lead/marke | ralf schwartz

#egypt: Hypocrite of the Year Award for vodafone's 'power to you' campaign

Great, vodafone for some time now full-bodied proclaims its "power to you" campaign slogan - and at the same time kills their clients' web access in egypt???
(more at What would vodafone do? Shut down the Internet!?).

There is no 'power to you' if you follow vodafone. This time it was 'power to Mu'! And the next time?

"We wanted to secure safety and lifes of our people." Did they ask their people? What would they have done? Shut down the net (as vodafone did) or support their fellow egyptians on the streets fighting for freedom - and some even for their lifes.

Amnesty International general secretary Salil Shetty, in an interview with Handelsblatt, said ...

'Vodaphone's willingness to close down its network is simply beyond belief.'

... the move by Vodafone Egypt 'not only betrayed those who buy and use its phones but reveals a shocking disregard for freedom of speech by one of the world's leading telecommunications companies.' ...

'Vodaphone has played directly into the hands of the Egyptian government and its forces of repression,' he charged.'

Global brands of the 21. century desperately need a global view on their clients, on societies, on eternal ethics and morale.

Brands desperately need to grow a spine - to follow their client's needs and wants - even more to anticipate them.

Brands cannot just follow any longer. Brands have to lead. Brands have to have a global consciousness. Brands have to live the individuality, independence, and impatience of their (potential) clients. Not that of dictators, short-term profitable regimes, and questionable ethics.

We live in disruptive times. The people of the 21. century do not need hypocrites to lead their way! If the brand hypocrites are not brave enough to live up to their slogans they should think twice about using them in the first place.

You know, dear vodafones, 'power to you' would have meant to support the people - not the regime. To support their quest for independence, freedom, and power to decide, power to choose. To fight with them for their rights. Not against them and their rights.

Talk is cheap, dear vodafones, and your communications seems to be the cheapest. So act up, vodafone! You still have a few days to decide which side are you on.

(You could have learned from Twitter, dear vodafones, when they fought for their users at American courts, because they understood that clients are humans, individuals, with individual and basic rights, not just faceless tariffs and contracts in your data centers.) - Update Feb, 1st, 08:45hrs > Google & Twitter leaping ahead of the vodafones of this world, see Addendum below.

Every brand trying to do business in this world (globally - and especially with the emerging countries) should finally understand that many countries will only flourish if they are free countries, people, individuals, and societies.

Brands and corporations will have to decide which side they are on: the future or the past! To do this businesses finally will have to grow a soul!

Addendum

17:17hrs > Twitter and Facebook, step up: Egypt protests raise bar on corporate responsibility, NYDailyNews, via rmack.
Can you imagine even vodafone learning from their Egyptian performance and join Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo at the Global Network Initiative?

22:16hrs > Ah, even better: "Vodafone was for years the Egyptian government's partner in building and maintaining the regime's official website and network infrastructure", raw story. Somebody had to do it - like Siemens and Nokia in Iran.
("Raw Story's requests for comment sent to Vodafone's corporate relations arm did not trigger a reply", ebd.)

Tweets must flow, by @biz and @amac.

Feb, 1st

00:32hrs > Voice to Tweet - A great move by Google fixing what vodafone crashed in #egypt.

08:45hrs > Twittern für die Opposition: Google fordert Ägyptens Präsident Mubarak heraus, handelsblatt.

22:04hrs > Egypt and the Complicated Ethics of the Telecommunications Industry, BSR.

Feb, 2nd

13:32hrs > Finally: Egypt gets its Internet back, cnet.

Feb, 3rd

18:03hrs > Doesn't get better: Vodafone: Texting Still Down in Egypt, Except for Government Propaganda, All Things Digital. Vodafone verteilte Pro-Mubarak-Propaganda, Spiegel.

Twitter Impersonation: Who's Tweeting? Rosanna or The Honesty of Machines

At my @distinctleader account I got a mail from twitter, you all know, "(@blabla) is now following your tweets on Twitter":

I always click to see who is following. Give it a quick shot at the bio, followers, read a few tweets, follow or forget.

But this time it was different! The bio: "I think of myself as very optimistic, independent but far from being a feminist, positive, pretty affectionate, easy going, down to earth, educated, loyal and" (yes, it stops right there) ...

