The World Needs AAA (TripleA) Brands. Erik Saelens, marketing guru and CEO/Founder of BRANDHOME , and a good friend of mine, has written a marvelous little book called TripleA. I thought it was worth writing about it, building on many articles in this blog that talk about brand coolness, brand authenticity and how brand activation should be done. This book galvanizes all of that, in just 100 pages. The premise of the book is as follows: “ The world is a mess , trust is out the window, spending is low, money is scarce, markets are driven by low budget sales, and people and business alike are holding their breath about the future.
Could it be any worse? Actually, it couldn’t be better! AAA (Triple-A) has always been an indication of value, from real estate locations, to school grades, to financial products, and so on. AUTHENTICITY: ARE YOU FOR REAL? ACCOUNTABILITY: TRUE COMMITMENT PAYS OFF With fewer tools and more challenges, demonstrating sustainable results is more important than ever. Photo by kurtfrenier. Brilliant Brands Series: Burberry [another "BRIGHT & SHINING STAR"] Here’s another brand in the BBI, the “BRILLIANT BRAND INDEX” ® Kurt Frenier . As a reminder, the BBI® model has 8 dimensions that I deem important to qualify for a “brilliant brand”: 4 ‘brand coolness’ dimensions (a lovable brand, a beacon of trust, inherent universality, a memorable visual identity), and 4 ‘brand hotness’ dimensions (novel/contemporary marketing, on a growth trajectory, creativity & awesomeness, executed to excellence).
BIT OF BACKGROUND ON Burberry: Who doesnt’ know and recognise the Burberry checkered tweet print? Burberry’s history starts 156 years ago. Its sturdy, all-weather raincoats were worn by the solders in the trenches of a.o. WW1 and thereafter became part of the “fabric” of British culture. The Burberry fashion house was officially established later, in 1956, by Thomas Burberry, opening the doors to a store in Basingstoke, England. Burberry is a remarkable company. The 4 ‘brand coolness’ dimensions: What a brand! Burberry is everywhere. WOW. What a story. Photo by kurtfrenier. INNOVATION: silver bullets never killed anyone! — by Kurt Frenier, The Red Hot Marketing Blender | MarketingBliss by Kurt Frenier aka TheRedHotMarketingBlender. BRAND COMMUNICATION: STORYTELLING AND THE POWER OF BELIEVABILITY — by Kurt Frenier, The Red Hot Marketing Blender | MarketingBliss by Kurt Frenier aka TheRedHotMarketingBlender. Photo by kurtfrenier. Consumer Research In Flux? The status-quo in research doesn’t work anymore.
At least not well enough … consumer behavior is getting deeper, faster, more complex, and is changing fast with a changing world around us all. On top of that, consumers can’t be “boxed in” anymore -they are largely turning into global citizens, with chameleon behaviors thriving more than ever. Traditional research proves to be inaccurate on many levels. Proof of that is the massive say-do gap and inaccuracy in business forecasting. On top of that, the marketing as a discipline is changing as well.
It’s no longer about just mastering the 4Ps. The need for deep consumer behavioral understanding should be the start of many pieces of marketing innovation, communication, brand storytelling, and what not. Research is in flux and needs to reinvent itself. I can see 4 root causes of this state of flux: 2) Research quality depends on language … how articulated and educated a consumer (research respondent) is influences the information massively! Photo by kurtfrenier. 15 Clever Augmented Reality Campaigns | MarketingBliss by Kurt Frenier aka TheRedHotMarketingBlender. Photo by kurtfrenier.
Photo by kurtfrenier. The future of marketing, and how to weather the tsunami of change that is coming. — by Kurt Frenier, The Red Hot Marketing Blender | MarketingBliss by Kurt Frenier aka TheRedHotMarketingBlender. Database Error. Facebook marketing is permeating websites, blogs and other social networking properties. You only have to go to Slideshare, YouTube and notice that the ability to share with your Facebook friends is built in, either next to the content or in the settings. These Facebook marketing tips and tactics will help you build your Facebook Fan page by acquiring more likes, engaging with your audience and provide ideas to keep them coming back for more. 1.
Use Custom Tabs to Capture Leads You can build a landing page that offers a free ebook for signing up and you can even change the offer by doing split testing (try one landing page and then try another) 2. This will provide access to exclusive content such as an exclusive video, on-line tutorial or even a song that offers an incentive for your potential new fan to ‘like’ your Facebook page 3. Use the Facebook social plugin so you don’t have to go to my Facebook page to ‘like’ it. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.Respond to Comments 11.
