to the Call to Action: Humans cannot multi-task. Humans cannot focus on two complicated things simultaneously.

F-shaped Call to Actions: Humans start at the top left (in the Western world) and move the eyes to the right, then down a bit, then across again, and then down again. If your Call to Action can mimic this, if will catch the prospects eye.

Simple Products have Call to Actions above the fold: You can have the Call to Action right at the top if it is a very simple and universally known product. Many prospects won’t need to read the copy or look at the pictures to ‘get it.’

Complex products have Call to Actions delayed: The more complex and more you have to educate, add value and differentiate, the further down you should have your Call to Action. Putting your offer and what you want to be paid too early reduces your chances of success because prospects can’t understand how you are worth the value.

Colour: Orange or Red against a contrasting background can assist conversion rates. Red colours generate a feeling of aggression and increased heart rates. This is where marketing consumer psychologists will tell you that many people make decisions based on emotions. You can use red for strong actions such as ‘buy’ and soft actions such as ‘request contact’ (and use a blue colour for trust).

Copy: The wording makes a big difference to response rates. If you just have a simple ‘buy’, you are risking leaving this open to the 100% convinced only to buy this product, and from you, and right now to take action. Sometimes an 80% convinced prospect is ready to go to 100%, and your copy has to take them there.

Of course... if you’re just another HR payroll software, plumber, interior designer, or tax accountant who provides great service or other commodity out there, a Call to Action alone won’t help you too much.

Spend a bit of time improving the product so that you are more helpful (of value) and differentiated than other competitors, and your conversion rates will naturally improve.

My call to action to you: Share this with another person who likes business articles about sales conversions right now. 

Time to do this: only 30 seconds so start right now.

Karma points: plenty (and you’re friend might be delighted you thought of them too.)

Further reading:

How a counsellor like Oprah Winfrey will outsell a salesperson: trust and buying psychology

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Experiential Marketing: Brand Experience for Brand Awareness

Experiential Marketing: Brand Experience for Brand Awareness: by Jason Li 2013 ©

Ever had a brand experience that was awesome?...

So good you HAD to tell a friend?... (like your first school yard kiss)

And it created a lasting feel good memory?... (like when you won something)

That’s why experiential marketing is a great way to convert prospective customers and gain referrals. (Just one marketing differentiation tactic and value creation method in the practical ebook guide The Goose Bump Effect)

Let’s kick off with a case study that highlights this straight away to prove this.

Experiential Marketing Case study: Lego Lego has been around for ages. I used to love Lego. When I was a kid I was inspired by battery motored vehicles I could build as seen on the television adverts. In fact, I was a dab hand at it – after 90 days of trying. The funny thing is, if you just ask me to build a quick card pyramid - I can’t be bothered these days; I’ve no energy, or patience. Sometimes the TV runs and if the programme is not terrible, I’ll let it run... yes I’m a LAZY GIT! But bring out the Lego, and I’m ready for the challenge. Lego is just a special brand experience. You can even visit Lego Land and get really inspired.   Each Lego set can be recreated by any visitor who is willing to have a go. It just takes seeing and liking one Lego set for a prospect to get ‘that urge’ to want to ‘have a go’ at recreating a master piece... and then BAM... before they know it they are at the Lego shop, box under the arm, and debit card flicking out to the smiley person on the till – as cool as the Fonz – a knowingly fleeced Fonz! That’s another sale, with no objection handling, no hard selling, or multiple questions or having to wince everytime that person you like on the phone is calling you. (I’ve been there on a call back with people in the past life, and you know you and them are wasting each other’s time, even though they are interested and talk to you... otherwise they would buy from me already.) PITCHED AND CLOSED in one smooth Lego Land marketing and sales environment. Thank you. And just when you are getting good at Lego, Average Joe or Josephine make that incredible Lego set as seen in the newspapers, and it gets ‘those urges’ going again.

Experiencial Marketing Brand Engagement is Selling

Ever been in a sales process when you are just about to close a prospect? (Or they tell you they are ready to buy?)

If you get lucky, a prospect starts to waffle about how they like your product and other ways they can use it, and of course their objections and why that’s not a problem because it does such a thing to make it worthwhile.

Of course, when you are selling, you have to go through this one prospect at a time. It’s pretty time consuming to go from an initial cold contact, questioning and education, and the rest of the sales process with the many twists and turns of involving other directors and more.

