lead/marke | ralf schwartz

Dan Wieden on Advertising [video]

 
Via Neil Perkin.

Visit Pinterest after reading this Post

After reading this you will have understood why Pinterest will be a great success for all those boring superficial brands out there, trying to be cool.

Authentically, true cool brands are on tumblr!

"...well, girls like Pinterest.

Their homepage, which features the most popular posts, is the quickest way to communicate what the average North American seems to think “femininity” is. Remember how girls in high school would paper their lockers with pictures of heartthrobs, puppies in baskets, minidresses they wanted, red, fruity cocktails they’d like to get hammered on? Imagine looking in that locker, then being shoved in it and having the door slammed closed on you. That’s a visit to Pinterest.

And that’s why I find it so bleak. Here is a world devoid of science, of politics, of dark humour, of a social conscience. It’s a world where orgasms don’t exist but babies are everywhere. Where “you go, girl!” affirmations rub shoulders with Mountain Dew cupcakes. This domain is sort of like a girls-only clubhouse, but it’s not about expressing innermost desires, just surface desires—for hair, shoes, nail art, a boyfriend that exists in soft-focus black-and-white.

It’s not a subculture, either. It’s the same idea of femininity that the two biggest female entrepreneurs of the past decade—maybe ever—Martha and Oprah, made their fortune selling. And it infuriates me because it’s so damned archaic - Pinterest circa 1912 would be fundamentally the same." ...

Please read the full post: Pinterest is all pink, puppies and pretty ponies - Here is a world devoid of science, of politics, of dark humour, of a social conscience. Via underpaidgenius.

S/he who likes it (pinterest) a little bit more intellectual, may follow me at pinterest.
Or of course directly at tumblr, the real thing: brandpoems and 'this message is too wide to fit your screen'. 

[L/M NET] Tim Kastelle > "The Best Social Media Strategy of All Time!"

(L/M NET: the blogged experience & expertise of some of the best minds in Innovation, Brand Engagement, Communication Agility:
Tom - Tim - Konstantin - Helge - Drew - Charles - Anthony - Adrian)

 

I constantly run across blog posts, emails, and spam comments on the blog that promise to tell you the perfect strategy for getting a higher PageRank for your website, or more twitter followers, or a higher Klout score.

And the problem with all of these strategies is that they are faulty. They might results in a higher PageRank, or more twitter followers, or a higher Klout score, but they don’t have any effect at all on what really matters: impact.

And the fact that these “strategies” don’t change your impact is a big problem.

But unlike all of these scam artists, I actually do have the best social media strategy of all time. And because I’m a nice guy, I’m doing to give it to you for free.

Ready?

Here it is:

Do awesome work.

If you do awesome work, it doesn’t matter what keywords you use in the meta tags. People will respond to it.

If you do awesome work, it doesn’t matter what time you tweet about it. People will find it.

Here are the principles of the Do Awesome Work strategy:

• There are no shortcuts. There. Are. No. Shortcuts. If you get twitter followers by following a bunch of random people so that they’ll follow you back, it doesn’t help you spread your ideas, because they don’t care about your ideas. I can’t say this enough – there are no shortcuts.
• You have to do the work. Don’t follow your dreams, follow your effort. All genuine social media success is built on actually putting in the hard work.
• Social media success without awesome work is a pyrrhic victory. Let’s say you do manage to get thousands of twitter followers and a high PageRank, and tons of people go to your site, only to find that the content sucks. Then what? Have you actually gained anything? No.

  You are much better off with a modest number of followers and so-so search results, but with great content. Because then people will engage with it, and you will have impact – and that’s what really matters.

Why can I give this idea away for free? Because the simple fact of the matter is that most people aren’t willing to put in the effort – they want the shortcut.

And that doesn’t do any of us any good.

I want you to do awesome work. Because then I can read it, and be inspired. And I can think about it, and build on it. And if we’re lucky, maybe we can do some awesome work together

So please, follow the best social media strategy of all time:

Do awesome work.

(ralf says:
Do Start Today!)
 

Tim is a lecturer at The University of Queensland Business School. He researches, writes, teaches and consults on topics relating to effective innovation management, with an emphasis on studying innovation networks. He blogs at The Innovation Leadership Network. Twitter: @timkastelle

[L/M NET] Adrian Ho "We Build Modern Brands - Defined By What They Do"

(L/M NET: the blogged experience & expertise of some of the best minds in Innovation, Brand Engagement, Communication Agility:
Tom - Tim - Konstantin - Helge - Drew - Charles - Anthony - Adrian)

 

So Ad Fed have asked me to talk about the evolution of Zeus Jones next week.

