Miro Slodki

Miro is passionate about brands, marketing and building customer affinity with a bias toward street-level execution. He describes himself as a brand mechanic, tinkering under the hood, ripping things out, adjusting this, retooling that, then jumping into the driver seat to see how well it runs and competes with the others.

His career, spanning 20+ years has included tenures for companies such as Kraft Canada, Lysol, The NPD Group, Budget Car Rental, Gold Points Rewards improving key links in the brand value-chain while delivering bottom-line results.

Career milestones to date include:

• Managing brand productivity gains, cost reductions/reconfigurations, new revenue and value enhancements to help drive brand value with FMCG, retail service and service brands.
• Directing national start-ups of a channel continuity program and a channel marketing platform.
• Introducing multiple brand re-launches, line extensions and new products.
• Developing and introducing direct marketing, integrated multi-media and email campaigns.
• Developing and nurturing strategic partnerships to help extend brand value propositions.
• Improving customer service delivery and complaint resolution processes.

Miro is a graduate of McGill's MBA and BA(Psychology) programs.

When not at work, Miro enjoys spending time with his wife and pets, many outdoor activities and experimenting in the kitchen. He is an eclectic movie and music buff, science geek and follows developments in realm of marketing 2.0.

With the opportunity to contribute to the CMA community, Miro is seeking to engage in a dialogue on the topics and issues raised.

What relationship do your customers want with your brand?

For quite some time now, marketers the world over have been fighting increasingly tougher battles to win over and keep their customers. Most observers seem to lay blame on:
a) the rising standard of products
b) the growing cadre of ‘good enough’ competitors and
c) the negligible risk of technical product failure
rendering sustainable product/performance based differentiation moot for all but the most focused world class product innovators and market disruptors who are able to redefine and establish advantageous segment barriers.

What about the rest? Many are coming to the viewpoint that their ability to compete and differentiate will lie in two arenas. The first being situational ‘relevancy’, the second -branded experiences.

While the branded experience arena leads to emotion based strategies, that approach will only be successful against those customers who are open to having an emotional relationship with the brand. Furthermore marketers must remember that emotion is but ONE brand relationship dimension - that others may have a transactional, logical or mature/external/we-centric brand relationship instead. This simply acknowledges that not all brands have legions of emotionally charged customers so why try to push strings? Instead by knowing the type of relationship customers want to have with the brand, marketers take an important first step in being able to communicate effectively with their customer in the ‘language’ they will be more receptive to.

Let’s take shoes laces as an extreme example. Most will have little affinity for brands in the category and gravitate toward expediency or value at the Moment of Truth. However consider a mountain climber who is likely more interested in product performance or perhaps even swayed by a testimonial from Sir Edmund Hillary. How about a teenager - probably ambivalent – unless the brand manager develops some ‘hip shoelaces’ for that group. Or perhaps another constituency that will look favorably upon the shoelace company for its good works, greenness etc…

So smarter marketers will not expend resources trying to accomplish the less effective/expensive/impossible and play the cards they are dealt – at least in the near term while giving their relationship-migration programs a chance to take root.

The next part of this puzzle is to track the mix of Communication, Experience and Overture (CEO) events being directed to the different customer segments that result in a purchase. The intent being to document the sequence of (campaign) elements associated with a purchase. And by identifying balanced programs, the manager minimizes the risk of becoming unduly price focused, commoditizing the brand in pursuit of short-term results.

Anyone interested in a greater elaboration of this view point and model are kindly directed to this link (Anatomy of a Brand Purchase).

It's your turn - Monogamy or Polygamy

How we go about interacting with the world around us is formed in part by some basic beliefs that help structure our perceptions. Simple things like 'is the glass half full or half empty' uncover deeper seated perceptions of growth Vs decline/ opportunity Vs defeatism in the situation at hand. And so in the spirit of these ‘simple’ questions – I put forward the following for your consideration and comment.

Do you think customers are essentially monogamous or polygamous in their brand preferences?

I know there are a lot of if’s, and’s, or’s and but’s – however after stripping everything down to its core - do the majority of customers have an innate need to stay with one thing for life– or do they need variety seek to avoid risk by hedging their bets.

Is the customer we attract:
ours for the loosing by way of a bad experience/broken promise or staleness
or for the keeping via a shared evolving relationship?

Can we build a brand strong enough to stand the test of time?

Are there any brands in your personal life that you have been monogamous with from the very beginning?

Obviously there are no right or wrong answers – but I'ld love to hear your viewpoint.

What happens when the rubber band snaps?

The inspiration for this post goes to Rob Hindley from The Marketing Channel based on a brief conversation we had regarding Wal-Mart.

The question is what happens when the rubber band snaps?
Does a price leadership role make sense anymore?

Treacy/Weirsema (The Discipline of Market Leaders) say a company/brand can do 1 of 3 things on a world class, best of breed basis:

1. Best product (ie innovation/design) ie Apple
2. Best service (customer intimacy) ie Nordstrom, Holt Renfrew
3. Best price – ie Wal-Mart

At some point you hit bottom chasing down the price/cost curve - and in the process:
a) Suppliers dislike doing business with you because the cost squeeze tends to create a win-lose relationships
b) Consumers become conditioned to the lower price and if you can't do price rollbacks anymore - you sow the seeds of disenfranchisement
c) Wall Street punishes your stock because same store sales numbers slow/flat line

Yet in the course of Wal-Mart's journey they have:
- Helped flatten the world with outsourcing
- Displaced local production
- Led cost/supply chain innovation
- Sparked the debate on global optimization of resources – including greenhouse gas implications of shipping product half way around the globe
- Made things less expensive to buy

Does the price option make sense anymore given the short-term focus of Wall Street and the punishment it doles out? Is it too difficult to sustain? Are companies/brands better off pursuing product/service differentiation?

