Free eBook: The Payoff of Paying Attention

This month, I presented at the luncheon series for the Portland Chapter of the American Marketing Association (or AMA-PDX).  The presentation that I delivered has been reconfigured into an eBook which is now available for free download.

This ebook outlines three approaches for finding inspiration for your business or products in the most unlikely places and shares some case studies.  From Charming Charlie retail stores, to the National Basketball Association (NBA), to "So You Think You Can Dance?" on FOX, the stories illustrate how to find new approaches, broaden your perspective, and to make the most out of all of your experiences.

Feel free to share this post and the eBook with others that might be interested.  You can tag me on Twitter @jenniferdavis.

The Brand Experience

A lot of brands are talking about user experience.  Products from Apple, Intuit, and so many others are lauded for their intuitiveness and great customer experience.  But that brand experience extends beyond the product to how the customer is engaged in the store, on the website, in mobile apps, on social media, and the like.  The brand experience is a venn diagram.  You can’t just create a great product, you have to have great service.  You can’t just provide an incredible in-store experience.  You must also have high product quality.  These things all go hand in hand.

Jennifer to Judge the AMA PDX MAX Awards

While American Idol recently said farewell finishing its final season in 2015, it was once the most loved television show in America. Looking back on the early days of the show, we learned that there are three types of judges in this world. 

1. The Simon Cowells - harsh and brutally honest (ahem, rude) with their criticism, but usually accurate
2. The Paula Abduls – sweet and supportive of all the contestants with genuine concern for their success
3. The Randy Jacksons - fun loving, knowledgeable, with a knack for soul 

So, I am set to judge the Max Awards for the American Marketing Association’s Portland Chapter this year and I am wondering what kind of judge I will be.  Coming from the client-side, instead of the agency side, will I be quick to criticize or encourage?  Will I keep my comments short (like the commercial break is approaching) or provide specific guidance?  And like the open auditions, will the entries provide me enough information to truly judge the talent of the submissions? 

Get your submission in by this Friday, August 26th and let’s find out what kind of judge I will be!

Jennifer Davis Interviews with Output PDX

Jennifer Davis shares about Planar System's recent successes and about her work with Marathon Scholars in an interview with Hayley Platt on Output PDX. 

Jennifer to Judge the AMA PDX Max Awards

American Marketing Association’s Portland Chapter Max Awards 2016 are underway and Jennifer will be judging the projects to determine the most talented and exceptional marketers in the Portland area. 

The submission window is open until August 26th and they welcome agency submissions in a variety of categories ranging from print to social, from branding to video, from email to integrated campaigns.  The awards will be announced in September.  Nominate your projects at http://ama-pdx.org/maxawards/.

I am joined on the judging panel by industry luminaries Kerry McClenahan, Tore Gustafson, Simon Tam, Bill Piwonka, and Lisa Williams.

Five Things We Should Stop Doing

Often we get obsessed with new ideas, new technologies, and new initiatives that we can forget that a key part of strategy is what you are going to say “no” to. This applies to us individually, in our companies and as an industry.

So, what are five things that I think the AV industry should stop doing?

1. Holding onto the past

Those of us who have been in the industry for a while like to attend the InfoComm trade show and reconnect with old friends and colleagues. This is great and useful. However, we should avoid reminiscing to the point of distraction. We should not romanticize the “good old days.” There are a lot of exciting things going on today in the industry and in order to maintain our enthusiasm, we have to make sure we are not looking backward. We must contain our cynicism, approach innovation with open minds and be constantly advocating for our customers, who may not have our experience, but whose needs are real and fresh.

2. Caring more about the technology than our customers

All the manufacturers and brands in the AV industry are proud of their innovations. The news feed around InfoComm is always crowded with “new,” “never before,” “biggest,” “brightest” and “best.” But all of the speeds-and-feeds don’t matter at all if we are not solving problems for our customers and providing them real value. They don’t care about what adjectives we use to describe our innovations or our business. They care about their own business and they care that we care about their business.

