I always laugh at people who think branding doesn’t make a person feel a specific way for a company or product. Take this very funny viral video made to discredit Apple’s iPhone and brand. WARNING, this contains adult, vulgar language: Click here to view the embedded video. Let’s just say all these things are true and Evo’s phone makes the iPhone look outdated and behind technology, how does one explain the sales, loyalty, dedication and overall brand committment to Apple? One answer. Branding.
Branding
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Most Topular Stories
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The Power Of Branding
The BIG Kahuna17 Jul 2010 | 8:02 am -
The opposite of fear
Tom Asacker on unlocking hearts and minds31 Jul 2010 | 11:51 amWhat is the opposite of fear? It's not a simple question. The first word that comes to mind is courage. But courage is not the absence of fear, like darkness is the absence of light. Rather, courage is the spirit... -
Soup, Nuts and Cadillacs
.think - A Brainstorm blog19 Jul 2010 | 7:47 amCadillac ran into a period where the product (and therefore, the brand) did not live up to the name In a meeting a few years ago, I used the cliché “from soup to nuts” to describe the comprehensive nature of a particular project. I was met with a blank stare from a designer roughly 15 years my junior. “What does that mean?” he asked. “You know, soup to nuts,” I said, as if that somehow explained it. I really had no idea of the origin of the saying, I just knew what it meant, sort of. “The Cadillac of…” It got me thinking about the use of various sayings and… -
Six of the Best: Crazes edition
Brand Mix31 Jul 2010 | 8:45 amAnother week flashes by. Continued posting sparcity. (Hey! I can make up words too.) Still getting my act together just enough for SOTB for a crazy, crazed, crazes edition. Here goes:1) Facebook Questions: a friend-powered Google? Thought GadgetsThis week's Facebook innovation is its Questions tab, a new bulb button showed up on my FB in the middle of the week. Now you can ask any question on FB and get answers from your online friends or any of the 500 million members. Useful for you and, as Ben points out, great for advertisers who can serve up ads related to your question. As usual, this… -
I’m currently on maternity leave
Ruth Mortimer - Brand & Business Blog - Marketing Week20 Jul 2010 | 7:53 amI’m currently off on maternity leave. While I’m still probably out there being fascinated by the latest business and branding stories, I’ve got my hands full at the moment. So you’ll have to forgive me for neglecting this blog for a short period. I plan to be back in Spring 2011 but until then, please visit my fellow Marketing Week bloggers: Stuart Smith – The Politics of Marketing Mark Ritson at Branding Strategy Insider …and of course, you can keep up with all the latest news and in-depth brand and business analysis at MarketingWeek.co.uk. For anything…
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The BIG Kahuna
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The Power Of Branding
17 Jul 2010 | 8:02 amI always laugh at people who think branding doesn’t make a person feel a specific way for a company or product. Take this very funny viral video made to discredit Apple’s iPhone and brand. WARNING, this contains adult, vulgar language: Click here to view the embedded video. Let’s just say all these things are true and Evo’s phone makes the iPhone look outdated and behind technology, how does one explain the sales, loyalty, dedication and overall brand committment to Apple? One answer. Branding. -
Fun With Social Media
24 May 2010 | 9:47 amYou can do all kinds of great stuff with WordPress. You don’t have to stick to standard templates. Check out our latest project for the Parrot Club, a Gaming Entertainment Center in St. John US Virgin Islands. We also tied their Facebook and twitter accounts to their blog for automatic updates as well as using NetworkedBlogs. -
Seattle’s Best Sells Out?
20 May 2010 | 1:16 pmSo you’re Seattle’s Best and Starbuck’s wants you to re-brand. Why re-brand? Well because being everything to everyone is much better than targeting a market and differentiating…right? Now that Seattle’s Best is expanding into Subway’s and Burger King’s it’s time to change a good brand to accommodate all those lower end types that visit those restaurants…that’s the thinking right? Check out the email I got from Mandi Armond at Cohn & Wolfe, a subsidary of WPP: Hi Scott , Seattle’s Best Coffee, sub-brand of Starbucks,… -
Ellen DeGeneres And Some Other People
3 Apr 2010 | 10:07 amThat’s how Dish Network described the TV show American Idol the other day. Interesting brand switch away from the main judges and host: Simon Randy Kara and Ryan -
The Man Behind The Curtain
25 Mar 2010 | 11:32 amI bought a very expensive outdoor grilling set including frig, ice maker, bar etc. from Lynx. Lynx is known to be a “high-end” brand. The name means something when it says Lynx. It means expensive, quality and sophistication. So when my ice maker broke down I called a repair company. He called Lynx to repair it and Lynx referred him to Hoshizaki America as it turns out they are the manufacturer of this product. Lynx just stamps their logo on it. Here’s the Lynx and Hoshizaki models (they are the exact same size): The Lynx model retails for $3,100 while the Hoshizaki model…
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Tom Asacker on unlocking hearts and minds
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The opposite of fear
31 Jul 2010 | 11:51 amWhat is the opposite of fear? It's not a simple question. The first word that comes to mind is courage. But courage is not the absence of fear, like darkness is the absence of light. Rather, courage is the spirit... -
Go electric!
26 Jul 2010 | 3:56 pmOn this day in 1965, Bob Dylan went electric at the Newport Folk Festival. The folk music establishment was not impressed. In fact, they were down right angry. They viewed Dylan's metamorphosis as a put-down, a betrayal. The establishment despises... -
The telos of business
19 Jul 2010 | 2:32 pmAristotle believed that everything has a telos, which roughly means an aim or intention. For example, an acorn’s telos is an oak tree. He also believed that human life has a telos, and that aim is happiness. It stands to... -
Sail On, Sailor
13 Jul 2010 | 11:03 amIs the storm over? Is the economy on the verge of a long-awaited recovery? No one knows for sure. And when it does come, it's unlikely to bring the go-go days of recent memory. The best course of action is... -
How to Give a Great Speech
8 Jul 2010 | 3:32 pmI get a kick out of the counsel that flows from the web. I find myself frequently smiling and shaking my head as I read expert rules for this or that, which inevitably conflict with other experts’ sage advice. One...
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.think - A Brainstorm blog
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Soup, Nuts and Cadillacs
19 Jul 2010 | 7:47 amCadillac ran into a period where the product (and therefore, the brand) did not live up to the name In a meeting a few years ago, I used the cliché “from soup to nuts” to describe the comprehensive nature of a particular project. I was met with a blank stare from a designer roughly 15 years my junior. “What does that mean?” he asked. “You know, soup to nuts,” I said, as if that somehow explained it. I really had no idea of the origin of the saying, I just knew what it meant, sort of. “The Cadillac of…” It got me thinking about the use of various sayings and… -
Top 20 Things That May Have Killed Ed (me) in the Boundary Waters
16 Jun 2010 | 8:22 amRefused to pay $7000 for seaplane rescue Our latest list of inane musings from the Brainstorm office white board: Top 20 Things That May Have Killed Ed in the Boundary Waters Minnesotan’s unfailing politeness The guys from Deliverance Massive oil spill Refused to pay $7000 for seaplane rescue Minnesota wading coyotes A run-in with Locke (smoke monster) Inability to update his Twitter stream Eaten by a Northern Pike Not knowing what’s going on at Brainstorm Ran over by a deer Elk Bear Moose Wild dawgs Lyme disease A Flash sideways Malaria Snake bite He’s not dead, just lost… -
Brand Remodeling: Embrace the Unexpected
9 Jun 2010 | 10:31 pmAs important as a project road map is – things can, will, and should change. The Struggle I’ve been a homeowner for nearly 5 years now. I’ve done every massive remodeling project that one can do - kitchen, bath, landscaping - you name it. And, when I say I’ve “done it” that doesn’t mean that I bossed around some contractors (unless my husband counts). I spent hours on end in my “messy” clothes, painting, tiling, planting, laying stone, etc. Each project was vastly different, from its functionality to the materials used. But each project had these things in… -
iPad Series Part 1: Advancing The Mobile User Experience
7 Jun 2010 | 10:38 pmIt’s about bringing content into the environment you’re already in, not creating an environment conducive to your content. Introducing the iPad The iPad has been highly successful since its recent introduction, selling 2 million units within 60 days. The iPad benefits from a growing base of Apple customers, software developers, partners and media relations, and builds on the functionality of Apple’s previous mobile devices, leading to their adage, “You already know how to use it.” It looks and feels like the iPhone with a larger screen. Apple has leveraged our… -
5 Takeaways from Starbucks’ New Facebook eCommerce App
3 May 2010 | 12:40 pmLocation, Location, Facebook. Starbucks Facebook Coffeehouse Starbucks introduced a Starbucks Card tab on its Facebook fan page today. Inside the tab is a new eCommerce destination, an embedded app that allows customers to manage card registration, check their balance and rewards, reload cards and edit profile information without ever leaving the Facebook environment—a virtual Starbucks coffee shop in a virtual Facebook strip mall. 1. Establish Differentiation Starbucks’ new Facebook app mimics the basic functionality found on the Starbucks’ mobile app and their website.
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Brand Mix
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Six of the Best: Crazes edition
31 Jul 2010 | 8:45 amAnother week flashes by. Continued posting sparcity. (Hey! I can make up words too.) Still getting my act together just enough for SOTB for a crazy, crazed, crazes edition. Here goes:1) Facebook Questions: a friend-powered Google? Thought GadgetsThis week's Facebook innovation is its Questions tab, a new bulb button showed up on my FB in the middle of the week. Now you can ask any question on FB and get answers from your online friends or any of the 500 million members. Useful for you and, as Ben points out, great for advertisers who can serve up ads related to your question. As usual, this… -
Six of the Best: Cold and tempting edition
24 Jul 2010 | 7:49 amSummer has finally arrived in the city of San Francisco. That means fog, wind and 55 degree temperatures, much to the delight of those who sell sweatshirts to unprepared tourists and those living in Marin who need it to be cold in the city so it can perfect over the bridge. But there's been one or two glum faces and Twitter (t)whines this week from my city-living friends:1) Pulse of the Nation: U.S. Mood Throughout the Day inferred from Twitter: amisloveAll those tweets. All that data. What possibilities. For example, how about take 300 million U.S. tweets and use them to gauge the country's… -
Six of the Best: Behavioral Economics edition
17 Jul 2010 | 8:30 amPhoto: Vacancy by Brent on FlickrBack in the last century when I was at university, I decided that, rather than study just Economics, I would take a joint degree in Economics and Psychology. That allowed me to avoid the Econometric classes which I would most likely have failed. It also meant that I was simultaneously studying one social science that was all about individual behavior and another that assumed that there was no such thing. These years later it's not surprising that I am drawn to behavioral economics which brings human behavior back into the economics equation.1) Three questions… -
Six of the best: Sports edition
26 Jun 2010 | 8:30 amI must say that I'm really impressed with ESPN's coverage of the World Cup. Not just the quality of the commentary but also the fact that they've been able to cover all the matches across multiple media, plus cover Wimbledon and the 2010 College World Series as well.1) The World Cup's Lessons in Narrative and Marketing: Justin Fox (HBR)By way of a prolonged attack on basketball in general and New York basketball in particular, Justin Fox wonders if ESPN hasn't missed an opportunity with its coverage to help viewers latch onto all the great stories that the World Cup generates--"The national… -
Branding essentialism: Looking for cues
21 Jun 2010 | 7:36 amIn matters of taste, most people, most of the time don't know what to think unless someone or something tells them.In 19th century Paris, the official arbiters of taste in art were the Salon jurors; the people who decided what would and would not be displayed in the yearly Salons. The artists that made it into the Salon got the glory, prestige and, most importantly, the commissions from the well-to-do. Back in the 1860s, the jury liked big portraits of grand subject matter — history, mythology and the classics, like this Birth of Venus painting by Alexandre Cabanel.That left the early…
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Ruth Mortimer - Brand & Business Blog - Marketing Week
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I’m currently on maternity leave
20 Jul 2010 | 7:53 amI’m currently off on maternity leave. While I’m still probably out there being fascinated by the latest business and branding stories, I’ve got my hands full at the moment. So you’ll have to forgive me for neglecting this blog for a short period. I plan to be back in Spring 2011 but until then, please visit my fellow Marketing Week bloggers: Stuart Smith – The Politics of Marketing Mark Ritson at Branding Strategy Insider …and of course, you can keep up with all the latest news and in-depth brand and business analysis at MarketingWeek.co.uk. For anything… -
Fun can still be found at The YMCA (not The Y)
13 Jul 2010 | 9:53 amThe YMCA will not be changing its historic name in the UK. Disco lovers familiar with the song ‘YMCA’ by the Village People and its well-known dance routine spelling out each letter through arm gestures can rejoice. A potential name change for the brand was touted this week after the American branch of the charity (each country operates independently) decided to drop the YMCA acronym in order to market the brand as “The Y”, its slang name. But the UK arm says it has no plans to change the name, although it will carry out a brand refresh of its own. The YMCA was set up… -
BT and TalkTalk go to High Court over Digital Economy Bill
8 Jul 2010 | 5:03 amIt takes something pretty big to persuade companies in the competitive world of telecoms to join forces. Normally, broadband connections are drawn at dawn (or something similar) and co-operation is a distant dream. But BT and Carphone Warehouse’s TalkTalk brand have teamed up to file papers with the High Court requesting a judicial review of the recently passed Digital Economy Bill (now Act). Gavin Patterson, chief executive of BT Retail, says: “It’s disappointing that we feel the need to take action but we feel we have no choice. We have to do this for our customers who otherwise… -
Marketing Week Live! goes with a bang
2 Jul 2010 | 4:17 amThis has been a very busy week for us at Marketing Week, with our show Marketing Week Live! drawing thousands of marketers to London’s Olympia for two days. I also got to speak at the show’s sister conference, the Trends Show, along with Will Woodhams from French Connection and Paul Butler from Harley-Davidson. Thank you to both Will and Paul for taking part. While there were lots of great participants at Marketing Week Live! this year, I was particularly excited to see Mary Portas, star of retail makeover TV show Mary, Queen of Shops and founder of retail marketing agency… -
Anatomicals lets me eye its marketing campaigns
28 Jun 2010 | 3:38 amI love a marketing campaign teaser. So when I received the following item in the post this morning (see below for hideous plastic and rubber eyeball) along with a small card directing me to a website, Cannibals of Kua Kami, I only briefly recoiled in horror and wonder which of my loved ones had lost their vision. Then I thought: “Ah, nice marketing teaser. Wonder what it’s for?” If you follow the Cannibals of Kua Kami URL, you can watch a little film all about intrepid explorers heading into the jungle (I won’t spoil the storyline). You can also play a Pacman-style…
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brandflakesforbreakfast
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I think there’s something in my scanner
30 Jul 2010 | 1:32 pmYep. Ants. A lot of them. François Vautier put an ant colony inside his scanner and scanned it every week for five years. The time-lapse results are creepy, colorful and compelling. But then you’d expect nothing less from mankind’s oldest frenemy. -
cape not included
30 Jul 2010 | 9:26 amIt’s only fitting I wrap up my guest stint the way it started, with another pair of must-haves for Darryl’s sneaker fetish. Converse Superheroes! From Comic Con, of course. (Order via.) -
leaping ladders
30 Jul 2010 | 6:12 amPomparkour is a new sport that combines parkour and ladders. You know, so instead of energy drinks going viral with video of people almost killing themselves leaping off of buildings, now you'll go super-viral with people almost killing themselves with ladders. Sure, Wikipedia thinks it's all a hoax, but we say get behind this. Cancel your TV spots, hire a video guy to follow a street team, and take it one step further -- have the athletes land in wheelbarrows. Via @matt_muir. -
Lego biker bar
30 Jul 2010 | 6:02 amHow do you sell an extra-fine-point pen? With bad-ass Lego tattoos. A pure-genius campaign from Grey Advertising in Barcelona. Via @stuartfoster. -
don't mess with mom - and don't mess with grandma or she'll boycott Target
30 Jul 2010 | 3:50 amWe all have the fear of the mommybloggers, and consumer backlash in general over any given ad campaign we create. But now it's not just ad campaigns that can tick your customers off, Target is being boycotted by a grandmother because they have donated $150,000 to Minnesota Forward, which in turn using the money to run TV ads for Republican Tom Emmer's campaign for Minnesota governor. Emmer has opposed measures that gay rights groups support, and this grandmother has a gay family member whom she loves.It's getting attention too, Emmer says Target donation controversy 'too personal'. Meanwhile…
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David Young | Branding Blog - Marketing Advice and Advertising Strategy for Local Business Owners
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On Your Market: Open for Business
25 Jul 2010 | 7:33 pmI've been working on a soft launch for a project that has been in the works for almost 2 years. The idea is to teach business owners some of the very same techniques that we use when helping our clients with their marketing strategy. I got some very talented colleagues to help out and now I'd like to invite you to have a look. We're giving some free samples and we have it priced extremely low because we're just testing things out right now. You're welcome to sign up for the free stuff and jump in with both feet if you like. It's called On Your Market. -
Customer Engagement: A Kinetic Word of Mouth Technique
14 Jul 2010 | 11:48 amIf you can get people involved in an experience with your product during the buying process, you'll go a long ways to cementing good feelings toward you. You'll also give your customer a reason to blab.Chevrolet is now offering Corvette customers the opportunity to assist in the assembly of the very engine that will be put into their new ZR1 or Z06. The engine will get a custom plaque before it's shipped to final assembly in Bowling Green, KY. Imagine if you will, how intolerable these Corvette owners will be in their insistence on telling you how they built their own engine. They'll want to… -
Marketing Beyond Advertising: Save enough to pay for airfare and hotel!
7 Jul 2010 | 8:28 amWizard Academy just made an offer on Facebook that is so darn good, I just had to pass it along.Marketing Beyond Advertising is listed on the Wizard Academy site as a $2,000 2-day course next week on the 15th and 16th of July. Trust me, it's worth every penny too.Because they are trying to fill a few empty seats, they have announced a call-in price of just $500. With the money you save, you can book airfare, car rental and hotel, easily.Check out the curriculum and pick up the phone. Call 512-295-5700 and ask for the discount. This is the best deal I've ever seen for a first time visit to… -
Tom Wanek's Ad-Speak Calculator
27 May 2010 | 4:01 pmRemember this routine from George Carlin? He mentions nearly every hucksterism known to mankind. My colleague, Tom Wanek, has taken all of Carlin's phrases plus hundreds more and created a cool and free tool that allows you to paste in your ad copy to see how you rate. (Hint: the more your ads sound like ads, the more they blend into the background of the thousands of other ads your audience is subjected to each day.)The key is to stand out by NOT sounding like every other ad. It's not easy. Here the link to the Ad-Speak Calculator. -
Contextual Linking: Your web site is NOT a strip mall
14 May 2010 | 6:08 amHow stupid would it be to buy or build a giant strip mall and put different departments of your business into each storefront? How stupid would it be to not put the department names on the doors, or not tell the customer service employees inside the store where the other departments were located, instead requiring shoppers to come back to the main (home) storefront to get directions to each department? Can we agree that would be the dumbest way to build a business? I had someone tell me the story of their web site the other day and they had done a lot of things right. They have a great…
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Branding Strategy Insider
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Aggression: A Worthy Brand Builder
27 Jul 2010 | 9:10 pmIrish low-cost airline Ryanair was in trouble again last week. Chief executive Michael O’Leary was forced to apologise to easyJet founder, Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, for depicting him in the January ad campaign above as a Pinocchio who misleads clients about punctuality.To avoid a court case, Ryanair agreed to pay Sir Stelios’ costs and damages of £50,000 which will be donated to a charity of the easyJet founder’s choosing. Stelios joined in by claiming O’Leary was the “ugly face of capitalism”.The “ugly” face, however, was smiling broadly this week with the expected… -
Exploring Premium Brand Extension
26 Jul 2010 | 10:47 pmRegular readers of Branding Strategy Insider know we welcome and answer marketing questions of all types. Today, Eugene, a marketer in London, England writes… "Dear Derrick and Brad, I really enjoy Branding Strategy Insider, thanks for the resource. My question is how to measure the Halo effect a premium brand extension can have on the rest of the range, and the Halo effect mechanics." Eugene, thanks for the compliment and your question. Regarding the Halo effect a premium brand extension can have on the rest of the range, following are things to consider: One cannot add a… -
Brand Crisis and Brand Survival
25 Jul 2010 | 9:10 pmA brand crisis can take many forms, which can linger differing lengths of time depending on the survivability of the brand. Every corporate brand crisis is unique; each has a starting point when the CEO becomes responsible for the survival of the company. BP's bumbling management of its Gulf crisis, its seemingly endless decision making process, not to mention post-crisis effects that will last decades, make this crisis unprecedented. Tyco, Texaco, Dynegy, IBM, Enron, Worldcom and Citigroup are a few of the crises we've studied. Some companies survived, not only intact, but emerged stronger… -
Brand Messaging For A Strong Emotional Response
21 Jul 2010 | 9:10 pmRecent breakthroughs in neuro-science confirm what we marketers know in our guts, but sometimes forget in the day-to-day rush of preparing the next ad campaign launch. Namely, everybody feels (emotions) before they think (rational decision), and without generating the appropriate emotional response, no ad campaign can succeed. Here are some guidelines to help avoid that fate. Get Physical Sight and sound are fine, but over-used. Leverage the sensory dimensions of feel, touch and taste to create more intimacy and differentiation. Remember: the brain originated with the sense of smell. So… -
Negative Brand Equity: A BP Death Sentence?
18 Jul 2010 | 9:10 pmBuy shares in BP. That was the bizarre advice from Royal Bank of Scotland analysts last week after those bright sparks worked out that even the worst possible costs of the Deepwater Horizon will total less than the actual drop in BP’s market value. RBS has, of course, got it wrong again. Long after the costs have been paid and the oil cleaned up, BP will continue to live in infamy as one of the world’s most shamed brands. The official terminology for this kind of perilous state is negative brand equity. And it spells disaster and probable death for the company that was once known for…
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BrandDigital | BrandSimple: The Blog
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What do Playboy, the 2011 Corvette, and Martha Stewart have in common?
21 Jul 2010 | 6:11 amOkay, wait a second. It’s not what you think. I’ve never been good at telling jokes and I’m not about to start. No, as a branding guy, what I noted over the last few weeks relative to the names in the above headline is that there was a common brand-building, or more specifically, re-building challenge. When I read that Hugh Hefner wanted to buy back outstanding shares of his Playboy empire and revitalize it and then saw that Chevrolet had launched a campaign for the sexy, 2011 Corvette with the same objective for its hero brand, it occurred to me that to succeed these two… -
TV advertising is still hot, if it follows the right recipe
9 Jul 2010 | 6:00 amCome on, admit it. Every once in a while you see a television advertising spot that makes you chuckle. Maybe you even spend a few moments chatting about it with colleagues at the water cooler. Perhaps you’ve even been known to send an ad link to friends and family in order to share the laughs. The fact of the matter is that good television advertising still exists, and people still pay attention to it, despite the cluttered digital environment. Notice I said “good television advertising.” While lots of it deserves to be Tivo-ed out of the picture, the spots that succeed do… -
Going back to move brands forward in tough times
21 Jun 2010 | 8:00 amDid you know that Kellogg’s Corn Flakes has been around for 104 years? I picked up this little bit of breakfast trivia when I picked up a newspaper and saw an ad touting the fact that the cereal has been “fat-free and cholesterol-free since 1906.” Now, I’m pretty sure folks back in 1906 didn’t pay as much heed to dietary requirements as folks today. But the folks at Kellogg’s being the great brand professionals they are, know what it requires to keep a brand healthy, including the need to keep it relevant. In my recent article in Forbes Online I write about… -
To get the new United brand off the ground, get employees grounded in the idea.
25 May 2010 | 6:18 amWho are the most important people involved in getting a new brand idea off the ground? While those of us on the brand communications side might like to think it’s us, it’s not. It’s the employees of the organization whose brand is in launch mode. For a brand to be successful, those inside the company must fully understand what their brand stands for and what their role is in bringing it to life – a consistent brand experience across all points of customer touch being the ultimate objective. This top tenet of brand building came to mind after I read about the merger… -
Position a luxury brand as the long-term investment it is.
5 May 2010 | 6:24 amCould it be that we’re over the worst of the recession? I’m in no position to answer that question from an economist’s point of view, but indications from the brand world suggest that consumers have begun spending again, carefully. While big-box discount retailers feel secure touting the value to be found inside their big-box stores, what should luxury brand manufacturers such as Hermes, Rolex, Chanel, and BMW be doing to tout their valuables? In my most recent article on Forbes Online I recommend that, instead of positioning these lovely things as short-term purchases, they…
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Jonathan Salem Baskin's Dim Bulb -- Analysis & Musing from a Global Brand Strategist
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Stop Laughing
29 Jul 2010 | 7:11 amWhen Sarah Palin told Muslims to "refudiate" plans for a mosque near 9/11's ground zero a few weeks ago, I was shocked that some media talking heads dismissed her because she invented a word. They need to stop laughing.On the language front, refudiate is a helluva lot more understandable than many of the words, abbreviations, and acronyms that get tweeted these days. Everyone knew what she meant, at least kinda, and if we want to analyze or mock the use of language by political or public figures, there are similarly enough sub-subordinate clauses, parenthetical interludes, and passive verbs… -
Interruption vs. Engagement, Revised
26 Jul 2010 | 3:59 amLast week in Advertising Age, I tried to argue that we marketers should reevaluate our approaches to "interruption" and "engagement" marketing, as I think we're using both terms incorrectly. Budgets are getting shifted away from the short commercials of traditional media into longer social experiences of new media, like Old Spice's recent campaign, as if the latter's entertainment can replace the former's historic utility. Dozens of smart folks chimed in with ideas that either improved on what I'd tried to say, or added thoughts that had never occurred to me. I want to thank all of… -
Now What?
24 Jul 2010 | 1:20 pmOld Spice has made history, dominating YouTube last week with 8 of the 11 most-watched videos on Friday and racking up tens of millions of views. Its "Smell Like a Man" campaign, in which its spokesmodel quickly shot mostly unscripted and hilariously funny replies to nearly 200 online inquiries (including some from famous people), prompted numerous copycat videos and got covered by just about every news outlet in America.Now what?The half-life of viral fame is short. A gnat lives 200+ times longer. There have been numerous top ten lists on YouTube since Friday, not to mention other notable… -
Losing Our Religion
22 Jul 2010 | 7:16 amYesterday, President Obama signed into law the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. It's a 2,300 page bill containing 533 new regulations. 38% of Americans have never heard of it. Another 33% couldn't explain its key deliverable. If the point of the legislation is to restore confidence in the financial system, it seems like it's dead on delivery, and you can bet that opinion of the bill is only going to get worse (or at best, muddled) as the administration's principled opposition continues to debate settled law and the nutjobs scream that it's further proof of an alien… -
Abbreviated Meaning
14 Jul 2010 | 9:53 amWhen did brevity become a synonym for clarity or truth?For most of human history, it was the exact opposite. What was brief was least important, as usually the format of a statement dictated the attention it deserved. Shortness was equated with incompleteness, which meant that things communicated quickly were more suspect and were considered less trustworthy (a rapid-fire sales pitch or the unknown threat of someone "of few words" being two examples). The common bias was that brevity could be the same as stupidity. It wasn't consistently the case, of course, but it was believed that someone…
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Biz Growth News
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Online habits and motivations of consumers online, the importance of ratings and reviews
30 Jul 2010 | 1:32 amNOTE: I am giving away access to a years service from LouderVoice, the online customer ratings service to celebrate their third birthday– scroll down to the bottom of the article if you want to discover how to be in with a chance to win it! Do you know what influences your customers to buy online? A recent Econsultancy report noted that in the US more than half (55%) of consumers report that a product with a high rating will increase their likelihood of purchasing. While in the UK three-quarters (75%) of people aged 18-26 years of age use recommendations on social sites to help them… -
Facebook Questions – the ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything – or an online reputation disaster waiting to happen?
29 Jul 2010 | 5:33 amWhat implications does the new feature of Facebook Questions have for our online reputation of our business or our personal brand? In the last 24 hours Facebook has been rolling out it’s ‘Questions’ functionality – you will see it on the left hand side of your Home Page or at the top of your Profile or Business Page. the Answers and Questions feature of Linkedin have been a great way to build online visibility and be a source of lead generation for a number of years. This move by Facebook is another example of them looking to have people spend more time in their… -
Women on the web: 6 insights from the comScore report on how women are shaping the Internet
28 Jul 2010 | 7:06 amDo women and men interact differently online is a question I often get asked. Well here is some research that will help us all when considering how best to connect to our community online. comScore, Inc. has today released a global report how women interact with the web called, “Women on the Web: How Women are Shaping the Internet” – it’s an extensive analysis of how women are are interacting online across social networks, online video, mobile communications, online retail trends and a number of other key areas. The report comments that social networking sites reach a higher… -
Three new Facebook resources for personal and professional guidance for the media, journalists and PR professionals
27 Jul 2010 | 1:53 amHere are three new resources from Facebook that I think you will find of interest: 1. A new Page about Facebook Safety to provide you with updates and information to keep you and your family safe while using Facebook or surfing on the Internet. This compliments the Facebook Security Page. 2. A Facebook Page for PR professionals where the Facebook team share what they have learned about creating social content, promoting events, optimising Pages, and integrating with tools off of Facebook – it looks as though this will be a great resource for PR an marketing people alike. Check out the… -
5 best practice tips when building a community using Facebook Pages
22 Jul 2010 | 1:49 amDid you hear the news? Yesterday Facebook announced that now some 500 million people are actively using Facebook from across the globe. I recently noticed a post from Jeremiah Owyang asking the readers of his blog for their input on Facebook marketing best practice. Here is the feedback I shared: 1. Understand the online habits of your community – identify when your community are online so that you can time your Facebook update so that it has a chance to appear when they log on in their feed on their home page without too much scrolling. This simple online visibility tip could increase…
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make the logo bigger
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Hey, they’re doing cool stuff with tools.
31 Jul 2010 | 10:26 amSears is one of those odd stories. A brand once made up of its own exclusive brands like Craftsman, DieHard and Kenmore. No news there. Many retailers have had their own *house* brand. But then came big box mixapalooza and before you knew it, you could buy almost any brand at Sears, and then so much for exclusive. Those names still had real recognition though, and still do.Recently, Craftsman has been running some spots doubling as virals. The new one has dudes with various tools creating different noises all edited together. Think Stomp with cordless drills. In addition, you can make your… -
Because life without TV is just life.