Results 12. 13. 14. 15. The Deliciously Wonderful World of Ben & Jerry’s [and what marketers can learn from them!] Who doesn’t love Ben & Jerry’s ice cream? I know I do. Chunky Monkey in particular -yum! [Chunky Monkey is one of close to 50 Ben and Jerry's ice cream flavors. It has a base of creamy banana ice cream which is blended with walnuts and chocolate fudge. The story of Ben & Jerry’s starts in 1978, when childhood friends Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, two dramatic underachievers, opened an ice cream store in a renovated gas station in South Burlington, Vermont, USA. 1] Quality first, and not just any quality Ben & Jerry’s have always set a high standard when it comes to the quality of their products. 2] Quirkiness as brand identity Ben & Jerry’s brand is all about quirkiness and surprise. 3] A company that embraced novel marketing from the start.
Ben & Jerry’s also uses social channels to facilitate consumer participation in many aspect of the brand and innovation, both online and offline. 1- GO FOR EXTRAORDINARY! 2- SURPRISE. 3- BE SOCIAL. 4- BE MONOPOLISTIC. The Result An icon. Photo by kurtfrenier. Brilliant Brands Series: LACOSTE [an unsung hero] — by Kurt Frenier, The Red Hot Marketing Blender | MarketingBliss by Kurt Frenier aka TheRedHotMarketingBlender. TV drives social conversations. On many an occasion in this blog I have stated that “ tv is dead ” and it has been my personal rallying cry in my social and business scene for about 2 years now. That has led to many many interesting discussions with colleagues, friends and family where I had to justify and then reframe what I meant exactly by that. This post to clarify where I stand -today. You’ll have to read all the way through to the end to see what that is exactly As a marketer, I am following the shift between traditional media and ‘new media’ (by the way, new media is mainstream media by now) to decide where the dollars I put to grow brands will work the hardest.
When social media came on my radar for the first time, around 2003 (when I was responsible for marketing and communication at a telecom business), it was confusing the picture more than creating the excitement that I got later on. Few years passed, MySpace, Netlog, Yahoo! Have a look at his 2011 talk: Thanks for passing by. Photo by kurtfrenier. MarketingBliss by Kurt Frenier aka TheRedHotMarketingBlender.
Photo by kurtfrenier. Photo by kurtfrenier. Photo by kurtfrenier. 2011: TOP 10 Marketing Highlights. WOW, what - a - year ! Quite a few marketing highlights caught my attention this year. Let me share a few of these: Living in the M.East, I’ve been able to witness from up close the impact of social media on the “general population”. What happened in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Syria during the “Arab Spring” is a reflection of big shifts in the direction of the people.
And social media platforms and providers have reacted quickly. Case in point: in Egypt, when internet and Twitter were disconnected, engineers from both Google and Twitter immediately jump up and launched Speak2Tweet -wonderful: Egyptians could tweet by leaving a voicemail on an international phone number. Google rocked the boat! 3. A shock to the world. 4. April 29 2011: Prince William of England marries Catherine “Kate” Middleton. 5. The drug infected, loose canon and train-wreck son of Martin Sheen, and actor in the sitcom “two and a half men”, Charlie Sheen , repositioned the word “winning” this year. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
Photo by kurtfrenier. Some of the old. First Grader Becomes Youngest Person to Ever Develop a Mobile Game. IF YOU’RE NOT ON FACEBOOK AND TWITTER, FIND A NEW PROFESSION. I (quite often) meet people in marketing that are not on facebook. WOW! Read that sentence again. Are there really marketers that somehow revolt against the biggest life-changing event of the last century? People that plan media and campaigns and are NOT in the scene … that really blows my mind away. My belief is that as a marketing professional you HAVE TO experiment with the “new big things”. I for one LOVE facebook , and Twitter ! When Second Life was a hype a good 7-8 years ago, I was there. When Myspace was launched, I was there. When LinkedIn was still in infancy, I already had over 500 contacts. A couple of years back, I ran an experiment on Twitter , just to see what would happen. When fb launched ads , I made them for my own published books , as an experiment.
I am not much of a gamer, but I experiment with games on my iPad , I have a Wii, and from time to time I read a magazine on gaming, just to understand what’s hot and what’s not. Agree? Brilliant Brands Series: O’Neill {undervalued jewel} Here’s another brand in the BBI, the “BRILLIANT BRAND INDEX” ® Kurt Frenier . As a reminder, the BBI® model has 8 dimensions that I deem important to qualify for a “brilliant brand”: 4 ‘brand coolness’ dimensions (a lovable brand, a beacon of trust, inherent universality, a memorable visual identity), and 4 ‘brand hotness’ dimensions (novel/contemporary marketing, on a growth trajectory, creativity & awesomeness, executed to excellence).