... and the first (and only) tweet: "12345678910NextThe selection and placement of stories on this page were determined automatically by a computer program":

Hm ... a computer program thinking of itself "as very optimistic, independent but far from being a feminist, positive, pretty affectionate, easy going, down to earth, educated, loyal and"?

Hal? Or a character from Tron? A replicant from Blade Runner? Agent Smith? Rosanna fooling us all?
Or just a programming bug in an agency's CRM offering, crying for attention? To end this masquerade? Will we ever know?

What we know now is - remembering Umberto Eco - the name of the rose, but if Twitter functions as it used to she will be gone by now ...

Business Innovation: "Apple makes 60% of its revenue from products that didn't exist before 2007"

Still keeping my promise not to prove a point by using Apple or Nike, I call for a little more innovation in your companies, agencies, brand departments.

 

From 'Next Generation Media Quarterly' By Aegis. Via Charles Frith.

The world is changing that fast that you cannot become (or stay) successful, if you base your fate on 'old' innovations and products launched years before.

Open your eyes - all innovation lies right before you. You will see it in the eyes of the individual (and the people) around the world. In their new individuality, independence, and impatience.

But: Don't ask - Just listen ...

Tom Fishburne > "Social Coupon Bandwaggon"

Note: There are great brands out there who don't even need a coupon! ... Enjoy!
(L/M NET features Tom's inspiring posts on a regular basis.)

Many marketers asked Santa for a social coupon campaign for 2011. The explosive growth of Groupon and Groupon clones (BuyWithMe, LivingSocial, SocialBuy, and Tippr), offering “ridiculously huge” coupons (50-90% off), is taking marketing plans by storm.

These social coupon sites promise high customer demand in return for a deep discount and a share of the deal. In August, Gap offered a nationwide deal of $50 worth of apparel for $25 through Groupon. Some brands and businesses are offering social coupons directly, including ConAgra, Jack in the Box, and Walmart. However, the biggest participants have been small and mid-size businesses.

But tread carefully before you join the social coupon bandwagon. Running such deeply discounted deals can create a short term volume spike that backfires in the long run. There are plenty of cautionary tales from brands and businesses that didn’t do the math and regretted it.

I spoke to a start-up fashion brand owner recently who said that he’s received dozens of sales pitches over the last few months from Groupon and other social coupon sites. None of them made sense for his type of brand. He sells a premium line of clothing with multiple sizes. He worried such a deep discount would not only devalue his brand but would create a huge inventory challenge, causing him to either build up too much or not be able to supply the demand (how to anticipate whether more coupons would come from customers with 34″ waists or 38″ waists?). But his biggest concern was that a social coupon campaign wouldn’t lead to customers who were profitable in the long run.

Entrepreneur Magazine recently profiled a Rice University study of 150 small to mid-size businesses that offered a social coupon deal with the following results: “while 66 percent of the 150 respondents said that their Groupon deal was profitable, a significant 32 percent found it unprofitable. And 40 percent of the respondents said they would not use Groupon again”.

Marketers should consider any form of deep discounting program carefully. Think about the type of customer you’re attracting because a huge spike in one-time deal hunters who will never pay full-price may not be valuable in the long run.

Social coupons make long term sense if they expose your brand to customers who will want to keep buying from you, even when you’re not on deal. Start with a plan to convert the deal hunters to long term customers.

A brand is ultimately valued by the strength of its long term relationships, not its sales on any one day.

Tom, when not cartooning (eg. for Marketing Week), is method's international managing director. Based in London, he frequently speaks at campuses, companies, and conferences about marketing, cartooning, and how to spread business ideas. @tomfishburne

The Interactive Map Every Serious Social Marketer needs: Twitterverse Console

Please click the poster to get to the Twitterverse Console - an interactive map giving you all you need to know about the respective service you click. A service by oneforty.


Via flowtown.

Flowtown: "Have we Reached a World of Infinite Information?"

Via Flowtown. Click to enlarge.

iA Writer: Adorable App with an as Beautiful 'Commercial'

Might be you have to watch this clip more often, but you will fall in love with it.

No, the voice/sound does not correspond with the visuals. But as an author, journalist or blogger you will know that is life, reality, daily business.

And - of course - symbolizing the zen of writing ... iA Writer. Enjoy!

 

iA Writer for iPad from Oliver Reichenstein on Vimeo.

Illustration: SilenceTV > Motorcycle

Via classicalrecords.