3. Treating every customer the same

Most of us in the AV industry sell to multiple vertical markets and applications. For instance, in the display space customers’ needs for large-format displays or videowalls can span multiple vertical markets. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t provide tailored solutions for different market segments. Although some high-level specifications are applicable everywhere (for instance, inches diagonal, brightness, etc.), other features are uniquely suited for particular uses. As an example, our Planar UltraRes Series UHD/4K display has features that make it perfect for executive offices and conference rooms, where there is a need to switch between full-screen presentations and the view of multiple sources at once. I love to see customers stretching a desktop across the bottom two quadrants of the display and two other sources in the top two quadrants, like a broadcast news feed or a real-time corporate performance dashboard.

4. Hiring people who fit a stereotypical “AV” profile, instead of the profile of our customers

Closely related to #2 and #3, we have a real opportunity to be increasingly relevant to our clients. I mean no offense against the exceptional professionals in the market who are white, male and highly-technical, but the market is changing and the profile of the buyers is changing and we must adapt. Those making AV decisions are increasingly diverse teams. They want partners with technical capabilities, of course. They want partners with experience, naturally. And they want more. They want teamwork, exceptional communication, a willingness to partner with the design community, the ability to speak other languages (literally and figuratively) and a deep understanding of the needs they bring to the table. Our customers want the benefits of diversity, in background and perspective. People buy from people and having a diverse workforce is increasingly important. The work that the Women of InfoComm Network council is doing is a strong step in this direction. We all have a responsibility to think about this as we make hiring decisions and as we develop our employees.

5. Assuming that the pipeline of talent is someone else’s responsibility

We all know that the key to a successful enterprise is the quality of our employees, especially in a service-dominated industry like the AV integration space. They must have the winning balance of technical chops and customer empathy. It’s a hard combination to find and some of the necessary curiosities and abilities are difficult to teach. Most integrators have developed their own hiring practices over time (starting with friends and family, advertising in local communities, poaching from other local firms, etc). There is a huge on-the-job element to most jobs in the field, which is why CTS certification and other tools from InfoComm can prove useful as we develop employees. But taking this further, we all have a responsibility to not just provide job opportunities for those who are already qualified for the work, but to develop the pipeline of talent. This could include partnerships with placement offices at local community colleges and technical schools. This could include offering an internship program for college or high school students interested in display experience. This could include participating actively in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education in the local schools in your area (where your future employees are currently studying). It’s a responsibility we all share, to ensure that the talent pipeline for your business and the AV industry is strong into the future.

This article was originally posted by InfoComm International and was reposted by Rave Publications. 

In the News

Jennifer Davis was featured in an interview video by Display Week.

In the News

Jennifer Davis' podcast interview with David Haynes is featured on Sixteen:Nine.

In the News

Jennifer Davis' preview of what to expect at InfoComm 2016 from the June issue of Systems Contractor News.

Lessons In Retail Marketing From My Daughter’s Birthday Party

It was a Throwback Thursday on Facebook, and the picture that popped up was of my daughter’s seventh birthday.

That year, the jewelry and accessory store Charming Charlie’s had opened in a local shopping center and had captured her imagination. I swear she could hear angels singing when she walked into the store that a friend dubbed the “IKEA of jewelry,” for its low prices, overwhelming product selection, and color-coded simplicity.

So that year, my daughter made an unusual request. She wanted to hold her birthday party at Charming Charlie’s. This is not a birthday party location. They have no seating. No party rooms. No catering packages. It is a retail store. I tried to talk her out of it, but when she was persistent, I thought I’d call the local manager and see about possibilities.

The manager was enthusiastic (although not sure how it would all work), and we started planning the event. She set up a small table in a corner of the store to organize. I limited the guest list and invited some girlfriends to be grownup chaperones. We planned a scavenger hunt around the store, a fashion show (where the girls picked accessories after getting different prompts like “fashion designer” or “your mom”), and we took a lot of pictures.

The girls had fun spending their small gift cards before we headed across the parking lot to a restaurant where dessert was served and “Happy Birthday” was sung.

