MarketingFirst Group

Howard Vs Rudd

2007-11-20T15:29:00.001-08:00

It is a campaign period in Australia. Soon the Prime Minister election will be held. It has been an interesting thing for me to be able to witness it. I decided to share about this because I believe that campaign means marketing. I believe that most of the members are familiar with the campaign. I can still remember the first we had approximately 50 different parties at the beginning of reformation era.

There are only two major parties in Australia, Labour and Liberal. The current PM, John Howard, is from Liberal party and also one of the candidates. He is the second longest serving Australian Prime Minister. The other contender comes from Labour party is Kevin Rudd. In this sharing I do not intend to express my political opinion since my objective is purely to discuss the unique marketing phenomenon during the campaign.

The unique issue about their campaign, of course we could not see this in Indonesia, is their marketing technique in expressing mockery and ridicule of the other party. Instead to only focus on their strengths, they also focus on raising the disadvantages from their opponent. They attack their opponent from every angle of their opponent, such as future policies, the ministry candidates, and the mistake of the leader in open communication to public.

I find this marketing very powerful since the public could see clearly both advantages and disadvantages of their prime minister candidates. Probably it still would take 100 years for Indonesia to apply this method since it might be considered to be morally inappropriate. However, let us just share about what you think about this phenomenon. What is the electoral campaign like in your country? How do they conduct the marketing?

David Herlambang
MarketingFirst

Support My Movember

2007-11-12T14:43:00.000-08:00

Hi All,

During Movember (the month formerly known as November) I'll be growin a Mo. That's right I'm bringing the Mo back because I'm passionate about changing men's health and the fight against male depression and prostate cancer. Why...

Depression affects 1 in 6 men...Most don't seek help. Untreated depression is a leading risk factor for suicide.
Last year in Australia 18,700 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer and more than 2,900 died of prostate cancer - equivalent to the number of women who die from breast cancer annually.
Men are far less healthy than women. The average life expectancy of males is 5 years less than females.
To sponsor my Mo please go to http://www.movember.com/au/donate/, enter my registration number which is 125690 and your credit card details. Or you can sponsor me by cheque made payable to the "Movember Foundation" clearly marking the donation as being for my Registration Number: 125690. Please mail cheques to: PO Box 292, Prahran VIC 3181. All donations over $2 are tax deductible.

The money raised by Movember is donated to the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and beyondblue - the national depression initiative, which will use the funds to create awareness, fund research and increase support networks for those men who suffer from prostate cancer and male depression.

For those that have supported Movember in previous years you can be very proud of the impact it has had and can check out the detail at: Fundraising Outcomes.

Movember culminates at the end of the month at the Gala Partés. These glamorous and groomed events will see Tom Selleck and Borat look-a-likes battle it out for their chance to take home the prestigious Man of Movember title. If you would like to be part of this great night you'll need to purchase a Gala Parté ticket .

Thanks for your support

David

More info is available at www.movember.com.

Movember is proudly grown by Commonwealth Bank, Holden, Schick and VB.

Movember is proud partners with the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and beyondblue - the national depression initiative.

Inconsistency in marketing…It is happening to me =)

2007-10-16T23:12:00.001-07:00

Good day everyone!! It has been a while since the last time I put my latest sharing. Is it laziness, busyness, or sickness that has been keeping me away from writing? Well to be honest the answer is the combination of all three of those. It all started with busyness from my new commitment with the new company that I work with. However, I should have not broken my commitment as a marketer to keep sharing. Therefore the laziness also got into my brain and took over the whole body not to think and write. Just when I thought it could not get any worse, the sickness came along. Yes!! That is right…I had too much fun on the last long weekend and therefore I had to experience a very bad flu for the last two weeks.
I am actually still in the office with some spare time. Therefore, it is a good idea to keep my brain exercised with marketing concept or otherwise there will always be more reasons in the future that keep me away from sharing. Let us elaborate more the phenomenon that I just experienced. I would like to call it “Inconsistency”. I think this is a cancer in marketing.

Since my interest in marketing was triggered I noted that marketing requires consistency. The sustainable marketing does not depend on a single incident. Let us look at the obvious example. I am sure that all of you acknowledge the American Idol, Australian Idol, Indonesian Idol, and the other Idol series. Those series have managed to capture a lot of great talents from all around the world. Each and every season always manage to bring at least one person under the spotlight. However, where are they now? Only a few of them that managed to continue their popularity.

Consistency is a simplest and yet I consider it as the hardest marketing idea. Jay Conrad Levinson, the author of Guerrilla Marketing stated that “You should know that a mediocre marketing program with commitment will always prove more profitable than a brilliant marketing program without commitment. Commitment makes it happen”. I suppose nothing comes easy in life.

A couple of days ago I read an article that stated Wal-Mart has lost its consistency as the world’s strongest retailer. They could no longer provide the complete full range of products as they did years ago. Their competitors seem to be able to create deals with the producers and hence outweigh Wal-Mart. This seems like an unimportant measure however the marketing jungle see this as a huge drawback.

Only through consistency the level of your experience and credentials could be enhanced in a particular area. You will begin to gain some traction, to know people in the relevant area and to be known, and potentially to acquire a reputation as an expert. Each of these attributes requires a sustained effort.

Since I am also still learning to be a better marketer and a better person, I would like to hear suggestions from other members on how to keep our motivation in life.

David Herlambang
MarketingFirst

Add More Reasons to Your Product for People to Buy

2007-09-17T02:35:00.000-07:00

In the Sydney Central Business District (CBD) there are a lot of restaurants. They are not necessarily good restaurants however they are always packed and very busy every lunch time. They are quite expensive from the price point of view. Moreover, there are a lot of café in every street corner, building, and shopping mall in the CBD. Likewise, they are always very busy every morning and not all of them serve the high quality coffee. Why is this happening?

Another important reason for the costumers to buy their foods and coffee probably is the convenient location that they offer. As my friend, Michael Raharja, stated in his earlier sharing there are a lot of factors that affect the costumers’ decision in buying a product. Surely quality is not the only driving force to win the marketing war.

The former McDonald’s boss, Ray Kroc, in his seminar once asked to the audience “Who can make better burger than McDonald’s?” Expectedly, there were more than a dozen people raised their hands. He then asked “Why can’t you sell more burgers than we do?” This shows that marketing war is more complicated than just the product itself. However, marketing without promising product would also be a dangerous situation.

Approximately a year ago, an Australian supermarket called Woolworths decided to create a charity day which intended to give all the profit generated on that particular day for charity purposes. The sales went crazy on that particular day and one of the employees told me that it was the busiest day after two years of experience to work in the store. Not just a good PR strategy, this act also added one more reason to shop at Woolworths on the top of the convenience and low price which is to do something good.

McDonald’s could conquer the marketing war because of the vast reasons that they have created for people to buy their burgers. They have convenience, reasonable taste, goodwill values with their charity, wide selections, and it is even getting healthier in Australia. Therefore, they manage to answer the hesitation of Australians to buy their products the health concern.

Marketing is a beautiful concept since it could be implemented into our daily routine regardless the business level we are involved in. As a person we are marketers. Warren Buffett once said that “If you have a chance to invest in 10% of one of your colleagues’ life, which person will you pick? I am sure that you will not choose a person based only his ingenuity. I am sure you would rather choose a person with a good heart, great vision, positive attitude, and of course great intelligence”. At the end of the day it is good to have these qualities as a person.

Do you agree with me?

David Herlambang

MarketingFirst

Indonesia oh Indonesia

2007-09-03T04:55:00.000-07:00

On September, 08 – 10, 2007 there will be a great event for Indonesian students who study overseas. The International Conference of the Indonesian Students will be held in Sydney. Hopefully the president would be able to attend this conference after the APEC meeting. As a graduated student in Australia, and also as an Indonesian, I think this is important for me to promote this event through this sharing.

The topic that will be discussed in the conference is “Pulang atau mengabdi dari jauh” in English “Come home to Indonesia or devote from overseas”. As one of the Indonesian students who studied overseas, I also have the dilemma whether should or should I not come back to Indonesia as soon as I finished my university. I am sure that all Indonesian students that study overseas would have this dilemma of the century.

The majority of the students that I have met and talked to said that they will stay overseas for a couple of years in order to gain the valuable experience and the financial stability, before they come back to Indonesia. What happens to Indonesia? Even their own students do not believe that their home country could offer them the valuable experience and financial stability.

From the population point of view, there are 200 million people; therefore this is ten times the market size in Australia. With the great land, we could grow most of the plants in Indonesia. With the great panoramic view, we can be one of the best tourist destinations in the world. With the great natural resources, we should be one of the richest countries in the world. More importantly, with a lot of ingenious Indonesia students, we should be one of the leading countries.

From the marketing point of view, there should be a lot of great stories to be told to the world about Indonesia, especially with those qualities lined up. However, there is always and only bad publicity that I heard about Indonesia. Seth Godin stated that a great idea sometimes stays in dormant unless it could be marketed properly. In the marketing war, the winner is the person who can spread their ideas, regardless what the idea is.

Godin also stated that in 1912, Otto Rohwedder invented a slicing bread machine. However, he concentrated only to the idea (patent, production issues, etc) instead of the marketing and ended up a failure. There is no one cared about the sliced bread until seventeen years later, a company called Wonder White, marketed slice bread in order to spread the ideas.

Is Indonesia similar with the sliced bread? Why is it happening? As an Indonesian of course I love my country. However, how can we be expected to come home if there is no guarantee from the country for our own life security and stability? How can Indonesia position itself in the marketing war against the other countries?

Ideas, opinions, and questions will be greatly appreciated.

David Herlambang
MarketingFirst

The "X" Factor in Marketing

2007-08-25T07:56:00.000-07:00

I have been living in a suburb called Kingsford since the first time I came to Australia. This is not the most beautiful suburb in Sydney however as a student I found it very convenient to live in Kingsford. It is only ten minutes away from the University of New South Wales (UNSW). Therefore, this suburb is packed by a lot of different international restaurants and students.

In Australia it is very common to see local bars and pubs in each and every suburb. Australians are very familiar with alcoholic beverages, particularly beer. Therefore, drinking beer with the companion of a couple of friends will be a regular routine in Australia.

There is an interesting phenomenon of a local bar called Churchill’s bar. I assume this bar has been established for a substantial period of time. Therefore, it should have a strong locality exposure and brand in the area. However, the reality showed an interesting contradictory. Approximately four years ago this bar was practically sleeping even during the weekends. The locals somehow prefer to go to the city and enjoy the better designed and more luxurious bars.

Until approximately June 2006, when the last world cup was on, this bar started to wake up from the long time sleep. At the same time Australia went into the world cup for the first time in the last 32 years. Therefore, a lot of Australians were involved in supporting their beloved country in the world cup. The bar was practically crowded from midnight until 7 o’clock in the morning.

After the world cup, the bar started to be diligent in advertising itself in the local newspaper and create a lot of different events in order to attract the locals. Moreover, approximately in the beginning of June 2007 this bar renovated the venue and becomes even more attractive and convenient. Somehow it is always more crowded than some years ago every time I pass the bar.

I realize this example exhibits the luck factor in marketing which sometimes is equally important in business. However, it is the management ability to sustain the good time after the luck is also important in order to wake the sleeping brand up. As I stated before the suburb is packed with a lot of international residents. The bar even advertised in the international magazines in different languages. They start to realize that their market is no longer limited to the local Australians.

A friend of mine told me that success is a combination of luck, courage in taking risk, and the great level of competency. Do you believe it? Let us discuss this “X” factor in marketing.

MarketingFirst

David Herlambang

The Media Power Revisited

2007-08-18T21:22:00.000-07:00

Is there anyone in the forum who trade or invest in the share market? If the answer is yes, how many of you have sold your stock in the last one month? How many of you that cannot get your eyes off of the finance news in the last a couple of weeks? How many of you have told your colleagues, relatives, and family about the share market activity that could be considered as a bumpy market?

