December 11, 2004

Beta as Marketing Tool

Now it's 37 Signals turn to beat me to the punch. I was just thinking about how there have been a lot of "Betas" going on in the internet lately.

Betas used to be used primarily quietly to test your products amongst a defined universe of users before you made them public. Now the whole idea of a Beta seems to be inversed. The word has become a marketing term. It seems to be a way to build purient interest in new product, and a sense of - often very temporary or psuedo - exclusivity and scarcity. Kind of a stealth play aimed at not being stealth at all.

Of course there was gmail which is so unstealth that everyone is following it to keep up but is still in "Beta." Now there's a new Google Groups
open to the public, but Beta of course.

Google Scholar
that is for big files and PDFs and even has a tagline (stand on the shoulders of giants), but of course is Beta.

And now there is Google Suggest
that tries to read your mind (by filling in what it thinks your search might be by the popularity of all other searches).

Search engine watch says that most of Google is in Beta.

Not to be outdone, MSN has followed suit with things like MSN Spaces (blog like thing in beta) and only recently made MSN Search "public." By the time MSN search launched nothing was really new about it. Really leaves you asking what really is a launch?

Jason at 37 signals has a whole other list of seemingly perpetual betas. Neat marketing tool when this first became a trend but now you really have to wonder if the word has any meaning left. Pretty soon we will start seeing public alphas.

Posted by johnza at 03:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 04, 2004

Internet Explorer Share Drop

IE Share Drops below 90% in Europe. A classic stealth play. The new Firefox browser is not going to be on the average users desktop anytime soon, but like the AMD Athlon 64, it is encroaching into the influential end user segment.

I've been using Firefox for the last three months and I'm amazed at how many other folks are using it now. The big benefits of more features and speed really seem to have helped.

Now over at Microsoft, it is not a big deal. After all, going from 99% to 90%, doesn't really matter. On the other hand, if an entire segment goes, like power users, then it might be the real share shift is more like regular users are still at 99% IE, but influentials are 80% Firefox now, so the shape of the numbers really does matter.

Posted by rich at 09:22 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

October 18, 2004

Saucony Running Shoes - Classic Stealth Play

Read a great profile in the hotel USA Today, today. It's all about Saucony, the niche running shoe company, and its CEO, John Fisher. And it is really worth reading to see how to run a classic stealth play in a tough category. Here are a few highlights:

• Nike's 2003 sales were $12.3 billion, Adidas' $7.9 billion and Reebok's $3.5 billion. Saucony's 2003 sales were $136 million
• Yet, since the beginning of 2002, Saucony stock has risen 369%, while Nike stock is up 38%, how?
• Fisher says "We're the Dr Pepper of running shoes ... They try to be a little bit different. They don't come up with Dr Pepper cola or Dr Pepper ginger ale. If I were to move to Mars, I'd look for a niche opportunity. The fight is hard, but the rewards are there if you do basic things." That is stealth to a tee.
• Great marketing does not have to cost tons, "Nike pays Tiger Woods more money than Saucony may spend in this decade. Now, that's a challenge. We don't have enough advertising money to just go out and bang a drum and be heard. Opportunity is in grass-roots programs. We've created something called Saucony 26. We find 26 people running the 26 miles of marathons. One is a 91-year-old man who has run 10 consecutive marathons. There's a girl who was a burn victim at 3, and they said she'd never walk again. There is a blind runner. Fabulous stories. They are human interest, touchy-feely stories. It's enabled us to touch the hearts of runners. Thirty thousand people will run the New York marathon, and I'll almost guarantee that most know of the 26 program."
• And finally, the true lesson of stealth, "Find a niche. The loyalty component is more important with niche players than it is with a large player. If loyalty is strong, big companies can run ads until they're blue in the face."

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September 25, 2004

Gbrowser: dragrace on every front?

More evidence of a Google browser (kottke.org) Not announced, but if this is true, it's an interesting potential play for Google vs. Microsoft. Not too much has happened with the browser for some time and it seems to be more and more linked to Longhorn's fate, wonder if/how Google will try to exploit this potential product gap?

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September 16, 2004

A9: What Play is it?

There have been a lot of interesting entries and contrasting opinions (see below for a summary of many of these)about this week's official launch of A9, the search engine from "an Amazon company." While I'll save my impressions of the service below, I have to say I really intrigued by what play Amazon is running here.

Search is one heated battlefield with apparent dragraces galore, whether Microsoft entering the fray against Google, Google trying to extend its platform into Microsoft desktop territory, or Yahoo or others trying to win in local search, or Baidu in China.

So what play is A9?

• Stealth? Based on the relatively low profile of marketing, it seems like A9 is trying to avoid direct comparason or confrontation. Heck, they are just using Google search results and providing some "complementary" enhancements. "This is just a commerce thing - don't worry." Yeah, right.

