Why Social Marketing Is So Hard - Nilofer Merchant
Brands are spending a great deal of time and energy investing in platforms to get likes or pluses, and not really being social at all. It’s been well over 15 years since the social era started. So many brilliant people have been writing, speaking, and sharing case studies over that length of time, that if I only listed a few, I’d miss some really important thinkers. And if I tried to list them all, I’d hit the word limit on this post. Some problems are technical problems, where the solution is finding the best expert in that field and then working to execute her strategy. Perhaps marketing in the social era is that kind of problem. Does social have to be chaotic? The funnel is a favorite of marketers because it is linear, uni-directional, and transaction-centric. Social marketing experts will tell you that marketing has to become more conversational, more relationship oriented. Relationships aren’t rational, but emotional. To a company, this can feel like chaos. Make no mistake.
Brazilian Soccer Team Asks Super Fans to Show Their Support in Blood - News
The Brazilian soccer team EC Vitória's red and black-striped jerseys are as integral to the team's identity as the Yankees' pinstripes. (The team's nickname is the "Rubro-negro," or "Red and Blacks," after all.) But this season, fans looking on from the bleachers may be a little confused to see white gaps where the red part of the equation used to lie. The change, however, has little to do with rebranding the team's image and everything to do with promoting a good cause. Vítoria is erasing the color from its jerseys as part of a campaign to encourage its fans to donate blood. The campaign is being promoted through Facebook and social media, asking fans to send in pictures of themselves donating. While the message may seem like a simple gesture, it's a significant step when you consider the value of the real estate they're altering.
In Search of Sock-Sneaker Hybrid, Nike Develops "Flyknit"
Nike's continued materials experimentation has yielded Flyknit, their proprietary blend of "yarns and fabric variations [that] are precisely engineered only where they are needed for a featherweight, formfitting and virtually seamless upper." The benefits of employing materials in this way are 1) a lighter weight product, and 2) less waste, as the Flyknit materials comprise the bulk of the upper, and 3) combining the comfort of a sock with the structure and support of a traditional hard-material sneaker. As the company explains: NIKE embarked on a four-year mission of micro-engineering static properties into pliable materials. The second video doesn't pretend to be informative, but instead uses sexy CG to show off the shoe: The first Flyknit kicks will hit store shelves this July.
麦肯锡全球调查：市场营销的测评 - 麦肯锡季刊 - 市场营销的测评 - 营销 - 战略
Did Barclays Really Just Add The ‘F Word’ To Their Tagline?
This article titled “I’m afraid this is not a Barclays ad – brand hacking is on the rise” was written by Arwa Mahdawi, for guardian.co.uk on Friday 6th July 2012 14.17 UTC In light of the recent Libor-fixing scandal, Barclays’ marketing has taken a surprisingly honest turn, with the troubled bank changing its tagline to: Barclays, Fucking Barclays. The slogan features on a new and improved version of the bank’s egg timer advert and even has a mobile component, with iterations of the line recently surfacing on Boris bikes. A straight-talking poster accompanies these efforts, touting Barclays “for the best fixed rates“. Sadly, all this is a little too good to be true. Barclays has indeed attempted to distance itself from confusing banking acronyms and jargon through “more colloquial” terminology – but this was in 2006 when the bank spent £7m rebranding ATMs “holes in the wall” and putting up signs saying “Hi”. Brand hacking, or subvertising, is not a new phenomenon.
20 Creative Ways To Use An Apple iPad
The Apple iPad has been a hit and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down, with the iPad apps climbing past 10,000 in the last few days. Morgan Stanley figures show that the Apple iPad is the 3rd fastest hardware platform to pass 1 million purchases, passing that number in just 28 days which even surpasses the Apple iPhone at 74 days. As with any device that captures people’s imagination, the way that the iPad is used has been shown to be both practical and fun and that is the way it should be. I came across the CNet News NanoTech blog which had asked users their favourite uses for the iPad and here are some of the responses and I have added a few of my own along with a fun video on 10 creative ways to use an iPad. 1. “I decided to flush mount the iPad into my mom’s kitchen wall…the iPad became the ultimate song storage and categorized jukebox. 2. We use apps like epicurious for recipes plus I scanned all of her old recipes in as pictures…Perfect for the kitchen. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.
The Divided Brain
"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant" Albert Einstein This latest RSA Animate by reknowned psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist (and the accompanying book) is a powerful evcoation of how the divergent, contradistinct nature of the thinking from the two hemispheres of our brain (and how they interelate) have shaped, and continue to shape, our world. The right hemisphere, he says, is the 'master', with a capacity for handling uncertainty and a sustained, broad, open, empathetic, flexible view of the world. In contrast the left hemisphere is the 'emissary', narrow, with a sharply focused attention to detail and a preference for the mechanical, the absolute, the literal. I think the same is true in much of life, not least in marketing. You can see the full lecture, and of-course buy the book.
