You Brand

The other day I wrote that advertising’s biggest enemy is advertising itself.

Looking at many ads today – if I have the time and desire to do so – I ask myself what the brands behind the ads are trying to tell me. Is there a clear message, a call for action, a suggestion that adds value for me personally? In other words, does it engage and ‘turn me on’? If it does, I will act and follow their suggestion. If it doesn’t, I won’t. Does this sound too simple? Well it is simple, advertising is no rocket science. It was a big mistake to turn advertising into a science over the years, because it meant that advertising often stopped being an art. The negative consequences as regards creativity are well known.

If the brand knows exactly what is to be to achieved with the campaign, the necessary metrics to measure success or failure can be defined accordingly. CPM just says how much it will cost to ‘show’ the ad to one thousand viewers. Cost being an exclusion criteria in the rational world of ‘scientific’ advertising led to CPM being used by many brands as a benchmark to evaluate campaigns.

In today’s world, just showing an ad to as many consumers as possible for a short period of time without initializing a productive interaction means that the brand is not exploiting the full potential of advertising. Relying on CPM to evaluate the ad is therefore a mistake, i.e. CPM = Cost per Mistake

In today’s connected world, the credibility and effectiveness of marketing depends more than ever on consistency across all channels – think about it!

Broken promises are worse than no promises – think about it!

You only have one chance to leave a first impression – think about it!

Squidoo, a company founded by Seth Godin, is launching a great platform for brands to organize and join the conversation. Brands have realized by now that conversation matters and that they can’t control it. ‘Brands in Public’ enables them to organize, join, amplify and seed it. Basically they are putting the conversation on one page open to everybody. Brands can take charge of the development of the page and personalize it for US$ 400,- a month. In my opinion that is a fair price to pay for the added value that brands are getting in return. So, check it out:

http://www.squidoo.com/brandsinpublic/hq

We’re all democrats (not the political party), as long as the majority is behind us.

Incredible as always with fascinating facts about Internet, media, mobile and more . Mobile will be the world’s primary connection tool to the Internet in 2020 bringing us convergence. Already today Nokia manufactures 13 cell phones every second. The computer in the cell phone today is a million times cheaper, a thousand times more powerful and about a hundred thousand times smaller than the one computer at MIT in 1965.

Watch the new video:

Did You Know Version 4http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ILQrUrEWe8

Actually I love advertising, especially TVC’s. The commercial break being an interruption of the program I actually want to watch, I use it to check my Emails, get myself something to drink, check what’s happening on other channels etc.

Nevertheless I’m one of thousands being counted to determine the CPT. Advertising is bought on the basis of what it costs to be shown to one thousand viewers and the CPT is still used as a benchmark to calculate the relative cost of a campaign. This does not strike me as being terribly efficient in today’s media world, because many people are not watching what they are being shown. Like me they use the commercial break to do all sorts of other things.

Why are so many people ignoring traditional advertising and even railing against it?

In my opinion there are quite a few reasons, some more obvious than others. Today I would like to talk about quality. There are too many boring ads. If the commercial break is built on the principle of interruption, why not do it in a creative way? Tell a story, be credible, entertain your audience, deliver information that adds value for them – there are many things an advertiser can do to prevent me and others from checking Emails during the commercial break.

Successful brands polarize. Trying to be everybody’s darling means you won’t be noticed by anybody. Their advertising needs to polarize as well, since it is an extension of the brand. If it’s perceived as being boring, loud, dumb, worthless, annoying, the consumer will eventually look at the brand the same way. Perception is reality.

But the problem is more often than not the client and not the agency. An agency can only be as good as their client allows them to be.

What do you do during commercial breaks?

Corporate-identity programs are the expression of a corporation’s culture, personality and the products and services it has to offer – the very symbol and signature of the values that should inspire trust with consumers, employees, clients, suppliers and the financial community. Names, logos, colors, fonts, slogans and architecture have been an essential part of major branding strategies since the middle of the last century (Marc Gobé: emotional branding).

Corporate identities were developed to enable brands to make a more or less permanent visual statement about themselves. It was hoped that those statements would in turn define consumer perceptions. Many, especially premium brands, developed a rigidity bearing a resemblance to the Ten Commandments. Their headquarters and showrooms felt like modern interpretations of Cathedrals. The objective in both cases was to communicate in a convincing and at times dazzling manner that the brand and only the brand was in control. Individual interpretations by the believers, i.e. consumers, were not an option. Aspiration was cultivated, automatically including a portion of ‘hard to get’.

The social Web has fundamentally changed the relationship between brands and consumers. Consumers have been empowered by the Web and turned into ‘prosumers’, i.e. they are both producers and consumers. Brands are loosing control, as ‘prosumers’ shape them, influence their value more than ever before and effectively acquire co-ownership.

Brands need more flexiblity, because ‘prosumer’ tastes are changing more often. Not only that, tastes are often different from one ‘prosumer’ to the next. Identities have to be emotionally connected, rather than written in stone. Brands need to incorporate values like social, fresh, immersive, transformative, democratic and trustworthy. Otherwise they will fall into oblivion.

The first consequence for corporate identity is apparent: Brands must include the ‘prosumer’ globally in defining the identity, rather than leaving it to an agency. Crowdsourcing would be a good way to start. What do you think?

The other day I was finishing up an important presentation and realized that in some charts the artwork wasn’t optimal and I needed better photos. I got in touch with a company I had used in the past, realized that my account was empty and transferred some money via PayPal. Usually this takes a couple of minutes, but not this time. After a couple of hours, I sent the company an Email, expecting a quick response – no such luck. The matter is still not sorted out. Once it is, I will post about it.

Since I wasn’t getting anywhere, I started looking and listening around and found Shutterstock. I checked their royalty-free stock photography and saw that they had what I was looking for. I then looked at their subscription models – they have some very interesting ones – and chose one that met my requirements. The money transfer only took a couple of minutes, I downloaded some great stock photography and could at last finalize my presentation.

Then I found out that Shutterstock are also on Twitter and decided to ‘follow’. An auto responder thanked me for following (I usually don’t like auto responders) and gave me a coupon code for a 10% off at my next purchase (that I liked). Having just bought a subscription, I couldn’t use the coupon immediately. So I asked them via Email for how long the coupon was valid. An auto responder (again) thanked me for contacting them and informed me that someone would get in touch within one business day. As I mentioned before, I usually don’t like auto responders, but in this case it made sense to me.

Believe it or not, but within one business day they did get in touch. Stephanie, their account executive, sent me an Email in perfect German (she must have checked my IP-address) and asked for the coupon code number. I sent her the number and in less than one hour, she informed me that the coupon was valid till 2012.

I was and am impressed – this is customer service at its best. Shutterstock have obviously realized that happy customers are their most important asset in today’s Social Web. So if you’re ever looking for great photos, why not check them out.