Monday, May 31, 2010
Adcrowd TV: E06 Pt 4 Val DiFebo CEO of Deutsch NY on the Buzzbubble – we discuss IKEA Guerrilla Marketing & Buzzround
Please view video interview here: Adcrowd TV Blog
TAXI - BLOG: HUGE Internet Secret Revealed!
It’s Everywhere!
The Internet is filled with secrets. Who killed JFK, cheats & hacks, how to extend your penis size by 12 inches or discover your long lost lineage connecting you to the Royal Court of Louis XIV. So it goes without saying when Google this week finally released it’s revenue sharing agreements with other Non-Google sites & properties a lot people attentively listened.
Google revealed that it’s partners get 68% if revenue placed alongside articles/partner content. For on-site complimentary partner search Google offered it’s partners 51%. These generous percentages have been in place between 2003 & 2005 respectively. Financially impressive numbers flow along with the figures. The numbers show hefty profits for Google to the tune of over $7 Billion dollars, which compliments the $15.7 Billion dollars it made off of it’s own sites and services.
Sharing this long held secret also showed that Google is starting to become more expressive & social in the way it deals with the outside world. It is demystifying itself , it is moving away from a monolithic giant…slowly but surely.
I remember for a long time Agencies, especially Media Agencies saw Google as an industry killer. I never shared that belief. There are many reasons I did not believe this, but for the purpose of this post I will stick to culture/outlook. One reason I personally was not afraid of Google: they were just to focused on building, on complete automation and it company that was driven & populated by Engineers immersed in an insular culture. Google has always felt a little impersonal, this despite it’s best efforts to deliver increasingly more and more social tools, gadgets and platforms. Additions like Youtube and the attempts to become more socially relevant through platforms like Wave have been big catalysts for change within Google (externally the jury is out on Wave). With these changes have come new people and new ways of thinking. These additions, are helping balance a culture born out of automated ad systems and the cold an impersonal world of Search that was embedded deep into Google’s DNA.
As someone who deals with Google and watches Googles tact’s and movements very carefully, I think that this is a continuing sign of change @ Google. A change that will make the company even stronger (not without growing pains). A change that will empower a new relationship with Media Agencies and hopefully better services and functionality for consumers.
Only time will tell....TAXI - BLOG
The Internet is filled with secrets. Who killed JFK, cheats & hacks, how to extend your penis size by 12 inches or discover your long lost lineage connecting you to the Royal Court of Louis XIV. So it goes without saying when Google this week finally released it’s revenue sharing agreements with other Non-Google sites & properties a lot people attentively listened.
Google revealed that it’s partners get 68% if revenue placed alongside articles/partner content. For on-site complimentary partner search Google offered it’s partners 51%. These generous percentages have been in place between 2003 & 2005 respectively. Financially impressive numbers flow along with the figures. The numbers show hefty profits for Google to the tune of over $7 Billion dollars, which compliments the $15.7 Billion dollars it made off of it’s own sites and services.
Sharing this long held secret also showed that Google is starting to become more expressive & social in the way it deals with the outside world. It is demystifying itself , it is moving away from a monolithic giant…slowly but surely.
I remember for a long time Agencies, especially Media Agencies saw Google as an industry killer. I never shared that belief. There are many reasons I did not believe this, but for the purpose of this post I will stick to culture/outlook. One reason I personally was not afraid of Google: they were just to focused on building, on complete automation and it company that was driven & populated by Engineers immersed in an insular culture. Google has always felt a little impersonal, this despite it’s best efforts to deliver increasingly more and more social tools, gadgets and platforms. Additions like Youtube and the attempts to become more socially relevant through platforms like Wave have been big catalysts for change within Google (externally the jury is out on Wave). With these changes have come new people and new ways of thinking. These additions, are helping balance a culture born out of automated ad systems and the cold an impersonal world of Search that was embedded deep into Google’s DNA.
As someone who deals with Google and watches Googles tact’s and movements very carefully, I think that this is a continuing sign of change @ Google. A change that will make the company even stronger (not without growing pains). A change that will empower a new relationship with Media Agencies and hopefully better services and functionality for consumers.
Only time will tell....TAXI - BLOG
Online Marketing Blog: Monster SEO: Interview with Matt Evans of Monster.com
Spotlight on Search Interview with Matt Evans of Monster.com
monster SEOThere simply is no substitute for well rounded experience over a period of time to give a search marketer perspective and the skills to handle a variety of problems. Add to that “sink or swim” SEO training and you have a guy like Matt Evans, SEO Manager at Monster.com. In this interview, Matt is generous with sharing his experiences working agency side and in-house, insights toward code SEO, the new Google design, social media, advice for marketers that want to enter the Search Engine Marketing field and how SEO is a lot like Rugby.
You’ve worked both on the agency side and now as an in-house SEO Manager for Monster.com. Can you share a bit about that journey and what are some of the big differences between working on the client side vs. agency? What do you like most about working in Search?
Previous to Monster I was with a search agency for 6 years. In those 6 years I saw both the organization and the industry grow tremendously despite the bubble burst of the early 2000s. At a time when friends were jumping from job to job it was very easy to stick around because I believed in the services we provided and the future of the search marketing industry. I believed whole-heartedly (and still do) that search is the best way to build an audience, connect with customers, and drive business online. I think the best part of working in Search is the vibrancy of the industry, the smart people, and the value that we can bring to our organizations.
One of the biggest differences in client side versus agency is being very involved in the software development life cycle. On the agency side of things you typically provide recommendations to clients, they take them off to their Product people or Engineers and most work happens behind the curtain. Being an in-house SEO means being involved in a project from concept to release – and all the “fun” in between. Sometimes it’s fun, sometimes it’s tedious, but it’s all a very good learning experience. If I was ever to go back agency side it’s the type of experience which would give me a huge advantage in dealing with clients.
Another major difference between agency and in-house is the feeling of ownership you have over your site/s. Because you’re completely invested in one site, you feel so much more accomplished when SEO enhancements are released.
What in your past work and education experience best prepared you for your journey as a Search Engine Marketer? What advice do you have for budding SEMs to make themselves more valuable and empowered to motivate change?
My initial year or so at the agency was by far the best experience in terms of preparing me for the diverse journey as an SEM. In 2000-2001 SEM was still the wild, wild west. For some perspective, we were still submitting pages to Lycos and HotBot, doorway pages were a legitimate and successful tactic, and GoTo.com was the only paid search engine of note. The company was still small and resources were non-existent, so account managers did EVERYTHING for their clients – from keyword research, to copywriting, to directory submissions, to project management. You learned real quick that you needed to focus your energy on the tasks that were going to get you results fast. Getting results fast was even more important back then because your clients were less likely to understand the nature of search, the fluctuations, and how long it takes for content to be indexed and ranked. As a result, much of our time was spent educating the client, which forced me to learn on the fly.
I would urge budding SEMs to think less about tactics and think more about strategies. The tactics will flow from those strategies naturally and you’ll have a much easier time selling executives a strategy rather than trying to explain to them why 301 redirects, XML sitemaps, and verification meta tags are necessary. They don’t care! The strategy should take into account how search traffic will drive bottom line results, because that’s what they care about. It’s also essential for SEMs to understand the value of a search referral to their business. For instance, at Monster we measure the value of organic referrals by equating them to the cost savings driving the equivalent qualified traffic through paid search or online media buys.
Ultimately, SEMs should be trying to get away from the perception that we’re one trick ponies. Aim to create a perception in your organization that you’re a well-rounded business person rather than an niche expert in the “dark arts of SEO.” Understand the parts of the business that intersect with search – PR, offline marketing, usability, etc. Too many times SEO experts are pigeonholed and viewed as only a small part of the business when many time the impact they can have on a business is much greater than any other person in the organization. Just ask the businesses who have had their site banned from Google to understand how important SEMs are!
What tips do you have for reporting SEO performance within an organization? What KPIs do you pay attention to? What overall performance goals are most important? Any tips on reporting that agencies give their clients?
The key to reporting in an organization is to provide tiered reporting based on your audience. The reporting that me and my SEO team review is far more detailed than the dashboard that the SVPs see. Also, we provide more specific reporting for our ecommerce team, Content team, and Product Managers. It’s important to get feedback from all these groups too so that you’re providing data that is interesting and actionable and you’re not wasting your time reporting on useless data.
At Monster the KPIs we pay attention to around SEO are pretty typical: visits, UVs, page views per visit, time on site, referrals by engine, and referrals by keyword phrase. The SEO team is mainly measured on the amount of overall traffic we drive, however, in order to prove our traffic is valuable and targeted we also track the number of job searches, job views, applies, new accounts, and new resume uploads that result from SEO traffic.
Agencies need to focus less on month to month comparisons and look at year over year. Seasonality is usually a large factor in search trends, so comparing MoM trends provides little insight into actual performance. For Monster, January is our biggest month for search traffic due to New Year’s resolutions to find a new job. December tends to be one of our lowest months due to the holidays. Comparing December to January may look great in the chart, but to get a real understanding on SEO success you need to look at year over year most of the time.
How important is ongoing & proactive SEO vs triage? What do you think companies should be paying attention to on an ongoing basis to achieve, maintain and improve their SEO performance?
I need to balance between both triage and proactive strategic planning due to the speed at which the industry changes and the size of a company like Monster. Try as I might to be aware of all changes that happen to the site in a given release, it’s just not humanly possible to know everything. Also, since our site is so large it takes a while to figure out how search engine algorithm changes affect us. Much of my time is spent understanding how these changes might have affected our SEO performance. Monster is a global organization and has many, many priorities and a very competitive development roadmap. As a result I need to also be proactive and be thinking about what we need to launch 6-12 months down the line in order to hit our goals. It makes it busy, but very interesting.
Companies need to leverage the webmaster tools offered by Google, Yahoo, and Bing in order to maintain and improve their SEO performance. Beyond SEO, these tools give a company valuable information about how your site performs for users (which includes search engine spiders). Google especially has been adding a lot of great tools to their console to improve SEO performance and we’ve been trying to spread the word throughout our organization about the kinds of information that can be mined. As a result we have Product Managers in all the countries reaching out to the SEO team with problems they’ve found and it really creates a great sense of teamwork.
There’s some debate about the future interplay between code level SEO, structured data and sitemaps versus page content and social media. How do you see SEO evolving technically in the next 2-3 years?
Ultimately, because links are still so important to search engine algorithms I think that content and social media will continue to be king when it comes to SEO. Great content will always lead to more links and social is just the latest channel to distribute those links. However, I believe the number of technical levers search engines will provide to SEOs in order to improve and tweak how their site appears in search results will continue to grow. I think search engines need all the help they can get in crawling, indexing, and presenting the best results to searchers and giving more control to webmasters is one way to go about it. I predict we’ll see many more announcements from the engines supporting new technical innovations like we’ve seen in the past with canonical tags, XML sitemaps, rel=”nofollow”, and RDFa tags.
What are your thoughts on the new third column Google design? Do you see any SEO opportunities that weren’t there before? Are you planning on or doing anything differently? What are your top 3 signals of SEO influence?
As a power searcher I don’t find the third column design nearly as offensive as some users do. I see it as redundant navigation that’s aimed at luring the average searcher into exploring Google’s different engines before going back up to the search box and modifying their query, which they tend to do. I’ve found it useful when I’m trying to understand what type of content exist out there on a given topic.
I wouldn’t say there are new opportunities, but I think the opportunities that have always been there are magnified. If blended search results didn’t convince you that a universal search strategy is important, the new left hand navigation should.
There are new plans to change our strategy. We’re already on a path to improve our PR SEO and our Social Media presence to correspond with the emphasis the engines have put on real time search. We’ve built out a strong team in those areas and the SEO team regularly partners with them on initiatives.
What SEO (and/or PPC) tools would you recommend to an in-house marketer that wears a SEO hat among others? Do you have any SEO project management tools that you like?
They absolutely need to use Google Webmaster Tools if nothing at all. The data provided is just too valuable. I also am a big fan of the SEO Book toolbar for Firefox. It’s a great tool for a quick snapshot of what’s going on with a page.
What resources do you use to stay current? (Blogs, conferences, newsletters, books) What role do direct observation, testing and networking play for you in staying current?
I find Search Engine Land’s SearchCap newsletter the best source of news for the industry. It compiles all the best blogs and forum threads in one daily email. As for books, Search Engine Marketing, Inc. is my bible. It sits on my bookshelf and I pull it down from time to time to refresh my memory on certain topics. The forecasting/modeling information is invaluable for those SEOs who are continuously asked to quantify the opportunity of an enhancement or new content.
If you were to compare SEO to a sport, which would you pick and why?
There is no question on this one – Rugby. I’ve played many team sports in my life – baseball, soccer, basketball, dodge ball – but none of them comes close to the ultimate team sport of Rugby. I played for 4 years in college and 5 years after and you learn pretty quickly that a team’s success is completely dependent on execution by all 15 players on the pitch (that’s a field for the uninitiated!). The backs can’t score tries if they don’t receive the ball from the scrum half, and the scrum half can distribute the ball unless the forwards ruck and secure the ball.
Everyone depends on each other to do their job. SEO is much the same way. The SEO can’t drive traffic to the site if the UX folks don’t design the architecture of the site right, or if the developers don’t code the page correctly, or the copywriters don’t use the proper keyword phrases in the copy. You are dependent on others within your organization to execute properly, and with a large, global organization like Monster, this is what makes the job difficult. It’s also what makes projects that much sweeter when we are successful!
Thanks Matt! Please view here: Online Marketing Blog
monster SEOThere simply is no substitute for well rounded experience over a period of time to give a search marketer perspective and the skills to handle a variety of problems. Add to that “sink or swim” SEO training and you have a guy like Matt Evans, SEO Manager at Monster.com. In this interview, Matt is generous with sharing his experiences working agency side and in-house, insights toward code SEO, the new Google design, social media, advice for marketers that want to enter the Search Engine Marketing field and how SEO is a lot like Rugby.
You’ve worked both on the agency side and now as an in-house SEO Manager for Monster.com. Can you share a bit about that journey and what are some of the big differences between working on the client side vs. agency? What do you like most about working in Search?
Previous to Monster I was with a search agency for 6 years. In those 6 years I saw both the organization and the industry grow tremendously despite the bubble burst of the early 2000s. At a time when friends were jumping from job to job it was very easy to stick around because I believed in the services we provided and the future of the search marketing industry. I believed whole-heartedly (and still do) that search is the best way to build an audience, connect with customers, and drive business online. I think the best part of working in Search is the vibrancy of the industry, the smart people, and the value that we can bring to our organizations.
One of the biggest differences in client side versus agency is being very involved in the software development life cycle. On the agency side of things you typically provide recommendations to clients, they take them off to their Product people or Engineers and most work happens behind the curtain. Being an in-house SEO means being involved in a project from concept to release – and all the “fun” in between. Sometimes it’s fun, sometimes it’s tedious, but it’s all a very good learning experience. If I was ever to go back agency side it’s the type of experience which would give me a huge advantage in dealing with clients.
Another major difference between agency and in-house is the feeling of ownership you have over your site/s. Because you’re completely invested in one site, you feel so much more accomplished when SEO enhancements are released.
What in your past work and education experience best prepared you for your journey as a Search Engine Marketer? What advice do you have for budding SEMs to make themselves more valuable and empowered to motivate change?
My initial year or so at the agency was by far the best experience in terms of preparing me for the diverse journey as an SEM. In 2000-2001 SEM was still the wild, wild west. For some perspective, we were still submitting pages to Lycos and HotBot, doorway pages were a legitimate and successful tactic, and GoTo.com was the only paid search engine of note. The company was still small and resources were non-existent, so account managers did EVERYTHING for their clients – from keyword research, to copywriting, to directory submissions, to project management. You learned real quick that you needed to focus your energy on the tasks that were going to get you results fast. Getting results fast was even more important back then because your clients were less likely to understand the nature of search, the fluctuations, and how long it takes for content to be indexed and ranked. As a result, much of our time was spent educating the client, which forced me to learn on the fly.
I would urge budding SEMs to think less about tactics and think more about strategies. The tactics will flow from those strategies naturally and you’ll have a much easier time selling executives a strategy rather than trying to explain to them why 301 redirects, XML sitemaps, and verification meta tags are necessary. They don’t care! The strategy should take into account how search traffic will drive bottom line results, because that’s what they care about. It’s also essential for SEMs to understand the value of a search referral to their business. For instance, at Monster we measure the value of organic referrals by equating them to the cost savings driving the equivalent qualified traffic through paid search or online media buys.
Ultimately, SEMs should be trying to get away from the perception that we’re one trick ponies. Aim to create a perception in your organization that you’re a well-rounded business person rather than an niche expert in the “dark arts of SEO.” Understand the parts of the business that intersect with search – PR, offline marketing, usability, etc. Too many times SEO experts are pigeonholed and viewed as only a small part of the business when many time the impact they can have on a business is much greater than any other person in the organization. Just ask the businesses who have had their site banned from Google to understand how important SEMs are!
