Marketing plots: the #1 vs. #2 drama

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113718850_3cacac48ba_m.jpgSome stories are so strong that they are bound to repeat across categories. This is one of them.

#1 creates a new category. He may not be the first one to come up with the idea or the product, but is the first one to leverage it for mass market.
#1 learns how to tell the market about the new product, #1 teaches people that it is good, and eventually many people are convinced. Maybe #1 even comes to stand for that idea or product. Their brand is the strongest in the category by far, there may be some small players pitching similar products, but they can’t touch #1. #1 is the one who teaches the market why the entire category is good, why it works, why it is important.
Everything is fine, until, one day, #2 comes to town.

#2’s product isn’t as revolutionary as #1’s. Maybe there’s a twist on the original idea somewhere, but sometimes that twist is more in the way they communicate about the brand. You see, #2 are quite happy with the fact that #1 is synonymous with the category, because it means #1 stands for values & attributes that are generic and shared by every player in the category – big or small.

Ironically, it is the fact that #1 built the category and told everyone what it was all about that made them generic and vulnerable.

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Three firefox extensions that accelerate web browsing

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The launch of version 2.0, is an opportunity to share three tools that help me save
precious time on a daily basis and that I think will be invaluable
to any web user.

The blogosphere is chock-full of lists of favourite extensions, renamed to add-ons in this version.  I published one in Hebrew a while ago myself.

I’ll take a minimalist approach and recommend only three that had very high impact on my browsing life (That doesn’t happen often any more…).

  1. Super DragAndGo – Saves time by opening links in a new tab using a short drag gesture with the mouse. Why this has not become a default in firefox yet  – I have no idea.
  2. Mouse Gestures – This add-on lets you add “macros” for almost anything based on combination of mouse gestures. I use it mostly for one short-cut that complements Super DragAndGo. (It’s not a default, you have to set it) Right-Click + drag mouse down to close tab. This way I can open and close tags without moving from where my mouse cursor currently is.
  3. Roboform – In a web full of forms and logins, this application is a god send, and definitely my favourite and most often used utility of recent years (By far. Snagit is probably next. both highly purchase-worthy). It replaces long winded log-ins into one click processes, saves you from the risky “one password everywhere” habit, and is very powerful in filling forms. The latest version even recognises when you create a new user, remembers the user & password you choose and later updates the short-cut on your first login. Synch it with its mobile version + add firefox mobile and you have a close thing to your machine on a flashdrive. (Yes, I’m an affiliate. Mostly out of curiosity to check the power of my recommendations)

Firefox 2

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Getting through: Communication, Communities & Marketing (presentation)

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I thought of sharing this presentation a while ago, then realised its visual nature meant it will eat all my bandwidth even if only a couple of hundred people will watch it.

You can quickly flick through it on Slideshare, or if you want the fully annotated PPT file, get it from esnips.

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Vincent’s photo by Calos Luis
This presentation was given as part of Tinylove’s distributor event in Koln (Cologne), Germany, September 2006.
It was not modified for the web or this blog. Only the annotations were made more elaborate so people can understand more or less how it went and what it tries to say.
The annotations is not the exact script. There isn’t one.

Some parts may seem obvious or too “educational” to some of you out there. If they are, I’m sorry, this was to help the audience follow the ideas.
Also, note that this is a “fun” presentation as the distributor event is largely an evening “recreational” event. To avoid being “the heavy bit”, I did my best to make this presentation light and engaging.
I still tried to bust some viral marketing myths along the way, which is a part some of you may wish to skip to.

Tinylove, are a client of mine who create meticulously designed developmental toys for babies. Their main target audience is parents, specifically “Generation-X parents”. The focus of my work with them was how to better reach this audience through the web. It covered their site, SEO/M, community marketing and more. The implementation of those recommendations is currently still a work in progress and is, obviously, much wider and deeper then the aspects mentioned in this presentation.
Their blog is here.If this presentation is absolutely useless to you, maybe it be can useful to someone you know. Or – at least you may enjoy the work of the talented flickr photographers used to make it.

Anyway – enjoy the show.

CC (on the textual content only) – some rights reserved. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

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It’s good to know

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Update: Seth Godin on trade marks

A couple of days ago I bought a kit-kat. (Wait a second, I swear this isn’t turning to THAT kind of blog)
While munching on it, getting my chocolate fix (I’m a hopeless sweet-tooth), I suddenly noticed on the back, hovering between the nutrition table and the contact info, was a sentence.

it's good to know (tm)

“It’s good to know™“
click the image to see it full size)Now, I’m not saying it is not good to know the nutritional price of a kit-kat, or to have someone to talk to about it, or other kit-kat related issues.
But trade marking “it’s good know”?!What’s that about?
How did this idea came to be?
Who supported it? Actually thought it was a good idea? (Good? Great, otherwise – how would you justify the legal costs?)
Who was the one to apply and trade-marked it?
Successfully?!
Is that a world wide trade mark?

It’s good to know truth is still stranger then fiction.
It’s even better to know the output of corporate culture is often stranger than both.

Damn, I hope I haven’t infringed on Nestlé’s trade-mark, their corporate reputation hints they are not to be messed with…

Update (Nov 7th 2006): Richard Veryard points that Rabbi Friedman also says it’s good to know(TM). Religion using knowledge as trademark makes sense in weird way.

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BlogDay 2006 recommendations

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81564759_6c26d8ef3b_m.jpg
The way I see it, BlogDay is an opportunity to recommend blogs that are not the usual suspects. So here are some blogs I think deserve more recognition.

  1. Assi Sharabi is an anthropologistsocial-psychologist-come-planner, who keeps getting cool ideas like analysing the youtube leader board.
  2. Anecdote is narrative lead organisational consulting group-blog from Australia.
  3. Nova Spivack writes dense musings about the web and points to thought provoking science news.
  4. Raph Koster’s ideas about gaming are too good to be kept just for that. Let’s steal them for marketing.
  5. Ben Hammresley is renaissance action guy. Coding for the guardian, Snapping in Afghanistan and writing. I’m sure his upcoming Octet book will kick ass.

For Hebrew recommendations, I have another blogday post in my Hebrew blog.

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