Just read an interesting article on the NYTimes.com, “Is It Time To Retrain Business Schools?” that analyzes how much of a role the teaching at B-schools may have had to do with the current economic collapse.
“Critics of business education have many complaints. Some say the schools have become too scientific, too detached from real-world issues. Others say students are taught to come up with hasty solutions to complicated problems. Another group contends that schools give students a limited and distorted view of their role — that they graduate with a focus on maximizing shareholder value and only a limited understanding of ethical and social considerations essential to business leadership.“
Something that really caught my eye was that: “A study of cheating among graduate students, published in 2006 in the journal Academy of Management Learning & Education, found that 56 percent of all M.B.A. students cheated regularly — more than in any other discipline. The authors attributed that to “perceived peer behavior” — in other words, students believed everyone else was doing it.”
And yet another survey found that b-school students actually felt LESS confident in solving workplace ethical issues during their time in school.
“The challenge for a lot of business schools is how to develop leaders and not managers,” said James Tran, a candidate for an M.B.A. and a master’s in public administration at Harvard.
I never went to business school, so I can’t really say anything negative about it from personal experience, but it’s always been my belief that no matter how much theory you learn in school there isn’t any substitute for real world experience. I’m not saying that one is better than the other, but I do think that overemphasis on one type of learning can really skew your thinking.
FYI – I already graduated from Miami Ad School’s Account Planning program on March 19th, so the classes I’m writing about in these posts actually took place a few weeks ago.
I’m going to combine Weeks 9 & 10 in this post since I really want to move on to writing about Agency Tours in NYC the week after graduation and some other things.
Anyway, our Planning instructor for Week 9 was Neal Arthur from Wieden + Kennedy NYC. Neal started us off with a great quote,
“Don’t give then what they want. Give them what they never believed was possible.” — Orson Welles
A couple key things that Neal said that resonated with me were:
1) New business pitches are the best, biggest and most grueling opportunities that a Planner can have
2) Work with as many new business pitches as possible
3) When you get a new business call, it’s because something’s broken with the client
Our instructor for Week 10 was Liam from Hall & Partners, which is now primarily a brand and communications research agency. Nice quote:
“Clients often use research the same way a drunkard uses a lamppost – for support instead of illumination.” — David Ogilvy
A few things that stood out this weekend:
Just because it’s quant doesn’t mean it can’t tell a story
Focus groups should not be boring – they should be fun!
There are certain challenges when working with clients:
Lack of resources – not enough money; not enough manpower
Impatience – lack of willingness to take the long view & invest in the future
Culture – heirarchy and procedure take precedence over experimentation and entrepreneurialism
Lastly, Liam pointed out that Planners are thought partners with researchers. It’s important to create a culture that truly believes good ideas can come from anywhere and prizes openness.
FYI – I already graduated from Miami Ad School on March 19th. I wanted to be a lot more timely in posting about MAS each week, but especially at the end of the program it got really difficult, so some of the upcoming posts about MAS were originally drafted a few weeks ago.
They were both very generous in sharing information, so I’m just going to sum up some nuggets of wisdom they shared with us.
Cliff:
Clients care about 2 things: 1) Cash flow 2) Shareholder value. As much as art, design and creativity have a place in this industry, we need to remember that it’s a business
When you walk into a room you need to know the most about trends, both macro and micro
In our strategies, we’ll be speaking with moms quite a bit since they control the majority of purchases
We’re in the business of behavior modification
As a Planner, start thinking about your language and how you use it; what is your personal brand?
The opposite of love is not hate – it’s apathy
“There are no facts – only interpretations.”
As a Planner, always question everything
in Qualitative research, don’t interview people with a clipboard – it creates a barrier to the truth. Be personable instead.
“Brief creatives in the contextual moment.”
“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”
What makes a great Planner? Three things: 1) Creativity 2) Courage 3) Curiosity
Domenico:
One of the best things we got out of Domenico was that it’s ridiculous to think that Planners can’t be creative and Creatives can’t be strategic. Ideas can come from anywhere and it’s important to draw them from everyone on the team, regardless of title or department.
I’ve been toying with an idea for the past few weeks, but up until now it’s really just been the headline of this post. Then I read the excellent SAMBA blog and found they put into words what I had been struggling to say.
When something is scarce, it increases in value. If it’s not easily accessible, then it will be flooded with interest once it is available – basic supply and demand.
And so is the case with the internet – it completely throws the concept of supply and demand into a state of disequilibrium.
The internet is always in HIGH supply, regardless of demand. The SAMBA team goes on to point out that:
“Sometimes you get to decide how scarce something is. By creating scarcity you can increase the value.”
What can brands learn from this?
In a world where accessibility is so widespread, the answer isn’t always to make yourself available 24/7 – it’s to make yourself scarce. As Erin recently pointed out, brands should create enough engaging content to make consumers seek them out. It’s the Push vs. Pull idea.
Digging a little deeper
This talk of scarcity got me thinking about the last MAS assignment I worked on for the NYTimes.com. This post on The Grand Unified Theory On The Economics of Free had a great analogy of the recording industry using the concept of infinite vs. scarce.
