January 27, 2010
Apple tablet buzz at fever pitch
By John Boudreau
San Jose Mercury News
The months of buzz leading up to today’s widely anticipated announcement of Apple’s multimedia tablet rivals that for any previous product announcements by Apple. Yet no one outside of Apple’s inner circle knows for sure what the Cupertino company will unveil at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.
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January 11, 2010
Forget Being a ‘Lead’ Agency; Strive to Be a Dream Agency
In response to Barry Wacksman’s article in Ad Age: Forget Being a ‘Lead’ Agency; Strive to Be a Dream Agency.
Wacksman makes good points. Responsible creative practitioners know that digital media are a means to an end, not the end itself. Strategy still determines the best mix of media. In an era of blogs and social networking, the agencies that will thrive are the ones that know how and when to propose a digital solution. The traditional agency has not been replaced by the digital agency. They have converged.
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January 11, 2010
Trash Your Product for Growth
The new Domino’s campaign unabashedly trashes its own product. In possibly the boldest display of transparency, the campaign airs actual focus groups where consumers compare its crust to cardboard and its sauce to ketchup. Brilliant move. For the millions of Domino’s loyalists, improving the product’s taste will be welcomed. Unlike the New Coke debacle, I doubt loyalists will take offense at the change. For them, it’s a good thing getting better.
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December 28, 2009
Curator Culture
Marketers are scared. YOU were named as Time Magazine’s Person of the Year and CONSUMERS took the nod as Advertising Age’s Agency of the Year. You have more power than ever. But it’s not your consumer power that terrifies marketers. It’s your sway over millions of other consumers as a curator. A curator with unlimited [...]
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December 11, 2009
Greenwashing’s Two-Edged Sword
Thank you to those who wave the flag of “Greenwashing” at companies who are not walking their talk. I work with businesses across the country and I can confirm that the fear of being tarred with the greenwash label is a motivating force firmly in place inside Corporate America.
However, I’m also beginning to see evidence [...]
December 3, 2009
I Am So Over YOU
In early 2005, I began writing about the “Curator Culture,” the rapid shift from one-to-many brand communication to a many-to-many world where we all “curate” on behalf of one another. The Time Magazine 2006 Person of the Year was YOU and Advertising Age made a similar choice when picking its Agency of the Year. Then came YouTube, consumer-generated everything, and a bevy of logos with smiles. Was this to be the friendly decade of YOU, where marketers fall all over themselves to acknowledge the shared provenance of today’s brands? Or, more accurately, relinquished control?
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November 18, 2009
The Dark Side of Brand Names
Political correctness—and the scrutiny of language it spawned—might not be the cultural neurosis it was in the early 90’s, but we’re still sensitive to it. Except when it comes to certain brand names. These names, like all brand names, are able to acquire their own meaning and associations over time. But taken out of their fuzzy, protective brand context, they have unintended—and often unfortunate—associations.
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November 11, 2009
The Intersection of Awareness and New Media
By Bill Roth
Kashi is a case study on how to capture the opportunity that can be realized by the convergence of sustainability awareness and new media. Steven Addis and John Creson of Addis Creson have been managing Kashi’s branding and marketing strategy since 2002. During this time, Kashi has seen a quintupling of its annual revenue.
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November 5, 2009
GM and the Branding of Auto 2.0
Can GM reincarnate itself and write the next chapter of the auto industry? As its first 100-year long chapter comes to a close, GM faces a post-petroleum reality and consumer behavior that may be forever changed. Ironically, the “New GM” can look to a prescient part of its own history to guide the future: Saturn.
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October 30, 2009
Word Factoid: “Halloween”
The name as we use it is a Scottish shortening of “allhallow-even” (”even” meaning “evening”) and dates from 1745.
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