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< richmedium > | social innovation in the global marketplace explores the business, cultural, and technological forces that are reshaping the process of creating value in global markets, and giving rise to a new strategic framework for designing and scaling media and marketing organizations, nonprofits, and social enterprises.

media file 2.1.10 | How Ford got social marketing right

How Ford got social marketing right

Marketing guru Grant McCracken drills into Ford Motor’s successful “Fiesta Movement” social marketing campaign to identify the strategic elements that made it click. To jumpstart its efforts to break back into the subcompact market--a space it abandoned in 1997--Ford gave 100 consumers each a Fiesta and asked them to complete a different “mission” every month, and document it in digital media. The campaign produced 6.5 million YouTube views, 50,000 requests for information, and 10,000 sales in its first six days. The secrets: (1) Ford selected “culturally creative” consumers--digital sophisticates with something to say and a track record for saying it well on the social web; (2) it offered a very attractive “fair trade”--a free car in exchange for content; and (3) it asked participants to document experiences where the car was used to advance a social cause or lifelong aspiration, thereby connecting the brand to deep, personal and social values. The Harvard Business site reports.

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media file is a repository of links to articles and research reports for business and non-profit executives, media professionals, marketers, and others interested in the emergence of social innovation as a driving force reshaping the process of creating value in global markets. You can search the media file database from this blog or directly on Delicious.

more media file links for 1 February, 2010:

Cars--the next digital platform

Advertising Age blogger Craig Daitch reports on the most compelling spectacle from this year’s Consumer Electronics Show--the sharp elbows flashed by in-vehicle electronics product and service providers attempting to break into the digital media space. Leading the way: Ford Motors’ game-changer, Ford Sync, which the company credits as a major factor in its recent sales uptick.

Bored with your TV? There’s an app for that

The Wall Street Journal reports on the emergence of iPhone-like digital app marketplaces on cable and satellite TV services. Although experimental set-top services like Microsoft’s WebTV failed horribly in the 1990s, thanks to big improvements in the underlying technology, today’s consumers are snapping up digital media service packages that combine phone, Internet, and TV; and a wide array of hardware and software providers are integrating them into next-generation platforms that permit users to wander far beyond TV’s traditional walled gardens. The future portends an explosion of TV-based, free and paid set-top applications that rival anything happening on desktops or mobile phones.

Let your customers sell themselves on you

On the Harvard Business site, MIT research fellow and author Michael Schrage discusses the power of prototyping to advance the adoption of new ideas. Whereas most innovation-driven firms rely on demos, simulations and other kinds of marketing to elicit a “gee-whiz” reaction from customers to their inventions, others put a prototype of the actual product in the customer’s hands, and give them a chance to sell themselves on its merits. The Apple App Store is great example of this kind of prototype-based approach--customers get to play, risk-free, with thousands of different apps; they provide valuable feedback to their developers; and upgrade to the paid version when the value proposition is right. This “sell yourself” sensibility can easily transcend the digital market, finding a home in retail, consumer and professional services, and any other market where playful exploration can speed the adoption of an innovation.

Is your brand a beacon or a spotlight?

Euro RSCG strategic planner Rose Cameron asks this question on the Advertising Age site: Are you shining a spotlight on consumers’ current preoccupations and concerns, or are you projecting a beacon that leads them where they want to go? The difference is huge. Beacon brands take consumers into an emerging future that they desire to embrace. Given a choice, more than 3/4ths of consumers will choose beacon brands over spotlight brands, according to a study conducted by Euro RSCG for the Atlantic Monthly.

Motivation 3.0: Finding satisfaction in a digital age

Advertising Age interviews “A Whole New Mind” author Daniel Pink about his new work, “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us.” It’s not external rewards and punishments--that is, money, promotions, or the fear of losing those things--that drive today’s key business leaders and employees, but instead the desire to learn, create, and improve our world... what Pink calls autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

media file 1.25.10 | Could music labels make more by charging less?

Could music labels make more money online by charging less?