31 Jul 2010 | 7:11 amIt’s not easy selling in a new medium. But TV was special. It made life better. -
Moms say the damndest things.
30 Jul 2010 | 1:12 pmProving it’s harder for parents to control what comes out of their kids’ mouths, 8th Continent Soymilk has about one of the truest commercials on parenthood I’ve ever seen. At the end of the day, mom can only control what comes out of her mouth and what’s in her fridge. Unless this spot is running locally though, one word in it probably guarantees it never sees the light of TV day. (Unless we help them blow that shit up viral big.) Too bad, because it’s a funny spot. While there’s a requisite Facebook and Twitter, the site has a fresh feel and clean design with a personality most… -
A buyer’s market.
30 Jul 2010 | 1:02 pm“We are one of the premier sites for professional women and seeking a full-time editor/marketer. Must be in New York City--this is not a virtual job. Responsibilities include expanding the reach of the website and our member network through social media and marketing liaisons, writing and editing content for the website and newsletters, and managing interns. Qualified individuals must be versed in social networking and have marketing savvy, be an excellent writer with good people skills. Should have five years of formal work experience, including writing/editing copy. Knowledge of Microsoft… -
Apple’s iPorn war.
30 Jul 2010 | 10:18 amSteve might have to let this one go and just claim mission accomplished. Soon as I saw Facetime on the iPhone 4, I knew it would hamper iGod’s desire to keep porn out of Apple devices. I never got his whole argument though. Desktops and laptops have always let you see whatever you want, so banning adult content in the iTunes store just drives people to Firefox or Safari for the free stuff. (Maybe his small victory here is in the more closed confines of the iPod, iPhone and iPad.)Either way, for Jobs to accomplish his porn-freetopia, it quickly becomes a Big Brother issue. The only way to…
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The Marketing Minute
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Is your loyalty program missing a critical factor?
29 Jul 2010 | 4:38 pmI'm a fan of loyalty programs...if they're done right. The truth is, most companies aren't willing to make the reward equal to or worthy of the effort they're asking from their best customers.But when you do (when the juice is worth the squeeze) -- they can be potent. But what if yours is missing a key ingredient? What if it could have an even more significant impact on your bottom line?Check out my IowaBiz post to find out what you might be missing. -
Four new blogs you need to check out
28 Jul 2010 | 3:46 amI'm ashamed to admit it, but my blogroll has some cobwebs on it. Some of the blogs listed there are dormant and boy do I have a bunch to add. And before Labor Day (my self imposed deadline) I'm going to get in there and clean house. But there are a handful of blogs that I want to call to your attention and I don't want to wait another month. Mary Kramer: Mary Kramer is a mom, grandma, and wife...and in her spare time, she was the president of the Iowa Senate, an Ambassador to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean and one of the most interesting women I… -
Is the juice worth their squeeze
20 Jul 2010 | 3:05 amLet's face it, we're a lazy people. The idea of actually getting up to change the TV channels or hand crank open a car window is almost offensive to us.We are used to our conveniences. And we don't expend a significant amount of effort without getting something of note in return. And yet, we seem to forget this human truth when concocting some of our marketing efforts.As you are crafting a new campaign or gimmick that you hope will go viral -- always ask yourself, is the juice worth the squeeze for my audience. Let me give you an example. These photos… -
Marketing tip #75: Handwritten notes are magic
14 Jul 2010 | 5:55 amI was speaking to a college class on Monday night and our conversation reminded me of this tip. Handwritten notes are practically unheard of today. Everyone fires off an e-mail or texts a quick thought. But for someone to sit down and take the time to actually write a thank you note (or any sort of note) is an almost forgotten art. Which is why it is so noticeable and memorable. The photos to the right are a thank you note that I received nine months ago from a developer at Wufoo. (Wufoo is an awesome online tool that lets you create interactive, HTML-based… -
Blogger outreach code of ethics
9 Jul 2010 | 5:43 amDo you want some free publicity? The 2010 version of "let's get an article in the newspaper, because that's free!" is "we'll get bloggers to write about it!" Not a bad PR strategy. In fact, when employed correctly -- it can be an awesome one. It's the "employed correctly" part that people seem to bang their head against the wall on. For many of you, this should be part of your marketing efforts. But, you can't and shouldn't just fumble around in the dark. You need to do it well and correctly. …
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Ries' Pieces
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High Five to FiveFingers
15 Jul 2010 | 8:40 amThere is nothing I get more excited about than seeing a new category and a new brand hit the market. There’s the thrill of discovery the first time you hear about one or read about one. The challenge of finding the store that has one. The glory of getting your hands on one. The pride in showing yours off. And the jealousy and bewilderment on the faces of those who don’t have one. I’m not alone. In every category,… -
McDonald's Goes Above & Beyond
9 Jun 2010 | 12:13 pmIt seems that no brand is safe these days. From Toyota, the world’s largest car maker. To Tylenol, the country’s largest over-the-counter drug. To McDonald’s, the world’s largest fast-food chain. Each of these three brands has suffered massive recalls with the potential for massive brand damage. That said, even if its response to a disaster is less than perfect, a leading brand has an amazing ability to survive. Consumers believe the leader is better and runs a better company than its… -
BP has a Brand Problem
6 May 2010 | 11:56 amThey talked the talk but never walked the walk. No industry is more loathed and distrusted than big oil. But while people may hate the industry, oil is a necessary evil that our society depends on. Like it or not, oil companies aren’t going anywhere. Like many companies in unpopular industries, BP launched a massive advertising campaign to put a little lipstick on the oil pig. Advertising is not very good at changing strongly-held perceptions, but in BP’s case it actually worked. … -
Laura on Fox Business: BP
6 May 2010 | 11:31 amLaura Ries discusses BP's brand problems stemming from its oil spill with Stuart Varney on the Fox Business channel on Thursday, May 6, 2010. Watch the latest business video at video.foxbusiness.com -
What should Goldman Do?
22 Apr 2010 | 10:55 amWhat does Goldman Sachs need to do to save its brand? In a word, nothing. A strong, powerful, leading brand is practically bullet-proof. It’s not what you do wrong that determines if your brand will survive a scandal. It’s how strong your brand is in the mind that determines if your brand will survive. Strong brands survive even the worst catastrophes, while weak ones can easily be destroyed by minor ones. Goldman may have cheated a few clients and Tiger definitely cheated on his wife but it doesn’t really matter. As long as Goldman makes money and Tiger…
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Tom Fishburne: this one time at Brand Camp
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post-production
25 Jul 2010 | 5:20 pm(to instantly license this week's cartoon, click here)If you're ever on a video shoot, you'll no doubt hear someone say, "we'll fix it in post-production". This usually happens toward the end of a long day, when everyone is tired and there's a sticking point preventing everyone from going home. Sometimes the client hasn't seen what they're looking for. Sometimes there's a stalemate on art direction. The promise to fix "in post-production" allows everyone to break and address the problem later.But it's usually an… -
devil's advocate
18 Jul 2010 | 8:08 pm(to license this week's cartoon, click here) I've been hooked this week by Seth Godin's latest book, Linchpin. Seth briefly profiles the Devil's Advocate, which he describes as a "card-carrying member of the Resistance" -- a force that prevents remarkable ideas from coming to life. In his blog, Seth occasionally advises his readers to "uninvite the devil's advocate, since the devil doesn't need one, he's doing fine." The Devil's Advocate is a regular staffer in most offices. "Let me play Devil's Advocate" is a socially… -
brand archetypes
11 Jul 2010 | 9:35 pm(to license this cartoon, click here) I learned the power of archetypes from Joseph Campbell's classic interview with Bill Moyers. The explore the universal themes, characters, and stories that repeat throughout history, appearing in every form of human expression from the Bible to Star Wars. These archetypes repeat because they resonate deeply with human consciousness. I first saw Joseph Campbell's work applied to brands at General Mills, when the Wheaties team worked hard to understand and unlock "The Hero" archetype. I then learned that TBWA/Chiat used the… -
new-featuritis
27 Jun 2010 | 4:15 pm(to license this cartoon, click here)The very first Saturday Night Live in 1975 featured a mock-commercial with George Carlin making fun of the Gillette Trac II, which was the first two-blade razor. SNL spoofed it with a fake three-blade razor called the Triple-Trac, and closed with a tagline, "The Triple-Trac. Because You'll Believe Anything". Twenty-three years later, in 1998, Gillette launched the Mach3 razor, the first three-blade razor. I heard a Gillette executive give a talk about the Mach3 soon after launch, and he talked in gushing terms about the innovation. When… -
after the brainstorm
20 Jun 2010 | 8:57 pm(to license this cartoon, click here) Last week I joined one of the better idea generation exercises I've experienced in a while. We split into small groups and toured the San Francisco Ferry Building to scout out retail merchandising ideas. The Ferry Building is packed with novel, funky shops like a Far West Fungi, which only sells mushrooms: dried mushrooms, fresh mushrooms, mushroom ice cream -- everything conceivably mushroom-related except for the psychedelic variety. You can learn a lot from experimental retail concepts like that. As we debriefed afterwards, it…
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Personal Branding Blog - Dan Schawbel
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More Examples of Entrepreneur Blog Posts
30 Jul 2010 | 10:30 amI have previously discussed how entrepreneurs should use a blog to build their personal brand and I have provided some examples of entrepreneur blog posts. Here are a few more examples of entrepreneur blog posts: The Human Resources Blog: - Offering retirement savings for a small business: This would be an article talking about how an entrepreneur implemented a 401k savings program for a small business. The stories could include advice on how to choose a 401k provider, what percentage of salary a small business should match and how to talk to employees about the program. - Benefits programs… -
The Personal Branding Email Signature Formula
30 Jul 2010 | 2:30 amHow to get the most out of that often-seen personal branding space: your email signature. Create your well-branded email signature according to this formula. Required elements are bolded, the rest are recommended when relevant: Salutation, Name Tagline Title(s), Organization Association Membership Phone numbers (mobile/land/fax) Website/Social media profiles Image Where: Salutation – using your email signoff to only say goodbye is a wasted opportunity. Either use an expression that’s relevant to your personal brand or wish the person something positive. The best result is a… -
Getting Away with the CEO Swap
29 Jul 2010 | 10:30 amSo, Tony Hayward is being replaced as CEO of BP by an American. It’s not surprising to see that the company is doing whatever they can to minimize damage and public outcry. I’ve come to find it interesting that when a company gets itself in to serious trouble, that the “CEO Swap” is viewed as an acceptable part of the solution It has become an expected worst-scenario step whenever a corporate scandal breaks out. The acceptable solution The “CEO Swap” has become increasingly popular over the last few decades. In a way I’ve began to think that this public relations tactic is on… -
Facebook Stories and Your Personal Brand
29 Jul 2010 | 2:30 amThe world is indeed becoming a small place and we all know that social media is a major reason why. As Facebook celebrated 500 million users on July 22, 2010 we can see how the world is becoming a much more open place. Facebook users come from all over the world. People are able to connect with others who in other ways would’ve been impossible. These interactions fly over oceans without users ever having to pay for the plane ticket. There are no boundaries or mountains to climb. I’m not saying “All Hail Facebook” but when put in this context its capabilities are truly amazing for… -
Personal Branding Interview: Jeffrey Hayzlett
28 Jul 2010 | 2:44 pmToday, I spoke to Jeffrey Hayzlett, who is the author of The Mirror Test, and the former Chief Marketing Officer at Kodak. In this interview, Jeffrey talks about his experience with Kodak, what it was like to be on The Apprentice with Donald Trump, what the “mirror test” is and how it can help your business, and more. How did you get your original job with Kodak? How did using social media differentiate you from other CMO’s? I got my job by having a long-term relationship with Kodak over the years. I was involved with Kodak off an on for about 15 years. More recently, I was…
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The Personal Branding Blog: William Arruda and the Reach-Certified Personal Branding Strategists
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VanityVid is an exciting innovative social media tool that changes your profile pic into a video
18 Jul 2010 | 12:16 pmExude your brand with VanityVidWouldn't it be great if people could click on your Facebook, Twitter and Wordpress profile photo – wherever it appears – and make it come to life? VanityVid is a fresh new tool for changing your profile pics into a short introductory video, allowing you to connect with your audience like never before. What makes this tool different?Web technology is expanding faster than a blink – the sheer volume of tools, apps, plugins and widgets is mind-boggling. When I'm evaluating a tool, my first priority is personal brand building: does it increase online… -
I Want to Work with You
17 Jul 2010 | 4:08 pmRecently someone posted on my fan page – I want to work with you.I wondered – work with me – like helping me to improve and become better? Or, did he mean, work for me – like he was interested in a job?He was interested in a job.Was it good that he asked just that bluntly on my fan page? I would be interested to hear what you think in the comments section below.For me, it was a little bold for my style. I don’t know that I’m really ready (like any employer with social networking presence online - is really ready) to have a job candidate conversation out there… -
Personal Branding: Trends and Power Tips for Your Success
12 Jul 2010 | 12:42 pmPersonal branding has come a long way since Tom Peters first wrote “The Brand Called You” for Fast Company magazine’s August 31, 1997 issue. While personal branding’s visibility and credibility has grown slowly and steadily over the past 12-plus years, there is no denying it has now become a mainstream topic. Just Google the term “personal branding” (in quotation marks) and you will find more than 891,000 results! The Reach Personal Branding Interview on July 15, 2010 at noon ET addresses upcoming trends in personal branding, as well as key suggestions to make the most of your… -
Impatience and Social Networks
12 Jul 2010 | 12:59 amAre we there yet? This is the mantra of younger kids and people networking – online and offline. Impatient for results, they wonder why no one’s responding, why won’t they retweet me, where’s my traffic and if I put a status update out there and no one comments on it am I being heard? Questions like: How long does it take to get to 1,500 Twitter followers? What’s the time frame to see ROI on social media? I’ve got to see sales tied directly to social media, when will I see that? Are all just variations of this mantra. Social is indeed… -
Is Your Career Trapped in the Matrix?
4 Jul 2010 | 3:51 pmI recently stumbled onto a great post from Chris Brogan, “Avoid the Many Versions of the Matrix.” He raises the question, “Job security= being employed by a stable company. Matrix or no?,” and concludes: “There’s what we think is real; there’s what we observe as real: and then there’s what we can change.” In reading the post, it occurred to me that many people subscribe to a matrix-like view of successful job search. You know the one. Prepare a sharp resume, strong cover letter, network for job leads, and sharpen up your interviewing skills. Add to this, the…
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Chris Garrett on New Media
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Leveraging Authority for Creative Control, Freedom and Rewards
29 Jul 2010 | 7:46 pmAsk a business owner what they want, why they are in business. You will certainly hear the following amongst the answers: Rewards (financial or otherwise) Freedom Control What you will find though, and I include myself in this, is business owners actually working COUNTER to those aspirations. Rewards, freedom and control come from being at the top of the pile when it comes to business decision making and influence. We look for security by moving towards the bottom of the pyramid – taking a 9-5 job, freelancing, and generally working for others, but times have changed and those roles are… -
How to Kill Your Brand in One Easy Step
21 Jul 2010 | 10:50 amMost times when a company kills their brand it is through a steady decline. The kind of loyalty to unloyalty that Scott talks about in his excellent post over there. There are also those occasions where the brand goes from king of the world to “wouldn’t touch that in a hazmat suit” bad overnight, such as BP. Despite the “overnight OMG” effect, brands are often resiliant things. People are making a big deal about the Apple iPhone 4 Antenna Issue as if this could be their downfall, but in my view Apple loyalty seems solid despite what the media would like us to… -
5 Reasons to Love Webinars Explained
12 Jul 2010 | 2:25 amWebinars rock, but it seems my “webinars rock” illustration caused more confusion than it educated! To rectify the situation, I have cut up and explained my thinking in this article. 1. Awareness and Ideas The first reason to love webinars is that you get the opportunity to create a sense of event around your ideas, value and information. This attracts attention and builds traffic and positive awareness. There is both a direct attraction to something “live” and newsworthy, but also the viral impact of people sharing their intention to attend, and a third… -
Why Webinars Rock
8 Jul 2010 | 6:17 amCheck Out Magnetic Webinars … or ask me any questions or let me know your thoughts in the comments … Related Posts:5 Reasons to Love Webinars ExplainedLeveraging Authority for Creative Control, Freedom and RewardsMy Midnight Sun AdventureDo You Lead or Follow?Visit, Use, Like, Love Your Free Subscriber Download! Download 'Killer Flagship Content' now. Make your blog a vital destination resource today. This text has been taken from the article Why Webinars Rock. © 2010 Chris Garrett chrisg.com -
Claiming Your Independence – 5 Years of Business Lessons
5 Jul 2010 | 4:27 amFive years ago I cut loose from my day job and launched myself into the adventure that is working for oneself. That was the start of my journey towards claiming my independence day, and I think there are lessons for you if you want to do something similar to what I have done. I’m proud of where I am at but as well as talk about the successes, I am going to share with you the mistakes so you can avoid them. If you just want the main lessons, skip to the end. Otherwise, see what you can learn from my journey … I left my easy and relatively fairly paid job at a marketing agency to…
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Igor
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Camelbak announces “Groove”, a new kind of water bottle, named by Igor
14 Jul 2010 | 8:18 pmVia Single Track World: “Hate your tapwater? Camelbak has something for you too. Their new Groove bottles incorporate a carbon filter (like you’d find in your home Brita filter or similar) and it has enough surface area that it doesn’t impede the flow of water. Clever and great for everyone who lives in hard water country or at the wrong end of the waterworks.” -
Virgin America’s aircraft fleet names
14 Jun 2010 | 2:24 pmAs a supplement to our previous post about Virgin America’s contest to name their first U.S. to Canada plane, here is a list of aircraft names in Virgin America’s fleet: Air Colbert Airplane 2.0 An Airplane Named Desire California Dreaming Chic Mobile Contents May Be Under Pressure Dark Horse Entourage Air Fog Cutter Gogo Dancer Jane Jefferson Airplane Let There Be Flight Mach Daddy Midnight Ride Moodlights, Camera, Action My Other Ride’s A Spaceship Red, White & Blue Runway Angel San Fransico Pride Superfly The 1-Year-Old Virgin The Tom Clark Express Three If By Air… -
Kevin Costner’s oil spill clean up machine & patent
11 Jun 2010 | 12:55 pmAt Igor we deal with intellectual property rights every week as we search thousands of trademarks while naming products for our clients. It’s not enough to have a good idea, you need one you can legally own. Kevin Costner’s much publicized Ocean Therapy Solutions company developed a soon-to-be-implemented oil and water separation machine. BP has ordered 32 of them thus far to help deal with their latest environmental disaster. You can view the patent filing, description and drawings for Costner’s oil spill clean up machine here. Click on the pic in the upper right corner to… -
iOS therefore iAM (taken)
7 Jun 2010 | 11:25 amSteve Jobs just announced at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference that they are dropping “phone” from the name “iPhoneOS” to become, simply, “iOS”. This is a smart move. Uh oh. Seems like Cisco Systems runs a big chuck of the Internet on some thing called iOS. It’s deja vu all over again: you may recall back in 2007 when the iPhone was announced that Cisco owned the trademark for the name “iPhone”. Once again, Apple rolls out the strategy of “name it what we want, get legal to make it happen later”. Cool. If every… -
Patent Search Box for blogs / sites
1 Jun 2010 | 2:23 pmip.com (as in “intellectual property”) just launched a feature where you can add a Patent Search Box to your blog sidebar, so your visitors can search patents right from your site. Search Box code available here. You can do full searches for US Patents, US Patent Applications, Prior Art, PRC (China) Patents and PRC Patents in translation. So that’s kinda cool.
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Hard Knox Life (@daveknox)
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Never underestimate the power of design and brand for a start-up
23 Jul 2010 | 6:23 am“One of the easiest things to do to make yourself standout within the digital world is to hit a homerun with the design and experience. If you invest significantly in this area, then you are going to standout from all the rest.” – Darren Herman Darren is the Chief Digital Media Office at Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal + Partners and one of those guys that just plain “gets it.” He wrote the above quote when talking about why Flipboard is suddenly the hot start-up of the week in the media world. Ironically it is a sentiment that I was just discussing yesterday with… -
The Brandery opens it doors: New seed accelerator launches in Cincinnati
19 Jul 2010 | 11:51 amToday I’m excited to announce the launch of The Brandery, a new seed stage consumer marketing venture accelerator. The Brandery will be a three-month-long program held in Cincinnati, Ohio that is focused on turning your great idea into a successful, brand-driven start-up. For our inaugural class this Fall, we are selecting 5 companies, with each receiving $20,000 in seed funding, three months of mentorship, and the opportunity to pitch to angel investors and venture capitalists at the end of the program. The full press release is listed below. For more information, please… -
Six Digital Trends To Watch by Steve Rubel and David Armano
17 Jul 2010 | 2:22 pm -
Old Spice takes social engagement to a whole new level
13 Jul 2010 | 9:56 amHands down one of my favorite TV commercials in recent memory has to be the Old Spice “Smell Like a Man, Man” campaign starring @IsaiahMustafa. You probably know it better as the “I’m on a Horse” ad. Not only did the campaign take home multiple awards at Cannes this year, but it truly crossed over to pop culture (my favorite is “I’m on a cake”). Now the Old Spice team has dialed it up through a stellar social media campaign that takes engagement to a whole new level. Lots of brands have used Twitter as a way to have a dialogue with… -
A presentation is nothing more than a Hail Mary pass
12 Jul 2010 | 4:21 amHow many times have you been in a meeting where the sole purpose is for someone to deliver a presentation or pitch? It could be your agency presenting a new creative idea. Or perhaps its a start-up that is presenting why you should do business with them. Or maybe you have even been the one giving the presentation? The common fact with all of these is that in most cases, a presentation is a Hail Mary pass. If you are just simply giving a one-way pitch, you are giving the audience two choices at the end….to say yes or to say no. And the worst part about most presentations is that…
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GIRVIN | Strategic Branding Blog
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The Heart of the Human Brand: Design, Imagination and Beauty.
30 Jul 2010 | 5:33 amThe Heart of the Human Brand: Design, Imagination and Beauty. Notes on the point of the work: urge, passion, craft, the hand-made brand — a conference presentation in Portland THE NEW WORLD OF DESIGN: what is the nature of personal reflection in branding? If there’s a story, who’s telling it, and who cares about it? To the human brand, and the human potential, what story could be made to shine: the lustration of ideas, the illustration of the ideal? A special dedication and thanks to Danielle Amato, for her graceful help in creating this presentation. Brand strategies for… -
Rodarte | Intentionality and attentionality in the strategy of the Mulleavy sisters
28 Jul 2010 | 6:59 amWhat happened with Michelle Obama, the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Awards and MAC Cosmetics? Sometime back, I’d sent a note to Kate + Laura, each with a painting on bark gathered from the high hills of Kaua’i, and a story to tell — that was to each of them, separately, and to both of them, together. That started a correspondence about the idea of the work of design and creativity. There’s a story in presence, and there is a telling in absence. And there’s another story in attention and intention. The mysterious wonder of the two of them lies in that… -
EXPLORING THE PRESENCE: THE SENTIENT MIND OF SERGE LUTENS
26 Jul 2010 | 5:15 amEXPLORING THE PRESENCE: THE SENTIENT MIND OF SERGE LUTENS | SCENTEUR, ARTIST, DESIGNER, PERFUMER. Attention, craft, fascination and the making of an extraordinary career. Photo © Salons du Palais Royal Shiseido The concept of presence is about attention, capturing the spirit of the present moment, considering everything as an act of presentment and presentation. Being in, creating for, the present — the experience of now. “The real great perfumers are not perfumers,” Lutens says. “They are the bees, the winds, the rivers and other things that carry and mix scents in space.” As… -
Richless, rich less, poorful, poor full?
24 Jul 2010 | 6:48 amAre you poorful, or richless? Our economy’s new language – shifting story and interpretations Brandstory and language: what’s the positioning — in a challenging milieu — what are we really looking for: rich, poor, satiety or survival? How do we describe it? And feel about it? In times of abs(tin)ence, are we rich less, or poor full? Or just hanging on, sans description? While there are surely tinges of optimism, just coming from NYC, and swaying with the flows of the retail scene there and a world-wide, conferencing grouping of department store CEOs, the word on… -
Attentionality and intentionality: brand awareness and the focused relationship
22 Jul 2010 | 9:24 amWhat are you paying attention to? And in that equation, what are your customers paying intention to? What drives them to intentionally pay attention? There’s tension in that balance. Sometime back, I’d connected with Lynda Weinman and her husband, Bruce Heavin. This was at the Evergreen State College — and the launch of the new Lynda Labs in the media center there in Olympia, Washington. Along with connecting with Bruce and Lynda, I’d connected with Linda Stone. Linda’s a theorist — long running explorer — of the concept of attention, particularly in…
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EveryJoe
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Dez Bryant Out 4-6 Weeks
30 Jul 2010 | 8:48 pmDallas Cowboys’ rookie Dez Bryant has made some noise in training camp with his spectacular catches and his refusal to carry the pads of veterans. But on Friday, he was at the center of attention due to another issue…an injury. Image: DMN Bryant suffered a high ankle sprain on the next to the last play at practice and is now expected to miss four to six weeks. The best case scenario is that he can return for the Cowboys’ final preseason game on Sept. 2. The worse case scenario is that he missed their regular season opener against the Redskins in Washington. Bryant had… -
Yankees Acquire Lance Berkman
30 Jul 2010 | 8:45 pmThe New York Yankees have acquired Lance Berkman from the Houston Astros. The Astros will send the Yankees $4 million and receive pitching prospect Mark Melancon and infield prospect Jimmy Paredes in the trade. The deal will be officially announced on Saturday, according to the New York Post. Image: MLB Berkman approved the Yankees deal after telling Houston brass he would not accept a trade to four other teams. The first baseman is owed $7.5 million and has a $15 million mutual option for 2011. Reportedly, he accepted the trade to New York only on the condition that the 2011 option would not… -
Laurence Fishburne's Daughter Breaking into Porn
30 Jul 2010 | 7:58 pmActor Laurence Fishburne’s 19-year-old daughter is trying to break into the business. But instead of relying on dad to get her some auditions, she decided to go another route — porn. Montana Fishburne (who goes by “Chippy D”) is promoting a new porno film for Vivid Entertainment set to be release in August. Montana reportedly saw how Kim Kardashian’s sex tape put her name on the map, and wants to follow suit. She told CarltonJordan.com – “The first time is really nerve racking … but, I have a lot of at-home experience.” I bet her papa is… -
Drew Carey Loses 80 Pounds
29 Jul 2010 | 6:39 pmComedian and Price is Right host Drew Carey has lost a significant amount of weight lately – reportedly 80 pounds since January. And the transformation is dramatic. Take a look at these pictures of Carey in recent days. Drew Carey departs Swingers restaurant after having breakfast on Wednesday wearing a t-shirt that states, ‘I became the mayor of your mom’. Image: Owen Beiny / WENN.com Drew Carey at the 2010 CBS, CW, Showtime summer press tour party held at the Beverly Hilton on Wednesday. Image: FayesVision/WENN.com Drew Carey shopping for new additions to his wardrobe at… -
Audrina Patridge Disses Fans; Looks Hot
29 Jul 2010 | 6:24 pmAudrina Patridge arrived back at her London hotel in the evening on Wednesday, having spent the day at various photoshoots. Audrina ignored two fans who had been waiting nine hours to see her, claiming she was too tired to stop and have her picture taken with them. I guess when you look this hot in jeans and a tank top, you can be a bitch to fans. Image: Will Alexander/WENN.com Will Alexander/WENN.com Post from: EveryJoe
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Name Wire: The Product Naming Blog
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Could BP Naming and Branding Change Back to Amoco?
30 Jul 2010 | 7:59 amCould it be that BP may have a naming and branding issue? Of course it does, and their reaction might be to change their name to Amoco. But gas station owners seem to be divided. Some owners feel that the BP brand has cleaned up its image by hiring an American to run the company. And, as the Associated Press plenty of goodwill behind it, though it has not been around for some time. One other caveat to this is the fact that BP, which stood for "British Petroleum" until its name change in 2001, seems to be doing damage to other British interests in -
New Pac-10 Naming and Branding Set to Make Waves
29 Jul 2010 | 7:43 amThe big news for sports fans this week is the redesign of the Pacific 10 Conference (Pac-10) logo, which I must say looks pretty good. The logo was launched with appropriate fanfare in New York City on Tuesday by being projected on a raining wall of mist in the Whiskey Blue, a popular midtown Manhattan bar in the W Hotel. Foregrounded in the logo is a mountain and a wave which, according to the press release, "symbolizes not only the Pac-10's geographic footprint but also its strength. Mountains can't be moved, except maybe by waves." This looks pretty good and breathes new life into a very… -
HTC Brand Naming Launches in China, Steps Ahead of Apple, Blackberry
28 Jul 2010 | 7:01 amI have written before about the interviewed by the Chicago Tribune about the HTC Droid Incredible earlier this year. The brand name continues to grow stronger this summer, in fact, according to PRLog, it's "seling the Wildfire and Desire beside the Tianxi and Tianyi, two other smartphones available in the world's most populous country, which must be a concern for Apple and other rivals who increasingly see China as a "must have" market. HTC feels that 8% of the customer base is already has a pretty shaky presence in the country, leaving an open space for HTC, the Taiwanese manufacturer to… -
Bratz Naming and Branding to Stay with MGA
27 Jul 2010 | 10:38 amHow much is a name worth? Well, if you created the Bratz dolls, which are making a retail comeback, you might say that it could be anywhere from $50 million to $1 billion. This stems from a long legal battle between toymakers, Mattel, and MGA Entertainment. Back in 2009 a federal judge allowed a $100 million verdict that gave Mattel ownership of the Bratz brand after it came out that the creator of Bratz worked at Mattel when he pitched the concept to MGA. But last week the Ninth Circuit Court handed down a ruling overturning that decision saying, "It is not equitable to transfer this… -
Old Spice: Be the Brand You Want to Be
26 Jul 2010 | 8:43 amBy now, I'm sure many of you have seenThe Man Your Man can Smell Like campaign, starring former NFL wideout Isaiah Mustafa. Now, while it's impossible to measure the actual success of a The Brand Aid Blog claims that Old Spice is not doing a good job of branding itself, however. There are 78 different types of products from Old Spice: 36 antiperspirants, 14 deodorants, 18 types of body wash, 5 body sprays, and 5 fragrances. The author thinks that so much hype and line extensions are confusing to consumers. Especially long-time purchasers of Old Spice that may be turned off by the new…
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The Engaging Brand
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Show 296 - Inspiring Resilience
27 Jul 2010 | 11:47 amShow 296 of The Engaging Brand leadership and marketing podcast is ready just for you. To subscribe or listen on your PC now - both for free, you don't need to download anything - all explained at the end of the post.Great discussion with Jill Flint Taylor of leading well being consultancy Robertson Cooper about their latest research, concerning resilience. Jill is an expert in talent management, leadership development and well-being. Jill is also a Chartered Occupational Psychologist, so we should be in good hands today!The free tool i-resilience can be found by clicking this link and… -
Are we born not to be compatible....?
