Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Apple Becomes Number 2 On Smartphones Market



Apple has succesfully entered the smartphone market. Even though it has never been in the mobile phone market, thanks to its tactile interface and couple of innovate features, it became in no time one of the leader in this market. British Institute Canalys has recently published a study on the world smartphone market during the third quarter.

39,9 million smartphones has been sold last year in the world during this period. US market has nearly doubled whereas the Japanese market has decrease by 18%. The EMEA zone keeps a good growing pace with 21% of growth thanks to the Eastern Europe countries. Smartphones counts for 13% of the cell phone market, which is a 11% growth for this quarter.

If Nokia remains the leader with 15.5 million cell phones and 38% of marketshares, it is letting other companies like apple and RIM (Blackberry) narrowing down the gap (Nokia used to own 51% of the market last year). Actually, what is even more impressive is that Apple is now the second largest smartphone producers, with 17% of marketshares, thanks to its aggressive sales strategy for the Iphone. Blackberry owns 15% of the market.

Symbian's supremacy on the operating system market is plumetting, as it was representing more than 60% of the market last year and counts now for 46.6%. Of course, the success of the Iphone OS has hit hard Symbian, but we can also see that Lynux OS are doing great with 5% of the market at the moment. Probably Android will also change a lot the market for next year.

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Fujitsu Siemens refuse de participer aux enchères inversées

Habib Bouchrara, directeur général de Fujitsu Siemens France, vient de décider que son entreprise ne participera plus désormais aux sessions d'enchères inversées lancées par les grands comptes.

En effet, le DG considère que cette technique a entraîné un dumping effréné, qui obligeait l'entreprise à vendre à perte. Il est donc préférable de sortir de ce système.

Est-ce la fin des enchères inversées? Je pense que le système possède plus que des avantages pour les centrales d'achat. De même, pour les fournisseurs, le procédé représente un canal de distribution efficace pour amortir l'outil de production, sachant que la plupart du temps que cette pratique est destinée à acheté de gros volume. Néanmoins, il existe, il est sûr une certaine perversité dans le système, ou dans le feu de l'action il est difficile de garder en tête les objectifs de marge alors que la compétition continue à renchérir. De plus, bien souvent, ce service se focalisant principalement sur le prix d'achat, il en résulte une baisse de la qualité du produit, vu que le fournisseur doit avoir des prix réduits pour rester compétitif.

Ce qui est intéressant, c'est que j'avais dans mes cartons depuis quelques semaines un article concernant les enchères inversés, et aussi dans quelle mesure cette technique pouvait être utilisé dans le cadre du Vendor Relationship Management.

Affaire à suivre...

Monday, December 29, 2008

Sears Launches Its M-commerce site

Sears has recently launched its M-commerce site, in order to enhance its customer experience and thus its customers' satisfaction.

"In our continued effort to innovate and serve our customers as they adopt new technologies, Sears2go makes it easier than ever to cut out holiday shopping hassles and shop from the convenience of your mobile phone, says Ravi Acharya, director of e-commerce. More and more customers are using their mobile phones to shop online and Sears2go is completely geared for mobile devices with an emphasis on speed, usability and security."

"In our continued effort to innovate and serve our customers as they adopt new technologies, Sears2go makes it easier than ever to cut out holiday shopping hassles and shop from the convenience of your mobile phone, says Ravi Acharya, director of e-commerce. More and more customers are using their mobile phones to shop online and Sears2go is completely geared for mobile devices with an emphasis on speed, usability and security."

This is a concerte examle of a traditional retailer using new technologies, especially mobile technologies, to enhance its customer experience, and get a competitive advantage which will ensure its customer loyalty. In term of customer relationship management, m-commerce has a great potential, and some great companies start using it.

Sunday, December 28, 2008

BtoB Marketing Will Resist The Crisis In 2009

Even though Forrester forecasted a dark future for BtoB marketing, B2B marketers seems to have a pretty positive mindset, as they are looking forward in majority to launch new ad campaigns in 2009.


