3 Ways to Push For Change
A couple weeks ago I had the luxury of attending the American Advertising Federation – RDU presentation with Rick Boyko. As the former Chief Creative Officer of Ogilvy & Mather, Boyko currently heads the VCU Brandcenter. Since arriving at VCU, Rick Boyko has made more changes in the past six years than the Brandcenter has had in its entire existence. More »
Weekly Wrap Up #9
1. Purchasing funnel for the ‘New Social Consumer’
Social media has infiltrated the purchasing funnel, helping consumers make informed decisions, from what to have for lunch to where to go on vacation. Depending on the decision, sometimes you turn to your social graph, and sometimes you turn to Google. What online channels should you be targeting in order to reach the perfect audience for your product? M Booth and Beyond took a look inside the “new social consumer” to find out how they research products and services online. Check out the full infographic at Mashable.
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Branding Is The Name of The Game
In the era of booming social playgrounds and countless communication touch-points, it’s a wonder how we, as consumers, can keep up with which companies are selling the latest and greatest products or services. We live in a time when the average person who operates a blog, updates their Facebook or tweets a tweet can be a brand’s biggest spokesman or worst nightmare. With the weight of the external environment growing minute-by-minute around us, the role of branding has become a necessity for increased awareness and overall business performance for a company.
It’s time-old, but there are five necessities all brands should strive to gain our mobile population’s attention and gain their loyalty. More »
Tween Twitter Takeover
It’s time for me to come clean: I think Justin Bieber is a genius.
From the beginning (he was discovered by Usher on YouTube) the 16-year-old singer has been an Internet sensation and has continued his web domination through Twitter during 2010.
A new article gives businesses the top Twitter lessons you can learn from Bieber—many of which are actually worth listening to. Here are some of the main takeaways from the article:
- Stay current with pop culture happenings
- Know your audience – it makes reaching out via social media more effective
- Stay current with your customers – understand their interests and tailor your conversations and events to them
Although his assent to fame has been unconventional, this pint-sized superstar is taking pop culture by storm one tweet at a time, showing the ever-emerging power of social media branding.
Competition = Drive = Goodness
With the recent melodrama on the US Women’s Ski team, I started thinking about competition and drive. It sounds as though everyone expects Vonn and Mancuso to be best friends and sacrifice for one another. Yes, they are teammates, but they are also competitors. They are individually striving for Gold because they know when they go home at night, it’s their medal, not the team’s.
This individual drive needs to bleed into the marketing and PR world. An industry, like a ski team, strives for the greater good, but is also looking out for their own interests. If everyone on the ski team practiced the same techniques and got the same times, no one person would advance, just as competitors in an industry. A little healthy competition can be good for the whole.
For example, Client A and Client M are working in the shoe industry, both striving to make a non-slip tennis shoe. Client A hires a world-famous engineer, and in an effort to keep up, Client M wants the same engineer, the same materials, the same everything. This isn’t going to get either shoe company a breakthrough, just a lot of the same thing in the market place. A company needs to foster a proactive and not reactive mentality by striving to try new things to break that ‘world record’ in the industry. From what I’ve read, Vonn and Mancuso are very different individuals who go about skiing in two very different ways—one learns by the book, while the other has natural skill; one uses commercial endorsements to further her career, while the other relies on excelling her sport; and so on… Yet each lady has medaled this year.
Instead of worrying about competitor initiatives and copycatting, be bold and be proactive. Strive for Gold every time, because someone has to get Silver and you don’t want to be it.