21 Jul 2010 | 6:39 amThe older I get the more I wonder about compatibility. In success years customers want choice, want innovation, want the next new thing.....but businesses don't usually operate so quickly....for profit they want one product sold in one colour! During recessions, customers want value over volume. Companies due to sales drop off, often need volume! Maybe to be successful then you need to understand how to be compatible, not compatible with what you want but compatible with what your consumers want.... You see business is still about relationships and we all know how we need to work on… -
Show 295 - Tony Hsieh on Delivering Happiness at Zappos
15 Jul 2010 | 11:53 amShow 295 of The Engaging Brand leadership and marketing podcast is ready just for you. To subscribe or listen on your PC now - both for free, you don't need to download anything - all explained at the end of the post.Great discussion with Tony Hsieh of Zappos about his new business book - Delivering Happiness What was the motivation for his entrepreneurship? How boredom can inspire creativity How simplicity can help deliver happiness Happiness as a business model Why customer service is so core to Zappos How profit for Zappos is secondary to a higher purpose How the telephone is the best… -
Have you got the crumb factor?
15 Jul 2010 | 8:56 amTo my mind customers don't just buy a product out of the blue - OK there are exceptions but in general, even subconsciously they need to be romanced before they become your loyal 'life partner'.It's what Dad used to say to me is the Crumb Factor! You need to leave clues, you need to leave a trail of enticement to your checkout. He called it the Crumb Factor because they are tasters, they are nibbles which make the customer hungry for more....Too often brands sell product, expecting the customer to jump to sale. But most people need a test drive before they buy a car! People want to be sure,… -
Show 294 - All about the Referral Engine
9 Jul 2010 | 5:36 amShow 294 of The Engaging Brand leadership and marketing podcast is ready just for you. To subscribe or listen on your PC now - both for free, you don't need to download anything - all explained at the end of the post.I speaking with John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing fame who has written all about the Referral Engine. We talk about The importance of belief in gaining referrals How people ARE wired to refer your business Has there been a change in how referrals work with social media? The importance of valuing referrers -they are your volunteer salesforce! How you need a talkable…
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Liquid Agency Brand Exchange
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Liquid launches the Hitachi LifeStudio brand.
26 Jul 2010 | 3:51 pmHitachi hires Liquid to develop launch campaign for new brand. Hitachi LifeStudio is a new brand of hard drive products that takes simple storage and backup to a whole other level. When Hitachi started looking for an agency to help them launch the new brand, they selected Liquid because of our experience with technology brands and retail. Working on the LifeStudio launch has been fun because the products are truly unique. LifeStudio is much more than an ordinary drive – the products include software designed to help users manage their “digital mess” through an innovative… -
The 2011 REBRAND 100® Global Awards.
13 Jul 2010 | 10:48 amMarty Neumeier, Director of Transformation at Liquid Agency has been invited by REBRAND to be one of ten jurors selected every year for the annual REBRAND 100 Global Awards. REBRAND is the first, and only expert-led, global resource for case studies and programs focused on effective brand transformations. It has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, CNNMoney, FastCompany, Yahoo! Finance, other publications and various media. The REBRAND 100® Global Awards is the highest recognition for excellence in brand repositioning – and the first and only competition of its kind. Businesses,… -
Knowing. Making. Doing.
2 Jun 2010 | 2:32 pmAs I said in my book The Designful Company, if you want to innovate, you have to design. Yet design is a foreign language to most business managers. This is because the principles of traditional business management principles evolved to serve the needs of the industrial age. They rely on a mechanical two-step process for making decisions: knowing and doing. You “know” something—from a past experience, a case study, or a best practice—and then you “do” something. The problem with this process is that what you “know” is limited to either “what is” or “what was,” while… -
Alfredo is invited to Colombia for World Graphics Day 2010.
23 Apr 2010 | 10:23 amAlfredo Muccino, Chief Creative Officer of Liquid Agency, has been invited by the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, a university in Cali, Colombia to participate in their celebration of World Graphics Day. Alfredo will help lead a workshop involving students enrolled in the design program. The focus of the workshop is to create posters based on the theme “The Value of Design”. The program is being offered in conjunction with Icograda (the International Council of Graphic Design Associations). The Pontificia Universidad Javeriana is a private higher education institution founded in… -
Slice and Eton are recognized by GDUSA.
12 Apr 2010 | 10:42 amTwo of Liquid Agency’s packaging projects were recognized for their outstanding design by the Graphic Design USA through their annual American Package Design Awards competition.Liquid Agency received an award for the packaging system the company designed for Eton Corporation, which included packaging for the Eton brand, the American Red Cross brand, and the Grundig brand. Based in Palo Alto, Eton Corporation is globally recognized famous for its award-winning line of shortwave and emergency crank radios. Most of its radios are either hand or solar powered. Liquid also received an award…
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Greteman Group Blog
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Watching Our Client’s Back
28 Jul 2010 | 7:09 amA client forwarded me an email he’d received today from a very kind ad rep I work with, Mary Bellini Brown from Halldale Media Group. I’m humbled. And amazed. Everyone’s so busy. It means a great deal that she would take time to give me this virtual pat on the back. The email specifically called me out. But it could just have easily named another of my colleagues. Each does what it takes to solve a problem. Meet a deadline. Take care of the client – which, by extension, also means working closely and well with our vendor partners. It’s a great read. The best one I’ve had today. I… -
Jared’s Picks for Final Friday
27 Jul 2010 | 1:34 pmStraight Arrow, works by Marc Bosworth Straight Arrow – Marc Bosworth @ Gallery One Nine Greteman Group’s own Marc Bosworth introduces multi-layered works that take on themes such as role models and gender stereotypes. In his works you can find references to such styles as abstract expressionism and pop art. 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm @ Gallery One Nine 125 N Market St, Wichita, KS (18th Floor) Judith French Millard – In Memoriam @ Gallery XII A long time member of Gallery XII, the venue, her friends and husband will being paying tribute to her art in a memorial showing this Final Friday. -
Kulula stands out
27 Jul 2010 | 9:13 amKulula's paint job teaches you about the basics of flying. Kulula Airline – one of four lowcost carriers operating in South Africa – has come on strong with these brightly painted schemes, humorous in-flight commentary, and Kit Kat rewards for passengers who wear green. The Zulu word kulula means it is light or it is easy/simple. They certainly captured my attention with the flying billboard and branding strategy I loved from several decades ago. My then-favorite woman of adverting and style guru Mary Wells declared it was the end of the plain plane with Alexander Calder paint schemes for… -
New Via Christi Hospital Ready for its Close Up
23 Jul 2010 | 1:26 pmWe’ve had the great privilege (and fun) of helping introduce the community to Via Christi Health’s newest hospital. (Check out the :15 teaser http://www.via-christi.org) Now that the opening’s mere weeks away, we were able to get in and shoot footage for a :30 TV spot and longer-form video. As impressive as the $93 million facility is, the highlights of our day came from working with the incredibly articulate, impassioned staff and westsiders barely able to contain their enthusiasm about having Via Christi care so close to home. See for yourself how the Via Christi Hospital on West St. -
Don’t Be Like The Microsoft Kin (Dead On Arrival)
8 Jul 2010 | 1:58 pmOnly the half baked die young. The world’s most prolific personal computing giant, Microsoft, has completely botched its introduction to the mobile phone market. Only six short weeks following the launch of the Kin, the phone’s development team is being transferred over to working on the Windows Phone 7. Where does this fit the realm of Microsoft failures? More important, what can we learn from it? A Brief History of Recent Microsoft Gaffes We don’t have to dig deep into the days of “Microsoft Bob” (RIP 1995), or bore you with the all-too-well-known history of how the tech giant…
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Brandless At The Beach - NEVER!
29 Jul 2010 | 10:52 amJust because you're on vacation and lounging at the beach doesn't mean your brand has to relax too. Here are ten ways you can promote your brand when you're supposed to be relaxing:1: Build a sand model of your store or office.2: This one's for the ladies. Get a one piece suit and using an exact-o knife cut out a stencil of your brand logo. Next time you wear a two-piece suit your logo will be in -
Jump And Grow Your Wings On The Way Down.
23 Jul 2010 | 6:35 amThe headline to this article is a quote from a client of mine - Belinda Bond. Belinda is the visionary behind the Celebrity Mama Tour. I thought it was the perfect bit of advice for entrepreneurs. How many times have you sat down for a chat with someone and they are pondering the age old question, "When is the best time to launch my idea?" or "Is it the right time to go into business for myself?" -
It's Not About You.
20 Jul 2010 | 7:29 am"It's Not About You" Podcast. How to solve your customer's problems. -
Testing The Apple Brand
14 Jul 2010 | 6:10 amThe new iPhone and iPad have a similar problem - antenna strength. I've been a Mac user since it's inception in '84 and I have never (knock wood) had any issues with it's new products until the iPad. Wi-Fi signal strength drops away the minute I step out onto my deck. I went online with the issue and found that it's a common problem which is hoped to be addressed in the OS update in the fall. Now -
Samaritan's Purse Are A Case History In Great Branding
13 Jul 2010 | 5:47 pmThis evening I had a follow-uo conversation from two gentlemen from "Samaritan's Purse". A little over a month ago, our neighbourhood endured three tornadoes and Samaritan's Purse were one of the aid organization who rushed to the town's assistance. They are one organization that practice what they preach. The three young guys who helped us worked like dogs and played a great role in the clean-up
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Guy Richards / Ordinary Life with a Brand Strategist
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#21 / Join the adventure, fake snowboard park in VA
26 Jul 2010 | 7:05 pmChecking in from Liberty Mountain in 90 degree weather wishing I wasn't in dress shoes and had about an hour to spare. ...with Justin BrackettPS. Yea I needed a haircut. #21 / Join the adventure, fake snowboard park from Guy Richards on Vimeo. -
#20 / At Jerry's House
22 Jul 2010 | 3:44 amThis is one of the wises people I know. During the course of his career he has raised over 2 billion for non-profits. #20 At Jerry's House from Guy Richards on Vimeo. -
#19 Wind Turbinds and Innovation
21 Jul 2010 | 1:33 amOn the side of a highway, headed to Indianapolis with Joe Owens. #19 Wind Turbinds and Innovation from Guy Richards -
#18 / Pricing from the tunnel in O'Hare airport
8 Jul 2010 | 4:06 amHold onto your hat, it's shaky. #18 / Pricing from the tunnel in O'Hare airport from Guy Richards on Vimeo. -
#17 / Criminals know the value of identity
7 Jul 2010 | 9:04 amThis webisode was birthed from a movie I watch about a criminal who was using identity to achieve his plan. #17 / Criminals know the value of identity from Guy Richards on Vimeo.
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Orange Element Insights
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A Gusto for Soccer
13 Jul 2010 | 9:55 amWe’ve enjoyed a month of World Cup action. As the games close, we’d like to pay a little attention to the type found throughout the event. Yomar Augusto designed Unity for Adidas. It reminds me a bit of Emigre’s Platelet, but the numbers held up great from afar on the jerseys and it is always nice to see a company practice consistency with a design element. The font appeared on everything from the soccer ball to the website to window graphics. Puma used Paul Barnes’ Crepello as seen on the Italian jerseys. I love the notches on the counter of the zero and the slight… -
Turn your junk into useful pieces of art
22 Jun 2010 | 5:53 amI know I personally like making sculptures out of random objects, but these guys take this to another level by utilizing found/used objects to make fantastic, usable and functional things. Not only are these great looking creations, but they’re a great way to recycle and make something beautiful all at once. For example, a light made entirely of soda tabs: From light bulbs to toilet paper rolls, there’s surely a project in here that will catch your interest. Check it out! Useless Junk Turned DIY Products -
Maryland Film Festival SIGNED Poster Giveaway!
5 May 2010 | 9:09 amThe 2010 Maryland Film Festival starts tomorrow, and runs all throughout the weekend (May 6-9) right here in Baltimore! In honor of opening day, we are having two EXCITING giveaways! Find out how to enter below, and for more information on this year’s festival, including a full screening schedule for the entire weekend, please visit the Maryland Film Festival Website. You can also stay up-to-date on the latest happenings at the Festival by visiting the Maryland Film Festival Blog and following them on Twitter. Here’s what you’ve all been waiting for… Giveaway #1 One… -
A Day In The Life
21 Apr 2010 | 8:48 amCongratulations to the coordinators of Baltimore’s first “A Day In The Life” event being held at MICA’s Brown Center this Saturday, April 24, 2010. The goal is to bring professionals and students together for discussion on the layers of our industry. Those lucky enough to have pre-registered will have the choice of attending small sessions throughout the day–11 options in total–that range from the business of design, branding, typography and the green movement. Our very own Aaron Moore is a panelist in the afternoon session The Value of Great Design. We are… -
Hot Jumbalaya!
16 Apr 2010 | 7:08 amOur friends over at Fastspot have created an iPad app that is sure to please Scrabble-lovers and those suffering from ADHD alike. The multi-touch game is appropriately titled Jumbalaya. It is a fun word game where you can push, pull, play and reset kind of like an Etch-A-Sketch. There are two game modes, Survival and Quick Play and three themes, Wood, Earth and Ice. Not to mention it is beautiful and better priced than any board game I’ve seen in a while. Check out the full article in today’s business section of The Baltimore Sun. Congrats Fastspot! ande www.orange-element.com
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Brandweek - News and Features
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Johnson & Johnson Conducts 'Pre-Review'
29 Jul 2010 | 9:27 amThe company last conducted a review of its global account three years ago. -
Doner Intros Mazda2 With DriverVille Game
29 Jul 2010 | 5:43 amThe automaker is inviting Facebook users to test drive its new entry-level car. -
Google Rolls Location-Based Mobile Display Ads
29 Jul 2010 | 1:29 amSearch giant intros mobile banner units that show users nearby services. -
Avery Hopes New Ads Will Stick
29 Jul 2010 | 12:05 amOffice and stationery brand launches new products and first national ad campaign. -
H&R Block Taps Fallon as Lead Agency
28 Jul 2010 | 5:21 amThe tax preparation brand spends an estimated $150 mil. annually on ads.
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The BrandBuilder Blog
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Back by popular demand: The Basics of Social Media R.O.I.
28 Jul 2010 | 5:01 amThough the presentation has morphed a bit since this version made its debut at the first Social Fresh conference a scant 11 months ago, this original version still manages to pretty clearly explain the basics of a) defining what R.O.I. (Return on Investment) is, and b) applying that basic knowledge to Social Media endeavors. After almost a year of teaching this, over 730 embeds and close to 150,000 views on slideshare, we’re making pretty decent progress, but judging by the show of hands at the Supergenius conference this past week in New York, many people who should have seen it still… -
The Psychology of Failure – Part 2: Leadership
24 Jul 2010 | 8:42 am“I will tell His Majesty what a king is. A king does not abide within his tent while his men bleed and die upon the field. A king does not dine while his men go hungry, nor sleep when they stand at watch upon the wall. A king does not command his men’s loyalty through fear nor purchase it with gold; he earns their love by the sweat of his own back and the pains he endures for their sake. That which comprises the harshest burden, a king lifts first and sets down last. A king does not require service of those he leads but provides it to them. He serves them, not they him.” -… -
The Psychology of failure – Part 1
22 Jul 2010 | 2:07 pmOn madness, models of failure, and the mythology of past successes I have been thinking a lot about success and failure in business this past week, and about behavioral patterns and common cultural factors I invariably find in organizations that breed either one outcome or the other. I will dive deeper into this topic over the coming weeks, but for now, today, I want to show you something. Something that, at first glance, I found funny. Not knee-slapping, LOL-inducing haha-funny, mind you. Something funny yet tragic, because it illustrates not only the stupidity of the way some organizations… -
Apple’s new challenge: Transitioning from David to Goliath – BBC.com
15 Jul 2010 | 10:10 amImage by Keith Newton Everyone loves an underdog. We root for them. We identify with them. And for the last few decades, one of our favorite underdog brands has been Apple, and for good reason: They made computers user-friendly. They made computers fun. They made them accessible to kids and artists and creatives. They made computers cool, from the packaging to the user experience, even down to the way we shop. The Apple brand was built on the underdog premise, on a revolutionary and pioneering spirit. On being – and thinking – different. Apple went deep instead of going wide. It… -
More Buyer Beware: Social Media Roles and Titles are Marketing too.
12 Jul 2010 | 11:09 amBefore I begin, here are links to the three events mentioned in the video: July 17: Americas Mart International Gift Show – Atlanta, GA July 20 (not July 21, as I wrongly stated in the above video): Gaspedal’s Supergenius conference – New York, New York July 27-28: ADMA Forum 2010 – Sydney, Australia Okay. Now we can begin. From solo operator to corporate front: The evolution of manufactured Social Media expertise in 2010 I guess it was just a matter of time before we had to revisit the issue of bogus Social Media “experts,” so today is as good as any to do…
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Brand Champions
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Are Reality Show Brands Like Jersey Shore Authentic?
31 Jul 2010 | 12:00 amThat question arises for me when I periodically check out a reality show. The people and the places in these series are apparently "real." They are not actors are they? Do the producers for shows like Jersey Shore put these "real" people up to the antics that we see them engaged in and do the directors encourage them to use fowl language in every sentence? My guess is that in most cases the answer to these questions is yes.If that is the case, are these reality shows authentic? Being "real" for people in their everyday lives could dilute the show's brand. For… -
Brand Champion of the Day-Christine Prado, Patron of Idea Paint, Art Director, Clemson University, President, UCDA
30 Jul 2010 | 12:00 amA few years ago I had the pleasure of presenting a brand strategy workshop at a UCDA conference in Toronto. One of the participants in that session was Christine Prado, Art Director at Clemson University. During that session I got to know Christine and have been impressed with the work she does at Clemson ever since. Her leadership skills have now landed her as the President of UCDA. One of my favorite organizations on the planet, by the way. Today, Christine takes time out of her busy schedule to share her views on what it means to be a brand champion for one of her favorite brands, Idea… -
Zappos Brand Delivers Happiness
29 Jul 2010 | 12:00 amI now have a new favorite book on brands and branding, Delivering Happiness by Zappos CEO, Tony Hsieh. I was first introduced to Zappos a few years ago by one of my colleagues. He raved about the customer service experience delivered by the online shoe company, Zappos. Like any good brand consultant I did my homework and realized that this company was very much in alignment with what we profess to our clients, especially education brands. Last year I featured Tony Hsieh as a Brand Champion of the Day. The Zappos brand is built on the brand promise of delivering happiness, a set of 10 core… -
Newspaper Wrap Around Ads Can Dilute Brands
28 Jul 2010 | 12:00 amI am not sure if your local newspaper has engaged in using wrap around print ads on the front page or not, but mine has and it is annoying. This is an example of what Seth Godin would describe as interruption marketing. I don't know about you, but I want to see what the main headline is on the front page, not an ad for a sale on top sirloin steaks at the local supermarket.A few days ago the ad was for a special section on education. Even as an education brand consultant and someone who is the target audience for this ad, I do not want to see this on the front page and interrupting my line… -
Political Ads Dilute the Brand of the Sender, Not the Receiver
27 Jul 2010 | 12:00 amWell it is that season again, when most political candidates and their non-brand strategy advisers sink to the depths of mud-slinging ads. Every election campaign candidates say they will no lower themselves to slamming their opponent(s) with television ads that border on slander. And every campaign witnesses the vast majority of candidates doing just what they said they would not.When are they going to learn that the people who they want to influence, you and I, hate this stuff? When are they going to learn that they dilute their own brand, rather than their opponent's brand by listening…
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MisEntropy
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Levi's in the 70s
20 Jul 2010 | 5:25 amMore ads from the distant past. -
Plannersphere Top 20 - July 2010
7 Jul 2010 | 5:21 amThe top 20 blogs in the plannersphere as of 7th July 2010 are:01. We Are Social02. advertising lab03. Noah Brier dot Com04. russell davies05. Nick Burcher06. Only Dead Fish07. The Musings of An Opinionated Sod08. Servant of Chaos09. Herd - the hidden truth about who we are10. The Hidden Persuader11. Adspace Pioneers12. Trendsspotting13. The Curious Brain14. 180/360/72015. Get Shouty16. brand new17. positive disruption by: Tom Martin18. Talent imitates, genius steals19. livingbrands20. Influxinsightsa. The top 20 blog list winnows out the planning/strategy blogs from the AdAge Power 150 list -… -
How to improve Dan Ariely's compliment-dishing iPhone app
11 Jun 2010 | 4:47 amDan Ariely - unpredictably rationally - has created a free iPhone app that gives you a compliment (and hopefully cheers you up) every time you open it. Tap the screen and you get another one. Click on the thumbs up/down icon if you like/dislike the compliment and it'll learn which ones work better. If you're feeling particularly good, you can enter your own compliment for other strangers.The problem with this, of course, is that there is no correlation to what one knows and thinks about oneself and the compliments one receives. Even the most delusional user will, no doubt, have the occasional… -
Strategy is knowing what to do when...
9 Jun 2010 | 4:54 amOver at his blog, Bud Caddell is crowdsourcing a definition of strategy. There are some great suggestions and this one's my addition - a quote by an early 20th century chess grandmaster and writer. -
10 things I didn't know until last week
7 Jun 2010 | 5:16 am1. In 1939, with war against Germany looming, the British government designed three posters to steady the public's resolve and maintain morale. These featured the crown of King George VI set against a bold red background, and three distinctive slogans - "Freedom is in Peril", "Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution Will Bring Us Victory", and "Keep Calm and Carry On". Although 2.5 million copies of the last one were printed, it was never actually used during the war. It's fame is largely a result of its rediscovery in 2000.More details2. Only 19 countries are members of G20 group.
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Bringing Brands to Life!
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How to Let Your Articles Breathe
26 Jul 2010 | 4:23 pmYou’re breathing, right? Good! Now carefully watch your breath. Did you feel that tiny pause? The pause in-between your breaths? No? Let’s try another example, then. Take your favorite CD. Notice what’s in-between the songs? Canyouimaginelisteningtoyourfavoritecdwithoutanybreaksinbetweensongs? Neither can I. That’s the power of the “pause” And your articles are no different. Articles need pauses, too. Pauses help your content to “breeeeeathe.” What does it mean to let your article “breathe?” Letting your article “breathe” means inserting periodic pauses throughout your… -
How the 10-20-30 Principle Cures Chaotic Writing Schedules
20 Jul 2010 | 6:27 amEver get a song stuck in your head? Sure you have. Ah, yes, but have you ever tried to stop it? And you can’t? What makes that song so memorable? The song’s got rhythm, my friend, rhythm! But wait a minute. Is your writing schedule as infectious as that rhythm in the song? If not, then how do you throw some of that good ol’ rhythm into your writing day? Actually, it’s pretty darn easy. Just use the 10-20-30 Principle. What is the 10-20-30 Principle? The 10-20-30 Principle is a simple schedule to help build up your writing discipline. If you struggle with a disciplined writing… -
How the Whack-a-Mole Factor Keeps You from Writing
12 Jul 2010 | 3:28 pmEver play Whack-a-Mole when you were a kid? Whack-a-mole is a popular games at arcades and fairs. The waist-high cabinet has five holes where five plastic moles “pop up” from out of the hole at random times. What’s your task as a player? To “whack” the “mole” back down into the hole with a rubber mallet before it “pops” back down by itself. Whacking every mole is nearly impossible to do, of course. All this popping up is designed to keep you distracted I call it the “Whack-a-Mole” Factor. And, yes, the Whack-a-Mole Factor may be distracting you from writing. What is the… -
Write Faster with Sporadic Writing
6 Jul 2010 | 5:05 pm500 puzzle pieces are staring you in the face. What do you do? Put the puzzle together in order, top to bottom? Or put the puzzle together sporadically? If you’re lucky, you can start at the top and put the puzzle in order. But, then again, you might not be so lucky. Building your puzzle out of order, or sporadically, might be a better option Of course, the same concept applies to writing your content. If you’re stuck writing in order, top to bottom, it’s time to play a little trick with your brain. It’s time to write sporadically. What do you mean, write “sporadically?” We often… -
Thinking of Blogging? Freewriting Makes it Easy
29 Jun 2010 | 3:53 amHave you ever heard music so amazing your brain, um, stops thinking? I have. Just listen to Neil Peart’s drumming. Canadian rockers Rush have counted on Neil’s drumming to be their musical backbone for almost 40 years. But there’s one thing most people don’t’ know about Neil Neil prepares for every concert by practicing his chops for 30 minutes. Every. Single. Concert. His practice routine isn’t legendary but his shows in front of 30,000 fans are. I know. You’re not Neil Peart and you’re not performing for 30,000 fans. You just want to get on with your blogging. But, hey, this…
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Brains On Fire Blog
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F.I.R.E Sessions Recap Part 2 - Steve Knox on Trusted Advocacy and How It Will Change Marketing
30 Jul 2010 | 6:45 amThanks again to @mackcollier for capturing the day. Enjoy. Photo via flickr via hyku Steve Knox, CEO of Proctor and Gamble’s WOM Unit Tremor, was the second presenter of the day, and I thought he made an incredibly profound business point early on in his talk: “Victory in marketing doesn’t happen when you sell something, but when you cultivate advocates for your brand” - Think about that for a minute, because that statement really ties into the themes of the FIRE Sessions. Change. Reframing the conversation. What if we stopped talking about selling more stuff,… -
“We aren’t in Kansas anymore, we’re in Greenville. (Part 1)
29 Jul 2010 | 6:18 amToday’s post is from @mackcollier. We were so lucky to have him attend and agree to blog from the 2010 4th Annual Brains on Fire FIRE Sesssions. What a treat to finally meet him in person. Photos from this post are via Flickr via hyku’s photostream (our super cool and very talented friend Josh Hallett). More photos to come from our very own Justin Gammon. So enjoy: And being in Greenville on this glorious day means being at Brains on Fire’s FIRE sessions. This is an event, actually I think it would be more appropriate to call it an experience. I was beyond thrilled to be… -
What makes us human?
26 Jul 2010 | 6:11 amSeveral weeks ago, my friend Francois asked me to give him a photo and sentence or two on what it means to be human for the website for his newly re-named company: Human 1.0. Don’t you just love that name? I am crazy about Francois. I drink his champagne. His new book, The Hyper-Social Organization with co-author Ed Moran is a bit more academic than the Brains on Fire book, but we’re singing the same tune. It’s not about technology or social media, it’s about people. So back to the question Francois asked of me. I have to tell you his question stumped me. And since we are… -
Pictures of the Week
23 Jul 2010 | 7:08 amWe’ve been super-busy and the camera hasn’t been out lately. But our hard work has paid off and we’ve taken some time to celebrate. Enjoy a few shots of the BOF Family marking a job well done. When someone says, “everyone get together, NOW!” you can probably bet there will be a mini field-trip and some tequila involved. Doddfather raising the bottle of victory high. Is he winding up or winding down? We love our Brains on Fire ladies. They’re so pretty. You know, an abstract artsy picture. Because we’re a creative company. Some summer sweat is bad,… -
Movements and ownership - employees and customers behind the wheel
22 Jul 2010 | 9:53 amOn Monday we talked about why movements require ownership - putting employees and customers behind the wheel. Today we’re gonna look at a few really practical examples. First, if you missed the last episode, here are a few highlights: So many well-meaning businesses initiate use of social media tools and conversation with their employees and customers, but never let them out of the passenger seat. If you want to build real community, though, you can’t just invite your advocates along for the ride, you have to let them get behind the wheel at some point. Without letting them…
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Unbound Edition
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Hayward Defends Tenure, BP's Spill Response
30 Jul 2010 | 5:50 amTony Hayward, the departing chief executive of BP PLC, is unrepentant about how the energy giant responded to the U.S.'s largest offshore oil spill. In his first interview after agreeing to step down from the top spot this week, Mr. Hayward said he did everything possible once the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank in the Gulf of Mexico, by taking responsibility for the spill, and spending billions of dollars to stop the spewing oil and clean up the shoreline. -
What You Want: Flickr Creator Spins Addictive New Web Service
30 Jul 2010 | 5:50 amThat’s what Fake does best: Tend social sparks until they ignite and become full-fledged communities. Connecting people to one another is not just Fake’s hobby — she has made it her career. As the cofounder of Flickr, the landmark photography site, Fake provided a place for shutterbugs to share their work; they have uploaded more than 4 billion pictures. It was a seminal service that helped launch the era of user-generated content, spurring entrepreneurs to build Web sites and businesses based on volunteer contributions. -
Clive Thompson on the Death of the Phone Call
30 Jul 2010 | 5:21 amWe’re moving, in other words, toward a fascinating cultural transition: the death of the telephone call. This shift is particularly stark among the young. Some college students I know go days without talking into their smartphones at all. I was recently hanging out with a twentysomething entrepreneur who fumbled around for 30 seconds trying to find the option that actually let him dial someone. -
Will Digital Culture Ever Invent a Homer Simpson?
30 Jul 2010 | 5:18 amWill we ever create our own Homer? I am not being argumentative. This is an open question. The answer could be "soon" or it could be "never," and I'll be happy. However we answer this question, we will have improved our anthropological understanding of contemporary culture. -
Barkley vs. Jordan: Who's the Brand Champ?
30 Jul 2010 | 5:18 amCertain celebrity endorsements have the Midas touch and Barkley is a sterling example, despite a checkered past including gambling issues and a DUI conviction. His over-the-top persona has made Barkley a magnet for brands — compared, say, with NBA legend (and Hanes spokesman) Michael Jordan.
