I was reminded over the last 24 hours just how difficult communication can be when operating in a global environment. While communication is surely a challenge in any environment, when you overlay cultural norms, understandings, biases, accents, and plain old politics, things can get really exciting.

In this particular instance a set of 4 people (including myself) from 4 different countries were discussing a particular issue through email and phone.  It became clear that despite agreement amongst the four of us, in fact we were agreeing based on a different understanding of the issue at hand.

Who is right and wrong in this case matters very little. What matters is that without using precise, common language when working with your peers in other countries, a little nuance can lead to a very big misunderstanding.  Usually I am big proponent of “just pick up the phone” but sometimes email works better as it forces you to think about the message and gives you a record that “lives” and can be refined.

As marketers we have learned that communicating our brand and our product value externally needs to identify with local customs and norms. It’s worth remembering that same paradigm applies to how we conduct our internal business as well.

Sorry to disappoint. While I appreciate the traffic that the folks at ZL Technologies are sending my way from their Gartner lawsuit Press Coverage list, I chuckle that they consider my blog on par with ZDNet and Informationweek and the like.  Of course, now I recognize why my contacts at Gartner are not returning my call!

So lest I am accused of playing favorites, let me just make one comment about a recent report from Forrester. They just published a very good report on the budget outlook for IT Services. I found it very insightful. Unfortunately the study relies on data gathered in April & May! Further it leads with a stat about the state of IT Budgets for 2009.  I am not sure how it helps me plan for next year to know that the budgets are expected to drop for the year just past?  Good for benchmarking I guess, but hard to plan around that.

Generally I find the data provided by both Gartner and Forrester to be highly valuable. But when it takes 6 months to go from data collection to publishing a report, particularly in a year as volatile as this one, it’s really not that helpful.

Read this interesting article on ChiefMarketer.com this morning about how to line up efforts around a global brand. I think it’s a very good overview and especially liked the linkages between the different elements that drive global brands. There is something in here for all of us, even if we have more modest aspirations than Dove’s “making women feel better about themselves!”

However, I do think that there are two critical aspects of building global marketing teams that are under represented in the article. And these are perhaps the most significant for global marketers who are not working for a big brand committed to transformation. They are the issues of goal alignment and funding.

Goal Alignment

Often new global marketing teams are brought together around an idea rather than an actual business reorganization. In these cases, the idea is that the team should collaborate and make the magic happen. This is especially true when we are talking about corporate marketing.

Unfortunately, since the team often reports individually to their region, rather than to a central marketing org, they are faced with conflicting masters. And when there is conflict, should they serve the best interests of their local market, or to serve this nebulous concept of a global team? Absent any concrete direction/incentive otherwise, most people will pay-lip service to the global effort, while managing to their local interests.

Funding

Where the investment for the programs is coming from has a major impact on its success. If the local is expected to contribute, but doesn’t see any local market relevance or utility, there will be conflict. If the center funds the local budget, but doesn’t put any more resources on the ground to execute, there will be conflict.

So as with any strategy these issues should be thought through and addresses before roll-out to ensure success. A few thoughts on how:

• Consider pulling the team “out” of the local and formally have them report to the global organization with a dotted line back to their local countries.
• Establish clear linkages between the goals of the program, the goals of the company and the goals of the local market.
• Listen to the local markets needs to be sure what is being delivered locally is truly relevant in that market. If it’s not, ask why you are doing it. If it is, and you still don’t have support, get new people.
• Do not create unfunded mandates. Clearly articulate where the funding is coming from and who will benefit. If people are going to have to stretch, make sure they are rewarded for it either in comp or responsibility or both.
• Make sure the full weight of the org is behind the strategy, and will stick with the plan even in difficult times. If the local is not hearing that the strategy is valued by the org, no amount of the above matters, it’s doomed to fail.

And lastly, make sure you have a strong leader who can work these conflicts, get buy in, secure (and maintain) funding, and inspire the team as the author pointed out . Unfortunately the mission is rarely about changing some aspect of the world. I applaud those whose brand promise affords them this opportunity, but it’s rare. Recognize and acknowledge this truth, but still capture the imagination of your team to show what is possible. Give them a mission and vision just as you give your brand a mission and a vision, and the brand promise will be delivered.

