infuse - the blog for Influencer Marketing

Who analyzes the analysts?

2008-05-15T10:48:00.003+01:00

There’s a new blog to discuss analysts - analystanalyst. Immediately I like its tone: thought-provoking, humble, discursive.

Its key purpose is to “analyse the analysts.” You might assume that this was already being done by the AR firms: Lighthouse, Tekrati, Tiger Lily, KnowledgeCapital, SageCircle, and so on. I’m guessing the IIAR has some role in analysing the space too.

So is there a point to the blog? Indeed there is. Firstly it aims to hold to account analysts and their predictions/advice. All of the AR firms and in-house practitioners position analysts as essential. They are all pro-analyst. They all position analysts as key influencers, often generalising influence based on the firm analysts work for rather than their individual influence.

This, I believe, distorts the role and reliability of analysts. As analystanalyst says, “no-one analyses or compares (analysts) or holds them to their word, rather we just keep on paying them the money…”

Do I detect a degree of resentment in this statement? Why do “we just keep on paying them the money…”?

Analystanalyst is an anonymous blog (which is a pity, as this diminishes its credibility) but I’m going to guess that the author works for a vendor. This guess is based on the blog description stating that the author “comes into contact with analysts everyday, and more importantly with people who think what analysts say is gospel.” Most end-users don’t encounter analysts everyday.

So here’s a question: what would happen to your organisation if you didn’t pay the money? What’s the bottom line impact of cancelling your Gartner subscription?

One answer is that you’d lose the deep insight that analysts provide into market dynamics. Many (most?) vendors buy analyst research for market data, for strategic insight and for competitive analysis.

But how many of these firms justify the spend by claiming that analysts are influential on end-users?

So welcome, analystanalyst, whoever you are. You’re asking some tough but important questions.

Analysts and their share of influence

2008-05-15T10:41:00.002+01:00

For the record, I’ve never said that analysts are no longer influential. (Some of my best friends are analysts…) What I have said is that the share of influence has shifted away from analysts towards a plethora of other influential categories, some new (eg. bloggers) and some old (eg. consultants, regulators, academics). In fact, what’s most relevant is that it is now possible, using sophisticated search capability (plus a good deal of research diligence) to detect influence (if you know where to look and don’t prejudge the answer).

I’ve also stated, in the book and elsewhere, that analyst influence is often overstated. Analysts are influential, but they are not at the top of the influence hierarchy. Indeed, I don’t believe there is an influence hierarchy.

HP, and now SAP, confirm that view that analysts are just one of multiple groups of influencer. It’s interesting that Don at SAP detected this 18 months ago and reacted by establishing an Influencer Relations division. What’s surprising is that so few companies have followed this lead. But I know many are watching this trend closely.

Who really influences customers?

2008-05-15T10:35:00.002+01:00

Hot on the heals of HP’s survey results on who influences their customers, Don at SAP has released figures of a survey conducted 18 months ago. The post, with Don’s observations on the data, is here.

A couple of immediate observations of my own:

How important peers and colleagues are. This is consistent with many consumer-focused surveys too. But I’m not convinced this is helpful from a marketing viewpoint: after all, it still poses the problem, how do you get you message to those peers and colleagues?
Our customers’ customers are major influencers. This is really interesting, and rarely picked up on. It means that what customers buy must add value to what they in turn sell. So we, as marketers, must know what our customers are selling, and to whom.
The importance of your competitors (in SAP’s case, Business Software vendors). Often downplayed, or ignored, but competitors are trying desperately to influence your customers. What do you do about it?
Confirmation that analysts are most influential in the 2500+ employee bracket. This mirrors Forrester’s own research into the influences on small and medium firms.
Blogs are low in influence. Don suggests this may have changed in the past 18 months. I’m less convinced.
Where are the events? This contrasts with HP’s figures, but match Influencer50’s research findings that events are rarely influential.

This is good insight into the share of influence that exists in the IT industry. I hope more firms will share their results.

More on SAP's approach to influencer relations

2008-05-02T11:59:00.002+01:00

Don Bulmer at SAP shares his experience of establishing an Influencer Relations program. I esepecially like the engagement model and the segmentation (with revenue opportunity) of influencer groups.

