THE INNOVATIVE SKILL SET: WHY IS EXPERMINTATION IMPORTANT

THE INNOVATIVE SKILL SET: WHY IS EXPERIMENTATION IMPORTANT?

            In the social media era, creating new content is critical. To do this you have to be innovative. Experimentation creates new and innovative products and content.  To create new brands, sometimes you have to stop and approach something from a different direction. A working prototype is built to see if the rendition is workable.

            Examples of experimentation to create new products are the car industry. In 1908, Henry Ford had an idea that went against the grain from conventional thinking. There were many renditions of the automobile. The conventional wisdom was that the car would be powered by an electrical engine. This created great cost. The cost made it impossible for the average American to own a car.

            To coin a phrase, Ford had a better idea. Henry Ford understood that the car market had to revolve around an average buyer. To construct a car for the average American would be the key to success in the car business. Ford understood that the person who devised a car for working people would create the dominate brand in that space. Ford understood that the only way to create a car like this, a car “for the masses” would be to create a car with oil driven car. Oil was the new type of fuel. Most people in 1908 did not think that oil was a reliable for m of energy. How to change people’s minds? How to create a car brand that runs on oil? EXPERIMENT.

            Ford fought with his investors. Finally, he was able to get the funding he needed to create a prototype engine. The engine was experimented with, and a working model was created.  How to brand the car?

            In his early years, Henry Ford was a champion race car driver. Henry Ford entered his car in a race at Grosse Point, Michigan. It was an important race. He won that race. He demonstrated to everyone that an oil driven car was the means by which the automobile could be constructed for the average individual.

            Recently, Alan Mulally, the C.E.O. of Ford has repositioned the modern auto industry. Mr. Mulally understood better than other auto executives that social media is a central part of an average American’s life. He understood that an average American spends a great deal of their time in their cars. Most cars are not equipped for a driver to bring their social media devices and platforms into a car and interact and still safely drive their cars.  In talking with parents, and being one himself, Mr. Mulally understood that texting was a real problem. He tasked his engineers with finding a solution.

            Ford’s engineers started to experiment with texting and social media to find ways that devices can be plugged into a car’s operating system.  They invented a technology that allows a driver to come into a car, plug in their phones and speaking devices, and speak as they drive.  This is a texting technology. Instead of taking your eyes off the road, a driver texts into his device as they drive.

            Through experimentation, the modern automobile has been redefined from a transportation device into a social media device. Through experimentation, Mr. Mulally rebranded the car into something that has more relevance to the average American.

Dean Hambleton

dnhambleton@gmail.com  

HOW ALBERT SLOAN AND ALAN MULALLY USED SOCIAL MEDIA TO INSULATE THEMSELVES FROM IN EVOLVING MARKETS

Social media is about technology and techniques. These techniques and technology help us engage people to create deep relationships. The deep relationships created by social media are a tool that a modern marketer uses to insulate themselves from error. Marketing is about making bets in the market place. The size of social media allows a marketer to make better bets. When social media is used properly, the relationships created by engagements insulate a marketer from error. A marketer now can rely on the wisdom of many instead of just himself. There is a wisdom to crowds that insulates from error. Two example of this are Albert Sloan of General Motors in1923 and Alan Mullally of Ford Motor Company in 2011. Both of these CEO’s from different eras used the wisdom of crowds to make critical bets that repositioned their brands and insulated themselves and their companies from error.

Both of these CEOs came from a different era. They both used the social media of their era to adjust to the speed of their markets. This adjustment allowed them to understand the paradigm shifts in their markets that allowed them to adjust and to reposition their products so that they were able to create a brand that was unable for their opponent to compete against.

Henry Ford was autocratic and he made the important decisions for Ford in the early ‘20s. Alfred Sloan at General Motors organized executive committees to collaborate and make the important decisions after deep group discussion. This set up has great impact General Motors to this day. General Motors needed a luxury brand to offset Ford. Sloan had two choices, either the Seville or this thing called Cadillac. Seemingly from a cost standpoint the Seville had a cost advantage. There was a committee meeting that changed everything.

