In the early internet years this believe has resulted in the worldfamous buble. Though the buble has brought the internet community to more realism, virtuality remains a concept difficult to manage when it comes down to marketing.  I believe there’s a basic rule which can help to put into place a pragmatic approach.

RVR or Reality-Virtuality-Reality. One must start from a reality of the customer, a well defined evidence that is present in the day to day life and project it into a new day to day experience. The virtuality is a mean to implement an extension to this reality. Doing so, it creates an environment to enhance the experience. But to make the experience work there needs to be a connection back to the reality.

The reason why this formula is essential in my opinion is that value to be sustainable must be created in the day to day life of customers and nowhere else. If you keep that focus in mind, the risk you will get attracted by the mermaids of the virtuality will be very low.

In conclusion I do not underestimate virtuality but I am convinced that its greatest value for marketing lays in its ability to build a bridge. A bridge between two realities, the one before and the one after the virtuality.

In to day’s internetworked world, information supply is exploding where as demand for it not necessarily is and remains more or less stable. The standard law of supply and demand applied to this situation tells us it is obvious that the value of information drops to dramatic lows. Worse, the overflow of information becomes pure noise and its value negative.

From a marketing point of view this means companies have to understand that it is no longer sufficient to provide “information” in the opinion that who needs it will find it.  Acting as such companies are only adding an extra load to the information overdose and create aversion instead of sympathy.

In order to communicate efficiently companies must foster the creation of meaning. Information on its own is insufficient though it is an important ingredient.  Companies need to bring it to a subjective level in order to make it work for them. This subjective level is the customer and his world. He only is able to create the meaning companies try to provide.

There are different ways on how to apply this insight. Let me name just a few examples.  Websites can avoid confronting their users with useless information based on the knowledge they have of their customers’ behavior on the website. Technology companies can translate technology into the customer’s user environment. If companies fail to do it their communication will become noise and customers will walk away from it.

to your success!

To find out how our brain works when we are in contact with brands, Lindstrom will use a sophisticated fMRI scanner. This high tech medical device observes which part of the brain gets activated when people are confronted with certain types of messages. As each part of the brain treats certain types of information this approach allows observing how the brain “understands” or processes the messages.

The results of these tests can be found in the must read book “buy.ology Thruth and lies about why we buy“. Many conclusions of this research are surprising for the rational mind. Maybe less for those who are familiar with Neurosciences and Neuromarketing, but they will still find very valuable information for managing brands in the 21st century.

to your success

This morning I youtubed a Philip Kotler presentation he gave at the London Business Forum in 2008. Kottler explained how marketing had evolved during the last ten years. When he started to explain Brand-Management he introduced the spiritual dimension in Branding. He claimed where brands traditionally looked for mindshare and heartshare, they have – in order to be successful today – to add spiritshare.

What Kotler understands by it, is that brands have a contribution to deliver to “something bigger than the individual”… a rather very open definition of spirituality. I personally would opt for the term “meaning”. As spirituality exists in people’s lives to create a meaning, so does a brand it creates a meaning in the customers life.

After marketing joining the Malraux paradigm, who is next?

to your success!

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The reason? Compared to the acoustic nerve, the optical nerve transports 25 times more information. It seems like the eye is trust worthier than the ear because of the fact it brings more information? Neuroscience research is pointing in this direction anyway.

But humanity has not been waiting for neuroscience to understand the power of visual information. Across the ages and cultures, mankind has understood words as such are not powerful enough unless they activate our visual system. When we need to make sure our word based communication is effective, we use techniques such as metaphors and story telling. And these techniques are in its essence purely visual.

To conclude let me get back to the research result that visual information is the preferred source of information when it comes to decision making. There’s the saying “seeing is believing” but based on this scientific evidence of the information superiority of visual stimuli, I suggest bringing this saying to a newer level “seeing is knowing”. As when it comes to decision-making knowledge is preferred to beliefs.

to your success!