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Expert in the Rough, Brian Monahan
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Stick Your Neck Out – My TEDx Cincy Proposal
30 Jul 2010 | 3:14 pm“Stick Your Neck Out”……AKA “Get a Pair,” is one of my favorite success strategies. I have always been a firm believer that the “World” is presented on a silver platter for those willing to take a risk and put their spirit on the line. As many of you know, one of my dreams is to be a keynote speaker. I have been training with Toastmasters for the last 2 years and continue to hone my speaking skills. With that being said, I still have a long way to go. Since joining Toastmasters I have had numerous opportunities to speak and have taken on… -
Passion on Pause, Press Play
27 Jul 2010 | 8:44 pmIs your Passion on Pause, Press Play? Play is a funny word if you think in terms of VCR’s and DVD players versus the act of playing. It is even funnier when you pair it up with a concept like Passion. I think a lot of people suffer from a misdiagnosed passion problem. Most people as they get older lose touch with their passion and believe their passion has become a lost cause. I am suggesting possibly their passion is merely on pause. Being my day job is in the audio visual production industry this metaphor should be a slam dunk for me. Were talking about Passion being like the media… -
Destination Passion
21 Jul 2010 | 5:23 amLast week I had the honor to interview my dear old Dad about his path and his views on passion. Being the smart “arse” that he is he won’t mind the “old” jab, but kidding aside, my Dad had some great insights when it comes to passion. I have referenced my Dad – Mike Monahan in numerous posts but for my new readers, my father has been teaching Personal Growth Seminars for over 15 years. His path is an unlikely one with a poor upbringing, limited education and a career on the opposite end of the personal growth spectrum. He transitioned from Pipefitter… -
I Have Been Fat for Too Long!
11 Jul 2010 | 5:45 pmIt’s almost Momentum Monday and I have been doing the BeachBody.com Insanity DVD workout and diet for 1 week. I think a “WAHOO!” is in order. My wife and I were chatting on the way to dinner with my parents tonight about what I was going to eat. We were going to one of Cincinnati’s classic pizza joints, “Larosa’s.” Larosa’s has great food but lets get real pizza is the only reason to go to Larosa’s. I had a dilemma, “pizza or a grilled chicken hoagie,” I asked my wife. She said; “Today is your cheat day, right.” I… -
The Personal Passion Project
6 Jul 2010 | 8:18 pmNearly 2 years in the making “The Personal Passion Project” is about to launch. Back in the summer of 2008 I had an epiphany of sorts. My wife was around 6 months pregnant and I was experiencing something familiar or maybe unfamiliar. I was experiencing excitement. It reminded me of when I was about to graduate high school or right before Megan and I were married. I had something bigger than myself to share with the world. It was what some people call “Mojo.” As I get older I have noticed my life has gotten stale from time to time and these moments of…
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ID-ology
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Powell’s photo booth up and running
15 Jul 2010 | 11:56 amNow’s your chance to go to Powell’s City of Books (the downtown store) and get your picture taken with your name on the Powell’s marquee — an honor usually reserved for great authors and other luminaries. It’s fun. It’s free. It’s digital, so you can share it with your friends. And you won’t have to risk your life by standing in the middle of Burnside to do it. As a nice bonus, you can sign up to get a 20% discount on your next Powells.com purchase (online only). That doesn’t hurt. The photo booth will be up till September 25. - Doug -
You need kevlar undies these days
2 Jul 2010 | 4:59 pmIt’s looking like branding as we come out of the recession is still not for the faint of heart or weak of bowels. Good Lord. I sure felt the truth of this over the last several weeks. And it looks like the new Forrester report called The Future of Agency Relationships confirms it. We recently started working with a new client and straight out of the gate we’re launching an important promotion and ongoing brand experience that no one either here at ID Branding or there at the client has ever done before. In fact, the more experts I talk to in hopes of smoothing the process a bit,… -
A Sentimental Memento
1 Jul 2010 | 2:28 pmFor the next three months you can have your picture taken with every Portlander’s true love, Powell’s Books. They’ll even put your name up on the marquee, and then email the photo to you. Free. At Powell’s City of Books downtown. Try to do this in real life and you’ll be flattened by Burnside traffic. Instead of my name, I had my motto for the day put up on the big sign. - Doug -
The “I think it’s finally summer” reading list
25 Jun 2010 | 11:08 amOK, the sun came out yesterday. And again today. I can’t promise it’ll stay, but I think it’s actually finally summer. Portland just had the wettest May in history and broke the record for the wettest June by the 16th of the month. We’ve had no sign of summer until now. So, with the new-found sun we finally get to post our summer reading list. And here it is: Flipped: How Bottom-Up Co-Creation is Replacing Top-Down Innovation. John Winsor. Just began this one, but it’s looking good already. Written by the man who started Radar Communications, which was bought… -
Clients, we’re willing to die on your behalf
26 May 2010 | 10:43 pmI just watched the movie Pirate Radio, with Philip Seymour Hoffman et. al. Clients, if you want to understand the commitment of creatives to great work on your behalf, watch this movie. In it, the disc jockeys are willing to go down with the ship to keep playing rock and roll on behalf of the audience. This is a direct metaphor for how creatives feel about the work they do on your behalf. They, like the djs in the movie, are professionals. They have devoted their lives to understanding what your audience really wants from your brand. They are the very select number of people who get it at a…
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Bhatnaturally
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15% agency commission: reduced to a pipe dream
30 Jul 2010 | 7:31 pmThe standard agency commission was once 15% of media billings. The operative word being once. Several factors led to a change in agency compensation: - rising cost of media buying, hiving of media planning & buying as specialist units - clients buying media directly - the perception that agencies recommend expenditure in a medium that would best benefit them by ignoring emerging new media - the pressure on marketers to reduce costs on all fronts - the emergence of brand consultants and their way of compensation (hourly rates or project fees)…and so on. Add to it the disunity among… -
Vaseline and the pitfalls of a borderless digital world
19 Jul 2010 | 5:44 pmVaseline India creates a Facebook application to support Vaseline for Men’s ‘Be Prepared‘ advertising campaign and it’s being talked about across the world. Unfortunately for all the wrong reasons. Blame it on the borderless digital age that we live in, but Shahid Kapoor and the app get mentions in PC World, CBS News and even The Atlantic (!). While some have used strong words to describe the campaign (crowdsourced racism), others have simply called the app ineffective. The Western world’s consternation at this ‘fairness = superiority’ promotion is… -
Media as commodity and rise of the procurement guys
19 Jul 2010 | 10:15 amWhen I first read about an FMCG company asking media agencies to pay for a pitch (on a Twitter feed of a well known media personality in India), I couldn’t believe what I read. And then the news reports confirmed it: Reckitt Benckizer called for media agencies to pitch for their business by paying a pitch fee and committing to return 2.5% of the commission they (the media agencies) receive from media. There has been a hue & cry within the industry, especially since such a move comes from a respected global marketer. There are some who see it as a wake up call for the industry. -
Apple & Consumer Reports: of PR losses and gains
14 Jul 2010 | 11:12 amMention ‘iPhone 4′ now to anyone and chances are the response will be ‘faulty phone’. Apple’s detractors have always perceived the brand to be low on utility/value and high on aesthetics. This whole antenna problem falls right into their waiting hands. Given the propensity of Apple fanboys to come to the defense of Apple every time there is a negative mention in online forums, sing paeans about Apple products and view everything else as infra dig , they are sitting ducks for those who wish to see Apple fail big time. Apple is the brand that some would love to… -
I heart Old Spice digital campaign
14 Jul 2010 | 10:17 amBrands are discovering fresh new ways of using social media & digital advertising by the day – Whopper Sacrifice, Twelpforce, Blendtec come to mind. But Old Spice has just raised the bar several thousand notches with their on-going digital campaign. In what is surely a first, Old Spice is sending video responses to people who mention @OldSpice on Twitter. What’s more, the respondents are named personally by the shirtless Isaiah Mustafa. While celebs like @TheEllenShow, @PerezHilton and @KevinRose have received their video responses, the amazing part is the speed with which…
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Integrated Branding Blog | Movéo
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Brand Transparency in a Social Media Age
23 Jul 2010 | 8:51 amInternet access provides consumers with endless amounts of information at their fingertips. To put this in perspective, let's compare our process of collecting information today to that of 15 years ago. Imagine a grade school student in mid-90's. If this person needed information they would probably start out by asking their parents or another family member. If that proved insufficient, the next stop would an encyclopedia or perhaps a trip to local library. Image courtesy of flaivoloka on stock.xchng Now compare that to today. You want to know how to tie a knot, cancer research, book reviews,… -
3 Simple Ways Non-profits Can Promote a Cause Through Social Media
13 May 2010 | 2:56 pm1. Tweet. Find people who are interested in your topic by searching conversations on search.twitter.com. Reach out by following them and sending them a personalized message. You'll be surprised by how many follow back or find you by searching through conversations. Once you've built a following. Share your important announcements and hopefully some of your followers will Retweet it to their followers. Just make sure that you're not only tweeting about yourself. Converse with your followers by answering or asking questions that pertain to them. Be active within your online… -
Query Parsing Explained
29 Mar 2010 | 7:30 amIf you're running a geo-specific AdWords campaign you may have wondered why you sometimes receive, and thus pay, for clicks outside of the area you are targeting. For example, you may be running a campaign for a local business in downtown Chicago. And to make sure that your ads only reach local searchers, you've indicated exactly which ZIP codes you want associated with your ads. However, when you sift through the analytics, you see that some of the users that are clicking on your ads are from outside the pre-determined ZIP's. They might be coming from New York or San Diego or… -
Building From the Inside Out
23 Mar 2010 | 11:39 amMany brand-building efforts begin with development of the strategy and then proceed directly to an external launch. The most important step is ignored — communicating the essence and relevance of the brand among all internal stakeholders — making it the fabric of the organization.The most successful organizations understand that if employees are aligned with the brand strategy, including the brand promise, they will deliver a consistent expression of the brand to its customers.Powerhouse brands such as Mayo Clinic and GE are prime examples. Each has dedicated itself to helping its… -
Hosting videos on your Site vs. YouTube
18 Feb 2010 | 10:32 amMany marketers are already aware of the benefit of using video in B2B marketing. But once you’ve decided on this strategy, you still have to decide where you’d like to host the videos - your own Web site or YouTube. There are pros and cons to each, which I explain below. The benefits of hosting videos on your site are that the user will be spending time on your domain and that links to the video will empower your domain and not YouTube.com. When a user is on your site, you have the added benefit of promoting your brand. YouTube does allow you to customize your channel, but control is…
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spatially relevant
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Do the work, do the math & the whole start-up thing just might work…
25 Jul 2010 | 11:56 am…according to David Cancel’s presentation from the lean start-up event in Boston. Data-Driven Startups View more presentations from David Cancel. -
Relevant Reading – July 23rd
23 Jul 2010 | 1:00 pmSharing the the things I found for the day: The Difference Between Motion and Action Change The Way You See Profit How To Increase Sales With Laughter What Did You Really Do Today? Be Productive Over the Summer Slowdown The Problem With Influence What Matters More? What You Know or Who You Are? » Heart of Business Calling for the Death of Consumption Guilt -
The funnel is dead, long live the loyalty loop….
23 Jul 2010 | 9:57 amFrancois’ presentation below on the Hyper-social Organization provides some interesting insights into social and the benefits of changing your processes to be shared/social. The hyper social organization View more webinars from Francois Gossieaux. -
Hypersocialbility: We need new stories for our products and brands
14 Jul 2010 | 6:51 am“Old, linear forms of storytelling are like going on a date and not letting the other person talk.” -Nicke Bergström As marketers, we have have always been storytellers whether it was looking to get alignment on your strategic roadmap , engaging your the people which buyer your product or looking for more effective ways to influence new markets or buyers. Year in and year out marketers are equipping sales to tell stories and in general creating content to influence folks and the change in how people consume data and share data means we need to move from novels to nuggets with our story… -
Relevant Reading – July 12th
12 Jul 2010 | 4:55 amhere you go, been slacking for a couple of days or more: The 6 Kinds of Angry Emails How technical should a product manager be? Our Divisive Scrum Terminology Needs to be Deprecated – Chicken? Pig? Neither! Are Presentation Skills Like Riding a Bicycle? Social media & product management June 2010
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Lies, damned lies and statistics
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Ten top stats for July
31 Jul 2010 | 11:47 amSo as I’m determined to get back into the blogging swing of things, I’ll start off with something easy - ten social media stats from the past month. Some of these are from my blog, while some of them are from the Rabbit feed, our weekly look at online stats and trends over at Rabbit (sign up here to get it by email.) 1 - Only 1% of Americans check into a location based network more than once a month (Forrester). That’s the subject of a fairly long post I have scheduled for Sunday night / Monday morning! 2 -Social media is female dominated. According to Comscore,… -
Useful links from the last few days
18 Jul 2010 | 5:00 pmUseful links that caught my eye: Times paywall: more analysis of the data | Beehive City - A look through the Times numbers now that the pay wall is up. The conclusion again seems to be too early to tell Activism or slacktivism: Is the web making it too easy? | memeburn - Does Desktop activism make us lazy asks this Meme Burn article? “How many Facebook groups dedicated to good causes sit on your profile, looking good, but doing nothing? How many email petitions have been deleted from your inbox because they’d come around for the fifth time? “Ethan Zuckerman, an early HTML guru… -
Ad shows how selective hearing can have fatal consequences
17 Jul 2010 | 1:25 pmTo highlight the work done by People Opposing Women Abuse (POWA) in South Africa, Ogilvy carried out an experiment, which involved renting a townhouse in a suburban Jo’burg complex. For two nights the guy they had renting the place played the drums at full tilt. The next night he played a domestic violence recording. No guesses which of the two got the neighbours steamed up. According to POWA, every year in South Africa 1400 women are killed by their partners. (Via the Denver Egotist) Related articles by Zemanta POWA - A neighbourhood experiment (10and5.com) A Sobering Experiment… -
How Twitter came into its own during the World Cup
17 Jul 2010 | 10:27 amThe other week Twitter reported that the record for the number of tweets per second was broken, when there were 3283 during the Japan / Denmark match at the World Cup. Surprisingly, even though Twitter says on its blog that the final Spain - Netherlands match “represented the largest period of sustained activity for an event in Twitter’s history”, the actual number of tweets per second for Spain’s winning goal was lower at 3051. However, the World Cup again shows that while Foursquare is still in danger of being a Second Life style phenomenon that is popular and fizzes… -
Age gap narrows with mobile app use
14 Jul 2010 | 12:32 amPerhaps no big surprise - the Pew Internet & American Life Project says that young adults (the under 30s) use mobile data apps the most by a fairly large margin. However, the same Pew study (via Marketing Charts) shows that this gap is narrowing. It seems that all age groups now like taking photos with their cameras - 93% of 18 to 29 year olds but also 67% of 50-64 year olds. Pew’s research also shows that the biggest growth rate when it comes to the use of mobile data applications on smart phones comes from the 30-49 year old audience - the audience that’s actually most…
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Does Your Business...have a branding strategy that works?
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The day Miller Brewing Co. asked our client to cease and desist
22 Jul 2010 | 7:39 amI enjoy following the Brand New blog. Pretty much every day they feature a company that has gone through an identity change. They also provide an interesting insight into the before and after of the corporate identity and the comments section never disappoints in providing a lively discussion between I hate it and it's the best brand re-design I've ever seen.This morning's post definitely caught my attention and brought me back about 10 years ago. Back in 2000 we were hired by a new restaurant to create a logo and identity campaign that would be carried out through all location signage and… -
Dan Gilbert's letter sends a clear message...about himself
9 Jul 2010 | 2:27 amBefore I get too into this, I must say that I probably would have written a similar letter. I probably would have thrown things against the wall as my temper oozed from my fingertips to keyboard. But I hope I wouldn't have actually hit SEND like Cleveland Cavaliers owner, Dan Gilbert, did last night as he lashed out at former Cav, Lebron James, for his decision to sign with the Miami Heat.Reading this open letter was painful and surprising. The quick-tempered, competitive side of me applauds his energy and motivation to bring a championship to Cleveland. The think-before-you-speak side of me… -
Pick Three: Service, culture and profits
17 Jun 2010 | 1:44 pmThe saying goes: Good, cheap and quick. Pick two. I first heard that line early in my career and there probably isn't a more accurate statement when it comes to providing a service.The other night I read Tony Hsieh's book excerpt in this month's Inc. on why he sold his company, Zappos, to Amazon.com. It provided some great insights that you don't typically get and it all surrounded Hsieh's strong desire to ink a deal that would maintain and build on the culture and customer service that was the platform for it becoming a $1 billion company within its first 10 years of business.It isn't often… -
Rules are meant to be broken...
11 Jun 2010 | 7:34 amThere's a common phrase out there in the design world: you can break the rules as long as you first know what they are. Every now and then that comes to mind and it popped up again yesterday after hearing about GM's internal memo that circulated externally to the New York Times stating that the automaker was enforcing the use of the brand name Chevrolet over its commonly-used nickname Chevy.I don't know about you, but all I know is that Chevrolet makes Chevy trucks. It doesn't make Chevrolet trucks. And the Corvette? I wrote about this a while back, but you'll be hard-pressed to find a Chevy… -
When things don't go perfectly...it's how we react
3 Jun 2010 | 7:17 amA lot of things happened last night in Detroit at Comerica Park. Rather than witnessing history's 21st perfect game it was more like a perfect storm. And in all that craziness there is a lot to be learned about business and what to do in the face of adversity.Let's start with Armando Galarraga. The guy threw a perfect game in everyone's eyes (even umpire, Jim Joyce's, after he reviewed the replay), but how he reacted to the call was even more telling of his character. Every day, business owners, entrepreneurs and managers are faced with challenges, dilemmas and factors that are completely out…
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Tungsten Branding -- Company Naming and Branding Blog
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Branding Your Book Series
9 Jul 2010 | 11:34 amWhen Kathy Gruhn came to us for a name for her child development program, we wanted something that could serve as a long term brand. The result was My Baby Compass, a comprehensive guide for parents of both newborns and young toddlers. The name was meant to convey the notion of navigating a child’s development through those first crucial months of life. This soon-to-be published work has already received rave reviews. Look for more news about its release in the coming weeks. And if you’re looking for a great product brand name, we’ll steer you right! -
Before Branding Your Company, Define Your Market Niche!
30 Jun 2010 | 5:36 amWhen branding a new company, the most pressing issues are not always the most important ones. There may be an upcoming trade show, a meeting with potential investors, or an impending trademark conflict. These urgent mandates can often obscure the overarching need to properly position your company in your industry. In a rush to brand your business, you may end up with a company name that you can use at a trade show, present to investors, and pass through trademark, but it may not reflect your value proposition, the very thing that makes your company unique and compelling. Let’s say for… -
Naming a New Business? Itemize and Prioritize!
23 Jun 2010 | 8:41 amOne of the most common refrains I hear when naming a new business is “I’ll know the right company name when I hear it.” That may or may not be true. It also may or may not be wise! Why is that? Because it makes the assumption that you know exactly what you want. In reality, most aspiring business owners have only a vague notion of what they want in a brand name. These notions are unarticulated, not written down anywhere, and it’s in no certain order. If you were to ask, it would sound like a free flow of consciousness … • Something creative • Fits with my… -
Cast Your Vote! $20,000 Non-Profit Corporate Branding Makeover Finalists Announced
16 Jun 2010 | 6:07 pmBe sure to vote now through June 30th, 2010 for a $20,000 corporate branding makeover for America’s most deserving non-profit charity. Here are the four finalists! MISSSEY Missey is one of a few organizations in this country that work with and on the behalf of commercially sexually exploited minors. Los Alamitos Youth Center, Inc. Los Alamitos Youth Center is an award winning organization that serves children ages 3 to 18. The amount of lives touched each year is tremendous. The Youth Center has been a vital part of this community and helped a lot of families through difficult times by… -
Brand Your Company to Improve Your Bottom Line!
11 Jun 2010 | 7:32 amMany business owners spend much of their time, money and energy promoting their products and services instead of building their brand image. If your main emphasis is on your product offerings, then you don’t have a brand, you have a commodity. You are most likely competing solely on price because you have not clearly defined your unique marketing position – what it is that makes you different, special and more compelling than anyone else in your industry. Why do most business owners avoid branding their companies? In short, because it’s hard work. It takes time, attention…
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The Brand Chef
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The 8 D’s Of Successful Marketing
29 Jul 2010 | 8:24 pmIf I include my college internship, this September will be my 20th year working in, on and around marketing. I’ve seen some successful campaigns. I’ve seen some pitiful campaigns. Fortunately, I’ve learned something from them all, but the most important thing I’ve learned is how to tell them apart. (Trust me, some can’t…) So what IS the difference between a successful and a pitiful marketing campaign? STRATEGY. All Marketing Strategy Is Not The Same If you walk through any marketing department or advertising agency, without a doubt, you’ll see computers, printers, scanners,… -
We Don’t Need Another Hero – A Rebuttal
23 Jul 2010 | 9:54 amThis morning, one of my Des Moines social media cohorts wrote a post about the recent onslaught of social media companies, consultants and “Superstars” that have recently dotted our fine city. Troy Rutter hasn’t hidden his distaste for the trend of social media consultants popping up out of nowhere (here, here, and here). But in this morning’s post, he created a correlation to other markets and specifically to the hotbed of social media action that is Boston – calling names like Chris Brogan, CC Chapman and Chris Penn as the benchmark to which all social media “Superstars” would… -
Can We Treat Our Customers Like Children?
22 Jul 2010 | 12:52 pmYep, it’s coming. Christmas. Sure, right now it’s 93 degrees (in my neighborhood) and Christmas is a whole 156 days away, but I can almost see all of the commercials now. Don’t they start airing some time in September?!? And shortly after, my kids start communicating with every sentence starting with, “I NEED…” It’s as predictable as the tides. What do you do? The Child’s Mind And The “Want vs. Need” Paradigm About mid October, when the kids finally succumb to the hypnotizing din of “New and improved this…” or “Now with 3D and smell-o-vision that,” I stop… -
Time Travel Isn’t Possible… YET.
15 Jul 2010 | 7:45 amMyopic Manager: “Hey, I need a video.” Worker Wendy: (shocked) “About what, sir?” Myopic Manager: “Something that will get us noticed.” Worker Wendy: “For what, sir?” Myopic Manager: “You know. Something catchy and, what’s the word? VIRAL!” Worker Wendy: “Viral, sir?” Myopic Manager: “Yeah! Put it on FaceTube! That’ll do it!” There are so many things wrong with that conversation, I can’t begin to list them. But this was a summarized dialogue a friend of mine recently had with her employer. It seems as though, after 25 years in business, “said employer”… -
What A Vacation!
11 Jul 2010 | 11:58 amA lot of people tease me because I’m “Always On.” If I’m not in the office, I can usually be found through any number of social media channels. Whether it’s my Twitter page, my check-ins on Foursquare or my Facebook page; it’s not very hard to find me – for good or bad. This last week, though, I decided I’d take a vacation. You know, the “relaxing, kick-back-n-nap by the pool kind of week” that many of us need to recharge the branding battery and focus. Well, this is what I did… I cleaned. Boy did I clean. My house looks…
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Brand 3.0 activities
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a non-registered user posted a comment on What the hell is a brand?
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a non-registered user posted a comment on A mi me cuentan una buena historia... | They tell me a good story...
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EdH and cristian.saracco posted 3 comments on A mi me cuentan una buena historia... | They tell me a good story...
19 Jul 2010 | 6:10 pmEdH and cristian.saracco posted 3 comments on A mi me cuentan una buena historia... | They tell me a good story... -
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StickyFigure
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Blog-worthy Boothies
31 Jul 2010 | 11:18 amI enjoy creative booth giveaways. The run-of-the-mill tchotchke is typically forgettable, but sometimes, you run into something outstanding – something worthy of a blog post. This week, at two different conferences, I picked up three. Here they are: 1. The Epocrates leather-covered notebook is simply delightful. I’d been looking for something in which I could more systematically order my written thoughts (yes, though I do now use Evernote on-line, I’m still a bit old-fashioned) – and this high-quality personal notebook is gorgeous. You don’t have to go high-tech… -
Doubt the Power of Twitter?
27 Jul 2010 | 4:41 pmJust scroll down and read up. See, in real-time (this is only a few minutes ago), what Twitter and a caring network can do… The accident happened in central Connecticut – comfort and coordination began arriving in moments from Oman, Canada, and the United States. Thanks, everyone, for pitching in (literally, from around the world!) to help Leigh – esp. Dr Jonathan, who took the lead coordinating local rescue and giving Leigh advice. It doesn’t get any more wonderful than this. UPDATE: Here is Leigh Fazzina’s post describing the entire event. UPDATE 2: A local TV… -
When Your Avatar goes over to the Dark Side
25 Jul 2010 | 10:31 amBy and large, Twitter works. Except when it doesn’t. So, I wanted to change my avatar yesterday. That usually hasn’t been any kind of problem in the past. But now, Twitter refuses to upload a new image. It has been kidnapped by the dark side of the Force. Instead, I have the spammer-looking bird with a yellow background (and yellow is NOT my color!) Here’s what it looks like when I try to upload a new Profile image: Note that the usual little links (Edit this image, Delete this image) have now gone missing. Well, not to worry – I just browse, select an image file (yes,… -
Don’t be That “Recycling” Guy (or Gal)
24 Jul 2010 | 4:48 am<Rant starts> I saw a whole boatload of them this morning. Maybe that was a “sign” that it was time to write this post….! If you’re on Twitter justor primarily to regurgitate other peoples links and content – including semi-inspirational quotes – then, to be perfectly blunt, you’re adding a lot of noise but little value. Re-tweeting good content or the occasional worthwhile bromide to our audience(s) is a normal and valued part of the Twittersphere. Intermingled with original thought and content, it’s signal and not noise (well, usually!)… -
Do You Have a Mission Statement?
23 Jul 2010 | 2:54 amI think I finally figured out mine: My mission is to be a Connection Agent. I am connecting people and businesses with their true identity and message; with creative opportunities to grow and succeed; and with other people and resources to bring about increasing success. I want to leave behind a network of people who are richer because of these connections, and who will follow that example by enriching others. As I look over the entire landscape of my heart and my activities, I think that kinda sums it up. What about you? Can you arrive at yours a whole lot earlier in life than I’ve…
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The Name Inspector
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Seattle startup names: verbal bootstrapping
28 Jul 2010 | 4:34 pmThe Name Inspector’s getting local. He’s decided to take a look at all 409 names in Seattle 2.0’s Seattle Startup Index. In his grand vision, this is the first in a series of posts about company names in different local startup scenes. Do entrepreneurs in Seattle do it differently from the ones in Boston or Austin? It remains to be seen. As a touch point for this post, The Name Inspector will look back on his old “10 company name types on TechCrunch” post, the most-visited page on this blog. That post broke down the names in the TechCrunch index at that time,… -
What a tangled web we weave: “Vine” names
13 Jul 2010 | 1:41 pmSometimes a certain naming concept comes into vogue. In some cases, such as the post-Napster trend for names ending in -ster, or the more recent boom in names ending in -dango, the phenomenon can be traced to an original name that inspires imitators. In other cases, there seems to be more of a Zeitgeist effect–the naming concept is so timely that it gets discovered again and again. So it seems to be with names ending in -vine. Have you noticed how many of these there are? In the TechCrunch index you can find Bridgevine, CrowdVine, Newsvine, Snapvine (now defunct), and SwingVine Inc. -
Seattle entrepreneurs: spill your naming secrets!
9 Jul 2010 | 11:54 amThe Name Inspector is planning a big post about Seattle startup names (and will of course refer to Seattle 2.0’s Seattle Startup Index). So he can add a little human interest, he’d love to hear from you Seattle entrepreneurs out there about how you named your company, what your company name means to you, what you think its strengths and weaknesses are, and things like that. If this post works out, The Name Inspector might just do a whole series of posts about naming trends in different startup centers, to add a comparative dimension. Ooh, that could be fun. But for now, send your… -
Names in the wild: Ancient Grounds
1 Jul 2010 | 3:09 pm(The Name Inspector used to do this as a semi-regular feature, and then stopped. He’s going to try reviving it for a while, but this time, with words!) While strolling down 1st Ave in Seattle, The Name Inspector was struck by the name of this cafe. Inside there were displays of what looked like traditional art of native Pacific Northwesterners. So the name is meant to evoke long-time inhabitants and the special relationship they develop to their land. But whoever named this place was unable to resist one of the most overused tropes of cafe-naming: punning on the word grounds. There are… -
Salal
28 Jun 2010 | 4:00 pmThere used to be a not-for-profit credit union in the Seattle area called Group Health Credit Union, named after a local nonprofit health care system. They’ve changed their name to Salal. This is a name that might have great positive associations for some and leave the rest of us scratching our heads. Salal is the name of a shrub that’s popular in the Pacific Northwest. It has tough shiny leaves, pink blossoms in the spring, and edible purple berries in the late summer. (Actually, they’re technically fleshy sepals, or flower parts.) King County (the county where Seattle is)…
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BrandDigital | BrandSimple
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What do Playboy, the 2011 Corvette, and Martha Stewart have in common?
21 Jul 2010 | 6:11 amOkay, wait a second. It’s not what you think. I’ve never been good at telling jokes and I’m not about to start. No, as a branding guy, what I noted over the last few weeks relative to the names in the above headline is that there was a common brand-building, or more specifically, re-building challenge. When I read that Hugh Hefner wanted to buy back outstanding shares of his Playboy empire and revitalize it and then saw that Chevrolet had launched a campaign for the sexy, 2011 Corvette with the same objective for its hero brand, it occurred to me that to succeed these two… -
TV advertising is still hot, if it follows the right recipe
9 Jul 2010 | 6:00 amCome on, admit it. Every once in a while you see a television advertising spot that makes you chuckle. Maybe you even spend a few moments chatting about it with colleagues at the water cooler. Perhaps you’ve even been known to send an ad link to friends and family in order to share the laughs. The fact of the matter is that good television advertising still exists, and people still pay attention to it, despite the cluttered digital environment. Notice I said “good television advertising.” While lots of it deserves to be Tivo-ed out of the picture, the spots that succeed do… -
Going back to move brands forward in tough times
21 Jun 2010 | 8:00 amDid you know that Kellogg’s Corn Flakes has been around for 104 years? I picked up this little bit of breakfast trivia when I picked up a newspaper and saw an ad touting the fact that the cereal has been “fat-free and cholesterol-free since 1906.” Now, I’m pretty sure folks back in 1906 didn’t pay as much heed to dietary requirements as folks today. But the folks at Kellogg’s being the great brand professionals they are, know what it requires to keep a brand healthy, including the need to keep it relevant. In my recent article in Forbes Online I write about… -
To get the new United brand off the ground, get employees grounded in the idea.
