March 2014

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 10 mar 2014

Marketers are always trying to find innovative ways to connect and build relationships with the consumers. Experiential marketing does the same and assists brands and companies, by creating events in public setting like malls, stations, conferences etc and even online, to directly interact with their prospective customers through experience with products and services. The relationship building can be a two way process and companies can utilize experiential marketing to gain customer information and data in return. The article explores this value exchange by utilizing experiential and marketing research to build and retain customers and cites various examples of companies that are doing it right. Experiential marketing can provide opportunities for data capture through use of latest technologies and attractive deals in return for interaction with the brands. Read on...

CREAM: How experiential will become a new form of market research
Author: Will Northover

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Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 05 mar 2014

Influence is an important aspect of human personality that provides the ability to affect and attract others. Psychologist Herbert Kelman of Harvard University wrote about 'social influence' and considered 'compliance' (agreement with others in public, disagreement in private), indentification (influence due to likeness and respect for a specific personality) and internalization (agreement in both public and private) as three processes of attitude change. In the article John Hagel III explores the changing nature of influence in the dynamic world of today and recommends ways to achieve more influence. According to him the conventional approach to build influence included - by providing answers; by demonstrating strength; by being a hub of a network of like minded people that further persuaded others through the answers that were provided. But in the transient world of today the answers lose value rapidly as the new and better ways and methods displace and make the older ones obsolete. Therefore he suggests the new way of building and retaining influence by asking questions. Questions have the ability to invite participation and provide the opportunity to co-create and co-develop answers and solutions by sharing ideas and insights. But the challenge is to frame the right and effective questions to get valuable insights. He suggests - ask broad questions; questions where stakes are high; questions with depth that require consistent effort over extended period of time; questions that provide step by step answers that encourages continued participation. Asking questions demonstrates individual's vulnerability that helps in building trust-based relationships in the initial stages. Moreover it enhances the ability to access tacit knowledge of the participants. The new approach also requires mobilization of a new kind of network, more mesh-like, connecting every participant with each other, thus providing unexpected and evolving ways to co-explore. This assists in building creation spaces with smaller teams connected with each other and getting together when required. To demonstrate the influence in action, John Hagel provides the example of Santa Fe Institute and its formation by a group of scientists led by George Cowan, and participants - David Pines, Stirling Colgate, Murray Gell-Mann, Nick Metropolis, Herb Anderson, and Peter A. Carruthers. They all represented different fields but all came together to seek answers to the questions about potential common themes regarding complex adaptive systems that cut across traditional disciplinary boundaries. Read on...

Edge Perspectives: The Big Shift in Influence
Author: John Hagel III

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Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 05 mar 2014

Joseph Shumpeter defined 'economic innovation' as - bringing a new product, a better or new process or method of production, developing a new market, exploring a new source of raw material or creating a new and better form of organization of industry. In the article Michael Scholl proposes 'commercial innovation' as an approach to bring new products and services into the market by identifying existing customer needs and willingness to pay (WTP) in areas where available products and services don't fulfil customer needs. Thus expanding the existing market with speed and market-oriented focus. He argues that commercial innovation should not be confused with 'product re-launch', that companies often use to bring existing products into market with different name and market strategies to enhance product life-cycles. He provides recommendations to implement commercial innovation - keep the idea secret as it may affect organization; designate separate task force to work on this initiative; shift R&D budget to this task force; be quick to implement and act on the plan. Read on...

Real Business: The key advantages of commercial innovation
Author: Michael Scholl

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