In Australia, the All Ordinaries index has plummeted 10% within 19 days. The ugly movement of the global share market began approximately five weeks ago. There are a lot of commentaries in the media, both the negatives and the positives in regards to the current market condition. Somehow these commentaries really affect the investors’ emotion which eventually could alter their investment decisions.

I am here not to share the wisdom of the stock market however I would like to point out how the media really could affect the opinions within the society towards any particular issue. I also stated how Jakarta Undercover became such a phenomenon in Indonesia. The uniqueness of the book and the creativity of Moammar Emka in finding the right niche in the market enhance the media publicity. A lot of reviews by the independent newspaper were issued and a lot of testimonials from the influential people were published. These factors surely affect the marketing strategy of the book.

The flow of information becomes even faster in this century with the assistance of the internet. A century ago it might take a couple of days for the Australian investors to note the important issues that spread in Wall Street. However, it only takes probably a minute to read and understand, or even not to understand, the important Wall Street issues. Consequently, a new investment or trading pattern increases the volatility in the share market.

Is there anyone in the forum that has seen the X rated Paris Hilton movie? In my personal point of view this is the only reason why she becomes so famous. Even her father, the founder of the Hilton Empire, stated that it was a greatest marketing that cannot be replaced even by a billion dollar. This is an example of another media power.

Could anyone mention their experience or sharing in accordance to the media power?

The Problematic Truth

2007-08-09T17:41:00.000-07:00

My mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get – Forest Gump (Tom Hanks)

The Interesting quote above from the movie Forrest Gump somehow is very true in this life. I would like to share a little about my experience in business and life. This sharing is a continuation of my previous sharing “The Road to Success is Always under Construction”.

As I stated before that we started the new Klick N Save on January 2007. Basically we concentrated on the nursery products with an online marketing approach. The whole team began the journey with full of passion. Let me show the deepest appreciation to the great team, and I feel so lucky to have a chance to be one of them.

However, there are a lot of different problems not only from the business point of view. Different problems also came from the personal life of the members. One of them had to go back to Indonesia due to the sickness of the family member. The other had to go to China to pursue his education. I personally experienced a very bad mental breakdown approximately a couple of months ago due to the financial situation, pressures from the business, and of course the difficulties from the transition period since I just finished my university.

With so many problems we decided to stop the online business operation at the end of September 2007. I will continue the security analysis division to live my dream. Probably I am the most stupid person in the world due to the fact that I still want to keep the company and try to work on it. I really cannot imagine where I will bring the company and how I will drive the company. I just try to concentrate to make up the pieces of the puzzle and hopefully I can create a complete picture in the future. I know there will be more challenges in the future so please wish me luck!! Honestly, I feel so sad about the situation.

Hopefully this little piece of experience would be useful to the fellow readers.

David Herlambang

MarketingFirst

Open For Changes…Anyone??

2007-08-02T18:09:00.000-07:00

I had a soft skill training which took the whole of my Thursday. This soft skill training focused on the topic understanding yourself and others. In this training I really see how people are so different from every angle. These different characters could also be influenced by different roles, background, values, and reasons from the inside of the person. Therefore, the behavior that we see is just a small exhibit from the whole picture.

The most interesting part of the discussion is the fact that different characters have different tendency towards the changes in life aspects. Some people enjoy changes and see it as innovative and interesting steps in life. On the other hand, others might hate changes badly.

Marketing involves the whole aspects within the society therefore changes could not be avoided. According to Philip Fisher, a great investment opportunity comes from a company which realizes that a success from a single product is not an eternity. The management should realize that competitors will attack the market from different angles therefore it will change the customer and the society behaviors. The management has to understand that almost all success will fade if no further innovation, improvement, and probably extension to be implemented.

Approximately, two months ago I received a bad news from my family about the failure of my uncle in his optometry business. A decade ago his business was going very well and everything seemed to be very perfect. The Asian crisis, the occurrence of a lot of new and attractive shopping malls, the existence of new and different segmentations within the market, and a new costumer spending patterns turned the situation upside down. This is another sad story that I need to share to you.

Let's Talk About Reputation

2007-07-18T04:33:00.000-07:00

This is my second week with the new company. There are a lot of great moments in terms of self development and new experiences. I have a chance to work with some great engineers in Australia. I could be exposed to a lot of different great and important projects.

Every morning I and two of my seniors always go down to a café and have a bit of coffee to boost our day. We basically just have a good chat about every single issue that we meet in the day before. They have been in the industry for at least ten years. As one of the youngest in the company I always like to listen to my seniors experience and get to know them better. Therefore, I always try my best to be able to attend all the activities in the company.

This morning in the café one of my seniors emphasized how important reputation is in the professional world. He told me a lot of great stories in regards to the reputation of the outstanding young engineers who have accomplished a lot of great achievements within the company. He also pointed the importance of our reputation not just according to the managers but also according to the clients. Eventually, the clients would be more than happy to send the recommendation letter in regards to our promotion to our managers if we have a good relationship with them.

Good reputation of us among our colleagues is also important. There is no point to be very successful, however being hated by a lot of our colleagues. Therefore, it is very important to have a good reputation in any respect.

How can we correlate reputation with marketing? I believe that a good reputation would be the proof of the true quality. Good quality would eventually lead to the good customer experience. It takes more than just mere products and services to beat the marketing war. The great customers’ experience is a necessity in marketing. Look at Mr, Hermawan Kartajaya with his reputation as a marketing guru!! His reputation does a great deal of marketing for himself and his company.

We live in the information age where society’s perception could be easily changed by a lot of factors. Therefore, reputation in marketing would be very useful.

Welcome to the "Reputation Era"

David Herlambang
MarketingFirst

People, Performance, and Results

2007-07-11T03:46:00.000-07:00

Approximately a few weeks ago I received an awakening call. This call stated that I am accepted by a great company, Kellogg Brown & Root, to fill in one of their graduate positions. This company is a multinational company in project management industry. The company is actually one of the leaders in engineering multi disciplinary consulting industry.

I just started the employment on Monday, July, 09, 2007. This is actually my first experience in the industry. There are a lot of exciting projects to be completed, ranging from small into humongous financed projects. Their completed projects surely have formed the history of our global society. Therefore, it is such an honor to be invited to actually join the group.

However I found something which is more interesting than the company’s history and the projects, which is its marketing strategy. As an engineer, the company really treats me as an apprentice to be educated, trained, and prepared for their future leaders. There are a lot of development programs that I will be enrolled by the company. Moreover, I will be working closely with my seniors in different projects in order to provide with enough exposure within the industry. They encourage me to set a goal and career objectives, therefore the future development will be easier for me to be obtained.

I really find that this company has a great people orientation in delivering great performance and results. In my previous sharing, I asked how professional companies market themselves. I think I have found one of the answers. Without the proper people, a system will be redundant. Marketing is all about people since a brand is just a brand, hence the people behind the brand who actually create the image.

I have never worked as a professional in the other countries. Therefore, it would be greatly appreciated to hear about your career experience in any company. Do they focus on the people? Do they provide great trainings to their graduates? What are the other marketing strategies that they have?

Opinions, questions, and comments are greatly appreciated.

David Herlambang

MarketingFirst

The Shrinking Universe

2007-07-04T04:11:00.000-07:00

Have you ever shopped online? Have you read online news? Have you tried to invest some of your money in the other country? Of course all of you have communicated through email. In fact this sharing is being read by you wherever you are, even though I am sitting in front of my computer in Sydney Australia. These situations probably were not possible some decades ago.

A couple of decades ago, it took us a long period of time to communicate with our relatives in another part of the world. Nowadays, all you have to do is log in to your windows messenger and do an online chat with them. It was impossible to order a bunch of flower from London to our loved ones in Jakarta. Nowadays, some online florists could even reach you wherever you are. It was a troublesome to make a payment without cash. Nowadays, all you have to bring is your credit card and you could easily access your money practically everywhere. Nowadays, you can find all the international brands (McDonald’s, Burger King, Starbucks, Carrefour, etc. in Jakarta. The more I think about it, the more I am amazed by this phenomenon. I call this phenomenon a shrinking universe.

This phenomenon also affects the whole business atmosphere. In marketing this phenomenon somehow increases the competition level within the market. The local giants can no longer claim its country as their market. The occurrence of Carrefour surely affects the Hero Supermarket business in Indonesia. Gramedia bookstore is facing both international online and offline competitors within Indonesia (QB Bookstore and Amazaon.com). Moreover, the local professionals are also threatened by the expatriates in the job markets.

Another change in marketing due to the shrinking universe is the existence of the horizontal marketing. Initially marketing was conducted vertically from the company to the customers. Vertical marketing means educating the customers via advertisements. The shrinking universe summons the existence of blogs, online community centers, and forums. These mediums create the possibility to accelerate new information to percolate throughout the society. They also create the freedom to the society to voice and communicate their opinions easily. Therefore, the engagement of marketing through these mediums becomes more and more important.

Are you an entrepreneur? Are you a professional? Or are you a student? What do you think of the shrinking universe phenomenon from your profession point of view? What are the disadvantages and the advantages? Feel free to give your opinions!!

David Herlambang

MarketingFirst

If there is a gap in the market…Is there any market in the gap?

2007-06-27T04:23:00.001-07:00

I have stated for a couple of times that I am running my own company which is currently evolving to two different business units. Since the establishment, one of the partners has been willing to volunteer to let his house to be our head quarter. The house is very big and we could literally combine both the warehouse and the office together. I have told a story on how our emerging company is still facing a lot of problems to be solved. It starts from the diminishing sales, crowded competition, and the progress of business networking is also a tricky issue. It all does not end there!!

Approximately a month ago my partner was noticed by the owner of the house that it will be sold in the near future (my partner rents the house). It means we have to move our office and warehouse immediately. It does not sound very exciting, does it? Our business is not strong enough to rent a warehouse. Firstly, it is expensive and secondly, our items are just not enough to fully utilize the space of the warehouse.

In Australia, and probably in the other countries such as Singapore, Hong Kong, United States, and United Kingdom there are a unique business which is called self storage. The basic idea was developed from the fact that people often do not want to throw their items even they are not needed anymore. I am no longer using this item, but I might need it later (sounds familiar??). It often happens that we feel that our house is no longer convenient and not big enough for our items. Hence, self storage basically provides us space to store our items.

The typical self storage is a very huge warehouse and a lot of cubicles are set up in order to create a lot of storage rooms. The size varies from very small into a 40 feet container. This idea really answers the needs of the society. With the proper marketing, the society being more and more educated about the importance of self storage. It now evolves into wine storages, and even a lot of businesses use them as their warehouse (including us hehehe).

A great marketer told me that when there is a gap in the market, it does not always mean that there is market in the gap. I have seen a lot of unique businesses that did not excel in the market (could you name the examples?). It takes more than mere market research to actually understand the market. Sometimes we have to educate the market in order to create the sense of necessity of our product or service. I am also still learning these marketing principles and would like to hear more sharing in regards to this issue.

What about your business? Does it fill the gap within the market? What marketing strategy did you introduce in order to promote the unique positioning of your business? How did you determine the niche market?

Comments, opinions, and questions are greatly appreciated

David Herlambang

MarketingFirst

Another Form of the Good Will Marketing

2007-06-21T07:17:00.000-07:00

In January 2007, I wrote a sharing with a title towards the good will marketing which combines the marketing and public relation strategy. This sharing outlines how to be a good company within the society by being a philanthropist and how the good will actually increases the awareness of the society towards the company. Moreover, this practice will allow us to give back to our society since we are living in the society.

I March 2007, I revisited the good will marketing with another approach. I believe that all manufacturers must have a good will towards their distributors and retailers. They always try to keep the good profit margin by creating the healthy competition in the market. They would not allow people that will sell at discounted price to enter the market easily since this would kill the rest of the network. Moreover, they would also kill the positioning and the branding of the products.

