Flipboard - when amateur and professional mesh

So I went off and got myself an iPad this week. Very exciting. At the moment, it is more like a big phone than a small computer. I like it. Videos look great and it is wonderful for the internet, although I'm missing firefox and a few other bits and pieces. No doubt these things will catch up.

So far the best app I've downloaded is called flipboard. This is a reader that aggregates stories, articles, videos and other stuff from a variety of sources - Wired, The Economist and loads others. When reading it, you literally flip over the pages like you would a magazine. Very very impressive.

But here's the most interesting bit. It also aggregates your facebook and twitter feeds. And formats them professionally with quote marks, proper headlines and page layouts like a magazine. Suddenly I'm flicking between paid journalists from top media sources and comments from mates' blogs. All looking very professional. Elegant is how others call it. I agree.

And you can reply and comment through it to twitter and facebook. In fact, this has me using twitter again, at least as a way to favourite articles and reply to good stuff. Damn.

List of 500 social media marketing examples

Peter Kim has a list (a wiki actually) of 500 company examples of social media marketing. Nice place to see examples of good and bad practice from lots of brands. Very useful reference

Is there way to favourite something so it turns up in my LinkedIn page?

Is there way to favourite something so it turns up in your LinkedIn page?

I see lots of good stuff that I'd like to share and pass along. There is the facebook connect 'Like' button but I don't really want to put marketing-or-business-type stuff on my facebook page. Wrong audience really for me anyway. But I might like to share on my LinkedIn page.

Anybody know if that's possible?

Fallon presentation on digital planning

Interesting presentation by Fallon on digital planning. I particularly like this quote "The web is more a social creation than a technical one. I designed it for a social effect" by Tim Berners Lee, founder of the world wide web.

Found via PSFK

Movie about the origins of Facebook and their stories of betrayals

Movie about the origins of Facebook and their stories of betrayals. Written by Aaron Sorkin (of The West Wing) and directed by David Finch (of Fight Club fame among others).

by Found via Wired.

Wall mounted laundry baskets

This is a bit different. Laundry baskets that you hang on your wall, and clip off when you need to empty into the washing machine.

Found via psfk.

Smart bus shelter ad

Found via adland.

Marketing Manager job up for grabs

Plan Ireland are looking to fill a new marketing manager role. Plan is a children's development organisation that operates in 48 countries. Read the spec. The job looks good. Challenging and exciting.

July 9th is closing date. Click to read the job spec.

Become part of their ritual.

Did you know that putting a lime slice in your corona bottle only dates back to 1981?

I didn't. I always thought it was something to do with killing the bacteria that might be around the bottle when in storage.

Nope. According to famous brand guy, Martin Lindstrom, the ritual started as a bet by a barman and his mate to see if others in the bar would do the same. Clearly they did. Lindstrom makes the point that the lime slice ritual had contributed significantly to Corona's success.

We use rituals as a shortcut. We perform lots of rituals every day. Often without thinking. Lindstrom places them into different categories. For example, 'preparing for battle' is all the stuff we do each day from brushing our teeth, showering, checking our email or buying a coffee in the morning from the coffee angel when we get off the bus.

In his book Buyology, Lindstrom points to other brands that inject rituals into the way we buy or use stuff. Guinness turned a potential weakness (waiting for slower pint) into a ritual that is expected and appreciated by proper Guinness drinkers - good things come to those who wait.

Become part of their daily ritual and your brand is in a good place.

The 1% windfall

Been working on a project recently that requires a bit of proper thinking around pricing. I've written about pricing before. Although not often. It doesn't get the same air time as other areas within marketing. But it is so important. Look at this simple, yet powerful example:

A 1% increase in price could deliver a 20% increase in profits.

How? Let's say you sell something for a price tag of €100. And after operating costs, you walk away with €5 profit per unit. Now, if you increase your price by just 1%, your new price is €101. Your profit has now jumped from €5 to €6 - a 20% increase.

Of course, we need to assume that customers will continue to buy in the same amounts as before. This assumption clearly needs testing. But it is reasonable enough. Think of any product or service that you value and are willing to pay €100 for. Would you still value and buy it if it cost €101? I'm guessing you would. I would.

The point is that price decisions affect the bottom line immediately. The example above is from a good book called The 1% windfall.

Asking for just a penny can increase donations.

Image courtesy of sally monster

Last month, Conor wrote an interesting article about charity donations raised through text message. One of the assumptions that Conor questioned was this: If you ask people to donate through text, they will give less. You might get more people to give (higher response), but overall you will collect less cash for your efforts.