What tips do you have for reporting SEO performance within an organization? What KPIs do you pay attention to? What overall performance goals are most important? Any tips on reporting that agencies give their clients?
The key to reporting in an organization is to provide tiered reporting based on your audience. The reporting that me and my SEO team review is far more detailed than the dashboard that the SVPs see. Also, we provide more specific reporting for our ecommerce team, Content team, and Product Managers. It’s important to get feedback from all these groups too so that you’re providing data that is interesting and actionable and you’re not wasting your time reporting on useless data.
At Monster the KPIs we pay attention to around SEO are pretty typical: visits, UVs, page views per visit, time on site, referrals by engine, and referrals by keyword phrase. The SEO team is mainly measured on the amount of overall traffic we drive, however, in order to prove our traffic is valuable and targeted we also track the number of job searches, job views, applies, new accounts, and new resume uploads that result from SEO traffic.
Agencies need to focus less on month to month comparisons and look at year over year. Seasonality is usually a large factor in search trends, so comparing MoM trends provides little insight into actual performance. For Monster, January is our biggest month for search traffic due to New Year’s resolutions to find a new job. December tends to be one of our lowest months due to the holidays. Comparing December to January may look great in the chart, but to get a real understanding on SEO success you need to look at year over year most of the time.
How important is ongoing & proactive SEO vs triage? What do you think companies should be paying attention to on an ongoing basis to achieve, maintain and improve their SEO performance?
I need to balance between both triage and proactive strategic planning due to the speed at which the industry changes and the size of a company like Monster. Try as I might to be aware of all changes that happen to the site in a given release, it’s just not humanly possible to know everything. Also, since our site is so large it takes a while to figure out how search engine algorithm changes affect us. Much of my time is spent understanding how these changes might have affected our SEO performance. Monster is a global organization and has many, many priorities and a very competitive development roadmap. As a result I need to also be proactive and be thinking about what we need to launch 6-12 months down the line in order to hit our goals. It makes it busy, but very interesting.
Companies need to leverage the webmaster tools offered by Google, Yahoo, and Bing in order to maintain and improve their SEO performance. Beyond SEO, these tools give a company valuable information about how your site performs for users (which includes search engine spiders). Google especially has been adding a lot of great tools to their console to improve SEO performance and we’ve been trying to spread the word throughout our organization about the kinds of information that can be mined. As a result we have Product Managers in all the countries reaching out to the SEO team with problems they’ve found and it really creates a great sense of teamwork.
There’s some debate about the future interplay between code level SEO, structured data and sitemaps versus page content and social media. How do you see SEO evolving technically in the next 2-3 years?
Ultimately, because links are still so important to search engine algorithms I think that content and social media will continue to be king when it comes to SEO. Great content will always lead to more links and social is just the latest channel to distribute those links. However, I believe the number of technical levers search engines will provide to SEOs in order to improve and tweak how their site appears in search results will continue to grow. I think search engines need all the help they can get in crawling, indexing, and presenting the best results to searchers and giving more control to webmasters is one way to go about it. I predict we’ll see many more announcements from the engines supporting new technical innovations like we’ve seen in the past with canonical tags, XML sitemaps, rel=”nofollow”, and RDFa tags.
What are your thoughts on the new third column Google design? Do you see any SEO opportunities that weren’t there before? Are you planning on or doing anything differently? What are your top 3 signals of SEO influence?
As a power searcher I don’t find the third column design nearly as offensive as some users do. I see it as redundant navigation that’s aimed at luring the average searcher into exploring Google’s different engines before going back up to the search box and modifying their query, which they tend to do. I’ve found it useful when I’m trying to understand what type of content exist out there on a given topic.
I wouldn’t say there are new opportunities, but I think the opportunities that have always been there are magnified. If blended search results didn’t convince you that a universal search strategy is important, the new left hand navigation should.
There are new plans to change our strategy. We’re already on a path to improve our PR SEO and our Social Media presence to correspond with the emphasis the engines have put on real time search. We’ve built out a strong team in those areas and the SEO team regularly partners with them on initiatives.
What SEO (and/or PPC) tools would you recommend to an in-house marketer that wears a SEO hat among others? Do you have any SEO project management tools that you like?
They absolutely need to use Google Webmaster Tools if nothing at all. The data provided is just too valuable. I also am a big fan of the SEO Book toolbar for Firefox. It’s a great tool for a quick snapshot of what’s going on with a page.
What resources do you use to stay current? (Blogs, conferences, newsletters, books) What role do direct observation, testing and networking play for you in staying current?
I find Search Engine Land’s SearchCap newsletter the best source of news for the industry. It compiles all the best blogs and forum threads in one daily email. As for books, Search Engine Marketing, Inc. is my bible. It sits on my bookshelf and I pull it down from time to time to refresh my memory on certain topics. The forecasting/modeling information is invaluable for those SEOs who are continuously asked to quantify the opportunity of an enhancement or new content.
If you were to compare SEO to a sport, which would you pick and why?
There is no question on this one – Rugby. I’ve played many team sports in my life – baseball, soccer, basketball, dodge ball – but none of them comes close to the ultimate team sport of Rugby. I played for 4 years in college and 5 years after and you learn pretty quickly that a team’s success is completely dependent on execution by all 15 players on the pitch (that’s a field for the uninitiated!). The backs can’t score tries if they don’t receive the ball from the scrum half, and the scrum half can distribute the ball unless the forwards ruck and secure the ball.
Everyone depends on each other to do their job. SEO is much the same way. The SEO can’t drive traffic to the site if the UX folks don’t design the architecture of the site right, or if the developers don’t code the page correctly, or the copywriters don’t use the proper keyword phrases in the copy. You are dependent on others within your organization to execute properly, and with a large, global organization like Monster, this is what makes the job difficult. It’s also what makes projects that much sweeter when we are successful!
Thanks Matt! Please view here: Online Marketing Blog
Personal Branding Blog - Dan Schawbel: 40 Personal Branding Quotes
Here is a list of forty personal branding quotes that I’ve come up with over the past three years. Feel free to use them on your website, as long as you link back to this post and cite my name. I hope they inspire you, make you reflect on your own life, or make you put your ideas into action today.
If you have a quote you would like to add, please leave it in the comments section of this post...Personal Branding Blog - Dan Schawbel
1. “Brand yourself for the career you want, not the job you have.”
2. “By focusing entirely on your personal brand, you become unemployable.”
3. “Create your own career, instead of letting your company do it for you.”
4. “If you want to be known for everything, you’ll be known for nothing.”
5. “When you have passion, expertise and a support system, you can do anything!”
6. “Make your life one giant networking event.”
7. “You have to be as committed to your personal brand as you are to your husband or wife.”
8. “Just like content is king on the internet, your experience is king when it comes to getting a job.”
9. “In order to succeed in the new world of work you MUST become the commander of your career.”
10. “Be the real you because everyone else is taken and replicas don’t sell for as much.”
11. “As technology rapidly changes, your personal brand remains constant.”
12. “The best way to become successful is to make others successful first.”
13. “What makes you weird, makes you unique and therefore makes you stand out.”
14. “If you don’t know what you bring to the table, you don’t get a seat there.”
15. “Life is one big pitch, so you better start practicing.”
16. “Your blog is your space…completely yours to do with whatever you want.”
17. “To succeed, you must be the best at what you do for a specific audience.”
18. “The first opportunities are the hardest to obtain because everyone wants to view your past performance.”
19. “You are the chief marketing officer for the brand called you, but what others say about your brand is more impactful than what you say about yourself.”
20. “To secure your brand, spend more of your time networking outside of your company than within.”
21. “It’s what you do that makes you who you are and how you project that to others that makes you memorable.”
22. “When it comes to the web, you are judged solely on what is observable.”
23. “Proficiency in social media is a differentiator now, but will soon be a qualifier.”
24. “The goal of personal branding is to be recruited based on your brand, not applying for jobs.”
25. “You won’t succeed in marketing a poor personal brand.”
26. “When you brand yourself properly, the competition becomes irrelevant.”
27. “Visibility creates opportunities.”
28. “If a resume was the deciding factor in recruitment, there would never be a need for interviews.”
29. “The divide between interviewing for a position and actually working at a company will close thanks to employer branding.”
30. “Social media will expose people who have bad intentions and reward people who are trying to make a positive impact on the world.”
31. “It’s not the size of your network, but how you use it.”
32. “In order to be successful tomorrow, you must sacrifice today.”
33. “Lead with your brand and let the compensation follow.”
34. “Any new opportunity or experience can change your life.”
35. “As professional and personal lives converge, those who are authentic and transparent will triumph.”
36. “When you are passionate about your job, it becomes a hobby.”
37. “The most successful networkers give value before receiving.”
38. “The reciprocal nature of networking establishes a relationship instead of a one-night-stand.”
39. “Passion is personal branding fuel.”
40. “Your name and face carry your brand in both reality and virtual reality, such that wherever they are cited, your personal brand is at stake.”
If you have a quote you would like to add, please leave it in the comments section of this post...Personal Branding Blog - Dan Schawbel
1. “Brand yourself for the career you want, not the job you have.”
2. “By focusing entirely on your personal brand, you become unemployable.”
3. “Create your own career, instead of letting your company do it for you.”
4. “If you want to be known for everything, you’ll be known for nothing.”
5. “When you have passion, expertise and a support system, you can do anything!”
6. “Make your life one giant networking event.”
7. “You have to be as committed to your personal brand as you are to your husband or wife.”
8. “Just like content is king on the internet, your experience is king when it comes to getting a job.”
9. “In order to succeed in the new world of work you MUST become the commander of your career.”
10. “Be the real you because everyone else is taken and replicas don’t sell for as much.”
11. “As technology rapidly changes, your personal brand remains constant.”
12. “The best way to become successful is to make others successful first.”
13. “What makes you weird, makes you unique and therefore makes you stand out.”
14. “If you don’t know what you bring to the table, you don’t get a seat there.”
15. “Life is one big pitch, so you better start practicing.”
16. “Your blog is your space…completely yours to do with whatever you want.”
17. “To succeed, you must be the best at what you do for a specific audience.”
18. “The first opportunities are the hardest to obtain because everyone wants to view your past performance.”
19. “You are the chief marketing officer for the brand called you, but what others say about your brand is more impactful than what you say about yourself.”
20. “To secure your brand, spend more of your time networking outside of your company than within.”
21. “It’s what you do that makes you who you are and how you project that to others that makes you memorable.”
22. “When it comes to the web, you are judged solely on what is observable.”
23. “Proficiency in social media is a differentiator now, but will soon be a qualifier.”
24. “The goal of personal branding is to be recruited based on your brand, not applying for jobs.”
25. “You won’t succeed in marketing a poor personal brand.”
26. “When you brand yourself properly, the competition becomes irrelevant.”
27. “Visibility creates opportunities.”
28. “If a resume was the deciding factor in recruitment, there would never be a need for interviews.”
29. “The divide between interviewing for a position and actually working at a company will close thanks to employer branding.”
30. “Social media will expose people who have bad intentions and reward people who are trying to make a positive impact on the world.”
31. “It’s not the size of your network, but how you use it.”
32. “In order to be successful tomorrow, you must sacrifice today.”
33. “Lead with your brand and let the compensation follow.”
34. “Any new opportunity or experience can change your life.”
35. “As professional and personal lives converge, those who are authentic and transparent will triumph.”
36. “When you are passionate about your job, it becomes a hobby.”
37. “The most successful networkers give value before receiving.”
38. “The reciprocal nature of networking establishes a relationship instead of a one-night-stand.”
39. “Passion is personal branding fuel.”
40. “Your name and face carry your brand in both reality and virtual reality, such that wherever they are cited, your personal brand is at stake.”
Canadian Marketing Blog - Canadian Marketing Association: A Little Friction Ain’t So Bad
That's the message from Terry O'Reilly who addressed CMA's National Convention last week in Toronto. O’Reilly provided a fascinating and unique perspective on how to effectively market to a target audience.
“Sometimes people want and sometimes people need friction in the process before they buy a product or idea,” O’Reilly said.
This approach represents a paradigm shift away from the marketers’ traditional practice of helping their clients find the most efficient and speed bump free pathway to a sale.
O’Reilly used both historical and contemporary examples to show the dramatic impact friction can have on sales.
During the late 1950’s, a major food company developed an instant cake mix. The product was initially very popular, but was soon being ignored by its target consumer - housewives. After undertaking extensive research, the food manufacturer determined the cake mix was making women feel uninvolved in the cooking process. The food manufacturer decided to remove the egg from the mix so women could add it themselves. The result was a significant spike in sales. Women became instantly more attracted to the product with the added friction of having to mix in the egg themselves.
Another relevant example is pharmaceutical giant Johnson and Johnson’s development of an antiseptic cream to promote the healing of cuts and bruises. The companies’ scientists designed the ‘perfect’ product that was both effective and painless. Initially, sales were quite impressive but surprisingly, there were few repeat purchases of the cream. After the company engaged in a significant amount of product research using focus groups, they made an important determination about human nature – people tend to see pain as a positive indicator of a healing product’s effectiveness. Johnson and Johnson subsequently added a small amount of alcohol to the product to give it a sting – and sales increased dramatically. As O’Reilly explained, the friction of pain convinced consumers that the product actually worked – and left the company’s scientists in a state of utter confusion about where they went wrong.
A more recent illustration of the impact of friction involves a Google analytics professional. He was hired by an E-commerce site to replace its current five-step cart checkout process with a much simpler model. The business considered its current five-step process to be overly time consuming - so they requested the development of a single step process. To the company’s surprise, the new model failed miserably. The friction of the five-step process had given purchasers an added sense of security, which dissipated once the five-step process was reduced to one simple step.
There will always be a tendency for marketers to provide their clients with strategies that emphasize efficiency and convenience to sell a product.
O’Reilly summed up the idea of friction as a persuasion tool:
“If you ever need to make people believe, if you’re ever struggling to get people to a certain place, if you need to get noticed, if you’re ever looking for the leverage point to move a mountain - maybe what you need is a little friction.”
Canadian Marketing Blog - Canadian Marketing Association by Jordan Sandler at CMA
“Sometimes people want and sometimes people need friction in the process before they buy a product or idea,” O’Reilly said.
This approach represents a paradigm shift away from the marketers’ traditional practice of helping their clients find the most efficient and speed bump free pathway to a sale.
O’Reilly used both historical and contemporary examples to show the dramatic impact friction can have on sales.
During the late 1950’s, a major food company developed an instant cake mix. The product was initially very popular, but was soon being ignored by its target consumer - housewives. After undertaking extensive research, the food manufacturer determined the cake mix was making women feel uninvolved in the cooking process. The food manufacturer decided to remove the egg from the mix so women could add it themselves. The result was a significant spike in sales. Women became instantly more attracted to the product with the added friction of having to mix in the egg themselves.
Another relevant example is pharmaceutical giant Johnson and Johnson’s development of an antiseptic cream to promote the healing of cuts and bruises. The companies’ scientists designed the ‘perfect’ product that was both effective and painless. Initially, sales were quite impressive but surprisingly, there were few repeat purchases of the cream. After the company engaged in a significant amount of product research using focus groups, they made an important determination about human nature – people tend to see pain as a positive indicator of a healing product’s effectiveness. Johnson and Johnson subsequently added a small amount of alcohol to the product to give it a sting – and sales increased dramatically. As O’Reilly explained, the friction of pain convinced consumers that the product actually worked – and left the company’s scientists in a state of utter confusion about where they went wrong.
A more recent illustration of the impact of friction involves a Google analytics professional. He was hired by an E-commerce site to replace its current five-step cart checkout process with a much simpler model. The business considered its current five-step process to be overly time consuming - so they requested the development of a single step process. To the company’s surprise, the new model failed miserably. The friction of the five-step process had given purchasers an added sense of security, which dissipated once the five-step process was reduced to one simple step.
There will always be a tendency for marketers to provide their clients with strategies that emphasize efficiency and convenience to sell a product.
O’Reilly summed up the idea of friction as a persuasion tool:
“If you ever need to make people believe, if you’re ever struggling to get people to a certain place, if you need to get noticed, if you’re ever looking for the leverage point to move a mountain - maybe what you need is a little friction.”
Canadian Marketing Blog - Canadian Marketing Association by Jordan Sandler at CMA
Business Insider: 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning
Good morning! Here's what you need to know:
Pretty funny: the world's first Android tablet is a Chinese iPad knockoff called the "iPed" that runs on an Intel chip. For $150 it sounds like a pretty sweet deal, actually.