In fact, BtoB marketing is also affected by the crisis, and whereas BtoB marketing departments are cutting their budget for next year (One-quarter of respondents said they planned to reduce their marketing budgets in 2009), they are expressing a larger and larger interest in Internet advertising, in order to control better their spendings.

Here is an overview of the budget evolution for 2009.



I believe this is good news for the Internet advertising industry. Internet and ebusiness companies will be impacted by the crisis no matter what, as the whole advertising market will plumet, but as Internet advertising enable a better control of spendings and return on investments, the crisis era will be a perfect time to win marketshares on other traditionnal media.

I believe BtoB marketing also will be important for companies next year as the crisis will still be unfolding, because a lot of underdogs and small competitors will suffer, and 2009 might be the perfect timing to earn marketshares once more, and stand out of the competition

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Lack Of Human Dimension in Ebusiness



Shopping As A Key Social Activity

This is a fact, a lot of people, whether you agree or disagree, consider grocery shopping or shopping in general as a hobby. They like going to the mall on their spare time. Actually, we can consider that shopping is one of the key social activity a person has to do. Shopping malls and Marts are the places where you could meet the most people.

A lot of people considered that ebusiness will probably kill the mortar retails, because they would not be able to be as competitive in terms of service, quickness and, mainly, prices. Looking a little bit backward, we can see that Ebusiness has defenitely became a key part of retailing, but it hasn't really much affected traditional retails profitablity.

The Human Dimension In Retailing
One of the main strength retails will always have, and the main reason why they will always exist, is because of the human dimension. The human contact with a salesperson, cashier, or even with other customers is something valuable. Of course, the web 2.0 brought some kind of answers to this problem. You can create, share with, and animate a community. But this will never replace human contact. Therefore we can see now a lot of online companies starting opening some retails to complete their online services, especially in terms of after sale services.

Ebusiness must focus on customer relationsip
Ebusiness has though some great strengths and tools to build up a good customer relationship. You have some extensive access to customer data, which enables you to analyse shoper behavior, the bid, and your convertion rates. You also have some multemedia interfaces, some complete product descriptions, user reviews and so on. Therefore, I believe that one of the main focus in order to establish some sustainable success for an online retailer is to develop some kind of interaction with visitors, shoppers, and customers.

However, I also believe that traditional retails still have a bright future ahead of them, as long as they'll be able to keep their technology and information systems up to date, and keep a link with some Internet applications that will reinforce customer's experience.

Retail Marketing
Also, due to these facts, and in order to keep a high customer satisfaction rate, retailers must push their marketing effort, in order to insure a strong customer experience. This customer experience, based on the human dimension, is the base of the business, and retailers can not any longer focus only on their supply chain and product display, but think about what kind of service they can provide to customers in order to please them and make them come back.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Buzz Marketing: Ikea To Make Cars In Kit



Do you know about Ikea? Ikea is one of the world leading retailer in furnitures and home supplies. Actually, I am asking this question because there are very few Ikeas in the US, even though there is one in Palo Alto, California, and one nearby New York that I have visited and that experience much success.

Ikea has based its success on its ability to lower furniture prices. Indeed, they sell their products in kit, with a very well explained notice. Therefore, the customer don't need to pay for the manutention, as they will do it by themselves.

French master of marketing and customer relationship genious Henri Kaufman discovered a new buzz marketing campaign designed by Ikea.

Ikea is selling cars in kit.

I think this is a very good idea, because it vehicles the principle of Ikea: Get your product in kit, and do it yourself, in order to lower the cost. Ikea has always been very ingenious with its communication for a retailer. What do you think about it? Would you buy your car in kit like this one?

Bonus:

This Ikea commercial you could see in France, which I have already talked about in my blog
.


