News is in the News

Fake news is making the news.

Perhaps the rise of fake news sites owes much to the gullible nature of followers of significant areas of the Internet. People who count their 'friends' by the hundred and followers by the 'thousands' might well be susceptible to the lures of fake news simply due to lack of exposure to more genuine content. It seems too that Donald Trump is a serial tweeter and there are suggestions that the US presidential election was helped in part by sites peddling fake news. Facebook and Google are reported to be concerned for the advertising that fake news seem to be able to carry.

At times it seems social media  is beginning to become a significant in influencing events, decisions, elections and fund raising. Many businesses noting this have moved into the swamp of social media which some might argue by inviting people to 'like' their brand has generally lowered the quality of content. What's more without editorial oversight it has opened the doors to anyone having access to write whatever they like - including fake news.

Are those who questioned the value of social media as being unsuited media for serious b-2-b marketing now being vindicated? If the medium looses credibility, then why would you want your product associated with it any way? Maybe time to focus marketing resources through professional and credible publication channels and leave the social media to deal with the gossip and dross.

Goodbye yellow brick road

Today we pay tribute to the sad and sudden death of Graham Taylor, former manager of Watford Football Club.

Graham Taylor's arrival at Watford's Vicarage Road ground in 1977 was the beginning of a golden era in the history of the club. Hired by Elton John following GT's early management success with Lincoln City, it heralded an incredibly successful partnership between the music super star and the football manager. 

Back then the English Football League was divide into four divisions, simply labelled as First Division through to Fourth Division. At the time of GT's appointment, Watford FC had been relegated to the fourth division and finished 8th in the 1974/75 season with Taylor's Lincoln City gaining top spot and promotion. Five years later following successive promotions Watford finished as runners up of the First Division, just behind Liverpool - a club at the pinnacle of their success. European football followed. By any standard this was an amazing achievement and tribute to the planning, attention to detail and motivation which was the hall mark of GT.  While he went on to manage England 'Elton John's Taylor made Army'  dropped back to the third tier of English football then once again GT and Elton returned and worked the magic getting Watford back to the top flight and what was by now the Premier League.

In November 2010 I was to meet Graham Taylor during the course of my work, interviewing him on video for one of our clients. Once the camera was switched off I  chatted to Graham Taylor about his family, home life and media work and admitted to being a Watford fan since a young boy. I  told GT  what an inspiration he had shown us. That we could all dream the impossible dream. And to my amazement his response was to thank me for being a Watford supporter.

Today the upgraded Watford stadium has stands named after Graham Taylor and Sir Elton John complete with lyrics from Elton's songs.  Sadly there can now be no third time reprise for the Elton John, Graham Taylor partnership.

Home and away

How trading has changed. The phrase that 'trade follows the flag' summed up the British attitude to exports in the days of the  Empire. With the world's largest navy and control of the oceans, the union flag was planted at all corners of the earth for merchants and commerce to follow. Trading posts established and in due course along came the salesmen. Britain generally preferred to stay out of Europe apart from supporting a balance of power via changing alliances. As an island nation, the sea beckoned the British who were content to leave European governments occupied by problems on the continent and the expense of large armies while there was less likelihood of interference with British maritime trade.

It seemed to me that many large companies arranged their sales organisations to first of all address the UK, usually referred to as the 'home' market, which was well supported by a network of salesmen. Back in the 1950s and onwards a sales position was seen as a well rewarded job. At my father's firm moving from a clerical role to a salesman was seen as a great step forward and known as 'going on the road'. It seemed he was frequently reporting news of yet another example of a colleague who had 'gone on the road' during the course of our evening meal. Before the War (WW2) a great uncle of mine held a sales role for a Dundee based manufacturer of post cards. His role was selling to key accounts, particularly the major stores in London. As part of his renumeration he enjoyed the benefits of a chauffeur-driven car to make his sales calls. Other references to chauffeurs for important salesmen suggest this was not unusual. Post war, with more people trained to drive, the salesman became his own chauffeur and had full use of his own Austin motor car. A salesman was still a good job when I  started work, until the government started taxing the use of a car and petrol. Fleet cars were operated by many firms and with the Ford Cortina becoming a stereo-type of the salesman..

The export market was treated very differently. Although it might not have been expressly stated, the home market was the core on which the business depended. Export effectively was a bit of a bonus. The management rationale was explained by a simple graphic model. The usual graph shows cost on the y axis and production volume on the x axis. A straight line covers all fixed costs and from this a rising line shows variable costs for producing more product. Export sales tended to fit into this marginal or opportunity costs which in turn effectively lowered unit costs for all production. Export salesmen were quite different to the home salesmen and some made occasional sales trips to the territories they were assigned, mainly to visit subsidiaries and dealers.

Trade in the era of steam and sealing wax.

Only a small portion of the UK  work force will have had direct experience of trade and commerce before  we joined the EU over 40 years ago. Those with that experience will now be retired or approaching retirement.

It is reported that staying with the status quo of EU  membership was a factor for many voters expressing a preference to remain, rather than face the risks of the unknown future in the world beyond the borders of the trading bloc.

Trade and commerce has evolved over the centuries from the caravan routes of the 'Silk Road,' to the maritime ferrying of goods between countries from the Romans and Phoenicians - bringing prosperity, knowledge, education and long periods of peace, such as Pax Romana, were enjoyed.