I attended the Olin Innovation Lab at the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, hosted by noted Futurist Thorton May this week. It was a good discussion from the IT perspective on Clouds, Augmented Reality, Social Media, Security, and Green Tech. And in the middle of it all, our good friends at Gartner Research were actually booed, as shocking as that sounds.

Here was an audience of 30 or so well respected CIOs from several different industries and they were more than happy to hear the news that Gartner is getting sued by ZL Technologies over their Magic Quadrant methodology.

Many high quality articles have been written on this subject already, you can read one of my favorites on ZDNet here. What I am most interested in however was what the suit, and this reaction means for Gartner, and their brethren. (To be fair, the financial ratings services also took it squarely on the chin during the sessions as well, it was a spirited group!)

In the interest of full disclosure I have worked in the AR field for the last 15 years and have a decent understanding of the MQ game and have survived it a few times. And survive is the operative word here because “winning” is often measured in picas.

Vendors big and small tithe at the feet of Gartner and their brethren because they feel they have to. The Analyst firms have the ear of the technology buyers who consume their reports to make buying decisions. In short, positive Analyst recommendations drive real business, and tech companies know this unequivocally.

Research from a few years back suggested that something like 80% of all enterprise technology deals involved an analyst in some capacity, either through consulting, research, shortlisting or verifying qualifications etc. What I told my sales team at the time was that you needed to assume that analysts were involved somehow even it wasn’t disclosed, and try to find ways to bring the analysts in ourselves to help control the interactions.

But is the MQ truly pay-for-play? I personally don’t think so. I think the analysts have deep integrity and a understandable defensiveness around these issues. The good ones would never be bought so baldly. However, what your money DOES buy is access.

The more I spend, the more access I get. If I am willing to plunk down the half day or full day rate, I can get the analysts time pretty much whenever I want.  And if I use that time well, then I have a greater opportunity to shape the message and the analyst will be that much more familiar with my offering. Which is most important when it comes time to do the MQ or to ANSWER THE SHORTLIST INQUIRY REQUEST FROM MY PROPSPECT.

Can you get access without being a client? Of course you can. But nobody for a minute thinks that one formal briefing a year and the answers to the questionnaire is a replacement for the amount of access money can buy.  I know of technology companies whose AR budget alone far outstrip my entire global marketing budget. And with good reason. It works.

Does the MQ skew to higher end companies? In my view, of course it does. Did Gartner try and solve this by coming out with the MarketScopes for emerging markes, up and coming vendor highlights, and well printed fine print about how to view the niche providers? You bet they did.  But as long as the vendors still pony up the dough, and the end-users keep sucking up the reports and using them in the decisions cycle, the circle will continue, lawsuit or no lawsuit.

So what of the booing that went on at the event? Does this mean we are reaching a tipping point where the consumers of these reports are beginning to question their veracity and objectivity? 30 people is hardly a valid focus group, but if this is a signal that one leg of the stool is getting weak, the industry analyst firms should be very, very concerned.

@ajdun

PS: And I really want to know how wronged does ZL Technologies feel that they needed to take this step? What did their AR and PR people tell them when this came up in the strategy session? I need to see the inside story on that one!

All markets are not created equally.

No really, it’s true!

Despite an ongoing fascination for some, typically in America, to want to “market to Europe” each country has its own unique challenges and opportunities.  The big global brands figured this out many years ago. Which is why the experience of McDonalds might be the same in all countries, but the menu does vary. It is also why (I am told) Starbucks didn’t work in Israel—Israeli’s don’t like American coffee generally and Starbucks apparently didn’t adapt.

But what about if you are a service company?

We are going through this very issue today as we reconcile some of our service areas to come up with a consistent go-to-market in each geography.  Since this is a work in progress and we are a public company, I will refrain from talking specifically about our situation, instead I will write a few notes in the abstract.