For the third time I would like to point out the importance of the good will marketing within the business. Have you heard the name Enron? Have you heard the name Arthur Andersen? Hermawan Kartajaya stated that business has to be conducted in honesty in order to be sustainable. I personally believe that true honesty, good wills, and great management skills that would create a sustainable business.

Enron employed around 21,000 people (McLean & Elkind, 2003) and was one of the world's leading electricity, natural gas, pulp and paper, and communications companies, with claimed revenues of $111 billion in 2000. Fortune named Enron "America's Most Innovative Company" for six consecutive years. It achieved infamy at the end of 2001, when it was revealed that the reported financial condition was sustained mostly by institutionalized, systematic, and creatively planned accounting fraud. Enron has since become a popular symbol of willful corporate fraud and corruption.

Arthur Andersen was once one of the so-called "Big Five" accounting firms (the other four are PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Ernst & Young and KPMG), performing auditing, tax, and consulting services for large corporations. In 2002 the firm voluntarily surrendered its licenses to practice as Certified Public Accountants in the U.S. pending the result of prosecution by the Department of Justice over the firm's handling of the auditing of Enron, the energy corporation.

It is so amazing how giant companies like Enron and Arthur Andersen abruptly disappeared and bankrupt because of merely not being honest to the public. This example really shows how a leader in one situation does not mean an eternal leader. Their bankruptcies really affect the global business climate. After the September, 11 attack the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) suffered bear market for a month. However, when Enron case happened it suffered a three months bear market. How many people being redundant after the falling for these giants? The answer is too sad to be true.

Comments, opinions, and questions are greatly appreciated

David Herlambang
MarketingFirst

They Call this Customer Service

2007-06-14T21:28:00.000-07:00

Australia Post…part of everyday life. That is the slogan of the one and only Australia Post. Australia Post is proudly owned and operated by Australian. However, in the courier industry Australia Post has a lot of rivals from other private companies. Due to the fact that the increase in the competition in the courier industry and to maintain their popularity, for the last couple of months they have heavily advertised themselves to the public through all the media and hopefully the public will become their loyal customers.

In my previous sharing I stated that sometimes marketing takes more than just advertising. I also believe that customer experience is an integral part of marketing. In the current competitive business environment advertising without action means nothing. Massive campaign without strategy and better customer service will only waste your money.

I have an online business. As we know that online and mail order businesses become the main customers for Australia Post. A couple of days ago I went to the post office to dispatch my items. The sign in front of the office said “Operating hours: 11am-7pm”. I was waiting in front of the office at exactly 11am. Finally the gate opened and I directly gave my items to be dispatched. However, the officers told me to come at 11.30am in the future. He told me that they are not set up at 11am. Instead of apologizing for the delay caused, he made me feel guilty that I came at 11am.

I also helped my parents run their own restaurant in Jakarta. We opened at 8am and set everything up of course before 8am. Therefore, we would not disappoint or even told customer to come later if they come at 8am. In business we have to understand that customers have their own time table. What is the point of advertise your company if the only thing that you can give is bad experience. Now, I am more than happy to advertise the badness of Australia Post to the public after the experience.

In my point of view Australia Post has established for ages in Australia. Instead of using massive advertising, they should polish their system. Increase the brand loyalty instead of the brand awareness. I believe that the cost of losing an existing customer is more expensive than acquiring a new one. I am sure that most Australians still use Australia Post service. I think Australia Post should go back to university and study marketing.

Comments, opinions, and questions are more than welcome

David Herlambang

MarketingFirst

The Irrelevant Marketing

2007-06-06T02:32:00.001-07:00

The existence of music has given a lot of influences to our daily routines since the early age. We probably started to listen to music since we were still in our mother’s womb. As we grow older our taste of music becomes more complicated. We start to recognize different genres of music, such as jazz, classic, rock, pop, RNB, etc. Our taste of music is mostly influenced by our daily habits, environment, friends, and of course our own personality.

The sophistication of our taste of music and the existence of the wide range of music genres create the complicated segmentation within the music entertainment market. With such complication and competition between the musicians, the music industry could be considered as a red ocean market. Moreover, with the huge amount of song traffic in the society it would be very hard for musicians to capture the attention of their target market for a long period of time.

As I explained before, the complication of our music taste increase as we grow older. I personally think that our desire to music could be perceived as one of our needs in life. A kid would be more than enough to be equipped with a pencil and an eraser to go to the kindergarten. However as he grows older and becomes an architect, he probably needs more than a pencil and an eraser. Similarly, as we grow up there are a lot of variables that changes the need of music. We start to understand the lyrics, recognize the tunes, and correlate the songs to our daily routines.

Approximately two decades ago a band called the Wiggles was formed in Australia. Since its formation in 1991, the group has achieved worldwide success with its children's albums, videos, television series and concert appearances. According to Business Review Weekly magazine, The Wiggles were Australia's highest grossing entertainers for the year 2005, earning more than AC/DC and Nicole Kidman combined.

As I stated before that sometimes being simple is the answer. The Wiggles unique positioning in the music industry shows the simplicity of the band. Surely not like adults, the kids’ taste of music is much simpler. They would not care too much on the sophistication of the lyrics, the technique behind the song, or even on how handsome the singers are.

Their combination of happy tunes in their music with funny movements plus the funny characters such as Dorothy the Dinosaur and Henry the octopus somehow becomes unique both from the music and children entertainment point of view. I personally think that the Wiggles created a blue ocean market within the music industry. They created an irrelevant competition within the market. Somehow they do not compete with the Top 40 artists although they are actually in the industry. Moreover, they also do not compete directly with the cartoon characters such as Dora the Explorer, Thomas the Tank Engine, Bob the Builder, etc. With such unique positioning I think there is no where to go but forward for the Wiggles.

Be Irrelevant to win the marketing!!!

David Herlambang

MarketingFirst

Business Globalization

2007-05-31T04:37:00.000-07:00

I was sitting in the car on the highway to meet a business colleague on Wednesday. There are a lot of interesting phenomena that I observed during the trip. These phenomena come from a great burger company, with a big yellow M as their slogan, a funny clown as their character, the one and only McDonald’s. The title of this sharing is business globalization since I think that big businesses somehow become the culture of the global society or even create the new habit of our society.

My old business lecturer once told me that a business would be able to control a country when it becomes too big. Microsoft surely creates new habits for our global society. Imagine if all Microsoft Windows Operating System are stopped in a night. I think the whole planet earth will become even more chaotic than when the Tsunami devastated the Asian countries. In fact, the global economy is actually influenced by these businesses.

Imagine if Coca Cola suddenly disappear from our society. I think a lot of people will be unemployed, the New York Stock Exchange will be suddenly shaken, and all the restaurants on the globe will experience diminishing in their profit. Moreover, all the coca cola fans will become furious.

In the world McDonald’s surely is everywhere. When I was driving on the highway I can clearly see two McDonald’s restaurants situated exactly opposite to each other, one for each different route. It becomes the executive daily habit to grab the McDonald’s meal in the morning since it is simple, easy, and of course fast. On the highway I could also see even the road directory contains McDonald’s sign in it. This really shows how the company affects the Australian government and Australian culture.

Ten years ago I could still live happily without a mobile phones in my pocket. Somehow the world was small enough to get in contact with our friends and family without the mobile phones. However after Nokia introduced their 5110 series to the world, the whole society becomes addicted to mobile phones. I really cannot live without a mobile phone now. Somehow it becomes so troublesome without it.

A simple sharing about business globalization. Do you have another experience that shows how businesses could affect your habit? Please share it to the group

David Herlambang
MarketingFirst

It's All About People

2007-05-26T06:30:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I asked to the public How the Professional companies market themselves? This question was answered wonderfully. Continuing the story, I managed to go through the second stage of McKinsey's recruitment process. In the second stage I will be required to undergo a problem solving test in an hour. If I could do well in this stage I will face a couple of different interviews before I could get into the company. I think this is a very great and challenging recruitment processes. No wonder they could always find the outstanding individuals to work for them.

As I think about the processes I try to correlate this with marketing. One of the most important elements in marketing is product, and in this situation, their consultancy services. In order to deliver an outstanding product they surely require the right people to build the solution. These people then do the marketing for the company. The results that they deliver to their customers will speak out louder than anything.At the end of the day it is our people that build the company, the system, and the marketing.

In the real life situation we can see how an influence of one great person could alter the final result. Marvin Bower brought McKinsey&Co. up to this level. Our own, Hermawan Kartajaya has brought MarkPlus&Co. to be one of the respected companies in the Asia. These examples show the power of people in marketing.

My dad once told me that in Chinese there is a saying: "It takes only 20 years to grow a tree however 100 years would not be enough to grow a person". This means it takes forever to create an outstanding person since life is a constant learning experience. I think great companies surely know the people power in business and they really invest in the development of their employees rather than focus merely to their profit. I mean, the profit will come when your people show outstanding results.Let us learn to be a better person in life. Just a simple sharing. Comments, opinions, and questions will be greatly appreciated

David Herlambang
MarketingFirst

Sometimes Being Simple is the Answer

2007-05-17T03:17:00.000-07:00

I would like to share a bit phenomenon that I just found out this afternoon. My company just decided to create a new subsidiary and I will be the main operator. The subsidiary will concentrate on the diversified financials which basically will be investing the parent company’s money in a lot of different financial products. Hopefully, in less than a hundred years this could grow and become like Merrill Lynch, UBS, Morgan Stanley, or Macquarie Bank (fingers crossed…hehehe).

Secretly, I also have a deep interest in the financial market. I started trading in the Australian Stock Exchange approximately three years ago. There are a lot of interesting phenomena when I was analyzing the companies within the market. Today, in particular, I started the analysis by collecting the important raw data and information to be processed to the next step of the analysis. I came across to a company which almost has never attracted the media attention. Interestingly, this silent company somehow has grown for almost 700% in price within the last five years.

The name of the company is The Reject Shop. They are basically the discount variety retail sector. Therefore, their target market obviously does not expect luxurious and branded items. Basically, there are a lot of discount shops like them in Australia. What makes them special and different from the others? Why the customers prefer to shop in the reject shop instead of the two dollars shop in the corner?

Unlike the majority of the discount stores which usually very unorganized and uncomfortable, The Reject Shop differentiate themselves by creating organized and comfortable stores for their customers.

Tight budget does not always mean sacrificing comfort and tidiness. This is a very simple concept. Shopping items at the discounted price in a “shopping mall” like store. No wonder their share has increased crazily for the past five years. Sometimes we forget about simple things in marketing. There are a lot of new luxurious supermarkets fighting to obtain more market share by doing more promotion. Therefore, sometimes being simple is the answer.

What do you think about simplicity in marketing? Do you have more examples that show simplicity in marketing? Do you have a simple idea that can change the market? Please share it to the rest of the group.

Just a simple sharing!!

David Herlambang

MarketingFirst

How do the professional businesses market themselves?

2007-05-09T04:16:00.000-07:00

This sharing is basically a discussion. Probably some of the beautiful marketing minds from the forum could help me to ease my question. I have been applying for a lot of jobs for the last couple of weeks. I always have a dream to be a consultant one day. Therefore, to be accepted by one of the huge management consultant companies would be a fairy tale to me.

In researching the management consultant companies, I came across some great names in the industry such as McKinsey&Co., Boston Consulting Group (BCG), and Bain&Co. It is amazing to hear and read what they have done to the society. For instance, McKinsey was hired by the Indonesian government when Aceh was devastated by the tsunami.

In the 1970s, BCG created and popularized the "growth share matrix", a simple chart to assist large corporations in deciding how to allocate cash among their business units. The corporation would categorize its business units as "Stars", "Cash Cows", "Question Marks", and "Dogs", and then allocate cash accordingly, moving money from cash cows toward "stars" and "question marks" that had higher market growth rates, and hence higher upside potential.

