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29 December 2005 in Cool Shit | Permalink | Comments (1)
Last week I read in Marketing Magazine's "Marketing Daily" that Wade Oosterman is leaving Telus. From the brief ...
After a merger of its wireless and wireline businesses late last month, Telus has eliminated the position of chief marketing officer leaving Wade Oosterman out of a job.
When Telus announced the reorganization Nov. 24, Telus CEO Darren Entwistle called Oosterman “the architect of Telus’s leading brand and an invaluable leader in delivering the enormous success of Telus Mobility over the years.” But as a result of the merger, the new leadership team at Telus was trimmed to nine executives from 12 and Entwistle said the company was in discussions with Oosterman about a new role with Telus.
“The outcome of the discussions is that a suitable alternative role for Mr. Oosterman has not been found,” stated a press release Thursday. “No replacement will be appointed as the position of CMO is not present in the new merged executive reporting structure.”
[Disclosure: I used to be a Telus customer, but they were going to make me sign a 3-year contract to get a decent price on a new phone, after I had been a non-contractual customer for 5 years. So I left and went to Virgin.]
To me, one of the best things that Telus has going for them is the visual manifestation of their brand. They have a clean, distinct, engaging look. Charge Oosterman with trying to bring their entire brand experience in line ... don't just dump him from the exec team. He could focus on customer service, the call centre, better service plans ... any and all touchpoints with the customer. Why is there not a CMO at the executive table?
This is another case of the executive not understanding the importance of marketing and communications at the exec table. They probably have more than enough suits to go around. Why not have at least one person who knows what resonates with the public? Ridiculous.
23 December 2005 in Branding & User Experience, Marketing | Permalink | Comments (0)
Happy Solstice! Hopefully everyone survived the longest night of the year (with or without Bruce Cockburn).
Some happy news I just discovered ... I was nominated for a KBCafe Blog Award - Best Marketing Blog. I'm in there with Steve Rubel's Micropersuasion and Seth Godin's own marketing blog, so I have no delusions of "winning", but, like the young Hollywood starlet, I'm thrilled to be nominated (what *will* I wear to the awards?).
So ... if you've enjoyed my blog, found some insightful tidbit to share with colleagues, or even significantly disagreed with anything I've said, I'd appreciate your vote. And thanks to all of you whose own insightful comments greatly added to the conversation here at MyNameIsKate.
Thanks and Happy Holidays!!!
22 December 2005 in Blogs and Blogging, Marketing, Real-life | Permalink | Comments (1)
I've been reading Joseph Jaffe's Life After the 30-Second Spot. I signed up to be part of his UNM2PNM (Using New Marketing to Promote New Marketing) program to promote the book.
I started reading it one evening before bed and that was a mistake. Reading the first chapter was like being back home in Texas, sitting in a Southern Baptist church and listening to my favourite gospel preacher. It was all I could do not to stand up and holler "Amen, Brother Jaffe! TESTIFY!" repeatedly throughout the evening. It got me all riled up, and I vowed to run out and buy copies for all old school marketers that I know.
Why? Because Jaffe knows the world is changing (has changed); he is helping to drive the change, and I want my colleagues to *get it* (feel it, KNOW it) in their bones so our organization isn't left behind (rapture reference intentional).
Now, Jaffe's rhetoric is intentionally inflamatory and I love it!
Why would you even want to reach a mass audience at a time when there are truthfully very few remaining mass products?
Jaffe pokes at not only the 30-Second TV spot and the futility of old media, but also at the staidness of advertising agencies and their penchant for clinging to a formula that just doesn't work anymore. He hails the consumer as being informed, in control and more and more willing to exercise that control; the consumer is "armed with a whole array of weapons of the destruction of mass".
But Jaffe isn't just about the rhetoric. He presents four key forces that converged to empower the consumer and four key marketing fundamentals that need to be rethought in order to move forward.
18 December 2005 in Innovation & Imagination, Marketing, Technology & the Internet | Permalink | Comments (0)
This time of year is normally a time of reflection for me. But a recent death of a colleague's parent as well as a death in my own family have made it even more so.
In tandem with the inherent spirituality of the season, there is call and motivation to unshackle from the materiality of it all. Echoing the good work of organizations like the Canadian buynothingchristmas.org and Alternatives for Simple Living, Roro and I are trying to reduce the consumption, reduce the clutter and focus on something different. We were discussing Solstice gifts this year and neither of us *want* anything. We are doubly, trebly blessed and to "add to" seems untoward.
Luckily, World Vision Canada has a great alternative that satisfies the desire to both give a gift as well to do something more. Their gift catalog lets me give a goat or olive trees or school backpacks to people who are simply trying to survive.
