Blogs

In this day and age everyone is talking about volcanoes, financial crisis, budget trimming, ATL, BTL, Web 2.0, social media, viral engagement, interactive channel, yadda, yadda.

Internet was once considered BTL (below the line), and these days post-bubble, it is now considered ATL. In most western countries the internet is used as a principle medium for reaching out to potential and existent customers. Where the standard offline expenditure was usually considered around 10% net profits, online has taken a different turn and can be upwards to 25% depending on local objectives. It’s been a decade now that the online business model has existed where a company’s capital and revenue exists solely online. It is a model which offline companies are starting to head towards.

In 1996, a 16-year old kid could be bigger online than General Motors, and was common place occurrence. These days, internet is a yearly multi-million dollar requirement for international conglomerates. Concepts like centralized or decentralized content management are major discussions for companies that exist on multiple continents and still have to provide a single consistent message which goes above language and culture.

Premium internet is basically your companies’ level of recognition to how internet plays a part in your daily business. It’s a connotation that you value customers by providing a façade which overlays a fundamental change in doing business.

In developing regions outside of the US where broadband internet is becoming common, corporate necessity to be online is growing. There is a chance to learn from the mistakes of the 2000 internet bubble-burst. Finding the right agency to represent you online is crucial and your company needs to be ready to accept the challenges at hand.

Here is a summary of points which SME to enterprise level should consider when bolstering their online presence:

• Internet is not something you spend once and forget about it. It is exactly like birthing a baby, nurturing it to adulthood. Care for it, feed it, listen to it, discipline it. It will one day grow to a mature being which brings you joy and makes you extremely proud (and it will eventually take care of you when you retire).
• In my own dictionary, Web 2.0 is a buzz word which simply means that not every idea can work online.
• People don’t want to make your corporate site their homepage, it's best to exclude this from your objectives.
• Avoid spending time on creating social objectives for your corporate website. Let Facebook and Twitter (and others) continue to do their work as effectively as they can. You could even consider allowing your marketing people use these sites as tools instead of blocking them.
• Twitter can very rarely be used as a direct sales channel. Attempting to do so and you will likely irritate people more unless there is a very clear advantage they gain.
• In growing regions (of internet users), social media doesn’t work quite yet. Pay attention to the offline publications industry. If your region is lacking any serious amount of periodicals, the culture for reading is not yet of age.
• SEO/SEM usually needs more than a few minutes per day and noone can guarantee you first place on Google (without cheating and hence eventually getting you discredited)
• Internet is not necessarily a funtion of the IT department. IT is worried about internal systems, security, software etc. The web is a largely marketing objective and it requires specialist knowledge about the technical aspect of internet (servers, domains, spam, hacking, etc). If IT will be responsible, hire a proper web technician to guide you through careful subject matter.
• Marketing is also not necessarily the default place to put all responsibility on your internet channel. These people are overworked enough as it is. You need to empower them, not drown them in technical jargon and added responsibility.

Here are some tips about preparing and choosing your premium provider:

• You wouldn't walk into a Ferrari dealership and ask for a Toyota deal. It's not done because you are convinced of the differences in value. The web is the same, thus a cheap price most certainly means a cheap result.
• Corporate web should be looked at objectively rather than subjectively. Creativity must be placed in a tightly controlled environment based on brand and marketing objectives. Without those two things, go back to the drawing board. Content strategy leads to information architecture, applied with a clear brand guideline leaves you with only one design option.
• Look for an agency with multiple specialists in different disciplines, not a multi-disciplinary specialist. This is for the same reasons you don’t ask an electrician to do the plumbing or the painter to do roofing. Web and systems IT are usually not a compatible function or role.
• Asking 10 agencies to give tender with a creative pitch undermines creative talent and marginalizes the industry. Do your research about the company ahead of time and then approach them with a clear brief with objectives instead of picking the best design at the cheapest cost. These two things together usually cause complication by the time the project is completed.
• If an agency’s only response to a tender is “yes we can build it”, ask for more specifics. Subservience has little place in online business assuming they are experts in their field. So if they can’t ask you at least 10 questions about your requirement that you didn’t think about, the end result will often be disappointing.
• Finding an edge online should be highly defined rather than a simple “We want to be number 1 on Google”. Speak about your brand and marketing objectives and ask the web experts how they feel they can activate this online. It takes two to dance a Tango very well with a very high amount of mutual trust both ways; partnership for web is identical.