I’m going to trying to use the same idea for the NYTimes.com (my focus is on the website – not the newspaper).
1. Redefine the market: The benefit is high-quality journalism.
2. Break the benefits down: Vetted news sources, bestseller lists, visualization charts, videos, etc.
3. Set the infinite components free: Post the news on social networks, open up the archives completely, stop asking people to register on the site, make the news as accessible as possible while promoting the journalists (not the brand) who create this content.
4. Charge for the scare components: Access to journalists, access to the newsroom, access to the creation of the content, merchandise, charge other news sources for access to these journalists.
“The end result really is a much bigger market with much greater benefit by expanding the market by using infinite goods to make the scarce goods more valuable…It’s very much about showing the key trends that are impacting all infinite goods — and pointing out a clear path to benefiting from it (while making life more difficult on those who refuse to give up their old business models).”
Not sure if I’m onto something here, or way off. The newspaper industry is a special case – it faces numerous challenges and there’s no easy answer. Even so, maybe this approach is a step in the right direction.
I’m going to keep this post really brief since I was juggling about 5 different things when I wrote this post between assignments, preparing my book and job hunting.
We didn’t have any Planning classes for Week 6, so we ended up doubling up for Week 7. We had two instructors:
Shari discussed quantitative research. Quantitative is basically the numbers side of research where you analyze all sorts of metrics, like % of people currently using your product. It’s the tangible, scientific side of Planning. If you’ve ever prepared a survey then you have done quantitative research.
Scott’s topic for the weekend was “The Changing Media Landscape.” We did some group workshops together where we were given a short amount of time (less than a couple hours) to analyze a business problem and develop a strategy.
This is a very realistic situation since you may be in a position as a Planner where faster turnaround times are often needed and even expected.
That’s it. I told you this would be a really brief post, didn’t I?
Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh recently spoke at the SXSW festival in Austin and I just wanted to highlight a few things that really resonated with me.
Most people think of shoes when they think of Zappos.com but the company also sells clothing, cosmetics, electronics an even housewares. Even with the myriad of product offerings, however, their focus isn’t on promoting all these products – it’s on customer service, since they noticed that 75% of their business comes from repeat customers. Their philosophy is:
“Take most of the money that we would have spent on marketing – on paid marketing, and instead, put that into the customer experience and then the repeat customers and word-of-mouth become our true form of marketing.”
What is customer service?
It begins with policies. Most companies make it very difficult to find contact information. Zappos.com goes the opposite route – they promote their phone number because they WANT to talk to their customers. They believe the phone is their best branding method.
Call centers at Zappos are treated unconventionally. If a Zappos item is out of stock, a Zappos employee will actually look up that item on a minimum of 3 competitors’ websites to help the customer find the item that they’re looking for – this really blew me away.
Why does Zappos do this? Because they’re not trying to maximize profit on every potential transaction – they’re trying to build a relationship with customers for a lifetime.
Zappos also does surprise upgrades to repeat customers and provides overnight shipping at no extra cost. This is a perfect example of “under promise, over deliver.”
At a certain point, Zappos discussed their brand ethos, and what they wanted to be about. It wasn’t shoes (the product), it was about customer service (broader purpose – highest calling they can aspire towards).
Zappos’ number 1 priority is company culture. Hsieh says that if you build a great company culture, then everything else (like customer service and building an enduring brand) will happen naturally.
How do they create a strong culture?
1) Hiring: The company doesn’t hire people that aren’t a good cultural fit even if they have relevant technical skills and work experience.
2) Training: Everyone goes through the exact same customer focused call center training regardless of their position. Zappos also offers all employees full compensation for their training plus $2,000 if they choose to LEAVE the company at any point until the end of the training. By doing this, they feel that they only keep employees who are a true cultural fit and believe in the company’s long-term vision.
3) Zappos Culture Book: This is an UNEDITED Zappos book the company puts out that asks employees to write their thoughts about the company culture, which is then given to potential employees to let them decide if the culture is the right fit for them. The high level of transparency I find here is really refreshing.
4) Twitter: Zappos has actually encouraged employees to participate on Twitter and even holds Twitter classes during new hire orientation, with over 400 current users. As Hsieh says,
“It’s been a great way for Zappos employees to meet up outside the office (and that builds company culture) and then when they’re inside the office there’s just a higher level of trust and communication. They see each other as people, not just as coworkers.”
Zappos believes that culture and brand are really the same thing. Hsieh says Zappos used to be about shoes, but they made a conscious decision to be about something more meaningful – customer service. I think that’s the key word – “meaningful.” By doing something you are passionate about, that has nothing to do with making money, you can then indirectly achieve all your business objectives. What Zappos found was that when they gave their employees a higher purpose to work for, they became more engaged and committed.
This was the first time I’ve heard Hsieh speak and I think it’s great that he’s having such success pursuing a vision that I think most other CEOs would say is idealistic and ineffective. I couldn’t help thinking of the book “Raving Fans” as I was writing this post – it’s a fast read and I highly recommend it if you’re interested in learning more about remarkable customer service.
