Ben McConnell at Church of the customer weighs unwanted marketing in 2008.. It came in at 21.5 pounds a new record. Multiply it times every household in the US and elsewhere and you find entire forests taken down to send us this crap. A fleet of supertankers delivering the fuel to fly it and deliver the drivel to our mail boxes, then into our regional landfills.
Beth Dunn, says she's reading Naked Conversations right now, something I haven't done for a couple of years. She makes reference to Claire, the fictitious character who blogged for Vichy, a L'Oreal Cosmetics brand. I had forgotten about old Claire, who we covered in a Chapter Called Doing it Wrong.
Beth used Claire to illustrate her views on what brands are and are not, a conversation that keeps popping coming up over here. I loved not only the clarity of her thinking, but the way she articulates. For example:
"A brand isn’t my friend (or fan) on FaceBook. A brand isn’t someone I will follow on Twitter. A brand isn’t, in short, a person. It’s an abstract idea. Same goes for a product. A car is a car. A pipe is a pipe. A cigar is, in fact, just a cigar.'
I wish I had been so articulate when I was debating with a couple of weeks back when I was debating with Jeremiah Owyang. I objected to his even asking if brands should have Twitter accounts. My simple answer is: "Of course not. The entire concept is entirely lame.
Beth does an excellent job of telling you why.
According to CNET's Alex Moskalyuk, US Ad revenue will grow to $152.3 billion in 2007 a gain of 2.3%. Internet of course will enjoy the biggest gain of 16 %, but according to the ZDNet Research, Cable network advertising will grow by 5.9 % and consumer and Sunday Magazines will grow by 5.9%.
Maybe, these guys know what they are doing. Maybe not. They just might be stuffing a dead horse with dollars.
I was just giving a client some advice and actually I thought it was pretty good advice, so I thought I'd blog about it. He just paid for the advice, but you guys can have it for free, but let's keep it a secret a from him, okay?
We were discussing competitors. He has a startup and has not yet come to market. So it's frustrating when there are competitors who are already out in the marketplace, making announcements and getting customers, while we fine tune the 1s and 0s that will become his product.
He's like to take a swipe at them, and I counsel heavily against it. It's likely that I'd council against it even if he had a product.
Years ago, I had a client who was very sharp at marketing. He used to tell me: "Love your competitors. Look at them as a prospect would look at them. Look at their product, their web site and find every reason why someone would want to be their customer.
Now, shut up and sit down, until you have that something and the market can use it. Look at their website and find every reason why someone would want to use it.
Then make yours better. Do not come to market until you can make yours better.
The idea is not to beat the competitor. The idea is to help the customer win.
It's a lethal strategy.
Alex, the Scrapblog Community Guy has taken it on himself to send an orgy of link love to the bloggers who helped us get ready for prime time by trying out the product last week.
What a great idea, Alex. Thanks all you bloggers out there.
Technorati Tags: scrapblog
Alex, the Scrapblog Community Guy has taken it on himself to send an orgy of link love to the bloggers who helped us get ready for prime time by trying out the product last week.
What a great idea, Alex. Thanks all you bloggers out there.
Technorati Tags: scrapblog
In a Businesswire announcement this morning, Soundview, the executive book summary organization has named Naked Conversations to its list of 30 best books of 2007. We were selected, the release says, from 1200 business books.
Soundview offers newsletter summaries of books to busy executives.
They also provided professional studio time for Robert and me to read excerpts from our book for a CD that they are also marketing. I was impressed at how adept Robert is as a voice narrator. If the video podcasting thing doesn't work out, maybe he can get a job as studio talent.
This is our second citation. Earlier, Amazon named us #6 on its list of best 2006 books in its technology and internet category.
Technorati Tags: soundview, nakedconversations
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I've been reading Presentation Zen, lately, Garr Reynolds blog on presentation and the language and look of it. He is a veteran of the world of corpspseak. He sees the elegance I see in simple presentation and articulation. It's a good read. Give him a glance, when you get the chance.
Technorati Tags: presentationzen, garrreynolds
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David Parmet, Brian Oberkirch and I have a few things in common. We are all recovering publicists, having spent significant portions of our professional lives practicing traditional PR for agencies both large and small. All three of us are also completely immersed in social media and all three of us try to consult for food mortgage and other sustenance.
David and Brian have begun to consult PR agencies on why they need to adopt social media and how they should go about doing it. I have agreed to join in this endeavor on an as needed basis. All three of us have done a fair amount of this sort of work over the past year. I have been in talking with companies like CNET, Wells Fargo and Hitachi data Systems to discuss blog strategy and I am eager to do more of this sort of work.
By focusing on PR and advertising agencies, I think David and Brian are choosing a prime market. The role of the PR practitioner is changing on a fundamental level and the ad agencies already know they are being challenged to find new strategies appropriate for the interactive world. I look forward to working with them and their clients.
One additional note--this is a non-monogomous relationship. I have previously announced that I will be available for clients of Hubbub, a next generation agency formed by Giovanni Rodriquez, yet another recovering publicist. Likewise, Joseph Jaffe and Shel Holtz, two more social media savvy communications professionals have formed Crayon offering similar next-generation services.
We all know and respect each other. We all see huge opportunities and expect to be joined by many other quality consultants.
While some are these days declaring an end to blogging and social media, others see new beginnings as the new, improved ways for business communications swim into the mainstream.
I have long been pleased that most of my Comment and Trackback spam has not been from legitimate companies but from your usual run of the mill slimeballs. I'm fearful that this is about to change. For the past few days, I have had several Best Western Hotel Messages inappropriately attached to this blog apparently by Best Western Hotels.
I sincerely help that this is being done, not by the chain itself, but by some subcontractor who is running amuck and needs to be hauled in. I hope that hauling comes soon. If legitimate companies start stooping to littering the blogosphere with unwanted and ineffective crap, it will be a sorry day indeed.
Is it just me, or are others of you having similar experiences?
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