Posted by Mike Harris on Thu, Sep 02, 2010 @ 02:13 PM
When it comes to creating and dominating new markets you can learn a lot from how Apple took on Sony...and won. Here's the Apple story, told from a strategic marketing viewpoint.
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Posted by Mike Harris on Mon, Jul 05, 2010 @ 09:49 AM
A Declaration of the United States of America
"When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
— Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
— John Hancock,
Signed by: New Hampshire:Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton, Massachusetts:John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry, Rhode Island:Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery, Connecticut:Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott, New York:William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris, New Jersey:Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark, Pennsylvania:Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross, Delaware:Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean, Maryland:Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Virginia:George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton, North Carolina:William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn, South Carolina:Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton, Georgia:Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
Posted by Mike Harris on Mon, Jun 28, 2010 @ 11:31 AM
July 4, 1776
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America"
Posted by Mike Harris on Wed, Jun 23, 2010 @ 01:01 PM
By Kendell Lang
Here's a quick Twitter lead generation strategy. You're going to learn how to find targeted prospects using Twitter's real time search. And you're going to learn how to get your company's great offer in front of these prospects!
Basic blueprint
These five steps are the blueprint, which is followed by more detail.
- Find or start with a cool offer related to what you're selling.
- Find twitter conversations around the problem/issue, with search queries.
- Make sure to Bit.Ly the link to your landing page URL for tracking and shortening.
- Tweet the solution (your cool offer) from your Twitter account with the attitude to help...not promote or sell.
- Rinse, repeat...automate!!!
By the way, this method can be done with a completely new account. It's not necessary to have followers.
Details & step-by-step example
Let's say you're introducing a new service that helps companies use social media to market products or services.
First, to understand search volume for these keywords, go to Google Trends and search phrases like: "social media marketing" or "social media coordinator" or "social media consultant" or "facebook intern" or "social media intern" or whatever you believe to be high-value keywords. Also look in current news stories for references to social media, etc.
You can also go into Google adwords to understand the same kind of dynamics about the volume and counts for these keywords. This will help you focus on the high-value keywords. Google the keyword phrase and then go to the Wonder Wheel...which is pretty cool if you've not seen that before. This is a tool to show users what search terms Google relates to the keyword.
Next, go to Twitter and search again for "social 
media marketing" or "social media coordinator" or "social media consultant" or "facebook intern" or "social media intern" or whatever your high-value keywords were.
Important! You need to actually use http://search.twitter.com as a manual URL entry for doing the search on Twitter. Don't just go to Twitter.com. In order to remove all the marketers from the conversation, add the minus http code "-http" at the end of your search string. So, your search string will look something like "social media marketing -http". This will get rid of all the tweets in the search results which have websites associated with them (signs of marketers promoting a website). As you see the results, you can further refine by specifically excluding names, numbers or anything irrelevant to your targeted search.
You can also add a question mark (?) to your search query, which will further refine the results to people who are actually asking questions.
The key to this is building a really tight search query that pulls down just the targeted tweeters you're after. You're looking for real-life questions such as:
- "how are you managing all your social networks?"
- "what are you doing about hiring a social media coordinator?"
Make sure you're a part of a conversation with an @ reply and not participating as a promoter! Once you've narrowed this down...now you can post replies with suggestions that you can help answer their questions by pointing them to your bitlink.
When you come up for air let us know how this works for you!!!
Posted by Mike Harris on Tue, Jun 01, 2010 @ 01:19 PM
When I was a kid growing up in Knoxville, TN, there was a gruff, grizzled millionaire grocer named Cas Walker. A former coal miner and pulp mill worker he opened his first Cas Walker's Cash Store at age 22 with $850 he'd saved doing hard labor.
Born in 1902 into a scrappy dirt farming family, Caswell Orton Walker was one of 12 children. Calling himself "the youngest, the meanest and the prettiest" of the boys, Walker was the original "brand me". Nobody knew how to draw a crowd like this man. Half P.T. Barnum, this hillbilly marketer was a master at engaging and converting audiences, which he accomplished by breaking just about every single rule of southern propriety that existed at the time.
Walker was always his own 'interim marketing VP'. He understood the power of television before even JFK and he knew public relations better than anyone on Madison Avenue. Branding himself "the old coon hunter" he made himself a television star. He made himself mayor of Knoxville. He launched the career of 12-year-old Dolly Parton. He hired and fired the teenage Everly Brothers. He staged a publicity stunt that landed him on the cover of Life Magazine. He buried a man alive in the parking lot of one of his stores. He created a salve that would cure skin cancer (he said). He created store brands at a time when they were unheard of. He was one of the first cause marketers.
