Corporate Eye

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Archives for August 2011

Steve Jobs Resigns as Apple CEO Marking the End of an Era

Steve Jobs resigned as Apple CEO today via a letter which was published on Apple’s website. Later, Apple published a press release stating that Steve Jobs would stay on as Apple Chairman of the Board and Apple COO Tim Cook (who has been marked as Jobs’ successor for some time now) will take the role of Apple CEO.

This announcement is not a surprise to anyone who has been following the Steve Jobs and Apple story over the past few years. In October 2008, I published a post here on the Corporate Eye blog called The Brand Champion Exit Strategy – Lessons from Steve Jobs and Apple where I talked about how a false report that Steve Jobs had a heart attack sent Apple’s stuck plunging. I ended that post by saying, “You never want one person to hold so much power that your brand’s short or long-term success becomes dependant on him or her.  Ensure your brand can stand on its own with brand champions helping to push the brand in the right direction for strategic growth.”

Then in January 2009, I wrote a post called The Brand Champion Exit Strategy Redux – Lessons from Steve Jobs and Apple where I talked about a second reactionary plunge in Apple’s stock after rumors broke that Steve Jobs would not attend the popular Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas due to health reasons. I ended that post by saying, “The lesson to learn is this – develop brand champions but don’t put all your eggs in one basket.  And most importantly, put together a succession plan before your primary brand champion exits.”

Again, Steve Jobs’ resignation is not shocking. The financial world has been waiting for it for years, and while Apple’s stock is feeling the effects, financial analysts aren’t overly concerned. One of the main reasons they’re not worried is the fact that Tim Cook has been being groomed as Steve Jobs’ successor for some time now. As Ian Sherr of Dow Jones Newswire wrote today, “[Analysts and investors] say Apple will continue delivering hit products because of the culture Jobs has created at the company. ‘Tim is molded after Steve,” said Colin Gillis, an analyst at brokerage BGC Partners, who recommends buying Apple stock on the dips. “If they got an outside CEO, there might be concern.'”

Of course, Steve Jobs isn’t leaving Apple completely nor is he leaving his role as brand champion. In fact, his move from the role of CEO could have a positive effect on Apple after the resignation buzz dies down. It’s no secret that Jobs runs Apple with an iron fist (check out this article on Wired.com and this article from the Guardian Technology blog to get some juicy details about Jobs and the Apple culture).

What do you think? What’s next for Apple after Steve Jobs leaves the role of CEO? Leave a comment and share your thoughts on the changing of the guards at Apple.

Image: Apple Press Info

Social Network Ad Revenues Triple in 4 Years

In 2009, brands in the United States spent $1.43 billion to advertise on social networking sites. In 2012, that number is expected to jump to $3.93 billion, which equates to an increase of 175%.

This year, brands will invest 10.8% of their total online marketing budgets to social media advertising. That’s quite impressive given the fact that the most popular social networking sites where ad dollars are spent, such as Facebook and LinkedIn, haven’t even been around for a full decade yet.

As social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter refine their advertising programs, more and more advertisers will get on board. Just last month, Twitter surpassed LinkedIn and Facebook in terms of traffic growth. In July 2011, Twitter’s U.S.-based traffic increased by 32%. That’s nearly three times higher than Facebook’s 11% growth in July and far better than LinkedIn’s 0.5% decline in traffic.

July 2011 marked the first time that U.S.-based traffic to Twitter surpassed LinkedIn with 32.8 million visitors (Twitter’s highest traffic month to date) compared to LinkedIn’s 32.5 million visitors. Facebook still remains the leader with 162 million visitors in July, marking the site’s most-trafficked month since it debuted in 2004.

Twitter is focusing more heavily on its own advertising offerings, so there is no doubt that spending on Twitter advertising will increase in the near future. At the same time, LinkedIn is facing a stagnation that, as a public company now, won’t be allowed to continue. Advertising is the second biggest revenue generator for LinkedIn, so it’s safe to assume that is an area that the company will focus on in order to attract more brands.

