Davis Thinking } analysis and interpretationThere may be more bears in publishing than there are on Wall St. This isn’t new to the current recession; as Ken Auletta recently noted in the New Yorker, “publishing exists in a continual state of forecasting its own demise.” Now add to that traditional gloomy propensity today’s market conditions - a period when most industries are wrestling with digital disintermediation and even wholesale redefinitions of function. You get a complete meltdown.
Mormons and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or LDS - not to be confused with LSD(!) - have been on my my radar screen lately. It has nothing to do with HBO's popular drama Big Love or Mitt Romney's failed presidential campaign. Rather, LDS has embarked on a brand image campaign which, upon a closer look, is much more than a polished, high-gloss initiative aimed at a younger generation of potential disciples. In fact, it is both a timely move for a marketplace in search of answers and a bold competitive move among religious institutions.
This past weekend, the Wall Street Journal included a neatly illustrated article by Joe Queenan on the dearth of imagination in Hollywood in 2010. The Worst Movie Year Ever? lamented recent storytelling efforts in Tinstletown, painting a picture of movie theaters around the country where audiences sit “listlessly through a series of lame, mechanical trailers for upcoming films that look exactly like the DOA movies audiences avoided last week.” I’m familiar with the feeling that the popcorn is the only thing to be happy about in theaters this summer. But as I was thinking about it, I started to wonder: is Queenan simply describing the state of entertainment, or is he actually providing a metaphor for the state of business lately?
LeBron could manage and leverage his announcement as he did not just because of his remarkable talent...not just because of the dynamics and finances of the trade...not just because powerhouse stars can now "go direct" to fans. He could do so because our present cultural moment requires a new king, an elevated god, and triumphant hero.
The kid owned it. At a cultural moment when no one owns anything -- from BP execs to Wall Street banking honchos to members of Congress to sad little Lindsay Lohan -- this twenty-something kid sat down one-on-one, took a deep breath, and owned his decision. He's not responsible for the recession, for Cleveland's identity crisis, for salivating and hyperventilating media. He didn't hide behind a lawyer or an uber-agent/agency. He made a controversial decision about his life, and he announced it personally. Criticism comes with the territory, but he didn't hide.
I’ve never watched more than a few minutes of a professional basketball game, and probably couldn’t name ten guys currently playing in the NBA. But I flipped to ESPN last night to see how the network would handle being downgraded to just one more media channel broadcasting Team LeBron’s message to the world. Would they bring anything Twitter, Facebook, and blogs worldwide could not? Sadly, not really.
I've been a tad critical of the Disney marketing machine here and there, but I predict that the House of Mouse's recent decision to angle for a major franchise featuring a triangle and a rectangle will shape up beautifully for the Disney brand.
Even though I've beat up on Volvo before, on a personal level I'm a lifelong fan of their cars. On a professional level, I have profound respect for Volvo's clear, consistent brand management. That's why their new advertising partnership with "Twilight: Eclipse" is so painful to watch.
"My dad just got iced." I saw this status update on Facebook the other day and knew it probably had nothing to do with hockey or joint pain. A wee bit of research revealed that Icing is a new drinking game wherein someone gives a Smirnoff Ice to someone else, who must get down on one knee and chug it. If the person being "iced" pulls out their own concealed Smirnoff Ice, called "ice blocking," the icer has to drink both bottles. People are icing and getting iced all over the country largely due to the promotional efforts of now defunct website www.brosicingbros.com. Whether the game (and website) was conceived by Smirnoff parent Diageo (they deny having any part in its creation or promotion), or bored frat boys isn't important. Icing reveals the value of understanding complex social relationships, not simply studying (and catering to) demographics.
I know a high school English teacher who refuses to use red pen when editing her students' work. "It's like bloodletting, all that red ink on paper. It weakens writers," she says. So she bisects her students' sentences in blue, convinced the color, not the cutting itself, does the damage. Similarly, employees from cubicle to corner office play a "track-changes" version of pass-the-patient with nothing but the best intentions. More often than not, what starts as a second opinion leads to a few minor stitches for a split infinitive, then escalates to invasive surgery as personal styles and legal hedging trump purpose. At the end of the procedure, the writer's left with a Frankenstein's monster of crowdsourced pieces and parts that no longer effectively communicates or resembles anything remotely human.
Twist Worldwide, a global visual intelligence firm, presents quick views and insights into the moments that are working in today's retail environments. Enough with self-impressed trend consultants who claim to see the future: Twist sees the present with clarity and provides practical intelligence on how to make your business better today. Over time, patterns emerge and possibilities get realized. But first we have to see what is right in front of us. This week: back to basics.
Last weekend, I took my two preschoolers to Six Flags. We walked through Bugs Bunny National Park, past Tweety's Twee House and Yosemite Sam's Tugboat Tailspin, my five-year-old nervously eyeing the 6-foot tall anthropomorphized rooster waving menacingly at her. "Mommy, what is that?" "Oh, that's Foghorn Leghorn," I explained. Then her wee brow furrowed. "Who?" The child had no clue. Neither did the heat-stroked fourteen-year-old inside, I bet. It was then I realized Six Flags has become less theme park than museum, teeming with cartoon icons put to pasture when cross-dressing, gun-toting, homicidal role models fell out of favor. Bugs, Elmer and Wile E. have joined Minnie, Donald and Pluto at the edge of obsolescence. Can WB bring them back from the brink?
I’m 25-years-old, California-bred, a sports fanatic and a Nike brand advocate. Oh, and as an average American I have not played (or remotely cared about) soccer since I was 8. Nike has decided it is time to play. And it turns out the American company is really, really good at it. Last week the Wieden + Kennedy campaign Write The Future was released racking up 7.8 million first week views, breaking its own viral record.
I’m 28-years-old, born and raised just outside Amsterdam, a loyal Nike customer and very passionate about soccer. Some of my greatest memories in life revolve around a season, game or goal, so when I first saw this new Nike ad for the World Cup Soccer 2010 - described by the brand itself as one of their best ads ever - I got excited. This was about a global sporting event that makes my blood run faster.
Last month a brouhaha emerged when US Supreme Court justices had a hard time differentiating between the technologies at the center of an important privacy case. Now, no one would reasonably expect a Chief Justice to know the nuances of Twitter as well as Lindsay Lohan, but Roberts allegedly inquired after the difference between email and pagers. Other justices needed a basic lesson in texting. This might seem amusing, except: how is it possible to responsibly adjudicate the issues of the 21st Century without a working knowledge of the platforms that pervade our social and working lives? Being conversant in these items, my dear sirs and ladies, is absolutely part of your job.
Swiss Tourism has long struggled to promote its country in a modern, meaningful way, oftentimes relying on national cliche. The situation is compounded by an apparent lack of brand strategy or a sound understanding thereof. As a result, in its most recent attempt Swiss Tourism tells the wrong story well. Switzerland isn't the only mismanaged national brand, but as a Swiss citizen and brand strategist, I find this latest fumble particularly painful, if pretty, to watch.
Twice each month, Twist Worldwide, a global visual intelligence firm, presents quick views and insights into the moments that are working in today's retail environments. Enough with self-impressed trend consultants who claim to see the future: Twist sees the present with clarity and provides practical intelligence on how to make your business better today. Over time, patterns emerge and possibilities get realized. But first we have to see what is right in front of us. This week: the power of transparency.
Twice each month, Twist Worldwide, a global visual intelligence firm, presents quick views and insights into the moments that are working in today's retail environments. Enough with self-impressed trend consultants who claim to see the future: Twist sees the present with clarity and provides practical intelligence on how to make your business better today. Over time, patterns emerge and possibilities get realized. But first we have to see what is right in front of us. This week: fun in the garden.
The Museum of Modern Art's recent acquisition of the @ symbol challenges, in the museum's own words, "the assumption that physical possession of an object [is] a requirement for an acquisition." The move has provoked varying responses, from mystified to dismissive. While some consider it no more than a clever marketing ploy, the move is not only bold and necessary, but indicative of something much more momentous: MoMA's redefinition of "modern" and evolution of the role of today's museum.
One need not stretch too far, nor have particularly partisan views, to accept arguments that ours is a culture marked by institutional collapse. Confidence on Wall Street and in capitalism itself slipped with the tarnishing of names AIG, Lehman and Merrill Lynch (among others) during the Great Recession. Trust in the U.S. government eroded along party lines, calling into question the integrity of the democratic process, on the path to health care reform. Faith in the Catholic Church continued to fold just last week under the weight of yet another round of scandal fueled by priests preying on the most vulnerable. On somewhat lighter fronts: there is no longer a "most trusted man in news" when every adman is a newsman, and so many newsmen an advertisement (or plagiarist). Science is more politicized than ever, the clarity of its objective truths clouded by a climate of competing interests. If our cultural institutions are not as strong as they once were, where is one to place belief?
Twice each month, Twist Worldwide, a global visual intelligence firm, presents quick views and insights into the moments that are working in today's retail environments. Enough with self-impressed trend consultants who claim to see the future: Twist sees the present with clarity and provides practical intelligence on how to make your business better today. Over time, patterns emerge and possibilities get realized. But first we have to see what is right in front of us. This week: the power of universal stories.
The British have waged war on American soil, only this time we can pass on the tri-cornered hats and tight breeches. Which, considering the increasing girth of Americans, is a sartorial blessing. After a sneak preview last weekend, tonight marks the official broadcast premiere of ABC's "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution." Though you'd never know it from the network's fat-headed decision to air it during the Friday ratings dead zone, it could very well be the most important television program in years.
In a time when brands must move comfortably across contexts to extend their relevance and engage consumers, Lady Gaga's mind is prime real estate. Her latest brainchild, a 10-minute long mini-film for "Telephone," is a product placement hotbed. Miracle Whip, Virgin Mobile, Diet Coke, HP, Polaroid, Wonder Bread, and the dating Web site Plenty Of Fish all co-star, shaped by the artist into a surreal mashup that confirms the importance of brand to our cultural dialogue.
If you have a powerful singing voice you should sing. If you have a mediocre singing voice, you should sing and dance. In the business world, Zappos.com has serious pipes. The unorthodox retailer quickly climbed the customer service charts and stands alongside Nordstrom, Ritz-Carlton and USAA, companies long known for exemplary service. But despite legitimate talent and personality, Zappos choked recently when making the jump to advertising. Their first ad from Mullen, featuring puppets reenacting unusual customer calls, dials up the showmanship and distracts from their unique voice. As a result, Zappos misses some big notes and never quite connects with the audience.
Twice each month, Twist Worldwide, a global visual intelligence firm, presents quick views and insights into the moments that are working in today's retail environments. Enough with self-impressed trend consultants who claim to see the future: Twist sees the present with clarity and provides practical intelligence on how to make your business better today. Over time, patterns emerge and possibilities get realized. But first we have to see what is right in front of us. This week: the power of a smile while shopping.
Haute couture brands recently have been in the headlines for promoting an unhealthy body image, mourning the loss of one of fashion's brightest stars and, in general, dealing with a full-blown identity crisis. Meanwhile, an increasing number of mainstream brands have turned their attention explicitly to the end consumer: she now plays a central role in how we view and buy fashion. This reinvention and democratization of fashion has its origin in the mainstream, unlike most trends, which work their way in from the fringe. Moreover, it's a global phenomenon with brands from Japan to Germany embracing the everyday woman's new role.
We recently voiced optimism that the Super Bowl launch of Dove's Men+Care line would challenge the alpha male ad genre, just as its revolutionary Real Beauty spot from Super Bowl XL confronted unhealthy female beauty standards. On Sunday, our optimism swirled its sad little way down the drain.
Legendary television producer Norman Lear often said it was best to start the story "in the middle." That's where the truth of the narrative is, and the theory held for Super Bowl XLIV. Smack in the middle of a confused and confusing collection of ads was The Who, an embarrassing half-time show of old white men singing of "pinball wizards" in the age of connected gaming, and claiming some distant insight into the "teenage wasteland" of a generation to which they do not belong. Yet, they were entirely relevant context for the general fiasco of this year's ads, asking: "Tell me who are you?" With some notable exceptions, advertisers seemed to have no idea who they were this year, nor who their customers might be.
In what seemed like a tribute to the cute little kid from Jerry Maguire who kept repeating "the human head weighs 8 lbs," Fast Company recently published a Mr. Egghead infographic that illustrated an astounding fact from the brainiacs at UC San Diego: the average American, on the average day, consumes 34 gigabytes of information. And from 1980-2008, bytes consumed increased 350%. That eight pounds can sure pack a punch. For the purposes of explaining the infographic, writer Maccabee Montandon uses information, content and data interchangeably to argue that Americans are ravenous for "data." But hold up -- do we want to gorge on data? I'm not sure I buy his conclusion about our appetite.
First, Hardee's showed you its B-Hole. Then, Bud Light Lime gave it to you In the Can. Now Axe, with all the class and finesse we've come to expect from the brand, wants to Clean Your Balls. On the surface, this seems like nothing more than your typical nether regions marketing. But look under the hood, and Axe's down under approach has more in common with early marital aid advertising than beer and fast food.
This spring, Universal Orlando will open the much-anticipated Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which it promises will be "unlike any other experience on earth." If the park succeeds with what it's got tucked up the sleeve of its flowing robe, there's going to be a new owner of magical theme park experience (that sound you just heard was a 81-year-old mouse shaking in his over-sized yellow shoes).
As the year ends, we look back at the most read and shared posts from Unbound Edition's contributors, and a few more favorites chosen by our editorial team. We appreciate your continued readership and commentary and look forward to more dialog in 2010.
Back in June, Miracle Whip broadcasted its condiment manifesto to Gen Y. Punctuated with the official quivery chalkboard script of all advertising-spawned youth movements and set to a swaying, poly-ethnic crowd kickin’ it kiddie-pool style, a bored (yet defiant!) voice-over proclaims: “We are our own unique, one-of-a-kind flavor. We are Miracle Whip. And we will not tone it down.” Hmmm. A hipster decree from a 76-year-old sandwich spread most famous for its supporting role in my great aunt’s deviled eggs? The campaign was hard to swallow.
After years of disappointing design, quality and performance, GAP seems tapped into the American cultural pulse once again. The company's holiday advertising campaign announces that the country is "Ready for Holiday Cheer." Like many retailers, GAP is spending more and launching earlier this year, including a major Vanity Fair insert and back cover. Whether these efforts end up translating to sales, of course, remains to be seen. Still, the campaign does more than any other to date to declare a shift in attitude. Consumers will decide for themselves to celebrate in ways "modest" or "all out," but either way, GAP gives permission "to liberate" from the dark clouds of the past 18 months. A holiday declaration of independence -- "This holiday, it's up to us" -- makes the empowerment message abundantly clear: Yes, Virginia, there is an American spirit of hope, even joy, that will not be silenced. The recession is over.
Google's autocomplete search recommendations have spawned a new Internet meme. And before you keep reading, let me warn you: this post could rob you of your productivity today.
The Unbound Edition players, wisely sporting plastic-lined undergarments, take the stage to present the season finale, "Shut the Door. Have a Seat."
Help yourself to the prime rib and the fillet of sole and move to the front of the theatre as the Unbound Edition Players present "The Grown Ups."
Grab yourself a steaming bowl of Rice-a-Pony and sit back while the Unbound Edition Players present "The Gypsy and the Hobo."
After 40 years of lying, cheating and stealing together, the Unbound Edition Players and their barely functioning livers reunite to present “The Color Blue.”
Fresh from a vacation on the lunar Hilton, the Unbound Edition Players now present "Wee Small Hours." (curtain up)
Bitter and jetlagged, the Unbound Edition Players present "The Souvenir."
Still wearing yesterday's clothes and reeking of alcohol, the Unbound Edition Players do the walk of shame to the stage to present this week's performance of "Seven Twenty Three." And no, they don't want to talk about it.
Hulu is hard at work transforming tv-watching into a social experience. They're encouraging viewers to watch the premiers of their favorite programs on Facebook with friends and strangers alike, sharing comments with one another (and with eavesdropping marketers) through streaming status updates. Judging whether television watching can be a social activity based on these efforts alone is to consider only a fraction of the social relationships possible around content sharing. The key players aren't thinking big enough yet. Fully realizing social TV's potential means rethinking all aspects of television watching, distribution and revenue models, and how each can become more social.
The Unbound Edition Players now present "Guy Walks into an Advertising Agency." Heads up, front row. In the second act, you'll want to grab that plastic sheeting you saved from the 1984 Gallagher show.
The Levi's brand saddens me so. It could be so much cooler. It could, really, be the PBR of denim. Industrial, durable, worn-in and well-worn. American. Iconic. An underdog. But no. Instead of quietly offering itself up as what it is: a historied, high-quality, understated, no-frills alternative to the flash and arrogance of designer denim, it is clamoring schizophrenically to be everything to everyone. Oh, Levi's. What are you doing? Wait a minute. I know. It's called "trying too hard."
With dramatic, pre-epidural era panting and groaning, the Unbound Edition Players now put their feet in the stirrups and push out this week's episode, "The Fog."
No, we aren't referring to the 80s clothing line, rather we are referencing the mixed messages professional tennis is sending to the public. Both authors are tennis fanatics. However, despite our love of the game, as brand strategists we are baffled by the sport's inability to evolve, notwithstanding its stated intention to do so.
The most successful beer marketers in the world have crossed a line. According to AdAge, a pun is “the final frontier” in “tasteless” beer advertising. In a spot for Bud Light Lime leaked on the Internet, everyday folks innocently confess to getting it “in the can” (some of them like it and want to do so again!). The punch line of the spot reveals that the popular brew is now available in all-too-familiar handy aluminum containers.
As part of their court-mandated "Revive a Tall Blonde Singer and His Wee Mustachioed Sidekick" charity work, The Unbound Edition Players now present "the Arrangements."
After a brief delay to buy nacho cheese Doritos and Visine, the Unbound Edition Players casually amble across the stage to take their places for this week’s presentation of “My Old Kentucky Home.” Who’s up for a Taco Bell run at intermission?
Usually, the city of Venice is partially flooded by water a number of times every year, courtesy of its slowly sinking foundation. However, these days the city called "La Serenissima," or most serene, is facing a different kind of flood -- one it is much less prepared to stem.
The Unbound Edition Players now take the stage for "Love Among the Ruins," alternately titled, "The One Where Betty's Father Takes Up Way Too Much Screen Time."
After nearly ten months of making ends meet by twirling signs outside of Jiffy Lube, the Unbound Edition Players dust themselves off, oil their squeaky joints, and take the stage for “Out of Town.”
Dim Bulb’s Jonathan Salem Baskin wrote recently that rather than battling for the right to more broadly advertise mature and adults only-rated video games, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) would be better served investing in developers willing to challenge the gaming status quo. I share his hope that the industry will evolve beyond its current incarnation, and I too have written that the user-controlled sadism found in popular first-person games requires a different rating consideration than comparable subject matter in movies and music. Participants in this debate, for censorship and against, find common ground in calling for parents to better educate themselves about their children’s entertainment choices and take greater responsibility for their purchases. A few changes, however, are complicating matters.
Some say Goldman Sachs has a brand problem. And the media pile-on includes the FT, New York Magazine, the New York Times and Rolling Stone with its oft repeated and colorful judgment of the company as a “giant vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity.” But I say, Mr. Lloyd Blankfein, light up a cigar and stick to your arrogant guns. I don’t think you have a brand problem. I think you have a brand which is working very, very well. To the chagrin of many others.
CNN and sister network HLN face a difficult brand challenge. As Teri Schindler noted in her recent post on the branding of broadcast networks, CNN is caught between a rock and a hard place with MSNBC’s liberal bent and Fox News’ right-wing “reality."
Last week, while Amazon was rewarding Zappos for their exceptional customer-centric culture, Buzzmachine’s Jeff Jarvis raged against the Cablevision machine. He lamented long wait times for repairs, unrealistic service windows and aggressive, uncaring service representatives. I add to his account my own recent experiences with some of the largest U.S. corporations, not in an attempt to trump Jeff, but to showcase how pervasive the problem with customer service has become. While some bright spots certainly exist (Zappos and Twitter’s ComcastCares to name two), the consistently negative experiences reported by consumers (anecdotally through social media and quantitatively through survey results) suggest that in today’s service economy, even our largest companies are failing the consumer, and ultimately, America.
When I shot the picture of this little guy lounging in his highchair watching cartoons, I thought it was adorable. And admittedly, I still do. But simultaneously it terrifies me, because it foreshadows a new type of digital divide that will be created by mobile devices and the introduction of augmented reality.
Last night, So You Think You Can Dance celebrated its 100th episode. In addition to featuring encore performances by the greatest dancing talents to grace its stage over the course of seven seasons, it finally treated audiences to the uber-hyped performance of “brilliant” song-and-dance genius...um...Katie Holmes?
Recently TYPECON came to Atlanta on a week-long celebration of type and design. I attended Typeface, a documentary on one of the oldest wood print shops in the United States. The film is a fascinating and disturbing look at the disappearing trade of typography and printmaking in the digital era, and the importance of the perseverance and preservation of art.
Hardee's “Name Our Holes” campaign sure has lathered up the Internet. AdAge calls Hardee's out for "upping the ante in the fast-food smutfest," and Reuters dismisses the campaign as “obnoxious.” Which it is. But it is also hilarious. It's easy to see why some claim advertising has reached an all-time low, but isn't something else going on here?
Dog tired the other night after what seemed like endless work-related communication clarifications, I signed off with this tweet: “Done translating for the day…surfing all these lexicons is exhausting. Desperate for the Esperanto of changing times.” Within seconds I got a message: Esperanto is now following you. I had to laugh. So here’s the translation Esperanto: I am NOT interested in Esperanto (we’ll talk about the lack of context on Twitter later). What I AM interested in is the common language of change and innovation.
Last year’s economic meltdown has shone a disproportionate light on the financial and automotive companies. The brands and institutions within these two industries have been scrambling to respond with clear, overarching agendas — green, consumer-centric vehicles in automotive, greater transparency (and regulation) in the financial sectors. While less in the spotlight in recent months, the food industry has been equally frenetic, but has not clearly articulated a larger agenda. Do the many microtrends, from local and organic to simple and safe, add up to something more substantial?
The inevitable economic recovery is arguably just around the corner. Yes, it’s always too far ahead. But at least there is light at the end of the tunnel. Obama says it’s a “long way off,” likely to cover his own posterior. However, the IMF and the Fed are cautiously optimistic. And, with few exceptions, the Dow has been relatively flat in recent weeks. I don’t want to jinx it, but it feels like we’re at the bottom of a very steep hill to climb rather than falling off of a cliff. The recovery -- albeit likely a slow one -- is coming. It’s just a matter of when. And the world, including marketing, may never be the same.
Regardless of how you felt about Michael Jackson when he was alive, it is difficult to deny the extensive and irreplaceable contributions he made to music. It is also difficult to deny his truly amazing ability to reinvent himself as an artist in spite of --and in the face of-- personal tragedy and public scandal. As frail as he seemed, especially toward the end, Michael never stopped working on his image and music. A life lived in the public eye taught Michael from a young age to never stop moving. Sometimes forward, sometimes backward, and often times in circles. The Michael Jackson brand was truly malleable. For four decades he captivated us, for better or worse. Even in death he continues to do so.
The very notion of “agency” is becoming a footnote in today’s technologically reshaped marketplace and media. And it is within this environment that the bold, if not always adored, Katharine Weymouth, publisher of The Washington Post, has decided to act as others sit idly. Ms. Weymouth and others at WaPo decided to host sponsored “salons,” bringing together reporters, lobbyists and corporations for quiet conversation and, one assumes, a deeper understanding of each other’s interests. Call it influence if you must. It is, after all, only new to discuss this type of paid access, not to grant it. Denying such is as charming and annoying as newsprint itself.
Following the fireworks and barbecue of U.S. Independence Day, the Swiss prepare to celebrate their 718th birthday on August 1. In the spirit of global, cross-cultural understanding, here are some of the indispensable props, or in brand speak, the system of meaning without which August 1 just wouldn’t be the same.
In the span of a week, we lost Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson and Billy Mays. Each had unique talents, became a pop culture icon, and enjoyed career longevity far beyond the norm of the media and entertainment industries. Interestingly enough, they’re connected through the legacy of some very memorable advertisements. With nothing but respect, I pay tribute to the fallen four in the form of top ten life lessons to be gleaned from their commercials:
Recently I re-connected with a friend on Facebook and got distracted by her photo albums. As I looked through the images I discovered something thought-provoking. Dorka Kheen collaborated with well-known artist Brian Goggin to create an art installation in San Francisco's historic literary district of North Beach. It is the first permanent solar-powered public art piece in the United States, and it’s an interesting take on the role and form of literature and language in our digital culture.
In the wake of recent legislation allowing the FDA to regulate the tobacco industry, a variety of smokeless tobacco products are hitting the market. A few e-varieties promise a comparable experience without the stink and stigma of the earlier models. But will smokers find any of these alternatives up to snuff?
It’s not easy to buck entrenched conventional wisdom. Ask Galileo. When he advanced heliocentrism publicly, all hell broke loose. None of which had anything to do with the fact that the central notion was true. The earth really did revolve around the sun.
A recent trip to the recycling market in Bamako, the capital of Mali, was one of the most amazing experiences I’ve had in a long time...visually, olfactorily, but most of all acoustically, as the market announces itself long before one actually sees it. The cacophony of sounds comes courtesy of hundreds of blacksmiths hammering, scraping, melting and polishing every bit of material they retrieve from carefully dismantled car bodies and other branded materials.
I recently attended a lecture by Edward Tufte, a driving force behind the information design movement. He has written, designed and self-published several award-winning books that dive deep into the realm of data and statistical visualization -- the topic of his presentation. He is also an established artist and shared some of his landscape sculptures before getting started. Simple yet engaging, I found this chapter of his work the most interesting, as it was here that we could see his design approach, ideologies and aesthetics in practice. Here are three of my favorites, and what they convey about space, scale and perspective.
Anyone who’s seen me flail at Guitar Hero understands - even encourages - my reticence to play Rock Band. In spite of my enthusiasm, intense concentration and true desire to rock out, I once performed so poorly that a kind friend suggested to the room that “perhaps the signal isn’t getting through.” That, combined with the overt disappointment and head-shaking from the animated characters on-screen put me off the game. I must say, however, that for the opportunity to play some Beatles Rock Band, I would again risk such embarrassment.
Yesterday, I came across the most outrageously ludicrous fake marketing story about Del Monte and a James Bond tie-in from the geniuses at the Onion. Hoot! Holler! Sides splitting open! Then I realized it was REAL. I swear, I haven’t been so crippled by fear since Denise Richards was cast as nuclear physicist Christmas Jones in “The World is Not Enough.”
Music has played an integral role in branding since commercial radio welcomed product advertisements in the early 1920s. During the past two decades, popular music has evoked consumer emotions around brands and, more recently, has been used to reach specific market segments. When executed smartly, music can truly change the way consumers view brands and products. However, when used willy-nilly, music can expose a brand’s confused and clumsy search for self.
The American Idol finale will easily win the ratings war this week. Despite another year of declining viewership (and the disappointing coherence of Paula Abdul), it remains the number one show on television. This year’s final battle between aw-shucks Christian boy-next-door Kris Allen and aw-hell that boy ain’t right queen-of-scream Adam Lambert may have looked like red versus blue state politics personified. But truth is, the secret of Idol's success is the same popular narrative playing out over and over across American culture today. With the economy in the proverbial terlet and our own future uncertain, we take comfort in cheering on the average Joes and the biggest losers as they claw their way toward transformation.
Last week I spent a day walking around Washington. The weather was glorious and it was bustling. In the Newseum, an older woman examined photos with her friend from Scotland. At the White House, a family from Idaho asked me to take their picture. Near the water, the tables at Sequoia’s were full of international tourists. On the Mall, packs of school kids tried to buy lemon ice before they hit the lines at the National Air and Space Museum. As I carefully navigated the crowded steps of the Lincoln Memorial, I started thinking. The District of Columbia provides a beautifully rendered narrative of our nation’s history. But, for all those gathered here, what story does it tell of our future?
I took my first few Facebook quizzes today, one courtesy of the Food Network. Up popped this disclosure: “Allowing Which Food Network Personality Are You? access will let it pull your profile information, photos, your friends' info, and other content that it requires to work.” I won’t give the nice lady at Kohl’s my zip code at the checkout, but there I was sharing the keys to my digital kingdom with Food Network’s marketing department. In return, I got six disjointed questions and the laughable conclusion that Alton Brown is my culinary doppleganger. My compliments to the chef, but if I’m forking this much over, I expect some larger portions.
It all started with Freedom Rock. Since I saw those hippies extol the virtues of the good ‘ol days of war, protest and going to jail, I have been a huge fan of infomercials. Their sheer showmanship and exaggeration suck me in like so many Smart Mops and make me laugh with joy like so many women using Wrap, Snap & Go! hair rollers. An original type of long-form advertisement, the infomercial tells stories of wonder and amazement as intriguing and impossible to resist as ye olde carnival barker beckoning “Step right up! You won’t believe your eyes!” Sure, carny. Here’s my ha’penny. Show me what you’ve got.
Someone call a doctor. Swine flu (hysteria) is spreading. Newspapers are dying. Automobile companies are on life support. Mutants draw box office millions, as marketers engineer the next viral video. The U.S. economy sneezed, and the world collapsed. Politicians scrambled to resuscitate. And our climate is clearly running a temperature. Disease is America's metaphor du jour, and brand managers best check their vitals.
The tourism industry certainly is not immune to the challenges of the current economic environment. Yet a recent review of a study commissioned by The Ontario Government Ministry of Tourism shows that the industry is as much of a challenge to itself. Just as they did more than a decade ago (when I attended the Ecole Suisse de Tourisme), most destinations still focus on competing on the functional benefit of “quality.” Certainly, iconic buildings, a vibrant night scene or natural beauty are assets that indicate quality and add to the “must visit” factor of a destination. But those just add up to the price of entry for the tourism industry.
Social Media is now truly social – permeating every aspect of everyday life across generations. It has spawned businesses that have become household names, from eBay to Amazon, and individual behaviors that are quite literally changing society. Brian Solis’ Conversation Prism demonstrates the explosive growth of social media and the new skills – listening, learning and sharing – it requires. Not only innovators and thought leaders – but also such institutional stalwarts as PBS and the Library of Congress have embraced the moment and evolved. Which begs the question: Where is the education community?
Trent Reznor is known in the music industry for being a risk-taker, musically and technologically. Though a critically acclaimed artist, Reznor has led an enigmatic existence, and his dark, electronic musical style conjures images of drilling down into and exploring outlying areas of a mysterious abyss. It's a natural fit, then, for him to feel at ease connecting with his fans in the virtual world.
For most Americans, the conspicuous consumption of the late 20th century was not just a show of status or an assumed birthright in the land of plenty, it was an act of justified (if not inspired) patriotism. Prospering and buying things proved the American system worked. In our greatest moment of national crisis, George W. Bush called us to arms post-9/11, with the rallying cry of “go shopping” to support our economy and stabilize our nation. Consumption was the way to fight back; it was our role as citizens. Economic policies followed that fueled this citizen-consumer march into battle. But something else happened along the way, too. We didn’t just shop. We reconnected. We found new ways of expressing citizenship, and they can serve us well now as marketers, if we follow a few, new citizen-based rules.
Fully aware it’s ironic to blog about listening - here I am, “talking” about “listening.” Still, it seems a worthy topic right now - the value of the oft-neglected art of closing your mouth and opening your ears.
So in the 70’s, marketers embraced the fact that sex can sell anything from shampoo to car batteries. And over the past several decades, we’ve been treated to an endless array of genetically altered babes and double entendres, so much so that we became numb to the obvious methods of product whoring. Those were good times, in retrospect, considering the skin-crawling fetishism of two current sandwich peddlers who have spoiled my appetite.
What’s the better recession strategy: being the pricier brand everyone wants, or being the more affordable second choice? Microsoft is betting the farm on the latter with its latest attempt to counter Apple’s I’m a Mac campaign.
The evolution of data visualization software is merging data and art, and allowing us to convey and digest complicated information in exciting new ways. But used irresponsibly, these technologies have the potential to usher in a new wave of “data porn,” where the dazzle trumps the data.
It would be a mistake to believe that social media is about technology. The underlying technology -- which will assuredly change -- is like the electricity running a factory: it enables certain functions, but is not the purpose of the place. Content drives social media. Why? Because content forms communities... and communities form markets.
Karen O, lead singer for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, is like a modern Siouxsie Sioux in this video for the band’s single, “Zero,” off of the new album It’s Blitz!
New York City’s Museum of Modern Art recently dropped “rogue” adman, Douglas Jaeger and his agency Happy Corp. While the incident is worth a write up in itself (I will revisit it towards the end of this post) a broader discussion about nonprofits and their mostly uncomfortable relationship with all things related to brand needs to come first.
Peggy Noonan recently wrote an opinion piece in the WSJ detailing what she interpreted as the depression we are feeling as we sense “something slipping away, a world receding, not only an economic one but a world of old structures, old ways and assumptions.” I agree with her overarching sentiment – and know a lot of people who are anxious and depressed in the current environment, and for good reason. But holding a glass to the cultural wall and listening closely - pardon me Peggy, but the loudest voice I hear is petulance.
Behavioral economist Dan Ariely has a cool job. He studies why people cheat, then devises variables to increase or decrease how likely they are to do so. In this TED talk, Ariely discusses his findings and suggests many of our current Wall Street woes further validate them. Turns out we may not be so different than the hedge fund managers and derivatives traders at whom we’re currently pointing our collective (middle) finger. And maybe the Ten Commandments have a place in our schools after all...
Somebody call Eve Ensler, because it looks like the Vagina Monologues are becoming the Vagina Dialogues.
It’s always weird when a once genre-defining band comes back after a hiatus. The risk of the new material potentially marring one’s view of their original material is pretty high, let alone the pain of seeing once-held pop idols embarrass themselves on the global stage (I’m looking at you, Boy George. Oh, and you too, Madonna. Oh, and you too Pet Shop Boys). Enter Depeche Mode.
There’s plenty of chatter about Microsoft’s new viral video. Great. You got some people to watch it, and with this post, even more. At a technical level, the spot is working (pun intended). At a brand level, I am at a loss.
We already know Dora the Explorer can crank dat, but who knew that a brand extension would crank out such controversy?
Pity poor CNBC. Oh, the horror. To be taken on by a comedian - a comedian! - and lose. To have the comedian come off as more serious, more substantive, more tuned in to the zeitgeist, more honest. To have a funnyman call you out for not doing your job. And then to have that showdown not just air and be forgotten, but pick up speed virally and, for gosh sakes, make the front page of the Financial Times, among others, despite all the media weight you use (Stewart’s term: “all those peacocks”) to try to downplay it.
Welcome to the new Unbound Edition. For the past two years, our readers have made Unbound Edition one of the Web’s most read marketing news aggregators and blogs. Along the way, we have laughed with you, listened to you and learned from you. Thank you. Now, we are making some changes to serve you better and to take advantage of new technologies.
Broken Social Scene’s hugely talented founding member, Brendan Canning, busted out on his own in 2008 with his album Something for All of Us. The Brothers Gibbsian track “Love is New” features Canning using his walk, with very little time to talk.
Animal Collective is a revolving group of musicians originally from Baltimore. Their avant-garde style leaves listeners divided – fans can’t say enough about their creative genius while others walk away perplexed as to what all the fuss is about. The band’s latest album, Merriweather Post Pavilion, has been lauded by critics as a body of work that maintains the band’s experimental approach while being far more accessible than previous albums.
Seattle-based J. Tillman is both a solo artist and a member of the much-lauded Fleet Foxes. “First Born,” a fine track from Tillman’s latest album, Vacilando Territory Blues, is sparse but beautiful. This video reflects that sparse beauty as it focuses upward on the natural rhythm of an avian slow-dance.
Shortly before his death, Norman Mailer said “every one of my books has killed me a little more.” Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the best-selling memoir Eat, Pray, Love, explores the psychological pressure that comes with creative pursuits, and the intense fear that each short dance with brilliance may be one’s last.
Neuroanatamist Jill Bolte Taylor understood the brain like few others. Then she had a stroke. In this video, she describes the revelation that came from the fracture: the recalibration that stemmed from seeing herself wholly through the perspective of each separate hemisphere.
I saw Benefiber’s current commercial for the first time last night, and it caught me off-guard.
Mississippi-based Dent May is an unlikely stud. An American counterpart to Sweden’s Jens Lekman, May recently released his first album, The Feel Good Music of Dent May & His Magnificent Ukulele. “Meet Me In The Garden” is the first single.
Product and packaging design can be one of the most impactful brand touchpoints. Here are a few recent executions I admire.
I know, sounds like a parent admonishing a child. Well, in my case the “child” was a fashion magazine.
Cher. Madonna. Prince. Charo. The club of one-name celebs has a new member. Just call him Dunkin.
Cupid, hearts, cards and jewelry. Valentine’s Day imagery is all around us, and it rarely begs a second look. But a few iconoclasts are marketing their subtle, cynical spin on this Hallmark holiday. A small collection of my favorites...
A bright spot in Bright Eyes’ otherwise maudlin repertoire, “The First Day of My Life” reminds us that love isn't as complicated as we make it this time each year.
If you’re thinking about sending an e-card for Valentine’s Day this year, think again. But aren’t they convenient and popular? Yes. For the sender. And that’s the problem.
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, the communications experts at AT&T have released a texting primer to answer our most perplexing SMS questions: Should we respond to texts immediately, or hours later? “Textpert” Nicole Beland has the answer. Is breaking up by text appropriate? AT&T knows. Armed with this “D8ing Textiquette” and stunning figures from AT&T’s Valentine’s Day Texting Survey (33% of texters surveyed plan to send at least one Valentine’s text!), aspiring texters everywhere can now confidently use this “new language of love.” Additional information and more fantextic puns available in their texting media kit.
It’s hard to overstate how off-target TeleFlora’s Valentine’s Day spot is, both in concept and context.
If you’ve ever had the privilege of seeing Bruce Springsteen perform live, you know that it’s unlike any other live show. It’s not just a concert, it’s chemistry. Jon Stewart once said, “Do you like joy? If you do, you should go and see Bruce Springsteen.” Unfortunately, this did not translate to home viewers of the Super Bowl halftime show.
This week we’ve discussed a few Super Bowl standouts, good and bad. But what of the ads that didn’t make the cut? PETA doesn’t shy away from extreme antics, from flinging paint to flashing skin. This year’s Super Bowl submission was no different. Borrowing a page from Victoria’s Secret, a few of PETA’s leggy veggies turned up the heat and brought some serious steak-free sizzle.
I love me some Bruce Springsteen. With the E Street Band or without, it’s all good. I’ve seen him perform live eight times and look forward to seeing him again in April. If you’ve ever had the privilege of seeing Bruce and E Street perform, you know what I mean when I say that it is unlike any other live show. It’s not just a concert. It’s chemistry. It’s three hours of energy and synergy. It changes you. That said, I have thought about his Super Bowl halftime show probably more than the average Jane, and definitely more than necessary.
I spent last night in front of my laptop on Twitterbowl and in front of NBC. As NBC rolled out a fairly conventional game presentation (tell me again why are there fireworks digitally exploding behind the announcers?) tweets were coming in fast and furious from all over the world.
