Category archive: Marketing

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

The Economist: Among the Audience

This week’s Economist (April 22, 2006 issue date) has an excellent 16 page special report on new media, called Among the Audience. It covers much similar ground as we did in our book, Communities Dominate Brands, such as having two pages on blogging (we did a chapter) or including the Ohmy News case like we did as a case study, etc.

The story is a particularly good read for anyone involved in the “content side” of old media. It helps explain the roles of blogging, wikis, and user-generated content. I think for covering new media, it does leave the real innovations - user sharing, engagement, and the role of advertising/marketing in that space - at too little coverage, but it perhaps was not the purpose. Certainly the Economist article is well researched and covers many of the new media phenomena such as pointing out that podcasting is not quite the same to radio, as blogging is to print media; for one thing podcasts cannot be delivered in real time (you cannot cover breaking stories efficiently with podcasts) - so podcasts are more time-shifting media; and unlike blogs, you can’t link from one podcast to another.

For anyone who reads our blog, I urge buying this week’s Economist and reading that special report. It is definitely worth reading!

Sunday, April 23, 2006

Relating to the public - what a novel concept!

But what happens if big company brands realize that they no longer need a media middleman to connect with consumers?

So asks Scott Karp, only three+ years or so after Adriana Cronin-Lukas actively started taking that question direct to the big brands. Of course it’s a matter of when, not if.

Link via Dave Winer, who has his own reaction.

Friday, April 21, 2006

Battelle on Google, me on 'brand strategy'

Author, search expert, and all around smartypants (I mean that in a very nice, slightly awe-struck way) John Battelle writes of Google:

As I’ve written elsewhere, I believe the Google brand is in need of message clarification - most folks still see it as that “Aha!” service that changed how they search the Web, but increasingly, it’s also the brand that does deals with Sony Pictures to promote personalized homepages. Clearly, brand strategy is on [Google VP of Global Communications and Public Affairs Elliot] Schrage’s mind.

I replied in a comment to John:

Google doesn’t need a new ‘message’ or ‘brand strategy’. Brand is behaviour. Google needs to look long and hard at its behaviour and change it as needed. The nodes on the network (that is, people) will spread its own (their own) messages about that, as they are already doing. I’m talking individual customers/users as well as the agencies who bring them so much revenue, who are often treated as if they are lucky to have the privilege to work with Google - not as customers who spread the bread on Google’s butter.

(I obviously meant to write “customers who spread butter on Google’s bread,” but having messed up, I’m not so sure my error isn’t closer to the truth.)

This is, by the way, exactly what I was talking about when I wrote of Danny Sullivan’s valuable brand just yesterday. Battelle himself has the same sort of brand, as it happens.

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Danny Sullivan's multi-million dollar brand

Search Engine Watch‘s Danny Sullivan has written a lengthy, very interesting piece about his decade of writing about search. In addition to the juicy goodness related to search in his piece, it’s fascinating to see how Danny Sullivan has become such a brand in his own right - and one that didn’t need focus groups, overpaid image consultants, or lots of smoke and mirrors about ‘branding’ from people who wouldn’t know the true meaning of the word if it hit them in the head.

Rather, Danny’s brand has emerged from his behaviour, which is precisely where every company’s true brand originates. All of the flashy logos in the world won’t matter if everyone thinks of you as unreliable or mediocre. By being both reliable and excellent, Danny Sullivan has an amount of trust and esteem from his constituents that most companies would pay millions to acquire. For trust and esteem are the true measures of a long-lasting, sterling brand. Something as seemingly ‘little’ as whether or not your landing pages are useful or frustrating and time wasting can have a huge effect on your branding. So how are you doing with branding - you know, the whole reliability and trust thing? 

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

And marketers wonder why people hate them...

Philips has patented a TV that bars viewers from changing channels during commercials, in addition to disabling the ability of DVR viewers to fast forward through adverts. Unless you feel like paying extra money to be able to do those things. As Mile from Techdirt says:

Yes, this is a “feature” that not a single person in this world would want—except perhaps folks like former TV exec Jamie Kellner, who once said that people who went to the bathroom during commercial breaks were “stealing” TV...What will they work on next? A couch that won’t let you stand up and walk away during commercial breaks? Or how about a toilet seat that won’t open during commercials?

It’s completely obvious, but I’m going to say it anyway: Imagine what good could come about if all of the time, energy, and money put into developing these ridiculous attempts at kidnapping people in increments of 30 seconds was actually put into providing something of real value.