I retired from personal blogging in July 2008.
But you can find me over at http://blog.xero.com.
Yestreday morning Synergy celebrated their name change to Fronde with an excellent debate at TePapa on whether IT people should run the country.
Rowan from TradeMe delivered a really good line on marketing that went something like …
TradeMe wasn’t about technology, Sam’s insight was that marketing was broken. Rather than wasting lots of money on big billboards and TV ads (’it’s shopping on the internet’!) he instead decided to focus on building a really great product, which people like to use and tell their friends about.
That really resonated with me. In the web world there are a lot of ways to get your message out that seem much more natural than a big spend advertising model.
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Maybe, maybe… Sam and Rowan’s comments could stem from working in a relatively new area of business and not having much experience of the older ones.
Remember those big Louis Vuitton LED etc installations talked about at the Foo Camp? $4m… now you’re not going to be able to replicate that on the Internet for a long long time.
I think it’s more an issue of there not being a suitable marketing/advertising/promotion technique that either fit his model or the internet in general. This is something that will come to the fore increasingly, as there’s an awkward juxtaposition between the fact that content pushers need it and content consumers don’t want it.
Crack that nut and you’ll be rather famous and wealthy… well, moreso than presently. :)
…I thought Synergy was a much better name actually. That’s a classic example of marketing being broken (Borland was another example of forgetting the value of “Brand”).
I am stunned at Synergy’s change of spots. David Irwin has been my local hero for a long time and built up a hugely successful local and international brand. He is retired now but still a director. I wonder what lies behind this change.
Apparently they have plans to expand globally, but the Synergy name is so often used overseas by other companies, it would have been impossible for them to get any kind of brand established.
Applies to other products too - does Hubbards cereal market their product? Nope.
Problem is people want instant pudding, rather than make a great product and build a solid customer base over time. As W Edwards Deming once said, “…then profits will come”. Toyota do this in the US, while meanwhile GM is going down the gurgler.
My question is, would trademe have been as successful if its creation and development was driven purely by shareholder imperatives?
We don’t have to look far to get an answer (hint: NZ shopping site)!
Really. As a marketing guy I’d say that Sam’s genuis was taking an idea that was working stunningly well offshore and being first to market in NZ with a very good replica with some better features and racing stripes.
As far as eschewing conventional marketing, that was smart and reflected exactly what others did also.
It’s sheer nonsense to draw a correlation between insight into marketing being broken, then, marketing communications, then building a better product. I could equally pepper the world with ludicrous notions like:
“Most software developers are brainless idiots who while great at code writing have no real attachment to how real people use products. Sam’s genuis was not putting-up with this and forcing developers to build a product that users would not just want to use but love to use. And, to infuse software/web development with some marketing nouse.”
“taking an idea that was working stunningly well offshore and being first to market in NZ with a very good replica with some better features and racing stripes.”
Unlike flyingpig.co.nz
When Synergy changed its name to Fronde, they seperated themselves from the Hairdressers, oil companies & plastics warehouses of this region; A fantastic move I say!
And David Irving is a local hero & on the board for Fronde; I don’t know who this David Irwin person is though….
Sam’s approach to the (non) marketing of Trade Me was inspired. But it is only one model, eg look at the value created through clever marketing for the 42 below guys.
When you are selling stuff to consumers, brands usually have value and big corporates are prepared to pay large multiples to acquire them. People usually pay more for products with a brand they recognise then they do for similar products with unrecognised brands, and that is where the value is.
Two sides to every story - Engineers vs Marketers…
Touche Andrew! You’ve hit the nail on the head.
Good discussion. I think we’re all in violent agreement.
I also think product brands are much more valuable than services brands. Ie, a great product brand allows you to charge a premium for your products because customers value the brand, whereas this effect is muted in services industries where word of mouth reputation is much stronger.
My law firm shares offices with IP lawyers Ellis Verboeket Terry. We have had some interesting discussions about the value of brand strategies for services firms…. you only have to look at the size of their reception sign compared to ours to see the different perspectives in play…!
I would have thought intensifying the effort of creating a point of difference in a clearly cluttered service market would have been an imperative.
Changing your brand name makes this harder not easier, you risk losing alot of brand equity by moving to a name that has no recognition and no obvious relative link to what you stand for. That is unless you wanted to be associated with a French Civil war :-)
TradeMe used/use many marketing methods.
The decision to not advertise using billboards and TV Ads, was it so genius? Or was it just a result of limited resources and/or greater efficiency through other mediums?
Building a good product is always important. Well done TradeMe.
There’s a lot to be said for a lack of money. Too much makes you stupid - being forced to be tight helps refine the decision-making process.
“And David Irving is a local hero & on the board for Fronde; I don’t know who this David Irwin person is though….”
Yes, I was going to correct that but I sort of liked the mistake :-)
Sorry, David, if you are reading.
Perhaps a little bit more time could have been spent implementing the new website tho’. 404s aren’t a good look for a Software\SI company.
I agree that not having the money to market will have dictated decisions early on, but what Rowan said wasn’t rubbish.
The way Sam puts it is that Trade Me did no above the line marketing. But you can and do need to market to users and potential users in other ways, which Trade Me did. The great comparison, of course, is with Flying Pig, which spent a huge amount on consumer marketing at launch and didn’t have anything like a good product to back it up, and no user loyalty. More recently, Ferrit did the same thing - big bang, bad product.
