Category: Uncategorized

WellsFargo CEO is booted out for the company and the replacement has a hard task ahead of her. With the image of Wells Fargo  tainted and the consumer banking customer having many questions around the integrity of their bank accounts, what are the next steps for Mary Mack, Wells Fargo Banking Chief?

The first step is a change in the sales culture from one that has left in imprint of scandal to one that needs to represent trust and servitude of its customers.  How can this be done? Its needs to first start with how to incentivize its sales force without out the unneeded pressures for cheating to meet heavy sales goals at the cost of a fragile customer base.  The bank has been fines $185 billion million dollars and an image that is extremely tarnished.

In the wake of the bank’s settlement the company scrapped all sales goals but will keep its cross selling initiatives in place that helps its customer with purchasing other services from Wells Fargo and what now appears to be the culprit to the misconduct of its employee’s.  There are 100,000 employee’s at Wells Fargo and over 6000 branch stores and figuring out the retail-branch initiative structure it vital in next steps for the bank. What caused the problem were sales goals were set so high that they were unobtainable and this caused immense pressure for low wage employee’s that felt they needed to cheat to keep their jobs. This seems to be a problem not only at Wells Fargo but in many company’s.  What was the outcome, over the past five years branch employee’s opened over 2 million accounts without customer knowledge.

Wells Fargo has a $185 million dollar fine, an image that will cost marketing millions of more dollars to turn the impression of Wells Fargo around and an employee base that is lost in direction and still wondering if they will lose their jobs. This time not because of lofty SALES goals but rather s shrinking customer base.

I bank at Wells Fargo and I can say there has been some thought for the first time on my long marriage with Wells Fargo to leave the bank. The only reason I do not is because Wells Fargo has done a great job in keeping me happy through their cross sales efforts and I have multiple service through the bank.

 

In the text book, chapter 10 addresses services and speaks to the importance of customer-service.  Customer relationships builds loyalty, and customer service is part of that relationship.  Due to the increase in self-service technologies, customer interactions are less frequent.  When the interactions occur, it needs to be positive.  The article, Customer Care is Your Best Marketing Strategy, talks about the importance of customer care and how technology is changing the frequency of customer interactions.  Customer service isn’t only important for customer loyalty, but also for positive reviews on the internet.  Posting experiences is easier now than ever before, and are increasingly accessible.  A negative review can prevent a consumer from even trying a product or service.  Now, more than ever, those interactions with customers are important.

Customers are not only the consumers, but the employees of the company as well.  If the employees are satisfied with the company and understand how they are part of the company, then they will be able to portray that towards the customers.  The article made an interesting point that the people in marketing are not usually the ones interacting with the customer.  So it’s important to communicate customer service skills to the frontline employees.

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/254834

 

Nicholas Van Zandt – Blog 6

On October 14, Salesforce announced that it was backing out of their bid to buy Twitter in what became a significant blow to the social media company that has seen declining stock and was reported to be desperate for an acquisition.  This announcement was not met well with Twitter’s stock price, which experienced a seven percent drop immediately following the news.

Twitter experienced remarkable growth following its founding in 2006 as it successfully positioned itself in the social media space with a unique offering.  However, behind the scenes the company experienced significant problems with managerial turmoil and many have criticized the company for having a lack of product innovation.

In addition to Twitter’s share sizable drop in price, their total users count has been declining precipitously year-over-year.  As the company’s success is largely determined by their number of users the reasons behind their mutual declines are nearly identical.  As eMarketer reports, their declining share of the social media market has largely been attributed to the rise of competing platforms to include Facebook, Snapchat and Instragram.

Since Salesforce walked away from the deal, Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey is now back at the drawing board to identify a plan for what to do with a rapidly declining company that nobody wants to buy.  In addition to Salesforce, Google, Disney and Microsoft were initially showing interest but ultimately decided such a purchase for them would not be a good fit.