Excellente campagne de buzz marketing pour Nespresso


Nespresso
a réussi à imposer sa marque en utilisant le personnage principal de ses publicités, le fameux acteur américain Georges Clooney, dans des situations décalés. Aujourd'hui, Nespresso a relancé une campagne de publicité télévisée avec un nouveau spot, mais aussi une petite innovation: le spot vous propose en fin de message de vous rendre sur le site Internet www.nespresso-whatelse.com afin de découvrir 3 films inédits de la série, et de voter pour celui qui vous plaît le plus. Celui qui aura reçu le plus de suffrage deviendra ainsi le prochain message publicitaire.

Je trouve cette campagne de buzz marketing très bien faîte.
  • Elle permet de promouvoir le site Internet et ainsi la communication multi canal
  • D'un point de vue relation client, le client collabore à la création de l'entreprise, en participant activement au choix de la prochaine publicité. Cela permet d'affirmer la notion d'appartenance à la marque.
  • C'est une campagne d'acquisition. Elle permet de croître la taille du fichier de prospect, puisqu' afin de voter, le visiteur du site est invité à laissé son nom et son adresse email, ainsi qu'à envoyer le lien à ses contacts.
  • Il existe de plus un réel intérêt pour le visiteur de participer, puisqu'il va découvrir des publicités souvent créatives avant les autres.
Bref, cette campagne est très bien faîte. J'y ai participé, et je pense qu'elle apportera ses fruits. J'aimerai bien savoir l'agence qui a réalisé cette campagne.


Sunday, December 14, 2008

US Automaker embraces The Web For Advertising



US car manufacturers are experiencing much difficulties during this financial crisis, as they are facing bankruptcy. However, business has still to be done, and car companies seem to have much interest in the Internet medium to promote their vehicles.

Here is a good article on how Automakers give social Web sites a test-drive.

Actually, they are trying out all kinds of web commercials: videos, SEO, adwords, social platforms... What is also worth of interest, is the social communities interest.

Here is a very interesting abstract of this article.

"Social networking efforts by Dodge and Chrysler brands are in their “infancy,” Sullivan said. But as the sites attract older and more mainstream users, he said, “We are starting to build that out.”

Mark LaNeve, General Motors' vice president of North American marketing, said social networks extend word-of-mouth advertising to cyberspace.

“The most powerful thing in our business is the advocacy of one customer to the next,” LaNeve said. “These sites get that done digitally.”

This year, Chevrolet and MySpace developed a promotion that focused on conservation and alternative-fuel vehicles. A “tree widget” allowed MySpace users to plant virtual seeds on the site that grew into trees. As part of the promotion, Chevrolet and MySpace also agreed to plant as many as 225,000 real trees.

The program generated more than 8 million downloads and “millions of positive comments,” GM spokeswoman Kelly Cusinato said.

Toyota Motor Sales' youth-oriented Scion brand has appeared on social marketing sites for five years, said Adrian Si, Scion's interactive marketing manager.

In October, Scion launched a promotion on Kongregate, a social network for video-game developers and players. Users can modify a basic video game Scion has posted on the site. Visitors will vote for their favorite version.

Scion uses social networks primarily to “provide entertainment value” to users rather than generate traffic for its own Web site, Si says.

“We're not touting our cars,” he said. “We do things to get exposure to our brand and positive awareness of it.”

Jim Farley, Ford Motor Co.'s group vice president of marketing and communications, says companies such as his have not “really leveraged the opportunity” provided by social networking sites.

“It will be one of the most fundamental parts of our digital strategy going forward,” he said.

The marketing challenge, Farley said, is to provide content that will engage, rather than distract or annoy, users of networking sites.

“People come there for a very specific reason,” he said. “They don't want to be interrupted.”

But auto ads on social networks inevitably face user resistance, said Jon Schulz, a senior vice president at Specific Media, an online ad network in Irvine.

“Compared to other forms of advertising, social media do not drive the online behavior that leads to vehicle purchases,” said Schulz, who directed digital and direct marketing for Ford Motor before he left the company in May.

“You get a lot of eyeballs” at social networks, Schulz said. “But advertising is generally not well-received. The communities were launched without advertising. (Users) don't view it as a transactional space. It is a social space.”"