Marketing socially takes a lot longer to bear fruit, but for some ventures it’s the right thing to do. Look at Fat Freddy’s Drop - that album went (um) five times platinum through an independent distributor, with a marketing budget of virtually zero. But they’d been playing shows for about five years by the time they released it.
The question herein is why some turkeys keep throwing big money at crap product. Some investors can’t see the wood for the trees.
Great product = Success
Poor product = struggles + huge marketing costs
Enough said.
Thanks Russell.
By the way, the Fronde / Synergy PR suggests the word “fronde” comes from the French Revolution. In fact it pre-dates that. Check out the Three Musketeers novels by Dumas for more details (the second one). They are set in the 17th century during the evil times of the great Cardinal de Richelieu…which is when the fronde took place.
A certain shopping site should have considered advertising on Trademe :), rather than on FreetoAir TV (who watches FreetoAir TV now anyway).
I really hope that the funds from the crazy decision to sell the most established and successful business directories in NZ does not go into prolonging the inevitable demise of this shopping site.
Having said that choosing a French word for a NZ company is well peculiar and naive. Being from NZ is a great asset if you use it right, a knowledge company such as Synergy should capitalize and strengthen on its origin not dilute it by calling itself something French. It always surprises me the number of companies in NZ who choose a weird name as a brand, if they want to be novel and make an impression they should take some Te Reo courses. Te Reo is a fantastic rich language with many stories to tell.
People when they think of NZ and France think of Rainbow Warrior or EU Trade problems and thats about it. In fact most people probably don’t even associate the two countries.
France is a fantastic country and the French are great people with a fantastic culture and history. It is one of my favourite places to visit and work.
But the reality is that most people who would be evaluating responses to RFIs and RFPs is London would probably have an aversion to choosing something sounding French. Its one of those things that the English have ingrained in their psyche. Lets face it most NZ companies beach head into the European market is London. French Software consulting firms are most successful in Southern Europe (France,Spain,Italy) and parts of eastern Europe (Croatia), however in Central and Northern Europe most customers like to choose something Central European or English, French companies are probably at the bottom of the list.
And if you are an exec from the US(which probably means you are a Republican) something that sounds remotely French will not evoke the image of a easy to work with partner.
The Aussies will also react similar to the Americans.
Changing a brand is a very risky and expensive business, it sounds like Synergy did not take much notice of the successes (BearingPoint) and failures(Monday) of the Big Consulting companies who did the same a few years ago or do much research into how potential customers would perceive a NZ Company with the new name.
It also sounds like Synergys PR department did not do a very good job describing the origin of its new name.
My 2c.
It looks Synergy did not even search on Google or Wikipedia.
Normally the first thing most people do in IT if they see a word they don’t understand it, google it and then perhaps check out Wikipedia. Which is probably what most of their customers will do.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fronde
The article on Wikipedia is also quite interesting seems to indicate that the Frondes that did occur all in the end failed or were extinguished a long time before the French Revolution which finally brought the type of justice the French were cheated from by the aristocracy and they had to do themselves (the Nobles and aristocrats of the Fronde failed do it for them).
Failure is never a good thing to associate yourself with.. The Titanic was a very noble idea.
It also does not make a good impression if your PR statement does not really reflect the actual root origin of the word.
One could be harsh and say that there are some similarities in the lack of attention to detail to the marketing from a particular shopping site.
Hopefully Synergy can continue their great work and nobody will take notice of the new name.
Fair comment on the erroneous explanation for Fronde (rhymes with blonde). We did know the correct origin - but that mis-explanation slipped through in the launch material without anyone picking it up. We’ve been living with the name for a year and had moved on from thinking about where it came from. We’re correcting things things now.
However, as to the rationale for the name change - I make no apologies. The simple fact is that around the world there are dozens of IT companies called Synergy (there are 3 in NZ as well). We’ve got international ambitions, so we need a distinctive name. And no one wants to run with a different brand at home and abroad - it’s too confusing and costs too much.
We looked at nearly 800 names, and chose Fronde (suggested by one of our staff) because a) it didn’t sound like any IT company we’d heard of, b) we liked both the original meaning and the allusion to the fern frond, c) it’s easy to say and remember, d) it isn’t one of those ghastly made-up IT brand names that sound like a pill to fix your haemorrhoids, and e) we could get the trademark and .com. We took professional advice on whether it would work, and the overwhelming opinion was it would.
Anyway, we like it.
Perhaps the wikipedia entry needs an update to represent the original meaning of the word…
From what I have heard and seen of the NZ Fronde it would be great if after some time this definition also inherits the character of the company.
I agree with the made-up IT brand names and the challenge of getting a unique trademark and the .com address especially with all the opportunism with the registration of domain names. It would be interesting to know what sort of hits the Trademe.com website gets from NZ :)
I’m a bit late on commenting on this one.
Good marketing does not have to be about Advertising. You can spend your money doing much better (and cleverer) stuff than advertising. PR is a good case in point. Get people saying good stuff about your brand and that is worth so much more than a whole page, full colour advert.
And yes, your product does have to be good too.
Synergy is now Fronde…
I understand the need for Synergy to change their name - Synergy is a pretty generic word and in use by companies is pretty much every other country. Fronde is a French word meaning Sling, and the revolutionaries that are described using the word were…
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