While there’s a bunch of things that I could cover, I think the most interesting thing about our evolution is how little resemblance the company of today bears to the company we imagined right up to the day we opened our doors. We weren’t just a bit wrong about things, we were dramatically wrong. In almost all circumstances, our imagination around the specifics of our business was simply more naive and (thankfully) much less interesting than the reality has turned out to be.

What Your CRM Might Learn from Monterey Bay Aquarium

I know, I know: What might we possibly learn from an aquarium? We are the consumer brands, we are the experts, the gurus, we have seen it all. We understand, we transcend. We inspire - not that Monterey Bay Aquarium.

All wrong!

First of all the Monterey Bay Aquarium is a fantastic place to be - not just because of its animals, architecture, and surrounding, but because of its caring wo/men, because of all those people sharing a vision and a spirit. Because of the culture you feel immediately when talking to any person being employed or volunteering time and resource there.

And this is the base you desperately need. Because: First of all you need every single one to truly live the brand, the positioning, image, and personality. All else follows!

Secondly the aquarium is a brand you can walk into! Think about that, please.

Thirdly, the learning (now, after you know a little bit more about the Aquarium):

[L/M NET] Drew Neisser “Long-Term Success is Made Up of Short-term Successes”

(L/M NET: the blogged experience & expertise of some of the best minds in Innovation, Brand Engagement, Communication Agility:
Tom - Tim - Konstantin - Helge - Drew - Charles - Anthony - Adrian)

 

While doing homework for another article, I ran across a recent study by IBM called “From Stretched to Strengthened” that offers insights into the challenges facing CMO’s around the world.  The study is well worth reading, especially if you are a CMO, and stresses a number of important themes including the needs to:

• Deliver value to empowered customers
• Foster lasting connections
• Capture value, measure results

After reading the study, I reached out to IBM with some follow up questions and got in touch with Yuchan Lee, General Manager of IBM’s Enterprise Marketing Management business.  I think you will agree that Mr. Lee has smart things to say about measuring ROI, using social media for research, the importance of having a clear “corporate character” and finally, the need to think long-term when it comes to customer relationship building.

DN: Is ROI the right metric for CMOs or just one of many important metrics? 
It is the most important, as reflected by our CMO Study. Other than a metric based on reflecting customer up-take (e.g., revenue, satisfaction level), which most companies already measure, marketing ROI is essentially the highest level scorecard for an organization’s ability to efficiently and effectively allocate its resource to hit marketing goals.

DN: Why do you think so many CMOs struggle to demonstrate ROI? 
The heart of the challenge is the nature to which marketing activities influence buying behavior, and how behavior manifest itself over time. Measuring ROI in marketing involves sifting through tons of noise in the data to connect all the pieces of evidence that influenced the purchase behavior.  This is an inexact, statistically-based science that, until recently, was too hard to tackle.

DN: Why do you think marketers have been so slow to embrace research via social channels? (i.e. only 14% mine blogs)
Before a company embraces a social channel, it must first believe it has to.  This requires a shift in strategy based on the realization that consumers are more in control and the company is losing its grip on branding.  In my experience, this shift is scary to many companies and many are slow to realize it and to turn this realization into action.  Furthermore, even if one is ready to take action, the newness of engaging social networks makes it challenging to know where to begin.

DN: Why should marketers expand their research horizons beyond traditional channels to things like blogs? 
We believe traditional marketers need to expand not just research but all areas of market and customer engagement as well as demand generation to the social channels.  That’s where the center of influence for purchase decisions is and will continue to be. That’s where detailed, real-time, and unfiltered market feedback data can be best gathered and analyzed, and ultimately where the brand of a company will truly be reflected in the future (if not already!).

DN: What’s in it for the more proactive marketers who are mining new digital data sources? 
Additional data, if incorporated properly, allows a company to know what is relevant to its customers — potentially down to the individual customer level.  We believe the ability of a company to deliver relevant communication in sales/marketing/services is the basic ingredient to a successful customer relationship and a prerequisite to staying in business.

DN: A lot of marketers pay lip-service to their corporate values.  Will developing a clear ‘corporate character’ really deliver competitive advantage? 
Having clarity on a company’s corporate character is a necessary but not sufficient element of success.  It must be followed by execution by the organization, every day, delivering a consistent customer experience that is aligned with the corporate character.  The true reflection of the corporate character will come out quickly, most likely in social media.

