The Customer Champion

Consumer Sentiment: Australia vs. the US and UK

Scott Graham — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 06:18:35 +0000

Funny. Just attended a market outlook presentation for 2013 with the ever entertaining Phil Ruthven of IBISWorld; part of the Australian Marketing Institute Series. In the pitch he shares long term view of consumer sentiment across markets The Aussie market shows a nervousness with lots of ups and downs but a relatively positive outlook; in […]

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Winning the Battle for Consumer Influence in the Digital Age

Scott Graham — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 05:20:38 +0000

In this article, Accenture looks at the challenge of influencing consumers in the age of social media. The article provides a really useful framework that categorises channels & forums of consumer influence and then suggests four actions to be taken, based on an assessment of the company’s ability to exert influence through the channel. The […]

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Is digital mail the death-knell of the paper statement?

Scott Graham — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 06:28:05 +0000

Digital mail has been getting a lot of press recently, firstly with Computershare’s Digital Post Australia launch in August and then with the launch of Aussie Post’s Digital Mailbox in November. A dispute over naming rights was settled just before the launch of Digital Post; Aussie Post’s offering was suspended shortly after launch due to technical glitches and […]

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“Five ‘No Regrets’ Moves for Superior Customer Experience & Engagement” – McKinsey

Scott Graham — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 13:31:38 +0000

The head of McKinsey’s marketing practice pens an article that unsurprisingly puts marketers in charge of the new discipline of Customer Experience management. Look beyond the territorial play and the creation of new jargon and these “five no regrets” moves make a lot of sense – adjusting the operating model to put customers at the […]

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“Recession Mentality Deeply Ingrained” – BCG

Scott Graham — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 13:27:00 +0000

This is an important piece of research; but one that warrants deeper analysis. BCG’s eleventh annual global survey of consumer sentiment provides somewhat bleak insight into the persistently low rate of consumer sentiment across developed markets. While the outlook in the BRIC markets is upbeat, in developed markets, the persistence of the current recession has […]

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Asset based fees – a thing of the past

Scott Graham — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 06:33:23 +0000

Summary: Over 60% of today’s wealth customers expect to pay flat fees, yet the industry overwhelmingly charges asset based fees (only 11% feel this is appropriate). This was probably a more comfortable approach for advisers when transitioning from commission to fee based compensation and probably easy enough to rationalise to customers moving away from commissions […]

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Disagreeable, disorganised & transactional

Scott Graham — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 06:02:18 +0000

“No business can thrive unless it has a clear idea of who its potential customers are. The Professional Planner/Customer Champion wealth segmentation project has identified the clients of the future.” Hit the link above to download and read the Professional Planner cover story on our segmentation study. Professional Planner July Issue – Segmentation Cover Story

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“Demystifying Social Media” – A Useful Framework

Scott Graham — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 02:48:15 +0000

This article is a must read for those who want to stay ahead of the pack on the commercial application of social media. McKinsey notes that most firms are active in social, but few have a clear plan and spend is low. They put this down to a lack of understanding of the commercial applications […]

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Taking the PC out of “community”

Scott Graham — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 10:41:17 +0000

Finally an article that talks tangibly to what people might mean when they refer to creating a community around their brand. Mostly 101 but not seen it pulled together in this way before – worth a read.

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The social network imperative for bank marketers

Scott Graham — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 05:25:42 +0000

Virtually all banking marketers will be active in social media this year, yet according to Accenture, most feel unprepared and are overwhelmed by the challenges and associated risks. Targeting the uninitiated, this introductory piece provides guidance on how to be successful in “social”. The article top-lines the uses of social, the challenges and a method for […]

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Marketers going through the motions online – McKinsey Global Survey results

Scott Graham — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 05:17:58 +0000

McKinsey’s latest worldwide survey of marketing execs canvasses their views on digital marketing, but in staying focussed on the marketing view of things, misses the bigger point on the slow take-up of digital channels. According to the survey, after a decade working to integrate digital channels into marketing, the majority of mainstream (non-dotcom) companies are […]

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Your wireless wallet

Scott Graham — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 10:41:27 +0000

In September we saw the launch of Google Wallet, a mobile phone app that lets users make credit card payments, collect loyalty points and participate in sales promotions. The launch is part of a fresh wave of development that is pushing Mobile commerce to new frontiers. In this short discussion, McKinsey’s Stephenson and David C. […]

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“How we see it”

Scott Graham — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 11:49:17 +0000

As a companion piece to “We’re all Marketers Now”, McKinsey interviews marketing leaders from AMEX, Virgin and Yahoo on marketing in the age of engagement. Virgin’s Ridgeway and Hayes from AMEX don’t offer much new here. But Duncan Watts, research scientist at Yahoo, is worth a read. Watts argues for a more scientific approach to […]

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“We’re all marketers now”

Scott Graham — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 11:27:16 +0000