If you are paying for ten telesales, or ten retail sales advisors or ten field sales consultants with cars, then logically your business is closing and hearing the same set of objections from ten prospects at a time, over-and-over again. And that’s a lot of time and cost when you add it all up together.

(So park this time and cost problem as we go through this article.)

Part of selling is building a relationship. If they like you then they are comfortable disclosing company or personal details to your questions. Most sales people are likeable with clients and ask decent questions, and so can build good rapport. (Or else the sales person has to pay for expensive lunches and steep discounts to keep prospects engaged.)

But at the end of the day, what if after all this, the prospect just does not like the product or service your business offers and buys from another business offering a similar but better value package, or think your business is not focussed enough on creating value for the prospect, today or a year down the road?

This is where brand engagement and relationship advertising allows you to showcase your product, service, and company, and is one great way to differentiate your business from competitors.

A lot of people don’t like being sold to. I know sales people that make other telesales cold callers lives hell where I’ve worked when a call comes in, or when I’m shopping with them they give the shop assistant a curt: “I’m fine, I’m just browsing.” (So you’re not the only sales person who hates fob offs themselves, but angrily tells a cold caller to go away with abusive language that’s just short of psychologically stripping someone down, and you won’t help Mr Cold Caller in anyway. Yes, you’ve witnessed it too. And cruelly laughed your head off at that particular time. Wink.)

Experiential Marketing Case study: Nissan Nissan is not the number one selling car in the UK. In fact they’re not in the top three either, but they are gaining popularity. I’ve seen a steady rise on the roads in Nissan owners, and it’s not by accident. Here’s one of the ways Nissan used a brand marketing method to get prospective car owners to try owning a Nissan. In the 02 Arena, which has over 7 million visitors a year and one of the highest footfalls in the UK, there is a Nissan experience centre. The O2 is the world’s number one venue for live music events.  Where better to engage an audience where people are open to new happy experiences where they can create facebook posts for friends so they can ‘like’ away. What’s driving Nissan (Marketing Week) – article opens in a new window.

In a relaxed branded experiential environment, sales people can build rapport, educate, persuade, educate some more, and have decent conversations where there is no pressure and give real value.

People who are at your branded marketing events will have set aside plenty of time to spend there and are willing to disclose all their needs, wants, objections, problems and why they are there.

You see, when selling, if you can get the objections, then your answers are really information to help them justify in making a buying decision... provided you provide the right information.

At your branded marketing experiential event, the prospect can see you are very good and likeable, and as they have relaxed their guard, are more willing to disclose and tell, listen and make a vision of how your product and service can fit well in their life.

And as what you have done to the brand is likeable, they know other decision makers will concur too.

And of course, as you know the target market very well, your company, product and service offer will be extremely strong and very compelling to a prospect that makes an effort to spend time on your site.

Experiential Marketing Case study: Top Shop Do you remember when Kate Moss launched her own designs for Top Shop? She posed in the windows as a model as tourists and the fashion world got a buzz at such a unique event. It worked a treat. The ‘Supermodel in the window’ really differentiated Top Shop from other clothes shops in London. Why is this important? Top Shop don’t claim to offer high end expensive clothing, but the event was memorable and allowed the public to see Top Shop as a leading fashion shop for the general public. Top Shop became a destination for fashionable girls where the target market required affordable clothing. (The ebook has a section on Marketing Strategy and research techniques to test if new products and innovations have a chance of being accepted by your target market).

Experiential Marketig Builds Brand Loyalty

If you are good at understanding your target market and your product/service offer is genuinely the best in the market, you will have more interested people than you think.

Sales guru Nicholas Read calls this latent needs – a similar idea to market research.

If you introduce your brand in the right way you make it a pleasure for prospects to engage and interact with your product. (Making your product a pleasure is a key secret to success – see the ebook Marketing Strategy section.)

In fact, a great experience has in many studies transformed dull boring brands into life. People learn by doing and experience. (Engaging the sense better than your competitors is another secret – see the ebook Differentiation section.)

This will shift attitudes, beliefs and allow prospects to match yours with their long-term held values. Most importantly the prospect will agree with your offer, which is key in getting a prospect on your side as they move through a sales cycle and convert themselves into becoming a customer.