Bain&Co with its slogan “helping makes companies more valuable” has consistently helped their clients to outperform the S&P index by 4 to 1 ratio.

These examples are just a few from many other that could show how popular and great they are. In accounting there are the big four, PWC, Delloite, KPMG, and Ernst and Young. In engineering there are, Kellog Brown & Root and Honeywell. I refer to these companies as professional companies.

The question is how they market themselves in order to excel their services compared to the competitors. Obviously, I have not seen any TV, magazine, and any other form of advertisements from these companies. Is it only their brand that creates the sales for them? Is it only words of mouth?
If one day we would like to create a professional company what do we have to do in order to compete these companies? How do we market ourselves? Please share and help me to reveal these questions.

David Herlambang

MarketingFirst

Meet Me in Media Kawasan

2007-05-04T17:45:00.000-07:00

The second article is out people!!! hehehehe

Wow, it is actually a great experience running this blog and writting articles to the media. I have received a lot of support from my readers and friends. Thank you for all your support!!

Let us enhance the power of sharing.

Here is the short abstract to the latest column for them who do not understand Indonesian:

More than Just Advertising

In the modern business environment customers have reached the saturation point in terms of being exposed to advertisements. Therefore, marketing surely takes more than mere advertising in order to conquer the market. A few decades ago advertising managed to create leaders such as Procter&Gambler, Coca Cola, and American Express. However, time has changed this nature. We need to redefine marketing in order to survive. Lazy marketing with only advertising as the main agenda would no longer applicable.

Hence, we need to create further connection with our customers. We need to cooperate with our recent customers in order to obtain the new customers. We need to ask our customers what can be done in order to fulfill their needs. For instance, eBay has created an affiliation program with the recent customers in finding the new customers. They would not be hesitant in promoting their customers’ businesses. Moreover, they also give their customers commission whenever sales is done through the customers.

The example shows that modern marketing requires endless creativity and closeness to the market. I am sure there are still a lot of marketing strategy that could be implemented specifically to your business, and hence no more lazy marketing.

Feel Free to Comment, question, and give any opinion (positive or negative) to me

David Herlambang

MarketingFirst

Free Items Giveaway…Why are they doing it?

2007-05-02T06:48:00.000-07:00

A great blogger named Devi Girsang asked to the public in her last posting what actually is the objective of companies giving away free items. This is an interesting issue since I have not thoroughly thought about it. Is it just giving away? Do they try to introduce the products into the market? Or do they have any other reasons behind it? In this sharing I would like to answer her question from the marketing point of view.

I assume everybody knows about Robin Hood. In the story he steals money and jewelries from the rich and gives it to the poor. This then leads to the high popularity of Robin Hood among the poor. They also have a huge sympathy and support to Robin Hood with all their heart. I think this analogy works pretty much the same with the company that gives away free items. They might try to attract the public attention by teasing them with prizes.

Seth Godin coined a theory called Permission Marketing. He basically points out that in this modern society, marketing should engage strangers to be our friends, and friends into our customers. Permission marketing is about building an ongoing relationship of increasing depth with customers. Therefore, the giveaway process might just a good start in developing the ongoing relationship.

In the internet, certain websites usually ask for our contact details (email address, phone number, etc) before we can actually join the pool of the free giveaways. Unintentionally, we are giving permission to them to contact us in the future for further promotional issues and updates. This is also another practice of permission marketing.

Giving away items also develops the sense of giving back some of the profit to the society. This then increases the loyalty of the existing customers and also attracts potential customer’s attention. This could also attract the media coverage and reviews from the third party which again endorses the public relation (PR) in marketing.

For the newly introduced products this method could be used to increase the awareness of the product in the market. At the end of the day, word of mouth is still the best promotional method. By endorsing the usage of the newly introduced products the company gives the small tease of how great the product is.

I hope this simple sharing could answer the question.
Comments, opinions, and questions would be deeply appreciated.

David Herlambang

MarketingFirst

Jakarta Undercover and Marketing

2007-04-25T01:13:00.000-07:00

Jakarta is a capital of sex entertainment, and in this workmanlike account, Indonesian journalist Emka offers a pleasure tour of some of the rarefied adult venues. He assumes a grating, disingenuous tone as he gains access, via friends and professional contacts, to the naked parties and sex-for-hire clubs that require an inexhaustible supply of beautiful native women and foreign currency to keep afloat. Arriving at one underground party, thanks to the exclusive membership (costing $5,000 for six months) of an acquaintance, Emka pulls back a curtain at the nightclub to behold this sight: "Nobody was wearing anything!" The author indulges in a "Triple-service VIP Sauna Special" (bathed and massaged by two women who vie for his attention while telling him, "We're stupid because we're willing to be used by men") and observes a "Squeals on Wheels" transaction (sex in a moving car). He's seated in the front next to the driver, while his friend enjoys the action in the backseat. There are no surprises, as Emka barely scratches the surface of the sordid Indonesian sex industry fed by the sad legion of bored and desperate mammies (older procuresses), prostitutes, gays, foreign sex workers and wealthy fetishists.

The first paragraph is quoted from the publisher review on the Jakarta Undercover book which took Indonesia by surprise approximately 3 years ago. Over 200,000 copies sold in Indonesia since it was launched. The book even spawned the sequel (Jakarta Undercover 2), comic, and of course the movie. Moreover, this book also available in English and currently being sold in Amazon. It also attracts a lot of attention to be reviewed by the third parties on the internet and the printed media. In Australia the movie would be showed shortly and I have the privilege to be trusted in reviewing the movie from the marketing point of view by the management.

I met Moammar Emka a couple years ago before he became famous and we even played a game of billiard at Gardu Billiard Jakarta. He probably does not remember me after all this year. I personally think that he is a great marketer. As a marketer I always try to analyze the situation and wondering why this book could be such a phenomenon. Is it the controversial content that invites the curiosity? Is it the right product in the right market?

The answer is “yes” to both of the questions. Perfect timing of a perfect product in the perfect market, that what I perceive Jakarta Undercover is. With the background of the eastern culture we cannot deny that the older Indonesian generation still perceives sex as a taboo topic to be discussed in public. However, the globalization era and information age really shift the values within the society which creates a perception that sex topics to be in a grey area (not white and not black).

Consequently, the society becomes more curious in regards to this issue. Being left by a huge curiosity, of course Jakarta Undercover is a great product. In the sex industry Indonesian society is like teenagers. As a teenager we always try something new, have a huge curiosity, and try to find new information as much as possible.

It has the differentiation compares to the other books, the controversial content which discusses the sex and metropolitan life in Jakarta. It has the clear unique positioning, as the first book that gets into its reader’s mind in its category. The story visualization through the flexible and easy language also fulfills the need of its target market. Moreover, it has the public relation (PR) power that attracts the media attention due to the controversial content.

For every one in Australia that have not read the book, or just curious about the Jakarta’s sex life, or just want to have fun then come along and watch the movie in Sydney and Melbourne. It will be good!!

In Sydney the movie will be showed at the University of New South Wales, Kensington Campus

Where: Rithcie Theatre, Scientia Building
When: Wednesday, 12/05/07
with three different sessions: 3.00 pm, 5.30 pm, and 8.00 pm
Ticketing and Enquiries: Grace - 0415 441 717
How much: AU$12.00 (Presold), AU$15.00 (At door)

David Herlambang
MarketingFirst

The deepest condolence to all Virginia Tech Shooting Massacre

2007-04-19T01:16:00.000-07:00

On behalf of the MarketingFirst Group I would like to express my deepest condolence for all the family and friends of the innocent victims of the Virginia Tech Shooting Massacre. Be strong.

The Media Power

2007-04-19T01:09:00.000-07:00

Approximately a month ago I went to a website called http://www.oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com/ which is run by a Canadian, named Kyle MacDonald. He practically traded a small paper clip for a house. Of course it did not happen in one trade. In the website you could see how he started his journey with the paper clip and 14 trades later he managed to obtain the house. What impress me the most is he did it only within a year. WHAT A STORY!!!

He also admitted that he did not spend a cent of his money to advertise his intention. He started the trade from the craiglist website in the barter section. He basically started to tell the world about his intention from his blog. It was probably his unique story that attracted the media attention. Almost all the media from around the globe discussed about him in the middle of last year. In Australia, all the television station was talking about his incredible story. This media euphoria then further stimulates more attention from the society.

To fulfill my curiosity I further browse the internet and accidentally hit a website that asks us to vote for the most popular internet celebrity http://www.webjunk.tv/gis/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_meme. Of course these people are actually famous in the global internet community. They managed to obtain the attention from the society through YouTube, MySpace, Friendster, etc. Some of them even managed to obtained 1.7 million hits within 3 weeks. This is amazing. And hell yeah!!! This is the power of the media.

Intentionally or not I have to salute them from the marketing point of view. They have managed to utilise the power of public relation (PR) as one of the marketing aspects. In this modern society penetration through our target market could be done by different approaches. They have also fulfilled one of the basic human needs, curiosity. As human we always want to see, hear, and read something new in our daily routine. We are always curious about a lot of things. That is why we cannot be separated from the news, TV, and of course internet.

Do you have another experience or story in regards to this phenomenon? Please share. Probably you could be one of the internet celebrities =)

David Herlambang
MarketingFirst

Salesman 101

2007-04-11T03:46:00.000-07:00

I had a small experience that happened approximately two months ago. I was actually being a door to door salesman. This was done in order to get rid of the unwanted items from my warehouse. This is due to the fact that online market has a totally different nature with offline market. Hence, not all items that sell very good in the conventional store could behave similarly in the online store. Being desperate by the condition, I decided to give it a go.

It was the first experience for me and it was very very very exciting, depressing, frustrating, and also full of fun. It was exciting and full of fun because I met a lot of people in that particular day. Of course I could understand the market condition better from the conversation with the people. However, it was depressing and frustrating since I was rejected for so many times in a very short period of time. Honestly, I have never experienced that many rejections in such short period of time in my life before.

At the end of the day, I forced myself to extract the essential lesson from that particular experience.

Try to study the market first before you actually become a salesman. One of the biggest reasons why I did not sell was actually my products. As Mr. Pontoh said, a product should have a unique selling point and provide reasons for customers to buy.
Just do it!! It was really hard for me to actually start the initial conversation in selling the products. I was worried that I would be thrown away from the stores. The fear of being rejected would always keep you under pressure and might lead to the result of not selling any of the products. But do not let this feeling overtake your guts.
The last lesson is: Do not think about the rejection too much =). I think being rejected is totally normal. Instead of thinking about the rejection, control your energy to speak with the people that reject you and ask them why they do not want the product. Find out the best solution from your customer in order to make your sales rolling.

In conclusion, I give all my salute to all the salesmen out there. It is not an easy task to be done. Keep your head up!!!

Please share us your unique experience as or in facing a salesman in your life.

David Herlambang

MarketingFirst

Meet Me in Media Kawasan

2007-04-04T06:09:00.000-07:00

To the great Media Kawasan that creates a Blue Ocean market in the Indonesian media industry. Thank you for giving me the great opportunity to contribute and share my marketing knowledge and experience to the society. Thank you for giving me a chance to learn more about marketing. Thank you.

I am now a new contributor for Media Kawasan in the marketing section. The first column was published publicly in last March.

The basic idea to start writing is to share my knowledge and experience in marketing and business. I personally believe that I learn more by sharing. I do not call myself a marketing guru therefore I am more than happy to hear any feedback from my fellow readers.

Secondly, I would like to create a new image of marketing within the society. Most of the time people always relate marketing to salesmen-ship or advertisement. They are one of the ingredients of marketing but not the whole lot. In fact, marketing is actually needed by everyone. It has an important role in many life aspects such as career, business, fund raising, social works, and of course love.

I am still trying to write more in the other media such as Australian Marketing Magazine and newspaper. Therefore, wish me luck guys =)

The next column in Media Kawasan will be in May 2007. So, check it out!