BIT OF BACKGROUND ON O’NEILL : More than 60 years ago, Jack O’Neill, aspiring engineer turned window salesman went surfing to release everyday pressures. In love with mother nature, but frustrated by the weather, he started researching how to solve the problem of the extreme cold water in the waves of Northern California, so he could surf for longer. He invented to world’s first wetsuit in the early 50s. The 4 ‘brand coolness’ dimensions: O’Neill is more than a brand for surfers. From wetsuits-for-surfers to fashion. The 4 ‘brand hotness’ dimensions : Linking everything 2 everything 2 create a brandstory > 5 KILLER tips! - by Kurt Frenier, The Red Hot Marketing Blender.
2012′s awesome marketing stuff, according to Kurt Frenier. Time to wrap up the year… I guess the greatest phenomenon of the past year was Gangnam Style. If this is the first time you hear about this, you’ve been living in a cave. PSY just today crossed 1bn views on Youtube. One billion! I mean… makes me speechless. Second big thing is the rise of Instagram. Third noteworthy one -and one that changed my perception of corporate advertising- was P&G showing its soul. I’ve put this, as well as some other noteworthy marketing phenomena in the presentation below: And here is, selected by the Grand Jury (read: me), the ultimate dance song of 2012 [couldn't leave this out, being a huge BRUNO MARS fan]: Check out the 2011 review I wrote.
Thank you once more for reading this blog post. Tagged as: apple , Gangnam , Lady Gaga , Love you mum , marketing , Mercedes , NIKE , P&G , PSY , review , year review. An Insight into Facebook Marketing - Infographic. So what is happening with Facebook Marketing? Facebook has become the default social network to focus your promotion efforts on when it comes to marketing on social media. In fact Facebook is now the single largest publisher of all US display ad impressions. It delivers 28 percent of all display ad impression which is more than Yahoo, Microsoft, Google and AOL combined! This popularity doesn’t come cheap and Facebook has admitted according to Bloomberg, to increasing its advertising rates on its self service ads by 40 percent during 2011. Online to Exceed Print Advertising in 2012 Businesses are realizing that the opportunities to grow are truly online. Online advertising in 2012 $39.5 billionPrint advertising in 2012 $36.5 billion By 2016 the projection is $62 billion for online and $32.3 billion for print.
So it is not a good time to be owning a printing business! Two Key Types of Facebook Marketing Essentially there are two types of marketing on Facebook 1. 2. What About You? More Reading. 33 Stats That Paint a Picture of the Future of Marketing. The future of our beloved marketing industry is changing fast -- the good news is, we don't even need a crystal ball to see where it's headed! HubSpot CMO Mike Volpe, when sharing his story on how he came to be HubSpot's fifth employee, says the problem he faced as a marketer was finding an integrated marketing software solution that allowed him to see how his various marketing efforts impacted his website and revenue.
Little did he know when yearning for this marketing system that it was in the process of being built That was just five years ago, and now our industry is at a place where Mike Volpe's dream has been realized . Now, it's time to tap into the other dreams marketers are having ... so we can solve them! Like true HubSpotters, we turn to the data to let us know what marketers are yearning for. And the statistics in this blog post are screaming it in our faces, telling us exactly where the future of our industry lies. Social Media and Social Lead Nurturing. LA VACHE QUI RIT (in the Brilliant Brands Series®, a bright & shining star)
I’m going to start writing about brands I love. And will rate them against my own brand evaluation system, BBI, the “BRILLIANT BRAND INDEX” ®Kurt Frenier. 0% science, 100% gut-feel (my gut feel). The BBI® model has 8 dimensions that I deem important to qualify for a “brilliant brand”: 4 ‘brand coolness’ dimensions (a lovable brand, a beacon of trust, inherent universality, a memorable visual identity), and 4 ‘brand hotness’ dimensions (novel/contemporary marketing, on a growth trajectory, creativity & awesomeness, executed to excellence).
