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More than a few times, I have criticized companies that immediately send out cease and desist letters when their intellectual property is being used on the internet without their permission (I'm talking about you, Ford and Nintendo). I have even recommended companies proactively create a public use policy around their IP to help fans understand how they can engage with their favorite brands.
So, it is really nice to be able to highlight an example of a company that gets the opportunity these situations present and the destruction cause by immediately going legal on every unauthorized use of IP. Here is an interview with Atari executive vice president of online and mobile, Tom Kozik. Atari faced the issue of people, who have an affinity for the classic Atari games, creating imitations of their popular games (some not so great) and distributing them on fileshare networks. Rather than following the disturbing trend of sending C&D letters to the fileshare and the individuals distributing the games, Atari decided to engage them and offer legitimate versions of the games to distribute. Tom explains his position perfectly:

Truth be told, why in the world would I ever want to go after my fans? These are people who absolutely love our classic old arcade games...Now, instead of arming up a cadre of lawyers the smart thing to do is say, "Look, you're fans of our games, let us give you the legitimate version of the game,"

Another day, another DCMA takedown notice issued by a company's attorney that takes an opportunity to build brand value and actually destroys it. The picture (you can find it on Flickr here) is a DCMA takedown notice sent to a MIT educational program about a student who built a replica Pac-Man game from the programming language Scratch - a simple programming language designed to teach people how to program. Again, the attorney probably acted by the book in issuing the takedown notice, but did NAMCO, its marketers, and the attorney miss a brand building opportunity?

It's been a few years since I got in the middle of some IP law, but from what I remember IP law does not require that you demand the takedown of every potentially infringing piece of content, you just need to demonstrate you are exercising control. Control can take many forms. They could just grant the student permission for the purpose of this educational exercise. If there was a real threat to their game built on more robust computing languages, then they could limit the permission for a specific period of time. Problem solved. Now think about the wasted brand value building opportunity?

How much free press would they have received if they congratulated the student for embracing their iconic game in their pursuit to learn how to program? What if they granted an open license for any student to build Pac-Man replica games in the pursuit of their learning? People may actually see Pac-Man everywhere. What a tragedy for the brand?

This new age of content manipulation should force any brand marketer/content owner to rethink their playbook on how they will build brand value. Those who don't and keep doing what they did for the past 20 years are negligent in their duties (IMO). If you are a marketer and these situations make you unsure of how to act, start asking questions. Get your key stakeholders (including legal) into a room and explore "what if" scenarios. Ask your attorney what is the "minimum" that you must do to protect the brand's legal rights - Minimum being the key word. Then discuss the potential upside of different responses. Takes some risks. Learn. You may surprise yourself with the results.

We need to stop using the 20 year old playbook in this new world!

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NAMCO Demands Take of Pacman Created by Kid...

Nintendo falls into the ranks of companies who find ways to alienate fans in the name of brand protection. Nintendo has the luxury of having a brand so compelling to their fans that they want to make stories about the brand. In this case some lovers of the Zelda video game series created a movie based on the characters and gave it away for free.

I just got off the phone with a Charter Communications telesales agent who was trying to get me to upgrade from my high speed internet subscription to a full package of TV and phone. This was the first time they tried to call me about an upgrade, but they have religiously sent 1-2 mailing per week for the past year with the same offer. Every week I have wondered how much money do they waste sending out these mailings? I guess this strategy may work for Charter, but I was never going to upgrade.

This wasn't to say the agent did a poor job. If fact he perfectly balanced politeness with the aggressiveness needed to be a good telesales agent. I will not upgrade with Charter because the focus their marketing budget on old world marketing while ignoring the key customer touch points that make a difference in their customer relationship.

There are a number of touch points that Charter doesn't do well (see their website), but I want to focus on a missed opportunity in the customer relationship that would have cost less than all those mailings. Even though I subscribed to their High Speed internet package only as a result of their monopoly, they had a great opportunity to cultivate a relationship with me. Instead, they sent me 1-2 mailings per week and had a telesales agent call me. They treated me like an opportunity and not as regular customer.

I think of the time where my internet connection went down for 2-3 days (a big deal for my lifestyle). Charter did not contact me to apologize for the inconvenience. They didn't offer me a nominal refund for the inconvenience. Possibly they may have offered a refund to those that called in to complain, but what of us who didn't complain? Did they think we didn't notice our internet down for 2-3 days? They did send a mailing about their generous packages though!

Charter missed a true opportunity to build a relationship with their customer. A call or a letter or a email would have said we recognize the impact we have on your life and take it seriously. That would have built a connection with me. Instead they tried to pretend the outage did not happen and went on sending me their 1-2 mailings per week. What does that say about how they view me?

Maybe it's just me, but old world marketing doesn't work. I want a company who will invest marketing dollars in their touch points with me, not throw them away on mailings (Do you not realize you have my email address???). Sorry Charter, I will not be upgrading to your bundle until you upgrade your view of me as a customer.

Am I the only one who thinks this?

UPDATE: I just saw this post on the Harvard Business Review Blogs about an experience with a high end gym. Again, the gym ignores the customer experience during the relationship, but they quickly go into action once the customer cancels their membership. A little too late!

“If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have said a faster horse.” -Henry Ford

It seems like to today I am tackling a number of pet peeves I have been seeing spouted out in the twitterspehere. This one is a quote I repeatedly see posted by people. I believe they are trying to make the often made point that people don't know what they want. Often this is true, but people are misinterpreting this statement to believe that Innovation should not consider customers opinions. I agree customers don't know what they want. Not surprising. It's not their job. They don't spend 24/7 thinking about how to delight themselves on this specific issue. That's the innovator's job.