When we’re really lost in America—when we’re completely baffled and no one has any answers—we revert to cars and rock n’ roll. That’s the read one might get from this year’s superfluous battle between the Steelers and the Cardinals. But what started as an escapist yearning for the Fast and the Furious, Mr. Potato Head hugging mountain curves on Bridgestone tires, and Bruce Springsteen rehashing “Born to Run” and “Glory Days” gave way to what might be interpreted as a subconscious unrest over America’s second Great Depression.
Last Friday's video, Johnny Cash's cover of "Hurt," demonstrated how a powerful voice can transform the meaning of a song. Cash told the story in a way Trent Reznor could not. This week, we look at Duran Duran’s cover of Public Enemy’s “911 Is A Joke.” Duran Duran tells the story in a way Flavor Flav could not: like pathetic posers.
“Hurt” was first released on Nine Inch Nails' 1994 album, The Downward Spiral . In 2002, legendary singer/songwriter Johnny Cash partnered with producer Rick Rubin to cover Reznor’s bleak account of addiction and isolation for American IV: The Man Comes Around. The Man in Black’s gritty sound and decades of struggle and pain transformed the song into a dark, desperate retrospective. Cash died soon after.
UE’s Video of the Day recently featured the latest spot in Geico’s Kash campaign. Allstate also recently launched a new spot clearly aimed at retention and equally noteworthy with regards to voice. While Geico whispers from the deep discount bin, Allstate resonates with gravitas. The two spots stand at opposite poles of a broad spectrum of insurance company voices, each struggling to speak to their customers in the context of our current economic realities.
While banks across the U.S. were pleading for bailouts, ING Direct posted a 10-point Declaration of Financial Independence to a simple microsite and invited people to sign it. 20,000 people have. And as the surviving financial services companies struggle to find the right tone and message to comfort and reassure consumers in the new year, one clear voice speaks plainly and directly about personal responsibility and the basics of saving. Consistently delivered online and through frank messages by CEO Arkadi Kuhlmann, the ING voice is genuine, distinguishable in the market place and perfectly aligned with the company’s brand position and identity.
I’d like to thank T-Mobile for tapping into one of my lifelong fantasies. Mind you, I’ve never met a befringed surrey I didn’t love. I grew up knowing jolly sailors really should bust out in into choreographed numbers more often and was really ticked that I didn’t have six sisters, a barn, and a bunch of lumber laying around so we could all do this on a lazy Sunday. Yes indeedy, we all just need to break out into song and/or dance numbers in public more often.
I never really liked that Lance Armstrong. The silly pandemic of me-too rubber bracelets he inspired. The nude cycling fetish. The bizarre attraction to pencil-top troll Ashley Olsen. I just wasn’t a fan. But I’ll be damned if his iPhone app isn’t saving my life.
Sophie Hunger is a Swiss singer/songwriter. Her independently released first studio album, “Monday’s Ghost,” went to the top of the Swiss music charts in 2008. Now signed to the Universal Jazz music label, her music will be distributed throughout Europe in 2009. Then, hopefully, in the U.S.
There’s a lot being written about the merchandising of this inaugural moment. For a sampling of what’s available, check out Amazon. Or any newsstand around the world.
Oh that’s a trick question – you MUST have seen it because I watched it on your air.
Louisville’s My Morning Jacket started playing and recording together in 1998. Since then, the band has enjoyed a slow rise in popularity, their music appealing to a wide range of music-lovers. Recognized for their brilliant live performances -- a vigorous mix of guitar, falsetto harmonies and beards -- MMJ may be one of the few bands upon which fans of indie rock and fans of jam bands agree. The track, “Touch Me I’m Going to Scream Pt. 2” is from the latest album, Evil Urges.
What is G? The first spot aired during the Rose Bowl, a black-and-white conveyor belt of people posing, smiling, some instantly recognizable, others vaguely so. Lil Wayne spoken-word poetry: gifts, gold, glory and game. A large white G to close.
Tis the season for fad diets, and if the fresh mint shortage in our local grocery stores is any indication, the Flat Belly Diet may be the dark horse diet craze of 2009. Featured recently on Today and Oprah, the Flat Belly Diet promotes calorie control and a true balance of healthy fats, proteins and complex carbohydrates. A return to honesty and responsibility in weight-loss program marketing? What a great way to start the new year.
Maybe it's the economy, or that most of these kids, in sports terms, crossed from college to pro years ago, but this real footage of children getting a Wii Christmas morning leaves us conflicted. Nintendo's scarcity strategy warrents applause, as does their continued success despite meager graphics and an emphasis on family-friendly fare. But fainting and hysterial sobbing from kids who stopped believing in Santa years ago? Does it warm the heart or send shivers down the spine?
Happy New Year from UE and The Walkmen. “In the New Year” is from The Walkmen’s latest album, You & Me.
For one year, journalist A.J. Jacobs strictly followed the 700+ rules he mined from the Bible. He tossed his polycotton, kepy holy the Sabbath and even stoned a 70-year-old adulterer. His greatest insight: changing behavior changes thinking, not vice versa.
While the best-of-2008 lists float around the Internet, we try to learn from what has happened the last 12 months. This year we have seen many novel trends and innovative ways to communicate. Working with brands this means we constantly have to stay abreast of new developments. At the same time, however, we should not forget that our ultimate goal, to create value and build a lasting relationship with the customer, remains the same. This is something that I first learned as a teenager in the Netherlands.
The video for Lily Allen’s new single, “The Fear,” is a satirical nod to the Material Girl, rampant consumerism and superficiality. Her new album, It’s Not Me, It’s You, will be released in early 2009.
Dear Nostalgia Marketers, Oh my God, I am your biggest fan. I’m just smitten with your thirty second windows into my imaginary childhoods. Especially those shot in Super-8 and black-and-white (VHS just doesn’t get me in the mood). Because really, who doesn’t love grainy signifiers that we’re traveling back into a simpler time? With each handheld shot, you nail that dreamy pre-cubicle-meets-Playdoh-smell-on-my-hands paradise. I mean, I think I speak for everyone when I say we wholeheartedly welcome your strip mining of our Hallmarkiest moments.
Pillsbury released "Heels" in time for the 2008 holiday season. The Saatchi + Saatchi offering is simple and beautifully filmed, but the concept and tagline feel a bit saccharine for a can of easy-bake crescent rolls. And why the Poppin' Fresh cameo in the final scenes? Any lingering emotional connection fizzles when that CGI doughboy peers around the corner at the gathering family.
In 2006's "Childhood is Calling," Rice Krispies captures a powerful bit of ritual and celebrates the sharing of new experiences between parent and child. Rice Krispies launched Childhoodiscalling.com the following year, featuring recipes from and for parents and children.
This week Burger King introduced Flame, a “body spray of seduction with a hint of flame-broiled meat.” The companion website features a variety of backdrops and groovy love tunes that guarantee the perfect ambiance for nibbling the meat-lover in your life. The scent retails for $4 exclusively through Ricky’s and online.
Oh, Barbara Millicent Roberts, you clever little minx. I had been relatively successful at hiding my girlish sentimentality until you hit me with this commercial, just in time for the holidays.
Lexus’ 2008 “Big Wheel” approaches greatness, then quickly devolves. The ad opens with retro footage of a working class home at Christmas - warm, messy, comfortable. A boy warns his future self not to forget. The memory is quickly crushed by the buying power of white collar-adulthood. Cut to cliche of gift-wrapped luxury vehicle. Message: Cherished childhood memories are no match for Lexus.
Each Buddy System song has an animated story linked to it. The Athens, Georgia-based band believes that their music and animation are of equal importance, neither taking a back seat to the other. Rather, they are “inextricably linked, each image synced up with a sound, like the two are playing a game of Mirror and forgot who had been leading and who had been following.” “Return to Horse Mountain” is about a Satanic horse cult that must be defeated. Watch out for that unicorn!
I’m a big fan of buying directly from artisans. Though I was raised in a Wal-Mart culture, I’ve found that buying from the people who produce the product is more satisfying. The brand is comfortably irrelevant, the quality (and yes, even unique defect of the item) is its own, and I feel good that the cash goes directly into the maker’s pocket.
The difference between a dreamer and an innovator is action. So what to do when your dreams are impossible to bring to life? Philip Rosedale created Second Life, and helped more than 15 million people make their impossibles possible.
Henry Ford famously declared that the Model-T buyer could choose “any colour, so long as it’s black.” While I would argue whether or not black is a color, this restriction was important to providing affordable automobiles to the masses. A century later, consumers expect more from their favorite brands. They want an emotional connection, and during a time of budget cuts, job loss, and a major global plunge, a little color can make a big difference. Innovative companies know this. Here are a few of my favorite examples:
Rob Kalin grew frustrated shopping the “anonymous shelves” of mass-produced goods at the local Walmart. His mission: help artisans operate sustainable businesses by selling unique, handcrafted items directly to a global community of buyers. Etsy.com was born.
Since Etsy.com was launched in 2003, the online marketplace “for buying and selling all things handmade” has changed the way people consider, create and consume handmade products.
The Brighton Port Authority (BPA) is Norman Cook, the artist formerly known as Fatboy Slim. BPA's fictional history purports a substantial word-of-mouth reputation along England’s south coast from the 1970s to the mid-1990s. A “loose-limbed jamming unit” that gathered a wide assortment of musicians into a ramshackle recording studio, the BPA was legendary for both its music making and multi-day warehouse parties. Thanks to East Sussex music lecturer Dr. Randolph Seal’s decade-long search for the BPA’s lost tapes, the gems from this era of collaboration were recently found and remastered. “Toe Jam” was the first track remastered in “full stereophonic sound.” It features David Byrne and Dizzee Rascal. The whole collection, ostensibly named “We’re Gonna Need A Bigger Boat,” has yet to be released in full.
The one-and-only Pavement covers the one-and-only School House Rock. Happy Thanksgiving!
In another classic West Wing Thanksgiving episode, President Bartlet reminds aid Charlie that an impressive list of product features can't compete with a compelling brand story.
When Aaron Sorkin cleverly integrated the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line throughout the 2001 Thanksgiving episode of The West Wing, awareness of the free service skyrocketed. The banter between Sheen’s know-it-all Bartlet and the Butterball representative remains a fan favorite.
Decades before Food Network’s Paula Dean fried her first Turducken, the American Dairy Association shared their secret to baking the perfect holiday bird.
Manchester’s Elbow have been recording grand, anthemic music since 1991. While they have enjoyed a large fan base for many years, they only recently have begun receiving international media attention. Earlier this year, Elbow won the Nationwide Mercury Prize for their 2007 album, Seldom Seen Kid. It was selected over, among others, Radiohead’s highly regarded In Rainbows. “Grounds for Divorce,” the first single off the album, recently was featured in the trailer for the Coen brothers’ Burn After Reading.
Um, no. I am most decidedly not ready for that. Thanks.
As part of a new campaign, HP has called on the talents of the (Amy Poehler-founded) Upright Citizens Brigade and The People’s Improv Theater to tout its gizmos on YouTube’s adorably titled Master PC Theatre. While we applaud HP’s efforts to combine new media and pop culture with its storytelling, it all feels a little awkward. For one, improv should be funny. But more importantly, the “performance” overshadows the late, tacked-on message.
Never underestimate the power of moms and social media. When Motrin ran this ad, "babywearers" nationwide, feeling mocked, unleashed hell on Twitter. The rebellion also included a video of angry Tweets. And Motrin tucked its tail, pulled the ad, and, after much criticized silence, issued an apology. No one puts babywearers in a corner.
Santogold, a.k.a. Santi White, is a singer and songwriter currently based in Brooklyn. Her self-titled debut solo album was released earlier this year to much critical acclaim.
There are an enormous number of American “knowledge” workers, companies and MBA programs whose work and whose professional standing is based solely on the agreed-upon script. They have long since stopped thinking, responding, understanding, questioning and interpreting. They can’t improvise to save their lives. It's a problem that might impact our country's competitiveness more than anything else.
Regardless of your political persuasion, it is difficult to deny that brand Obama made participating in the political process cool again. MC Yogi is just one of many who took Obama’s voice, messages and logo, mashed it up and made it their own. The result: a malleable, inspiring brand that was expressed in myriad unique ways by the people, for the people.
The Unbound Edition Players now present “A Musical Salute to the Uterus,” their interpretation of the season finale, “Meditations in an Emergency.”
MUAHAHA! As you open your virtual trick-or-treat bag today, please allow UE to give you a generous handful of AWESOME. Why loll around to the likes of Monster Mash when you can totally rock out to Iron Maiden? Sure, the video quality isn’t as sharp as we’re used to these days, but what can one expect from a video made in 1982? A video, no less, for the titular track of one of the greatest heavy metal albums of all time. A video that incorporates frenetic stage lighting, consistent use of the smoke machine, guitar solos that can peel the paint off cars in addition to fire, brimstone, the Wolfman and Godzilla. Happy Halloween!
To many, Coco Chanel, single-handedly invented the look and fragrance of the 20th century, if not the woman itself! Who doesn't know or even covet the quilted handbags, the No. 5 square-cut perfume bottle, the little black dress, the braid-trimmed, brass-buttoned two-piece suit, the dark-toed sling pumps, or the fashion jewelry? Who doesn’t recognize the elegant simplicity of the interlaced double C, the minimalist color palette of white, black and gold…each piece telling the story of a woman with an extraordinary gift for fashion, social trends, and business? Enter Karl Lagerfeld, the man who is in charge of her legacy.
TV On The Radio has been together for seven years, recording several EPs and two full-length albums before receiving critical acclaim in 2006, when Spin voted TVOTR the Artist of the Year and Rolling Stone voted the 2006 album Return from Cookie Mountain the fourth best album of the year. TVOTR is known for its unique sound that blends free jazz, soul and dance beats with falsetto vocals and often dark, sometimes politically charged lyrics. Last month, TVOTR released a new album, Dear Science. “Golden Age” is the first single. Dear Science already has received rave reviews, calling it “shit-hot thrilling music that’s also brainy, ambivalent, and more engaging for it.”
The Unbound Edition Players, jetlagged from traveling to both coasts to perform this week’s production, now present “The Mountain King.” When the evil villain Dr. Greg shows up and twirls his moustache, feel free to boo and hiss.
King Biscuit Time was a side project of Ex-Beta Band frontman Steve Mason. Mason started King Biscuit Time in 1998 and folded the project in 2006. After disappearing for a little while, Mason is back to making music, performing under the name Black Affair and with a very different style. “I Walk the Earth” is off of King Biscuit Time’s EP No Style.
Ditch all of your commitments and responsibilities and watch as the Unbound Edition Players present "The Jet Set," otherwise known as "The One Where Don Flips His Wig and Goes Native."
Grab your inappropriately aged soulmate and gather ‘round as the Unbound Edition Players, still delusional from too much Benadryl, present “The Inheritance.”
The Unbound Edition Players now present “Six Month Leave.” Be sure to pick up one of our UE-branded catheters at the gift kiosk on your way home this evening.
Hollywood is turning out in force, saying “don’t vote.” Because not voting is still a vote.
My wife and I recently moved to Atlanta, purging in the process a quarter century of bric-a-brac to make room for our daughters’ plush menagerie and a growing empire of Disney princesses. I’ll muzzle the rant over sacrificing my memory-laden artifacts to their marketing-laden geegaws and turn to the catharsis brand we entrusted to haul away our history: 1-800-Got-Junk.
I subscribed to satellite radio for the programming. Little did I know that with my paid subscription they would throw in a Walmart-worthy makeover.
President Bartlet of "The West Wing" appeared at last night’s 60th Anniversary Emmy Awards, delivering an eloquent, bipartisan reminder for audiences to vote in the upcoming Presidential election. During this presidential race, pundits have said much about the power of Barack Obama’s words to move crowds, but little about Sorkin’s, and how his idealized American President inspired voters to reconsider the qualities they demand in a candidate for the country’s highest office.
Bon Iver (pronounced bon "ee-VEHR" - "good winter" in French) is the name of indie folk singer Justin Vernon's current project. Bon Iver's debut album Emma, Forever Ago, was written and recorded by Vernon during four months spent in a secluded cabin in the woods of northern Wisconsin. The video for "The Wolves (Act I & II)" gives us an idea of what that experience was like.
As the Unbound Edition players prepare to present “A Night to Remember,” you might want to pack a suitcase. We’re all going on one hell of a guilt trip.
I must admit, I really did not want to like the new Microsoft campaign. I found the initial “Shoe Circus” spot to be silly and irrelevant — an effort that came off as simply trying “too hard” to be funny and awkwardly hip. Then came the joyfully odd bit of suburban “connection” in the latest spot for Microsoft. I love it, have watched it numerous times, and have forwarded it to many people. I have been converted to a Microsoft marketer, if no longer a customer.
Please take your seats as the Unbound Edition players present “The Gold Violin.” Heads up to the front row: you might want to have some Gallagher-esque plastic sheeting on standby.
Leave your soul at the door, grab a bottle of whiskey, and watch as the Unbound Edition Players present their entire performance of “Maidenform” from outside, their sad little noses pressed against the window.
Break out your specimen collection cups and toast the Unbound Edition Players as they present “The New Girl.”
Begrudgingly, the Unbound Edition Players lumber across the stage to present “Three Sundays.” That clunking sound you just heard is the prop guy bringing in an artificial respirator to try to breathe some life into this corpse.
This week, the Unbound Edition Players take the stage for their interpretation of “The Benefactor.” Just a warning: afterward, you might not want to shake their hands.
With 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, we see a China that is a powerhouse of contemporary, iconic architecture. We see a China that is global host, not a walled world. We see an entire culture struggling with freedom, technology and the environment. From this view, China is a massive case study -- a window into -- the global future.
This week, the Unbound Edition Players, accompanied by their love children, present their interpretation of “Flight 1.”
After nine months of unemployment and government cheese, the Unbound Edition Players finally return to the stage in “For Those Who Think Young.” Kindly refrain from heckling or hurling your Jujubes. They’re a little rusty.
After what seems like the longest hiatus in history, the Unbound Edition Players are, at last, ready to return to the stage for the second season of "Mad Men" recaps. The only potential hitch is that the players just moved to Atlanta, where the wardrobe department doesn’t seem to offer anything but hoop skirts and parasols. (That “woo-hoo!” you just heard was Salvatore.)
A tragedy today in Maplewood, Mo., shows how social networking sites can provide a morbid glimpse into a life lost. One that’s arguably far more powerful than the ubiquitous news story featuring grieving friends and family.
Friday was the 4th of July, a special day of meaning for people in the US, and a different one for everybody. For most, this day is not associated with the adoption of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, but more with the country in general, a day amongst family, a barbecue with fireworks at night, just a day off or even Will Smith. For me, quite frankly, it does not mean anything. But this will come; it was my first 4th of July in the United States.
In one powerful night, R.E.M. concludes its North American tour with a meaningful set built for an election year and the digital age.
Okay, I’ll admit that’s a harsh riff on Gatorades tagline, and 80s jingle that is still emblazoned on my brain. After all, according to Beverage Digest, Gatorade owned a 76.3 percent market share in ‘07 for take-home sports drinks.
The fever for the flavor of a Pringle finally caught up with product designer Fredric Baur.
Earlier this month I was discussing fad products in my Marketing class and brought up 80s icon Chia Pet. Immediately my senioritis-inflicted students burst into renditions of the now infamous jingle. That’s impressive name recognition for a brand that peaked in popularity when they were fetuses and sustains itself today only through nostalgic impulse buys and endless line extension. It got me wondering whether manufacturer Joseph Enterprises, with a little outsourced design help, could retrieve the Chia brand from the compost pile.
Ever wondered why some consumer review sites thrive while others seem like dusty repositories of stale content? Quality consumer reviews are among the most coveted content online—when you can get them to flow they build a search-engine friendly kingdom of page views. Sustain them, and your advertising inventory swells with content-specific pages. The problem, of course, is convincing users to freely contribute their time and energy.
One of my earliest childhood memories is shuffling into my parents’ tiny bathroom at daybreak, mirrors fogged over with shower steam, to watch my father shave. He frequently ended this morning ritual by depositing a thick dollop of lemon-lime Barbasol on my nose.
Ah, nothing makes the death of brain cells go down smoother than the “all natural” moral reprieve.
A while back, I wrote about this spot for Orangina and what a grody orgy it was. Little did I know that another campaign would come along that would make that musical salute to bodily functions look like the episode of “Little House on the Prairie” where Tinker Jones, the kindhearted mute, helps the kids of Walnut Grove forge a new bell for Reverend Alden’s church.
London-based designer Orla Kiely has extended her brand to stationery. In so doing she is growing a design language that seems familiar and global at once. It is the right way to build the next major brand.
Perhaps I’m letting my nationalism get the best of me, but Absolut’s “Reconquista” ad is a little insulting:
Did the band light up the night or fizzle out? Unbound Edition's resident DJ and music critic reviews its recent concert.
We’ve seen a new development around the tradition of shocking internet memes.
It's true that there's nothing new under the sun. Also true that sex sells. Oh, true, too, that outrage gets news coverage. And true, so it seems, that Abercrombie & Fitch have become hopelessy lost in marketing cliches with the beautiful boredom of their new Gilly Hicks underwear brand.
Even if you’re the sort of rarified American sportstard who thought all last year that Tom Brady was somehow associated with a 70’s sitcom, you still should succumb to the spectacle of the Super Bowl.
Last week, NPR aired a piece about how Super Bowl advertisers were making an effort to target women more than ever this year, particularly in light of the WGA strike. Companies are hurting for ways to get to us. Cool, I thought, thank you for seeing us over here, making up 40 percent of viewership. And would this mean a shortage of obnoxious fart and boob jokes? Ah, the possibilities.
The twenty-something girls called from Boston at the end of the game to log in with their commercial picks. They put the cell on speaker and yelled in together: “Universally lame.”
The underlying cultural significance of Super Bowl advertising.
Super Bowl XLII reveals brands in-flux, searching for meaning, making a case for their own relevancy, and showing just how flexible they can be with the new consumer.
A Brand on Any Other Platform Can Still Smell as Sweet There was a lot of talk at DLD about Millennials – 3 billion under age 25 in the world, but fewer of them in the audience. They’re probably at home on Facebook, listening to their ipods, surfing YouTube or canvassing door to door for Obama.
I have been known to slam companies’ marketing approaches in past posts, so I thought I would mix things up a bit, and offer my support for Las Vegas’ new slogan. Launching next week, the new slogan will be, “Your Vegas is Showing.”
Who sends their sick kid to Dr. Phil?? And then is shocked, shocked (!) to discover he’s known more for ratings than for cures? The whole broken Spears family has lost touch with reality. I have a lot more to say about this, but if I added more than a sentence to this voyeuristic mess, I’d have to boycott myself. But speaking of the use and misuse of the press, how about Parade magazine?
A new Canadian print campaign for Burger King has a little something for everyone: pimps, ho's, drug addicts and, um, self-lovers. Oooh! There’s even mockery of religious iconography. Bonus.
We’ve come a long way, baby. Or have we? Are these ads below any different to have a sexy cartoon woman touting the smooth taste of Kamels? Or how about all those yummy transfats and other terrible foods advertisers push at us? Or the wax placebo you rub on your head to alleviate headaches?
{self}What do pinot noir, the writers’ strike, and the current disintegration of media have in common?{/self}
We all know the sad song: newspapers are dying. Some even say they should, as soon as possible. Yes, we can get our “news” – whatever the slippery definition of it may now be – in more efficient and interactive ways. But what do we lose if the newspaper goes away?
I feel compelled to say it: I am more than the sum of my resume, my LinkedIn profile and my Facebook page. I am not simply the compilation of my previous titles.
I’ve always thought the worst kind of lump Santa could deposit in my stocking would be of the coal variety. Not so much. Ladies and gents, I give you the Swedish toy characters Pee and Poo.
After ten years, the Food Network announced earlier this week that it will discontinue Emeril Lagasse’s evening extravaganza “Emeril Live.”
To the builders of this beer-shrine Tanenbaum: we hope you spaced out your holiday cheer over the course of a few nights when you were busy emptying those Grolsch bottles. The first layer of the tree alone would be the makings of a wicked hangover.
Megan Meier, a 14-year-old girl from an exurban area of St. Louis, recently committed suicide over an online MySpace prank instigated by her adult neighbors. Her crush on a boy that never existed in the real world pushed a troubled girl over the edge.
The Trabant, East Germany’s “darling” car turned 50 a week ago. And what a run it had, as it went from East German luxury good and West German laughing stock to a cultural icon in reunited Germany.
Considering we’re dedicating an entire week to Noam Chomsky videos, this might not be a popular opinion amongst my fellow UE bloggers or its readers. But lately I’ve been a bit more optimistic that market forces and our good old fashioned love of money will actually help save our “Planet in Peril.”
Marketers are talking nonstop about “content” these days: how it can help companies “be the media,” how it may be more credible than news, how it more closely connects readers and sellers, how it is the key to successful social media. Fine. All true. But is any of it new?
Andrew Keen “almost became rich” on the Internet. Now, he's written a bitter book attacking the "amateurs" who have succeeded where he couldn't.
And now, the Attention Deficit Theatre players take the stage for the season finale, “The Wheel.” While the play might only feel like it’s five minutes long, there’s a magic time machine involved and it’s really a nine month production. And you might need to sit on an inflatable donut for a few days afterward. Bonus.
I’m not talking about your political leanings, but your brain and your way of thinking. Take this test on BrandWeek’s blog to find out. You might be surprised. I was.
Comedians throughout history have pushed the limits of the cultural dialogue surrounding race. From Lenny Bruce, Red Foxx and Richard Pryor to Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock, comedians help shove honest conversations, warts and all, to the forefront of debate.
Fire up the polka music and pour yourself a vile glass of rum and crème de menthe while the Unbound Edition Players present “Nixon vs. Kennedy.”
And now, the Unbound Edition Players, slightly flushed and smelling oddly of dryer sheets, present “Indian Summer.” (curtain up)
Ah, our fascination with celebrity. I’m quite sure it’s responsible for my past post, Colbert as Case Study, being my most-viewed blog entry to date. And 24-hour cable news wouldn’t be in business these days without it. And without 24-hour cable news, our Nation’s hero, Stephen Colbert wouldn’t be on television. (Well, at least his alter ego wouldn’t take to the airwaves…um, I mean basic-cable waves).
After a brief, AMC-imposed hiatus, the Unbound Edition players return to the stage for “The Long Weekend.” If they seem a little sluggish, it’s because they’re weighed down by the chunky Chips Ahoy they turned to when there wasn’t a new episode to cover. They really feel for Peggy now.
When scanning the news, I caught a glimpse of the headline, “Courtney Love to Launch Her Own Perfume” and naturally assumed it was an Onion article. Really, can you imagine a celebrity LESS appropriate to launch a new fragrance? Oh, ha ha ha, my sides split just thinking about it. What? It’s REAL? Sweet Jesus.
With apologies for the production delay (an unfortunate case of the flu made an appearance backstage this weekend), the Unbound Edition Players at last take the stage to present “Shoot.”
Never underestimate the power of an agency creative team to sweep in on a successful Internet phenomenon and whore the idea out to a client. So it goes with Kohler—the bold toiletsmiths of tomorrow. Taking a cue from the wildly successful Blendtec “Will it Blend?” series of catchy YouTube videos, Kohler has plunged the depths of their creatives to come up with JosPlumbing.com.
With a halfhearted apology to the post VMA Britney-bashers out there….
Pull up a chair, make sure there are no unsavory substances visible on the cushion, and join us for today’s presentation of “The Hobo Code.”
In this age of celebrity endorsements and entertainer-based empires, we delve into the disappointment and bad business that is Britney Spears.
I knew a guy who was worried about his teenage son. He was a good kid, but he was struggling and he had just called to tell his father he was going to drop out of college. Years ago, the father fretted, he’d have shipped the kid off to the military – forced some discipline on him to help him grow up. That had worked for his generation. But the inflammatory world situation no longer made that a viable option in his (or his wife’s!) mind. He was at his wits’ end. So what did he do?
Today, during her premiere on ABC’s “The View,” Whoopi Goldberg came to the defense of Michael Vick. Whether publicity stunt for ratings, genuinely held opinion, or spontaneous outpouring of stupidity, there’s a fundamental problem with Goldberg’s logic. It’s racist, at its core.
And now, at the halfway point in season one of “Mad Men,” the Unbound Edition Players present the completely bizarro-world episode, “Red in the Face.”
Alcohol companies, by nature of their product, have a greater degree of permission from consumers. People bring their beverage of choice into golden moments of relaxation, celebration, and even hard times. In a hotly competitive market such as alcoholic beverages, it’s vital to capitalize on this permission and the social nature of sharing a drink with a friend.
Attention, ladies! Playtex is on to the fact that we constantly are talking about, joking about, and otherwise obsessing over our breasts. Constantly, I tell you. And they’ve got a multimillion dollar campaign about it. Um, what? Is a 14-year-old boy the marketing genius behind this?
Ten years after Princess Diana’s Death by Paparazzi, has anything changed? Not much, I say. Case in point: the nearly tragic case of actor Owen Wilson.
The Unbound Edition players, joined by this week's special guest stars, now present "Babylon," also known as "The Episode That Went on for Eternity."
Our good friend Ted Haggard needs your help. After his fall from grace for entirely heterosexual acts with a male prostitute while totally not amped up on crank, ol’ Ted has decided to go back to school.
Last week I started to address what’s wrong with U.S. tennis, reviewing the United States Tennis Association’s (USTA) misguided attempt to interest younger consumers in tennis.
Please take your seats for "5G." Now with 20 percent more sarcasm at the same great price.
It appears Baby Einstein isn’t the only company peddling products that may retard our children. On Tuesday, toy maker Mattel announced its second major recall in as many weeks.
The Unbound Edition players now present the off-off-off-around-the-corner-and-then-28-more-blocks-off Broadway production of “New Amsterdam.”
AT&T, what were you thinking? First you divested an arguably more relevant, fresher, younger and hipper brand for “the new AT&T.” Now, by censoring Pearl Jam’s relatively benign comments criticizing George Bush during your broadcast of Lollapalooza, you’ve given an entire generation of consumers a reason to hate you for being an “evil corporation.” Not to mention you’ve created a rallying cry for net neutrality activists the world over.
Pop open your boxes of Jujubes and Sno-Caps and enjoy today's two-minute production of "Mad Men: The Marriage of Figaro."
It’s World Breastfeeding Week, and so continues the tired pseudo-debate between bottle and breast, exacerbated by fanatics who shame women who don’t nurse, and shadowy alarmists who claim government officials are “stepping in to make the choice for new mothers.”
In preparation for tonight’s debut of "Mad Men" Episode 3: Marriage of Figaro, the Unbound Edition players proudly present the highlights of Episode 2: Ladies Room.
You may not agree, but to me Michael Vick’s potential involvement (?!?) in dog fighting brings up more than animal rights; whether or not humans are more than…just animals; or the history of dog fighting and gladiators, although, they all are good topics to ponder as well. More important, it is about the question when enough is enough, and who ultimately makes that decision.
If you don’t have cable or an hour to spend watching AMC’s “Mad Men” each week, you’ve come to the right place. I’ve condensed the script to two minutes of key plot points, with added snarkiness as appropriate.
Books don’t translate well online. Marketing books? Yes. Ordering books? Clearly. Communicating with authors? Incredible. But the books themselves? No. It may be a good thing, too.
Growing up I was somewhat of a daredevil - or arguably just a little stupid. Doing less-than-intelligent stunts on everything from skateboards, BMX bikes, go carts, mini bikes and eventually mountain bikes and motorcycles, put me in the hospital more times than I’d like to remember. Oh, and there was a shopping cart incident (don’t ask).
Let’s role play. You’re a pharmaceutical company who (allegedly) covered up the dangers of your last billion-dollar drug, for which you’re mired in costly and reputation-damaging litigation. You’re eager to launch a new, ground-breaking drug you can legitimately claim prevents cancer, and you want to avoid a barrage of articles comparing your new rising star to its fallen predecessor. You also need to break through consumer hesitation to early adopt, given your less-than-glowing track record. The new drug vaccinates against an STD. What do you do?
No, not the lil’-minded leader of our great nation. We’ve given him enough chances. I’m talkin’ ‘bout “Lil’ Bush,” the animated series on Comedy Central.
Last Sunday, my mother-in-law asked, “What is up with all of the attention those Beckley people are getting?” “Beckley?” I asked. “Yeah, that British couple. There was a big to-do about them in this week’s Parade, and she has some show on t.v.” "Ah. Not Beckley. Beckham," I said.
Wow. It doesn’t get much classier than this. I must admit, I’m not the target audience for team-branded coffins or urns from Major League Baseball. Mainly because I still have a pulse, but also because I’m not a huge sports fan. However, going to the grave in a receptacle plastered with your team colors seems a bit extreme.
I listened to a lot of the Live Earth concerts on Sirius satellite radio, which covered the entire event from Australia to New Jersey. Between performances, DJ’s promoted the new green channel in their lineup and offered “tips” – little things listeners could do as individuals to help mother earth.
The word “commune” elicits images of patchouli-soaked hippies, eastern-Pennsylvanian craftsmen, or Manifesto-writing, gun-toting tax evaders in dire need of therapy and antiseptic. But if I’m reading the cultural tea leaves correctly, don’t be surprised if a new generation of communes pops up in the rural US, featuring sustainable agriculture, green technologies, and like-minded families committed to raising and educating their children together, beyond the daily influence of American consumerism and popular culture. Tomorrow’s commune is M. Night’s Village with solar paneling and no creepy monster suits.
There are many, many reasons why I love PowerPoint. It’s intuitive…it helps make eloquent and impactful arguments…and pardon my dorkiness, but it can be downright fun to use. But I also hate PowerPoint. While it can be a very um…powerful tool, I believe it has dumbed down corporate culture.
The new fat-blasting wonder drug, alli, is terrifying. I’m talking “Poltergeist” clown terrifying. The product poses some unique marketing challenges, to say the least.
In the pre-Internet days of my younger geekdom, I used to participate in the BBS scene. I recall it with the nostalgia typical of other geeks. It was almost entirely text-based, the community was selective, elitist, stratified by a loose caste system based on age in the community and expertise, and adorned with the sexiness of the clandestine.
There are few people I despise as much as Dick Cheney, but Carlos Mencia makes the shortlist.
Video Game maker Rockstar’s newest gorefest, Manhunt 2, got the axe this week by the British Board of Film Classification. The ban prohibits the game’s sale in the U.K. America’s Entertainment Software Rating Board followed suit, classifying the game Adults Only - a rating big boxes like Best Buy, Walmart, and Target refuse to stock. While Rockstar is no stranger to controversy (the Grand Theft Auto oeuvre is a perennial cause célèbre for parent and religious groups), they certainly weren’t expecting this level of backlash, and they’re racing to save what was sure to be a blockbuster. Is the content of this game really so much worse than past offerings?
I have a confession. In the late 80s when I was too young to know any better, I was a headbanger (Not really me, but you get the idea). Thank god I was only in the fifth grade, too young and naive to even realize Rob Halford of Judas Priest was gay, let alone old enough to have full say in my style of dress and haircut. Otherwise who knows, I may have been the only fifth grader that looked like this .
Hold me back. No, really. I need to be restrained after reading that NBC is forking out $1 million to Paris Hilton for the rights to her first post-prison interview.
We have to risk being "fools" both as marketers and young lovers because that is what offers all the risk and all the reward of being real and in a relationship.
So I’m walking through the security line at LaGuardia when a guard holds up my quart-sized baggie and yells, “Whose is this?” Uh-oh, this spells TROUBLE.
When I first moved to the United States, I was struck by the free, not to say wasteful, use of resources.
My dream of standing in Contestant’s Row and proudly declaring, at the top of my lungs, “ONE DOLLAR, BOB!” has officially died.
No, the title isn't a new curse word. It's the Swiss German term for farmers’ radio. Much has been said about the revival of seasonal produce, the rise of farmers’ markets and the convergence of urban and rural lifestyles. But little has been done to celebrate the farmers, their lifestyles and the important role they play in society, except for Buureradio, a Swiss Internet radio station.
Step right up! Have you seen the recently unveiled logo for the 2012 London Olympic Games? If not, here it is.
Last night at the 2007 MTV Movie Awards, America’s favorite fire-breathing potty mouth, Sarah Silverman , gave Paris Hilton the in-person verbal beat down she’s deserved for far too long. The hotel heiress’ on-camera response was the icing on the cake of Silverman’s tasteless, delightfully lowbrow joke.
Meet Bacon, my daughter’s stuffed pig. He and I have a love-hate relationship.
Burt’s Bees, known for its trademark yellow packaging, affinity for honey and aromatherapeutic salves, is leading the conversation about what is truly ‘natural’ in the beauty and personal-care category.
What do you know about Dutch Wax? Nothing? Neither did I. That is, until I came across Yinka Shonibare’s work.
There is a renewed focus on manners and etiquette. Or, so it appears. The marketplace is filled with branded advice: “Manners” by Kate Spade, “Table Manners for Teenagers” by Tiffany’s, “Essential Manners for Couples” by Peter Post, great-grandson of Emily Post! A recent Google search for “etiquette consultant” also yielded a whopping 807,000 results. Not to mention the hundreds of magazines telling us how to dress, where to vacation, what to eat, how to decorate our homes – all to prevent the many socially inexcusable faux-pas we so easily commit. Terrific, the world is about to be a better place!
This just in: American kids are becoming obese at an alarming rate. Oh wait. We already knew that. But oooh, now we have a whole new set of player pieces to move along the Blame Game board.
Stephen Colbert is a comic genius, and in my opinion (and his), one of today’s most relevant pop culture icons. Not only do I love his overall schtick and political satire, but Colbert’s delivery and improv skills demonstrate remarkable comedic talent. However, Colbert’s true mastery may be in his ability to engage a new type of audience: today’s digital culture.
Here’s the bottom line problem with cheating in business school. It doesn’t help you in business.
Kinder Schokolade, one of Germany’s most famous brands is getting ready for a facelift…literally. For forty years, the chocolate brand has been a sweet staple in countless kids’ diets while promising parents that the treat would provide an extra portion of milk to their tots. Don’t laugh.
I’m not a literary snob. My reading these days consists of Entertainment Weekly or Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, if I’m able to focus on a page at all. And yet, when I read this week about a new video game designed to help students understand Shakespeare, I nearly lost my mind.
Remember Sassy magazine? If you do, and you loved it as much as I did, let’s talk.
Alright, I am about to step on really thin ice and will likely be accused of being just another snobby European. Here it goes: When will the linguistic globalization finally reach America? Did you know when you order a panini, you technically order a rolls? No, not a typo. Panini in Italian is plural for panino (a roll). I wish they charged you for rolls instead of one roll but they don’t know any better. Same with cappuccino. No, it’s not cappuccinos, Dio mio! See panino, and you will know the answer.
Starbucks and other "experience brands" need to evolve into the age of brand meaning quickly. Why? Because the brands that win today are ones that drive social agendas.
What’s wrong with the current preoccupation with all things green? I have friends who say the environmental initiatives sprouting like weeds are the consumer and the market taking control – AT LAST! - of issues the White House would rather ignore. A global, cultural surge towards sustainability. Something to applaud and encourage! Maybe. But I don’t believe everything green is worth celebrating this spring.
Today's New York Times title page announced: Firefighters Symbol of Pride Gets Image Upgrade. Sounded like a rather innocent piece of news. But, as I read on, it became clear that the New York Fire Department's unofficial patches are either being refashioned, or eliminated all together, if deemed inappropriate. These patches are worn on the right sleeve, opposite the department's official patch.
