Canadian Marketing Blog

Be Succint

Wed, 16 May 2012 13:00:47 GMT

An important but often overlooked principal in marketing is the importance of being succinct.

While marketers stress about the exact wording and the presentation of numerous brand benefits, the reality is that consumers are likely to only glance at your ad or skim your message. Details are likely to be lost.

In order to have an impact, you need to be crystal clear with your offering and its benefits because first impressions are fast. I have learned this recently working on a startup where customers have no awareness whatsoever of our brand, but it is equally true for the biggest and best known brands in the world.

Sorry if this post was a bit short, I was trying to be succinct.

Ben Wise

Chat in Real Life: A Conversation with Permanent General Companies (PGC)

Mon, 14 May 2012 13:00:01 GMT

As part of my investigation into real life usage of chat in the contact centre, I reached out to some executives to discuss how they were using it in a real life scenario. The companies that I spoke with have integrated chat directly into their contact centre environment and have made a commitment in technology and in agent training and processes. In speaking with two organizations, I got two very different takes on what technology was in place and how it was being used. But in both cases, I found strong similarities.

Driven by a perceived customer need, both organizations implemented a chat program 'on spec' so to speak - they leapt in with both feet based on a gut feeling that, in the words of Wade Clark, Director of Contact Centres at Permanent General Companies, "it was the right thing to do for our customers".

While ROI was not an upfront requirement for PGC, or "The General" as it's known across the US, they have seen an increase in customer satisfaction metrics from the chat channel, which has stayed consistently higher than the phone or email channels they use.

PGC is still in its infancy with chat - the program was rolled out about 18 months ago using hosted technology from Live Person. "Our volumes are still pretty low", says Clark, "with about 200 chats a day requested, and another 3 to 400 done through fishing". Fishing is the 'proactive chat' model that we’ve discussed previously in our blog series - PGC has specific web pages that they consider to be decision points - customers sitting too long on a payments page, or on coverage information will be asked if they would like some help.

To meet the demand, PGC staffs chat-only agents - or 'chatters' - through the business day of the contact centre. With only three dedicated staff members, each agent will handle up to five simultaneous chats - or occasionally up to ten depending on the volume, experience, and the type of chats that are ongoing. But it is a contact centre function, so at night when the lights go out at the PGC call centre, so does the chat. To keep a consistent customer experience, PGC automatically offers an email when offline and chatters can respond first thing in the morning.

I asked about supporting at home agents for chat to extend the hours, as the technology would easily support it. But Clark told me that PGC agents require an available supervisor to be working at all times in case of escalations, and that wouldn't fly for supporting longer chat hours, even though they felt that due to the nature of the web, there was an implied need to provide extended chat hours.

It was an interesting discussion, but I think the most surprising bit of information I heard from Clark during our conversation was related to the skills that they look for in their chatters. Clark said they initially thought chat would require a similar set of skills to email. And while industry dogma tells us that phone agents and email agents will often require a different set of skills for a call centre, PGC found very quickly that this wasn't true for chat. They found, in fact, that although still written and not verbal - chat skills were much more aligned with the skills found in great phone agents.

This same finding was borne out - not by any statements made - but by the way chat is used by another company I spoke with in Utah. But that's next time!

Rob McDougall, President, Upstream Works Software Ltd.

Digital Philanthropists

Fri, 11 May 2012 13:00:54 GMT

A re-post from May 2. Due to a system error, it is now being re-published to platform.

Launched yesterday, Facebook’s organ donation initiative, which encourages users to list their donor status on their timelines in a bid to reduce waiting times for organ transplants, is the latest in a growing – and heartening - line of web-based philanthropic gestures, from big business and individuals alike.

Of course, charitable donations and acts of altruism have been going on behind the scenes for many years (theBill and Melinda Gates Foundation has donated billions of dollars to global causes since its foundation in 1994, for example). But the advent of multinational, multi-platform digital social networks means that anyone with a charitable cause now has unprecedented opportunities to reach, inspire and secure involvement from millions of like-minded people worldwide.

Philanthropy online works because the concept of ‘giving’ plays to the nature and culture of social networks - ‘sharing’ is an integral part of user behaviour, and spreading the word about worthy causes is second nature to an already socially switched-on audience. Just last month, news of the tragic death of Claire Squires while she was taking part in the London Marathon inspired JustGiving donations for the Samaritans, her chosen cause, from around the world which amount to around $1.2mil – something which could not have been achieved without the reach and responsiveness of the social web.

And this is what fuels JustGiving itself – it’s a simple interface for fundraising which can be posted to the user’s choice of social platform. Key to its success is that its setup makes it easy to give, and its reach makes small donations count. With more than 21 million users raising more than $1billion, it has arguably changed the face of charitable giving. A world away from the occasionally aggressive approaches of ‘chuggers’ in the street and the emotive TV advertising of the global charities, through gentle peer pressure and positive reinforcement, it is encouraging people who may never have given in the past to step up and take part.

As Facebook proved yesterday, it’s not just individuals who are getting involved in this new age of philanthropy – businesses which take their corporate social responsibilities seriously have also tapped in to the opportunities afforded by the internet. Virgin Unite was set up by Richard Branson to tackle world issues and encourage entrepreneurial involvement, and is very open about using the power of the internet to promote ‘business as a force for good’. And Google has an entire arm – google.org – dedicated to developing technologies which will address world challenges.

small>big

However, while all this activity from the corporates is admirable and will undoubtedly make a significant contribution to major charitable causes worldwide, the beauty of the internet is that any business, big or small, can make charity a part of their ethos. Much like the individuals getting involved through JustGiving, smaller enterprises can harness the power of online engagement to promote their own causes. This has the benefit of giving ‘airtime’ to local and personal concerns which may otherwise be neglected in favour of more celebrated causes. It’s as simple as posting an article on your website, tweeting a message of support or taking a leaf out of Mark Zuckerberg’s book and adding something to your brand’s Facebook timeline.

It appears that, despite straitened economic circumstances and a global outlook which is currently less than sunny, the proliferation of ‘giving’ initiatives online has awakened in us a desire to do our best to help those who need it, and a feeling that our contributions, no matter how insignificant, matter. sometimes

Colin Turnbull

You Need Klout

Wed, 09 May 2012 13:00:19 GMT

Klout is a scoring system that weighs the influence of an individual in social media.

There is a great book "Return on Influence - The revolutionary Power of Klout, Social Scoring, and Influence Marketing" by Mark Schaeffer that inspired this post. His book explains Klout and how it works in detail (although the nature of these things is they always keep a mystery about how they arrive at the numbers and they always change).