DN: Your report emphasizes the need to “foster lasting connections.”  Is this goal in conflict with the typically pressing need to deliver short-term revenue?
No.  In our experience, being relevant and adding value to the customer in every communication and interaction is the common denominator for forging a lasting connection with the customer AND the ability to drive successful short-term revenue.  After all, long-term success is made up of series of short term successes!

(ralf says: What I have to say you'll find there: Marketingleiters eindrucksvolle Bankrotterklärung. In German, sorry.)

Drew is the CEO of Renegade, the digital & guerrilla marketing agency from New York City that helps clients make more out of less by transforming communications into "Marketing as Service." Twitter: @DrewNeisser

[L/M NET] Drew Neisser > "Are You Waiting for a Social Media Crisis?"

(L/M NET: the blogged experience & expertise of some of the best minds in Innovation, Brand Engagement, Communication Agility:

Tom - Tim - Konstantin - Helge - Drew - Charles - Anthony - Adrian)

 

The clock barked 4:30 a.m. Or was it our dog Pinky, whose cries got us out of bed just in time to let the police in. A strange night, indeed, as a deranged neighbor climbed over fences and tried to kick in doors dressed in nothing but his underwear. As New York’s finest took “the loony” away in handcuffs, believe it or not, my wife and I went right back to sleep, knowing all our safeguards had worked. Crisis averted.

The very next day I ran into a seasoned social media executive in a particularly jocular mood. I asked, “Why the smiles?” He explained that an unfavorable video about his company had just gone viral, and now his management would have to take social media a lot more seriously. At that moment I wondered, how many companies are waiting for a social media “break-in” before they install “security?”

Follow-Up on tumblr's SOPA Initiative (Can you imagine Telekom, vodafone or BDVW fighting for the Web?)

Via tumblr.

More about tumblr's "Protect The Net" (against SOPA).

We Love @BLYSS_choc - Guess Why!?

01 - Because we love great chocolate.

02 - Because we love a good story.

03 - Because we love fantastic pictures.

04 - Because we admire great branding.

05 - Because we love focus.

06 - Because we love consistency.

07 - Because we love authenticity.

08 - Because we love true entrepreneurship.

09 - Because we love a good strategy.

10 - We love vision. We love passion.

And - last but not least - because we love, we truly and deeply love, to discover a brand, a company, an entrepreneurial spirit NOT following 30.000 people to get 30.000 followers.

This fact - you might judge it minor - made me have a look at the product when CemB retweetet BLYSS_choc.

This small fact makes all the difference between truly building a brand and mere selling a product as fast as you can.

Lyss, we wish you all the best with BLYSS!
Only great people will build great brands! 

[L/M NET] Tim Kastelle > You Have a Choice - Act!

(L/M NET: the blogged experience & expertise of some of the best minds in Innovation, Brand Engagement, Communication Agility:
Tom - Tim - Konstantin - Helge - Drew - Charles - Anthony - Adrian)

 

There are plenty of excuses for not innovating – for not taking steps to change things. However, if you see a way to make things better and you don’t do anything, then you’re letting your situation control you. If you’re dissatisfied with the situation, you have to change the way you act.

Here is the way that Tom Peters puts it in a post from Innovation Excellence:

I believe there is one and only one source of innovation – pissed off people.

@TheThirdClub - or: To All the Brave Entrepreneurial Wo/Men: Creativity & Innovation Desperately Need You!

(Note: This is a cross post with my distinctive leadership blog)

We just founded The Third Club!
Get to know more about it here (ya, it's German).

(Polaroid by Douglas Wilson > available here) 

At the moment we are 12 brave wo/men - but want to allure all brave wo/men out there! Just to give you a very small hint on what we are talking about please inhale the following list.

(Yeah, I know, some 20.000+ great people are not on that list.
But you do know: there is no definitive list of great people.)

This is not about names. The personalities beyond them will give you a pretty good picture what I am talking about. They are the wild-card characters of entrepreneurial personalities and spirit, of motivation, engagement, and dedication I would love to see @TheThirdClub:

[L/M NET] Helge Tenno > The Game Changer: Presence & Proof

(L/M NET: the blogged experience & expertise of some of the best minds in Innovation, Brand Engagement, Communication Agility:
Tom - Tim - Konstantin - Helge - Drew - Charles - Anthony - Adrian)

 

What we have done up till now is limit our thinking of what online can do based on a narrow view of what marketing can do. But what happens when marketing changes?

