Category: Marketing
Social Media is Not (Just) a Marketing Channel
As a the number of brands appearing in social media is growing, it seems so is the confusion about how to use it. Can social media bring return on investment? Should it replace a traditional marketing? Which sites are most effective?
The answer is nuanced. Social media can John Tucker Must Die move Heima psp
be a marketing tool, but it is also PR, customer service, focus groups and networking, among other things.
And if brands use the wrong approach at the wrong time, they can make huge missteps – and with all those millions of people watching, it can be disastrous. Router manufacturer Belkin learned this lesson the hard way when they tried to pay a blogger for good product reviews
.
So what is social media? (more…)
Think you know your competition?
If you answered yes, and your list only includes the brands which are in your immediate competitive space (the ones you see year after year at that Vegas trade show) – this is your wakeup call. It’s true, you ultimately will be competing for a sale against like brands, but what happens before a consumer decides to purchase a specific item; let’s say a fishing pole for example. Prior to that decision, a consumer is likely shopping for a form of recreation or entertainment, rather than a brand or product. This effectively increases your brands competitive landscape. You’re now fighting other forms of recreation/entertainment AND their respective brands.
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download This Is England With that said, it’s crucial that you begin looking inside and outside your industries to gain knowledge and insight when establishing your benchmarks. Whether they’re brand, product or service related – the perspective to be gained is invaluable. This will help in developing smarter products/services and ultimately a more compelling brand experience. Unless of course you’re content being the “smart follower” in your industry.
If the notion of more competition is making your stomach turn, rest easy. Here are some tips to help you navigate an ever-evolving brand landscape:
• Look around you and learn from others
• Treat “emotion” as a benchmark
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• Know your competition (inside/outside your industry)
• Benchmark all facets of your business (product, brand, service, etc)
• Create great products as well as great brand experiences• Identify key consumer trends/habits/preferences
You’ll be competing with anyone and everyone, which means you need to keep an eye on anyone and everyone…
Ad Copy Slam #1
In a tribute to Jerry Seinfeld (Whose show had an interesting tagline: “A show about nothing”), I think I’ll start this blog commentary by saying: “What is the deal with…”
Hence. Ahem. In my best Jerry Seinfeld…
What is the deal with academics always trashing copywriters? In a recent Ad Age Online CMO Strategy Column, Grand View College professor Stephen Winzenburg (who incidentally has written a book, entitled “TV’s Greatest Sitcoms”) weighs in on taglines.He makes some interesting points about how taglines shouldn’t be so generic that they become interchangeable. But he also seemingly, misses the mark on some of the more successful ideas in the industry (love em or hate em).
Loving taglines is indeed a subjective thing. One thing I know about taglines is that they have to say a whole bunch in very few words. They must position, differentiate, exude emotion (or create some visceral response) and be catchy as hell in, oh, like no more than 8 words. They are tough to write, but really great when they work.
The Onion Movie movie Interestingly enough, Winzenburg debunks the Easy Button and Staples’ “That was easy” tag, because he didn’t get the ad. I think he missed the fact that this brand has been doing this campaign for over a year (maybe more now) and has built incredible equity in both the big idea and the tag. And might I add successfully, gaining market share throughout the campaign.
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Lonesome Dove buy He also thinks the Macy’s Holiday tagline hit the mark this year: “The Magic of Macy’s.” You be the judge. Personally, a retail store using Magic and alliteration in a tagline, wow, that’s really breakthrough. Don’t you think???
Anyway, here is his slam on crummy taglines
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P.S. He also notes poor punctuation in taglines (clearly this communications professor doesn’t get copywriters), and he really isn’t even talking about taglines (mostly), he is talking about campaign lines and the ones he chooses are for the most part very value/retail driven.
NOTE: I feel like it’s my duty to report copy slams. So more to come.
Creative kudos.
Behance Network, a national creative network dedicated to inspiring, educating and promoting creative professionals, is featuring HDC’s Trek ‘08 site today.
While this may seem like a mere design-insider-pat-on-the-back, it’s a tremendous honor to be selected as a featured site. Sites are chosen by a small team of professional, well-regarded designers, developers, product designers, and researchers.
Features like this remind us that – while technology and branding are critical – beautiful and effective creative is what makes a site stand apart.
Wonder Dog hd Hearty congratulations to Trek, Dan Herwig (for his work and submitting the site to Behance) and to the rest of the Trek team. Well done, folks. Well done.
More about the Behance team:
We advance the philosophy of Productive Creativity in three ways. First, we seek out and learn from exceptionally product creative people and teams. Second, we synthesize the best practices and insights we learn to make them accessible to the broader creative community. Third, we publish articles, design products, run seminars, gather resources, and plan other initiatives to promote Productive Creativity in the creative community.The Bridge on the River Kwai download
The greatest way to spread Productive Creativity is to feature it. We are constantly on the lookout for creative professionals that are “getting it right” and making ideas happen. We feature the work of these They Drive by Night rip productive people and teams, along with their insights, in the Featured Section of Behance.com.
Active Insights on the Brand Show
Our friends at Two West have a great podcast called the Brand Show
. Every week, they explore the brands people love, hate, and love to hate. Their guest list includes some of the best minds in the biz, including some familiar names from Hanson Dodge Creative. This week, our own Dawn Finnegan and Marty Ellery discuss our Active Insights research initiative. You can check it out here The Enforcer movie
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Your Product Sucks!
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In our industry, looking back at the year can sometimes be a lackluster trip down memory lane. Not only with our clients but the entire marketplace where we “fight the good fight” everyday. We try our hardest to break through the clutter, build equity or establish lasting value for clients by creating points of difference that effectively position a product against the competition…. Blah-blah-blah – insert tagline here for another forgettable foray. 2007, however, introduced us to a very memorable product worthy of review: the iPhone.
Its a Free World… full movie The cellular phone industry had absolutely no point of difference, no true demand beyond utility, only the lesser of existing evils with me-too product and even lesser-loved service providers, Apple once again proves the critics wrong with the introduction of [another] phenomenon, the iPhone. Let me pull the curtain back– our job as marketers is not rocket science, although science is involved. It is proven that you feel before you think. While you rationalize, persuasion comes after an emotional connection and is limited to address needs, which is much less powerful than creating the emotion of want. After all, the “I want that” reaction is a much more desirable position for brands to be in when it comes to the price-value equation and the optimum position for the battle of consumer loyalty and company profitability. Nobody needed an iPhone; they just wanted one and were willing to pay for it. Great marketing didn’t create this demand or influence this decision, it aided in clearly telling the story of a great product, which in turn makes for great marketing.
Being “Good” is Good Business to Female Consumers
After being neck deep in the Active Insights project for a few weeks, it’s interesting to see just how many of our recommended ideas and strategies are aligned with other prominent sources out in the marketplace.
I was reading Ad Age Online and I saw something that immediately caught my attention. They’ve been running this great column called CMO Strategy, with articles from various editors and reporters about value proposition-rich topics that are meant to appeal specifically to M-level business associates (marketing managers). This past week’s column featured a thought-provoking article by Kimberly Anderson Kelleher entitled, “’Good’ Matters to Consumers.”