David Herlambang
MarketingFirst

PS: This column is in Indonesian. Should you need me to translate it, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Price War…It’s everywhere!!!

2007-04-04T05:38:00.000-07:00

I would like to share a living situation in a business environment. I suppose the majority of the members are or have experienced this phenomenon called price war. It is so human that we could be trapped in the price war within our business environment. Price war sometimes could be healthy to the market. However as the old one said enough is enough, there are some limitations that should be set in order to allow us to still obtain profit.

As I said before, I was working in my own restaurant at the early age. We were the first restaurant in our area. Within five years a first competitor occurred and positioned very close to us. They declared the price war and I have to admit our sales dropped. The young David can only see the sales plummet.

After ten years, I started my own business, Klick ‘N Save. We mainly try to focus on the nursery industry. We started to sell the baby furniture, such as rockers, strollers, cots, and swings. In the market we respect our competitors and try to keep the price stable. We did not destruct the price by selling branded items at a very low price. However, new competitors always come to business. Somehow, they think that the only way to crack the market is through price. They sell the items at a crazily discounted price even though they obtained the items at the same price with us. Honestly, the older David is still confused in facing this situation =)

At the end of the day they always give up in the price war. Usually, they decide to increase the price eventually. This is totally understandable since they surely also need profit to keep up and running the business. However, what about the heavily capitalized competitors? Surely they still have a lot of capital and able to afford selling items at the discounted price for the long period of time. How can we beat this price war?

As the Indonesian said “malu bertanya sesat di jalan” in English “shy of asking for assistance would make us fail”. In this very good opportunity I would like to ask the forum for suggestions in battling against this business phenomenon.

Any opinions, suggestions and questions will be appreciated.

David Herlambang
MarketingFirsthttp://www.marketingfirst.blogspot.com/

Towards the "Good Will" Marketing Revisited

2007-03-28T02:19:00.000-07:00

I would like to share a little experience that might be useful for the rest of the members. As a marketing director I was sent by my company to Melbourne for two days to present in a yearly exhibition called Australian Toys and Nursery Fair. This event is actually very important for every manufacturer, wholesaler, and retailer in the toy and nursery industry. This is the chance for manufacturer to exhibit their products and promote their creation to the wide range of wholesaler. To the wholesalers, this is a great opportunity to create more connections with retailers. Of course as a retailer, I found this exhibition is a great chance to recognize the latest trend in the industry, develop more contacts, and predict the future of the industry.

That was actually the first time for me to be there. I really did not expect that toy industry is actually THAT BIG!! The ranges of the categories were exhilarating. It started from art and craft toys, nursery products, extreme games, puzzles, board games, soft toys, learning and developmental toys, action figures, extreme hobbies, die cast, and the list goes on and on. The size of the companies that exhibited there also ranges from a very small company to the humongous sized companies, such as Mattel (the creator of Barney the Dinosaur, Barbie dolls, UNO, etc) and Hasbro (the creator of Monopoly, Sesame Street, Bratz dolls, etc).

My most important mission was to develop contacts to the great suppliers and manufacturers. As a retailer, especially a small retailer like us, it is important to secure the deal that enables us to obtain the great items. This deal will enable us to follow the trend in the industry. However, in order to secure the deal sometimes it takes more than just money. The ability to purchase a great value of transaction does not necessarily secure the deal.

Somehow some manufacturers and suppliers have a good will with their existing customers. They have the exclusivity secured in order to maintain the desired price of the products. As an online retailer I was rejected by some of the companies. Firstly, online stores usually sell items at crazily discounted price which could be lethal to the brand identity of the item. Secondly, the global internet market could kill the existing local conventional stores by eroding their market (an online store in America could sell to Australia).

At the end of the day, the manufacturers have spent millions of dollars to build their brand and of course it is understandable for them to reject me. Mercedes Benz is always meant to be a luxurious car. Therefore, discounted selling of Mercedes Benz would be lethal for them. You do not want to create confusion within the market towards your brand identity.

My question is: Is it another practice of the good will marketing by the manufacturers to their existing customers or just merely business tactic?

Feel free to contribute, you are more than welcome!!

David Herlambang

MarketingFirst

Less Expensive Marketing Plan For Your Business

2007-03-15T04:39:00.000-07:00

No matter what your business concentration and no matter whether your business is brand new or has been in the market for some time you need to have a marketing plan. Otherwise, surely you will not be in business for a long time if you cannot sell your tangible products or services.

A marketing plan outlines what the current market conditions, company goals, competitions, and of course detailed brainstorm of your marketing strategy to penetrate the market. This also means understanding your current position in the market compared to your competitors. Another issue that some marketers often forget is the detail on how the customers perceive your company in the market. This issue is necessary since you can further analyze your company performance, correct any past mistakes, and of course redefine your positioning in the market. Some companies somehow like to throw away their marketing dollars by using ineffective advertising. Therefore bear in mind that cheaper marketing budget does not mean less effective to your business.

In this column I would like you to share some cheap marketing strategy that I have used in the past. Try it!!! They might boost your sales =)

I am a great fan of Public Relation (PR). This is free!! Create a good relationship with the local media, local editors, and writers in order to obtain company press release. Moreover, somehow PR has proven to be more and more effective. Well, you can ask Al Ries if you do not believe me =)

Create more connection within the industry by joining the industry organization which could enhance your networks to the potential customers or even suppliers.

Get online!!! Develop a website with features that could actively involve your customers. For instance, create a blog and forum. This is another form of PR which also could increase the chance of your company to be found by the potential customers (Blog could increase the hit rate through the major search engines eg. Google, Yahoo, MSN).

Work together with your customers. Appreciate them and affiliate with them in order to find the new customers. Keep them up to date.

Word of mouth is the king of publicity. Try to encourage this. Every business would have the unique way in encouraging word of mouth.

JUST DO IT!!!

David Herlambang

MarketingFirst

Creating Communities

2007-03-12T03:20:00.000-07:00

In this column I would like to introduce the new marketing strategy which is creating community for your business. When the information age became substantial surely the marketing strategy changed in so many different ways. Internet has proven itself to create a great information flow without boundary. In the internet, people who live in an isolated area could be as famous as Brad Pitt. The hassle for long distance communication was eliminated by the existence of email, MSN messenger, and the highly engineered web cam. There are a lot of activities that were impossible could be done easily in this age.

One of the true values of internet in redefining marketing is its ability to create communities. All businesses are basically organizations. Moreover, organizations could be perceived as communities since “people factor” is actually the main ingredient. Therefore great business is actually a great community. Through community we could share our opinions, obtain important information, create relations, and learn more knowledge. A great company could communicate effectively to their customers. Likewise, within community we could communicate effectively as a family.

This important value somehow becomes important in marketing. Mr. Solomon posted a great article about blog and has proved how blogging could increase the customer’s awareness of the particular company. Blogging is a living proof of community creation since it allows anyone to communicate closely with another people. Through blogging people could freely express their thoughts and being heard by the global society. This phenomenon creates the sense of closeness between the company and its customers. No wonder a lot of great marketers such as Hermawan Kartajaya, Seth Godin, Al and Laura Ries create their own blog to communicate with their target market. Even the one and only Tiara Lestari becomes more famous through her blog. This community creation then further establishes the wonderful value behind any product or service.

The sense of closeness through community could actively involve the customers. The constant sense of being involved then would further encourage the comfort feeling within the customers’ psychology. By creating the huge comfort zone people tend to be loyal to our business.
Welcome to the community age!!!

David Herlambang

The Road to Success is Always under Construction

2007-03-08T01:55:00.000-08:00

A very successful Australian entrepreneur once told me that the road to success is always under construction. My real life experience could be treated as a great example. Fourteen years ago I was still a very young and naive student in a small primary school. My teachers told me that I was a bright student. I managed to be the leader of the class at that moment. My parents were so happy and very proud of me. At that time I was over the moon and felt like the greatest person in the world. I was thinking that if I could be the champion of the class now, I will always be the best student regardless which grade I am. However, the reality spoke differently. I became lazy and did not pay attention during the lecture. I left all my homework behind and did not prepare myself for the exams. My marks crazily plummeted. I was really young and naïve to think that the road to success is actually always under construction.

My father opened a Chinese food restaurant in Jakarta around ten years ago. At that time our restaurant was one of the pioneers in the location. In fact, the Jakarta hospitality industry was not as competitive as now. As the pioneer we basically controlled the local market and business basically was really good. Again he was over the moon and was indulged by being one of the leaders in the restaurant industry.

It is the nature of business that success will invite competition within the market. Even sometimes the new competitors would come to the market with better concept and bigger capital. Competition in the market shapes the customers’ requirement of better products or services. Not just competitors, a lot of different social and politic events also changed the business environment. For instance, the Asian crisis really diminished our sales. Both competition and the social changes created a new customer lifestyle and eventually a new consumer consumption pattern. As a kid I witnessed the fall of my father’s business. From that moment I realized that being a leader in one situation does not necessarily mean an eternal success. Even the five times world cup champion, the mighty Brazil, is not actually undefeated.

At the age of 22 I started a small business in Australia. It is basically an online retail business based on eBay, called Klick ‘N Save (http://www.klicknsave.com.au/). With a very little capital, I managed to obtain sales worth of AU$22,000/month. Since I am only a human, again I was over the moon and became too proud of myself. I did not thoroughly consider in sustaining the success by ignoring the competition and being insensitive towards the market. I absolutely failed as a marketer. I did not conduct any further market research in order to adjust my items selections. I was just too happy with the items which were highly on demand without realizing that latent competitors were actually getting closer to us. As I frequently said that in this modern society business environment changes very quick. Therefore, it requires us for being sensitive towards it. In the matter of months, the success was wiped out.

Approximately a month ago I started the new Klick ‘N Save with the new team. Within weeks, I have already faced a lot of challenges which can make me suffer from headache. Creating a sustainable business means than just being a temporary market leader. I have seen a lot of great businesses went down just within weeks. Even the mighty IBM could not sustain when Dell, Acer, and Compaq erode its market share.

I am still far from being successful but I hope this small sharing could strengthen the entrepreneur and marketing spirit of the rest of the group. The road to success is always under construction.

Comments, opinions, and questions are greatly appreciated.

David HerlambangMarketingFirst

You have to be an experience customer, before you can be a good seller (Part II)

2007-03-02T22:47:00.000-08:00

In the first article, I plainly said that: “You have to be an experience customer (first), before you can be a good seller.” The question of what could be possibly wrong, even though I have carefully planned everything, I have made acceptable assumptions, and I have done my market research, remains unanswered.

At that point, I usually still argue that I have done my planning and made acceptable assumptions and it should be enough. The problem with “acceptable assumptions” happens because I make that assumption, I confidently enough act on behalf of my target market. Those assumptions came from my reasonable state of mind and not my customers. If I have never breathed their air, eaten their foods, and had their life, I might have different way of reasoning.

Another problem with small entity may come from its market research. We just do not have those big companies’ resources to do a proper market research. We all know that the accuracy will increase with the number of people surveyed and how the surveys are conducted. In one sense, as a small firm we will not get accurate information because of our limitation. By having a good experience as customer in a market, it may give us better understanding for that particular market and this might overcome the problem.

If I have to choose, I would rather engage in a field where I have experience, knowing the soil inside out. This way, I could better understand my market and my customers. I would be able to understand my expectations as customer and at the same time the difficulties in fulfilling those expectations as seller. Managing these two issues might give me a competitive edge in that market. But I do realize that life is not always as smooth as it could be. Sometimes, we end up in a new market and we are left with no choice. In this case, we will have a lot of learning to do. This will not be easy but it can be overcome. In this instance, I would try to understand by experience, I try to understand not from above but from within the market itself. I mingle with them, experience what they experience, being one of them. Putting it in the real world, I would not totally understand the difficulties as an entrepreneur if I have never been in one. I can study literature, report, reading article but without experiencing, my understanding will be limited to my imagination.