I’ll leave you with this last Hsieh quote:
“I think there’s a big difference between motivation and inspiration. You can accomplish stuff by motivating employees, but I think you could accomplish a lot more by inspiring them to a bigger vision that has meaning to them and that you’re passionate about.” Yes, indeed.
I try to avoid reposting or writing “me too” posts on this blog, but I really liked this campaign I found out about from PSFK:
“Infiltrating the places where people often like to reflect, i.e. – the bathroom, diner, coffee shop, etc, KNARF replaced toilet paper, napkins, sugar packets and tray liners with lined notebook paper in an attempt to foster new ideas. Those who discover the branded adverts are encouraged to think and jot down their ideas on the college-ruled loose leaf style paper.”
I think this campaign is great for supporting creativity and especially for those times when you have an idea and can’t think of anywhere to write it down.
Some random thoughts about the new Skittles.com and how this is significant for brands.
I know the new Skittles.com isn’t original(Modernista has worked with this idea before)-BUT I think it shows brands need to exist ACROSS web – not just one site.
Brands have traditionally built their web sites like their brick & mortar locations-one central location for its customers. In the medium offered by the internet, and web 2.0, however, the Skittles site got me to thinking that the current method 99.9% of brands use isn’t an optimal use of the web.
The new web model doesn’t need a singular web presence.
The web is intangible, and because of the abstract nature of the web, maybe we’re going to see more brands go the Skittles route. If the definition of a brand is the psychological/emotional perception that people have BEYOND your company or product, then maybe companies need to focus more on what that brand means OUTSIDE their walls, because that’s where the true discussion of a brand’s identity lies.
The thing with the internet is that there really aren’t any walls, though. For the most part, information can flow freely. Many marketers have pointed this out before – brands need to join the discussions that consumers are having about them – so it only makes sense to me that the new Skittles site spread across Twitter, Wikipedia, Facebook, etc. is a manifestation of that idea.
I was just watching the recent TED Talk by Twitter co-founder Evan Williams. In the video he talks about how the explosive growth of Twitter has mainly come from unexpected uses by the Twitter community.
This reminds me of the Pabst Blue Ribbon story. PBR has always been a low-key, blue-collar brand. Back in the 1970′s, it was really popular, but with the explosive growth of huge brands like Budweiser and the birth of the microbrew industry, it lost a lot of its appeal.
As Douglas Atkin pointed out in “The Culting of Brands,” by the middle of 2002 the company was experiencing a completely unplanned turnaround:
“Pabst Blue Ribbon had miraculously become the fastest growing brand of all domestic beers, achieving double digit growth within a declining industry.
What happened to spark such a turnaround? A thriving community had adopted PBR as a brand that espoused their ideals. They liked how they had never seen advertisements for it, and that it was a throwback to America’s heartland and blue-collar ideals. It was a beer that wasn’t about image.
Ironically, this embrace quickly gave PBR an image. Impressively, PBR’s marketing team has resisted the temptation to jump on the hipster bandwagon and try to market to this cynical demographic. They realize that they are popular because they haven’t been trying to woo anyone. PBR wisely realizes that it needs to completely let go if they want to continue to enjoy their resurrection within the hispter community.”
Brands exist for the benefit of people. There’s really no other way to look at it. I think that today brands need to be malleable – people need to have the ability to mold them as they see fit. By doing so, people feel a sense of ownership for a brand, and therefore become more loyal.
Just look at Wikipedia. Most people didn’t think it would work, and what most of us underestimated is that users would be so committed to building the brand. All Wikipedia had to do was provide the skeleton – its users would do the job of fleshing it out.
Anyway, here’s Evan Williams at TED. It’s a short video – only about 8 minutes.
When I worked in the mortgage business, I would always look outside of my industry to see what other people were doing to be successful. Then I would figure out how I could adapt those key methods and apply them to my business.
It’s the same thing when you’re reading blogs: there’s some great ones out there that are specific to Planning but I think we can learn a lot from blogs that focus on other topics.
Here’s some non-Planning sites that I think can be really beneficial to Planners looking for outside ideas, information or inspiration.
I love this blog. It’s a combination of technology and productivity that “recommends downloads, web sites and shortcuts that help you work smarter and save time.” Although it can be a little techie for me sometimes, I think the site is great for the non-tech types that want to learn how to take advantage of all the great tools on (and often off) the web.
One of the most effective skills a Planner can develop is presenting. According to one of my recent Planning instructors, being a great presenter is the main thing that will move you past being a Junior Planner to a more senior role. There’s so much great information on this site; I think it’s absolutely essential for anyone who wants to learn how to become a better presenter and storyteller.
The Big Picture is a photo blog for the Boston Globe that takes a simple concept – posting very large AP-style photos – and creating something really special I haven’t found anywhere else on the web.
“The Big Picture is intended to highlight high-quality, amazing imagery – with a focus on current events, lesser-known stories and, well, just about anything that comes across the wire that looks really interesting.“
It’s photojournalism at its best. As cliche as it sounds, the photos really do tell stories. They show us what’s going on in the world, and I think they help connect us to cultural events (like the Presidential inauguration, Mumbai attacks, etc.) in a way that one can only do visually.
I hoped you liked the list! What are three of your favorite non-Planning blogs?
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