I don't know the answer. I understand the logic but think Conor is right to at least question this.

There is an interesting experiment from the American Cancer Society with surprising results. While not related to text messaging, it is related to asking for less. It may not hold up over text donations, but worth at least challenging the assumptions.

As part of a fundraising campaign, Robert Cialdini and the American Cancer Society went door-to-door asking for donations.

One half of the those they spoke with were asked the following question "Would you be willing to help by giving a donation?". For the other half, they added the following line "Even a penny will help".

The results? Almost twice as many people gave when told that even a penny would help. While not surprising, this might lead to one type of strategy over another. So instead of aiming to raise as much money as possible in one go, you might aim to get as many people as possible to show an initial interest, collect their details and then work on this group over time to turn them into advocates.

Here's the surprising bit from the experiment.

Despite being told that 'even a penny would help' the donation sizes were no smaller than the first group. So overall, by telling people that 'even a penny would help' increased the number of donations and the total amount collected. Nice eh.

Lots of behavioural economics examples like this in Robert Cialdini's books.

Change the environment to get co-operation.

I wrote about this a few weeks ago in one of my behavioural economics pieces.

We tend to believe that change is difficult because people resist change. And to change their behaviour, we need to change their minds.

Not always. Sometimes it is easier to simply change the environment.

For example, sales and marketing do not always get on. There is often a natural tension between these teams. This is not always a bad thing. However, it can sometimes get out of hand, and become destructive. The first response to fix this is to do workshops, talk through issues, align objectives, ask for respectful behaviours etc etc.

All good. An easier way might be to simply sit these two teams beside eachother. Yep, move a few desks.

Social Psychologist Leon Festinger and his colleagues found that a leading indicator of relationships in work is how near they are to eachother. You've probably seen this in action. Your best mates at work either work on your team, near your team or you used to work with them. Propinquity is what they call it.

More behavioural economics - framing

Image courtesy of BigBeaks

I mentioned anchoring the other week - where our decisions can be overly influenced by a piece of information.

Another similar topic is framing.

In a nutshell, the context and way situations are described can influence our decisions. This bias is called framing. Credit card companies are good at this. In the 1970s, many retail stores charged separate prices for stuff. One price for cash payment and a slightly higher price if consumers paid with a credit card.

Now, we consumers don't like to pay premiums for stuff. It bothers us. (I think this is loss aversion at play?) So, instead of calling the 'credit' price a premium, the credit card companies recommended that the retail stores call the 'credit' price the normal price. And if a customer paid with cash, she was actually getting a 'cash discount'. Smart stuff. Words are important.

Google 'framing credit cards' to find a pdf about this called 'The Framing Hypothesis'. Better still, buy Nudge.

Smart expandable ad

This is clever. An expandable ad that you re-size for your room measurements. Click here to see in action.

Nice VW online ad.

Click here to see it in action. Found via bannerblog.

A bit more on: free versus almost free

After my amazon story, Kevin Kavanagh sent me this graph demonstrating the difference in uptake when price goes from almost free to free. One for my behavioural economics presentation.

Source is Todd Slattersten. He gave away a free ebook recently on pricing. Worth a download.

Nike TV ad - I like.

Thanks Rory, for sending on .

The difference between 'free' and 'almost-free'

Some more on behavioural economics (for my presentation).One of the stories I like best is from Dan Ariely's now-famous book predictably irrational on how customers reacted to free shipping from Amazon.com.

Several years ago, Amazon.com started offering free shipping of orders over a certain amount of spend. Ariely explained that if you bought a single book for say $16.95, you might pay an additional $3.95 for shipping. But if you bought another book, for a total of say $31.90, you'd get shipping for free.

The result? Sales rocketed everywhere - with the exception of France. In France, there was no increase in sales. Were the French more disciplined than the rest of us? And were able to resist something free?

As it happens, no.

Amazon in France were actually charging one franc for delivery as part of the deal. I believe there was a clause in the France legal system that meant they could not give free shipping on books. But a franc is only about 20 cents. It is nearly free.

In the end, Amazon decided to make it free in France and pay the daily fine for the privilege. And sales jumped dramatically like every other country.

Why such a big difference between free and almost free? Chris Anderson in his book Free: The future of a Radical Price offers a feasible explanation. When stuff is free, you don't need to think. You don't need to put your brain through any mental exercise to consider if this is good value or not. No risk.