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Video Games Market Attracts More And More Adults

The video games market is expanding at a very fast pace. Actually, this is the hypest entertaining market nowadays. What is great about video games is that it is very hard to counterfake, which limits the possibilities of illegal copies.

Emarketer published some good charts about how adults now love video games.

We can see that video games customers are a very heterogeneous population, with all type of social classes and ages. Actually, I believe that we can give a lot of credits to Nintendo for having expand the video games interest to the older and newer generation.

Maybe this is a good sign that with the lower interest for television and the segmentation of the media consumption, video games might rise as the next mass media! Who knows? Thus it confirms the reason why a lot of advertisers are willing to get some advertising spots in the most prestigious video games.

Here is an example from one of the master of marketing, Barrack Obama, that proved during the campaign his excellence in using new media to get exposure.




In matters of fact, this chart shows well that while households are looking after their spending budgets, video games seem to be less likely to experience budget cuts than other categories. If people are not going out anymore due to the recession, video games might gain marketshares upon other entertainment possibilities.


New Rules Of Marketing During The Crisis

The crisis we are experiencing is impacted most of businesses. In fact, one of the first budget companies are cutting while experiencing a downturn is commonly marketing. Therefore, marketers are in a very unstable situation, where they are asked to do more with less.
McKinsey's explain on its website some of The downturn’s new rules for marketers.

"In previous downturns, many marketers doubled down on large, historically profitable customers, geographies, and market segments. Today, this approach may prove ineffective because the world’s economic woes are affecting customers and markets in unexpected and extremely specific ways. Marketers should therefore toss out those historical expectations and focus on the emerging pockets of customer profitability."

Actually, new technologies and segmentations possibilities make it easier to target these niche markets, which are actually more profitable now than broadcasting a commercial message to the mass market. I believe that anyways marketers will have tough times for the next few months, as market potentials will decrease and they'll probably have budget cuts.

What do you think? How does the crisis has changed the way you market, or your company consider its marketing effort?

Friday, December 12, 2008

Free Business Models Are Dead

Do you know about Marc Simoncini, CEO of Meetic? He is one of the main person in the European web. He is the owner of Meetic, French leader of the dating websites market. He was one of the speaker of LeWeb 08, the famous Web conference in Paris that happened on December 9th and 10th. One of his main bullat was about business models based on "free".

Free As The Only Business Model Of The Web
This is actually the perfect timing to think about this issue. Indeed, the web 2.0 is starting to be affected by the crisis, and as it is still unfolding, start ups are experiencing much trouble in their expansion. As it is more and more difficult to get financing, VCs are seeking for financial stability and paying close attention to the ability of the new company to generate benefits as fast as possible.

For the longest time, the main examples of the Internet were companies developping an active community, where users could log in and use the service for free, and then set up an advertising platform for companies willing to sell products to this community. Thus, most of the companies weren't much interested in their business plan, and the way to monetize their idea first, as the concept was "if your service gets great exposure and a large audience, you'll find out anyways some way to benefit".

Meetic: a fee based business model
Meetic is probably one of the best success story of the European web. Meetic is the leader of its market, which it locked so well that world leader Match.com has never been able to compete with this service. Whereas most of other websties are free, you need to pay a fee in order to use the service.

Now, CEO Simoncini, is pretty happy of its choice, as it is experiencing great success. He also believes that for this troubled days, business models based on fees and subscriptions are more likely to be developped and to get profitable in the end than others.

I also believe that having a service you could make your users pay for is a more secure way to develop your business. If users are valuing the service, they'll accept to pay to get it. What do you think about it? Here is a video in French of Marc Simoncini.


Thursday, December 11, 2008

L'évolution de la grande distribution (4): le retour en grâce du supermarché



L'une des principales évolutions du monde de la grande distribution dans les prochaines années se fera par le développement du commerce de proximité. En effet, certains facteurs sont en train de favoriser les supermarchés et petit format de distribution alimentaire.