Maybe, but solid brand strategy and management might be a more tangible and, frankly, smarter move for England’s monarchy. Why? Because Queen Elizabeth II is a brand in and of herself. Look no further than to the movie The Queen and you realize her majesty is an iconic brand in her own right.
A recent post from BBH Labs turned our attention to a short video clip from management consultant Tom Peters, in which he discusses his perspective on how storytelling isn’t just a marketing hot topic of the day, but rather something that is in our genes as human beings – we translate everything that happens to us in life into stories. If we communicate this way amongst each other as people, why should it be any different when brands speak to consumers?
The internet has been a great unifier of people, companies and online networks. Powerful forces are threatening to balkanise it.
As the busiest time of the year is about to kick in for many of you, we thought we’d keep things lighthearted this month. Check out the rise in 'mature materialism': experienced, less-easily shocked, outspoken consumers who appreciate brands that are more daring, outspoken, even a bit more risqué.
Waleed Al Mokarrab Al Muhairi discusses Mubadala’s double bottom line, bridging investment and development.
With the arrival of Hispanic Heritage month, people in the media and marketing worlds have already started to talk about what the new Census results could reveal next year. Jackie Hernandez, the chief operating officer of Telemundo, speaks eloquently and passionately about the "New Now" which is her vision (supported by tons of data) of what lies ahead for these great United States.
Whoever said technology was dehumanizing was wrong. On screens everywhere — cellphones, e-readers, A.T.M.’s — as Diana Ross sang, we just want to reach out and touch. Scientists and academics who study how we interact with technology say people often try to import those behaviors into their lives, as anyone who has ever wished they could lower the volume on a loud conversation or Google their brain for an answer knows well. But they say touching screens has seeped into people’s day-to-day existence more quickly and completely than other technological behaviors because it is so natural, intimate and intuitive.
Writer and artist Jonathan Harris laments about the lack of humanness on the internet, blaming online tools and social networks for offering the same kind of bland user-experiences across platforms. He also says that while communication has become shorter and faster, there will be a time when we will crave more in-depth, emotional interactions with people, but it would be difficult to move back from a digital world to the past.
American workers are mad as hell, and they’re not going to take it anymore. That’s the clear message of flight attendant Steven Slater’s emergence as a “working-class hero,” after he threw his job away with a tirade against passengers and a slide down an exit chute. Slater’s fifteen minutes of fame may be winding down, but his heady time in the spotlight—he was the subject of numerous tribute songs and his Facebook fan page drew more than two hundred thousand people—suggested just how frustrated employees are with stagnant pay, stressful working conditions, and obnoxious customers. Still, there was something a little surprising about the adulation. After all, the public comprises customers as well as workers, and everyone knows that the contemporary customer is mad as hell, too—fed up with inept service, indifferent employees, and customer-service departments that are harder to negotiate than Kafka’s Castle.
Internet companies have appropriated the real estate business’s mantra — it’s all about location, location, location. But while a home on the beach will always be an easy sell, it may be more difficult to persuade people to start using location-based Web services. Big companies and start-ups alike — including Google, Foursquare, Gowalla, Shopkick and most recently Facebook — offer services that let people report their physical location online, so they can connect with friends or receive coupons.
The growing dominance of social media compels marketers to abandon their old hard sell in favor of a content-driven marketing conversation that can facilitate meaningful brand relationships with customers and prospects. In this challenging environment, content is a key tool to fostering relationships, but publishing a blog, creating a Facebook fan page or launching a Twitter feed is only the beginning of a strategic content marketing program. Content marketing differs from traditional methods that employ interruption techniques in the belief that delivering helpful, relevant information drives profitable consumer action. The idea of sharing content is increasingly driving marketers to make proprietary intellectual assets available to influential audiences. Savvy content marketers create fresh information to share via all available media channels, on and off-line.
Google products are efficient, slick and -- as the coders say -- elegant. They get you from point A to point B fast. Really fast. But are they fun? That's the question for the search engine as it struggles to gain a foothold in the fast-growing and here-to-stay social web. That web isn't marked by speed and elegance but rather by pit stops and side roads that allow people to pull over, meet new or old friends, play a game and buy souvenirs. In short, have fun.
The most important thing to understand about America's "crisis of creativity" is that there isn't one. The notion that American business creativity is either at risk or in decline is laughable. Arguments that "Yankee ingenuity" is ebbing into oxymoron are ludicrous. They invite ridicule. So here it comes.
If for one reason or another, you’d slept through the past five years, only to find yourself suddenly awake in August 2010, you’d quickly realize the world of advertising and marketing has fundamentally changed in three major ways. First, subconscious or subliminal communication (and research) has become part of the vocabulary of most marketers. Second, power has shifted from brand owners to consumers - even the most powerful brands know that successful campaigns have to systematically engage consumers, who will in turn use their mighty word of mouth to spread the messages opposed to relying on big media budgets do the work. Third, 2010 is shaping up to be dominated by guilt. Guilt for spending money in the midst of a debilitating global recession, guilt for polluting the world, and finally, parental guilt, as kids increasingly engage in their own online world, far removed from traditional values that were previously the exclusive domain of the family. So what does this mean for a marketer in 2010?
If you surf the web, congratulations! You are part of the information economy. Data gleaned from your communications and transactions grease the gears of modern commerce. Not everyone is celebrating, of course. Many people are concerned and dismayed—even shocked—when they learn that "their" data are fuel for the World Wide Web. Who is gathering the information? What are they doing with it? How might this harm me? How do I stop it?
By now, we're used to letting Facebook and Twitter capture our social lives on the web -- building a "social layer" on top of the real world. At TEDxBoston, Seth Priebatsch looks at the next layer in progress: the "game layer," a pervasive net of behavior-steering game dynamics that will reshape education and commerce.
It's culturally incorrect to even suggest that the open and incessant sharing of information isn't a wonderful thing. We know more the more we know, or so the conventional wisdom goes, and not only should anything be everyone's business, but it should be provided without charge. History is a dialectic about information struggling to be free. Freedom of information evangelists call this "radical transparency" and label it an absolute good. Others might call it chaos. I worry that most of us live in the gap between this theory and reality its pursuit invents.
Openness is the mega-trend for innovation in the 21st century, and it remains the topic du jour for businesses of all kinds. Granted, it has been on the agenda of every executive ever since Henry Chesbrough’s seminal Open Innovation came out in 2003. However, as several new books elaborate upon the concept from different perspectives, and a growing number of organizations have recently launched ambitious initiatives to expand the paradigm to other areas of business, I thought it might be a good time to reframe “Open” from a design point of view.
According to Deloitte's 2010 Back-to-School Survey, three out of 10 consumers plan to use their mobile phones to assist in their back-to-school shopping. No doubt, as shoppers look to social media for product information, reviews and sales, the ecology of shopping is changing rapidly. As it does, marketers are trying to address two challenges. The first is how to strike the right balance between verified traditional methods and the pursuit of new ways of communicating with shoppers. The second challenge for marketers is to garner shopper attention, then earn and cultivate a relationship with the shopper.
These are interesting times in the social gaming industry. Two weeks ago Disney acquired Playdom, and last week Google acquired Slide. Just like that, two of the largest social game publishers have become part of larger companies. This activity all comes on the heels of EA’s acquisition of Playfish late last year. Social gaming, as a category, has grown incredibly quickly, becoming one of the dominant drivers of usage on Facebook, and an increasingly core component of people’s entertainment. This growth represents a real threat to other forms of entertainment, and has precipitated the three deals that we have seen so far.
The Internet is a medium that is evolving at breakneck speed. It’s a wild organism of sweeping cultural change — one that leaves the carcasses of dead media forms in its sizeable wake. It’s transformative: it has transformed the vast globe into a ‘global village’ and it has drawn human communication away from print-based media and into a post-Gutenberg digital era. Right now, its perils are equal to its potential. The debate over ‘net neutrality’ is at a fever pitch. There is a tug-of-war going on between an ‘open web’ and a more governed form of the web (like the Apple-approved apps on the iPad/iPhone) that has more security but less freedom.
For the first time, research shows that American creativity is declining. What went wrong—and how we can fix it.
The other day, I got an email from a new friend. The subject line read "Are you a TED talk person?" It linked to an 18-minute video of MIT behavioral economist Dan Ariely talking about the bugs in our moral codes. Other friends have sent me videos of Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert on the spiritual dimension of creativity; rocker David Byrne on how venue architecture affects musical expression; and UC Berkeley professor Robert Full's insights into how geckos' feet stick to a wall. Each of these emails is like a membership card into the club of "TED talk people." I love being a member of this club. The videos give my discovery-seeking brain a little hit of dopamine in the middle of the workday. But just as important, each one I see or recommend makes me part of a group of millions of folks around the world who have checked out these videos. What links us is our desire to learn; TEDsters feel part of a curious, engaged, enlightened, and tech-savvy tribe.
Andrew Mason figured out how to inject hysteria into the process of bargain hunting on the Web. The result is an overnight success story called Groupon.
It's 2010, and we still don't know how to describe the archetypal magnates of the next economy. We don't have a word for it, so we resort to awkward neologisms, like "information entrepreneur" or "green mogul." It's as if we're still not quite sure just what kinds of "capital" tomorrow's tycoons will be "ists" of. What are the kernels of tomorrow's prosperity?
There is a story of a young, but earnest Zen student who approached his teacher, and asked the Master, "If I work very hard and diligently, how long will it take for me to find Zen? The Master thought about this, then replied, "Ten years . ." The student then said, "But what if I work very, very hard and really apply myself to learn fast -- How long then?" Replied the Master, "Well, twenty years." "But, if I really, really work at it, how long then?" asked the student. "Thirty years," replied the Master. "But, I do not understand," said the disappointed student. "At each time that I say I will work harder, you say it will take me longer. Why do you say that?" Replied the Master, "When you have one eye on the goal, you only have one eye on the path." This is the dilemma I've faced within the American education system. We are so focused on a goal, whether it be passing a test, or graduating as first in the class. However, in this way, we do not really learn. We do whatever it takes to achieve our original objective.
I couldn’t agree more that we should take creativity “out of the art room and into the home room.” And we should start by looking to art education as a model. The National Inventors Hall of Fame school’s success in “project-based learning” emulates the studio model that has existed and been refined in art schools for hundreds of years. Learning through making actual objects in a studio equips artists and designers with the curiosity, open-ended inquiry, problem solving, critical thinking and critical making skills that are key to creative contributions. These methods are the most promising pathway available for cultivating creativity in future generations, whether kids grow up to be bankers, medical professionals or politicians.
Nike's Mark Parker brings together extreme talents, whether they're basketball stars, tattooists, or designers obsessed with shoes.
A recent post by Gareth Kay (of Goodby’s Brand Strategy discipline) turned our attention to a presentation he made at Boulder Digital Works on crafting a creative brief for the post-digital age. Kay begins by taking a (somehow comical) look at creative brief templates of yore (1992), which mostly all addressed a very common set of elements: a problem to be solved by advertising, consumers to ‘target’, a message to tell them, reasons to believe, and tone of voice. Needless to say that there is a continually expanding set of technology devices and platforms – and respective user interfaces – available in our current culture: from mobile to social media, to desktop and mobile video and others. Their impact includes facilitating a more participatory culture, making us more social, contributing to a more fragmented media landscape and leaving us ‘always on’ and conscious/communicative of our location; these factors need to be considered within an informed creative brief.
K-Mart and Marc Jacobs have something in common: low- and high-end fashion products tend to have less conspicuous brand markers than midprice goods, according to a paper soon to be published in The Journal of Consumer Research. Rather than rely on obvious logos, expensive products use more discreet markers, such as distinctive design or detailing. High-end consumers prefer markers of status that are not decipherable by the mainstream. These signal group identity only to others with the connoisseurship to recognize their insider standing.
Recent breakthroughs in neuroscience 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.
Google and Verizon announced a joint proposal on Monday that would allow ISPs to offer premium content bundles over an unspecified global network — an unexpected gambit that would seem to call for separate and unequal internets. The two companies say the guidelines would ensure that no internet traffic of any kind is prioritized over any other kind (with the exception of viruses, spam and the like).
Mark Anderson, the high-tech industry’s most accurate prognosticator, foresees an economic landscape still under the stress of too much liquidity — and decision makers still in denial.
Today’s playlist is about toys that inspire learning, innovation — and of course fun! These are the toys of the technological age: they are alive, they think, they perform magic. What were your favorite toys as a kid (or an adult), and what did they inspire in you?
I love baseball and will always await the first day of spring training with the ardor of a lover coming home after an exile. But I will never be a baseball player. It’s just not in my make-up. My misery over my failed baseball career is no different than Google’s. The world’s largest search engine covets a key to the magical kingdom called the social web. It would do anything to become part of that exclusive club that, for now, is the domain of Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook and to some extent, Twitter. Google will do just about anything to get social, like spend a rumored $182 million on San Francisco-based Slide, a head-scratcher of a deal.
Americans are spending more on electronics like iPads and flat-screen televisions and less on durable goods like furniture, washing machines and lawn mowers, according to government data released Tuesday. The shift reflects a change in priorities for American consumers. After pouring money into all aspects of their homes during the previous decade, consumers are redirecting their purchases to eye-grabbing technology and socking away more of what's left over into savings. Apparel company executives are worried the lure of electronics will eat into their sales as the back-to-school season gets under way.
Consumer spending and personal incomes were flat in June, according to government statistics released on Tuesday, the latest indication that the economy would continue to struggle in the second half of the year. The Commerce Department figures, which were seasonally adjusted, showed that personal income was steady in June, compared with a slight 0.3 percent rise in May. It was the lowest level this year and the first time in nearly a year that personal incomes have not risen compared with previous months.
The time Americans spent on social media has surged 43% in the past year, leading a substantial shift in how the country spends its online time. That time spent online has also sent e-mail to third behind gaming, according to research by Nielsen Co. The time spent on social media accessed from PCs rose from 15.8% in June 2009 to 22.7% in June 2010, according to Nielsen, while online gaming gained more modestly to 10.2% of online time from 9.3% a year earlier. But that was enough to push gaming past e-mail, which fell to 8.3% of online time spent at the PC from 10.5% a year earlier.
In early 2008, Microsoft Corp.'s product planners for the Internet Explorer 8.0 browser intended to give users a simple, effective way to avoid being tracked online. They wanted to design the software to automatically thwart common tracking tools, unless a user deliberately switched to settings affording less privacy. That triggered heated debate inside Microsoft.
If you look at the world today, it’s devoid of enough true leaders. We used to have so many. This troubles me. What has happened? Is it because people don’t want to step up to the higher responsibilities of leadership, or don’t know how to be great leaders?
Tony 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.
That’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.
One sunny spring day in 2004, Dennis Crowley was running down Waverly Street dressed in yellow, avoiding ghosts. Crowley, then a 27-year-old grad student in New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, was participating in a class project called Pac-Manhattan, which used the streets of Greenwich Village for a grueling physical version of the classic arcade game. He was Pac-Man, and—despite a support team that was logging his movements, tracking ghosts, and directing him to power pills—people dressed as Pac-Man spooks eventually cornered him near Fifth Avenue. The New York Times described the experience as “a kind of tableau of digital convergence with the physical world.”
When Peter Eckersley recently clicked on to one of America’s biggest online job sites, he was not alone for long. Using software to monitor programs running on the page of CareerBuilder.com, the researcher for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group, saw data identifying his computer being whisked off to at least 10 outfits that track where people go on the internet. More troubling was his inability to tell what the companies did with the data. His experience goes to the heart of a battle that could shape the future of life on the web – while also having very real knock-on effects in the physical world. The digital dossiers that companies are building from the browsing, searching and other habits of ordinary web users are becoming increasingly refined. At the same time, a deluge of personal information has been unleashed publicly on the web, with Facebook’s 500m users at the forefront. With rapid inroads on both fronts being made into many traditional expectations of personal privacy, the results could prove explosive.
Not so long ago, brands were in the limelight. They were seemingly powerful, and virtuous. Any inconvenient truths were hidden by glossy packaging and one-way, big-bang marketing campaigns. Now, as organizations become ever more transparent, people can see behind the marketing facade and are questioning what they are told.
In psychology, the term "identified patient" refers to a family member — often a child or a teenager — who gets scapegoated for behavior that is actually just a predictable response to dealing with an unhealthy family. Tony Hayward is BP's identified patient.
In a study out today, Forrester finds that only 4% of U.S. online adults have ever used location-based mobile apps such as Foursquare, Gowalla and Loopt. Only 1% update these services more than once per week. What's more, 84% of respondents said they are not familiar with such apps, leaving the vast majority of Americans online still in the dark about location-based apps, which have had the marketing world obsessing over them in recent months.
The rock-star CMO is dead, but the post-rock-star CMO is quietly living pretty large. The era of the high-profile, big-personality, high-production-value chief marketing officer -- which was already going wobbly as the recession began -- has ended definitively with the departures in the past year of the likes of Unilever's Simon Clift and Kodak's Jeff Hayzlett. Yet the less-ostentatious personalities that increasingly populate CMO slots have something their rock-star forbears lacked: power.
They see life as a game. They enjoy nothing more than outsmarting the system. They don’t trust politicians, medias, nor brands. They see corporations as inefficient and plagued by an outmoded hierarchy. Even if they harbor little hope of doing better than their parents, they don’t see themselves as unhappy. They belong to a group — several, actually — they trust and rely upon. “They”, are the Digital Natives.
A couple of months or so after becoming Britain’s prime minister, David Cameron wanted a few tips from somebody who could tell him how it felt to be responsible for, and accountable to, many millions of people: people who expected things from him, even though in most cases he would never shake their hands. He turned not to a fellow head of government but to…Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and boss of Facebook, the phenomenally successful social network.
After the dogged recession and uncertainty of recent years, it seems we're coming out of it in a more hopeful, optimistic mood. So why not focus on positive emotion and happiness in marketing? We've always believed in leveraging "enjoyment" for the consumer brands we work with. Nothing elicits more of an emotional response from people than associations of "enjoyment" with brands.
Everyone knows they should eat fruits and vegetables. Few people hear it from fast-food companies and snack purveyors. That is changing as companies that make foods rich in fat and salt aggressively market healthier options.
It has become customary to use “graph” to refer to the underlying data structures at social networks like Facebook. (Computer scientists call the study of graphs “network theory,” but on the web the word “network” is used to refer to the websites themselves). A graph consists of a set of nodes connected by edges. The original internet graph is the web itself, where webpages are nodes and links are edges. In social graphs, the nodes are people and the edges friendship. Edges are what mathematicians call relations.
A 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 than ever. Others were destroyed, or forced to merge. A handful limped on, weakened but not ruined.
When historians of the future look back on the perils of the early digital age, Stacy Snyder may well be an icon. The problem she faced is only one example of a challenge that, in big and small ways, is confronting millions of people around the globe: how best to live our lives in a world where the Internet records everything and forgets nothing — where every online photo, status update, Twitter post and blog entry by and about us can be stored forever.
If social media warranted a mantra, it would sound something like this, "Always pay it forward and never forget to pay it back...it's how you got here and it defines where you're going." This intentional form of alternative giving is referred to as "generalized reciprocity" or "generalized exchange." The capital of this social economy is measured in these productive relationships and those relationships are earned through the acts of reciprocity, recognition, respect and benevolence. So how can businesses, which, one could argue, typically represent a "pay it backward" approach (ie, "pay me for my goods and services"), thrive in this environment?
Most companies are barely prepared to deal with unhappy customers who use social media to air their gripes. Now they must be ready to respond when organized entities, such as Greenpeace, wage massive campaigns against their brands using social media channels.
Amazon.com Inc. said it reached a milestone, selling more e-books than hardbacks over the past three months. But publishers said it is still too early to gauge for the entire industry whether the growth of e-books is cannibalizing sales of paperback books, a huge and crucial market.
Business leaders face the most disruptive market conditions in decades as competition keeps increasing, large rivals continue to compete aggressively by buying market share, new entrants are more nimble and substitute products seem to pop up almost at every turn. To deal with these changes, telecommunication providers -- telephone companies, cable TV companies, wireless companies and satellite TV companies -- need to change their organizational design as "inside-out" structures that put products, not customers, at the center of the organization. They need to become truly customer-centric, and to get there, they need to take these three critical steps.
Old 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). It prompted numerous copycat videos and got covered by just about every news outlet in America. Now what?
The Devil's Advocate is a regular staffer in most offices. "Let me play Devil's Advocate" is a socially acceptable way to shoot down an idea. It's a guise that allows anyone to criticize an idea without offering an alternative. It's far easier (and safer) to tear down than to create. You can undermine what someone has just proposed without actually challenging them directly.
All year long Forbes comes out with lists of the world's richest people--the youngest billionaires, the most eligible billionaires, the richest women, the wealthiest families on each continent. People find it fascinating to track the waning and waxing of personal wealth, watching as perennial front-runners Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are eclipsed by a Mexican telecom titan and chased by various silver-spoon princes of Asia and the Middle East. To be among the world's wealthiest is the stuff of many a daydream. And yet our communal vision of what it means to be "rich" is changing.
I’ve finally gotten around to reading “The Opposite of Fate: A Book of Musings,” a book released quite awhile ago by Amy Tan, the author of best-selling novels like The Joy Luck Club and The Kitchen God’s Wife. Tan includes many insights about story-telling and communication in general which I believe can be applied to developing brand strategies. One of such “musings” is “Five Writing Tips” — an edited version of a speech given as a commencement address at Simmons College, in Boston, in 2003. Although her remarks were intended to inspire a new generation to write and think differently, I found they also provide helpful guidelines for creating brand strategy.
When 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.
One only needs to note the proliferation of Victory Gardens during World War II or the past year's explosion of community plots to know that when economic times are tough, Americans head back to the garden. But today's gardeners are also sowing seeds for weight-loss and environmentalism, according to legendary American seed company Burpee, the country's oldest and largest seed purveyor. As Burpee CEO George Ball noted earlier this year, sales of Burpee seeds are up 15-20% in 2010, and consumers are not only turning the soil to save money: Ball says that people are looking to the garden for emotional and physical growth as well.
It wasn't a multi-million dollar television campaign for a Fortune 50 company, nor was it a digital media program for some new-age service. Instead, the Grand Effie award was given to the Detroit Public Schools (DPS) for a very simple, and cost-efficient word-of-mouth program to encourage student enrollment. Here's what they did.
Corporate social responsibility, or CSR, means companies aligning their values with a greater good and taking action to have a positive effect. They often do so through "cause marketing," joining forces with nonprofit organizations and focusing ad campaigns on those philanthropic relationships. Why are more companies than ever flaunting their good works this way? Partly, experts say, because they realize that their employees want to be part of a business that does more than just make money.
Many departments within a corporation will argue the need for accountability in marketing, but none steps forward to take ownership of how to account for brand equity. Theoretically, the CEO is responsible for the value of the corporate brand. Unfortunately, it is a rare CEO who understands how brand equity value is created. CEOs would love to see their company prosper, but few understand how to take command or utilize the tools available to make it so.
A citizen of the Internet has a very different experience. The Internet smashes hierarchy and is not marked by deference. Maybe it would be different if it had been invented in Victorian England, but Internet culture is set in contemporary America. Internet culture is egalitarian. The young are more accomplished than the old. The new media is supposedly savvier than the old media. The dominant activity is free-wheeling, disrespectful, antiauthority disputation.
Social Media started out as a bit of a novelty — a playground for the “geekerati.” But it has taken hold as a game changing force that will reshape advertising at its very core. It’s time to move past debates about traditional media co-existing with social media. Madison Avenue should see social media as a wonderful, if not disruptive, gift. It should run hard to catch up with the consumer, let go of legacy business models and build something better.
Did ESPN just get "mediajacked"? Come Thursday, in prime time no less, ESPN gets the exclusive. But to do it, the Disney sports network appears to have sacrificed revenue -- and even some journalistic control by letting Mr. James choose one of his interviewers -- in exchange for the ratings and buzz the event is likely to provide. Commercial revenue from the special program -- which is being called "The Decision" -- will be donated to Boys & Girls Club of America, a charity that ESPN and Disney also support.
Brand owners face a "new world order" in which their customers have redefined notions of value and are placing different demands on the products they buy, a study has argued. The Boston Consulting Group conducted a survey of 12,057 people in 14 nations, including Brazil, China, Germany, India, Japan, Russia, the UK and US. It found that while many shoppers thought there was room for optimism in 2010, overall anxiety levels were considerably higher than in the spring of 2007, before the recession had begun to bite.
Social media didn’t invent conversations, it provided us with tools to surface and organize them. Conversations about brands predates the mediums used to connect messages and aspirations with consumers. The motivation for brands to engage in social networks varies based on the culture and agility of each company, but what is constant is the aspiration to connect with customers and prospects to earn awareness, attention and connections.
Levi's annual Fourth of July campaign, Go Forth, this year focused on the theme of work and on the residents of the recession-battered community of Braddock, PA. Check out its latest campaign above and after the jump, including a spot for Levi's Workshops, inviting the public to "roll up your sleeves, get your hands dirty, and get down to work" at workshops located across the U.S.
I'll never forget attending my first World Cup game. It was back in 1994 and took place in my hometown Rose Bowl, the same field where I marched in gleeful pride at Pasadena High School's graduation. Romania squared off vs. Argentina. The game was nothing short of electrifying. Back then my word-of-mouth trajectory seemed unlimited. Armed with both AOL and Compuserve accounts, my post-game "dude, I was there" viral dispatches flew across my network of friends, family, business-school classmates and fellow P&G summer interns with almost unrestrained velocity.
It's inevitable that as organizations navigate the complex world of sustainability, they will experience some internal cognitive dissonance about how they operate. Nobody said it was easy to balance the competing forces of (a) the inertia of how things have always been done, (b) the desire to meet the assumed needs of customers (for, say, welcoming, well-lit rooms), and (c) new pressures and questions about environmental and social performance. But forcing your customers to confront these choices or, worse, making them do the work themselves, is not a good option.
The number of advertisers with presences in the social media like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are increasing faster than the lines at the supermarket when the values of the cents-off coupons are being tripled. Now, two familiar brands of baked goods sold by Kraft Foods are stepping up their marketing efforts in social media.
From cars to designer clothes to children’s toys, there’s a growing trend towards “transumerism” and “collaborative consumption,” which emphasize sharing, renting and experiencing over owning. Is it just a fad? Or is this a significant trend that will reshape our approach to goods and commerce? I’ve pondered what I call “cloud living” before. Now let’s dig deeper.
Wal-Mart's move to eliminate 20 million metric tons of greenhouse gases from its supply chain in the next five years is impressive. It's also an example of the world's largest retailer exerting a blunt form of regulatory vigilantism.
Did you know that the US is the world’s second-largest Spanish-speaking country? It’s true. In fact, there are 46.3 million Hispanics in the US today, and 20 million of them use the internet. Are you targeting the Hispanic market with search? If not, perhaps it’s time you considered doing so.
PSFK sat down with Anna Klingmann for a conversation covering trends in architecture as they pertain to sustainability and health. Her agency, Klingmann, specializes in a niche area where architecture meets branding. Although not all applications of branding will bring about improved communities and healthier living/working spaces, Klingmann’s work clearly demonstrates the importance of branding in nurturing a sense of belonging.
An annual orgasm of self-love -- remember, the awards aren't voted by clients or consumers -- suggests to me that the advertising industry is still unable to talk to itself about what's happening. Creative ain't what it used to be. Actually, it never was. For the entirety of human history, advertising was a vehicle to get people to buy things. Creativity was important as long as it was applied to this goal; even corporate ads from the late 1800s had a direct link to a sales strategy.
While the Rolling Stone article "The Runaway General" created enough of a flap to lead to U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal's public downfall, it also represented the culmination of the very heady rebirth of a counterculture brand.
Clay Shirky looks at "cognitive surplus" -- the shared, online work we do with our spare brain cycles. While we're busy editing Wikipedia, posting to Ushahidi (and yes, making LOLcats), we're building a better, more cooperative world.
There is a good chance that if you are reading this article you already have a personal Facebook account. There's also a possibility that many of you may be trying your hand at tapping into the power of the 400 million-plus members on Facebook. However, Facebook's recent announcements on how its platform is evolving may be as clear as mud. To that end, the goal of this article is to break the latest news into four areas: 1. Graph API 2. Analytics 3. Storable data 4. Social plug-ins. Within each area, we'll translate the technical into what it means (at a high level) and, most important, how brands will benefit.
Apple, without a doubt, is creating a massive sea change in how we interact with digital content. Note that I didn't say "the Web." This is because the millions of iPad and iPhone users spend more time within Apple's walled garden of apps rather than in a browser. However, there's a potential dark side to the millions of Apple devices being sold and it should give every marketer pause.
A campaign for a clothing brand is rolling up its sleeves, figuratively and literally, as the ads are set in an actual distressed town and the advertiser donates money to help revitalization efforts there. The campaign is for the flagship Levi’s brand sold by Levi Strauss & Company, and it is the start of the second year of an initiative that carries the theme “Go forth.”
I will try to demonstrate here the manner in which social acts and communication result in mediated social realities. And suggest that the relational connections and value-added associations which are the byproduct of social media use create a marketplace of content whose highest value, individually motivated subjective choices, we are only beginning to capture and mine.
Aleksandr is one of the more prominent examples of the trend for animated characters or puppets to act as brand ambassadors. US consumers have long been charmed by the frogs that feature in Budweiser’s advertising or the cockney gecko that stars in Geico’s campaigns. Meanwhile, Domo, the saw-toothed mascot for Japanese broadcaster NHK, has gone on to appear in video games and comics, and spread virally online. But the proliferation and popularity of these creations and the merchandising they have spawned raises questions for both brand owners and advertising agencies hoping to capitalise on the value of the intellectual property.
The past is making a comeback in brands and branding today and it's not unusual at all. Marketers recognize that in our weird and wonderful minds we believe former days are better days and that even people too young to remember feel a fondness for places and products that evoke happier times.
A brand has to have a reason for being. It should make a difference in the world in some way. Moreover, a brand has to have an organization that powers it -- an organization that is passionate and committed to bringing that brand to life in all facets of the company. The power of a brand starts from the people who create the experience every day. And the purpose the brand represents needs to come through at every possible touch point.
24/7 Wall St. regularly compiles a report of brands that are likely to disappear in the near-term. Last April, and again in December, we published our findings. Usually, it would take a full year before such a list could be compiled again. However, the current economic climate has accelerated this process and a majority of the brands on the first two lists are either gone, have been acquired, or have filed for bankruptcy. Last April, 24/7 Wall St. identified twelve brands that our analysis showed would disappear, including Saturn, Borders, Palm, AIG and Eddie Bauer.
Twitter this week began testing a new type of advertising: "Promoted Trends." Under the new system, brands can pay to appear below the "Trending Topics," the most talked-about terms on Twitter at any given moment. The idea is, in a word, ingenious -- the perfect way to generate revenue from the popular social network without infuriating users.
Even as we pull out of the economic downturn, many people are still curtailing spending because a new meaning of "value" is taking hold. This shift is particularly prominent among what we call the "Post-88s" -- females, age 22 and under -- who have grown up with social media. Their story of self-identity and its impact on value is so distinct from the older half of the Gen Y population that they can no longer be considered as one market.
Rachel Botsman is the co-author of "What's Mine is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption." Here, with a dazzlingly graphic display, she presents a compelling case for 21st Century sharing.
Although luxury brands remained surprisingly isolated from the downturn in 2007 and 2008, 2009 was tough on all sectors, including haute couture. Even the acclaimed Christian Lacroix was driven out of business. Naturally, when circumstances call for bold actions, it's tempting to expand your market to enhance your bottom line. But is it possible without compromising the luxury nature of your brand?
Consumers generated word-of-mouth buzz about the brand, in many cases, without any incentives—something O’Brien sees as being crucial to long-term engagement with fans. In an interview with Brandweek, O’Brien discussed the results of both "DEWmocracy" campaigns, and how, moving forward, social media and crowdsourcing will play a bigger role in the brand’s innovation.
Kicking off Nielsen’s Consumer 360 conference in Las Vegas, Irene Rosenfeld, Chairman and CEO of Kraft Foods addressed the ways reaching consumers have changed significantly over the last twenty years and how the Internet and social media are increasingly important components of overall marketing strategies. Previously, brands acted as teachers, according to Rosenfeld. Marketing was designed to build an image around a brand with the expectation that consumers would be attracted to it; they would aspire to the brand. Today, that “paradigm is upside down,” as brands want to learn from consumers and find ways to connect with them.
Last week we looked a ranking of the top ten brands on Facebook globally, based on the number of people who ‘like’ them. There were no real surprises – Starbucks came top and the rest of the top ten was filled with well-known consumer and fashion brands. The same dataset, from Famecount, can be used to look at brands on Twitter and, unlike with Facebook, it throws up some unexpected findings. For example the most followed brand in the UK isn’t a consumer or fashion brand, an airline or a bank. It’s a museum: @Tate.
They are among the World's Hottest Brands, an Ad Age Insights global report that tells the stories of 30 brands succeeding on a global, regional and local level. The goal was not to create a list of the largest global marketers or rank the brands that contribute the most to their company's market value -- plenty of others tackle those lofty questions. Rather, we sought to chronicle the brands percolating at the local and regional level; sometimes great marketing lessons can happen in your backyard, sometimes halfway around the world.
Brandchannel’s weekly Digital Watch feature takes a deeper look at brands’ digital strategy. Our latest case study, McDonald’s, takes a multi-tiered approach to digital branding that cozies up to moms to reinforce its nutritional, family values.
As Nike's top marketer, Trevor Edwards, VP-global brand and category management, has helped the world's leading footwear and apparel company grow its market-share lead by becoming possibly the world's most accomplished digital marketer.
The era of the Web browser’s dominance is coming to a close. And the Internet’s founding ideology—that information wants to be free, and that attempts to constrain it are not only hopeless but immoral— suddenly seems naive and stale in the new age of apps, smart phones, and pricing plans. What will this mean for the future of the media—and of the Web itself?
On Tuesday, G.M. sent a memo to Chevrolet employees at its Detroit headquarters, promoting the importance of “consistency” for the brand, which was the nation’s best-selling line of cars and trucks for more than half a century after World War II. And one way to present a consistent brand message, the memo suggested, is to stop saying “Chevy,” though the word is one of the world’s best-known, longest-lived product nicknames.
I may be looking too hard for hopeful signs but I think we may be at the threshold of a reformation in advertising, which will mean larger changes in the communications world overall. Here are two of them and why I think they’re important (and somewhat related).
Studying the humanities will give you a familiarity with the language of emotion. In an information economy, many people have the ability to produce a technical innovation: a new MP3 player. Very few people have the ability to create a great brand: the iPod. Branding involves the location and arousal of affection, and you can’t do it unless you are conversant in the language of romance.
In the third millennium it’s getting harder than ever to stay in place. Who hasn’t seen a driver almost crash while talking on a cell phone? Who hasn’t noticed children in a park staring down at a game-boy instead of romping about? Who hasn’t been to a dinner party and caught someone sneaking a glance at his handheld under the table and sending a tweet about the first course before even finishing it? Each week, it seems, industry comes up with new gadgets that help us to jump out of our bodies and flash out there to everything under the sun that can be encoded by electrical signals, pulses of light and binary values. Few of these digital experiences would have registered before the 21st century and some have become widespread only in the past few years. We’re in the first stage of a transformation of our sense of place as momentous as that which occurred a couple of centuries ago, when products from smoke-stacked factories forged modern society.
Long gone are the days when 'online' was synonymous with social isolation and loneliness. In fact, we're now witnessing the exact opposite: technology is driving people to connect and meet up en masse with others, in the 'real world'. It makes for an interesting, easily-digested trend, begging to be turned into new services for your customers.
Pepsi's social media-backed community change effort, dubbed “Refresh Project,” is off to a good start. So far, the soft beverage giant has funded more than 100 projects and given back approximately $5 million to local communities, according to Ana Maria Irazabal, marketing director for Pepsi. With new entries and winners announced every month, the brand is on track to hit its goal of $20 million in grant money this year. "Refresh Project" is also helping Pepsi expands its already massive presence on Facebook, Twitter, and other social nets. The initiative has sparked human interaction and is affecting change in communities, Irazabal said.
Given the variety of needs and considerations by different municipality audiences, the question I most often am asked by stakeholders interested in municipality branding is, “Can one brand position work for a municipality or do we need a separate brand position for each audience?” The answer is “yes.” Yes, one overarching brand position can work but it must be designed to work with more specific brand messages for each audience.
While the Internet and social media are a potential boon to market researchers, they've also raised concerns and ongoing debate about methodology and the ability to project results. Now, one social media-based research firm is charging into the fray with a report that maintains that today's empowered consumers and marketers' need for faster, actionable insights requires an approach that combines the strengths of newer, "humanistic" approaches with those of traditional, experimentally-based research.
If you're trolling the web and hit upon an Examiner.com story, you might think you're reading the San Francisco Examiner. But you're not. Instead, Examiner.com is a crowd-sourced content play with the backing of billionaire investor Philip Anschutz. With over 40,000 freelancers in more than 240 neighborhoods, the Denver-based start-up aims to dominate every province of local news, bringing marketers and advertising along with it.
The first decisive marketing goal of World Cup 2010 was scored nearly three years before the opening match of the soccer tournament, in which Mexico will face South Africa on Friday. It came when Nike, the American sports shoe and clothing maker, acquired Umbro, a British supplier of soccer gear that is a longtime sponsor of the English national team. The deal signaled a new determination by Nike to challenge Adidas, the German soccer apparel powerhouse, on its European home turf.
Will the idea of a "generation gap" eventually atrophy into obsolescence? We see this not only in the video-game world, but also in other brands: moms and daughters with matching Ugg boots, Juicy Couture sweatsuits, Abercrombie hoodies and Coach handbags. Fathers and sons comparing fantasy football rankings on matching iPhones or killing precious productivity hours on YouTube. Teachers and students sipping from matching Starbucks latte cups or ordering the same items from Pinkberry. Moms and daughters rooting feverishly for their favorite "American Idol" contestants or shaking their heads in utter disgust at the shameless and hygienically dubious conduct of the latest batch of "The Real World" participants.
All of these are disconnected events; a Polaroid snapshot of our psychology at a single moment in time. Some of these memes are ephemeral. Others may be lasting. However, our success as marketers increasingly hinges on having a deep, real-time understanding of our networked environment and how these themes can impact our programs. Enter situational awareness--an essential skill every CMO-level executive and his staff must build and evolve.
As Mr. St. Angelo and several other longtime American executives tell it, a new era has arrived at Toyota. Its face is Mr. Toyoda, who this month reaches his first year as president, and by these accounts, has come to appreciate how closely Toyota flirted with disaster in the United States — and is prepared to shake things up because of it.
Corporate strategists often struggle with strategic options. First, there's a lot of worrying about what they have to come up with to make the proposed option credible: they spend hours on SWOT analyses and spreadsheets, which gives them reasons to kill their ideas at worst and can slow down the process of coming up with ideas at best.
PBR can trace its success directly to its failure. It started the 2000s as a has-been brand name, so pointless and uncool that it was perfectly poised to become cool when it was touched by the dark, abstract magic that drives consumer trends. No schmarty-pants marketer can take credit for architecting the Phoenix-like rise that followed; the brand was owned by a charitable trust that knows about as much about consumer tastes as you'd expect a charitable trust to know. It didn't hurt that PBR was the beer of choice for the wacky Dennis Hopper character in the movie "Blue Velvet" but the brand's revival was pretty much organic, from what I can tell.
