PeppercomBlog

Path of Least Resistance

By Milos Sugovic 

Competitive differentiation is about survival. Your success depends on how your business is positioned vis-à-vis its competition, and rests on your ability to answer one simple question: “Why are you better?” Most companies struggle with communicating their niche and opt for the easy way out by taking their competitors head on.  

But why do businesses readily forget about the easiest route of all - or as it’s know in physics - the path of least resistance? What’s interesting about the path of least resistance is that it describes why an object or entity takes a given path, usually a motion forward through a system, as a result of resistance levels in its environment. As a metaphor for personal effort, it implies least confrontation - a person taking the path of least resistance avoids conflict in order to survive.  

CSR: Does “S” Stand for Strategic?

Posted by Milos Sugovic

Starbucks is a textbook example of clear reporting and excellent corporate social responsibility (CSR) positioning. They’ve skillfully integrated cause marketing and CSR initiatives that are bottom-line "friendly." CSR should be strategic and the only way to attain that is to have some sort of competitive analysis of the CSR marketplace. It should advance the business while doing good and being transparent. But most companies fall short and that resonates in their CSR reporting. 

Starbucks has used CSR to strengthen its supply chain, and more importantly, the product via an improvement of the suppliers' business. This did several things: it established their brand as a synonym for high quality, it introduced a large number of suppliers into their supply chain, it elevated the standards that suppliers need to meet (meaning new supply chain entrants have to become better at what they're doing), and most importantly, they've been able to tie the cause marketing bow around it all. Not only does the supply chain story make sense from a business case perspective, it's marketed as a cause that justifies a higher price. They've shown how an integration of different strategies can create significant business opportunities, and they did a pretty good job at communicating it. 

Converge or Die

Posted by Matt Purdue 

I’ve seen the future of communications, and the first PR firms to master this new standard are going to come out winners. The biggest brands on the web and world’s leading television manufacturers are finally, at long last, serious about bringing the internet to TV systems. In the next week or so, in conjunction with the consumer electronics show, companies like Yahoo!, Intel and Netflix are set to announce deals with manufacturers to embed web-friendly technology into traditional TV sets. (Full disclosure: Yahoo! is a Peppercom client.) 

This is the beginning of a trend that will usher in a paradigm shift in business-to-consumer communications. Television-web crossover is finally coming to the masses. Many of us in PR sometimes forget that we’re on the cutting edge of communications, when, in reality, many people still lack internet access. How many North American households are on the web? What would you guess? 90 percent? Not even close. As of June 2008, only 73.6 percent of North Americans had internet access. Leave North America and those figures plummet. Around the world, only 21.9 percent of the population can get on the web. 

Demonstration of Power

Posted by Milos Sugovic

If you doubt the influence of blogs on sales, you’re welcome to stop now. Here’s why:

A couple of weeks ago, Greg Mankiw, a Harvard professor, frequent blogger, and one of the most influential economists in the world expressed his dissatisfaction with the sales success of a new economics book. Authored by Nariman Behravesh, the book is titled Spin-Free Economics, and has “A No-Nonsense, Non-Partisan Guide to Today’s Global Economic Debates” subtitle. 

In an effort to propel it into Christmas shopping lists, Professor Mankiw recommended the book to social science newbies. Apparently, it lives up to the challenge of remaining bias-free, a claim to fame for many biased economists.

When the blog was written, the book was ranked at number 41,218 based on Amazon sales rankings. Fifteen hours later, it was ranked at 998. How this exactly happened is up for debate as networking is organic and difficult to trace, especially with regards to generating interest (willingness to pay), and then action (consumption). But as Greg notes, it’s “a nice demonstration of the power of the blogosphere.” 

Whistling Past the Graveyard

Posted by Matt Purdue

So what to do with GM and friends? Fascinating story in the New York Times hints at how GM and other automakers are failing at the public relations game as they beg and plead for a bailout from the federal government (e.g. taxpayers). 

Michelle Maynard notes that op/ed writers, lawmakers and the public in general are blaming automakers for their own troubles. And in that very American tradition, we’re telling the auto industry to take its lumps and pull itself up by its bootstraps.  After all, the automakers have for years been fighting higher fuel efficiency standards, insisting on making gas-thirsty trucks and SUVs in a world faced with volatile fuel prices and a global-warming crisis. And many American cars have slipped in the reliability ratings behind even South Korean models from the likes of Hyundai and Kia. 

But what’s really going on here? Bottom line is that we Americans have a love affair with gas-guzzlers. For years, Ford’s F-150 pickup and its chief competitor, Chevy’s Silverado, were America’s best-selling vehicles. Now get this: falling gas prices have spurred so much demand for SUVs that workers at GMs plant in Texas who assemble behemoths like the Cadillac Escalade are expected to be on overtime for the rest of the year turning out these monsters. This is 2008. How much more evidence do stupid Americans need that the actions of their gas-pedal foot correlate directly with rising temperatures, volatile weather, melting icecaps and drowning polar bears? And, really, who is an auto company CEO to stop them from driving a Cadillac Escalade (12 miles per gallon in the city)? 

Gates to Success?

Today's guest blog comes from Clare Abdalla, Peppercom

Is all news good news? Seems like the folks at Microsoft think so.

Monday’s WSJ article demonstrates that bad news about a bad ad can still create buzz, as the Bill Gates/Seinfeld Windows commercial hit the streets. Blogs, the business community and mass media picked up the pointless ad which showed Gates and Seinfeld shoe shopping. Microsoft and Windows weren’t even mentioned.

Which makes one wonder: Is the lack of substance in the message a tactic? 

How is it to draw in customers?

Microsoft is already a household name with a hurting reputation. Every consumer has an opinion, and Mac commercials aren’t helping - they point out the disadvantages of owning Windows machines.

So how will shoe shopping re-establish the business superiority of Windows? Am I supposed to be assuming that the process of buying a computer is similar to buying shoes? Too many degrees of freedom that Microsoft needs to explain, fast.

Microsoft swears that this was an icebreaker commercial and more are to come. Maybe they’ll bring some meat to the table, but with Seinfeld as the star, seems like they’re relying on cash instead of creativity.

Giants like Microsoft are too big to fail, but they suffer from their own success; and that need not be a bad thing. Microsoft dominates in terms of market share, and that results in high levels of compatibility, economies of scale and scope, and the luxury of being very close to a monopoly. But capitalizing on the history of success is a challenge oversized organizations face. Marketing pink iMacs is catchy, but translating economies of scale into jingles has never been easy.

So maybe the Seinfeld commercial is an attempt to keep Microsoft in the media, even though its products cannot do so alone.