Ultimately the British Empire, an Empire that at its peak accounted for 23% of the world's land mass and 24% of the world population, provided a vast market. Manufactured goods from Britain were sold to all corners of the world - the British world that is - in exchange for agricultural products and commodities. The infra structure of many countries benefitted from the building of railways, ports, roads and modern cities, with legal systems, education and healthier conditions. It was the 'greatest empire the world had ever seen' and ushered in a period of Pax Britannica. The British Empire trading model was still largely operational during the working lives of people of my parent's generation. In the days of steam power before rapid communications by telephone, Internet and jet travel became possible, businesses traded throughout the world. So why the sense of foreboding now that the UK is returning to trade with the world?

 Maps of the world placed the British Isles top centre and the Empire countries were coloured pink. It was a simple graphic symbolism of the British Empire.  Communications with offices scattered across the Empire, or pink bits, were by mail or cable. Letters were written with great formality, ensuring the correct form of address and salutation were applied, the sign off too with the name, title and position of the writer, even the date was quaintly referred to as the '12th instant'. The stationery, letterhead and quality of paper were all prepared with extreme care. The business letter spoke for the brand. It was a world away from the universal 'Hi' that is commonly used for email greetings.

My parents both worked for the same company which had its head quarters in the City of London, a manufacturing facility in Hertfordshire  and offices in countries like South Africa, India, Australia,  New Zealand, Canada and more. My grandfather had worked there too, but that's another story. Not surprisingly stories from work often cropped up as we sat around the kitchen table eating a modest evening meal, which had probably stretched the post war ration coupons to provide. A favourite of mine was the 'mail train' story. For some reason, one that didn't matter to me at the time, the company sent out letters or documents to the offices of Empire which began their journey with the evening 'Boat' train which left Waterloo Station at 6pm promptly. Junior office staff generally delivered the company's mail around the City, but the the evening mail train was handled differently because the letters and packages were not ready until quite late in the day. It is approximately one and a quarter miles from the City office, across Blackfriars Bridge to Waterloo and to speed up the delivery process from office to train, a team of young clerks was assembled to run a relay race - not against other teams, but against the clock, coping with the evening rush hour traffic, the tardiness of the letter writers and the immovable timetable of the Southern Railway Company. Waiting anxiously for the packets to be sealed and secured with sealing wax, by a clerk apparently oblivious of any urgency, the seals of the business house were carefully applied and scrutinized  before being handed to the first runner. Dashing through traffic and crowds the precious package was passed to the last runner to deliver. One particular evening the package was later than usual and my father was running the last leg. As he entered Waterloo Station the guard was already blowing his whistle, steam was applied to the locomotive as its wheels searched for traction. Running up the platform to the outstretched hand of the  Guard it was safely delivered to an understated "left it a bit late tonight, son" to which my father had no breath to reply.

Single market or world market?

Euro Realist Newsletter / photo on flickr

Despite the British electorate voting to leave the EU, some politicians still seem to think that somehow this excludes the so called single market.

Since the outcome of the vote to leave the European Union on  June 23rd, remarkably little seems to have happened. Something called Article 50 has emerged as a mechanism for starting the process and this has yet to be 'triggered' by someone. Some individual has taken the UK government to court to sort out whether the Prime Minister should or indeed can, press the exit button or does Parliament have the right. It doesn't inspire much confidence in much happening.

I  suspect that the voters who voted to leave the EU expected the UK government to do just that and leave lock, stick and barrel. I  doubt whether many voting to leave thought it would take much more than posting a letter of resignation and cancelling the membership cheque. Maybe to add a note that in future we would make our own laws, spend our taxes on our projects, take the EU starry flag off of everything from car number plates to passports ... oh and reclaim our assets such as fish in our territorial waters.

Remarkably little seems to have been planned for an 'out' vote; our government like the rest of the EU   probably regarded the referendum as 'rubber-stamping' the continuation of EU membership so there was no plan B.

So where do we go from here. Well the rest of the world is not a bad start. In the next few blogs we will outline some options.


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Marketing in a post globalisation world

Recent political events might suggest that globalisation has passed its high-water mark and is now in retreat.  Events such as the British voting to quit Europe and Americans voting for Dr Donald Trump - in short for a major change, turning away from big business and big government. So what is in store for marketing managers and how will marketers respond to a changing economic environment?

Hold on, what's this all about and why is it relevant to a b-2-b marketing manager for example? OK. Turn the clock back several decades to the situation in post war Britain. Before that and after the Wall Street crash and  economic depression of the late 1920's into the 1930's the pre-war period (post WW1 that is) had been a time of slow recovery and high unemployment. One of my grandfathers like many of his generation, had been unemployed for most of the 1930's and it was only the Second World War that brought him employment, working on fitting out vehicles for the military. The post war reconstruction continued the demand for product that had started around 1940 and boomed throughout the 1950's and 1960's as Britain re-built. Then, there were few 'luxuries' to buy, even if there were some available and you had sufficient coupons. It signalled the end of post war austerity.

Each year the big electrical enterprise I worked for  - everything from TVs, radios and cookers to lighting - held a sales conference, sometimes at a West End theatrical venue. It  was more of a celebration and rally, than a conference. As sales growth that continued to beat targets year on year and even bigger targets set for the coming year.