One day in the early 70s some "gypsies" invaded one of his stores and wreaked havoc. Check out Walker's response in this advertorial:
Is it any wonder Walker's customers loved him?
Early in his career Walker positioned himself and his stores as friends of the working man's family. He took every opportunity he could to poke fun at the country club set in Knoxville so he could entertain his shoppers. He was highly outspoken about his political views, which favored working people. He inserted himself into the local political scene and fought for the working class.
To promote his chain of stores Cas established a local variety TV show called The Farm And Home Show. It was on this show that a 12-year-old Dolly Parton, from way back up in the hills, made her television debut. Walker also gave the Everly Brothers, students at Knoxville's West High School, a place on his show and once famously booted them off mid-performance for too much 'heavy metal'.
When Cas was a member of the Knoxville City Council, he was photographed punching a fellow council member during a city council meeting. The photo landed on the cover of Life Magazine and garnered Knoxville some bad publicity. But you can bet Walker's customers were howling with laughter all the way to the grocery store. Late in life Walker admitted the whole thing was staged for publicity.
A generous community benefactor, Walker was also a curious study in southern racism for his time. Walker provided assistance for many in Knoxville that needed it but thought nothing of advertising watermelons on billboards and TV showing young black kids eating watermelon while proclaiming "mmmm, mmmm, thumpin' good" long after the civil rights movement was under way. To Knoxville's credit, Walker took a lot of heat for these ads and eventually did away with them.
Legend, urban folk hero, original MAD MAN...Cas Walker died in 1998 at the age of 96. Even in death Walker remains a revered pitchman and is alive and well on the internet, which he would have loved. Ad agencies (in San Diego and all over the world) would do well to study Walker's tactics and, somewhat less crudely, deploy them for their clients' benefit.
Walker's genius was that his positioning was authentic, no matter whose feathers it ruffled. He was a tireless promoter who absolutely, positively knew his products and customers. He embraced new technology and to his and his customers' benefit. A grade school dropout, he tried all manner of different tactics and figured out what worked.
For today's marketing agencies, even in San Diego or Los Angeles, Walker's "to hell with the box" positioning and tactics still carry valuable lessons in how to engage an audience...and convert them.
Except for the watermelons of course.
Posted by Mike Harris on Thu, Apr 29, 2010 @ 05:19 PM
Yikes...I may have touched a nerve with some folks in the advertising and marketing community. Harry L. posted the following comment:
Mike,
Explain to me the justification of "Creativity is practically free and CEOs/CMOs are telling us that they know it" and where I can find this "soaring" supply of free big ideas . . . I look around the marketing world and find big ideas to be in shorter supply than ever, especially big brand ideas that drive demand, interest and identification. From my POV there are fewer and fewer people in this business who are experienced enough and capable of generating big brand ideas . . . and the value/cost of those ideas is higher than ever. Looking for free ideas can't be the way to create and drive a brand forward. I'd love to hear your POV on where to find free creative that does what "just do it," "think different," "got milk," "let's motor," "drivers wanted," etc. did for those brands.
Hi Harry,
Thanks for your comment and interest in the subject. My business and marketing thinking is generally shaped by my observation of trends and what's driving those trends. A trend that's gaining ground here in California is pay-for-performance agencies. I'm aware of a new PR firm in San Diego that's raising some eyebrows, and getting clients, with that model.
I met with the founder and I believe his firm is the real deal. Could pay-for-performance advertising and marketing be the next big step? I'm hearing a decent amount of buzz about it and I'm now offering many marketing services, including PR, that are billed by the project...not by the hour. Once I can build a track record of performance I can use predictive modeling to allow me to offer PFP marketing services...and I will.
I appreciate the famous tag lines you quoted. I believe it's wonderful when an agency can deliver such exceptional value. My observation is simply that, today, agencies aren't the only choice for creativity and newer, less expensive means of generating creativity have emerged. Some of the examples are quite old, so they're not part of a current trend. Most of them were created for huge companies that could afford large agencies and their overhead.
Google's non-marketing is marvelous proof of how to do it without an agency. Granted, their entire business model is built upon a foundation of search marketing yet somehow they managed to pull off a huge business success by not using conventional thinking and marketing...like their competitors did. Google's advertising strategy has always been mostly PR and advertising on their own site. None of that, to my recollection, has been driven by a big idea. They simply deliver incredibly innovative value and it catches on. Today Google is generally ranked among the top brands of the world, depending on whose survey you want to quote.
