Let’s get this straight! We definetely need more bright entrepreneurs in this world…

And since the recent studies show that the entrepreneurship can actually be taught, why don’t we start contributing to the cause of better economies all around the world and start teaching our kids how to become successful entrepreneurs.

As for me, I started my 6-year-old son selling fresh fruit from our garden to neighbors for his toy expenses How is that for starters?

- Köksal.

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Are Entrepreneurs Born or Taught?

A Babson College study says if you can lead a student to entrepreneurship courses, he’ll start his own business.

by Inc.

Is being an entrepreneur in your DNA, or can it be taught? A new study from Babson College finds the evidence is “overwhelming” that if business students take at least two core entrepreneurship classes, that can “positively influence” them to go on to start up a business.

Professors at the Wellesley, Massachusetts-based college analyzed a survey of some 3,755 alumni and found that two (“or better yet three”) entrepreneurship classes strongly affected students’ decisions to pursue start-ups, and that writing a student business plan also had some influence, though not as strong.

“It’s time to cast off the prejudiced question, ‘Why teach entrepreneurship?,’ because we now have excellent empirical evidence that it makes a difference. We think that entrepreneurship should be taught not only for the production and training of entrepreneurs but also to help students decide if they have the right stuff to be entrepreneurs before they embark on careers for which they may be ill-suited,” the professors wrote in the study, called “Does An Entrepreneurship Education Have Lasting Value? A Study of Careers of 3,775 Alumni.”

The study found no effect on students of having parents who were entrepreneurs. It also found that men were more likely to become entrepreneurs than women, and that “there was a hint that the higher their income, the less likely that alumni intend to become entrepreneurs.”

Another finding: The greater their job dissatisfaction, the more likely that alumni have intentions to become entrepreneurs.

“At a more abstract level, we believe that entrepreneurship should be taught to every business student because it is the very origin of all businesses—after all,” the professors wrote, “there would be no business schools if there had never been any entrepreneurs!”

A 2002 Harvard Business School study also showed that if you can convince college students that they have what it takes to run a business, they’ll take to entrepreneurship.

Said Harvard professor Howard H. Stevenson: “If you presume that the vast majority of our students are opportunity-driven and achievement-oriented, smart and hardworking (traits they’ve demonstrated to get here in the first place), then what we do is to give them some tools and techniques to improve their odds of success.”

What do you think: Can entrepreneurship be taught?

The engaged and social “Young” who is currently quite Apolitical yet very Angry towards the existing social and political system…

And If I may consider myself one those “Young”, I’d very much like to contribute…

Enjoying the “light speed” changes in marketing yet?

If not, make sure to start rightaway. Otherwise the inevitable will hurt your company or agency more than you think…

- Köksal.

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Marketers tackle change

Marketers are focusing on customer retention, digital media and data collection as they attempt to cope with “light speed” changes in the industry, an international survey has revealed.

Forbes Insights and Coremetrics surveyed 321 marketing and corporate management executives in the US and UK for the report, finding that many companies are adopting defensive marketing tactics.

A majority (52%) listed retaining existing customers as their “top current priority”. Over one third (39%) were dedicating the “largest chunk” of their budgets towards such moves.

Attempts to attract new buyers have taken a back seat, with customer acquisition the top priority of 38%.

All of the executives questioned for the report worked for companies that generated at least $250m in annual revenues. Over three-quarters (77%) worked for a firm with $1bn-plus revenues.

Elsewhere, the study suggested digital is becoming increasingly important to marketers, with 56% of respondents planning to increase their online marketing spend.

But many companies are yet to take full advantage of the web, as just 9% are monitoring or adjusting their campaigns in real time.

Forbes Insights conceded that keeping up with these rapid changes would prove challenging to advertisers.

“Marketing’s biggest challenge appears to be presenting a consistent, unified brand across multiple customer touchpoints – on the web, on social media, via mobile devices, and through traditional bricks-and-mortar,” the report added.

“Marketing is moving at light speed, but few executives are watching or adjusting their campaigns and content accordingly.”

Almost half of the survey’s respondents are planning to increase their spending on business intelligence. Just 8% plan to cut spending in this area.

The report said: “Data has always had its place in the marketing department, but the numbers are no longer being used to just confirm (or refute) decisions. Instead, data is increasingly driving those decisions.”