Referrals

Ultimately, a happy prospect will tell others about their enjoyable experience.

In this day and age of social media, this form of word-of-mouth allows you to gain free advertising and broad awareness.

Experiential brand marketing allows prospects to align with the way you want them to see your brand positioning.

And so you can expect facebook likes and Tweets galore if you’ve done your homework correctly and provided an added value experience.

Experiential Marketing Case study: Northumberlandia In the UK there are 1000s of places to go for a walk. Many of the walks are pretty similar so it’s not worth it most of the time to bother travelling to a destination many miles away. But if you want a walk that attracts thousands of people from around the country then you need to create something of great value and is absolutely worth doing to compensate for the travel time. Northumberlandia is just that walk that hits the spot. At Northumberlandia, you are walking over a lady’s body. When you stand on the head you get a great view of the body and can see all the people winding their way around to the head. The 19 hectare public park on Cheviot Hill has been shaped so that you can have a great unique experience which you cannot get anywhere else in the UK. You can try a number of walks, or surf the net for a similar walk, but if you want a walk like this then you have no choice but to go to Northumberlandia. As written on the website: ‘Northumberlandia is a unique piece of public art set in a 46 acre community park with free public access and 4 miles of footpaths on and around the landform.’ It is a project that has been researched and deliberately created to offer a very different walk. Would this entice you to walk Northumberlandia if you liked to go on walks? Would you refer others to this without any resistance or much objection? http://www.northumberlandia.com/ - The Lady of the North. The Land Trust 7 Birchwood One Dewhurst Road Birchwood Warrington WA3 7GB

Bonus: 

How not to engage your prospects. Never, ever do these promotions.

1. A Gangnam style dance to promote a funeral parlour in the town centre.
2. Shock machines to prove heart attack tablets are quick at easing pain.
3. Provide a complement of nasty viruses to promote computer anti-virus software.
4. Create a dangerous assault course to prove pets will do anything to try to get to your pet food.

Further reading:

How to increase profit by creating value

Why London Bridge is England’s worst tourist attraction

Read more ...

Brand Beckham (How David Beckham’s Brand is successful)

Brand Beckham (How David Beckham’s Brand is successful): by Jason Li 2012 ©

These days we all love brand Beckham...

Whether you’re based in USA, England or China...

But why is Beckham a global icon when there are millions of sports people?...

And how does Beckham appeal to such a wide audience?...

(How does he keep his hair in place all the time?)

David Beckham Brand in development

As a football fan, in the early days I only saw Beckham as a Manchester United player who was the best crosser of the ball in the world.

(I’m not a Man Utd fan, but I do enjoy watching them play attacking football.)

One of the main features of a wide midfield player or winger is to have great acceleration and dribbling skills, plus a cross at the end of it. If you’ve ever watched Man Utd play, all their wide players had exceptional pace from Best, Giggs, Kanchelskis to Cristiano Ronaldo.

But Beckham; he had no pace, cannot dribble, cannot beat a man. In fact, he’s useless at this. You could watch him for 90 minutes and still be waiting for him to break into a sprint.

So did the ruthless football manager guru Sir Alex Ferguson play Beckham because he wanted to play with ten men (Liverpool had given up winning league titles recently – only joking, it’s just a matter of getting the best out of Stuart Downing right?).

No.

What you have in Beckham is a player who is average at running with the ball, but over average for a wide player in terms of accuracy when distributing the ball. Beckham was the best person in the world at curling the ball from the wide right position into the path of a striker to nod one in. Put it this way, if a Hobbit was marked by Alessandro Nesta the great AC Milan centre back, Beckham could cross the ball in from 30 yards into the space between defender and Keeper and make the Hobbit look like he out jumped Nesta. Yep, that’s pretty good.

So why run and cross, when you can simply just... cross the ball from where you’re stood?

Witness the balls Beckham put in the box in the Champions League on route to winning it against Inter Milan and Juventus in 1998- 1999.

The second differentiator from other football players are his free kicks. David Beckham became the most famous free kick taker in the world. He consistently bent the ball around the wall.

So in football circles, he became known as exceptional at the delivery of the ball.

Victoria Beckham

So David Beckham went on to meet Victoria, get married and have babies... we all know this story.