It’s important never to forget that market dynamics vary widely from country to country and region to region.  It is a fact that many of the countries that made up the former Eastern Bloc and Soviet Union are just plain behind in their technology maturity, in some cases 20 years behind.  This is both cautionary, and opportunity. In some cases the big companies may be only on their second or even first generation ERP system. But the mobile network applications skipped right to the current generation.

As a marketer, when we examine market opportunities we have to consider these nuances. So even if we are selling application services to banks in the US and in Russia, and even if the core application is centered on customer care, the situation is very different in each country.

Further HOW items are purchased can vary widely. Purchasing and procurement processes in the US have matured over the past 10 years. Large global companies have entire teams of people focused on managing the purchasing process, and work toward getting the most for the least.  In other parts of the world this function may not exist or is far less sophisticated.

Even how the web is used varies by country. It’s often not easy to replicate a successful pay-per-click campaign from country to country. The language nuances are one factor but the buyer behavior isn’t the same either.

So in the end, rationalizing a service portfolio and aligning around a set of core competencies that transcends regions makes for good business strategy. But when it comes time to build the go-to-market strategy for those services, I suggest adding just two words to that time honored marketing axiom:

Know your customer by country.

Given that October is breast cancer awareness month, there have been a number of articles centered on the issue of cancer awareness.  But this one from the Boston Globe Magazine caught me a bit off-guard. It’s a good read as usual, but its central premise is that the “marketing of pink” has gone to such an extreme that it might be on the verge of having a negative impact on the cause of cancer.

I am not exactly sure where I fall on this camp. Research is critical, if something drives dollars toward a cure then generally I am all for it. But where is the line you shouldn’t cross as a marketing organization? And most importantly who is the brand steward for the cause of cancer research?

Here in Boston we are lucky to have not one but two world class cancer institutions, and they surely do their part. The Dana Farber – Jimmy Fund partnership is off the charts, and the annual Pan Mass Challenge is one of the most successful fund-raisers ever.  But do they own the Cancer Brand?

How about the many pharmaceutical, healthcare, medical device, and research organizations literally on the front lines of cancer research? Their research efforts and drug discoveries and sophisticated machinery have dramatically transformed the state of cancer treatment in the past decades. It’s at a point now where an oncologist said to me today that they are actively thinking about survivorship rather than staying focused on treating the disease and hoping for the best.  Do they own the Cancer Brand?

What about the major foundations such as Lance Armstrong Foundation? Lance has done so much with the simple LIveStrong message in such a short amount of time it’s truly amazing.  I proudly wear my LiveStrong bracelet, the same one I put on my wrist in early May 2006. And when people ask if I cycle I merely nod and say no, I wear it for the cause. Does Lance own the Cancer Brand?

Or what about the countless smaller organizations that do little things to fill in the gaps in our system? Organizations like PlanetCancer, the SAMFund, and Next Step that devote their mission to helping patients and survivors with the acute issues they face? Do they own the Cancer Brand?

I don’t think so. I think we all do.

Everyone who has been touched by cancer, either as a patient, a survivor, a spouse, a doctor, a nurse, a healthcare worker, a fundraiser, a caregiver, a family member, or a friend: YOU own the Cancer Brand.  I can promise you that none of us asked for it, instead the mantel of ownership was thrust upon us. Either because we were touched directly, or because we wanted to help in the fight against these horrible, horrible diseases called “cancer.”

And I think that represents the line. As marketers, we should all be sensitive to the various interests of our constituents. When a single breast cancer patient says they are sick of pink, we should take notice. When hundreds or thousands say they are sick of pink-related marketing it’s time for a change. That is what brand owners do, they reflect and then respond to the market as the dynamics change

It then becomes our mission as brand owners to listen. No one wants a backlash against fundraising due to “market saturation.” Just go to the new building at Dana Farber in Boston and see the steel girders with the names of children treated at the hospital spray painted on them by the workers. Or spend 5 minutes in a pediatric cancer center in any part of the country. Or sit next to your friend, your spouse, or your partner as they are “infused” with chemo therapy drugs, or get ready for their daily radiation dose. They desperately need our help, let’s give it them as best we can.

You owe it to the brand to listen, reflect, and respond.