This chimes with a recent survey from GIA reported on Warc News last week, which found 76% of firms currently have “systematic” marketing intelligence capabilities – up from 63% two years ago.

The report also showed that one in three companies currently lacking these capabilities planned to develop them over the next year.

Data sourced from Forbes Insights/GIA; additional content by Warc staff, 23 May 2011

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Great timing for covering a great subject…

I myself am a concrete believer in diversification of services or business ventures without leaving the main core. So, seeing agencies taking such new approaches like I do did excite me greatly and I decided to share it in my blog.

I work very hard to diversify my agency, adinteractive, from just being a “digital agency” towards being “new generation agency” covering all new emerging means of communication mixing with the conventional trends in order to be relevant to meet and fulfill brands’ needs for communicating with the empowered new customer. In short, just to be a “smarter”, “more talented” and “more relevant” agency…

Hence, in addition to my past diversifications of adsmrt, addpls, adwrks and adda, I have created my latest service addition to the mix, sosyopath, for providing my clients’ social media needs accompanying with Internet tracking and intelligence services.

I believe, there are great prizes behind such endeavors. So, there is no stopping in re-innovating and diversifying in no matter what business you are.

Just, keep on working to keep relevant…

- Köksal.

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Agencies Take New Approach

NEW YORK: Many advertising agencies are beginning to develop their own intellectual property, as a means of testing new techniques, generating revenues and creating bespoke tools for clients.

“I think it’s a revolution,” Cindy Humphrey, vice president for product and marketing at CenturyLink Business said. “[McKinney] is looking beyond me as a client and into my client base and what they need.”

Data sourced from New York Times; additional content by Warc staff, 20 April 2011

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Join us where we discuss the New Advertising & New Agencies at
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Another great article nailing exactly what I have been arguing about. Especially the fact that current fragmented agency structure actually diluting the creative process, leaving agencies “forever trying to integrate an idea” is very well put. On the advertiser side, it is dead-on true that “the multi-agency approach produces inefficiencies” and also tiresome and more costly.

By the way, evethough I prefer to use  ”New Generation Agency” for such integrated and consolidated agency approach, I also like the phrase “One-Stop Agency”.

Many thanks to Natalie Zmuda for such a timely and meaningful article…

- Köksal.

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Remaking an Agency to Help Marketers Bust Through Silos

Lipman Advertising’s Michael Mendenhall Also Talks About Why Specialized Agencies Are Out

by adage.com

Michael Mendenhall is intent on remaking Lipman Advertising as a one-stop agency solution for marketers stymied by internal silos and the fragmented agency support that has led to. And the former chief marketer of Hewlett-Packard and 17-year veteran of Walt Disney certainly knows something about the challenges facing large marketers peddling various products and services.

“I saw the behavior of the consumer change. I understand the consumer ecosystem and how the digital ecosystem is married into that. I understand the multichannel, integrated approach that needs to take place globally,” Mr. Mendenhall said. “I’m bringing that to building an agency.”

Andrew Spellman, who previously co-founded Fireman Capital, a private equity firm, led the buyout of the independent agency, which was founded in 1927. He will take on the role of CEO. David Lipman, son of agency founder Bob Lipman, is staying on as chairman-chief creative officer, while Mr. Mendenhall becomes president-chief operating officer.

The agency had primarily worked with fashion and luxury brands, but now Mr. Mendenhall said Lipman will expand its repertoire to include destinations, technology, retail, electronics and beverages, as well as private-equity investment. Mr. Mendenhall said the agency will be looking to invest in “innovative, disruptive” ideas.

Mr. Mendenhall talked with Ad Age about the silos that exist in large companies; why specialized agencies are out; and why major marketers are likely to consolidate their rosters.

Ad Age: HP is a big, complicated company with lots of silos. What did you learn from that experience and how will you apply it at Lipman?

Mr. Mendenhall: What I learned is that most large public companies are matrixed and siloed. Marketing organizations have siloed themselves to match the fragmentation of the communication across channels. And it’s become incredibly hard to build an integrated approach that has brand consistency and message consistency. I learned the importance of disciplines that have specific functions and working against a central strategy, so that you actually act as one company in the way you present yourself to the consumer. The consumer expects, when they interface with the brand, one company with one position but with multiple products and services. … Where Lipman can help is to provide a level of service end-to-end that starts with that strategy, and builds a multichannel, integrated approach that helps these marketers and advertisers across their matrixed organization and their silos.