We're not eliminating our gift exchange, either between us or our familes. But we're cutting back, and we're trying to buy local, sustainable and reusable. Comondi.com is a great example. Started by some friends of ours, Comondi sells vegan and organic products with an eye towards creating a sustainable lifestyle and a better future. I'm really proud of those guys for starting it! Beyond Rivalry has a great post on "the whatever christmas" and ideas for changing behaviour.
Happy holidays to all of you; hug your moms, dads, kids and kin extra hard this time of year.
Photo by ketz33
Technorati Tags: sustainable, solstice, anticonsumerism, simple living, anticonsumerism, family
14 December 2005 in Real-life, Self-Referential | Permalink | Comments (2)
I'll admit it .. I've never managed a Google AdWords campaign before. Sure, I've recommended keywords, discussed marketing goals and keywords with clients, but never actually managed the bidding process.
I started managing my first one on Tuesday. I have entered a very dangerous world.
For control freaks, like myself, it is perfect. I can micromanage my campaign to a level where even I become a little overwhelmed. I can tweak ads, test ads, test words, research words, research competitors ... crazy. And, if you don't know what you're doing, a huge time sink. But fascinating!
It reminds me of a time, oh back in 1996, maybe? I worked for a (now defunct) company called SoftQuad. The web designer, Colin Moock, and I had just launched an email campaign. We wanted to see how the campaign was doing (this was back in the day before there were fancy tools for monitoring open rates), so we cracked a couple of beers and ran tail -f on the logfile and watched as people hit the link we had sent in the URL. Real-time feedback. The 3-hour lag on the Google AdWords reporting isn't as immediate, but then it at least it gives me time to get some other stuff done.
09 December 2005 in Marketing | Permalink | Comments (1)
[Update: Fixed broken links]
I generally won't respond to those things I perceive to be "blog chain letters" ... where someone tags a group of their blog-friends to write about the same thought-provoking question (what 5 women have most inspired you, what were you doing 10, 5 and 1 year ago, etc.). Not that there's anything wrong with that. I figure my audience really doesn't *care* about that from me.
However, you'll be pleased to note, I will respond to incredibly geeky things like "Type each letter in the alphabet into your browser address bar and see what comes up. Then report back." [via ChrisNolan.ca via Randy via ed kohler]
amazon.ca
bloglines
creampuffrevolution
del.icio.us/mynameiskate
ehlist.ca/show/22
flickr.com
google.ca
horsepigcow.com
itsamonkey.blogspot.com
jaffejuice.com
ktrgovac.backpackit.com
linkedin.com
my.yahoo.com
neopets.com (ahem, for research purposes only, of course! need to understand the youth. )
onedegree.ca
petro-canada.ca
quizilla.com
retail.petro-canada.ca
sitemeter.com
typepad.com
users.wsj.com
www.visibone.com/colorlab/
wired.com
yahoo.ca
Bonus Link: A Critique of the Alphabet. Great, fun post over at "Speak Up". From the post:
That alphabet. It’s been around a long time, and I, for one, have some complaints. Don’t you think it’s time for a redesign? I mean, the thing’s not exactly “fresh” anymore, is it?
The lowercase p is really nice, especially when you let the descender get really long, but this whole ball and stick thing … c’mon guys, get over it! Given a choice, I prefer the p to the b, but the b did it first. That cap P, though, is just totally not working! It’s so top heavy it looks like it’s going to fall over! This whole letterform needs rethinking.
Technorati Tags: geek, browser, personality, alphabrowse, alphabet
06 December 2005 in Chuckling, Technology & the Internet | Permalink | Comments (7)
[Note to my current colleagues .. don't freak out because I was on a job site.]
This week I received an email from Marketing Magazine [paid reg required to access most of site] telling me about a new newsletter product they have: Careers in Marketing. Finally, a career newsletter for Canadian Marketers' I love Marketing Sherpa's Career Climber but they rarely have Canadian positions.
Marketing magazine's Custom Publishing division is pleased to introduce its first electronic magazine, Careers in Marketing. Careers in Marketing has been developed as a resource for aiding marketing professionals in their career sourcing and development. The e-zine examines the who, the what, the where and the how of today's marketing job market. We hope you find the new format convenient and easy to read, and we welcome your feedback.
I didn't actually know Marketing Mag had a Custom Publishing division (it's not listed on their site). In any case, looks like they have some interesting articles in this issue. Sample titles: Breaking with Tradition and How Can Branding be the Answer to Finding People. I would provide a link to the main page of this issue, but there isn't one.
I clicked thru and read one of the articles. Good summary of the issue (that a company's brand is important in atttracting talent), but no attribution. Another article includes the line "For us at Capital C to need an eclectic combination of individuals ..." but the article itself is not signed/attributed. Is this Tony Chapman's Capital C?
