Managing Brands from inside the Fishbowl

Tom Fishburne, creator of my all-time favorite Word-of-Mouth cartoon, has published a new one, which depicts perfectly the situation brand managers are in today:



Tom writes:

In today's hyper-connected world, consumers choose how they interact with your brand, not the other way around. And they're more apt to look through or around the brand "persona" to the real deal. And then share what they find with others in blogs or other social media. We're all in a fishbowl now, and we're all held up to a different standard.

Exactly right and a great metaphor! Very often, I find myself in front of people from agencies or big brands, who want to know my opinion about that clever new campaign idea, which depends 100% on consumers not figuring out, what is going on. I usually ask them: but what if your audience finds that out? The usual answer: how should they?

Well, I guess from now on, I will just refer them to this cartoon...

The reason why there still is no real iPod killer!!

Okay, it's probably already kind of old. But it's so great, I had to blog it anyhow. A funny little clip shows, what happens, when a company like Microsoft starts to work on a new iPod package...

From YouTube

Guy Kawasaki on The Art of Branding

Guy Kawasaki, Apple's former "Chief Evangelist", started a weblog just a few weeks ago. So far it's a pretty interesting one. Now he wrote a nice piece on the Art of Branding - with 8 very valid, very wise points !

My favorite:

4. Apply the opposite test.
How many times have you read a product description like this? “Our software is scalable, secure, easy-to-use, and fast?” Companies use these adjectives as if no other company claims its product is scalable, secure, easy-to-use, and fast. See if your competition uses the antonyms of the adjectives that you use to describe your product. If it doesn't, your description is useless. For example, I've never seen a company say that its product was limited, full of leaks, hard-to-use, and slow.

Sounds so simple and logical, doesn't it ? Why is it then that I keep having these endless, fruitless discussions with some clients about this when working on this press release or that ad copy ?

Wrong clients, you say ? Maybe... ;-)

The Mystery of Dalarö - Brilliant Online Branding Site from Volvo

To promote their all new S40, Volvo has launched a nice microsite about the "Mystery of Dalarö" (via iChat from Heiko).Really a great concept and a wonderful realisation !

Although the campaign is aimed only at the UK market, sites like Blogdex or Popdex clearly show that people all over the world are enjoying it. Once again: global reach without paying extra - courtesy of the Internet and viral marketing... ;-)

Btw, Volvo Germany also has a S40 microsite, which is nice, too - but not nearly as good as the British...

Update@23Mar2004: Additional Background Information available

Sony integrates Weblogs into the Online Campaign for Spiderman 2

Although the movie Spiderman 2 won't be released until next summer, Sony Pictures is already trying to create some buzz about it. For example, just this week a teaser trailer was made available on Yahoo. They also have a very comprehensive website online.

There Sony is trying two different approaches to use weblogs for promoting the movie (via pointblog.com and Martin Roell):

First there is a group weblog, written by three production assistants during the time the film was shot. Nice idea, but it only contains postings from April and May 2003 and there are probably not many people who are interested in a weblog with content that is nearly a year old...

The second approach looks much more promising: Users of Blogger and Live Journal can download templates and graphics to bring the Spiderman look and feel to their weblogs.

I think, that's a pioneering idea with great potential !! And here is why...

It is not really new to provide devoted fans and customers with digital giveaways, which let them customize their personal environment. Sony is also doing this with the usual stuff: wallpapers, screensavers or buddy icons.

But from a marketers point of view there is a problem with that: most of these elements are only visible to the fan himself. Wouldn't it be a lot better, if he could instead show his affection to the outside world - or at least to friends & family ?

Weblogs can solve this problem perfectly !

They usually use templates and stylesheets, which are as easy to change as the ringtone of a mobile or the desktop picture of a pc. Within seconds the whole weblog can be temporarily turned into a giant ad for the blogger's favorite brand !!

And one that is really hard to overlook while still being relatively unintrusive and also very authentic. Because it is not really an ad. It is more an endorsement by a person who's opinion is obviously of some interest to the people who are reading his weblog...

So for brands with very devoted customers, weblog templates and stylesheets can become really interesting agents for viral marketing and a very efficient way to complement an online branding campaign.

By the way, if you have any doubt that this works, just pay a short visit to the weblog of Jason Shellen - he clearly got infected !! ;-)