Kentucky Fried Chicken, the serial phony immortalized in some of the most stunningly dishonest marketing efforts of the past 10 years. The chain's latest outrage is a promotion with the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, in which 50 cents is donated to the foundation for every special pink bucket of chicken purchased -- that is, for every 20 grams of sodium, every 2,500 calories, every 120 grams of fat in KFC's smallest pail. Whoa. How low can you go?
Judy Hu, GE's global director of advertising and branding, on stage at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference last week, discussed a new effort by GE to crowdsource ideas for how to "avoid the lame and embrace the awesome" in digital media. Over the next four days, GE collected 60 suggestions, ranging from ideas for ad campaigns to product concepts. The effort is the latest example of a worldwide brand testing the crowdsourcing waters. The move has put the spotlight back on the ongoing debate about the value of such efforts -- including to creators.
Everyone is talking about the new Nike World Cup spot, and with good reason: It's a beautifully told story that transcends media formats to deliver a truly emotional and inspirational experience. In 30 seconds, it appears that Nike finally cracked the code by combining compelling narrative with the power of digital distribution. And, Wieden & Kennedy showed us what it means for a brand to truly participate in culture. Or, did it? Is this really still a way to build a strong digital brand?
We are living in a world of skeptics, where credibility remains essential to engaging customers in a conversation. Yet companies no longer get the benefit of the doubt they once could expect. In this environment marketers need to remember the long-forgotten best policy concerning honesty--something often obscured in today's ultra-sophisticated marketing and communication dogma. When it comes to effectively engaging your audience and truly establishing trust, talking about a product's weaknesses can actually be the best way to communicate its--and your--strengths.
British Airways cabin crew are on strike for the second of what could be a number of strikes this year. Last minute talks were taking place over the weekend until they broke up. And BA CEO, Willie Walsh, is blaming the collapse of the talks on Twitter.
Social Media marketing is not new nor is it widely established or even understood. However in 2010, it will completely transform the way businesses attract customers and the way consumers find the businesses and services that matter to them. And like that, an overnight landmark, which really is over a decade in the making, will challenge business owners, more so than today, as they now compete for the future, right now. Social Networks are no longer the playgrounds we once perceived. The simple truth is this; social networking is not for just for kids or people with too much free time on their hands.
By all official indications, the Great Recession has very likely ended. But as marketers, we know better than to interpret this to mean we can pick up right where we left off prior to the steep economic slide. Many consumers have readjusted their budgets and some continue to cope with concerns about the security of their jobs. Even those who have not been directly touched are still anxious about the future. Things that once mattered to our customers no longer seem so important to them. That's why we have to reconnect with them in a way that reflects their new reality.
Facebook's imbroglio over privacy reveals what may be a fatal business model. I know because my students at Parsons The New School For Design tell me so. They live on Facebook and they are furious at it. This was the technology platform they were born into, built their friendships around, and expected to be with them as they grew up, got jobs, and had families. They just assumed Facebook would evolve as their lives shifted from adolescent to adult and their needs changed. Facebook's failure to recognize this culture change deeply threatens its future profits. At the moment, it has an audience that is at war with its advertisers. Not good.
Today, much of the marketing world has embraced the spirit of the digital age, and perhaps the strongest evidence is that it's doing a lot of work that's not so, well, "digital." The best companies have harnessed the digital mindset and taken the shareable, ongoing, interactive, participatory nature of digital and created brand experiences that matter to people where they ought to -- in their real, everyday lives.
People who find the Web distasteful — ugly, uncivilized — have nonetheless been forced to live there: it’s the place to go for jobs, resources, services, social life, the future. But now, with the purchase of an iPhone or an iPad, there’s a way out, an orderly suburb that lets you sample the Web’s opportunities without having to mix with the riffraff. This suburb is defined by apps from the glittering App Store: neat, cute homes far from the Web city center, out in pristine Applecrest Estates. In the migration of dissenters from the “open” Web to pricey and secluded apps, we’re witnessing urban decentralization, suburbanization and the online equivalent of white flight.
When top executives set out to build well-regarded companies, most start in their home countries. If they're successful, strong business practices and values they craft there will translate overseas. As companies become more connected and businesses more international, creating a first-class reputation across borders is critical. For some companies, this can be the difference between success and failure. So what is the secret to earning esteem that spans the world? And which companies are best at doing it?
We've all been there. It's that dreaded moment of truth when you realize that having The Talk, The Big Conversation, perhaps even The Great Ultimatum, is inescapable. It could involve your child, your spouse, your subordinate or your colleague. But in every case, it only arrives when it's too late to pretend that the conflicts aren't there or don't really matter. If you're in marketing, that moment often means getting to the bottom of differences that, in so many companies, force your own professional efforts out of phase with those of sales. And in a dicey economy, when doing more with less has become a mantra, alignment between the two functions has now become a core survival strategy.
Like motherhood and apple pie, corporate social responsibility has achieved iconic status as a feel-good pursuit. Corporations around the world have embraced its charitable philosophy and created divisions devoted to its pursuit. The problem, however, is that corporate social responsibility — by design and definition — can only go so far. Because no matter how widely a firm defines its reach, and how generous its leadership grows, the primary objective of any for-profit firm in a capitalist system will still be as Friedman described it: to maximize the returns of its shareholders. Or at least not to engage in any activity that undermines those returns.
Sometime in the next few weeks, Facebook will officially log its 500 millionth active citizen. If the website were granted terra firma, it would be the world's third largest country by population, two-thirds bigger than the U.S. More than 1 in 4 people who browse the Internet not only have a Facebook account but have returned to the site within the past 30 days.
This post is about the future of communication. We’ve had one-to-one communication forever. Mass-media created a revolution in one-to-many communication. And the internet has shown us the power and possibility of many-to-many communication. We are slowly starting to see the formation of a new kind of communication, which – for lack of a better term – I’m calling one-to-some communication. The promise of the social web is a fundamentally new form of communication in which each of us can move fluidly between one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many communication with each bit of information we share.
In a time of big promises and increasing consumer skepticism, building a strong corporate brand starts with understanding the truth about an organization.
Though the economy is now hinting at improved conditions ahead, consensus remains that the recession's effects on consumer spending habits will endure beyond the recovery. Much like the Great Depression changed the spending habits of a generation, the current recession has left consumers reaching past the lure of luxury in search of value-driven purchases. While this has been a boon to mass and value-priced retailers such as Target and Amazon, it has left many premium brands swooning.
Intel has a new plan for growth: getting in good with young, hip adults. This week the Santa Clara, Calif., processor giant launches, in collaboration with the Montreal-based magazine Vice, what it calls the Creator's Project--a multi-year, international marketing program designed to showcase technology-influenced art, film and music.
That social media is a powerful tool for raising awareness is not new news. But its increasing power is leading some advertisers to reconsider how they plan and measure traditional ad campaigns as they increasingly look to so-called earned media impressions as being as important as primary paid media. The promise of what some are calling "free media" is that it's more credible than paid placements, particularly when it comes from consumers speaking to other consumers.
Greenpeace's organized brandjacking of Nestle SA's Facebook page is making CMOs afraid of social media. There is good reason for this: The power has clearly turned to those that participate, and now detractors are starting to organize using the same organized marketing campaigns that companies create.
The internet changes over time. That the technology has evolved is obvious. But how we use the internet is also changing. So we have two conceptual distinctions — technology and people — that we frequently conflate into one idea of the internet. This post is about teasing apart the objective and subjective dimensions of social media, to examine what’s behind the relational economy we now live in, and its particular mode of production. All commerce and much personal and social utility implied by use of social media owes to the subjective value added to what was, previously, a mode of production of information (publishing).
Striving to do more good is associated with greater profitability, equity and asset returns, and shareholder value creation. But that's still not good enough. Today, the bar is being raised: success is itself changing. Those are yesterday's metrics of success — more importantly, maximizing good lets companies outperform on tomorrow's measures of success.
Defensive branding is protecting and defending brand equity and reputation in an increasingly consumer-driven environment. Think media planning plus actuarial viral risk management. It's first strategic, then tactical. The logic goes something like this: Sandbag before you sell. Protect before you promote. Defend before you dance. Self-critique before you self-destruct.
Whatever industry you’re in, in the end, everything is about status. And since what constitutes status in consumer societies is fragmenting rapidly, here’s a (modest) framework to help you start exploring new status symbols and stories with your customers.
A great deal of my community has given up on large organizations, stating that the “true” innovation is now happening at start-ups. What that story misses is that many of the “free agents” we see around us as consultants, and so on are actually part of a larger enterprise, albeit in a loose relationship. Larger organizations will survive if only because of the human need to be apart of something larger and the efficiencies of those ecosystems.
The environment for marketers is changing dramatically. Marketing's leadership in driving business success has never been more in demand, and those who have demonstrably begun to expand mindsets, skills and capabilities are setting the standard. The difference this shift makes has never been more evident than during the bleakness of the lingering recession. Businesses whose marketing leaders have embraced its components may not have emerged unscathed, but they at least have found themselves entering 2010 with substantial positive momentum.
Chiquita, Victoria's Secret, The GOP, Amnesty International. They all use marketing and invite trust in a distinct belief system. They're all, to one degree or another, brands. For a brand, nirvana is when your good name is so widely endorsed that it enters the language. "Pass the Kleenex." "Google it." But that's the top of a long and slippery slope--look at Toyota and Tiger Woods. A healthy brand drives up your stock, and vice versa. These are the things we thought we knew. It's 2010--are they still true?
The head of the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday outlined a proposal for regulating the Internet that he described as a "third way," or middle ground between "heavy-handed" regulation and a do-nothing approach that could hurt competition and leave consumers unprotected.
Goldman Sachs may have broken the law making gazillions betting its products would crap out, the entire country of Greece is probably going out of business, and financial services brands are telling individual investors that they deserve better from their brokers. Duh. It seems like absolutely reasonable messaging until you get into the details:
Last year was the worst year ever for global luxury goods, with worldwide sales falling 8%. But in a look at the world's most valuable luxury brands, Forbes identifies 10 that are poised to thrive in better economic times. These brands, including BMW and Louis Vuitton, share some qualities that help keep them strong even when wealthy consumers are curtailing spending.
BP isn't all bad any more than Petrobras is all good. But, unlike Petrobras (and its informal boss), BP seems to have forgotten the number-one rule in marketing and management: walk the talk. BP is a victim of a disingenuous ad campaign that worked too well, and you have to wonder if its reputation will ever fully recover. Writing in HBR in 2007, reputational risk consultant Robert Eccles and his co-authors presciently noted, "When the reputation of a company is more positive than its underlying reality, this gap poses a substantial risk...BP appears to be learning this the hard way." BP doesn't yet seem to have absorbed the lesson, but other companies can surely learn from its mistake.
Consumer groups have been fighting what they see as the prevalence of online tracking, where online advertising is selected for a certain user — perhaps because he once visited a company’s home page, perhaps because he showed an interest in automobiles or baby products, or perhaps because he is a middle-aged man. As opposition has intensified, companies like Google and Yahoo have adjusted their own privacy policies in response to consumer concern. Industry groups, while arguing that free Internet content depends on this type of sophisticated advertising, have issued their own self-regulatory principles.
Our tastes have expanded. Not just with food, but how we consume information, relationships, and experiences. Our expectations are on the rise. Social media storytelling is changing things. We demand communication that doesn’t insult our intelligence. Our instincts tell us we’re better than this. And so increasingly we opt-out, filter, and turn off the noise. We have settings for that. The message better be worthy of our attention.
PepsiCo is making a strong push to reach out to consumers on their turf. In the next two months, the Purchase, N.Y., beverage and snack food company plans to roll out a partnership with location-based social networking company Foursquare and to launch its own geo-targeting mobile application, Pepsi Loot. Both programs, when activated by consumers, will let the app's users know when they get close to Pepsi-selling restaurants and fast food chains, such as Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and Arby's. When they stop by to pick up a drink, Pepsi will reward them with points that can be redeemed for a free music download from artists such as Neon Trees and Katharine McPhee.
Reputation is a "soft" concept that most managers and employees don't feel is their job to manage. Instead they view it as the role of senior executives, or of functions like corporate communications, marketing, advertising, or public relations. While this is certainly true to some extent, it may also be a cop out. For example, two firms that are consistently at or near the top of the "most reputable" companies list (based on extensive consumer surveys by the non-profit Reputation Institute) are Johnson & Johnson and The Walt Disney Company. Despite having many types of businesses, J&J emphasizes through its "credo" that every employee has a responsibility to put the well-being of the people they serve first. Similarly, Disney makes every employee feel responsible for the entertainment products and services they provide. So maybe their positions on the top of the reputation list are no accidents.
Finally, marketers are acknowledging the necessity of listening to consumers - aka "people" - and brands are adjusting to the social networked environment by opening conversations. Market researchers cannot ignore these developments since they dictate the necessity of understanding peoples' identities, not only their interests. We Are People, Not Data Points - See Us Live
For all of the talk about the empowerment of the customer, some industries seemed to have missed this entire conversation. Frankly, airlines (and others, like banks) continue to run their business in complete defiance of anything like putting their customers first. Remember United Breaks Guitars? Today that video has 8,395,275 views. Given the complaints I'm seeing, I'm not sure that United learned anything from that experience.
Is there anything creepier than a big, beer-breathed celebrity athlete exposing himself in a night club and hitting on underage girls, all the while protected by an entourage of off-duty cops? Well, yes. It’s the big, corporate sponsor — Nike, in this case — that continues trying to sell product with the creep as their role model.
You seemingly can’t live without social media these days, or at least, that is what many in our industry believe. Why? Because “everybody” is using it. Everybody is communicating, “everybody is a publisher.” But does that mean that every European is publishing through social media? Well, not exactly. Yes, Europeans are online en masse and are using social media in big numbers. But how are they using social media?
Saw The Joneses over the weekend. This movie has kicked up a bunch of articles about stealth marketing and who's using it. As their tagline says, They're not just living the American dream, they're selling it. Now, this isn't really a new approach, brands have been using stealth marketing for quite sometime. BzzAgent created some controversy when it first started a few years back because their agents were not disclosing the fact that they were promoting a product.
Millions are embracing a hot steaming plate of serious issues served with a side of mockery of the politicians, businessmen and celebrities who populate conventional news. And given this, how big a leap is it for companies to mock themselves as a means to reach audiences? It can be done effectively. Last fall, for instance, we worked with Intuit subsidiary Quicken, issuing a report on Mustached Americans being in greater financial need due to their profligate spending habits on ladies, leather pants and teeth whitening. The result was the most publicity Quicken had ever received and the company reached new consumers in a humorous way.
Invaluable as innovation may be, our relentless focus on it may be obscuring the value of its much-maligned relative, imitation. Imitation has always had a faintly disreputable ring to it — presidents do not normally give speeches extolling the virtues of the copycat. But where innovation brings new things into the world, imitation spreads them; where innovators break the old mold, imitators perfect the new one; and while innovators can win big, imitators often win bigger.
In college, my economics professor used to say that the difference between too much supply and not enough is one unit. Such is the tenuous nature of economic equilibrium. But when it comes to the advertising industry, the basics of supply and demand seem to be permanently suspended. The bottom line? There are far too many agencies chasing too few dollars.
The baleful consequences of the Great Recession cannot be resolved by maintaining the same approaches as when we created it. The "new normal" in business means many brand owners need to leverage something much larger than a re-take on marketing. They need to accelerate their collaboration with consumers, so that principles such as "for people, for planet, for profit," combined with tools of the web and next-generation media, can transform brands' role in the economy, society and business.
Mark Brooks wants the whole Web to know that he spent $41 on an iPad case at an Apple store, $24 eating at an Applebee’s, and $6,450 at a Florida plastic surgery clinic for nose work. Too much information, you say? On the Internet, there seems to be no such thing. A wave of Web start-ups aims to help people indulge their urge to divulge — from sites like Blippy, which Mr. Brooks used to broadcast news of what he bought, to Foursquare, a mobile social network that allows people to announce their precise location to the world, to Skimble, an iPhone application that people use to reveal, say, how many push-ups they are doing and how long they spend in yoga class.
With so much discussion — even panic — about privacy today, I fear that we risk losing the benefits of publicness, of the connections enabled by the internet and our interconnected world. If we shift to a default of private, we lose much and I argue that we should weigh that choice when we decide what to put behind a wall — and there are too many walls being build today. But we’re not discussing the benefits of the public vs. the private. I want to spark that discussion.
So strong was the antibusiness sentiment for the first Earth Day in 1970 that organizers took no money from corporations and held teach-ins “to challenge corporate and government leaders.” Forty years later, the day has turned into a premier marketing platform for selling a variety of goods and services, like office products, Greek yogurt and eco-dentistry.
I'm convinced the time is now for a fresh, new -- perhaps even difficult -- conversation on trust. And like any good conversation, we need to start with many more questions than answers. Marketers in particular need to ask really hard questions. Trust is the currency of effective advertising, and yet it's so curiously evasive and increasingly murky.
With big names like Tiger Woods and Toyota Motor stepping into the spotlight of public scrutiny this year, reputation is a hot topic in the media and in corporate boardrooms. No company wants its public image to be the reason it has a hard time rebounding from the recession. So what factors shape the public's image of American businesses? Which companies do consumers trust and admire?
The following 10 companies stand out as prime examples of how social responsibility can be productively coupled with sound strategies to advance goodwill, while building sustainable and impressive businesses. They provide the leadership to demonstrate how marketers can pursue both objectives simultaneously. As such, socially conscious companies have stepped up their efforts with increasing effectiveness and productivity. It is an impressive movement and one that invites society at large to do even more. Let's use these as examples for "how to get it done" so that we can effectively expand our efforts to give back.
A push for real and meaningful innovation permeates the business environment. Leading brands embrace innovation as a tangible driver of business performance as opposed to a meaningless moniker-and inculcate true innovation and entrepreneurialism into their cultures, employees and overall enterprises. Innovation in the Re-Invention Economy shows its evolved self in every aspect of organizational drive and is industry agnostic in its rapid manifestation.
Men are, well, men. They live in the 'now.' They are concrete thinkers that like to consummate, finish. A male axiom is "complete what you set out to do." Men are interested in power and in looking good, even more than being good. In short, that's the nature of beauty for the beast. You cannot market to men the same way you market to women. It's not a simple transformation of changing colors, fonts or packaging. Men and women are different biologically, psychologically and socially.
Strategy used to be about protecting your existing competitive advantage. Today, it's about finding the next advantage. Strategy starts to decay the moment it's created. That's why corporations must develop strategies that address tomorrow's business realities. Strategic actions that companies take belong in one of three boxes.
With the aid of a US$1.8 million grant from the Department of Labor, they studied the way young people learn in a world of video games and smart phones. In collaboration with MIT; Virginia Tech; and the Institute of the Future, they build a high-tech, next-generation training facility called UPS Integrad. This facility offers 3-D simulations and webcasts along with traditional classroom instruction. Trainees are recorded to show them how they look in action. UPS teach them to drive in a replica outdoor city called Clarkville that has real streets, street signs, sidewalks, and simulated commercial and residential delivery and pickup sites.
Twitter. The privately held company received a new round of investment last fall, believed to be $100m, which values the business at a whopping $1bn (£624m). That makes Twitter roughly as valuable as WH Smith - which provides an excellent point of comparison. WH Smith has done well this year. Its annual revenues are likely to be about £1.3bn, and most analysts are expecting those revenues to result in pre-tax profits of about £80m. Over at Twitter, for all its glorious PR and amazing technological impact, there is nothing. Not a cent. Because Twitter does not charge for its service.
"Brands are dying," we're told. As a result, we hear that branding is no longer relevant. So now, what do we do?
When it comes to conversations, and specifically those conversations that are deemed valuable, I believe the overriding issue is authenticity. People tend to be pretty good at discerning who is real and who is merely a self-promoter, and power and influence tends to flow to those who are authentic. Do people want to converse with brands? I think that is the wrong question. The right question is "Do people want to converse with people who are authentic in their support of brands?" Starbucks the brand can't talk to you, but a passionate Starbucks employee can.
So who the heck owns social? That's a tricky question, not only because every business stakeholder -- marketing, PR, IT, research, investor relations, media, consumer relations -- seems to have a piece of social baked into their new DNA and delivery road map, but also because its definition and scope keep getting pulled in new, arguably more complicated, directions.
The business of marketing is in the midst of a massive cultural shift. While buzzwords like co-creation, mass-collaboration and crowdsourcing are all the rage, there’s actually a much bigger and deeper change going on with the way work gets done. Three disruptive forces: the expectation of transparency, the further digitization of the workforce and the rise of the curator class, all coupled with the current macro-economic conditions, have changed the world of marketing forever. Like it or not, from professional creatives to consumers, people want to be involved with your brand.
It's the trillion dollar question. Justin Fox, in a recent post here, put it this way: "I don't think anyone has come up with an argument for or description of better business behavior that has anything like the elegance and power of the economists' 'incentives matter.' As long as it remains possible to get rich via less-than-upstanding behavior, and enjoy those riches, a lot of people in business will choose that path." I call it the egocentric question: "Why is doing good in our self-interest?"
For the second year in a row, Southwest Airlines is the top-rated brand among the nation’s small- and midsize-business owners and top executives. That’s the conclusion of a new survey of men and women who lead businesses with less than 500 employees that was conducted by American City Business Journals, the parent company of Portfolio.com. Although this is the sixth year of the survey, it’s the first year ACBJ has released the findings to the general public.
As wary Americans start to crack open their wallets, household-goods makers like Procter & Gamble Co., Colgate-Palmolive Co., Kimberly-Clark Corp. and Clorox Co. are cranking up their advertising, hoping to coax consumers farther out of their shells. Amid signs of an improving economy, recent survey data show consumers are more willing to splurge by eating out or buying new shoes, but the same doesn't necessarily hold for everyday household goods.
Even as prospects for the American economy brighten, consumers are about to face a new financial burden: a sustained period of rising interest rates. That, economists say, is the inevitable outcome of the nation’s ballooning debt and the renewed prospect of inflation as the economy recovers from the depths of the recent recession.
Advanced technology. Ideas that promise to revolutionize the way businesses are run. Out with the old, in with the new. Not sure how it'll make any money? Mere details. Get going or risk getting left behind. Great riches will come to those with the guts to throw caution and experience to the wind. CRM. Social media. We've seen the story before, and comparisons between the two phenomenon aren't new, either. But looking at things at the company level reveals a sobering possibility: we're about due for The Crash. The parallels are imprecise and sometimes the histories are outright apples and oranges. Get over it. If I'm even partially right, there's a reckoning a'coming.
That sound you hear is the cry of outrage over the decision by Spirit Airlines to charge customers as much as $45 to stow carry-on baggage. It's a horrible idea, but not for the easy, airline-bashing reasons cited by most critics. In fact, this decision is a pretty interesting case study in the wrong ways for companies to respond to tough economic times--a reminder of how so many leaders manage to make bad situations worse.
Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a fan of Google. This isn’t a post to describe my personal affection for a corporate entity, but it is an attempt to describe one element that I find particularly appealing. Don’t Be Evil. This phrase is Google’s infamous, informal corporate motto. I love it. Not only does it help reinforce my romantic, naive teenage dreams that I could become the next Richard Branson or Bill Gates just by doing good in the world, but it also helps prove that in the new business world, evil is bad for business.
People use social networking tools to figure out who they can trust and rely on for decision making. By the end of this decade, power and influence will shift largely to those people with the best reputations and trust networks, from people with money and nominal power. That is, peer networks will confer legitimacy on people emerging from the grassroots. This shift is already happening, gradually creating a new power and influence equilibrium with new checks and balances. It will seem dramatic when its tipping point occurs, even though we're living through it now. Everyone gets a chance to participate in large or small ways, giving a voice to what we once called "the silent majority."
Guess who says the following attributes are most influential in making "important purchases" today: value, price, overall quality, good design and functionality? A clue: 84% of this group texts from cellphones; 78% use social networking; 66% use the mobile web and 57% use mobile apps. It's not who you think it is. In fact, it's a group whose median age is 45, not 19.
Trending topics reveal much more than the objects that captivate the hearts, minds, and keyboards of Twitter users around the world. Twitter’s trends is a cultural mirror that reflects the state of attention and intention. And as such, Tweets then offer an MRI that visualizes the minds of consumers and more importantly, serve as a crystal ball that reveals the future of products and services before and soon after they’re released. For the most part, however, the vast amount of precious insight is widely untapped. Instead, businesses focus on volume and congregation, enticing brands to engage in the conversation rather than truly capturing and analyzing the activity that inherently inspires empathy and ultimately relevance. I think that’s about to change…
Games are invading the real world -- and the runaway popularity of Farmville and Guitar Hero is just the beginning, says Jesse Schell. At the DICE Summit, he makes a startling prediction: a future where 1-ups and experience points break "out of the box" and into every part of our daily lives.
Today’s consumer is emerging from the recession with a radically new definition of the American Dream and a renewed sense in their own resourcefulness and priorities according to a just released quantitative study of 1200 consumers and qualitative research with nearly 700, conducted by Ogilvy & Mather Chicago in partnership with leading consumer insight company Communispace.
The premise of this essay is that the explosive growth of mobile communications can be a powerful tool for addressing some of the most critical challenges of the 21st century, such as promoting vibrant democracies, fostering inclusive economic growth, and reducing the huge inequities in life expectancy between rich and poor nations. The benefits of mobile communications are particularly profound for developing countries, many of which are “leapfrogging” the traditional fixed telecommunications infrastructure. As a result, billions of people in developing countries are gaining access to modern communications of any sort for the first time.
Three years ago most western european countries had a local social network that was the most popular social net in the country. Today Facebook is dominant in most of western europe and those local social nets have largely been bypassed. It would seem that Facebook leveraged the size of its network (approaching 500mm people worldwide) to beat its competition in social networking. But what's interesting to me about that is that it also means that it leveraged a network that was larger out of country to beat an incumbent who initially was larger in country.
Author Peter Drucker’s adage that a business enterprise has two basic functions—marketing and innovation—certainly resonates in the quick-service industry today. Marketing and innovation serve as critical drivers of growth at a time when the limits of cost cutting have been reached. While the innovation function is steady across all chains, marketing strategies vary greatly.
In January 2010, nearly 75 million people visited Twitter according to comScore. While that number seems remarkable, it represents only a fraction of what’s realistically attainable. I believe that Twitter’s growth, to date, is hindered not by its ambition nor potential, but by the company’s ongoing focus on competing priorities rather than showcasing how users can effectively communicate and excel on this unique platform. But that’s all about to change… Every day, millions of potential people are introduced to Twitter through traditional media, online dialogue in other social networks, as well as the content and marketing campaigns of local, national, and global businesses and media properties.
Marshall McLuhan once famously said, "The medium is the message." Here's what he meant: "The 'message' of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs." Today, the meaning is the message. The "message" of the Internet's social revolution is more meaningful work, economics, politics, society, and organization. It promises radically more meaning: to make stuff matter, once again, in human terms, not just financial ones. And that's never mattered more.
I am always surprised that no one much bothers to tell the story of capitalism. No, the stories we prefer to tell our children is that capitalism is a dangerous, soulless, relentlessly exploitative exercise. Indeed, this story is so preferred as our received wisdom, that it is exceedingly rare to hear anyone recite Adam Smith’s magical insight, that good things can and do come from people pursuing their own, sometimes narrow, objectives.
Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that everyone is buzzing, blogging, tweeting, and talking about geolocation. Research firm Borrel forecasts that location-based mobile spending will hit $4 billion in 2015, an increase of nearly 12,000% from the $34 million spent in 2009. With highly anticipated location-centric announcements looming from both Facebook and Apple, the buzz over geolocation is not expected to diminish any time soon.
Will Walmart, not Whole Foods, save small farms and make U.S. healthy?
It has never been more important to turn your brand into a service. Jaded, time-poor, pragmatic consumers yearn for service and care, while the mobile online revolution (it's finally, truly here!) makes it possible to offer uber-relevant services to consumers anywhere, anytime. Basically, if you're going to embrace one big consumer trend this year, please let it be BRAND BUTLERS!
I used to think that the problem of information is that it turns homo sapiens into fools — we gain disproportionately in confidence, particularly in domains where information is wrapped in a high degree of noise (say, epidemiology, genetics, economics, etc.). So we end up thinking that we know more than we do, which, in economic life, causes foolish risk taking. When I started trading, I went on a news diet and I saw things with more clarity. I also saw how people built too many theories based on sterile news, the fooled by randomness effect. But things are a lot worse. Now I think that, in addition, the supply and spread of information turns the world into Extremistan (a world I describe as one in which random variables are dominated by extremes, with Black Swans playing a large role in them). The Internet, by spreading information, causes an increase in interdependence, the exacerbation of fads (bestsellers like Harry Potter and runs on the banks become planetary). Such world is more "complex", more moody, much less predictable.
It didn't take long for Julie Liu -- late 20s, smartphone-addicted, constant Googler -- to get hooked on the online review site Yelp. Where to eat Friday night? Read some reviews by random anonymous diners. Oh, that looks good. Book a table online, show up, eat. But after Liu and her sister opened Scion restaurant in Dupont Circle, they saw Yelp from a different angle. Liu said Yelp's salespeople phoned repeatedly, telling her that if she advertised on the site, negative reviews would move lower on Scion's page and positive reviews would move up.
Trying to control, or even manage, your online reputation is becoming increasingly difficult. And much like the fight by big labels against the illegal sharing of music, it will soon become pointless to even try. It’s time we all just give up on the small fights and become more accepting of the indiscretions of our fellow humans. Because the skeletons are coming out of the closet and onto the front porch. We’ll look back on the good old days when your reputation was really only on the line with eBay via confirmed, actual transactions and LinkedIn, where you can simply reject anyone who leaves bad feedback on your professional life.
Starbucks has lately found itself in the middle of a debate between advocates of “open carry” gun rights and of gun control; the former have held armed meet-ups at several of its locations, and the latter have demanded that the coffee chain prevent this from happening. Seeking to duck these fresh salvos in the long debate over how firearms fit into American life, the company has issued a statement that such matters ought to be worked out “in the legislatures and courts, not in our stores.” Well, sure. But drawing a line between official institutions of lawmaking and the daily sphere where citizens move about is not so easy. And one thing the pistols-and-Frappuccino moment has demonstrated is that this is acutely true for a business with an image carefully devised to blur the line between public space and commercial space.
Some brilliant scholar has to write a comprehensive history of modern economics because the evolution of this field is clearly one of the most consequential things happening in the world today.
I didn’t write about the big location war at SXSW (between location-based apps like Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt, Brightkite, Whrrl, and others). Why not? Because, well, MG Siegler at Techcrunch has been. But I did participate, and took notes and now I’m looking at what’s next.
Coca-Cola once famously defined its market as “throat share”, meaning its stake in the entire liquid intake of all humanity. Not to be outdone, Indra Nooyi, the boss of Coke’s arch-rival, PepsiCo, wants her firm to be “seen as one of the defining companies of the first half of the 21st century”, a “model of how to conduct business in the modern world.” More specifically, she argues that Pepsi, which makes crisps (potato chips) and other fatty, salty snacks as well as sugary drinks, should be part of the solution, not the cause, of “one of the world’s biggest public-health challenges, a challenge fundamentally linked to our industry: obesity.” To that end, on March 22nd she unveiled a series of targets to improve the healthiness of Pepsi’s wares.
Pricing is one of the most powerful--yet underutilized--strategies available to businesses. A McKinsey & Company study of the Global 1200 found that if companies increased prices by just 1%, and demand remained constant, on average operating profits would increase by 11%. Using a 1% increase in price, some companies would see even more growth in percentage of profit: Sears, 155%; McKesson, 100%, Tyson, 81%, Land O'Lakes, 58%, Whirlpool, 35%. Just as important, price is a key attribute that consumers consider before making a purchase.
Mark Rolston is Chief Creative Officer of Frog Design, creating Frog’s digital media group back in 1996. He’s fascinated by the intersection of technology with our perceived reality, and draws on examples from our own lives to illustrate how close we are to fully integrating the two. Big “whoa” factor.
As smartphones and handheld computers move into classrooms worldwide, we may be witnessing the start of an educational revolution. How technology could unleash childhood creativity -- and transform the role of the teacher.
A smart subordinate should actually want the relationship with the firm to be based at least in some part on things that are qualitative — that require judgment and interpretation because these are what makes it necessary and optimal for him to be an actual part of the firm. A quantitatively based relationship is a shallow one while one that has an important qualitative dimension is a deeper one. The same logic applies to a firm's relationships with customers. If our understanding of customers is based entirely on quantitative analysis, we will have a shallow rather than deep relationship with them.
Everyone who jammed into the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco on January 27, 2010, knew what they were there for: Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ introduction of a thin, always-on tablet device that would let people browse the Web, read books, send email, watch movies, and play games. It was also no surprise that the 1.5-pound iPad resembled an iPhone, right down to the single black button nestled below the bright 10-inch screen. But about an hour into the presentation, Apple showed something unexpected — something that not many people even noticed. In addition to the lean-back sorts of activities one expects from a tablet (demonstrated by Jobs while relaxing in a comfy black armchair), there was a surprising pitch for the iPad as a lean-forward device, one that runs a revamped version of Apple’s iWork productivity apps. In many ways, Jobs claimed, the iPad would be better than pricier laptops and desktops as a tool for high-end word processing and spreadsheets. If anyone missed the point, Apple’s design guru Jonathan Ive gushed in a promotional video that the iPad wasn’t just a cool new way to gobble up media — it was blazing a path to the future of computing.
Good friend JD Lasica asked me to answer some fantastic questions for a post he published in celebration of Engage. I poured so much of myself into the responses, that I felt it was worth sharing here with you as well. Many of the lessons and observations below are important for you as a champion, decision maker, entrepreneur, or executive. Social Media is not only changing how we communicate, we are also changing the culture of business from the outside in and from the bottom up. In doing so, businesses, of all shapes and sizes, will magnetize communities. As such, the intentional creation and crafting of a useful and meaningful culture in business will create a competitive advantage, giving people a reason to align and ultimately embody and extend your purpose and mission.
This is a nation that builds dams, high-speed rail lines and skyscrapers with abandon. In newly muscular China, sheer force is not just an art, but a bedrock principle of its seemingly unstoppable rise to global prominence. Now China has tightened its grip on the much more variegated world of online information, effectively forcing Google Inc., the world’s premier information provider, to choose between submitting to Chinese censorship and leaving the world’s largest community of Internet users to its rivals. It chose to leave.
So the Dow hit a bull-market high last Wednesday and gas costs more than $3/gallon. You know what comes next, don't you? It's not a question of if but rather when we'll all be complaining about falling stocks and rising gas prices. We should be particularly aware of this inevitable reality since most of us are still smarting from the wounds we received over the past year or two. You'd think that the branding brain trusts at big financial services firms and oil companies would have gotten together and recognized these facts -- the context of reality in which their brands exist -- and modified both their business operations and marketing accordingly:
In 2007 Charlene Li, then at Forrester Research, now running the Altimeter Group, along with Forrester ’s Josh Bernoff, Remy Fiorentino, and Sarah Glass released a report that introduced us to Social Technographics. Forrester’s research segmented participation behavior on the social web into six categories, visualized through a ladder metaphor with the rungs at the high end of the ladder indicating a greater level of participation. Social Technographics were designed to help businesses engage in social media with a more human approach, catering to individuals where, when, and how they are participating and contributing to the social Web. According to Forrester research…
Despite our ongoing fascination and dependence on digital interactions, the point of social media—and perhaps all media—is connectivity. Campaigns like Blu Dot’s experiment in New York, Grill’d in Melbourne, or the T-Mobile dance in Liverpool Street Station demonstrate the power that actual physical events and online channels create when they work together. These campaigns get watched. They get forwarded. They’re viral in every sense of the word. That’s because most of us want to look behind the curtain—maybe even participate.
The Apple iPad, hitting stores April 3, is one of the most-hyped products in technology history. There is talk that it could revolutionize computing and media. But when it comes to new products, great expectations can doom products that don't measure up to them.
A lot of people are excited about social media and think it could have a hugely positive impact on their brand, their marketing and communications, the insight they get, the way in which they deal with customer service and many other benefits it can bring to an organisation and to the way it interacts with and engages customers. They are right to be excited, the opportunities are great but brands should not hide from the fact that getting an engaging social media presence takes proper thought, some effort and may take time to embed.
When the Walt Disney Company agreed in August to pay $4 billion to acquire Marvel Entertainment, the comic book publisher and movie studio, it snared a company with a library that includes some of the world’s best-known superheroes, including Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Incredible Hulk and the Fantastic Four. The heirs of Jack Kirby, the legendary artist who co-created numerous Marvel mainstays, were also intrigued by the deal. Mr. Kirby’s children had long harbored resentments about Marvel, believing they had been denied a share of the lush profits rolling out of the company’s superheroes franchises. They spent years preparing for a lawsuit by enlisting a Los Angeles copyright lawyer, Marc Toberoff, to represent them. When the Marvel deal was struck, Mr. Toberoff — who helped win a court ruling last year returning a share of Superman profits to heirs of one of that character’s creators — sprang into action. Pow! Wham! Another high-profile copyright fight broke out in Hollywood, and this one could be the broadest the industry has yet seen.
Don't act too surprised if, some time in the next year, you meet someone who explains that their business card isn't just a card; it's an augmented reality business card. You can see a collection and, at visualcard.me, you can even design your own, by adding a special marker to your card, which, once put in front of a webcam linked to the internet, will show not only your contact details but also a video or sound clip. Or pretty much anything you want. It's not just business cards.
The television medium was barely 15 years old, and large-format magazines were wildly popular, when Life devoted 13 pages to photos by Charles. Moore, Flip Schulke and others at the University of Mississippi showdown in 1962, then 11 pages to the deployment of dogs and fire hoses in Birmingham the next year. The unsettling images from civil rights battlegrounds, followed closely by the disturbing images from Vietnam battlefields by Horst Faas, Eddie Adams, Nick Ut and others, created a golden era for photojournalism. Today, everyone with a cellphone is a photographer/videographer and streaming video has become a national obsession. But has the proliferation of images devalued photojournalism and dulled its influence?
On March 13, a Virgin America flight from Los Angeles to New York was diverted from John F. Kennedy International Airport to Stewart airport in Newburgh, N.Y., due to severe weather, and the passengers and crew waited in the plane on the tarmac for over four hours. The crew was anxious, babies were crying, mothers were anxious, and the passengers were unruly — to the point that one woman was taken off the plane by police. The entire ordeal was documented by David Martin, the CEO of Kontain.com, on his company's iPhone social-media application.
In his deliberately provocative — and deeply nihilistic — new book, “Reality Hunger,” the onetime novelist David Shields asserts that fiction “has never seemed less central to the culture’s sense of itself.” He says he’s “bored by out-and-out fabrication, by myself and others; bored by invented plots and invented characters” and much more interested in confession and “reality-based art.” His own book can be taken as Exhibit A in what he calls “recombinant” or appropriation art.
The global economy has shattered. The fossil fuels that propelled an industrial revolution are running out and the infrastructure built with these energies is barely clinging to life. Worse, more than two centuries of rising carbon emissions now threaten us with catastrophic climate change. If that were not enough, we face a massive loss of social trust in economic and political institutions. Everywhere people are venting their frustration and increasingly taking their anger to the streets. What is happening to our world? The human race is in a twilight zone between a dying civilisation on life support and an emerging one trying to find its legs. Old identities are fracturing while new identities are too fragile to grasp. To understand our situation, we need to step back and ask: what constitutes a fundamental change in the nature of civilisation?