We are here learning new things each and everyday. Being a teacher and student at the same time will lead us to a greater pool of information. The challenge is not only processing that information into a new applicable knowledge and implementing this knowledge, but how we understand the nature of that information which will lead us to better conclusion.

Author: Michael A Oei - MarketingFirst Group

You have to be an experience customer, before you can be a good seller (Part I)

2007-03-02T22:43:00.000-08:00

People say that by understanding you learn and succeed. Julius Gaius Caesar once said: “Veni, Vidi, Vici” – I came, I saw, I conquered. We have to urge ourselves to face the problem (I came), then we digest the problem, understand the issue and planning our strategy (I saw), lastly we take appropriate action, implement our strategy which is the product of our understanding (I conquered).

In the peace time we have other problem to conquer. One instance, we may want to start a new business to feed the family. A business, regardless of its position in the supply chain (manufacturer, distributor, retail, etc), industry (finance, agriculture, automotive, etc), or type of goods (goods – products, or services), it is basically buy and sell. You buy, and then you sell it at profit. It sounds really simple. But once you are engaging in one, it suddenly becomes complicated.

One problem arises after the others, complicate the already complicated matters. One of the issues usually there is not enough return. We have all these running costs, but it seems that the graph is going under and will never pick up. Out of the confusion, usually we are thinking about cost cutting. But wait! If we carefully analyze this problem, roll it back carefully. We may find that the problem is with our products. It is either the products do not sell as quick as we want or do not sell at the price we are expecting. What is wrong here? I have carefully planned everything, I have made acceptable assumptions, and I have done my market research, what could possibly be wrong here?

Shall we go back to this article title: “You have to be an experience customer (first), before you can be a good seller” – “experience customers” in general and for that particular product (target market) The true meaning behind all these is; understanding. You have to be able to understand your customers, their expectations and their values. It is not only knowing who is your customers and what they do, but how they “feel” your product and put yourselves in their shoes.

There is one problem still, which usually pops up. Someone said to me, I am an experience customer but yet I am not a good seller. Hearing this issue, it brings my memory to an old saying: “Wherever there is profit, virtue is taken lightly.” People tend to forget their experiences in deciding further actions. They have their experiences, but they do not apply that knowledge. Or even worse, they do not see the bigger picture and the long run impact. They feel the need for cash inflow now, and only think in short term timeframe. They are willing to take this short term profit even that it will jeopardize the bigger goal and long run return. Usually, when they realize that they are off-track, it’s already too late.

The past is not there to be forgotten. It is there not to be used to lean backward but to push us forward in the right direction. Moreover, it is not the actual state of being understand that we need, more importantly is the application of knowledge as a result of our understanding.

Author: Michael A Oei - MarketingFirst Group

More than just products or services

2007-02-28T23:54:00.000-08:00

First baby, first salary, first impression, and obviously first love. What actually makes the first instances in most cases are important. Why the term first love is actually very famous in the society. Why first love is a thrilling moment which can last forever in our memory. Why the experience of having a first baby would be celebrated by most of the parents. Of course I believe that most of the readers still can remember the moment of accepting their first salary. Why people are coping with their first impression in the job interview in order to astonish their potential employee.

Why those first occasions sometimes could be very important in our life. And the most importantly why sometimes we talk about those occasions to our family, friends, and relatives. It is the experience which creates an outstanding memory that last forever in our mind from those instances. The great experience which we obtained in the first love which makes us to be addicted to it. When the first baby was born we received the enchanting experience baby inspires us in forming a good family. The experience obtained by the interviewee in the first job interview will obviously determine our future as a prospect employee.

Last night, a very good friend was telling me about his great and unforgettable experience in climbing Sydney Harbour Bridge with BridgeClimb. BridgeClimb is an Australian company which facilitates tourists or local residents to experience the thrilling and exciting climbing one of the greatest Australian Icon, Harbour Bridge. He was really enthusiastic in telling the story and encouraged me to try it. He promised that I would never be able to forget the experience if I dare to try it. He cannot even stop talking about it. And of course the word BridgeClimb was mentioned for a million times in the conversation. Silently I told myself “He is really promoting BridgeClimb in front of me and it amazingly works, because I am willing to try it”. The challenging experience actually induced the great marketing.

Do you know YouTube? YouTube is one of the fastest growing websites. They success in retaining their customers is simply due to the experience that they offer. The desire to be the centre of attention in the society is a human nature. People want to be famous and recognized by the society. YouTube offers the experience to be famous not even locally but also globally. In YouTube you could create your own video and publish it to the world. You could even create your own channel. The only limitation is your creativity. The instant famous experience then creates a great marketing publicity. Both in American and Australian news even discuss about this amazing website. Marketing without money!!!

Nothing beats word of mouth in publicity. It is free and the target market would not be defensive as if when a salesperson approached them. Whenever customers obtain a good experience, there is a high possibility that they will become loyal or even falling in love to us. Remember when you are in love? You would across the sea only to see your loved one. Customer would forget about the price when they are in love. Moreover, there is also a high possibility for them in telling their experience to their relatives. Therefore, sell more than your products or service.

Comments, opinions and questions are greatly appreciated.

David Herlambang

MarketingFirst

Being Sensitive to Human Needs

2007-02-21T19:05:00.000-08:00

I went to a small high school in Jakarta six years ago. The classes were initially not equipped with air conditioners. Everybody knows that Jakarta is always humid and hot. Being in a class with another forty young and energetic students with Jakarta’s weather was not particularly a fantastic experience. Everybody was complaining on how hot the class was. Therefore, the student committee directed the students’ voice to the school in regards to this issue. They basically stated that air conditioners were crucial in order to create more comfort to the students and hence higher productivity.

After a long debate, the school agreed to provide air conditioning system in our classes in a couple of months. Everybody was exciting. However, after the system was set up some students were complaining on how the classes were too cold. I suppose this simple experience represents how human is never meant to be satisfied. Once a need could be fulfilled there will soon come a new desire. Human desire is always changing from time to time. And I believe that the nature of business is actually to provide satisfaction to human desire.

Edward De Bono stated that human needs are basically divided into several different types. These are physiological needs (air, food and water), safety needs (life stability and protection), social needs (love and family), ego needs (status, fame, and glory), and self actualization needs (achievements, freedom, and feelings of confidence). One of these needs would be our primary need in different context of life. In the modern society, the change in the global condition would alter our primary needs. Hence, different condition would trigger different priorities.

When the twin towers were attacked, safety needs became the American primary concern. When the great drought came early last year in Australia, water need became the priority. In business environment, being sensitive to the change in human or market desires would enable us to be a market leader. The market is actually more important than the marketing itself. However, this issue is often forgotten by the marketers. By understanding human desires we would be able to create the high value products or services. The job of a marketer is to be able to determine changes in people priorities and turn it into a new solution.

As the number of websites on the internet increased exponentially, Google was the only company who understood that being able to find reliable and relevant information easily from millions of websites would be the major need. With their search engine we could find our desired information within seconds. No wonder google attracts hundreds of millions of traffic daily.

Pesan Delivery (PD) understands the Jakarta’s chaotic traffic causes troubles to office worker fulfilling their lunch appetite. It would take more time driving to the favorite restaurant than actually indulging themselves with the lunch. Therefore, they provide the delivery services from a wide range of great restaurants to provide simplicity and convenience.

Therefore, try to be close to your customers.

Comments, opinions, and questions are more than welcome.

David Herlambang
MarketingFirst

Strategic Location!? We live in cyber world era!

2007-02-19T06:09:00.001-08:00

It just a few days ago when I wrote an article saying that business owners cannot rely solely on strategic location (See: Strategic Location & Customer Loyalty…). A few days have since passed and I have been getting a good feedback on it. It basically points out that now we can shop from home. Thank you to Mr. Internet. And no where can strategically beat shopping from you couch. Ouch!

This is a really good point and makes me thinking why should I be bothered on spending all those money for one particular spot in the CBD (Central Business District), which will cost me around three grand a week (rent)? Where, if you think about it, it is possible for me to open an online store with considerably lesser amount (per week).

I said on previous article: “if a business needs to relocate to un-strategic location, it will need to rely not only on customer loyalty and branding but also a new way to lure customers by understanding their dreams (expectation).” This is needed because customer will incur more “inconvenient” cost and in return we have to offer something more.

Now, instead of having all the troubles figuring out customer’s dreams, why don’t we go online? If I may borrow eBay terms: “List locally, sell globally.” And at the same time, our business is in everyone’s living rooms.

Right now, some of you may still wondering why businesses still queuing for a strategic physical locations, and more of you may be puzzled with the fact that those big retails companies are gripping hard on their network of stores.

Well, it all comes to people preferences. Some people like to touch, feel and try items before they buy it. Other group of people may like window shopping, but then end up buying things. And few people I know were actually saying that they rather go to the nearest shopping mall rather than paying $10 shipping and handling fees. They all have their own reasons.

Cyber market or physical market, each has its own target audiences. A statistic has found out that the main reason people shop online was because of the convenience offered. They don’t have to queue; they don’t have to find parking. In comparison with the above, we may have two different personalities here.

People will always be different one another. A few years back, when Wal-mart offer all in one shopping experience, it has not yet made street corner convenience store die. I think even with the existence of Amazon, people still sell books in-store. I believe that people have different needs, different way of doing things, or maybe different preferences. All these different will contribute on their shopping behaviors.

It is by understanding existing customers and potential target market; a business will be able to make the best decision for them. Whether, following IKEA (one centralize massive store), do it like Target (stores all over major shopping centers) or abandon the old world and join the new cyber world. Understanding customer’s expectation and offering them with the value they want will pose a significant benefit.

Author: Michael A Oei – MarketingFirst Group

Strategic Location & Customer Loyalty... Will it be enough?

2007-02-15T04:28:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I was driving twice the usual distance to my supplier new office. It was raining heavily. And as usual, traffic and wet road are in-separate able condition. At that moment, I start questioning myself; why do I want to go there still? And whether it would be better off for me to change supplier?

Talking about location, I remember Hoteling Model (economics) which tries to explain on how companies with substitute product usually pool at the same strategic geographical location. It could be for customer’s convenience, but mainly to maximize their market share based on location.

Apart of being close to customers, this group of sellers with similar products also attracts customers in different way. They collectively have stronger location brand (i.e. Mangga Dua – Pusat Grosir (Jakarta, Indonesia), Italian Forum – Italian Food Location (Sydney, Australia). But to what extent can a business rely on these advantages?

A business sometimes needs to relocate its location. Some of the obvious reasons are; the current rental agreement cannot be renewed, the new rental cost is too high, the current space can no longer accommodate the expanding business, and few other similar reasons. If a business has to move to un-strategic location, it will no longer have the advantages stated above.

The need for customer loyalty starts to kick in, when relocation is needed. If a business only relies on location based advantages, it will be put in disadvantage position. Here, it can be seen that branding and building customer loyalty will play significant role.

I think I can consider myself as loyal customer, because I still want to drive the distance only to visit the new store for the first time. Moreover, my satisfaction with that store customer service, pricing, product quality and range could be the force which drove me into its new location. But, these old driving forces might not be enough to push me back for the second time. I could feel the associate cost and increasing distance, moreover the convenient of having supplier nearby.

My supplier has to induce me, so that I will forgive him for moving so far away. And he does. He knows my wish list and he make my dream come true. Understanding customer dream if I may say. In this case he provides me with better products range, something which I truly want. Well he put it this way when I came in: “I have bigger space now, and I know that you are looking for this kind of products. I will have more variety in a few weeks time.” Good enough for me to check him back.

This case is also happened with IKEA. IKEA used to have many stores in different strategic locations. But one year ago, they closed all the stores except one massive store. And the new location is far from the city centre. I went there once and believe it or not, I want to come back! It is simply because they offer me a new shopping experience. That was the biggest furniture store that I have ever been to! And even that I have one big furniture store nearby, I still feel the needs to visit IKEA.