Ad Age: What need do you plan to fill and how will Lipman be different from other agencies out there?

Mr. Mendenhall: Ad agencies have lost a bit as they’ve become specialists in a given area. It’s become fragmented in how they support [marketers who want to] have multiple agencies working against specific products. What’s happened in this fragmented approach is you get bits and pieces of this through the multiple agencies you work with, and you’re forever trying to integrate an idea. Whether it’s a big organizing idea or principle or whether it’s a campaign or specific product launch, it’s become completely fragmented and frustrating for marketers. The roles and disciplines have changed for advertising agencies. We live in a very information-rich age. We not only should have people that understand how to design and produce great user interfaces but also who have a deep understanding of statistics and analytics and how to manage information and how to manage the consumer insights to benefit a brand. … And if you think about account staff, they need to be far more strategic than they are today. They should not be about trafficking and calendaring. They need to have a strategic understanding of the business. I would say they need to have some of those similar capabilities that you would see at a Bain, McKinsey or Deloitte.

Ad Age: Some would argue that the reason for that fragmentation is that marketers have expressed a desire for specialists rather than generalists.

Mr. Mendenhall: But there’s not a strategic arm that pulls it together. They have specialists in customer relationship management that aren’t looking at the entire ecosystem. It’s up to the marketer to piece all of these specialists together. It’s a lot more work and it costs companies a lot more to pull that fragmented approach together.

Ad Age: Is that a challenge you faced at HP or Disney?

Mr. Mendenhall: Every marketer has faced that. The multi-agency approach produces inefficiencies that leave effectiveness on the table.

Ad Age: It does seem to be somewhat of a trend, though, marketers working with multiple agencies, wanting to bring different ideas and different people to the table.

Mr. Mendenhall: If you’re in a global company operating in multiple cultures and languages trying to build consistencies, think about how that becomes fragmented and the dilution that happens to your brand and your effort. What people are now starting to understand is that we don’t need a lot of different, smaller specialty agencies. We need to integrate and have capabilities in a smaller set of agencies that go deep. Big multinational companies are going to probably move into a consolidation period because they realize they’re being inefficient.

Next-Big-Thing in Marketing, I believe, is offering consumers more personalized and stimulating experiences in all forms of communication to connect with the brand…

With the formula (or even motto) of ”Get Closer… Get Personal & Stay Connected!“

What do you think?

- Köksal.

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Brands get personal 

by warc.com

Earlier this year, Kraft rolled out MiO, a new range of “enhancers” – such as strawberry watermelon, mango peach, and pomegranate – which can be added to a glass of water.

The company estimated 170bn servings of tap and bottled water are drunk in the US each year, and sought to generate interest in MiO through giving away 100,000 samples via Facebook.

Costing $3.99 per unit, this product carries a comparative premium, and is aimed at affluent, aspirational “millennials” in the 18-39 year old demographic.

“Consumers are really looking to have their personal tastes reflected in all things they’re doing and using,” said Liza Laibe, senior brand manager for MiO.

“Bottled water alone is a $10bn business. When you look at tap, it’s three times the consumption of bottled water.”

The North American drinks division of Mars has adopted a similar strategy for its Flavia coffeemakers, introducing extensions of the firm’s Alterra line.

Among the 25 offerings released are cappuccinos, lattes and mochas, as well as Dove hot chocolate and a variety of specialty teas.

“Today when you drink a coffee, you’re not looking for a coffee, you’re looking for your coffee, the coffee you like, the taste you like,” said Xavier Unkovic, general manager of Mars Drinks North America.

“Look at how many wines there are today. Coffee is developing in the same way.”

Elsewhere, Coca-Cola has created a Freestyle fountain allowing shoppers to mix over 100 different beverages from across its portfolio, from Fanta and Sprite to Dansai.

Speaking on a conference call last month Muhtar Kent, the organisation’s chief executive, outlined ambitious growth targets for these machines.