Getting ready to head home from the Sherpa B2B Summit tonight. Want to thank the team at MarketingSherpa for inviting me to speak. I enjoyed it immensely and it seemed like my talk went over well.  As I have said before, in addition to picking up great topics and lessons from the presenters, I really appreciate the time just to think about marketing topics. I usually come home with a long list of great ideas, hopefully we can actually execute some of them.

So in no particular order here are some my takeaways/ideas/thoughts from the event.

Chairs: I have been to numerous shows, and usually the table + chair set up is more fitting of a high school classroom. Kudos to the Westin for having good space and comfy chairs. Having spent over 40 hours on a plane in the last week or so, I was happy for that!

Grasshopper Viral Video: This was a cool viral campaign. See the details here and the video here

http://grasshopper.com/5000/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6MhAwQ64c0

I thought it was Kind of similar to some recent ads on TV celebrating the small businesses that drive the economy. While this video is extremely cool, seems a bit disconnected from the promise of the brand.

Conversions: Big topic of the conference centered on conversions, using SEO and PPC specifically to drive business opportunities. Some great stories on how people blew up their sites to focus on search leads with amazing results.

Hubspot: Much thanks to Mike and the team for a nice dinner out.  Some of things they themselves are doing with video is very cool and they have a great spirit. Definitely worth taking a look at their service.

Lead Scoring: We have only started the lead scoring process because volume is low, but we need to get serious. Some companies are doing some amazingly advanced things to score leads into the nurture funnel vs the sales funnel.  Emily Salus of Collabnet told a great story on their effort. A good interview on the topic with her can be found on the Smashmouth Marketing Blog.

I especially liked the idea that students get a -500 on a +100 scale. Competitors get -250. They stay in the system though so they can track what they do, but they never make it to sales. Love it.

Facebook for B2B, yes or no? Lots of discussion about if Facebook is really a viable channel for B2B. A few companies (including me) are very skeptical. Yet there are a few really strong examples of companies taking their “Fans” and turning that into business.  I posted the question to my FB network and right now its running 5-1 against.  For us, it’s likely going to help us more on recruiting, but time will tell.

If you are interested in the notes that MarketingSherpa took and the slides from the event (including mine) you can link to them here:

http://www.marketingsherpa.com/B2BMarketingSummit09Slides/index.html

http://www.marketingsherpa.com/B2BSummitwhiteboard/b2b09.html

And I you want to review the Tweets from the event search on #sherpab2b09.

See you in Boston in two weeks!

With vacation and business travel it has been difficult to post to the blog regularly, however a 15 hour flight to Mumbai gives you ample time to reflect (and sleep, and watch a movie or two…!)

This week I will be presenting at MarketingSherpa’s B2B forum a case study on how to do more with less. I will post the slides through SlideShare after the event but a quick preview.

In today’s economy, it’s ever more important to think about the opportunity cost of all of our investments in marketing. A quick reminder in case it has been awhile since you took an economics class: for every dollar you spend, or good you make, there is something else you can’t buy or a good you cannot make as a result. This good or service that is foregone represents the opportunity cost of your investment.  In marketing that simply means that ever dollar counts twice: once for the activity we are going to run, and the second time for the activity we can’t do as a result.

When budgets are flush this math is less important. But in times like these, it’s extraordinarily critical. And it often leads to planning paralysis because we have so many great ideas on what to do, we get overwhelmed by what we can’t do.  In that moment of indecision crucial time is lost.

One way my team helps break through this is by looking for ways we can “force multiply” our spending. This means we try to run programs that have multiple threads attached to them. For example rather than doing your own podcast, partner with a publication to run the podcast and secure a lead guarantee and name generation campaign to help feed the top end of the funnel.

When you start stringing some of these multi-threaded concepts tighter into a campaign you can stretch your dollars dramatically even without a huge staff to execute on multiple fronts.  Look for more details and results of how we did this at Ness soon.

I am also interested in how YOU have done managed your opportunity costs as well.  Send me your ideas  by commenting here or to my Twitter account @ajdun and I will happily share your ideas with my MarketingSherpa audience.