25 May 2010 | 6:18 amWho are the most important people involved in getting a new brand idea off the ground? While those of us on the brand communications side might like to think it’s us, it’s not. It’s the employees of the organization whose brand is in launch mode. For a brand to be successful, those inside the company must fully understand what their brand stands for and what their role is in bringing it to life – a consistent brand experience across all points of customer touch being the ultimate objective. This top tenet of brand building came to mind after I read about the merger… -
Position a luxury brand as the long-term investment it is.
5 May 2010 | 6:24 amCould it be that we’re over the worst of the recession? I’m in no position to answer that question from an economist’s point of view, but indications from the brand world suggest that consumers have begun spending again, carefully. While big-box discount retailers feel secure touting the value to be found inside their big-box stores, what should luxury brand manufacturers such as Hermes, Rolex, Chanel, and BMW be doing to tout their valuables? In my most recent article on Forbes Online I recommend that, instead of positioning these lovely things as short-term purchases, they…
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Landor.com: Blog
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How will you measure your life?
30 Jul 2010 | 11:52 pmI do a lot of thinking about brand purpose and why corporations exist and what they stand for. As I have spoken with people on many brands, I am struck by two thoughts. First, most companies are started with good intentions, and with a little digging, these intentions can be identified as a purpose, giving meaning and guidance to how that company can find a new and fulfilling path to growth and success. Second, most people who work for these companies have a deep yearning for meaning in the job, meaning that must come from something beyond selling more product. My sense is this has always… -
What's the big idea?! Asymmetrical brand stretch
29 Jul 2010 | 11:52 pmStrong brands love being able to stretch, boldly moving and morphing to connect with new markets, ideas, people, and needs. Early on, brand leaders put pen to paper and sketched out a path forward to inspire others along the journey. We’ve all seen the concentric circles, logical rings of growth that stem from one core competency and systematically grow by x degrees in seemingly every dimension. But the brands that really impress me take a different tack, what I’d call “asymmetrical brand stretch.” Not being everything to everyone or simply being the same… -
Buying children's books at the Louis Vuitton store
28 Jul 2010 | 11:52 pmFor a couple of years I witnessed lines of tourists queuing to enter the Champs Elysées Louis Vuitton store and had thought that, as a local, I had nothing to do there. Well, a few days ago, I made the big leap and finally visited the temple of luxury. As I expected, the store is huge and stunning and the products are beautifully featured with just the right level of theater. As I walked through the store and its different levels, I was intrigued by some bookshelves I saw on the first floor. Initially, I thought they were an element of décor, but when I got closer, much to my… -
Revisiting Melville's "Moby Dick" in 2010: A cautionary tale for yesterday and today
27 Jul 2010 | 11:52 pmI've spent the last week reading Herman Melville's Moby Dick. More accurately, rereading it. As a staple of literature curriculums, I had been forced through it during a ten week American novel binge at college. I remember not liking it at the time, but thoroughly enjoyed it this time. And like all great literature, what you see in it reflects who you are when you read it. Twenty-five years after college, I'm much more concerned with the world and my impact on it than I was as a college student. It wasn't hard for me to see in Moby Dick a cautionary tale about sustainability. During much of… -
Design for Change
13 Jul 2010 | 11:52 pm"Take one thing that bothers you, take one week, and change a billion lives.” These were the words of Kiran Bir Sethi, and these are the words that ignited her contest Design for Change. The task: design a solution to a problem in your community and make it happen. Sounds cool, no? Unfortunately you cannot really participate, but maybe your children can… Kiran Bir Sethi is head teacher and founder of the Riverside School in Ahmedabad, India. She was trained as a designer and is driven to look beyond what exists, and lives by the never answered question of “can we do…
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cometbrandingblog
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A Needed Win: LinkedIn Empowers Group Moderators & Members
29 Jul 2010 | 11:13 amWhat I have always really enjoyed about LinkedIn is the ability to learn more about the professional side and background of my connections and their connections. I’ve also enjoyed being able to discuss issues related to my industry, my alma maters, and other interests. As a PR/social media consultant, the challenge of growing and maintaining a community online is constant. Lately, I have been getting very frustrated and ready to delete all of my LinkedIn groups due to the majority of salesy discussion posts clogging my inbox. Even my alumni groups have fallen victim to these off-topic… -
#Comet30MinuteTour: Brew City Promotions
22 Jul 2010 | 9:11 amThis week, the team toured Brew City Promotions and learned how to make t-shirts from Frank and the team. With the screens flooded, we all took our turns creating our own custom Comet Branding t-shirts. -
Request to Facebook: Add Video Messaging to the Event Page Redesign
19 Jul 2010 | 9:26 amAs you may have noticed, Facebook recently redesigned the look of their event pages. The design looks great and ties into their updated scheme, but I think they are missing out on adding some great new functionalities to the pages. The redesign got me thinking about how it would be valuable to have the capability to send video messages on Facebook, and particularly on the event pages. Currently you can upload videos or record directly on Facebook, but they are missing out on a huge piece with not having real-time options to be social through videos. My request to Facebook is to add a video… -
Tune-up or Trade-in? How to tell if your social media approach is a lemon.
12 Jul 2010 | 4:23 pmHow can you tell if your social media strategy or partner (or both) is nothing but a lemon? Use the 9-point Social Media Inspection scorecard to help you determine whether your social media approach simply needs a tune-up, or whether it’s time to trade in for a high-performance model. Be your own social media mechanic by performing the following 9-point Social Media Inspection. Go through the following performance categories, containing multiple questions each, answering the 24 questions as you go. Assign 2 points for each YES response, 0 points for each NO, and 0 points for each I… -
My Foursquare Break Up Letter
12 Jul 2010 | 3:13 pmDear Foursquare, I did not want you to hear this through a text, tweet, or post. But I have been thinking about this for a while now. I know you have enjoyed a few banner years, between your successes at SXSWi, Foursquare Day and your growing user base. You are the hot kid on the block right now, but things just can’t go on like this any longer. It seems like I am always checking in and getting random points or badges that are meaningless. Yes, it’s true I knew when I joined that I would be competing for your affection and attention. I just really do not want this to be another…
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Brand Experience 360
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A Modern Day Customer Service Parable
30 Jul 2010 | 12:35 pmToo often you hear stories about people’s customer service nightmares and commiserate with them as you talk of similar experiences. The Virgin Group founder Richard Branson recently shared a story about customer service himself, but the story ended with a satisfied customer and not a disgruntled one. A Virgin Atlantic customer’s free limo failed to pick him up at his hotel (apparently the customer waited at the wrong door). So, he called a cab and arrived at the airport angry, running late and nervous he would miss his flight. A Virgin agent spotted him and tried to calm him down,… -
Do Location-Based Social Networks Work for Your Company?
27 Jul 2010 | 12:26 pmShould retailers check out location-based social networks and let their customers check in to their stores? An AdAge.com post on Forrester Research’s recently released study advises companies to take a second look as to whether LBSNs are right to include in their current marketing mix. The study reports that only four percent of U.S. online adults use location-based mobile apps such as Foursquare, Gowalla and Loopt. Only one percent update these services more than once a week. Even more, a good majority of respondents—84 percent—claimed they were unfamiliar with the apps, a number… -
Mobile Applications Can Do More for a Retailer
23 Jul 2010 | 1:43 pmShoppers are on the move, and they’re taking their mobile phones with them. Forbes Insights published a study that surveyed leading U.S. retailers’ use of mobile applications in enhancing consumer’s shopping experiences. Researchers discovered many retailers–almost fifty percent–are hoping to capture first-mover advantage as their customers go mobile. The levels of sophistication in mobile design and application vary depending on the retailer and its goals. For many, the mobile features are a scaled-back version of their website. Others have ventured into offering… -
Using Storytelling to Keep the Customer Coming Back to the Store
21 Jul 2010 | 6:41 amWhen people’s time is precious and transportation costs are high, retailers can’t rely on the thinking that if they build stores, people will come. Instead, retailers must offer more than just a physical space that stocks merchandise. They need to entertain, educate and engage consumers to bring them to the store and make them never want to leave. PSFK advised retailers to think of all store locations as flagship stores and treat customer visits as opportunities to tell the story of the brand. Disney stores executed this idea by remodeling their stores to become a family entertainment hub… -
Using Technology to Get Consumers to the Store
19 Jul 2010 | 8:51 amNo one doubts the claim that the Internet and rise in mobile technology hasn’t transformed the retail industry. It’s the thought that people are no longer making trips to the stores that should be up for debate. The truth is that people still shop in stores. Technology is used to get them there and to make their experience more enjoyable so they keep coming back. PSFK highlighted some great ideas of how retailers can leverage technology and drive consumers to their stores. For certain retailers, it may be helpful for the customer if they post wait times, store maps and inventory lists on…
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Kristian Andersen + Associates
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A Different Take on CAPTCHA
9 Jul 2010 | 12:46 pmLuke W’s post on the They Make Apps approach to CAPTCHA got me thinking, so I spent 30 minutes brainstorming other techniques that might work. Check out my sketches below. -
Eating the Elephant by the Spoonful – A look at NonProfit Crowdsourcing Solutions
7 Jul 2010 | 1:19 pmDividing up elephantine-sized projects is something I totally dig, and it’s always the result that is the most stunning. So when I stumble across a new company or platform that is bringing forward this type of solution through crowdsourcing, I get pretty excited, particularly when it benefits the non-profit sector (easily crushed by large tasks that they lack the resources to address). By divvying up a daunting task, responsibility, or problem into micro pieces, not only is the cost and workload distributed, but also the good effects. Here are a couple of cool companies that I’m… -
The Underwater Project: a Change in Perspective
1 Jul 2010 | 11:16 amI was recently introduced to The Underwater Project, a photographic series depicting people, as you might guess, underwater. Most of the shots show people in the middle of, or directly underneath, a wave. As you can see above, the results are stunning, often times otherworldly. This image series isn’t just beautiful, it’s representative of how changing your perspective and truly immersing yourself in something reveals that, often, things and situations aren’t as you imagined. There’s a lesson for designers and UX folks somewhere in there. -
Designing A Startup
7 Jun 2010 | 8:56 amDesigning a startup View more presentations from Kristian Andersen + Associates. I had the opportunity to be the final speaker at the 2010 Indianapolis Startup Weekend event on Sunday afternoon. For the uninitiated, I’ve included a bit of background from the Startup Weekend website below. Startup Weekend recruits a highly motivated group of developers, business managers, startup enthusiasts, marketing gurus, graphic artists and more to a 54 hour event that builds communities, companies and projects. Founded in 2007 by Andrew Hyde, the weekend is a concept of a conference focusing on… -
TinderBox: Our Approach to File/Asset Management
24 May 2010 | 5:06 amFor those of you who don’t know, KA+A, in partnership with Gravity Labs, recently rolled out an early beta version of our first product, TinderBox. TinderBox is a web-based application that lets individuals and teams create, manage, deliver, and track interactive proposals and other kinds of business communications. Like all good web-based software, TinderBox will be regularly undergoing upgrades and enhancements, and I thought it would be fun to share some our design and development experiences on the KA+A blog. I’m going to kick off the series today, by explaining a bit about…
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Wheatley Timmons: BrandTrailblazers
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AGENCY/CLIENT PARTNERSHIP IS AN OBLIGATION AS MUCH AS AN OPPORTUNITY…
29 Jul 2010 | 7:48 amAgencies that lead bring more value than order takers By Robert Wheatley Hugh MacLeod is a creative and insightful expert who regularly exposes the soft underside of the marketing world — and helps us laugh at ourselves. His thoughts, expressed as graphic images, can be down right powerful. Today’s post in some respects is a perfect foil for a few of his engaging ideas. (Check out gapingvoid.com – and subscribe to his daily image emails). Great work falling from great ideas can transform the future direction and growth of business. Yet more often than not, by definition, it will… -
Where’s The Listening Strategy in the Brand Communications Outreach Plan?
27 Jul 2010 | 2:01 pmCan we really fly blind and expect to be effective? By Robert Wheatley There are those great moments of clarity when something hits you. Often it can be something you already know, but your perspective and its horsepower (importance) will get injected with an entirely new level of “amen” when understanding adjusts or elevates a bit. Sorry to be oblique – this happened today while reading Brian Solis’ great book, “Putting the Public Back in Public Relations.” Yes, there’s a point here and a recommendation. The emergence of social media has changed the game for PR communications,… -
Message to Brands and Business: Get Focused, Go Deep, Mine Relevance
21 Jul 2010 | 12:32 pmNew prescription for growth all about burrowing in on your best prospects By Robert Wheatley I have a confession to make: I’m a music fan . Big time. And have been almost all of my life. I sang my way through high school. Played guitar in a band. Had a vocal music scholarship when I started college. Ended up as the promoter and producer of all the rock concerts that appeared at my University. Had family and personal acquaintances in the rock concert promotion and band management business (Heart). Even today one of my Chicago friends is now a senior player at LiveNation, one of the largest… -
Re-booting of the American Consumer Mindset
20 Jul 2010 | 7:49 amHyper-consumption falls as new era of meaning and purpose takes hold By Robert Wheatley We are sitting at the threshold of a new epoch in brand marketing and communication. One where old voices tempting consumers to look for the thrill in upward mobility and finding the joy in toys is being replaced by a soulful search for things more meaningful, more substantive. Now more than ever there is a need to align your brand with a new set of consumer-driven values, to chart a different course with a refreshed voice and message, more in sync with this seminal shift in consumer attitudes. Are you… -
The Benefits of Crazy Commitment: Moments that make a difference in business and in your own life…
13 Jul 2010 | 1:02 pmBy Robert Wheatley This is the story (heads up this is a feature-style post) of crazy commitment, of all-nighters and pushing beyond the limits we often place in front of ourselves. The effort delivered success for a brand and taught a person (me) what you can accomplish when you’re willing to dispense with fear (and sleep) to do something big. It was 1990 and I had just walked off the edge of the cliff. For 11 years, ten of them in a relative state of happiness and personal growth, I had been working for Ogilvy & Mather – a wonderful firm that invested heavily to teach its emerging…
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BenjaminWarsinske.com
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Crashing Waves on Oahu [Flickr]
31 Jul 2010 | 11:26 amBenjamin Warsinske posted a photo: Posted via email from Benjamin Warsinske's Posterous -
Understanding Cashflow vs. Capital Gains
25 Jul 2010 | 12:30 pmImage via Wikipedia Part of being an entrepreneur is understanding the financial aspect of running a business. Being an expert in finances is not necessary as you can add team members who are experts to fill in the gaps for you. Knowing the basics and understanding the rules are important in order to develop your business, [...]Post from: Benjamin's BlogUnderstanding Cashflow vs. Capital Gains Related posts:Business from 30,000 Feet: What You Need To Know Image by Denis Collette…!!! via Flickr Have you ever... Intertwining Yourself Into Your Company’s Brand: How to Avoid It So… -
Intertwining Yourself Into Your Company’s Brand: How to Avoid It
24 Jul 2010 | 3:02 pmSo often, small business owners end up becoming their brand. In other words, they develop a reputation within their industry as the go-to person to deliver the best goods and/or services. The reputation is great, however, what happens when that person wants to scale up the business, or replace themselves so that they can focus [...]Post from: Benjamin's BlogIntertwining Yourself Into Your Company’s Brand: How to Avoid It Related posts:iPhone Brand vs Palm Pre Brand…Which Sticks? Branding is story telling. It is connecting with consumers... Secret Ingredients: How Selling Hours Can… -
Interview with Ann Smarty of MyBlogGuest.com
9 Jul 2010 | 1:17 amImage via Wikipedia A couple of months ago, I started to get involved with finding guest bloggers for my blog and also wanting to guest blog for others. Aside from searching for blogs similar to mine, there wasn’t a clear and easy way to find this community. I stumbled on Ann Smarty and her website MyBlogGuest.com. She [...]Post from: Benjamin's BlogInterview with Ann Smarty of MyBlogGuest.com Related posts:I’m off to Seoul, Korea I’m taking a trip to Seoul. Have Dopplr? Connect... Three Top Social Networking Sites to Promote Your Blog Social networking sites are everywhere… -
Top Leadership Characteristics For Successful Entrepreneurs
8 Jul 2010 | 11:59 pmImage by dullhunk via Flickr I am always after the next piece of inspiration to keep me going. It could be in the form of a TED Talk, a documentary, an interview with a successful business person. Whatever it is, it provides me the fuel to keep my imagination alive. Along with imagination, execution plays a big [...]Post from: Benjamin's BlogTop Leadership Characteristics For Successful Entrepreneurs Related posts:Lifestyle Design is A Conscious Choice For many, the daily routine of getting up and... Three Top Social Networking Sites to Promote Your Blog Social networking sites are everywhere…
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Celebrity Branding You
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LeBron, The Media, and Your Message
13 Jul 2010 | 7:05 pmBy FastCompany Expert Bloggers Nick Nanton & JW Dicks Companies must take control of their own brand message and use their own media to do so when possible. LeBron James’ control of ESPN’s own show, to announce his jump from the Cleveland Cavaliers to the Miami Heat NBA Franchise, was as strong of an in-your-face illustration of the point as you can make. James told ESPN who would interview him, when they could pop the question on his choice of teams, which sponsors would fill the hour long show, and perhaps more importantly, where the money paid for the sponsorships would… -
Are You Using The Media? You Should Be.
11 Jun 2010 | 7:54 amDid you know right now there are journalists sitting at their desks wondering what’s new that they can write about? It’s true. Having worked with a number of journalists over the years, I can’t tell you how many times I have been told that the information I just provided is exactly what they needed to meet a deadline. Journalists, like potential clients, are at the mercy of the information they find. When information comes to them, it makes their job easier. Easier job = happy journalist. So what does this mean to you? It means that if you are marketing and branding your company, you… -
How to Choose Your Avatar
16 Apr 2010 | 10:55 amNo, we are not talking about picking a movie time here, but if you saw the movie, then you know that an Avatar is a representation of yourself. Wiki says, “An avatar is a computer user’s representation of himself/herself or alter ego, whether in the form of a three-dimensional model used in computer games, a two-dimensional icon (picture) or a one-dimensional username used on Internet forums and other communities… It is an object representing the user.” Now that we have that straight… Choosing the right avatar to represent your personal brand is just as important as… -
Put Your Best Image Forward
29 Mar 2010 | 10:47 amOne of the most important personal branding tools is a professional photo. Please note that I said professional photo; the image you use for your personal brand should be taken by a professional to ensure that you are portraying the right image. There are photographic styles for every image, but a quick snapshot taken by your friend with poor lighting, a busy background and other people in the image is probably not the best image for your brand. A friend in the publishing industry tells the story of a famous actor – I dare not name – who was to appear in a magazine. When a request was… -
Mickey Mouse, The Personality Brand
24 Mar 2010 | 12:56 pmIn a recent New York Times article by Brooks Barnes, it reported that the Walt Disney Co. was going to take a risky step of recasting Mickey’s image for the future, adding, “Disney has quietly embarked on an even larger project to rethink the character’s personality from the way he walks and talks to the way he appears and how kids interact with him online.” This acknowledgement by Disney of the importance of “thinking”, about how a personality brand is perceived on many levels by your audience, is a lesson we all need to keep in mind. Clearly Disney is concerned about brand…
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Bulletproof
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Weekly Web Wrap-Up for July 30, 2010
30 Jul 2010 | 10:06 amBulletproof’s Weekly Web Wrap-Up offers a compilation of key discussions regarding social media’s increasing relevance to business. A few weeks back, Old Spice created considerable online buzz when it released a stream of videos featuring bare-chested, ex-football player Isaiah Mustafa responding directly to individual fan messages and questions submitted via Facebook and Twitter. This week, a debate has erupted over the actual bottom line impact of the social media blitz. While the return on Old Spice’s digital investment still remains a question, this integrated use of multiple social… -
What’s Next: The Plaintiff’s Perspective – Asbestos Case Redefines Summary Judgment in Pennsylvania
28 Jul 2010 | 12:22 pmIn this regular feature, Bulletproof interviews top plaintiffs’ counsel for their perspective on the crises likely to affect businesses in the near future. Today, we speak to Richard Myers of Philadelphia’s Paul, Reich & Myers, P.C., who for the past nine years has litigated Summers v. Certainteed Corp.and Nybeck v. Union Carbide Corpan asbestos case that will likelyhavemajor repercussions for most other business sectors as well, especially in Pennsylvania. In July, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned summary judgment orders issued by the trial court in 2003. The order granting… -
Six@Six: Six Tips for Managing Your Wikipedia Reputation
27 Jul 2010 | 1:20 pmThe top six social media tips to know before you leave the office. The seemingly authoritative and impartial articles found on Wikipedia often provide Web users with easy-to-access information on the topics, issues, companies, and products they care about. As the Internet’s “free encyclopedia,” articles on this popular information-sharing site are almost always at the top of search results for millions of keywords and topics. This deep library of content has made the site the seventh most popular on the Web. But, the site’s reliance on community members to add and update these… -
Weekly Web Wrap-Up for July 23, 2010
23 Jul 2010 | 1:00 pmBulletproof’s Weekly Web Wrap-Up offers a compilation of key discussions regarding social media’s increasing relevance to business. The big news this week is Facebook’s latest milestone: an unprecedented 500 million users. Considering the social network’s aspiration to eventually double this groundbreaking figure, the phenomenon that is Facebook is clearly nothing for businesses to thumb their noses at. With many of the newest users representing older and more affluent demographics, there is no question that companies must now view Facebook as the critical consumer engagement venue it… -
Taking a Bite off the Apple
23 Jul 2010 | 11:24 amEarly on the morning of June 24, thousands of people across the country lined up to be among the first to purchase Apple’s iPhone 4. Having generated a level of mania usually associated with top rock concerts, the power of the brand built on iMacs, iPods, and iPads was on full display. But when those eager consumers took to their computers that same day to voice rampant displeasure with the iPhone 4’s now well-documented antenna reception problems, Apple responded with an attitude that has toppled many brands – complacency. In the Digital Age, three weeks is a lifetime for companies in…
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BRANDOPIA
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Brand Britain: The Innovation Isle
25 Jul 2010 | 1:25 pmBrand Britain: The Innovation Isle. From 'Manufactured in Britain' to 'Innofactured in Britain. -
English County Slogans: Seven of the Best
24 Jul 2010 | 8:55 amEnglish County Slogans: Seven of the Best -
Metropolist: Top Seven English Cities
18 Jul 2010 | 10:15 pmMetropolist: Top Seven English Cities Source: OnePoll.com -
A Branding Tale of Two Airports: Gatwick vs Heathrow
25 Jun 2010 | 1:34 pmA Branding Tale of Two Airports: Gatwick vs Heathrow -
Ludlow: UK's First Slow-Food Town
20 Jun 2010 | 2:12 amLudlow in Shropshire: UK's First Slow-Food Town, borrowed its big brand idea from the global marketplace - The Slow-Food Movement, Italy - then made the idea its own in its local marketplace
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brandSTOKE
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Clean Bottle awareness summits at Tour de France
27 Jul 2010 | 5:47 amAt this year’s Tour de France, Bottle Boy was a hit. Bottle Boy represents Clean Bottle, a new reusable sports bottle that unscrews at both ends. The rather simplistic design concept makes the job of cleaning residue out of the bottom of the bottle easy and helps prevent mold, a concern among runners, cyclists, hikers, and other athletes. The product is available through REI and others. Clean Bottle launched only months ago with a limited budget. So Dave Mayer, founder, built the five-foot-tall Bottle Boy costume and booked a flight to the Tour de France. On twelve of the stages, he ran… -
Does Geico’s multi-concept strategy work?
22 Jul 2010 | 12:42 pmHow many creative strategies can one brand successfully execute at one time? Conventional wisdom suggests one and one only. Be focused. Be consistent. Hammer it. You’ll grow weary of the campaign long before the audience is even aware of it. Geico has broken this rule of thumb again and again. With seeming success. Martin, the talking gecko, is most closely identified with the Geico brand, but he no longer has to do all of the heavy lifting. The cavemen characters handle some of that, unintentionally and tragically reminding us how simple it is to switch insurance companies (”so easy… -
To inspire brand loyalty, ask why, not how.
20 Jul 2010 | 6:31 am“People don’t buy what you do. They buy why you do it.” This quote by Simon Sinek eloquently captures a key concept I’ve presented in previous posts (”‘Why’ uncover strategic insights?“). That is, the strongest brands (sometimes called affinity brands) are centered around intangible attributes, not tangible ones. They stand for some greater purpose or ideal than simply making money. Being true to some inner value is attractive to those consumers who share the same value. Previously, I have used Patagonia as an example of a loyalty-inspiring affinity brand. -
Domino’s fires its food stylists. Will other QSRs follow?
14 Jul 2010 | 5:55 pmIn an exposé worthy of 60 Minutes, Domino’s Pizza takes viewers backstage at a TV shoot, revealing the secrets of making pizza look mouthwatering. The documentary (watch it below) stars power tools and blowtorches. Consistent with its new posture of transparency, Domino’s promises to forsake food styling in the future: We will only photograph real, honest-to-goodness pizzas. Domino’s employees will make the pizzas we shoot. We will not artificially manipulate our pizzas when photographing them. Instead, it invites customers to post photos of their own Domino’s pizzas… -
Tour de Tweets II
6 Jul 2010 | 8:09 amNote: It’s Tour Time! Here’s a post I wrote last year about the nearly seamless integration of social media into the event. In many ways, the 2009 Tour broke new ground for both participants and fans at major sporting events. And, yes, the ChalkBot is back in 2010! The 2009 Tour de France, highlighted by Lance Armstrong’s return, may be remembered as much for being the first sporting event in history to fully integrate social media into the competition and the coverage. Nearly every one of the 20 teams blogged and tweeted (e.g., Garmin-Slipstream and Astana). Numerous riders…
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Celebrity Branding You
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LeBron, The Media, and Your Message
13 Jul 2010 | 7:05 pmBy FastCompany Expert Bloggers Nick Nanton & JW Dicks Companies must take control of their own brand message and use their own media to do so when possible. LeBron James’ control of ESPN’s own show, to announce his jump from the Cleveland Cavaliers to the Miami Heat NBA Franchise, was as strong of an in-your-face illustration of the point as you can make. James told ESPN who would interview him, when they could pop the question on his choice of teams, which sponsors would fill the hour long show, and perhaps more importantly, where the money paid for the sponsorships would… -
Are You Using The Media? You Should Be.
11 Jun 2010 | 7:54 amDid you know right now there are journalists sitting at their desks wondering what’s new that they can write about? It’s true. Having worked with a number of journalists over the years, I can’t tell you how many times I have been told that the information I just provided is exactly what they needed to meet a deadline. Journalists, like potential clients, are at the mercy of the information they find. When information comes to them, it makes their job easier. Easier job = happy journalist. So what does this mean to you? It means that if you are marketing and branding your company, you… -
How to Choose Your Avatar
16 Apr 2010 | 10:55 amNo, we are not talking about picking a movie time here, but if you saw the movie, then you know that an Avatar is a representation of yourself. Wiki says, “An avatar is a computer user’s representation of himself/herself or alter ego, whether in the form of a three-dimensional model used in computer games, a two-dimensional icon (picture) or a one-dimensional username used on Internet forums and other communities… It is an object representing the user.” Now that we have that straight… Choosing the right avatar to represent your personal brand is just as important as… -
Put Your Best Image Forward
29 Mar 2010 | 10:47 amOne of the most important personal branding tools is a professional photo. Please note that I said professional photo; the image you use for your personal brand should be taken by a professional to ensure that you are portraying the right image. There are photographic styles for every image, but a quick snapshot taken by your friend with poor lighting, a busy background and other people in the image is probably not the best image for your brand. A friend in the publishing industry tells the story of a famous actor – I dare not name – who was to appear in a magazine. When a request was… -
Mickey Mouse, The Personality Brand
24 Mar 2010 | 12:56 pmIn a recent New York Times article by Brooks Barnes, it reported that the Walt Disney Co. was going to take a risky step of recasting Mickey’s image for the future, adding, “Disney has quietly embarked on an even larger project to rethink the character’s personality from the way he walks and talks to the way he appears and how kids interact with him online.” This acknowledgement by Disney of the importance of “thinking”, about how a personality brand is perceived on many levels by your audience, is a lesson we all need to keep in mind. Clearly Disney is concerned about brand…
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LogoInn
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5 Tips To Become a Social Media Guru
28 Jul 2010 | 3:36 amContinuing our discussion on building stronger brand, let’s discuss Social Media Marketing a little bit. Social Media Marketing has proven itself useful, not only to large corporations but also to small businesses. What makes it so effective is the fact … Continue reading → -
Cancer The Crab – Symbolism of Zodiac Signs
22 Jul 2010 | 4:05 amIn a previous blog post we discussed the Zodiac Sign of Gemini and how their properties are reflected in their zodiac symbol. In this post we are going to discuss the properties and characteristics of Cancer and how they are … Continue reading → -
Social Media Menu – What’s on your Plate?