PepsiCo UK's Wake-Up Call to Fossil Energy Producers

Andrew from Good wrote:

"PepsiCo, the umbrella corporation that makes Tropicana, Quaker Oats, and a veritable universe of chips and soda, has promised to achieve a "zero impact" operation by 2023. Ambitious!

The big component of this push is shifting to 100 percent renewable energy for all of its manufacturing and distribution. There are other pieces too, though. They're shooting for zero landfill waste; packaging that is entirely renewable, recyclable, or compostable; zero water intake at their "main manufacturing sites."

So my short post tries to spread 2 important messages:

01 - Even soft drink producers begin to understand that something must happen. So YOUR company or brand should act too!

02 - And while this happens: Energy producers should understand that there is ZERO future for them, if they don't change!

Helge Tenno > "There is Not enough Creativity in Strategy"

Note:  See also Tom's The New-Product Waterfall. ... Enjoy!
(L/M NET features Helge's inspiring posts on a regular basis.)

 

In the Superbrothers article Less talk more rock featured on Boing Boing, the authors, both spawning from the gaming industry, suggests that a project should skip the first strategic phase and go directly for the creative process. The argument goes that there is, amongst a range of things, a spark at the initial creation of an idea that often gets killed as the process gets bogged down for months in enervating strategy and research.

- The article is highly recommended, find it here.

Being a Planner it might sound counter intuitive but I found the argument not only valid, but exceptionally interesting to pursue. I am not convinced that the traditional strategic approach is the most effective approach. And I am looking for alternatives.

In their article the Superbrothers suggest that you don’t skip the strategy phase, but you come back to it… so there was hope.. but how would this work?

The traditional waterfall process suggests a value chain where strategists and planners find all the solutions at the beginning – before any good questions have been asked and ignoring the value of the creative process exploring ideas in areas where the strategic process doesn’t travel.

It is my opinion that a strategic process often starts with the demand and then sets of to find all the answers in a straight line – you write an interview guide before asking anybody even one question, so you wall your search in between these limitations of what to explore and which outcome to look for -. Not allowing for the event where the first question to the first person might completely turn everything on its head.

The traditional strategic process is essentially geared to finding the same answers every time.

There is a lack of creativity in strategy! Strategy needs to enjoy and explore the same full spectrum of alternatives and possibilities as a creative process, but it can’t do this on its own – it needs to be implemented into the creative process. This is what I term Applied strategy.

Applied strategy suggests that the creative process takes lead and naturally integrates the strategic process in the search for answers, solutions and possibilities jumping out at the opportunities being explored. The creative and strategic process needs to develop and explore solutions together.

The traditional water fall process suggests that the strategy identifies all the answers at the beginning, and that these answers just needs to be crafted out in accordance with the brand guidelines, business goals and a decent amount of originality.

The applied strategy approach suggests that the process needs to start with a simple springboard – not a strategic brief. The springboard is a definition of the direction and goal of the project, but is completely open to the process in regards to what the product might be. It then invites the exploratory creative process to work collaboratively with the strategic team in exploring and finding the right answers and possibilities to the different ideas and solutions discovered.

As an example:

The water fall approach sets out with the idea that the company is building a website. The strategy identifies and conceptualizes the solution before the creative craft is asked to skin and brand it.

In applied strategy the company defines that it’s goal is to capitalize on customer relationships, and then limit the exploration/creative process to online, digital or connected technologies.

Helge works as a Planner for SDG, helping brands and organizations discover WHY they are valuable in consumers lives, and HOW they can create deliberate value on the arenas and inside the interfaces where they connect with them. @congbo

Business Innovation: Doing Things Right for the First Time

To be innovative you do not always have to invent something. To be innovative you do not always have to create something anew.

Sometimes, while looking into the processes, services, client relations, and products of a corporation, it comes to my mind that the innovation would lie in doing things right - for the first time.

01 - Talk with - not to - people for the first time! Enable a dialogue. Relate to people's ideas, solutions, inspirations.

02 - Show the customer that you truly care, show her. Prove it! Act - Don't Talk! For the first time. Your customers will love it. It will be a whole new experience for them.

03 - Concentrate on the brand's core target group. Do not talk to everybody - and by that to nobody at all. Enjoy clarity of speech. 'Polarize' - People will love you for being honest and straight-forward, for the first time!