Indeed, the results of our 2009 Leading Global Brands study, which includes responses from 20,000-plus global marketers who work on over 200-plus brands across all industries, employed by companies like Unilever, Diageo, and GlaxoSmithKline, indicate that getting the proper local vs. global balance is a top challenge. Almost 65% of respondents confirm that global brands have become more important over the last five years. But only 15% fully agree that their global brands are effectively leveraging their scale. Even fewer believe that their organizations excel at quickly rolling out successful global brand initiatives.
A new survey of 2,000 U.S. consumers, the second issued by Booz & Company since the early days of the recession in October 2008, confirms that a “new frugality,” born of the Great Recession and evidenced by two consecutive years of declining per capita consumption, is now becoming entrenched among U.S. consumers and is reshaping their consumption patterns in ways that will persist even as the economy starts to recover.
Games like World of Warcraft give players the means to save worlds, and incentive to learn the habits of heroes. What if we could harness this gamer power to solve real-world problems? Jane McGonigal says we can, and explains how.
If a stranger came up to you on the street, would you give him your name, Social Security number and e-mail address? Probably not. Yet people often dole out all kinds of personal information on the Internet that allows such identifying data to be deduced. Services like Facebook, Twitter and Flickr are oceans of personal minutiae — birthday greetings sent and received, school and work gossip, photos of family vacations, and movies watched. Computer scientists and policy experts say that such seemingly innocuous bits of self-revelation can increasingly be collected and reassembled by computers to help create a picture of a person’s identity, sometimes down to the Social Security number.
I was asked to give this talk to invite you to think deeply. For those who don’t know me… I'm an ethnographer. I study how social media has become a part of daily life. I'm also an activist, driven to making the world a better place through the production and dissemination of knowledge. And I'm also a geek and a blogger. I've been blogging for 13 years, determined to communicate to the world what I've had the privilege of witnessing. I love technology but I also love to be critical of technology. What keeps me up at night is trying to make sense of how social media transforms society and, more importantly, what it helps make visible about humanity. Technophobes love to talk about how technology is ruining everything and technophiles obsess over how everything is radically different. I like to wade through the extremes to see the subtle inflection points. Reality is always in the details. My goal today is to invite you to step back and ask: what hath we wrought?
Digital-marketing companies are rapidly moving to blend information about consumers' Web-surfing behavior with reams of other personal data available offline, seeking to make it easier for online advertisers to reach their target audiences. Advertisers say the push could enhance their ability to target ads at specific types of consumers, but it is drawing scrutiny from Congress, federal regulators and privacy watchdogs, who are already concerned about the use of Web-surfing data.
In my work as a cognitive anthropologist I study how the mind works, how people "make meaning," how people form attachments to things (brands), and how people make decisions. Decisions like how to select what to invest in, whether stocks or mates; why and under what conditions, people prefer Coke over Pepsi (or vice versa), Charmin over Cottonelle; why a person believes in one God over another. In that search I have inadvertently uncovered something about viva la difference: WOMEN CYCLE, MEN CONSUMMATE.
While communication and gaming gadgets have convenienced and connected us in ways never before possible, they may also be profoundly hurting our ability to be social, empathic and involved with each other. The signs are everywhere — from the near collisions on city streets where drivers are too busy texting to pay attention to the virtual relationships on Facebook and the addiction to video games.
A top Chinese minister warned Google Inc. "will have to bear the consequences" if it stops filtering its search results in China, suggesting there is little room for compromise in the high-profile showdown over censorship. Friday's remarks were the sharpest words yet in an unusual duel that could set a precedent for international business in the country and could escalate tensions between the U.S. and Chinese governments.
Here's the rub: We've got too much sizzle in the system right now. Social media garnishes every marcom conference and discussion, and I'm already bolting myself in my chair before the unstoppable tweet tsunami from the SXSW crowd over the next 10 days. We're obsessed. Join the conversation! Engage the conversation! Hell, spike the conversation!
It is a truth universally acknowledged that everybody makes predictions at the end of a year about ‘the big thing for next year’. Sometimes they’re right and sometimes they’re wrong. And sometimes you only really start to notice trends and change when you are in them. In social media it is becoming clearer and clearer that the big thing for 2010 is location-based tools.
Two weeks ago on TechCrunch I posted “The Facebook Imperative,” which posed a simple question, “Why isn’t all enterprise software like Facebook?” It was the next iteration of the question I asked in 1999 that spawned salesforce.com, “Why isn’t all enterprise software like Amazon.com.” If you have read my book, Behind The Cloud, you are well aware how that one question launched a company, and a movement. Its been an exciting decade. But the real excitement is just starting.
Credit Suisse's report picks its 27 elite brands of tomorrow based on a deeper analysis of their potential. Most of the picks are brands that are "transforming," making the leap from niche/emerging players into powerful mainstream brands. Brands like Trader Joe's and Hyundai. These are brands that offer investors attractive returns, some risk but not as much as early-stage brands that may never make it over the hump once the initial rush of growth and enthusiasm is over. Only two early stage brands make the list: Facebook and Comac, a Chinese aircraft start-up.
Today many marketers are tripping over one another to invade social networks in force. There is a social media land grab underway as businesses rush to set up hubs on the "big three:" Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. All at once, businesses large and small recognize that they need to go where the people congregate. And with 100 million Facebook users in the U.S., this movement is understandable. When your local pizzeria is promoting their Facebook page at the register, as mine does, then you know that marketing has changed.
If any company seems well-positioned to both influence and profit from a generation of environmentally aware youth, it's Walt Disney Co. And Robert Iger, president and chief executive of Disney, insists the company is doing just that. Mr. Iger sat down with The Wall Street Journal's Alan Murray to talk about the new green strategies the company applies to everything from its theme parks to its movie studios, as well as changes Disney has seen in consumer attitudes. They began the conversation by talking about the company's conservation campaign—Friends for Change—which so far has reached more than a million children, he says.
U.S. consumers haven't stopped pinching pennies, but two months of sales gains show that they are in better shape than feared and have begun the year with a return to more normal buying habits. After spending much of 2009 in a defensive crouch, shoppers braved bad weather and took to the malls in February, snapping up spring merchandise at close to full price. Hard-hit teen retailers, including American Eagle Outfitters Inc. and higher-priced department store chain Nordstrom Inc., both of which reported big sales drops a year earlier, reported sharp improvements from a year ago. The results, on the heels of similar gains in recent months, signal consumers, even if they aren't returning to free-spending ways, are giving up the ultra-frugal habits of last year.
Renzo Rosso, the tattooed, Ducati-driving founder of denim giant Diesel, owns some of fashion's most cutting-edge labels. In addition to the popular jeans-maker, Mr. Rosso's holding company, Only the Brave, includes celebrated European fashion houses Viktor & Rolf and Maison Martin Margiela. But Mr. Margiela is gone, as is the designer of Diesel, which Mr. Rosso founded in 1978. Mr. Rosso has replaced them with unknown teams that rank lower in the brands' hierarchy than business executives. The new creative director at Diesel is a magazine editor, not a clothing designer. Mr. Rosso believes his brands need trend-spotters more than someone who can craft a hemline.
There's a struggle with defining "branding" in digital. Some people claim that brands should be about utility, others that we need to build brand platforms and yet others think that brands should entertain us and give us something to talk about. Yet overall, surprisingly little has changed in the actual branding strategies in the industry. Something is wrong here.
HauteLook, Gilt Groupe, Rue La La and Ideeli are just a few of the members-only sales sites introduced in recent years with offerings of deeply discounted designer apparel and accessories. Now, to the delight of beauty enthusiasts, they have added beauty products and services. With millions of members, growing friend by friend, day by day, the sites offer everything from Botox treatments at a dermatologist to detoxification at a spa. Some industry watchers predict these sites will change the way we shop, but others wonder whether online flash sales are a flash in the pan.
It seems like the American marketing community is poised on the brink of an astounding discovery: the value of the post-war baby boom market! With the upcoming (and much anticipated) Tom Brokaw special, "Tom Brokaw Reports: Boomer$," it seems like everyone is trying to jump on this particular wagon. On March 1, Advertising Age published a fun piece by Judann Pollack called "The 15 Biggest Baby Boomer Brands" in which Pollack attempts to lay out the iconic products and their ad campaigns of her generation. This is precisely why marketing to boomers is in such a state of disarray. Folks are trying to take 20 pounds and shove it into a five-pound bag.
"Caution. Not all hazards are marked." I couldn't help but notice this sign on the side of a ski trail during a recent vacation in the mountains. As I slowed my descent I thought about how this sign could apply to any number of things in this crazy world. Being in the brand business, I also thought about how apt they were relative to navigating the current marketplace. It's one thing to watch as consumer attitudes shift and you alter your product or service to meet the new conditions. It's another to sense that something's on the horizon and be the first in the category to address it. The ability to do so has always separated the good brands from the best brands.
Judging from its branding and the griping of its competitors, Apple customers are hip, aware, and enlightened, yet its shareholders recently defeated resolutions to make the company more environmentally responsible and affirmed instead their uncool unconcern about anything other than profits. There isn't just a disconnect here, but an entirely topsy-turvy arrangement.
Organizations love data: numbers, reports, trend lines, graphs, spreadsheets — the more the better. And, as a result, many organizations have a substantial internal factory that churns out data on a regular basis, as well as external resources on call that produce data for onetime studies and questions. But what's the evidence (or dare I say "the data") that all of this data is worth the cost and indeed leads to better business decisions? Is some amount of data collection unnecessary, perhaps even damaging by creating complexity and confusion?
All these examples tell the same story: that the world contains an unimaginably vast amount of digital information which is getting ever vaster ever more rapidly. This makes it possible to do many things that previously could not be done: spot business trends, prevent diseases, combat crime and so on. Managed well, the data can be used to unlock new sources of economic value, provide fresh insights into science and hold governments to account.
Is it possible to have a coffee, buy a car or go shopping without saving the world? Not these days. And now you can also host a pancake breakfast, send Girl Scout cookies to the troops and shelter stray pets, thanks to a friendly corporate sponsor. In addition to the now-requisite cause marketing, brands such as Quaker, Pepsi, Prilosec and Bisquick are turning to so-called microsponsorships of a few hundred or few thousand dollars that go straight to the consumer to fund their own pet project. The most visible of these is Pepsi Refresh, in which consumers can apply for grants ranging from $5,000 to $250,000.
“On the Internet, the First Amendment is a local ordinance,” said Fred H. Cate, a law professor at Indiana University. He was talking about last week’s ruling from an Italian court that Google executives had violated Italian privacy law by allowing users to post a video on one of its services. In one sense, the ruling was a nice discussion starter about how much responsibility to place on services like Google for offensive content that they passively distribute. But in a deeper sense, it called attention to the profound European commitment to privacy, one that threatens the American conception of free expression and could restrict the flow of information on the Internet to everyone.
I spoke recently with Walter Kiechel about his new book, The Lords of Strategy, which describes the rise of the large strategy consulting firms — BCG, McKinsey, and Bain — as well as the business school professors who contributed conceptual frameworks and pragmatic insights to the strategy revolution. Kiechel, a former Managing Editor at Fortune magazine, was the Editorial Director of Harvard Business Publishing from 1998 to 2002.
Facebook's virtual currency, "Facebook Credits," is getting very close to its full launch: a post on the Facebook developer blog explains some of the full terms of the system and what developers can expect as the currency continues to roll out slowly.
In his seminal pop-book, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi argued that people are happiest when they can reach a state of "flow." He talks about performers and athletes who are in the height of their profession, the experience they feel as time passes by and everything just clicks. People reach a state where attention appears focused and, simultaneously, not in need of focus at the same time. The world is aligned and everything just feels right. Consider what it means to be "in flow" in an information landscape defined by networked media, and you will see where Web 2.0 is taking us. The goal is not to be a passive consumer of information or to simply tune in when the time is right, but rather to live in a world where information is everywhere.
Generations, like people, have personalities, and Millennials – the American teens and twenty-somethings who are making the passage into adulthood at the start of a new millennium – have begun to forge theirs: confident, self-expressive, liberal, upbeat and open to change.
Remember Superman's slogan? Let me remind you. "Truth, Justice, and The American Way." Corny, sure. But doesn't it get you a little bit? It sounds funnily evocative right now: a reminder of something deeper, something that we lost.
Ever wonder what is really behind this thing we call "identity? " It's one of those words that attracts a variety of meanings, ranging from a company's name and logo, to its business definition (Fuji: We're a digital imaging company), to its image in the marketplace, to its values.
Online newspapers face two seemingly insurmountable challenges: getting customers used to paying for content and getting the industry used to charging for it. But in fact airlines have faced a similar, albeit simpler, situation with respect to baggage.
Want to know how Google is about to change your life? Stop by the Ouagadougou conference room on a Thursday morning. It is here, at the Mountain View, California, headquarters of the world’s most powerful Internet company, that a room filled with three dozen engineers, product managers, and executives figure out how to make their search engine even smarter. This year, Google will introduce 550 or so improvements to its fabled algorithm, and each will be determined at a gathering just like this one.
Brand loyalty is crucial for brand health. Ad agency founder Jim Mullen once said: "Of all the things that your company owns, brands are far and away the most important and the toughest. Founders die. Factories burn down. Machinery wears out. Inventories get depleted. Technology becomes obsolete. Brand loyalty is the only sound foundation on which business leaders can build enduring, profitable growth."
Like many retailers, the North Face has been having trouble luring shoppers into its stores. The company, which sells outdoor apparel and gear, is about to try a new tactic: sending people text messages as soon as they get near a store. Advertisers have long been intrigued by the promise of cellphones, because they live in people’s pockets and send signals about shoppers’ locations. The dream has been to send people ads tailored to their location, like a coupon for a cappuccino when passing a coffee shop.
Why go to the trouble of creating networks of passionate consumers? Well, partly because your consumer will insist you do. Engaging directly with them is the new normal. The ubiquity of social-networking tools has created an expectation of accessibility not just from friends and colleagues but from companies too. We're now in a culture that celebrates and enables constant contact and responsiveness from everyone, like it or not. But the real reason to go beyond conventional broadcast media, and even beyond constant engagement to the Holy Grail of community, is to create commitment in an environment that predisposes people to capriciousness.
The wave rolls in every day at noon Manhattan time. It gathers invisibly, out in the digital netherscape. A few minutes before the hour, the online retailer Gilt Groupe blasts out an e-mail, and a hush falls over many a workplace, as phone calls are cut short and spreadsheets minimized. Gilt Groupe is in the business of selling high fashion at deep discounts, and as you might deduce from the company’s name, with its Frenchified “e,” it presents itself as an exclusive club. In reality, that’s just artifice—Gilt is a viral-marketing phenomenon. During the hour after its weekday sales kick off, between noon and 1 p.m., the company claims, its site is visited by an average of roughly 100,000 shoppers. For that time, it might as well be the most crowded store in New York.
Hundreds of messages on the boards at PampersVillage.com have criticized changes to Pampers Cruisers in recent months, but a closer look shows an outsized portion of them came from a couple of posters. Social media might be all about big numbers, but in a surprising number of marketing mishaps, a relatively small handful of people were the sparks that turned into online brushfires.
The Kaiser Foundation recently released a study documenting the astounding fact that 8-18 year olds in the United States have increased their media use from 8hrs 33 mins per day in 2004 to 10hrs 45 mins in 2009, which means that except for when they sleeping or in school they are almost always consuming media. I call them the 10:45 generation. Regardless of whether you think this is bad news signaling the demise of our children, or good news expecting our progeny are on the way to be becoming more literate in rich media world, as a business leaders we all must face this new reality. In particular, this short post will deal with the issue of managing your brand for the 10:45 generation.
In this wide-ranging, thought-provoking talk from TEDxAmsterdam, Kevin Kelly muses on what technology means in our lives -- from its impact at the personal level to its place in the cosmos.
Richard Saul Wurman is an architect and graphic designer known for sparking debate. In 1984 he founded nonprofit TED and began holding annual events to stir up conversations about technology, entertainment and design. More recently, Wurman is appearing in Web videos to create chatter about a new topic: emissions, cars and the hope for a cleaner environment. Nissan Motor tapped Wurman and other thought leaders in December as part of a year-long marketing effort geared to make more people aware about the impact of emissions on the environment. Wurman and other luminaries, including Swedish designer Marcus Eriksson, appear on in videos a Web site called Journey to Zero that many might miss as being a message from Nissan.
Disney, the company that created "the happiest place on earth" and cornered the market on pink, is embracing a darker aesthetic as it reaches out to an unlikely audience for new merchandise: female "goths." In the run-up to the March 5 opening of director Tim Burton's movie "Alice in Wonderland," Walt Disney Co.'s consumer-products division is aiming its marketing firepower at young women and teenage girls, particularly those who gravitate to darkly romantic entertainment like the "Twilight" series.
Recently many of Belgium's top agencies, both large and small, set up a virtual roadblock on their websites to collectively protest the injustice of new-business pitches. I'm waiting for our CMO compatriots to call in the cyber strike-busters. The protest was organized by the Belgian ad trade group called the Association of Communication Companies, or ACC, which has proposed a set of ground rules for clients and agencies to voluntarily follow in support of more civilized new-business pitches: limits on the number of bidders and resources spent; clearer, better defined decision criteria; commitments to communicate and reach conclusions quicker; protections for agency spec ideas. You get the drill. Typical European socialist stuff.
NBC Universal’s television coverage of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver this month is exhaustive, as viewers have come to expect. But its Web coverage, at least when compared with the Summer Games in Beijing 18 months ago, is limited. NBC’s Web site is live-streaming fewer sports than it did in Beijing, marking a step backward in online access to marquee events. The company is making no secret that it would prefer for viewers to watch the Olympics on television, especially in prime time, even though a growing number of people are accustomed to watching TV on the Internet.
Think of someone you know who is graduating from high school in 2010. Maybe it’s your younger cousin, or a niece or nephew. Perhaps it’s your son or daughter. Or perhaps it’s some young folks in your town you may know. Take a minute to think about someone you have watched grow up for the past 15 or so years. Furthermore, let’s acknowledge that your young high school graduate represents, quite literally, the “18” in the coveted “18-35 demographic” that many marketers are constantly trying to reach. Now think about the fact that the high school graduating “Class of 2010” was born around the time that Netscape Navigator arrived—the time when the Web was born.
I believe strongly that, rather than business injecting business values onto our communities to business ends, we really need to turn the tides and teach business how to espouse human values again…or as Gary Hamel writes in his excellent column, put soul back into business. It is human beings, after all, that are necessary to the success of any business (whether employees or customers).
Financial crises stink. In their wake, public debt explodes. Nations default. Economic growth falters. Taxes rise. Unemployment lingers. The current financial crisis is no different. The U.S. will have to produce 10 million new jobs just to get back to the unemployment levels of 2007. There’s no sign that that is going to happen soon, so we’re looking at an extended period of above 8 percent unemployment. The biggest impact is on men.
After reading that headline, I can see some (maybe lots) of you scratching your heads saying: "Wait a minute -- trust is a not a technology!" A decade ago that would have been true -- it is not now. Our digital lives were once confined to e-mail, some web surfing and an occasional online purchase (for the braver among us). A mere decade on and our lives are increasingly being lived online. Yet, while our dependence on the internet has grown exponentially, the technologies we use to navigate the sometimes dangerous, somewhat untrusted waters of the internet remain the same -- largely confined to incremental improvements in narrowly defined segments of security or access. The unfortunate result is that the trust gap is more "gaping" than ever.
Fashion designer Carolina Herrera says she was "shocked" a few months ago when she noticed her $7,990 gray sequined tulle gowns were "selling like hotcakes," relatively speaking. During the downturn, she has had to walk a fine line, trying to cater to frugal consumers without damaging quality or image. But in December, she also opened an elaborate high-end boutique in Las Vegas that sells what she's known for: $3,000 cocktail frocks, $10,000-plus ball gowns and $1,800 skirts. Women who used to buy three dresses at a time and had cut down to one or none have started to spend again, she says.
The leader of Britain's Conservative Party says we're entering a new era -- where governments themselves have less power (and less money) and people empowered by technology have more. Tapping into new ideas on behavioral economics, he explores how these trends could be turned into smarter policy.
NBC calls it "the world's biggest focus group." With an estimated 185 million unique viewers over a 17-day period, the Olympic Games provide a special audience microcosm, and one that NBC believes will be particularly useful for measuring new-media consumption habits and trends. NBC touts all the different platforms it is bringing to bear for the Games, which began Friday in Vancouver. Viewers can watch on the network, NBC Universal's many cable channels and NBCOlympics.com. They can download clips to their iPhones and receive mobile updates on a favorite skier or figure skater.
We all know the statistic and scratch our heads: The average tenure of a CMO is around two years or less. Why? Usually it takes that long to fully understand the intricacies and true insights of most industries, companies and brands. Repeating an action over and over again anticipating a different outcome is a humorous definition of insanity. So are CEOs and boards insane?
No one has seen more changes to the MTV brand than Judy McGrath. The CEO of MTV Networks started with the network in 1981 as a copywriter and eventually ascended the ranks to her current position in 2004, where she has seen many different iterations of the network and its programming even as fellow pioneering executives such as Tom Freston and Robert Pittman have come and gone. One of those changes came as recently as last week, when MTV unveiled the first major on-air update to its logo in its 28-year history. The redesign was met with mixed reaction. "I don't think what they did is wrong," George Lois, creator of the network's historic "I want my MTV" campaign, told Ad Age. "I think what they did is strategic. And it just proves to me that MTV is dead."
User interfaces—the way we interact with our technologies—have evolved a lot over the years. From the original punch cards and printouts to monitors, mouses, and keyboards, all the way to the track pad, voice recognition, and interfaces designed to make it easier for the disabled to use computers, interfaces have progressed rapidly within the last few decades. But there’s still a long way to go and there are many possible directions that future interface designs could take. We’re already seeing some start to crop up and its exciting to think about how they’ll change our lives.
One of the greatest challenges I encounter today is not the willingness of a brand to engage, but its ability to create. When blueprinting a social media strategy, enthusiasm and support typically derails when examining the resources and commitment required to produce regular content. Indeed, we are programing the social web around our brand hub, which requires a consistent flow of engaging and relevant social objects. Social objects are the catalysts for conversations — online and in real life — and they affect behavior within their respective societies.
Google Buzz, Google's new social networking service announced this week, isn't particularly original. Just like Facebook and Twitter, it lets you share links, updates and media with friends. Even so, it'll probably be a moderate success.
The world's biggest retailer, Wal-Mart Stores, and Procter & Gamble, the world's biggest consumer-products maker, are jointly creating a made-for-TV movie, in an effort to promote "family-friendly" alternatives to what they say is increasingly risqué TV fare. The two advertising heavyweights have teamed up on the two-hour "Secrets of the Mountain," to be broadcast in April on NBC. The movie, which focuses on a single mother who brings her family to a mountainside cabin, highlights values—such as generosity, honesty and togetherness—that Wal-Mart and P&G executives say are in short supply on television.
"To build a global medium as central to people's lives as the telephone or television ... and even more valuable." This was Steve Case's vision in the early 1990s, and everyone wanted to be a part of it. The company he founded, American Online, was one of the nation's most admired. By turning Internet access into a home utility, AOL became one of the nation's most admired brands and workplaces. It was the Google or the Facebook of its time. Then something happened.
Magazines, books, newspapers -- all that printed stuff is supposed to be dying. Advertising pages, which have been steadily declining, dropped 26% in 2009 alone. But here, surely, was some evidence that publishing might have a chance. If an adolescent who otherwise spends every waking hour on a laptop still craves the printed word, then maybe, just maybe, there's a little new growth left in old media.
Advertising agency of the future sounds a bit like horse drawn carriage of the future. I’m not saying for certain that there won’t be agencies in the future, only that the future doesn’t necessarily need agencies. Just like the future doesn’t need printed news but it needs journalism; the future needs commercial communications, but who creates them, the agency or the brand or someone else, is unwritten. And though the future of the agency is unwritten, I have real doubts that agencies will survive or should survive.
In the era of the real-time Web, information travels at a greater velocity than the infrastructure of mainstream media can support as it exists today. As events materialize, the access to social publishing and syndication platforms propels information across attentive and connected nodes that link social graphs all over the world. Current events are now at the epicenter of global attention as social media makes the world a much smaller place.
For years, my colleagues and I have been conducting experiments about human irrationality. When we present our results, the ‘rational’ economists say, ‘These are very nice experiments that make for great dinner conversation; but when it comes to professionals making decisions that involve money, irrationality simply doesn’t occur’. I never bought this argument: why would the human brain develop two different approaches to decisions that depend upon the importance of the decision? While I allowed that the market could possibly mitigate some irrational behaviour, I also felt that it could increase it.
For those of you who have been following Wikimedia's open strategy initiative on this blog, you'll know that one of the goals of the work has been to strengthen the health of the Wikipedia community of contributors who create and use its online encyclopedias. In a healthy community, contributors feel a sense of affiliation and social bonding, they come from diverse backgrounds and expertise areas required to accomplish the project's expansive work, remain open to differences of perspective and able to resolve disputes respectfully. "Community health" is a hot topic among participants engaged in developing the Wikimedia strategy, both within the broader Wikimedia community and outside it.
We've seen and heard this commercial a thousand times, the one with the flawless model posing in an ad for facial-blemish cream... an extremely powerful cleaner that removes every trace of dirt in one effortless wipe... the picture-perfect baby modeling the 100% waterproof diaper. In these scenarios, there's not even a hint of a single red spot, a stubborn stain, or a bedraggled mother. This is the story of the past 50 years of commercials, and they all have one thing in common: perfect brands in perfect environments. But there is a strong case to be made for imperfection. Nothing is ever perfect, and even when it appears to be so, we are subconsciously looking for the flaw. Because our point of connection lies in imperfection--it's what makes something unique and, ultimately, authentic.
Panicky poultry, a battered Betty White and a series of violent ads for Doritos provided plenty of laughs during Sunday night's Super Bowl, even with the weak economy prompting several heavy-hitting advertisers to sit out the Big Game.
Pepsi's Refresh Project, a first-of-its-kind experiment in social media that invests the brand in community-building projects, won't simply leave a legacy for the recipients of its financial grants. It's also a pivotal test case for other brands trying to navigate an ad-cluttered, cynic-rich marketing landscape.
Chances are, a good portion of your target audience is actively engaged in online games. And if they're there, you should be there, too. Gamers are not passive observers; they're active and motivated participants. Brands have a chance to be part of that experience -- often in the very moment when players are willing to give something to get ahead in the game. This is a level of attention that few, if any, other media can offer.
What does your search engine say about you? Well, if it's Bing, you're probably an early adopter, but you also visit, shop and ultimately make purchases from Walmart more than other search-engine users. Google searchers, on the other hand, are partial to Target and Amazon, and Yahoo searchers have a strong preference for wireless service from AT&T and Sprint.
Social Media marketing is rapidly earning a role in the integrated marketing mix of small and enterprise businesses and as such, it’s transforming every division from the inside out. What starts with one champion in any given division, be it customer service, marketing, public relations, advertising, interactive, et al, eventually inspires an entire organization to socialize. What starts with one, a domino effect usually ensues toppling each department, gaining momentum, and triggering a sense of urgency through its path. And, it also marks the beginning of our journey through the ten stages of social media integration. But where do we start?
Today, as the globe struggles with an historic economic decline, it's time for a new revolution. I'd like to advance a hypothesis: Today's great competitive challenge isn't going from Good to Great. For people, companies, and countries, it's going from great to good.
Feeling overwhelmed by the sheer volume of online content? You're not alone. Keeping up to speed can be nearly impossible these days, with potentially hundreds or even thousands of daily postings competing for your attention from services like Facebook, Twitter, and RSS feeds. If you worry you're missing interesting content, it's probably because you are.
Several years ago, my colleague Dave Ulrich and I looked at how leaders build value by building employee confidence in the future. Our findings bear revisiting as companies begin to emerge after the devastation of the last 18 months and work to create new value.
$560 million and counting in 17 days — that's how much donors have given to 40 U.S. charities surveyed by the Chronicle of Philanthropy. Why the outpouring of cash? It's not just because people are dying. Innocent people are dying by the hundreds of thousands every day under the most horrific circumstances, but we don't see $560 million pouring into any of their causes in two and a half weeks. It's not because people are buried alive. People are buried alive every day by the scourge of AIDS and malaria, and literally in diamond and precious metals mines, but we don't see half a billion dollars materializing overnight for these causes.
Sounds like a sensationalistic headline, but if you read Morgan Stanley’s latest series of reports on the Mobile Internet, you’ll walk away with the same impression. Morgan Stanley’s global technology and telecom analysts documented the rapidly changing mobile Internet market to provide a framework for emerging trends and direction. To set the stage, Morgan Stanley forecasts that the mobile Internet market will be at least 2x the size of desktop Internet when comparing Internet users to mobile subscribers.
While the reviewers pick apart Apple's iPad, one unassailable argument remains: We are not just living in digital times, but on digital time. From getting news to reading the latest best-selling novel, to watching reruns of Gilligan's Island, most of the content, products, information and entertainment we enjoy is available with a click. Consumers are conditioned to get what they want when they want it. I'm not sure this "double-click mentality" is necessarily a healthy thing, but it's real, and the reality has huge implications for marketing and media executives. People want things that are immediate and convenient. Woe to marketers--even bricks-and-mortar retailers--that don't get this. Double-click gratification is a table stake.
The opinions of young adults--which today have solidified into values--are not to be ignored. Not only are people in their 20s powerful voices within their communities, but they're also consumers. These first adults of the millennial generation (roughly, the people born between 1981 and 2000) are bellwethers for a group that's already estimated to earn more than $200 billion a year, of which they spend about $127 billion in the U.S. alone.
In Davos, signs of recovery for the economy — but it's not the same old world.
It all began with a coffeepot. A coffeepot that was connected to the Internet (before it was even called the Internet) and which provided information about its status (long before there was Twitter). In 1991, researchers at Cambridge University shared a single coffeepot among several floors. The researchers were frustrated by the fact that they would often climb several flights of stairs, only to find the coffeepot empty. They set up a videocamera that broadcast a still image to their desktops about three times per minute — enough to determine the level of coffee in the glass pot. Several years later, that coffeepot had become one of the first Internet web cam sensations, with millions of hits worldwide. That coffeepot was a proof of concept for today’s networked objects and the Internet of Things.
Fueled by the music industry's ongoing turmoils and, finally, books going digital at a very rapid pace, there is a lot of debate on how to deal with the fact that many people habitually share i.e. redistribute digital content without any of the upstream users making their own payment. How can you monetize content when the copy is free? This question is a key issue across the board, whether it's in music, eBooks, news, publishing, TV or movies. The fear is, of course, that once a digital item has been purchased by one person it can be easily forwarded to anyone else if it is in an open format, thus seriously reducing the possibility that someone else will actually pay real $ for it, as well (of course, the same is true for supposedly locked or protected digital content as well - it just takes a bit longer). No more control over distribution = no more money. Right?
Though there's still widespread disagreement of just when the industry will put the recession firmly behind it, one thing's clear: Whenever it happens, marketers had better be ready. Forward thinkers such as Allstate, Walmart, New Balance, Macy's, Procter & Gamble, McDonald's and Bank of America are already paving the way to recovery by spending on marketing and product innovation, cementing relationships with new consumers and rewarding loyalists who stuck by their brands during the bad times. They are also creating products and messaging that bridge from recession to recovery.
Not so long ago, financiers ruled the roost at the glitzy annual gathering of the global economic elite here in the Swiss Alps. At this year's gathering of the World Economic Forum, the unofficial theme seems to be, "First, kill all the bankers." The ire directed at bankers from all sides is palpable, acknowledged Donald Moore, chairman of Morgan Stanley in Europe, as he stood alone reading some charts amidst the hubbub at the forum's Global Village cafe. Asked which other groups of people have been similarly unpopular in Davos in the past, he said: "terrorists."
What will the future of social networking look like? Imagine this: your digital video recorder automatically copies a television show that several of your friends were talking about on a social network before the show went on air. Or this: you get into your car, switch on its navigation system and ask it to guide you to a friend’s house. As you pull out of the driveway, the network to which you both belong automatically alerts her that you are on your way. And this: as you are buying a pair of running shoes that you think one of your friends might be interested in, you can send a picture to their network page with a couple of clicks on a keypad next to the checkout counter.
Documentary films could have been created the way books were, with writers using clips the way historians use quotations (that is, with no permission at all). And likewise, books could have been created differently: with each quotation licensed by the original author, with the promise to use the quote only according to the terms of a license. All books could thus be today as documentary films are today--inaccessible. Or all documentary films today could be as almost all books are today--accessible. But it is the accident of our cultural history, created by lawyers not thinking about, as Duke law professor Jamie Boyle puts it, the “cultural environmental consequences” of their contracts, that we can always legally read, even if we cannot legally watch. In this contrast between books and documentaries, there is a warning about our future. What are the rules that will govern culture for the next hundred years? Are we building an ecology of access that demands a lawyer at every turn of the page? Or have we learned something from the mess of the documentary-film past, and will we create instead an ecology of access that assures copyright owners the incentive they need, while also guaranteeing culture a future?
Good friend Stowe Boyd recently shared a quote by Gabriel García Márquez, “Everyone has three lives: a public life, a private life, and a secret life.” Indeed, quite simply many of us live life allowing specific, trusted individuals to know us in one or more of our personae. Our moral compass as well as outside influences affect how we balance our three lives. The size and permeability of our personal dividers vary in the separation of each life and resemble doors that open and close based on our desires. We nurture each individually with slight coalescence, but concentrate on the establishment of a distinct ecosystem for cultivating and grooming who we are in public, private, and in secret.
The door of a dry-cleaner-size storefront in an industrial park in Wareham, Massachusetts, an hour south of Boston, might not look like a portal to the future of American manufacturing, but it is. This is the headquarters of Local Motors, the first open source car company to reach production. Step inside and the office reveals itself as a mind-blowing example of the power of micro-factories.
The great and good from the world of social media met Wednesday at Davos and agreed their medium still hasn't reached its full potential, with one speaker joking that the really cool stuff wouldn't happen "until we're dead." This is a frightening prospect when one considers how much our digital and real lives have blurred already. Seven of the 15 most trafficked Web sites in the world are social sites, according to George Colony of Forrester Research, a technology specialist.
Literature has always relied on technology. We wouldn't have the Dead Sea Scrolls had the ancients failed to invent papyrus, just as we wouldn't have "The Da Vinci Code" if Gutenberg hadn't come out with movable type. Technology has also abetted literature by enabling the wealth and leisure that fueled the rise of the popular press — and allowed for such luxuries as a class of professional writers and a large campus establishment devoted to the literary arts. It is important to bear in mind that technology is not the sworn enemy of literature as Apple prepares (according to frantic rumor) to unveil its much-anticipated new tablet computer on Jan. 27. Still, the collision of technology and literature in this case may well prove explosive.
Modern capitalism can be broken down into two major eras. The first, managerial capitalism, began in 1932 and was defined by the then radical notion that firms ought to have professional management. The second, shareholder value capitalism, began in 1976. Its governing premise is that the purpose of every corporation should be to maximize shareholders’ wealth. If firms pursue this goal, the thinking goes, both shareholders and society will benefit. This is a tragically flawed premise, and it is time we abandoned it and made the shift to a third era: customer-driven capitalism.
As Toyota’s problems mounted in North America with the announcement of a halt to sales and manufacturing of the bulk of its cars, commentators in Japan fretted Wednesday that the automaker’s problems could seriously hurt the reputation of the rest of Japan’s manufacturing sector. “Toyota’s reputation for safety is in tatters, and it is inevitable that its image among consumers will suffer,” the Sankei Shimbun daily said.
Public confidence in companies, governments and non-governmental organisations has staged a recovery since last year's "trust Armageddon", but the rebound is patchy and fragile, according to data to be presented at the World Economic Forum tomorrow in Davos. Trust in business has risen from 49 per cent to 53 per cent around the world year-on-year, says the annual "trust barometer" of well-educated, highly paid and engaged "informed publics", conducted by Edelman, a communications consultancy.
As we wanted to keep things straightforward and hands-on this month, we're highlighting "FUNCTIONALL". Which is all about a new breed of products that are simple, small and/or cheap (with a dash of sustainability), giving them global appeal, from India to Sweden. Now, if that doesn't warrant a brainstorming session...
Flouting the efforts of lobbyists to shut down his plan for a consumer protection agency, the newly combative President Barack Obama is digging in his heels. Spokesman Robert Gibbs said last week that it’s something Obama “is not willing to give up.” Thus, we open another round in the brawl between Obama and business groups that claim the bill covering mortgage and credit-card lenders is a death sentence for small companies, expensive for consumers, and will “change the way Americans do business forever.”
Steve Jobs is walking the same path as Walt Disney. As soon as California’s Disneyland was completed, Walt knew he had made a terrible mistake by not securing the surrounding real estate. He had built this wonderful destination but his oversight allowed hotel chains and restaurants to come in and make more money off his customers than he did. So Walt immediately went to Orlando, FL and built Disneyworld the right way. The moral of the story is that Steve Jobs is not someone you want to depend on for your livelihood. His goal is to build a closed digital neighborhood where Apple (AAPL) controls who makes money and who doesn’t. I'll bet that in one of those Apple board meetings that Google (GOOG) CEO Eric Schmidt used to attend, he realized that Jobs was on the verge of building AppleWorld and he's been scared ever since.
According to the 2009 Cone Consumer New Media Study, an online survey by Opinion Research Corporation among a representative U.S. sample of 1,048 adults, comprising "new media users," 44% of American new media users are searching for, sharing or discussing information about corporate responsibility (CR) efforts and programs and are highly confident they can have an effect on business.
Quick: Describe your company's business model. Having trouble? That wouldn't surprise me. In reality, there isn't really any consensus about what the term "business model" even means. Suggestions range from the all-encompassing, everything-in-your-value-chain approach to the reductionist "A business model is nothing else than a representation of how an organization makes (or intends to make) money."
With the new tablet device that is debuting next week, Apple Inc. Chief Executive Steve Jobs is betting he can reshape businesses like textbooks, newspapers and television much the way his iPod revamped the music industry—and expand Apple's influence and revenue as a content middleman. In developing the device, Apple focused on the role the gadget could play in homes and in classrooms, say people familiar with the situation. The company envisions that the tablet can be shared by multiple family members to read news and check email in homes, these people say.
In May 2009, Absolut Vodka launched a limited edition line called "Absolut No Label." The company's global public relations manager, Kristina Hagbard, explained that "For the first time we dare to face the world completely naked. We launch a bottle with no label and no logo, to manifest the idea that no matter what's on the outside, it's the inside that really matters."
Normally China's internet censorship is a topic of hot interest for the Human Rights crowd at the State Department, but the fate of Google.cn in China should be watched closely by marketers, too. If the search site does disappear from the mainland, more is at stake than just paid search opportunities. Google is a key player in drawing advertisers to online media. The web -- and particularly the growing number of social networks -- have found the U.S. company to be a key catalyst for online marketing efforts.
