HCM Attribute: Intellectuality (2 of 6)

The second attribute to Human Centric Marketing (HCM) is Intellectuality. Intellectuality is the human ability to have knowledge, to  think, and to generate ideas. Intellectuality is closely related to the ability to think beyond the obvious and the ability to innovate.

Brands with strong intellectuality are innovative and have the ability to launch products and services not previously conceived by other players and by the customers. The brands thus demonstrate their ability to effectively solve customers problems.

When Tesla automotive company adopted the name of a famous innovator, Nikola Tesla, the brand promised to continuously innovate as did its namesake. The brand does not disappoint; it is in the forefront of major innovations such as electric cars, automotive analytics, and autopilot technologies. The intellectuality of Tesla creates as strong brand appeal, even though it does not advertise.

Major disruptive innovators such as Uber and Airbnb also demonstrate their intellectually by coming up with services that connect customers and service providers. Major proponents of the so-called sharing economy, Uber and Airbnb are viewed by customers as smart brands.

Now I have to point out if you are small business probably you don´t have a marketing department, and to take time from serving your customer to keep worrying how you will bring the customers to your door by advertising and keeping up with the evolving online marketing may not be a good idea. Perhaps outsourcing that area of your business maybe something you want to look into it.

Since you are just hiring a service if your marketing does not go well nothing is avoiding you to start doing the old ways, or change the person you did hire for that, what you cannot do is to stay out of using what it is one of the most effective ways to market your business, and that it is to be online active and visible.

Human Centric Marketing (HCM)

HCM Attribute: Phisicality (1 of 6)

HCM Attribute: Intellectuality (2 of 6)

HCM Attribute: Sociability (3 of 6).

HCM Attribute: Emotionality (4 of 6).

HCM Attribute: Personability (5 of 6).

HCM Attribute: Morality (6 of 6).

HCM Attribute: Phisicality (1 of 6) - Physical attraction improves influence.

Physicality is one of the Human Centric Marketing attributes. A person who is physically attractive has strong influence over others. Thus, brands that aim to have influence over their customers should have physical attraction that make them unique, albeit not perfect. This is another way to say that physical attraction improves influence.

For brands, physical attractions can come from their brand identities such as well-designed logos or well-crafted taglines. Consider Google with their dynamic logo system that continuously alters its logo to celebrate special moments or persons with its Google Doodle.

Physical attraction can also come from a compelling product design or a solid customer experience design. Consider Apple as an example. Apple is well known to excel not only in its industrial-product design but also in its user-interface design. Apple´s user interface is often considered very simple and unintimidating even for non-savvy users. The Apple Store design is also considered one of the best in the retail industry.

Not having a online presence or promoting your website is a big mistake, it will be like going out with a girl without having taking a bath and put on a perfume. Today that is not about impressing anymore, it is mandatory to have a online presence, and that is to say nothing about being a nice looking and good content website, in other words an attractive one.

Human Centric Marketing (HCM)

HCM Attribute: Phisicality (1 of 6)

HCM Attribute: Intellectuality (2 of 6)

HCM Attribute: Sociability (3 of 6).

HCM Attribute: Emotionality (4 of 6).

HCM Attribute: Personability (5 of 6).

HCM Attribute: Morality (6 of 6).

If you were mislead to this article because you are looking to a more romantic side of attraction in regarding a relationship, perhaps not all is lost, you can come here and see this nice article of 4 things you need to know about attraction, but remember "growth mindset" is much more attractive than "fixed mindset". I hope you did learn something new today, and grew a little bit. 

Human Centric Marketing (HCM)

In the book Marketing 4.0 - moving from traditional to digital - (2017) Philip Kotler talks about the Importance of Human touch in the marketing, even in the digital era that we are now.

