Alexander Chalkidis

Category: Communication

  • Rebranding Iraq. On a human sized, stone stele

    ” If you’re a country at war and you’re getting gigantic amounts of bad media, basically you are stuck. That’s billions and billions of dollars in negative publicity; how can you fight against that?”  So says Simon Anhalt, country branding guru.   But he is only half right.  “Iraq” has negative publicity.   “Mesopotamia” doesn’t.   In fact, the more I look at  the Code of Hammurabi, the more I get filled with ideas of great publicity campaigns.   This is the cradle of civilization, the place that started it all.

    There are plenty reasons why branding a country is nothing like branding a product.   A pretty good summary here points out how much more complicated and long term an effort is required.   And here’s a good case study on destination branding.   But you don’t need a decade and multiparty support to change the name.  And one good, globally successful advertising campaign could redefine how the country sees itself forever.

    Iraq, I mean Mesopotamia, started it all.   A human sized stone stele in every city defined the very first set of laws, what Justinian and English law later followed.   It defined a minimum wage before unions, slave rights millenniums before Americans struggled with the idea, women’s rights and a framework for free market operation which would put a G8 gathering to shame.   Nation branding is correct to point out all the positive aspects of the situation, there is a real opportunity for this much battered part of the world.

    While Hummer jeeps still drive up the wrong side of the road in Baghdad, there’s some food for thought.

    I’m Mesopotamian and I’m proud!

  • The empty LinkedIn profile results

    By way of an experiment, I removed absolutely everything from my profile on LinkedIn. It made absolutely no difference to the number of people visiting it (20 per week on average) or the number of people clicking through to my personal website.  So at http://gr.linkedin.com/in/alexanderchalkidis you can only see a very brief description of my studies.   All my recommendations have disappeared as LinkedIn considers them “unassigned”.

    The data I have to assess the situation is limited as I refuse to pay for a premium LinkedIn subscription.   A “senior manager” or “someone in the management function” has been looking at my profile.   Quite often I can figure out who it was in relation to what I have been doing or writing.   I may have found LinkedIn extremely useful on several occasions, particularly setting up new business in a new country or region, but it is not worth paying for in order to know more.   I don’t do recruiting that often and even if I did, there are plenty other tools around.   Spending anymore time with LinkedIn other than the once a week I do now would demote it to Facebook timewasting status!   (Or Branchout – the latest of Facebook’s advertised LinkedIn killers…)

    A couple of years back I wrote that “the social media profile is a particularly bad way of making an impression” and now I just put my money where my mouth was!   I suppose for junior positions it may make sense but any headhunter worth his or her salt will find me through my 1500 contacts and what they think about the results I can bring to a business; no fancy or empty resume is of any use at this level.

  • Personal Communications Advisor: better than golf

    Yes, yet another acronym.   I am now officially a PE.C.A.   I coined the term because it is going to become a popular profession.   Not for me personally.   I only got involved and am developing the know how in order to assist corporate clients.   The problem is that the personal branding of their top brass is important.   Really important.   And they have no clue how to properly use their social media.

    Top CEO easily accessible via Facebook?   Not a good idea.   His or her personal information available?   Most high flying execs have no idea just where and how the stuff they post online might be accessible.   So, most of them avoid it all together.   Also not a good idea for many.   (Depends what business you are in and what your overall company communications plan is.)

    So, they need to be online, trendy and creating buzz but aren’t sure what exactly the latest Google, Facebook or LinkedIn policy change means.  In comes the PE.C.A.!   Setting targets, measuring results, checking what the reactions are.   Somebody has to be online to check that a storm isn’t brewing.   The CEO isn’t going to be signing in every five minutes…

    For many up and coming entrepreneurs or other business people social media is a valuable way of getting up in life in terms of connections.   I was once advised to take up golf in order to meet “the right people”.   Unfortunately it is true that many a major business deal has taken place between swings.   (And – in my experience – this nonchalance often leads to catastrophic results.)  But by projecting the right message, the CEO can get the equivelant of golfing contacts online.

    Take your best swing!

  • VISA, Google and racism

    “We would like you to confirm a transaction made yesterday in San Fransisco.”   A few years back I used to get a lot of calls from my bank.   Customers that travelled as much as me and shopped a lot online were obviously an extreme rarity in Greece.   So I had hardly hit an airport shop or finished buying something on the web and my cell phone rang…

    Their logic was algorythmic:  an individual buying a lot of stuff with a credit card in widely different parts of the world is likely to be a fraudster.  But imagine getting a call like this:   “Mr Chalkidis, we know you are an illiterate schmuck so are you sure you bought all those high brow books from Amazon today?”    It would be similar to the British banks that denied me a credit card when I landed to study in England because of my Greek decent.  (Too many Greeks before me had ran enormous bills and then skipped the country!)  