Yahoo’s Chinese partner issued a scathing criticism of the US technology company at the weekend, calling it “reckless” for publicly supporting Google’s threat to quit the country in protest over a wave of Chinese cyberattacks. Alibaba Group, in which Yahoo holds a 40 per cent stake, said it had “communicated to Yahoo that Yahoo’s statement that it is ‘aligned’ with the position Google took last week was reckless given the lack of facts in evidence. Alibaba doesn’t share this view”.
For most marketers, the growth of multicultural segments became a business imperative after the 2000 Census and the generational focus shifted from boomer to Gen Y. If you're managing a large brand today, you are likely addressing these opportunities through some combination of targeted Hispanic, African American or Asian, and youth-marketing initiatives. But today that segmentation is not enough; a bigger change is emerging that is more meaningful than just demography.
A hill, a giant chasm, and a cloud-covered peak. Close your eyes and picture a lopsided "M" for a second. That's the new landscape of advantage. And the recent skirmish between Google and China is its best example yet. On one side is the old high ground of the industrial era capitalism; on the other, the new high(er) ground of next-generation capitalism. The yawning chasm in between them is the gap between the 20th century and the 21st.
Those entering the workforce now will likely make less and save more—not just in the short term but for the rest of their lives.
When does the wisdom of crowds give way to the meanness of mobs? In the 1990s, Jaron Lanier was one of the digital pioneers hailing the wonderful possibilities that would be realized once the Internet allowed musicians, artists, scientists and engineers around the world to instantly share their work. Now, like a lot of us, he is having second thoughts. Mr. Lanier, a musician and avant-garde computer scientist — he popularized the term “virtual reality” — wonders if the Web’s structure and ideology are fostering nasty group dynamics and mediocre collaborations.
Most of the marketing rules we lived by just five years ago are practically obsolete. The industry has faced more changes in the last five years than in the previous 50. Let's face it, there's no point in improving broken legacy models. Since necessity is the mother of invention, let's not waste this recession and instead use it to rethink how we go about branding in this new decade.
In a post-recessionary world, trust has moved from the individual to the corporate realm. It is one of the most important issues that business organizations face when it comes to the future of their brands. A 2008 study by the Chief Marketing Officer Council found that some 99% of customers surveyed said they would either scale back or terminate relationships with companies that fail at building customer trust. In the past, trust may not have seemed like a natural part of management's role, but these days it is a critical part of every business, one proven to have an effect on the bottom line. Customers need to see that a solid foundation has been built within a business and that their needs will be addressed--especially in times of crisis.
Google’s stunning declaration that it would stop cooperating with Chinese Internet censorship and consider shutting down its operations in the country ricocheted around the world Wednesday. But in China itself, the news was heavily censored. Some big Chinese news portals initially carried a short dispatch on Google’s announcement but that account soon tumbled from the headlines and later reports omitted Google’s references to “free speech” and “surveillance.”
We live in a world obsessed with science, preoccupied with predictability and control, and enraptured with quantitative analysis. Economic forecasters crank out precision predictions of economic growth with their massive econometric models. CEOs give to-the-penny guidance to capital markets on next quarter's predicted earnings. We live by adages like: "Show me the numbers" and truisms such as "If you can't measure it, it doesn't count." What has this obsession gotten us? The economists have gotten it consistently wrong.
UBS AG Tuesday issued an employee code explicitly banning staff from helping clients cheat on their taxes, as part of the Swiss bank's effort to restore its reputation after a messy U.S. probe into hidden offshore accounts. "We do not provide assistance to clients or colleagues in acts aimed at deceiving tax authorities," according to the code, which is prefaced with remarks from UBS Chairman Kaspar Villiger and Chief Executive Oswald Grübel. The code, which also addresses issues such as financial crime, competition, confidentiality and diversity, is meant as a response to wrongdoing in UBS's U.S. offshore arm, which has since been shuttered.
This interview with Tony Hsieh, the chief executive of Zappos.com, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant. Q. What are some of the most important leadership lessons you’ve learned? A. After college, a roommate and I started a company called LinkExchange in 1996, and it grew to about 100 or so people, and then we ended up selling the company to Microsoft in 1998. From the outside, it looked like it was a great acquisition, $265 million, but most people don’t know the real reason why we ended up selling the company.
A decade ago, Roger Martin, the new dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, had an epiphany. The leadership at his son’s elementary school had asked him to meet with its retiring principal to figure out how it could replicate her success. He discovered that the principal thrived by thinking through clashing priorities and potential options, rather than hewing to any pre-planned strategy — the same approach taken by the managing partner of a successful international law firm in town. “The ‘Eureka’ moment was when I could draw a data point between a hotshot, investment bank-oriented star lawyer and an elementary school principal,” Mr. Martin recalls. “I thought: ‘Holy smokes. In completely different situations, these people are thinking in very similar ways, and there may be something special about this pattern of thinking.’ ”
In the early days of the Web, when I worked at HotWired, I thought mainly about the new. We were of the future, those of us in that San Francisco loft, champions of new media, new tools, new thinking. But lately, I've been thinking more about the old — about those aspects of human character and cognition that remain unchanged by time and technology. Over the past two decades, I've watched as the Internet changed the way we think and changed the way we live. But it hasn't changed us fundamentally. In fact, it may be returning us to the intensely social animals we evolved to be.
Ford recently wrapped the first chapter of its Fiesta Movement, leaving us distinctly wiser about marketing in the digital space. Ford gave 100 consumers a car for six months and asked them to complete a different mission every month. And away they went. At the direction of Ford and their own imagination, "agents" used their Fiestas to deliver Meals On Wheels. They used them to take Harry And David treats to the National Guard. They went looking for adventure, some to wrestle alligators, others actually to elope. All of these stories were then lovingly documented on YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, and Twitter.
While most CMOs have laid forth their plans for 2010, many are still seeking a way to innovate in a time of uncertainty. Where are the opportunities? With the recent dramatic drops in marketing spending, there has been one category that continues to grow. Throughout 2009 we saw the launch of many national cause-marketing programs (see sidebar: Dawn, H&R Block, Pepsi, Sonic Drive-In) at a time when marketers were watching budgets more closely than ever. With this rise in popularity comes the question: Where is cause marketing headed in 2010? While the rules of a successful cause campaign remain solidified, the category is set to change dramatically in 2010.
Coca-Cola today has a market capitalization in excess of $100 billion because the perceived value of its brand is significantly higher than the sum total of all the assets of the company. In my years with Procter & Gamble and Heinz, I have come to realize that no matter what the product or service, the key principles for building a great brand remain the same. By staying true to these seven principles, a marketer can weather economic highs and lows while building an iconic brand for target consumers.
The first ten years of the new century may go down as the decade to forget. Terrorists attacks, devastating natural disasters, scary increases in CO2emissions, Wall Street scandals and two market crashes. The stock market is down 26% since 2000, median household income is also down, and unemployment is up. The price of oil has more than tripled, health care costs have spiraled out of control and there appears to be no end in sight to corporate bankruptcies and the mass exodus of loyal employees.
Why is the brain divided? If it is about making connections, why has evolution so carefully preserved the segregation of its hemispheres? Almost every function once thought to be the province of one or other hemisphere—language, imagery, reason, emotion—is served by both hemispheres, not one. There is nonetheless a highly significant difference in how the two hemispheres work, giving rise to two wholly distinct takes on the world. Normally we synthesize them without being aware that we are doing so. But one of the two hemispheres can come to dominate—and just as this may happen for individuals, it may also happen for a whole culture.
Call it 2010. Call it twenty-ten, or even 2K10. No matter how you refer to the last year of the first decade of the 21st Century, everyone in the marketing is wondering what the past few sobering years will mean for brands and consumer behavior. It doesn't take a seer, or even a branding professional, to declare that consumers will continue to demand value, no matter which direction the economy goes. Consumers have learned--some the hard way--that financial discipline is a must. They will also demand that the values practiced by the companies with which they choose to do business are good and honest and trustworthy. And lest any company thinks it can put one over on anyone, a text, a blog, a YouTube video or a Tweet will quickly prove otherwise.
How you use your mobile phone has long reflected where you live. But the spirit of the machines may be wiping away cultural differences.
I can remember when I first thought seriously about Twitter. Last March, I was at the SXSW conference, a conclave in Austin, Tex., where technology, media and music are mashed up and re-imagined, and, not so coincidentally, where Twitter first rolled out in 2007. As someone who was oversubscribed on Facebook, overwhelmed by the computer-generated RSS feeds of news that came flying at me, and swamped by incoming e-mail messages, the last thing I wanted was one more Web-borne intrusion into my life.
Some have asked, Where does social media live? Is it marketing? Is it public relations? Is it IT or corporate? Is it a combination of multiple business units and functions, and if so, who leads the efforts and how does an organization choose partners? These are valid and complex questions, currently with no simple answers. Social media is still emerging and being defined in real time. There's a question missing from that litany, one that organizations or individuals rarely ask themselves: Do you live social? Many organizations simply skip this question because they assume that they themselves don't have to be social (open and collaborative) to reap the rewards (cost savings, marketing ROI, effective reputation management, and search engine juice) they think they might get from social media.
Scripps Networks Interactive Inc. pulled its Food Network and HGTV channels off Cablevision Systems Corp. early Friday morning after the two companies were unable to reach an agreement in a year-end negotiations over carriage fees. Cablevision's agreement to carry the Scripps channels expired at midnight Thursday, and Scripps warned subscribers Thursday that its Food Network and HGTV channels may be "dropped from your TV lineup," as another contentious negotiation over programming fees spilled into public view.
A spate of new digital gadgets and the fulfilment of the internet’s promise as an interactive medium have dominated popular awareness of information technology in the past 10 years. But what could turn out to be a far more important and lasting transformation has been going on below the surface. It involves a step-change in computing that promises to bring fundamental and irreversible change to many aspects of everyday life – for good or ill.
YouTube, the video site owned by Google, is about 10 times more popular than its nearest competitor. But Hunter Walk still thinks of it as an underdog. For Mr. Walk, director of product management at YouTube, the competition is not other Web sites: it’s TV.
When a lot of people think of gamers, they automatically think of mostly male teens who sit around a game console or computer screen all day playing alone. The reality is that the average gamers today are in their 30's and have a significant disposable income to support the expensive hobby.
At year’s end, I have an unhappy thought, that some of the creative professionals who rose to prominence in the first decade of the 21st century will be eclipsed by the end of the decade coming, that the first decade of the 21st century will be, for some creative professionals, a brief moment in the sun. This suspicion turns on three propositions.
Think back, way back, to the last time you were in a 7-Eleven. Recall the smell, the light, the products on the shelf, the linoleum under foot, the clerk behind the counter. It’s as if everything that is bad and wrong in the ordinary world has assembled in a kind of jamboree of awfulness. When I used to frequent one in downtown Boston, I would shuffle around endlessly looking for something to eat. And I came to the conclusion that with the exception of a token apple or two, only artificial food is allowed in this place. If you ate here exclusively for a month (instead of at McDonald’s), there is no chance you would complete the assignment.
Every address, every building, every business has a story to tell. Visualize your world that way: Look at a restaurant and think about all the data that already swirls around it — its menu, its reviews and ratings and tags (descriptive words), its recipes, its ingredients, its suppliers (and how far away they are, if you care about that sort of thing), its reservation openings, who has been there (according to social applications), who do we know who has been there, its health-department reports, its credit-card data (in aggregate, of course), pictures of its interior, pictures of its food, its wine list, the history of the location, its decibel rating, its news… And then think how we can annotate that with our own reviews, ratings, photos, videos, social-app check-ins and relationships, news, discussion, calendar entries, orders…. The same can be said of objects, brands — and people.
In my last blog, I argued that people don't care enough about their information environments to prevent overload. This week I am focusing on a related behavioral change that has important implications for companies that produce information products and services: As information grows in quantity, consumers of it are willing to accept lower quality. I call this willingness satisficing — being satisfied with sacrificing quality.
As a rough 2009 draws to a close, the digital marketing world is looking ahead to 2010, hoping to deliver stronger growth in the sector, which is one of the few bright spots in the media world. What lies ahead? We identified 10 trends that are sure to make waves in 2010.
Technology is like a dog; each year of it seems like the equivalent of seven human years — at least when you get to the end of it and realize it’s only been 12 months since that now indispensable service first launched. We spent 2009 documenting technology’s disruption of how we live, entertain ourselves and do business. Looking back on the year from the comfortable perch of December, here are the seven most disruptive developments of 2009.
Last year, most Americans felt as if they had been hit in the head by a 4-iron. Wall Street nearly collapsed. The economy plunged into its deepest recession in decades. As housing prices sank, many homeowners realized that they owed more on their mortgages than their homes were worth. Millions lost their jobs, and even those who didn’t hunkered down, burying their wallets in the backyard. This year — with more than a few bumps along the way — the situation brightened. With that, here’s a look back at five of the biggest business stories of this year — and what to look for in the next 12 months.
It’s hard to argue that 2009 wasn’t the year of Twitter. Yes, the questions about monetization loomed over the young web company as soon as it started gaining popularity, and they’re still largely unanswered. But people loved this new way of communicating via 140 character messages that go out to everyone who wants to hear them. So much so, that everything else (even money) wasn’t very important.
It seems as though the first era of digital music may have come to an end. Napster died, P2P lived in some black market twilight zone, streaming services on ad-supported revenue were suffocated by unsustainably high licensing fees, and subscription services sputtered along, never quite capturing the imaginations of music fans. 2009 ended in a flurry of acquisitions (LaLa, iLike), launches (Vevo) and shutdowns (iMeem), which dramatically rearranged the digital music landscape. When the dust finally settles, expect digital music to begin anew. With that in mind, here are my five predictions for music in 2010.
Not everyone thought it was adorable in September when a 13-year-old wunderkind blogger named Tavi was given a front-row seat at the fashion shows of Marc Jacobs, Rodarte and others. Oh now, don’t misunderstand. She was totally adorable. You could have gobbled her up, with her goofy spark plug style — a Peggy Guggenheim for the Tweeting tween set. Rather, it was what the arrival of Ms. Gevinson, as a blogger, represented that ruffled feathers among the fashion elite.
“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” – Mark Twain Remember that quote. In 2010 the very best marketers, PR professionals, and social media consultants will put data at the center of everything they do. For anyone unfamiliar with these concepts, just as with social media, data marketing may seem opaque or intimidating at the beginning. The only way you ever learn is by jumping in headfirst — become a data nerd, because data nerds are changing the world.
As we close out the year, it's important to look back at what happened in social marketing in order to plan for the future. There were four key trends in 2009 that CMOs should reflect on, starting at the macro level then shifting down to micro real-time updates.
What’s the future of videogame controllers? Microsoft is betting that it’s no controller at all. The company’s new Xbox 360 interface, codenamed Project Natal, uses a depth sensor, directional microphones, and a lo-res camera to read your gestures — grip an imaginary steering wheel, for instance, to control a car onscreen. The technology is bound to be a game-changer, so we asked three industry visionaries what kinds of games they’d design for it.
In the 19th and 20th centuries we made stuff: corn and steel and trucks. Now, we make protocols: sets of instructions. A software program is a protocol for organizing information. A new drug is a protocol for organizing chemicals. Wal-Mart produces protocols for moving and marketing consumer goods. Even when you are buying a car, you are mostly paying for the knowledge embedded in its design, not the metal and glass.
Last week I sent an email to Googlers about the meaning of "open" as it relates to the Internet, Google, and our users. In the spirit of openness, I thought it would be appropriate to share these thoughts with those outside of Google as well. At Google we believe that open systems win. They lead to more innovation, value, and freedom of choice for consumers, and a vibrant, profitable, and competitive ecosystem for businesses. Many companies will claim roughly the same thing since they know that declaring themselves to be open is both good for their brand and completely without risk. After all, in our industry there is no clear definition of what open really means. It is a Rashomon-like term: highly subjective and vitally important.
Facebook, the popular networking site, has 350 million members worldwide who, collectively, spend 10 billion minutes there every day, checking in with friends, writing on people’s electronic walls, clicking through photos and generally keeping pace with the drift of their social world. Make that 9.9 billion and change.
I’ve seen Avatar (the 3D version) over the weekend, and while I won’t go into the content of the movie, technologically it’s a must-see. Think you’ve seen 3D? Avatar truly takes it to the next level, giving us a glimpse of the movie industry’s future.
The 1950s were big for Tupperware parties. The 1970s were hot for Mary Kay cosmetics. As this decade hobbles to a close, a new kind of social gathering is invading America's living rooms: the gold party.
Google faced increased global resistance on Friday to its plan to digitise books when a Paris court ruled that the internet group had violated the copyright of authors and publishers by scanning French books held in US libraries without consent. The court ordered the group to stop scanning without prior authorisation titles published by La Matinière, the company that brought the case, and instructed it to pay €300,000 ($429,000) in damages and interest. Google said it would appeal.
"We do have a conscious say in selecting the narrative we will use to make sense of the world," writes New York Times columnist David Brooks. "Individual responsibility is contained in the act of selecting and constantly revising the master narrative we tell about ourselves." Brooks' explanation about choice of narrative can apply to leaders seeking ways to navigate our recession. The relentless tide of bad news may tempt those in charge to adopt a pessimistic view point, but leaders owe it to their followers to spread optimism. Without excluding reality, leaders need to inspire not simply hope, but also resilience. Storytelling can help in this effort. Here are some suggestions for crafting your own story to make sense of adversity.
Popular culture, including TV shows such as "Mad Men," would have us believe the practice of marketing in an ad agency is a straightforward exercise, calling only for understanding the customer, coming up with a big idea, then creating something interesting and relevant to engage consumers. Not quite. Marketing organizations today are under the gun as never before -- from a media landscape growing increasingly convoluted and a fleeting consumer universe to the mounting pressure of accountability for any marketing dollar spent. Today's new universe demands a different approach to the design and execution of any marketing effort. And yet, little intellectual brain power or emotional energy is being invested in improving the fundamental marketing process.
The economy appears to have begun recovering after the worst recession in half a century. But businesses ranging from shoemakers to financial services to luxury hotels don't expect American consumers to return to their spendthrift ways anytime soon. They see consumers emerging from the punishing downturn with a new mind-set: careful, practical, more socially conscious and embarrassed by flashy shows of wealth. Much as the 1930s shaped the spending habits of an entire generation, many companies now anticipate a shift in consumer behavior that persists even after jobs and growth get back closer to normal.
In order to compete in this new economy, chances are you've already pared down your operations. You've also probably adopted "flat revenue" as the new measure of growth. Even typically profit-focused Wall Street is looking at sales growth to see how people are spending money again. I have news, growth is the only real measure of growth. And with your operations streamlined, now is the perfect time to grow.
Does your company truly care about its customers or are you--and your employees--just saying you are "customer focused"? These days, customers won't be fooled if your company's actions don't live up to its promise.
How Ashton Kutcher is pioneering a new kind of media business, bridging Hollywood, technology, and Madison Avenue. Really.
We are witnessing a profound change in the media and advertising industries due to the emergence of social media. Companies that did not exist ten years ago, like Facebook and Twitter, have captured significant share of the attention economy from traditional publishers. Underscoring this trend is the fact that at the same time that Businessweek was selling for less than $5 million (plus assumption of debts) to Bloomberg, Foursquare’s pretty cousin Gowalla drove up Sand Hill road and collected $8.4 million for a minority stake. Amidst this disruption, media companies are chasing after “their” audience in order to continue to broker the attention of that audience to marketers. But just at the moment that media has mastered the art of blogging, search engine optimization and CPM yield management, they are now faced with a new set of consumer behaviors that elude their programming faculties: mobile devices, location-based services and the social graph.
Emily Pilloton is the founder and executive director of Project H Design, a nonprofit that aims to change the world through the power of design. Her recent book, Design Revolution: 100 Products That Empower People, is available now from Metropolis Books. Here, Pilloton gives the lowdown on 25 of the products she chose to feature.
Social Media is rooted in relationships, the dynamic interaction and collaboration between real people. We learned and continue to learn how to communicate in public forums, evolving our personal views on privacy and uncertainty as we transform from digital introverts to social extroverts. This is our industrial revolution and its reward for participation is relevance. The socialization of online societies democratized the publishing industry and equalized influence.
In the beleaguered music industry’s latest bid to generate more money from its content, two top music labels on Tuesday will introduce Vevo, a Web site for music videos. Vevo is co-owned by the Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and the Abu Dhabi Media Company. Vevo said Monday that it had signed up a third major music label, EMI Music, as a video provider, leaving only one holdout among the big four labels, Warner Music. Vevo said conversations with Warner were continuing.
France's Groupe Danone finally lost its foothold in China this fall after a two-year legal battle with local beverage maker Wahaha. Apple's iPhone logged a disappointing debut there in November. Figuring out the Chinese retail market -- which posted 5.9 trillion yuan ($867.6 billion) in total sales in the first half of this year -- is far from a piece of cake for some big international corporations. But not for Kraft. The president of Kraft International, Sanjay Khosla, told Forbes how the world's second largest food company overhauled its recipe for success to align with the particular appetites of China's 1.3 billion people. It now boasts the biggest market share in China in two major categories: cookies and powdered beverages.
Nike is changing directions to go places it's never gone. But the floor leader directing this isn't legendary co-founder Phil Knight– as well-known for his ego as his vision. It's his unassuming, hand-picked replacement, Mark Parker. After four years as CEO, Parker is growing Nike from a brand that you slip on your feet or pull over your shoulders to one that follows you off the field into your life of digital socializing and New World hobbies.
From Studio 6B at 30 Rockefeller Center, NBC brought Milton Berle, Jack Parr and Johnny Carson into the nation’s living rooms, then broadcast local news to New York City for decades. Last Thursday, it was a stage for a cable takeover as Comcast announced a plan to acquire NBC Universal. There, in Studio 6B, a town hall meeting for NBC employees opened with Jeff Zucker, the NBC Universal chief executive, introducing “our new friends from Philadelphia,” and closed with a formal welcome to the Comcast family by Ralph Roberts, the cable operator’s 89-year-old patriarch. Mr. Roberts received a standing ovation. For employees of the oldest and most storied part of NBC Universal, the broadcast network, one question lingered: will we fit into this cable family?
McDonald's is going to change its logo in Germany, casting its iconographic golden arches against a green background to invoke its respect for the environment. I can't decide if the idea is irrelevant or insane. Or both. Central to the decision would be the premise that fast-food customers make eating decisions based on corporate environmental policies. If comparisons between hamburgers or fries net out in a tie, McDonald's must believe that it'll win because it's doing good things for the planet.
When a media industry insider last week floated the idea of an exclusive deal to list News Corp. content on Microsoft’s Bing search engine, stiffing Google in the process, it drew some predictable responses. Bloggers and technology analysts crowed that Rupert Murdoch, News Corp.’s septuagenarian chief executive, had conclusively proved that he just didn’t understand the Internet. Some people in the newspaper business said hooray for Uncle Rupert, standing up for the value of old-fashioned content and telling the geeks with their algorithms to get lost. Google, meanwhile, made the reassuring noises it does anytime anyone raises the possibility that its goals, and those of the media companies whose content it indexes, might not be 100 percent aligned. Google said it provided news organizations’ Web sites with 100,000 clicks a minute, every one of which “offers a business opportunity for the publishers to show ads, win loyal readers and sell subscriptions.”
In its heyday, "This is Your Life" was seen by a broad swath of viewers tuned into their Philcos all at once, never dreaming that someday it could be rebroadcast, paused live, accessed on another gadget, or that its entire run could be contained on a thin metal disc. Almost 50 years later, we're almost similarly in the dark. Those Samsung flatscreens in our living room might still be the go-to device, but they are fast being joined by computer monitors, laptops, gaming consoles, iPods and mobile phones distributing content once solely accessed by TV, or in some cases, content that competes with TV. It's conceivable—and probably inevitable—that TV/web convergence will lead to us ordering up movies, pizza and even advertising while watching custom-tailored content and interacting with social-network buddies at the same time. The question is how these services will work together and who will manage and monetize them in a world where the TV networks operate with a mass-media mentality and are anxious to keep $60.5 billion in ad revenue from going the way of Philco.
The "new normal" — the idea that when income, credit and confidence return, Americans will not return to our free-spending ways — is an idea on the march, recruiting everyone from PIMCO CEO Mohamed El-Erian to Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke. It's spreading so fast it threatens to become the new orthodoxy. I believe the argument is flawed.
When Sir Martin Sorrell, Executive Chairman of the WPP Group and for two decades arguably the most powerful individual in advertising, appeared on The Charlie Rose Show last May, the conversation was more remarkable for what he didn’t say than for what he did say.
Digital is so yesterday. It will soon be 20 years since the advent of commercially available digital services such as America Online, multimedia, mobile phones and widespread use of personal computers. The American household went digital long before marketers embraced technology and the Internet. Now, as companies struggle to get their "digital strategies" in order, they will be surprised to discover consumers have moved on to the "post-digital" age.
The Empire always strikes back. Every revolution inspires a counter-revolution. Luke Skywalker and the Rebel Alliance didn't win independence overnight — and neither, it seems, will the www. Microsoft is negotiating with News Corp to pay it to remove its content from Google's index. Uh-oh: the Empire — industrial-era business as usual — is striking back. Will the rebels be crushed? Not a chance. Blocking Google is about as smart as eating a pound of plutonium. Here's why MicroFox is making a big mistake.
I believe if Social Media warranted a mantra, it would look something like this, “Always pay it forward and never forget to pay it back…it’s how you got here and it defines where you’re going.” This is the credo I live by and something that has only been reinforced as part of my daily regiment, online and in the real world. Paying it forward and paying it back is the balladry of reciprocity, the undercurrent of social media and the currency of the social economy. The words, “what comes around goes around” and the overall spirit of karma reminds us that there may be personal rewards and satisfaction for helping and contributing more than we take away from our environment. In sociology, this form of alternative giving is referred to as “generalized reciprocity” or “generalized exchange.” In the same vein, the idea of giving something to one person by paying another is credited to Benjamin Franklin, which would ultimately serve as the defining foundation to “Pay it forward.”
In digital media, as in fortune-telling, the future is pretty much treated as part of the present. "What is the next big thing?" is a question everyone who works with the internet asks continually. But after several years of boom, the question of what comes after social platforms is no longer so remote. Luckily, some experts just gave us answers. On Monday evening, the Said Business School in Oxford had invited some very bright and successful entrepreneurs who spoke in front of a packed alumni audience as Silicon Valley came to Oxford for the ninth year. The event was chaired by the very lively and assertive Frances Cairncross, rector of Exeter college.
Bad news isn't bad wine. It doesn't improve with age. According to Bain & Co, 80% of CEOs think their brands offer a superior experience, but only 8% of their consumers agreed. AOL seemed to have gleaned that fact. AOL's running man (logo) had already run off the cliff, revealing a brand that was desecrated, unoriginal, normalized and downtrodden. The business goal of any brand is to create more users, new users or new uses by continually innovating to add value to customer's lives. AOL CEO Tim Armstrong needs to ask himself: What is AOL's true brand ambition? What does he wish his AOL brand to be capable of achieving? With great brands come great benefits -- including higher customer loyalty, increased opportunities and elevated profits.
It is no secret that the real world in which the designer functions is not the world of art, but the world of buying and selling. For sales, and not design are the raison d’etre of any business organization. Unlike the salesman, however, the designer’s overriding motivation is art: art in the service of business, art that enhances the quality of life and deepens appreciation of the familiar world. Design is a problem-solving activity. It provides a means of clarifying, synthesizing, and dramatizing a word, a picture, a product, or an event. A serious barrier to the realization of good design, however, are the layers of management inherent in any bureaucratic structure. For aside from the sheer prejudice or simple unawareness, one is apt to encounter such absurdities as second guessing, kow-towing, posturing, nit-picking, and jockeying for position, let alone such buck-passing institutions as the committee meeting and the task force. At issue, it seems, is neither malevolence nor stupidity, but human frailty.
When it started four years ago, Futures of Entertainment (FoE) was grappling with wild problems. Everything seemed hard to think. What was social media? What was trans-media? What was blogging and (later) tweeting? It wasn't just that we didn't have the answers. It was hard to prosecute the argument. Every so often, we (or at least me) would have to go back and ask, "Ok, what's the formal definition of that term again." It was like learning to ride a bicycle. You would make a little progress and then suddenly forget even the fundamentals and come crashing down. They were very wild problems indeed. Four years later these are tame problems.
It's an unpleasant, abominable idea, submitting something as delicate as culture to the rack of metrification. But here's why it's necessary. There's so much going on "out there" in culture, so many different people creating so many different innovations, subject to change so violent and frequent, that unless we have metrics at our disposal, well, we're done for. We have no real hope of canvassing all that water front.
Design thinking translates rigorous trend research into meaningful experiences that lead markets and foster brand loyalty instead of merely following the cult of now. Blue may be the new green, but how is that relevant to an industry, a brand and the evolving desires of its customers? Times and trends can change so quickly that a campaign, product or service can be rendered irrelevant by the time it gets to market.
In the World According to Twitter, giving away access to information rewards the giver by building followers. The more followers, the more information comes to the giver to distribute, which in turn builds more followers. The process cannot be commanded or controlled; followers opt in and out as they choose. The results are transparent and purely quantitative; network size is all that matters. Networks of this sort are self-organizing and democratic but without any collective interaction.
First of all: It’s going to be another interesting year. Has the global recession really, officially ended? And if so, will the aftermath cause pains for years to come? Whatever the outcome, we find ourselves spotting more recession-proof opportunities than ever before. Why? Consumers, recession-stricken or not, still value innovations that are pragmatic, or exciting, or those that save them money, or entertain them.... oh well, you get the picture.
Whether you think digital agencies are "ready to lead" or not, failing to bring a digital mindset to marketing and communications challenges is no longer an option. Yesterday, Ben Malbon tweeted a quote by Garrick Schmitt from the Razorfish FEED 09 Report: "Brand marketers neglecting digital is akin to showing up to a cocktail party in sweatpants." This reminded me of the Shel Silverstein poem and illustration above (which Johanna helped me to track down). The digital age is here. And it's permanent. This means that regardless of whether your career has been labeled digital or not, it is essential that you bring a digital mindset to all of the work that you do. This is beyond tools, platforms, and capabilities. This is a new way of understanding our world that changes every aspect of our work.
Shocked -- again. That's how I felt when I saw in BusinessWeek yet another example of marketing being totally misunderstood. An article titled "At Amazon, Marketing Is for Dummies" said, "Instead of lavish ads and splaying its logo everywhere, it invests in technology and distribution -- and the results are startlingly effective." Last time I checked, product and distribution are two of the essential pillars of marketing. What the article didn't say, but should have, is that Amazon has built its business without much advertising. So? This stands in stark contrast to the dot-bomb when hundreds of companies were created, and CMO became the title du jour. The prevailing "get large or get lost" wisdom drove companies toward publicity stunts, Super Bowl one-offs and multimillion-dollar sweepstakes and away from anything resembling marketing strategy. Brand-building gave way to branding. Marketing became soft, and credibility faded. Here we stand, on the verge of economic recovery, with brands having nowhere to go but up. Marketing should be leading us through growth, but it's not. And we all have a role to play.
Web 2.0 has changed the way companies look at their brand – ceding more and more responsibility to their brand communities - the people who surround the brand. The ubiquity of social media has created awareness of the role customers play in building (or destroying) brands. That awareness of the human impact on branding has rubbed off on the people who build the brand from the inside out.
In the October issue of Fast Company magazine, Linda Tishler profiles David Butler, who she describes as the man with a nearly uncontainable design challenge. Among other projects, Butler is behind the new Coca-Cola Freestyle fountain, which can serve up more than 100 varieties and brands of coke products - and style to boot. System thinking is what led him down that path - as in system that stimulates behavior that produces results. A chain of interdependencies and a a more expansive way of looking at problems, and to deal with complexity.
With Black Friday approaching, there isn't a CMO around who isn't wondering if consumers are going to be in the mood to spend over the holidays. With a sluggish year almost behind us, many are interested in what will make women--who buy 85% of what is sold in the U.S.--open their wallets.
The tools we use for social media have empowered us to be steady-flow commentators. Watch Twitter or Facebook during any event, and you’ll see our added commentary rolling along in time with the experience. At times, such as the US Presidential election, it was exciting to feel that experience, of everyone participating all across the world in an event. There are many more times where it feels like that. In blog comments, on Twitter, all over Facebook, Yelp, YouTube, and several other sites, we’ve been groomed to give our opinion. We spit it out everywhere. We share, rate, criticize, deride, praise, and everything in between. Forrester’s Ladder graphic suggests that critics are second on the content ladder, just below creators.
“Volkswagen is really down-to-earth.” “Nike is exiting.” These examples show that consumers use personality traits when they communicate about brands among each other. Brand personality is the set of personality traits that consumers associated with a brand. Brand personality is related to human personality theory that explains human behavior and preferences on the basis of personality traits. Personality traits are distinguishing characteristics of a person. They are a readiness to think or act in a similar fashion in response to a variety of different stimuli or situations. So, the traits of a person define behaviour to a large extent and consistent over time: an extravert person will behave in an extravert way, while an introvert person will most of the time behave in an introvert way. The value of human personality is found in the potency of the model to forecast human behavior. If a person is introvert he or she can be expected to behave in this way most of the time. Next, personality steers preference. For example women prefer more than men people who show higher levels of socially desirable traits. Brands, like people, can use the potency of personality.
Every brand makes a promise. But in a marketplace in which consumer confidence is low and budgetary vigilance is high, it's not just making a promise that separates one brand from another, but having a defining purpose. This point and its implications were made clear to me at the recent Association of National Advertisers conference in Phoenix where CMOs from some of the smartest organizations explained why purpose-driven branding is essential to success in this "new normal" environment. While it may sound a bit like Philosophy 101, a company whose employees can answer the question, "Why are we here?" will be the company that makes stronger connections with consumers in search of solutions to life's new normal issues.
Think about your organization and ask yourself these two questions: Are external social media sites restricted or blocked while at work? Is the use of social media in the workplace inhibited or frowned upon? If you answered yes, then your organization is one of the majority of firms with over 100 employees that have yet to embrace the use of social media in the workplace for the average worker. In a study conducted by Robert Half Technology entitled "Whistle But Don't Tweet At Work," many organizations are struggling with how to integrate social media into the workplace.
Today our social rules seem to have been overloaded by our always on, always connected culture. Behaviours developed for the industrial age simply cannot cope with the new possibilities for information sharing.
You know social media is a powerful tool for business when a grocery store attracts more Twitter followers than pop star Lady Gaga and almost as many as Miley Cyrus, whose departure drove her 2 million fans to make #MileyComeBack a trending topic for more than a day. If Whole Foods Market ever followed suit, its 1.5 million registered fans would surely start a virtual food fight.
Narratives are a staple of every culture the world over. They are disappearing in an online blizzard of tiny bytes of information.
While social media often commands favorable media attention, the less often told story is that successful initiatives are rare to come by and that there still a number of organizational roadblocks that managers need to overcome in order to make progress. Still, we are seeing signs of progress in the form of new efficiencies, more direct ways to connect with customers, and ways to make products and services better. From my experience working and talking with people in large, complex organizations, here are a small sample of obstacles to look for with suggestions on how you might overcome them:
It must suck to be the middle-man today. Everywhere they turn, it’s bad news. Democratization this. Circumventing that. There was a point not that long ago that the middle-man provided great value. The record companies brought music to the masses. The media created channels for the news to get through. The Blockbusters of the world housed thousands of movies for people to rent. Telephone companies laid the lines for us to connect with one another around the world. But now these middle-men are our modern villains – using every desperate trick in the book to hold onto customers while we find creative ways to go around them, go straight to the source and sometimes just do it ourselves. There is a mass disintermediation going on and every company that occupies the mediator position is at risk. Now it’s the media, the labels and the distributors of what has become digital content, but I doubt this will be the last frontier of democratization. I’m sorry to say it, but they are bringing it on themselves. Why?
A year ago, 1,200 executives in marketing, advertising and the media attended an annual conference that by coincidence took place a month after the financial crisis began. Together, they stared into the abyss, wondering what conditions would be when — or if — they met again. The sky has not fallen, at least so far, and most of those executives are now gathering for the 2009 conference. Many of them are saying, “What a difference a year makes.” Others, however, are wondering, “What difference does a year make?”
At GE, P&G, and other companies, a design perspective is a problem-solving apparatus that can be applied companywide.
Senior marketers, ask yourselves: Is marketing's inability to get the type of traction it seeks within your organization real or self-imposed? In other words, do you actually have control over the perception, power, influence and abilities that marketing can truly bring to the table? A recent study by Prophet and the Association of National Advertisers revealed several alarming findings that point to the need for marketers to start taking back control of the dialogue, and their destiny, within their own organizations. Some of the more startling findings: While almost 70% of those surveyed view themselves as visionary marketers or leaders, the vast majority of them state that the way they actually spend their time is heavily focused on tactical behaviors, such as working the budget, operating month-to-month and being guided by a short-term marcomm plan.
What's a megatrend, you ask? It's something big. I'm talking really big. Think of a giant unstoppable tsunami of change transforming society as we know it. Think global warming scale -- then apply it to mass human behavior. Think glaciers carving the grand canyon of consumer sentiment. So what are the new megatrends that I believe will transform society in the coming years? What brands are taking advantage of them? And what can you learn from them?
Ritz-Carlton has become a leading brand in luxury lodging by rigorously adhering to its own standards. It is the only service company in America that has won the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award twice, and Training Magazine has called it the best company in the nation for employee training. Its unique culture starts with a motto: "We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen." One of its remarkable policies is to permit every employee to spend up to $2,000 making any single guest satisfied. Ritz-Carlton codifies its expectations regarding service in "The 12 Service Values," "The Credo," "The Three Steps of Service," "The 6th Diamond" and other proprietary statements that are taught to all 38,000 employees throughout 73 properties in 24 countries. Simon Cooper, who has led Ritz-Carlton for the past eight years, talks about what makes Ritz-Carlton, well, the Ritz.
This is the age of the amafessional, when amateurs are rivaling professionals in opportunity, talent and the ability to produce quality work. It's happening in virtually every field. In areas ranging from communications to medicine to simply making things with your hands, amafessionals are gaining in numbers and the ability to market their services. Struggling amateurs used to want to become stars, and of course some still do, but this new phenomenon is different. Millions are participating just for the fun and challenge of it–-almost like running in a marathon. "Amafessionals" include both the amateur/professional hybrid and pajama professionals, who often work at home rather than the studio or the office.
In this thoughtful analysis, Roberto Saco and Alexis Goncalves map the landscape of service design. They define the discipline and key players, and sketch its potential vis-à-vis growth and profitability. Saco and Goncalves elaborate on the multi-faceted realities of this work with examples from the Ritz-Carlton Hotels, Herman Miller, and Egg Banking. And they wrap things up with a discussion of key principles related to practice.
Depending on how you see it, social software is either all the rage or so 2008. You know the stuff: Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Foursquare.... There's no talking about the web these days without it—that's for sure—but social software tools are quickly becoming an integral part of the way we run our day-to-day lives. It's not just in the consumer space, either. Companies and large organizations are catching on to the benefits of social networking and improved collaboration tools. They want their intranets to be more like Facebook. They want to use crowdsourcing to leverage employee perspectives and wikis to help people help themselves. They want Twitter for the organization, (or at least they think they do).
