Strategy Driven

SEPTEMBER 27, 2013

Even when brands claim to desire lifetime relationships with customers, many tactically distance themselves from the humanity of their interactions. People are commonly referred to as ‘buyers,’ ‘shoppers,’ ‘payers,’ ‘non-responders,’ ‘early adopters,’ and ‘eyeballs.’

Aaker 64

Aaker Short-term Marketing Benchmarking 64

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 26, 2014

Innovation increasingly blurs technical and marketing distinctions between “ lead users ” and “early adopters.” That challenges how organizations need to manage, learn from and even brand their first-generation customer communities. Your lead users or early adopters may be technically brilliant.

Early Adopters 8

Early Adopters Innovation Management Disruptive Innovation 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 15, 2015

After Everett Rogers famously made the distinction between early and late adopters , academics in marketing and technology identified a number of differences between those who take quickly to innovations and those who don’t. First, what worked with early adopters isn’t likely to work with later adopters.

Early Adopters 8

Early Adopters Innovation Short-term Rogers 8

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 23, 2016

With a combination of rich visual interfaces and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies from Google, Facebook, Amazon, and others, brands can scale relevant, personal, and helpful interactions with customers. Although the use of brands’ mobile apps has exploded since 2008, “brand app fatigue” is starting to settle in.

Company 8

Company Brand Learning Curve Early Adopters 8

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 10, 2015

But it could be the best way forward for the two brands, which have each faced their own challenges. Joining forces could breathe new life into both brands. Sprint would be the primary brand on the stores and marketing materials. To be sure, there are challenges for both brands. Joint ventures Branding'

Wireless 8

Wireless Brand Due Diligence Retail 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 2, 2013

We developed a strategy to accomplish three goals across this social network: customer development, brand awareness, and traditional marketing and customer acquisition. We approached brand awareness, a traditional marketing goal, in a new way through social networks.

Ries 8

Ries Brand Early Adopters Media 8

Harvard Business Review

JULY 31, 2014

Those insights came from the research Adobe had done to develop the platform, as well as the data the platform was already generating from early adopters. Wherever companies were talking about e-commerce, dynamic online environments, or analytics, Adobe wanted to be there — not just as a sponsor, but as a provider of insights.

Content 10

Content Marketing B2C Early Adopters 10

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 15, 2016

It has changed how users expect to interact with companies and brands online, and it is forcing firms to use messaging to fulfill customer expectations. Here are five ways brands can start using direct messaging in their digital marketing strategies to stand out and win consumer loyalty. How can my brand help them solve that need?”

Brand 8

Brand Real Estate Content Video 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 25, 2011

Nokia had won by promising, communicating, consistently delivering, and relentlessly improving straightforward, relevant customer benefits, in line with its easily understood brand promise, "connecting people". Part of Apple's brand appeal has always been that it was a plucky challenger, first against IBM, then against Microsoft.

Supply Chain 15

Supply Chain Long-term Brand Early Adopters 15

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 4, 2011

I asked several tech startup founders, community managers, and users for any lessons learned on how startups can successfully transition their early adopters, who are used to feeling like VIPs, to technology that reduces hand-holding. How can a low-tech, high-touch startup scale to a high-tech one without losing users?

FAQ 11

FAQ Early Adopters COO How To 11

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 23, 2013

Scheduled before the massive annual CES gathering, it's a powwow for bloggers and other social media enthusiasts, early adopters who are quick to jump on board the next great thing. The "best" platforms will be different for every person or brand. I recently got back from the New Media Expo in Las Vegas.

Media 10

Media First-mover Advantage Early Adopters ROI 10

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 15, 2013

You can see a strong precedent for this in the open source software movement, which didn''t go mainstream until its early adopters progressed through the ranks. Digital experiences and engagement draw consumers closer to a brand and more efficiently drive conversions and transactions, both online and off.

CIO 8

CIO Marketing CRM Information Technology 8

Harvard Business Review

JULY 18, 2017

Large companies serve mainstream customers, while innovative entrepreneurs first serve early adopters. As a free-standing enterprise operating under its own brand, FirstBuild is decidedly not another attempt to transform a traditional company’s corporate culture. ” You can’t. Separation is the key.

Innovation 8

Innovation Early Adopters Marketing Retail 8

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 25, 2014

I reached out to Aloft, and spoke with Brian McGuinness, Aloft’s global brand leader, to hear about the motivation behind the pilot. The “Botlr” can deliver toothbrushes, razors, and similar items to guests’ rooms, replacing the need for human staff to do so. An edited transcript of our conversation is below.

Hotels 8

Hotels Technology Early Adopters Travel 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 15, 2012

With Novec Fluids, the team is not only working with key customers and early adopters, but it's also pushing the market toward greener options by advocating for tougher government standards and regulations. But there are signs of a feistier attitude brewing.

Innovation 13

Innovation Early Adopters Energy Efficiency 13

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 31, 2017

He said that the most well-known expert system they developed was one that blended Folgers coffee (no longer a P&G brand). We’ve both followed these companies for a long time—dating back to their early work with expert systems.

Supply Chain 8

Supply Chain Technology Early Adopters System 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 21, 2014

Although attracting early adopters is essential for early success and encouraging virality, growth customers—the people who are likely to buy the next generation of products—are crucial for building a sustainable business. .” Who is my growth customer?