Well, I guess my loyalty won’t be enough to put me behind the wheel, driving the long miles for the second time. Unless, they lure me with something more! How about you?

Author: Michael A Oei - MarketingFirst Group

Advertising...Oh Advertising

2007-02-10T20:18:00.000-08:00

Frankly, I am not a great fan of winter. This is because it requires me to dress like a bloody penguin to combat the unbearable cold weather. Summer, however, is like heaven for me. I can sun bask on the beach while enjoying the amazingly beautiful Australian nature and of course the bikini babes.

Another major attraction in Australia during summer is the Australian Open – one of the greatest sporting events in the nation. With millions of fans around the world, companies such as IBM, Garnier, KIA Motors and Medibank Private are willing to sponsor the event. These sponsors would be heavily and exclusively advertised both on the venue and on TV during the vents. Huge banners were displayed and TV ads were repeatedly broadcasted during the matches. Looking at all the advertisement, a question suddenly popped up in my mind. Are these advertisements effective? Are these sponsors paying too much for their campaign? How much sales can these advertisements generate?

Honestly, I have not bought any products from these sponsors before. Besides, people that I know of have not dealt with these sponsors either. In addition, I barely able to recall which advertisements actually appeared on TV nor I can remember what was on the huge banners displayed around the courts. How many of you have reacted to actually purchase products based on advertisement? When was the last time that you actually bought any product as a result of bumping into an advertisement broadcast?

I personally think that sometimes advertising has lost its value in communicating information of the product or service to the potential customers. Often advertisements are so creative that it could not be understood. Often we see advertisement which does not even put the wonderful values of the products in it. In my opinion an advertising dollar should be able to bring at least a dollar in sales to the company. The problem is the majority of marketers who I assume understand marketing simply define marketing as putting big advertisements to publicize their company. Surely marketing means more than throwing our money.

Classic marketing which means putting ads and waiting for customers to come was a real success more than a decade ago. In fact, this method turned Procter&Gamble, Coca Cola, and American Express to be the great leaders in their industry. However, this method is no longer applicable in the modern society. According to Al Ries in his book “The Fall of Advertising and The Rise of PR”, a person meets at least 300 advertisements daily. This number then creates an immune system in our brain towards the conventional advertising. Marketing should be energetic which means communicating actively with the potential and existing customers rather than waiting for them to come.

Google has not advertised its company even a single time. Their fame simply comes from the word of mouth. They basically focus on delivering what the customers are looking for which is the reliable information from their search engine. Before their success they asked their customers how google.com could be improved in order to be more effective and efficient. However a lot of marketers forget about this fact. They only concentrate on obtaining mind set of their potential customer. Mind set is nothing. You could remember how funny and creative an advertisement is without having any desire to buy the product. You could talk about an advertisement with your friends, but it does not mean that the advertisement create stimuli for you to purchase the product.

A supermarket in Australia conducted the good will marketing instead of merely throwing advertising dollars. At the beginning of January they dedicated a day profit for charity purposes. This marketing method is really creative since it allowed customers to participate in the charity as well as creating a chance to be impressive with their customer service. Moreover, for this particular event their company was then freely publicized by the mass media and the society due to their good will. It was a huge successful marketing campaign. Therefore, they managed to create a cause for their customers to come to their store and experience the customer service. These examples show that we have to be creative in our marketing not in our advertising.

In order to generate a great marketing strategy the combination of both advertising and Public Relation (PR) should be in harmony. Therefore, please do not ignore your PR department and merely depend on advertising in order to obtain publicity.

Welcome to the public relation age.

Comments, questions and opinions will be truly appreciated.

David Herlambang
MarketingFirst

Current Problem, Current Opportunity

2007-02-07T14:47:00.000-08:00

The phrase ‘something happens for a reason’ might seem too trivial for us, but few people realize that certain things do happen for good reasons.

Australia, just like any other Western countries, is turning into a health-conscious society. Its alarming obesity rate triggers the Heart Foundation to promote healthy lifestyle through its campaigns. One of its significant efforts is to introduce a “tick” program, aimed to help consumers make healthier food choice conveniently. Basically, all food products which have met strict heart foundation standard have a “tick” label on their packaging. This “tick” will differentiate these products from those which are deemed to be unhealthy.

McDonald’s, being the biggest junk food provider in the world, sees this healthy lifestyle trend as an alarming situation. When more and more people become health-conscious, they will consume less junk food. This would mean bad business for this giant fast food chain.

Aware of this threat, McDonald’s quickly joins the crowd by going into the health-conscious bandwagon. They create new menus which can get the Health Foundation’s approval “tick”. They do continue selling the old hamburgers and fries, but some of their menus are healthier. This is a huge loop for their marketing. This strategy causes McDonald’s to have an ‘excuse’ to declare that they do try to address the current problem, even though they are still selling junk food.

Currently, McDonald’s has Health Foundation’s “tick” for their nine new menus. They create a better image to health-conscious people, and with this image, they attract new customers. Customers who have left McDonald’s after being disgusted by their junk food, are now invited back to try their healthy menus.

Similar story also happened in Jakarta few days ago. LG Indonesia announced that they would replace all LG in-store products that were damaged as a result of the flood. By doing this, they bring their relationship with the customers, in this case, the store owners, to the next level. Think of the store owners as LG’s front soldiers. These personnel will have a huge impact in determining who shall win the battle in obtaining the market share of the electronics in Indonesia.

Australia’s McDonald’s has switched a major threat into a new opportunity to get new customers, thus increasing profit. LG Indonesia also followed the trend of changing a problem into new opportunity to expand their market and distribution coverage.

Only few can see a problem as an opportunity, and when these people say that things happen for good reasons, I bet they are right.

Author: Michael A Oei – MarketingFirst Group
Edited by: Melissa Giovanni

Marketing and Love

2007-01-31T01:49:00.000-08:00

To the beautiful Barbara Ellen Wijaya. Thank you for being a beautiful inspiration for me in understanding marketing and business. Thank you to keep supporting me with your beautiful heart. Thank you for your beautiful belief in me. Thank you.

In this column I would like to redefine marketing which is often perceived merely as “selling” in the business environment. However, I believe that marketing is actually involved in a lot of different aspects in our life. Intentionally or not, everyone is a marketer. Starting from having a name which is so called “our brand”. When our names are mentioned in the middle of our relatives, a lot of different perspectives and opinion would flow from each different person toward us. Some of them might like us, and hopefully not many of them hate us. This perspectives and opinions come from our attitude, manner, and acts that we have done towards our friends and relatives. This is totally similar to the situation when a brand "Coca Cola" is mentioned in the society. Some of us might like this particular classic soft drink, and some of us might hate it. At the end of the day, having a brand means developing a good culture which can be recognized by the society.

On the other hand, love is another interesting word to be explored. A life without love would only mean emptiness. When you see movie in the cinema you will find love story in it regardless the genre of the movie. It could be an action movie but it will have love story as the spice in it. When you listen to the random song on the radio, the majority of them would refer to love. These facts clearly stated that love is an important aspect in our life. I personally believe love is actually around the corner wherever you go and whenever the timing is.

Now, how can these two interesting aspects could be connected to one another? How can marketing, a concept of becoming a market leader in business be involved in a life aspect called love? And the most importantly, how can the marketing principles be applied in our love life?

Firstly, let us recall our memory when we fall in love. You would try to know them by talking to them, make some phone calls, and ask them out. Basically you are doing the very important aspect of marketing which is market research. Your target is actually your potential customer. In love better understanding on your crush will actually increase your chance to win their heart. I suppose business environment should be treated in the same manner. Better understanding on your potential customer will actually increase the possibility of creating the better product or service for them. The problem is the majority of marketers who claim to understand marketing often overlook this aspect.

I have stated for a few times that business environment is actually changing faster than what we can imagine. Political, technology and culture changes directly or indirectly alter both consumer behavior and business competition. For instance, internet has enabled a lot of new activities which was impossible. This then enables Amazon.com to become the latent competitor of the conventional offline bookstores. These changes are impossible to be stopped. Therefore, the only way to become a leader in business is to create the sustainable culture within the company in order to overcome the external changes which could have the direct or indirect impacts.

I think this condition also happens in love. Creating a sustainable relationship is also not an easy subject. You may have heard the expression “I cannot love you anymore, you have changed so much” in so many love stories. Let’s face it life is a journey. In the middle of our journey, a lot of changes in values would happen. The changes in value would affect our attitude, behavior and action towards our partners. Similar to marketing where understanding customers is a key to stay in the market, understanding our partners would be the key to create a sustainable relationship. I personally think that marketing and love are the never ending learning processes. Therefore, creating harmony within a relationship is pretty similar in creating sustainable values within the company.

In so many love stories we have seen how a guy tries to attract his crush’s attention by acting nicely as a gentleman. At the first date, a girl will dress up beautifully to create a memorable impression and hopefully the guy would become head over heels. The more I think about it, this phenomenon is actually very similar to advertising in marketing. The company actually tries to attract their customers’ attention by communicating the wonderful values behind their service or product via advertisements. In my previous column called “Towards the Good Will Marketing”, we can also see how companies try to create a wonderful impression in the community by giving positive impacts.
On the whole, by reading this column hopefully you will get a better understanding of the applicability of so many marketing principles in your life. I hope this column could further encourage more people to learn marketing in order to enhance their quality of life.

Further comments, questions, and opinions are more than welcome.

David Herlambang

MarketingFirst

Revisiting Your Business Concentration

2007-01-24T14:23:00.000-08:00

I woke up this morning and went straight into the bathroom. I turn on the tap and as I washed my face, I was intrigued by one of the natures of water – its ability to reshape itself according to its containers. This enables water to fill up any empty space regardless of its shape.

I suppose this phenomenon also applies in our daily life, not excluding business and marketing sections. Often enough, we will encounter situations such as marriage and migration which require us to change. I have personally experienced this situation when I chose to further my studies in Sydney. I needed to change my daily routine, learned the new culture and of course communicate in different language.

In this modern society, business environment is changing faster than what we can imagine. These changes occur because the technology, politic, culture and also the people are changing. A decade ago, how many of us can imagine that banking transaction can be performed via mobile phone as well as the internet? How many of us can imagine that the oil and gold price will rise to the current level? How many of us can imagine the tragic incident that happen on 9/11?

According to Hermawan Kartajaya, one important aspect of marketing is being able to create a sustainable value. Being a market leader does not make you a great marketer. A great marketer is one who is able to sustain their position at the pinnacle of the market from time to time. A great marketer is also one who can understand the cultural, political and technical fluctuation of the business environment. Basically, human desire is generated by these changes. Or in other words, business opportunities are always created by the changes in any aspects in the society. You just have to spot it by expanding your sense of sensitivity.

IBM had always been a market leader in hardware industry. However, their persistent concentration on the super computer market to obtain huge profit from big companies and their ignorance on the growing PC market causes them to lose their credibility as the most admired company. In addition, they also lost their position as the market leader. PC market eventually became the most substantial marketing in the computing industry since technology change enables smaller computers to have greater ability than the humongous computers. Dell Computer on the other hand quickly noted this technology change and surpassed IBM from the PC market and become one of the great leaders in the computing industry.

Encyclopedia Britannica (EB) had been a leader in the printed encyclopedia market for almost 200 years. However, technology again changed everything. The invention of CD enables data storage to be more convenient and since modern technology allows featured animation and sound effect, it appeals more to the public. EB’s decision to stay conventional and reluctance to produce encyclopedia in CD, eroded their profit and domination.

Many years ago, the fat content in Chinese food had attracted fierce media attention in USA. As the country with the highest obesity rate in the world, this issue gravely affected the Chinese food business. Most of their profit plummeted up to 50%. A restaurant called Hunan Garden Szechuan Restaurant decided to change to Café 19 Chinese Health Food Restaurant. Still serving Chinese food, this restaurant changed their ingredients and menus to comply with the healthy food standard in USA. The so called “fat-free” Chinese food business attracted sales income much higher than before the fat controversy.

