Back Seat Marketers

Word is that Google+ has over 90 million registered users which is a meaningful, but perhaps a confusing stat. Unfortunately, trial isn’t necessarily going to translate to repeat use or purchase, but the first time through has become critically important. The test of success is moving from trial to repeat in a number of areas since the cost of trial is going down rapidly.

In most areas of consumer marketing, trial is a big deal. For non-web consumables or durables, you have to buy to try, but the Internet is a different beast. Freemium is the expectation, not the exception, meaning that trial is mandatory as part of the use experience.

As a result, marketers and product managers have to focus on the out of the box experience for web AND consumer products. The early buyers have become highly important influencers by relaying the purchase experience to others via Amazon or epinions. The early adopter purchase process is quickly evolving to into a funded marketing event that is a viral marketing opportunity, good or bad.

This isn’t new, but this puts even more focus on early buyers and a great experience. Some examples to follow…

In the last couple of months, there have been a number of newly launched Internet capable products. What is interesting to me is that many of these products are able to connect to you anywhere. But what the ex-Apple people have done with nest.com is offer a product that is more than connected to you. It learns from you.

Apple’s new TV is rumored to have voice recognition from Siri. What will make this TV cool is not voice recognition, but the ability to know what the person is saying contextually.

The end benefits are easy to describe, but hard to deliver consistently or reliably.

I am heading to CES and will use this blog as a set of notes around interesting ideas and my notes.

Today I set up my iPhone 4S which includes a voice recognition component to a keyboard. My goal for this entry is to use only my voice to provide a blog post of my ideas.

While I think this is a little bit clunky, I do have to admit that the ability to be able to post my ideas at the speed at which I talk as opposed to the speed at which I type is a transformational activity.

I once blog that I felt that Apple was moving down the road of being able to use voice recognition for something more powerful than Multi-Touch.

That time has come.

Today’s news of Steve Jobs death strikes a cord of the convergence of a few important elements I can appreciate in a few small ways. Steve’s amazing story is the stuff of the American Dream…

Jobs was an entrepreneur and capitalist at heart. He looked for user problems and directed people’s time and money to steer the company ahead of opportunity, for profit. He suffered as many visionaries do early on by being too far ahead, but with age, he found a sweet spot of technological stretch and user believability.

Being a founder of Apple meant he was able to shape its vision in ways that most leaders would have considered a ‘bet the farm’ strategy. Even in the first year of his second stint as Apple CEO, he lost money on bad projects and got behind failed technologies. In fact, Apple took 3 years to show the financial fruit of his vision. 3 years. Three years ago, the iPad didn’t exist in the market.

Most importantly, Steve proved his abilities as a leader more at Pixar, with another company’s dreams, than anything he did at Apple. His impact in the media world allowed him to turn to technology and make it highly relevant and into a legit business (he took on Napster and not only won, he dominated).

Steve said that a career is built on a series of experiences that add up to skills and abilities to attack problems. He lived it by getting the most from his seemingly random typography class in college and again at Pixar.

His eventual dream that consumer electronics would outpace Microsoft’s business software bet which was almost impossible to envision 10 years ago. His ability to adapt, stretch and listen to users, but be choosy about what he offered made it a reality and is unmatched.

So many lessons.

When I was getting ready for my career search coming out of college in what was at the time a pretty bad economy, my father told me that I should look at my job search in a couple different ways than just the starting salary. Not making any kind of salary made money important to me, but I listened anyway.

In a job search, he guided me to think about the industry that a company plays in, and then the company’s position in it. Lastly, he said to look at the job and how important it is to the company’s plans.

OK, so in a bad economy you take what you can get and Montgomery Ward was it for me. Not the biggest, fastest growing or the best, it was a middling retailer fighting against its big brother Sears (no lie, the CEO’s brother was the CEO of Sears) in a world that was just about to see WalMart change everything for both retailers.

With my recent job change underway, I’m happy to say that I am heading to a role doing what I enjoy doing and a company that has the right to play in a growing field. The job will be a fun one, but the fact that the company is in a strong position in an industry that has more change ahead of it than behind it, I am excited to get started soon.

You know when fatherly advice is sound when you can tell it to others, and it sticks. In passing along my Dad’s advice, I have been told how wise the advice is, and it definitely is knowing it’s source.

I have to admit that watching Apple and Google reshape the publishing landscape is fun as an outsider. Can’t be fun for thhe legacy players that are seeing the value chains being written for them.

Working at a manufacturer, times couldn’t be more intriguing given distribution and education paths are sorting out the credible from the also rans. In fact, Google is helping that process with cleaning up content farms.

How we learn, communicate and consume are changing. What a great time to be a marketer.

When Lance Armstrong signed up with Radio Shack for a new cycling team, it seemed like a match of convenience. Being a cycling fan that puts in the hours watching Versus, I’ve learned that there are only a few marketers that seem to care to advertise to our quirky US niche audience (not to mention that Ford considering dropping Mercury leaves a big hole in the ad line up!).

That said, this ad campaign that Radio Shack has created is about as fantastic as it gets on all levels.

First, Lance is on par with Peyton Manning in his ability to deliver a jovial and credible persona. Second, the whole idea that Lance is the lead of Mobility, Radio Shack’s main profit driver, connects the man, what he’s known for and the brand he’s pitching seamlessly.

On track.

Transparency is increasingly important to consumers. So how best to provide news that it fears lost loyalty?. Well, my first thought probably wouldn’t be to do an open letter. We consumers hate fees and my guess is that with the iPhone nearing an exclusivity end in the US, AT&T is readying for the worst by locking in subscribers with high switching costs.

The iPhone is only the beginning since 4G will probably turn wireless into a utility instead of a proprietary network. If you can get 120 volts from any company, then price and switching costs become the game.

This isn’t Jobs going off on Adobe, this is a price change, so don’t get so wishful with the style, AT&T.

Thanks to Lizdon for pointing to a great post From Tom Brakke on the cave and the flow.

This post goes way beyond investing from my perspective. Tom highlights something far too many companies are falling in the trap of: fast following. The river is getting so easy to follow. Specifically, the data flow is so robust that tracking the latest news is becoming a widely followed business model. As Mauldin would say, when there’s too many people on one side of a trade, the trade is going to fall apart as a bubble at some point. The river is increasingly a bubble.

What isn’t a river? A cave where people develop independent from the rush of the river trends.

Both the cave and the flow are important, but as important is realizing just how many folks are lined up on each side.

Hey, technology debates and clash of the titans notwithstanding, Adobe is taking it’s message to the masses.

We all don’t have to like it, but it is the perfect only way to respond to the PR battle they are losing with Steve Jobs, the ultimate person as Apple’s brand pitchman. I mean, the company just needs to write a letter to make it’s point.

Adobe is not going to win the battle in the media, so mass marketing is all it has left. I get it, if you say you love Apple and creativity, then Steve Jobs is a sour hater if he’s not loving Adobe back.

If this were about consumer demand or a “keep my show alive” website for recently cancelled Lost, then maybe there’s a shot, but this is B2B land where public support isn’t going to sway a juggernaut to listen to the masses.

Nice try, but wheels off.