I write this on the plane ride back from my extraordinarily quick trip to Mumbai.  In total I was in country for a shade over 2 days meaning my trip to California next week for the MarketingSherpa B2B Marketing Summit will be longer!

Many of you reading this already have had multiple India experiences so I won’t bore you with the expected views from my first trip, but I do have a few quick observations.

1. The traffic in Mumbai is, of course, indescribable.  Even though I expected it, I wasn’t prepared for it. One of my Indian colleagues put it succinctly: “It operates on an understanding.” Exactly.
2. And the same goes for the poverty.  I had heard all of the stories and seen it on TV and in the movies, but until you see it first hand, you can’t really grasp its full impact.  For me, that just makes the spirit of the Indian people and their success all the more impressive.
3. While I think that jet lag’s impact on your body is certainly real, you can trick your mind into just about anything. Tired yes, debilitated no.
4. As I have written before, nothing can replace the face-to-face.  We had so many productive conversations with people that we had only talked to by phone.  Now we have a mutual understanding of each other’s needs, and how to be mutually successful
5. While I was there, I interviewed a candidate for a position on my team.  I wish I had prepared better, it wasn’t quite like interviewing here in the US.
6. And lastly, nothing embodies the spirit of the culture than this story: One of our team members is about to move to Boston from Mumbai.  Despite having never been to the US, and certainly not having driven a car in the US either, he was about to buy a car in Tampa. He thought the drive might only be 16 hours or so.  Even though it’s more like 28 (driving non-stop) to be completely undaunted about moving to the US, having never visited, and perhaps not realizing that we drive on the other side of the road, he thought nothing of making a “16” hour drive in his new car.

In sum: no challenge is too daunting, there is nothing that cannot be done.  I am truly impressed.

India, see you again in January. Looking forward to it already.

Life isn’t too bad when your office is an 18 foot pontoon boat on a lake a on a beautiful late summer day!  It also allows you the freedom to read other things beyond the traditional media. Ok, not really, I would have read this article sitting at my desk too.

I was struck by the segment in this Sports Illustrated article about Chad Ochocinco, the erstwhile receiver for the Cincinnati Bengals, and his use of Twitter.

But there’s another motivation. He gets out his message — as ill-versed as it sometimes is — the way he wants the message gotten out, and, as of Sunday, 137,679 people were following him. Listening, presumably. It’s not necessarily an apples-to-apples comparison, but as of June, the circulation of the Cincinnati Enquirer was 188,956. He’s being heard the way he wants to be heard, and by a huge segment of Bengaldom.

Isnt that an amazing stat?  Of course not all 188,000 plus subscribers read the sport section or know what Twitter is. And certainly not all of his 137,000 plus followers even live in Cincinnati, but as someone who got their start in PR, I recognize that Ochocinco’s ability to control his message is perfect. And taking out the reporter, the editor, the story editor, and the managing editor out of the process, in one fell swoop. Poof he is talking directly to HIS people.

Given the often fractious relationship between the media and sports figures, it’s no surprise so many athletes are taking to Twitter.  And for any senior executive at a large company frustrated that they can’t get there message heard, they will be using it too.

The end of PR profession? Hardly. Two things are bound to happen:

1. People with unfettered access to their public are going to quickly realize that they had better have a strategy for that communication or they are going to wind up looking really stupid really quickly. (I am sure it’s already happened we just haven’t seen it yet, but just wait for an athlete to Tweet about doing something illegal.)
2. Many a senior exec is going to realize that no-one actually cares what they have to say and they will need PR to help get that message out, just into new channels.

A good example is that of Oprah and Ashton (no last names needed).  It’s not clear to me that Ashton is truly using his Twitter feed purely for publicity, but he was shameless promoting his current movie, as well as his involvement in a few social causes heavily interspersed with Tweets about going to the park, or hanging with other celebrities. In contrast, Oprah posts infrequently at best, and usually about benign topics with no clear agenda. They both have millions of followers. One has an agenda for how to use the medium, and the other clearly does not.

So the era of mass direct communications is upon us. At last we have a medium to carry our message perfectly and directly to the people without editorial (or advertising).

Or at least as perfect as it can be 140 characters at a time.