04 - Create an empathic caring brand, grow a true personality - not just an easy to remember logo. Live that character - for the first time.

05 - Deliver the quality you would like to encounter in that product yourself. For the first time! Don't safe another penny. Make your customers happy. Every single one. Make them smile. For the first time!

06 - Deliver a whole (and holistic) experience - not just the naked product. For the first time!

07 - Amaze people with a true solution! Convince them with action. Deliver the unprecedented experience deeply rooted in your existing product. Engage them with performance. With value leadership, craft leadership, vision leadership. You can do it. It's in your DNA. Come on ... For the first Time!

08 - Deliver a Win-Win! situation, for the first time - just by doing it right. For the first time!

Motorola ATRIX 4G: The Future of the Phone or the End of Motorola?

Via The Awesomer.

Does Motorola - by adding a laptop sized screen and keyboard - admit their screen is too small? Or a clever move to make your netbook redundant by furnishing the phone with 1 GB RAM?

Do you think it's like the tail wags the dog?

I like the idea. With a powerful phone, why carry a netbook and stuff around. Motorola's solution just adds 2+ pounds to your bag. Travellin' light is key!

What do you think?

True Inspiration: The Sartorialist's Philosophical Facets

You might have seen the Intel video of the Sartorialist. You might have been stunned by the beautiful pictures. But did you listen to the Sartorialist's words? You should have.

Pictures and video below I copy&pasted from Scott Hanson's blog. I transcribed some philosophical quotes you should reflect upon after watching the video. Headlines are mine, too. I think Scott Schumann himself would have been too modest to choose them for his own words, but I think his words deserve them.

On Simplicity and Real Mastery

"If you ask any other person that does a creative thing, you know, they probably go to school and learn all these different things, and as they get better it narrows and narrows." ...

"That is where most photographers would like to get to: not to have all that other stuff, but to create the most beautiful image that they can in the most simple way that they can."

I would love every tool-glutted creative and consultant to ruminate on the above. Real Mastery lies in travelling light, anticipating the shape of things to come, or reacting fast, effective and sustainably, identifying opportunities and seizing them.

I would love every manager, every politician, and everyone doubting the web's beauty, power, and infinite possibilities to change our world for the better to reflect upon the below few lines and very down-to-earth sentences. Thank you.

About the Eternal Web

"Now, with the blog, I can take a photograph and can have it up on the internet and share it with people across the world, people of this moment can comment on how they feel that looks ... I think that will look very interesting a 100 years from now."

About the Beauty and Boundlessness of the Web

"The internet has given us what I like to call a digital parkbench. Before you were really limited to the people you could see right there in front of you at your park. Now you can go into the internet and look at blogs like mine or other blogs that are based somewhere else ... really the whole world is open to you now."

Dress Your iPhone as the Rainbow OneStep Polaroid Land Camera!

Via bblinks. / Read more - or buy - at photojojo.

Why Intuition still isn't the Right Thing for Everybody in Social Media Today

Intuition - common leadership sense says - is a good thing, if handled properly. In terms of social media I recommend to not fall in love with your intuition too easily. You might fall prey to some true misconceptions, misjudgments, and mistakes.

Intuition is defined as a blend of expertise, experience and common sense.
Being honest to yourself: what would your answer be like, if I asked you about those three in terms of social media? What would your bosses', co-workers', and colleagues' answer be? Do they know? Your agencies?

Do you have the expertise to talk about, plan, even pursue social media? For yourself? Your brand? Your corporation?

Do you have the experience to cope with the daily business of dialogue? At forums, platforms, with fans, lovers, and haters? Do you think you have the experience to handle a PR-related crisis? A true social media shitstorm?

Do you know your friends and foes outside your cubic comfort zone? Would you bet your life on it?

Do you have the expertise and experience to really know what works? Think about the time you spent with traditional media and the time you spent with social media?

Think about still calling it social media instead of Social Networking! Think about your definition of Social Networking. You are still pursuing monologues, you are still campaigning.

You are still counting your brand's followers, facebook fans, and reach's percentages. You are still prioritizing quantities, instead of quality. Masses instead of influencers. You are still thinking about cost per message and cost per contact.

Do you think you could apply common sense to any recommendation given to you by your co-workers, colleagues, and agencies? Because you 'live' the web, live 2.0, live Social Networking?

How often have you been right about Social Networking topics? How often did you blend your traditional media bias with social media? How often have you been right about social media companies?