Klout asks you for access to your blog, Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Flickr etc. They then have an algorithm by what you say and what others say about you to determine a Klout score which they call influence.

The Problems with Klout.

The downside I see to publishing a Klout Score is people may greatly increase their volume (to try to get a higher score) in a world that already has too much information volume. In my opinion, more people need to "do not speak unless you can improve the silence". I even worry myself that sometimes my contribution is not needed or not adding value. People may try to increase their Klout score but not their real influence.

I worry that what get measured gets attention so people may focus too much on social media and not enough on real interaction.

Klout is not yet complete. It misses some of the newer social media sites like HonestlyNow, LoadnVote and Pinterest. It even misses blogs that are not hosted by wordpress or blogger (so would miss the influence this blog has). In time, I am sure they will refine their scoring to be more complete. It freely admits that they are only scoring online so any offline influence is not included.

I worry that people might spend too much time on social media. (On my own blog, I wrote a post on Limit Computer Time)

As with SEO, I worry people will try to figure out how to game the system.

Jim Estill

Planning Tools - Little Change

Thu, 03 May 2012 21:08:34 GMT

Building on my last post regarding the need to bridge branding and strategic planning to ensure meaningful differentiation, I participated in a discussion with a few senior level CMA council members recently. Our session was ‘about’ strategic planning rather than focused on ‘building’ a strategic plan itself. Our discussion covered a range of strategy, branding and planning topics building on our own management experience, client learning and current research. During our discussion, I was struck by how little has changed in the past two decades.

The lack of change in strategic planning processes may speak to the fact that ‘change’ has not been necessary or simply that when it comes to the process of planning itself, organizations simply do not have the time, the focus or required skills to develop new planning tools. No doubt several of us have participated in ‘planning sessions’ with varying degrees of results. Indeed a good moderator in leading a strategic planning session can be very valuable but the planning methodologies themselves are another topic.

While my team continues to inventory current planning practices while building a tool kit to assist Canadian companies in this endeavor, I thought it would be helpful to share an online tool that we found fairly comprehensive in structuring corporate planning:

Developing a Corporate Marketing Strategy: a proven approach and premium tool-kit by Demand Metric

You may also find a recent article on strategic planning and the importance of repetition and differentiation by Chris Zook, Bain Consulting of interest (his latest book "Repeatability" was featured in today's Globe & Mail):

I will continue to post learning and share resources as this exercise in building a tool kit for strategic planning continues to develop over the next few weeks.

Patricia McQuillan

The Way To Women's Wallets

Tue, 01 May 2012 13:00:24 GMT

By now, every marketer knows that women are the CIOs of purchasing decisions, i.e., not only are women key decision-makers on most household purchases, but they are also major influencers in buying decisions for both men's and women's products. For apparel retailers, the million-dollar question becomes: should they market to women's desires or insecurities? The answer is both.

Every man and woman has his or her insecurities - a large number of ultra-luxurious sports cars, particularly convertibles, is owned by boomer men who are trying to compensate for their loss of youth and vitality. For women, who spend hundreds of dollars on workout clothes, they are not just fulfilling their desires to look good, but they want to look even better in clothes they wear while sweating - sports bras, yoga pants and skin-tight tanks. Successful exercise-wear and yoga-apparel retailers capitalize on women's insecurities by providing workout gear that women can feel stylish in - even when they're perspiring.

A lot of retailers make a mistake thinking that women want to impress men. But successful retailers such as Lululemon understand that women want to look good to impress other women instead of men, both inside and outside the gym. According to The Huffington Post Canada, a poll of British women conducted last summer supports the claim that they care far less about impressing the men in their lives with their sartorial decisions. Instead, they dress up - or down - for the ladies.

But in this 21st century when a lot of women out-earn their male counterparts, marketers also strategically target independent, self-sufficient women. Earlier this year, both Citibank and Honda launched major ad campaigns that explicitly pointed to the demographic's financial successes and increasing independence. The new ads sell women the objects of desire they can now afford by presenting the big-ticket items as tools for celebrating their independence rather than attracting a man.

It's about time that marketers should acknowledge women's strengths rather than exploiting their weaknesses. Saluting women's earning power and helping them be aware of this growing power are the only ways to earn a share of their wallets!

Lina Ko

Small Details. Big Difference.

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 01:32:53 GMT

In life you sometimes hear about small details making a big difference.

One example that comes to mind is if you are working with a client or partner, it makes sense to experience their product or service. It's not about blind loyalty. Naturally there are exceptions to this rule (i.e. If you are a healthy adult and you are working with a company that produces laxatives.)

Having said that there are exceptions to the exceptions. What do I mean? I had the privilege to work with Harlequin a few years ago. Naturally, I don't fit the typical Harlequin reader profile but because I worked there, I did read some books as I believed it was important to be familiar with the company's products.

Recently, I was talking to a friend and he told me he still wears a watch. I asked him why because you could just as easily use your mobile device to check the time. I stopped wearing watches a year ago. Joel told me that if you looked at your mobile phone in a meeting it could give the impression you were checking your email or messages. Which appears rude when you should be paying attention to other person. I never thought of that and must admit I could have been unconsciously guilty of that sin in the past.

Of course the detractors may counter that you don't want to look at your watch in a meeting either but at least you can say you were keeping track of time and be somewhat credible when you say it. Again the small details come into play. For what it's worth I’ve tried to remind myself to start wearing a watch again.

I can also recall another example where a certain agency (that shall remain nameless) went into Apple and pitched them armed in tow with Dell laptops using Power Point. I am not making this up. Would it have really been that difficult for the agency to come with Macbooks and use Keynote? Buy them. Rent them. Borrow them. Or maybe even just use a pen and notepad instead?

Another example comes to mind when an agency flew an entire team out to meet the President of a national airline. The President had their executive assistant check the passenger manifests to see if the agency staff were on their flights to give them extra special treatment. The agency staff were not as they had flown in on a competitor airline. Rightly or wrongly the President immediately cancelled the meeting with the agency.

The same thing about small details comes to mind when looking for work. What do I mean? When I was advising an executive who was trying to apply for a job at Yahoo, I reviewed their resume and LinkedIn profile and both were flawless except for one glaring error. It wasn't a typo or grammar. It was their email account.

They were using jane.doe@hotmail.com. They were using a hotmail email account. The same Hotmail owned by Microsoft a fierce rival of Yahoo! in the digital space. How difficult was it to sign-up for a FREE yahoo email account when interviewing with Yahoo? It's akin to walking into a meeting with the Toronto Maple Leafs wearing a Montreal Canadiens tie. Now why anyone would work for the Leafs is beyond me as a Habs fan but I digress. The point is that it's all in the small details.