What happens when the rubber band snaps?

The Lump Left Over

A little while back Paul Tyndall (See: Why don't the same rules apply) asked the question about ROI calculations/justifications for new media, and by extension, marketing investments in general.

I think another question needing to be asked is how do we go about measuring the ROI of goodwill. Accounts don't do a good job of measuring goodwill . Its usually the balancing figure reflecting the difference between assets and liabilities on a balance sheet - not something with actual metrics behind it.

Walter Schuetze (former SEC Chief Accountant and FASB member) derisively characterizes reported goodwill as "the lump left over", at least according to this accounting blogger.

FASB:Summary of Statement No. 142
Goodwill and Other Intangible Assets (Issued 6/01)
"Analysts and other users of financial statements, as well as company managements, noted that intangible assets are an increasingly important economic resource for many entities and are an increasing proportion of the assets acquired in many transactions. As a result, better information about intangible assets was needed. Financial statement users also indicated that they did not regard goodwill amortization expense as being useful information in analyzing investments."

Leaving the accountants alone for a minute, it seems to me that whenever there is a customer acquisition program - the enterprise is more willing/prepared to invest in what it hopes will be the start of a long-ish profit stream than it is in re-investing in its brand. I say hopes - because there are no guarantees the brand overtures will yield any results and I also exclude the activities the brand engages in to solicit a sale..

Most brands face their problems later in life - when retention efforts require investment to bolster the brand for self supportive brand evolution reasons, for customer win-backs, to offset the competition's acquisition drives etc...

There are many different ways to come to terms with this issue - as it mostly resides in the realm of executive definition making. Having a precise enterprise-wide definition of what constitutes a goodwill investment is not in the final analysis important. What is important is taking the time to understand the desired impact the goodwill will have on your brand - but measuring the status quo is like counting angels on the head of a pin..

To determine the value of your goodwill investment - look to the forgone profit stream, and any traditional win-back costs as an upper end of the investment it is willing to make, or look at your average customer tenure and then value those who exceed that threshold. The point is you need to make the effort - if you believe there is value in retaining "that lump left over".

The real challenge comes with acting on those convictions - of using that investment as part of your brand retention program. I'm not talking about upsell/cross sell - but rather at those programs that help your customers FEEL your thanks for their patronage.See Rule # 13

By way of example I point out how one of the Telco's launched a holiday season email program inviting customers to play a game - where everyone had a chance to win some sort of prize.
(I ran a similar type of program back in my Lysol days - as part of a clean and win sweepstakes
Customers had to clean a dirt spot on the instore ad pad - which in most cases revealed a coupon value (remember everyone likes to win)

While I naturally don't have the Telco's results - I know from my experience - these types of thank you events are exceptionally powerful business and goodwill generators.

But they went a step further and sought to measure their impact - as I was recently asked to participate in an online survey - probing me with all sorts of questions regarding my brand affinities, likes/dislikes etc... .

Seems to me that goodwill is much more than just "the lump left over". Come to think of it - doesn't that description also apply to profit?

"Profit is the applause of your customers." Ken Blanchard

Proximity advertising - Reach Out and Sway Someone

“The key is to add value,” said Cyriac Roeding, who runs CBS Mobile. “At the end of the day, if the consumer doesn’t win in this game, there is no game.”

So went the New York Times article (In CBS Test, Mobile Ads Find Users) outlining a mobile proximity advertising test to take place in the USA in the coming weeks.

Loopt which bills itself as a Social Compass, (a mobile social location service enables registered members to opt-in and keep track of their friend’s location via GPS) will be conducting the proximity advertising test.

Proximity advertising is basically ads/messages pushed out to sway consumers based on who, when and where they are - just a few shades shy of being the ultimate in relevancy. Think SMS but with the intelligence to know that you are a block away from my store/my brand. These channels - be it mobile, digital signage, laptop will be triggered by GPS or RFID.

For example - you are within range of a Starbucks – they might SMS an offer to you because you’ve walked past 2 of their stores and haven’t had your fix yet and/or perhaps you are within the gravity well of a Second Cup and might succumb to their branded temptation first. How cool is that.

“Consumers are savvy enough to expect advertising,” said Angela Steele, a director at Starcom USA, an ad-buying agency based in Chicago. “They are accepting of it, but they want it to be relevant. If they are getting something they are interested in, that is great. But if they are sending ads that are not relevant, people won’t want it.”NYT - In CBS Test, Mobile Ads Find Users

But there are other consumer considerations before making any leaps into the channel.
Remember that ad Starbucks sent you – it didn’t go out to your friend walking right beside you for whatever CRM reason. So what happens to the brand dynamic in this situation? Your friend gets upset for being rebuffed and you either feel good for being singled out, annoyed by the intrusion or annoyed that they don’t value your friends. where does that leave Starbucks?

As this post by Kate Trgovac shows consumers are possessive of their cell phone. The Harris study reported that only 20% are very or somewhat accepting of having SMS messages from a company - which punctuates the need for opt in and relevance. Therefore when you proceed, insist that your campaign has a real-time feedback loop allowing users to signal you when you've crossed their line.

a) Thanks – that’s helpful
b) No thanks – not interested at this moment – try me again later
c) No thanks