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The new GRI on the block

The new GRI on the block

New GRI on the block

Think GRI, think the Global Reporting Initiative in Amsterdam whose G3 framework has become the de facto standard for large businesses to report their sustainability against.

However there’s now a new GRI on the block, and I don’t mean the G4 framework which is due to be published in 2013.

The Glamis Research Institute is a Mauritius based business and academic research foundation and is part of the same group of companies as Glamis International, an education provider partnered with a number of UK academic and business establishments.

This institute has released its own sustainability model which, rather cheekily, it’s trademarked as the GRI Sustainability Model.  To differentiate from the GRI, I’ll refer to the institute as GResI.

At first glance, both Glamis International and GResI raise certain concerns.  They look like quite a small operation and the websites of both are sparse in places.

However the GResI Sustainability Model is worth looking at because it draws together various aspects in an approach I’ve not come across before.

[Read more…] about The new GRI on the block

Why Most Companies Look and Sound the Same

A guest post today by Roderic Michelson discussing how to distinguish your company from others. What is your USP?

Everyone is saying the same thing – and no one is listening.

That’s the reality in most industries. Everyone is copying from everyone else until everyone looks, from the customers’ perspective, exactly the same.

When this happens the only way to choose is on price or by whatever you have seen last on TV.

In this situation it’s tempting to throw money at marketing in the hopes of differentiating yourself. But if you’re not saying anything different – then no one will notice.

And this applies whether you’re spending £40 a month on promoting yourself at a networking meeting, or £4million a month on cross media marketing campaigns. The same is true for corporate communications. I have written corporate copy and by the time it is reviewed by 10 other people “just to make sure,” plus the legal team, the message becomes bland, unremarkable and faceless. Unless you have a distinctive voice you won’t be remembered and your customers will have no reason to choose you over the competition.

It sounds simple – and obvious. So why do most companies fail to stand out? Why do you forget an advert moments after you’ve seen it, or forget a person minutes after you’ve met them? It’s because they aren’t distinctive.

What can we learn from the companies that have managed to stand out from the crowd – those companies that would immediately spring to mind for a certain product or service?

The one thing they all have in common is a unique voice.

Essentially they present themselves in a distinctive way and in a manner that ticks all the boxes for a particular audience or niche in the market. This is important whether you are talking face-to-face with a prospect or buying ad space in the mass media.

To have a unique voice you must position yourself as the best choice for a particular segment of the market through a Unique Selling Proposition, or USP. This is a succinct phrase that relates the most desired outcome your prospective client wants.

For example if everyone else is pushing how lightweight their product is, then make yours stand out on styling, or if they are all selling style then highlight how yours can be personalised. Choose something that’s different. But beware – if that difference doesn’t speak to your customers then you still won’t stand out!

It will significantly improve the marketability of your product or service by addressing a recognised need or pain point for the prospect. This achieves two goals with the same effort: it builds both sales and your long-term reputation. It infuses with meaning every single marketing vehicle – internet collateral, telephone scripts, business cards, ads, the annual report, etc. A USP helps you pre-open customers’ and investors’ wallets.

Let’s look at some examples:

  1. The inexorable rise of Kiton, the Naples-based Italian menswear brand is simply amazing. What is the secret of its success? A persistent, well-thought out campaign emphasising the company’s values which are embodied in its USP: attention to detail, specially designed raw materials, the best cut, artisanal craft. And the USP is present in some form and shape in every piece of communication/material from the company.
  2. With a loyal following at home, built over 300 years, Twinings is one of the quintessentially British brands. It keeps growing abroad and it’s now sold in over 100 countries. What makes people in non-tea drinking countries choose Twinnings when they want tea? Their USP: Proper tea steeped in tradition, a little taste of Britain.
  3. What are the first three names that comes to mind when you think of consulting? One of them will surely be Accenture. Starting from a white sheet after its split from parent Andersen, the company experienced impressive growth in a very tough market riding on a simple formula: delivering high performance to its clients. The USP: Innovation, current business improvement, delivery focus, leapfrog the competition.
  4. The need for fast, timely and secure delivery of important documents grew together with globalisation and international trade. Enter Federal Express, a courier company with appetite for growth and an outstanding USP: When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight. The rest is history.
  5. Finding a consistently good blend of coffee especially for espresso-based drinks is not an easy task. But there is a solution. Illy Coffee is well on its way to become the first global brand coffee in the world. Their marketing is based around: outstanding taste, authentic Italian experience in every cup, the choice of connoisseurs and coffee lovers.

Your USP is the distilled essence of what you are offering and what your company is about. Your USP should be so compelling that it can be written on a board in front of your shop, if you had one, and can be quoted when meeting potential customers.

How to create a USP? Follow me step by step as we create a USP for a slimming herbal tea.

Step 1: Write down the list of benefits that your product/service offers

They could be centred around your price, technical excellence, taste, specialism, exclusivity.

Think about the end result your customer wants from such a product. The best way is to pair each feature of your product with the benefit it brings. So let’s illustrate…

The new Slim Pam is a great tasting product. Is that enough? No. Let’s dig deeper.