And the whole experience taught me something about retail and GenZ (which is the emerging generation of my children).

• Shopping is an experience. Retail is a place: My daughter did not understand at all why a retail location couldn’t be an amusement park. She was entertained there and liked the shopping experience so much, she wanted to do it with friends and call it a party. To her, Charming Charlie’s represented an experience. I think that is the future of brand retail. Not just to move product in a location (and trust me, the company benefitted from our party being there that day), but to create a lasting experience and build the brand.

• Shopping is personal and expresses the shopper. Retail is impersonal and reflects the brand: Sure, she is a strong-willed 7-year-old, but my daughter thought the store was there to serve her and her friends. The shopping experience she wanted was a social one. And with some creative maneuvering, that is what we achieved. The store, in fact, was not built for her. And certainly not built for her birthday party. But the shopping experience we orchestrated absolutely was.

Today’s options for shopping and product procurement have never been broader. There are stores you can go to, websites you can visit, apps you can browse, styles you can pin, there are stylists you can hire, pop-up stores to discover, showrooms to browse, appointments with designers to make, and programs you can subscribe to. The choices are endless, and we expect more to come once Uber and Lyft drivers or drones start making package deliveries.

This creates opportunities in retail that cross beyond the brick-and-mortar stores to the full range of customer engagement that is possible. This also creates opportunities for the retail stores to become more experiential, more visual, more engaging--the kind of experience that you can’t have online or on social media.

Perhaps it won’t be long before retailers start offering birthday parties, bridal showers, and other milestone events.

This article was published on CMO.com.

Panel Discussion at SID's Display Week 2016

Left to Right: Paul Apen, Chief Strategy Officer at E Ink Corporation, Greg McNeil, Vice President at Flex, Jennifer Davis, Chief Marketing Officer at Planar/Leyard International, Steve Squires, Chief Executive Officer at Quantum Materials Corporations, Al Green, Chief Executive Officer at Kent Displays, and Sri Peruvemba, Head of Marketing at SID

At SID's Display Week 2016 in San Francisco last week, Jennifer Davis took part on the panel of an Exclusive CMO Forum where industry experts shed light on market trends, solutions for supply chain challenges, industry best practices- and much more. 

How to Package One-Time Events for Permanence (Just Like the NBA)

Recently I heard NBA Commissioner Adam Silver speak about how professional basketball coverage is perishable. Even though games can be streamed days after they are actually played, they rarely are.

Silver said that years ago, games that were played in Los Angeles on Thursday would be played in prime time internationally on Friday, with local commenters creating new wrap-around context for the game, because the final score wasn’t already known globally. That is simply no longer the case.

With the internet, fan apps and feeds, and social media properties, basketball fans can get real-time updates and know the score as the baskets are made. The internet has, once again, revolutionized an industry.

Silver did mention something they have done to fight this trend and keep their content relevant for viewers long after the final score has been posted. He called it “packaging for permanence.” The edited video of game highlights and the coverage of the slam dunk challenge are examples of this.

This same principle and practice can be applied to event-based content for your company. After all, trade shows, product announcements, and grand opening coverage can be just as perishable as a basketball game.

Here are some ways that content marketers can follow the NBA’s lead and package for permanence:

Take photos and videos from the event and use them for general marketing

With all of the preparation that goes into events, companies are often looking their best on event day. Don’t let the moment slip away without making the most of it. Capitalize on your hard work and capture as many photos and videos as you can for later use in your marketing materials.

• Tip: When you post your photos to social media, be sure to include your company logo as a watermark – this will increase brand recognition and provide extra information for viewers who might come across your photo without other context.

Create an infographic (think scoreboard) of the highlights of the event

Want to communicate with your customers and stakeholders quickly and effectively about the event? Use infographics. If your event’s results aren’t quantifiable, you can create a text-based infographic. If you had an event that produced data, use it for an attractive graph or chart that shows the success of your company.

• Tip: If you don’t have a top-notch in-house graphic designer, this is a good time to contract with a gifted expert who can bring the creativity that will make your graphic compelling.