“This game-changing innovation is now available in more than 400 locations across 20 US markets, providing a greater choice of brands to our customers and our consumers,” he said.

“Plans for further expansion in 2011 are well on track with availability expected to reach more than 80 US markets by the end of 2011.”

Such a trend has extended to luxury goods, with Louis Vuitton taking its Mon Monogram programme, previously limited to a small number of stores, online, letting web users tailor selected products.

This includes adding specific features – be it coloured stripes or initials – to items like Speedy handbags and Keepall travel bags, choosing from a potential 200m possibilities.

When happy with their design, netizens may then buy the bespoke bag through Louis Vuitton’s ecommerce platforms in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and US.

Alternatively, they can print out a paper copy and take it into a store.

Completed orders are then delivered within eight weeks.

“For more than 150 years, this company has united tradition and innovation,” said Pietro Beccari, a senior vice president at Louis Vuitton.

“There is no better example than this initiative, which brings one of Louis Vuitton’s historic services – personalization – into the digital era.”

In the cosmetics sector, Clinique has leveraged Apple’s iPad in certain stores, creating a “diagnostic tool” assessing each individual’s unique skincare needs.

Drawing on answers to set questions, this application will analyse over 180,000 combinations, then printing out a list of the recommended goods.

“Clinique was built on the promise of providing our consumers with the most personalized, engaging and informative experience at every interactive touchpoint,” said Lynne Greene, Clinique’s global brand president.

“By integrating digital technologies into the Clinique shopping experience, we are offering the consumer a stimulating and socially modern way to connect with the brand.”

by TNS

Why Data Mining Is the Next Frontier for Social Media Marketing

 by Mashable

The thinking about social media in corporate marketing departments is rapidly evolving. Initially, social media was seen as yet another broadcast opportunity for pushing messages out into the world, and for many companies that view persists. A social media consultant recently said that even today, when he approaches potential clients for the first time, they typically refer him to their PR agency, because “they handle Facebook for us.”

There’s nothing wrong with using social media as a tool for disseminating marketing messages or trying to establish deeper relationships with current or potential customers. However, there is another use of social media which may prove to be more powerful over the long term: Listening to the voice of the customer by data mining social networks.

Currently, CRM systems create customer profiles to help with marketing decisions using a combination of demographics and prior behavior, primarily historical buying patterns. These systems essentially enable companies to see their customers in the rear view mirror.

The customer data available via online communities like Facebook is both richer and more forward looking. A financial organization with access to such data would not only know that a customer had a checking account, savings account, two CDs and a mortgage, but also that the same customer was interested in golf or gourmet cooking — information that could be useful in planning future marketing initiatives. Every minute of every day, Facebook, Twitter and other online communities generate enormous amounts of this data. If it could be tapped, it could function like a real-time CRM system, continually revealing new trends and opportunities. Here’s how.

Tapping Social Media Data

The good news is that with today’s technology, this data can be tapped. But the process is not without its challenges. The data stream is a prime example of “Big Data.” Dealing with data sets measured in petabytes is a challenge in itself, and there is a serious problem with the signal-to-noise ratio. At my company, we estimate that at best, only 20% of the social media data stream contains relevant information. But before this problem even arises, companies face the issue of identifying their customers among the millions of participants in any given online community.

The Problem of Customer Identity

Most companies approach the problem of finding customers on social sites through the slow, arduous and expensive process of participating themselves. On Facebook, for example, businesses can gain access to the profiles of anyone who clicks the “Like” button on the company’s business site (depending on each customer’s privacy settings). With the right pitch, offer or game, companies can gradually gain an enhanced understanding of a subset of their social customer base.

With new matching technology that’s now available, the process is faster and more comprehensive. For example, matching technology uses artificial intelligence to figure out whether a given “John Smith” in a company’s customer database is the same individual as a particular John Smith on Facebook. The algorithms that accomplish this are extremely sophisticated, and they work. In fact, matching technology has been successfully used by law enforcement agencies to locate criminals.

If a company has one or two key pieces of information about its customers — e-mail address is often the most important — that company can accurately identify them on a social site and extract a substantial amount of data, including both profile data and transactional data that can reveal relationships important for marketing purposes. (Again, the amount of data available for any given customer depends on that customer’s personal privacy settings.)

