Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Sales and Consumer Created Ads
Jonah Bloom's Don't Let Consumer-Created Ads Drown Out the Larger Conversation in the Ad Age February 12, 2007, is a timely reminder. Whilst acknowledging the contributions of this media, quoting many senior marketing executives, and Bob Garfield's Bob Garfield's "Listenomics" essay and his blog, he says
" But just as TV commercials are often mistaken for the sum-total output of a marketing department, so consumer-generated content is in danger of obscuring the bigger story here, which is that we're entering a new ad era -- the conversational marketing age."
Consumer created advertising is not new. In the past it was called "word of mouth" advertising, then "referral", "viral" and "buzz" marketing. Its the village drums that still works powerfully in the country sides of Asia. The only difference is that internet savvy consumers are now empowered (often provided with) new tools for spreading his opinion.
But the same rule of affinity will applies.... people will be more influence to those who they know well by reputation or closeness of relationships....they are not likely to believe everything they hear. They do have enough experience with "word of mouth" information and here say. Hence there is a lot of noise out there, possibly creating more doubts and incredibility than positive effects.
There will of course be a portion of the mass market that is gullible and may still believe that whatever appear on the mass media, (ie NEWS) is more credible ...or worth checking out, than what they hear through "word of mouth"
That of course is the old advertising game...presenting your message in way that is interesting, believable and response generating.
Read more!
" But just as TV commercials are often mistaken for the sum-total output of a marketing department, so consumer-generated content is in danger of obscuring the bigger story here, which is that we're entering a new ad era -- the conversational marketing age."
Consumer created advertising is not new. In the past it was called "word of mouth" advertising, then "referral", "viral" and "buzz" marketing. Its the village drums that still works powerfully in the country sides of Asia. The only difference is that internet savvy consumers are now empowered (often provided with) new tools for spreading his opinion.
But the same rule of affinity will applies.... people will be more influence to those who they know well by reputation or closeness of relationships....they are not likely to believe everything they hear. They do have enough experience with "word of mouth" information and here say. Hence there is a lot of noise out there, possibly creating more doubts and incredibility than positive effects.
There will of course be a portion of the mass market that is gullible and may still believe that whatever appear on the mass media, (ie NEWS) is more credible ...or worth checking out, than what they hear through "word of mouth"
That of course is the old advertising game...presenting your message in way that is interesting, believable and response generating.
Read more!
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Cross Cultural Communications
This essay on CROSS-CULTURAL/INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION suggests that...
" Business is not conducted in an identical fashion from culture to culture. Consequently, business relations are enhanced when managerial, sales, and technical personnel are trained to be aware of areas likely to create communication difficulties and conflict across cultures."
The article goes on to discuss ethnocentrism and the various factors that affect cross cultural business communication.
Read more!
Cultural Impact on EU Sales Management
European nations are attempting to standardize business across the community despite deep cultural divides. CULTURAL IMPACT ON EUROPEAN STAFFING DECISIONS IN SALES MANAGEMENT (PDF) presents results from a research conducted on the captioned issue.
"Our study set out to examine the influence of regional culture on sales force recruitment and promotion decisions. We believe this is an important and under-researched area within the sales force and human resource management area. It will doubtlessly become a more important issue as sales forces are deployed cross nationally or globally with the implementation of various free trade agreements (e.g., NAFTA, ASEAN, MERCUR, and the EEC) and in Europe, the common money. Researchers have called on sales organizations to focus more on their staffing policies because they are critical to long-term success (e.g., Churchill et al. 2000, p. 354). We hope our research contributes to the field by providing empirical support for differences between countries in terms of recruitment and promotion decisions. Additionally we believe this study offers insight into the type of criteria used by managers to make staffing decisions."The cultural divide between Asia and Western Culture where much of the Best Practices in Sales and Sales management emanates is of course deeper than between EU nations. The findings from this study would certainly suggest that for Western best practices to work effectively in Asia, it will have to be applied with great flexibility.
Read more!
"Our study set out to examine the influence of regional culture on sales force recruitment and promotion decisions. We believe this is an important and under-researched area within the sales force and human resource management area. It will doubtlessly become a more important issue as sales forces are deployed cross nationally or globally with the implementation of various free trade agreements (e.g., NAFTA, ASEAN, MERCUR, and the EEC) and in Europe, the common money. Researchers have called on sales organizations to focus more on their staffing policies because they are critical to long-term success (e.g., Churchill et al. 2000, p. 354). We hope our research contributes to the field by providing empirical support for differences between countries in terms of recruitment and promotion decisions. Additionally we believe this study offers insight into the type of criteria used by managers to make staffing decisions."The cultural divide between Asia and Western Culture where much of the Best Practices in Sales and Sales management emanates is of course deeper than between EU nations. The findings from this study would certainly suggest that for Western best practices to work effectively in Asia, it will have to be applied with great flexibility.
Read more!
Empowerment, Guanxi Style
Empowerment,Guanxi Style from Rat Droppings: Asian Business Culture and Gossip, Chao Phraya Rat's personal satirical review on Asian business, marketing, culture, politics, and trends presents a enlightening view on the Asian view of Guanxi (Relationship) that pervades all aspects of business including sales.
"Call it cultural or society practices in Asia, guanxi is person specific i.e. the relationship of trust between two persons are paramount because this relationship cannot be transferred. Before you are empowered, there must be an established trust which is visible, so much so, the visibility is sometimes equated to being loyal to the person giving the power."
Read more!