Regarding the declining cost of creativity, consider the following:
1) Agency revenues are in a freefall. If clients believe big ideas from agencies are valuable, and becoming more scarce, wouldn't agency revenues be going up?
2) New and better marketing technologies are emerging rapidly. If there wasn't a demand for do-it-yourself branding tools like Spigit, why would investors back such a company?
3) The mobile marketing workforce has never been more talented or more plentiful. Over supply means a downward push on pricing.
Where can we find a soaring supply of free ideas? I encourage clients to look within their own companies. I've always found tremendous advertising ideas by talking with folks in sales, purchasing, R&D, operations, finance and other corporate functions. Until recently, it just wasn't generally accepted that good ideas originated anywhere but the agency...but search and social media have turned that cart completely over while paving the way for nifty tools like Spigit. By the way, that's what Spigit helps with...collecting and sorting all those great ideas generated inside the company.
Of course the uber source for free branding and advertising ideas is the internet itself. The creativity one gleans from search is only limited by the creativity of the searcher. And it costs nary a dime.
Anyways, hope this sheds some light on why I believe the cost of high quality advertising, branding and marketing is headed downward.
Mike Harris, San Diego
Posted by Mike Harris on Mon, Apr 26, 2010 @ 10:31 AM
There's a great article in Advertising Age today that talks about a declining respect for advertising agencies by their clients. Following the article, the comments from agency executives show pretty clearly that many, many marketers and agencies are simply dinosaurs. CLICK HERE TO READ ARTICLE
For example look at this advice for healing the client/agency relationship: "For marketers this means getting closer to the sales process, becoming partners in the lead generation and win conversion process."
Huh??? Where has this guy been the last 5 years? We should get familiar with lead gen discussions? Marketing is all about lead gen and has been for years. Is it possible that many agencies haven't been willing to get their hands dirty with sales and thus lost the respect of clients?
My marketing career includes working on the client side with agencies that were very hip in their time, such as Fallon McElligott. The agency business prior to Web 2.0 was heavily dependent on convincing the client that the agency had exclusivity on the creativity and big ideas that kept the client's image innovative.
Today, this model is one for the history books. The cost of high quality marketing is declining rapidly due to the convergence of some amazing new marketing technologies with a highly talented mobile workforce. Creativity is practically free and CEOs/CMOs are telling us that they know it. Clients are recognizing this faster than some agencies...many of whom appear to be in denial. Perhaps this is a reason for the client's procurement to step in...they know more about the advertising industry's economics than many of the agencies.
When an economic sea-change descends on an industry, a successful response includes a heckuva lot more than adjusting the product line or adding a specialist in a vertical marketing function such as social networking. When prices decline, the successful competitor adjusts the entire business model to recognize and profit from the change. It would seem that a critical adjustment for agencies is to understand that the supply of "big ideas" is soaring and that clients may no longer be willing to pay tens or hundreds of thousands dollars for "Eureka!". Further, perhaps those clients have decided to hire only those marketing agencies who are willing to get down in the dirt with them and contribute hugely to the sales and conversion processes.
My guess is that agencies will start to give away the creativity in order to sell the execution and measurement. To make this model profitable agencies will adjust overhead sharply downward and focus every ounce of executive brainpower on creating profits for the agency by creating new and better value for the client, focused on what the client is telling you it needs...better recognition and use of marketing technology and lower marketing labor costs.
When agencies stop peddling dinosaurs that's when we'll see the client/agency relationship improve.
Posted by Mike Harris on Tue, Apr 13, 2010 @ 11:24 AM
Once again we're seeing a real time case study of marketing strategy unfolding.
Could those post-Masters interviews with Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods possibly have been more polar opposite? Phil was the epitome of what every man wants to be and what every woman wants in a man. Strong, courageous, devoted to wife and kids, top of his game. Tiger was the epitome of a harsh, perfectionist taskmaster who simply can't stop beating himself up even after placing a highly respectable 4th place in a major tournament after being out of play for more than five months.
A happy Phil Mickelson with his 3rd green jacket
I can't begin to imagine how many mothers, wives, girlfriends, aunts, grandmothers and other women will be buying Mickelson-endorsed products as gifts for upcoming graduations and Fathers Day. Those photos of Phil with his wife and kids after winning the 2010 Masters Tournament are forever positioned in millions and millions of minds around the world and will drive huge product sales for his endorsees. If I were Nike's head marketing honcho I'd be crawling up Phil's driveway in the Ranch on my hands and knees towing a Brink's truck behind me.
