1. Piggybacking Medicine On Coke’s Distribution Channels
Osocio’s “Colalife at TEDxBerlin”
“The idea is simple. Use Coca Cola’s distribution channels to provide remote communities in third world countries with essential medication and water cleaning tablets.”
Doc Searls’ “Al Jazeera in Egypt is cable’s ‘Sputnik moment’”
“Fifteen years ago, the promise of TV was ‘five hundred channels.’ We have that now, but we also have billions of sources — not just ‘channels’ — over the Net. Cream rises to the top, and right now that cream is Al Jazeera and the top is a hand-held device.”
A VC’s “What A CEO Does” and “What A Management Team Does”
“The best management teams create cultures that people enjoy working in. And from that comes great things. I see that every day. As Scott Heiferman said recently ‘teams win.’”
Mitch Joel’s “The Time Has Come For The Marketing Hacker”
“Digital Marketing is about many messages (and stories) in many different places (or, as I call it, ‘many big ideas’). It can be text, images, audio, video and it can be in the form of content, contest, advertising or conversation. The line is not as clear as simply saying, ‘it’s online advertising.’ Because it’s not.”
“And the one and only thing that you maybe think of even more than sex is… cookies. And then it hits you: a sign with a bag, hanging from a window of a two story apartment.”
Gaga tweeted “she is the future.” And Maria Aragon’s career was born, while Lady Gaga’s brand was further humanized, introducing a remarkable story that we can’t stop sharing.
(In case you missed it, here’s the video that sent Maria jetting to multiple talk shows and has earned her phone calls from agents and producers. As of this post, up to 17MM+ views in two weeks.)
There was no user-generated contest, no copy written, no casting. Just a community member who loved a song and let her passion show. The Mother Monster found it, tweeted the link, handed the keys to the community, and launched a rocket.
She could have just said ‘Thanks!’ As many brands are wont to do in social media. Instead, she rewarded her creative fan with a tweet that compelled millions to click — “Can’t stop crying… This is why I make music. She is the future.”
This is Lady Gaga’s best video. Better than Bad Romance, better than Telephone.
A single tweet earned Lady Gaga a ridiculous amount of positive press, a new level of respect from her existing fan base, and consideration from a broader market who would normally dismiss the cigarette-sunglass-wearingoviparous pop star.
What could you do to hand the keys to a community member? Sometimes, you have to do more than just say thanks. Trust me, you’ll thank me for it.
I really don’t care about Cannes. I don’t even know how to pronounce it properly.
(I do, however, care about pronounciation, so… Wikipedia says it’s pronounced “kan,” like “plan.”)
If you’re in to all of that, great. If winning a Lion for your ad is what gets you excited in the morning, fantastic. In fact, if that dangled carrot fills you with passion and drive that pushes you to excel on a project I happen to be working on, I’m even happier.
But it’s not what drives me.
To be fair, if we won one, I’d celebrate it and congratulate all those involved. I’d be proud of it. But I’m not clamoring for it.
I measure my personal and our collective success differently. I want to know:
Did we strike a chord with our target?
Did we create an idea that people will talk about?
Did we build loyalty; build a community or tap into any others?
Did we sell the product or the brand, not the product type?
Did we increase sales?
I believe the best way to manage a creative team and create great work is to understand what drives each individual, and figure out how that plays into the project. We’re not all there to stand up on stage with a golden cat.
Now, let’s go out and make some magic. The awards will come.
Harvard Business Review’s “Why Do Smart People Do Such Dumb Things?”
“[Warren Buffett] called this progression the ‘three Is.’ First come the innovators, who see opportunities that others don’t and champion new ideas that create genuine value. Then come the imitators, who copy what the innovators have done. Sometimes they improve on the original idea, often they tarnish it. Last come the idiots, whose avarice undermines the very innovations they are trying to exploit.”
2. The Big Brands Are Starting To Create Big Content
HubSpot’s “Arm Yourself With Content, For Goliath Is Coming”
“I must warn you, stalwart defenders of Inbound Marketing, that Goliath is figuring out how successful Inbound Marketing can be. While P&G has a historical record of being on the cutting edge (when it comes to advertising as a giant consumer manufacturer, at least), it won’t be long before other large companies in the B2C space start doing the same. Soon after that, companies like Microsoft, Adobe, and IBM will realize that there are ways to adapt techniques that work B2C, and try them out with B2B sales.”