They also provide a selection of job openings from Working.com (who seems to co-sponsor the newsletter): marketing and creative jobs that seem relevant to the target audience. I've never really checked out Working.com, so I thought I would click through. First is a Director of Marketing in Vancouver. Goes right to the job posting. Great. Interesting job, but not for me.
Next link: Head, Creative Partners in Toronto. Cool, I'm in Toronto. Click through. One of the first things at the top: "Position Posting End Date: Nov 16, 2005". But its Dec 2. Why am I seeing this? So is the job active or not?
I click on the "home" button to poke around some more. I am taken to the "Toronto" home. How do I get to the real home? I have to edit the URL. Aargh. The "real" home is a big map of Canada. Didn't we stop using maps for primary navigation in the late 90's?
OK, I have friends and family in Victoria .. let's check out what's happening there. I click on Victoria and get a very busy page. But there are some career streams at the top. "Executive" sounds good. (Dream big!) I click.
There is a small listing of further executive streams at the top (CEO, CIO, VP Technology, etc.) but the bulk of the page is taken up with "executive news". Or, more accurately, news about executives. Inspiring stories like Conrad Black's legal woes and CIBC revamping its outrageous CEO compensation package. WHY am I being distracted from my primary functional task at this site? Aside from the headlines, this is a very b'zizy site. Tiny ads, big ads, lots of mice type. Seriously. I'm supposed to be here to find a job. I'm starting to feel a little tense.
OK. Focus. Ooo .. VP Marketing. I can do that. Click.
And here's why working.com truly sucks.
Victoria (supposedly) has 1 job that is for a VP of Marketing. Not bad, Victoria isn't known to be the epicentre of Marketing VP's. However, the job isn't for a VP of Marketing. Yes, it has the words "VP" and "Marketing" in the ad. But the job is for a temporary Sales Accountant. If I am a VP Marketing candidate, I have so clicked over to Workopolis. This lack of contextual search on a site that is already contextual is truly poor customer and brand experience. It's insulting to job seekers and to advertisers. Now some of you might say, "Oh, search is in its infancy" or "are you sure you formatted the search correctly?" To the first, I answer "bullshit". To the second I answer, "but working.com formatted this search for me. Shouldn't they know better?" Workopolis is a perfect example of how to do it right. And it all comes down to context.
The pre-canned search for a VP Marketing on working.com:
http://workingvictoriajobs.canada.com/js.php?q=VP%20Marketing&qField=All
&lookid=victoria&qCity=Victoria&qState=BC&qCountry=Canada&qMiles=50
The pre-canned search for a VP Marketing on Workopolis:
http://search.workopolis.com/jobshome/db/work4.process_job?pi_vertical=MARKETING
&pi_search=Vice-President,+Marketing&pi_msg=&pi_keyword=(vp+or+v-p+or+vice-$president)
+and+(marketing+or+mkt+or+mrkt+or+mrkting)+not+assistant
&pi_smart=N&pi_employer=ALL-------&pi_category=ALL------------&pi_industry=ALL---------------
&pi_location=ALL-----------&pi_language=EN&iaction=Go&pi_post_date=&pi_title_only=Y&pi_sort_col=+
Now search phrases are not pretty to look at and casual users should never have to worry about it, but hang in there. There are three things I want to point out:
1. working.com - the focus is on the location. In today's mobile marketplace and tendency towards a 7-9 career work-life, physical place is likely not the best place to start. Yes, let me filter by place, but don't make it the primary term, particularly at the sacrifice of useful information.
2. workopolis knows that not all job ads are equal. It builds into the query variants on search terms both for VP and for Marketing.
3. workopolis understands context. See that small "+not+assistant" in the third line? That is everything. It knows that if I am looking for a VP Marketing job, that I do not want to see jobs for Marketing Assistants, jobs for assistants to VP's or especially temporary sales accountant jobs.
Now, to be fair, I could recreate this search on working.com. But I have to check a couple of special boxes on their "advanced search" page. Essentially, I have to provide my own context. Which is unreasonable in that they implied that they were giving me context:
This looks like context to me. If they had just said "search for jobs" at the outset, I *might* be more forgiving. Some of you are probably asking, "Dude, why does this piss you off so much?" And it frustrates me because it just doesn't have to be this shitty. This is not a technical issue. If the designer or the strategist or the marketer who put this thing together just thought about their customer a bit more, it would be a way better experience. As an advertiser, I would be excited that you were supporting my brand; as a job seeker, I would be delighted by my experience and recommend the site. Reg Braithwaite had a similar rant at TorCamp: it (applications) doesn't have to suck.
He's right. It doesn't. If we would just all pay a bit more attention to our customers and their context.
Technorati Tags: context, marketing, experiencedesign
02 December 2005 in Branding & User Experience, Marketing, Ranting, Wondering | Permalink | Comments (1)
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