Marketing leaders from AMEX, Yahoo and Virgin write on future directions in marketing in this McKinsey article; focusing on the shift from marketing as a communications function to becoming the engine room of the company’s customer engagement. There’s nothing earth shatteringly fresh here, but it is a decent summary of the changing world facing today’s marketers. […]

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Shape behaviour & create delight at no extra cost

Scott Graham — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 06:23:10 +0000

Having your front line staff proactively engage with customers to help them satisfy their service needs, can yield big dividends in enhanced efficiency and customer satisfaction. Grooming the right staff and choosing the more receptive customers will deliver greater success as not all staff have the ability to approach customers without intimidating them and not […]

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Aussies more likely to act on service experience…global Amex study

Scott Graham — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 00:09:03 +0000

The 2011 AMEX Global Service Barometer has been released. Consistent with prior years, it shows that only about half of consumer expectations are met and about a third believe their business is taken for granted. The news for local companies is that Australian attitudes are hardening and behaviour is following suit; Aussies in general are more […]

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Google+ an improvement on Facebook?

Scott Graham — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 05:38:58 +0000

Google, the most popular Web site on earth, is worried about the second-most popular site. That, of course, would be Facebook. Why else would Google keep trying, over and over again, to create a social network of the same type? Orkut, Jaiku, Wave, Buzz - Google has lobbed forth one fizzled flop after another. And now […]

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Service That Doesn’t Serve

Scott Graham — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 05:00:28 +0000

I want to share a recent experience with a community sport facility that tried to do the right thing, but got it so wrong that it alienated clients. I swim with a bunch of good ol’ boys, more distinguished by their girth than their speed in the pool. In early 2010, in an effort to […]

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The Return of the Tribe

Scott Graham — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 04:30:16 +0000

Seth Godin talks about how the web has returned us to the tribe as a social construct & argues the tribe makes us much more powerful. Seth Godin argues the Internet has ended mass marketing and revived a human social unit from the distant past: tribes. Founded on shared ideas and values, tribes give ordinary […]

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The Rise of The Mesh

Scott Graham — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 23:15:56 +0000

Lisa Gansky talks about how in future access through sharing will be more important than ownership. At TED@MotorCity, Lisa Gansky, author of “The Mesh,” talks about a future of business that’s about sharing all kinds of stuff, either via smart and tech-enabled rental or, more boldly, peer-to-peer. Examples across industries - from music to cars […]

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Brands & Physics

Scott Graham — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 02:00:34 +0000

Dan Cobley uses the laws of physics to explain the forces that drive brands. Physics and marketing don’t seem to have much in common, but Dan Cobley is passionate about both. He brings these unlikely bedfellows together using Newton’s second law, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, the scientific method and the second law of thermodynamics to explain […]

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Not all Customers are Equal

Scott Graham — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 01:00:00 +0000

Hostages, Users, Evangelists and Experts. I have never really been a user of Facebook or Linkedin, but more of a Hostage. I didn’t use them because they made me feel warm inside or helped me kick ass (as Kathy Sierra would say), I used them because everyone else was there. Hostages are a very important […]

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Intangibles Matter

Scott Graham — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 07:30:39 +0000

Rory Sutherland talks about how we often value perception ahead of function. Advertising adds value to a product by changing our perception, rather than the product itself. Rory Sutherland makes the daring assertion that a change in perceived value can be just as satisfying as what we consider “real” value - and his conclusion has […]

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The Next Generation of Social Networking?

Scott Graham — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 03:30:07 +0000

Why Social Media Will Evolve Into Social Business. In oversimplified terms, SEO to the average company is a process of performing research into the words people are using when searching or discussing online. Company X then refines the copy and metadata on their site to match the vernacular people are using to improve their relevance […]

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Some Early Exponents of Mass Customisation in Fashion

Scott Graham — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 00:45:49 +0000

Some Early Exponents of Mass Customisation in Fashion In the next few years the small-scale success stories of the early adaptors can and should be used as the foundation for the implementation of Mass Customisation in Fashion throughout Europe on a wide and large scale .SERVIVE aims to be the launching platform enabling large-scale implementation […]

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New Technology Allows you to Truly “Create Your Own”

Scott Graham — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 06:30:27 +0000

New Technology Allows you to Truly “Create Your Own”. We all know about the opportunities and principles of mass customization – and there has been plenty of research, talks, press reports, and media coverage about this strategy. Still, for the general public, mass customization (or better: the fact that consumers today can create their own products and […]

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Google Launches Tool for Online Reputation Management

Scott Graham — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 07:00:18 +0000

Google has always focused on leveraging information, lately they are beginning to leverage the individual. In recent years, it’s become easier and easier to publish information about yourself online, through powerful new platforms like social networking sites and photo sharing services. One way to manage your privacy on these sites is to decide who specifically […]

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Effie Judging Today

Scott Graham — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 05:00:52 +0000

Effie Judging today - On a panel reviewing the finalists in a local competition to identify the most effective marketing campaigns. Set up by The Communications Council, the winners will be announced at a Gala dinner August 25th. For further information or to book your seat at the event, go to http://www.effies.com.au/home.aspx

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