When I  entered the world of product management in the early 1970's the telephone never stopped ringing. The reason was always the same - it was someone needing more product and looking for me to jump their claim up the list. Strange as it might seem now, pretty much everything was made in our own factories, designed by our own R and D teams, delivered in our own liveried trucks. As product managers, our time was divided between development meetings, working with the development and test engineers, visiting factories, training sales teams and above all working with planners to get product shipped. In the end it was all about delivering the goods. As market leader in many sectors of electrical goods industry, our product philosophy came down to one key marketing issue - identify which product was to be the big runner in the sector then invest in tooling and manufacturing capability to be the lowest cost producer for that class of product. With the the ability to provide stock into the wholesalers and costs that enabled any contract to be won by steep discounting,  it all came down to designing, making and shipping the stuff.

As product managers we were less enthused by the sub-contractors the company chose to knock out 'specials' and low volume product and we were dubious about the correctness of some of the granting of purchase orders. But I digress. By the early 1970's it was all about to change. When your big strategy is built on lowest cost supplier [see pages 87 to 90 of Technical Marketing - Ideas for Engineers] it calls, or did then, for high volume production. What happened in the early 1970s was the long post war boom ended. OPEC, an organisation of oil producing countries restricted oil production which in turn caused prices to quadruple and with oil and derivatives critical to most western economies the annual growth driven by the build in construction came to an abrupt halt. The high volume production lines had switched from our biggest asset to our biggest liability. Lamp making lines producing millions of fluorescent tubes had to continue running as a continuous process as glass tubes came into the factory and shipped out at the other end as finished packed tubes. Discounts got steeper, up to 98 per cent at one time and red ink on the P  and L account led to redundancies for the first time in our experience.

With British industry now generally uncompetitive in production and with lower productivity than many other countries, great swathes of the once mighty industrial heartlands turned into a derelict reminder of better times. Innovators turned to lower cost producers, not the metal bashing 'sub contractors' that made lower volume product - they were even less productive. Soon the product designs were taken off shore until China became the world's factory. Big companies set up head quarters in tiny countries mainly full of banks and low tax regimes. So what happens now? One thing is sure - it will not be a return to the type of boom of the 60s and 70s. What it will be depends on the new era in politics that may be emerging. 

Has globalisation gone too far?

Some years ago we came up with the tag line - 'Think globally, market locally'. At least we thought we had come up with that statement ourselves, but it now seems widely used . We used it to explain how we were developing products to achieve high volumes, but to wrap them up with  the finishing detail that made then acceptable to the local markets and above all sell through a local presence, with local post sales support. Today it is called 'globalisation' and guess what, suddenly its a bad thing.

The enabling technologies were the reality of global communications and container ships with automated container handling ports, making manufacture in far away and low cost locations not only possible, but the cheapest option.  So the Far East, the tiger economies and China became the cheapest places to make the products that the western markets desired. But the situation is changing as robotics and AI evolve so that the cost of labour becomes a much smaller factor in the product cost. The benefit of high volumes to achieve lowest unit cost became not only less relevant but as the offshore locations become wealthier, so the pressure on labour costs led to wage rises and the savings from making off shore became a lot less attractive.

Soon the attraction of low cost labour achieved by manufacturing offshore that it once offered when labour was, say 80% of product cost, becomes even less attractive when robotics eliminate much of the unskilled labour. Goods that still have to be shipped halfway round the world, with quantity forecasts made 6 months or more in advance, quality remotely monitored and then local manufacture seems attractive again. Local manufacture can also deliver greater product customisation without large stockholding over heads.

One of the biggest issues with free trade is political intervention.  Political pressures to improve worker conditions in offshore locations raise manufacturing costs too. But the liberal, free trade philosophy demands free movement of labour and here is a major problem.  Millions of 'economic' migrants head towards the UK, Europe and USA to join in the wealth created by globalisation. Think about what has happened over the last ten to twenty years. Many large manufacturers and service industries such as call centres moved that part of their operation to off shore locations, because when all sums were done it saved money. But it ignored workers' conditions, environmental regard for which the west legislated. Western countries to a large extent ceased to be manufacturing nations, with instead products now made anywhere it was cheap to do so. Global brands added another twist by locating their head offices in low tax environments and often avoiding paying any tax at all in the markets where the sales were made. Huge profits were made, but the wealth was not evenly distributed.

And all the time the political classes seemed to be content as the west moved to a post industrial society. Technology was changing the idea that manufacturing provided jobs for large sectors of the population. When I was a student in Birmingham in the 1970s, thousands walked, cycled or took a bus to feed the labour needs of industry. Same in north London where I  worked, the Great Cambridge Road in  Enfield was lined with factories, most long since demolished and replaced by supermarkets and retail outlets. In the post industrial era the work force  is to a large extent in low paid service jobs, often on zero hours contracts.