Email marketing position with Concern

If you are in the market for a new job in digital - drop over to Concern. They are looking to fill an email marketing position. Sounds very worthwhile.

More information here.

Choice architecture

Dave Trott posted an example of behavioural economics the other day. I quote direct (lazy of me I know):

Rory Sutherland gave me a brilliant example of choice architecture. At a school in the USA, the girls in their early teens had just discovered lipstick. They would go into the female toilets to apply it. Then, giggling, they’d leave the imprint of their lips on the large mirror. This made a lot of extra work for the cleaning staff. The head teacher asked the girls to stop. Of course they ignored her.

So she took the girl’s to the female toilets for a demonstration. She said, “It takes a lot of work to clean the lipstick off the mirror.” She said to the janitor, “Please show the girls how much work it takes.” The janitor put the mop in the toilet, squeezed off the excess water and washed the mirror. Then put the mop in the toilet again, and repeated the process. From that day on there was no more lipstick on the mirror.

Authors Thaler and Sunstein give many other examples of choice architecture. For example, when taking out money from ATM machines, lots of us mindlessly walk away, leaving our bank cards in the machines. So instead of putting stickers on the ATM screen reminding us not to, they simply change the process so we must now take our cards before the money comes out.

Smart stuff.

P.S. Mr Sutherland is speaking tomorrow morning in Dublin on behavioural economics. I won't be there, but looking forward to hearing how it goes.

Anchoring charity donations

More on behavioural economics.

Anchoring is interesting. When we are buying stuff, we're overly influenced by one particular piece of information we are exposed to. There are lots of subtle examples. In their fascinating book Nudge, Thaler and Sunstein explain that charities can influence the amount donors give by how they present the donation options. People will give more if the options are €100, €250, €1,000 and €5,000 than if their options are €50, €75, €100 and €150.

Barry Schwartz gives more anchoring examples in his book Paradox of Choice. If you walk into a suit shop where the suits displayed are €1,500 each, and you see a nice suit for €800, this may seem like a good deal. But walk into a different store where suits are displayed at €500, and the same €800 suit seems very expensive. The pricing information is anchoring your views.

Schwartz gives more examples. For example, a high-end catalogue seller of kitchen equipment was selling an automatic bread maker for $279. Later on, they added another more expensive deluxe version for $429. While they didn't see too many of the deluxe makers, sales of the $279 machine almost doubled.

More behavioural economics - tweak the environment

As I scribble down my notes for an upcoming presentation on behavioural economics, I decided I'd post the good examples here.

Getting people to do something new can be difficult. It is not easy to change behaviour. We often assume it is because they resist or fear change. But sometimes this is not the reason. Sometimes you can be successful by simply changing or tweaking the environment.

Losing weight is a popular one. Most of us at one stage or another have wanted to lose weight. One relatively simple technique to lose weight is to use smaller plates. I know, this sounds a bit obvious and overly simplistic. But it works. For those of you that know me, you'll know I've lost about 2 stone in the past six months. Part of this was simply eating smaller portions.

Watch Brian Wansink's video here and you'll hear that the difference between using small and large plates equates to 15 pounds in weight in a year.

Why is this important to us marketers? If we want to change consumers' behaviour, we need to know why they're doing what they're doing in the first place. We tend to assume that people are doing things because they want to. Or won't change because their resist change - it's simply the way they are. This is known as the fundamental attribution error.

The result of this thinking is a lot of energy spent trying to change their mind.

However, often change can be achieved without changing the person's character. Instead, just change or tweak their environment.

More examples later. Good books on this include Nudge and Switch. And Brian Wansink and colleagues have articles you can download here.

People shot in face with cupcakes in slow-mo

Saw this on gizmodo. Somebody rightly commented "I've said it before...Slow-mo makes everything better"

Like this.

Found via 2dayblog.

The wisdom of behavioural economics

At the time, I wasn't familiar with the term 'behavioural economics'. But have found this stuff interesting ever since I randomly picked up a copy of The Wisdom of Crowds in Hughes & Hughes several years ago. A signed copy from author James Surowiecki, no less.

Not sure if Surowiecki's book is technically considered behavioural economics actually. It is more pop-culture stuff, like Freaknomics or Gladwell's Tipping Point. (Both wonderful books if you haven't read them.)

The basis of his book is that the combined intelligence from a crowd of people is higher than that of any of the individuals in that group. This feels at odds with what we'd expect. And as a culture, we look to the hero, the individual that can fix everything. There are lots of books about finding the smart leader that will get bring companies back from the brink.