16 Jul 2010 | 5:15 amHow many of us are overwhelmed about the social networks available? Which social networks work best with what you’re trying to market? How do you choose effectively? Think of Social Media platforms like a menu when you walk-in to a … Continue reading → -
Symbolism of Zodiac Signs – Gemini The Twins
14 Jul 2010 | 3:02 amThe symbolism of Zodiac signs, Zodiac Symbols and their logos tells us a lot about that particular Zodiac group. These symbols are often represented with illustrations and the same signs are used across the globe. Looking at these symbols we … Continue reading → -
Most Popular Fictional Logo Designs
9 Jul 2010 | 7:03 amNo one understands brand development better than the Hollywood. What makes them really good at it is the options have they have when they are developing these brands. They are able to incorporate story lines, themes, plot and a whole … Continue reading →
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The Branding Gavel
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Brands:How to make impacts with what you have
29 Jul 2010 | 2:33 amWe know most brands are yet to recover from the recession. Most brands’ corporate social responsibilities have suffered a lot of setback because of this. Not only in our climes but I do believe everywhere. The last two years has increased the level of financial stress for Nongovernmental organizations that rely on funding from donor organizations to continue their impacts. As an individual, I do not believe every philanthropic gesture must be in check. Checks are good but in the absence of check something else can still be offered to sincere organizations that are really doing the work. In… -
Branding Lesson from PR Golden Eagle Awards
25 Jul 2010 | 11:11 amThe Nigeria Institute of Public Relations (which I am active member) Lagos state chapter just held its annual general meetings/first Public Relations Golden Eagle awards. A week-long event was full of fun, learning and networking opportunities. The public lecture on Thursday 22nd July was well attended and the guest speakers as well as discussants did justice to the topic of the day. My major attention was on the award day itself (which was Friday 23rd July). This is because I was a nominee for two categories of the awards (one: best contributions to PR education in Nigeria and Best new… -
Niche Branding
21 Jul 2010 | 3:20 amNiche branding is simply a way of identifying and communicating what makes you different from a whole lot of people in your domain. It is the deliberate act of projecting particular set traits capable of influencing a favourable perception. It is a way of clarifying and communicating what makes you different and special. To achieving your desired goals and self-fulfilment, you cannot afford not to mind how people perceive you. Minding how people perceive you or taking control of how they see you by identifying your unique strengths and projecting those strengths are the prime focus of… -
Personal Branding: Lessons from Al Gore’s brand
21 Jul 2010 | 3:18 amI am a lover of biographies for in them you find the nuggets that made the people who have gone ahead of you and in them are lessons to learn when you are trying to either build a brand or an empire. Biographies open our eyes and give us insight to what we usually called ‘over night’ success. Biographies help us to see that no enduring success has ever been built on a one night stand. Lives of successful people are like sandwiches: great at the finishing, beautiful at the bottom but full of many details in between. Today, Dan schawbel’s book ME 2.0 is celebrated but when I read the… -
Brands: How to fund your social and cultural capital
12 Jul 2010 | 1:11 amWe live in the age of information, connection and conversation. Any brand that will be successful today must understand generosity to thrive. To make impact you must go all out to help both established and upcoming brands. I am beginning to understand that you must be ready to give without a demand for returns immediately when you are pioneering a cause. I have made a commitment to help, affect as many people that need my professional advice. Each day I get called from students who are interested in brand community building, social media and how it relates to Public relations, marketing etc.
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RadiantBrands Blog
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Fiat Get’s the Brand Right with New Dealerships
6 Jul 2010 | 9:30 amDo you think the same guy who’s selling you a Chrysler Le Baron or Jeep Wrangler can sell you a Fiat 500? Not on your life and even more importantly the some customer would most likely not be even thinking of buying the same two vehicles. Fiat’s announcement this week that they are looking to open 200 new dealerships that sell only Fiat cars is a very smart move and as I said in an earlier posting on the Fiat acquisition of Chrysler, this gives Fiat’s brand’s access to the American market again, with small, nimble, fun cars that represent a new mix in the American… -
Why the Palm Pre Flopped - a girl on a mushroom
23 Jun 2010 | 9:48 amThe Palm Pre launched to much fanfare in 2009, with good reviews for the most part. The smart phone had excellent features, was easy to use with a slide out keyboard, good color and contrast on the screen. So many things that made it a viable competitor to the iPhone and Blackberry, not to mention the Google Droid phones. And, it already had a substantial customer base from Palm, eager for a little prompting to convert to this new product that was priced right and positioned for success. The Pre launched and Palm continued to loose market share and customers to the Blackberry, iPhone and the… -
Why the Toyota Brand Won’t Sink
21 Feb 2010 | 12:28 pmAlthough Toyota has taken a media beating in the last few weeks because of two recalls on popular models, In my opinion they will not fall permanently from grace. From Toyota’s initial entry into the American market over 40 years ago with tiny, under powered, sub compact cars they’ve done nothing but refine and build their product line into some of the best and most popular cars in the world with that a powerful sense of brand loyalty and reliability. When you read all the hype about the damage to Toyota it’s really about the saintly giant among automakers having the… -
Are Chain Store Brands Authentic Local Businesses?
31 Dec 2009 | 3:43 pmThe city of San Francisco, and now the town of Sausalito, across the Bay, have passed ordinances controlling or outright banning “formula retail” or “multiple chain store” operations in their neighborhoods. The claim is that they are taking away from the truly “authentic local businesses” and creating more duplication of the same cookie-cutter bland chain stores anchoring malls across the vast American suburban plain. You know, the massive Walmarts, the Macaroni Grills and Rite Aid’s we all know and often dislike across the retail landscape in America. People fear that… -
On Target or not? Yet another small grocery brand?
3 Dec 2009 | 9:22 amTarget is the ultimate brand in cool retail. The store that has instant brand recognition is now launching a mini-market grocery store concept, a store-within-a-store, that will be expanding throughout the U.S. over the next two years. They are adding to their limited line of food and cold case items to be a true mini-market. The name is P-Fresh. These stores are not the first on the block with this concept. British-based Tescolaunched Fresh & Easy convenience markets about two years ago and now has 126 free standing stores. And what about the pioneer in this field, Trader Joe’s, with…
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SIMON MAINWARING: BRANDING, TECHNOLOGY & SOCIAL MEDIA
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Brands, if you really want to make money look to your motives
28 Jul 2010 | 8:06 amImage: Kilroy's Links. Everywhere you look these days there’s another instance of a brand being caught out for disingenuous, duplicitous or unconscionable behavior. It’s almost as if they can’t believe either a) this Internet thing is here to stay, or b) that it requires transparency. So in an effort to shunt to process forward, let’s look at two different business situations – one negative and one positive – in which an open kimono stance is highly recommended. 1. DAMAGE CONTROL: For every social media PR disaster there are just as many happy endings… -
How Old Spice reminds ad folk what they forgot
26 Jul 2010 | 10:05 amLast week Tim Leberecht of Design Mind suggested the future of advertising may soon be defined by transformats. He used the Old Spice television and twitter sensation as the best demonstration of this new dynamic. Here’s how he explained transformats. - Transmedia: Transformats use a multi-modular presentation of narratives that extends the story across various media and allows a social web-enabled “audience formerly known as the audience” to participate in the story development. In the case of Old Spice, it went full circle: from YouTube to Twitter and back. - Transcendent:… -
Conflict Minerals & Falling Whistles: How weapons of war become instruments of peace
23 Jul 2010 | 9:20 amwww.youtube.com/watch?v=FtZLIbSAHBk This week legislation was signed by President Obama that finally drew attention to the issue of the ‘Conflict Minerals’ that go into making the batteries in the cell phones we use everyday. This deservedly made headline news with most stories focused on the tragedy that such mining visits on the lives of so many people in the Congo. This was in no small measure due to the amazing efforts of John Prendergrast and his organization, Enough. Yet within this tragedy there are stories of hope and I wanted to share one with you. A few months ago I was… -
This is your chance to tell NASA where to go
20 Jul 2010 | 10:22 pmI’m a huge fan of NASA – always have been. And now, thanks to Scott Henderson of Rally the Cause, we all have the chance to tell them where to go next. You see, Scott has the great privilege of making a major presentation to them about their future as social entrepreneurs. Better yet, Scott is inviting us to help him frame his presentation. This is such a great opportunity when you consider the brain and technology power that NASA can put behind something. So here’s my 2 cents worth and please visit his website and add your thoughts. NASA could not be better positioned to… -
Top ten ways your ads can s(m)ell like the Old Spice ads
19 Jul 2010 | 7:47 amwww.youtube.com/watch?v=owGykVbfgUE There is no shortage of great posts written on the deserved and phenomenal success of the Old Spice social media campaign that followed their hilarious TV. But apart from a good laugh or ten, what can we get from this great demonstration of the marriage between traditional and social media. More importantly, what do we have to do, or how must we think, to give us all a chance at creating similar success with your brand? Well, let’s look at what Old Spice did. 1. LAUGH AT YOURSELF -- Old Spice is a P&G brand. They’re not supposed to make…
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Art & Business of Motion
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NBC Peacock Comes to Life
29 Jul 2010 | 5:05 amA creative collaboration between client NBC Artworks and Nathan Love, the short animation explores the origins of the NBC logo. “The brief was to create a stand-alone logo animation for NBC. The only guidelines were to make it our own, and of course, for it to be ‘the best logo ever.” For those interested in our snapshot of NBC’s most recent branding effort “More Colorful”, you can find that here. Filed under: branding, ident Tagged: nbc -
What Marketers Want From Their Creative Agency (Part 2)
28 Jul 2010 | 3:36 amLast week I caught up with Tom Lucas, the much respected Marketing Director for UKTV, for a long overdue catchup, much appreciated mind meld, and afternoon caffeinating. I consider it pure luxury to be able to listen to seasoned clients discuss real world/right now challenges in a frank manner and their approach to filtering through the creative agency clutter. I again thank Tom for his perspective, some of which I share with you here. PS: Please don’t bombard him with blind inquiries. He was kind enough to let me present this on ABM, and since I’ll be sharing more of my chats… -
Nicktoons Launches New Explosive Idents
27 Jul 2010 | 3:45 amNicktoons, the popular US kids network featuring fan favourites Wolverine and the X-Men, Speed Racer: The Next Generation, and Avatar: The Last Airbender, has just released a series of four new idents. Nicktoons 2010 Ident (1 of 4) The network IDs were intended to be unique and not necessarily feel like a campaign, each with its own unique aesthetic. The IDs target Nicktoon’s primary audience of teen boys. The four :10 idents “Thunder”, “Popcorn Type”, “Glacier Cave”, and “Pull the Carpet” pushed a few creative boundaries, including a rare… -
A Brief Guide To What Marketers Want From Their Agency (Part 1)
22 Jul 2010 | 5:30 amGuest Commentary By Tom Lucas Director of Marketing & Communications, UKTV Don’t Sell Yourselves A confession: Most of us clients get quite bored sitting through credentials presentations. We’d rather talk about ourselves. Or make sure you understand what we’re looking for. The best way to win our business is to take a greater interest in and ask more questions about our problems than anyone else. Listen as if for a pin to drop. Be Externally Referenced Spot new stuff and tell us about it. Most of us are profoundly uncool. We spend evenings feeding babies, and watching… -
Comedy Central Explores Rebrand
19 Jul 2010 | 5:59 amA quick hit for you this morning and fresh off the presses, here’s a look at Royale’s exploration of the much loved Comedy Central brand. You’ll notice a shift away from the channel’s previous “urban feel” towards well… a bare buttocked monkey finding his coveted banana in the newly minted Comedy Central logo. Alright then. *Clarifying that this is indeed a rebrand exploration, not necessarily what you will see on-air. Enjoy. Filed under: branding, channel identity, ident Tagged: comedy central
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Executive Resume Branding Blog
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Executive Job Search: Get the Best LinkedIn Recommendations
28 Jul 2010 | 4:16 amExecutive Job Search: Get the Best LinkedIn Recommendations is a post from: Executive Resume Branding LinkedIn recommendations are important because good ones can attract recruiters and hiring decision makers to you, as they source and assess talent through LinkedIn search, a prime recruiting tool. And you need to have at least 3 recommendations for LinkedIn to consider your profile to be “100% complete”, and increase your chances of landing higher in LinkedIn search results. What’s the best way to get great LinkedIn recommendations? Give good recommendations to get good… -
The 6 P’s of Executive Brand Communications
21 Jul 2010 | 5:10 amThe 6 P’s of Executive Brand Communications is a post from: Executive Resume Branding So you’ve defined your executive brand. You know what differentiates your unique promise of value from your competition in the executive job market. Have you created a strategy to clearly and consistently communicate your brand across multiple channels? Maybe you’re great at promoting yourself in person – at networking and industry events. But what are you doing to build your online footprint, to capture the attention of recruiters and hiring decision makers, most of whom these days… -
The Difference Between Executive Personal Branding and Career Branding
14 Jul 2010 | 5:07 amThe Difference Between Executive Personal Branding and Career Branding is a post from: Executive Resume Branding In c-level executive job search, branding is required, not optional. Over the past several years, you’ve been hearing a lot about personal branding. Just when you started getting a feel for it, here comes “career branding” popping up all over traditional and social media. Although the two terms are often used interchangeably, a perhaps obvious distinction exists between the two. Check out my post over at Executive Career Brand to learn more, Executive Branding:… -
How LinkedIn Works For Undercover Executive Job Search
8 Jul 2010 | 5:17 amHow LinkedIn Works For Undercover Executive Job Search is a post from: Executive Resume Branding Are you job hunting on the sly and fearful your employer will find out before you hand in your resignation? A successful executive job search campaign includes much more than responding to job board postings. In fact, that method yields a dismal 3-5%, at best, so it should only represent a very small part of your job search efforts. Networking is always your best bet and LinkedIn is one of the very best social networking tools for executives. If you’re not there, positioning yourself in… -
New Career Book: Launchpad – Your Career Search Strategy Guide, Volume 3
1 Jul 2010 | 4:58 amNew Career Book: Launchpad – Your Career Search Strategy Guide, Volume 3 is a post from: Executive Resume Branding Chris Perry of Career Rocketeer has just published the third volume of his quarterly compilation of short, relevant articles covering a range of job search topics, Launchpad: Your Career Search Strategy Guide. Along with my contribution, “10 Steps To Your Authentic, Winning Personal Brand”, Volume 3 is loaded with advice on such topics as resume optimization, interviewing, personal branding, career search strategizing, relationship building, professional networking, and web…
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SimpliFlying
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Learning from the best airlines on social media: SimpliFlying launches six airline case studies
26 Jul 2010 | 4:58 pmSimpliFlying has earned its reputation over the years by offering thought provoking insights into the world of airline branding. And nothing has been as instrumental affecting airline brands as social media. As airlines become more active in this sphere, we attempt to answer a crucial question: Has social media truly benefited any airline? If so, how? To answer this question, we put together a series of case studies. In this set of six case studies, top executives from airlines such as Qantas, Volaris, airBaltic, Alaska Airlines, JetBlue, and of course, Southwest, talk about how their social… -
Travel agents can differentiate by displaying online reviews
22 Jul 2010 | 9:55 pmIt’s not just airlines that are in a blood-bath when it comes to competing for customers. Real-world travel agents themselves often find themselves amidst cut-throat competition with one another. Especially in times when airlines are cutting commission rates to zero percent. Moreover, there are online travel agencies taking away business. These travel agents can now seek inspiration from Kmart, the discount retailer. Kmart is launching a new program where online reviews of video games will be displayed on store shelves, an initiative aimed at building ties between the chain’s online… -
Why does Qatar Airways have a chalet at Farnborough 2010?
22 Jul 2010 | 12:53 amI’ve spent the past week at the Farnborough airshow, where there are a ton of aviation suppliers decked out in their chalets. My interest was piqued when I saw the only airline chalet at the show – Qatar Airways’. Yes, it does well for brand awareness. But Qatar Airways already has a Boeing 777-300 on static display at the show. Hence, I got thinking why would Qatar Airways invest in a chalet at Farnborough? Here are some possible reasons I came up with. To get all manufacturers coming to Qatar Airways’ chalet, than the QR executives going to the manufacturers Increase… -
Simpliflying Hero, June 2010: Richard Ziskind of Omni Air International
8 Jul 2010 | 10:59 pmThe Simpliflying Hero for the month of June 2010 is….(drum roll)…Richard Ziskind. Richard is being recognized for his outstanding work at Omni Air International, with the introduction of social media to the organization. He began his career with Omni Air in 2006, directly into his current position of Senior Director Marketing. Richard says, “[my] position enables me to create new airline models and strategically implement innovative marketing and airline design for scheduled and non scheduled operations”. A large part of this implementation has been social media, which… -
Little things that make an airline brand stand out. Good job, Indigo!
8 Jul 2010 | 3:13 amWhen it comes to airline branding, it’s the little things that happen at the various touch points that make the brand stand out, ultimately driving customer loyalty. I flew from Mumbai to Delhi yesterday on Indigo Airlines, a leading domestic budget carrier in India, known for its tongue-in-cheek branding. I have a habit of being engrossed in a book or a newspaper during the take-off and landing sequence on every flight I take. On the flight yesterday, once the safety demonstration was done, the stewardess walked down the aisle checking our seat-belts. As she passed me, she realized I…
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Unbound Edition
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Hayward Defends Tenure, BP's Spill Response
30 Jul 2010 | 5:50 amTony Hayward, the departing chief executive of BP PLC, is unrepentant about how the energy giant responded to the U.S.'s largest offshore oil spill. In his first interview after agreeing to step down from the top spot this week, Mr. Hayward said he did everything possible once the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank in the Gulf of Mexico, by taking responsibility for the spill, and spending billions of dollars to stop the spewing oil and clean up the shoreline. -
What You Want: Flickr Creator Spins Addictive New Web Service
30 Jul 2010 | 5:50 amThat’s what Fake does best: Tend social sparks until they ignite and become full-fledged communities. Connecting people to one another is not just Fake’s hobby — she has made it her career. As the cofounder of Flickr, the landmark photography site, Fake provided a place for shutterbugs to share their work; they have uploaded more than 4 billion pictures. It was a seminal service that helped launch the era of user-generated content, spurring entrepreneurs to build Web sites and businesses based on volunteer contributions. -
Clive Thompson on the Death of the Phone Call
30 Jul 2010 | 5:21 amWe’re moving, in other words, toward a fascinating cultural transition: the death of the telephone call. This shift is particularly stark among the young. Some college students I know go days without talking into their smartphones at all. I was recently hanging out with a twentysomething entrepreneur who fumbled around for 30 seconds trying to find the option that actually let him dial someone. -
Will Digital Culture Ever Invent a Homer Simpson?
30 Jul 2010 | 5:18 amWill we ever create our own Homer? I am not being argumentative. This is an open question. The answer could be "soon" or it could be "never," and I'll be happy. However we answer this question, we will have improved our anthropological understanding of contemporary culture. -
Barkley vs. Jordan: Who's the Brand Champ?
30 Jul 2010 | 5:18 amCertain celebrity endorsements have the Midas touch and Barkley is a sterling example, despite a checkered past including gambling issues and a DUI conviction. His over-the-top persona has made Barkley a magnet for brands — compared, say, with NBA legend (and Hanes spokesman) Michael Jordan.
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JKR Blog
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26 Treasures at the V&A
30 Jul 2010 | 2:24 amIt’s a great idea – twenty six writers, each in sixty two words, create a piece of art which compliments or re-frames a piece from the V&A British Galleries collection. You can read about the project’s genesis here, and more about the project here along with some considered musings on the relationship between words and pictures. For someone who works in graphic communication the marriage of words and image are a daily preoccupation. Being dyslexic, I have a bias towards drawing over writing. To my mind, pictures deliver a clarity and can be appreciated at their surface, where… -
Barclays Cycle Hire – on the right track?
29 Jul 2010 | 1:20 amThe Guardian has been somewhat annoyed by the dominance of Barclays branding in their sponsorship of London’s free to hire bikes and new cycle lane “superhighways”. Their full reasons are here. But in a nutshell their concern is that the cycle lanes, in Barclays blue, represent a gigantic amount of branding physically speaking (potentially 100k plus of London’s tarmac). This, they argue, demeans our capital, sells the road from beneath us, and is the thin end of a wedge in which brands privately co-opt public space, which they can then police as laws unto themselves. What do… -
Cheestrings stretches into Spaghetti
29 Jul 2010 | 12:10 amNext week sees the launch of the Cheestrings Spaghetti, the latest innovation from the Cheestrings brand. The new product, which consists of cheese the shape and thickness of spaghetti, aims to capture kid’s imaginations by making lunch more fun. Cheestrings Spaghetti follows the successful launch of Cheestrings Shots last August. When it came to the design, it was all about building on the current brand identity. “The Spaghetti pack represents a natural evolution of the core range and Shots design, where we used Mr Strings to communicate the nature of the product. We used his hair to… -
The Eco Index
27 Jul 2010 | 9:50 amWhich are “greener” – the Levi’s or the Wranglers? The Wall Street Journal heralds the imminent arrival of the Eco Index. Basically, brands from Nike to Adidas, Levi’s to Target are aiming to agree a common criteria to rate the greenness of their products. This is admirably brave as it might, for example, give an Adidas sneaker a gold rating, and an equivalent Nike sneaker a Bronze. And as Prius proves, this is enough to strongly influence some consumers’ choice. The system is in development, and it’s necessarily complex, looking at the whole lifecycle of… -
Does bad taste make for good branding?
27 Jul 2010 | 1:46 amBrewDog are courting controversy with their beer End of History. 55%, £500 a bottle and stuck in your very own stuffed animal. It looks designed to appeal to Damien Hirst rather than the Portman group, though for me it leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. Much as my own sensibilities are disturbed, one has to admire a brand which goes for the opposite of vanilla (and really goes for it, rather than lamely being a bit “edgy”). In this latter, lamer, camp I would put North American brand Crystal Head vodka. Less a meditative memento mori, more a desperate shout for attention, for me the…
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Oculus
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Kirin, F&N Breaking news...
26 Jul 2010 | 3:02 amCourtesy of Yoshihiko Hani, Editor of Beverage Japan, we have breaking news that 14.7% of F&N stock has tonight been acquired by Kirin.Temasek holdings, the Singapore Government’s sovereign wealth fund, was the owner of the shares.According to the Japanese press release the deal is part of Kirin’s strategy to grow its business internationally especially as growth in the domestic market is increasingly difficult.F&N has is a major player in the drinks business in SE Asia but recently has decided to walk away from its bottling contract with Coca Cola.Kirin has paid S$1.34 Bn dollars… -
EPPCO UAE
25 Jul 2010 | 9:21 pmIn a trade mission organised earlier this year, we took one of our clients to meet EPPCO, the Emirates Petroleum Products Company as they have a strong and growing convenience store business.Based in Dubai, EPPCO has a network of over 170 service stations featuring convenience stores, car washes, ATMs and fast food outlets. Our client had some delicious pastries which he was keen to see served in their service stations.Last week, EPPCO was again awarded with the Superbrands accreditation, the fifth year in a row.Given the heat in the Middle East, and the convenience of drive in shops, one can… -
Vegetable Gardening Boom
19 Jul 2010 | 5:04 pmPerhaps home gardening is going through a mini boom in Tokyo.On top of JR Ebisu one stop down from Shibuya station there is a small roof garden that can be rented out by aspiring vegetable growers and horticulturists.Soradofarm, which literally translates as “sky-earth-farm” has received quite a bit of press coverage since it opened last Autumn.A few months ago there was news about some enterprising university students, fresh back in Tokyo from a summer’s labour in the wilds of Shimane prefecture (I know it well and it’s beautiful) saw unshapely veggies being discarded as “non… -
Halal iKiosk
16 Jul 2010 | 1:35 amI visited Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday and learnt about the new iKiosk which is being rolled out by the Halal Development Corporation.The aim of the kiosk is simple: give immediate, real time information to consumers about all Halal products certified by JAKIM, the country’s certification authority.Significantly Carrefour which has 22 stores in the country and has been present since 1994 is placing these kiosks in selected outlets; indeed the HDC press release even talks of Carrefour developing the world’s first Halal hypermarket which is also a significant development.The types of… -
Japanese Whisky in France
12 Jul 2010 | 1:20 amAccording to Les Echos a French newspaper, the Suntory Group is targeting the French market with its Japanese whiskies.The company has around 70% share in the domestic market but the whisky category has contracted over the years forcing players to look at distant shores for new markets.France has long had a strong cultural association bordering on love affair with Japan (depending on who you talk to) and for Japanese tourists of course it remains the enduring favourite.Suntory has adopted the global brand manager / brand ambassador model operated by many drinks companies these days and is…
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designdamage - Strategy + Design: Social Branding
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The 3 Most Effective Content Marketing Principles
29 Jul 2010 | 6:25 amIt will be increasingly difficult to grab attention from anyone on the Internet or in person. You may spend hours writing a great blog article, creating a high-value video or designing your marketing slicks only to find that people just aren’t interested in consuming them. Why? Because we’re being bombarded by messages, alerts, and feeds every second. We’re constantly distracted and interrupted when we invest our time on the Internet. As a result, our brain essentially reconfigures itself. This is what Nicholas Carr, the author of the book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our… -
How Social Will Change Everything In Business
7 Jul 2010 | 1:12 amI saw a video on the State of Social CRM post on Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang in which Paul Greenberg talks about how companies are having difficulties with cultural changes internally to execute against the new bread of customer, the social customer. In case you don’t know what CRM is, it’s Customer Relationship Management as described in Wikipedia as a “technology that allows companies to organize, automate, and synchronize business processes—principally sales activities, but also those for marketing, customer service, and technical support. The overall goals are to find,… -
10 Reasons Why You Are Not Getting The Results You Want Out Of Your Marketing
29 Jun 2010 | 8:00 amYou spent countless hours crafting your marketing campaign investing money and hiring marketing experts to help guide you through the process. You get ready to push the launch button, waiting for emails and phone calls come pouring in, then… Nothing happens. But what could go wrong? You did the things that the marketing “experts” said you should do with your keywords, putting up blog articles day after day, uploading videos and sending out email newsletters. Why? Here are 10 reasons why you’re not getting the attention, buzz and most importantly – the sales conversion. Oh, and… -
Awareness to Action: 4 Steps to Sell More By Getting Inside the Minds of Your Customers
18 Jun 2010 | 2:47 amOver the past months I wrote about how to find your customers in order to improve your customer segmentation and gain better understanding of your niche market. Everything goes back to connecting with your audience so you can craft campaigns utilizing tactics such as email marketing, SEO and social media. Then as more businesses learned the tools of the trade, I brought up the point of adding value on my last post because ultimately knowledge will be commoditized similar to most disruptive technologies. The trick is maximizing the use of your knowledge (when it’s still valuable) to help… -
What is Adding Value and How it Applies to Social Networking
27 May 2010 | 5:24 pmAs a social media advocate I often discuss adding value to the conversations, to the communities or to the relationships. I guess I assumed everyone already knew what the term means and how it applies to them until I started to get questions from people. So what exactly is adding value and how? Is it just an over-used marketing jargon? An illusion of a feel-good emotion? The more I use the term “value” the more I feel like it’s loosing its soul (I’m guilty as charge at times). One of my favorite artists, the awesome Hugh MacLeod had a great piece about Adding Value with the quote,…
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Blackcoffee's Blog | Thoughts & Notions
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Logos are Dead?
8 Jul 2010 | 12:43 pmRecently, professionals have been debating the issues of whether or not logos are dead: a waste of time, money and effort. Some believe that in today’s digital age, logotypes will and have replaced logos as staples of brand identity. Still, others believe that iconic symbols are the cornerstone of visual identity. We believe the argument is centered around the wrong question. The question should be: “Which is more effective, logo or logotype?” We’ll let you answer that question for yourself. Can you clearly identify the two brands above? One is a logo, the other a logotype. Which did… -
Sound Symbolism
11 Jun 2010 | 9:40 amLook at the two shapes above. How would you pair these forms with the following words? Bouba and Kiki There is a 95% to 98% likelihood that you paired the sharper sounds (obstruents) of the word “Kiki” with image on the left, and the softer sounds (sonorants) of “Bouba” with the softer image on the right. As you can see, language carries meaning that transcends its literal definition with associative connotation. This makes developing brand names more than just a question of linguistics. Sound, shape and meaning must complement one another if the brand’s name,… -
“Drive” Animation
28 May 2010 | 9:53 amRSA Animate – Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us For those who may have missed this, we thought we’d share. RSA Animate, adapts Dan Pink’s talk at the RSA, to illustrate the hidden truths behind what really motivates us at home and in the workplace. -
Brand Values
17 May 2010 | 6:04 pmThe days of advertising-led brands are dead. A shift from monologue to dialogue has occurred. No longer can a company say one thing and do another. People want brands they can trust. Violate that trust and they won’t just flee, they’ll rebel. People’s buying decisions are largely driven by brands which embody values that reflect their own. In other words, consumers aren’t buying the products that they like. They’re seeking out the brands that are like them. They’re choosing brands whose meaning reflects their own sense of identity, making a statement about who they… -
Problem Shaping
5 Apr 2010 | 8:11 amHow you define a problem is perhaps the most important step in finding a solution. After all, every subsequent act is based on how the problem is shaped. Problem solving begins with problem shaping, and that’s where most people go wrong. They immediately define the problem within their own skill set. Let’s take a common problem often found on standardized tests. This focuses on a predetermined solution. However, there is more than one way to solve the problem. In an elimination boxing tournament, boxers are paired for competition. The loosing boxer from each fight is eliminated,…
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core
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In a nutshell
13 Jul 2010 | 6:42 amYou may have noticed that there haven’t been so many updates lately. I am so busy, I simply don’t find time anymore to dedicate to Core. Since March 1, 2010, I am working for TBWA\ZURICH, a Swiss division of TBWA International, which is part of the Omnicom Group. Aside of daily business and client projects, I am in the process of rebuilding the Online team, which all in all is a time consuming process. Tumblr has been my rescue. Because I simply haven’t got the time to write long articles, I sometimes jot down a few thoughts, bring them in shape and post them. This whole… -
Apple surpasses Microsoft's market cap
26 May 2010 | 4:50 pmHonestly, I didn’t think I’d see that day when Apple surpasses Microsoft in market capitalization. Of course, measured by how many operating systems are being sold, Microsoft is still leading. But in terms of market value, Apple has now become the biggest tech company in the world. A bit scary, so much success. Is there a break? Apple’s success may increase, but alongside I see an image problem arising, with Apple’s attitude and an incapability to grasp people’s interests. Apple has clearly reached that point where it has the power to decide to become the next… -
Comments are open again
26 Apr 2010 | 4:16 amFor a while I had to close down commenting on Core Theory. The amount of spam was jumping over the edge of 2000 items a day. As of today, comments are open again, simply because I believe that interaction and discussion are active and essential elements of a blog. -
I disagree with Jacob Nielsen
26 Apr 2010 | 3:57 amI know, given his god like authority in the area of Web usability, it’s almost blasphemy to disagree with Jacob Nielsen. His Alert Box is certainly one of the best sources for usability questions and answers, and his research results are invaluable when it comes to the evolution from Web sites to Web applications. I find Nielsen’s research results interesting and I agree to 99% with his conclusions. However, that is not always the case, especially when it comes to jumping to conclusions based on raw viewer data, such as the results for “how many users tend to look at this… -
Comments temporarily closed due to spam attack
4 Feb 2010 | 5:14 amSince last night, the amount of spam registered on this Web site has increased by 2000%. Because of these circumstances, I have closed the option to leave comments. If you would like to leave a comment for an article, please e-mail me your note and I will add the comment manually. This is a temporary solution until I have figured out a better way.