All this change has had a profound impact on the populations who once their desire for low cost electronics goods, fashion and pre-packaed food is met wonder what the political classes are actually doing for them.  They can't go offshore to drive down costs and avoid taxes. Small businesses such as ours pay more corporation tax than many global businesses sheltering in tax havens. And small businesses are 99% of UK businesses, employing staff with all the on-costs of EU legislation, paying taxes and also being the seeds for future employment. And as the old class divides between employer and employee breakdown and while the political elite focus on big multi-national businesses, the traditional political parties seem to no longer represent a growing constituency of worker-owners, so is it surprising they vote in the UK to leave the EU and in America elect Donald Trump precisely because there is no political baggage.

The enduring power of images, logos and symbols

It is not just commercial brands that recognise the power of an image, logo or symbol to re-inforce loyalty to their products. But who would have thought that the poppy emblem could be considered a political statement?

And who would have imagined that an organisation like the international football association of all people would rule that players in the England v Scotland international taking place on 11th November should be banned from wearing a poppy on their shirts. Leave aside the alleged web of corruption that the world's footballing bosses have created in their own affairs which must give little credibility to this particular edict and think about the reasons why the poppy is so powerful a symbol. Football is a big money sport. Some years ago we provided the on-shirt branding artwork for a newly promoted Premier League club. I  don't recall the detail or the sponsor, but the concern was very much about size! But Remembrance Day is a time for just that - remembrance, where we stop for a minute of silence. Anyone who has attended a major football game will testify to the sudden and complete silence observed by an otherwise noisy crowd of tens of thousands. Although stopping at 11 am on the 11th day of November owes its origins to the end of the First World War today we think about casualties from both the world wars and casualties in more recent conflicts. And interestingly today the event is probably marked by more people than it was twenty or thirty years ago. November is often a cold damp month which we dubbed the 'Shiver Parade' when assembled around the local war memorial on the nearest Sunday to the 11th.

The poppy has come to symbolise all of this and more in a very powerful way. We were fortunate in our family that none of my grandfather's or father's generation who served in WW1 and WW2 incurred casualties. They were termed as 'volunteers' which was a generous interpretation of the meaning of the word suggesting as it does there was some other option. My grandfather some how survived the front line trenches of WW1. My father was recruited to the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve during the Second World  War. And conflict still goes on. My own children have opted for service careers.

This Friday we shall be thinking of those still serving in active roles not just those from the past, including an RAF officer serving somewhere in the world united by the wearing of the poppy wherever we are.

The power of the right picture to a news story

The right picture can often often considerably enhance a news story. As the old saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words.

For most b-2-b marketing people hiring a professional photographer to create an image to accompany every press release is often beyond the budget. Usually clients supply  a photograph to accompany a press release which has been taken by someone in the company and only occasionally a professionally taken photograph is available. With the quality available from digital cameras and iPhones, pictures often destined for publication on a  news web site there should be no problems in taking and providing a good picture. The pictures to go with the story are often the first thing I look at. And often I  am disappointed although my assessment is not as a professional photographer, but selecting a picture for its contribution to the news story.

There are some basic 'technical' issues that should be avoided in taking your own photos. The main concerns are when the subject is out of focus, the lighting is all wrong and obscures the subject, the image is crooked and especially when a load of junk is prominently displayed in the foreground. I  don't want to spend a lot of time trying to fix the picture and anyway some can't really be fixed. Basic errors can be avoided, most cameras have an automatic focus, so submitting fuzzy , out of focus pictures should not be happening. Generally avoid shooting against the light, or taking a picture where light sources dominate the field of view and the subject is somewhere in the shadows.

Then when taking pictures of completed projects for example, at least make sure that left over building materials are not in shot. It is surprising how often discarded plastic cups feature in the foreground of pictures. And what about people? Exhibition stands pose something of a dilemma. Should we show empty stands as one manager of a German company I worked with, cleared the stand of people, had it clean and shiny which kind of sent the wrong message that it attracted no traffic. Should people be posed on the stand, or photos taken of people talking, so you get the back of a lot of heads. What it does need to be is interesting.

Some other things to think about are; is it relevant? Is it interesting? Is it appealing?

In some cases the mundane photo can be cropped to put the subject of the image centre stage, in other words, the eye is drawn to the subject the news story ids covering.

Finally is it free to use, have royalties to be paid and have you got to make credits to the copyright holder?

Where do you go for news these days?

Not that long ago a popular source of news was the daily newspaper. Supplemented by radio, and later television.

Most homes had the daily paper delivered to the door by a local paper boy. A newspaper round was probably the first introduction to work for many. Those who went out and bought a paper did so at a news agents where it was also handy to buy the day's cigarettes at the same time. When I commuted to London a huge majority of passengers (now called customers in pc terms) hid behind their morning paper. They also would pick up an evening paper on the way home and listen avidly to the news on the BBC at 6 o'clock. Interestingly newspapers said a lot about you, particularly about your political preference, by the title you chose to read. At the tender age of 11, I  attended an interview at a public school in the next town. Each year 3 scholarships were awarded for free tuition to common kids like me whose parents could not afford to send their son to a public school, or probably even want to. It was an interesting experience in so far I  had never been interviewed before. Our expectation was that the interview would take the form of mental arithmetic tests, general knowledge, spelling and our hobbies or interests. Instead we were asked what papers our parents read and our batting average.