When it comes to their products many companies fail to think or feel beyond their product. But when you assume your product responds to a need, be aware that this need is always larger than what the product stands for itself.

The customer’s experience defines the value of your product and nothing else. Ignoring this value creation process and refusing its ownership leads to frustration for the customer and manufacturer.

And we are not talking about just some experience but about the total experience. Successful products focus on ownership of the TCE (total customer experience) and are engaged in a never ending challenge to improve it continuously.

So dare to think and above all feel (an experience is not only cognitive but much more emotional) beyond your product and you will be contributing to improved customer experiences and thus create more value.

to your success!

Though Google develops loads of software, has an outstanding reputation regarding its technology, employs thousands of brilliant engineers…  it’s not technology which drives their innovation… but their customer’s needs.

In my first blog “technology is a non-sense” I already stated that technology on its own has no sense. Technology can only be considered as innovation when it creates customer value.

But there is also a second important element that is a logical consequence of a customer view on innovation. Merrill explains often great innovations for the customer are made possible only by small adjustments on the technology side.

This means companies do not necessarily need great technology or technology experts to be successful, but much more do they need to – what I like to call – “own the customer’s” experience and use technology only as a means to improve their customer’s experience.

Positively surprised by this customer oriented approach (from my experience rather uncommon) for a CIO I googled (what else?) Merrill’s profile and found out he holds a PHD in psychology.  That probably explains a lot.

If you want to learn more on innovation at Google, watch this video http://bartnorre.wordpress.com/2010/12/06/technology-is-a-non-sense/

The book explains that according to neuroscientists we have three major parts in our brain that work as if they were separated organs: the neocortex (where we proudly think), the intuitive brain (where we intensely feel) and finally the primitive or reptilian brain (where we decide).

So if their theory is true, it is not our intelligence (cortex) which decides but it is our good old primitive brain. The part we share with a lot of other living and less intelligent beings on this planet. This part of our brain is action and “now” driven.

According to research there are 6 stimuli which act upon this part of the brain:
a. egocentric, only concerns with him/herself
b. thinking in opposites (black & white)
c. tangible and simple familiar information
d. remembers only the beginning and the end
e. visual information is most efficient
f. strong reaction to emotions

Doesn’t this look like the receipt of how extreme right wing political movements communicate? And if they do so, neuroscientists predict they made it easy for people to decide. And as human beings are strongly attracted to comfort zones… yes you got it…

For those interested in reading more on the subject follow the link to the book
in english http://www.amazon.com/Selling-Old-Brain-Discoveries-Influence/dp/0974348201
in french http://www.amazon.fr/Neuromarketing-nerf-vente-Patrick-Renvois%C3%A9/dp/2804147339

Over the last decades, neuro-scientists have made great progress to understand how the brain works. The result of their research is the opposite of what the Descartes paradigm has imposed: FEEL-DO-THINK. Yes, emotions always come first. Or if you like, thinking is a result of an emotion. Emotions are the motor and provide the energy and orientation to the thinking.

Marketers who are focused on customer behavior are concerned with these new findings. By integrating the results of neuroscience they can shift their paradigm too. It is not what people think about a product that is important, but what people feel about the product and it is measurable!

This new approach has a name: Neuromarketing. Neuromarketers integrate emotional parameters based on scientific evidence in the analysis of customer behavior. How they do this you can see on this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JXyhJYsFbQ. It is a 49 min video, but as often the first 10 min are largely sufficient to get the main message from it.

But in fact, often the reason for this lack of success is simple: they look in the wrong direction! They look at themselves instead of projecting them selves on the market. They spend months, years staring at their navel and get lost.

Companies feel more confident to talk about the features (the internal view) than about the value (the market view) they deliver. You can’t expect a customer to admire your navel when he is looking for value not features. But as long as companies focus their communication on features they will remain lost in a communication process which shows strong familiarities with autism.

The solution? A simple change of perception. In fact it is all about the difference between two questions «what do we do?» (the features) and «what we do for YOU?» (the value). One word that can change a world.