Month: September 2016

So it seems that, counter to my last post, that some folks just can’t live without the option of a headphone jack. So much so that they were duped by a viral video into taking a drill to their brand new device…

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/nation-now/2016/09/27/dont-drill-into-your-iphone-7—headphone-jack-hack-isnt-real/91156728/

A video that was intended as a joke has been actually taken seriously by an unknown but significant number of phone jack desperate consumers. I would like to think that this is also a joke, but unfortunately it seems that drilling a hole into the side of their new iphone seemed like a perfectly plausible solution to more than a few folks.

An actual alternative to this approach has been the emergence of multiple cases that act as an adapter, allowing for the use of the old standby headphones. Please, if you know of anyone considering the drill, point them in this direction instead.

http://www.popsci.com/iphone-7-cases-may-be-best-answer-to-apples-headphone-jack-removal

Facebook caught in a lie.  Many questions surfaced last week when Facebook Inc. overestimated by up to 80% the average time people spent watching video ads on its platform.  There has been a huge move from traditional media spend to Mobile Platform media spend over the past 5 years.  Measuring the return on investment has not been easy for most companies. Facebook shares how many clicks an ad receives and how long an ad video is watch; however, this does not always lead to a sale.  Facebook admitted  that the metric used its used for reporting for the past two years was artificially inflated because it only captured video view for more than three seconds. It has since been determined Facebook may have overestimated view by as much as 60-80%

Today Facebook owns 22% of a $46 billion dollar mobile U.S. ad market and Facebooks mobile ad market jumped 80% in the last quarter as most people have move form the conventional desk top and laptop to powerful handheld devices.  The problem the Mobile Ad industry faces is there is not a true measurement by a third party that can estimate the true clicks or views of video. These metrics are measured by the platforms and can sometimes be misconstrued. In other words the online platforms are telling customer what the ad platforms are worth without a third party measurement.  there ARE NO TRUE CHECKS AND BALANCES such as Nelson rating for conventional television.

In a world where technology, mobile broadband continues to be more an more pervasive, its important to have measurements where real data can be captured so true return on investment can be measured, and this needs to be accomplished by a third party software provider that has right to all social platforms, big and small where marketing dollars are spent.

 

About a year ago, Volkswagen was exposed for the device that cheated the emissions test.  Now, the company has released #PinkBeetle. That’s the cars official name, #PinkBeetle, the first vehicle to be named with a hashtag.  The vehicle is advertised on social media and that’s where the demand for the vehicle started.

While the company is certainly paying for its indiscretion, it took a new approach to customer demand and launching a new product.  Using Facebook as a platform to advertise the new Beetle is pretty smart.  Also, of all of their vehicles, the Beetle is most iconic and probably has a loyal following.

Of course, this isn’t the first time the Beetle has made advertisement history.  The “Lemon” advertisement was popular in the 1960s.  In fact, the ad came about because Volkswagen was trying to figure out how to sell Hitler’s favorite car only 15 years after WWII.  I suppose Volkswagen hopes that lighting will strike twice.

Lemon

http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/official-name-volkswagens-new-car-hashtag-pinkbeetle-173738

Ford Deploys Aggressive Public Relations Defense Against Donald Trump

By Nicholas Van Zandt

Bad press for the auto industry is certainly nothing new for their public relations teams.  For decades they have had to deal with public pressures and criticisms regarding their off shoring practices to build their cars in countries with cheaper labor costs so that they can better compete against foreign auto makers.  For workers in US states that have long been dependent on manufacturing, particularly in the auto-heavy state of Michigan, any news of plant closures comes with fierce public outcry.

In his efforts to appeal to the working class voters in swing states like Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, Donald Trump has attacked the auto industry for exporting jobs to Mexico.  He specifically targeted Ford stating that “Ford is leaving.  You see that, their small car division leaving.  Thousands of jobs leaving Michigan, leaving Ohio.  They’re all leaving.”  It would be one thing if this statement was made on Trump’s Twitter feed, but he made this statement at the first presidential debate in front of 100 million viewers.  Naturally, Ford had to go into immediate damage control, and rightfully so.

While it was true that Ford was phasing out the production of its small car models Focus and C-Max compact cars in order to start building them at a new facility in Mexico, their social media team had to go into overdrive to dispel the notion that this was going to result in thousands of jobs leaving as well.  For Trump, it is a very easy to understand without a great deal of context: Ford is closing down production and opening it back up in Mexico.  Queue the outrage!  Ford, however, is now stuck with the task of trying to explain a much more complex story stating that the specific models they are sending to Mexico for production are models that are far more popular in that country while the workers in America are being shifted over to SUVs and pickup trucks, which can be sold at a higher profit.  The smaller cars—due to declining gas prices—are no longer sell as well as they used to and so Ford had to restructure their production in order to stay ahead of the curve.

