In the spirit of Monday’s get stuck into a problem vibe, check out this Adliterate blog post about diagnosing the problem to understand where your efforts will be best spent.
A very useful exercise to use when interrogating a client brief, or helping them develop one. And a tool that you could adapt to break down into micro questions for comms to help you get to clarity on what’s really holding back sales.
Hi all,
The following may be of use to those looking to introduce their brands to blogging.
It covers the basic types of blogs, what drives bloggers to create content, and how brands could potentially drive chatter on the web through getting started with blogging.
As ever, all thoughts are encouraged!
this week i have mostly been thinking about data, charity and turkey . . . data and charity from a work perspective, turkey from a “go away and do no work for a week perspective” . . . so next week this will be brought to you by our own version of BAD (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jc8zkz9XSRU) – Betts, Aves and Davies . . . anyway,
1) http://google-cpg.blogspot.com/2009/04/paid-search-builds-brands-unilever.html
apparently search works . . . or something . . . well, helps drive brand metrics for a rather large fmcg company – which leads me tenuously to
as far as i’m concerned don’t ask what google can do for your brands ask what search data can do for your planning (those of you who have been party to learning to love data know what the hell i’m talking about)
2)
this is just interesting as a way of visualising data, moving people, telling stories, it will also wind up your creative agency friends no end 
. . .
whilst on the charity tip
at the harlequins annual dinner dance (oh yes i move in stratospheric circles even though i look nowt like a highly networked driver individual type ) a man talked about this charity . . . http://www.hopehiv.org/ – his presentation technique was genius – he gave all 800 people at the dinner a tenner (a real one) not from the charity, nor from quins, but from his bank account . . . and said they could do three things with it . . . . 1) keep it (if they thought they were worse off than aids orphans in africa) 2) give it back (if they already did lots of work for other charities) 3) turn it into more money . . . i guarantee he at least doubled his money not by asking for loads of money, but by talking about small, environmentally realistic amounts, on which . . . (oh yes, look at that for flow)
3) http://trendwatching.com/briefing/
trendwatching’s may briefing is about “innovation jubilation” . . . building on the links walshy and i have fired you to mr neumeier’s work, the simple question is how fit for purpose is what your brand is doing and saying RIGHT NOW (are you in tune with people trends or just projecting stuff to overcome brand barriers) . . . most of our tools are too slow to help with this – one thing that isn’t ? real time search data
i’m off for a week of swimming pools and water slides, don’t be surprised if i look even more knackered when i get back . . . at which point i will post something in more detail on data (you can’t wait can you ?)
see ya
binns
this week i have largely been stealing walshy’s pile of business books while i wait for amazon to deliver me some more brain food so some of this is down to that, some of it is down to bbc2 of all places . . .
1) http://www.bbc.co.uk/speaker/
forget the apprentice – it lost its lustre after the second if not the first series, no ones cares anymore and sir allan doesn’t really own too many companies to give them a job in does he – he sold the tech business to sky – and jesus, pantsman, come on
anyway . . . the speaker is where it is at . . . learning from children basically . . . watch it, watch all of it – watch as they are put through different tests of their oratory abilities – talking people through a room at althrop, doing a two and a half minute live news broadcast, all sorts . . . and then wonder whether you could pull any of that off . . . if not, maybe we should just appropriate it as our new presentation training ?
2) http://www.changethis.com/56.02.WorldWideRave
who can resist the question “do you market like led zeppelin or the grateful dead” personally i’d rather be able to play an instrument like any of their members and then work out “how to monetise” it
3) http://www.thepeopleproject.co.uk/
simple, quick, easy, nice – method . . . you’ve got a camera phone, why aren’t you doing this ?
4) http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/04/tweet-with-your-brain-for-a-ch.html
the world as blade runner / minority report – it gets closer and closer – “the future is here it just isn’t widely distributed yet” as mr gibson is attributed with having said/written
when does twitter become really interesting to someone like me ? when it doesn’t require the typing bit . . .
finally . . . next week (if i can get it together) we will be looking at the concept of beauty . . . i’m fond of what marty neumeier nicked from buckminster fuller:
“when i’m working on a problem i never think about beauty. but when i have finished . if the solution is not beautiful, i know it is wrong”
How beautiful is your solution ?
Have a splendid weekend people
[show_avatar email=chris.binns@mediacom.com align=center]
binns
There’s so much talk about how important it is to spend your marketing budget wisely these days. Cost-effective But if traditional advertising isn’t working like it used to, then what? KFC came up with a pretty good use for their advertising dollars recently. They’re sending the Colonel to five major metropolitan cities to repair potholes.
It’s not as weird as it sounds. They’ve recently launched a campaign aiming to focus on the high-quality and unsurpassed freshness of their chicken. As a tie-in, they’ve decided to “re-freshen” streets in five cities by filling potholes, and marketing them “Re-Freshened by KFC.” It’s a win-win-win. The public gets better streets, the city saves a ton of maintenance costs, and KFC gets the credit for responsible marketing, and news outlets, Twitter streams and blogs just like this one are telling EVERYONE all about it. Wouldn’t it be great if more marketing was for the good of all mankind?
I am curious as to why they didn’t choose to integrate this effort with an interactive and social media presence. I think a microsite with a description of KFC’s campaign and their efforts along with video, images, and more could have given the campaign even more horsepower. And a strong presence on Twitter could have been really powerful in spreading the world-of-mouth marketing. Even still, this is a pretty innovative use of a marketing budget.
Reblogged via The Sutter Group | Elements of Creativity Blog – KFC Skips Ads, Fixes Potholes Instead.