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Girvin Strategic Branding Design Blog
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The Heart of the Human Brand: Design, Imagination and Beauty.
30 Jul 2010 | 5:33 amThe Heart of the Human Brand: Design, Imagination and Beauty. Notes on the point of the work: urge, passion, craft, the hand-made brand — a conference presentation in Portland THE NEW WORLD OF DESIGN: what is the nature of personal reflection in branding? If there’s a story, who’s telling it, and who cares about it? To the human brand, and the human potential, what story could be made to shine: the lustration of ideas, the illustration of the ideal? A special dedication and thanks to Danielle Amato, for her graceful help in creating this presentation. Brand strategies for… -
Rodarte | Intentionality and attentionality in the strategy of the Mulleavy sisters
28 Jul 2010 | 6:59 amWhat happened with Michelle Obama, the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Awards and MAC Cosmetics? Sometime back, I’d sent a note to Kate + Laura, each with a painting on bark gathered from the high hills of Kaua’i, and a story to tell — that was to each of them, separately, and to both of them, together. That started a correspondence about the idea of the work of design and creativity. There’s a story in presence, and there is a telling in absence. And there’s another story in attention and intention. The mysterious wonder of the two of them lies in that… -
EXPLORING THE PRESENCE: THE SENTIENT MIND OF SERGE LUTENS
26 Jul 2010 | 5:15 amEXPLORING THE PRESENCE: THE SENTIENT MIND OF SERGE LUTENS | SCENTEUR, ARTIST, DESIGNER, PERFUMER. Attention, craft, fascination and the making of an extraordinary career. Photo © Salons du Palais Royal Shiseido The concept of presence is about attention, capturing the spirit of the present moment, considering everything as an act of presentment and presentation. Being in, creating for, the present — the experience of now. “The real great perfumers are not perfumers,” Lutens says. “They are the bees, the winds, the rivers and other things that carry and mix scents in space.” As… -
Richless, rich less, poorful, poor full?
24 Jul 2010 | 6:48 amAre you poorful, or richless? Our economy’s new language – shifting story and interpretations Brandstory and language: what’s the positioning — in a challenging milieu — what are we really looking for: rich, poor, satiety or survival? How do we describe it? And feel about it? In times of abs(tin)ence, are we rich less, or poor full? Or just hanging on, sans description? While there are surely tinges of optimism, just coming from NYC, and swaying with the flows of the retail scene there and a world-wide, conferencing grouping of department store CEOs, the word on… -
Attentionality and intentionality: brand awareness and the focused relationship
22 Jul 2010 | 9:24 amWhat are you paying attention to? And in that equation, what are your customers paying intention to? What drives them to intentionally pay attention? There’s tension in that balance. Sometime back, I’d connected with Lynda Weinman and her husband, Bruce Heavin. This was at the Evergreen State College — and the launch of the new Lynda Labs in the media center there in Olympia, Washington. Along with connecting with Bruce and Lynda, I’d connected with Linda Stone. Linda’s a theorist — long running explorer — of the concept of attention, particularly in…
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More Than A Logo
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Avoiding Flakey Brand Shit
18 Jul 2010 | 10:32 amHow will you avoid brand strategies as flakey as the PC character who is confused on who he is suppose to be?The other day, I heard a colleague refer to a brand document as "flakey brand shit". At first, being a brand enthusiast, my heart sunk and I began to think, "how could someone refer to a brand strategy document as 'flakey brand shit' when it's this document that defines how a brand will position itself to stimulate premium pricing, attract top talent & create brand evangelists (both internally and externally)?"But then it occurred to me - ya some brand documents ARE "flakey brand… -
Future Files Part 3: Meaning will attract & retain future talent
4 Jul 2010 | 11:00 pmNote: Image from TOMS' Facebook page - this is them on a recent shoe drop in ArgentinaThis is the last of the 3 part series inspired by Richard Watson's Future Files book. In the section on trends influencing 'work', he refers to the macro aging population trend. When this trends collides with the reduced birth rate, we see a dramatic increase in labour shortage! This shortage increases the importance to attracting and maintaining a strong work force to remain a competitive organization in the future.Richard Watson refers to a theory from Thomas Kuhn's book The Structure of Scientific… -
Future Files Part 2: Location Branding
29 Jun 2010 | 11:00 pmNote: Photo taken by my good friend Brittany Parent on her latest trip to Paris, one of my favorite cities,!In the book, Future Files, Richard Watson talks about how the global connectivity & globalization trends are making it so that you can get anything, anywhere. From which, he brings up the question, why travel, in the future, if everything is going to look, smell & taste the same?Fortunately, for locations/countries/cities, those differences only reside on the surface, and that the history and nature of these locations is where the unique differences reside providing rationale to… -
Future Files Part 1: Too Much Choice
27 Jun 2010 | 10:35 amOver the last little while, I have been reading the Future Files: The 5 Trends That Will Shape the Next 50 Years by Richard Watson. It's a great read that gets you thinking how the world is evolving and how our daily actions are fostering these trends.I personally love reading about trends, because with all change and evolution comes exciting new challenges and opportunities!Over the next few days I'm going to post a series on the 3 trends that captured my attention and felt branding could offer aid and stimulate opportunities.The 3 trends are:Too much choice (which we will chat about… -
Care, Evolve, Fascinate & Engage: The Things I Learned from The Art of Marketing Conference
22 Jun 2010 | 9:02 pmLast week I had the pleasure of attending The Art of Marketing Conference with a few colleagues from Critical Mass. It was a great day for inspiration with an amazing line up of Guest Speakers: Chip Heath, author of Made to StickGary Vaynerchuck, author of Crush It and creator of Wine Library TVSir Ken Robinson, author The Element and internationally recognized leader in the development of creativity, innovation and human resources Mitch Joel, digital marketing expert and author of Six Pixels of SeparationSally Hogshead, author of FascinateMax Lenderman, Director of OuterActive at Crispin,…
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Healthy Conversations
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The changing nature of health brands and customer relationships
25 Jul 2010 | 2:39 pmThe Brands Create Customers blog (on next-generation brands: new models, platforms, applications) is authored by Brian Phipps. I find great value in Brian’s take on the changing nature of brands and the brand-customer relationship. Brian wrote a post last week titled New Brand Glossary: update 4. It’s worth holding on to this glossary. Because it doesn’t resemble much of the current (old) thinking about brands and their holds on customers. Here’s a snippet of his introduction: Traditional brand glossaries usually assume a passive customer “audience” for brand… -
Creating new value for health brand customers: make their agenda yours
19 Jul 2010 | 5:22 amAs a marketer, you really only have one purpose. One ultimate gauge of success. That is, to continuously create new and greater value for your health brand customers. Value that is defined on your customers terms and reflects their agenda. Value that transcends your messaging and your one-way communication about your organization and your offerings. Ask yourself these three questions: 1. Is your marketing really adding value to your customers lives? 2. Are you helping them do something they want to do, or solve something that helps them achieve more than they could on their own? 3. If you… -
Creating new value for health brand customers: 10 lessons from Apple
13 Jul 2010 | 6:36 amCan you be the Apple of (fill-in your health segment here)? There’s good learning here for marketers to take away from Fast Company’s July cover story – Invincible Apple: 10 Lessons From the Coolest Company Anywhere. After speaking with former employees, current partners, and others who have watched Apple for many years, the article’s author states the answers to Apple’s phenomenal success center around discipline, focus, long-term thinking, and a willingness to flout the rules that govern everybody else’s business. Here’s Fast Company’s excerpted… -
Orlando Health: a healthcare system putting the social in social media
7 Jul 2010 | 7:52 amOrlando Health is one of Florida’s most comprehensive private, not-for-profit healthcare networks, caring for nearly two million Central Florida residents and 4,500 international visitors annually. They’re also a health system that understands that social media really should be social (seemingly obvious, but not always put into practice). Case in point is their Family Is e-Scrapbook, which can be accessed from the home page of their website, and their Family Is Facebook page. They reached out to the community to ask “tell us what family is to you.” This effort… -
An insurance company creating healthy conversations, and greater value, for its customers
29 Jun 2010 | 6:27 amKeepBritainBiking.com is a service of UK-based Devitt Insurance Services Ltd (“Devitt”). The website helps bikers exchange views and useful information about biking, to help new and experienced bikers get the most out of biking. Here are some lessons for health marketers to take away KeepBritianBiking.com: 1. It creates a meaningful difference in the lives of its customers – beyond the initial transaction and the occasional call about a claim or a rate adjustment. 2. It allows Devitt to build an emotional connection with their customers – above and beyond the functionality of its (and…
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brandcowboy
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Gather the horses.
22 Jul 2010 | 6:34 amIt’s the name of a song by a musician called Charlie Mars. It’s about battles that must be won. I was turned on to the singer by Lance Armstrong, who mentioned him on Twitter a few months ago. Lance Armstrong doesn’t know me from a lamppost, but I follow him anyway. A sometime cyclist myself, I was stirred by the heroic image of Armstrong suiting up to race, set to Charlie Mars singing “there’s fighting here to be done.” It’s on my iPod. Because you never know. In ten weeks, I will walk out of the firm I co-founded 14 years ago for the last time as its CEO. I’ll remain a… -
The name of the beast.
18 Jun 2010 | 7:43 amFar be it from me to jump on the BP dogpile. If punditry were Pampers, that hole would have been plugged weeks ago. I have nothing to add to the discussion about whether BP’s brand – or its business - is going to be a casualty of this mess, or even whether they’re handling it intelligently. There’s a colloquialism for this, of which the first two syllables are “cluster,” and the only unfolding media story that’s getting anywhere close to this attention and analysis right now involves grown men kicking a ball (a ball made, ironically, mostly of petroleum products. Leather, even… -
Hope floats.
21 May 2010 | 10:37 amSpare a thought for the mightiest beast from the Age of the Great Lizards, the seminal 20th century marketer Procter & Gamble. Against any sensible bet, P&G is lumbering away from the mass media tar pit it helped to create, and apparently into a future that is every bit as bright as its past. I read this piece yesterday about their e-commerce play, and for about the sixth time this year found myself marveling at their dogged capacity to evolve. P&G doesn’t just exemplify old school branding, they invented the game. So you’d think they’d have the deepest commitment to that old status… -
Out on a limb.
28 Apr 2010 | 9:53 amOne of the first things they tell you in strategy wonk school is, “Correlation is not the same as causation.” It’s great advice, heeded too seldom in our business and rarely if at all in the popular media. We all know, for example, that peanut butter and jelly are frequently found together, but only an over-caffeinated headline writer would make the leap to “Peanut butter results in jelly outbreak!” But that’s not to say that correlations should be ignored. Where there is smoke, fire isn’t usually far away, and here’s an example I thought was pretty interesting. Far away in… -
Oaky, with a hint of WTF.
26 Mar 2010 | 6:13 amIt was one of those hyperlink ambushes that happens to us all from time to time. You start off innocently enough, searching for information on, oh, say, the correct way to spell ‘Walmart’. One thing leads to another, click begets click, and minutes melt away as you fall down, down, down into a digital rabbit hole. At the bottom of which is Gary Vaynerchuk. If you don’t know the name of this cherubic, potty-mouthed social media phenomenon, you may have avoided Twitter just a little too long. But if you do, you probably know that he’s a big deal out there. From gonzo wine video blogger…
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Synergist
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Visual Brand Synchronicity
26 Jul 2010 | 6:07 amAre you using easily identifiable visual communications that connect uniquely and quickly back to your company? Are you paying attention to the way your visual brand is used across mediums? Do your website, Twitter account and Facebook profile use the same overall visual features so viewers know it is your company they are experiencing? How can you build a memorable visual brand appropriate for print, web, trade shows, signage and social media? We call it visual synchronicity… the recognition that develops when common visual elements are used across all media consistently and… -
A Colorful Logo
15 Jul 2010 | 1:37 pmColor attracts attention There is no doubt about it, the eye always looks at the most vibrant element in the space. A good logo not only needs to be simple… it also needs the effective use of color. This doesn’t mean you need a large variation of color. It just means the color needs to be appropriate, pleasing and complementary to the brand. Here is an interesting article from Wired Magazine on the development of Google’s logo. Read How Google Got Its Colorful Logo Ruth Kedar, the graphic designer who developed Google’s logo, shows the iterations that ultimately led to the logo… -
Rock Solid Branding
6 Jul 2010 | 7:34 amPrudential’s “Logo Evolution” of The Rock® is a perfect example of the simplifying of a logo. What began as a detailed illustration in 1870 has now evolved to its most simplistic form, displaying more of a symbolic visual icon. As mentioned in the last post, simplicity is one of the keys to a great logo. And great logos gain recognition. This first got my attention when viewing Prudential’s “Logo Evolution” TV Ad. It succinctly displays how the “Rock” logo has evolved visuallly. The concept being, although the company’s iconic “Rock” has… -
What Makes A Really Good Logo?
28 Jun 2010 | 6:53 amThe Worldwide Logo Design Annual (WOLDA) showcases the 2009 edition which includes 192 logo winners selected from nearly 2000 entries. See a few I have chosen to display below. You can see all the selections here. These are all really great logos. Why? Here is a quick litmus test for a good logo. Is it simple? Will it work in black & white as well as color? Simplicity builds recognition. Simple shapes are more easily identified. Is it memorable? Does it stimulate recall? Does it facilitate recognition? Is it significant? Does it use positive and negative space effectively and… -
Design Briefs Provide Focus
22 Jun 2010 | 8:51 amHow do we strive to ensure the success of a design project? We want our clients to focus in on what they want and how they want it. What do clients want? Design Briefs can hold the answer. They set up clear business objectives. They help define expected outcomes of the intended project. The designers role? The Design Brief is not meant to achieve the aesthetics of design but to synthesize the information conveyed and give the opportunity to ask questions for clarification. Put on your listening ears! Asking questions and allowing the client to speak about their company and their perceptions…
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Thoughts & Notions | Blackcoffee
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Logos are Dead?
8 Jul 2010 | 12:43 pmRecently, professionals have been debating the issues of whether or not logos are dead: a waste of time, money and effort. Some believe that in today’s digital age, logotypes will and have replaced logos as staples of brand identity. Still, others believe that iconic symbols are the cornerstone of visual identity. We believe the argument is centered around the wrong question. The question should be: “Which is more effective, logo or logotype?” We’ll let you answer that question for yourself. Can you clearly identify the two brands above? One is a logo, the other a logotype. Which did… -
Sound Symbolism
11 Jun 2010 | 9:40 amLook at the two shapes above. How would you pair these forms with the following words? Bouba and Kiki There is a 95% to 98% likelihood that you paired the sharper sounds (obstruents) of the word “Kiki” with image on the left, and the softer sounds (sonorants) of “Bouba” with the softer image on the right. As you can see, language carries meaning that transcends its literal definition with associative connotation. This makes developing brand names more than just a question of linguistics. Sound, shape and meaning must complement one another if the brand’s name,… -
“Drive” Animation
28 May 2010 | 9:53 amRSA Animate – Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us For those who may have missed this, we thought we’d share. RSA Animate, adapts Dan Pink’s talk at the RSA, to illustrate the hidden truths behind what really motivates us at home and in the workplace. -
Brand Values
17 May 2010 | 6:04 pmThe days of advertising-led brands are dead. A shift from monologue to dialogue has occurred. No longer can a company say one thing and do another. People want brands they can trust. Violate that trust and they won’t just flee, they’ll rebel. People’s buying decisions are largely driven by brands which embody values that reflect their own. In other words, consumers aren’t buying the products that they like. They’re seeking out the brands that are like them. They’re choosing brands whose meaning reflects their own sense of identity, making a statement about who they… -
Problem Shaping
5 Apr 2010 | 8:11 amHow you define a problem is perhaps the most important step in finding a solution. After all, every subsequent act is based on how the problem is shaped. Problem solving begins with problem shaping, and that’s where most people go wrong. They immediately define the problem within their own skill set. Let’s take a common problem often found on standardized tests. This focuses on a predetermined solution. However, there is more than one way to solve the problem. In an elimination boxing tournament, boxers are paired for competition. The loosing boxer from each fight is eliminated,…
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Razor Branding Blog
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Operations Will Make or Break the Brand
29 Jul 2010 | 11:39 pmChief Marketing Officers can develop the greatest ad campaigns of all times but without Operations creating great products to sell and strong processes for customer service then those ad campaigns will do little more than win awards. The challenge seems to be that most companies today think that they just have to change their marketing efforts to adapt to these new marketing tools. Their hope seems to be that if they just take a few dollars from the tv budget and put it into a YouTube budget then their advertising efforts will be up to date. Unfortunately, for them, it just doesn’t work… -
Is Your Brand Identity Recognizable?
28 Jul 2010 | 11:44 pmI have been working on next week's edition of Brand Buzz: The Power of Brand Identity. It's great to see a company like Virgin maintain such extraordinary consistency in their logo. It seems like all too often forces are at work, making slight subtle changes to the logo until eventually it becomes unrecognizable. I started to hum that song by Billy Joel, "don't go changing, to try and please me..." It takes a really strong brand manager to be able to keep the brand identity consistent. Employees will make their own promo merchandise and "just change the color a little to match the… -
Five Fingers Builds a Brand With Your Feet
27 Jul 2010 | 11:50 pmThe first pair of Vibram Five Fingers that I noticed was in April on the feet of a super runner. They caught my attention immediately and made an impression - enough that i remember it vividly. They actually distracted me from the conversation because all I could think about was the crazy 'sock shoes' he was wearing.I wondered if he had flat feet or high arches and if the shoes compensated. I thought about how they might feel when he stepped on something sharp. I wondered if he wore them to the grocery store.Talk about 'change the conversation'. The shoes… -
Brand Buzz: New Rules of Public Relations
26 Jul 2010 | 12:00 amTune in to KPEL 96.5 (www.kpel965.com) today at 5:20pm CST for another episode of Brand Buzz. Today we are discussing the new rules of Public Relations. It used to be that PR was all about sending press releases to the media and hoping that they would then tell your story, or at least their version of it, to the public. Now, their are all of these new tools that have created new rules for new media. In addition to the media telling your story, you can now communicate directly with the public and use different forms of media to tell your story. For example, when Domino's… -
9 Ways New Media Provides Branding Opportunities
23 Jul 2010 | 12:14 amI am very honored to be speaking at the PRAL (Public Relations of Louisiana - Acadiana Chapter) luncheon today. This is the inaugural meeting to launch this new chapter and the panelists will be addressing "What the Media Needs Today". I know. You are thinking, "umm, how did a branding person get on a panel with newspaper editors talking to a room full of PR people?" Good question. Two answers. First, it's all about communicating. Public Relations is about communicating with the public. Branding is about communicating in a way that creates an…
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Profitable Growth
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Innovation! Don’t Stress Me But Tell Me What Kind You Need!
I am sitting here facing a deadline to write this article on innovation! Isn’t it ironic yet obvious how innovation, stress and deadlines always seem to go hand-in-hand! Everyone needs and craves innovation, yet the more we chase it, the more elusive discovering the next “it” or “thing” seems to be. Most of us have [...] -
Pittsburgh vs. Cleveland: Why business in the ‘Burgh beats Cleveland.
“So, Andy, why is business better in Pittsburgh than in Cleveland?” After repeatedly being asked, I wrote an article for today’s Pittsburgh Business Times answering this question. While I can say the answer has to do with topography you can click HERE to read it now if you are a subscriber, or send me an [...] -
Is Your Business Ready for World Cup Contention?
I’d like to point you to a piece I’ve just written titled, “Is Your Business World-Cup-Worthy?“ In this piece, I posed a question to you, the reader. And that question is, If your company was a World Cup team, how would it do in terms of. . . : Preparation Coaching Fans Commentators Is your [...] -
To My Pittsburgh Friends and Clients
Being welcomed and given opportunities to speak, write for some of Pittsburgh’s most important publications and consult and coach several local businesses has been a gratifying and invaluable opportunity for me to learn how the town works and has succeeded so well. Being invited to join the Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence and most recently being [...] -
To My Cleveland Friends and 450 Clients
Looking back, it’s been a great privilege to help you grow by over $400 million and I look forward to continuing to do so. Being recognized as an asset to Northeast Ohio’s economy was a great honor and I hope that you will reach out to me whenever you and your business needs my specialty [...]
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soundlounge sonic branding blog
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Coca-Cola: The J.S. Bach of Brands
28 Jul 2010 | 10:43 amAfter finding out about Coca-Cola’s clever injection of their own sonic logo in K’naan’s World Cup song “Wavin’ Flag”, many of our readers called Coke out as being sneaky and/or cheeky. So we at soundlounge are here in defense of their brilliant (if a bit devilish) sonic branding strategy. In the brand-sphere, Coke have proven to be masters of this kind of “audio watermarking” – subtly embedding their brand’s sound in the music of their advertisements. But the idea of a sound signature is hardly new. In fact, the original master of audio watermarking lived and died… -
Q: What do ‘digital drug’ teens have in common with ancient Greek philosophers?
23 Jul 2010 | 6:56 amA: Both believe in the secret power of sound to change our brains. First, these teens… In the last few weeks, reports have been popping up everywhere about a new craze among the iPod generation – ‘i-dosing’ – listening to music designed to get kids ‘high’. It’s based on the musical illusion of binaural beats. But the makers of these digital drugs have been claiming that listening to these audio clips will create the same effect as taking illegal narcotics. If the concept sounds silly, the media’s coverage of it has been even sillier: The idea that… -
Coca-Cola Sneaks their Sonic Logo into K’naan’s World Cup Anthem
8 Jul 2010 | 3:47 pmAnd the soundlounge award this year goes to…(drum roll please)…a totally brilliant piece of sonic branding from the Coke team of music supervisors. Those who have been following soundlounge’s extensive blog coverage of World Cup advertising music will know that there were dozens of contenders for the crown. However we are all agreement here, that apart from the vuvuzelas, the most recognizable sound from this year’s World Cup has come from a previously little-known Somali-Canadian artist. Thanks to Coke, K’naan’s song “Wavin’ Flag” has reached an amazing number one… -
BBC vs ITV
5 Jul 2010 | 6:41 pmAs expected after England’s exit from the world cup, the football themed adverts seemed to have ceased as brands scramble to show anything but football on their adverts! However, the world cup IS still going on so it’s left to the BBC and ITV to continue with their world cup campaign. Both opt for adverts full of energy, although ITV are full pace from the start, whereas the BBC gradually builds to a climax bursting with energy and color. The big difference however is BBC’s editing, which is done to fit the music perfectly and therefore create an ad with far greater impact than ITV (1-0… -
The Sound of Brazil
1 Jul 2010 | 11:28 pm“Football” and “samba”. Two words anyone would use to describe Brazil as a brand. And the two often intertwine. The most popular football-related songs? All sambas. Take “Que Bonito É” for example. It was used in newsreels during football video coverage and is forever associated with the game: The people of Brazil have been brought up with music and football as such an important part of their lives, its no surprise the two have practically overlapped. “A Taça do Mundo é Nossa” (The World Cup Is Ours) was composed after Brazil won their first world cup in…
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brandSTOKE
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Clean Bottle awareness summits at Tour de France
27 Jul 2010 | 5:47 amAt this year’s Tour de France, Bottle Boy was a hit. Bottle Boy represents Clean Bottle, a new reusable sports bottle that unscrews at both ends. The rather simplistic design concept makes the job of cleaning residue out of the bottom of the bottle easy and helps prevent mold, a concern among runners, cyclists, hikers, and other athletes. The product is available through REI and others. Clean Bottle launched only months ago with a limited budget. So Dave Mayer, founder, built the five-foot-tall Bottle Boy costume and booked a flight to the Tour de France. On twelve of the stages, he ran… -
Does Geico’s multi-concept strategy work?
22 Jul 2010 | 12:42 pmHow many creative strategies can one brand successfully execute at one time? Conventional wisdom suggests one and one only. Be focused. Be consistent. Hammer it. You’ll grow weary of the campaign long before the audience is even aware of it. Geico has broken this rule of thumb again and again. With seeming success. Martin, the talking gecko, is most closely identified with the Geico brand, but he no longer has to do all of the heavy lifting. The cavemen characters handle some of that, unintentionally and tragically reminding us how simple it is to switch insurance companies (”so easy… -
To inspire brand loyalty, ask why, not how.
20 Jul 2010 | 6:31 am“People don’t buy what you do. They buy why you do it.” This quote by Simon Sinek eloquently captures a key concept I’ve presented in previous posts (”‘Why’ uncover strategic insights?“). That is, the strongest brands (sometimes called affinity brands) are centered around intangible attributes, not tangible ones. They stand for some greater purpose or ideal than simply making money. Being true to some inner value is attractive to those consumers who share the same value. Previously, I have used Patagonia as an example of a loyalty-inspiring affinity brand. -
Domino’s fires its food stylists. Will other QSRs follow?
14 Jul 2010 | 5:55 pmIn an exposé worthy of 60 Minutes, Domino’s Pizza takes viewers backstage at a TV shoot, revealing the secrets of making pizza look mouthwatering. The documentary (watch it below) stars power tools and blowtorches. Consistent with its new posture of transparency, Domino’s promises to forsake food styling in the future: We will only photograph real, honest-to-goodness pizzas. Domino’s employees will make the pizzas we shoot. We will not artificially manipulate our pizzas when photographing them. Instead, it invites customers to post photos of their own Domino’s pizzas… -
Tour de Tweets II
6 Jul 2010 | 8:09 amNote: It’s Tour Time! Here’s a post I wrote last year about the nearly seamless integration of social media into the event. In many ways, the 2009 Tour broke new ground for both participants and fans at major sporting events. And, yes, the ChalkBot is back in 2010! The 2009 Tour de France, highlighted by Lance Armstrong’s return, may be remembered as much for being the first sporting event in history to fully integrate social media into the competition and the coverage. Nearly every one of the 20 teams blogged and tweeted (e.g., Garmin-Slipstream and Astana). Numerous riders…
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(Obsolete Feed)
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Samir Balwani - Internet Marketing Strategy
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Is the Medium or the Message Getting in Your Way?
20 Jul 2010 | 6:36 amThis is a guest post by Maria Ross, founder and chief strategist of Red Slice and author of Branding Basics for Small Business: How to Create an Irresistible Brand on Any Budget (2010, Norlights Press) The old adage, “Is it the medium or the message?” has never held more weight than it does in today’s marketing arena. You have a story to tell (your brand message) and you have a dizzying array of mechanisms through which to tell it: Twitter, website, blog, ad, events, signage, Facebook, etc. etc…. credit So when it comes to evaluating success, you have two factors to consider: the… -
Help! I Need Social Media Advice…
6 Jul 2010 | 7:15 amSocial media and digital communications have really grown as a marketing medium. The new strategies that the web have afforded can be extremely powerful. With that in mind, it’s important to learn as much as you can. Getting started can be the hardest thing. To help people better understand social media marketing, I’ve outlined some important reading for individual topics in social media… Facebook Basics For many Facebook is a really important aspect of their social media strategies. Making sure you create a Facebook fan page that maximizes your return is important. How To… -
Do You Suffer From Marketing Tunnel Vision?
25 Jun 2010 | 7:00 amRemember when you were younger and new toys would hold your attention for some time, but then you’d quickly run off and do something else. Your focus would be extreme, but fleeting. That same tendency doesn’t disappear as we get older, we still can revert to that mindset. Lately, everyone’s been focused on social media. It may be a great marketing tool, but it’s important to not lose sight of your ultimate goal and bottom line. Social media is only one of many marketing options available online. credit 5 Ways to Stay Away from Over Focus Just knowing that “tunnel… -
On The Move: Digital Marketing at PMK BNC
17 Jun 2010 | 7:47 amOn Monday, I started my new position as Digital Marketing Strategist at PMK BNC. I’m really excited to be taking a role that allows me to work with an extremely strong and well respected PR and marketing agency. I’ll be working to identify areas of integration between digital and traditional. It’s great to be working with a traditional agency that is dedicated to evolving with publishers and consumers. The agency will stay true to its roots and maintain its reputation as a PR powerhouse, but will continue to grow its digital know-how and mastery. I hope you’re prepared… -
What a Social Media Marketer Should Know…
15 Jun 2010 | 6:10 amSocial media marketing is a difficult field to master. To truly master it, marketers must understand multiple fields of study. People feel that social media marketing is simple to understand because everyone already uses social media. Sure, the concept is simple – be a good person, interact online, and monitor your brand. The truth is that building a community is one thing, but getting them to do something is entirely a different story. credit So what do smart marketers know that everyone else doesn’t? They know that understanding “marketing” by itself, means nothing.