  • Le prix de l'essence: en effet, je sais que celui-ci a baissé ces derniers temps. Mais ne soyons pas dupe, à moyen terme, le prix de l'énergie va augmenter, avec une demande mondiale croissante due au développement économique de pays tels que l'Inde et la Chine avec des populations se comptant en milliard.
  • La saturation des axes de transports: Les axes de transports occidentaux dans les grandes agglomérations ont été construits il y a des dizaines d'années, et aujourd'hui n'est plus capable d'absorber les flux de plus en plus massif de véhicules. C'est pour cela que les temps de trajet augmente et qu'il y a de plus en plus de difficulté de circulation.
  • Le manque de temps: les consommateurs ont de moins en moins de temps, et considère les courses comme une corvée la plupart du temps. Le but du jeu est donc de gagner du temps. Il est rare désormais que les consommateurs désirent faire de la route et se perdre dans des hypermarchés.
C'est pour cela que l'on assiste à un regain de l'intérêt des français pour les supermarchés. Ceux-ci sont placés proche des consommateurs, et par leurs tailles modestes, permettent un gain de temps lors des courses.

L'avenir des hypermarchés
Il reste cependant un espoir pour les hypermarchés. En effet, ceux-ci conservent leurs grandes tailles, et possèdent la possibilité de se transformer, afin de proposer plus de choix, plus de théatralisation, et une meilleure qualité de service. C'est ainsi la démarche qui a été adopté par Auchan Vélizy, l'un des plus grands hypermarchés d'Europe. Celui-ci a décidé de rénnover totalement son magasin, afin de développer un concept d'hypermarché totalement nouveau, afin de contrer la progression des petits et moyens formats.

Auchan Vélizy a développé son nouveau concept autour de trois grands axes:
  • Reposer sur les points forts de l'hypermarché: un centre commercial attractif, le choix, les capacités de parking
  • Amener les services des commerçants locaux en hypermarché, en développant les métiers de bouche tels que la boucherie ou la charcuterie
  • Innover en terme de services, avec notamment un stand fruit et légume proposant des smoothies fait sur place, ainsi que des légumes bio de qualité. Ces nouveaux services et concepts ne peuvent être développer qu'en hypermarché, car ce sont les seuls types de formats permettant d'absorber les coûts de main d'oeuvre assorti à ceux-ci.

Cependant, on peut tout de même penser que les supermarchés, ainsi que de nouveaux concepts de distribution vont arriver, et limiter le rayonnement des hypermarchés sur le marché de la grande distribution en France.


Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Brozengo lance son application mobile

Connaissez vous Brozengo? C'est un moteur de recherche de commerce local. Ainsi, si vous habitez dans une région spécifique, le site le détecte, et vous proposera les bons plans des commerces affiliés au site.

Brozengo, c'est aussi une start up française en devenir, puisque celle-ci est présente au salon LeWeb 2008, le plus grand salon dédié à l'Internet en Europe, et probablement dans le top trois des événements mondiaux sur le sujet. De plus, elle a été lauréate de la 5ème édition du SFR Speed Starting Up.

L'Internet au service du local
J'aime particulièrement cette idée, car à l'heure où l'on parle énormément des monstres Google, Facebook ou Amazon, écrasant le monde de leur poids, l'Internet permet aussi de développer le commerce de proximité. De plus, l'utilisation du web se fait de plus en plus pour trouver de l'information locale.
D'ailleurs Google a sorti un service de Google Adword sur des zones géographiques spécifiques afin de développer la publicité pour le commerce de proximité sur sa plateforme. Aussi, beaucoup de TPE et PME tirent leur épingle du jeu en travaillant leur site Internet, leur référencement, ainsi que leur visibillité en général sur le web pour accroitre leur clientèle.
Ainsi Brozengo s'inscrit dans cette logique, puisqu'il permet de trouver des bonnes affaires dans la zone géographique de l'internaute. Ce site offre un réel service à l'utilisateur, qui peut trouver des offres intéressantes qu'il ne trouvera nul part ailleurs, et offrir un accès à la promotion via Internet à des commerces locaux.