Publish an event recap and send it to customers

Write a news report about the event. Capture the highlights in writing, add some photos, include the infographic if you made one, and send the recap out to your customers and post it online.

• Tip: Less is more. Don’t give in to the temptation to write down all the details or list all the attendees. Keep the newsletter short and sweet and only include the real highlights.

Create a recap video and post it on the company Facebook, Twitter and website so that customers who weren’t there can have an idea of what went on

There are bound to be amazing moments at your live event. Don’t let them perish on the spot. Capture them on video and repackage that video as a recap, a comedy video of a funny moment, a bit of wisdom if something wise was shared at your event, etc.

Each shorter video can be shared on your company’s social media channels and emailed out to customers and stakeholders.

• Tip: If you have enough content to make several short videos, do it. You will get more views, and different clips will appeal to different viewers.

In the world of instant information where events are over as soon as they are over, it is still possible to capture them and extend their shelf life. Plan to package permanence for content marketing success.

This article was posted by The Business Journals.

“I Do Love Fig Newtons”

There is a scene in the movie Talladega Nights, where the race car driver character played by Will Farrell, sells the advertising space on the windshield of his car.  “This sticker is dangerous and inconvenient,” he says. “But I do love Fig Newtons” (the advertiser whose logo was obscuring his views).

What are the Fig Newton ads that you see in the real world?  Ones that cross over the line.  They are everywhere.

Phil Lenger from Show+Tell recently presented at a conference where he showed a picture of advertising gone wild when no one was advocating for the customer or the space in the conversation.  Every single surface of a public market was covered in some kind of messaging or brand language.  How can we ensure that this doesn’t happen in the future?  Is the role of the space owners?  Of government or municipal entities? 

Usually a fan of small government, I think this is an area where governments or public entities need to set and enforce standards based on what the consumers in the community want to experience.  The advertisers don’t have the context to limit themselves.  The space owners have a conflict of interest.  The individual consumers are not powerful enough to set and enforce policy (and the tools that consumers have to use to encourage self-regulation or government intervention, which include organizing rallies, petitions, boycotts, or the like, aren’t very efficient and of marginal effectiveness in a noisy environment with a fickle “news cycle” driven attention span).

Asking the Right Questions

I read recently that we should not ask kids, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Instead, we should ask, “What problems do you want to solve?” This line of questioning promotes thinking about the content of the work and the impact you can have on society.

In the same way that this is a good method to frame things for children, it can also work for executives. I recently reflected on the kind of problems that I strive to solve in my work. Identifying the problems is harder than it would seem.

I could easily identify the activities of my days and even my over-arching objectives, but framing them as problems was a good exercise. Especially because I, like you, consider myself and my company a solution provider, and those who provide solutions must deeply understand the problems they are solving.

These are the problems that I spend my days solving as a marketing executive and product strategist:

Prioritization and Allocation

The challenges of prioritization and allocation of time, energy, and resources to the most important things required for us to grow our business profitably.

Brand and Product

Cracking the code to bring our brand and product offerings to the forefront in the minds of potential buyers and to create identity for our products and harness demand in the market for our products that we can deliver to our sellers globally.

Employees

The problems related to recruiting, retaining, coaching, and celebrating our employees. Talent is at the heart of everything and creating a happy and inspired work environment is key to keeping talented employees a part of your team.

Balance

Solving the balance between my responsibilities in the office (and to our customers, partners, and employees) with my family and with the communities of which we are a part (i.e., the AV community, the business community in all the cities where we have offices, the marketing professional community, our neighborhood, and a group of students and mentors that is served by a local non-profit with which I serve).

What problems are you solving in your role at work? What problems are you solving at home? When you take the time to look at your roles from a different perspective, you might just get your next big idea or at least discover a way to improve your productivity and make your day-to-day more meaningful. We should all be problem solvers first and foremost.

This blog was featured in Women On Business blog. 