Don's diagram of this is here.

'Influencers possess less clout'

2008-05-02T11:44:00.003+01:00

So says Pollara, a Canadian research firm. Nice headline. Except what the research says is that online influencers (bloggers, social media users, etc) have less clout than real world influencers. And that's in consumer markets.

This is evidence of a vocabulary drift that now equates influencers with bloggers. It's symptomatic of a lack of thought over what influencers are and how they work. The fact that a blog gets a lot of hits has no bearing on its influence. Why? Because influence is subject-specific. Hugh McLeod may have influence in social media, wine and suits, but none (as far as I know) in cars, scotch and pets.

The biggest issue I have in the influence of bloggers is that most bloggers that have any influence at all do so over other bloggers. The area that bloggers have most influence, as a group, is blogging and social media.

Most claims of the influence of social media are generic. They talk about the influence on "products" or "brands" or "services". But this is meaningless when trying to understand the influence on purchase decisions in favour of a specific product or brand or service.

Which is what matters to marketers.

Analysts influence, as measured by HP - update

2008-05-01T19:47:00.003+01:00

I admit I didn't expect a reply to my post on HP's measurement of analyst influence, but a reply I received (see the comment on the post). Hats off to Bob at HP for disclosing the rankings of their survey.

The question is: what influences HP's customers’ decisions to place a vendor on the short-list when purchasing products and services. The rank is:

Experience with Vendor
TCO
Price [statistically significant gap between top 3 and next 5]
Analyst Reports
Events
Vendor Internet
Analyst Verbal [statistically significant gap between top 8 and rest]
Financial Analyst
Marketing Collateral
Blogs/Social
Media Coverage
Direct Marketing
Advertising

Inital observations:

- how powerful vendor experience is. We always see competing vendors as strong influencers in any market, but I didn't expect them to rated top.
- financial considerations are key, but not necessarily the financial performance of the vendor itself (if the low ranking of financial analysts is indicative).
- events are much higher than I'd have expected.
- interesting difference between analyst reports and analyst advice in forming a shortlist.
- social media and blogs are on the radar, but still low.
- very low showing for the media
- why does any firm bother with direct marketing and advertising these days?!

Also, I'm surprised at the absence of advisory consultants and players in the supply chain (VARs, SIs, etc). It may depend on the markets being surveyed.

Still interesting stuff and valuable contribution to the wider influence debate. Thanks to Bob for sharing the info.

Bob asks the community to share its data - we're currently putting a paper together on the Influencer50 research. Anyone else?

The original HP announcement is here.

Influencers are old hat

2008-05-01T14:52:00.003+01:00

When I was at the CMO Council Summit in November there was a panellist that said (and I’m paraphrasing here), “Influencers? We’ve been doing that for years. It’s old hat.”

I confess, the comment bugged me then. It still does. I was reminded of the comment when in Ghent a few weeks ago, while being interviewed by the Belgian press. Two of the journalists I spoke to suggested that companies have been doing influencer marketing for years.

I know what seeds the belief that considering influencers is well-established. It’s research like Overstreet and Katz & Lazarfield. It’s books like Dale Carnegie’s How to win friends and influence people. It’s Everett Rogers and the theory of diffusion of innovation. And so on.

There are two concerns I have in regarding influencers as old hat. First, if influencers are old hat, where are the influencer relations people? We have press relations and analysts relations. Whither influencer relations? In fact, influencer relations is just beginning to appear, in forward thinking companies like SAP and Wipro (check out the Wipro case study in the book).

Second, I actually think that influencers are old hat, insofar as they have always been there. Despite the talk about so-called “New Influencers” (bloggers and the like) it’s the “Old Influencers” that still dominate.

What’s new is the recognition that (a) we have a way of identifying them, and (b) we can then engage with them to improve marketing and sales.

That is very much "New hat".

Analysts influence, as measured by HP

2008-04-29T18:49:00.002+01:00

HP's AR blog announces its research findings of its survey of what influences customers’ decisions to place a vendor on the short-list. Interesting stuff.