The D.C. Baltimore Egotist’s “What I Learned in 2010: Everything I Ever Needed to Know About Community, I Learned From My Mechanic”
“Aside from standard business adjustments, he credited most of his stability and success to the carefully planned, strategic relationships he built and nourished over the years with his suppliers, partners, customers and neighbors. This brake shop owner had mastered the now familiar online/social media strategies decades ahead.”
Erin Bury’s “My Twitter Battle vs. The Other Erin Bury”
“For those of you looking to lay claim to your real name on Twitter follow these steps. Or just keep sulking from a distance – that worked for me for a while.”
“Things have to change. Marketers often talk about mobile as the “third screen” (the first being TV and the second being the computer screen)… and it turns out they (and I include myself in this bunch) got it all wrong. “
“Everyone is so proud of their ignorance in this world that it baffles me. So can everyone just do me a personal favour and make their resolution to stop acting like they know something when they obviously don’t have a clue!?”
Mark Hurst’s “The myth of the lone genius innovator”
“Great ideas, great products, great experiences come from creating something that is especially useful, meaningful, or fun for another person. Masters of experience design always have an orientation toward benefiting ‘the other.’”
Olivier Blanchard’s “Starbucks: Managing a brand’s expansion – Part 1″ (and Part 2)
“There is no doubt that Starbucks needs an overarching brand to tie all of its product categories and businesses together. But it also needs to establish clear branding for each of its new verticals, starting by preserving the integrity of its core business: Starbucks Coffee.”
“What are we actually DOing?” I often puzzle fellow marketers and advertisers with this question.
The brief is written to focus on the most important message for a campaign, and many times we jump to the presentation of that message. How the slogan will appear in print; what stock photo will best represent our target persona (but don’t forget the element of diversity); which voiceover artist best conveys the gravitas of the campaign? In social media, many jump to the hope that our friends and followers will parrot the message. But this is a flawed, presumptuous distortion of word-of-mouth (WOM). Even the most repeatable slogans seem pretty ridiculous when tweeted. (I pick on Nike here because I used to work for, and still love the brand…)
Instead of starting with “how do we make them talk about us,” why not start with “how do we make them absolutely love us?” People love to talk about brands they love. Brands that actually DO something, instead of just talking about it.
Brands that take action.
This question strikes at the heart of humanized brands — after all, the judgement of our peers is based on their actions, not just their words.
How you and your brand can take action — Some examples:
Level 1: KLM
KLM recently “experimented” with social media by listening to public posts and giving gifts to people who checked-in at their terminals.
Level 2: Tide
Tide has extended the Loads of Hope campaign they began during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and is now cleaning clothes in Haiti.
Level 3: Pepsi Refresh Project
The no-super-bowl-for-us Pepsi movement continues to build a following.
Level 4: Open Forum by AMEX
AMEX has created a unique and thriving online community for small business owners and entrepreneurs.
To help you move your next project away from sloganeering, here are some calls-to-action:
Ford’s astonishing and inspiring thought leadership in the online space continues, as they fully embrace WOMMA’s Code of Ethics with their rules, including:
“We want both positive and negative reviews of our vehicles.”
“In social media, it must be your authentic opinion or it doesn’t count.”
Organic’s ThreeMinds blog has a couple of great posts that I think you’ll enjoy:
How Big Brands Can Benefit from Public APIs by Dan Neumann examines the New York Times as a Northern star, while we keep the dream alive for futurist marketers looking to help brands by changing the way they use their data and content.
Nasa Rocks The Boat by Alex Churchill points us to a lil’ ol’ YouTube video to which many corporate workers can relate. And also;
I try to be nice and polite to all of my friends still in the print industry. But, when reading simple arguments against the medium like this one from Jeff Jarvis, it’s hard to make the argument for spending time or money using print as a medium for engagement.
“Yes, print is a burden. It’s expensive to produce for it. It’s expensive to manufacture. It’s expensive to deliver. It limits your space. It limits your timing. It’s stale when it’s fresh. It is one-size-fits-all and can’t be adapted to the needs of each user. It comes with no ability to click for more. It has no search. It can’t be forwarded. It has no archive. It kills trees. It uses energy. It usually brings unions. And you really should recycle it. Wow, when you think about it, print sucks.”
And at this point, there really are very few markets and demographics that can’t be best targetted online.
Hmm… this is the third (?) blog I’ve launched. After attending a blog seminar a few weeks ago starring Mitch Joel of Twist Image, I decided to have another go of it.
I hope to add value to the ’sphere, in fact, that’s been my problem all along with blogging, and with any creative projects — If it’s not good enough, it’s not good enough, and it’s never good enough.
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Organic’s ThreeMinds blog has a couple of great posts that I think you’ll enjoy: