Tuned In: Uncover the extraordinary opportunities that lead to business breakthroughs.

How Stardoll became bigger than Barbie on the Web in just three short years

Barbie, the bestselling fashion doll in the world, was launched in 1959. Mattel, the doll's maker, says that a billion Barbies have been sold and three new Barbies are sold every single second. Barbie has always kept up with the times, her outfits, hobbies, and professions reflecting the society that she lives in and the interests of the elementary and middle school girls who play with her. In recent years, Barbie has even gone digital with a site "to engage, enchant, and empower girls. We inspire girls to be creative and explore their individual interests through a variety of exciting activities, from online art to interactive games." As of October 2007, the Barbie Web site is ranked as number 1,100 in the world based on traffic.

So how is it that Stardoll, a Web-based version of dress-up dolls launched only three years earlier, could have 6 million unique visitors per month and be ranked as the number 386 in the world based on traffic and have more than double the daily pageviews of Barbie.com? How could Stardoll become so much more popular than Barbie on the Web?

Simple, Stardoll is tuned in to "tweens" (girls from 8 to 12 years old). Stardoll members access the site in their choice of 16 languages (including English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, and Chinese), set up a profile to house their virtual doll and clothing collection and become online friends with others. The people behind the scenes at Stardoll understand their market and the breakthrough experience they created resonates with girls all over the world. Girls love that they can dress up virtual stars such as Ashley Tisdale, Stacy Ferguson, Hilary Duff, the Olsen twins, Rihanna, and Hayden Panettiere. Girls eagerly participate in live chat with idols like Avril Lavigne. And members maintain their very own blogs and photo galleries so they can share with their friends.

Editorial note: Dressing up the celebrity dolls is weirdly addictive. I dare you to try dressing Ashley Olsen.

Stardoll is tuned in mishmash of what girls love, particularly fashion. Every celebrity doll has a wardrobe full of unique clothes and outfits and new ones are released each week. The fashion industry has taken note, with Donna Karan's DKNY label and Sephora, both owned by French luxury goods conglomerate LVMH, offering virtual clothing and makeup to Stardoll members in specially designated online stores that are part of the Stardoll site. Stardoll originally started out as the hobby of the Scandinavian-born "Liisa"and is now backed by venture capital firms Sequoia Capital and Index Ventures.

Top two reasons why new products and services fail

Why do most new products fail?

1. Organizations base new products on what their current customers request rather than an understanding of the unresolved problems that people will pay money to solve.

2. Organizations try to create a need in the market through expensive advertising or relying on an army of salespeople instead of building products that the market wants to buy. 

The most successful organizations tune in to their markets.

In this blog and in our upcoming book, we’ll introduce you to dozens of tuned in organizations that develop products and services that resonate with buyers and help them to achieve success.

People who run tuned in companies largely ignore the competition. Instead they focus their energies on the problems that buyers are willing to spend money to solve. By first understanding market problems, then building the products people want to buy, and communicating to buyers that we solve their problems, everything else falls into place.

Sounds easy.

Actually, it is...

…if you’re tuned in.

Does anybody really understand Gen Y's?

My friend Mark Roberts who runs a business called Out of the Box Consulting was explaining something to me the other day that really resonated. It came about when I was sharing some of my frustrations at getting me teenage son and daughter to act on things we agreed to. In what might end up being the understatement of the century, he said:

"Phil, you need to understand they think different than you".

Duh. Of course they do. But Mark went further to explain that its not a matter of defiance but that todays Gen Y's process and act on information differently than we did as a kid. He explained some recent studies he's done that correlated how different age groups react to and process information.

Mark connected me with a simple example.

When your Dad told you to "go take out the garbage" what did you do?  Well, I got up from chair and took the garbage out to the street right then I responded.  Mark said that makes perfect sense for our generation because we were trained to process information directly from command (or hopefully request) to action in a straight line so we could both cross this off our list. 

Today's Gen Y's have a much different filter. They add in the request to all of the other things that are in their 'inbox' and dynamically assign both a sequence and time for execution. So, "take out the garbage" might mean no action immediately or even recognition because it went through a filter that says "OK, I'll slot that one right after I get back from my workout at 2:30". 

Can't say that knowing this made communication now a comfortable embrace of generations but I do have to admit that it got me to thinking a whole lot more about how I communicate and what followup questions make sense ... for instance "and exactly when are you going to do that?" is now a standard part of the process. I also now more fully understand the fascination of texting while driving although that's a subject for a later more critical post. 

So, why is this important?

Well, I'm wondering how many times do we tune out like this when we're marketing our products. We think we're communicating value or even creating an environment for immediate action to buy when in reality the message is ignored because it went into the "I'll get to it later filter".  This is particularly true of the Gen Y's which now dominate many buying categories. 

Which is why I'm particularly amazed at the work that Mark Batterson has done as the lead pastor at the National Community Churh in Washington DC www.theaterchurch.com. Mark's ministry targets the Gen Y audience and is the fastest growing church in terms of members in the area. Mark is an active blogger with www.evotional.com, he has MySpace and Facebook profiles, hosts lots of online webinars and podcasts, posts daily "spirit fuel" for download and keeps his messages fresh and entertaining.  His presentation focuses on authenticity, originality and creativity. And, it's available 24X7 to be processed dynamically. Perfect for his target. 

Mark solved the Gen Y communication gap by understanding this particularly buyer persona exquisitely well. And his ministry is now one of the leading case studies for how to connect in todays cluttered environment. 

Someone always figures out how to build real and deep connections with a target set of buyers who have a real unresolved problem. What a wonderful experience the theater church is. Coming to a convenient location in a movie theater near you and being entertained for an hour. Maybe I can learn something from this with my kids. I'm sure we all can in our businesses.   

Tuned Out: US Airways flight attendants paid $50 commissions to interrupt us in flight

Companies that you already do business with that deem it important to interrupt you with unwelcome marketing messages that you cannot stop and that annoy you are tuned out.

Many of the companies I deal with online send email marketing messages. You know the sort: "Special sale on XYZ – get free shipping today only." This is OK with me because I can either opt out of the list or take less than a second to delete the individual email. And many companies put me on print mail lists—again I'm OK with that because I just toss the mail into the recycling bin.

However, recently I have noticed more and more organizations using video (which is OK by itself because it can be ignored) with loud associated audio messages that are inescapable (which is definitely not OK because it cannot be ignored). This is a tuned out approach to marketing and communications.

US Airways has taken this tuned out behavior to a new level by paying flight attendants a $50 commission for each successful sale of its Signature Visa Card. This availability of commissions means loud interruptions during flight as the flight attendants try to drum up more business.

More here.

CARE: Tuned In to fighting global poverty

We're absolutely convinced that being tuned in is important for every kind of organization. But for a nonprofit charity, being tuned in takes on particular importance. Unlike a company that sells a product in exchange for money, the charitable contribution to a nonprofit is an intangible transaction. This subtle difference requires a need for the nonprofit to completely understand what problems it is solving for the buyer and this process takes significant effort to get right.

The buyer (in our definition, the person who is donating money) receives nothing tangible in exchange for money. For many buyers of charity services (people who donate money) motivations to donate (we call them market problems) may be very personal, requiring the marketer at the nonprofit to dig deep to understand what problems the buyer is solving through the charity donation. The tuned in process is tough because the true benefits to the buyer may be much more difficult to articulate.

Consider CARE, a leading humanitarian organization fighting global poverty. Hundreds of thousands of individuals and dozens of U.S. corporations, foundations and other organizations support CARE USA's program expenses, which totaled more than $589 million in 2006. Poor women around the world are at the heart of CARE's community-based efforts to improve basic education, prevent the spread of HIV, increase access to clean water and sanitation, expand economic opportunity and protect natural resources. CARE also delivers emergency aid to survivors of war and natural disasters, and helps people rebuild their lives.

CARE attracts donors who are astute about international affairs. Their buyers are a group of highly educated people and they want to make a difference in the lives of people less fortunate than themselves. Marketers at CARE understand that individual donors have interests in certain areas that CARE serves, such as geographical regions of the world (such as Africa) or particular issues (providing help in the case of natural disasters perhaps).

Because CARE is tuned in to buyer problems (essentially the motivations of people to donate money), the company's Web site focuses on education of site visitors into the causes of global poverty. The site surfaces information based on people’s interests in learning about issues, geographies, volunteer opportunities, legislative action, and campaigns. People can subscribe to content that interests them.

Because CARE knows that their buyers are passionate about helping and many want to spread the word, the organization offers a virtual volunteer program with CARE Corps Online. People create their own personal space on the Web to let others know about CARE's lifesaving work and in the process generate interest and support for CARE from friends, family and others in their virtual network.

By being tuned in to their market, the organization garners tremendous financial support, providing the resources to further the CARE mission is to change the world by eliminating global poverty.