The DoJ is serious about investigating Apple it seems, and not just about iTunes.
Intel's product roadmap got leaked! The focus is on netbook GPUs and better battery life. Endgadget has the story.
The AP on 4G: "It's fast, but outstripped by hype.
Pakistan put up a Facebook ban over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad; a court ordered the ban lifted.
Blogger Jean-Louis Gassée has a great take on Microsoft's reorg and what it means for CEO Steve Ballmer...
...and his co-blogger Frédéric Filloux on how ad agencies aren't innovating because they're too smug, something we've opined on before.
Bad times continue at Apple and Nokia supplier Foxconn: now one of their factories is on fire.
The NYT has a story about YouTube's efforts to rival TV by getting people to stay longer on the site.
Funny picture of the day: the kinkiest USB sticks around (it's SFW).
Read more: Business Insider
Pretty funny: the world's first Android tablet is a Chinese iPad knockoff called the "iPed" that runs on an Intel chip. For $150 it sounds like a pretty sweet deal, actually.
The DoJ is serious about investigating Apple it seems, and not just about iTunes.
Intel's product roadmap got leaked! The focus is on netbook GPUs and better battery life. Endgadget has the story.
The AP on 4G: "It's fast, but outstripped by hype.
Pakistan put up a Facebook ban over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad; a court ordered the ban lifted.
Blogger Jean-Louis Gassée has a great take on Microsoft's reorg and what it means for CEO Steve Ballmer...
...and his co-blogger Frédéric Filloux on how ad agencies aren't innovating because they're too smug, something we've opined on before.
Bad times continue at Apple and Nokia supplier Foxconn: now one of their factories is on fire.
The NYT has a story about YouTube's efforts to rival TV by getting people to stay longer on the site.
Funny picture of the day: the kinkiest USB sticks around (it's SFW).
Read more: Business Insider
Friday, May 28, 2010
Edelman Digital: Friday Five: Ways To Own Your Brand Online
In a new media world, staking your claim online goes well beyond reserving a web address or two. Even companies and public figures without firm plans to participate in the social media space should be aware that consumers will still be looking for them and plan accordingly. Today’s Friday Five reflects five tips to help your clients (and yourselves) own your brand online.
Primary Twitter Account
Choose a Twitter handle that clearly reflects the company name and/or division. If you do not plan to activate Twitter immediately, ensure that the profile links to the company website and that the first tweet states that consumers can check back or links to a more active social forum (like a Facebook page).
Referring Twitter Accounts
While this isn’t always the case, some brands have been known to claim multiple twitter names, directing to the singular one in use. This prevents squatters from taking over an official-looking presence but it’s impossible to claim all possibilities. The best way to ensure your voice is the one consumers are hearing is to participate in the conversation whenever and wherever possible and appropriate.
Facebook
Similar to Twitter, find a unique URL for your company’s Facebook page that clearly reflects what will be represented there. If possible, this should match the company’s or program’s Twitter handle for consistency.
LinkedIn
Just as candidates represent themselves on this popular professional networking site, companies should keep their profiles updated as well. Establishing open positions and keeping up with industry accolades is more than just an effective recruiting tool. This is especially important now that LinkedIn allows users to follow company updates.
Blog Commentary
Commenting on blogs is a sticky process for many large companies and requires the consultation of a company social media policy and the participation of a designated spokesperson. One of the best ways to continue owning a brand online in this arena is to identify natural brand ambassadors proactively so that in times of trouble, they have the correct information to distribute within their invested community.
Edelman Digital
Primary Twitter Account
Choose a Twitter handle that clearly reflects the company name and/or division. If you do not plan to activate Twitter immediately, ensure that the profile links to the company website and that the first tweet states that consumers can check back or links to a more active social forum (like a Facebook page).
Referring Twitter Accounts
While this isn’t always the case, some brands have been known to claim multiple twitter names, directing to the singular one in use. This prevents squatters from taking over an official-looking presence but it’s impossible to claim all possibilities. The best way to ensure your voice is the one consumers are hearing is to participate in the conversation whenever and wherever possible and appropriate.
Similar to Twitter, find a unique URL for your company’s Facebook page that clearly reflects what will be represented there. If possible, this should match the company’s or program’s Twitter handle for consistency.
Just as candidates represent themselves on this popular professional networking site, companies should keep their profiles updated as well. Establishing open positions and keeping up with industry accolades is more than just an effective recruiting tool. This is especially important now that LinkedIn allows users to follow company updates.
Blog Commentary
Commenting on blogs is a sticky process for many large companies and requires the consultation of a company social media policy and the participation of a designated spokesperson. One of the best ways to continue owning a brand online in this arena is to identify natural brand ambassadors proactively so that in times of trouble, they have the correct information to distribute within their invested community.
Edelman Digital
Experience Matters: iAd Won’t Be an iFad: New Opportunities for Mobile Advertising
Molly Hop & Anna Mer | Critical Mass Chicago
It’s clear consumers are hungry for mobile applications, having downloaded more than 3 billion apps from the Apple app store as of March 2010, according to eMarketer. The growing popularity of this channel has led to an increased desire to find a way to market to our mobile consumers. In response to this, Apple has recently acquired Quattro Wireless (after having AdMob snatched up by Google) to create the iAd advertising platform that will launch with the iPhone 4G this summer. Now the question is, how will iAd change how brands approach marketing within mobile applications?
A common debate among the Critical Mass Experience Distribution team is whether there is a “correct approach” to mobile applications.
When do you recommend creating one?
What value will the mobile application serve vs. that of the mobile website?
How should we market this application?
How much money, time and effort should be put into it?
One might argue that building an application but not putting a marketing effort behind it is similar to the “if a tree falls in the forest but no one is there to hear it” concept. If we determine that we don’t have the money, resources or rationale to build and market our own application, do we sponsor a relevant existing app that another brand hasn’t gotten to first? Please continue reading here: Experience Matters
It’s clear consumers are hungry for mobile applications, having downloaded more than 3 billion apps from the Apple app store as of March 2010, according to eMarketer. The growing popularity of this channel has led to an increased desire to find a way to market to our mobile consumers. In response to this, Apple has recently acquired Quattro Wireless (after having AdMob snatched up by Google) to create the iAd advertising platform that will launch with the iPhone 4G this summer. Now the question is, how will iAd change how brands approach marketing within mobile applications?
A common debate among the Critical Mass Experience Distribution team is whether there is a “correct approach” to mobile applications.
When do you recommend creating one?
What value will the mobile application serve vs. that of the mobile website?
How should we market this application?
How much money, time and effort should be put into it?
One might argue that building an application but not putting a marketing effort behind it is similar to the “if a tree falls in the forest but no one is there to hear it” concept. If we determine that we don’t have the money, resources or rationale to build and market our own application, do we sponsor a relevant existing app that another brand hasn’t gotten to first? Please continue reading here: Experience Matters
i [love] marketing: Why Nike’s “Write the Future” is Rewriting the Past
Everyone is talking about the new Nike World Cup spot, and with a good reason: it's a beautifully told story that transcends media formats to deliver a truly emotional and inspirational experience. In 30 seconds, it appeared that Nike finally cracked the code by combining what's it best at with the power of digital distribution. And, Weiden + 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? It's clear what Nike tried to do with its spot: to insert itself into the culture around the World Cup. And that's fine - without this connection, as the popular argument goes, Coke is just a soft drink, Google is just a search engine, and Nike's nothing more than a pair of sneakers. People need symbolic power of brands in their lives, because it turns their connection with products into something with cultural meaning. Brands help them navigate the world, understand their role within it, and broadcast the message about who they are. In this believable, albeit slightly needy scenario, all that brands have to do to reclaim their relevance is to sneak into popular conversations and become something that people use to tell their story better.
The problem is, we are today dealing with a completely different sort of culture. Yes, World Cup is a big and awesome event, but how it’s going to play out in the lives of soccer fans next month is part of the emerging digital culture, and not some symbolic inspirational culture that Nike – and other brands – are so desperate to penetrate.
Digital culture is based on tools, incentive systems and ideas that have absolutely nothing to do with brand or cultural symbols. In other words, how people get inspired and motivated, how they identify with something, and build their identity online has refreshingly little to do with brand stories told through 30-second spots.
This year’s Cannes Young Lions 48 Hours Ad Contest bubbled up Chatroulette for a Better World, aimed to raise awareness of the clean water problem. Why does it matter? What it offered is a simple execution, and more importantly, plenty of inspiration without representation. Go to Huffington Post to see what’s new, you may as well became a “Networker,” “Moderator,” or “Superuser.” Go to 7-Eleven and buy something, and you can unlock some Farmville animal, courtesy of Zynga. Stumble upon the new Mitchum deodorant site, and you may end up there for a while watching videos of the “Hardest Working ______ in America.” Or, start following the World Cup in a few weeks, and you will probably be equally interested in what all other soccer fans are saying about it on Twitter as in the soccer itself.
All of this suggests a new sort of networked, reciprocal, gift-based, game-like digital culture today -- and digital culture is quickly becoming popular culture. Apply badges, likes, cues, contests, and make-believe social settings to the World Cup, and all of the sudden you have a completely different beast you are dealing with. Why didn’t Nike do something with it? It’s World Cup campaign may have played out completely differently if it used all these things to inspire fans to connect with each other, with the global soccer culture, and with the Nike brand, for that matter.
"Write the Future" tells a story about how the World Cup is the stage where players can achieve immortality. It's meant to inspire not just for soccer fans but also people in the industry that things, after all, may work out for the better. The Internet, sadly, will never offer this sort of culture they are hoping for to make their brands relevant there. Only a lot of missed opportunities.
Why? Because it is this other sort of culture, digital, that gives people ability to play with who they are and to explore who they want to be. It doesn’t give people stories to consume or to talk about, it allows actively making them. Or, to stay true to the theme, it lets people write the future.
Here's an idea for brands: crack that code, and you may as well be doing the same thing...i [love] marketing.
Or, did it? Is this really still a way to build a strong digital brand? It's clear what Nike tried to do with its spot: to insert itself into the culture around the World Cup. And that's fine - without this connection, as the popular argument goes, Coke is just a soft drink, Google is just a search engine, and Nike's nothing more than a pair of sneakers. People need symbolic power of brands in their lives, because it turns their connection with products into something with cultural meaning. Brands help them navigate the world, understand their role within it, and broadcast the message about who they are. In this believable, albeit slightly needy scenario, all that brands have to do to reclaim their relevance is to sneak into popular conversations and become something that people use to tell their story better.
The problem is, we are today dealing with a completely different sort of culture. Yes, World Cup is a big and awesome event, but how it’s going to play out in the lives of soccer fans next month is part of the emerging digital culture, and not some symbolic inspirational culture that Nike – and other brands – are so desperate to penetrate.
Digital culture is based on tools, incentive systems and ideas that have absolutely nothing to do with brand or cultural symbols. In other words, how people get inspired and motivated, how they identify with something, and build their identity online has refreshingly little to do with brand stories told through 30-second spots.
This year’s Cannes Young Lions 48 Hours Ad Contest bubbled up Chatroulette for a Better World, aimed to raise awareness of the clean water problem. Why does it matter? What it offered is a simple execution, and more importantly, plenty of inspiration without representation. Go to Huffington Post to see what’s new, you may as well became a “Networker,” “Moderator,” or “Superuser.” Go to 7-Eleven and buy something, and you can unlock some Farmville animal, courtesy of Zynga. Stumble upon the new Mitchum deodorant site, and you may end up there for a while watching videos of the “Hardest Working ______ in America.” Or, start following the World Cup in a few weeks, and you will probably be equally interested in what all other soccer fans are saying about it on Twitter as in the soccer itself.
All of this suggests a new sort of networked, reciprocal, gift-based, game-like digital culture today -- and digital culture is quickly becoming popular culture. Apply badges, likes, cues, contests, and make-believe social settings to the World Cup, and all of the sudden you have a completely different beast you are dealing with. Why didn’t Nike do something with it? It’s World Cup campaign may have played out completely differently if it used all these things to inspire fans to connect with each other, with the global soccer culture, and with the Nike brand, for that matter.
"Write the Future" tells a story about how the World Cup is the stage where players can achieve immortality. It's meant to inspire not just for soccer fans but also people in the industry that things, after all, may work out for the better. The Internet, sadly, will never offer this sort of culture they are hoping for to make their brands relevant there. Only a lot of missed opportunities.
Why? Because it is this other sort of culture, digital, that gives people ability to play with who they are and to explore who they want to be. It doesn’t give people stories to consume or to talk about, it allows actively making them. Or, to stay true to the theme, it lets people write the future.
Here's an idea for brands: crack that code, and you may as well be doing the same thing...i [love] marketing.
Nowness: Florent: Queen of the Meat Market
David Sigal's Tribute to the Legendary New York Bistro
Until its closure in June 2008, New York bistro Florent was that rare place where you could simultaneously eat a burger, catch a drag act and—if you were lucky—glimpse Calvin Klein. Named after its owner, the indefatigably flamboyant Florent Morellet, during its 23-year existence the 24-hour restaurant attracted hordes of celebrities, scenesters and fashionistas to the Meatpacking District, its famous clientele including everyone from artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude to Studio 54 doyenne Diane von Furstenburg. At Florent, anyone was welcome, and anything could happen. It was a place brimming with quirky traditions, where every Bastille Day would be marked by a debauched, cross-dressing party, and where Morellet—HIV-positive and a tireless gay rights advocate—would post his T-cell count above the daily special. Long-time Florent devotee David Sigal (director of The Look and producer of Naomi Watts’s latest, Fair Game, which premiered at Cannes this month) decided to make a film about Florent in early 2008 as a tribute to Morellet’s pioneering spirit and the bistro’s iconic status. When he heard whispers of Florent’s possible closure due to sky-rocketing rents in the once-rogue, now ultra-gentrified neighborhood, the documentation of its wild parties became all the more important. Sitting with the director, one can tell that making the film was an immense pleasure for him, as well as for the impressive array of personalities he interviewed about the establishment’s fabulous history. “The film has a Warhol vibe to it I think, of looking back on an era that I’m so glad I got to preserve,” says Sigal. Florent: Queen of the Meat Market will debut at the New York City Food Film Festival in June...Nowness
wallydownundy: Silent Planning: Agency Management and “What If?”
Running a professional services firm is a constant guessing game of “What If?” While a vast majority of our clients are on retained programs, with set fees month after month, some are project-based. We are uncertain how the business will fluctuate month to month.
And as a growth business, we’re also engaged in a number of new business discussions. These are companies we’ve not worked with who wish to retain our services - or those of another firm. We need to plan the resources for each.
Our resource is the time of our professionals. And like any resource it is finite. There are so many hours int he day, and so many people working here. The math is quite simple. And before long, you run out of people and hours.
Like manufacturing, I can search for efficiencies. Less double-up in meetings. Smarter allocation of work from senior to junior professionals. Use of technology to suicken repetetive processes, whether that’s a report on the day’s newspaper headlines of a summary of work in a month.
But unlike manufacturing, I cannot pre-purchase machinery in advance of work orders. People aren’t as readily available and if they aren’t busy with clients, it’s a squandered resource. Yes, everyone can help with running and promoting the company. But that’s not the most effective use of valuable skills.
So most of the time managers in charge of an agency play “What If?” What if we secure the new client assignment? What if our existing client delays or cancels a major project? What if we have several people out sick? (Last week we lost seven people simultaneously to a virulent flu.)
Lately I’ve been silently planning for a major piece of new business. We’ve been preparing our strategy during the days, evenings and weekends. And initial signs are encouraging. That’s forced me to look at office space, technology, people, resources. In quiet I’ve found space for eight new desks, interviewed ten people and prepared a capital plan for new technology. And that’s all without the certainty of success.
The problem is, if you don’t play “What If?” then later down the track you’re forced to deal with “What Now?” In almost every instance I would prefer to be prepared. So it’s back to planning - but don’t tell anyone...wallydownundy
And as a growth business, we’re also engaged in a number of new business discussions. These are companies we’ve not worked with who wish to retain our services - or those of another firm. We need to plan the resources for each.
Our resource is the time of our professionals. And like any resource it is finite. There are so many hours int he day, and so many people working here. The math is quite simple. And before long, you run out of people and hours.
Like manufacturing, I can search for efficiencies. Less double-up in meetings. Smarter allocation of work from senior to junior professionals. Use of technology to suicken repetetive processes, whether that’s a report on the day’s newspaper headlines of a summary of work in a month.
But unlike manufacturing, I cannot pre-purchase machinery in advance of work orders. People aren’t as readily available and if they aren’t busy with clients, it’s a squandered resource. Yes, everyone can help with running and promoting the company. But that’s not the most effective use of valuable skills.