"Call it cultural or society practices in Asia, guanxi is person specific i.e. the relationship of trust between two persons are paramount because this relationship cannot be transferred. Before you are empowered, there must be an established trust which is visible, so much so, the visibility is sometimes equated to being loyal to the person giving the power."
Read more!
Friday, February 02, 2007
Great reminders about communicating digitally
Here’s a compilation of 10 silly and stupid ways by Guy Kawsaki on how companies are hindering adoption of their products and services.
Truly useful article as we make these mistakes all the time. In Asia, many, like me, we don't know. There's quite a few things in Guy's article that I have to find out more about. The worse mistakes are those that we make out of carelessness or "can't be botheredness"
Read more!
Truly useful article as we make these mistakes all the time. In Asia, many, like me, we don't know. There's quite a few things in Guy's article that I have to find out more about. The worse mistakes are those that we make out of carelessness or "can't be botheredness"
Read more!
Clever but Unethical Sales Practices
There is just still too much of this in Singapore today. I liken this situation to software piracy and recent comments by Tarun Sawney, director of the BSA’s antipiracy activities in Asia-Pacific, reported by CSO. (26 Oct 2006).
" Do you see Singapore as a first-world nation or a typical Asian nation"
It is largely a cultural issue, and yesterday I had a bad taste of it when buying a Chinese language Software.
Having gone through that experience, I must add that aside from protecting businesses from IP losses, consumers too have to be protected against unscrupulous IP creators...those that can make their stuff looks good in demos, or on paper, but cannot assure performance or service.
Of course one could argue. " let the buyers beware" ...but there must be a limit to this.
Most first world countries have cooling off periods for purchases...one can easily return products that prove unsatisfactory... definitely not so everywhere. Take my case for example,
I purchased a Chinese Word Processing software(or what I told in was), called “Chinese Doctor”, from the famed Sim Lim Square in Singapore. The label said that the software had could create a Chinese document by inputting text whether in English or pinyin which suited me fine. There was also a good translator in case I receive a Chinese Document. ..or needed to input in English. The demo was good so I purchased it to explore it further...knowing its hard to see all at a demo.
To cut the story short, things did not go so well when I tried using it at home.... and of course I was refused a refund when I tried returning the stuff. "Many people have used this, its even loaded on all the computers here, so its the fault of your system not ours"
When I send the package to for evaluation by someone who knew better, I found that:
1. The Chinese Doctor was merely a writing program, not as claimed on the packaging, literature and sales presentation. You could use your mouse or mouse pad to write a Chinese word and it appear on your document(Clever) But not useful for me as I have explained that I could not write Chinese.
2. He demonstrated inputting PinYIN which I needed but was relying on the Microsoft’s build-in capability without telling me this(Clever and deceitful).
3. Even worse he demonstrated a number of other inputting features that I needed....by making use of the existing word processing program in my computer (Clever and totally deceitful)
4. The dictionary was a standard shelf software called TranStar which was not integrated at all with the Doctor. Even worse I think the copy is a fake, as I saw a piece of the original which looked quite different.(criminal in most cases, but I guess being a Chinese software, its not)
What I went through was not only deceitful demo with the sole objective to sell, without any regard to customers real needs or for any ethical or moral considerations.... the facts provided on the packaging were all lies and untruths.
And I dare say..."UNFORTUNATELY, this happen quite a bit out in Asia"
Read more!
" Do you see Singapore as a first-world nation or a typical Asian nation"
It is largely a cultural issue, and yesterday I had a bad taste of it when buying a Chinese language Software.
Having gone through that experience, I must add that aside from protecting businesses from IP losses, consumers too have to be protected against unscrupulous IP creators...those that can make their stuff looks good in demos, or on paper, but cannot assure performance or service.
Of course one could argue. " let the buyers beware" ...but there must be a limit to this.
Most first world countries have cooling off periods for purchases...one can easily return products that prove unsatisfactory... definitely not so everywhere. Take my case for example,
I purchased a Chinese Word Processing software(or what I told in was), called “Chinese Doctor”, from the famed Sim Lim Square in Singapore. The label said that the software had could create a Chinese document by inputting text whether in English or pinyin which suited me fine. There was also a good translator in case I receive a Chinese Document. ..or needed to input in English. The demo was good so I purchased it to explore it further...knowing its hard to see all at a demo.
To cut the story short, things did not go so well when I tried using it at home.... and of course I was refused a refund when I tried returning the stuff. "Many people have used this, its even loaded on all the computers here, so its the fault of your system not ours"
When I send the package to for evaluation by someone who knew better, I found that:
1. The Chinese Doctor was merely a writing program, not as claimed on the packaging, literature and sales presentation. You could use your mouse or mouse pad to write a Chinese word and it appear on your document(Clever) But not useful for me as I have explained that I could not write Chinese.
2. He demonstrated inputting PinYIN which I needed but was relying on the Microsoft’s build-in capability without telling me this(Clever and deceitful).
3. Even worse he demonstrated a number of other inputting features that I needed....by making use of the existing word processing program in my computer (Clever and totally deceitful)
4. The dictionary was a standard shelf software called TranStar which was not integrated at all with the Doctor. Even worse I think the copy is a fake, as I saw a piece of the original which looked quite different.(criminal in most cases, but I guess being a Chinese software, its not)
What I went through was not only deceitful demo with the sole objective to sell, without any regard to customers real needs or for any ethical or moral considerations.... the facts provided on the packaging were all lies and untruths.
And I dare say..."UNFORTUNATELY, this happen quite a bit out in Asia"
Read more!
