Corporate Eye

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Archives for 2010

Hiring is Hard Work

“In a perfect world, you would take pride in the fact that you hired someone who is better than you. Hardly anybody has that attitude, though.”

That’s a quote from noted entrepreneur Guy Kawasaki, who talked about hiring in an interview for The New York Times “Corner Office” series.  His contention:  A players hire A+ players, while B players hire C players.  The best people are self-confident, while lesser people “hire down” to ensure they will look better than their employees.

Kawasaki also notes that people tend to see their own specialty as extremely difficult, but suppose that all the other jobs are really easy.  So engineers may demand brilliance from engineers, but at the same time may not think it matters much who’s in charge of marketing or finance.

It’s hard to combat those tendencies in persons, but at least you can take a look to see if there’s a lack of balance in job descriptions.  For example, someone may put a lot of thought and detail into the description for a job they see as important, while barely sketching a job they don’t think of as difficult.  Similarly, a B player might downgrade education qualifications and experience if they are looking for a non-threatening hire.

It would also be worthwhile to review the Careers site with the same aim in mind.  Are all positions at all levels treated fully and fairly?  Are all career paths, departments, and product lines accorded equal treatment?

Another important aspect of the hiring process is highlighted in the Recruiter Daily article Make Better Candidate Recommendations.  Recruitment trainer Ross Clennet favors behavior-based, structured interviewing techniques, and contends that recruiters should be able to offer specific , fact-supported assessments rather than impressions drawn from unstructured conversations.

In case “behavior-based interviewing” doesn’t ring a bell, there’s a nice summary at About.com’s Job Searching portal.  Short version:  It’s an approach that focuses on questions about “how the interviewee acted in specific employment-related situations,” and it’s based on the idea that “how you behaved in the past will predict how you will behave in the future.”  Example questions might include “Can you tell me about a time when you used logic to solve a problem,” and “Describe a situation in which you had to implement an unpopular decision.”

This method has passionate supporters and detractors.  Many interviewers use a combination of structured and unstructured questions, combining specific information with intuition.  But in terms of relevance for the corporate Careers site—information about steps in the hiring process and tips on interviewing make excellent website features.  Not only will the online info help candidates, the company is likely to benefit from clarifying its hiring approach.

Design as a Catalyst for Brand-Building

A recent article about Procter & Gamble published by Advertising Age, tells the story of the company’s new focus on design as a catalyst for shaping marketing strategy and building consumer products brands.  The new design focus seamlessly integrates product, package and marketing for a stronger presence at the store-level rather than relying on a silo approach that was no longer working.

P&G invested time and money into research, design, and execution to revive many of its brands, and the results so far have been very positive.  The company’s new direction requires that every marketing idea can prove its potential for success at the shelf-level before it is pursued.

It’s a bold shift in thinking that feeds off of 2009 research by Nielsen Co., which reported that half of respondents (who came from six developed markets, including the United States) to the Nielsen survey claimed that they learned about new products in-store while just one-third reported television as the place where they learn about new products.  Furthermore, 71% of the consumers who reported that they learn about new products primarily in-store cited seeing a product on the store shelf and its package as the source of their awareness.  According to these results, in-store promotional displays have clearly been trumped by package design.

Many of P&G’s new design efforts haven’t launched at the store level yet, so results are forthcoming.  However, the company can cite a 2-point market share increase for one of its brands since implementing a redesign effort for it.

shampoo_store

Overall, P&G’s efforts sound positive, primarily because they’re attempting to listen to consumers throughout the redesign process to learn what consumers truly need and want from P&G products and brands.  We’ve all been to the supermarket and stood in front of shelves and shelves filled with shampoo trying to find the brand we prefer.  And once you find your brand, you need to carefully read each label to ensure you select the formula or scent that you like.  P&G is finally accepting that shelf clutter isn’t boosting sales and market share.  For example, the company is redesigning its Pantene hair care product line by cutting 25% of the items in the line and adding an easier to read color-coding design to its packages to help consumers find the specific item they want faster and with less frustration.

