All posts tagged Marketing

What Powers Your Day?

by jaywalk1 on April 5, 2012 in Thoughts with No comments

Are there external forces that guide your day? Encourage creative thinking? Increase productivity?

For me, music tops the list, but there are other forces at play, and most of those come from the stream of information that I’m presented with throughout the day.

It is not a new theory that we are influenced by the information we consume, so I’ve setup a mix of feeds and email streams that serve me information on leadership, marketing, social media, innovation and public relations.

I enjoy diving into the themes presented and really thinking about how they can apply to my day to day situations. Recently, I have seen a greater focus on leadership, particularly the perceived lack of good global leadership in business and world affairs. If there’s not an article about issues with current leaders, then there’s an article about how non-traditional business strategies are being employed to shake up the people who are supposed to be managing for success today and laying the groundwork for dominance tomorrow.

Here are two Asian-inspired articles for you chew on as you think about leadership today:

Business Skills and Buddhist Mindfulness – WSJ

Some Executive-Education Professors Teach Ways Students Can Calm Their Minds, Increase Focus

The 21st-century samurai – Japan’s Nostalgia for Leadership – The Economist

 

In the End, Culture…and Planking Win

by jaywalk1 on January 10, 2012 in Advertising with No comments
More Fun in the Philippines
More Fun in the Philippines

Ad Age and CREATIVITY recently covered a new campaign developed by BBDO Geurrero Manilla that turned out to be a big hit. The slogan for the campaign is pretty simple: “It’s more fun in the Philippines.”

The campaign has started to grow in popularity due to the cultural connections. There are several user-generated iterations, but this is one of my favorites so far.

No matter how you feel about planking, you can’t deny that culture wins.

Great campaigns create a point of connection with their target audiences. When that connection is centered on culture and you give it room to grow, you’re bound to get some interesting results.

Remember – Culture (and in this case…planking) wins.

Click here for the goods. 

Reverse Marketology or a Dose of PR?

by jaywalk1 on March 25, 2008 in Gen Y, Public Relations with 6 Comments

Reverse Marketology, Gen-Y Marketology, PR Prescriptions

Today, writer Sarah Kliff posted a web exclusive to Newsweek.com titled Reverse Marketology. Throughout the article, Kliff references several branded campaigns which include more lifestyle info and helpful tips than actual sales messaging. Her take on the rationale behind the campaigns: “We’ve entered the age of the really counterintuitive ad…What they’re doing is banking on the idea that they can win customers with flattery and lots of helpful information.”

There are a couple things that seem a little off to me. First, I don’t think flattery plays much of a role in advertising today, and second, the [helpful information] + [product] = [customers] equation is more complex than the way it is being presented.

Boston University marketing professor C.B. Bhattacharya brings readers closer to the real goal with his take: “No one doubts the fact that they are doing whatever they do to make a profit for themselves…But if the consumer is able to say that they also have what is good for me in their mind, then that’s a big, big plus. Of course they want to make more money, but they also care about my well-being.”

Please note the progression of language being used to describe Reverse Marketology. Ad-focused Kliff speaks of “customers” and marketing-focused Bhattacharya speaks of “consumers.”

Who are the companies really trying to speak to? Not Customers and Not Consumers. These groups are trying to reach members of the Gen-Y audience, and reaching this audience is one thing that the Ad and Marketing departments can’t do on their own. They need talented PR people to speak to the audience and create Relationships.

Several articles report that Gen-Y audience members have low attention spans, and I will throw my two cents in there to say that we also have a low tolerance for straight sales messaging being tossed in our direction, but we love to be engaged and feel connected to the brands we support! Marketing helps to ensure that the right group is being targeted, and Advertising catches the group’s attention, but PR is what helps audience members make the connection.

So if we include a small dose of PR and the relationship element in Kliff’s equation, we will get the formula being used today:

[helpful information] + [product] + [PR] = Relationships = [LOYAL Gen-Y customers]