Brozengo sur mobile
Aujourd'hui, Brozengo va plus loin et améliore son service en proposant une application mobile. Cette application mobile prend tout son sens, puisque ce service permet d'avoir des informations locales.

"Pour accéder au service mobile de BROZENGO, rien de plus simple :
- Saisir http://mobile.brozengo.com dans le navigateur de son mobile
- ou Taper BROZENGO dans Gallery
- ou Envoyer un SMS avec BROZENGO au 30 130 (coût d’un SMS non surtaxé)"

Le site prend ainsi une nouvelle dimension, et améliore son service client, puisqu'il se rapproche de son utilisation de tous les jours. Reste maintenant au site à développer de plus en plus de partenariat avec des commerces locaux, ce qui développera forcément le nombre d'utilisateur du site.

Je pense d'ailleurs que brozengo utilise ainsi parfaitement le potentiel du téléphone mobile en terme de services client. Pour en savoir plus sur le développement de Brozengo, vous pouvez visiter le blog de Jean Michel Maurer, son dynamique entrepreneur.

Saturday, December 06, 2008

Leclerc: le visionnaire de la grande distribution

J'ai déjà parlé cette semaine de Leclerc sur ce blog, concernant leur campagne marketing actuelle portant sur la publicité comparative. Aujourd'hui, je souhaiterai allé plus loin, afin de rendre un genre d'hommage à Michel Edouard Leclerc, le président de l'enseigne. D'ailleurs je vous invite à visiter son blog, qui est souvent très riche en information.

Je ne suis pas forcément fan de Leclerc. Pour être honête, je ne vais jamais chez eux, et peut certainement compter sur les doigts de la main le nombre de fois où je suis rentré dans un de leur magasin. Je ne suis pas non plus contre l'enseigne, car je n'en ai pas vraiment proche de chez moi ou de mes lieux de plaisances.

Cependant, j'apprécie la créativité, la force d'innovation de cette enseigne, ainsi que de son dirigeant. Je considère ainsi Michel Edouard Leclerc comme étant le pionner des tendances dans la grande distribution, et un entrepreneur visionnaire. Ainsi, la plupart de ses partis pris, de ses innovations, ont ensuite été embrassé par la concurrence. Ainsi, à force de lancer de nouvelles tendances, et à toujours être en avance sur le marché, Leclerc a su tirer son épingle du jeu et assuré son succès sur le territoire national. En effet, un article du magazine Challenges explique "le système leclerc", ou bien comment l'enseigne a toujours réussi à innover et bouleverser le paysage de la grande distribution. Voici une liste des principales innovations qui ont été lancé par Leclerc et qui ont révolutionné le monde de la grande distribution.

  • Le ticket Leclerc: 1987, Le ticket Leclerc est la première initiative d'une enseigne de grande distribution afin de fidéliser ses clients. Ainsi, chaque client de Leclerc reçoit des promotions et des remises en fonction du montant de ces achats. Aujourd'hui la concurrence possède aussi des systèmes de fidélisations.

  • La parapharmacie: "En 1987, l'ordre des pharmaciens et le laboratoire américain Searle font condamner Leclerc pour la vente d'Aspartame dans ses magasins. Un an plus tard, l'enseigne obtient gain de cause devant la justice et ouvre sa première parapharmacie. Résultat : il en compte 113 aujourd'hui."

  • Les stations services: Aujourd'hui les stations services représentent l'une des principales sources de revenus des hypermarchés. Leclerc a été le premier a se lancé sur ce marcé, alors monopolisé par les grandes enseignes d pétrolières de type Esso, BP ou encore Total. Il l'a d'ailleurs fait en tout illégalité. Résultat, quelques années plus tard, l'état autorise les distributeurs à vendre de l'essence. Cette entrée sur le marché a été si important que l'un des leaders du marché, Elf, n'a pas réussi à y survivre.