As marketers and business leaders we have a lot of things to worry about. Keeping mindful of the small details is one of those things we cannot overlook. They often make a big difference between success and failure.

Sulemaan Ahmed

@sulemaan

One Chat Conversation that Passed Like Two Ships in the Night

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 13:00:57 GMT

Like presumably many of you, I’ve used some of the various chat options available through my Internet service providers to varying success. One of my earliest endeavors with chat was on the Bell Sympatico home page. It’s a little better now, but it’s always been a challenge to figure out how to log on to my main DSL account. Bell provided all these other email addresses, and getting to my primary account was frustrating every time I tried to remember how to do it.

Chat to the rescue! As I was trolling around the site trying to find out how to log in, a friendly ‘Chat Now?’ window popped up for me. “Excellent!”, I think. “Some help”.

BELL:    How can I help you today?
ME:        I’m trying to log-in to my master Sympatico billing account and I’m not sure where to
              go.
BELL:    Let me check for you.
BELL:    If you go the Sympatico main page there’s a login at the bottom.
ME:       No, that’s the login for one of the email accounts; I need the login for the billing
              account.
BELL:    Let me check for you.

At this time, I picked up the phone and called Sympatico. I got straight through to a tech support rep who laughed when I asked the question. He’d obviously heard it many times before, and told me the exact URL to go to.

ME:        Thanks. I just called Sympatico and they gave me the URL. For future reference it’s
               xxxxx
ME:        Bye
BELL:     Thanks for using Bell Sympatico

What was interesting was that I was good friends with one of the VPs at Bell Sympatico at the time, so I passed the actual chat log (which has sadly been lost in the mists of time) on to him. His response was that the chat agent was a salesperson who wouldn’t have the technical knowledge required for my question.

In hindsight, this made sense. But since I wasn’t looking to purchase anything, it never even occurred to me that I had a salesperson. I felt that the chat was a waste of time and not useful. The agent never indicated they were in sales and there was no facility in place to be able to provide me the chat support I needed. What I learned is that if you’re going to service your customers with chat, you need to be clear on what you are offering.

Contrast this experience from five years ago with something much more recent with another company. I again had a technical question, and I elected to take the offered Chat. I asked my question, and the agent immediately responded with “Sorry, this is sales. You need to call tech support at xxxxx.” Sub optimal I guess from a customer experience perspective, but at least I was given accurate information.

Rob McDougall, President, Upstream Works Software

Enterprise Features of Contact Centre Chat

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 15:21:31 GMT

When looking at the various chat applications available in the market, one thing becomes very clear. There are a lot of cloud based, easy to implement, multi featured chat applications available to the industry. Basic features like multiple sessions per agent, basic templates and spell checking seem to be the price of entry for any of these companies. A quick Google search will provide you with the names of many hosted or premised based ‘purchased’ solutions. And all with a wide variety of features.

Some of the key features that stuck out to me were in the area of making chat what I would call, ‘enterprise grade’. This takes things into account like the security issues that surround chat implementations, including making sure communications are encrypted over HTTPS so that your customers can send credit card/other personal information across the chat without worrying.

But contact centre features like skills based routing, agent management and reporting are also key components of an enterprise grade chat application. If you are really going to adopt chat as a serious communications mechanism, you really need to be able to manage agents to at least the standard you’ve been managing your call centre to. Imagine if you were trying to run a contact centre with only a basic PBX or key telephony system, with no contact centre features or capabilities. You need to be able to route chats to the best available agent, and track things like chats handled, average chat times, occupancy rates, etc. I get the sense that, as with the forays into social media, the chat channel is managed much more loosely because the volumes are low. But as with email, if you’re serious about providing this as a channel to your customers, you need to be able to manage agents properly, and you need to be able to report on the service you are providing to your customers.

Consider your quality monitoring group. Do you have a ‘chat monitoring’ group (or person)? Do you have chat review standards that must be met by your agents? Do you have the tools with which to do this?

Or – upping the bar – how do you measure FCR (First Chat Resolution)? Consider how you would apply those same tools and concepts to your chat implementation, to make it truly a part of your contact centre and part of an overall managed customer experience. Then throw the wrench into the works. Ensure that you can manage your chat sessions with your customers across channels. When they phone you because they weren’t happy with the chat you can track that interaction set and really understand how well your service is working. Otherwise, you’ve just added another communications silo.

Oh, and don’t forget about the spell check.

Rob McDougall, President, Upstream Works Software

Leaders Now Using Untapped Social Media Tool for Business Success

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 13:37:51 GMT

Podcasts: The Secrets You Need to Know

While Twitter, Facebook and YouTube grab the headlines, businesses from across Canada are now tapping into one technology that has gone virtually unnoticed by the mainstream: podcasts. But, shrewd marketers are moving quickly to tap into this cost-effective form of social media. A Podcast Primer Podcasts are audio or video files that are made available for download online. Subscribers receive regular updates automatically. Unlike television or radio broadcasts, which are constrained by specific airing schedules, subscribers can listen to podcasts at any time, in any location and on any device that plays sound files. Podcasts are listened to during commutes, in the gym, during leisure times, during business meetings and in book-group like settings. That flexibility and portability translates into numbers that are grabbing the attention of marketers.

Podcast "Killer Stat"

According to international research companies, soon over 20% of all Internet users will be regularly listening to podcasts. In fact, Edelman, one of Canada’s largest public relations firms, is leveraging podcasts to help their national brand name clients be heard. Managing Director, Sylvain Perron at Edelman Digital Canada comments, “Podcasts offer the opportunity for brands to engage with a highly targeted audience in a very dynamic way and build real value around what matters to their audience.”

Podcasts and Purchase Behaviour: Two More Killer Stats

For leaders of national brands across industries, the true power of podcasts is the undeniable impact they have on purchase behaviours. The Association for Downloadable Media just announced findings from independent research that 90% of listeners had taken some kind of action as a result of podcast advertising or sponsorship. Furthermore, 40% reported actually purchasing products or services as a result of listening to podcasts. This finding is truly a wake-up call to everyone in charge of marketing or advertising dollars. These results also explain why podcast advertising spending is on track to reach over $435 million within two years.