So most of the time managers in charge of an agency play “What If?” What if we secure the new client assignment? What if our existing client delays or cancels a major project? What if we have several people out sick? (Last week we lost seven people simultaneously to a virulent flu.)
Lately I’ve been silently planning for a major piece of new business. We’ve been preparing our strategy during the days, evenings and weekends. And initial signs are encouraging. That’s forced me to look at office space, technology, people, resources. In quiet I’ve found space for eight new desks, interviewed ten people and prepared a capital plan for new technology. And that’s all without the certainty of success.
The problem is, if you don’t play “What If?” then later down the track you’re forced to deal with “What Now?” In almost every instance I would prefer to be prepared. So it’s back to planning - but don’t tell anyone...wallydownundy
BLOG) RED: (RED) Event for THE LAZARUS EFFECT Film
If you're in NYC join us for a screening of "The Lazarus Effect" film and a Q&A with director Lance Bangs on Tuesday June 1st at the Apple Store in SOHO.
Apple is hosting a free screening of “The Lazarus Effect” film by (RED) and HBO, directed by Lance Bangs and executive produced by Spike Jonze. The 30 minute film illustrates the transformative effect of life-saving antiretroviral medicine through the stories of HIV positive people in Zambia. By taking the ARV medicine – 2 life-saving pills that cost around 40 cents a day – in as few as 40 days, the medicine can help bring people back to life. Watch the trailer here.
The film’s screening will be followed by a Q & A with director Lance Bangs where you’ll get to hear him discuss the film and answer any questions you might have for him. So round up your friends and mark your calendar, you won’t want to miss it. At the Apple Store, Soho, 103 Prince St. (the corner of Greene St.) on Tuesday June 1st at 6pm.BLOG) RED
Apple is hosting a free screening of “The Lazarus Effect” film by (RED) and HBO, directed by Lance Bangs and executive produced by Spike Jonze. The 30 minute film illustrates the transformative effect of life-saving antiretroviral medicine through the stories of HIV positive people in Zambia. By taking the ARV medicine – 2 life-saving pills that cost around 40 cents a day – in as few as 40 days, the medicine can help bring people back to life. Watch the trailer here.
The film’s screening will be followed by a Q & A with director Lance Bangs where you’ll get to hear him discuss the film and answer any questions you might have for him. So round up your friends and mark your calendar, you won’t want to miss it. At the Apple Store, Soho, 103 Prince St. (the corner of Greene St.) on Tuesday June 1st at 6pm.BLOG) RED
Amnesia Blog: The Fish’s Friday Five
Well, it’s the last Friday of the month and I thought I’d share what I think are the best and worst television commercials going around, for a bit of fun.
So, I give you ‘The Fish’s Friday Five‘. I encourage you to let me know what you think. Do you love any of these, hate them with a passion or have others you want to share?
The Best Five:
1. Nike’s Write the Future TVC
This three-minute masterpiece takes people on a journey. A journey where headlines are written, heros are made and how soccer captures a nation. The slick production is impressive, as is the clear take home message. It’s aspirational and left me, a soccer unbeliever, believing in the magic of the game.
2. Old Spice’s Look at your man. Now back to me TVC
This commercial makes me laugh every time..
3. Libra Invisible’s Boyfriend TVC
I dare you not to laugh at this. It’s a bit older, but it’s fun. Doesn’t matter if you are a man or a woman, this funny take on women’s hygiene is a great example of Aussie humour. And yet another example of Australia’s unwillingness to mention the ‘P’ word on TV.
4. Boag’s Draught From the Pure Waters of Tasmania
This TVC is wonderful. Such a clear message for the product – superior quality because it’s brewed from the best products. Favourite bit? The guy pushing his girlfriend into the water. Because everything is made better from the pure waters of Tasmania!
5. John Lewis’ Always a woman TVC
Special mention to this UK commercial. It gives me goose bumps every time I watch it. Clear aspiration leaves you with an immediate feeling of quality and loyalty towards the brand. For a UK retail outlet, they’ve hit the nail on the head.
The Worst Five:
1. RACV’s Complete Care TVC
For those of you who are not in my home state of Victoria, you might have been spared this ad. And that’s a good thing, trust me. The ‘windscreen aliens’ TVC is my pick for worst ad of the week. If you’re interested, the series is over here. But click at your own risk.
2. Dove for men
Not sure why, but I really find this ad creepy. Perhaps it’s because I’m a woman and I don’t ‘get’ secret men’s business?
3. Chicken in a can with annoying Chicken song
Really, it speaks for itself…
4. Foxtel’s EOFYS TVC
I thought this was over and done with last year, but it seems the festival everyone loves – EOFYS End of Financial Year Sale – is back in May 2010.
5. V8 Supercars and Pink!
Ok, Pink is cool. And V8 Supercars are even cooler. But put them together and you get a mis-mash of a TVC that has a great soundtrack, but kinda doesn’t fit..
So, what do you think? Do you love any of these, hate them with a passion or have others you want to share?
Karalee Evans, Social Strategy Manager. Please click here to view videos: Amnesia Blog
So, I give you ‘The Fish’s Friday Five‘. I encourage you to let me know what you think. Do you love any of these, hate them with a passion or have others you want to share?
The Best Five:
1. Nike’s Write the Future TVC
This three-minute masterpiece takes people on a journey. A journey where headlines are written, heros are made and how soccer captures a nation. The slick production is impressive, as is the clear take home message. It’s aspirational and left me, a soccer unbeliever, believing in the magic of the game.
2. Old Spice’s Look at your man. Now back to me TVC
This commercial makes me laugh every time..
3. Libra Invisible’s Boyfriend TVC
I dare you not to laugh at this. It’s a bit older, but it’s fun. Doesn’t matter if you are a man or a woman, this funny take on women’s hygiene is a great example of Aussie humour. And yet another example of Australia’s unwillingness to mention the ‘P’ word on TV.
4. Boag’s Draught From the Pure Waters of Tasmania
This TVC is wonderful. Such a clear message for the product – superior quality because it’s brewed from the best products. Favourite bit? The guy pushing his girlfriend into the water. Because everything is made better from the pure waters of Tasmania!
5. John Lewis’ Always a woman TVC
Special mention to this UK commercial. It gives me goose bumps every time I watch it. Clear aspiration leaves you with an immediate feeling of quality and loyalty towards the brand. For a UK retail outlet, they’ve hit the nail on the head.
The Worst Five:
1. RACV’s Complete Care TVC
For those of you who are not in my home state of Victoria, you might have been spared this ad. And that’s a good thing, trust me. The ‘windscreen aliens’ TVC is my pick for worst ad of the week. If you’re interested, the series is over here. But click at your own risk.
2. Dove for men
Not sure why, but I really find this ad creepy. Perhaps it’s because I’m a woman and I don’t ‘get’ secret men’s business?
3. Chicken in a can with annoying Chicken song
Really, it speaks for itself…
4. Foxtel’s EOFYS TVC
I thought this was over and done with last year, but it seems the festival everyone loves – EOFYS End of Financial Year Sale – is back in May 2010.
5. V8 Supercars and Pink!
Ok, Pink is cool. And V8 Supercars are even cooler. But put them together and you get a mis-mash of a TVC that has a great soundtrack, but kinda doesn’t fit..
So, what do you think? Do you love any of these, hate them with a passion or have others you want to share?
Karalee Evans, Social Strategy Manager. Please click here to view videos: Amnesia Blog
johngerzema : FastCo's 100 most creative people...
Please view 100 most creative people here: fastcompany.com
Advertising Lab: future of advertising and advertising technology: Imagining Apple TV
With the mythical tablet finally out and going strong, the next object of forward-looking gadget fetishism has gotta be Apple TV. Not the TV of the set-top box "hobby" variety; the real thing. A Piper Jaffray analyst said as much, Wired speculated about it, and patents shed light on some of the company's thinking. And then it kind of makes sense, too, for Apple to get into the business of pairing quality content with beautiful screens as it has done so successfully in the past.
I've just fretted, pretty publicly, about today's television sets being way too complex and yet failing to deliver the one thing we expect from them -- an uninterrupted stream of interesting moving images. Apple, of course, knows a thing or two about simple. A DVR that would program itself, channels that would organize themselves around your interests, un-buttoned remote controls, multiple sources of content converging in the background into one seamless stream, auto-adjusting volume. All the stuff that would makes watching TV easy again in the same way iPad has made computing accessible for two-year-olds.
The downside: expensive proprietary cables, no porn, and iFart apps stretched across a 50-inch screen playing in surround sound...Advertising Lab: future of advertising and advertising technology
Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide aggregator: Asia Digital Map: Don’t DI-lete: Weekly DI China Update
Still think social media is a fad? For those who haven’t seen it, Jeremy Webb wants to kick off this week’s update with the following clip: A Social Media Revolution (CN subtitles).
你还是觉得社会媒体仅是一时狂热吗？没看过这个视频的同事，Jeremy Webb想用它来kick off这个星期的Don’t DI-lete：社会化媒体革命（中文字幕）。
Liu Yan (Digital Strategy Director) is impressed with Pringles’s RenRen page, which features an excellent example of augmented reality that blends an online football game with images of the gamer. Lots of people are discussing the game online and are able to move conveniently to a Taobao store to make a purchase．
Liu Yan (Digital Strategy Director), 喜欢在人人网的一个品牌互动活动。这是一款针对年轻群体的3D实景互动游戏，主题为：品客 挑战你的咔嚓劲力！品客薯片包装盒作为游戏的主要道具，用包装盒对准摄像头，就可以操作游戏。因为玩法新颖、界面设计也很酷，引来众多年轻的网友参与。同时引导网友在人人网的论坛中讨论此款游戏。也可以通过游戏链接到品客在淘宝的网店。
Emily Brown (BJ White Belt editor) likes Mengniu/MonmilkEcograssland Fund’s use of social networking sites because they have attracted a community of supporters to their interactive, informative RenRen page who may have otherwise never visited either party’s official site.
Emily Brown (北京的白带editor) 喜欢蒙牛和Monmilk Ecograssland Fund社交网站的运用, 是因为他们已经吸引很多网友来访问其互动且信息丰富的人人网页，同时这些网友可能从未访问过其中任何一家公司的官方网页。
Jeremy Webb wants you give you all a big kiss… on DoubleMint’s RenRen page. Users start a “kiss chain” by sending a kiss to their friends; their friends then extend the chain by doing the same, and so on. All members of the longest chain get a prize. Like all good kisses this is memorable, fun, and potentially viral!
Jeremy Webb想KISS你… 在绿箭的人人网活动！用户用“kiss链” 向自己的好友传递kiss，他们的好友也可以继续传递这个kiss给别人，以此类推。最终拥有最多人参与的“KISS链”中所有用户都将得到奖品。跟所有的kisses一样，这个活动很难忘，很好玩，也很有传染性！
Yalding Xu (SH Digital Specialist) says, “There’s always more fun ways to promote your products.” This video made by Nike to promote their new running shoe is proof of this. Running, just like music, needs rhythm; and this video is the perfect cross over.
Yalding Xu (SH Digital Specialist) 说：“你的产品其实也可以更好玩”，这个视频（优酷版）是Nike为了推广它的新系列Free产品，拍摄的一个病毒视频。跑步需要节奏，音乐同样需要节奏，视频中这样的跨界可能你从没看到过。但是看完这个视频后，相信你会增加对于跑步运动的兴趣。要知道，病毒视频的效果有时比花费巨资的电视广告要更好。
Please view here: Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide aggregator
你还是觉得社会媒体仅是一时狂热吗？没看过这个视频的同事，Jeremy Webb想用它来kick off这个星期的Don’t DI-lete：社会化媒体革命（中文字幕）。
Liu Yan (Digital Strategy Director) is impressed with Pringles’s RenRen page, which features an excellent example of augmented reality that blends an online football game with images of the gamer. Lots of people are discussing the game online and are able to move conveniently to a Taobao store to make a purchase．
Liu Yan (Digital Strategy Director), 喜欢在人人网的一个品牌互动活动。这是一款针对年轻群体的3D实景互动游戏，主题为：品客 挑战你的咔嚓劲力！品客薯片包装盒作为游戏的主要道具，用包装盒对准摄像头，就可以操作游戏。因为玩法新颖、界面设计也很酷，引来众多年轻的网友参与。同时引导网友在人人网的论坛中讨论此款游戏。也可以通过游戏链接到品客在淘宝的网店。
Emily Brown (BJ White Belt editor) likes Mengniu/MonmilkEcograssland Fund’s use of social networking sites because they have attracted a community of supporters to their interactive, informative RenRen page who may have otherwise never visited either party’s official site.
Emily Brown (北京的白带editor) 喜欢蒙牛和Monmilk Ecograssland Fund社交网站的运用, 是因为他们已经吸引很多网友来访问其互动且信息丰富的人人网页，同时这些网友可能从未访问过其中任何一家公司的官方网页。
Jeremy Webb wants you give you all a big kiss… on DoubleMint’s RenRen page. Users start a “kiss chain” by sending a kiss to their friends; their friends then extend the chain by doing the same, and so on. All members of the longest chain get a prize. Like all good kisses this is memorable, fun, and potentially viral!
Jeremy Webb想KISS你… 在绿箭的人人网活动！用户用“kiss链” 向自己的好友传递kiss，他们的好友也可以继续传递这个kiss给别人，以此类推。最终拥有最多人参与的“KISS链”中所有用户都将得到奖品。跟所有的kisses一样，这个活动很难忘，很好玩，也很有传染性！
Yalding Xu (SH Digital Specialist) says, “There’s always more fun ways to promote your products.” This video made by Nike to promote their new running shoe is proof of this. Running, just like music, needs rhythm; and this video is the perfect cross over.
Yalding Xu (SH Digital Specialist) 说：“你的产品其实也可以更好玩”，这个视频（优酷版）是Nike为了推广它的新系列Free产品，拍摄的一个病毒视频。跑步需要节奏，音乐同样需要节奏，视频中这样的跨界可能你从没看到过。但是看完这个视频后，相信你会增加对于跑步运动的兴趣。要知道，病毒视频的效果有时比花费巨资的电视广告要更好。
Please view here: Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide aggregator
Deirdre Breakenridge: Social Media from the Inside Out
I recently participated in a webinar for the Ocala Chapter of the Florida Public Relations Association. My topic was building social media into your business plan. Social media is a game changer for businesses and as a result companies are rethinking resources (people), process and technology . And, with employees engaging in the social landscape many companies have finally realized the necessity for policies and guidelines. My video discusses several question that executives should ask about their own organizations, with the first one being: Just because you have a social media policy, does this mean that all of your employees actually want to participate in social media?Deirdre Breakenridge
Capital C: Digital Digs
A digest of what's new and emerging in marketing, technology and strategy.
“Lost” Finale: What the Web Wasn’t Made For
One of the biggest, most talked about shows to ever hit TV and the blogosphere ended this past Sunday. Never has a show had so many fans conversing in every outlet available online. Here’s a peak at what Lost did to the Internet and vice versa.
Lostaways
Twitter to Eliminate Third-Party Ads in User Timelines
What seemed an inevitable arrival of ads on Twitter as a way to monetize the social network is no longer en route to your home page. It seems Twitter isn’t sure where they’re going, but they know where they are. And right now users like them.
Figuring it Out
Google: The Next 6 Months of Android Will "Blow Your Mind"
Android lead Andy Rubin says the capabilities of Android will grow exponentially over the next six months. But will consumer adoption?
Growing Time
5 Use Cases for The Real-Time Web
Uses for the Real-Time-Web are abundant, with products like Twitter and Facebook playing poster child. However, fine-tuning and goal setting is needed for other areas of the web to take the plunge and adopt less obvious but more beneficial uses
for Real-Time.
Ways to Get Real
RIP: “Get a Mac” Gets a Tribute
The iconic ad campaign “Get a Mac,” was put to rest recently, but not before a lengthy tribute to take us on a reminiscent journey of Ad Week’s campaign of the decade and YouTube’s most watched ads ever.
Undead Advertising
Please view @ Capital C
“Lost” Finale: What the Web Wasn’t Made For
One of the biggest, most talked about shows to ever hit TV and the blogosphere ended this past Sunday. Never has a show had so many fans conversing in every outlet available online. Here’s a peak at what Lost did to the Internet and vice versa.
Lostaways
Twitter to Eliminate Third-Party Ads in User Timelines
What seemed an inevitable arrival of ads on Twitter as a way to monetize the social network is no longer en route to your home page. It seems Twitter isn’t sure where they’re going, but they know where they are. And right now users like them.
Figuring it Out
Google: The Next 6 Months of Android Will "Blow Your Mind"
Android lead Andy Rubin says the capabilities of Android will grow exponentially over the next six months. But will consumer adoption?