The manager of Cadillac, Nicholas Dreystadt, told the committee that Cadillac had an image with black professionals, which was an important niche market for General Motors,  that other managers weren’t aware of.  Black professionals purchased Cadillac as a symbol of their success. Because of this all blacks desired to purchase a Cadillac, even if they couldn’t afford it. This created a brand for GM among all blacks, a demographic that now becoming important. This information could only be developed through group discussion. It was not information that was common in the general car business. Cadillac was selected, and it is a major GM brand to this day.

In our modern era, General Motors had a technology that Ford had no answer to. It was a patented technology that was only available on General Motor products.  The emergence of social media allowed Ford to create a technology that has repositioned the modern automobile market.

Ford’s C.E.O Allan Mulalley ordered his Vice Presidents to embrace social media as a means to communicate with the customers of their markets.  This has given Ford a great deal of information and insight that they would never have developed on their own.

In talking with customers and in studying the technology, a Ford Vice-President, Doug Van Dagens, made a prescient observation.  He observed that General Motors technology originated inside the car. Social media is about taking your technology and connecting to other devices. This is what Ford has decided to do with its newest models. With the newer Fords, a customer brings their devices with them, and plugs them into the Ford.

Ford had made a major breakthrough in the area of texting. You hook up to a panel, activate voice recognition, dictate your text, and that text is sent out, safely.

Ford has repositioned the car. It is no longer a mechanism of transportation. The car is now a social media platform. Social media is fast markets. Embracing it has allowed Ford to adjust to the speed of the market.

Dean Hambleton

dnhambleton@gmail.com                                  

REPOSITIONING IN A FAST MOVING MARKET: A COMAPARSION BETWEEN ALAN MULALLY AND ALBERT SLOAN

REPOSITIONING IN A FAST MOVING MARKET: A COMPARSION BETWEEN ALAN MULALLY AND ALFRED SLOAN

           

            Alan Mulally, the present C.E.O of Ford Motor Company and Alfred Sloan, who headed General Motors in 1923 compare to one another because both used social media to reposition their organization in the market place. The reason why contemporary social marketers should study both of these men is that each repositioned their companies in a fast moving market. Both men made significant bets when their company was faltering. Both used social media to become significant brands. If we study their story and understand how they compare we can better understand how to use social media to make an organization a significant brand.

            Modern business moves quickly. To create a pre-eminent brand a marketer must be able to communicate that their brand creates significant value for a customer.  This is why social media is such a significant tool for a modern marketer. Social media is a conversation among friends. When friends have a conversation, barriers are broken down.  This is critical in creating  significant brands. Markets evolve. What was very important today, may not be very important tomorrow. To serve their customers, a marketer must know exactly what their customer is looking for in their product. The product that best serves their customer will be the product that will become the pre-eminent brand.

            One-third of the world resides on Facebook. This is just one social media platform. Many social media platforms are integrated. This creates incredible scale. A marketer can now communicate to over 160 billion people all at one time. They can understand exactly, in real time, what their customers need from their products. A perfect example of this is Alfred Sloan, who was the CEO of General Motors in 1923.

            At this time, Mr. Sloan had what  looked like be an absolutely insurmountable task. In 1923, the Model T had 57% of the car market. It was also a significant social media brand. Henry Ford had done a masterful job in branding the Tin Lizzie. General Motors had only 12.7% of the market. It would seem that Mr. Sloan would not have any chance of branding his cars. Mr. Sloan had a plan.

            Mr. Sloan used the social media of the day. Today, an executive would use Facebook to communicate to the masses. Mr. Sloan talked to people all over the country in what they wanted in a car. He engaged the customer personally, just like you would do on a Facebook page.