But what about Tiger's marketing power? Did it suffer from the verbal pummeling he gave himself on-camera after the tournament? Heck no. Tiger
is still the world's uber golfer, regardless of a painfully emerging image of a guy who's just way too hard on himself...perhaps pathologically so. Regardless, the world has always clamored after top athletes in every sport and will continue to do so in Tiger's case. He did a respectable job of owning up to his transgressions. He did a respectable job of getting himself back in the game. He's clearly signaled that he's back. He's doing the right things.
Nike's marketing strategy clearly, undoubtedly must be to endorse both of these magnificent golfers. Phil will appeal to one crowd, Tiger will appeal to another crowd. I can't remember when I've seen two overlapping positionings that have the combined potential for covering such a gigantic swath of a vertical market.
Let's see which company pulls off a truly powerful marketing strategy regards Phil and Tiger.
Posted by Mike Harris on Fri, Apr 09, 2010 @ 01:54 PM
TO GO STRAIGHT TO NEWSLETTER CLICK HERE.
Marketing Costs Dropping Like A Stone
The best kept secret in marketing today (you won't hear this from your agencies!) is the remarkable downward trend in marketing costs. Rapid improvements in marketing technology combined with an incredibly talented mobile marketing workforce are driving down marketing labor costs at a steady rate. Many marketing departments could be shaving a third or more off current costs with key marketing technologies, especially when combined with a huge and talented mobile workforce. READ MORE
The recipe for peking duck calls for a lot of labor, which makes it expensive. In marketing the labor component is shrinking.
TO GO STRAIGHT TO NEWSLETTER CLICK HERE.
Social Media Marketing Gets Easier
Media spend continues to shift away from traditional mass media toward digital targeted media, especially social media. It's all about content now and digital delivers flexibility and innovation like no other medium. READ MORE
Social media marketing is making us all bug-eyed
TO GO STRAIGHT TO NEWSLETTER CLICK HERE.
Posted by Mike Harris on Tue, Mar 30, 2010 @ 11:57 AM
Well, this year has certainly been full of surprises so far. One of the biggest just happened today...Apple's market cap of $214.75 billion is now larger than Walmart's market cap of $212.9 billion. Of course that could change any moment but what does that tell us about trends in investing, which reflect trends in business?
It tells us that investors are putting big money into innovation. In 2010 Apple (NASDAQ: APPL) is arguably the world's most respected company for consumer products innovation. Walmart (NYSE: WMT), already competing in a vastly over-retailed world, simply can't innovate any more and there's not a whole lot of room left for footprint expansion except overseas or through acquistions, which are hugely expensive and risky. Sam Walton's idea of conquering the world by competing largely on distribution and supply chain efficiencies was genius in its time. However that particular play is over which means Walmart, like any behemoth, is vulnerable on one or more fronts if anyone decides to take a swing at it.
Apple, on the other hand, just keeps on hittin' the long ball. After all, who should have invented the iPod...really? Why, Sony of course. Sony owned, by far, the best reputation for consumer products innovation. It had the product, marketing and engineering talent. It already owned a vast amount of content (Sony Entertainment). It had global distribution and a huge brand name. Without a doubt there were countless innovators within Sony's own walls that dreamed up the 'iPod' . But someone, probably high up in the company, was too distracted to pay attention to consumer electronics trends and what was driving those trends.
Enter Apple, who ten years ago was having its own identity problems and was hardly a darling of Wall Street. Just the opposite. Although it didn't have the marketing or distribution clout of Sony, Apple regained its unique culture of innovation, personally nurtured by the CEO...which meant middle and upper management couldn't stifle innovation for any of the hundreds of reasons, most based on fear, why creativity gets stifled in larger companies.
The result? An innovative, vertically focused consumer electronics business model that's not dragging a freight train of unprofitable products behind it (yet). Sony can't uncouple it's innovation engine from its freight train of legacy product categories because it would lose distribution, which would cause its hugely volume dependent business model to collapse. Apple, which owns its own distribution plus the software platforms for its products, can focus on true consumer product innovation because it doesn't have to deliver incremental innovations to low- or no-profit products like TVs, DVD players, stereos, etc. Nor does it have to negotiate treaties with operating system providers like Microsoft. In addition, Apple doesn't have to focus on price wars between Walmart and Best Buy, and the many other distractions endured by Sony, Philips, LG and other major consumer electronics brands.
Apple is free to use its innovation resources to address people and market trends which encourages a juggernaut of continuously innovative new products. Today we have the iMac, iPod, iPhone, iTouch and iPad. Tomorrow we'll have products and services like iTV, iMed and probably lots of others if Apple doesn't lose its focus and become "a big company".
Investors see that and are betting their money, and their clients' money, on innovation.