Growing Time
5 Use Cases for The Real-Time Web
Uses for the Real-Time-Web are abundant, with products like Twitter and Facebook playing poster child. However, fine-tuning and goal setting is needed for other areas of the web to take the plunge and adopt less obvious but more beneficial uses
for Real-Time.
Ways to Get Real
RIP: “Get a Mac” Gets a Tribute
The iconic ad campaign “Get a Mac,” was put to rest recently, but not before a lengthy tribute to take us on a reminiscent journey of Ad Week’s campaign of the decade and YouTube’s most watched ads ever.
Undead Advertising
Please view @ Capital C
Business Insider: Facebook Has More Pageviews Than The Next 99+ Biggest Web Sites Combined
Facebook has 570 billion pageviews a month, says Google's Doubleclick.
* That's 8X as many pageviews as the No. 2 site in Google's list of the top 1000 web sites in the world, Yahoo (which has 70 billion).
* It's 15X as many as MSN (39 billion).
* It's 72X as many as Wikipedia (7.9 billion)
Anyone out there still think Facebook is going to go bust?
Anyone still think the recent privacy fracas means anything at all?
Read more: Business Insider
* That's 8X as many pageviews as the No. 2 site in Google's list of the top 1000 web sites in the world, Yahoo (which has 70 billion).
* It's 15X as many as MSN (39 billion).
* It's 72X as many as Wikipedia (7.9 billion)
Anyone out there still think Facebook is going to go bust?
Anyone still think the recent privacy fracas means anything at all?
Read more: Business Insider
Business Insider: Zuck: I Could Have Sold Facebook For $1 Billion At Age 22, So No, Revenues Are Not My Top Concern
[Editor's note: At Facebook's privacy press conference this week, CNBC's Julia Boorstin asked Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg: "How does this controversy and your new approach to privacy affect your approach to revenue and your business model?" Here is Mark's answer, as transcribed by The Facebook Effect author David Kirkpatrick.]
[When deciding on Facebook's new privacy settings] we didn't talk about revenue at all. And I think it's something that is maybe so different from how most people think about companies that it maybe is a little crazy for us that this is the approach that we take. But we just really care about what we're doing, and we need to build a good company in order to do it. But we've had...like this has been a really unique company, in how it's evolved.
I mean, there was this really pivotal moment for me when I was 22. And there's this book coming out, David Kirkpatrick's book now, that actually details this in more detail than i would probably like, but... when, you know, Yahoo and all these companies...Is that the book? Well...Have you read it? ...Alright...well, so...
So we had this episode where Yahoo and Viacom and all these companies were trying to buy the company. And it was this really kind of crazy time. Because we started the company as a dorm room project. Actually we started it specifically not as a company, just a project. And we had this whole conversation about whether we wanted to turn it into a company or a partnership or what, and we ended up deciding a company was the best way to go because that's the best way you can attract really good people and incentivize them to build something great.
We reached a point where, you know, me and my friends, we were 22 years old, people were offering us a billion dollars or more for the company, and it's like--what do you do? Right? So we didn't want to sell the company. Obviously we didn't sell the company.
But it was this really pivotal point for us, because when you're 22 and have an opportunity to sell something for that much money, you kind of reach this point where, like, you're not making decisions to maximize the amount of money that you're making. Where I mean, like, any amount of money would not be worth the, like, the last few years that we've spent building up the company. So, you know, the...and the time we were going to spend going forward building it up.
So, I mean, when we went through that whole, that whole period, we kind of got together and we made this decision that like, this is what we care about. Right? This is what we think that one of the most transformative things will be to build in the world, is something that helps people share information and stay connected. And helps make the world more open and connected. And that's what we're going to do.
So it might be kind of crazy... to people...I don't know. It might seem weird. I don't actually know exactly what the external perception of this is. But I always read these articles that are like "OK you guys must be doing this because it's going to make you more money." And honestly for people inside the company that could not ring less true. Because...
We are working on building an ad business, and that's a big part of what we do. But when we're building platform and when we're building these user ...and these services that we offer for people, it factors in like, not at all. So, anyhow, I...it's an interesting perspective, I think, because it just...to me, from the perspective of building the company, it's such a big disconnect, between what people think we're doing and how we actually perceive ourselves internally.
Read more: Business Insider
[When deciding on Facebook's new privacy settings] we didn't talk about revenue at all. And I think it's something that is maybe so different from how most people think about companies that it maybe is a little crazy for us that this is the approach that we take. But we just really care about what we're doing, and we need to build a good company in order to do it. But we've had...like this has been a really unique company, in how it's evolved.
I mean, there was this really pivotal moment for me when I was 22. And there's this book coming out, David Kirkpatrick's book now, that actually details this in more detail than i would probably like, but... when, you know, Yahoo and all these companies...Is that the book? Well...Have you read it? ...Alright...well, so...
So we had this episode where Yahoo and Viacom and all these companies were trying to buy the company. And it was this really kind of crazy time. Because we started the company as a dorm room project. Actually we started it specifically not as a company, just a project. And we had this whole conversation about whether we wanted to turn it into a company or a partnership or what, and we ended up deciding a company was the best way to go because that's the best way you can attract really good people and incentivize them to build something great.
We reached a point where, you know, me and my friends, we were 22 years old, people were offering us a billion dollars or more for the company, and it's like--what do you do? Right? So we didn't want to sell the company. Obviously we didn't sell the company.
But it was this really pivotal point for us, because when you're 22 and have an opportunity to sell something for that much money, you kind of reach this point where, like, you're not making decisions to maximize the amount of money that you're making. Where I mean, like, any amount of money would not be worth the, like, the last few years that we've spent building up the company. So, you know, the...and the time we were going to spend going forward building it up.
So, I mean, when we went through that whole, that whole period, we kind of got together and we made this decision that like, this is what we care about. Right? This is what we think that one of the most transformative things will be to build in the world, is something that helps people share information and stay connected. And helps make the world more open and connected. And that's what we're going to do.
So it might be kind of crazy... to people...I don't know. It might seem weird. I don't actually know exactly what the external perception of this is. But I always read these articles that are like "OK you guys must be doing this because it's going to make you more money." And honestly for people inside the company that could not ring less true. Because...
We are working on building an ad business, and that's a big part of what we do. But when we're building platform and when we're building these user ...and these services that we offer for people, it factors in like, not at all. So, anyhow, I...it's an interesting perspective, I think, because it just...to me, from the perspective of building the company, it's such a big disconnect, between what people think we're doing and how we actually perceive ourselves internally.
Read more: Business Insider
Business Insider: 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning
Good morning! Here's what you need to know:
The iPad is launching internationally! Long lines everywhere, but apparently the Japanese are particularly crazy about the device.
Paywalls? They just don't work, it seems.
The Google-AdMob deal has officially closed. Google has a nice blog post explaining what they're going to do with their new shiny toy.
Speaking of Google and piles of cash, they're opening their very own trading floor to manage the ginormous $26.5 billion of cash and securities on their balance sheet. Wow.
The publishing industry disruption continues: after Amazon, Apple is now letting authors sell directly on their iBookstore.
Trouble at Tesla! VentureBeat have great posts on why the electric car maker's deal with Toyota ain't all it's cracked up to be, and an investigation of founder, CEO and main backer Elon Musk's finances.
Just sold your startup for a hunk o' cash and don't know what to do with your millions? Gmail and FriendFeed inventor Paul Buchheit has some tremendous advice on his blog.
Apple supplier Foxconn promises a 20% wage hike as a response to the "wave" of suicides at the company, even though in reality suicides don't seem to be high
Pretty much every big Silicon Valley company has gone to bat for YouTube in its case against Viacom.
Funny video of the day! Check out the trailer Adrien Brody's new horror film.
Read more: Business Insider
The iPad is launching internationally! Long lines everywhere, but apparently the Japanese are particularly crazy about the device.
Paywalls? They just don't work, it seems.
The Google-AdMob deal has officially closed. Google has a nice blog post explaining what they're going to do with their new shiny toy.
Speaking of Google and piles of cash, they're opening their very own trading floor to manage the ginormous $26.5 billion of cash and securities on their balance sheet. Wow.
The publishing industry disruption continues: after Amazon, Apple is now letting authors sell directly on their iBookstore.
Trouble at Tesla! VentureBeat have great posts on why the electric car maker's deal with Toyota ain't all it's cracked up to be, and an investigation of founder, CEO and main backer Elon Musk's finances.
Just sold your startup for a hunk o' cash and don't know what to do with your millions? Gmail and FriendFeed inventor Paul Buchheit has some tremendous advice on his blog.
Apple supplier Foxconn promises a 20% wage hike as a response to the "wave" of suicides at the company, even though in reality suicides don't seem to be high
Pretty much every big Silicon Valley company has gone to bat for YouTube in its case against Viacom.
Funny video of the day! Check out the trailer Adrien Brody's new horror film.
Read more: Business Insider
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Collective Conversation Feed: Causing Chaos and Joy in Cannes with Improv Everywhere
It’s Spring. Even in London, where it seems the lion doesn’t ever give way to the lamb. Which is an added reason I am so psyched to be going to the Cannes Lions Festival next month.
Winning a Lion is the holy grail of the annual crusade to Cannes. But creatives and clients alike flock to selected seminars in order to bring back some useful inspiration in addition to rosé colored memories.
For the H&K seminar, we wanted to contribute something that would literally get the delegates up off their seats. So we invited Charlie Todd, founder of Improv Everywhere to help us get interactive IRL. His work has inspired me (and many others) for years. It will be even more amazing to be a part of it.
Are you going to Cannes? We need your help. Please rsvp to our event on Facebook, follow me or H&K on Twitter, or simply show up on Tuesday 22 June at 11am in Debussy where Charlie will prep us for action.
Like any social application that gets better and better the more people use it, our mission in Cannes will need all our friends to make it huge. Having the biggest concentration of creative extroverts in the world mashed up with Charlie’s inventive direction is guaranteed to produce some fun.
For now, here’s a couple of Improv Everywhere classics to hold us until June...please view video here: Collective Conversation Feed
Winning a Lion is the holy grail of the annual crusade to Cannes. But creatives and clients alike flock to selected seminars in order to bring back some useful inspiration in addition to rosé colored memories.
For the H&K seminar, we wanted to contribute something that would literally get the delegates up off their seats. So we invited Charlie Todd, founder of Improv Everywhere to help us get interactive IRL. His work has inspired me (and many others) for years. It will be even more amazing to be a part of it.
Are you going to Cannes? We need your help. Please rsvp to our event on Facebook, follow me or H&K on Twitter, or simply show up on Tuesday 22 June at 11am in Debussy where Charlie will prep us for action.
Like any social application that gets better and better the more people use it, our mission in Cannes will need all our friends to make it huge. Having the biggest concentration of creative extroverts in the world mashed up with Charlie’s inventive direction is guaranteed to produce some fun.
For now, here’s a couple of Improv Everywhere classics to hold us until June...please view video here: Collective Conversation Feed
Umair Haque: Rebooting Prosperity in an Age of Austerity
Welcome to the Age of Austerity. Austerity is, of course, the opposite of prosperity. It's the latest buzzword on everyone's lips. And it's not just about Europe. The vast majority of America has faced austerity for the last decade, too. Japan's been under austerity for two decades. To Asia, Latin America, and, of course, long-suffering Africa too, the bitter taste of austerity is all too familiar. Next stop for Austerity: America.
Today's austerity is the failure of yesterday's thin, inauthentic prosperity. That means the central challenge of the Age of Austerity is to reboot prosperity. Tomorrow's global economy must be built on a more authentic prosperity: one that is more nuanced and meaningful, because it matters in human terms.
In the Age of Austerity, it is institutional innovation — the most advanced and powerful kind of innovation — that counts. Today, we're still surrounded by industrial era institutions — corporations, resources, industries, exurbs, and GDP, to name just a few. Rebooting prosperity means reinventing the institutions that led to austerity.
It's the story of reconceiving, redefining, restructuring, revolutionizing, and recalibrating yesterday's economic institutions. The catch? Institutional innovation is a new, notoriously tough discipline. Few understand it, fewer still have succeeded at it. Here's my exploration of what a successful rebooting of prosperity might look like.
Reconceiving. Yesterday's prosperity was conceptualized as simply growth in GDP, the industrial economy's foundational institution. Rebooting prosperity begins with reconceiving that metric. GDP is about product. Prosperity, the measure of a good life, comprises more than growing a product. There's a tremendous diversity of perspectives on what else should be considered. Some seem utopian, like the King of Bhutan's Gross National Happiness. Some, hard-nosed, like the World Bank's Wealth of Nations. All are baby steps. Let's invent a hypothetical measure, just for this post: NA, or National Awesomeness.
Redefining. Reconceiving what prosperity is will let us redefine how it happens. It will let us finally begin taking up a challenge that should have been answered decades ago: updating our system of national accounts. When we speak of growth, it's GDP that grows. Growth equals more income in our national accounts. But for NA to grow, a new system of accounts would be necessary. One that might address the numerous shortcomings of GDP, and counts other costs and benefits that matter to people besides product. It's another new institution that will help reboot prosperity.
Restructuring. In turn, redefining how prosperity happens will change the definition of who generates it (and benefits from it). Mark Thoma, Robert Reich, and James Kwak are having an interesting discussion about the fact that the so-called Wall Street reform bill does nothing to actually "reform" Wall Street. They're absolutely right. What might help restructure not just Wall Street — but every industry that has a social uselessness problem, from Detroit, to Big Pharma, to Big Food? Making the institutions contribute in 21st century terms. New top lines, bottom lines, assets, and liabilities are the foundations of 21st century industry structures — they will radically alter industry boundaries, market sizes, and value chains, by reshaping entry barriers, mobility barriers, and sources of bargaining power. By doing so, they'll help pop tomorrow's industries into existence, vaporize yesterday's, and ask those in the middle to shape up — or bow out.
Revolutionizing. The global macroeconomy is a machine, just like an engine is. Perhaps its key institution is the Balance of Payments. The point of the BOP is to close a feedback loop — countries with deficits should see their currencies fall, so exports can rise, and the deficit fall, and countries with surpluses should see currencies rise, so imports can rise, and the surplus fall. What if we had a Balance of Awesomeness, instead? The Balance of Awesomeness might close a different, more pressing feedback loop. It's an institution that might ask a country to balance a deficit in its national awesomeness with investment in people, communities, or the natural world. Conversely, it might let a country with a surplus in awesomeness know it's overinvesting, and begin consuming a little bit more instead. And that, in turn, might revolutionize how sustainably assets are allocated are utilized.
Recalibrating. Today's investors are speculators with the attention span of a Tasmanian Devil with ADHD. Maybe, just maybe, all of the above might be a new groundwork for investing, by altering incentives radically. If new financial instruments — new institutions, again — were linked to either National Awesomeness, or a country's Balance of Awesomeness (think Awesomeness Derivatives), investment would slow down for the long haul, tune into what matters to people, and turn on to engaging with, not just taking from, society.
Sound like a pipe dream? Wishful thinking? Think again. You're behind the curve. The challenges above have already begun to be answered, at the highest level. China's beginning to include the value of ecosystems in its national accounts, for example. In America, the State of the USA project is going to unveil a new set of Key National Indicators this summer. In France, the Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Commission issued a landmark report on measuring well-being, instead of income.
Rebooting prosperity is the great challenge of the teens. There's no single right way to do it. But those who don't, won't, or can't answer it — because of ideology, inability, or because they're just plain ornery — well, they're fossilizing as we speak. Institutional innovators are already hard at work igniting a better tomorrow. New measures of prosperity are already being conceptualized, new national accounts defined. And, as I've discussed at length here, a new generation of companies and investors is hard at work turning "business" into betterness at the micro-level.
Seen through the Cyclopean eye of economic evolution, a great meteor crashed in 2007 — and those who can't reboot prosperity are a bit like the poor, straggling dinosaurs who survived yesterday's great meteor crash (hello, BP): they're living on borrowed time in this Age of Austerity, in a world being furiously reshaped.
Please view here: Umair Haque
Today's austerity is the failure of yesterday's thin, inauthentic prosperity. That means the central challenge of the Age of Austerity is to reboot prosperity. Tomorrow's global economy must be built on a more authentic prosperity: one that is more nuanced and meaningful, because it matters in human terms.
In the Age of Austerity, it is institutional innovation — the most advanced and powerful kind of innovation — that counts. Today, we're still surrounded by industrial era institutions — corporations, resources, industries, exurbs, and GDP, to name just a few. Rebooting prosperity means reinventing the institutions that led to austerity.
It's the story of reconceiving, redefining, restructuring, revolutionizing, and recalibrating yesterday's economic institutions. The catch? Institutional innovation is a new, notoriously tough discipline. Few understand it, fewer still have succeeded at it. Here's my exploration of what a successful rebooting of prosperity might look like.
