The Main Blog

The Five Forces Framework (a model), “is a tool for analysing the competition of a business,” and was invented by Michael Porter, and “first published in the Harvard Business Review in 1979.” Wikipedia.org, September 2018. The original model is represented in blue (square) boxes below. Over the years other authors have added to the model, the yellow (rounded) boxes, and there are other variants. Commentators have criticised the original model for its incompleteness and the augmentations for...

Introduction Consumers of products[a] typically progress through a series of stages, a Customer Response Hierarchy, regarding their purchase or non-purchase of products. Or so economists and others interested in modelling such things would like to think. [a] In this post, product is the generic term for “the result of an action or process.” en.OxfordDictionaries.com. This is as opposed to the preferred practice at DTC of using the collective term solutions....

Introduction Are there only six rules for creating a better business? No, not really, there are probably about a billiontyone, but let's start with six for now ... There are several pervasive and persistent assumptions (myths) in business; two of them are: A business needs to offer a Unique Value Proposition (UVP) to attract customers.Years of competition have turned products and services into commodities. While there is an element of validity to those assumptions, they mostly miss the vital...

Introduction Marketing empirical generalisations are observations about marketing causes and effects that hold for a broad number of product categories, demographics, environments, media, and formats. When marketing empirical generalisations have broad applicability and utility, they can almost be thought of as marketing laws. What follows may contradict your experience, and this can be due to many factors. You are possibly mistaken. The conditions needed to obtain repeatable experimental...

Reality is inconvenient at times, especially when it doesn’t conform to our assumptions and/or wishful/magical thinking. Instead of relying on assumptions/faith, this blog looks critically at context-relevant research, evidence, and experience as the basis for decision-making. This blog (and website) provides actionable advice, see this discussion for what it means for advice to be actionable. Implicit in our risk-management approach are questions about the validity and credibility...

Introduction Based on the work of Andrew Ehrenberg, the most growth for a brand typically comes from light buyers and current non-buyers. The most effective advertising works on the availability[1] of a brand by reaching both heavy (frequent) and light (infrequent) buyers by refreshing their memories and reaching non-buyers by building new memories. For Facebook to be a viable platform for growth, it has to be able to reach the later, but does it? As a refresher from Does Customer Loyalty...

Introduction This post is based on a paper titled The Emotions That Drive Viral Video (Nelson-Field, Riebe, & Newstead, 2013). To the degree that if you followed the recipe, you could guarantee video virality, there is still a lack of definitive understanding of the characteristics of successful viral videos. However, some generalisations are possible. Even though the following generalisations are or seem to be obvious, especially with hindsight, it is possible that some combination of...

Introduction It’s not meant as a rhetorical question when I ask, “does customer loyalty exist?” Before we go too far, let’s define our terms thanks to the Oxford Dictionary: Customer – a person or organisation who buys your solution. Loyal - Giving or showing firm and constant support or allegiance to a person or institution. Loyalty - The quality of being loyal. Exist – Have objective reality or being. Byron Sharp has written a fascinating book called How Brands Grow – What Marketers Don’t...

Executive Summary Developing a Business Strategy concerns many people in business. This concern is understandable. Not only is some form of strategy required to align collective behaviour and achieve goals, but strategy development is difficult in a complex world, especially when there are contradictory meanings ascribed to strategy and its sibling tactics. In addition, there are many ways to do both. Is there a way to reduce the confusion and anxiety? Fortunately, there is, and it’s called...

Summary It’s easy to pronounce that the first thing you need in business is a Job To Be Done, for which you will develop a solution. But just how do you go about finding a Job To Be Done? The following is a slightly adapted extract from the book Starting a Business With Facts, Not Faith, reproduced for your convenience. Identifying a Job To Be Done Customer Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) describe in the customers’ words what they are trying to accomplish. Identifying and satisfying customers’ JTBD can...