The book title itself is a word-play on the 1841 book 'Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds' by Charles Mackay, a collection of stories about herd mentality. Surowiecki's premise is that as long as each person's decision can be made independently (so no social pressure to conform), the combined result will be better.

For example, if you ever find yourself on the gameshow 'Who wants to be a millionaire? - you have a better chance of getting the right answer by asking the audience than calling the smartest person you know. The 'Call a Friend' option delivers the correct answer 65% of the time. The audience pick the right answer 91% of the time.

This area is becoming more popular and mainstream within marketing. So I'm pulling together the most interesting learning, experiments and stories from this area to present to my team. I'll post them here as I scribble them down. Feel free to send me relevant blog or article links if you have them.

Billboard that bleeds...

Apparently this billboard bleeds when raining - to raise awareness of the dangers of driving in wet weather conditions.

Found via Billboard and Outdoor advertising.

Stunning piece of advertising here

Stunning piece of advertising here. Only to be surpassed by this. Give it a moment or two to load but you'll appreciate such creativity. Sure, turn up your speakers to get the most out of it.

Disclaimer: Yes, I was involved, but unfortunately, I can't take any credit for such genius. That is all Brando.

Beautiful TV ad from Samsung

Barry from Brando posted this. I thought from the opening couple of seconds, that it was going to be same ole cliche stuff that we saw everywhere after Sony's bravio balls ad.

I was wrong.

"This is not a sales letter"

Been talking to some marketers recently on loyalty programmes. We all know the stats about the lower costs of keeping existing customers compared to finding new ones. So it makes sense to keep in touch with the good customers. You know, drop them a note or call and see how they are doing - make sure the brand is delivering on its promise.

I know lots of brands have CRM programmes. But how often do we try and up-sell or cross-sell in our customer letters or emails?

This is the challenge: To resist the urge to always sell them something. I'm not saying you can't sell ever. I'm presuming most brands have loads of stuff that their customers want to know about. But if you try and sell something every time you contact a customer, then it's not really a loyalty programme, is it?

It reminds me of the friend or colleague that only calls when he needs a favour. It's hard to genuinely like these people.

I appreciate that brands are dealing in transactions, not friendships. But how refreshing would it be to open an occasional letter (from a brand you buy from) that starts with "This is not a sales letter."

This is a wonderful little story (about doing)

This is a wonderful little story. Found via eatbigfish who make the point about the power of doing versus just talking. This is a central idea behind Cindy Gallop's Ifwerantheworld project. And one of the main points in Seth Godin's book - Linchpin. You don't need to have official authority to do something.

44 marketers signed up in six days. Thanks.

Last week I (eventually) kicked off an idea that had been hanging around in my head for some time.

The plan was this: Help charities, by finding them smart, enthusiastic, hardworking and motivated (marketing) student grads. Charities generally can't afford to hire extra employees. So in return for working for six months for free, the grads would get six months of high-quality marketing classes and workshops from some of the best marketers in Ireland. See here for details.

The first part was to find marketers. I posted about it last Saturday.

And in the past six days, a staggering 44 marketers have signed up to teach. Such goodwill is so impressive. I'd like to think we can double this number.

The next step is to find a number of charities that can benefit from extra help (it doesn't have to be marketing help, just help in the office). And then to find and choose the right kind of student grad - smart ones that see the value in picking the brains of the best marketers in the country, while getting a chance to impress them. If you are one, or know one, please drop me a mail.

At a glance, we've got some really top marketers that can teach and help grads learn about the following areas - segmentation, pricing, strategy, planning, insights, research, proposition development, creating advertising, media planning, media buying, creative, brief writing, IMC, direct marketing, brand management, sponsorship, behavioural economics, fundraising, PR, copywriting, account management, client handling, digital, social media, community management as well as workshops from marketing recruiters on what marketing managers look for when recruiting grads.

In the meantime, I'd like to thank the following for volunteering their services so quickly: Una Herlihy, Brian Ross, Lucy Masterson, Cormac O'Shea, Gordon Newman, Arabella Judd, Piaras Kelly, Geraldine O'Neill, Lisa Domican, Nick McGivney, Conor Byrne, Rob Reid, Daragh Byrne, Emer McCarthy, Elaine Knowles, Jonnie Cahill, Helen O'Rourke, Aidan Green, Michael Clancy, Stuart Mathews (thanks Helen), Aisling Campbell, Maria O'Dowd, Ed Conmy, Kay McCarthy, John Dunne, Darren McGrath, Brendan O'Flaherty, Lindsay Browning, Gary Mullen, Patrick Meade, Pat Stephenson, Gordon Newman, Kevin Dunne, Michelle McEnroe, Lynne Tracey, Brendan Hughes, Darragh Doyle, Sarah McDonough, Liam Pender, Damian Crowe, Dave Pepper, Lisa O'Dwyer and Derek Hobbs.