When was the last time your marketing team took a look at your package design and evaluated its real performance on the shelf?  Are you sure your design is working?  Consumers’ tastes, needs, and wants change faster than ever these days.  Brands need to not only keep up with those changes but also to seek out every possible way to gain even the slightest advantage over the competition.  Packaging and design just might be the catalyst for your own brand building efforts.

Image: Flickr

Corporate Social Media Relations Challenges

Corporations face many of the same challenges as any other business. They too have issues in human resources, finance, management, administration, marketing, etc. There are often entire departments dedicated within these groups to deal with issues that arise. There may be “think teams” assembled to tackle the challenges that corporations face and to come up with a resolution to the problems.

The Internet Factor

With the popularity of the internet, there is a new challenge that corporations may also face. This challenge is in the area of social media and/or media relations and finding the cohesion with their corporate structure. The internet is a wonderful tool, but it can also be an overwhelming resource for corporations who may not be ready to face the issues that it presents.

For instance, corporations have sales teams that pitch and deliver their product or service to potential clients. Issues often arise in sales that may require the salesperson to visit the client. There may be a need to replace a product or to assess the level of customer service and quality on their account. These things can often be remedied with a person-to-person sales call or manager’s meeting. However, if the corporation is also doing business online, how does the salesperson make the uneasy online client feel confident in their buying choice? How can they smooth over a client who has received the wrong product, or worse, been over-billed for a service?

What can an online corporate structure do  to meet the challenges that technology presents? While there are no hard rules to resolutions to corporate issues, there are a few guidelines that may work. They may not fit every situation or every corporation, but they can be applied to most any online situation.

Find the social media outlets that work

Whether it’s Facebook, Twitter or your in-house marketing team, find a social presence that matches your company’s personality. This is important in establishing yourself as a viable online presence and finding the customers for your product or service. All social media outlets work on the same premise but in different ways. Do you want to share photos? Share news stories? Interact with customers? Determine the outlet that best fits the corporation’s persona and maximize its usage.

Set measurable goals

It’s arguable that it’s hard to measure productivity through media relations efforts. How do you know if people are responding to your pitch or if they were just in the right place at the right time? Instead of looking for determinable milestones, measure goals internally. For instance, set goals to establish and grow your customer forum for feedback. You can gauge satisfaction results from the forum as well as tweak areas of needed improvement based on the client’s interaction and feedback.

Create trust

Nothing creates trust more than consistency. It is important to be consistent in all things related to social media relations and your target market. Especially when it comes to online functions, it is imperative to create a trusting relationship that your readers can depend on. Keep a consistent schedule of posts, e-newsletters and regular announcement. Readers and customers learn to trust you when they see that you are consistent in keeping your word in all facets of your marketing efforts.

Another important consideration would be to target those who are the decision-makers or the influential leaders. This may not necessarily be someone who is directly involved in media production, but someone who has the authority to make decisions. It may be difficult to find who your key contact is, but make diligent efforts to do so and communicate with them as much as possible without being overbearing.

What are some challenging social media issues that you’ve experienced in your corporate culture? What steps,if any, have you taken to remedy the situation?

9 out of 10 Consumers Agree – Store Brands and National Brands are Equal

generic_spamA new study conducted by Ipsos Marketing in 23 countries reveals that nearly 9 out of 10 respondents (89%) believe that store brands are as good or better than national brands in terms of providing a good value for the money.  These new results support 2009 statistics that reported an impressive growth in private label brands as well as a 2009 report by Nielsen that predicted store brands would dominate consumer purchase trends in 2010.

A few more interesting statistics from the new study are:

  • 87% believe that store brands are equal or better than national brands in terms of “offering products that meet my needs.”
  • 86% claim that store brands are equal or better than national brands in terms of “offering products that are good for the family.”
  • 81% stated that store brands are equal or better than national brands in terms of “offering food products that taste good”  and “offering home products that work well.”
  • 80% said that store brands are equal or better than national brands in terms of “offering products I trust.”
  • 73% reported that store brands are equal or better than national brands in terms of “offering high-quality products.”
  • 69% claimed that store brands are equal or better than national brands in terms of “offering innovative products.”
  • 65% believe that store brands are equal or better than national brands in terms of “having appealing packaging.”