These companies in deciding against the purchase asked the same questions as many of Twitters former shareholders: What is Twitter’s unique value proposition and does it offer an attractive return to advertisers that will monetize the platform.  These advertisers were charged a premium but did not see a viable enough ROI as compared to competing platforms like Facebook.  As a result Twitter’s share price plunged over 80 percent just a few quarters after its IPO and now Dorsey is left with some very difficult choices as his last best hope of salvaging his company has evaporated with the Salesforce bid departure.

Sources:

Liana Baker and Jim Finkle, “Twitter Charts Solo Path as Salesforce Rules out Takeover,” Reuters, October 14, 2016.

Matthew Ingram, “Here’s Who May Want Twitter Now that Salesforce Says it Doesn’t,” Fortune, October 14, 2016.

Seth Fiegerman, “Twitter Stock Tanks as Salesforce Backs out of Bidding,” CNN Money, October 14, 2016.

“Twitter’s Share of US Social Network Users is Dropping,” eMarketer, August 15, 2016.

An interesting phenomenon in recent years is the rapid expansion of Dollar Stores.  In 2013, Family Dollar planned to open an average of two stores per day.  The pace accelerated for Dollar General in 2016 with 900 more stores, and in 2017 they plan to open a whopping 1,000 stores.  Dollar General began 2016 with 12,500 stores and climbing.

These stores make money both by selling smaller portion sizes at a specifically cheap price point.  If you actually work out the price per unit relative to mainstream stores, the mainstream stores are often the better buy in terms of volume.  Regardless, they accomplish this through strategic relationships with manufacturers and packagers.  One of the chains got their start by strategically buying products during factories’ quiet times to be able to buy them at a lower price.  The stores also focus on generic products, rather than name brands.

While the store concept may be simplistic, there are a lot of subtle touches that make dollar stores successful.  For one thing they typically follow the exact same floor plan, so that customers can expect a uniform experience.  They also strategically place their stores in primarily low income areas, and carefully select the rural areas that they choose to operate in.

Dollar General distinguished itself from the other Dollar chains by partnering with NASCAR and IndyCar racers, further bolstering their brand.

Critics of the rapid expansion question if the growing number of stores is sustainable, and that it might breed more conflict between the various dollar store chains.

 

Sources:

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-dollar-stores-were-planted-in-the-south-and-bloomed-around-the-us

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-fastest-growing-retailers-0923-biz-20160922-story.html

http://www.forbes.com/sites/walterloeb/2013/06/10/dg-drtr-fdo-do-we-really-need-40000-dollar-stores/#267117f063da

AT&T signed a major, exclusive multi-year, multi-faceted deal featuring performances and content with 10-time Grammy award-winning singer, songwriter, musician and producer Taylor Swift.

AT&T already has high brand recognition but plugging in Taylor Swift will not only help its brand globally but will also help with brand awareness amongst the millennial population which is the up and coming workforce and new household revenue generators. How does AT&T bridge its products with the most popular singer on the planet, through technology and the evolving video streaming platforms such as Uverse, Direct TV and it s4G LTE wireless network.

As part of the deal with AT&T, Taylor Swift will headline DIRECTV Super Saturday Night in Houston the night before the Big Game. This is the 12^th annual DIRECTV event leading up to the biggest sporting event of the year, and the 1^st time Taylor Swift will perform during the festivities.

Taylor Swift, the only woman in Grammy history to ever win Album of the Year twice, will provide fans with the ultimate experience Saturday, Feb. 4, at a custom made 64,000 square foot venue in Houston created especially for this event. Fans will have access to tickets through a series of exclusive AT&T promotions and campaigns, and it’s almost certain these campaigns will be tied to huge marketing initiatives around the iPhone 7 and AT&T over the top 4G/LTE Network.

The money spent to have exclusive right to Taylor Swift during the Super Bowl is is just one area AT&T likes to co brand. There are multiple stadiums around the country that are barded with AT&T’s logo. Sport and Music is a huge area what catches the attention of the world the AT&T have right to both stages only increases its brand awareness which drives customer loyalty.