In the literature, customers are almost always portrayed as the most powerful players. Nevertheless ,marketers often forget the human side of customers, which is clearly manifest in the digital era; they are not perfect and they feel vulnerable to marketing ploys. Hence they build communities to strengthen their positions. Perhaps this is why we so many groups in places like Facebook designed to supply any human desire to communicate and discuss in a variety of areas of interest.

Marketers need to adapt to this new reality and create brands that behave like humans - approachable and likeable but also vulnerable. Brands should become less intimidating. They should become authentic and honest, admit their flaws, and stop trying to seem perfect. Driven by core values, human centric brands treat customers as friends, becoming an integral part of their lifestyle.

Human-centric marketing, Kotler said, still is the key to building brand attraction in the digital era as brands with human character will arguably be the most differentiated. The process starts by unlocking customers, deepest anxieties and desires. It requires emphatic listening and immersive research into what is known as digital anthropology.

Although we may require the human touch to survive in the business and marketing competition arena even in the digital area, we still may use the digital tools to facilitate that human touch. Customers anxieties and desires perhaps can be satisfied with information on your website that can be easily located on the internet because you use SEO techniques to rank better. 

Or perhaps you can listen to your customer even when they want to complain about something when you use tools for them to leave a review on your company or services, this is called reputation management.

Personalized offers can display the human side of your business even when you are using technology to offer it, like message marketing. If you are not using or have a desire to learn more what those tools and strategies can do for your business, feel free to reach out for help.  

Human Centric Marketing (HCM)

HCM Attribute: Phisicality (1 of 6)

HCM Attribute: Intellectuality (2 of 6)

HCM Attribute: Sociability (3 of 6).

HCM Attribute: Emotionality (4 of 6).

HCM Attribute: Personability (5 of 6).

HCM Attribute: Morality (6 of 6).

Market niche can be very profitable (Muzak = "Elevator Music")

A market niche is the subset of the market on which a specific product is focused. The market niche defines the product features aimed at satisfying specific market needs, as well as the price range, production quality and the demographics that it is intended to target. It is also a small market segment.

Muzak – the company that brought elevator music to the masses back in the 1930s. The technology for piping audio over power lines was patented in 1922 by retired Major General George O Squier, and exclusive rights to the patent were bought by the North American Company. In 1934, under the corporate umbrella of ‘Muzak’, they started piping music into Cleveland homes.

Muzak seemed to have hit on a winning formula, but the advent of free commercial radio sounded the death knell for the company’s chosen route to market. With free music available on shiny new wirelesses, households were no longer prepared to pay for the Muzak service. Undeterred, the company focused its efforts on New York City businesses. As buildings in New York soared skywards, the lift/elevator became practically ubiquitous. Muzak had found its niche, and ‘elevator music’ was born.

So what ?? You might think.

It’s true that, compared to behemoths of contemporary media such as radio, television and now the internet, elevator music is small potatoes. But back in its heyday this was cutting-edge stuff, and it reached a lot of people. Muzak had the power to sway opinions and influence markets, so much so

that for music artists of that era, having your track played on the Muzak  network practically guaranteed a hit.

Technology has the ability to open up completely new markets, and to radically shake up existing ones. Internet is doing just that to us. The following video show that online ads only is not good enough, you can do so much better by doing it properly, and by that I meant doing some branding or providing opportunities to engage your audience before running ads

Branding is the  promoting of a product or service by identifying it with a particular brand, it can be done in many ways, running ads is only one of them, perhaps one of the most expensive ways, but surely you can try other methods before running ads, such as having a website, writing articles, maintaining a blog, or posting in your social media.  

Sometimes it is better to go through the less travel road (User-centric design)

While this may seem like the most obvious point, it’s surprising how often the user is forgotten in the user experience. Business owners, marketers and web developers frequently focus on creating the web platforms they want and think are best, instead of really interrogating what the user needs.

Often, the performance of web assets is compromised when the design process is driven only by internal business needs (for instance, ensuring that each department in the company has a space that it controls on the home page) at the expense of what the user needs.