    I fought (and won) the banks then, like the European Union lawyers can fight Google now.   Racism!   Forget complex tech talk about algorythms, focus on human rights.   Google cleverly has tried to make their search contextual.   Based on past searches and other customer data.   ie hazy enough to confuse provability.   So get several brand new computers in different locations and build carricatured profiles on them.   Log what they surf and what they fill in as a profile.   Then do a web search.   Any differences in search results and you can yell “racism!” “sexism!” “nationalism!” or any other “ism” you like.

    It is easy mainly because this language of rights makes no sense really.   It is however extremely succesful in the court.   Especially if you manage to find a difference, no matter how trivial, between different races or ethnic groups; anything that affects an underpriviliged group.   If one personae has declared he or she is crippled in any way and they don’t get as many sports results for example.  

    It may sound ridiculous but imagine actually been cripple and getting a telephone call like this:  “we notice three charges for fancy running shoes on your credit card this week.   Can you please confirm them?”

  • Skype phone dating, Android intelligence and the media player that deletes stuff

    It was some years ago that I saw a media player that finally did what I always wanted:  it let you delete songs as you listened to them!  It was of course for anyone listening to pirated music which is why Apple wasn’t busy copying the feature.   All those songs a friend left for you on a USB stick, or that huge compilation you downloaded; you just listened to it, deleted anything you didn’t like and what was left, like a gold digger of the past, was your nuggets of stuff that you like.

    Now it is 4.40 AM as I write, which happens to be one of the times of day (barely day!) when I get a lot of bright ideas.   It is also the time of day or night when I hope to catch my friend James on Skype.    He currently works in New Zealand, so the logistics of us actually talking are complex.   Especially since he work entails travelling around saving animals and filming in remote locations and neither of us are religiously connected to our cell phones.   What I really want Skype to do for us is to set up an appointment.   A Skype meeting which figures out time differences and pings of an alarm for both of us.  Adding Facebook isn’t a social layer.  Figuring out when I want to be interrupted and by whom is!  

    And the same applies to my mobile phone.   I left it in my brother’s car last weekend.  What bliss to be without it for two days; heck, I didn’t even go out of my way to pick it up!   For anyone thinking up clever things as a business, lack of interruptions dramatically improves the quality of your work. 

    And there it is, the solution.   A social intelligence layer on my contacts application.   No, I don’t want to wade through all my contacts putting them in groups; I want the software to figure it out!   All it needs is some input from me but – here is the sneaky bit – as the call ends.

    “Was that phone call worth the two minutes you spent on it?” it can ask just after I hang up and look at the device before putting it back in my pocket.   A number of options:

    1. Yes, this person is always worth talking to.  (ie VIP in my category system)

    2. Yes, but I would rather we talked during work hours (work related, shouldn’t be calling at this time of day).

    3. Sort of worth talking to.  Could probably do the information transaction better via email.   (Enter fancy ways of not answering this number next time but automatically sending an SMS or email that I am busy.)

    And the list could continue with a number of variations.   The phone would very quickly figure out which contacts go into which category, and I would waste less time and get far less interruptions.   In fact over time the menu when the phone rings could have other options other than “Answer” and “Reject”.

    James got the time difference wrong and called in the middle of the night last week.   I have probably done the same.  Right now my cell phone is switched off.   Guess I will just email him as usual.   Somebody please implement all of these ideas quickly!

  • Corporate psychoanalysis through the company blog

    My friend is a damn good designer.  He has worked for the biggest furniture manufacturer’s and other luminary positions that an industrial designer can achieve including his own lab.   Anything from unique desk systems, to an incredible invention that helps the Athens Hilton fold their tables more efficiently or a sea kayak.  But what exactly is he?

    You could call it a mid life crisis.   Too vague and emotionally laden for me.   In corporate terms he is in danger of becoming a jack of all trades.  In his own mind. He needs to focus on less to achieve more.   I have seen companies do this at fancy retreats, with or without gurus like me to assist them.   They run around an assault course, dive backwards into the teams arms, raft down the river, party like maniacs and somehow reinvigorate their common idea of what the enterprise is all about.

    Blogging is like all that only better.   OK, I am a blogging junky.   It is not so much that I have a compulsive need to blog all the time so much.   It is more that I see blogging as the solution to more and more corporate ails. I threw www.benakis.info at my friend with some sample content.   Like most companies, he wasn’t sure what to do with it.   Then, some time later, the phone calls started:   “How can I change that?”, “do you think we should add this?” and “how would Twitter fit into all of it?”