 

I came across this article the other day, Baby Boomer Women Remain Invisible to Marketers.  The article appealed to me because my aunt is a baby boomer and she references her generation frequently.  I’m pretty sure it is the impact that the boomers had/have on society that intrigues her so much about her generation.  The article explains how boomers are a big part of our society and that they should be marketed to more frequently because of their spending potential.  Companies are missing out on a large demographic.  Simply look at the numbers from the Dove campaign:

“The Dove “Campaign for Real Beauty,” launched by Unilever in 2004, featured women of all shapes, ages and races. Within the first two months of the campaign’s launch, product sales rose 600% in the U.S.”

I started to consider what my aunt consumes.  She went to graduate school and received her degree when she turned 50.  Her and her husband have always had relatively new technology.  They enjoy music, so they have quality speakers and a large collection of CDs.  I’m sure they have a tremendous digital library of music.  Other than technology, I don’t really know where they spend.  They aren’t foodies, they don’t vacation much, except to visit family.  Maybe if there were more products marketed to women like my aunt, I could tell you more about the products she consumes.

In an earlier blog I spoke about investing and how Edward Jones doesn’t market well to the recently graduated, new career demographic very realistically.  Additionally, they certainly don’t market to the boomers, who are, at this stage in life, probably empty-nesters, if they ever had children to begin with.  They are well into their careers and some are educated.  Women boomers are another demographic that should not be ignored by investment firms.

Last night, I sent the article to my aunt.  She said that she never noticed women boomers were being ignored by marketing.  I followed up by asking if she notices, now that it’s been brought to her attention.  She said she’d let me know today.

 

https://www.ama.org/publications/MarketingNews/Pages/baby-boomer-women-remain-invisible-to-marketers.aspx

Google just couldn’t stay away. As of today they have officially launched two phones in an effort to broaden what their brand is known for to include mobile phone hardware.
For years they have been the software behind most of the major competition to the iPhone.

The first reviews of the phone show that they look and feel comparable to their primary competition. The major players in the mobile device market have struggled of late to distinguish themselves appreciably in their hardware offerings. This may have contributed to Google’s decision to step into the ring, now that they can make a phone not that different from other top of the line makers.

This makes the move less risky than it may seem on the outset. With like hardware, they can focus on what they are exceptional at, that is, the software. In this arena they have a real chance at gaining over the others by introducing software capabilities without having to have buy in from their current mobile device partners.

It remains to be seen how successful they will be, but now may be as a good a time as they are likely to find in the future, so why not?

Elon Musk wants to send people to Mars. But more than that, he wants people to know that SpaceX is going to get them there.

On Sep. 27 Elon Musk unveiled the next steps for his company, Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (better known as SpaceX), in its quest to make humans an “interplanetary species”

http://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-outlines-plans-for-manned-missions-to-mars-1475011627

SpaceX has made great strides recently that show it is progressing in the right direction. It is still far behind its original projections, but this has not deterred Musk from continuing to look forward and promote his vision.

SpaceX is not the only privately held company that is pursuing these goals, but is arguably the most well known, and is indeed almost synonymous with the concept of private space exploration.

Musk knows that the end result is almost a given, so having it all figured out is less of a concern for him than being highly visible in the process. Getting their first is important, but pushing people to believe its possible, and letting them know that it was SpaceX that motivated the outcome is even more important. Even with its failures, SpaceX is creating brand leadership in a category that it is creating and defining.

Blog 5

Yahoo and Customer Protection: A Lesson in What Not to Do

By Nicholas Van Zandt

On October 4, Reuters released a story stating that Yahoo has been allowing for US intelligence agencies to scan the emails of hundreds of millions of Yahoo Mail accounts.  According to the report, Yahoo complied with a government request to not only allow the National Security Agency to have access to their users personal emails, but they actually tasked their own engineers and developers to create the program that would facilitate the scanning and data collection.  This allowed real-time scanning of emails so that every time a Yahoo email user sent an email they were under surveillance.

In 2015, when Yahoo’s CEO Marissa Mayer agreed to obey the government directive, this apparently was not a consensus opinion among their senior leadership.  This led to the voluntary resignation of their CISO in June of last year.