• Platform? Well, Amazon is one of the most platform oriented companies out there. It has always been more about their platform than their actually being a direct merchant. A9 clearly extends and reinforces the Amazon ecosytem. If you've ever bought anything on Amazon, A9 knows you automatically - providing more customer data and recommendaitons for targeting - one of the things Amazon is just plain the best at. The integrated book search is clearly reinforcing, same with movies and soon everything else I'm sure. On the Amazon home page, the A9 search dialogue is right below product search and could easily be confused with it (no loss for Amazon if the previous statement is true).

• Dragrace: Google in the long run has got to view this as a race with them, a threat. If people start using the A9 toolbar, just because it's nice those are eyeballs away from Google. At first it could be easy to pooh pooh A9 as a gimmick with its somewhat cluttered appeareance, history, bookmarking and other features. But they are actually kind of nice and note that Amazon also gives a small discount to anyone with an A9 toolbar. All small, sneaky, stealthy yes, but I cannot imagine that Google sees this as anything except a long term thinly veiled dragrace.

Now, for all that competitive strategy talk, how is A9? What are people saying?
• Paul Kedrosky is skeptical. He is still searching for the one feature that would make it indispensible.
• John Battelle has a balanced view recognizing in his Biz2.0 article that they have adding a new level of sophistication to search but does not know whether most users will want that level. That said, in his first look he did not doubt Amazon's intentions: "It seems to me, Google's position in Amazon's A9 implementation is at best a step backwards. If A9 is as good as it seems to be, every customer that uses and/or switches to A9 becomes an A9 search customer, and, more likely than not, a deeper and far more loyal Amazon customer. In essence, Amazon seems to be making a play for Google's customers."
• Business pundit thinks it's clearly an interesting move, while it's readers wonder what's the big deal.
• The Unofficial Google Weblog thinks that it's a pretty different, pretty elegant interface.
• The folks at Precommerce admire it. Smart play for Amazon, smart use of Alexa, like how they are pushing search farther, and look forward to the next chapter.
• Me. I have to admit to being skepitcal at first. It seemed cluttered and oppressive. Then I noted how easily I could personalize the interface. How cool it was to have simple things like history and reference. And how nice it was that it already knew me. Personalization is huge for me and these guys did the first real step in that direction in search. Hats off to them.

Still what I'm really excited about is seeing how this all plays out.

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August 31, 2004

800CEORead: Great Plays in the Business of Business Books

Just had a great discussion with the Jack Covert and Todd Sattersten at 1-800-CEO-READ. Although of course we are a little self interested in doing the interview – given that we want to learn from the pros on how to sell our upcoming book – we have to declare that these guys are a great example of all the elements of the playbook. While this is a great story for the business book category it is also really illustrative for just about anyone dealing with an evolving and competitive market.

We talked to them about their strategy and how they got to it in playbook terms. Here’s a summary:

Marketing Playbook: How did you get into this business? What were the ABCs of your marketing playing field at the time?

800CEORead:
There are really two stories here. The first is how we entered the book business. The second is how we developed our specific play for entering the wild world of web book sales.

As you describe in your book, it’s important to look at the overall market and the three Cs (customers, competitors and your own competencies) of your category’s playing field. Back in 1983 when A. David Schwartz, owner of Milwaukee-based Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops, asked me to explore the potential of the corporate book-buying market, I did just that.

Rather than hiring a market research firm, I talked directly to our potential customers – all the corporations I knew. I cold-called hundreds of companies. I would fill my car trunk with books and make road trips to businesses throughout Wisconsin. I could sell $1200 worth of books on a trip. In those days, that was huge.

We built our business through phone and fax sales. We built mailing lists by collecting business cards. It was really a ground up effort. As 800-CEO-READ grew, I began to looked at the competition and saw no normal bookseller was equipped to handle this corporate market. So next I looked to our own competencies and realized we needed to build something new, something special that would make this the core of our business. Thus our company was born.

Then in the 1990’s with the advent of the web and the emergence of Amazon as a new force in book retailing, we saw that we needed to reassess our playing field. If I were to describe our assessment at that time in your ABC or gap analysis terms it would be something like this:

• Customer Gap. A. Yes, our regular customers like us and we have done really well. B. But, more and more customers are going online. C. So, they need a way to get the same service we have provided with all the benefits of online/direct.

• Competitive Gap: A. Yes, Amazon is exploiting the web and its software to revolutionize and dominate the single book sale business online. B. But, they focus on offering every book in existence, and on using their platform to sell everything else too. C. So, they are not capable of selling business books in the special way that larger corporate buyers have come to expect.

So we saw the opportunity to adapt, learn from many of Amazon’s strengths but also to migrate our own special competencies in a way that took full advantage of the web and grow the business in a strong new way.

Marketing Playbook: So how did this affect your core strategy or Marketing Play?

800CEORead:
Well, here also there are really two stories. I guess you could describe our first strategy as a kind of stealth or niche play. We chose not to compete head on with either the biggest book retailers like Barnes and Noble or local community bookstores in their core foot traffic business or later with Amazon in its core single book sales business. We chose to focus and specialize on one area – business books, to businesses who wanted to buy many copies. We built a great reputation as a specialized alternative to these players.

But over time I think, while retaining this focus, we’ve also evolved into what you call a Platform.