The brand formerly known as "Prince": what the rock icon teaches us about branding and legacy

The world said “good bye” to an innovator.  Born Prince Rogers Nelson, the singer, songwriter, and style icon made a mark on the world of music and fashion.

In 1993, Prince changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol, something Prince called a “love symbol.”  At the time he was reportedly fed up with his record label, was trying to get out of his contract, and wanted to make a break from the past (according to an interview with Larry King in 1999).  So, he reached out to graphic designer Mitch Monson, with Trollback and Company in Prince’s hometown of Minneapolis, to design a symbol that represented the artist – androgynous, edgy, and whimsical. 

So, as we reflect on the man and his career, what can Prince teach us about branding:

1. The brand does not belong to the company. 
    It belongs to those with a relationship to the brand.

To reproduce the love symbol in print required a special font (which the label had to send out on floppy discs to editors and journalists).  And in the end, most didn’t even try.  The media started referring to him as “the artist formerly known as Prince,” a moniker that stuck.  This became his brand, even after he started using his name again for stage performances and albums.  Even fans, who might have been puzzled by the change, found ways to refer to him.  This is a lesson for marketers who think they can control their brand.  The brand is truly owned by those who interact with the company, it’s employees, it’s products, and in the end, build both a logical and emotional connection.  The best we can do as leaders and brand managers is to influence how people perceive the brand by putting ourselves in their shoes and advocating for what they need.

2. There is power in color

The artist solidified his relationship with the iconic purple shade with his very popular “Purple Rain” album and movie.  In memorials all over the world this week, the color purple has been featured prominently.  It reminds me that in the world of marketing, which is now dominated by data analysis and ROI discussions, that there are some basics that can’t be ignored and one is the power of color.  McDonald’s red and orange, Coca-Cola’s red, IKEA’s blue and yellow, Facebook blue, Amazon’s orange smile (smirk?), John Deere green, Crown Royal’s velvet purple, and many other brand color associations are very strong and help propel the brand’s expansion into new markets and offerings.   Most people don’t have a signature color, but when we think of branding, having a distinctive color way is part of what the leading brands and artists rely on to communicate what they want their brand to stand for.  Purple was perfect for Prince’s brand, as it speaks to royalty, creativity, and the spiritual.  A few years ago, Fast Company published an exceptional article about the impact of color on brand that is worth reading.

3. Brand building involves risk

It is said that his record sales after the name change fell precipitously, but he secured his place as an eccentric and passionate artist who was forging his own path.  Other leading brands have reinvented themselves over the years, to emerge stronger and more engaged with their users, but that isn’t without pain in the process.  I think of what Netflix did with their DVD customers when they moved the brand to streaming and rebranded it’s DVD service as “Qwikster” (a brand they have since shuttered.  We can all think of other rebranding, packaging design, or logo design blunders.  But those who live through the transition (and don’t change for change sake), can reap rewards.

And perhaps the most important thing that Prince taught us about branding this week, is that brands are a legacy.  They have value.  They spark emotion.  They are celebrated and mourned.  And, no matter what tragedy strikes, they live on.

This article was posted on LinkedIn Pulse. 

In the News

Jennifer Davis was quoted in an article by DailyDOOH.

An Icon as a Metaphor

Who designed the now ubiquitous wireless logo?  The one with three curved bars above a dot.  You know the one.  Someone surely was the first to sit down in Illustrator or with a pen and paper and draw out the picture.  The ones that the world now uses.  One of our most powerful and universal icons and it’s anonymous and unowned.  Perhaps that is a metaphor for some of the new, powerful technologies and ideas that will be as disruptive as wireless internet.

Connectivity is the New Electricity

Without power the economy and our civilization as we know it falls apart.  This is why wide scale power outages are always part of the plot of post-apocalyptic movies and strike fear into our hearts.

But now, connectivity is our new electricity.  We simply do not accept that we will not have connectivity.  I just texted pictures from on top of the Great Wall of China.  

In the News

Jennifer Davis' promotion was covered by AV Network. 

In the News

Jennifer was listed in the "People on the Move" section of the February 26, 2016 edition of Portland Business Journal.