Reconceiving. Yesterday's prosperity was conceptualized as simply growth in GDP, the industrial economy's foundational institution. Rebooting prosperity begins with reconceiving that metric. GDP is about product. Prosperity, the measure of a good life, comprises more than growing a product. There's a tremendous diversity of perspectives on what else should be considered. Some seem utopian, like the King of Bhutan's Gross National Happiness. Some, hard-nosed, like the World Bank's Wealth of Nations. All are baby steps. Let's invent a hypothetical measure, just for this post: NA, or National Awesomeness.
Redefining. Reconceiving what prosperity is will let us redefine how it happens. It will let us finally begin taking up a challenge that should have been answered decades ago: updating our system of national accounts. When we speak of growth, it's GDP that grows. Growth equals more income in our national accounts. But for NA to grow, a new system of accounts would be necessary. One that might address the numerous shortcomings of GDP, and counts other costs and benefits that matter to people besides product. It's another new institution that will help reboot prosperity.
Restructuring. In turn, redefining how prosperity happens will change the definition of who generates it (and benefits from it). Mark Thoma, Robert Reich, and James Kwak are having an interesting discussion about the fact that the so-called Wall Street reform bill does nothing to actually "reform" Wall Street. They're absolutely right. What might help restructure not just Wall Street — but every industry that has a social uselessness problem, from Detroit, to Big Pharma, to Big Food? Making the institutions contribute in 21st century terms. New top lines, bottom lines, assets, and liabilities are the foundations of 21st century industry structures — they will radically alter industry boundaries, market sizes, and value chains, by reshaping entry barriers, mobility barriers, and sources of bargaining power. By doing so, they'll help pop tomorrow's industries into existence, vaporize yesterday's, and ask those in the middle to shape up — or bow out.
Revolutionizing. The global macroeconomy is a machine, just like an engine is. Perhaps its key institution is the Balance of Payments. The point of the BOP is to close a feedback loop — countries with deficits should see their currencies fall, so exports can rise, and the deficit fall, and countries with surpluses should see currencies rise, so imports can rise, and the surplus fall. What if we had a Balance of Awesomeness, instead? The Balance of Awesomeness might close a different, more pressing feedback loop. It's an institution that might ask a country to balance a deficit in its national awesomeness with investment in people, communities, or the natural world. Conversely, it might let a country with a surplus in awesomeness know it's overinvesting, and begin consuming a little bit more instead. And that, in turn, might revolutionize how sustainably assets are allocated are utilized.
Recalibrating. Today's investors are speculators with the attention span of a Tasmanian Devil with ADHD. Maybe, just maybe, all of the above might be a new groundwork for investing, by altering incentives radically. If new financial instruments — new institutions, again — were linked to either National Awesomeness, or a country's Balance of Awesomeness (think Awesomeness Derivatives), investment would slow down for the long haul, tune into what matters to people, and turn on to engaging with, not just taking from, society.
Sound like a pipe dream? Wishful thinking? Think again. You're behind the curve. The challenges above have already begun to be answered, at the highest level. China's beginning to include the value of ecosystems in its national accounts, for example. In America, the State of the USA project is going to unveil a new set of Key National Indicators this summer. In France, the Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Commission issued a landmark report on measuring well-being, instead of income.
Rebooting prosperity is the great challenge of the teens. There's no single right way to do it. But those who don't, won't, or can't answer it — because of ideology, inability, or because they're just plain ornery — well, they're fossilizing as we speak. Institutional innovators are already hard at work igniting a better tomorrow. New measures of prosperity are already being conceptualized, new national accounts defined. And, as I've discussed at length here, a new generation of companies and investors is hard at work turning "business" into betterness at the micro-level.
Seen through the Cyclopean eye of economic evolution, a great meteor crashed in 2007 — and those who can't reboot prosperity are a bit like the poor, straggling dinosaurs who survived yesterday's great meteor crash (hello, BP): they're living on borrowed time in this Age of Austerity, in a world being furiously reshaped.
Please view here: Umair Haque
Big Buzz Blog: BIG BUZZ BUTTON CONTEST
Help us here at BIG BUZZ to choose a tagline for our BIG BUZZ BUTTONS. I know it sounds like a mouth full but help us represent our Buzzers in style. Check out this page and choose your favorite line...Big Buzz Blog
Mobile Industry Review: 7 Reader Application Favourites
Last week I emailed the readers of The Application Review newsletter. I asked them to tell me the best app they’d purchased/downloaded recently. I had 153 responses in 24 hours. That’s pretty good going. I thought you might like to read a few:
Alistair wrote about Gwabbit on the BlackBerry: “A fantastic app that automatically scrapes the contact details of all new emails that are read on my BlackBerry. The app runs in the background and gives me the option to save or discard contact information for everyone that I have had an email exchange with – A great way of adding information to my phonebook, never know when you’ll need to make that important call.”
Ana really likes Time Out London iPhone app: “It recognizes my position and tell what’s going on nearby, from movies to events and nice restaurants, everything separated under categories. It also shows the top10 events and has the Inspire Me section, quite similar to UrbanSpoon, you just shake it and have a couple of random suggestions in hand.”
Candace loves Taxi Magic for her iPhone: “Total utility, free, and it works in a pinch. This is great since cab service in SF really sucks. I have heard of the app from many friends so this is a word of mouth referral.”
Chris rates Sipdroid VoIP for Android: “An open standards opensource SIP client for Android. What’s not to like?!”
Jason is loving Ballix on Nokia: “Ballix is a really fun puzzle game for use on Nokia’s touch-enabled devices (I’ve been playing it on the Nokia N97 mini). It requires quick fingers, and quick decision-making to get it right. And, the game offers 42 levels of play – each one more challenging than the last! I found the app in Ovi Store by Nokia.”
John wrote in about Logitech Touch Mouse for iPhone: “Referred by a friend. Free app which allows you to control your Mac/PC using your iPhone touch screen as a mouse. Simple idea, but functional and easy to use“
Mobile Industry Review
Alistair wrote about Gwabbit on the BlackBerry: “A fantastic app that automatically scrapes the contact details of all new emails that are read on my BlackBerry. The app runs in the background and gives me the option to save or discard contact information for everyone that I have had an email exchange with – A great way of adding information to my phonebook, never know when you’ll need to make that important call.”
Ana really likes Time Out London iPhone app: “It recognizes my position and tell what’s going on nearby, from movies to events and nice restaurants, everything separated under categories. It also shows the top10 events and has the Inspire Me section, quite similar to UrbanSpoon, you just shake it and have a couple of random suggestions in hand.”
Candace loves Taxi Magic for her iPhone: “Total utility, free, and it works in a pinch. This is great since cab service in SF really sucks. I have heard of the app from many friends so this is a word of mouth referral.”
Chris rates Sipdroid VoIP for Android: “An open standards opensource SIP client for Android. What’s not to like?!”
Jason is loving Ballix on Nokia: “Ballix is a really fun puzzle game for use on Nokia’s touch-enabled devices (I’ve been playing it on the Nokia N97 mini). It requires quick fingers, and quick decision-making to get it right. And, the game offers 42 levels of play – each one more challenging than the last! I found the app in Ovi Store by Nokia.”
John wrote in about Logitech Touch Mouse for iPhone: “Referred by a friend. Free app which allows you to control your Mac/PC using your iPhone touch screen as a mouse. Simple idea, but functional and easy to use“
Mobile Industry Review
The Home of Peter Shankman - Shankman.com: 12 Hours of Being Poked and Prodded For A Good Reason
So let’s talk about health for a second.
I think the reason I love doing Triathlons, Marathons, bike races, and the like, is because in my other world, I’m such the anti-healthy guy. I mean, think about it for a second – I run in the morning, but then I have to go to three client cocktail parties, at one drink or more a piece. I bike 40 miles in Central Park at 5am, so I can safely consume half a Ray’s Pizza. I do a half Ironman Triathlon, and congratulate myself with a Triple Whopper.
I live one lifestyle, so I can enjoy the other. And hey, you know what? It works for me. It’s probably the only true level of balance I have in my life.
And that’s why I was so interested (and a bit scared) when OhioHealth’s McConnell Executive Health and Wellness Program invited me out for a full-day executive physical.
First, the disclosures: OhioHealth paid for all of the physical, the tests, the lab-work, and my food while on-site.
Now. I was interested for several reasons. First and foremost, Executive Physicals are getting some new found respect in a world of 11-second doctor visits, where you spend more time filling out your insurance paperwork then the doctor actually spends with you. And it’s not the doctor’s fault, per se – it’s simply the world we live in. I’m not going to get into how to fix that hot mess, but I’ll tell you what I learned about the program, and why everyone should do it – And of course, there’s the kicker – it’s not cheap. Having an entire day devoted to you is expensive. We’ll get into that later. Because I think I’ve found a workaround for some of it...Please continue reading @ The Home of Peter Shankman - Shankman.com
I think the reason I love doing Triathlons, Marathons, bike races, and the like, is because in my other world, I’m such the anti-healthy guy. I mean, think about it for a second – I run in the morning, but then I have to go to three client cocktail parties, at one drink or more a piece. I bike 40 miles in Central Park at 5am, so I can safely consume half a Ray’s Pizza. I do a half Ironman Triathlon, and congratulate myself with a Triple Whopper.
I live one lifestyle, so I can enjoy the other. And hey, you know what? It works for me. It’s probably the only true level of balance I have in my life.
And that’s why I was so interested (and a bit scared) when OhioHealth’s McConnell Executive Health and Wellness Program invited me out for a full-day executive physical.
First, the disclosures: OhioHealth paid for all of the physical, the tests, the lab-work, and my food while on-site.
Now. I was interested for several reasons. First and foremost, Executive Physicals are getting some new found respect in a world of 11-second doctor visits, where you spend more time filling out your insurance paperwork then the doctor actually spends with you. And it’s not the doctor’s fault, per se – it’s simply the world we live in. I’m not going to get into how to fix that hot mess, but I’ll tell you what I learned about the program, and why everyone should do it – And of course, there’s the kicker – it’s not cheap. Having an entire day devoted to you is expensive. We’ll get into that later. Because I think I’ve found a workaround for some of it...Please continue reading @ The Home of Peter Shankman - Shankman.com
Media Decoder: For Vlasic, It's a Stork of a Different Color
One of the more interesting developments in advertising since the economy went south has been the return of familiar brand slogans, jingles and characters, the better to appeal to nervous consumers who may find nostalgia soothing. At the same time, brands do not want to invoke the past too much, for fear of seeming like fuddy-duddys.
The Vlasic line of pickles, sold by the Pinnacle Foods Group, is introducing a campaign this week with a redesigned version of its talkative stork character, which has spoken for the brand since 1974. The campaign also includes a new theme, “Taste what a Vlasic can do.”
The stork returned to television advertising for Vlasic in May 2007 after an absence of many years. The new stork has a three-dimensional look and is slimmer than its predecessor.
“The Vlasic stork now embodies the brand in a contemporary and relevant way,” Eric Hintz, vice president for marketing at Pinnacle in Mountain Lakes, N.J., said in a statement, “while retaining the characteristics that people have come to know and love.”
The campaign includes TV commercials, print ads, social media and online banner ads. In addition to the regular Web site, vlasic.com, a special Web site, or microsite, is going live at tastewhatavlasiccando.com.
The campaign is being created by Merkley & Partners in New York, part of the Omnicom Group. Merkley was awarded the creative duties for Vlasic in April 2009 from Publicis & Hal Riney in San Francisco, part of the Publicis Groupe. Merkley also creates campaigns for Pinnacle products like Duncan Hines and Log Cabin.
Pinnacle is among many packaged-goods marketers that are stepping up their advertising presence as consumers are eating at home more because of the economy...Media Decoder
The Vlasic line of pickles, sold by the Pinnacle Foods Group, is introducing a campaign this week with a redesigned version of its talkative stork character, which has spoken for the brand since 1974. The campaign also includes a new theme, “Taste what a Vlasic can do.”
The stork returned to television advertising for Vlasic in May 2007 after an absence of many years. The new stork has a three-dimensional look and is slimmer than its predecessor.
“The Vlasic stork now embodies the brand in a contemporary and relevant way,” Eric Hintz, vice president for marketing at Pinnacle in Mountain Lakes, N.J., said in a statement, “while retaining the characteristics that people have come to know and love.”
The campaign includes TV commercials, print ads, social media and online banner ads. In addition to the regular Web site, vlasic.com, a special Web site, or microsite, is going live at tastewhatavlasiccando.com.
The campaign is being created by Merkley & Partners in New York, part of the Omnicom Group. Merkley was awarded the creative duties for Vlasic in April 2009 from Publicis & Hal Riney in San Francisco, part of the Publicis Groupe. Merkley also creates campaigns for Pinnacle products like Duncan Hines and Log Cabin.
Pinnacle is among many packaged-goods marketers that are stepping up their advertising presence as consumers are eating at home more because of the economy...Media Decoder
Profectio: On The Move – New Gigs & Promotions – May 27, 2010
Arthur Fullerton recently joined Zig, Toronto as Director for Technology. He had been director for technology at the Fuse Marketing Group previously.
Steevan Glover joined the London office of Vision Critical as their European Dead of Sales and Marketing. He had been Account Division Development and Group Account Director at Blueprint Partners, London.
Jeremy Gayton, General Manager for the Toronto offices of Taxi, was promoted to President for Taxi’s English-language Canadian operations. He succeeds Rob Guenette, who recently became Chief Executive at Taxi. Also, Durk Barnhill, General Manager for the Taxi New York office, was promoted to President at Taxi New York. He succeeds Daniel Rabinowicz, who retired in August... Profectio
Steevan Glover joined the London office of Vision Critical as their European Dead of Sales and Marketing. He had been Account Division Development and Group Account Director at Blueprint Partners, London.
Jeremy Gayton, General Manager for the Toronto offices of Taxi, was promoted to President for Taxi’s English-language Canadian operations. He succeeds Rob Guenette, who recently became Chief Executive at Taxi. Also, Durk Barnhill, General Manager for the Taxi New York office, was promoted to President at Taxi New York. He succeeds Daniel Rabinowicz, who retired in August... Profectio
John Winsor: A V&S Update: The Jon Bond Interview
Last week Jon Bond became an investor, advisor and strategic partner with Victors & Spoils. In the last few months, Jon and I spent a lot of time talking about the future of advertising, not only between ourselves but also with dozens of clients. Jon has a clear, expansive vision for the future. I’m excited to be working with him. Here’s a conversation we had over the past couple of weeks. Buckle your seat belt. The future is at the doorstep.
John Winsor: Lately, we’re seeing some big culture shifts taking place. Just this past week, I was struck hearing that YouTube celebrated its 5th anniversary and reached a milestone of more than two billion views a day. It’s clear, as a society, we’re moving from a world of scarcity to one of abundance. Do you think it’s still possible for the agency models built on an old cultural paradigm to help clients survive (and thrive) in this new world?
Jon Bond: Traditional agencies are threatened by abundance and see it as yet another tool to commoditize their already tenuous position in the marketing hierarchy. They see abundance as simply over-supply, tipping the balance of supply and demand toward commoditization. But change also produces opportunities. The new generation of creative people who rise to define the job of "curator" will thank the advent of abundance for making this new profession possible, and in fact necessary. Traditional shops cannot easily adjust to this new age because it would mean enduring a painful transition. Their legacy issues are their weakness.
I love ad people and the ideas part of the business. It's the “business” of the business that really sucks and brings down the rest of it. Sometimes you have to destroy something you love in order to rebuild it again, and that is what the new models, like Victors & Spoils, will do. There will be pain. But there is no alternative to the slow, painful death that has been eating away at the soul of the business for the past 15 years.
JW: In our careers, we’ve both seen clients go to the big agencies of say 500 people to gain access to the 25 folks who are really pushing the work forward. Clients want the best creative work without having to pay for bloated agency infrastructures, but the current paradigm is built on a full time employee (FTE) compensation model. This means access to the top 25 talent comes with a price tag that includes the cost of the other 475 people at the agency. How will increasing client demand for higher quality at a fair price impact the current size and scope of agencies?
JB: In the current model the top talent are underpaid and the bottom people are overpaid. That is true commoditization. FTEs are commoditizers because they reward hours versus results and talent, which isn't advertising - it's the post office! If we want to regain the top talent we've lost, we need to take a tip from Hollywood and make the rewards of stardom spectacular.
JW: You’ve been out talking a lot to some of the most interesting and progressive CMOs. What are they saying?
JB: CMOS are about efficiency. They want it better, cheaper and faster, and if you can't do one of the three, you are out. Unfortunately, the only recourse has been to get shops to cut price, which only serves to drive more talent out of the business, make us worth less to clients and incentivize them to pay us even less. We need to embrace tools – technology, new models, etc. – that enable us to deliver more for less in less time, without making people work harder for less money. The old must die to make way for the new. And, the only alternative is outright extinction.