Levitt 8

Levitt Early Adopters Productivity Products 8

Harvard Business Review

JULY 27, 2017

In fact, BMW’s greatest co-innovation success, 12 years earlier, had been in a “venture client” relationship with an early stage startup: Mobileye, now a leader in collision-avoidance technology. Similarly, Charles Schwab was the early adopter client of Siebel’s revolutionary CRM system.

Venture Capitalist 8

Venture Capitalist Meyer Innovation Fixed Costs 8

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 24, 2016

It is the passionate early adopters who help you to gain traction, see what works and what else may be needed to make the product successful. In this case, Haller and his team only needed to know whether if the customer would indeed be willing to pay for the product they had asked for.

Company 8

Company Team Due Diligence Banking 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 4, 2011

The early adopters, often with some annoyance, gave way to later adopters. With this contribution, the bands started a new round of experimentation in matters of sound, style, and sensibility. Kids could see what was happening more clearly and they went to work on it hammer and tong. The innovation was now spreading.

Early Adopters 13

Early Adopters Innovation Hammer Charisma 13

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 1, 2018

Like digital platforms, social media, martech, fintech, and numerous other innovations, the spoils of blockchain may go to early adopters who commit to ruthless innovation. However, there are many reasons to invest the time now to understand the technology and begin exploring specific marketing applications for your industry.

Marketing 11

Marketing Advertising Technology Content 11

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 12, 2017

By buying Whole Foods, Amazon gets virtually limitless possibilities to test products and services, test price points and assortment interactions, redefine the price perception for organic and healthier foods, merge offline and online shopping experiences, and perhaps test home delivery or store pickup with ideal early adopters.

Price 8

Price Retail Competitive Advantage Long-term 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 5, 2016

.” But everyone senses their success — and failure — at leading by example is integral to their “leadership brand.” ” Smart leaders want to build their brands. The lead-by-example stories executives tell sharpen their leadership brand propositions.

Examples 13

Examples Charisma Self-aware Mission Statement 13

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 1, 2012

Eventually, once the brand had become established, separate dealers could have sprouted. Many people don't fit Fiat's mold, and even individuals well-targeted by demographic criteria (which is how media is bought) might not be early adopters of a new brand. This would have been a great way to strangle an excellent idea.

Strategy 14

Strategy Automotive Early Adopters Advertising 14

ExactHire - Leadership

MARCH 8, 2017

Are these values complementary to our employment brand? To add to the excitement of our initial roll-out, we wanted to keep the momentum going in the early adoption phase by giving employees the optional opportunity to participate in a t-shirt design contest. Are there any obvious outliers that won’t seem authentic to employees?

Process 52

Process Groupthink Company Document 52

Harvard Business Review

MAY 30, 2017

Because AI is new, and because marketers will be wary of relinquishing control and trusting a black box to make the best decisions about what people will or won’t do, it’s wise to adopt AI tools and systems incrementally, as did Harley-Davidson’s Jacobi. The algorithms will continue to be refined.

ROI 14

ROI Tools Marketing CRM 14

Great Leadership By Dan

MAY 4, 2017

Website UX trumps brand. If the founder starts going into the weeds – opining about favorite brand colors and fonts – get back on track quickly. Yes, building your brand is a process that starts with launch. Yes, design is integral to a successful site.

Succession 124

Succession PR Venture Capitalist B2C 124

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 12, 2014

Already, the scale of data collected by early adopters of this technology is staggering. Location analytics firm RetailNext currently tracks more than 500 million shoppers per year by collecting data from more than 65,000 sensors installed in thousands of retail stores.

Retail 9

Retail Customer Intimacy Apparel Wireless 9

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 11, 2014

My company was an early adopter, purchasing our first social ads in 2012. Messages can even be aimed at specific brands and their respective followers, enabling businesses to go directly after the competition and its client base. On LinkedIn, sponsored updates can be targeted to particular regions (countries, cities, etc.)

Advertising 9

Advertising Media Audience Hammer 9

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 25, 2011

Using an online music test site, researchers tested whether music that was highly praised early on would be downloaded more than songs with less buzz. Success begets success. But then Petland's research team took that data and dissected it further. But does any of this matter in the long run?

First-mover Advantage 15

First-mover Advantage Venture Capitalist Dunning Early Adopters 15

Harvard Business Review

MAY 11, 2012

This could be because they are more loyal early adopters or because those who've joined since haven't had as much time to convert their activity to buying. Take a peek at what that page looks like for brand like Adidas or Michael's and you get an instant snapshot of the opportunities for moving customers from pinning to purchase.

Early Adopters 15

Early Adopters Media Metrics ROI 15

Harvard Business Review

MAY 9, 2012

Without engagement, the influence of brands will continue to decline and big organizations will lose out on the best workers. The result — brands built on Facebook will face a backlash. A bad experience at work with a particular brand of laptop bleeds over into consumer choices. It's easy to see why.

B2C 15

B2C B2B Early Adopters How To 15

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 14, 2012

Brand-name newspapers like the New York Times and Wall Street Journal appear to have a real future (although not necessarily on paper), and digital upstarts can actually make some money. In Birmingham the main online competitor to the News has three full-time editorial staffers. On the national and global levels the equation is different.

Disruptive Innovation 14

Disruptive Innovation Advertising Business Model Operations 14

Harvard Business Review

JULY 14, 2016

Back then however, Hughes’s contribution helped mobilize a relatively small portion of volunteers, those already familiar with social media — mainly young people and early adopters. Clinton’s use of digital marketing in the 2016 presidential race is similar to the approach used by corporate brands.

Bond 8

Bond Early Adopters Technology Tools 8