We also know Victoria and advisors helped him develop his brand, and get sponsorship deals.

At the time of meeting, Beckham was one of the pin-up boys in the English league, Victoria a worldwide known singer for the Spice Girls.

If you remember the early chat shows, David was a nervous wreck on the shows and Victoria did all the talking. When he spoke, it was a bit of a quiet mumble and she took over the difficult questions.

But hey, slowly but surely non-football fans got to get to know the shy David Beckham who had no opinion while Victoria was his spokes person.

David Beckham is Golden Balls

And then David went from shy to an under wear model.

The first time I learnt about these shots in the Daily Mail, as a football fan, I didn’t really take much notice. I thought it was just a nice way for him to earn a bit more money on the side and learn a new trade... why not?

But then everyone was talking about the pictures... so I had to sneak a look. Come on guys, how many of you sneaked a look too?

I’m not talking in a sexual way (nothing wrong with it if he turns you on), but out of curiosity. And before you say it, just reading this may make you think otherwise, I promise you it’s not. And all these defensive arguments do not mean anything either.

In fact I have to declare, I saw a TV show where the ladies were really quizzing the pictures and if some parts were photo shopped. Of course I had a good look... who didn’t?

But you know what... I don’t think any man in the world who is heterosexual did not for the first time have a proper look at another man. And it was both unnerving and acceptable because it was everyone’s acceptable football icon... David Beckham, not Beckham the model... even though it was a model shoot for underwear.

(Now I can wipe my brow after thinking of those nervy moments because I was looking at another man’s CROTCH.)

David Beckham & Diego Simeone

Football has a lot of controversial moments. I would say the sending off of David Beckham against Argentina in the 1998 World Cup for a foul on Diego Simeone will be one I will remember.

It’s not just because he got sent off. It’s because he got sent off for something that was absolutely rubbish and ruined England’s chances of going through. Beckham got sent off for the most delicate petulant trip. So minor it was almost not a foul. I think it went down as the most frustrating foul in England’s history!

Did you see it? Can you remember either shouting at the screen, or been curled up and sucking in your stomach in silence, arms folded as your teeth clenched and eyes fixed on the screen? Or looking across the room and amidst all the shouting  there was one fellow who was emotionless and staring at the screen with big eye balls...  that was the one that made you remember the moment. Ooooh it hurt. And that team... Seaman, Shearer, Owen, Tony Adams, Paul Ince, Paul Scholes... and so on.

From hero to zero in one second.

David Beckham Marketing

But you know what... that’s what made Brand Beckham even stronger. As much as we talk about and like a good role model... the world needs a bad guy.

At that time, Beckham was it. Then to play the game, he shaved his golden locks off, and WENT SKINHEAD.

Beckham lost a few sponsors and was on parole.

But hey... the bad moody looking boy in rehab appeals to a lot of people.

Nobody is perfect, and over time people did forgive. Those that made mistakes or liked the bad boy got to know Beckham and gave millions of people around the world a new role model.

David Beckham England Captain

Being the England captain and that free kick against Greece to book a World Cup place was the tonic. Having given the Argentineans an advantage in the 2008 World Cup, now he was the hero as the outstanding player who scores the winner in the final qualifying game to take England to the next World Cup.

Rehab sealed.

David Beckham the ambassador for English Sport

Now Beckham has ambassadorial roles such as a role in the Olympics 2012, meeting Nelson Mandela and David Beckham academy.

These days David Beckham is a polished English export who represents what is good for the country.

Brand Halo

But remember this; first and foremost Beckham won trophies as a football player. Doing what he did, he was absolutely the best at putting the ball on a plate for strikers.

As a take away, Beckham initially became a brand built on his ability to fulfil expectations as a footballer in almost every game he played. If he could not, then he would never have played for Manchester United over so many seasons and games

The brand has evolved over many years, from the haircuts to his personality which is now stronger as an ambassador and spokes person who everyone listens to.

Mum and dads like him as a clean role model, girls who like a bad boy like him, and people who want to identify with a person who makes mistakes in the general public will learn from his recovery to the straight and narrow. In fact, even if you hate David Beckham... it means you will secretly grow to forgive and love David Beckham. It’s complex. It’s Beckham the master psychologist.

If Beckham initially started investing his focus on his image and brand first, then there’s no way he could have been an exceptional footballer.