  • Les sacs de caisse: Leclerc a été le premier, environ dix ans avant la concurrence, à ne plus donner de sacs de caisse à ses consommateurs pour des raisons de préservation de l'environement. A l'époque, et moi le premier, j'ai été le premier surpris de ce geste. Néanmoins, qu'on soit pour ou contre cette mesure, elle est a présent adopté par la grande majorité des enseignes de distribution, et l'état lui même vient d'instaurer une taxe sur le sac en plastique afin de préserver l'environement.

  • La publicité comparative: La publicité comparative est légale en France depuis quelques années, après une longue période d'interdiction. Cependant, personne n'a réellement été capable d'utiliser ce nouvel outil de communication, ayant peur de tomber dans le domaine de la publicité mensongère, du à un environement légal très restrictif. Leclecrc vient de lancer une publicité où il compare les prix de produits de grande consommation à ceux trouvés chez ses concurrents. Il est encore tôt pour dire si ce type de communication va devenir une tendance de fond, néanmoins je suis convaincu que l'on verra dans un futur proche se développer ce type de message commercial.

Thursday, December 04, 2008

Leclerc se lance dans la publicité comparative

Pendant de longues années la publicité comparative a été interdite en France. La principale raison de cette interdiction était de contrôler le message des publicitaires, afin de ne pas duper le consommateur, en faisant des comparaisons hasardeuses. Ainsi, aux Etats-Unis, où la publicité comparative est permise depuis des années, des marques tels que Coca Cola et Pepsi n'hésitent pas à ce tirer la bourre, avec des spots amusants, ne reposant certainement pas sur les qualités des produits, mais plutôt sur le fait de se moquer du concurrent.

Cependant, la régulation a changé il y a quelques années en France. En effet, sous l'impulsion de l'Union Européenne, la publicité comparative est maintenant permises, afin d'appliquer une directive européenne. Cette publicité comparative reste néanmoins beaucoup plus contrôler qu'aux Etats-Unis, et la comparaison doit reposer sur des critères objectifs, qui sont la plupart du temps le prix ou bien les composants du produit de façon mesurable et vérifiable.

En tout cas, la publicité comparative en France, malgré le fait qu'elle soit permise depuis déjà plusieurs années, n'a jamais réellement été utilisé en France: face à une réglementation très contraignantes et les risques de condamnation pour publicité mensongère, aucune marque n'a réellement réussi à jouer ce crénau, qui pourtant en période de faible pouvoir d'achat pourrait permettre de gagner des parts de marché.

Cependant, il y a quelques semaines de cela, les consommateurs français peuvent visionner cette publicité sur leurs écrans de télévision:


Leclerc est ainsi, à ma connaissance, le premier distributeur a utilisé ce procédé de communication basé sur le prix le moins cher, alors que la plupart des distributeurs revendiquent leur prix bas en tant que principal axe de communication.

Ce qui est aussi très intéressant, c'est que pour la première fois une entreprise site les concurrents directs auquel il se compare. Vous vous souvenez souvent des comparaisons entre Ariel et la Lessive C, où on cachait systèmatiquement les produits auquels ont se réferrait. Leclerc s'implique et affirme qu'il est réellement moins cher, et donc il gagne en crédibilité sur ce bié.

Bien sûr, Leclerc n'est pas forcément moins cher que les marques qu'il épingle. Il a forcément choisi les produits où il connait ses forces, et aussi les hypermarchés les plus cher sur ce type de produit et sur des zones géographiques de CSP+. Il n'empêche, Leclerc ouvre les hostilités, et cette campagne est un bel exemple de l'intérêt d'une telle méthode de communication. Il suffit de voir les relais que font la presse de cette publicité, rien qu'en cherchant sur Google news...

Leclerc a toujours été visionnaire et pionner des nouvelles tendances de la grande distribution. J'écrirai d'ailleurs bientôt un article à ce sujet, inspiré de l'article de Challenges sur le "Système Leclerc" d'il y a quelques jours.

En tout cas, je pense que Leclerc encore une fois prouve qu'il est capable d'innover dans l'univers de la grande distribution, et je pense que le succès de cette campagne poussera d'autres enseignes, mais certainement aussi d'autres entreprises à tenter le pari de la publicité comparative.

