Thursday, December 4, 2008

Brands that connect have a human story

I was simultaneously listening to this podcast about Obama's marketing strategy while perusing Sid Lee's blog. Both talk about Obama but from different perspectives. Jaffe talks about the communications strategy but Sid Lee hit the nail on the head when, in reference to his half hour "commercial" (below) they call Obama a "storyteller".



Indeed this is really what great communications are about - human stories. Tales that people can relate to.

Things are meaningless without a human context.

Brands are born from people, and draw from human relevance to be successful, politicians are brands and Obama exploited the power of the people on the ground and their stories in his campaign.

What also struck me is how this thought links to the phenomenon of "celeb". Britney Spears is hugely successful brand - and is this because we have such access to her story...and in fact, for her brand relaunch - a warts and all documentary was released and aired recently on MTV



Stars indeed have catapulted to fame after reality TV shows - after they displayed their humanity, their personality, their mistakes & their emotions on screen.

So successful brands have a sense of grounded-ness, of reality, of identity, maybe even making some mistakes along the way.

The main thing is that you have a human story that people can relate to.

Pop up toilets that make your bum wiggle!

Just came across a fabulous example of experiential marketing.

It's a great example of pop-up marketing - who would have thought that going for a whizz could be such an great experience...certainly something to mention later to your mates.

The Power of Rituals to drive your brand

I'm currently listening to a very interesting article on Brand Fast Trackers podcast where they're talking to Martin Lindsrom author of the new book Buyology which by all accounts seems to be a very worthwhile read.



He starts off by talking about the smash-able brand, a familiar story and concept illustrated by the fact that the Coke bottle was designed to be recognisable even when smashed into many pieces.


Martin also set up an experiment with fake billboards in the LA. 1 billboard with a Marlboro cowboy on one billboard and a Marlboro logo on another. When they looked at the craving in the brain, there was much more craving when they looked at the logo free poster they craved a lot more. Consumers were turned off by the logo as they felt that they were being marketed to. Tobacco brands are the ultimate smashable brands given the stringent restrictions on the use of logos etc. They are successful because they have been smashed.

But the really interesting part of the discussion was about mirror neurons and rituals. If you've read HERD you'll be familiar with mirror neurons. Essentially it was discovered in 1989 that there are "empathy" neurons which fire when you observe someone doing something. For example if you watch a football match and your brain is scanned, your brain scan will be the same as that of the footballer.


But how do all these points link up? Well we all know how successful the iPod was in it's rapid conquest of the market and we all have noticed that the white headphones are and obvious brand statement. Apple's stroke of genius was to break the category rules by creating white headphones - they are a smashable brand. In this wa the brand is more of an experience, a tribal identity badge than a product.


Moving more towards explicit rituals Martin Lindsrom gives us an example of Corona's success with it's lime ritual. He mentions how the product also exists in a lime version but consumers still prefer the original version when they put the lime in themselves and find the product 62% tastier once they've carried out this ritual.

Essentially it's monkey see monkey do...but for us thinking, consuming monkeys it's monkey see, monkey do, monkey tells himself he's done it for himself, because it's better.


Another great example he mentions is about a large cosmetics brand he worked on and built in a particular ritual of how to apply the cream. The ritual is only 7 years old but now 91% of it's consumers use the ritual and feel that the cream works better when they do it...and with this placebo effect, it most likely does!

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Obama's viral

I just came across an official Obama viral that he used during the campaign, it's just fantastic, so refreshing, so smart...it's just inspiring political marketing..

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Free ebook from Seth Godin and some comments about free content



Just came across Seth Godin's free ebook - available as PDF format on his blog looking forward to reading it.

Furthermore, it's interesting because I was listening to the 10 Golden Rules of Internet Marketing Podcast where David Meerman Scott author of The New Rules of Marketing and PR, was discussing the very idea of free publishing.
He discusses how the best form of self marketing is publishing valuable content for free.

Two interesting points stand out for me in his discussion:

1. Ensure that you content has "conflict".

Akin to the art of story telling, your content needs to engage in a similar way. He describes how brands fall down in this way where they tell as story of "boy meets girl, falls in loves and gets married" while a more interesting story is "boy meets girl, boy looses girl, boy gets girl back and then they get married."

2. Don't have a gate to you content.

Citing personal experience and free metrics from mailermaailer.com if you ask for an email address before people can download your ebook or white paper...you might get 1k downloads in a year. However if you allow people to go ahead and download without any barrier you could get 20k to 50k downloads in return.