Traditional advertising and design has one goal: to deliver a promise, either based on what the consumer wants to become, or what the brand wants to become. All traditional marketing, advertising and design is built around this core idea: the transmission of an idea from a sender to a receiver. Inside this mindset digital offers some abilities that are new, and speeds up some abilities that are old. But in essence digital is nothing more than a technological option – a choice between newspaper, billboard, TV, radio or internet ++.

"The Creative Adult is the Child Who Survived" [Quote]

Via schoengeistig.

The web essentially is a ... [Quote]

“The web essentially is a planetary-scale nervous system where individual minds take on the role of synapses, firing electrical pattern-signals to one another at light speed - the net effect being an astonishing increase in creative output.

Jason Silva, Venezuelan-American television personality, filmmaker, gonzo journalist and founding producer/host for Current TV, Connecting All The Dots, Dec 10, 2010"

Via amiquote.

Lead for Your Weekend and Every Given Business Day: Go Play!

Via kentson.

PLAY! - like in distinctive leadership's PLAY!
PLAY! - like in lead/marke's PLUG! PLAY! WIN-WIN!:

"tumblr should buy a country - we’ll all be forever alone, together"

There is very much truth in these following words, found in tumblr, expressing the feelings and sensations of young, mindful people of all ages, interested in art, design, aesthetics, beauty, ugliness, horror, politics, living, networking.

Tumblr is the individual, daily, small revolution:

"I think tumblr should buy a country so all of us can relocate there permanently. It’ll have nation-wide free wireless internet. We can live in houses according to blog categories and we’ll stalk the good looking people on tumblr from an awkward distance. The only foods on our diet will be pizza and nutella. And we’ll all have a gazillion cats who dance. Of course, a HP Marathon once a week with the regular Misfits and Spongebob. Unicorns will be our chosen form of transportation. At tumblrland, we’ll embrace each others’ awkwardness and best of all, our humors will finally be properly appreciated. And we’ll all be forever alone, together."

Via workman, accumulating some 133.000 notes.

Tumblr is the most advanced, most fashionable social network. It might even be the future of blogging, sharing, or archiving personal information and knowledge in the cloud.

That is why you should watch it carefully!
But don't break it!

My tumblr: this message is to wide to fit your screen.

Great - but almost invisible - SMART Ad!

... but if you do find it, you will never forget it. I love it.

Via jovoto.

Thinking Outside the Facebook-Box!

More than ever you will have to start thinking outside the box - outside the facebook box that is! Facebook is a trap.

Via thisisnthappiness.

More than ever you might learn now - by observing what happens within Google Plus - how vulnerable social networks are. The more vulnerable the more closed they are.

[L/M NET] Drew Neisser > "What’s the Difference Between Google+ and Carmageddon?"

(L/M NET: the blogged experience & expertise of some of the best minds in Innovation, Brand Engagement, Communication Agility:
Tom - Tim - Konstantin - Helge - Drew - Charles - Anthony - Adrian)

 

The northbound 405 freeway came to a standstill Sunday afternoon just before Seal Beach.  For the next twenty minutes I worried that Carmageddon was more than just clever name for a traffic jam and I would miss my flight back to New York.  Radio reports said otherwise.  In fact, it was just your run of the mill auto accident, a temporary glitch quickly forgotten.  Arriving at the terminal early, I couldn’t help but wonder if the contrasting hype versus reality of Carmageddon was an appropriate metaphor for Google+ (the new social networking service from Google that hopes to rival Facebook).

The Hype

Killing Innovation with a Gag Order!

(Note for all my German friends reading this blog: A gag order is no command to be funny from now on!)

Killing innovation with a gag order? How come?

Very easy. A muzzle is a muzzle is a muzzle. If there is one gag order there are others. If there is one official gag order there are dozens of informal ones. If there are dozens of informal gag orders people find scissors already in their heads.

Scissors inside our heads imply cutting truth, reality, critique - as long as it takes to please those in power, the CEO, the boss, the media, politicians.

Pleasing the powerful means shutting up at all - just clapping our hands, nodding our heads off.

Shutting up at all implies there will be no new information, no new horizons, no new developments, no change, no progress.

There will be no new directions, no new routes to walk, no parting the ways. No experiments, no risk, no fun.

Please stay away from corporations, parties, and societies where people are shut down. Shutting down the new individuality, independence, and impatience of people implies committing suicide - as a brand, as a corporation, as a party, as a society. And: without sensing your own death.
You will be dead from the inside - no matter how colourful your issued statements are. Killed by silence. Killed by a gag order. Think before you act.