Corporate Eye

...compare, compete, excel

Archives for 2011

Barclays and Standard Chartered – Two Sides Of One Coin | FTSE 100 Website Reviews

It’s always interesting to compare two leading companies in a sector and see how they approach their sustainability websites. 

There is a “standard” website design which has pretty well been settled on these days (3 columns, head and footer, menu system etc) but the question always remains how to use this to the best advantage.

Barclays and Standard Chartered are two of the best performing banks in the UK, yet their approaches to how to design a sustainability website are radically different.  You end up wishing they could have got together and produced one super-duper website, but that’s what competition and market segmentation is all about: being different to your rivals in certain, key areas. [Read more…] about Barclays and Standard Chartered – Two Sides Of One Coin | FTSE 100 Website Reviews

Social Networking in China Grows Exponentially Among Specific Consumer Segments

Take a look at the chart from eMarketer that shows the growth of social networking users in China since 2009 and projected through 2015.  It seems like every business is focusing on expanding into China with such a huge number of consumers finally accessing more of the products and services from outside the country’s borders.  Social networking represents a big opportunity to connect with those consumers based on these reported usage trends.

The eMarketer data represents Internet users in China who use social networks via any type of device at least once per month.  In 2009, only 155 million people in China were accessing social networks at least one time each month.  Today, that number is 265 million, and by 2015, 488 million Internet users in China will access a social network at least once per month.  That’s a lot of potential customers who might be interested in learning about your brand.

An interesting fact to consider about social networking in China is that different social networking sites are favored by different consumer segments.  Brands need to find the right social networking destination to connect with the right audience.

eMarketer points out that social networking users in China are very willing to follow brands on social networks, blogs, websites, and so on.  In a study by OgilvyOne Worldwide, social media users in China ranked following and friending brands as the second most popular social media activity that they participate in.  An amazing 87% of social media users in China already follow and friend brands on Twitter.  With such widespread acceptance, it’s unlikely that the willingness to follow brands on social media among the Chinese audience will decrease anytime in the near future.

As with all forms of social media, social networking gives brands and businesses an incredible opportunity to listen to customer conversations, define and meet customer needs, and plan for the future in order to best meet those needs.  There are a lot of people in China who are willing to listen to your brand.  Are you preparing to connect with them?

Image: eMarketer

Bringing transparency to CSR reports

In those far off, misty days of University, one of the terrible misconceptions I used to labour under was that I could play the drums.

My few remaining friends from those days are still trying to convince me of my lack of talent on the piano and guitar as well.

No one mentions singing.

ANYWAY…

One of the drums I keep on banging today is to do with transparency as a foundation of a company’s sustainability, and it’s not just me this time either.  The reason for this is because as regulation has become looser accountability has to be strengthened, and the only way accountability can really be implemented is through transparency.

But how do you do it?  After all, publishing every minute of every meeting ever held will just be a data overload, and while businesses need to move away from secrecy as a default no one’s suggesting the end of commercially sensitive material.

An interesting solution comes from the Netherlands, where the mandatory examination of CSR reports for transparency has been going on for several years now. [Read more…] about Bringing transparency to CSR reports

What Makes for Effective Investor Relations Sites? Part 38: Make the Investment Case

It’s a curious thing, but most company investor relations sites do not come right out and state why you should invest in the company. In marketing terms, most sites engage in what can be referred to as a “Soft Sell” where they lay out information for the visitor and allow the visitor to come to their own conclusions. This is a perfectly valid approach, but in certain circumstances a more direct approach may be more effective.

When a company devotes a page on their investor relations site to making the case why investors should invest in their company, they are really telling the investor what they think is important about their company. This is valuable information as it allows an investor to quickly see if the company’s priorities line up with his own. For example, set out below is the “Why invest” page from Aviva, the insurance company. As you work your way through their statement, you quickly get a sense that cash flow, diverse offerings in a large market, growth and increasing dividends are where they put their emphasis. It is a good example not only of what the company offers for investors, but also of the way the company will run its business.


Click image to enlarge

At this point I should point out that it would be unusual to see such forthrightness on an American listed company’s web site. This is because under the United States legal and regulatory scheme, companies are not allowed to make a solicitation to either buy or sell a security, unless that solicitation is either preceded or accompanied by a prospectus.

As a result, most companies choose not to venture into the regulatory tar pit that might expose them to claims of soliciting for the purchase or sale of their securities. It’s yet another example of the unintended consequences of well meaning regulation.

In this series:
Previous post: Search
Next post: Differentiation

Brands Spread the Love for Valentine’s Day Promotions

This year, brands are looking for new ways to connect with consumers and drive sales with unique Valentine’s Day promotions.  Many of these new marketing initiatives leverage social media as one would expect in 2011.

AT&T is a brand that stands out from the crowd this year in terms of launching modern and unique Valentine’s Day promotions.  AT&T put together a campaign called Shout Your Love from the Mountaintop that debuted just four days before the February 14th holiday. The tagline for the promotion was, “when you love someone, you want to tell the world. You want to shout it from the mountaintop.”

Customers were asked to share their messages of love on the AT&T Facebook page (shown above) and beginning at 8:00 a.m. (PST) on Valentine’s Day and ending in the evening the same day, “fully qualified Mountain Men yellers” read those messages of love on HTC Inspire 4G phones and shouted them for the world to hear.  The shouting aired on a live webcast and the submitted messages and Mountain Men videos appear on the AT&T Shout Your Love from the Mountaintop Facebook app (shown below) and on the Share AT&T YouTube channel.

Within the short four days of the campaign, nearly 10,000 people submitted messages of love.  Three days before Valentine’s Day, AT&T added a Twitter element to the campaign by asking users to use the Twitter hashtag #LoveShout to spread the word, and AT&T invested in Twitter promotion so the hashtag would be listed in the top trending topics.  To round out the online marketing promotion, banner ads and video ads were placed on a variety of top websites such as AOL and Yahoo!

I’m not sure if this campaign drove the ROI AT&T was hoping for, but it undoubtedly drove a positive brand buzz.  What do you think of this creative Valentine’s Day promotion by AT&T?  Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

CSR lessons from the fashion supply chain

Here’s a hypothetical thought.  Suppose I was walking along the street one day and a Chinese man walked up to me and kicked me.

I’m absolutely certain I would say “Ow” and I might also enquire (politely, of course) what had led him to such a course of action.

Now imagine you were walking down a different street in a different country, and a Mexican walked up to you and kicked you.

Do you think your pain or response would be dramatically different because of the different people and circumstances involved?

I doubt it.

One of the very interesting effects (but not intentions) of the CSR and sustainability agenda is the way it breaks down stovepiping between different industries and companies.  Take the recent report from Labour Behind the Label and War On Want (PDF download) for example.

[Read more…] about CSR lessons from the fashion supply chain