            Mr. Sloan realized that price was no longer the deciding factor. Customers now wanted safety and ease of use. He realized the paradigm had changed. In 1913, GM had invented the self starter. People wouldn’t need to crank their cars any longer. Through the use of social media, Mr. Sloan realized it was time to start placing this technology in the car. Mr. Sloan repositioned the market around ease of use.

            When Mr.Mulally took over Ford in 2001, he faced a world much like Mr. Sloan did in 1923. He knew that he had repositioned the market in Ford’s favor. He did what Mr. Sloan did.  Through social media, Mr. Mulally engaged his customers to find out what they wanted. He   realized that his customers were had lives  that revolved around social media. He created cars that had software systems that would integrate with their personal technology systems of its. Mr. Mulally repositioned the car as a social media brand---not a car brand.

Dean Hambleton

dnhambleton@gmail.com

SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY AND BRANDING: HOW HAVE SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS CHANGED THE MARKET PARADIGMS OF TRADITIONAL INDUSTRIES

SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY AND BRANDING: HOW HAVE SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS CHANGED THE MARKET PARADIGMS OF TRADITIONAL INDUSTRIES

            Because there is so much content and engagement created on a social media platform, modern markets now move “at the speed of thought”. New products are constantly being created or repositioned. An effective marketer must constantly reposition their product. They must understand when to do this repositioning. This is analogous to the days of the early car business.  Modern marketing was developed during the branding of the early days of the car in the 1900’s.  In the early 1923, Ford’s Model T controlled 57% of the domestic automobile market. General Motors only had 12.7%.  It was thought that GM would never pass Ford. General Motors C.E.O Albert Sloan understood the structural changes happening in the domestic car market. This knowledge of a fast moving market allowed GM to overtake Ford and be the market leader that is today.

            Social media has created great scales of information. This large amount of information and the speed at which it can be transmitted, constantly changes the paradigm on which businesses and markets operate. To create a strong brand, a marketer must understand when a significant change has taken place.

            Two things that have changed market paradigms are globalization and social media platforms. These two things have created a lot of content that has to be developed and easily transported. The wonderful thing about social media is the engagement that it creates between customers and brands. Companies now have a knowledge base to create products that customers really do need in a form that they really need it. Customers really do define their products for a producer. It is almost as if companies are just bit players in the marketing of their own products.

            Instantaneous repositioning creates whole new companies and business models that make even main line companies to evolve drastically overnight. Social media platforms have made Ford Motor Company move from being a car company to a social media brand. With a new technology called In Sync, a Ford automobile is nothing more than just one big IPhone on four wheels.

This technology was created because Ford engaged with their customers. Since 1997 Ford has been trying to find an answer to GM’s in car technology. After speaking with customers, Ford created a social media technology that now makes the car THE PLATFORM. General Motor’s technology that seemed insurmountable a few years ago, is now a non factor in the automobile business. Social media technologies has created a role reverse from the 1930’s. Social media, through the leadership of Alan Mulley, has transformed Ford into a significant market player.

These sudden, massive paradigm shifts are the reason why the percentage of companies falling out of the top three rankings in their industry has increased from 2% in 1960 to 14% in 2008.  These intense quick paradigm shifts, created by social media, have created the seismic changes that are taking place in many markets. Many present day CEOs can’t define something as basic as what industry are in and who their competitors are in their industry.

Dean Hambleton

dnhambleton@gmail.com

SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY AND BRANDING; HOW ALAN MULALLY HAS POSTIONED FORD AROUND SOCIAL MEDIA

Alan Mulally, the CEO of Ford, has positioned Ford around Social Media.  He has repositioned Ford as a  Social Media brand and not as a car company. He has created a technology called Sync. This technology transforms the car into a rolling Smartphone.  It allows all outside technology to be integrated into the car's system.

Ford now has competitive advantage over General Motors.  On Star is based upon TECHNOLOGY INSIDE THE CAR.  Sync is based upon technology OUTSIDE the car.