What's your thing?

Over the weekend, my friend shared with me that he wanted to go into business himself. The business was in making cakes.

Getting into the food business has always been a good idea but unfortunately, it is also a very difficult industry to survive in. After the initial tests of his products I was left feeling un-impressed by the whole tasting.

Not that what he did was bad but rather what he didn't do that left my taste buds wanting more.. To me he's baking skills were exceptional based on the fact that that if you asked me to I would not be able to reproduce such a cake.

But what was disappointing to me was the lack of a thing for his cake. What do I mean? Well, whenever you do something be it a business / any sort of project, I find it incredible that most people don't start off with asking themselves these 3 simple words... What's my Thing?

What's my thing is built upon the idea that every business/project has to be unique, it has to have its own thing. Most people refer to it as a point of uniqueness or differentiation, I prefer to just call it a Thing.

So my deal with my friend's business was not that he was going into the wrong business or that he was not a good baker, it was that his cakes had no sense of uniqueness (i.e. a thing). They weren't shaped differently or had a unique flavour. It was just a very good cake.

Someone once mentioned that very good is the enemy of great and I believe that's true. In today's business world, it is already a general consensus that your product or service has to be good. But what makes you truly memorable is that you have to have a thing and that moves you from very good to great.

Think about it this way, I'm sure many of you out there know a person or place that bakes good cakes, but tell me, do you know anyone who makes an awesome cheese cake or a great chocolate cake? Ask yourself, if you say they're good what makes them so different about from the rest of the chocolate and cheese cakes out there?

So whenever you think about embarking on a new project or business, you first need to ask yourself - What's my Thing?

Design & Emotion

I was wondering about what to share on the blog lately and have been a case of writer's block lately. Then I came across this talk on TED which was about Design and emotion (Design & Emotion) by Don Norman.

To think about it, great design is really all about product, packaging, etc which is fun to use. Makes me think a lot about my own design work and style.

Branding Personality

I say "Great branding is about having a personality". Question is, what's yours?

KL Design week

This weekend I'll be attending the KL design week. I'm excited and yet at the same time wondering if this will prove to be a thought provoking event or a disappointing one.

On my last trip to the Singapore design week 2 years ago the turn out for that event was also mediocre.

I wonder indeed how well this event with fair. Well, its off to the design week conference and I'll let you know how well the event went.

Is FujiFilm on the Right Track?

I read a very interesting article this morning on the business times site, It mentioned that Fujifilm (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd intends to sell 80,000 units of digital cameras this year.

In the article, the Senior Executive Director of Fujifilm Mr. Paul Ho mentioned this quote

"We believe that quality products matched by a strong advertising campaign will help us to achieve our sales target." (article)

Its my personal opinion this statement is inaccurate. First of, quality products. Everybody expects a product to be of quality before they would even consider buying it. So that statement of having quality products is not a strong differentiating statement. Having a strong advertising campaign would probably buy you some buzz time but in my opinion, the payback from the ad campaign might not translate to sales.

Its true that advertising is an integral part of any marketing process but herein lies the difference, it is an integral part and not the whole process.

My belief is that Fujifilm suffers from a very basic branding problem, being its name itself... FujiFilm. Fujifilm has built up its name in the consumers mind as being a camera film producing company. No one today uses films anymore in their cameras and Fujifilm has not been trying to rebrand themselves by moving away from the perception they are great at producing films to being great at producing digital cameras. So its obvious why this is a problem.

I believe that if Fujifilm does not address this problem, no matter how much advertising they spend its not going to help them gain market share.

But on the bright side, its good to know that with everyone else cutting back on advertising & promotion, Fujifilm intends to spend. That is a bold marketing move so it just remains to be seen whether or not they are spending their marketing budget correctly and on the right medium. An interesting case to follow...

A great idea?

Great ideas mean nothing if they are not put into action.

Email Marketing Campaign

For all my Malaysian Readers... First of I'd like to mention... GONG XI FA CAI or a Happy Chinese New Year! Yes, its the celebration of a new lunar year for us Chinese in Malaysia... Just fresh of the heels of my break I would like to bring you a few thoughts on email marketing campaigns. First, this posting was based on Seth Godin's recent posting on his blog. You can find the whole posting here.

There are a few do's and don't when it comes to email marketing:

Do:

1) Ask permission - Consumers will hit that delete / unsubscribe button faster than you can shout stop if the sense that they are being sold to. Get their permission to communicate with them before you send them your newsletter or HTML Ad.

2) Be Personal - There is a saying, if you can't take the time to be personal, I won't take the time to read your newsletter or mail. Don't cc everyone your newsletter or blog insert. Take the time to address each one of them personally. I know it takes time... but such consistency which ultimately lead to trust.

3) Consumer Rights - Yes, if you believe that you have a right to email all the addresses in your contact list, You're Right! But remember, your consumers also have rights... the RIght to IGNORE you and HIT DELETE when they receive you mail.

Don't:

1) Mass Mail - Dn't mass mail your newsletters out... Nothing stinks worst than companies that mass mail their newsletters out... you're not speaking to a company. Well technically, yes you are but behind each company receiving your mail is an individual and trust me that person is busy enough already with his/her own life. There probably not interested in your newsletter what's worst and mass mailed newsletter.

2) Mailers list - you have your own contact list, do not ever sell this list or rent this list out to anyone or any company. Once your consumers find out that you sold their contact details away, whatever trust you have gained with your consumers will be lost... FOREVER!

Taking the time to build an e-mail marketing campaign that works and is effective takes time and of course patience. An honest SPAM campaign may seem like a great idea in the short run but will hurt your brand in the long term. Till next time, market effectively & responsibly.