It’s essential to give users exactly what they need. (Source: XKCD.com)

When designing for the user, you need to ask the following questions:
• Who is the user?
• What are the user’s wants and needs from your platform?
• Why is the user really coming to your website?
• What are the user’s capabilities, web skills and available technology?
• What features would make the user’s experience easier and better?

Of course, many users may not know exactly what their wants and needs are! It is the User experience practitioner’s job to discover these through research and interpret them in the best way possible. Keep Henry Ford’s famous quote in mind here: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

Case Study - Harley Davidson - Power of marketing.

Harley-Davidson is more than just a motorbike, a Harley-Davidson comes with a lifestyle, but how do you sell a lifestyle on a 30-minute test ride? And so 24-hour test rides were born. Here was a study case that can show you the power of marketing. You will see the metrics of this study, one of the best things about online marketing is you can see all the data and measure your results very precisely and effectively, if you hire someone to do online marketing for you, that person should be able to send you reports to tell you how the actions is performing towards your advertising goals.

Location: Australia.

The challenge: Harley-Davidson wanted to lift sales for its touring range of motorbikes and create audience-engaging content.

Target audience: Customers and potential customers of Harley-Davidson motorbikes.

Action

● To launch 24-hour test rides, the agency created the end sequence to a short film where a man wakes up with a Harley. They then invited young film-makers to view the film online, and challenged them to show how the film begins.

● This resulted in multiple films being made, all with different beginnings, but all leading to one common ending.

● The agency then staged ‘The Open Road Film Festival’ event. This was a public screening of the top eight films. The event took place at The Bucket List, a popular nightspot in Australia’s legendary Bondi Beach area, and attracted a vast audience including many of Australia’s own film celebrities.

● The festival was featured online where thousands of viewers across Australia and New Zealand watched and voted for their favourite films. Prizes were awarded to film-makers and voters, including a Harley-Davidson Iron 883 and much-desired Canon cameras and equipment.

● Inspired by the Harley adventures in these films, many film viewers went on to join a waiting list for 24-hour test rides.

● The campaign generated far more interaction than anyone had anticipated or hoped for and, importantly, met the brief of: 1) getting branded content created by film-makers that brought to life the excitement of owning a Harley through dramatizing what could happen with a Harley in 24 hours; 2) lifting the sales of the touring bike range.

Here is the metrics I talked about before - Results:

● 59,383: number of site visits over the festival and campaign period.

● 41,340: number of unique site visits.

● 33,072: total number of collective minutes spent on the site.

● 10,599: total number of views of the top eight films.

● 171: number of film-makers who signed up for film tips from Gregor Jordan and Bryan Brown.

● 65: number of film-script submissions and grant applications.

● 25: number of finished films uploaded.

● 43 per cent sales uplift: the campaign contributed to a 43 per cent sales uplift for touring models during the campaign period versus the exact same period of the previous year. A resounding success.

Harley-Davidson Open Road Film Festival

"When marketing is done right, sales take care of itself"

The Title of this article was a quotation I have heard somewhere, I tough is was from Philip Kotler, one of the important names in Marketing (I was used to teach marking using books he did authored), but I end up not finding it to refer in this article, anyway my point here today is to emphasize the importance of Marketing. Don´t get me wrong, without the product or service there will be no business at all

But if people were not given the chance to know the existence of your product or service you will not stand a chance either. To be quite honest I see you need to do much more than that, specially if you have competitors. For example managing to have Reviews from past customers available to prospective new customers can be the difference to close a sale.

Perhaps you need to ask yourself: "When I will give my business a chance to be more visible online, using all the tools and techniques that seems to be working to every other business ?" Maybe you have tried before and did not work well, but isn´t that the road to success ? You just not get to the end yet. Also there are some great starting points you can start from.

I hope you are finding my blog educative, maybe you can go and see my you tube channel as well, there are a lot of good tips there too.