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The B2B Brand Debate
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B2B Brand Debate Topic — Brand Council
20 Jul 2010 | 1:56 pmCompelling series regarding the role and importance of a Brand Council unfolding over at Gigabrandblog.com. Part two of the three part series covers the Who, What and How of a successful Brand Council. Interesting angle being taken to focus on the particular challenge facing brands in the technology sector. “Technology companies in particular struggle to enhance the value of their brands by aligning their activities to deliver a fulfilling customer experience beyond the functional and/or technological benefits they offer.“ Regardless of specific verticals or market, a critical… -
B2B Brand Debate Topic — Category Definition
20 Jul 2010 | 1:54 pmCategory definition is an issue paramount to all successful businesses. As our friends over at Gigabrandblog.com point out, it’s a strategic decision that can stifle some brands. “Each technology brand shares the same business challenge: defining what category best describes their business, and how to position themselves within the competitive environment.” The ever-evolving nature of technology forces executives in this field to think more in terms of audience confirmation as it relates to Gartner or Forrester category definition. So often technology companies get caught up in the… -
Walk Softly And Carry A Big Brand: Part 2
27 May 2010 | 11:34 amBy Benjamin Bidlack, orignally posted onGigabrandblog How a strong tech brand can help with inevitable mistakes. Last time, we talked about Google and how its huge brand (valued at $32 Billion in 2009) helped it to move into new categories completely separate from search. But a strong brand also helps with when a company makes a mistake, and Google has certainly had their fair share of them. Here are a few of Google’s notable technical and/or market failures, none of which has damaged its brand. 1. Google X (Mac OS Dock-inspired search bar) Google X was a project released by Google in March… -
CA’s INITIAL NAMING MISTAKE
26 May 2010 | 10:29 amby Alan Brew, originally posted on Namedroppings CA, the company formerly known as Computer Associates, is displaying all the characteristics of Hamlet. It is a company that can’t make up its mind. Founded in 1976 as Computer Associates International, Inc., the company legally changed its corporate name to CA, Inc., in February 2006 while in the midst of a $2.2 billion fraud investigation that had dogged it for four years. Explaining the name change at the time, CEO John Swainson said: “CA is a changed company, but not an entirely new company. We’ve taken the strengths of the past and… -
JUST ADMIT IT BP, YOU’RE AN OIL COMPANY
12 May 2010 | 2:43 pmby Alan Brew, originally posted on Namedroppings “Yes, we are an oil company. But right now we are also providing natural gas, solar, hydrogen, geothermal. Because we live on this planet, too.” No, this is not part of a mea culpa from BP. It’s a couple of lines from a Chevron ad, and one which BP would do well to consider emulating given the situation they are in. With smart and refreshing directness, Chevron’s “Human Energy” TV ad from McGarry Bowen makes the case for oil and an oil company better than it has ever been made. Actor Campbell Scott narrates the 150 second spot…
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Executive Career Brand
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Don’t Take a Summer Vacation From Executive Job Search
30 Jul 2010 | 5:05 amDon’t Take a Summer Vacation From Executive Job Search is a post from: Executive Career Brand Although you may think it’s perfectly fine to take the Summer off, because you mistakenly assume no one is hiring, you may be missing out on the perfect time to position yourself for your next gig, before competition spikes with the mad rush in the Fall. Now is the time to get your foot in the door, while others are out catching waves and trying to forget about job search. According to Online Job Search Expert Susan P. Joyce, Publisher of Forbes top-rated Internet employment portal,… -
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People with Social Media
27 Jul 2010 | 4:52 amHow to Lose Friends and Alienate People with Social Media is a post from: Executive Career Brand With acknowledgment to Irving Tressler, who wrote his parody of Dale Carnegie’s famous “How to Win Friends and Influence People“, both published in 1937. Snarkiness and downright rudeness seem to be on the rise across social media. Maybe more of it is coming my way, as my social network expands. Maybe I’m too sensitive to it. Or maybe, because their voices are usually the loudest and most aggressive ones, they reverberate and dig at me more. I’m talking about the lack of… -
How to Get the Best LinkedIn Recommendations
23 Jul 2010 | 5:16 amHow to Get the Best LinkedIn Recommendations is a post from: Executive Career Brand Why are LinkedIn recommendations so important? The true measure of your executive brand and promise of value to future employers is reflected in what those who know your work the best – co-workers, peers, top management, team members, customers, etc. – have to say about you. Executive recruiters and hiring authorities routinely source talent through LinkedIn search. They’re attracted to candidates who have quality recommendations on their profiles. If you have no recommendations, they may question the… -
Maximize Your Executive Brand Online with the 6 P’s
20 Jul 2010 | 4:25 amMaximize Your Executive Brand Online with the 6 P’s is a post from: Executive Career Brand You’ve defined your brand and created your career marketing materials – executive resume, career biography and other collaterals – designed to resonate with your target audience. Maybe you get that, in today’s executive job search, you’re in a sales and marketing campaign to promote your company of one – Brand You. Maybe you’re doing a decent job of promoting yourself in person – at industry events and networking opportunities. Do you get that a strong online footprint with… -
Cover Letter Debate: Are They Necessary in Executive Job Search?
16 Jul 2010 | 4:26 amCover Letter Debate: Are They Necessary in Executive Job Search? is a post from: Executive Career Brand Some of my fellow careers industry professionals dismiss cover letters as an ineffective marketing tool. I don’t agree. Although there are recruiters and hiring decision makers who will skip right over your cover letters, others read them religiously and judge candidates by them as strongly as they do their resumes and other career marketing communications. My research and experience over the years revealed that NOT having a cover letter may ruin your chances, but HAVING a cover letter…
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Rebranding Branding Blog
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Distility Branding receives angel-led funding
22 Jul 2010 | 12:51 am1day1brand system delivers an innovative and collaborative process for building brands TORONTO, ONTARIO (July 21st, 2010) -- MaRS, a Toronto-based not-for-profit innovation centre, is pleased to announce that one of its clients, Distility Branding, has closed a round of angel funding totalling $350,000. Proceeds of the investment will provide operations support and allow Distility to further its marketing and sales efforts. The Distility team is comprised of self-titled “brand technologists” with a passion for inventing new workflows that make branding quick, collaborative and… -
Add Your Quote for Brand Scammed!
21 Jul 2010 | 1:37 amWe're delighted by the response so far to Brand Scammed! Have a look in the comments section below for some of the quotes we've received by some of the best minds in business. And please add your quote to theirs. You'll be in great company! Please provide your quote below... -
Brand Scam: Buying Too Little.
6 Jul 2010 | 4:23 amBy Axle Davids, CEO & Brand Technologist, Distility Branding This scam is by far the biggest of all Brand Scams and leads to the worst brands of all. The typical story is a client who needs a branding deliverable like a website or lead generation campaign. They ask their internal resource or a vendor to do a logo, tagline, or “figure out our brand” while they are at it. The vendor may be well intentioned but ignorant about brand analysis, strategy or standards. They may be overconfident, a branding wannabe who figures that since they have worked “on a brand” they… -
Apple Brand Strategy Leaked in Microsoft Slide!
29 Jun 2010 | 3:40 amHours ago, CNET and other tech sites featured a purported leaked Windows 8 document. It looks real. Especially convincing is the sad "How Apple does it: A Virtuous Cycle” slide. (image above from leaked document above)The Virtuous Cycle:A strong brand promises "That it will just work"It does "just work" and soThe brand gets stronger.There's nothing funny about the content. Just that Microsoft with Windows, still so typical of most companies, can't help but complicate, rather than distill.It is easy to bash Microsoft, but their Windows brand represents the typical vicious cycle:A weak… -
Brand Scammed! Branding Agencies Exposed
15 Jun 2010 | 5:56 amBy Axle Davids, CEO & Brand Technologist, Distility Branding I hate that I love branding.Branding is so loveable when it fuses a team's passion with a customer's need. When it separates that team from the pack. When it imbues everything they do with an authentic sense of personality. When it helps good companies and good causes win the day.But I hate the bad side of branding with a passion! When it is practiced as black-art voodoo or absurdly complex pseudo-science. When it is all fast talk followed by slow-motion. When it it is ruined from the inside by politics, conformists and…
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Online Branding Blog - reactorr.com
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11 Thought Leaders on Social Media
27 Jul 2010 | 11:11 amPresentations and interviews videos from some of social media’s thought leaders. Seth Godin on social networking for business – is it valuable? @Seth Gary Vaynerchuk on building a personal brand in social media @garyvee Note: language warning Brian Solis on how we’re all connected by ideas @BrianSolis Clay Shirky on social media shifts and making history @cshirky Valeria Maltoni from Fast Company on people connecting and conversation @ConversationAge Mitch Joel discusses the power of social media @mitchjoel Chris Brogan on listening in social media Sarah Evans discusses… -
Social Experiment
25 Jul 2010 | 12:26 amNot your typical post, I thought the following ad was interesting and worth sharing. This social experiment was conducted in a townhouse complex using hidden cameras. Even though this was created in Johannesburg, similar results have been found in other places. Both eye opening and disturbing, it makes you wonder if all the neighbors assumed some one else would get involved. While most don’t want to get in the middle of things, the cops are there to intervene. Regrettably, they didn’t show up during the social experiment either. Had this been a real incident, I can only think that… -
Social Media Swan Dive
17 Jul 2010 | 9:42 pmHello Ladies. Do you want to smell the success of a social media campaign that will engage your audience to no end? Swan dive, into the best social media strategy of your life. But first, let’s have a look behind the scenes with the most recent social media success story. Old Spice and advertising agency Wieden + Kennedy, along with actor Isaiah Mustafa, partnered to create a campaign that took the web by storm. After introducing the Old Spice Man character (played by Mustafa) the team proceeded to seed various social networks with an invitation to ask the dashing shirtless man any… -
Online Branding Strategies
28 Jun 2010 | 10:33 pmFor many companies, creating a strong brand resides near the top of marketing objectives. A strong brand can raise awareness, build consumer relations, increase sales, and differentiate itself from the competition. In a sense, you might say that a strong brand creates a shortcut in the mind of the consumer. Once achieved, this type of association with a phrase or category simplifies decision making. While traditional branding may take decades, online branding has been know to happen in a fraction of the time. The viral convenience of the web allows everyone to tweet, share, post, and more… -
Social Media For Brands
10 Jun 2010 | 4:16 pmA roundup of a few big brands engaging in social media. Microsoft will donate $100,000 to Stephen Colbert’s new charity fund to help clean up the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Colbert and Bing Pepsi created the Refresh Everything and skipped advertising during superbowl (some saying it was a mistake) to give millions of dollars to fund ideas that will refresh the world to non-profits in six categories. Health, Arts & Culture, Food & Shelter, The Planet, Neighborhoods, and Education. IKEA‘s Facebook campaign was a stroke of genius. Using the photo tagging feature, a bunch…
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Your Brand Plan, personal brand strategy for business and career tips - Blogs - Personal Brand Blog by David Sandusky
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"The Y" Experiencing the Name
12 Jul 2010 | 4:42 pmAny time an organization changes a name there will be questions around the strategy for the brand. In some cases the expansion of a brand is a legitimate reason. Apple Computer, Inc. to Apple, Inc. is the first to come to my mind. Others change names to end the memory of a bad brand. Today in the non-profit world a 160 year old institution officially changed their name from Y.M.C.A. to The Y. My immediate thought was, sure, other than the popular song by the Village People, I don't recall anyone referring the to Y.M.C.A. as the Y.M.C.A. Kids and others say things like "I'm going to the Y". -
Heidi Ganahl - It’s all about the dogs!
22 Jun 2010 | 12:32 pmHeidi Ganahl is an unmistakable personal brand. This Denver / Boulder based entrepreneur is a remarkable example of how to start a business based on a passion and a need you feel should be filled as a customer. For Heidi, caring for dogs is the mission and innovation keeps her positioned for success. Heidi's mission is delivered through Camp Bow Wow which provides the highest levels of fun, safety and service for its Campers, and peace of mind for their parents. Building a successful business model which values fun, safety and service for the client (dogs), the other client (dog owners or… -
Pinkberry Culture Creates Lines of Groupies
5 Jun 2010 | 11:14 amI have heard of Pinkberry, but it was not until a franchise owner opened a Pinkberry a block away from our studio / office in Denver, CO that I realized this place is a BIG deal. Before they opened, we noticed cars and people pulling up and revolving around the parking lot in anticipation of opening day. Soft opening day resulted in lines around the corner of the building, maybe 100 people? Opening day, same thing. Over a week later, same thing, every day, open to close. My wife, Julie, and I literally pass by everyday and look forward to the opening buzz to die down so we can see what the… -
Tim Tebow Unmistakable Personal Brand Already?
24 May 2010 | 12:56 pmUsually a track record of high production and success while maintaining a reputation for staying true to core values and personal mission is enough for a market to predict whether or not people are a good investment. No doubt this is not always true. In football, success in the NFL does not always follow success in college football. Look at JaMarcus Russell and Matt Leinart as two examples. Then comes Tim Tebow to the Denver Broncos from Florida where he earned the Heisman Trophy as a sophomore and is a two-time BCS National Champion. He is also known for being a great guy. Many sports… -
Metro State College Alumni Core Values
23 Apr 2010 | 11:25 amMissions, Values and Vision are only as good as they are carried out. This is a difference between brand and marketing. The Alumni Association at Metropolitan State College of Denver has a mission and vision that the alumni population live the values of the college. There is no better way to prove active examples of shared values then to highlight alumni who behave this way in business and community. I was honored to be a presenter of the alumni of the year awards this week and as a past recipient of Alumni of the Year - Giving Back in 2008, I take extra pride in the individual stories of…
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Ben Wise on Branding
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Building a Brand Takes Time
27 Jul 2010 | 1:55 pmI sometimes worry that people read this blog, make a few changes to improve their brand, then expect to see the results right away. Marketers and brand managers are often used to running promotions where you can see the ROI within days of its launch. Unfortunately, building a brand takes time. And anyone expecting quick results will be frustrated. A traditional marketing campaign is designed to elicit a specific reaction within a specific time horizon. If someone buys your product when it is on a limited-time special offer, than you have achieved your goal. When building a brand, loyalty is… -
Despite All the Buzz, Email Still Trumps Social Media
21 Jul 2010 | 1:24 pmMuch to my dismay, I found myself spending much of my Sunday afternoon in a mall. While I don’t love shopping, I am always amazed by the positioning of brands at this crucial touch point in their relationship with me as a consumer. After stopping at a few stores, it became abundantly clear that brands are still placing much more emphasis on email marketing than social media. Four of the five stores I stopped at were offering discounts if you signed up to their email list. Only one of the five prominently displayed their social media channels (ie ‘check us out on… -
Advertising on Social Networks Doesn’t Work
12 Jul 2010 | 2:16 pmComScore has just released data showing that social networking websites still charge much less for digital advertising than traditional websites. D’uh! This should come as no surprise. People find social networking addictive. They spend hours checking the latest updates on the Facebook wall. For many it is the first thing they check in the morning and the last thing they check at night. People find social networking unbelievably engaging. One can assume from this that the actual content must be pretty interesting. So why would anyone expect people to notice small ads on the side when the… -
What Else Is Influencing Your Brand?
6 Jul 2010 | 2:46 pmGreat brands have a deep understanding of not only the functional attributes that drive consumer behaviour but also the emotional attributes. Unfortunately, this is still a step too short. Despite all of the consumer surveys and focus groups your brand may have conducted to land on the perfect set of purchase drivers, this testing is done in a controlled environment. And the real world is anything but a controlled environment. The perception of your brand will change based on other factors in the lives of your consumers. To set your brand apart, you need to understand what these factors are… -
Customers Divided
25 Jun 2010 | 9:40 amIt is often mistakenly assumed that rich consumers spend more money across the board than the less affluent. It is at your peril that you believe this piece of conventional wisdom. What is actually happening is a division within each individual consumer. Essentially, consumers are deciding what is important to them and what is not. People are then paying premium prices for those items they deem important, and cutting back in other areas. This is why you see so many fancy cars in the parking lot outside a Wal-Mart! Here is a quick example. Some people take great pride in their clothing and are…
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Marques inspirantes et déprimantes - Par Jevto Dedijer
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La brasserie Brewdog sait faire parler d'elle sans dépenser beaucoup, et vous?
27 Jul 2010 | 1:46 pmBrewdog, une petite micro-brasserie d'Écosse vient de lancer la bière la plus forte au monde, la The End of History qui tire à 55% d'alcool. Ils sont peu nombreux dans l'équipe et ils n'ont pas de gros moyens, mais ils ont réussi à faire parler d'eux dans le monde entier grâce à trois choses: La réflexion, l'audace et la créativité. Voici comment: La bière est exclusive, seulement 12 bouteilles ont été produites, le prix est ... élevé, 500-700 (livres sterling) et ....chaque bouteille est insérée dans… -
Le veau de Charlevoix ou comment détruire sa différenciation
20 Jul 2010 | 7:27 amLe veau de Charlevoix ne vient plus de ....Charlevoix et ça c'est très dommage pour les consommateurs et pour la survie de la marque à long terme. Aujourd'hui, on assiste à la croissance de l'unique, du local, du spécifique et Jean Robert, le propriétaire de l'entreprise, était un précurseur dans ce domaine. Lorsqu'on entend le mot Charlevoix on voit des images des montagnes verdoyantes qui surplombent le fleuve St-Laurent, le parc des Grands Jardins, Baie St-Paul, Port au Persil, le massif de la Petite-Rivière St-François etc. Le veau de… -
Mango, une banque qui n'est pas une banque ...
30 Jun 2010 | 1:40 pmAux États-Unis, un foyer sur quatre n'a pas de compte en banque et avant l'arrivée de Mango sur la scène, ces personnes étaient contraintes de faire affaires avec des centres d'encaissement de chèques, ce qui coûte très cher et dans lesquels on se sent comme une merde. Mango a opté pour une approche différente, tant au niveau des services, que du design des boutiques, qui ressemblent plutôt à un mélange de magasin Apple et à l'entrée d'un hôtel boutique. La stratégie d'affaires est bonne et la stratégie de marque est axée sur la… -
Huggies brise le carcan des publicités nuls...
29 Jun 2010 | 7:05 amDepuis 25 ans, les publicités pour dentifrice, produits nettoyant, et couches etc. n'ont pas ou très peu évolué. C'est toujours la même histoire, l'on propose un avant et un après. Avant les dents sont pourrîtes, après elles sont magnifiques, avant la casserole est carrément dégoutante, après elle brille plus fort que le soleil. Mon collègue Michel Nadeau vient de m'envoyer cette publicité pour les couches Huggies... Pour une fois ce n'est pas une comparaison stupide de deux marques de couches, l'une qui aspire trois gouttes de liquide en 1 h et l'autre 3 litres en 3… -
Frito Lay lance le premier sac compostable au monde...
28 Jun 2010 | 1:58 pmLe sac de Sun Chips et fabriqué à plus de 90% de matières renouvelables à base de plante et il se décompose entièrement en 14 semaines dans un tas de compost actif. Le sac fait beaucoup de bruit lorsqu'on le touche et on peut même écouter le son ici. Sur le sac on trouve la phrase suivante, Ce sac est un peu bruyant car il est fait de matière compostable. C'est brillant car au lieu d'être un inconvénient le son devient quelque chose d'amusant et d'intriguant. J'enterre le sac ce soir, je vous donne des nouvelles dans 14 semaines....
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Tom Dougherty Blog
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TV advertising getting more and more depressing
29 Jul 2010 | 1:03 pmTelevision commercials are strange beasts when you think about it. In 30 seconds (sometimes longer, sometimes shorter), brands are trying to create preference or, at the very least, raise awareness of the brand itself. It’s a tough task because it requires discipline to be single-minded, communicating a message that is persuasive and supporting a brand that so resonates with target audiences that they covet being a part of that brand. Unfortunately, most advertising falls far short of being that strategic, which is why you’ll have commercials that are remembered for their entertainment… -
The “Y”MCA is Confusing Activity With Accomplishment
29 Jul 2010 | 8:39 amI just do not get it. In case you have not heard, the YMCA is now simply the “Y,” unless of course you are referring to the local branch in which it will still be called the “YMCA of <insert locality>.” Every time I read about this “rebranding,” the same one word question comes to mind, “What purpose does this serve?” Is it an awareness problem? If one of the most popular party songs ever has not built awareness, I am pretty sure shortening the name to The Y would not do it either. Was it to keep up with the times somehow to show that… -
Car service centers lost in a quagmire
27 Jul 2010 | 5:38 amIt’s time for me get my car serviced which got me thinking about the vast number of choices consumers like myself have when choosing a service center. In fact, there are too many choices. Within a five-mile radius I have a choice of several filling/service stations that could do the job. Or do I instead go to Precision Tune or one of the three Jiffy Lubes? But wait, I could also go to Firestone or Bridgestone which also fall within this five-mile radius, as does Sear or Costco. In addition, I have the option of going to the dealer where my vehicle was purchased. With such a variety of… -
Brand is not a destination
21 Jul 2010 | 2:21 pmWhenever I read a story about a company being “rebranded,” I always get the feeling that something was left undone. There’s something about the term “rebranded” that seems so final. It is as though the marketing executive has a check list of things he or she is supposed to do and the action item of “branding” can now be checked off. Brand is not an end point. If it is an end, then you have not developed a true brand. Rather, you have created a new visual identity or some other creative execution. Brand is a living thing that is always being woven into… -
Even bottled water can teach us about brand
20 Jul 2010 | 10:48 amBeing a person who lives and breathes brands, I am finding myself in a dilemma about who I believe I am when it comes to my purchase of water. The bottled water business has become a billion-dollar industry, consumers are often faced with 15 to 20 choices and they can be found everywhere. As a kid, I remember the large glass 5-gallon jugs for the water cooler. Those are still available and even, in this case, there are still several brands to choose from. My quagmire is this: I like to think of myself as a person conscious of my carbon blue print. I limit my showers to no more than 2 minutes,…
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Online Guide For Promotional Products
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Five Things You Should Check Before Purchasing Promotional Products
29 Jul 2010 | 6:19 amIf you are planning to purchase promotional products in the near future, it is absolutely necessary to take a few precautions and avoid regretting later. Following are five significant points that you must consider before purchasing promotional products:Check efficiencyMake sure the type of promotional products you purchase is useful to everybody who receives it. Avoid choosing perishable or seasonal products which will remain with your target audience just for a limited period of time. The more people use your products, the longer they remember your company.Check ReliabilityThe products you… -
Can promotional products double your sales?
27 Jul 2010 | 5:31 amDistributing promotional products can prove to be an extremely powerful marketing tool to add more value to your brand identity and recall. Most companies believe that the most valuable use for promotional items is to gain brand recognition. Inexpensive promotional items do justice to every promotional budget and maximize profits by minimizing the promotional investments.But one of the most imperative questions asked by various companies around the world is: Can promotional products double your sales? The answer is YES, they can.5 steps to double your sales with promotional advertising… -
5 Essential Ways to Market a Business with Promotional Products
23 Jul 2010 | 6:10 amPromotional products are useful tools to market your business. They are renowned to be consistent in generating a recurring impact on users and intrigue them towards companies and their specialties. Business promotional products also provide an incredible opportunity to carry out effective marketing.Here are 5 essential ways to market your business with the help of promotional items:Use them as invitationsInstead of giving them away without any specific reason, try using them as invitations for important or extravagant occasions. For example, you could send across a box of chocolates with a… -
What makes Bic pens a world famous brand
21 Jul 2010 | 6:12 amGifting pens is probably the oldest and one of the most popular mediums of promotion amongst small as well as big companies. Promotional pens are undoubtedly very popular amongst majority of companies around the world for their high appeal, functionality and usefulness. Giving away personalized pens is probably an ideal option if you have not used promotional products ever before.But what makes Bic pens more famous than other promotional pens?Promotional Bic pens are world famous mainly for their cost-effectiveness. Bic pens do justice to every promotional budget. They manage to communicate… -
How to Pamper Your Clients with Promotional Products
13 Jul 2010 | 6:11 amMost companies believe marketing products for business are meant only for brand awareness. Only a few realize its strength to convert potential clients and customers into loyal ones; and one of the easiest ways to influence their decisions is by pampering them. When clients are pampered, they feel loved and cared for, which reciprocates in building your brand identity positively and also into sales sometimes.Let us guide you on one of the questions we received from our customers recently:How to pamper our clients with promotional products and other corporate gifts?If you really care, do not…
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Interbrand
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Etymology: Finance brands and how you rename legacy
30 Jul 2010 | 11:33 amGetting established Legacy is important – it’s all about expertise, knowledge, and trust. Culturally, we rely on legacy for our bearings as we move forward. But it can also be a motivator for change, what we break from when the time is ripe for innovation or shedding what no longer works. In the world of finance, legacy is a foundational part of brand. From retail banking to B2B, brands had to prove they were part of the establishment in order to be taken seriously. And that meant buttoned up names. Even for newer brands, ones lacking an old family name to leverage, the tendency… -
London gears up to become a city of cyclists
29 Jul 2010 | 7:16 amAn exciting new addition to London’s street furniture finally hits the road this week. The London bike hire scheme or 'Barclays Cycle Hire' goes live on Friday. The initiative encourages users to enjoy the city from a different perspective. Hopefully it will. Cycling around the city can be much more refreshing than a sticky summer tube ride!In terms of brand collaboration I think it’s an interesting partnership. Similar initiatives include O2, which acquired the millennium dome and used it to associate the brand with great entertainment and priority ticketing tie-ins. -
Sustainable says, as sustainable does: Puma gets green with a Clever Little Bag
26 Jul 2010 | 10:03 amBeing responsible – economically, environmentally, socially – is not news. It’s expected. It should be a part of every brand’s business. But how should responsibility be reflected in your brand voice?How a brand speaks about responsibility, and how it is embedded into its very personality, is more than just a great way to talk about what your brand promises – it elevates responsibility to be an integral part of your brand. Take PUMA, for instance. Its vision – or PUMAVision™ – promises to be Fair, Honest, Positive and Creative. Great words. But… -
Demand and Desire 7: Tokyo
23 Jul 2010 | 11:03 amTokyo is the destination this month for Interbrand CEO Jez Frampton. In this edition of Demand and Desire, Jez gets a handle on Japanese brands’ history, as well as their present and future. Mavericks forged the surge in Japanese brands in the 1960s: engineers and electronics-geeks who wanted to make consumer products better, faster and smaller. Since then, Japan’s boom and bust economy has seen its neighbors Taiwan, China and Korea catch up. Overall, it is a challenging time for Japanese brands’ global brand management. Japanese companies, in the past, have allowed… -
Etymology: If there’s an app for that, there’s a name for that
23 Jul 2010 | 7:37 amIf there's an app for that, there's a name for that The 25th anniversary of the advent of Wi-fi got us thinking about names and technology. At the recent Fuse conference, noted inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil talked about the phenomenal leaps in human progress driven by the breakneck speed of evolution in technology. Kurzweil’s main point to brand managers and marketers: When it comes to technology, don’t underestimate the importance of brand. Because brands – and brand names – help us make sense of the world around us. This is particularly true of new…
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POLAR
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Stop. Collaborate. And Listen.
22 Jul 2010 | 10:28 amStop. Collaborate. And Listen. Who knew that Vanilla Ice was a marketing genius when he released his one hit wonder so many years ago? Let’s look at reality: Everyone is busy. The pressure to perform is high, and the demands of using fewer hands to operate today’s more advanced tools have also increased. The agility required of today’s marketers calls for a deep understanding of strategy.Over at his blog, Bud Caddell is crowdsourcing a definition of strategy. Here is my favorite: “Tactics is knowing what to do when there is something to do. Strategy is knowing what to do when… -
More bang for your Chuck: Social Media ROI
14 Jul 2010 | 4:09 amOne of the challenges of social media from a marketing perspective is defining ROI. Keep in mind, ROI is ambivalent to the type of media you choose. It is situational, conforming to what is expected from it. ROI is merely a business metric expressed by a nifty equation [(gain from investment - cost of investment) / cost of investment]. If the "investment" happens to be in lead generation versus sales, you simply assign a numerical value to each lead generated -- likely determined by their propensity to buy. Many have made the mistake thinking that social is free. It takes people, it… -
Substance and Flash: Gifts From Home Start Up Believes in Both
8 Jul 2010 | 9:00 amAt the heart of all sales transactions is trust. In today's business world where increasing numbers of relationships are built and maintained on the internet, the need for establishing and fostering trust is more important than ever. The best way to do this is to listen to your customers and give them the information they need. The 2008 Edelman Trust Barometer found that a majority of respondents considered the most credible source of information about a company to be "a person like me." Relationships are dominating advertising when it comes to trust in a brand. So, with more… -
Why PR is Your Brand's Best Friend
2 Jul 2010 | 10:15 amConsumers validate brand strategy by welcoming and accepting a brand. Third party authentication of a product or service makes PR the ideal model on which to base content strategy. By placing the public first, it is no wonder that social media and community management often look to PR for strategy, guidelines and content. PR is naturally the most social and trustworthy discipline of marketing. Rules of Engagement Less flash. More substance. It’s a core belief shared by marketing trendwatchers today. In this context, “substance” means relevant, timely, authentic… -
Unlocking the Code: Will Stickybits Stick?
29 Jun 2010 | 12:03 pmCan objects become media? Two companies, CauseWorld and Stickybits believe so. It's a cool idea. On a small scale: Hand someone a business card with a barcode on the back, scan it with their smart phone camera, and they are delivered information, or joined in a threaded conversation. On the global scale: Barcodes are everywhere - a UPC (Universial Product - or Purpose Code) on almost every product. Imagine what kind of an opportunity this presents marketers: People tell and share stories, your location (GPS) can tell a story, and now Objects tell…
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Sociatic
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How to Effectively Communicate Your Online Brand
28 Jul 2010 | 11:07 pmDo you know that communication can make or break your business? Many people think business communication is easy but it really isn’t. There is more to it than just words. Communication is an essential tool for building your business and brand online. It actually has a direct relationship with content development and content marketing. If you have an email list and social media community, you’ll need to know how to communicate with them. In order to communicate effectively, there are nine questions you’ll need to ask yourself: Who is the message for? What relationship do you have with… -
Understanding Social Media: The LIFE of Social Media Marketing
26 Jul 2010 | 3:52 amDo you have an easy means of reminding yourself of what social media is about? There are so many posts on this subject. I’ve decided to summarize it so you can easily remember it for your business purposes. Social media is about L.I.F.E. with your prospects on social sites. Now, let’s define what L.I.F.E. means in social media. I’ll show you what each letter means; of course, starting with L and ending with E. ‘L’ is for Listening: Your prospects are out there. Are you listening to them? You can use these any of these social media listening tools: 10 tools for listening in social… -
Reasons Why Your Customers Should be Your Brand Ambassadors
23 Jul 2010 | 3:07 amAll too often, businesses choose celebrities to be ambassadors and evangelists of their products. Celebrity endorsements can mean more sales for you but I think it is a short sighted way of marketing because it has some limitations. I have two reasons why I think of celebrity endorsements as short sighted marketing. 1. People have their celebrity favorites. If you let celebrity “A” endorse your product, I may not be a fan of him and I won’t be moved to make a purchase because celebrity “A” is not my favorite celebrity and I don’t care what he has to say. Give me celebrity “B”… -
Download: Sociatic Brand Communication Resource
21 Jul 2010 | 3:19 pmHello everyone. I have packaged some of my best blog posts into a tidy PDF so that you could read them offline and share them if you want. Yes, it is just for you so go ahead and download your copy. It is FREE. The PDF shares 10 posts from this blog. All articles talk about marketing; branding, social media, etc. It is easily sharable (incase you want to show it to your friends or colleagues) so go ahead and share it as much as you like. Your audience will thank you for giving them a valuable resource. Click on this link to start your download. P.S., I am available for hire if you want to… -
10 Ways to Generate Leads With Social Media
20 Jul 2010 | 1:30 amHow many leads do you generate every month with social media? If you’re not getting enough leads, today is your lucky day. After reading this article, you’ll have 10 ideas you can use to increase your website traffic and leads. You may already know some of the ideas but trust me; there will be some you don’t know. So make sure to read through all the ideas and let me know if you’re already using any. Let’s begin. 1. Create a digital product, write guest posts and offer your product for free in your byline. The product could be an eBook, infographic, themes or any other digital…