In other words, social network advertising isn’t going anywhere. The question is whether your brand will get involved soon (if you’re not already) to begin testing, analyzing results, and fine-tuning your social network advertising strategies and tactics or if you’ll keep waiting to get on board and lose big opportunities?

What do you think? Is your brand already advertising on social networks? Share your experience with the Corporate Eye audience by leaving a comment.

Google and Motorola – Perfect Match or Mistake?

Motorola DroidThe Internet has been buzzing this week about Google’s announced $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola. Most analysts believe that the deal will eventually get regulatory approval and the two brands will come together under one company — Google. However, financial analysts are split on how they feel about the acquisition and how they think the acquisition will affect Google.

According to AdAge, on the pro Google-Motorola merger side, analysts cite the following positives:

  • The acquisition of Motorola is happening as a result of patent battles between Apple, Microsoft and Google. Therefore, Google needs to protect and increase its own intellectual property. Motorola has a portfolio of 17,000 patents and 7,500 pending. The merger will protect Google’s Android ecosystem that includes 39 manufacturers and 231 carriers in 123 countries.
  • The acquisition of Motorola better enables Google to compete in the mobile space where Google CEO Larry Page explained during an analyst call on August 15th web usage is increasingly moving towards. The acquisition gives Google a stronger position in the mobile market where they can distribute more Google products and services.
  • The Motorola acquisition better positions Google to directly compete against Apple with their own device and marketplace

On the opposite side of the debate are analysts who cite the following negatives about the Google-Motorola merger:

  • The acquisition is Google’s most expensive ever and will negatively affect Google’s stock and balance sheet. Standard & Poor’s already downgraded Google from “buy” to “sell” just two days after the acquisition was announced.
  • The acquisition will alienate Google’s other handset partners, including HTC, Samsung and Sony who will likely look for new opportunities and options.
  • There is no guarantee that the Motorola patent portfolio can protect Google from the patent battles its facing from Microsoft and Apple.

One thing is certain — the Google brand and company has been growing significantly with bumps in the road easily navigated along the way in recent years. It’s safe to assume that Google scrutinized this acquisition long and hard before the decision to pay $12.5 billion for Motorola was made. Will it be the right decision in the long-run? Only time will tell. What do you think? Leave a comment and share your thoughts on Google’s intended acquisition of Motorola.

Image: Flickr

Crowdsourcing for Business and Brands – Infographic

I’ve written about crowdsourcing for business and brand building on the Corporate Eye blog before when I covered the story of the U.S. Department of the Interior turning to crowdsourcing for its new logo design and discussed the Yahoo! brand promise.

Now, it’s time to take a look at crowdsourcing visually – via a cool infographic.

As you can see in the infographic from BizMedia.com (click here or click on the image to open it in a new window, and then click on it again to see the full-size infographic), crowdsourcing can come in many forms and is used by a wide variety of companies. Whether a company turns to crowdsourcing for word-of-mouth marketing across the social web, logo design, writing, web development, or  research assistance, there is an audience of talented people willing to offer their opinions, expertise, and help to better enable those companies to build their brands and businesses.

These days, there is a significant amount of crowdsourced marketing and research done every day via the social web. When companies publish content and watch their audiences share and discuss that content, they can gain powerful publicity that can lead to sales as well as useful insight into people’s thoughts and opinions that can be applied to the company’s strategic planning processes. The opportunities to tap into the “crowd” are huge on the social web.

Many businesses and brands have evolved thanks to crowdsourcing. It could be argued that a site like The Huffington Post would never have grown so big and so quickly had it not been from the team of volunteers who wrote for the site and brought attention to it. Unfortunately, most of those people didn’t reap the benefits when AOL purchased The Huffington Post, which sheds light on a problem that businesses need to be very aware of when they embark on their own crowdsourcing projects.

We’re still in the infancy of crowdsourcing as it’s being used today and it is likely to continue to change in the future. The key to success is making sure you establish specific goals for your crowdsourced initiatives. Staying on track to reach those targets is what will separate the power players from the masses.

