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The click moment

If success is random, as the author of The Click Moment claims, can anything be systematically done to create it? In truth, a combination of the right kind of people, outstanding ideas and measured risk will form the cornerstone of a successful business. It’s every company’s dream to come up with a product or idea that changes everything but few are lucky enough to succeed in doing it. There are some organisations, however, that make it look easy - Apple has done so repeatedly, with innovations such as the iPod, iTunes, iPhone and iPad all altering the landscape of their respective markets.The secret to coming up with new, game‑changing ideas is something every brand, and every marketer, wants to learn.But according to a new book, The Click Moment: Seizing Opportunity in an Unpredictable World, by Frans Johansson, there is no way to know how or when these seminal ideas will come about and whether they will be successful when they do. They are influenced by so many unpredictable and complex factors that they are effectively random, and neither experience nor training are of any help.A chain of eventsThe most significant successes of companies such as Starbucks, Microsoft and Google could not have occurred if not for certain events outside their founders’ control, Johansson claims.He tells Marketing Week: “If you dig deep underneath any success story, it tends to be very polished and put together after the fact.“While it was happening, nobody could really have foreseen it. Even stories that we know very well are just a way of providing a pattern - an explanation for what happened.”He gives the example of Howard Schultz, chief executive at Starbucks. Schultz only hit upon the idea of selling a coffee-shop experience - as opposed to just the beans - after trying espresso for…
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Highbrow meets lowbrow

Premium and more basic brands forming partnerships is a growing trend, appealing to consumers who want to get the best of both the high and low-end, and brands that are aiming to expand their reach Mix it up: Topshop and NordstromThe combinations of hotdogs with champagne, football and fine wine and Topshop and premium US store Nordstrom might seem unusual - but in an austere economic environment, a new strategy has emerged: that of mixing the high-end and the everyday to reach a wider audience.The likes of Aldi, for example, is doing well in tough times, using the line ‘like brands only cheaper,’ in its marketing. Joint managing director Roman Heini says it is attracting more A and B demographic customers and in Germany it is making the most of this by partnering with more upmarket store Rewe and trading under the same roof.Meanwhile, high street retailer Topshop announced its partnership with the premium but conservative US department store Nordstrom, something which Forbes magazine calls a ‘retail odd couple’, but which stands to increase Topshop’s presence in the States while upping Nordstrom’s fashion credentials.Best of bothJames Wallman, editor at LS:N Global - the trends network of The Future Laboratory, who calls the new movement ‘lo-hi,’ says that it is becoming fashionable to mix up premium brands and more basic ones. The target audience, price and brand values are entirely different, but low-end and high-end brands are collaborating to appeal to people who want the best of both.“The reason brands are doing it is to appeal to today’s consumer. We are now lo-hi shoppers. These days, people are much more prepared to mix and match. In the past, you would consider yourself a high street or luxury shopper and you wouldn’t mix the two. But that’s now become something that people…
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The toughest brief

Law firm Freshfields’ first chief marketing officer Libby Chambers is looking to drive the brand sky-high. The former Barclays senior marketer talks to Michael Barnett about her grand plans. Freshfields is in the middle of transforming the way it markets itself. The top-four law firm used its sponsorship of the Olympic Games to put itself on the world stage and help it move towards being a recognisable brand. And with Libby Chambers - its first chief marketing officer and a former global marketer at Barclays - on board, the firm plans to push into international markets.International growth in countries where it hasn’t previously been established requires going beyond the usual attention to quality of work and the lawyer-client relationship, Chambers argues. “Those things remain true, but what becomes much more important is your ability to build your brand.”Its Olympic sponsorship has already won it work further afield, advising the organisers of future Games (see case study here) but Chambers says the US is its next big market. “We have served, in one fashion or another, two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies in the past. But the US is 43 per cent of the global legal spend that is available and we are completely under-represented in that market. So while we have opportunities in areas such as Africa and South America, we are really looking hard at the US as an area from which we can grow,” she says.As a limited liability partnership, Freshfields rarely makes its financial breakdowns public but, according to Chambers, only 22 of its top 100 clients are US-based - although 82 have used its services in the US. Freshfields is already relatively well known there she says, but mostly in niches such as mergers and acquisitions (M&A). The firm’s 2,500 lawyers are located across 28 offices in…
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Kicking off