Can you intuitively feel that: Social Networking is a tool to talk, a means to learn, a way to communicate, to inspire feedback and involvement. It fosters advocacy, creativity, and innovation. It empowers the customer. It maximizes human's new individuality, independence, and impatience.

Social Networking clearly impacts your marketing's and corporation's thought processes and organizational structure. Social Networking disrupts your world. Nothing will be like it has been before.

We all still don't know, what the web or Social Networking really is capable of. We don't know, where we can take it to - and vice versa.

Social Networking will change our societies, democracies, our whole civilization. Social Networking will change us like we never would have guessed before.

Now, tell me about your intuition, your expertise, your experience, your common sense and good judgment.

Addendum

Jan, 12th > Nico's post (German) Auch in 2011: digitale Hilflosigkeit is a perfect match to the above.

Business Innovation > Kevin Kelly: No Harmony, All Flux

"Hollywood has mutated from an industry of classic huge, vertically integrated corporations into the world's best example of a network economy.

Eventually, every knowledge-intensive industry will end up in the same flattened, atomized state.

Hollywood just has gotten there first."

Kevin Kelly

Business Innovation: 20 Predictions for the Next 25 Years

The first week of 2011 ends. If you still think about strategy once a year (in September!?), you better start today with rolling micro strategies.

Here are 20 scenarios from the Observer's team of experts for the next 25 years - a foundation for your vision and longterm strategy, and of course to direct your micro strategies:

"1 Geopolitics: 'Rivals will take greater risks against the US'

2 The UK economy: 'The popular revolt against bankers will become impossible to resist'

3 Global development: 'A vaccine will rid the world of Aids'

4 Energy: 'Returning to a world that relies on muscle power is not an option'

5 Advertising: 'All sorts of things will just be sold in plain packages'

6 Neuroscience: 'We'll be able to plug information streams directly into the cortex'

7 Physics: 'Within a decade, we'll know what dark matter is'

8 Food: 'Russia will become a global food superpower'

9 Nanotechnology: 'Privacy will be a quaint obsession'

10 Gaming: 'We'll play games to solve problems'

11 Web/internet: 'Quantum computing is the future'

12 Fashion: 'Technology creates smarter clothes'

13 Nature: 'We'll redefine the wild'

14 Architecture: What constitutes a 'city' will change

15 Sport: 'Broadcasts will use holograms'

16 Transport: 'There will be more automated cars'

17 Health: 'We'll feel less healthy'

18 Religion: 'Secularists will flatter to deceive'

19 Theatre: 'Cuts could force a new political fringe'

20 Storytelling: 'Eventually there'll be a Twitter classic'"

Brand Engagement: "Conversion is the ultimate goal of any marketing effort"

It is never to late to get the Basics of How to Really Get Conversions from Social Media, by Flowtown:

01 - Defining Conversion
02 - Getting Fans and Followers
03 - Converting Fans Into Contacts
04 - Getting Referrals, Leads, and Sales

These are the bones. Get the meat.

Communication Agility > Charles Frith on Twitter: "Asymmetric Follow"

Note: Once again: You cannot talk about Twitter without actually using, living it yourself. ... Please enjoy!
(L/M NET features Charles' inspiring posts on a regular basis.)

 

Twitter is a hyper contextual communicaton tool.

The number of different types of user experience is infinite (a big claim that I am prepared to stand by)

This means for example that the user experience of a person with 100 followers is not the same as 200 followers.

The next obvious context is the users preference for follow-back which is in itself a ratio.

Then there is the intent or purpose of use. Al Jazeera, Financial Times, BBC Podcasts are all monologue, but there are also power users that choose to mainly hold a monologue.

Which leads to the content of the 140 character limit. That in itself is almost impossible to describe.

So while this is a terrific post about the asymmetrical twitter experience the point is, that how people experience the service is really up to them. So get stuck in and define how you like to use it. It’s a remarkable evolutionary development in human communication on a par with the telegraph wire.

More over here

Charles is a creative planner in the advertising business. He is based in Asia where he has worked for agencies as distant as Beijing and Singapore. He has a popular advertising blog in which he shares his day to day life and latest digital thinking. @charlesfrith

Engagement & Agility > Noah Brier: Everything is Media

A good wrap-up/look-out by Noah, Barbarian Group:

View more presentations from nbrier.