How to Get Your Podcast Right

While businesses are quickly hopping onto the podcast bandwagon, there are a handful of secrets that will help ensure your success. First, successful podcasts provide unique and powerful content, so the more relevant the content, the better. Second, research shows that podcast listeners build a strong bond of trust with podcast hosts. As a result, businesses need to leverage this loyal relationship. Third, podcasts are, in part, successful because they deliver content according to the listeners’ timetable rather than a broadcaster’s timetable. As a result, podcast content needs to have a long shelf-life in addition to being informative and entertaining. Podcasts are valuable business tools that are here to stay. In today’s competitive environment, marketers that learn how to use podcasts to establish and strengthen their relationships with their customers, prospects and employees have a decided business advantage.

Andrew Brown

A Critical Trend for B2B Marketer Success: The Expansion of Marketing's Role

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 13:37:35 GMT

As the co-producer and co-host of The BusinessCast Podcast, I am fortunate to hear the thoughts and business insights of presidents, founders and CEOs of some of North America's most innovative companies. Across many of my most recent discussions with these leaders, I've noticed an important trend that is having a tremendous impact on all B2B marketers.

That critical trend: leaders' definition of marketing has once again evolved, or more accurately, extended into more areas within business including, Operations, Finance and Human Resources.

This isn't completely unexpected. After all, over the last few years, marketers have been stretched into taking on different roles and responsibilities. For instance, many of the nation's fastest-moving and most innovative companies call upon their marketers to be grouped within or tightly aligned with sales departments. In response to this re-framing, successful B2B marketers have modified their programs and campaigns to incorporate sales metrics targets, technologies and functions.

Now, with the tail of the recession still hanging on, leaders are increasingly demanding their B2B marketers be more closely aligned with the demands of their business' core operations. The result: B2B marketers are on the hot seat to bring new value to their companies by taking actions that identify operational efficiencies. This compels B2B marketers to demonstrate a real impact on the bottom line. One method for achieving this goal is for B2B marketers to gather (and make sense of) customer and prospect feedback -- from online and offline sources -- and identify opportunities for process improvement.

At the same time, B2B marketers are being increasingly expected to develop campaigns that accommodate the financial ebbs and flows of their companies. For example, B2B marketers must speak to issues that directly impact the income statement (e.g. when cash is realized) and issues that shape the balance sheet (e.g. whether investments in marketing technologies are better allocated as fixed or variable costs). Finally, B2B marketers are now expected to be knowledgeable about aspects of human resources. For example, it is increasingly common for B2B marketers to have a hand in shaping and measuring recruiting methods since widely used recruitment tools (e.g. LinkedIn, websites, Facebook, etc.) and core messages are associated with marketing.

Over the last several years, B2B marketers have made great strides in being included at the Executive table. With leaders expecting B2B marketers to have a vastly expanded range of business expertise, now is the time for B2B marketers to demonstrate that they do indeed bring value at the most strategic level.

Andrew Brown

Leveraging Podcasts to Engage Customers: FAQs

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 13:37:19 GMT

Recently, I was invited to present to a group of B2B marketers who wanted to tap into the unique power of social media. What was refreshing was that they didn't want me to cover the usual topics found in most "Social media 101" sessions -- i.e. LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Because they had done some research about their market (i.e. Canadian businesses with revenues of $10 M or more), they concluded that the best way to truly connect with their current and future clients meant leveraging the only social media tool that continues to experience exponential growth: podcasts.

Because the issues covered in that discussion are applicable to every business evaluating how to best use podcasts to engage key decisions makers and influencers, here is a summary of the most frequently asked questions and the corresponding answers.

Q: What kind of results can we expect from leveraging a targeted, well-planned and well-executed podcast? A: You can expect customers to take action. In fact, 90% of loyal podcast listeners take some sort of action based on the sponsors and product content found in podcasts. What's even more astonishing is that for 40% of loyal podcast listeners, that action translates into actual purchase behaviour. That's why podcasts are growing at a tremendous rate and why podcast advertising will approach $500 million within the next 18 months.

Q: What is it that makes for an effective podcast?

A: If we define effective as consistently engaging targeted listeners, then the key component is content. Specifically, the content needs to be relevant, focused and delivered in a timely fashion. At the same time, there is a new complexity. Specifically, since podcasts are downloaded multiple times over a long period of time, it is very common for people to listen to episodes several months after it was originally produced. This extended lifespan serves podcast sponsors very well since they want to see their products, services and brand have virtually limitless mentions. But it also means that podcast content should be developed with a long "shelf-life" in mind.

Q: What length should podcasts be?

A: Ultimately, the answer comes down to the market-specific research that you gather as to when your intended/current podcast listeners are engaging in the content. For example, many podcast producers find that their episodes are being listened to during commutes to and from work. It is also very common for podcast listeners to turn on their favourite shows during work-outs, walks, lunch breaks and "quiet times".

Q: Should we start our own podcast or leverage the success of another podcast?

A: The key question really is, "do you have the time and resources to develop and sustain good content, distribute it and promote it?" Many marketers simply don't have the time to sustain current social media efforts (i.e. blogs, Facebook updates, Twitter conversations, etc.). Unfortunately, there are few if any agencies that have developed a strong grounding in producing and measuring podcasts. As a result, it often makes sense to look to the topics/industry issues that your audience faces. Then, begin by piggy-backing on an existing podcast. You can always look to develop your own podcast once you've achieved some success working with a podcast that has established its credibility within key subject areas or with specific audiences.

Q: Since we haven't seen any tangible success with our other social media efforts, should we reduce our involvement with those tools (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, etc.) and replace them with podcasts?

A: First, confirm the metrics of success and the methods by which you are collecting and analyzing the results of your current social media efforts. If after analyzing your results, you are confident that your results are not worth your efforts (i.e. time and resources), go back to your audience and conduct research to determine if and how they want to engage with you, your product and your brand. It also makes sense to test receptivity before eliminating your current tools. It's quite possible, depending on the audience, that successful customer engagement will require leveraging podcasts because they can be listened to rather than calling upon customers to read. If you have any questions -- or want to share any insights -- about how to make your podcast a successful customer engagement tool, please let me know.

Andrew Brown

Finding the Silver Lining: A Primer for Cloud Marketing

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 13:37:02 GMT

In the last two years, cloud computing has strengthened its hold on the imaginations of even the most conservative C-suites. The financial and operational benefits of implementing cloud-based solutions have become too dramatic to postpone. In fact, according to a study released by Microsoft last month, over 40% of Canadian businesses (of up to 250 employees) will soon be investing in cloud computing. And, given that larger enterprises can quickly achieve exponential benefits because of their size and scale, they too are jumping onto the cloud.