JW: It seems the whole concept of aggregating place-based assets under a global holding company is being threatened by the radical shifts taking place in society. In your opinion, what’s in the future for holding companies? Will they exist? If so, what do you think they’ll look like?
JB: Holding Companies? What is their true purpose? Businesses cannot exist without a purpose that serves a customer. I believe holding companies are the traditional agencies of the corporate world. They are generic because they try to be everything to every client. The holding companies of the future will be more specialized and will be great at something. For example, maybe Google will own the “data driven” holding company and Facebook will control the “people driven” one. Each will have a diametrically opposed view of the world, and an epic battle of ideologies will ensue, which will not be won by either side because they define the essential ways in which people differ by nature. There will always be a large market for both.
JW: You’ve got a big vision for the industry and the future of advertising. What’s your next move?
JB: My goal is to reinvent the industry by bringing the power back to the practitioners the way Hollywood has done it with DreamWorks and stars owning points in their movies, or having their own production companies. The advertising business sucks, so what are we afraid of losing at this point? Change is our friend and the more dramatic the better.
JW: Thanks, Jon. I’m stoked to be working with you to fulfill this vision. This is going to be fun...John Winsor
John Winsor: Lately, we’re seeing some big culture shifts taking place. Just this past week, I was struck hearing that YouTube celebrated its 5th anniversary and reached a milestone of more than two billion views a day. It’s clear, as a society, we’re moving from a world of scarcity to one of abundance. Do you think it’s still possible for the agency models built on an old cultural paradigm to help clients survive (and thrive) in this new world?
Jon Bond: Traditional agencies are threatened by abundance and see it as yet another tool to commoditize their already tenuous position in the marketing hierarchy. They see abundance as simply over-supply, tipping the balance of supply and demand toward commoditization. But change also produces opportunities. The new generation of creative people who rise to define the job of "curator" will thank the advent of abundance for making this new profession possible, and in fact necessary. Traditional shops cannot easily adjust to this new age because it would mean enduring a painful transition. Their legacy issues are their weakness.
I love ad people and the ideas part of the business. It's the “business” of the business that really sucks and brings down the rest of it. Sometimes you have to destroy something you love in order to rebuild it again, and that is what the new models, like Victors & Spoils, will do. There will be pain. But there is no alternative to the slow, painful death that has been eating away at the soul of the business for the past 15 years.
JW: In our careers, we’ve both seen clients go to the big agencies of say 500 people to gain access to the 25 folks who are really pushing the work forward. Clients want the best creative work without having to pay for bloated agency infrastructures, but the current paradigm is built on a full time employee (FTE) compensation model. This means access to the top 25 talent comes with a price tag that includes the cost of the other 475 people at the agency. How will increasing client demand for higher quality at a fair price impact the current size and scope of agencies?
JB: In the current model the top talent are underpaid and the bottom people are overpaid. That is true commoditization. FTEs are commoditizers because they reward hours versus results and talent, which isn't advertising - it's the post office! If we want to regain the top talent we've lost, we need to take a tip from Hollywood and make the rewards of stardom spectacular.
JW: You’ve been out talking a lot to some of the most interesting and progressive CMOs. What are they saying?
JB: CMOS are about efficiency. They want it better, cheaper and faster, and if you can't do one of the three, you are out. Unfortunately, the only recourse has been to get shops to cut price, which only serves to drive more talent out of the business, make us worth less to clients and incentivize them to pay us even less. We need to embrace tools – technology, new models, etc. – that enable us to deliver more for less in less time, without making people work harder for less money. The old must die to make way for the new. And, the only alternative is outright extinction.
JW: It seems the whole concept of aggregating place-based assets under a global holding company is being threatened by the radical shifts taking place in society. In your opinion, what’s in the future for holding companies? Will they exist? If so, what do you think they’ll look like?
JB: Holding Companies? What is their true purpose? Businesses cannot exist without a purpose that serves a customer. I believe holding companies are the traditional agencies of the corporate world. They are generic because they try to be everything to every client. The holding companies of the future will be more specialized and will be great at something. For example, maybe Google will own the “data driven” holding company and Facebook will control the “people driven” one. Each will have a diametrically opposed view of the world, and an epic battle of ideologies will ensue, which will not be won by either side because they define the essential ways in which people differ by nature. There will always be a large market for both.
JW: You’ve got a big vision for the industry and the future of advertising. What’s your next move?
JB: My goal is to reinvent the industry by bringing the power back to the practitioners the way Hollywood has done it with DreamWorks and stars owning points in their movies, or having their own production companies. The advertising business sucks, so what are we afraid of losing at this point? Change is our friend and the more dramatic the better.
JW: Thanks, Jon. I’m stoked to be working with you to fulfill this vision. This is going to be fun...John Winsor
Canadian Marketing Blog - Canadian Marketing Association: The Emergence of Influencer Relations in B-to-B
With the rapid rise of social media, buyers are placing growing trust in the opinions of new sources that use blogs, online forums, and sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook to spread their message; by doing so, they have morphed AR into a broader category we call influencer relations (IR). Today’s influencers come in all shapes and sizes; they live both outside of an organization’s walls as well as within them, when evaluated as a whole, they fall into four categories, including:
1. Traditional. Just because buyers are placing weight on new groups of influencers doesn’t mean they are ignoring analysts, journalists and associations, particularly when it comes to their most important purchases. The well-respected analyst firms typically carry more weight than individual analysts that have set out on their own; rosters within both categories must be tightly maintained. Gathering feedback from sales will help in understanding when in their processes that buyers are relying on traditional influencers, as well as tracking any changes in behavior. Understanding how traditional sources of influence are using social media means to expand their reach will help ensure your organization is properly monitoring all of the ways that these influencers are talking about your organization and its offerings.
2. Social media pundits. From influential bloggers to Twitter personalities, new groups of pundits regularly come and go, and exert different degrees of influence over buyers that must be monitored. Create a list of criteria that will help set the level of engagement that particular influencers require, using the quality of content, their relevance to your business, search engine ranking data and buyer surveys to understand the degree of influence they exert. It’s not enough to look at quantitative measures to rank influencers; there may be bloggers that gain notoriety simply by being negative all the time; thus, no amount of engagement is likely to change their opinions. When your list is complete, consider how this group wishes to engage; some may only want to be dealt with electronically, while others may be willing to attend live events. Work with local representatives and communications agencies to identify any regional social media influencers under your online radar, as well as how these influencers prefer to be engaged.
3. Customers. Existing customers can have a significant effect on shaping the opinions of prospects in the late stages of the buying process. While traditional case studies and other reference components are certainly valuable, nothing will have as much weight as a happy customer who goes public in forums such as live events, online events and social media vehicles from blogs to communities. The rise of social media means that buyers can now have a network to leverage throughout the buying process to ask specific questions about a vendor. Pay attention to the sentiment and tone of customer postings, and don’t neglect the value of a customer community. Buyers want to engage with other buyers; give them platforms for discussion.
4. Employees. Particularly from a support standpoint, employees who are engaged and forthright have the opportunity to promote positive interactions with a wide range of customers and influencers through social media. Organizations should promote employee use of social media to encourage their potential impact on other influencers. By having a centralized policy to govern the use of social media, organizations can support employee involvement with customers while maintaining policies and procedures on the types of information and content that can be shared publicly. Not only does this strategy act as an early warning system for identifying potential issues, it also heightens the possibility that a company can impact influencer views by engaging quickly and leaving positive impressions in the public space.
While it may be easier to maintain a simple checklist of the usual analysts and journalists to interact with, having a wider influencer universe can help get your message out to a larger range of prospects. The evolution from AR to IR, however, means that communications executives must be more proactive in identifying and engaging new categories of influencers on their turf, and on their terms. Due to the nature of social media, the credibility and influence of individuals can change rapidly; the better you understand your customers’ habits and requirements, the more you’ll know who to engage with and how. Canadian Marketing Blog - Canadian Marketing Association by Albert (Ally) Motz
1. Traditional. Just because buyers are placing weight on new groups of influencers doesn’t mean they are ignoring analysts, journalists and associations, particularly when it comes to their most important purchases. The well-respected analyst firms typically carry more weight than individual analysts that have set out on their own; rosters within both categories must be tightly maintained. Gathering feedback from sales will help in understanding when in their processes that buyers are relying on traditional influencers, as well as tracking any changes in behavior. Understanding how traditional sources of influence are using social media means to expand their reach will help ensure your organization is properly monitoring all of the ways that these influencers are talking about your organization and its offerings.
2. Social media pundits. From influential bloggers to Twitter personalities, new groups of pundits regularly come and go, and exert different degrees of influence over buyers that must be monitored. Create a list of criteria that will help set the level of engagement that particular influencers require, using the quality of content, their relevance to your business, search engine ranking data and buyer surveys to understand the degree of influence they exert. It’s not enough to look at quantitative measures to rank influencers; there may be bloggers that gain notoriety simply by being negative all the time; thus, no amount of engagement is likely to change their opinions. When your list is complete, consider how this group wishes to engage; some may only want to be dealt with electronically, while others may be willing to attend live events. Work with local representatives and communications agencies to identify any regional social media influencers under your online radar, as well as how these influencers prefer to be engaged.
3. Customers. Existing customers can have a significant effect on shaping the opinions of prospects in the late stages of the buying process. While traditional case studies and other reference components are certainly valuable, nothing will have as much weight as a happy customer who goes public in forums such as live events, online events and social media vehicles from blogs to communities. The rise of social media means that buyers can now have a network to leverage throughout the buying process to ask specific questions about a vendor. Pay attention to the sentiment and tone of customer postings, and don’t neglect the value of a customer community. Buyers want to engage with other buyers; give them platforms for discussion.
4. Employees. Particularly from a support standpoint, employees who are engaged and forthright have the opportunity to promote positive interactions with a wide range of customers and influencers through social media. Organizations should promote employee use of social media to encourage their potential impact on other influencers. By having a centralized policy to govern the use of social media, organizations can support employee involvement with customers while maintaining policies and procedures on the types of information and content that can be shared publicly. Not only does this strategy act as an early warning system for identifying potential issues, it also heightens the possibility that a company can impact influencer views by engaging quickly and leaving positive impressions in the public space.
While it may be easier to maintain a simple checklist of the usual analysts and journalists to interact with, having a wider influencer universe can help get your message out to a larger range of prospects. The evolution from AR to IR, however, means that communications executives must be more proactive in identifying and engaging new categories of influencers on their turf, and on their terms. Due to the nature of social media, the credibility and influence of individuals can change rapidly; the better you understand your customers’ habits and requirements, the more you’ll know who to engage with and how. Canadian Marketing Blog - Canadian Marketing Association by Albert (Ally) Motz
a shel of my former self: FIR Speakers & Speeches: Francesca Karpel on social media and employee engagement
Content summary: Francesca Karpel, senior manager of Internal Communications at NetApp, delivers a breakout session at the 2010 New Communications Forum titled, “How Social Media & Online Communities Strengthen Employee Engagement,” April 23, 2010.Please continue @ a shel of my former self
Business Insider: 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning
Good morning! Here's what you need to know:
Facebook has begun rolling out their new privacy controls in response to outcries over their privacy policies. If you want to put your Facebook account in a "privacy lockdown", check out our easy guide to doing that.
Suicides at Chinese electronics supplier Foxconn continue as management and their biggest customers, who include Apple, Microsoft and Nokia, are starting to acknowledge the problem. Meanwhile, Gizmodo looks at the math behind the suicides.
Israeli startup Soluto, which makes Windows desktops easier to use, won the TechCrunch Disrupt conference. Check out their video interview with Scoble.
Natal, Microsoft's motion sensor for Xbox casual gaming, will apparently cost $149.
Yesterday was Yahoo!'s investor day. One piece of bad news was that engagement is dropping over their properties.
The new iPhone is launching in June, AT&T has been telling its employees.
It's the 80s all over again, with a twist: Android has been outselling the iPhone in the US, and now it's doing the same in China.
Just awesome: Sony demo'd a roll-up screen. Welcome to the future.
Also awesome: Fox Mobile just released an app that lets you watch full-length TV shows on your mobile.
Finally, awesome video of the day! Can you jump over the flagpole in Super Mario Bros? YES!
Read more: Business Insider
Facebook has begun rolling out their new privacy controls in response to outcries over their privacy policies. If you want to put your Facebook account in a "privacy lockdown", check out our easy guide to doing that.
Suicides at Chinese electronics supplier Foxconn continue as management and their biggest customers, who include Apple, Microsoft and Nokia, are starting to acknowledge the problem. Meanwhile, Gizmodo looks at the math behind the suicides.
Israeli startup Soluto, which makes Windows desktops easier to use, won the TechCrunch Disrupt conference. Check out their video interview with Scoble.
Natal, Microsoft's motion sensor for Xbox casual gaming, will apparently cost $149.
Yesterday was Yahoo!'s investor day. One piece of bad news was that engagement is dropping over their properties.
The new iPhone is launching in June, AT&T has been telling its employees.
It's the 80s all over again, with a twist: Android has been outselling the iPhone in the US, and now it's doing the same in China.
Just awesome: Sony demo'd a roll-up screen. Welcome to the future.
Also awesome: Fox Mobile just released an app that lets you watch full-length TV shows on your mobile.
Finally, awesome video of the day! Can you jump over the flagpole in Super Mario Bros? YES!
Read more: Business Insider
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
MODTV: FASHION NETWORK: Video: Louis Vuitton's Celebrity Bash in London
Designer Marc Jacobs sang on stage with Grace Jones last night in London, celebrating the opening of the Louis Vuitton’s most luxurious store, The New Bond Street Maison. The red carpet exclusive event had a heavy celebrity A-list turn out which included Gwyneth Paltrow, Kirstin Dunst, Gemma Arterton, Tandie Newton, Elle MacPherson, Alexa Chung, Daisy Lowe and Cherie Blair.
Designed by architect Peter Marino, the Maison ranges over three floors and encompasses 1,500 square metres of retail space at the junction of New Bond Street and Clifford Street. In keeping with Vuitton’s long-standing commitment to the Arts, there is a library showcasing the best of British contemporary art and bespoke commissions by artists Anish Kapoor, Chris Ofili and Gary Hume.
The Louis Vuitton New Bond Street Maison will be open to the public on Friday 28th May, marking the most important date in Louis Vuitton’s 125-year association with London. Go behind the scenes at last night’s red carpet event. Please view video here: MODTV: FASHION NETWORK
Designed by architect Peter Marino, the Maison ranges over three floors and encompasses 1,500 square metres of retail space at the junction of New Bond Street and Clifford Street. In keeping with Vuitton’s long-standing commitment to the Arts, there is a library showcasing the best of British contemporary art and bespoke commissions by artists Anish Kapoor, Chris Ofili and Gary Hume.
The Louis Vuitton New Bond Street Maison will be open to the public on Friday 28th May, marking the most important date in Louis Vuitton’s 125-year association with London. Go behind the scenes at last night’s red carpet event. Please view video here: MODTV: FASHION NETWORK
Touché PHD // Canada's pioneering media agency: Social Media Revolution
If you work in media, and especially if work with online media (seems like everybody is) there’s only one thing everybody is talking about… Social Media. We cannot deny that social media is now mainstream and the fact that everybody’s parents are getting in on the action proves it.
That said, you’ve probably already seen the original Social Media Revolution by Erik Qualman, author of Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business book as well as his Socialnomics blog. The YouTube video has been seen over 1.9 million times, inspiring a slew of copycats.
A couple of weeks ago Erik released a follow-up video aptly called Social Media Revolution 2. In reality it’s not true follow up, more like a refresh of his first video. SMR2 has mostly updated information on social media & mobile and a few new statistics that are hard to ignore according to the author.
I won’t run down to you everything on the video because a lot of the information between SMR1 and SMR2 repeats itself, but here are some of the new and updated statistics in SMR2.
• 96% of Millennial’s (people born after 1982) have joined a social network.
• In SMR1 Facebook added 100 million users in the last 9 months. SMR2 states that Facebook added 200 million users in the last year.
• If Facebook were a country it would be the 3rd largest country in the world, in front of the United States.
• 80% of companies use social media for recruitment, 95% of them use LinkedIn.
• Ashton Kutcher and Britney Spears have more followers on Twitter than the population of Sweden, Israel, Switzerland, Ireland, Norway and Panama.
• Some universities have stopped distributing email accounts to students, instead they are giving them eReaders, iPads and tablet computers.
• More than a 100 hours of video has been uploaded on YouTube in the time it’s taken you to watch SMR2.
• If you were paid $1 every time an article was posted on Wikipedia, you would make $1,712.32 an hour. In SM1 that number was just over $156/hour.