First brand on the list, and a brand that is not the most obvious to qualify as a power brand: LA VACHE QUI RIT (the laughing cow), an ultimate example of what I would coin as “global simplicity”. An extremely simple portfolio with a global footprint, a fantastic memorable visual identity, and some great pieces of advertising/awesomeness, and with loyalty beyond imagination. La Vache Qui Rit is part of the BEL GROUP. The ‘brand coolness’ dimensions: Take a look at Brussels with TGV. Be a NEQI-ninja. Let me spend a moment on the value of focusing your business against the right thing. For almost any company there is only one of two ways to “direct” focus: you either “add” stuff to the value equation (i.e. add to whatever it is you ‘create’ or ‘sell), or you “take away” from it (i.e. scratch cost out of your p&l).
And that focus on either one or the other leads to a belief system with employees, a culture in which they operate, and ultimately the chances of success you have versus competition. My submission is that a company should always focus on NEQI ( (c) Kurt Frenier 2012 ). Because it is the only strategy that will constantly strive to make your consumers happy; continuously! What is NEQI? Cost cutting focus on the other hand kills brand value. What is your business focused on? Adding value Or Cutting cost? That focus on NEQI creates a very different mindset in the business as compared to a company focused on managing the balance sheet. -Apple -Lionel Messi (yes, a brand as well!) The Louboutin Brand Experience: “flirting with your feet” “Give a girl the right shoes, and she can conquer the world.” ( Marilyn Monroe) Ask a woman about the most aspirational brand of shoes, and chances are you will hear “Louboutin” as an answer. Why? Shoes are shoes, right (say a man)?
WRONG. Louboutin doesn’t make shoes. Parisian Christian Louboutin had shoe-making in his vains from early on. Now, Louboutin owns the words “red shoe”, “premium”, “luxury”, “sexy”, and walks amongst the great (LV, YSL, DIOR, CHANEL, Viktor & Rolf, JEAN PAUL GAULTIER) Here are some learnings I take from Louboutin’s strategy : Louboutin sells the fairy tale story. A pair of Louboutin goes for 500 dollars or more. Every one in the world heard about the Louboutin vs YSL case over the red sole (a Louboutin trademark). Both Louboutin and Jimmy Choo own the digital space in the shoe industry. Louboutin started brand extensions just a few years back. Tagged as: design , digital , innovation , Louboutin , luxury , marketing , premium , red , shoe , shoes , strategy. Creating a movement: 4 must-do’s taken from “MOVEMBER”. Kurtfrenier : Good morning from... Learning from. Chicken soup…Tomato soup… Marketing soup -yummm.
ElBulli, a role-model for exclusive brand experiences. HEINEKEN 007: licence to kill. Changes in marketing. Marketers, get ready for Generation Z! Thinslicing as selection technique for social media. Are the slices getting thinner? I HATE hospitals! Don’t you? Let’s change that experience … HELLO … KITTY! Kids play? No Way! $5bn powerbrand. Marketers Flunk the Big Data Test - Patrick Spenner and Anna Bird. The LEGO® Story. Smart street.
Must-follow. NIKE is really onto. Nike+ House of Innovation. DESIGN. Lifeblood of brand and company. How to Stalk Your Competitors in Social Media (So You Can Crush Them) Are marketers finding their mojo in the WAR for (brand) attention? Linking everything 2 everything 2 create a brandstory > 5 KILLER tips! Sorry, Marketers, You're Doing Twitter Wrong [REPORT] Creating authentic brand experiences: LE PAIN QUOTIDIEN Innovation … it can’t be breakthrough if you wouldn’t buy it yourself!
BRAINSTORMING. LET OUT THAT KID INSIDE OF YOU! Babies in ads boost sales… when used the right way! Fundamental changes in marketing over the last 20 years. Facebook. How Rohan Marley is turning HOUSE OF MARLEY into an iconic brand — by Kurt Frenier, The Red Hot Marketing Blender. The Red Hot Marketing Blender — by Kurt Frenier, 21st Century Marketing Perspectives Blended Into 1 Site. How Rohan Marley is turning HOUSE OF MARLEY into an iconic brand. The future of marketing, and how to weather the tsunami of change that is coming. BRAND COMMUNICATION: STORYTELLING AND THE POWER OF BELIEVABILITY. Absolut Vodka – masters in breakthrough ads (‘Absolut GreyHound’ ) The Red Hot Marketing Blender — by Kurt Frenier, 21st Century Marketing Perspectives Blended Into 1 Site.
Will BUD Ireland come back with it’s innovative summer app ? Van der Sar is back. Hidden pint-glass QR code is only visible when filled with Guinness. The power of. My MKT Beliefs. Sprechen Sie Street? (disconnects between marketing – CEO – Wall Street) 5 Ways To Make Sustainable/Green Work ! (it’s about time)