As a result of this surge, over the last several months I have spoken with leaders in marketing cloud-based products/services and carefully sifted through analysts' insights in order to distil a set of principles for any marketer who finds themselves marketing in this dynamic field. Here is a quick summary of the essentials when marketing cloud-based software-as-a-service (and infrastructure-as-a-service) offerings: Your Targeted Audience. The key decision-makers and influencers include the CIO, the CTO, Director of Technology, Senior Technology Infrastructure Manager, and technology infrastructure procurement professionals. While your offerings target a core business benefit (i.e. reducing cost), the bottom line is that the CEO is likely neither a decision-maker nor an influencer in this arena.

Your Most Effective Strategy. Strategies that have successfully attracted the attention of technology-purchasing influencers and decision-makers include those that shift from campaign-centric communication to two-way dialogues -- around key industry issues. As a result, you should initiate and increase on-going engagement with clients and prospects. This will include creating and maintaining customer-centric destinations that help prospects and clients share their insights, best practices and identify new products/services. You should use highly personalized email, issues-focused webinars, search marketing, online customer-focused forums, conferences and virtual events to drive participation.

Your Most Effective Communication Channels. In general, senior I.T. professionals gravitate to virtual trade shows, rich Internet applications, tech support forums, discussion groups, ratings and review sites such as Digg, delicious and StumbleUpon, interactive/3D demonstrations, podcasts and wikis. However, there are some additional considerations if you're targeting specific industries. For example, if your cloud solution is aimed at technology professionals in the media industry, tap into their preferred channels which include blogs, ratings and review sites. And, if you are trying to connect with technology buyers in the retail and wholesale industries, use private and online community sites.

Your Most Powerful Messages. Messages that have resonated with B2B technology decision-makers and purchasers have focused on the short-term, mid-term and long-term benefits of adopting cloud technologies (e.g. SaaS and IaaS solutions). High-level messages that you should emphasize include: (i) the fast time-to-value by leveraging the immediate availability of cloud computing services without making capital commitments; (ii) the improved balance sheet positioning by shifting fixed technology-related costs to variable costs; and (iii) the improved business flexibility by matching computing resources to current business needs as a method to fund revenue generating initiatives and stay ahead of competitors.

Your Most Difficult Challenges. While cloud computing is being widely adopted, there still remains "cloud confusion". In other words, many of your would-be clients/customers, advocates and partners are just now getting their heads around what defines "cloud". This suggests that you will need to adopt an authoritative educator stance --- evangelizing and reinforcing messages that address the most common concerns about using pay-per-use hosting, including: security/privacy (i.e. data protection, network vulnerability), service availability, potential personnel issues with providers, belief that current total costs are cheaper, the complexity involved in integration and insecurity around regulatory restrictions. Cloud-based solutions are here to stay. Using these guidelines will help your marketing and sales initiatives find the silver lining. For examples of great Canadian cloud-based success stories, check out Ceryx (www.Ceryx.com) and/or listen to an interview with Tenzing Managed I.T. Services' President Founder and CEO, Brian Shepard.

Andrew Brown

The Next Phase in Transforming Your Brand: Product-ize

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 13:36:46 GMT

While companies have always needed to sustain a strong and positive reputation to succeed, today, every business leader also needs to manage their own personal brand. Given that information is so widely and quickly shared online, it's easy for even the most brand-savvy executive to find themselves being portrayed in ways that are either inaccurate, or worse, potentially damaging.

The good news is that leaders can adopt a proven strategy that builds a relevant and dynamic reputation that is right for them and their company. That strategy, which is rooted in product management, begins with the recognition that every person is more than a brand -- i.e. the way that you are thought of or spoken about by others -- they are, in fact, a product. This alters the way you should market yourself. For example, if you were simply marketing a brand online, you would focus on shaping key messages (e.g. Steve Jobs is known as an innovator who is obsessed with perfection). You would limit yourself to being concerned with the language used to describe you, where that conversation takes place, and who you are associated with. But, marketing yourself as a product, means you address what it is you actually do -- your features and functionality -- along with how this brings value to your clients, your colleagues, your profession or your community (e.g. Steve Jobs leads one the world's most inventive companies which consistently yields better-than-expected dividends).

According to Simon Brightman, a much sought-after product management expert, "Successful senior executives have embraced a product management approach because it is based on results, profitability and the ability to adapt." To present yourself successfully as a product means following a proven five phase process:

Phase I: Idea Generation.

In this phase conduct some initial research. Also, contact relevant associations and identify those people who are thought of as highly successful. With these findings in hand, identify your own strengths and weaknesses as well as opportunities and threats. Finally, develop possible visions of you as a product -- i.e. what are some of the things that you will do and how that fills a particular market's need.

Phase 2: Assessment and Prioritization.

Based on the ideas that you develop in the first phase, get some feedback. Also use friends and colleagues to help you determine if what you plan to do is actually in-line with who you are. "This is one of the most critical phases when defining yourself as a product", according to Jeff Hendler of Toronto-based professionals, The Product Accelerators. He continues, "To effectively transform yourself into a successful product means knowing your true capabilities and how you approach problems."

Phase 3: Product Development.

Once you know what it is you are planning to do, start pulling together the resources required to build you as a marketable product. That means adding new skills, pursuing specialized accreditations and identifying those people or organizations that will play a role in marketing you. For example, reach out to colleagues and have them write strong recommendations for you on your LinkedIn profile. It's at this stage that you should also be developing and testing the kinds of messages that you want to emphasize when promoting yourself.

Phase 4: Launch.

Now that you are a well-defined and tested product, it's time for you to systematically introduce yourself to the market that will benefit most by what it is that do. Gather initial feedback to see how you are being perceived. Determine if you are being embraced by your target markets.

Phase 5: Refine.

Based on the results from the launch phase, look to refine your core offering. "Refinement and adjustment are the keys to the longevity of a product. People forget that today's iPod has gone through nearly a dozen iterations. The same is true when defining yourself as a product", says Brightman. "Collecting feedback and a commitment to constantly improve has turned the iPod into a game changing product." Going through these steps will help you to present yourself as a product, leading to even more potential to succeed.

Andrew Brown

Bridging Branding and Strategic Planning

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 13:00:57 GMT

The case can be made for more focus on strategic planning and brand building during 2012 and beyond. To that end, I am working with a few members of the CMA Branding & Strategic Planning Council on a strategy planning tool kit with a focus on successful brand building. During the course of this exercise, I came across several articles and on-line videos, which I found quite good, with this Blog I thought I would share a few of the highlights.