But note that while 55% of respondents say analysts do influence the decision, this doesn't not equate to share of influence. It might be that 80% of respondents think peer customers have influence, or that 100% think consulting firms have influence, or that journalists have no influence at all.

Unfortunately, they don't say who else also influences customers, or where in the ranking analysts come. I assume it wasn't top...

The only tidbit they offer is that bloggers and social network sites rank 11th of the 14 types. Go on, HP. Tell us the order of influencers. We'd all love to know.

Influencing competitors

2008-04-29T17:07:00.003+01:00

I'm reminded by Josh Bernoff at Forrester about the influence of competitors. Josh asks, should you talk about your competitors? Absolutely, and I'd suggest that you should hope they talk about you.

In every market there are competitors (otherwise it isn't really a market), and there will be some influencers working for those competitors. So first, a reality check. It's unlikely that competitors will become your advocates (unless you can convince them into a partnership, for example). But remember that the influential competitors are influential on your prospects - that's the definition of an influencer. So you can't ignore them either.

Trashing a competitor publicly will be counter-productive, but neither are you going to endorse them. So what to do?

Josh suggests a middle ground. Talk about your competitors. Give credit where credit's due. Understand where your points of differentiation are, and emphasise them.

What is the point of this? The point is, you want competitors to talk about you. Given that they are just as unlikely to trash you, they will try to ignore you. They’d rather not talk about you.
Engaging with other non-competitor influencers has the effect of raising your profile in the industry, including your competitors. Because influencers are talking about you, your competitors will be forced to follow. Otherwise, their influence is diminished, because they are not seen as being in touch, or truthful.

This is particularly true for players trying to break into a market. It’s easy for the more established players to dismiss such competition. But they can’t do this if industry influencers are paying you attention. Importantly, talking about your competitors to influencers is very effective, because it aligns you with your competitors. What you are doing by engaging with influencers is creating a program to influence your competitors.

Your measure of success is simple. Do your competitors see you as a competitor? If yes, then that’s all you can do. If no, then you need to start influencing them.

Influencers don't buy stuff - the point is...

2008-04-29T09:59:00.004+01:00

After Nick's debate with Paul Gillin at the New Comms Forum last week, Katie and others have fastened onto Nick's quote that "Influencers don't buy stuff." It seems that some have taken this to mean that influencers don't matter because they are not buyers. This is not the point.

The point is, firstly, that influencers are influencers, and are therefore important - by definition. They can't both be influencers and not matter - that's an oxymoron. So engagement with influencers is mandatory.

The second, and more important point, is that you need to talk to influencers in a different way that you might to customers. To put it crudely, you can't pitch to influencers.

It's not enough to "join the conversation" with influencers. You've got to know what to say, and how to say it. Saying the wrong thing is worse than saying nothing.

I think the missing link here is the identity of influencers. There may be "new influencers" such as bloggers, but they are not the totality of the influencer ecosystem. In any market the ecosystem will be heterogenous: in most markets we see a dozen or more influencer types.

So, step one is always to identify the individual influencers in your market. Only then can you think about what to say to them.

Tekrati interviews Nick

2008-04-22T19:19:00.002+01:00

In advance of Nick's appearance at the New Communications Forum this week, he was interviewed by Barbara French at Tekrati on the subject of his debate with Paul Gillin. The link is here.

Nick at the New Communications Forum

2008-04-18T09:36:00.005+01:00

Paul Gillin wrote a great review of the book, but noted that we were a tad critical of the role of bloggers in the world of influence. This is somewhat at odds with Paul’s stance in his book on The New Influencers.

Paul got in touch and invited us to debate the issue with him at the New Communications Forum
in Sonoma next week. Nick is representing us – should be a thought-provoking event for all involved.

Markee seminar

2008-04-18T09:25:00.003+01:00

I was in Ghent, Belgium, last week presenting on the future of advertising. Shock: there is one.

Koen at Markee, who organised the event, has posted a video of the presentations. Koen’s is in Flemish, but the slides are English and worth a read. Jimmy Maymann from GoViral also presented and played some cool videos on how viral films can create social objects. My pres is on there too. The link is here.