It is 100% natural, organic, acts fast, one has to eat reasonably but no dieting is required while taking the product, has a nice taste, uses roses from the famous Valley of the Roses, it is easy to use as it is offered as a tea and it has a long-lasting effect. Which three of these will you choose? Stay with me for the answer below.

Step 2: Quick market research

Sit down at your computer and find out who your most prominent competitors are. What are they saying on their web sites, in their marketing materials, in their ads? Which benefits do they emphasise? What are their messages?

Again, try to match product features to their stated benefits. Once you compare your own notes to competitor messages it will be easy to fine tune your own positioning so you have a unique voice against the rest of the market.

Step 3: Look at areas of underperformance or customer needs/pain points in your industry

Which of these are addressed by your product? Make sure your USP ties in with a market need. In our example, most people who want to lose weight, go through different diets and exercising routines. Very often, after the diet is over, they regain weight. And most people don’t have the self-discipline to stick to the diet or go to the gym regularly. So Slim Pam offers a more effortless way to lose weight and has longer effect.

Step 4: Strengthen your claims, if you can

Do you have some proof, testimonials, research results to overcome the apathy and scepticism of today’s over-marketed consumer? In our example, Slim Pam was developed by a medical doctor doing research and has been used since the early 1970s in Europe.

Step 5: Synthesise your USP into one to two sentences

Write down and rework versions until it sounds right. Don’t assume you will do it in one sitting. The USP should answer the customer’s question “why should I choose your product?”

One possible version of Slim Pam’s USP could then be: Fast-acting and easy to prepare slimming tea with long-lasting effect.

These are the mechanics illustrated with a simple example and they will help you define the USP but let’s continue looking for more ideas.

If your company is more than 20 years old there must be interesting angles in its history. How was it started? Who started it? What was their thinking and philosophy? Any memorable dates? Any past or current celebrity or famous person using/used the your products in the past? If you are a multibrand company, and you are managing/supporting one of them, where did the brand originate? What was the original vision? Why did the brand succeed?

As an illustration, look through the Jim Beam European campaigns of the last five years. They are a brilliant example of weaving a USP into a heritage theme.

Or for a comprehensive example of a USP used throughout all types of corporate materials, go to www.accenture.com and look at the materials aimed at different internal and external audiences.

Your USP is not a simple slogan or tagline. It is the mainstay, the common thread of all your communications and no message should go out from your business without your USP in it, or emphasising one of the elements of your USP.

Your USP will spark interest and single you out as the best choice in the eyes of your investors, customers and employees.

About the Author

Roderic Michelson is a growth expert for Aralex Consulting Ltd. Roderic’s expertise is in being able to assess quickly a company’s growth potential, as well as areas for improvement. Working closely with his clients, he helps them prepare and implement a project plan to position them for sustained growth.

Roderic holds an MBA from London Business School. He is author of “The Recession-Fighting Guide” and publishes the Business Growth Blog. Roderic is also frequent speaker to professional groups across London.

Roderic can be contacted at: rm@aralex.co.uk / www.aralex.co.uk.

How Twitter Psychology Affects Consumers and Brands

It’s not a revelation that brands should have a presence on Twitter. Consumers spend a great deal of time on the most popular microblogging site, so it makes sense for brands to spend time there, too. It’s a perfect place to engage, share useful information, and build relationships that lead to brand loyalty and brand buzz. But did you know that you might be doing some things on Twitter that are destroying your brand’s chances for success?

WhiteFire SEO created a great infographic that highlights the psychology of Twitter so you can get a better understanding of the activities that interest users and the activities that annoy users. You can see the infographic below.

According to the infographic, over-tweeting is a big turn off. The reasons people unfollow other people (or brands) on Twitter are:

  • They tweet too much = 66%
  • Their tweets seem automated = 58%
  • They share the same link multiple times = 47%
  • They don’t tweet = 38%
  • They tweet about themselves all the time = 34%

It’s interesting that people are more likely to unfollow a Twitter user who tweets too frequently than they are likely to unfollow someone who doesn’t tweet at all. This is an extremely significant statistic because it supports what social media marketers tell companies all the time. If your Twitter updates sound like corporate rhetoric or sales pitches or if your updates are entirely self-promotional, no one will want to follow you. Instead, successful brands on Twitter are the ones that provide useful information to their audiences, share their audiences’ content, interact with their audiences, and do so in a personable voice.

When it comes to tweeting too much on Twitter, the Twitter psychology infographic shows that 36 or more Twitter updates is too much. Of course, this isn’t a rule, but when in doubt, it seems that tweeting less frequently is a better strategy than tweeting more frequently.

Another interesting fact is how people find other people (or brands) to follow on Twitter. Most find people to follow through a retweet or @mention from someone else that they already follow. Here are the specific details related to why people follow other people on Twitter:

  • See a retweet/mention from someone they follow = 55%
  • Follow back someone who follows them = 42%
  • Found by searching for related interests = 32%
  • Suggested by Twitter = 16%
  • Recommended in a follow Friday tweet = 13%

According to the infographic, most people follow other Twitter users when they see those other people in retweets or @mentions by others in their Twitter streams. That means brands need to get retweeted! 9 out of 10 people will retweet useful information and 8 out of 10 will retweet humorous content. Other ways people will retweet content on Twitter is if that content is published by a personal connection or celebrity. If your brand doesn’t have personal connections yet or a celebrity relationship, then offering an incentive is likely to get 3 out of 10 people to retweet your content.