A recession seems like a funny time to move your product mix upscale, but Kimberly-Clark Corp. has been doing just that of late, focusing more on premium and super-premium offerings and brands such as Cottonelle, Viva and Huggies Pure and Natural, while watching distribution of its Scott value brand shrink. It's a bold strategy to zag upscale as most of the market, including archrival Procter & Gamble Co., have been zigging more toward value products and private-label sales have been rising.
Dear Google, Eric Schmidt recently said, "CIOs are trapped in a 1980's architecture." Actually, the world is trapped in a 1970's architecture: a financial architecture that was designed for a bygone era, without the prosperity of future generations and the natural world in mind. So here's my challenge to you. The global IT market is worth a few hundred billion bucks. But you're (still) the most innovative company in the world — and there are bigger fisheries to rescue. A better global financial architecture is worth 10x more: at least $12 trillion, if the amount spent on the bailout is any indication. Can you build one?
Prior to leaving Forrester to join Altimeter Group, Jeremiah Owyang, along with Josh Bernoff, Cynthia N. Pflaum, and Emily Bowen, published a report that attempted to bring the future of the Social Web into focus. If we viewed the content of his research as a social object, the conversations that would transpire could in fact expedite the development and implementation of the most valuable predictions and observations contained within.
Signs of an improving economy might be in your kitchen or bathroom cupboards. Consumers are showing a willingness to pay a little more to get Colgate toothpaste, Kellogg's Frosted Flakes and Gillette Fusion shavers. That's good news for the economy and the multibillion-dollar companies that make those products and have been battling to keep shoppers from trading down to store brands to save money. Procter & Gamble Co., Colgate-Palmolive Co. and Kellogg Co. all gave upbeat earnings reports and even stronger outlooks for next year on Thursday, a day that also saw the announcement that U.S. gross domestic product rose for the first time in a year.
The Amazon Mechanical Turk is, as Wikipedia puts it, "a crowdsourcing marketplace that enables computer programs to co-ordinate the use of human intelligence to perform tasks which computers are unable to do." It consists of thousands of people who stand ready for tasks send them by Amazon or others who may wish to use Amazon's MTurk service. MTurk "providers" work alone, often in their spare time. Standing in line at a 7/11, they can bang out a few turns. They get paid a small fee for each decision. No one gets rich working in a mechanical turk, but many find it interesting.
Global consumer confidence is rebounding, and in the United States has risen for the first time since 2007, amid signs the world economy is picking up although spending is still restrained, a survey showed on Wednesday. Confidence was highest in India, followed by Indonesia and Norway, and was weakest in Japan, Latvia, Portugal and South Korea, although in Korea it had improved markedly, according to a quarterly survey by The Nielsen Company, conducted between September 28 and October 16.
A U.K. firm is set to launch a camera to capture every moment of a person's life. While you may reel at the privacy implications, I'd wager that the high price of not capturing and sharing every moment of our lives will soon dwarf the cost to our privacy.
These days, lots of people ask me: "Phew! So, the crisis is over, right?" Wrong. The real crisis is in the DNA of the industrial economy — and it's just as lethal as ever. Most businesses are socially useless. They're about as useful to society (to paraphrase Gloria Steinem) as bicycles are to fish. Sound controversial? If it does, it only underscores just how out totally of touch with real value we've gotten. (Here, for example, are Paul Krugman, Simon Johnson, and Lord Turner all discussing social uselessness.) What has socially useless business cost just over the last five years? $12 trillion at a minimum. Those are the costs of the various bailout packages for socially useless banks.
They're off! Although trick-or-treaters are still days away from ringing doorbells, the nation’s retailers are already starting their mad dash toward the Christmas finish line. The efforts to stimulate holiday feelings ahead of schedule are, of course, a result of the dire economy, as retailers remain anxious about the parsimonious mood among shoppers. The National Retail Federation predicts that Christmas sales will decline 1 percent from Christmas 2008 — not as bad as last year, when retail holiday revenue fell 3.4 percent from 2007, but still not in positive territory.
Heeding the wisdom of Peter Drucker might have helped us avoid—and will help us solve—numerous challenges plaguing communities around the world: restoring trust in business in the wake of accounting scandals and the global financial crisis; attracting and motivating the best talent without creating crippling financial commitments; addressing societal problems such as climate change, health care, and public education; dealing with trouble spots in central Asia and the Middle East. If Peter Drucker were here today, what would he have to say about such pressing matters?
Around the world, four billion people live in poverty. And Western companies are struggling to turn them into customers. For the past decade, business visionaries have argued that these people, dubbed the Base of the Pyramid, make up an enormous, untapped market. Some of the world's biggest, savviest corporations have aimed to address their basic needs—by selling them everything from clean water to electricity. But, time and again, the initiatives have quietly fizzled out. Why? Because these companies were looking at it all wrong.
Moms and college students have long been critical targets for brands -- moms for their hefty control of household spending and college students for the important transitional life stage they are in, which shapes their brand preferences for years to come. Most Millennials, born between 1977 and 1996, are well within their baby-rearing years. These new parents have been raised on the Internet, email, SMS and IM and quickly adopted social networking in their teens or early 20s. What may have seemed like two polar opposites a decade ago now bear considerable resemblance as a result of changes in communications spawned by technology.
Every trend comes with a ticking clock. It may feel inevitable, but its days are numbered. This too shall pass.
Nearly everyone reads. Soon, nearly everyone will publish. Before 1455, books were handwritten, and it took a scribe a year to produce a Bible. Today, it takes only a minute to send a tweet or update a blog. Rates of authorship are increasing by historic orders of magnitude. Nearly universal authorship, like universal literacy before it, stands to reshape society by hastening the flow of information and making individuals more influential. As an open research question, we asked whether it’s possible to objectively track this change and accurately predict the eventual threshold point of universal authorship.
The imminent publication of Forrester’s new report on the challenges facing clients - “Adaptive Brand Marketing: Rethinking Your Approach to Branding in the Digital Age” is a welcome turning of the spotlight toward client organizations. Without question agencies of all sizes, shapes and persuasions need to get their collective acts together and transform into leaner, more agile, more creative, & more technology- and data-fuelled businesses. The best in the business are no doubt all plotting how they can come out of this recession leaner, meaner, quicker, better. But that’s kind of pointless unless clients adapt too.
How many design icons were developed based on consumers' stated needs? We've researched this question, and think we've found the answer: none. Celebrated examples such as the iPod, Walkman, Dyson Cyclone, Formway Lifechair and Fisher and Paykel Dishdrawer all have one thing in common-a strong team of designers who ignored focus groups and ended up shaping markets to their advantage. Although it's tempting to attribute this success to lone genius, analysis reveals that these products are underpinned by design-led cultures.
The attention dashboard is rapidly emerging as the online hub for sharing and discovering information, connecting us to people, content, and events in real-time. According to research, we’re already spending more time in social networks than we are in email. New studies are only fortifying these findings, documenting an increase time spent specifically in Social Media and blogs. In fact, the Nielsen Company reports reports that time spent on social networks and blogs accounted for 17 percent of total time spent on the Internet in August 2009. Most notably, but not surprising, however, is that this discovery represents nearly triple the percentage of time spent using Social Media just one year ago.
In our June 2009 Trend Briefing, we covered FOREVERISM. But even then, we pointed out that the need for everything that is (right) now/current/real-time, is being satisfied in numerous novel ways, with (wait for it) the online world showing the way forward. Dubbed 'NOWISM', this mega trend has, and will continue to have, a big impact on everything from your corporate culture to customer relationships to product innovation to tactical campaigns. And yet you probably only have a few minutes to spare on it so we’ve done our best to keep this Trend Briefing digestible.
I happen to think that the folks who were in charge of the Olympics branding strategy in Rio de Janeiro did a phenomenal job of differentiating Rio's promise from the other cities in contention, and then clearly establishing its relevance to the IOC. In other words, the "Brand Rio" team followed a couple of the basic rules of smart brand management and came out the category leader as a result. There is almost no brand category that isn't awash in choices. Whether cars or cosmetics, beverages or baby carriages, there is a lot of stuff out there and most of it is pretty similar. The competition for consumer attention is fierce and it can't be won on table stakes. The only way a decent brand can ever hope of becoming the chosen brand is to make a promise that's completely different from any its competitors' and ensure that this difference is meaningful to its target audience. In an ever-expanding global marketplace, this is getting harder and harder to do.
Honestly, categorizing human behavior and activities in social networks by financial status appears incomplete and almost insular. If we are learning anything in the study of and participation in social networks, it’s that individuals are forming networks that traverse across multiple social networks – and, they will continue to do so, forming one larger, expansive human network in the process. We’re bound by context and interests and it’s why psychographic data overcomes demographics when assessing how to best reach, engage, and galvanize the people who define our communities online.
What's the difference between personalization and customization? Are consumers really in control? Do brands (and designers) want them to be? Nick de la Mare considers curation and the myth and reality of control.
Email has had a good run as king of communications. But its reign is over. In its place, a new generation of services is starting to take hold—services like Twitter and Facebook and countless others vying for a piece of the new world. And just as email did more than a decade ago, this shift promises to profoundly rewrite the way we communicate—in ways we can only begin to imagine. We all still use email, of course. But email was better suited to the way we used to use the Internet—logging off and on, checking our messages in bursts. Now, we are always connected, whether we are sitting at a desk or on a mobile phone. The always-on connection, in turn, has created a host of new ways to communicate that are much faster than email, and more fun.
Twitter is a phenomenon unto itself. Which is why, in the study of Social Media, Digital Anthropology and Sociology prevails. Technology indeed facilitates interaction while also introducing us to nuances that transcend the parameters governing natural conversations and asynchronous dialogue into new forms of conversational threads and networks. Twitter is among those networks actively studied by many (myself included) as it seemingly defies the laws of natural flow and engagement. The foundation that makes Twitter work is also the very essence that should prevent it from working at all. In Social Media, psychology and the study of the mind now also plays a role in understanding the context to those affecting and affected by online behavior.
Whenever I see a business magazine glow about design thinking, as BusinessWeek has done recently with this special report, and which Harvard Business Review did last year it gets my dander up. Not because I don't see the value of design (I started a company dedicated to experience design), but because the discussion in such articles is inevitably so fetishistic, and sadly limited. Design thinking is trotted out as a salve for businesses who need help with innovation. The idea is that the left-brained, MBA-trained, spreadsheet-driven crowd has squeezed all the value they can out of their methods. To fix things, all you need to do is apply some right-brained turtleneck-wearing "creatives," "ideating" tons of concepts and creating new opportunities for value out of whole cloth.
Five years ago, we launched a conference based on a simple idea, and that idea grew into a movement. The original Web 2.0 Conference ( now the Web 2.0 Summit ) was designed to restore confidence in an industry that had lost its way after the dotcom bust. The Web was far from done, we argued. In fact, it was on its way to becoming a robust platform for a culture-changing generation of computer applications and services. In our first program, we asked why some companies survived the dotcom bust, while others had failed so miserably. We also studied a burgeoning group of startups and asked why they were growing so quickly. The answers helped us understand the rules of business on this new platform.
A Yale lab assistant is impulsively strangled, allegedly by a co-worker. A young man leaving work near the main New York City post office accidentally bumps into a passerby and is stabbed to death. A congressman shouts from the floor, insulting us all. Kanye West steals a microphone at the MTV Video Music Awards. What's up? As a culture, we are losing the ability to speak, to reason, to talk things out. We are losing "words." TV, email and eBusiness have given us a lot, but they engender a context that bleeds us of the normal interplay and untidy elegance of language. Too many conversations are routinely foreshortened as a result of our mediated, digitized world. And without words and their rightful context, all that remains is action. Extreme action. Think reality TV. Think talk radio. Think Capitol Hill. Not to mention what happens on our own street corners and in our dining rooms.
It seems that everyone is excited about social networks. But not quite in the same way as Harvard graduate student Erez Lieberman, whose evolutionary graph theory is encouraging people to think about social networks in a different way: as an evolving population. Lieberman developed the theory with Harvard mathematics professor Martin Nowak, who helped to lay its foundation through the observation that while most of evolutionary theory deals with populations that have either simple shapes or no structure at all, the world around us is full of evolving systems with all kinds of internal structure – whether it's the networks of cells present in the human body or the social networks that occur in cyberspace.
We are all consumers. As we continue to gain a deeper understanding of the impacts of global growth, it has become clear that our consumption-centric lifestyle has challenged our planet's ability to support us. Recent market meltdowns, regulatory limitations on off-shore manufacturing, and the social and environmental impacts of a consumption-oriented economic model has given rise to a challenge -- does our economy need to be focused solely on spurring consumption in order to survive? The answer is a resounding no.
When we think about media, we think about reach and volume - how many people will (potentially) see your message at any one time. The message could be relevant to them directly, and to their friends and neighbors indirectly. Unless they see it though, they won't be able to find it. Mainstream media still manages to capture the lion share of distribution and ubiquity. It was curious to see that the Wikipedia definition of mass media now includes the Internet - blogs, message boards, podcasts - because individuals have now the potential to a means to exposure that is comparable in scale to that previously restricted to a select group of mass media producers.
It’s hard to overstate the degree to which habits of thrift and frugality have taken on the cast of virtue in the past year. There are different ways any given person can find to express these admirable traits, at least to him- or herself. For instance, you might decide not to buy a pair of designer shoes. Alternately, you might decide to buy a pair of designer shoes that has been marked down 50 percent. Abstaining can make you feel thrifty, frugal and (these days) admirable. Buying a bargain can make you feel all that, too. Plus you get new shoes.
Having just returned from vacation, (hence the break from blogging) I had the distinct pleasure of keynoting Silicon Valley AMA last night at Cisco’s Telepresence suites in Santa Clara. In my opening keynote, I had a specific message to marketing leaders in the valley to think holistic about social. I outlined some of the major impacts to other departments beyond marketing.
You can hardly have a conversation about social media today without discussing the concept of transparency. More and more, companies are incorporating transparency into their marketing efforts. Why? The reason, according to Debbie Weil, a corporate social media consultant and author of The Corporate Blogging Book, is because customers and stakeholders increasingly expect it. “It (transparency) is the new operating standard,” she said. Transparency is about being open, honest, and accountable. It’s about responsibility. People are listening to you and making evaluations and decisions based upon what you say, and as such, it’s important to take responsibility for the messaging you put out there. Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh explains it best, “I think people worry too much about bringing their personal selves into business, when I think the way to succeed in today’s world is to make your business more personal.” For those looking to refine their social media messaging, here are five ways to become more transparent.
Niels Bohr once noted that "prediction is very difficult, especially about the future," but then he didn't have access to predictive loyalty metrics. Happily, we do. And, as they measure the direction and velocity of consumer values 12 to 18 months in advance of the marketplace and consumer articulations of category needs and expectations, they identify future trends with uncanny accuracy. Having examined these measures, we offer 10 trends for marketers for 2010 that will have direct consequences to the success - or failure – of next year's branding and marketing efforts.
I was watching Stephanopoulos yesterday morning and I saw this IBM ad. And I thought, "hey, I've seen that guy somewhere before." And sure enough, he's in a Castrol Motor Oil ad. I think it's the same guy, right down to the wrinkles in his forehead. Does this matter? Maybe what happens in an ad for Castrol Oil stays in an ad for Castrol Oil. Or do actors have "transmedia" properties? Do they carry anything with them between ads? Here's what the "meaning transfer" theory says.
Three months ago I did something that many considered virtual heresy. After five years and 5,300 posts I shuttered my blog, Micro Persuasion, in favor of a lifestream which you can find at SteveRubel.com. I thought I'd share why I went this route, what I learned these past three months and the implications for brands. As I have written many times, the world is facing a quiet crisis of attention. There are more shiny objects and information vying for our attention than ever -- with no end in sight. We're coping by making choices.
It's very easy to underrate the value of cultural wisdom, otherwise known as sophistication. Walk into a doctor's office and the paneling is wrong, the carpeting is wrong and it feels dated. Instant lack of trust. Meet a salesperson in your office. She doesn't shake hands, she's fumbling with an old Filofax, she mispronounces Steve Jobs' name and doesn't make eye contact. Visit a website for a vendor and it looks like one of those long-letter opportunity seeker type sites. In each case, the reason you wrote someone off had nothing to do with their product and everything to do with their lack of cultural wisdom.
Fear and savings are up. Consumer confidence teeters. We turn on the TV and hear media talk of the shame of the luxury goods buyer hiding newly purchased high-end extravagances in discount store shopping bags. If marketers looked closer and listened harder, they would realize that something else is afoot: Frugality is not antithetical with luxury. Let me explain.
Information overload dates back to Johannes Gutenberg. His invention of movable type led to a proliferation of printed matter that quickly exceeded what a single human mind could absorb in a lifetime. Later technologies – from carbon paper to the photocopier – made replicating existing information even easier. And once information was digitised, documents could be copied in limitless numbers at virtually no cost. Digitising content also removed barriers to another activity first made possible by the printing press: publishing new information. No longer restricted by centuries-old production and distribution costs, anyone can be a publisher today. In fact, a lot of new information – personalised recommendations from Amazon, for instance – is "published" and distributed without any active human input.
Some of the most iconic companies of our time -- Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter -- attracted millions of users practically overnight, by unleashing what's known as a "viral-expansion loop." In plain English, they grew because each new user led to more users. The trick is that each of these businesses created something people really want and then made it easy for customers to happily spread their products for them to friends, family, and colleagues.
Social media can be an incredible tool, both for producing and consuming incredible amounts of information. Over the last few years, there is no question that an unprecedented change has taken place, putting tools for publication and discovery in the hands of everyone – from simple text to photos and video. Social media tools are changing businesses in terms of how they can connect with customers, partners, peers and even the competition. But the non-stop promotion of the tools and, yes, the individuals who think they are “experts” is getting a little overwhelming. I believe that social media activity, be it Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, YouTube, blog comments, Flickr, SlideShare or any other service, is part of the infrastructure. It is quickly becoming part of everything we do – both for our work lives and for personal lives.
Journalists are truth-tellers. But I think most of us have been lying to ourselves. Our profession is crumbling and we blame the Web for killing our business model. Yet it’s not the business model that changed on us. It’s the culture. Mainstream media were doing fine when information was hard to get and even harder to distribute. The public expected journalists to report the important stories, pull together information from sports scores to stock market results, and then deliver it all to our doorsteps, radios and TVs. People trusted journalists and, on our side, we delivered news that was relevant—it helped people connect with neighbors, be active citizens, and lead richer lives. Advertisers, of course, footed the bill for newsgathering. They wanted exposure and paid because people, lots of people, were reading our newspapers or listening to and watching our news programs. But things started to change well before the Web became popular.
Companies that try to make progress within a highly political and negative culture have a very tough time. They constantly find themselves placing more energy into selling and navigating choppy internal waters, than being externally brilliant. Without a positive internal culture, life is extremely difficult. While communication and ad agencies may believe they can turn around a company with a brilliant campaign, so often, their best efforts are hampered by internal politics and a general lack of understanding that "everything is the brand". Zappos, on the other hand, owes it's success to a fundamental belief that a positive internal culture is everything. Creating a happy organization is so important for them because they know it has a knock-on effect to business performance. Delivering a unique service experience, (customer service agents have no time limits or scripts), is something that gets talked about and builds business.
In the first part of his analysis of the news business, BusinessWeek chief economist Michael Mandel equates bad news about news with the number of journalists employed. But there is the nub of a much bigger trend: the fall news as an industry paralleling the end of the industrial economy. That’s not just about shedding the means of production and distribution now that they are cost burdens rather than barriers to entry. It’s about the decentralization of journalism as an industrial complex, about news no longer being based solely on employment.
For corporate communications specialists and reputation managers in the post financial crisis universe, the combined elements of distrust for authority and demand for transparency converge on the internet, specifically in the realm of social media. Hardly a day goes by without a breathless email announcing yet another conference, video, webinar or book providing the definitive answer to the mysteries of bending social media to one’s will. However, the relentless hype that has accompanied its growth may exaggerate or misconstrue its impact. Professionals would do well to take a deep breath and begin to think about how to build a detailed business strategy that includes but does not necessarily focus on social media so as to create sustainable value.
No one is talking about it, but what's happening to journalism may some day happen to higher education. It's not too early to look down the road. Tim Sullivan and I were chatting about the options the other day and I came away with this rough sketch of a radical scenario: the university continues as a center of knowledge production, but ceases to matter as a center of knowledge distribution.
Innovation: it's the ultimate source of advantage, the undisputed heavyweight champion of the economic ring. Innovation is what every organization should be ruthlessly pursuing, right? Wrong. I'd like to advance a hypothesis: awesomeness is the new innovation. Let's face it. "Innovation" feels like a relic of the industrial era. And it just might be the case that instead of chasing innovation, we should be innovating innovation — that innovation needs innovation. Why? When we examine the economics of innovation, three reasons emerge.
Finding patterns is what Elizabeth F. Churchill does. Patterns that underlie human behaviour and can point to what certain people might want to use their mobile phones for or how they might go about finding a friend online. A psychologist by training with a PhD in cognitive science from the University of Cambridge, Churchill has specialized in observing people and the way they interact with technology for 15 years now.
"My Administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks." U.S. President Barack Obama felt compelled to speak these words to the leading U.S. bank CEOs at a White House gathering to which they had been summoned on April 9, 2009. Driven by public anger at the financial crisis, the President employed a metaphor invoking images of "peasants with pitchforks" rising up to demand better treatment. That Iranian students, indigenous Peruvians and Somali pirates feel similarly inspired to take violent actions affecting global businesses reinforces the point. Based on recent polling data, it is would seem that his uncharacteristic use of alarmist imagery was not misplaced. According to the 2009 Edelman Trust Barometer, 49% -- or fewer than half of the people surveyed in an annual assessment of US attitudes -- support an independently functioning free market.
If the ongoing social networking revolution has you scratching your head and asking, "Why do people spend time on this?" and "How can my company benefit from the social network revolution?" you've got a lot in common with Harvard Business School professor Mikolaj Jan Piskorski. Only difference: Piskorski has spent years studying users of online social networks (SN) and has developed surprising findings about the needs that they fulfill, how men and women use these services differently, and how Twitter—the newest kid on the block—is sharply different from forerunners such as Facebook and MySpace.
Students starting school this year may be part of the last generation for which "going to college" means packing up, getting a dorm room and listening to tenured professors. Undergraduate education is on the verge of a radical reordering. Colleges, like newspapers, will be torn apart by new ways of sharing information enabled by the Internet. The business model that sustained private U.S. colleges cannot survive.
This is Cambridge, Massachusetts, one rainy autumn afternoon in 2005. Fantastic? Or totally spectacular? You be the judge. It was created by Burak Arikan and Ben Dalton at MIT's Media Lab. It designed to show the color of clothing in motion in the many neighborhoods that make up Cambridge. Arikan and Dalton rigged up cameras, capture color data and converted it to this astonishingly useful piece of data visualization. To be fair, Cambridge is not the most fashion forward place in the world. Indeed, I have seen people on the MIT campus who look as if they just walked out of explosion at Goodwill. I'm not talking hipster refusal of mainstream fashion. I'm talking completely random. This is a wonderful thing from an anthropological point of view but somewhat at odds with the clothing conventions that rule our world. So the Chief Culture Officer may not care about these data as data. The Arikan-Dalton visualization will matter more as proof of concept.
Technology has united our professional and personal identities into one. You are no longer just the financial analyst, doctor, lawyer or “social media guru” during work hours. People all around you, sitting in cubicles, in offices and even the secretary can find out more personal information about you, with a single search in Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. There is no hiding anymore and our identities will fuse even more in the future, as we use social technologies more and more during work. Of course companies have concerns with how employees behave on the internet because it’s a reflection of their brand, as well as the employees. Smart companies understand that their employees are their greatest asset and they can harness their networks, which are visible online, to help support their initiatives.
For most businesses, being part of the social-media evolution is no longer a new opportunity; it's a necessity. And yet for many, one of the most basic elements of a successful strategy seems dangerously undercooked: the "what?" What exactly is this currency we're now wielding? What are its different forms, how do they travel, and do we have a real understanding of them? What makes the content we're creating socially, culturally and distinctively relevant? For multicultural audiences, this is an especially crucial consideration. For the growing "non-general market," social media means much more than just Twitter, Facebook and blogs. It includes a wide range of content and channels, paths to entry more nascent than the staid mediums and content we're all familiar with.
When thinking of any Social Business Design problem, it's important to realize that there are three areas which will define all of the challenges which will need to be resolves in order to move any business toward a more open, collaborative model which benefits all constituents (employees, customers, partners). These areas are: People Process Technology Right now the industry is focused on technology, which is understandable since advances in it have enabled us to do so much more with less. However, I wanted to focus this short post around a subset of people. It's a thing commonly referred to as "corporate culture".
Customer support is tactical, a cost-center, and the clean-up-kids at the company. Well, that’s the mentality that needs to change. Instead, customer support can be strategic, a value center, and proactive towards customer needs. The lines between marketing and support continue to blur, as customers share their experiences (most recently, Dooce vs her Whirlpool washing machine) the support experience she has becomes a PR task. Support organizations must quickly evolve as customers connect to each other –and share their stories –using social technologies.
It's fashionable to say "really?" in a new way. The old way of saying "really?" meant (roughly) Wow, that's interesting. Thanks! As in: "Did you know the Pittsburgh Pirates are the worst team in Christendom? "Really!" The new way of saying "really?" means (roughly), "That's what you're going with? I wouldn't have made that choice. I wonder if you're an idiot." As in: "I'm thinking about moving to Connecticut." "Really." The first really is using spoken with the upward lilt of a question. The second really usually comes with an emphatic downturn in tone. (It's heavy with scorn.) I'm not sure when this new really arrived. Certainly, a tipping point came when Saturday Night Live began running "Really?!? with Seth and Amy." Phrases dream of this kind of exposure. To be blessed by Lorne Michaels. To be lifted out of the obscurity. "Really" went big time. But it's not enough to be elevated by Lorne Michaels. A phrase doesn't flourish unless it speaks to something in our culture. And that's the question: what does the sudden popularity of this little phrase tell us about ourselves?
"The paradigm of competition is a race: by rewarding the winner, we encourage everyone to run faster. When capitalism really works this way, it does a good job; but its defenders are wrong in assuming it always works this way." - Richard Stallman A paradigm is nothing more than a set of assumptions, values, and practices that constitute a way of viewing reality. For example, if you view business as a competitive endeavor, then you place yourself, metaphorically, on the same track as the "other guy." You think about beating the other guy. You value beating the other guy. You put practices in place to beat the other guy. Unfortunately, customers could care less about you and the other guy. Customers care about themselves. Today's paradigm shifting is about new, out-of-the-box consumer experiences.
Recently, I discussed the validity of whether or not social networking (the verb) and social networks (as a noun) were impairing our ability to learn. A Stanford study suggested that this might be the case. It seems that the initial research and its supporting data is now emerging to help us further analyze whether or not this is indeed true or merely hypotheses based on the various samplings of individuals who may or may not serve as relevant subjects. I do believe that we are becoming an increasingly social society. It could very well be the era of introversion to extroversion.
As our various electronic devices gain more and more sensory awareness, we open up the potential for entirely new forms of interaction. Not just new interfaces--tapping and shaking and whatnot--but a shift in presence. With few exceptions, we use these new technologies in rather familiar ways. We might speak instead of type, or tap instead of click, or wave a control wand instead of mash a control pad, but these are essentially the same kinds of direct input processes we've done for years, just dressed up in a new look. The real shift comes when we move away from direct interaction and input, towards a world of ambient interaction and awareness.
Organizations are tenuous phenomena; they can fall apart at any time. To navigate the landscape of organizational culture interaction designers need a set of practical tools, language & knowledge drawn from the world of cultural anthropology. It’s happened to all of us. We walk into what we think is a Web redesign project, only to find we have unwittingly ignited the fires of WW III in our client’s organization. What begins as a simple design project descends – quickly – into an intra-organizational battle, with the unprepared interaction designer caught in the crossfire. What is it about design projects that seem to attract such power struggles? Contrary to what you might think, being stuck in the middle of an internecine battle is actually an opportunity to effect meaningful change on your client’s organization.
Ten years ago the chairman of MIT's Media Lab, Nicholas Negroponte, commented that any company that describes itself as an "agency" is doomed. He's right. Agencies -- as middlemen between media owners and brand owners -- are today merely commoditized suppliers and not the creative business partners our predecessors once were. Agencies, simply, are not as important as we used to be.
Anthropological dreams are made of this: helping Disney and Marvel manage their rapprochement. Nothing short of heroic effort will do. Disney is, after all, a pretty good marker for all that is mainstream about American culture. Marvel is, by deliberate contrast, darker and less predictable. One corporation turns in towards the gravitational center of our culture. The other prefers to plot a course for the margin, for the uncharted, for the unknown. I mean, this can't be a match made in heaven. It's going to be tricky, complicated and, possibly, agonizing. Right?
The cover story of the most recent issue of Wired addresses how Craigslist rose to dominate classified listings, in spite of (or perhaps because of) how little it has changed, and the quirkiness of the business. The real customer experience lesson though, can be found in a follow-on blog post written by the story's author, Gary Wolf. In it, he muses, "Why, given the site's notorious shortcomings, has nobody ever succeeded in taking business away from it?" He writes about how many local newspapers have tried to embrace local listings, such as the Bakersfield Californian. When you look at their apartment-for-rent page, you immediately see the problem — the classified listings are sandwiched between giant banner ads and overwhelming navigation options. And this speaks to the fundamental issue facing the mass media today — it doesn't know who its customer is.
Here's a test. Ask five to 20 of your employees to explain what your company's customer value proposition is. How many different answers do you guess you'll get? Answer: somewhere between five and 20. This is, of course, in addition to the response, "What the heck do you mean by a value proposition?" This is slightly exaggerated to illustrate a point. But, in the many years with which we have advised on and written about customer-driven strategies, there has been a common pattern: massive inconsistency in people's ability to clearly articulate their company's value proposition.
This concept of going from macro to micro must be the most significant development brought by the social Web. While in the past, the official position of a company was the *only* public position a company would have, today, a company's public face is a composition. In fact, if it's done its job well, an organization could have a myriad voices, all different, yet all on the same cultural page.
For decades, the adoption and use of the latest technologies was limited to a subculture: Whether called “tech enthusiasts” or “gadget geeks,” the implication was that most of the world got along fine with older, established products and services, while a smaller group pursued the most leading-edge technology. But according to a study released Wednesday by Forrester Research, a marketing firm based in Cambridge, Mass., a shift has taken place. What used to be the pursuit of a few has become decidedly mainstream. We’re all gadget geeks now.
What's still one of the most important consumer trends out there? Transparency. Of prices, of opinions, of standards. So let’s look at what’s new, happening, upcoming and important, including the inevitable countertrend. There’s no hiding ;-)
I hear versions of the same conversations almost weekly. While they're not necessarily new conversations, the tenor of them has grown considerably tenser as a result of the struggling global economy. The conversations run something like this: The chief financial officer says: "Before I spend any money in this environment, I need to know the impact of this investment. I need to see an ROI." The CMO responds with: "It's not about ROI; it's about creating awareness. Having people understand our brand will create engagement, which will lead to revenue."
Every 90 days, I report to Wall Street and our shareholders on the financial health of our company--called to the carpet when results are bad, receiving a pat on the back (if memory serves) when numbers are good. Many years ago, we put corporate social responsibility on the agenda for these quarterly financial calls, because as a critical component of our effort to be a responsible business--fiscally and socially--it felt not only appropriate, but necessary. Guess how many times I've been called to the carpet by shareholders for not delivering satisfactory CSR results, or how often we've received a comment or question about our CSR programs on these quarterly calls? Never. The silence isn't an indication that we've perfected corporate responsibility--far from it--it's an indication that shareholders don't find CSR performance relevant.
Like cloud computing less than a year ago and social networking two years ago, the real-time Web is the new black on the tech circuit. The trend has been publicly bandied about this summer, starting with a few industry get-togethers, followed by several enthusiastic testimonials from investors (notably angel investor Ron Conway's widely posted list of ways for Twitter to monetize). It was then capped by a glowing report in BusinessWeek in early August. That a serious trend is on the rise would not be doubted by those watching Twitter's rise in usage and media popularity. In fact, the debate this summer has centered not on whether something is afoot but rather on what to call it. Ron Conway favors "now media" in the belief that it's a media phenomenon. But most commenters, led by several bloggers and lead investors, prefer to call it "real-time Web".
Social media has enabled conversations to occur asynchronously and beyond geographic constraints, but they are still typically bounded by a reasonably well-defined group of participants in some sort of shared social context. Network-driven genres (e.g., social network sites, microblogging) complicate this because people follow the conversations in the context of individuals, not topical threads. Yet, conversations still emerge between dyads and among groups.
In 1971, the oft-quoted political scientist Herbert Simon predicted that in an information age, cultural producers (that's designers, but also filmmakers, theater types, musicians, artists) would quickly face a shortage of attention. "What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients," he wrote. The more information, the less attention, and "the need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it." Now we have a wide-ranging discussion about what is and what can't be free (Malcolm Gladwell on Chris Anderson, Virginia Postrel on Chris Anderson), which is basically about the future of profit. Maybe we should be considering a dilemma of a human nature: the future of attention.
Sending and receiving at breakneck speed can make life queasy; a manifesto for slow communication.
There was an attention drought for the longest time. Marketers paid a fortune for TV ads (and in fact, network ads sold out months in advance) because it was so difficult to find enough attention. Ads worked, so the more ads you bought, the more money you made, thus marketers took all they could get. This attention shortage drove our economy. The internet has done something wacky to this situation.
The liberating thing about value as money is that it's "colorless." It carries no meaning. When value is "at rest," it is culture free, non denominational, undeclared, so to speak. It will become cultureful when used to buy a Hummer or a Prius. But for the moment it is value that is value free. All value is the same. (Until it isn't.)
We’re really just at the beginning of the era of “mobile search.” Even what we think of as “search” will be dramatically altered by innovations in mobile. In this first phase the transfer of what might be called the “query box” (and related links) into mobile is complete. In time, however, we many even come to see that image — the white box with the search button to the right — as a kind of metaphor for something more intangible (i.e., directed intent) that can be fulfilled in a variety of ways.
Is a college education really like a string quartet? Back in 1966, that was the assertion of economists William Bowen, later president of Princeton, and William Baumol. In a seminal study, Bowen and Baumol used the analogy to show why universities can't easily improve efficiency.
Media consumption is changing. You don't need me to tell you that. But you may be unaware just how much it's shifting as we embrace "the stream." What's the stream? It's a way of consuming content as a continuous feed of brief bits, singles, 10-minute videos, tweets and status updates. It reflects the societal shift from analog to digital. And it's a natural fit for the web, where attention spans are minuscule.
The realization of a functional collective conscious is the ultimate outcome of ubiquitous digital communications. Our collective conscious refers to the things we all know, i.e. shared cultural knowledge, beliefs, morals, etc. A functional collective conscious refers to the new wealth of shared knowledge enabled by ubiquitous and instantaneous access to the internet. We are steadily moving towards a reality in which as soon as one person gains a piece of information, every human on Earth gains that piece of information.
We've gained so much in the digital age. We get more entertainment choices, and finding what we’re looking for is certainly fast. Best of all, much of it is free. But we’ve lost something as well: the fortunate discovery of something we never knew we wanted to find. In other words, the digital age is stamping out serendipity.
After participating in a Digital Brand Think Tank in Munich a couple of weeks ago (a lively discussion with 20 marketing executives from Audi, BMW, Google, Continental, and other top-tier brands), I must admit that I’m a bit tired of having to evangelize (or even justify) the value of brands using social media. It is astonishing to me that companies still ask for evidence when the tweet is on the wall. The event showed that there is a new Digital Divide that cuts straight through the ranks of the marketing industry--some executives get the Social Web, some don’t. No one has figured it out yet. Most would admit that they need to catch up and keep learning.
General knowledge, from capital cities to key dates, has long been a marker of an educated mind. But what happens when facts can be Googled? Brian Cathcart confers with educationalists, quiz-show winners and Bamber Gascoigne ...
If you're at all lucky, you'll spend at least part of this summer far away from spreadsheets, reports, ad consoles, and bid management software. While there's nothing wrong with single-mindedly focusing on all the granular data associated with search, too much data, all the time, can rot your brain. With this latter point in mind, this week's column attempts to wrestle with some large-frame issues that I think deserve attention, because, as we learned from the financial crisis, it's often the most basic, most obvious issues (such as whether all subprime mortgages that were being issued could possibly ever be repaid) that can blow everyone out of the water. In other words, just because nobody's talking about something doesn't mean that it's not real enough to kill you.
Why should we fear Google? There's an easy, obvious answer to that, particularly if you're a media or marketing person: because Google is killing us. It is, duh, blatantly steamrollering the business models of countless business sectors, from Madison Avenue to print media. (Despite all the Bing hype, it appears that Microsoft's refreshed search engine -- er, decision engine -- isn't making a dent in Google's dominance.) Annoyingly, it's a cute monopoly -- with a cute logo, a cute motto ("Don't be evil"), cute executives and a cute corporate culture -- that bewitches a lot of people into somehow doubting that it's a monopoly, and prompts even otherwise cynical media people to be unnecessarily polite about it.
The Washington Post reports that “in the past year alone, the Postal Service has seen the single largest drop-off in mail volume in its 234-year history…. That downward trend is only accelerating. The Postal Service projects a decline of about 10 billion pieces of mail in each of the next two years, going from a high of 213 billion pieces of mail in 2006 to 170 billion projected for 2010.”
Baby boomers changed the world, ended a war, created a new culture of values and morphed our style and politics with every move of the Beatles. In the end, it was all rock and roll to us. We won the right to vote, and then turned around and voted for Nixon. We baby boomers have been puzzling ourselves and the rest of world since then. Who are we? As we enter our 60s, we have to answer that question ourselves. If our high point was when we were 19 or 20, what will be our second act?
Two items in the Wall Street Journal caught my eye today. Both show us the American corporation as it struggles to divine the mysteries of American culture.
Amazon just announced that they're spending $800,000,000.00 (looks better that way) to buy Zappos.com. But wait. Amazon already has plenty of shoes. Amazon already has great technology. Amazon already has relationships with Fedex and UPS. What you buy when you spend that kind of money is what matters now.
We live in a beta culture. A Google search of the word “beta” retrieves 399 million articles. That’s more articles than the words “innovation” (108 million), “creative” (78 million), and “finish” (30 million) combined. Even “startup," which is a slightly more formal definition of “beta," only links to 325 million articles. So what’s our obsession, particularly in the Internet business, with the beta ideal?
GM's CMO Robert Lutz was recently told an awful truth: "In my group it is just uncool to drive a GM car -- even if they are as good as the imports." He replied: "I guess it depends whether you have your own personality or whether you are a lemming-like follower of current trends. I think an audacious and bold person with a mind of his or her own would go to a dealership and see that our new vehicles easily trounce the foreign competition. . . . It's uncool to drive an import." It's hard to assess how many ways this violates the marketer's handbook...but I'm going to try.
l find many things remarkable about psychiatrist George Vaillant's longitudinal studies of 268 Harvard men, not least of which is their time span -- 72 years! To see someone transformed from a teenager to an old man is usually the stuff of fiction, not academic research. It turns out though that real lives are not that different from fiction, what with so many unpredictable twists and turns. What struck me most was the depth of personal transformations many of Vaillant's subjects' lives take.