These examples clearly pointed out that it is very important for a company to recognize the market in order to be sustainable. Surely becoming sustainable in business is not a simple task. There are some situations that require us to broaden our business scope, others might need us to shrink the business scope, and of course there are some cases that require us to change our business scope. The ability to redefine the business scope in every single situation would dictate the success of that particular company in the long run. As Andy Grove said “Only the Paranoid Survive”.

Comments, opinions, and questions will be greatly appreciated. Thank you

Creating the Wonderful Values

2007-01-17T21:17:00.000-08:00

As I stated in my previous column “Towards the Good Will Marketing” I went back to my lovely hometown, Jakarta eight weeks ago. I flew with Singapore Airlines (SQ) from Sydney to Jakarta, transiting in Singapore. When I arrived at Soekarno-Hatta, I immediately went to pick up my luggage. While I was waiting for my luggage, my name was suddenly called on the PA system by one of the airport staffs. Basically my luggage had not arrived with me together in Indonesia. The reason being was because the transit time in Singapore was only twenty minutes and the was not enough time to transfer the luggage from one plane to the next. Hence the luggage will arrive with the following Singapore-Jakarta flight.
At that particular moment I was disappointed and confused with what happened. I was not the only person who experienced this particular problem. To be honest, I did not trust with the Indonesians’ work ethic which always tries to complicate all the procedures especially in the occasions like this.

Conversely, I was treated very well at that night by the Singapore Airlines staffs. The procedure was simple. Basically the luggage will be delivered in two hours at the same night. I was promised that I will be contacted in the first hour just to ease my confusion. In one hour indeed, they made a call to inform me that the luggage had arrived safely and will be delivered via courier to my house as soon as possible. Approximately two hours later, the luggage arrived safely, being delivered by a courier who was very friendly to me. The following day, SQ phoned me to apologize for what had happened and to ensure that I had received the luggage safely without any hassle. Frankly, I was amazed by the values that their services had generated for me. The value of flying safely, the value of hassle-free compensation and the value of integrated professionalism as a company that were generated immediately impressed me.

In this particular column I would like to point out how important to create the outstanding values of your business in marketing. A true marketer once told me that being in business means creating value instead of merely providing product or service. Customers are never satisfied with values that they have. The true marketers will always be able to find new values to be their new opportunities. The true marketers also believe that great integrated values behind their product or service do not always mean cheaper price. In fact, Singapore Airlines tickets are considered to be more expensive compared to other flight carriers and yet they are always ranked as one of the best flight carriers in the world.

According to the Macquarie dictionary, a value could be thought of as the property of a thing that makes it highly regarded, desirable, useful, worth, merit. The marketing actually happens after the sales have been finalized. Therefore creating wonderful after sales value is particularly crucial in business. Again I would like to point out some real life examples to draw the thick correlation between the marketing principles to the daily routines.

Let us think about Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Louis Vuitton, Versace, Vertu and the other high-end brands which cost us hundreds and thousands of dollars just to buy their items. We know that it is not the end of our life not to purchase these items. Besides, everybody knows that it takes only less than half of the retail price to produce these items. Why then do we always have the desire to buy these items? One of the most obvious reasons is that they provide prestige - the impression and sense of being successful. It cannot be denied in the modern society that having these items make us feel good about ourselves and make others admire us (self-importance value).

Everybody knows MasterCard, with their slogan “There are some things money can’t buy, for everything else, there’s MasterCard”. This slogan really simplifies the value that MasterCard offers to their customers which is convenience. MasterCard is accepted around the globe. Even different currency does not create a boundary for them. Everything that could be bought by money can be handled by MasterCard.

For Him Magazine (FHM) and Male Emporium (ME) magazines are the other example. We know that these magazines contain nothing but funky and crazy articles that do not educate in a sense. However, FHM in fact is a global magazine which exists in 31 different countries. This is due to the fact that these magazines create an outstanding value that provides their customers an escape from boredom and a way to reduce stress.

These examples outline the importance of value creation bundled into their product and service. These examples do not follow the old and conservative marketing definition that to win the market, the product or service has to be cheaper. By creating new wonderful values, the company will become closer to their customers. Hence, they would be closer to the market. As I stated in my previous column “Global Strength, Local Approach” the market is actually more important than the marketing itself. Therefore, our marketing tactic should be able to follow and to be implemented into the dynamic and modern market.

I understand that this column is still far from perfection. Hence, any comments, questions and opinions would be greatly appreciated

David Herlambang

MarketingFirst

Global Strength, Local Approach

2007-01-14T13:40:00.000-08:00

For the last 23 years I have been living in two different countries, my beloved Indonesia and Australia. Honestly, being given a chance to study in Australia really was an exhilarating experience for a raw eighteen years old student from Jakarta. Moreover, the fact that it was my first experience to be in a foreign country really made me to feel like the king of the world.

Unfortunately, the excitement did not last very long after I arrived in Australia. This was due to the fact that there are so many differences in the culture, social aspects, daily routines, and language between Australia and Indonesia. Furthermore, the reality of living alone in a totally new environment, with new friends, and without even a single soul from my family really raised my homesick feeling to the pinnacle and it became increasingly unbearable. I struggled to adapt well to the Australian culture. They speak in different language and discuss different topics. There were times during conversation that I had to pretend that I understood what they were saying and I had to fake my laugh when they made jokes which I did not even get. It took me approximately one and a half year until I could fully blend in to the locals. This small story indicates how important local approach is towards a particular society or culture to be able to blend in with them. This situation is particularly similar with the business environment. The only way to actually understand the local customers’ needs is by understanding their culture, political situation and their social aspects.

As usual, I always try to draw a thick correlation between marketing principles and my daily experience. Based on the story above, I would like to focus on the importance of having the culture of “Global Culture, Local Approach” in a company. In fact, the sustainability of a company is determined by their ability to apply their global culture with the local approach in each and different regions. Moreover, this also determines their ability to expand globally.

Let us take McDonald as an example. According to Wikipedia, the reason McDonald could conquer as well as dominate the global market is that they vary their menu based on the culture of the host country. Mc Donald’s in Indonesia serves rice and fried chicken. In Kuta Bali, instead of only fulfilling the local appetite, the restaurant is also designed with the typical Bali ambience. They understand that all the tourists from around the globe come to Kuta with the same reason which is to treasure the valuable Bali ambience.

Meanwhile, in Australia Mc Donald’s has different local approach. Australia is ranked third for its obesity problem. Hence, the Australians become more and more aware in terms of the food nutrition and yet still demand the simplicity of having junk food in order to save their time. In order to respond to this local situation, Mc Donald’s Australia serves healthy junk food such as sandwiches which are made directly when they are ordered and contain fresh vegetables and meat. This healthy junk food is also clinically proven to have lower fat compared to any junk food burgers in Australia.

Hong Kong restaurants were famous with good food but notorious for the bad washroom condition. In fact there was a saying that stated “do not go to the toilet if you go to a restaurant in Hong Kong”. However, when it opened in Hong Kong in 1975, McDonald's was the first restaurant to consistently offer clean restrooms, driving customers to demand the same from other restaurants and institutions.

The only thing which is the same from Mc Donald’s in each different country is their consistent business system. The friendliness and professionalism of their customer service are consistent globally. Their promise to deliver food in a short period of time is met in each country regardless of the variety of food that they serve regionally. This consistency then symbolizes their global culture as one of the greatest multinational companies. Their global strength enables them to reach the economical effectiveness and efficiency. They could perfectly overlap the consistent value, process, branding, and service as their global culture with all the localize approach to each different problems in each regions. They understand that the market is actually more important than the marketing itself. Hence they tend to put more investment in order to fulfill what the market wants in each region. The combination then becomes the great universal marketing tactic.

I understand that this column is far from perfection. Hence, any comments, opinions and questions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

MarketingFirstDavid Herlambang

Towards the “Good Will” Marketing

2007-01-12T02:46:00.000-08:00

Exactly eight weeks ago I went back to my lovely home town, Jakarta, to see my family and my loved ones. The excitement of spending the next 35 days with my loved ones in the country where I was born was overwhelmingly beautiful. Moreover, the fact that I had spent almost the previous two years in Australia working on my thesis which was particularly boring really increased the excitement level even higher.

Without wasting any time, I went to Plaza Senayan as soon as I arrived in Jakarta just to experience the nostalgic moments as a high school student before I came to Australia. The other reason I came to Plaza Senayan was to distinguish the change in the business environment and consumer behavior in Jakarta. In just minutes I can quickly spot the substantial changes in Jakarta just in two years. New shopping malls were erected almost at every corner of any strategic locations, new Busway corridors were being built, and new restaurants with different concepts have mushroomed in this city. The only thing which did not change was, as usual, the traffic jam that happened almost at every single street and lane in Jakarta.

Substantial changes also occurred in Plaza Senayan. 21 Cineplex theatre was being upgraded to studio XXI in order to satisfy their customers who from time to time become more and more luxurious oriented. However, among those changes there was one particular change that I quickly noted as the most interesting one. The new small, simple and low profiled stand appeared on the ground floor in Plaza Senayan. This stand belongs to Sampoerna Foundation from HM Sampoerna Tbk. I realized that the small stand was dedicated to promote the quality of, and access to, education. They basically publicized their national and international scholarship programs which will be given to students with beautiful mind and yet financially disadvantaged. A question popped up into my head “is it really a charity program or just a smarter type of marketing?”

A week later, I caught a taxi to go to my friend’s house since I just could not be bothered to drive around Jakarta with such a ridiculously non-stop traffic jam. I had a long chat about education in Indonesia with the taxi driver. Interestingly the driver told me a story about how HSBC as the world’s local bank has been subsidizing the improvements of many primitive schools in Jakarta. In fact, the improvements comprise not only the enhancement of the physical building but also in recruiting higher quality teachers and assisting in implementation of better educational system which results in better teaching method for the students. Surprisingly, the driver also told me that he always prays for HSBC’s prosperity in return. After I get off from the taxi, I told myself silently “This new marketing implementation really works in the society.”

Both HSBC and HM Samporna Tbk understand clearly that customers are only human who can fall in love, and I personally believe that whenever a human is falling in love they tend to ignore the price, or in other words they will stick to their loved ones no matter what happens. Both of these companies take a huge and unique step in their publicity. In this modern society, people become more and more resistant towards the traditional publication, advertising. This is due to the fact that more and more advertisements are seen in each and every mass media. Instead of allocating a huge advertising budget, these companies spend the money on educating our society and realize that good character will always be remembered longer from a generation to the other generation by our society. As I wrote earlier, having a good brand means creating and communicating a good culture towards the society.

In this column I refer this particular idea as “the good will marketing”. The good will marketing is in fact very powerful since it will induce a lot of another free publication since there is a huge possibility for mass media to cover their stories. Moreover, as I personally experienced, the good will marketing from HSBC really induced the word of mouth from the taxi driver to me. As everyone knows, word of mouth is one of the most powerful publications which cannot be valued by money since it is based on experience. Of course, we tend to easily accept the word of mouth since it comes from the third party. On the other hand, advertisement comes directly from the company therefore they can say whatever good things about themselves. Would you believe if I say to you that I can fly? However, you might believe that I can fly if there are 1000 people told you that I can fly.

On the whole, in spite of merely a marketing tactic, the good will marketing really brings about good impact to the society. Furthermore, more and more companies should concern more about our Indonesian society instead of merely taking a huge profit from our country. By doing good will marketing companies would be able to stay close to their customers. As stated by a lot of marketing gurus: “stay close to your customer if you want to be successful”.

Welcome to the era of the good will marketing.

I understand that this column is far from perfection. Therefore, comments, opinions and questions are more than welcome. Thank you.

MarketingFirst

David Herlambang