I was introduced to some quirky Belgian humour. Markee had, for instance, arranged to have traditional advertising icons (Duracell’s bunny, Captain Birdseye) standing in glass specimen cases for the duration of the seminar. The stamina of Belgian actors is commendable…

Here’s the proof.

End notes:
Thanks to Koen, Selma and the team for organising a great event.
Visit Ghent for the most restful weekend in Europe, and only 2.5 hours from London on the train.

Reaching out to influencers

2008-04-16T10:11:00.000+01:00

There are two major dangers making contact with influencers. One stems from ignorance, the other from deep understanding.

Firstly, ignorance. We had an experience where we identified the key influencers on a market segment to a client. As part of the service we provide contact details. The client then wants to make contact with those influencers. It sends out emails to every influencer on the list, telling them how important they are. Saying how much attention they will be paid.

The typical response: “Please remove me from your mailing list “

I used to get this fairly frequently as an analyst. In my coaching workshops I still use examples of emails sent to me by vendor marketing or PR folks, inviting me to events or meetings. If the offenders were lucky, I’d politely decline their approaches. Usually it was easier to hit the “Send to spam” button.

Bang. There goes your opportunity to engage an influencer. You really didn’t understand the value of the information you had. The 50 most important people on your market, and you spammed them.

The second danger is that you understand only too well how important these influencers are. Which makes approaching them scary. What if you upset them? Or they’re hostile to your firm?

There are some basic rules of engagement. The first is to pick up the phone. Most busy people these days get over a hundred emails a day, most of which go unread. A colleague of mine just received a reply to an email he sent 300 days ago! I told him he was lucky to get any response.

The phone, on the other hand, is direct, allows synchronous conversation, and demonstrates your commitment and approachability, and you can immediately address any questions or negativity in real time. Importantly, the phone is now not the norm, which is why it works.

The other key rule is that any phone conversation must be a peer-level discussion. You can’t contact influencers through a call centre, or use junior executives. They’re too important for that.

Only when you really know your influencers well can you send them email, to confirm discussion points or to arrange meeting logistics. Sometimes, the old fashioned ways of contact still work best.

How important are blogs? To me? To decision makers?

2008-04-16T09:59:00.001+01:00

I’ve been busy. Really busy. Too busy to blog.

Is this true, though? How important is blogging to you? How important should it be to me?

The truth is, if you’re going to blog you should commit time and resource to it. I haven’t, lately. My bad (as they say). As luck would have it the projects we’ve been working on recently both had interesting perspectives on blogging.

The projects show that bloggers are now emerging as influencers in specific niche areas. A year ago it’s doubtful that any bloggers would have appeared on our top 50 list of influencers. Senior decision makers, in general, didn’t read blogs. This has changed, not in a big way, but blogs are now firmly on the list of decision maker reading. There are some infrastructure reasons for this. The adoption of RSS makes reading blogs easy nowadays, even for busy technology buyers. More likely, the adoption of blogging as a communications mechanism by already well-established influencers encourages adoption of the medium, which then prompts wider exploration of the blogosphere.

The main reason, we think, for growth in blogger influence is that the influential bloggers are getting out more. They attend conferences, they write articles in mainstream media, they consult and advise. In short, they engage in more ways than just on their blog. This, we think, is the primary reason why bloggers are increasingly influential.

What’s also interesting is that, in general, bloggers refer to other bloggers in a self-referencing cluster. This is why bloggers appear to be highly influential – they increase the number of links and references from blogs by increasing links and references to other blogs. For most, though, their influence is restricted to the blogosphere and few have escaped into influencing the real world, and real decision makers.

B2B magazine op-ed

2008-03-10T12:13:00.001Z

Nick has written a short op-ed piece for the US-based B2B magazine. It's available here.

SAP Industry and Influencer Relations blog

2008-03-05T11:45:00.004Z

Just picked up on Don Bulmer's blog, courtesy of ARmadgeddon. Don is VP of Industry and Influencer Relations at SAP, and is a welcome addition to the otherwise sell-side blogs promoting greater focus on influencers. That is, Don is a practitioner of what others (me included) are preaching*. We can all learn from his insights.