Putting Data to Work

The second problem with social media is transforming data that is potentially useful into data that is actually useful. Social media data is generated by an entirely different technology stack than the transactional data that typically feeds CRM systems. Accordingly, it is stored in entirely different formats. That data can be transformed into a useful format with Master Data Management (MDM) technology.

MDM is the process of managing business-critical data, also known as master data (about customers, products, employees, suppliers, etc.) on an ongoing basis, creating and maintaining it as the system of record for the enterprise. MDM is implemented in order to ensure that the master data is validated as correct, consistent, and complete.

MDM has been used for more than a decade by companies that want to integrate disparate databases for a 360 degree view of their customers (or product portfolios, for that matter). It is equally effective in integrating social media data into existing CRM systems, and filtering that data for relevance.

What this all means is that companies can achieve important process improvements with bottom-line significance. For example, they can:

• Obtain behavioral data that will allow them to more appropriately target segments for better marketing results.
• Obtain data on personal preferences and interests to move closer to a true one-to-one relationship with their customers.

The disciplined use of demographic and historical customer data has enabled large numbers of companies to substantially increase the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns. Social media data will enable marketers to take targeting to the next level. It’s Big Data, but today’s technology can handle it.

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Chris Boorman is the chief marketing officer and senior vice president of education & enablement at Informatica. He is responsible for Informatica’s global voice to the market, which includes corporate, partner and field marketing.

As I said all along, the biggest competition for publishers and media is still yet to come: Brand Curated Media

As content is king, brands are learning many ways using the content to create their own media in order to attract their targeted customers.

And guess what advertising there is free…

- Köksal.

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Brands Want to Own Their Media, but Find It’s Harder Than It Looks

Owning Your Media Is Great — Can You Cut It as a Publisher?

by Ad Age Digital

Content, you may have heard, is king again. And curated content at that. After half a decade’s dalliance with crowdsourcing, user-generated content and giving up “control” brands once more have realized they have a responsibility and a right to tell their own stories.

There’s just one problem. In those five or six years the rules of brand engagement changed and, for the most part, brand and PR managers along with the agencies they retain to help “tell their story” have little idea how to create editorial content in a social media culture that craves 24-7 information instead of the occasional disruption of an advertising or PR campaign.

At this very moment a legion of brand managers are scratching their collective heads wondering what they should be doing with their Facebook page and Twitter feed. The smart ones understand that Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr et al are pure publishing platforms albeit with different levels of conversational feedback. And brands as diverse as Club Monaco, Nokia, Allstate and IBM have taken the plunge into producing “social media editorial” — regular content via an online magazine, blog network or even video documentary aimed at demonstrating to their customers that, yes, they really can be interesting, informative and useful.

But while social media editorial publishing is a smart strategy in a digital world where every company is a media company it also takes brand communications into somewhat murkier territory. This has became clear in our “Think Like an Editor” workshops where we try and instill some of the experience we’ve learned as journalists into this new vogue of corporate storytelling. Sure we can teach companies the basics of good storytelling but how, for example, can you as a brand convince your audience that you are being authentic, trustworthy and credible?

Good journalists strive to achieve that through understanding the rules of “fair use,” attribution and libel as well as checking their facts and properly sourcing their research. Most of the time they learn those skills the hard way — on deadline and being challenged by their peers. My own education came many years ago at the coal face of the Village Voice, where, as an editor, I would negotiate deadline detente between the paper’s reporters and its libel lawyers. It could be intimidating but it drilled into me the utmost respect for getting the story right.

OK, so most brands probably won’t be creating the same fact-checking headaches that the Village Voice managed every single week back in the early 1990s but then who would have imagined that a software company like McAfee would make a documentary about identity fraud?

The more brands become publishers, and the more they seek to have a dialogue and win the trust of the public through their content the more responsibility they will have to assume. Once that responsibility sat with custom publishers. But increasingly brands want to tell their own stories rather than outsource all editorial voice to an outside publisher or agency. The recent social media faux pas committed by Kenneth Cole and Nestle before it hint at just the sort of problems brands may face as they increase their role as publishers.

Learning to tell a good story takes time but at least it can be done through a process of creative experimentation. Developing an authentic voice, getting your facts right, and retaining the respect of your audience is a much longer learning curve.