Football is being shown the red card from fans and pundits for its on and off-pitch performance. Sponsors and clubs must offer more sophisticated engagement opportunities to score positive attention - and help the sport clean up its act. Overpaid, overindulged and allegedly in some cases racist, football players and their teams - which stand accused of being only after fans’ cash - may have torpedoed the reputation of the beautiful game in the run-up to the Fifa World Cup in Brazil next year.This season there have been several instances of fans in open revolt against the Premier League’s market forces, from Manchester City supporters returning tickets en masse to Arsenal in protest at the high cost of away seats, to Newcastle United fans expressing concern at the club’s new shirt sponsorship deal with payday loans company Wonga.Newcastle City council leader Nick Forbes was among those to criticise Wonga’s £24m four-year deal, claiming it would promote “legal loan sharking” to local people facing economic hardship.Wonga, though, says its business practices are responsible and that football sponsors promoting alcohol and gambling have not met with the same opposition. In an attempt to win over sceptical fans, after agreeing the deal last October, one of Wonga’s first acts was to rename the Newcastle stadium St James’ Park after owner Mike Ashley had controversially rebranded the ground the Sports Direct Arena the previous year.But regardless of gripes among fans, the number of people watching the country’s most-loved sport is continuing to rise. Last season, average attendance across the Premier League was 93 per cent of capacity and figures to date suggest a similarly impressive showing this season. Viewing figures around the world are soaring too, with an estimated 4.7 billion people globally tuning in to the Premier League in 2011-2012. Budweiser is a…
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Marketing lessons from the US presidential elections

A week before the American public votes for a president, Marketing Week looks at all the political tools brands can use to make sure they outsmart their opponents. Americans go to the polls on 6 November to vote in either Barack Obama or Mitt Romney as President. After months of gruelling campaigning, the winner will claim that his victory represents a clear choice by the people for a certain set of policies and a vision for the future.But whoever gets into the White House will also owe his triumph to a huge, mass media marketing effort. Both sides have poured millions of dollars into their respective campaigns, flooding the airwaves with adverts and touring the nation in a bid to inspire voters.So what can brands learn from the battle for hearts and minds that rages at election time? Do political tactics strengthen brands or simply turn consumers off?Standing for somethingObama famously campaigned under a theme of hope during his election campaign in 2008 using the slogan ‘Change we can believe in’ but has struggled to generate the same wave of enthusiasm this time around. The incumbent’s fall in popularity over the past four years has been linked to his failure to meet the huge expectations set by his soaring rhetoric at the start of his presidency.This is a cautionary tale for all brands that fail to live up to their core values. In October, for example, following the news of an 12 per cent fall in profits at Tesco, commentators were quick to claim that the supermarket giant is losing ground to rivals that have taken a clearer stance on price or quality. It hired Wieden + Kennedy to help it regain popularity – and is hoping shoppers will vote with their feet in a positive way.Richard Murfitt, head of…
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Pernod Ricard goes premium

Pernod Ricard has just posted better than expected results, due in part to long-term marketing investment. Group chief marketing officer Martin Riley talks to Lucy Tesseras about the company’s dedication to premiumisation. “The whole spirits business is not about volume, it’s about value,” says Pernod Ricard group chief marketing officer Martin Riley. “We’re not in the business of trying to get people to drink too much. We want people to enjoy what they’re drinking by giving them the best possible experience in terms of product quality and packaging.”Riley’s premiumisation strategy seems to be working. The drinks giant announced a 6 per cent rise in six-month profits to €1.5bn (£1.3bn), driven by a strategy of getting people to pay more for premium alcohol brands. The company is the second largest in the sector behind Diageo and credits its continued marketing investment and innovation for its success.The marketing function of the evolving business is overseen by Riley, who joined Pernod Ricard in 1997 having previously worked at Allied Domecq and Seagram, which were later acquired by Pernod Ricard.The notion of going premium began with the acquisition of Seagram’s Scotch whisky brands in 2001, the most notable of which was Chivas Regal.“For a luxury whisky brand like Chivas the whole tactile nature of the bottle, the silver box, the label and the embossing are so important, but that had all been taken away,” says Riley. “We fell in love with the brand we inherited but recognised it needed to be treated with a bit more respect. We put the cost back in, which meant the price of the pack went up but we knew we had to create something that was intangible.”Pernod Ricard gave 18-year-old whisky brand Chivas 18 the same treatment by introducing a new heavy-base bottle and blue and gold label.…
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