La Rentrée

Today is finally – finally! – back-to-school day here: after a 7-week summer holiday. I’m sure summer was never that long when I was younger…

The French have a great word for it: la rentrée. It applies particularly to back-to-school, but there is also a political rentrée, as everything starts afresh after the holidays; and again the same is true for business people as they return refreshed and revitalised.

So the significance includes a clean, fresh start, or renewal. Advertisers have been, naturally, making a big deal out of it, choosing to use la rentrée, and new resolutions, as themes.

Even on the autoroutes as we drove north at the weekend (yes, we were on holiday), the gantry displays were trying to persuade us to make new resolutions to keep your speed down, or your seatbelts buckled up, for la rentrée.

So, since many of us greet September enthusiastically, with its freight of clean pages, new pens and fresh faces, I thought I’d ask what you were planning to change on your corporate website for la rentrée?

After all, new resolutions don’t have to be restricted to 1 January…

Marketing Brands as Social Groups – Why It Works So Well

Its a fundamental human desire to want to be part of a group. People seek camaraderie and a sense of belonging. Some brands are marketed in such a way that people want to be part of the group of consumers who buy that brand. For example, do you want to be in the Mac social group or the PC social group? Are you a Pepsi group member or a Coke group member?

People want to connect with other people, not companies or brands. That’s why brands that are successful at becoming relationship brands (like Apple) have a loyal and vocal band of brand advocates cheering them on. It’s not because the relationship brand is so important to them but rather, it’s because of the relationship those people feel like they have with the other people who buy and use the brand.

The social web has enabled people to come together in groups to share branded experiences and conversations in a way that brands couldn’t even dream of 10 or 20 years ago. The trick for brand managers is to shift from marketing their brands at consumers to marketing brands with consumers where consumers feel like they can choose whether or not the social group that uses the brand is the right group for them to join.

Think of it this way — when consumers decide to follow a brand’s Facebook page, they’re considering two primary factors in the decision-making process: what’s in it for me if I follow this brand’s Facebook page (i.e., discounts, exclusive information, and so on) and do I want all of my Facebook friends to see that I’m part of the group of people who follows this brand’s Facebook page?

Now, consider a couple of powerful relationship brands that already have large social groups of consumers supporting them. For example, it’s fairly safe to assume that a loyal Harley Davidson customer would be proud to follow the Harley Davidson Facebook page. In fact, Harley Davidson customers who use Facebook would probably feel left out if they didn’t follow the Harley Davidson Facebook page.

Therefore, you need to get creative and start thinking of how you can create a perceived us against them mentality that positions your brand against the competition through the lens of social groups. Make sure consumers understand what your group offers and means to them, and then let them decide if they want to join the group or not.

Image: bradleygee

Mobile and Online Video Advertising Grows Quickly for U.K. Audience

In a new study by comScore, both mobile advertising and online video advertising growth rates were analyzed. The results show that both mobile and video advertising are growing and reaching a particularly large audience of younger consumers between the ages of 15-24.

For online video advertising, 63.1% of U.K. consumers (who identified themselves as computer and/or smartphone users), were exposed to a video ad during the month of June (21.2 million people). Interestingly, the number of video viewers has remained fairly stable in the U.K., but the number of people who saw video ads is growing steadily and was up 15% for the second quarter of 2011 versus the first quarter.

Mobile advertising is growing even faster than online video advertising with a 28% increase from the second quarter of 2011 to the third quarter. 25% of U.K. smartphone users remembered seeing a mobile ad during the third quarter of 2011, which equates to 25% of mobile users. The frequency with which consumers recall seeing mobile ads is growing even faster. The third quarter of 2011 saw a 28% increase in the number of people who recalled seeing a mobile ad at least once per week. The number of people who recalled seeing an ad almost daily rose by 52%

Online display advertising is still the powerhouse when it comes to online advertising with 40 million U.K. Internet users seeing online display ads during the second quarter of 2011, which equates to a 95.3% penetration rate. There are a couple of reasons why online display advertising is still so popular. First, companies already have budgets set aside for online display advertising. However, marketers are still fighting for budget dollars so they can make a shift to include more mobile and video advertising in their marketing plans. Second, there are a lot of online display ads for people to see each day simply because that’s where advertising budgets are being spent.

It’s safe to predict that mobile and video advertising are going to continue to grow in the future. In fact, we’ll probably start to see faster growth rates for both than we’ve seen in recent years. With more people using smartphones that enable them to view both mobile ads and video ads, there is no doubt that more companies will start to recognize the opportunity to connect with consumers through their mobile devices, and budget investments will increase.

Is your company already investing in mobile and video advertising? Leave a comment and share your experience and thoughts.

Image: stock.xchng