“…fueled by global adoption of social, mobile, and other new technologies--and our visibility about the future is declining. From the rise of Facebook to the fall of Blockbuster ... predicting what will happen next has gotten exponentially harder. Uncertainty has taken hold in boardrooms and cubicles, as executives and workers struggle with core questions: Which competitive advantages have staying power?" (Fast Company, February 2012)

A key finding in strategic planning as it pertains to brand building, is that the context of strategic planning is in the process of being re-shaped through unprecedented external economic influences. Ensuring that your brand is connected to your business goals and strategically differentiated in the minds of your target audiences is more important than ever before.

“Strategy is about what defines our business and makes us different. What unique position will we be able to achieve, what advantage will we take.” (Michael Porter, Professor, Harvard Business School)

The traditional competitive framework may have to be expanded to include new and more variables to ensure successful brand differentiation.

Let's see where our work takes us with this exciting new CMA Council research initiative.

Patricia McQuillan

Uses of Live Chat

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 13:00:04 GMT

As a contact centre professional, I’ve come across various applications of chat technology. I’ve worked with a handful of online retailers and thus far the most common use of chat has been to answer frequently asked questions. Chat has been useful as a tool to deflect calls for basic questions. Typically, the answers to these questions can be found on the website and the customer just needs a bit of help getting to that section of the site. A simple page push with a link to the FAQ section usually does the trick. Alternatively, you can reply directly to the customer with a canned response.

Examples of frequently asked questions can include:
a. What is your return policy?
b. What is your shipping policy?
c. Do you ship internationally?
d. Are volume discounts available?
e. What are your payment options?
f. What are your hours of operation?
g. Where are you located?
h. What promotions are you currently running?

I’ve also seen chat used as a sales tool to proactively engage customers. Though this use of chat is successful, it is important to test your business rules for proactive engagement here. An overly aggressive or premature chat invitation to sell or up-sell a customer can cost you the transaction. Be specific with your engagement rules and frequently review your results. I would even recommend doing some A-B testing with multiple models to find out which one yields the best results.

Chat can also be used as a tier 1 technical support tool to provide a basic level of support. This form of support can again include answers to basic troubleshooting/frequently asked questions or a page push reference to an online user manual. With co-browsing features, users can sometimes have a tech support agent remote control into their computer to troubleshoot the problem. Chat can also be a useful tool to help customers fill out support tickets for a follow up by a support technician later on. It is important with this model to always provide an escalation avenue if the problem isn’t resolved. Typically this can be in the form of a call with reference to a support ticket so the technician can pull up the customer’s notes.

What other uses of chat have you seen? What challenges have you come across? What successful sales chat models have you seen?

Kien Quach, AVP, Sales, NCO Group

Designing For Mobile - Best Practices for Superior User Experiences

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 13:42:48 GMT

Responsive design, UI, UX, rendering, information architecture… if you speak with anyone in the mobile or web space nowadays you will certainly cover the topic of user experience. That’s because the user experience is critical to success on mobile or web, and becoming increasingly important everyday as new devices proliferate the market and people on the move have less patience for poorly designed sites and apps.

Regardless of your involvement on a mobile project, a great user experience should be the goal for all of us who work in mobile. That’s because good design ensures end users find what they need and repeat visit – and that just makes good business sense.

User experience,aka UX, is common practice on many desktop websites but its only starting to take hold on mobile; when you visit the majority of web sites from a mobile device most are laid out for presentation on desktop size displays and exploit capabilities of desktop browsing software like flash which doesn’t work on smartphones or most tablet devices. Accessing such a Web page on a mobile device often results in a poor or unusable experience.

So how do we fix this? Through a little bit of technology, a little bit of art and a few little tricks of the trade. Below you’ll find some tips to help you overcome mobile design challenges and create brilliant experiences users will love and that will support your business objectives on mobile.

Know Your Purpose
Think Small But Don’t Shrink Down
Consider All Shapes & Sizes
Be Light
Touchy Feely Mechanics
Context in Context

1. Know Your Purpose
Each business will have different objectives or goals, i.e. to sell more, be more useful, communicatein a more targeted way, etc. By clearly defining objectives and then considering how mobile could help achieve them – differently than a desktop could – will set the foundation for what features and functions your mobile experience should encompass.

In broad strokes the three major benefits mobile will give your business are: Simplicity, Immediacy & Context.

Have you considered how using mobile could speed up a process like selling pizza? How it could take advantage of where the user is located - be it at that moment or in relation to your business/offering? How you could capitalize on in the moment requests for information like a song name? As you answer these questions you will get closer to what you need to build. Be sure to write these objectives and goals down and share with the whole project team. Being on the same page will also ensure your whole team creates the mobile experience you need.

2. Think Small But Don’t Shrink Down
Because of the limited screen size, content on a pagewill quickly fall below the fold (visible screen) and may need considerable scrolling to be visible, especially if the top of the page contains images and navigation links. That means people may not immediately know just by looking quickly at the page if they are in the right place.

With less real estate on mobile, each part is more valuable so carefully consider what to include for a person who is accessing the experience through mobile. Consider what it would be like for a 2500 sq foot house to be squeezed into a property that’s 750 sq foot in size. In order to keep all the bedrooms, bathrooms and basement there you would have to shrink everything down to an unusable size! That wouldn’t work for anyone. But if you think about what someone who is looking for a small space may want and need, then you could design the appropriate layout.

There are a couple simple design tips to make the most out of limited space. First, hide the mobile browser only calling it up when someone scrolls or moves to the top of the page. It represents approximately 60pixels of valuable real estate that isn’t actually needed by users all of the time. Second, consider the use of collapsible/expendable lists where possible. This allows for you to present all the options on the screen and expose more detail on that same page when requested by users.

Above all, decide what’s needed in your experience and lay it out appropriately to the space you have available. Help users create a mental image of the site/experience as quickly as possible. A consistent style with visual cues, titles and/or clear navigation are critical signposts for users.

3. Consider all Shapes & Sizes
Small, medium, large.
Vertical and horitzontal views.
480x360, 960x540, 1024x600 resolution.
4”, 3.5”, 3.3”, 7.0”, 10.1” across.

Mobile has a reputation of being complex to build for, partlydue to the differences in technology and often due to the various screen sizes and resolutions. Just when we thought we had it figured out with smartphones and the browsers have gotten better, along come tablets.
There are a few different ways to handle this problem. One way is to design native downloadable mobile applications which are custom designed for devices and operating systems. For the right purpose, this may be the solution, but it could be cost prohibitive if you want to achieve very wide reach.