Then along came rolling 24 hours TV news and the Internet. It's wall to wall news 24 hours a day. What soon became obvious is that most days there is just not sufficient news of interest to justify the airtime available and here is the problem. If the readers, viewers or listeners switch off, what about the advertiser? When I was young, the news was regarded as both serious and important. The freedom of the press a cherished right of democracy and essential in keeping people informed. The 3rd September 1939 was probably the biggest news day for years, with the prime minister making a radio broadcast at 11 o'clock, the King too and the newspaper headlines announcing that Britain had declared war on Germany, published the next day incidentally, were typically restrained. Typical statements of fact. 'Britain and Germany are at war' or 'Britain Declares war on Germany'. We can't imagine The Sun would be so reserved. Judging from the headlines from the only recent British war over protection of the Falkland Islands when invaded by the Argentine military junta, The Sun's headline screamed 'Stick it up you junta' as Britain declared war. No talk of curteous reference as when British papers referred to the German leader as 'Herr Hitler'. And when the British Navy promptly sunk the Argentine's (or Argies in media parlance) capital ship their only aircraft carrier,  the headline 'Gotcha' and sub head 'Our lads sink gun boat' filled the whole front page.

The habit of reading news spilled over to individual interests with magazines a popular format for those interested in news of a more specialised nature, such as gardening, cooking, knitting, pets, woodwork, music, politics and hundreds or thousands more - anywhere publishers could identify an audience. Not surprisingly business publications provided a source of news and in depth review of their specialisation too.

The trade press that informed the business communities did actually carry 'news' at one time along with articles written by experts in their chosen field. It seems odd now that, something could be a month or so in preparation and still be 'news' when the magazine arrived in the office. The habit of appending a circulation list to the cover ensured that by the time it reached the end of the circulation it could be very old news indeed. In fact trade magazines spent days or weeks sitting in one in-tray or another. News is hardly the role of the trade press anymore. That has all gone out on emails, web sites, text messages, tweets and the rest.

Perhaps what surprised me recently was actual proof that a lot of people don't actually read the contents of the messages they receive. Think about this for a moment. The way we consume news is not to read a publication from cover to cover, but to skim the headlines, glance at photos and move rapidly progress on through the publication. They have to be pretty interesting headlines or images to stop you long enough to recognise the article might be worth reading. The piece has to be a show stopper and promise and of course deliver information of value to you. So how do I know most online content and messages are not read is because people say so. Our youngest is in his late 20's and appears to have an iPhone grafted to his hand. He works in an IT environment complete with all the trappings expected these days of computer games and beanbags and works strange hours. Now he is the process of buying a house with his girl friend he is getting emails from his solicitor. It is the old world intruding into the new, but because the email subject lines from his traditional solicitor seem boring he doesn't go on to read the piece. Apparently he applies the same criteria to most of his messages received. So no action happens. Asking around it appears he is not alone.

Likewise I  get forwarded emails from clients who fairly evidently have not read what they are sending on to me. Somewhere in the scroll down to origins sent from somewhere deep in their organisation lurks the original question, brief or instruction. The intermediaries can presumably offer no answer - their skill lies in figuring out where it should go next.

It all comes back to the same thing. There are more news channels than ever before, you can be informed in a instant, but you have to promise content of value, importance and interest to the recipient of your news item if you are to stand a chance of it being read and acted upon!

UK Manufacturing moves back into top 10

News this week that Britain has climbed to 9th place in world global manufacturing rankings is welcome. With annual output worth $247 billion annually this represents 10% Of Gross Added Value to the UK economy. Manufacturing accounts for 14% of business investment and 68% of R & D. And according to the OECD UK manufacturers have outperformed any country except the United States for job creation since 2010. As the UK prepares to re-engage directly with the wider world it seems manufacturing is in good shape.

What you can learn from a walk round the warehouse

The picture given by the state of a company's warehouse can reveal more than the management accounts.

A lot of mistakes end up in a warehouse. Products that didn't sell in the numbers expected for example. Are the best sellers in stock, or is there just an empty space where they should be? Look at the labels to see where the goods are being shipped to. Why are some covered in dust - have they been there a long time? Then ask the warehouse manager which stuff moves off the shelf quickest. And in the LA  warehouse why were there so many garbage cans in stock? The company wasn't in the hardware business, but the presidents wife was!

The order book had plenty of surprises of its own.  Some of the products I  had reviewed in the R & D labs - major new lighting controls were booked as sold. Controls were the exciting front end to a load of boring looking dimmer racks. Some jobs had been booked in twice and one project listed under 3 different aliases. It was interesting that the president's renumeration had a bonus clause based on bookings, not sales! It was that Enron business model all over again.

Flip charts and duck tape - management tools

The 1980's was a time when  various management theories surfaced, were eagerly adopted and  then often quickly abandoned. It was a time when management was being re-invented as a science to which formulae could be applied, rather than the amateur style or leadership cult that was considered the normal state of affairs.