Major recording companies are in shock over declining revenues, which fell by more than 25 percent from 2006 to 2008--and executives privately blame Apple’s iTunes pricing strategy for much of this decline. But according to consumer pricing expert Raghuram Iyengar on the Knowledge@Wharton site, music executives should be asking Apple to revise its pricing strategy downward in order to reverse the industry’s financial trendline. At a retail price of 60 cents per music track, versus Apple’s standard price of 99 cents, Iyengar’s pricing model predicts that labels could see as much as a 50 percent increase in revenues, as consumers respond to lower prices by buying significantly more tracks.

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media file is a repository of links to articles and research reports for business and non-profit executives, media professionals, marketers, and others interested in the emergence of social innovation as a driving force reshaping the process of creating value in global markets. You can search the media file database from this blog or directly on Delicious.

more media file links for 25 January 2010:

Amazon shakes up book industry with 70 percent Kindle royalty plan

Silicon Alley Insider reports on Amazon’s new Kindle royalty and pricing option for participating book publishers--a remit rate of 70 percent of sales price under the plan, versus 35 percent under its standard agreement. The catch? There are several, including a price cap of $9.99 per book; and at least a 20 discount on the digital book versus the print version. While book publishers worry that low e-book prices will destroy their profit margins, SAI argues: “Hogwash.” Lower prices will unleash demand, and publishers will end up sitting pretty as higher sales volumes drive revenues up. Says SAI: “This is where the book industry is headed, whether traditional publishers want it to or not. Amazon’s new plan should help shorten the time it takes to get there.”

Loyalty programs migrate into media space

The magazine pro site Folio reports on media giant Hachette Filipacchi’s plan to launch “reader clubs” to build audience engagement and revenues for its US magazine brands, including Elle, Woman’s Day, and Car and Driver. Like affinity programs in the travel and financial services industries, Hachette’s clubs will provide retail discounts and priority access to entertainment events related to the magazines’ brand and key advertisers. Hachette has a customer database of over 22 million names and email addresses in the US.

For an uncertain future, imagination trumps measurement

Most managers would readily agree that “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” But according to “design thinking” advocate Roger Martin on the Harvard Business site, an uncritical faith in this approach has led to some of the most spectacular business failures of our time, from Motorola to GM. In an unpredictable business environment, metrics often provide little insight into the future of markets. Instead, imagination--which infers new possibilities from the present--can assist leaders to make creative leaps into new markets and new product categories. While Motorola was busy measuring the market potential for “feature phones,” Research in Motion leaders imagined an entirely new kind of handheld device, the demand for which could not be quantified--because the product category did not exist. It is from this kind of imaginative leap, Martin says, that the future is born. Managers who stick with a seemingly more predictable, measurement-based leadership style risk being left in the dust.

Successful innovations can be predicted

On the Advertising Age site, innovation strategist Phil Roos pokes a hole in one of the most persistent myths about breakthrough innovations: that they are the result of lucky accidents or brilliant flashes of insight. On the contrary, Roos says: Innovations follow a predictable pattern, in which first the potential breakthrough and its benefits are introduced into the market by insurgent startups, which lack the resources to take it to scale; then competing firms take up the innovation and experiment with variations on its basic theme; and finally the idea reaches a tipping point where product readiness and market awareness meet. Successful innovators recognize this pattern as it emerges and are therefore able to predict and capitalize on breakthroughs as they evolve into mainstream market successes.

What is “operations strategy”?

Is it the new black? Or is it a basic contradiction in terms? On the strategy+business site, operations strategist Tim Laseter squares the circle by pointing out that battles between strategy advocates on one side, and operations/performance excellence advocates on the other side, have largely missed the point: Both are needed together, in a way that amplifies the strengths of each perspective. Strategic choices must advance operational excellence; quality/performance initiatives must advance strategic goals. This integrated perspective is essential for success in such core activities as product innovation, customer service, value chain management, and long-range planning.

Three steps to social media mastery

Social media is about mastering the consideration phase of stakeholders’ decision-making process. There are three steps you can take to influence and shape this crucial phase: Understand stakeholders’ experience; create a presence that they find attractive; and collaborate with them to improve their experience. Dave Evans comments on ClickZ.