strategy Archives - Page 20 of 28

Theatre at transaction, again

Posted on September 23, 2007 by Steve Sammartino

‘God gave rock n roll to you’, but the rock band Kiss gave us much more than rock n roll – they gave us ‘theatre at transaction.’

It was the theatre Kiss gave us which in real terms transformed them from a band to a brand.

Consider the following classic KISS trademarks:

The face make up

The Logo

The clothing & boots

The flying Vee guitars

Gene Simmons breathing fire

Gene Simmons tongue

Gene Simmons vomiting fake blood

The intrigue, the mystery, the disgust….

These resulted in all sorts of spin offs like the Kiss dolls, Kiss comic books Kiss Coke bottles, the Kiss symphony orchestra concerts and even the Kiss army.

The gimmicks didn’t get them there alone, they had some great music. But maybe it was the above factors of the Kiss music experience that kept the band, sorry, ‘brand’ alive for the past 34 years!

The symmetry of hindsight

Posted on September 22, 2007 by Steve Sammartino

We’ve all read the stories about how great start ups and emergent brands got their mojo. In hindsight it always seems so strategic, symmetrical and single minded.

This issue is hindsight. It will be something single minded and symmetrical that works. The problem is this: If we’re single minded from the start, and we get it wrong where does that leave us?

An old Chinese fishing proverb applies here: Cast the net wide.

Try everything.

Try everything quickly.

Find something that works.

Then stick to it in a single minded fashion.

Contrary to most modern marketing and entrepreneurial theories, we need to ‘get single minded, not start single minded.’

We never read about the 100 things any hero brand tried and failed with, only the winning strategy. So it all seems so perfect and well thought out. The truth is, most of the strategic wisdom arrives in hindsight. The more things we try, that greater probability we have of stumbling upon the right strategy – the one that works. But we should never fall in love with the plan before we commence.

It will all seem very strategic, symmetrical and single minded in hindsight.

Keeping promises

Posted on September 13, 2007 by Steve Sammartino

We’ve recently challenged ourselves at rentoid as part of our clustering strategy. We promised our members in ‘Melbourne Australia’ that rentoid has ‘anything’ they could possibly want to rent. Especially given our moniker for Rentoid is “the place to rent anything”. The promise can be seen here.

Some may think this is crazy. The fact is we couldn’t possibly have everything available for rent. But that’s where the depth of idea is:

Here are the possible outcomes:

People search Melbourne and see the depth of items for rent.
They may find what they need, or not.
If they don’t, we have promised to find what they need.

(unless they ask for something like elephant tusks!)

We’ll find what they need by asking other members if they have it, or we’ll find it through other means. In short we’ll keep our promise. We’ll find them what they need.

The idea ensures we stretch ourselves to serve our customers and it gives us an authentic way to create a positive customer experience. Which we hope they’ll talk about.

If you’re in Melbourne, test us!

Simple Permission Marketing

Posted on September 11, 2007 by Steve Sammartino

Here’s a really simple way to execute some permission based marketing. Get a story of your business in a newspaper.

Pages need to be filled. Business writers are interested in reporting on new businesses. Start with a small local newspaper. Tell them why the local community needs to know about your business. We must focus on what’s in it for them – not us.

Most big newspapers are also interested in start ups these days, and even run entrepreneur and enterprise specific sections. So why not go for some big fish:

The New York Times?
The Australian Financial Review?
The Wall Street Journal?
The London Daily Telegraph?

It’s permission based marketing because people choose to read or choose not to read the article. If they do read it, they’re engaged and obviously interested. The article title tells the reader if it’s for them. It’s content, not interuptive advertising. Simple permission marketing.

Here’s the trick: It’s got to be news worthy.

Quote

Posted on September 10, 2007 by Steve Sammartino

Collingwood Football Club president Eddie McGuire offers this retrospective on cheque book recruiting:

“I’ve never seen anyone who won the lotto become *Kerry Packer”

*insert revered businessperson’s name here…

Entrepreneur lesson:

Hoping and luck is never the same as learning, creating and building.

Momentum

Posted on September 6, 2007 by Steve Sammartino

Momentum is the key to the success for any start up.

In classical mechanics, momentum is the product of the mass and velocity of an object. P=mV

The start up blog definition is a bit simpler:

Momentum = How big you are X How quick you do things.

Hence, the momentum of anything will increase if either of the above factors increase while the other factor remains constant. That is, you don’t need both factors to gather momentum.

A small thing moving fast can gather momentum. A big thing moving slowly can gather momentum. This is why big companies (although they react slowly) still have momentum, their mass helps them maintain their forward motion and ulitmate power.

The lesson for start ups is simple;

We want to gather momentum

We are small

We must focus on speed