On a Sunday evening, in late January 1988 I - think, we were leaving a grim looking hotel near to New York's Kennedy Airport. A collection of Diet Coke cans and  discarded Danish pastries and littered the American end of the room, empty tea cups the British end. The flock wall paper bore the scars caused by the removal of 65 sheets of flip chart paper that had been taped to the wall all round the room. It was the end of a M.A.P.S. session. The first in which I  had participated. The management concept of a MAPS  session as I  recall some 30 years later, was quite simple. The managers were gathered together and invited to say what issues were stopping them doing their job properly. These could be complex things or simple things.  Managers were lulled into dropping their guard in volunteering their most private concerns as to what was holding them back. The subjects of concern were written on a flip-chart page. For example -"Don't have a secretary" or more vaguely "Don't have enough time" and this continued until approximately 65 sheets were completed. Then the real fun began. The flip chart was turned back to the first page and the person who had raised the issue had to  explain what this meant. The team chipped in with various ideas until choosing one of these as the answer. This solution  was written below the issue statement, then one lucky person was appointed to carry out the agreed solution. Another was delegated to ensure the tasks were actioned.Where no solution was agreed, the problem was parked and labelled 'back-in-the-box'. But and it was a big but, out of 65 issues, problems or challenges in whatever management speak was in vogue, there were two written by the president himself that were there real show stoppers. He wrote his first problem, 'the Americans don't trust the Brits' and the mirror version, 'the Brits don't trust the Americans'. I  don't recall what the comments were, if indeed there were any, but a glance round the room told its own story. The Americans turned up dressed in casual clothes that would work well at a barbecue, the English wore suits and ties.

Until then I  had never heard of MAPS. Apparently the format had been devised by Egon Ronay's brother. Egon Ronay was a renowned food critic, his brother seemed to favour black and had the air or demeanour of a funeral director. In the short time I had been with my new employer I  had turned over  a stone or two and exposed some surprises. My second week with the firm was to visit  the America arm of the company located in Los Angeles. The purpose of this visit being to review a number of new product that had been developed by the LA team for global sales. Not long before my appointment the company had consolidated the American and British companies under the control of the man previously running the American business and as part of this set up the R&D was also based in LA. I was accompanied on the visit with a product manager from my inherited UK  marketing team. He had briefed me that all was not well with the new product development programme. Towards the end of the week it was becoming apparent that this was a case of the 'emperor's new clothes'.  It was largely all smoke and mirrors. The R&D team were clearly under pressure to deliver this ambitious programme of new products, there was an air of anxiety emanating from the team which probably wasn't helped by a pair of Brits poking around their labs. And here was  the concern. A number of products were basically merely models lacking working parts, such as the electronics. Demonstrations of systems relied on various 'behind the scenes' trickery to illustrate the working product. When reading the story of Enron all these years later, there is a description of how an elaborate demonstration had been laid on for Wall Street investment analysts of a similar pretence to display their new found expertise in broadband. The situation in LA had been of the same ilk, even going as far as a demo to a team from NASA.

The MAPS  session was a direct result of my report on the status of the R & D programme. The next blog will explain the back story here.  I just wish, all these years later that I  had an insight into that Enron management style. 

The smartest guys in the room

When things seem to good to be true, then may be they aren't true.

But when smart guys tell you something is so, it can be tempting to believe. After all they are smarter than you are, aren't they? So what's all this about? Some readers will have noted the title and realised I am referring to Enron. Formed in 1985 Enron's stock was to take a meteoric rise to a capitalisation of 60 billion dollars and the company became the most admired, innovative large company in America. It was applauded in the Forbes Most admired Companies survey, management schools used it to produce case studies, it was 6th placed in the Fortune Global 500, yet by 2002 it had crashed and burned and by 2007 it was gone.

It was only recently reading the book I  realised that I  had gone through a similar experience in one job, but at a far more modest level. Every chapter in the Enron story revealed fresh evidence that the man driving this company I had joined had probably taken management classes based on the flawed Enron inspired innovations and case studies model. So how did all this happen?

Back in the mid 1980s I  suddenly found myself 'head-hunted' for a senior marketing role in an old established British company that was something of an institution in its niche market. It was a small company, a market leader in its sector ... well more of an institution really, whereas the company I  left was large and dominated a much bigger market sector. I was interviewed in offices in Covent Garden late in 1985 and after a few days the call came for a final interview in New York, but due to my lack of a visa, the meeting was moved to Toronto. Suddenly here was the entree to a new jet set business existence, a world already far removed from my present job. The interview was hardly rigorous. I  managed to remove the cap from a Coke bottle that had apparently defeated the efforts of the company president, meanwhile he read my CV with total amazement, occasionally shaking his head from time to time before asking if I  had written it myself. He expressed total disbelief that anyone other than a specialist in crafting CVs could have produce such a document. It seems that my chronological recording of my career to date had amazed and delighted him. I  gathered I  was hired. We had dinner in a massive airport hotel restaurant  which boasted a huge log fire surrounded by glass panels which seemed impressive to me at that time. As the UK MD  who had accompanied me on this whirlwind trip and I climbed back on the BA 747, an air stewardess recognised us from the flight out and asked ironically if we had enjoyed the 'day trip'. At Heathrow reality returned, Greenline bus to Watford Junction, the train home on which I  met an old school friend who held a mysterious role at the MoD which was something to do with espionage, then back at my desk the next day after just a day off.

At the beginning of January I  took up my new post. I had already met the marketing team when I  visited the operation after my appointment. But by the end of January the information I  had discovered and the response to my reporting this had launched a chain of events that seemed incredible then and only now viewed in the context of the Enron story can be explained in my own mind.

... to be continued

Seeing the light

When I  worked for large corporates there was often a regular parade of inventors anxious to convince us to strike a deal with them to produce and market their latest world- beating product.