A couple of things occurred to me when reading his most recent post:

SAP has evolved its Industry and Influencer Relations group from its Analyst Relations team. That's one way of getting there. But not the only way. Influencer50 has clients that have arrived at Influencer identification & engagement from marketing effectiveness, sales effectiveness, PR, product marketing, corporate marketing and a bunch of other activities. That's not to say that it's a solution to all problems. Just that Influencers can be useful in a variety of ways.
SAP isn't the first firm to evolve in this manner - there are several others. For example, Wipro has been doing this kind of thing since 2006. We wrote a case study of Wipro for the book.
Don says that when SAP identified its business and IT influencers "We were surprised to find that a number of our assumptions on decision making authority and influence were challenged." That's completely normal for this exercise - influencers are not obvious, and take detailed and diligent research to identify and rank. IBM's Information Management group was "shocked" to discover it didn't know its influencers (again, a case study in the book). So don't embark on influencer identification expecting it to confirm what you already know.

And thanks, Don, for the link back to this blog.

*Before anyway starts, yes, we do use our own approaches. I'd like to think the book is a good example of what I call Influencer-led collateral...

Tom Peters on ads

2008-02-27T15:46:00.003Z

The management guru on advertising:

Advertising is a sick business. And it isn't just for the oft-mentioned reason that "consumers are using so many more media outlets—the Internet, hundreds of
TV stations, thousands of publications."
It is because people just don't buy this way anymore. Customers—your customers—are scrutinizing, savvy, discerning, and self-reliant. They look beyond your promises, and consider every interaction with your company as a chance to evaluate you.

Ouch.

Smoke & mirrors from adland

2008-02-27T15:32:00.003Z

"Pre-Click Ad Influence" - creativity clearly isn't dead!

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3624442

Thanks to Gartner's media blog for highlighting this tosh.

“British journalism is sloppy and morally bankrupt”

2008-02-27T14:50:00.003Z

Allegedly…

I listened to Nick Davies, the author of Flat Earth News on Radio 4 a few days ago. He was defending his view that, because media outlets have moved into the ownership of huge corporations, their primary interest is in profit rather than journalism. It’s highly listenable stuff:

“The logic of journalism has been overwhelmed by logic of commercialism…”

“Journalists no longer have time or resources to do their jobs properly as active new gatherers. They’ve become passive processors of unchecked, second-hand material. This makes them enormously vulnerable to manipulation.”

Davies also claims that journalists are incorporating criminality into their work. Driven by scoops, and a lack of time and resources, they cut corners. It’s common practice, says Davies, to hire private investigators to trawl through the trash. They can source bank statements, phone bills, tax records, even health records.

Of particular note to this blog is Davies’s claim that, “The role of the PR industry has become fascinatingly powerful.” He cites research conducted by Cardiff university, which found that of 2000 stories in the quality UK press, "54% of stories were wholly or mainly constructed out of PR product." So more than half of the stories we read are largely influenced by those serving an interest.

I’m not personally a fan of PR firms. Having been an analyst for 12 years, I found that most just got in the way. And now looking at broad ecosystems of influence, I see the dispersion of influence away from traditional journalists, which means that PR is less important to firms than it used to be.

Or so I thought. If Mr Davies is right, perhaps we should all hurry back to our PR friends with peace offerings and humble pie.

Or maybe he’s reporting the further and final erosion of journalists as real influencers.

…

(There’s a good review of Flat Earth News at The Economist, for those who subscribe. For those who don’t - tssk.)

(The full Cardfiff Uni report is here)

Hugh and friends discuss influence

2008-02-18T11:34:00.003Z

Hugh McLeod does a regular podcast with Rabbi Pinny Gniwisch, Johnnie Moore and Mark Earls. This week they talked about influence.

Well, they did for about 10 minutes – for the next 30 it was mainly about success in marketing and creativity. Interesting, nevertheless.

Listening to these intelligent chaps solidified my view that influence is grossly being misunderstood and/or misrepresented. As Johnnie Moore said, there are two views. One is to think of “cool people” that tell the rest of us what to do. Find those influencers and success will follow. The other view is that life is more complex (duh) and success is often just down to luck, or random acts of traction (as Hugh puts it). (Echoes of The Wisdom of Crowds and Fooled by Randomness here.)

