Lost on the Shelf? Build a Category of One.

Posted on Friday, 13 December 2013 11:55 am by markpilip

When I start a consulting engagement, I ask my new clients “what’s a Company X?”  This is shorthand for “what do you stand for, how do you do it, and why should anyone care?”

When I hear “Uber for pet food” or “Airbnb for cupcakes” or “YouTube killer for soccer moms” my conclusion is that they’ve decided, perhaps unintentionally, to compete in a category that already exists. The strategy is to disrupt the existing category with a novel twist.

The problem is it doesn’t usually work. Seth Godin’s piece today talks about being lost on the shelf in a digital world where the number of SKUs is theoretically infinite and the ability of the customer to put options side-by-side for comparison is instant and free. Lots of choice, lots of pretty similar products, many with novel twists.

Categories with lots of players tend to become a market of a dominator, a strong second, a distant third, and everybody else. Everybody else competes on the price set by the market dominator, except without the same economies of scale as the top two or three players.

Al Ries has been writing about categories for years and suggests at least two options. You can either become a category killer or create a new category. In the former, you create something that’s so obviously better that it kills the existing category and attracts the customers to the new category. To demonstrate this, he uses the classic example of P.R. Mallory creating Duracell and the alkaline battery market. The result was that the carbon battery market was killed and drained of growth and profits. (How many non alkaline batteries do you have in your house?)

Category creation is a variant of category killing. Like Uber and Airbnb, operating in this fashion results in creation of an entirely new category–a category of one–where you have the opportunity to become the dominant player. Creating new categories is at the core of building new, strong brands. Al Ries provides a number of classic examples in his AdAge post earlier this year.

Takeaway: Worried about being lost on the shelf? Don’t build “Uber for…” Build a category of one, where your brand is the category.

Posted in Branding, Marketing, Product Development | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Lost on the Shelf? Build a Category of One.

Leaders Eat Last

Posted on Friday, 13 December 2013 6:41 am by markpilip

“The cost of leadership is self interest.”

Says Simon Sinek in his remarkable talk “Why Leaders Eat Last” at a recent Behance conference. The talk is based on his upcoming book Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t, which will be released on January 7th.

In the book and in this talk Sinek talks about how the chemicals in our body–the very chemicals that enabled homo sapiens to thrive–can be used to help or hurt our organizations and our very lives. Importantly, our leaders play a key role in how those chemicals are distributed in our body.

Endorphins, dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin and cortisol are important to our survival. We need them, in balance. When unbalanced, they not only create physical and psychological problems in us, but in our corporations. And our leaders have a direct bearing on the amount of those chemicals in our bodies.

Alas, most of our “leaders” are failing us. They are violating the very contract that put them in the position of leadership.

We’ve all been asked the question “what is leadership?” at some point. Or we’ve asked ourselves how we might become better leaders. Simon Sinek provides the best definition of leadership I’ve heard.

“If you decide to look after the person to the left and to the right of you, you have become a leader.”

That’s it. When you extend the circle of safety, you become a leader. Not when you balance the books of your company on the backs of your employees by laying them off to make the numbers. While you collect a massive bonus for yourself and justify it as “increasing shareholder value.”

And then wonder why your employees aren’t innovative. Or why they don’t get it when you give them a pittance of restricted stock units. Or wonder why employees bolt for the doors at the slightest hint of trouble or for just a few more bucks. When we’re not safe, we tend to look out for number one.

The saddest thing about our leaders’ failure is that humans are not wired to look out for number one. We’re built to look out for each other and to help each other succeed. We just need real leaders.

The talk is worth watching. Oh, I happen to really like it because the title has been my #1 leadership value for a number of years!

Posted in Leadership, Organization, Philosophy | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

“I Think” vs. “I Know”

Posted on Thursday, 12 December 2013 5:25 am by markpilip

We need to be alert to avoid the logical fallacy of “I think… therefore I know…” and use the rigorous and challenging “I know… therefore I think…”

The former is comfortable and easy on the ego and so easy to fall into.

The latter is just plain hard work.

Posted in Philosophy | Tagged , | Comments Off on “I Think” vs. “I Know”

A Bitcoin for Identity

Posted on Wednesday, 11 December 2013 12:04 pm by markpilip

I believe that Fred Wilson from Union Square Ventures is a smart investor and astute observer of technology trends. His talk at LeWeb Paris is timely, because a lot of us are looking forward to 2014 and trying to figure out what big trends are important. He does a very compelling job of making an argument that the key trends are:

  1. Organizational transistion  from bureaucratic systems to technology-driven networks.
  2. Unbundling of services because it’s now easier to distribute services separately.
  3. We are all nodes on the network due to mobile devices and it’s easier than ever to connect any nodes for almost any purpose.

During his talk, he provided an interesting take on what Bitcoin really is. He described it as an open, global, and distributed protocol, much like TCP/IP or FTP. Bitcoin, argues Wilson, is a network protocol layer which provides a way for money to flow in the same way as media or images flow today on the Internet.

At the end of the talk he predicts the emergence of a Bitcoin for Identity. A global, open, distributed protocol that allows us (the end user) an ability to control our identity and take control of our data exhaust. With such a protocol, we reduce the  ability of governments, Google, Facebook, etc. to spy on us when we don’t want them to.

Watch the whole talk or fast forward to 24:08 to see how he discusses the concept of Bitcoin for Identity.