Thanks also to Damien Mulley, Conor Prendergast, Naoise McNally and Sinead Duffy for blogging, tweeting, offering to help and to project manage it.

Hope I didn't miss anybody. If I do, I'll add in the comments.

I'll update next week. If you know marketers, charities or students - please pass on the message and ask them to contact me.

If the twitter community were 100 people

Stumbled onto a fascinating website called Information is beautiful. Represents loads of different information bits in very creative ways. There is a book too. There are about 40 comments about the twitter graph above.

Marketers, students and charities wanted

If you're a marketer, student or non-profit, please read on.

I've been kicking around an idea for a while and am finally doing something about it.

Non-profit organisations are generally understaffed. They could really benefit from having an extra one or two enthusiastic, smart, hard-working student grads helping them out. I've worked with some marketing grads over the past few years who have been really impressive. They bring energy, fresh thinking and ambition to any project.

But charities generally can't afford more people. But what if these students could be paid in something other than money?

So, here's the plan. Ambitious marketing students work for free for 20 hours a week for a non-profit organisation. In return, they get training and teaching from some of Ireland's finest marketers. I'm talking about high-end training and workshops that would cost many thousands of euro if clients were getting them.

The aim would be to fast-track these students so they are as prepared as possible to pick up marketing jobs. As there are not many marketing jobs around at the moment, brand managers will pick only the best. This training will give these individuals the edge. And of course, it is not just the training, but access and a chance to impress some of the best contacts in the marketing industry.

Students volunteer 20 hours a week, giving them hopefully enough hours spare to work in a paying job at the same time.

So non-profits get extra help for free. Marketing students get fast-tracked into the profession they want to work in. What's in it for marketers? Well, I've spoken to about 10 colleagues or friends in the industry and every single one of them said they'd help. Of course, the more I find, the more we can help.

If you're a marketer, student or a non-profit and want to help, pop over to IfweRanTheWorld and look through the details. I'll talk more about IfweRanTheWorld itself next week.

How to write an (inspiring) creative brief

How to write an (inspiring) creative brief. This is really good. Trust me on this one. Created by Nick Emmel.

Sell your by-products

Thought this idea was interesting.

Jason Fried, founder of 37signals wrote a book called REWORK. He talks in it about the fact that when you make something, you always make another thing. There is always a by-product. Sometimes you can also sell the by-product. His book itself is an example of a by-product from creating something else - his company. And I suspect the book will create another by-product in the form of seminars, workshops and consulting perhaps.

Dave Trott did something similar. His (wonderful) book is a by-product of blog posts. His blog posts are a by-product of all the teaching and advertising he has created over the years.

You don't persuade people through intellect

Bill Bernback "You don't persuade people through the intellect. You do it through the passions". You'll enjoy this.

Found via Drayton Bird.

Economics explained simply

Thought this was brilliant. Apologies to whoever originally posted it. I truly can't remember what blog I found it on.

Youtube - musicians wanted

Youtube have launched a partner program for musicians. Artists upload original videos to youtube and get a cut of any money from advertising that youtube (Google) make. Good for unsigned bands. Not so good maybe for Myspace. Only available in the US so far.

See article in wired.

More templates for blogger (and other stuff)

Blogger team have come up with new templates and other stuff. So if you use blogger, you might want to play around with it. I changed my template background while checking it out. No doubt I'll get bored of it and change again soon. More info here.

Free ebook on pricing

Pricing gets less attention on this blog. It is fascinating and I read about it a fair bit but clearly am no expert. Todd Slattersten, however is. He has written an ebook on pricing strategies. It is short and well written.

I particularly liked the bit about how pricing is by far the most effective lever that managers have in affecting profit. He refers to how a 1% increase in pricing can translate to 11% increase in profits. (It is also the easiest lever. I wouldn't advocate just upping the price to hit a quarterly target. Customers are not stupid and will eventually vote with their wallets).

Anyway, worth a download and read. Here. I found it via Seth Godin.

And if you like it, you'll probably also like The Art of Profitability too.