    I haven’t yet seen his first post.   That, to me, is the “bingo” moment of triumph.   Because it means that he has found his public voice.   He has imagined an audience and spoken to it.   For anyone that is an expert in their own field, the content is easy once you achieve this first step.   An excellent example is www.yalosbranding.com which I am proud to say I didn’t write a single word of.   OK, they are branding specialists, it is their job to know what to project.   But I simply enabled the technology for them to transfer this know-how to a new medium.   I was just watching  and applauding, reassuring  as much as possible when necessary.   Through this process they are rediscovering their relevance to an international market.

    Google, customers and everything else will fall into place.

  • A practical way to sell services

    I realized that the way I chose to help publicize a service is a rather good model to follow in many cases.   www.qualia.gr is a company that does reputation monitoring.   It is a great service, heck, it is the only service that works in Greek really!  (Best voice recognition in this language matched with good interface and intelligence.)

    You can try and buy some Google Adwords around the topic.  So, assuming someone searches for you via Google, they will find your website.   Which may, or may not be the best sales pitch.   That seems a rather small and ineffective net to throw into the ocean of potential customers to me.

    So instead, I am using the technology to do something you couldn’t do without it.   Case in point a blog about media coverage of the local elections in Greece.   More particularly Thessaloníki.   Because if it was too broad a topic you couldn’t explore the depth of the interactions between TV, radio, blogs, social media and the web.   Is this the best way to find customers?  I think so.   I will be most impressed if at the end of the two month project most major and minor league politicians haven’t heard of reputation monitoring.   Better still they will have understood many of it’s elements.   And even better they will be familiar with the particular product and predisposed to assume that the particular company is a market leader.

    We can do another project after this for marketing executives, though many have already figured out that politicians are simply products with unusual parameters most of the time.   Maybe another one for an international audience.   It works with Google too of course because it produces a cluster of knowledge around a particular topic.   No SEO required!   (Though I do optimize the content sometimes or pay attention to cross referencing from other sources to help this along.)

    Good, relevant content, provided for free to a particular audience.  State of the art return to simple principles!

  • Dawkins, not Hawkins: choosing the right communication paradigm

    The recent review of Stephen Hawkins’ latest book by the Economist had in me tears of laughter.  Not “rolling on the floor” type merriment but rather “looking in the sunset – feeling pleased with myself” type of laughter.   “God played no part in the book, which was renowned for being bought by everyone and understood by few.”   Couldn’t have said it better myself!

    I need to clarify something.  I read a lot of popular science books.   Before they came along in such quality and frequency I had to resort to University first year text books to quickly understand a topic I am interested in.  But precisely because I read a lot of them, I know very well what I am looking for.    The problem with the Hawkins’ book is that “whenever the going threatens to get tough, the authors retreat into hand-waving, and move briskly on to the next awe-inspiring notion.”

    Contrast this type of book with the works of Richard Dawkins, even much older ones and there is a lot to learn, useful for communicating even simple business messages:

    1. Passion helps.  Meandering aimlessly around the Universe really lacks the kind of story that Dawkins pulls together in “The Blind Watchmaker” or even “Climbing Mount Improbable”.  If the story tellers has no sense of purpose, it is impossible to hide it though “facts”, “experiments” or “data”.

    2. It is not about the particular subject matter.   Genes are not inherently more interesting than photons or black holes.  In fact I would argue that most of science is exactly the same once you get to the bottom of it, ie simultaneously practical and infinitely philosophical.

    3. Inviting feedback is an art.  The main thesis has to be broken down to a size for everyone to get involved.   It is no coincidence that Richard Dawkins has caused such furore.   He is not the first to remind us that we are descendants of monkeys.   Yet he is No1 on many fanatics’ hit lists!

    4. Open lines of communication.  Dawkins’ books are fun to read even from the opening as he answers Gould or any other critic since the previous edition.  He takes on tough assignments like standing in front of Christians explaining his ideas and he never backs down from a chance to defend his views.  (Search for “Dawkins” + “debate” for an idea of how much he uses this tool.)

    Granted, some topics are better than others.   It is easy to get lost in numbers and theories while star gazing.   The molecular biology paradigm is infinitely superior to physics because it is easier to relate to examples from the animal kingdom and the hard reality of the need for ecological thinking is dawning on the entire planet.   “While perhaps offering great tanning opportunities, any solar system with multiple suns would probably never allow life to develop” (Hawkins’ book excerpt) is funny but surely lacks impact in a world pondering global warming and sunburn.