Yahoo issued a statement in response to this story stating that “Yahoo is a law abiding company, and complies with the laws of the United States.”  However, when other tech companies were given similar directives they fought back for their users’ privacy rights.  In early 2016, Apple was given a very similar directive by the FBI to create a program that would allow the government to hack into iPhones.  Their response was a very public refusal.  Google, while acknowledging that they did not receive such a request, stated that their response would be very simple, “no way.”

This news comes on the back of reporting that Yahoo had suffered a massive cyber attack where over 500 million of their users’ email credentials over a period of two years.  According to inside sources inside Yahoo, while all other major tech companies were investing millions in security and hiring hundreds of security engineers, Yahoo was regularly denying the requests of their small security staff to increase funding to improve their defenses.

This security team that was seeking to raise the alarms were referred to as “the paranoids” by Yahoo leadership and were frequently ignored.  Other companies, such as Dropbox, Facebook, Google, and Apple, were instead highly impressed with the passion and efforts of Yahoo’s security team and many of the most qualified were hired away.

While these reports have all been released in the past few weeks, these were issues that were years in the making.  Yahoo has clearly shown a willful neglect at protecting their email users’ privacy, from either surveillance from US intelligence agencies or from foreign hackers.  While this author realized Yahoo was a weak technology worth replacing with a Google account over ten years ago, the best advice can be put in the words of The Intercept: “Delete your Yahoo account.”

Sources:

Arjun Kharpal, “Apple vs FBI: All you Need to Know,” CNBC, March 29, 2016, Available at: http://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/29/apple-vs-fbi-all-you-need-to-know.html.

Jeff John Roberts, “Google and Microsoft not Part of NSA Email Scanning Tied to Yahoo,” Fortune, October 4, 2016, Available at: http://fortune.com/2016/10/04/google-microsoft-nsa-email-yahoo/.

Nicole Perlroth, “Defending Against Hackers Took a Back Seat at Yahoo, Insiders Say,” New York Times, September 28, 2016, Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/29/technology/yahoo-data-breach-hacking.html?_r=0.

Sam Biddle, “Delete your Yahoo Account,” The Intercept, October 4, 2016, Available at: https://theintercept.com/2016/10/04/delete-your-yahoo-account/.

“Yahoo has Reportedly been Spying on Hundreds of Millions of its Mail Users,” Reuters, October 4, 2016, Available at: http://fortune.com/2016/10/04/yahoo-mail-spying-software/.

St. Edwards has a variety of brand signifiers: Logos, specifically used fonts, imagery, objects, and Ideas.  St. Edward’s marketing is highly coordinated, run out of the Marketing office, which regulates the use of these signifiers.  Most of the materials are publicly available from St. Edward’s marketing’s website.

The most important elements of the St. Edward’s brand are the big ideas.  The ideas of “educating the heart and mind” and global education are central to St. Edward’s brand.  These are highlighted in both written advertising, and television ads.  The tagline “Take on your world” was in service of promoting the global focus of the university.

Voice is critical in building the brand through written communications.  The marketing provided communication guidelines specifically describe the university’s style and strategies in writing.  Advice like “Tell a story”, “Maintain Warmth”, “Call visitors to action”, are instructive in defining what exactly the St. Edward’s voice is.

Visually, the university has a fairly unified aesthetic.  The red roofs of the buildings, as well as the construction style of all the new buildings.  However, the look of Main Building and Holy Cross Hall is the visual that is most common, in particular the silhouette of Main Building’s tower.  With both older historic buildings like Main Building, and newer buildings like the Munday Library both in play, either can be used to connect with audiences of various kinds.

Beyond the color of the roofs, color in general factors heavily into St. Edward’s branding.  The Blue and Gold official colors of the university are used in the look and feel of the website, as well as banners that are unfurled in special occasions, focused around current student activities.  The red of the roofs and red doors is focused around the grander feel of the university.

The branding of the university is somewhat limited in scope because of the regional reach of St. Edwards, while the University is globally focused, students from Texas make up the vast majority. More than anything else, the best builders of the brand are the Alumni, Students, and Faculty and Staff of the university.  Having suitable marketing materials helps in telling and spreading the stories.

 

St. Edward’s marketing information:

http://think.stedwards.edu/marketing/