In the above respect, engage in an agency which is looking to add value to you. Research their history and look at how they represent their clients, not necessarily if you like their work. Your goal is to find out if you can trust them to do something you cannot do by yourself. This is the nature and purpose of agency work. Obviously these are mutual tendencies in a good relationship. Apply these things to finding your premium provider and you cannot go wrong.

Something clicked a few years ago in the minds of mobile users in the Middle East, and suddenly everyone has an iPhone.  Why is that?  What was the impetus for this sudden shift? How has the iPhone changed the way we as marketers approach the mobile screen? And why is Angry Birds the phenomenon it is?  All very good questions, save for one – which has an obvious answer so let’s skip it. 

Before this sudden and sweeping shift towards the iPhone in the Middle East, the handset was reserved for the select few die-hard apple users that walked amongst us unnoticed.  They were either fresh off the boat from Europe or North America, where somehow connected to Apple products either at work or were one of the few who owned an Apple home computer. 

Then came the wave of iPhones, where in recent months a day doesn’t go by when we aren’t confronted by them in elevators, shops, cafes, parties, you name it.  Providers began battling it out with iPhone packages and the infrastructure to support the platform.  So what’s the deal?   This can probably be split into a few major categories:

The most obvious is the brand association that users want by owning an iPhone.  As we know, brands are like badges and wearing the Apple badge says a lot about who you are, and possibly more so what you want people to think you are.  Apple has done exceedingly well in this regard, though this is probably a topic best left for another time.  

The second reason, and perhaps just as obvious when you pause to examine the phenomenon, is simple – it’s the user experience.  The iPhone delivers one what many other brands and handsets have been trying to do for years: it delivers a user interface that allows people to access media, social networks, communication, and the web in an easy to use and customizable way. It is worth mentioning that the iPhone launched on the heel of massive growth amongst social media and user-generated content sites (YouTube and Facebook comes to mind), giving not only developers, but more importantly users, a vehicle .  The anti-iPhone lobby yell wildly from the rooftops that if you take away the apps, the iPhone is just another phone with nothing particularly interesting to offer.  But that’s just it, you can’t take away the apps because that is what the iPhone is all about – it’s designed for and around applications. Other handsets do offer touchscreens, media, and social networking – but they’re clumsy and aren’t integrated into the handset as a complete offering.  The iPhone does this seamlessly by offering users something other manufacturers cant – iTunes.

Back to marketing – the apps provide the clear winning differentiator.  Now we have a platform whereby users are opting in to download applications and interact with brands on their own terms.  Whether it be an application for DEWA (Dubai’s utility supplier) so that they can pay and check their bills on the fly, or an app from Columbia (outerwear clothing) that tells you step by step how to tie a bunch of complex knots.  In other words from something very useful and boring, to something completely useless and fantastic.  Apps are allowing even the most staid and boring brands to venture into the realm of the entertaining, not necessarily overhauling their positioning, but certainly redefining it and making it more robust. By choosing to develop on mobile and tap into this burgeoning phenomenon brands are repositioning themselves in the customers eye.  The brand is now cutting edge, industry leading, and consumer minded.  Speaking of entertainment the brand extension into gaming is noteworthy: from the Audi driving game to the Yamaha guitar game, and literally 1000’s of others brands are venturing out of their categories but in a relevant way.

For the first time we have our prospects going onto the app store, and choosing not only to interact with these brands on their terms, but to allow brands to occupy a lasting presence.  This key differentiator has of course effected how we as marketers position our communication on mobile devices, and that means all mobile devices not just the iPhone – the Blackberry, Android, and indeed any device with connectivity.   Gone are the days of pushing users to static WAP mobile sites offering contact details and product descriptions.  Interactivity and utility are king.  If users feel like they are getting utility out of their interaction with the brand then they will download. And that’s the difference. Here are some free ideas: an app from a courier that lets me track my packages online and call for pickups, or how about an app for events and concert tickets, locations, timings, and reviews. 

If I can get a courier company to invest in developing a mobile application that will do all those things then I’ve suddenly given 1000’s of customers a very good reason to choose to interact with my brand on a daily basis – not to mention 1000’s of new customers a reason to choose me over my competitor.  

The challenge is no longer the technology, but now the content and function of our brands when we put them in the hands of our consumers.  If we can find solutions for our clients that answer the consumer’s call for functionality and utility, then everybody wins.  Also, download Angry Birds, it’s awesome.