    Dawkins spells this out beautifully in a book which I believe should be taught to everyone attending University.  Unweaving the Rainbow takes aim at the question of science vs art and demolishes the barriers by following the rules I laid out above.   It is a tear jerker for anyone that loves science.   And while the poets won’t be far behind in line for their hankies, maybe they will all get a good discussion going.

    And that is what I call great communication.

  • Spam, spam, spam in my Domino’s pizza

    Real Beauty in Domino’s pizza campaign in Greece is lost in execution

    When I first started getting emails about a free Domino’s pizza some time ago I tried to ignore them. As they persisted and went well past the major spam level I retorted to complain about it in my blog. Added a twist of something more interesting as I usually do. Got it out of my system and forgot about it. Hey that’s what blogs are for!

    But the emails persisted. I have lost count but it is very close to fifty separate, identical emails from the same two senders with exactly the same email content. This is probably the worse spamming in Greek internet history. And to make it worse I actually signed up for their damn offer to try and make it stop. I ate it and once again hoped the emails would stop. After all, I signed up with the same email they were spamming.

    But like Chinese water torture it dripped on.

    So when Domino’s launched their “real beauty” campaign, I was ready for flame wars! I have infinite admiration for the way they are refreshing the entire concept of pizza marketing. Pizzas without any retouching of any sort. And this doesn’t mean they will just pay for better photographers. http://www.showusyourpizza.com/ encourages you to upload your own pizza pictures. (http://www.thisiswhyyourefat.com/ is much more interesting and “really real” by the way…) Chipotle is also trying this line of “intelligent” advertising by emphasizing the lack of typical images in their ads: “We wanted to have farmers in our ads, but what sells are big burritos, not lessons in farming.”

    Please, you wonderful and creative people at Domino’s pizza marketing, please check up on local execution. Not even a free pizza a day can save you in my mind now! My waistline can’t afford it and every time I see your logo I connect it with spam…

  • Guerilla brand marketing at the World Cup

    The Greek army was a terrible bunch of  civil servants when I served.  The fact that I had experience from the British Territorials only made it worse.  From a well disciplined, goals oriented, clear management situation in South England to a bunch of fat, always smoking group of imbeciles in various camps around Greece.  I quickly made up my mind: if there is ever a war in Greece I will leave for the mountains and do guerrilla resistance.  In fact I even have a Band of Brothers, people with a similar view on it, and we have a secret rendez vous location on a Greek mountain in the event of war.

    Checking out the buzz reports for the first three weeks of the World Cup, to my great pleasure it wasn’t Sony that topped the charts of risers. Sure, in the UK and Germany it was second and third fastest riser. Visa did well in UK and US (third biggest rise). And Emirates did well in Germany (second) and UK (fifth) which makes sense considering their relatively less known brand in these regions.

    But the real winner was Nike. Topping UK and Germany charts with +6.8 and +3 points respectively and a very decent + 0.7 in the difficult US market. And they aren’t even an official sponsor!

    It just goes to show that careful media planning and correct brand positioning can work wonders. The world cup worked for Nike because they had aligned themselves well. If you are about to spend a lot on major sports events you need to carefully think what you want to achieve.

    Nike’s sales in the run up to the World Cup were up a whopping 39% whereas Adidas (official sponsor) came nowhere close in growth. Nike did the things like opening stores in Soweto that double as AIDS testing centers or installing massive TV screens in town. It is an 11Million football shoe and apparel world market and Nike has firmly set it’s sights on the developing market which is growing by 30% year on year. It will demand more than 250 new Nike stores around the planet and renewed efforts online which now accounts for just 5% of their sales. Though small relative to Nike’s overall sales, they are using the football category to penetrate and will sell Converse and their other brands on the back of their success.

    Nike and Adidas battle it out at every World Cup.  In 2006 Adidas had again cornered the official side of things and Nike’s digital strategy fell flat.  A much vaunted collaboration with Google for www.joga.com was a total failure.  By luck a Puma sponsored team won and saved Nike’s sales.   (Though Adidas always has more teams wearing their shirts.)  This time around it was a campaign called “write the future” on facebook which worked though.  Great content, great execution.    And TV ads to support it.  So the World Cup related buzz went to Nike.  30 vs 14% according to Nielsen.  Nike is embracing full interactivity in all their activities, encouraging participation at every level.   It’s latest shoe comes with a unique code which unlocks training programs which you can even download with an app to your phone.

    The buzz measurement wars will continue.  It is a pretty hazy metric still.   My mountain guerillas may be the only Greek army standing in the event of war and sometimes it just takes well designed orange football shoes to sell…