links for 2010-07-15

Note that this was just demonstrated as a correlation, nothing more. Nabbing someone as a Facebook fan hasn’t been proven to increase spending in this study. The study just demonstrates that people who become fans of brands are more likely to spend and evangelize. If they liked the brand enough to “Like” it on Facebook, they might have done those things anyway.

Interesting statistics, albeit from US users

References the book "The Invisible Gorilla":
"Meteorologists are in a unique position to consistently get feedback on their ideas and iteratively learn and improve. This is an extremely valuable position to be in. Marketers are also now in such a position – it’s a matter of whether they choose to take advantage of it or not."

"The Invisible Gorilla reveals the numerous ways that our intuitions can deceive us, but it's more than a catalog of human failings."

Feature proliferation is the name of the game in new product development. Most innovation in the market is composed of incremental improvements to what's been done before. Yet those new features often outpace what the consumers actually want. In the case of the Fusion, Gillette had to launch a marketing campaign specifically targeted to their own Mach3 consumers. Instead of campaigning to steal share from competitors, they had to practically beg their own consumers who were plenty happy with the earlier Mach3 to upgrade to the more expensive Fusion. They over-served the market.

As Clayton Christensen argues in the Innovator's Dilemma, the best move when the market is over-served is to innovate from below, not to join the new feature arms race. Less can be more. Simplicity is the killer app.

There is a lot of buzz and excitement related to social media. But remember that for social media to have any real lasting benefit to your brand, you’ve got to make sure it’s based on a solid strategic foundation. Otherwise, social media is just going to gloss over the fundamental strategic weaknesses that have been the demise of many a brand.