If you are designing for the wide reaching web, you have to be at least a little more general because of the sheer number of devices that will be searching for and pulling up your site. The biggest concern really is width (height could be scrolled so it's a little less important). You could handle this issue by either designing for a mid-size device to lessen the amount of resizing the browser has to do but it will leave a lot resizing up to the device browsers. An alternative is to bucket devices into categories, i.e. if a screen size is over X width or specify the devices, and then build slightly different layouts for them. This takes more work but if you have a lot of images and graphics that need to appear in a certain order and can’t be shrunk down too much you’ll want to define the layout, it may be worthwhile.

This same thinking also applies to tablets. Tablets are not just big smartphones. Arguably, many of them are even getting close to the size of many laptops screens. If the business case could be made, consider creating a tablet-friendly page layout or audit your desktop site to see if it would be suitable.

Some companies choose to address the shape and size issue by adopting a hybrid approach, which combines standard web techniques with native device functionality. There are a number of different platforms that could be used to leverage a device’s native capabilities with the speed of web development but it is worth noting that none are perfect yet - some browsers or functionality may not be supported. That said, very few things in mobile are compatible and optimized across 100% of devices so if you can accept the limitations, this may be the right interim step until HTML5’s promise of true cross-platform compatibility is realized and web apps are able to access native device services.

Speaking of HTML5… by coding sites in HTML5 it is getting easier to create pages that resize automatically according to the browser and device size. This does require a higher degree of sophistication in your page coding and the pages will still constrained by a web browser’s user interface controls (it could still look like a web page not a slick highly designed app and then there’s the issue of older web browsers in the market). But if your focus is on people who are on the newest devices and you don’t want to leverage native capabilities, then this could be the right direction for you.

4. Be Light
The speed of mobile networks is increasing annually but it can be slow compared with fixed data connections. This can lead to long page times, especially for lengthy content and for content that requires a lot of navigation between pages. What’s more, after the wait some devices may not support the content types that are being requested. Add to that the mobile data charges a person may be racking up as they browse through your site and you may have a negative experience on your hands that you never intended.

When designing for mobile, try to limit the amount of content on each page and use lower resolution images. Striking a balance between keeping the page weight down and number of pages to click through is a bit of an art, depending on what you are trying to showcase so test some variations to see what’s right for you. A good rule of thumb though is most mobile webpages are under 30KB. Consider that the average desktop webpage is approximately 1MB and you will have some pairing back to do!

5. Touchy Feely Mechanics
Mobile device input is often more difficult than desktop devices that are equipped with a keyboard and mouse. Phones and tablets often have limited keypads that require switching between letters, numbers and symbols;may have small touch pads; frequently have no pointing devicerather just scroll pads or finger gestures.

Because of the limitations of the small screen and input mechanics, forms are hard to fill in, URLs are difficult to enter, switching between tabs or applications requires extra steps, punctuation requires commitment and precision counts for a lot.

When designing the page, consider that some people may be using their fingers so extra space is requires for ease of selection. Keep asks for information down to a minimum by: prepopulating fields, leveraging search capabilities, offering multiple choice, pulling information from the device like location, using QR codes/SMS, linking for URLs and finding new pages. And don’t forget back buttons and undo features! Mistakes will happens – make it easy to back out of them.

On larger screen devices like tablets, consider some more natural gesture behavior like wipes, flips and accelerometer features that incorporate movement that is already known in our daily lives and makes the experience more humane and easier to do repeatedly or quickly.

6. Context in Context
People using mobile devices typically have different interests than users of fixed or desktop devices.For instance they are likely to have more immediate and goal-directed intentions than desktop Web users, often intending to find out specific pieces of information that are relevant to their context, be it comparative prices on a TV they are shopping for or requiring specific information about schedules for a public transit bus trip they are in the midst of taking.

Because of the fact that people on mobile devices are often in situ, they are typically less interested in lengthy documents or in general browsing (though the latter does happen when filling time on the bus, at restaurants waiting for guests,etc). When you consider where people are when they are searching/using your mobile experience it will help determine some of the functions and features you will want to include to make the experience best for them. For example, add the ability to review a product after a person made a purchase, use a QR Code reader to scan a barcode for more product information, bring location or timetable information front and center on a site if that’s the most valuable features to a user.

Mapping the use cases to the mobile experiences will help ensure the user experience corresponds to the context and the user responds to the experience!

Summary
As with all digital technologies – things will continue to change and evolve. Over time, people’s expectations and the devices they are delivered on will change too. To keep up with these changes, update or tweak your mobile experiences regularly. Consistently track and measure your site/app experiences to confirm that you are meeting your goals or uncover places to improve the experience.

The beauty of mobile technologies is that it brings us closer than ever to people who want to interact with our brand, service and products. Make the most of that opportunity by putting the user’s experience at the forefront to ensure you make the most of this lasting relationship.

Ariela Freed, Digital Marketing Director, Maritz Canada

---------------
Sources include:
W3C Best Mobile Web Practices
Forrester Mobile Channel Strategy, 2011
Wired “Best Practices in Mobile User Experience Design”, September 2009
Mobile Websites, Tablet Apps and Hybrids: 7 Mobile Strategy Tips for 2012

What is Your Resume Missing?

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 13:00:51 GMT

When did managing a brand become so complicated? Good brand management used to mean crafting the right positioning and going to market using well-understood media channels. Those simple days are over.

Today's brand managers face a business environment where global issues, emerging technologies and newly empowered consumers make selling a product or service into a complex proposition. They're contending with a mix of issues and market forces – weak economies, climate change and social media as just a few examples – that makes even five years ago look like a simpler time.

Marketers who want to stay competitive with or even outpace their peers will need to master a set of skills well beyond those on yesterday’s job description.
Here are three areas of expertise that brand managers hoping to become brand leaders should add to their resumes:

Issues expert
A weighty 81% of consumers feel that companies have a responsibility to address social and environmental issues beyond their local communities, as reported by the 2011 Cone/Echo CR Opportunity Study. Performance on these measures influence purchase decisions: a majority of consumers surveyed had purchased a product with an environmental benefit (76%) or associated with a cause (65%) or boycotted a company seen to be behaving irresponsibly (56%).

Brand managers need to become knowledgeable about the issues most relevant to their industry, whether it's recycling, water conservation, community involvement or the treatment of employees. Those insights can be used to formulate a differentiating strategy and establish an emotional connection with consumers.

Community builder
It's no longer enough to acquire customers. Now brands need to convert consumers into advocates, superfans, loyalists, tribes; a community of interest powered by social media and triggering word-of-mouth endorsements.