At the end of the video Erik asks us if we still think if social media is a fad… I’m not sure, and I’ve never liked to make predictions when it comes to human behaviour. I’ll be honest, I can’t picture it going away and I think it’s here to stay but will continue to evolve in ways we can’t imagine yet.
I was inspired by Erik’s video to post this article and by chance a small book was dropped on my desk last week that I think can help our clients get a better picture of what’s going on right now. So in a selfless act of self promotion I’d like to mention that PHD has just released their second guide on the current media landscape called Fluid: PHD on Harnessing the Rising Speed of Influence (available for free here) that gives a very up to date bird’s eye view on the current social environment. In case you’re curious, the first one was called 2014: PHD on the Future of the Media Agency (also available for free).
Having just read Fluid, I think it’s a great guide that can help show our clients the current barriers they must face if they want to jump into the social landscape. One such barrier, which will probably be the hardest for most clients to deal with, is transparency. We’ve all seen examples in the last year of brands (that I will not mention) committing this faux-pas in the social media landscape. I commend these brands for taking the risk and rolling with the punches.
I believe that we must make our clients (big and small) realise that the relationship with their customer has changed; it’s no longer a simple, one-time transaction. Because of the web landscape and the social environment, more and more customers are coming into stores with more knowledge on the product than the employees at the store. Customers like these are devoted to brands and should be nurtured because they will become brand ambassadors and an invaluable asset.
So where does this leave media agencies when their clients ask them to include “social media” sites in their media plans? One thing that has become very clear and that we NEED to make our clients realise is that a simple banner on social networks or a Facebook/Twitter account will not do it. We need to let our clients know that we are in a world where brands have the opportunity to become their own specialised content networks. These specialised “networks” can now easily connect directly with their fans and brand ambassadors through social networks and they will in turn share, chat, tweet, blog and share news about their products.
From a media planners point of view I think our job has become much more of a collaborative effort with our clients. Media agencies and planners need to become brand ambassadors and work even more closely with clients and help guide them in this brave new world.
We’ve been working hard on our end here at Touché! PHD to build a social media offer which will be revealed soon. We are confident that our media planning perspective on tackling social media will be unique and pioneering.
This said I’d like to hear your comments and thoughts on how you or media agencies can help introduce their clients to social media...Touché PHD // Canada's pioneering media agency
That said, you’ve probably already seen the original Social Media Revolution by Erik Qualman, author of Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business book as well as his Socialnomics blog. The YouTube video has been seen over 1.9 million times, inspiring a slew of copycats.
A couple of weeks ago Erik released a follow-up video aptly called Social Media Revolution 2. In reality it’s not true follow up, more like a refresh of his first video. SMR2 has mostly updated information on social media & mobile and a few new statistics that are hard to ignore according to the author.
I won’t run down to you everything on the video because a lot of the information between SMR1 and SMR2 repeats itself, but here are some of the new and updated statistics in SMR2.
• 96% of Millennial’s (people born after 1982) have joined a social network.
• In SMR1 Facebook added 100 million users in the last 9 months. SMR2 states that Facebook added 200 million users in the last year.
• If Facebook were a country it would be the 3rd largest country in the world, in front of the United States.
• 80% of companies use social media for recruitment, 95% of them use LinkedIn.
• Ashton Kutcher and Britney Spears have more followers on Twitter than the population of Sweden, Israel, Switzerland, Ireland, Norway and Panama.
• Some universities have stopped distributing email accounts to students, instead they are giving them eReaders, iPads and tablet computers.
• More than a 100 hours of video has been uploaded on YouTube in the time it’s taken you to watch SMR2.
• If you were paid $1 every time an article was posted on Wikipedia, you would make $1,712.32 an hour. In SM1 that number was just over $156/hour.
At the end of the video Erik asks us if we still think if social media is a fad… I’m not sure, and I’ve never liked to make predictions when it comes to human behaviour. I’ll be honest, I can’t picture it going away and I think it’s here to stay but will continue to evolve in ways we can’t imagine yet.
I was inspired by Erik’s video to post this article and by chance a small book was dropped on my desk last week that I think can help our clients get a better picture of what’s going on right now. So in a selfless act of self promotion I’d like to mention that PHD has just released their second guide on the current media landscape called Fluid: PHD on Harnessing the Rising Speed of Influence (available for free here) that gives a very up to date bird’s eye view on the current social environment. In case you’re curious, the first one was called 2014: PHD on the Future of the Media Agency (also available for free).
Having just read Fluid, I think it’s a great guide that can help show our clients the current barriers they must face if they want to jump into the social landscape. One such barrier, which will probably be the hardest for most clients to deal with, is transparency. We’ve all seen examples in the last year of brands (that I will not mention) committing this faux-pas in the social media landscape. I commend these brands for taking the risk and rolling with the punches.
I believe that we must make our clients (big and small) realise that the relationship with their customer has changed; it’s no longer a simple, one-time transaction. Because of the web landscape and the social environment, more and more customers are coming into stores with more knowledge on the product than the employees at the store. Customers like these are devoted to brands and should be nurtured because they will become brand ambassadors and an invaluable asset.
So where does this leave media agencies when their clients ask them to include “social media” sites in their media plans? One thing that has become very clear and that we NEED to make our clients realise is that a simple banner on social networks or a Facebook/Twitter account will not do it. We need to let our clients know that we are in a world where brands have the opportunity to become their own specialised content networks. These specialised “networks” can now easily connect directly with their fans and brand ambassadors through social networks and they will in turn share, chat, tweet, blog and share news about their products.
From a media planners point of view I think our job has become much more of a collaborative effort with our clients. Media agencies and planners need to become brand ambassadors and work even more closely with clients and help guide them in this brave new world.
We’ve been working hard on our end here at Touché! PHD to build a social media offer which will be revealed soon. We are confident that our media planning perspective on tackling social media will be unique and pioneering.
This said I’d like to hear your comments and thoughts on how you or media agencies can help introduce their clients to social media...Touché PHD // Canada's pioneering media agency
X-RAY China: Old Levi’s Launches New Jeans Brand in China
Earlier this year Levi’s, the iconic American brand announced it is going to launch a new global brand in China. This is the first time the company had launched a brand outside the US, which highlights the importance of China to the company.
Despite Levis Strauss & Co. having a 150 year history, Levi’s has only been in China for the last ten years. Previously it pulled out its China operations and manufacturing in 1993 due ‘pervasive violation of human rights’ by its factory contractors making its garments. Since its return it has built a strong reputation and now has over 500 stores on the mainland.
The brand is well known in China as being fashionable and premium, but is also seen by many as being too expensive. So this new sub brand will help to grow its market share, as an entry point to the brand. This diffusion strategy is more common among the high end fashion brands, which Giorgio Armani was a pioneers of in the 80s.
Realising the market for couture fashion was shrinking Giorgio Armani, began creating a number of lower priced diffusion lines, to extend the brand to a wider market. The brand now stretches from the topline Giorgio Armani and Armani Collezioni, down thorough to Emporio Armani, Armani AX and lastly Armani Jeans.
Media magazine recently ran a story about Levi’s; Will Levi’s new global brand prove a good fit in China? As part of that piece, I was interviewed by journalistic Kenny Lim, on my thoughts.
“This new offering could work for Levi’s, as a lot more consumers are likely to get to know the brand now. In terms of strategy and the rollout, it must make a very clear distinction between its main and secondary brand.
The sub-brand must have a unique look and feel and consumers need to be able to see the difference, so this has to be supported by clear communications. In terms of a brand launch, there cannot be a better time than summer – as messages of vibrancy and youthful exuberance can be conveyed and is suited for the new brand.
The new line can’t just be a cheaper version of Levi’s but yet it must still reflect the overall heritage of the brand.”
A handful of other consultants were also interviewed and added some smart comments to the debate. You can read their responses and the full story here.
One big questions to be answered, is how the new brand will fit with the current brand lines of Levi’s® (est. 1873), Dockers® (est. 1986) and Signature by Levi Strauss & Co.™ (est. 2003). Also how will they brand it; using the Levi’s name, in part or full; or create a new name and identity?
Interestingly, the red and white Levi’s ‘bat wing’ logo that the brand currently uses, was designed in 1969 by Walter Landor the founder on my company Landor.
When Levi Strauss & Co. executives wanted a new garment label for their blue jeans in 1969, they came to Walter Landor, whose designers developed the distinctive red-and-white “batwing” to be placed on back pockets. The red shield mimicked the pocket’s stitch pattern and incorporated the Levi’s lettering. This was among the first designs to mix capital and lowercase letters throughout a single logo.
In the 1950s, blue jeans were a symbol of rebellion against society, which is very similar to how they were viewed in China in the early 80s. Nowadays, they have become a mainstream garment and a staple item in everyone’s wardrobes. However, I predict the new Levi’s brand might echo its rebel roots, to help differentiate itself and better connect with the urban youth in China...X-RAY China
Despite Levis Strauss & Co. having a 150 year history, Levi’s has only been in China for the last ten years. Previously it pulled out its China operations and manufacturing in 1993 due ‘pervasive violation of human rights’ by its factory contractors making its garments. Since its return it has built a strong reputation and now has over 500 stores on the mainland.
The brand is well known in China as being fashionable and premium, but is also seen by many as being too expensive. So this new sub brand will help to grow its market share, as an entry point to the brand. This diffusion strategy is more common among the high end fashion brands, which Giorgio Armani was a pioneers of in the 80s.
Realising the market for couture fashion was shrinking Giorgio Armani, began creating a number of lower priced diffusion lines, to extend the brand to a wider market. The brand now stretches from the topline Giorgio Armani and Armani Collezioni, down thorough to Emporio Armani, Armani AX and lastly Armani Jeans.
Media magazine recently ran a story about Levi’s; Will Levi’s new global brand prove a good fit in China? As part of that piece, I was interviewed by journalistic Kenny Lim, on my thoughts.
“This new offering could work for Levi’s, as a lot more consumers are likely to get to know the brand now. In terms of strategy and the rollout, it must make a very clear distinction between its main and secondary brand.
The sub-brand must have a unique look and feel and consumers need to be able to see the difference, so this has to be supported by clear communications. In terms of a brand launch, there cannot be a better time than summer – as messages of vibrancy and youthful exuberance can be conveyed and is suited for the new brand.
The new line can’t just be a cheaper version of Levi’s but yet it must still reflect the overall heritage of the brand.”
A handful of other consultants were also interviewed and added some smart comments to the debate. You can read their responses and the full story here.
One big questions to be answered, is how the new brand will fit with the current brand lines of Levi’s® (est. 1873), Dockers® (est. 1986) and Signature by Levi Strauss & Co.™ (est. 2003). Also how will they brand it; using the Levi’s name, in part or full; or create a new name and identity?
Interestingly, the red and white Levi’s ‘bat wing’ logo that the brand currently uses, was designed in 1969 by Walter Landor the founder on my company Landor.
When Levi Strauss & Co. executives wanted a new garment label for their blue jeans in 1969, they came to Walter Landor, whose designers developed the distinctive red-and-white “batwing” to be placed on back pockets. The red shield mimicked the pocket’s stitch pattern and incorporated the Levi’s lettering. This was among the first designs to mix capital and lowercase letters throughout a single logo.
In the 1950s, blue jeans were a symbol of rebellion against society, which is very similar to how they were viewed in China in the early 80s. Nowadays, they have become a mainstream garment and a staple item in everyone’s wardrobes. However, I predict the new Levi’s brand might echo its rebel roots, to help differentiate itself and better connect with the urban youth in China...X-RAY China
SID LEE: Massivart chromatic
On may 14, Sid Lee Collective was a part of the Massivart event at the SAT. A bunch of our favorite artists were selected to be part of this event. Here is some pictures from the night. Please view here SID LEE
WATBlog.com - Web, Advertising and Technology Blog in India: Google’s Pac-Man Just Cost the World 4,819,352 Hours of Time
WATBlog covered Google’s addition of Pac-Man to the list of their famous Google moments. After having made the game free for all (and having me play it for over an hour), the verdict is out. As awesome as the game is, it just cost the world 4,819,352 Hours of Time.
RescueTime is a web-based time management tool that keeps track of what you do and for how long when you are on your computer and they did an analysis of the impact Google’s Pac-Man had on the world.
A lot of people, including me, Google stuff that we already know the link of. More often than not, I prefer searching Google to find a webpage as opposed to browsing my own history. RescueTime informs us that an average Google user spends only 4 and a half active minutes on Google search per day, spread over about 22 page views. That’s roughly 11 seconds of attention invested in each Google page view. They did an analysis based a random sample set of 11,000 people.
A few points from RescueTime’s blog post (check original here) :
* The average user spent 36 seconds MORE on Google.com on the day Pac-Man was part of the landing page.
* According to Wolfram Alpha, Google had about 504,703,000 unique visitors on May 23.
* That implies that Google Pac-Man consumed 4,819,352 hours of time (beyond the 33.6m daily man hours of attention that Google Search gets in a given day)
* $120,483,800 is the dollar tally, If the average Google user has a COST of $25/hr
* For that same cost, you could hire all 19,835 google employees, from Larry and Sergey down to their janitors, and get 6 weeks of their time.
* $298,803,988 is the dollar tally if all of the Pac-Man players had an approximate cost of the average Google employee.
Now, Google gets 610 million visitors a day (Contrast that with Facebook which just managed to clear the 500 million mark (after having done so earlier in April))
If just a doodle could cost the world 4.8 million hours of time, imagine the potential of an ad on the landing page! So far, Google has refrained from advertising anything except Chrome (and Nexus One).
Truly, the data revealed by RescueTime might seem amusing, but it gives insights into the behavior of the typical Google user (which includes almost all the people browsing the net) and what the Internet Giant can do if it decides to flex its muscles. Also, as of now, the famous modification of the Google Logo (called the Google Doodle) inspire interest.
Earlier, Google Doodles were a novelty. Now, there’s a doodle for almost every occasion (with most people being surprised when there isn’t one – there was a major discussion when the Christmas doodle said Happy Holidays). Consider what Google could achieve if the doodles were ads. Of course, Google has maintained a very strict policy of a minimalistic homepage and no ads on the front page, but assume it wasn’t an ad. An indication of goodwill from Google could crash a website!
Now, compare that to Facebook. Today, according to Facebook’s own statistics, users spend an estimated 500 billion minutes on the network every month, which translates to 278 million hours every day. Imagine the potential! Read @
WATBlog.com - Web, Advertising and Technology Blog in India
RescueTime is a web-based time management tool that keeps track of what you do and for how long when you are on your computer and they did an analysis of the impact Google’s Pac-Man had on the world.
A lot of people, including me, Google stuff that we already know the link of. More often than not, I prefer searching Google to find a webpage as opposed to browsing my own history. RescueTime informs us that an average Google user spends only 4 and a half active minutes on Google search per day, spread over about 22 page views. That’s roughly 11 seconds of attention invested in each Google page view. They did an analysis based a random sample set of 11,000 people.
A few points from RescueTime’s blog post (check original here) :
* The average user spent 36 seconds MORE on Google.com on the day Pac-Man was part of the landing page.
* According to Wolfram Alpha, Google had about 504,703,000 unique visitors on May 23.
* That implies that Google Pac-Man consumed 4,819,352 hours of time (beyond the 33.6m daily man hours of attention that Google Search gets in a given day)
* $120,483,800 is the dollar tally, If the average Google user has a COST of $25/hr
* For that same cost, you could hire all 19,835 google employees, from Larry and Sergey down to their janitors, and get 6 weeks of their time.
* $298,803,988 is the dollar tally if all of the Pac-Man players had an approximate cost of the average Google employee.
Now, Google gets 610 million visitors a day (Contrast that with Facebook which just managed to clear the 500 million mark (after having done so earlier in April))
If just a doodle could cost the world 4.8 million hours of time, imagine the potential of an ad on the landing page! So far, Google has refrained from advertising anything except Chrome (and Nexus One).
Truly, the data revealed by RescueTime might seem amusing, but it gives insights into the behavior of the typical Google user (which includes almost all the people browsing the net) and what the Internet Giant can do if it decides to flex its muscles. Also, as of now, the famous modification of the Google Logo (called the Google Doodle) inspire interest.
Earlier, Google Doodles were a novelty. Now, there’s a doodle for almost every occasion (with most people being surprised when there isn’t one – there was a major discussion when the Christmas doodle said Happy Holidays). Consider what Google could achieve if the doodles were ads. Of course, Google has maintained a very strict policy of a minimalistic homepage and no ads on the front page, but assume it wasn’t an ad. An indication of goodwill from Google could crash a website!
Now, compare that to Facebook. Today, according to Facebook’s own statistics, users spend an estimated 500 billion minutes on the network every month, which translates to 278 million hours every day. Imagine the potential! Read @
WATBlog.com - Web, Advertising and Technology Blog in India
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