We have and are actively building and supporting a healthy ecosystem of interested parties. Not just of our customers but also across the whole value chain of business books. With many customers, we use our platform to simply become their in-house, branded corporate/employee bookstore. It isn’t their core competency and it works out great for all parties involved. One of the other constituents that we address better than anyone is people like you, authors of business books. In a world of so many books and so much crowding in stores and online, authors have to do a lot more of their own work to get their book noticed and sold. They do their own speaking, they give workshops, they do their own tours, they drive demand with their own corporate friends and clients. All of which are special and unique to them and their relationships. And in each of these cases they can’t really rely on either someone like Amazon or their publisher to handle their special needs – like making sure that there are enough copies to be signed everywhere they speak or sending personalized notes or signed copies to the most influential buyers.

That’s where we come in. And authors love us for it. We also believe because of our focus on business books our influence in this category is of growing significance, whether in terms of our own “Jack Covert Selects” or the growing use of our best seller lists. All this reinforces what we see as a self sustaining and mutually reinforcing ecosystem in this truly dynamic category.

Marketing Playbook: This is a great example of Plays and their progression. Any highlights or secrets of how you executed these plays in your marketing efforts and campaigns.

800CEORead:
Yes. But we’re not telling.

Ok, look. It’s a competitive business so we like to play it pretty close to the chest. We are proud of our basic value proposition – kind of fits your rule of oxymoron – we offer the speed and selection of an online retailer with the personal touch and handling of your own book buying or selling agent. In terms of promotion stuff I will say we really think we do a great job on our site, in our PR and reviews, newsletters, and in our blog. These are important. More than that I will keep “stealthy.”

Marketing Playbook. Thanks so much. It’s a great model. Really appreciate you sharing it.

800CEORead:
Our pleasure. And lots of luck with your book.

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May 18, 2004

Stealth Play for Office in China

Techdirt:Chinese Competitor Now Ready To Take On Microsoft Office. While Office globally has great share. In Korea, it is a locally grown suite that is the winner. A great example of a stealth play. Who cares about Korea when the targets are the Americas and Europe. Well, some folks are doing special versions for the Chinese market. That's a different kettle of fish entirely. Evermore is doing a suite focused there. But, they are pricing at the same rate as Office. Interesting to see how that drag race goes in China.

Posted by rich at 10:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Google Moves Toward a Direct Confrontation With Microsoft

The New York Times > Technology > Google Moves Toward a Direct Confrontation With Microsoft. A great example of how plays can morph here: * We have Google first running a drag race in the search engine business against the likes of Inktomi. From the Microsoft point of view, this is a variant of stealth. That is, "heck, we are competing in some other tiny business, don't mind us." Note that Steve Ballmer doesn't take full notice and even MSN as a portal isn't clear on the threat. * After winning the search business, then line extension starts to happen, so you get froogle, you get google news, you get gmail. It's this kind of line extension that moves the company closer and closer. In this way, the play becomes portal (Yahoo/MSN) vs. Google. Still a stealth play as far as Microsoft can see fundamentally since it isn't attacking the core Windows and Office franchises. Of course, Microsoft sees where google is headed and launches a drag race on search and also lays in a platform play with Longhorn. * So now we are on the final phase, desktop search is now here. Very smart not to start here like so many others have. Instead, have lots of users and go after them. So, we'll finally get to the main event, a drag race for the user interface that people use everyday. Really great marketing plays have this kind of play-by-play series.

Posted by rich at 10:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 13, 2004

Consumer Electronics: Here Comes Samsung

Techdirt:While Sony Tries To Become Apple, Samsung Tries To Become Sony. Consumer electronics is another one of those interesting markets where everyone is swapping and changing positions. Samsung is a classic case of a low-end entrant moving upstream. This is in the grand tradition of a stealth play. First, be at the low end of the consumer electronics market, make low-tier handsets that only could get sold for nothing or in many cases many dollars off. Build manufacturing capability to become the low-cost producer and also develop an in-house software base. You stay under the radar screen of a Sony doing high brow products or a Matsushita doing high volume. Also have a great home market where you can test ideas. Final step is to start innovating faster than anyone else, suddenly your phones go from low- to mid- to high-tier. And voila, you have the #4 phone manufacturer ready to become #2 in two years. That's Samsung. What are the lessons: # Unless you're Apple with a great existing brand name, you are unlikely to hit it big with a great new product like the iPod in one try. So, go for the low end where the big guys don't care. Gain experience. # Develop a great culture for shipping early and often. That's what its all about in terms of moving ahead. Also once you have low-end distribution in place, you can just let the products shine. # Finally, when you ready with a good base, convert the stealth play into a drag race and aim for the market leader. That is where Samsung is right now.

Posted by rich at 08:23 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

May 11, 2004

Stealth Play

This Marketing Play is almost the opposite of the Drag Race. When you run stealth you are trying to avoid getting squished by the competition. Generally you focus on a specific niche where you can build your strength unnoticed. You often add-on, peacefully coexist and even draft behind the would-be biggest competitor(s), avoiding dragraces completely. Until you have what it takes to move onto another more open and larger play.

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