Once can see the dilemma in terms of messaging.  For Trump, he appeals to his supporters with catch phrases like “Ford is sending your jobs to Mexico”, even if it is not based in fact.  Ford, however, is left with a far more difficult task of refuting this overly simplistic statement by trying to explain 140 characters at a time how shifting consumer behaviors based on declining gas prices requires them to restructure their supply chain model and to transfer existing stateside workers away from small car production.  Instead, they have rightly focused on more easy to consume messages about how they have added more workers and invested more money in US based production facilities than any other American car maker.

 

Some companies can’t help but be dragged into controversy due to their sheer size and cultural impact.  Skittles has the distinction of being dragged into two different controversies in recent years.  Both of which it responded to in a sedate, minimalist way that maximized the dignity of the brand and responded to the emerging situation in a tactful way that did not alienate anybody.

The most recent issue is when the Donald Trump Jr.  posted an image of a bowl of skittles, with the macro text “If I had a bowl of skittles and I told you just three would kill you.  Would you take a handful?  That’s our Syrian refugee problem.”  This naturally set off a firestorm of controversy on twitter.

What skittles did was put out a statement, importantly, not from the primary Skittles social media account, but from the parent company, Mars.  The social media post stated, simply: “Skittles are candy; refugees are people.  It’s an inappropriate analogy.  We respectfully refrain from further comments, as that could be interpreted as marketing”.  By putting out this statement, they both staked out their company position, and deny critics who would say they are using this for marketing purposes the battlefield by limiting the response to that one message.  By limiting the message to that one line, they have effectively ensured message discipline.

The earlier incident was the death of Trayvon Martin, who had skittles and ice tea when he was shot.  Skittles put out a similar statement at that time:

“We are deeply saddened by the news of Trayvon Martin’s death and express our sincere condolences to his family and friends. We also respect their privacy and feel it inappropriate to get involved or comment further as we would never wish for our actions to be perceived as an attempt of commercial gain following this tragedy.”

There were some calls for skittles to become more involved with the movement, and donate money from the sales of skittles to the cause, however skittles declined to do so.  This drew some criticism, but as the recent case shows, they were not shaken from the minimalist path, which seems to have served them well.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2016/09/22/skittles-gave-the-perfect-response-to-donald-trump-jr/

https://twitter.com/MarsGlobal/status/778099719922933760/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

http://www.ibtimes.com/trayvon-martin-case-skittles-arizona-iced-tea-speak-out-about-commercial-gain-death-florida-teen

Yahoo….500 Million email accounts were hacked in 2014!!  The increasing threat of Cyber attacks on websites is not slowing down as the internet and broadband continues to grow around the globe.  As the internet expands so does the threat against every person private or maybe not so private information.  As vulnerabilities grow for many companies how do companies large and small protect their image and most of all their customer information? The best type of defense is a great offence and in the cyber world this means making sure a companies network, data center, intellectual properties and customer information has the best cyber security measures on place.

Too many times we read on the news how companies fail to protect their greatest asset, their customers information.  It took Target many years to recover from their network being hacked and millions of customer credit card information being stolen.  Home Depot followed suite year later and hand their network hacked and jeopardizing critical customer information. Today, its Yahoo that has ended up announcing that over 500 million email addresses had been hacked in 2014.  This news comes out months after Verizon agreed to purchase Yahoo for 4.83 Billion dollars. The breach has been LABELED as the larges cyber security breach to date.

Companies large and small are in a mode of hiring security experts in an industry where few experts exist. There is a shortfall of this specialized cyber security talent and with this sort of GAP we can be sure the bad guys will not slow down in gaining personal information to sell on the cyber black market.

The image of companies are tarnished when these sorts of attacks take place and the recovery time can be years. The end result is loss revenue, a tarnished image and customers losing trust in companies. Social networking platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other become a platform where customer voice their concerns. Companies can also use the social network platforms to communicate to their customer what they are doing to correct the problem. A key marketing avenue to help recover a tarnished brand.

No Jack No Problem

When Apple’s new phone launched they confirmed what had long been suspected concerning the new design. NO HEADPHONE JACK!?! A staple of auditory technology almost as old as phones themselves had been dumped.
Wow, just wow. How would the world cope with this revelation? Many “experts” felt that Apple would be cutting its throat by making such a drastic change. Fortunately, for Apple’s sake, this has not seemed to slow the enthusiasm for their new phone offering.
As when most things change, there are always those that resist out of hand. To counter this attitude the message they delivered was one of bravely introducing the inevitable. This helped them maintain their image as bold innovators even though the phone itself is not drastically different. There are some nice upgrades to camera and battery, and the long awaited water proofing is a nice touch, but not ground breaking.
Taking away the headphone jack helped accomplish something that nothing else on the new phone could. This “drastic” move showed its customers that Apple pushes the envelope while others are content, and that notion is at the heart of their marketing, and keeps its loyal fans coming back for more.