The question is whether or not national brands should be concerned.  There was a time when national brands felt little or no competitive threat from store brands, but today, store brands cannot be ignored.  They’re growing as more people try them in response to economic problems and a desire to save money, but they’re also growing as more people talk about them.  The word-of-mouth marketing for store brands is strong as consumers are happy to tell friends and family about the less expensive but equally good in terms of quality store brand product they discovered.

National brands need to develop strategies and tactics to not just react to growing store brands but also to proactively protect their market share.  It’s not a matter of if store brands will steal market share from national brands but when, and chances are, it’s going to happen sooner rather than later.

Image: Flickr

Who Moved the Chairs?


chairs' shadows

I stumbled across Rearranging the Chairs as an Act of Leadership and got to thinking.  The gist of this intriguing post (by management consultant CV Harquail) is that “how we sit is how we interact.”  People sitting in a circle interact differently than people sitting in a square, or on two sides of a desk.

That feels true—but not in a simple way.  I can remember being in a group interview (three team members evaluating me as a potential fourth) at a round table. In that instance, the circle didn’t feel communal a bit.  In fact it seemed like my three interviewers had me surrounded and were closing in for the proverbial kill.  Would it have been different without the table?  Possibly.  Or it may be that three against one is always unbalanced.  Or it may have been the personalities of those three people.

(Although I did get the engagement, my sense of unbalance wasn’t wrong.  I learned later that I was a hit with two team members, a wide miss with the third.)

In any event, “moving the chairs” may not be about physically arranging the seating.  Maybe it’s just a way of putting some thought into the environment, and the dynamics you want for a group situation.  Does anyone really think about the best space for an interview—or just the convenient (i.e., available) space?   A large proportion of interviews seem to take place in empty meeting rooms, with interviewer and interviewee perched on two of twenty chairs; or in a cubbyhole with two chairs and a bare table; or in someone’s imposing office, with a big chair, a little chair, and a yard of desk in between.

None of those arrangements seems very conducive to authentic communication.

It’s likely that most companies could do a better job of arranging the interview environment if they just gave it a little thought.  Which would only happen if they thought it was important—so we’ll have to wait for a study that shows better hires come from better interview ambience.  Until then, there’s the phone.

Seriously.  Many companies are concluding that first (and often second) interview rounds are not only more efficient by phone, but also more productive.  As noted entrepreneur Guy Kawasaki points out in a New York Times “Corner Office” conversation, “when you interview in person, many variables come into play that have nothing to do with competence.”  Since lots of factors can “sidetrack” the interviewer in a person-to-person meeting, Kawasaki favors a process that begins by asking every candidate a checklist of questions on the phone.

So moving the chairs could also be removing the chairs.  There’s not one perfect seating plan, but it does matter who sits where.


(Thanks to globevision for the charming chairs.)

Survey Shows CSR Websites Work

Do something good every dayLast week, my fellow blogger, Susan Gunelius, highlighted the 2010 Social Responsibility Branding Survey.  This shows that consumers want transparent, honest, socially responsible brands, with 75% of consumers supporting socially responsible businesses and 55% preferring socially responsible products.

Digging through the report there are further figures which deserve to be highlighted within the context of improving CSR websites.

For starters, despite this high preference for socially responsible companies and products, only 11% of consumers report having heard a CSR message from any company in the past year, and only 13% have ever read the CSR content of a corporate website.

This shows beyond any doubt that companies are not communicating their social responsibility credentials as well as they could be, especially with 50% of consumers prepared to pay a premium of at least 5% for socially responsible products.

However probably the most telling statistic is that of that 13% who have read a company’s CSR website, 75% were then more likely to buy that company’s product over a competitor’s.

The overarching message of these figures cannot be denied:

  • customers want to hear the message of social responsibility from companies about the products they buy
  • customers are prepared to pay an extra premium to ensure they buy socially responsible products
  • customers are 75% more likely to buy the products of a company whose CSR website they have read

With only 13% of customers having visited a CSR website, this leaves a huge untapped market for companies to promote their online CSR content to.  It almost makes you wonder why more of them don’t.

Picture Credit: Do something good every day by HowardLake from flickr under Create Commons Attribute Share Alike License.