What do you think about the growth of crowdsourcing for helping businesses get work done without hiring employees or expensive companies to help them? What do you think of leveraging the social media crowd to boost your online marketing efforts? Are you engaging in either activity yet to build your brand and business? Leave a comment and share your opinion about crowdsourcing.

Image: BizMedia.com

CR Reporting and Communications Summit

What do you find the most valuable element of a conference?

For some, it will be hearing from experts about their experience; for others, it will be debate and panel discussion, or workshops and interactive roundtables; and for some, it will be the conversations held with other delegates in the corridors and over lunch – or late into the night!

Nick Johnson, of Ethical Corporation, contacted me to let me know about their 5th CR Reporting and Communications Summit, to be held in London in November this year. And it certainly looks like a very interesting event for CR professionals – whichever style of learning you prefer.

Ethical Corporation have organised:

  • speakers from many well-known companies and over 11 countries covering topics such as:
    • the power of CR reporting as an internal management tool
    • data gathering systems and methods
    • reporting on measuring social impact
    • accurate supply chain reporting
    • what institutional investors think of CR reports
    • segmenting and targeting stakeholder groups
    • authenticity and transparency
    • next steps for the GRI
    • getting internal stakeholders engaged
    • external assurance
    • developing an integrated comms strategy
  • a debate on whether integrated reporting drives better business performance
  • case studies from L’Oreal, the Co-Operative Group and InterfaceFLOR
  • and – always one of my favourite types of sessions – an X-factor judging panel

Doesn’t that sound interesting? The speakers are very senior CR professionals from a range of industries, and it looks like there’ll be plenty of opportunity for discussion with other attendees too.

Do have a look at their agenda and speaker line-up… and if you’re considering attending, make that decision soon, because you can save money by registering early.

QR Code Consumer Scanning is on the Rise

qrcodeAccording to research by comScore, 14 million U.S. consumers scanned QR codes (Quick Response codes) from their mobile devices during June 2011.  That’s just 6.2% of the total U.S. mobile audience, so there is still a lot of room for growth.

The research provides some interesting demographic statistics about the people who scan QR codes. It appears that young, wealthy men are the most frequent QR code scanners.

Check out the statistics below:

  • Gender: 60.5% are male.
  • Income: 36.1% make $100,000 per year and above. Another 18.6% have incomes between $75,000-$100,000.
  • Age: 36.8% are between the ages of 25-34. The next biggest QR code scanner group is the 35-44 age range at 19.6%.

Now that you know the best audience to currently target with QR codes for maximum response, let’s take a look at the sources where people are scanning QR codes according to the comScore research:

  • Printed magazine or newspaper: 49.4%
  • Product packaging: 35.3%
  • Website on PC: 27.4%
  • Poster on flyer or kiosk: 23.5%
  • Business card or brochure: 13.4%
  • Storefront: 12.8%
  • TV: 11.7%

Another insightful part of the report tells us where people are primarily scanning QR codes. Surprisingly, most people in the study scan QR codes at home. Here is the breakdown:

  • At home: 58.0%
  • Retail store: 39.4%
  • Grocery store: 24.5%
  • At work: 19.7%
  • Outside or on public transit: 12.6%
  • Restaurant: 7.6%

It’s important to remember as you review these statistics that QR codes are still very new to most consumers. Early adopters are primarily young, wealthy men who scan QR codes from magazines while at home. However, if you base your future QR code strategic planning on those statistics, you’ll be selling yourself short.

The key to QR code success in the future is to move beyond these early adopters and motivate your target audience to scan them. That means you need to find the right motivational offers to encourage them to actually do the scan. For people who aren’t already scanning QR codes, you need to educate them about how easy it is to do so and what they get when they take a second to do the scan.

In other words, there is still an important education phase related to QR codes, and there is still much to be learned. As with all marketing, if you teach consumers the value of scanning QR codes first and then provide offers that are actually meaningful to them in places where they’re likely to see them and have an opportunity to scan them, you’ll boost your chances of success. These aren’t new marketing rules. They’ve been around for a long time. You’re just applying them to a new medium.

Have you used QR codes to promote your brand yet? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Image: MattsLens