The typical pitch fell somewhere between Britain's got Talent auditions and the Dragon's Den, neither of which were on air then. It was also before the Internet offered a valuable research tool to check them out. For the inventors the prize would be some royalty deal where we took on board the expense of engineering the product for manufacture, testing, standards compliance, investing in tooling, producing the product and marketing. Why did big companies with their own significant research and development teams bother to entertain what was typically a succession of self-deluded or simply crazy inventors? First they might just have genuine breakthrough in an area of interest that had eluded us and further more they might hold a patent. More realistically it was case of not wanting to miss out on a great possibility, much like in the pop music world of not wanting to be known as the manager who failed sign up the Beatles.

Into this odd aspect of our product management life breezed Myron Khan, an American inventor of polarizing lighting panels. A number of things combined to make this Dragon's Den style bid for support more interesting than most. At Thorn Lighting we already produced acrylic lighting panels which typically comprised multiple rows of small pyramids for lighting control. What's more, my boss the head of marketing had recently conducted a fact finding tour of the USA. Here he had observed the widespread adoption of suspended ceilings in offices and stores which used troffer lighting fittings which could be dropped into a ceiling module instead of ceiling tiles. Further more, on the premise that American building trends were ahead of the UK, visiting America gave a glimpse of the future. Already,  on the strength of his report a suspended ceiling company in Slough had been  purchased positioning Thorn for this promised future. Coincidentally Polarised sun glasses were en vogue in the early 1970s and created a premium, high tech eyeware sector as opposed to the 'dar'glasses we then bough from Woolworths or Boots.  And just to complete the picture the price of oil quadrupled in1973 prompting urgent calls for energy cuts of which lighting was a major culprit .

Myron Kahn who was not one for holding back, presented his  Polarised panels as the saviour of civilisation as we knew it. It seemed like a no-brainer - easy to retrofit polarised lighting panels that offered not only energy savings, but sharper vision, reduced glare and less eye strain and all to go into the suspended ceiling lighting fittings we expected would sell in their tens of thousands. But there was one niggling little problem  (there  were others) and that was the science of his panels. No recognised scientific expert seemed willing to endorse these claims. Worse still the American Illuminating Engineering Society the body that amongst other things set recomended lighting levels for illumination levels, refused to even mention Myron's polarized panels in their publications.

The fundamental issue was understanding how the  functioning of polarisation which had been implemented via a rather dull coating sheet applied to an other wise standard acrylic panel actually worked. A favourite way of demonstrating polarisation was to rotate polarised lenses and observe a reduction in light - great for sun glasses. There were a series of marketing/technical meetings with Myron Kahn largely to convince us how it worked. We were invited to observe how much better the colours of an R & D manager's tie appeared under this polarised light. Ever the showman Myron somehow contrived to appear on the BBC television news as the first  American  business to fly into Heathrow on the inaugural flight of Concorde. He intimated he was dashing to Britain to sign a multi million dollar contract. For some reason there was no reference to meeting some cynical product mangers in Slough!

The polarized panels enjoyed little success in the UK and were hideously expensive. The benefit of troffers was cheapness as the ceiling grid provide much of the support structure. The prismatic panel sheets which controlled the light distribution carried big, big mark ups. It was where we made our money.


Footnote:
There is little about Myron Kahn to be found on the Internet, apart that is, for a fulsome Obituary in the Los Angeles Times. In an eulogy that reads like one of his own sales brochures he was described as "the darling of  economists, ergonomists and conservastionists."

RSS - a news feed idea that won't go away

Social media has given new life to the term news feed.

Just about 10 years ago in this blog I wrote is RSS about to take off as a marketing tool? We had been offering RSS  to clients for 2 years or so by then, but it never really got a mass following despite being a neat technology. And like many other clever ideas it seemed doomed to stay just that - a neat idea. One thing that persuaded us was that the BBC  was using RSS  and it is still carried on their news sites now.

Last year I  wrote about RSS again, asking is RSS about to make a come back?  Perhaps it has found a niche. The explanation provided by the BBC says it all really. It allows you to view the latest additions to web sites you are interested in - all in one place.

Great idea in a busy world. May be RSS  will still be going in another 10 years!

Talking about news publication

Before Internet, news publication in the b-2-b sector was relatively simple.

Basically to get news published you sent your news by way of press releases to the editors of the relevant trade press and hoped. Sometimes you could 'pitch' a story to the editor and be commissioned to write an article and even, many years ago for the author to be paid. For the smaller stories you hoped yours would be selected for publication - most press releases went straight to the trash can.  A figure of 1 in 20 [published to binned] was quoted as typical. So you hoped your press release would be the fortunate 1 out of 20.