Unfortunately, the majority of brands are still struggling with the many-to-many model of social media. As found by an A.T. Kearney study, only 5% of the posts by top global brands on Facebook actually engaged consumers in discussions; the rest were one-way transmissions.

Brand managers need to appreciate the need for vibrant communities and understand the role of social channels. This means getting to know the major platforms – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Google+ and others – as indispensable marketing tools.

Crisis manager
When corporate agendas combine with social responsibility issues in the digital space, the mix can be toxic to brand reputations. Missteps, whether they're real or perceived, can quickly spiral out of control in real time across Facebook pages and Twitter feeds.

Oxford Metrica estimates that most companies will lose more than a fifth of their value every five years as a result of a major crisis. And this doesn't take into account the damage done to a career by an issue gone awry. The challenge for brand managers is to understand the risk factors, watch for signs of an escalating situation and have a crisis management plan at the ready.

Each new era in marketing comes with new skills to master. In 2012 and beyond, the successful leaders will be those who are able to juggle roles – issues expert, community builder and crisis manager – as the occasion demands.

Stephanie Myers

Chat as a Service Tool

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 13:00:11 GMT

This is the first in an ongoing series from the CMA Contact Centre Council which offers insight into the state of the industry and some best practices for the channels used most commonly by agents and customers alike.

I’m a big fan of live chat. I use it when I shop online and need customer service. I find it convenient, instantaneous and simple.

I recently purchased a set of headphones online from a major electronics retailer’s website. After reading a few reviews, I found the headphones I wanted and placed them into my online shopping cart. Just before finalizing my checkout, a chat window popped up inviting me to chat with a customer service representative. I accepted the invitation and started chatting with a rep. named Sarah. She thanked me for my order and suggested I add another item to my shopping cart to qualify for the company’s free shipping offer. I saved my order and went back to find an iPad screen protector to qualify for free shipping. Needless to say, I was happy with my online shopping experience that day. I went to the website, found what I was looking for, was provided great customer service, got free shipping and then I was done.

As a contact centre professional, I’ve always recommended chat to my customers as a way to right channel, improve customer satisfaction & optimize contact centre costs. Chat has been consistently proven to be a powerful contact centre channel and tool.

To take a step back however, let’s take a look at what chat is.

Chat from a customer service and contact centre perspective can be thought of as a web based messaging tool used to facilitate a real time conversation through typing. This tool today is often used as a channel for customer service in conjunction with phone, email & social media, as part of an organization’s multi-channel/right channeling strategy (serving customers through the most effective channel for that particular interaction and relationship). Some of the popular chat platforms used today include LivePerson, ATG & Bold Chat.

There are three generations of live chat. Let’s take a look at them. (Source: LivePerson)

First generation live chat is static and reactive. This type of chat can be thought of as a static click-to-chat button found on a webpage; when clicked, a chat conversation is initiated by the visitor with a chat customer service representative. First generation chat is better suited for low volumes of chat activity, using this type of chat on a high volume site can create service level challenges if the contact centre is not properly staffed.
Second generation chat is conversely dynamic and proactive. With this type of chat, click-to-chat buttons can be turned on and off depending on agent availability. Simple rules can be programmed to proactively engage a customer; for example, if the visitor has been idle on a specific page or during the checkout phase. From a contact centre staffing standpoint, second generation chat improves service levels by allowing you to control the flow of chats to your customer service team.
Similar to second generation chat, third generation chat is also dynamic and proactive. The key differentiator here is the business rules for engagement. Third generation chat deploys sophisticated customized business rules such as repeat customer, authenticated customer, customer geography, websites previously visited information. Because of its ability to leverage analytics, third generation chat helps improve overall customer experience by engaging the right customers at the right time. This further helps contact centre managers with the flow of chat volumes.

Learn more about the evolution of live chat checkout.

I am wondering what successes and challenges other contact centre professionals have had with live chat. How was the technology implemented? Have you seen uplift in CSAT scores and sales conversions? Are you utilizing analytics driven chat? Have you had success with click-to-call? How are you integrating chat with your social media strategy? Have you integrated chat with any other technologies?

Kien Quach, AVP, Sales, NCO Group

Contagion

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 13:00:14 GMT

Excitement is contagious. Even more than the plague of colds and flu that seems to be taking over all of our offices this year. It creates an unseen energy that fuels everyone further. To work smarter, try harder, do more. It is a contagion that all of us need to work at bottling – no matter what industry we work in - and it is a most powerful and exhilarating concoction to be a part of.

I have had the privilege this year of working with a client undergoing a major transformation – to launch a new company that was previously comprised of 13 unique divisions, and bringing them together under one new company name (Tervita), with a strong and bold new purpose and vision. We were essentially marketing a $4 billion startup. When in your career do you have such an opportunity? On the agency side we were intimately involved in the marketing activities and developing the creative campaign to surround the launch and evolution – but we were only on the sidelines cheering as our clients tackled the rest of the mountain.

The energy leading up to the launch was unbelievable. And not just because this company has a strong corporate purpose (vision of "Earth Matters" as the rallying cry behind what they do to ensure the oil & gas industry operates in the most environmentally protective manner), but due to the sheer magnitude of the launch itself. The work effort that everyone together put in – through long nights and many weekends – was a team effort that could be applauded. If this kind of teamwork could be harnessed across every client and agency on an ongoing basis, the productivity of this country would be second to none…. although the personal lives would perhaps be pretty limited, and while the travel industry may collapse as a result, the sales of coffee and energy drinks could potentially skyrocket… BUT – back to what I was talking about – if there were a way of harnessing that energy – the teamwork of moving mountains to accomplish a common goal – our work lives would be phenomenal. So why can we not always make it happen? Why does it take something big for this common energy to come to life?

On the day of our client launch, where they brought 4,100 employees together to announce the change, the buzz in the company and the energy of the team was palpable. There were cheers and tears. There was appreciation of everyone – with thank you notes, pats on the back, and genuine mutual respect and gratitude for making it happen. I went home that day with a smile on my face, and the reminder of just why I am in this business. It is amazing to be a part of something this huge – and understandable why the energy can be maintained to fuel it. It just plain feels good.

So – how do we carry more of this through our work lives every day? How do we harness the contagion? We won’t always have a major corporate launch to build up to – but there are always tactics, always strategies, and always more great ways of doing amazing things. We just need to bottle that energy and mutual respect and bring it to work with us every day. If any of you know the recipe, please share.

Vicki Waschkowski