Can we take control of our identity at this late stage? I’m not saying it will be easy. But we were able to create a protocol in Bitcoin that starts to break the old bureaucratic online payment systems, and wrest some control from government reserve banks, PayPal and other entrenched entities.

Our identities and privacy are more important than money. We at least have to try.

Why is important for a new protocol for identity that’s distributed, open, secure, and not under the control of anyone? It’s been clear since June 6th, 2013 as Mikko Hypponen points out in this very important TED talk.

I encourage you to watch it twice, not because it’s hard to understand. Rather, I expect you’ll get twice as mad and perhaps help do something about it.

Posted in Data, Leadership, Organization, Philosophy, Privacy, Security | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on A Bitcoin for Identity

The Three Rs of the Lizard

Posted on Wednesday, 11 December 2013 5:01 am by markpilip

Review, rewrite, reconsider.

Those are not actions associated with getting things done. It is the lizard talking.

I made the notes above a few months ago while sitting in a conference call listening to endless variations of “Let’s just review this one more time.” Why?

Do we fear getting some minor thing wrong, because some bureaucrat might shoot us down? (And who put them in charge anyway?)

Do we fear doing anything because we’re unconsciously trying not to ship the product?

Do we think everything has to be perfect? (Can anything created by humans be perfect?)

Takeaway: Remember the three Rs of the lizard and do the opposite when you hear him talking to you.

Posted in Philosophy | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on The Three Rs of the Lizard

Don’t Hire a Growth Hacker. Hire a Direct Response Marketer Instead.

Posted on Thursday, 7 November 2013 5:01 am by markpilip

I’ve had some conversations with clients and prospective clients who think they need a “growth hacker.” I finally did some reading on what a “growth hacker” does and I think Mark Macdonald’s article is one of the readable and rational ones.

It turns out that while “marketers” are interested in things like creating buzz from a large PR push, running Super Bowl ads and growing awareness “growth hackers” are interested in achieving measurable metrics like lower Cost Per Install, higher ARPU, greater LTV and so forth.

Sounds like good old-fashioned direct response marketing to me. I suppose the difference between a “growth hacker” and DR marketer is that the former has no historical awareness of their trade, while the latter tends to focus less on PR and more on delivering the objectives.

Takeaway: I’ve got a silly new way to describe what I do!

 

Posted in Direct Response, Marketing | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Don’t Hire a Growth Hacker. Hire a Direct Response Marketer Instead.

Yes, Doc Searls, Direct Marketing *IS* Advertising

Posted on Monday, 7 October 2013 12:20 pm by markpilip

Doc Searls, one of the authors of the Cluetrain Mainfesto (excellent book), blew it yesterday in his blog post. In it, he writes of the need of “real” advertising to exorcise the influence of Direct Marketing. It’s direct response, you see, that has polluted modern advertising with incessant, intrusive and privacy-damaging pitches that ruin the Internet experience.

He actually wasn’t talking about direct response marketing, but rather the appearance of direct response marketing as practiced by today’s ill-trained dilettantes. I’ll reiterate here what I wrote in response to Mr. Searls. Those of us who follow and learned from the lessons taught to us by Lester Wunderman, David Ogilvy, Gordon Grossman, Gene Cullinan and many others are not the problem.

The problem lies with the quick-buck artists who are happy to sell their company to Google for $100 million, and who will let Google worry about the wake they’ve left. Real direct response marketers are not the problem here.

My response to Mr. Searls is in the comments to his blog post.

Posted in Direct Response, Marketing, Rants | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Tweeter (TWTRQ) Isn’t Twitter and the (Ir)rational Market

Posted on Friday, 4 October 2013 3:10 pm by markpilip

We’re smart, we’re rational, we do our research, we can’t be fooled. So we tell ourselves. But when it gets to be time to make a quick buck, everything goes out the window.

Today, Tweeter Home Entertainment Group Inc.’s, the bankrupt A/V chain trading under TWTRQ , stock went crazy before trading was halted. Seems like in the rush to get in on the Twitter IPO, some people got a little confused.

What should you do when a “sure thing” crosses your desk? Put it aside and look into it tomorrow morning. If it’s real and legitimate, the opportunity will still be there tomorrow. Plus, the extra eight hours of sleep will ensure you notice that extraneous “Q” which can make all the difference in the world.

Posted in Behavioral economics | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Tweeter (TWTRQ) Isn’t Twitter and the (Ir)rational Market

9-11

Posted on Wednesday, 11 September 2013 1:00 am by markpilip

Twelve years ago today, almost 3,000 people were murdered. One was my friend and Utica College classmate Margaret Echtermann. She was likable, smart and a lot of fun.  She was enjoying success in her career and personal life when it abruptly ended.

I won’t forget Margaret or the others.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | Comments Off on 9-11

Don’t Get a Job. Work Instead.

Posted on Wednesday, 14 August 2013 7:55 am by markpilip

You find wisdom in the most unexpected places if you’re seeking it.

I stumbled on this interview with Adam Ant this morning. He says something very important about twenty minutes into it.

“I’ve never really had a job. This isn’t a job to me. It’s work, and there’s a difference.”

He doesn’t spend any more time on this topic, but if you watch the entire interview you can tell that music is his life’s work. He doesn’t do it to get paid, although he did earn a reasonable living.

Jobs can sometimes pay the bills. And sometimes we can get a lot of money from our jobs. But it’s our work that truly rewards us and gives us something that we can sink our teeth into twenty or thirty years down the road.

Are you doing your work, or just doing a job?

Posted in Media, Philosophy | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Don’t Get a Job. Work Instead.