Interesting stuff, particularly when we transfer these learnings to brands...

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Looking for interesting Twitters to follow?


This handly little tool gives you a quick rundown of the top blogs that the people you follow...follow...

And while we're on the subject of Twitter I highly recommend using iGoogle's Twitter Gadget.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Techno-inspired clothing...


Now clothing companies are being inspired by social networks...this ingenius dutch company produce clothing with a unique logo for each user...the logos serves as a launch pad for people to connect with you having snapped your unique logo with their mobile phone...

This is exactly the type of company who will foster naturally growing communities as their innovation pays off through word of mouth and the clincher - and absolute driver to the online world in their USP.

I love this one.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

And again...thanks Google

Great new tool from Google - Google trends - this FREE tool lets you analyze historical Google history data around key words and even compare key words...fantastic!

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Wiki wiki wow wiki wow wow

Check this out Wikicrimes was started by Professor Vasco Furtado from the University of Fortaleza in northern Brazil...great example of how our collective knowledge is becoming so much more explicit, referenced and thus more real...

Thanks to wikis we can re-clame knowledge from records in institutions and access it at will

Although my search for a wiki directory yielded poor results wiki directory...

I did find a relatively new wiki platform, released earlier this year...Wetpaint. The interesting thing about this wiki format is that is comprises a collection of individual wiki portals

The sites as yet pretty undeveloped and populated by a lot of commercial crap. Also I must admit not as easy to navigate as the ubiquitous Wikipedia but I'm interested to see how it develops...

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Google do it again...

I've just come accross a new form of Rich Media advertising by Google - GadgetAds.

Basically they are a website within a web page but what's even better is you can add them to you iGoogle page along with your other gadgets enabling live rich media streams directly to your iGoogle mashup

So much more of a sustained communication than an "ad" and consequentially has the scope to become a brand/interest specific news real or forum reel or entertainment show...

However...you've gotta be good, you've gotta provide enough value to forgo the delete "x" and even if you manage to remain on the page - you've gotta be at the top...those gadgets athe bottom don't really get to see the light of the scroll bar...

But as chance is a chance...and what an opportunity...

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Wondering about web 3.0?....AI


Just came across a great working example of how web 3.0 will work. It certainly beats the academic meanderings of wikipedia's treatment of the subject!

But when you've read that clip...it's really worth taking a peak at this blog
& excuse me while I NERD off a bit here... but the idea of a semantic internet - essentially internet as information agent and search as it's is known now a think of the past, since we're talking about an internet that understands the information it carries...i.e artificial intelligence. And we think that the social web has changed things...

And if that's getting you interested...check out Richard Dawson's Future Files book
. It's fascinating stuff, things really are about change.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

The muliplier effect

Dove's onslaught did a decent job in starting conversation...





But Greenpeace's response...did an even better job...because it enabled a sort of buzz piggy backing, or multiplier effect...

The brave signoff at the end is a nice touch in our era of up-front communications

Style over substance


Just read an interesting article about how ad agency websites are all "sizzle" rather than "steak"

http://www.webinknow.com/2007/09/advertising-age.html

Now there's a point...David Meerman Scott goes on to explain how the old ad model of attention grabbing headlines or impacting creatives is irrelevant in the world of websites...where - you've gotten people's attention.

The point is HOLDING attention...of course that's content...and not design overkill at the sacrifice of interest.

Truth is i've seen it many times, I've landed on a site...and have given up wading through the mire of flash to try to find the info i'm looking for...and this extends to some of the best advertising websites...not mentioning any names!

The origins of design have been about functionality but in recent times deisgn has moved more towards aestictics...and I suppose it's time to hold onto the reigns of designers and turn them in the direction of usabilility - of displaying succint content...

Perhaps a good example of digital space design - is the design that you hardly notice..

Just had a quick look on google to test my theory...I though...how about searching for an industrial design website...after all those guys know a thing or two about design for function...

What do ya know, the boys do a fab job of simplicity and functionality

http://www.theplaycoalition.net/

Within a couple of seconds I'd gotten a good impression of what they do

Whereas with this top ad agency site...

http://www.leoburnett.com/

I'm just not engaged...I'm frustrated by the flash.

So I agree with
David Meerman Scott, don't get an ad agency to design your website...especially with so many smart digital shops around who grew up in new media

Case in point - http://www.daredigital.com/ where design and functionality are seemless.