This is being played out on the blogs as Malcolm Gladwell versus Duncan Watts.

I think neither of these views is right – this polarisation masks the real complexity of influence, which is that it’s damned hard to pin down in what it is and how it works.

I can’t criticise these guys for saying it how they see it. In fact, I think the biggest culprits are consumer-facing WOM agencies that claim to be able to identify influential consumers or, worse, to position celebrities as influencers.

The podcast does actually acknowledge that influencers do exist, though these may be the people that “show up.” In other words, anyone can be an influencer if they are committed and diligent enough. I think that this is true in large parts.

A couple of their comments jarred with me:

“The Influential model is most often touted by people who would like to be seen as Influentials, or at least, friends of Influentials.” Ouch. In fact, I “tout” Influencer50's approach because I see it working with clients. Some influential people don’t even know that they influence the market, and are surprised on being told such.

The idea that once you find influencers it’s a simple task of pulling the levers and success follows. My experience is that although identifying accurately is complex, it’s actually the easy part in the process. Engaging with influencers is much harder.

It’s also cemented my view that influence in the B2B world is different from B2C, in that B2B lacks a strong sense of peer-to-peer communication. Business people don’t talk to others outside their organisation because of the lack of opportunity, or due to competitive sensitivities. Influencers act as proxies here, acting as go-betweens for firms. This role is critical, and underpins the entire consulting and industry analysis business models.

In B2C, sure, there are influential consumers. But I’ll bet that no agency can identify which fellow consumers are influencing me on my (ongoing) new PC decision. But they could identify which web sites, retailers and magazines I might consult. Fixating on consumers as B2C influencers is missing the primary sources of influence: the supply chain and value-adding influencers.

It’s clear to me that most firms looking for influencers amongst consumers are looking in the wrong place.

Influence, independence and impact

2008-02-11T14:32:00.000Z

Good post from Jon on the influence, independence and impact of analysts. It comes spookily hot on the heels of Alan PS's note on the independence of analysts. That this issue still pops up decades after it was first raised undermines the credibility of the analyst industry. When I was at Ovum, we declined to take money from vendors for white papers, but changed our minds several times during my time there (1995-2004). At IDC (2004-2006) we happily and regularly took money from vendors for white papers. At both organisations we claimed independence.

At Influencer50 we are, not surprisingly, focused on influence. But it's always important to say what we mean when we try to identify and measure it. We think independence and impact are constituents of influence. A lack of independence erodes influence, but doesn't eliminated it. There are plenty of folks working at vendor firms that are themselves influential, but you wouldn't expect them to be independent. Vested interest, as long as it's declared, is the key issue.

The main issue is, then, transparency. So, come on analysts. Why not declare the extent of revenue from vendors. Name your clients and the proportion of revenues they contribute.

Perhaps the IIAR could define (or rate?) analyst firms on their independence...

I've seen the future...

2008-02-08T15:50:00.000Z

... and it doesn't have ads in it.

Witness this advert (noting the irony) I snapped on the Tube for Sky Movies promising whole films with no interuptions.

I admit that, for me, ad-allergic as I am, this is compelling.

Influencing standards

2008-02-08T14:32:00.000Z

Standards organisations can be significant influencers in markets. It seems that there is a steady increase in the amount of standardisation these days, and it covers technology, telecommunications, food standards, pharmaceuticals and so on.

I recently had a client whose primary influencer organisation was the standards body, with no fewer than five representatives in the community of top 50 influential individuals. What does a firm do to influence a standards organisation?

Standards organisations are usually interested in:

Increasing adoption of their standards amongst vendors, end-users/consumers and legislators
Increasing the reach and scope of standards
Increasing influence abroad, including influencing (or contributing in entirety) standards adopted by international agencies (the European Commission is a good example).

The natural assumption, therefore, is to craft messages to standards representatives that focus on one or more of these interests. These are positive messages to take to standards groups, but in practice there is a paradoxical driving force behind them. It is that if the applicability and appeal of a standard is to widen, the easiest way to achieve this is to loosen the terms of that standard. The largest pressure on standards bodies often comes from those that would adopt a less stringent regime.