Then a couple of things gradually started to happen that changed things. Most b-2-b publications a few decades ago were monthly magazines, a few might have been sold by subscription but by and large it was display and classified advertising that paid for them. And the advertisers were often the same people that sent in the press releases. Colour print was not yet common in  b-2-b publications. A colour section was bound in  to the journal which was otherwise mainly black and white. There was obviously more appeal to place advertising in the colour pages of the publication. Likewise  a news item and photograph in colour were deemed more effective. This opened up a new revenue stream for the publisher. At the time colour print was significantly more expensive than black and white and one additional cost was the production of films for printing colour, which were known as 'colour separation's. The publishers would run your press release on one of the colour pages, but there would be a modest charge for the 'cost' of the separations. The once claimed editorial independence from the financial clout of the advertiser was breached. Now you could buy space one way or another. Advertorials - typically using the magazine's house style but containing apparently 'independently' written copy and therefore more authoritative - allowed the big advertisers to dominate the media. So before heading for the trash can, the press releases rejected by the editor would pass to a salesmen who would sell the space usually using the "colour separation' approach. When advertising sales slumped in difficult times the sales boys  were on the phone selling 'colour seps'- a term that outlived the actual process for colour print as b and w and colour prices balanced out and new generations of 'colour sep' salesmen, when challenged exhibited scant knowledge of what the charge was actually for.

With the Internet the advantage swung more in favour of the advertisers. Now all their news could be published - at least on their own website  -  giving a far more favourable return for the efforts put into writing the press release. Then along comes social media and another set of publication channels. All this opportunity to publish news brought with it its own problems. For example what is really news, news that customers or prospects would choose to read, because it is informative or interesting and what is common place?  Actually filling all these channels with interesting and informative content is another matter. Well here's another problem - the 'news feeds' on social media and Facebook's Instant Articles platform for example has kind of turned the tables a bit where the channel becomes the publisher and the initiative again shifts away from  the advertiser or news creator. Facebook, can and is changing the algorithm. An article titled, 'Why Facebook isn't working for publishers' takes a look at the evolving situation.

Although the technology has been around for years, few company web sites have used RSS as a news feed. It was and remains an in interesting option, one we look at in the next blog.

Talking about marketing metrics

Much importance is given to measuring the value of various marketing initiatives that are sometimes referred to as marketing metrics.

There is an interest, even a desire, to demonstrate the return on the investment put into marketing and it is handy to have a few Key Metrics to support this. These may be displayed on a 'dashboard' and  track the responses and value of a marketing campaign. For email campaigns we add an analytic tracking code enabling us to follow via the client's Google Analytics, the source of enquiry. So we can track who has opened the email, then clicked on a link to the sales offer on the html email and gone to the landing page and in due course placed an order we hope. Monetary values can be assigned to this based on knowing how much the campaign cost, the cost of each lead and the value of the resulting order should the visitor take this path. In practice it doesn't really tie up. It is a relay race from the email tracking handing over to the analytic tracking and ultimately the financial software. In theory we also know geographically where customers and prospects are located from their server's IP - but the buying office  and accounts people are often indifferent locations.

Of course it would be very nice to have this path from marketing initiative through to sales and shipping, so different campaigns could be compared.. But there are other influences at work. The customer may already be familiar with the brand from other advertising  and ordered because it seemed cheaper than the usual price.  Even in a relatively simple situation where customers respond to a promotion and inputs and outputs are measured often to an implied accuracy that does not really exist.  

And here is the core of the issue. Numbers can be expressed to several decimal points which sounds impressively accurate, but typically relies on data that not only lacks such precision, but can actually be very misleading. Take an example. When I  worked in the lighting industry, member companies submitted monthly sales returns by category of product, which the industry body compiled into a total figure for the different markets and product. The completed forms were returned showing our numbers, the total  market and by simple math to calculate market share as a percentage. It looked impressive that we had say 50.35% share of a market, but it was a total market only of the member companies, it excluded imports which in several categories were growing fast.

The end figures are only as good as the data that is entered and too often this is at best a guess. So the marketing metric needs to ne treated with caution.

Farewell to Francis Reid

With Andy Collier - Francis Reid (R)

Francis Reid, who died last month (9th June 2016), enjoyed a legendary reputation in the arcane  world of theatre lighting.

But not only was Francis the 'go to' person to ask about theatre lighting, his theatrical interests were much broader, with experience in many roles within the theatre, including running one. I had joined Strand from Thorn, the UK's largest lighting company, but none of my experience had taken me into Thorn's theatre lighting business. I  had however worked closely with Tony Isaacs and the team behind  Q File - a landmark product that had stolen a march on Strand the market leaders, in bring electronics to theatre lighting. I  was also told that in the sequence of recent Strand marketing managers I was unusual in having an engineering background and expertise in lighting. It was in this appointment I  first met Francis.

Some years earlier I  had, in an amateur role, attended a series of theatre lighting training sessions run on a Saturday morning in Strand's Covent Garden HQ. I was also aware of Francis' ability to communicate in other ways than the expression of his artistic abilities through his lighting designs. Also through his teaching and writing expertise similarly commanded respect. He taught us too, memorably, hands on' education at the Buxton Opera House in mid winter when the theatre was dark.

Despite his fame, Francis was so easy to talk to. Although our meetings were quite infrequent, we would sit and chat over a cup of coffee like long lost friends. Francis made you feel immediately comfortable and treated you as a valued friend. Unlike some, he did not use his position or reputation to take a superior role. When looking at new products, his questioning of how they worked was gentle and probing.  Not the attitude of others who try to undermine your new development. This all made his advice that much more valuable.

Francis had been one of the few editors of Strand's TABS magazine. By the time I  had taken over the marketing role at Strand, Richard Harris had taken up the editorial pen.