Quixtar.com - Official Site of Quixtar Inc.
Rocking the Digital World
Wednesday, May 14, 2008

I'm in NYC for a conference for clients of Avenue A/Razorfish this week. Avenue A/Razorfish is helping design the global Amway web experience. I expected the conference -- Rocking the Digital World -- to be a little more technology focused and have been pleasantly surprised that it really has focused on the end, not the means.  The "end" being effective marketing to consumers, especially through brand engagement. A lot of that engagement is what I (and many others) have called "dialog." We're in a dialog about our brands online, and the winners are those who figure out how best to provide value by listening to the feedback provided by consumers and constantly tweaking your "offer" based on that feedback.

Famed author Guy Kawasaki just finished speaking and he was fantastic.  He provided some great insights, including the advice to push out products that might have crappy elements, but move the needle forward.  You can't wait until it's "perfect."  Along with that instruction, however, comes the advice to "churn baby churn," which means you're constantly tweaking your product to make it more unique and more useful to consumers.

There also was a great interview with Jeff Zucker, President and CEO of NBC Universal. Charlene Li spoke about ways social media is changing our roles in our companies, sharing info from her book "groundswell: winning in a world transformed by social technologies."

I really liked the presentation by Avenue A/Razorfish VP-Strategy & Planning Joe Crump about the DNA of digital brands.  He cited seven key "genes" that are part of the most successful brands online, which include:

1)  Authenticity: Impossible for consumers to mistake you for someone else

2)  Adaptive:  Changing to meet consumer needs based on their feedback

3)  Relevant:  Useful and appealing for individual users

4)  Transformative:  Raises expectations of your brand and the web

5)  Fresh:  Inspires a feeling or emotion

6)  Immersive:  People lose track of time within your online experience

7)  Social:  Your content is worth borrowing, sharing, or contributing to.

Crump left us with the line that "the secret is not good advertising ... it's good genes."  I think he's right and I hope what we're creating here at Quixtar and Amway is "churning" toward this ideal.

There have been a number of great presentations from representatives at Ford, Levi's, AT&T and more, with plenty more to come in the next day or so.  It also was very cool to see some of the interactive tools that are part of the expo area.  Gave me some good ideas for how we create consumer experiences when we're on the road.  I have to wrap up quickly so I don't miss the next session on "Social Influence Marketing" with representatives of Avenue A/Razorfish, Facebook, Kraft, Forrester Research and Starwood Hotels and Resorts. I'll try to recap some more "nuggets" tomorrow afternoon.

In the meantime, keep rocking the digital world!!



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Comments

TWS said:
Wednesday, May 14, 2008 #

Thanks RL for the post - The fact that Q/AG is bringing this type of focus to the table is awesome. Look forward to hearing more details

rdknyvr said:
Wednesday, May 14, 2008 #

Robin, great update and thanks for blogging this. You've underlined some ideas that reinforce something that blogger 'Ros' has done over at IBOFB's site -- paired the new Amway logo with the tag line, 'We're Listening'. Worthy of consideration as you look to the future... it says so much.

You're comments above also tie in well with a new blog thread running over at the blog "Speaking of Amway..." :

. http://speakingofamway.com/blog/

Look forward to your next update tomorrow, and don't forget to suggest any other insightful books that might be of interest to your friends "out here."

With appreciation,

Chuck Lia said:
Thursday, May 15, 2008 #

I bought the book "Groundswell" a couple of days ago and finished it last night.  The various sections that discussed blogging were very interesting, as were the many case studies (after all, it is a Harvard Business Press book and case studies are the Harvard way!).  

One table in the book, Table 4.1 on "existing business functions and their groundswell alternatives" (page 69), pertaining to objectives businesses could pursue, was terrific.  I have listed the five functions below in their old form vs. their new counterpart and how things would be different in the groundswell:  

1.  Old: Research > New: Listening  

Difference:  Ongoing monitoring of you customers' conversations with each other, instead of occasional surveys and focus groups

2.  Old:  Marketing > New:  Talking

Difference:  Participating in and stimulating two-way conversations your customers have with each other, not just outbound communications to your customers

3.  Old:  Sales > New:  Energizing

Difference:  Making it possible for your enthusiastic customers to help sell each other

4.  Old:  Support > New:  Suppporting

Difference:  Enabling your customers to support each other

5.  Old:  Development > New:  Embracing

Difference:  Helping your customers work with each other to come up with ideas to improve your products and services

The key phrase?  With "each other".  More dialogue, less monologue.  More talking, less shouting (advertising).

Real listening will change everything.  You folks are really on to something here, Kia.  I'm excited to hear these kind of discussions are going on and very hopeful it will continue.

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