Pandemics. Global warming. Food shortages. No more fossil fuels. What are humans to do? The same thing the species has done before: evolve to meet the challenge. But this time we don’t have to rely on natural evolution to make us smart enough to survive. We can do it ourselves, right now, by harnessing technology and pharmacology to boost our intelligence. Is Google actually making us smarter?
If you are like many people, you enjoy chocolate and eat it frequently. That’s okay, you might think. After all, chocolate has antioxidants and it boosts your mood. Although this may be true, it is not the real reason why you eat chocolate: it is just a line of reasoning you follow to feel less guilty about eating something high in fat and sugar. People often rationalize in this way, telling themselves stories of sometimes dubious merit to justify their behavior. New work by Timothy Feddersen (Professor of Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences at the Kellogg School of Management) shows how rationalization—once studied mainly in psychology—impacts choices and can help economists understand why people make decisions that violate standard economic theories.
Rich Barton, a superstar of the Internet era, settles across from me in a coffee shop in Centreville, Virginia, looking like a 1950s sitcom dad—glasses, preppy haircut, V-neck sweater. He built Expedia in the 1990s, co-founded the real-estate site Zillow in 2005, and most recently launched Glassdoor.com, which lets employees grade their workplaces for the public to see. When I wonder what Barton might get into next, he leans forward to tell me his investment mantra: “If it can be rated, it will be rated,” he says.
Dear Old People Who Run the World, My generation would like to break up with you. Everyday, I see a widening gap in how you and we understand the world — and what we want from it. I think we have irreconcilable differences.
As a concept, American design is very tangible. It's unapologetic. It's a roll-up-your-sleeves and get your hands dirty, "show me" sort of design. American designers, engineers, entrepreneurs and inventors alike feast off an American license to create what's next. It's the boldness of a Corvette or Mustang plus their afterlife hot rod modifications. It's Jobs' confidence to create Apple's Mac, iPhone & iPod. It's Jack O'Neill making his first wet suit so he could surf in cold NorCal waters. It's the Yahoo! or Google boys living on air in college and then creating empires from their hard work.
It would be profoundly reassuring to view the current economic crisis as simply another rough spell that we need to get through. Unfortunately, though, today’s mix of urgency, high stakes, and uncertainty will continue as the norm even after the recession ends. Economies cannot erect a firewall against intensifying global competition, energy constraints, climate change, and political instability. The immediate crisis—which we will get through, with the help of policy makers’ expert technical adjustments—merely sets the stage for a sustained or even permanent crisis of serious and unfamiliar challenges.
Let’s face it: Your regular customers are on autopilot. When a purchase is repeated enough times, it becomes habit. However, market shifts can disrupt even the most powerful habits, and the current financial meltdown is the single biggest market disruption we’ve ever lived through. Customers are altering their behavior because of uncertainty about the future: laying off employees (maybe even your contacts), hoarding cash and postponing routine purchases. All purchase decisions are now up for conscious review. This is a daunting challenge, but it also creates opportunities.
Here’s video from the Aspen Ideas Festival responding to my question about what follows the industrial age. It’s much better than my limited report on it below:
Yesterday's report on the causes of the crash of Air France Flight 447 is incomplete, and the reliability of the investigation's findings will never be without question. But the broad conclusion is probably all-too true: the computer had something to do with it.
There is a correlation between the amount of time it takes to distribute something, and the amount of time it takes for that thing to have an effect, and consequently the amount of time that thing stays relevant and interesting.
Sometimes people ask me why, say, McDonald’s or Coca-Cola or Nike bother to advertise at all. We’ve all heard of them, right? We’ve all decided whether or not we like them. So why waste the money? Here is my answer: Because the simple-sounding issue of salience is very important. And as backup I offer the abrupt return to popularity of Michael Jackson’s music.
Blogs, Twitter, Facebook: these outlets are supposedly cheapening language and tarnishing our time. But the fact is we are all reading and writing much more than we used to...
Globalization has been the headline for years as it’s changed the face of communication, finance, business and society. But it’s not a stand-alone phenomenon; it’s totally dependent upon mobility. Constant movement from place to place has made the last few decades frenetic. In fact, we live in an era of supermobility.
Essentially, experts are purporting the use of new tools and not necessarily connecting businesses to their customers and influencers where and how they congregate and interact.
I’m sure you’ve heard the definition of madness: Doing the same things over and over and expecting different results. But have you heard of the "First Rule of Holes?” When you’re in one, stop digging! I see it all the time. Organizations are lost, but they’re making really good time. Ask yourself, and really think about it: Is my organization producing the growth in customers, members, revenues, donations, profits, etc. that it is designed to produce? Like it or not your answer has to be “yes,” because the design determines the results.
It soon will be - if it not already is - known as the Twitter revolution in Iran. But I’ll think of it as the API revolution. For it’s Twitter’s architecture - which enables anyone to create applications that call and feed into it - that makes it all but impervious from blocking by tyrants’ censors. Twitter is not a site or a blog at an address. You don’t have to go to it. It can come to you.
It all started at 10:40 p.m. on an otherwise quiet Sunday night. After talking about the Iranian election on and off for several hours, I saw a tweet in my Twitter feed that pointed out CNN's failure to cover the story. As an obviously rigged election in one of the world's most important countries was being perpetrated, America's oldest 24-hour news network was reporting primarily on consumers' problems in this country with digital TVs.
If I were on some weird reality show (I know, the "weird'" is redundant), where they made me hire a search strategist, and they only let me give one instruction, it would be this: To understand search, you have to understand human behavior.
For a long time, the idea that language might shape thought was considered at best untestable and more often simply wrong. Research in my labs at Stanford University and at MIT has helped reopen this question.
While news from Iran streams to the world, Clay Shirky shows how Facebook, Twitter and TXTs help citizens in repressive regimes to report on real news, bypassing censors (however briefly). The end of top-down control of news is changing the nature of politics.
GoodGuide, a Web site and iPhone application that lets consumers dig past the package’s marketing spiel by entering a product’s name and discovering its health, environmental and social impacts. “What we’re trying to do is flip the whole marketing world on its head,” said Mr. O’Rourke. “Instead of companies telling you what to believe, customers are making the statements to the marketers about what they care about.”
There's an interesting resistance (see the comments) to my resistance to Kevin Kelly's description of (what others call) Web 2.0 as "socialism." That resistance (to my resistance) convinces me my point hasn't been made.
As a marketing and communications professional, I stress simple, straightforward language in my work, and I’m always watching for the evolving lexicon of the market. Two words that have been showing up all over the blogosphere, Web and in print like they’re on sale are authenticity and authority. After reading scores of bogs and articles featuring one or both words, it struck me there were two schools of thought among web experts, bloggers and marketers about which was more important, or which begat the other.
Brands have adopted a variety of tactics in response to changing consumer attitudes and behaviors. In the first quarter of 2009, we monitored more than 100 brand responses to the recession. We found that most approaches fit into six buckets: optimism, humor, nationalism, nostalgia, consumer empowerment and value/price.
Much of the innovation we’ve seen lately hasn’t led to growth but instead to efficiency - that is, shrinkage. I’ve been mulling over Mike Mandel’s cover story in last week’s BusinessWeek, in which he tried to puncture another bubble: the belief that we’ve had a rich decade of American innovation. He argues that there’s actually an “innovation shortfall” and he uses economic stagnation to plead his case. Now I’m not economist (that’s a straight line) and so I won’t argue about the impact of other events on growth - starting with the so-called financial crisis.
In a recent survey, we asked B2B buyers how they prefer ordering the things they order all the time. Sixty-three percent said they prefer to order them online. The next largest group was the 15% who would go the traditional route of ordering from a local office over the phone. Another 12% said they'd prefer to order from a real live sales rep. In a recent presentation to a client, I kept that pie chart of results up for a while, allowing it to sink in, because I think the implications are astounding. After it sunk in, I asked what I believe to be a fundamentally important question: "Look at the chart and ask yourself, how closely does your company's strategic direction and resource allocation match that pie chart? That's where your customers are going, and they're moving fast. Are you going to be there when they get there?"
Today's marketplace challenges are not driven simply by the global recession and its affect on people's perception of "value." This new, new economy has been building for the past ten years. Evolving marketplace conditions have created a very particular consumer mindset; one which most marketers are woefully unprepared to deal with. Make no mistake; the economy is not the problem. It has simply exposed the problem, like melting snow exposes the mud beneath. Here are the five conditions that have inured today's consumer and confounded scores of organizations:
Until recently, the yardstick used to evaluate the performance of American corporate leaders was relatively simple: the extent to which they created wealth for investors. But that was then. Now the forces of globalization and technology have conspired to complicate the competitive arena, creating a need for leaders who can manage rapid innovation. Expectations about the corporation’s role in social issues such as environmental degradation, domestic job creation, and even poverty in the developing world have risen sharply as well. And the expedient, short-term thinking that Wall Street rewarded only yesterday has fallen out of fashion in the wake of the latest round of business busts and scandals.
An alarm went off on some desk at The New York Times business section: Oh-oh, time to slam blogs again. But the latest assault reveals as much about The Times and the culture of classical journalism as it does about bloggers. Like the millennial clash of business models in media - the content economy v. the link economy and the inability of one to understand the other - here we see a clash over journalistic culture and methods - product journalism v. process journalism.
In my last column, I proclaimed search to be going out of business. So what comes next? The answer lies in the question "why?"
According to former Vice President Al Gore, the importance of sustainability doesn't just apply to the environment. It also is key to the future of advertising. "It really comes out of the environment, but in my opinion the key theme of this century really is sustainability," Gore said. "This theme of environmental sustainability has become a part of our culture, it's a part of our discourse, and I'm very optimistic that it will soon be a part of our policy."
When McKenzie Wark wrote Gamer Theory—an analysis of why people enjoy playing videogames—Harvard University Press published it as a conventional hardcover. But Wark also put it online using CommentPress. The free blog theme blew the book open into a series of conversations; every paragraph could spawn its own discussion forum for readers.
I was in my local Barnes and Noble on Sunday and I bought two books. Both of them from Amazon, online, using my iPhone while standing in the isles. Of course I felt bad. I learned about these two books thanks to Barnes and Noble. They ought to have made the sale.
In 2019, when you look back at the social media landscape ten years earlier, you might laugh at how hard you had to work. You had to type things into forms (ha! remember those?), type URLs in the address bar (how archaic!), and put up with irritating communications about irrelevant products. Social media in the future will be effortless and everywhere. Here’s a look at some of the new technologies in store for us over the next 10 years that will make our social (media) lives easier.
Our friend Peggy Ann Salz over at M Search Groove mentioned the diminshing utility of using demographics in marketing segmentation and targeting. I wanted to return to this topic, and argue loud and clear, that the evidence is overwhelming, that we (marketing professional) have experienced in the past few years a total shift where customer demographics have gone from utility to futility. Yes, futility. They are now counter-productive. You, reading this blog, need to start to remove all references to demographics in all of your company marketing.
Behavioral economist Dan Ariely, the author of Predictably Irrational, uses classic visual illusions and his own counterintuitive (and sometimes shocking) research findings to show how we're not as rational as we think when we make decisions.
Say goodbye to surfin' dudes and babes, the amoral party that is Hollywood, and any fashion or legislative references that might imply peace, love, or pukka shells. California is rebranding itself. Yesterday, its Supreme Court upheld the voter-passed ban on same-sex marriage by a 6-1 margin. The state has a seriously (and frighteningly) direct, participatory democracy thing going on, which allows the ballot box to directly set legislation and regulations (they decided they didn't want to pay too much in property taxes a while back, for instance, so a referendum made it so). It turns out that a simple ballot initiative can also make verbatim changes to its constitution. California has been crowdsourcing its government for years.
I'm doing a project on the future of food, fitness, sociality and spirituality in America. This morning, I interviewed a planner in the ad biz. We were yakking away on the phone and towards the end of the hour, I noticed something odd. The planner was giving me credit for her ideas. And I was giving her credit for my ideas. You know, the way people do. "I think you're on to something there." "Well, as you say, the thing that matters here is ..." "I loved that thing you said about ..." We were using these stock phrases of acknowledgment...except we were actually referencing our own ideas. We were swapping credit.
As the Internet was taking shape in the late 1980s, an MIT professor named Tom Malone started thinking about how it could change the structure of industries. In a series of papers, he predicted that the big top-down companies of the 20th century would soon "decentralize and externalize" into industry ecosystems.
There are many ads today from our imperiled banks, insurance companies and automakers telling us that we can still trust them and should still buy their products. But there's one word consumers haven't heard much that might serve these companies better than their current dirges: sorry.
Bill Gates once derided open source advocates with the worst epithet a capitalist can muster. These folks, he said, were a "new modern-day sort of communists," a malevolent force bent on destroying the monopolistic incentive that helps support the American dream. Gates was wrong: Open source zealots are more likely to be libertarians than commie pinkos. Yet there is some truth to his allegation. The frantic global rush to connect everyone to everyone, all the time, is quietly giving rise to a revised version of socialism.
Companies are working fast to figure out how to make money from the wealth of data they're beginning to have about our online friendships.
For more than 100 years brand marketers have largely focused on push - a mix of tried-and-true tactics that include paid and earned media. However, that was before the Attention Crash, which is changing the economics of digital marketing. The endless supply of content is taking a toll. It has forced consumers to make hard choices about where and how they spend time. Today people are browsing less and going deeper into a small number of sites. The exact mix of destinations change. What they have in common, however, is that they are all useful.
Today's reality consists of multiple media channels, new technologies and consumers who have a short attention span. Traditional communications are no longer sufficient for creating loyal fans or bringing the brand to the forefront. This new reality demands a new approach to engaging consumers; this is where corporate social responsibility (CSR) as branded content comes in.
There are no rules about creativity. Which made constructing our list of the 100 Most Creative People in Business a tricky task. We looked for dazzling new thinkers, rising stars, and boldface names who couldn't be ignored. We avoided people we've profiled in the recent past. We emphasized those whose creativity addresses a larger issue -- from the future of our energy infrastructure to the evolution of philanthropy to next-generation media and entertainment. So read on. Enjoy. Quibble. Complain.
Over the last several years, the problem of attention has migrated right into the center of our cultural attention. We hunt it in neurology labs, lament its decline on op-ed pages, fetishize it in grassroots quality-of-life movements, diagnose its absence in more and more of our children every year, cultivate it in yoga class twice a week, harness it as the engine of self-help empires, and pump it up to superhuman levels with drugs originally intended to treat Alzheimer’s and narcolepsy. Everyone still pays some form of attention all the time, of course—it’s basically impossible for humans not to—but the currency in which we pay it, and the goods we get in exchange, have changed dramatically.
Have you seen Starbucks new campaign? The one designed to remind you of the "Starbucks story?" From the announcement video to the ads themselves, Starbucks is making the first mistake of modern advertising - they're telling you when they should be showing you.
Cisco, Corning, IBM, Intel, and Schwab have weathered worse economic storms. Five strategies to come out of this one even stronger.
Why do human beings spend so much time telling each other invented stories, untruths that everybody involved knows to be untrue? The obvious answer to this question -- because it's fun -- is enough for many of us. But given the persuasive power of a good story, its ability to seduce us away from the facts of a situation or to make us care more about a fictional world like Middle-earth than we do about a real place like, oh, say, Turkmenistan, means that some ambitious thinkers will always be trying to figure out how and why stories work.
There’s been lots of talk about the “death of advertising” and the increasing ineffectiveness of the media. There’s a tremendously well-researched, insightful and informative Bob Garfield post in Ad Age, with lots and lots of numbers supporting his version of “Apocalypse Now” for the ad industry. There’s no doubt that there’s agency layoffs, and client cutbacks and fear and uncertainty. So who am I to be the bearer of even an ounce of good news for the ad industry?
Once again, the Internet is shifting before our eyes. Information is increasingly being distributed and presented in real-time streams instead of dedicated Web pages. The shift is palpable, even if it is only in its early stages. Web companies large and small are embracing this stream. It is not just Twitter. It is Facebook and Friendfeed and AOL and Digg and Tweetdeck and Seesmic Desktop and Techmeme and Tweetmeme and Ustream and Qik and Kyte and blogs and Google Reader. The stream is winding its way throughout the Web and organizing it by nowness.
The mad men of Madison Avenue are really mad these days, creating a spate of angry advertising campaigns that seek to channel the outrage, frustration and fear felt by consumers hit hard by what some are calling the Great Recession.
What do guns, burglar alarms and condoms have in common? Their sales all boomed in 2009, with condom sales jumping 22 per cent over the same period in 2008. But why? The answer can perhaps be found in Nigeria and Chile – two countries I visited on my world tour promoting Buyology. Surprisingly neither of the two countries was familiar with the “R” word. When asking government officials why that was the case, the explanation was simple – the media hadn’t paid that much attention to it, and as such no one had effectively read about the Recession, so the Recession simply had not yet arrived.
Social media is not new. Media has been leveraged for sociable purposes since the caveman's walls. Even in the realm of the Internet, some of the first applications were framed around communication and sharing. For decades, we've watched the development of new genres of social media - MUDs/MOOs, instant messaging, chatrooms, bulletin boards, etc. Social media is the latest buzzword in a long line of buzzwords. It is often used to describe the collection of software that enables individuals and communities to gather, communicate, share, and in some cases collaborate or play.
As we are tempted by social networks and the kinship of new friends, followers, and fans, we intentionally or inadvertently, create a new era of personal recognition and attention that extracts an unconditioned human response and consequently shapes an unpredictable personality and behavior over time. Social networking, common sense, prudence, and direction are not ingrained in our DNA. We all need a little help and advice, now more than ever.
In perhaps the most famous "Star Trek" episode of them all, Capt. James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and Cmdr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) stand in their stretchy mock-turtle uniform shirts, lady-pleasin' tight pants and pointy-toed Beatle boots on one of those studio-lot sets designed to evoke a prewar American city. People shuffle past in shabby clothes, and a black automobile with large, curved fenders crawls down the street. "I've seen photographs of this period," says Kirk. "An economic upheaval had occurred."
The world of communication and product delivery is changing as the Web evolves and new services are introduced, enabling us to gain faster access to information, download richer media more quickly, and rapidly voice our opinions and feedback near and far in a wide variety of methods, including text, voice, video and imagery. As customers become more savvy and in tune with these new tools, we are also expecting those offering products and services to adapt, and as such, I thought it made sense to put forth what I believe are key tenets of a new consumer manifesto for today's real-time world.
There’s been a lot of talk lately about monetizing social networks. MySpace has swapped out much of its senior leadership with talent more experienced in marketing. Facebook is floating plans to launch an ad network someday. Both services already put ads on their sites, sell sponsorships, etc. Most, if not all, of these kinds of efforts focus on using social networks as glorified channels for branding. Companies hope to sell things by paying to put their brands in front of consumers as they’re on their way to, doing things at, and planning to leave their networked communities. How is this any different than putting up billboards on the way to the fair? Is it possible that the true value of social networks could be derived from seeing them as places?
It takes a while for changes to sink in—for the full ramifications of market shifts to impact how we actually do business, what we plan to achieve and how we communicate our intentions. Up to now, what I’ve heard from clients has had mostly to do with money…budgets have tightened and spending decisions have slowed. But now clients are realizing that today’s market is reshaping not just what they spend but what they say. They are starting to look at their brand messages and ask themselves, what do we talk about now?
For the past 15 years, marketers have lived like kings online. We built ornate palaces in homage to ourselves in the form of websites and microsites. Each acts as a destination that embodies our meticulous choice of aesthetics, content and activities. We still put a lot of time, effort and money into erecting these palaces, much as Louis XIV did in planning Versailles. And, for the most part, we have been rewarded handsomely for our efforts. For years consumers flocked to our sites, reveled in all we had to say, played with our toys and sometimes were motivated enough as a result to buy our stuff. That's what life was like in the good old days. But now we're in the age of online enlightenment.
The lack of innovation in pop music suggests that we are experiencing an energy crisis in culture at large.
The more transparent a market, economic theory holds, the healthier it will be. Information asymmetry — where sellers know crucial information that buyers cannot access — pollutes the market. Think toxic assets. The movement toward fuller transparency in the financial markets has a direct parallel in the ecological impacts of consumer goods. Signs suggest a trend toward greater marketplace openness about the environmental and health consequences of products — a trend with strong marketing implications.
As the world goes Kindle and iPhone-mad, paperbacks and mixtapes become worthy of devotion. Llewellyn Hinkes sees his entire music collection disappear and wonders what it meant.
One of the most interesting consequences of the economic downturn is the depth of soul-searching triggered among adults of all ages. Everyone feels guilty about consuming so much with so little thought---buying things we didn't need with money we didn't have. While the recession may not give us much choice in the matter, spending less and saving more--and living within our means--actually feels like the natural course. It's time for grown-ups to grow up. In his Inaugural address, Obama pretty much ordered us to set a new path with a verbal finger wag: "The time has come to set aside childish things."
Last year marked several significant transitions for Seattle-based Starbucks. Howard Schultz returned to the role of chief executive officer, the company shuffled its leadership team, closed stores, introduced new products and shifted its focus from opening new stores to maintaining quality and customer loyalty. Though Starbucks was already in transition before the economic slump worsened, the recession intensified the need for corporate changes. Starbucks is an image company, one in which words matter. In 2009, executives described the coffee giant using a different set of terms than they used in 2007. The word clouds below show us how different.
Paper invited 15 of the best visual communicators to redefine our country's image.
By now, virtually everyone has chimed in on how innovation is the only way out of the recession. So instead of adding more theory, let’s have a look at actual B2C innovations from recession-defying entrepreneurs and brands around the world.
David’s victory over Goliath, in the Biblical account, is held to be an anomaly. It was not. Davids win all the time.
Warren Buffett would not buy newspapers “at any price.” This from the owner of the Buffalo News and a board member of the Washington Post Company. And they call me a doomsayer.
The legendary advertising innovator David Ogilvy created an enduring organization using culture, integrity, and charm.
In light of rising childhood obesity rates and the general confidence in supermarket sales, Disney, the world’s top licensor, is steadily making the push to realign its brand with a healthier image, targeting kids with fruits and vegetables instead. The savvy marketing move appears to be working too, as sales of the Disney Garden line were up 70 percent in 2008, a trend that can at least partially be attributed to consumer attitudes about the products.
Considering the sophistication of humans as mammals, it is still interesting how we are doomed to repeat the same behavioral patterns as our primate ancestors, even when is comes to social media.
Although we often use the word in new contexts, the basic definition of conversation hasn't really changed. A conversation is an informal exchange of thoughts or ideas. Most importantly, though, engaging in a conversation means that you don't say everything that there is to say. You expect the other person to make a contribution, and you intentionally leave things unsaid so that the other person has an opportunity to add their part.
Perhaps what is most interesting and prevalent is the behavior transformation in content consumption that is taking place in “Twitter time” and it's establishing a new world authority. For many of us, we’re migrating away from destinations and potentially RSS readers as well as our primary source of news, relevant information, pleasant distractions, and trending topics. We’re quickly focusing on Twitter, Facebook News Feeds, FriendFeed and the statusphere as our highly curated and personalized attention dashboards. As content publishers, producers, and creators, we need to acknowledge, understand, and embrace this critical disruption.
For a long time now, I’ve been pushing hard the idea of journalist-as-curator. Every priesthood, it seems, is having a fit over loss of its centralized control: How dare people pick what they like without history degrees or share what they know without journalism degrees! The nerve!
Mystery, obviously, is everywhere. Is there a God? Mystery. What about life after death? Mystery. Excuse me, what material is the ShamWow made of? Mystery. Stonehenge? Big Foot? Loch Ness? Mystery mystery mystery. McDonald's Special Sauce? I don't care how many bottles of Thousand Island Dressing you show me, it's Special Sauce. Mystery.
Recent studies on the effects of the internet and other new media on brain plasticity raises an open research question: Is Google making us smarter?
One of the principal things nearly anyone does on Google.com is a vanity search: We ask the question: What do people see when they put my name into Google?
Today, with the pillars of capitalism falling all around us, it might seem odd to wonder what world-changing shifts this Great Recession will help bring to life—what Next Big Thing is just around the corner. But moments of rupture such as these are precisely what true innovators seek to exploit, creating new paradigms and leaving a trail of winners and losers in their wake. Companies, technologies, and ideas that survive this latest tide of creative destruction will emerge sharper, stronger, and more resilient for it.
Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens has rendered a verdict: William Shakespeare couldn't have written the plays attributed to his pen. The likely author was Edward de Vere, the 17th earl of Oxford. This says lots about the nature of truth in the chaos of our Information Age...or the changed definition of how we make decisions in our Age of Chaos.
The controversial, anti-Web 2.0, figure of Andrew Keen spoke at the Next Web in Amsterdam and outlined some of the themes that he is developing for his next book. Keen is most famous for deriding the ‘cult of the amateur’, as he calls it, or rather the explosion of social media which arose with the new platforms to emerge alongside what became known as Web 2.0. In a long speech - without notes - he talked about a new age of individualism. With the end of the industrial revolution, “we,” essentially are now “the product.”
About two weeks ago, Alexander Van Elsas had an interesting post where he asked several questions about the current state of web applications. If everything becomes open and connected, what will happen to the big destinations? Why is the web rapidly evolving into uncountable databases with connections, instead of one database where everything connects? If all services and destinations become open, then what is the point in being a destination site in the first place? Why are we creating webs within webs, instead of one network that connects it all? After thinking for a little bit, I realized that these questions are far from answered, and the answers are going to get harder to find.
Detroit has never had a Chief Culture Officer, someone who could help the GM, Ford and Chrysler manage the opportunities and dangers that come from culture. (By "culture" I do not mean the corporate culture of Detroit. I mean the "software" with which we run the hardware of our world, the shared understandings, assumptions, rules and practices that inform how we see and act. This culture is rich, complicated and changeable. It needs someone standing watch all the time.)
"What is a friend?" This question is constantly echoing across the internet. But, digital relationships (just like non-digtal ones) are not absolute. They are fluid. And online friendship is better described along a spectrum defined by the actions people take and how we feel about them. The more useful question for individuals and brands who are interested in cultivating online friendships is How do I move my friends from acquaintanceship to "best friendliness"?
What to do if you're just not that into microblogging but don't want to be left behind.
Many people are intimidated by the abundance the digital world offers. There are all kinds of ways of categorizing these people, age and occupation being the two most common. While I think this is wrong, there is a spooky echo of my grandparents' contempt for long hair on men and color TV, my parents' contempt for rock music and flared trousers, my big sister's contempt for punk rock and piercings, in most boomers' (often very subtle, often subconscious) resistance to the new world. It all comes down to how you were educated.
We've written much on what we know will be virtues of a successful 21st-century brand: trustworthiness, durability and accessibility, distinct from the core values (or motivators) they ultimately support. For instance, a brand may value Independence (Harley-Davidson, say), and exercise its virtues of Trustworthiness, Durability and Accessibility to ensure that its core value is understood, and motivating, at every turn. We as a practice don't assign values to brands; we simply apply these virtues to brands in when designing for their values, whatever they may be.
As the recession dramatically alters where and how Americans spend their money, there is an emerging consensus on the likely profile of the “new” US consumer who will emerge on the other side of the crisis.
We have big problems in this country. Wall Street played recklessly with our money. Banks made bad loans. Insurance companies guaranteed stupid risks. People took out unrealistic mortgages and borrowed too much to buy things they couldn't afford. Companies are going out of business and laying off workers. And, the government is bailing people out and billing our kids. It would be easy (and tempting) to go on. But we have one more, deeper problem that's making all these other problems worse. No one is apologizing. No one is taking responsibility for what they did to contribute to our problems. They're all blaming someone or something else. We have a kindergartener's problem and it's tearing us apart.
If the "backlash against bling" is real, then we really have to ask ourselves, what on earth is marketing going to look like to millions of people who don't want to buy like they used to—who are marketing weary? People just like my dad, only more digitally savvy. Not only that, but beyond marketing, what's the effect on companies who make their profits by continually producing new products? Bigger, better faster—guaranteed to make your life meaningful. Business and brands have a problem.
If there were one word to describe what Facebook has added to my life, I would use it. It’s a multidimensional pleasure: It’s given me a tool for exceptionally mindless, voyeuristic, puerile procrastination; crowd-sourced pesky problems like finding a new accountant; stoked my narcissism; warmed my heart with nostalgia; and created a euphoric, irrational, irresistible belief in the good in men’s hearts among the most skeptical people I know—people who should know better.
Thursday I heard a characteristically wonderful presentation by Faris Yakob at the BrainJuicer event in NYC. (This guy is talent with a capital T[shirt].) In passing, Faris noted that some people now groan when the term "twitter" comes up in conversation. Groaning? I can see exclaiming, kvelling, even plotzing. But groaning. Why groaning? The answer to this question lies, I think, in another question: why do people groan at puns?
I have good career news for those of you on the recession front: When the economy improves, the skills and approaches you perfect during these troubled times will better position you for greater riches and fame. The trick will be surviving until then.
The emerging war we’re seeing now is over change. I’m not talking about the post-9/11 resurgence of debate over Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations - though that’s certainly a front in this war. Instead, I’m talking about the clash over change within civilizations, the attempt by some to forestall its inevitability, and their attacks on those who enable, predict, and embrace change as if any of those actions cause change. It’s actually rather fatuous to set up a dispute between those who want and don’t want change, those who think change is good or bad. Change is inexorable. The question is not what you think about it but what you do about it.
Marketing is a long-term proposition. A company can get in trouble if it changes its marketing strategy to cope with a short-term problem.
A recession-induced need for cash, and an ever-growing infrastructure enabling individuals to act as (part-time) entrepreneurs, are fueling concepts that help ordinary consumers make money instead of just spending it.
In today’s turbulent world, people are hungry for a sense of connection; and in lean economic times, every company needs new ways to do more with what it already has. Unfortunately, although many firms aspire to the customer loyalty, marketing efficiency, and brand authenticity that strong communities deliver, few understand what it takes to achieve such benefits. Worse, most subscribe to serious misconceptions about what brand communities are and how they work.
Marketers have spammed, lied, deceived, cluttered and ripped us off for so long, we're sick of it.
This, in two words, is the secret of the new marketing. Find ten people. Ten people who trust you/respect you/need you/listen to you... Those ten people need what you have to sell, or want it. And if they love it, you win. If they love it, they'll each find you ten more people (or a hundred or a thousand or, perhaps, just three). Repeat. If they don't love it, you need a new product. Start over.
I suddenly realized my problem with aggregators. When I configure my feeds, I want just about everything.
Apprehension, with an enduring edge to it. That's the general mood among the twentysomethings I've heard from during the last several weeks in response to a question I asked about how the recession is making them feel. The fear isn't just about the present but about the long-term future. Octopuslike, it has many tentacles. But the most strangling aspect, I think, is the perception of my Gen Y e-mailers that they dutifully set up their lives based on assumptions that suddenly no longer apply. They're anxious because they can't tell what the new rules of the game will be—or because they think they can tell, and they don't like what they see coming at them.
Wikipedia was born in January 2001, at the dawn of a new century -- fitting for a site that would unexpectedly mark a new era in the evolution of human knowledge. In less than a decade, Wikipedia has become the world's most popular encyclopedia, expanding from a lone first article in English (a test post on the site with the text "Hello, World!") to more than 10 million articles in 250 languages. But perhaps even more important than Wikipedia's size is our increasing dependence upon the site.
For the Web's cognoscenti, the lolcats fad is so over. I Can Has Cheezburger, the site that sparked captioned-cat-picture mania, launched in January 2007. The online world's early adopters learned about the phenomenon that February, when Boing Boing first linked to the site. Over the next few months, lolcats showed up in Gawker, Slate, the Wall Street Journal, and Time. Last October, Eric Nakagawa and Kari Unebasami, the site's founders, published I Can Has Cheezburger?: A LOLcat Colleckshun, a book that spent 13 weeks on the New York Times' paperback best-seller list. Lolcats are now even showing up on hipster soda bottles. Is there anyone left in America who hasn't had enough of these cat photos appended with ironic, allusive, peculiarly spelled captions?
As tens of thousands of people recently strolled among booths of the nation’s largest organic and natural foods show here, munching on fair-trade chocolate and sipping organic wine, a few dozen pioneers of the industry sneaked off to an out-of-the-way conference room.
Over the last decade, Social Media has slowly evolved not only as a new content publishing, sharing, and discovery medium, but more importantly as a peer-to-peer looking glass into the real world conversations that affect the perception, engagement, and overall direction of the brands we represent. Socialized media didn't invent "conversations," it simply organized and amplified them.
When the business pages make no sense, it's time to turn to a philosopher. I recently returned to the HBR articles of Charles Handy, vicar's son-turned-oilman-turned-business-school-professor-turned philosopher, who has raised many questions and made many accurate prognostications about the future of business. Consider what he said, post-Enron, about the erosion of trust.
This is an Age of Commodified Intelligence, a time of conspicuously consumed high culture in which intellectual life is meticulously measured and branded.
What if one of the futures coming after our miracle of the Internet and the madness of our economics is a model of living and investing we last saw about a hundred years ago?
The last year's worth of financial news nonsense has got me thinking again about the divergent roles individuals and groups play in our lives. I'm torn between what, or whom, I'm supposed to trust. It seems like the more broad and robust my access to the world gets, the less I know or believe. I rely more on what is immediate and personal, and the things that I know are true get more simple and basic...just as the credibility of larger, more complicated subjects becomes hazy and elusive.
This is the cultural moment of the narcissist. A forthcoming book, The Narcissism Epidemic, says we went on a national binge of I-deserve-it consumption that's now resulting in our economic purging.
Over the centuries, the United States has been most conspicuous for one trait: manic energy. Americans work longer hours than any other people. We switch jobs more frequently, move more often, earn more and consume more. This energy was first aroused by abundance, by the tantalizing sense that dazzling wealth was available just over the next hill. But it has also been sustained by a popular culture that celebrates commercial ambition.
Mourning the death of the fetid, human way we used to interact with movies.
If you’re interested in trends and ideas and how to use them in your work then you have to add the writing of anthropologist Grant McCracken to your must-read list.
It doesn’t matter if you’re on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr; your online personality is not only part of your overall brand, it becomes an interactive experience for you and your business. So, who is the face or voice of your brand and what do they share? It’s a very important decision in and of itself.
People are scared. Have you finally figured that out? They want to make sure that their marketplace decisions are "good" ones; that they'll receive "value" for their exchange of precious time and money. So how do you help them do that? The first step is to think and feel what your audience is feeling.
"Giving is the new taking, and sharing is the new giving." That's the key assertion in this month's trend briefing, which describes the characteristics of Generation G (for generosity) and offers eight ways for brands to join: from Tryvertising to Brand Butlers to Random Acts of Kindness (RAK).”
You may not know it to look at them, but urban planners are human and have dreams. One dream many share is that Americans will give up their love affair with suburban sprawl and will rediscover denser, more environmentally friendly, less auto-dependent ways of living. Those dreams have been aroused over the past few months. The economic crisis has devastated the fast-growing developments on the far suburban fringe. Americans now taste the bitter fruit of their overconsumption. The time has finally come, some writers are predicting, when Americans will finally repent.
Thank goodness, now the recession’s here we can forget all that nonsense about corporate social responsibility (CSR) and get back to trying to make some money. Admit it, the thought had occurred to you. There may have been much talk of (newly rediscovered) responsibility in Davos last week. But for most managers the biggest responsibility of all will always be to make a profit and stay in business. The good news is that serious CSR types understand this.
Has there ever been more urgency for corporations to ditch the greed and embrace generosity? It's something that countless individuals have already started doing, of course: giving is the new taking, and sharing is the new giving.
How does design respond to a bleak economic landscape? Philippe Starck, Sir Terence Conran and Kirstie Allsopp debate the future of their industries in these lean times.
Most American consumers are simply too young to remember the Great Depression, and for a quarter century they've lived without extended economic hardship, becoming ever more acquisitive in a world of instant gratification and easy credit. The circumstances of the current recession are unprecedented in the history of modern consumerism. Factor in the loss of confidence in financial institutions and an investing world where even the very rich can be wiped out through Ponzi schemes, and you have consumers who are reconsidering long-held spending habits.
Almost three decades ago, the UK's number one hit record at the start of the new year was 'Brass in Pocket' by The Pretenders. "I gotta have some of your attention," sang Chrissie Hynde. That refrain proved very popular with teenage girls back then. Companies are desperate to command our attention, too. But it is getting harder to persuade people to pay attention.
Two years ago, a YouTube member named MadV put up a short, cryptic video. He held his hand up to the camera, showing what he'd written on his palm: "One World." Within a few days, hundreds of YouTube users had posted videos displaying their own scrawled messages. DIY tools for shooting, editing, and broadcasting video aren't just changing who uses the medium. They're changing how we use it.
Jessica Buchsbaum first noticed that something had changed in May 2008. The head of recruitment for a law firm in Florida, Ms Buchsbaum was used to interviewing young candidates for summer internships who seemed to think that the world owed them a living. However, last May’s crop were far more humble. “The tone had changed from ‘What can you do for me?’ to ‘Here’s what I can do for you’,” she says.
"Revolutionary Road," based on Richard Yates's 1961 novel of the same name, is the latest entry in a long stream of art that portrays the American suburbs as the physical correlative to spiritual and mental death. No literary critic that I know of has ever challenged Yates's puerile social perceptions. The reflexive reverence for "Revolutionary Road" is a testament to the degree to which antisuburban sentiment is one of the most unexamined attitudes in American culture.
In a time of growing unemployment, tumbling stocks and rising foreclosures, people are finding comfort on social networking sites.
Welcome back to the Year in Ideas issue. For the eighth year in a row, we have compiled an alphabetical digest of ideas, from A to Z (almost), that helped make the previous 12 months, for better or worse, what they were.
As the financial crisis snowballed this year, retail sales fell sharply, and government figures showed the first across-the-board decline in consumer spending since 1991. Curiously, many assessments of this development treated it as an exciting new trend — and maybe even an overnight realignment of where and how Americans find meaning and satisfaction in life.
Several years ago, Jessica Helfand wandered into the scrapbooking area of a crafts store and stumbled upon a multibillion-dollar industry. An eloquent design critic and graphic designer who teaches at Yale, Helfand couldn't dismiss scrapbooks altogether. Although they were often cheesy and sentimental and generic, this was also hands-on design as practiced by regular people rather than artists -- an attempt to represent everyday experience through visual culture.
We’ve all heard about dumbing down. But there is plenty of evidence that the opposite is also true. Is this, in fact, the age of mass intelligence?
Everywhere we look, we see screens.These ever-present screens have created an audience for very short moving pictures, as brief as three minutes, while cheap digital creation tools have empowered a new generation of filmmakers, who are rapidly filling up those screens. We are headed toward screen ubiquity.
For brand marketers today, "global" is increasingly the name of the game. Long the prerogative of American and European brands, now Chinese, Indian, Mexican and Brazilian brands are seeking to establish their position as global players. Underlying this push to globalize brands is the assumption that the world is becoming more homogeneous.
If its absurdist twists and wicked parodies of conventional journalism are just a joke, thecountry's leading satirical newspaper is having the last laugh.
It is no secret that consumers are cutting back, anxious about jobs, plummeting home values and shrinking retirement savings. But that belt-tightening seems to have also prompted a reconsideration of what is acceptable consumerism even for those relatively unaffected by the economic cataclysm.
In the wake of Obama’s victory, we must rise together and manifest a cultural shift.
The cure for Nascar blindness is a relatively painless and simple one: listening. Which is one of the most underutilized tools in the marketer's arsenal, but also one of the most valuable.
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