As you can see, you can be an exceptional brand and differentiated based on how good you are without focusing from the start on trying to artificially create a brand identity. So focus on marketing strategy, be known as being the best at what you do for your target market first, and the brand will develop a halo afterwards.

If you’re not the best at satisfying customers, then worrying about your brand image and changing your logos is very unlikely to solve your long-term problems. As one football coach said to me whilst we were watching some new players on trial: “You can’t polish a turd!”

Further Reading:

Charlie Sheen sex tweets: Why you must appeal to psychological control

MacDonald’s Hidden Hypnotic Brand Marketing Tactics Revealed (and its copy able!)

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Apple or Stephen Hawking or Harvard University: Which is the most intelligent brand?

Apple or Stephen Hawking or Harvard University:  Which is the most intelligent brand?: by Jason Li 2012 ©

A bit of fun....

Which brand is the best representation of intelligence?...

Where humankind can say this is how clever we are?

Contenders

I thought of Garry Kasparov as a definite contender – the man is a chess genius and it’s pretty much impossible for any human to beat him. But then, the only thing that can spoil his credentials, if you can spoil his credentials, is to say that chess people play for hours-on-end every day going over the same situations and practice moves. I know how practice can improve your performance from playing football as we used to practice free kick routines sometimes to mix things up, and even those who were not the brightest seem to look like they did something clever.

However, this definitely does not detract from Kasparov as a proven chess genius over a very long period of time as he has beaten other dedicated professionals fair and square.

Sir David Attenborough is possibly the world’s most famous natural history film-maker. Whether it involves plants, global warming or prehistoric dinosaurs... Sir David Attenborough can tell you the facts. Every programme he presents is absolutely fascinating.

However, his brand is based on learning facts and regurgitating natural history facts in the most interesting way. As much as I love and admire his work and style, a memory expert could well copy Sir David Attenborough and provide a credible imitation. Again, this is not to take away from his deserved super brand status in this subjective question. Sir David Attenborough is an excellent and close contender too (beating millions of other worthy intelligent brands).

The top three intelligent brands

Many people judge success based on money and funny enough – success. Apple is therefore the most successful product brand in the world. At the time of writing, Apple was the company with the largest capitalisation in the world. The business world is occupied by very motivated, dedicated, clever, educated, smart and ambitious people in the world. Apple is ahead of all competitors at the moment and so must be in the top three.

Smart people go to university as a norm. You do get exceptions, but in general, if you’re smart you go to university. HarvardUniversity is well known around the world as a destination where many of the world’s smartest people go to take in more information in their specialists interests.

Most of us are aware Harvard University had two mega successful commercial students – Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates. Even though they left before completing their degrees, they still choose Harvard which means there will be other students like them at the university.

Stephen Hawkins is world renown as a leading physicist at Cambridge University. Cambridge University itself is pretty much on par with Harvard, just not as glamorous. Hawkins has to be in the running as he develops new theories which mathematicians and physicists are playing catch up to understand. To develop new ideas explaining the universe and put your reputation on the block as other physicists test your ideas for holes (pardon the pun) is both brave and smart if the world has to wait for you to provide a theory to advance everyone else’s knowledge.

My vote

People at Harvard University can replicate what Apple do, and likewise those at Apple could easily create a university like Harvard.

I believe if Stephen Hawking learnt to programme, he would have the capacity to programme software or design products at Apple, and of course lecture at Harvard. If Stephen Hawking dedicated to chess he would definitely beat some of the top pros.

However, I’m not sure if there are more than only a handful of the people at Harvard University or Apple who have the original thinking in science and mathematics on the same level as Stephen Hawking. There will be brilliant specialists in design, art, science subjects and mathematics. However, Stephen Hawking is advanced in all these and more. Original thinkers who can explain black holes and quantum gravity in the universe only come along once in a generation.

For me Stephen Hawking is the most intelligent brand in the world.

(Stephen Hawking wins £1.8 million Fundamental Physics Prize - December 2012)
Daily Mail article, Universe Today article.

Maybe a mathematician will work out a formula to work out which is the most intelligent brand one day.

Do you agree? Ask this one question to someone you know as it will be fun to find out what people think. How did they arrive at their chosen intelligent brand?

If you liked this article, you will really make my day if you forward it on. J

 

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