Ikea hired a company to do market research on the American dream.  Turns out, the American dream is more about experiences than possessions.  Which doesn’t sound very positive for a store that sells a bunch of furniture, but Lars Petersson, the president of Ikea U.S., sees the opportunity.

Lars basically pitches that Ikea’s furniture is built for the experiences that Americans desire.  He references the experience of sitting around a kitchen table with the family, and how that is part of the American dream.  I wonder if that same family ever put a piece of Ikea furniture together, and how that experience was for them.

I was surprised, which maybe I shouldn’t have been, that Lars didn’t speak too much about how Ikea has inexpensive furniture; and, because of that, Ikea customers would have more money to spend on experiences.  Like travel.  I guess nobody wants to call their products cheap.  Lars spoke more to the company’s sustainability efforts, including recycling Ikea furniture, which is an initiative that is practiced more in the homeland of Ikea.

Overall, I thought this interview was interesting and very clever.  Lars didn’t call Ikea cheap.  He talked up the cafeteria, mentioning Swedish meatballs and salmon.  Because when I want salmon, I definitely go to Ikea.  NO!  Lars didn’t seem too phased by the “getting lost in Ikea” frustration that the interviewer mentioned.  It was like he had an answer to everything.  Maybe that’s why he’s president of Ikea U.S.

http://www.marketplace.org/2016/09/20/business/ikea-peak-stuff-american-dream

Government Proposes Regulations for Autonomous Cars

By Nicholas Van Zandt

On September 20, the Obama Administration proposed that greater regulatory requirements be enacted on the rapidly growing effort to put self-driving cars on the roads.  This proposal would require that greater transparency into the design of autonomous vehicles be made for the government and called on the manufacturers of these vehicle systems to provide greater details of how such systems work and the reasons for which they do or can fail.  The regulatory agency overseeing this proposal is the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and they are seeking voluntary submissions of these systems as part of a 15 point safety assessment.

Many autonomous vehicle manufacturers have already expressed reluctance for a formalized regulatory regime—considering how much has already been invested in these systems—and are concerned that doing this would drastically slow down the time in which these cars can be taken to market and out on the roads.  Regulators are nowhere near capable of passing legislation fast enough to keep pace with the rate that auto makers are pushing these to be out on America’s streets.  Political deadlock in Congress has made it even more likely that such regulations would stall the entire industry.

This voluntary submission of details relating to car design and the nature of the proposal to establish a national set of rules—instead of a patchwork of contradictory state-level rules—have largely been what the manufacturers have been asking for.  However, consumer advocates have been less than enthusiastic and have stated that “this new policy comes with a lot of bark but not enough bite”, according to Consumer Reports.

This could create problems as many manufacturers may find themselves in a position where sharing their vehicle system information could increase the risk that proprietary information could be revealed to their competitors.  Should this only be voluntary, there is a very likely chance that no such information will be shared while these cars are permitted out onto the roads.  Manufacturers will likely be in a significant rush to get their cars out into the market as fast as possible and safety standards could be placed in jeopardy.

Source:

David Shepardson, “U.S. Proposes Regulators have more say in Self-Driving Car Design,” Reuters, September 20, 2016, Available at: < http://www.reuters.com/article/usa-selfdriving-idUSL2N1BW2B1>.

In my time at University advancement I have gained insight into the processes by which we gain and retain donors.  I would like to share my experience briefly.

Metrics:

We track a variety of metrics to track our performance over the course of both a fiscal year and our multi-year campaigns.  First among them is the Alumni Participation rate, which tracks how many alumni have given in a period.  This number is extra important because it is a number that is factored into the metrics by which universities are measured in the US World News college rankings.  Another important set of metrics are the PA LYBUNT/SYBUNT numbers.

PA, or President’s Associate, level donors are donors who give more than $1,000 in a given year.  LYBUNTS or, Last Year But Unfortunately Not This, donors are donors who gave in the last year but not the current one.  SYBUNTs are donors who gave in some year, but not the current one.

The $1,000 barrier is an extremely important point for us.  Donors who give beyond $1,000 in a given year warrant research and potentially major gift officer or annual gift officer visitation.

LYBUNT and SYBUNT, and to a lesser extent, participation, metrics tell the story of how well we are retaining our donors.

Retention:

Great care is taken to get and keep updated lists of LYBUNT and SYBUNTs.  These lists become target lists for student callers as part of our phonathon program.  Additional information baked into the metrics can tell us if their previous gifts were made as a result of phonathon solicitation, these can be targeted first.

Near the end of the fiscal year, which for us runs July 1 to June 30, these lists take on new importance, and an all hands on deck effort is launched to call LUBUNTs to attempt to get them to give.  Even people who usually do not talk to donors make calls, making it an effective all hands on deck operation.

Our stewardship efforts are critical to donor retention, especially for our largest donors.  We must demonstrate the impact of their gifts.  Scholarship donors get to meet their scholarship students, donors who give to buildings get to see their donor signage.  Showing donors that you have made good use of their gift is the best way to get them to continue giving.