Recherche bloggers pour film publicitaire

Dimanche prochain 7 décembre, l'agence H va tourner un film.
Annonceur : la Presse Quotidienne Régionale
Objectif : Annoncer la commercialisation d’une nouvelle offre commerciale de vente d’espace publicitaire.
Lieu du tournage : Clichy
Temps de tournage : 3 heures
Objet : un film interactif ... sonore (drôle !)
Médiatisation: plusieurs supports professionnels genre Stratégies

Nous avons besoin de 3 blogeurs(ses) qui seront figurant(e)s et qui relaieront le film sur leur blog. Si vous êtes intéressés par ce bon moment à passer ensemble, écrivez-moi : hipipip@gmail.com


Annonce a retrouver sur le blog d'Henri Kaufman

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Google In the TV Advertising Market?

Google is leading the advertising market in the Internet thanks to its technology that enables great targeting capabilities for companies. The Mountain View company is still expanding its business on the web, but is also seeking for new markets in order to establish itself as a leading company on other supports. That is one of the main reasons why they decided to launch the Android project, in order to enter the cell phone market, which is probably the soon to come most exciting market for the next few years.

But Google is still looking forward to get into the TV advertising market. Lately Google signed a partnership with Bloomberg Financial in order to sell inventory.

Let's not forget that Google already has some experience in selling commercials on a video support: They own Youtube and Google Video, which counts for 44% of the online video market.

Thus, Google is working on a TV ad platform technology, which will probably based on the Internet's one, that will provide more targeted and efficient campaigns to users.

Actually, there is a real convergence between TV and Internet, as TV companies broadcast their programs on the web, in order to respond to the online video websites threat.

This project might even get more attractive within the next few months as the crisis is still unfolding and marketing chief officers are seeking for more profitable and less risky ways to communicate. TV ad consumption by companies is expected to slow down for the next few months as marketing budgets are melting...

I actually believe that this new effort to enter the TV market is a great way for Google to expand its market by leveraging its know how and expertise. Also I think we can expect Google to be interested into buying a TV ad platform in order to do so, as they did for Youtube to enter the online video market, or with blogger to get into the blogging business.

To know more about Google TV's development, visit the emarketer article.


Monday, December 01, 2008

How I Would Really Innovate If I Were EA Sports

Do you know EA Sports?It has for many years run the successful FIFA, NBA Live and Madden's franchises. This can be considered as the leading company in the sport simulation industry.

But there is always the same problems with NBA Live's games, that I am of course a fan of: there is not much new things from a version to another. Indeed, except new rookies that got into the league, couple of new fun games which you get bothers in couple of minutes, and of course a few better graphism, nothing new. That is I believe one of the problem of Electronic Arts? How could I be sure to get my customers to renew their game version, instead of them renewing it every 2 or 3 years?

No real innovations
There is something also I don't like about this game: Players' and teams' stats. Indeed, the game is edited prior to the season's start. Therefore, stats of players and how good they are is determined by the previous year's results. But most of the time, what was true during the previous season is not true the next one. Players are getting better, or have injury problems, and so on. It is supposed to be more realistic, but actually, by only releasing one new version per year, the game is getting up to date very quickly as the NBA is full of trades, new players coming from Europe or D League, and unexpected talent.

My idea
Therefore the idea would be to get some accurate stats and team rosters by providing a subscription service. This service will help people to get accurate team rosters:
  • The video game would download the up to date rosters, including injured players, new signed and injured ones.
  • It will adjust players' ability to their monthly performance. It will take into consideration their teams results, but also their scoring, rebounding stats and so on.
  • It will create new players that were not in the league at the beginning of the year
This new feature would help players to keep an up to date stats. That would actually be a real innovation, will improve consumers' experiences, and also take the best out of a technology that is at this time already available.

What do you think about it? I believe anyway this will be implemented within the next few years, as it is getting more and more common to get new features through video games' hardwares that are now connected on the web.