What customers do know is what their problems are.

Your customer may say "I want a faster horse". As an product manager should you take that a face value and give them it? Not if you want to keep your job. That statement leads into the natural question "Why do you need a faster horse?" and that is the true insight. By digging into this area you may discover that they really do not have a need for a faster anything; or you may discover that there is a genuine need to go faster. The key is that by asking those additional questions, you are truly understanding your customers wants and needs.

In the end, Henry Ford did listen to his customers. Their statement implied they wanted to go faster. A little digging probably revealed that they also liked the comfort of a wagon. "A faster wagon". Henry, knew it was near impossible to make faster horses to pull the wagon, so he needed to look for another way to solve their problem. Henry listened and the innovator in him found a remarkable solution. What are your customers problems.

I am continually surprised to see companies try to control marketing messages in today's open internet world. It may not be a huge problem (although you are missing a huge opportunity) if the message you are trying to control is close to the truth, but it will be a disaster if your message is not true. Just ask Belkin. The Daily Background alleges that a Belkin Business Development Representative paid people to post 5 star product review ratings on Amazon.com when it was receiving poor reviews. The report appears to do a good job tracking Belkin's efforts. It is not shocking that companies would try to cover up bad ratings - for better or worse this is a tactic many companies use (see the sham of video game reviews). What is shocking is that Belkin obviously never thought they would get caught! Are they not familiar with today's internet environment.

My advice to companies is to shape, not control the message.

Accept you will no longer be able to control the message. Instead work with your audience to shape the message. Think what would have happened if Belkin would have contacted those who posted poor reviews and said, "Hi, we are very sorry you had a poor experience with our products. We strive to make this product X and Y. Can you help us understand why we didn't meet those promises?" It is alright to admit your product may have fell short of your goals - whether you admit it or not the internet will know. If you release a dud, show people you care to fix it. Engage in a conversation with customers. It may be painful at the start, but if you remain true it can deliver incredible returns to your brand. If you can't engage in the conversation or remain true, I predict your products will move towards low value commodities (with low margins) or you will go out of business. In today's internet environment, transparency is not an option.

1. In today's internet age, we should not have people lining up to get a scare product. Allow them to buy in advance online forming a queue.
2. The advance purchase allows you to manage implementation and rollout to control potential for massive disasters like this past weekend (a small disaster can be quickly fixed and kept quiet).
3. Treat your best customers better. You know who they are because the pre-ordered the phone (or you previous customers who are big users of the product). By allowing them to just go pick up their phone in a VIP line or give a customized phone for the 1st X customers just reinforces the value of scarcity.

In honor of my first day at the Web2.0 Expo in San Francisco I am going to blog something completely unrelated, but ties in with my theme of marketing needs to change as technology accelerates the rate of information distribution.

Case Study: Wyndham Hotels - Ramada Inn

A month ago I stayed at a Ramada Inn. Ramada is owned by Wyndham Hotels. Yesterday, I got a call that started out as a courtesy call by Wyndham to thank me for my business. Normally I do not take unsolicited phone calls, but I will take a thank you call. Then, the caller progressed and said she wanted to reward my loyalty with an offer to stay at a Wyndham hotel - a 4 day/3 night package - at a special rate. I thought this is good marketing - take a customer who had a good experience at one of your hotels and try to introduce him to higher end experiences - maybe create a loyal customer!

Then, the caller slips in the catch. It was a timeshare solicitation! At this point I was furious about the deceptive nature of the call, told the caller "not interested", and immediately hung up. Likely, I will stay away from Wyndham brands in the future and I rarely get riled up with companies' stupidity - but I really hate deception.

The point is transparency. While it is questionable to use paying hotel customers as a list to sell your timeshares (not to mention a sure way to not get repeat business). It's even worse to get them to talk to you under the umbrella of a "courtesy thank you call". At least tell me right up front, "we know you stayed at our hotel and I would like to talk to you about our timeshare opportunities." That way I can give you permission for the conversation. The way Wyndham does it now reeks of deception. No doubt they know it. Some Wyndham marketing genius, who should be fired, thought "no one likes our timeshare telemarketing so let's alienate our hotel customers by tricking them to listen to our pitch".

Do I need to say anymore? Transparency = Trust = Increase Brand Value.

Sam Lawrence, CMO of Jive Software, put out a post close to my heart - Marketing and PR departments clinging to idea that they need to control the message. Companies can not stop people from talking about them. Technological change means that their messages can spread rapidly through the internet; growing until traditional media picks up their story and spreads it to a whole new audience. Marketers need to stop viewing this reality as a threat and begin to embrace the opportunity. Those same technological changes allow them to engage their customers in an ongoing conversation (As Sam says "Ask permission to move from transaction to interaction").

The era of the 12 week marketing campaign is over.

Welcome to the era of customer conversation! Now, marketers need to take ownership of this opportunity. If they don't embrace this shift, it is unlikely their executive management team will. They must evangelize the opportunity through all areas of the business. Sell engineering on the benefits of having customers shape the direction of product (there are limitations to this concept). Sell PR that conversing directly with the consumer will save them headaches. Sell senior management that a well executed customer engagement strategy will strengthen the value of the brand. And sell legal...well, you will need to figure out some way to deal with the lawyers (ask them to draft a blogging policy which could extend to any conversations in the internet). The era of the customer conversation has begun. Now marketers need to take the initiative to get their companies to embrace it.