There are interesting examples of this. In Gilmore and Pine’s excellent Authenticity, the authors cite the US Department of Agriculture loosening the standards for organic foods in the US, allowing 39 synthetic ingredients into items labelled (officially) organic. This accounts for the rapid growth in the industry and the entrance of the major food manufacturers (Kraft, General Mills, etc) into the field, accompanied by derision from purists.

This same issue is currently being debated in the UK. With the import of organic foods from overseas, consumers are being presented with products labelled organic with a higher carbon footprint than locally-produced non-organic foods. A dilemma of conscience ensues…

The point of all this to identify the winners and losers of relaxed (or loose) standards. Low standards create low barriers for entry. This allows more and often larger players to move in and dominate a market. Greater competition is the result, more supply, and reduced prices. This then favours larger producers that have economies of scale.

That’s not to say that lower standards favour big companies. Rather, it is that standards favour incumbent companies, because they have sunk cost in meeting those standards.

Our default recommendation to clients is to lobby for increase standards. These raise the barriers to entry and create room for early mover competitive advantage and differentiation. At a minimum any firm in a standards-driven market should campaign for standards not to be slackened, to protect investment in processes and skills.

Seth offers Ford as a good (that is, bad but illustrative) example of this here. In fact, it’s arguable that a new entrant to a market should aim to set the barrier as high as possible, to shift the agenda and to gain from its lack of legacy.

What about those that promote the free market and claim standards as protectionism mechanisms? I’m all for the free market. But standards exist for a reason – to protect consumers. Standards raise quality and trust in the market. It’s doubtful that some markets would exist at all without standards.

Does Oprah have influence?

2008-01-31T20:46:00.000Z

A lot of the discussion on influence gets sidetracked by the allure of the super-influencer, or what I call the ‘Oprah Winfrey distortion’. The argument goes that super-influencers can make or break a product, or a market, by dropping the right or wrong names. Oprah is usually the cited case, where being named to her book club can rocket an author from zero to the top of the bestseller list. In the UK we have the Richard & Judy book club, which is similar in structure, if not in status.

Does Oprah really have influence? If so how does one tap it?

There’s no doubt that appearing on Oprah’s Book Club has a huge effect on a book’s sales. But is this useful information to a marketer or author? It would be useful if the right action to take was to call Oprah and ask her to read an aspiring writer’s novel. Except that isn’t the right thing to do. Why? Because (and here’s the ground-breaking insight) –

***

Oprah doesn’t choose the books.

***

Ms Winfrey heads a production firm called Harpo Productions, which employs a large team of producers and an even larger team of production assistants. This job spec was recently posted by Harpo productions (emphasis is mine):

Supports team and producer in daily production-including answering phone, getting lunch, opening mail, copying scripts and post-show notes, and other administrative duties. Production skills include research/resourcefulness-proficient in Lexis/Nexis, internet searches, DT searches. Must be resourceful in searching for guests, doing research, and obtaining footage. Reads all books considered to be selected with a critical eye. Maintains up-to-date knowledge of publishing industry. Consistently reads new books, searching for potential book club selections. Can suggest titles that are worthy candidates for upcoming selections. Can create system (charts, procedures, etc.) that are specific to the needs of the club/special projects production process. Charts and tracks show production and book selection process and can anticipate deadlines for the team. Must be able to consistently demonstrate solution driven communication. Communicates effectively with all Harpo departments demonstrating respect and professionalism. Team player works consistently to mesh well with supervisor, teammates, other department members and fellow staffers. Good phone etiquette.

If you want to get on Oprah’s Book Club, Oprah is exactly the wrong person to influence. It’s the new Production Assistant and her colleagues. They read the books, and make the decisions. I understand that Oprah reads the chosen book of the month, but that’s probably the only book she’s got time for (is my guess).

Believing that alleged super-influencers like Oprah, or Bill Gates, or David Beckham have real influence over the decisions that affect you and your firm can distort your marketing efforts, and completely misdirect your activities. Better to understand who really influences the decisions, and target those instead.

Of course, it’s much harder to find out who the new Production Assistant is, but that’s why knowledge of real influencers is valuable. It can give you a unique market insight which leads to competitive advantage.

Anything else is just wasting time and money.