Our super social life!!

Why Big Brands Are Dominating Social Media

In the pre-web days, unless you had a budget big enough for expensive mainstream ad vehicles, like TV, print or radio, it was hard to reach a significant audience with your message. Big marketers had a built-in advantage, and the big got bigger at the expense of the small. The emergence of the web, and especially social marketing, now means the highway to success now has many more "on ramps" for smaller companies.

So why is it, then, when we look at some of the most effective forms of social marketing, big marketers are vastly out-performing smaller ones?

Read the full report here.

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish

One of the most inspiring talks I have ever heard.

1. Why, 2. How and then 3.What

We spend the last two months, covering this aspect of emotional vs rational marketing methods in the new digital scenario - and then I come across this 19 minute talk which covers almost everything that we did in 2 days.

Recommend that all brand marketters listen in to Simon Sinek who has a simple but powerful model for inspirational leadership all starting with a golden circle and the question "Why?"

Implementing CRM

I loved this post and can relate very well to it. On too many occasions have encountered clients / brands in a big hurry to start the "effective use" of CRM without undertaking the rigorous set-up process. Read more about best practices on CRM here.

The future (& Present) of Advertising.

If you are in the business of Advertising or Marketing, this article is a must read. Danielle Sacks has got the state of the industry and the generic thinking spot on. Read the article here.

"The ad business became an assembly line as predictable as Henry Ford's. The client (whose goal was to get the word out about a product) paid an agency's account executive (whose job was to lure the client and then keep him happy), who briefed the brand planner (whose research uncovered the big consumer insight), who briefed the media planner (who decided which channel -- radio, print, outdoor, direct mail, or TV -- to advertise in). Then the copywriter/art director team would pass on its work (a big idea typically represented by storyboards for a 30-second TV commercial) to the producer (who worked with a director and editors to film and edit the commercial). Thanks to the media buyer (whose job was to wine-and-dine media companies to lower the price of TV spots, print pages, or radio slots), the ad would get funneled, like relatively fresh sausage, into some combination of those five mass media, which were anything but equal. TV ruled the world. After all, it not only reached a mass audience but was also the most expensive medium -- and the more the client spent, the more money the ad agency made."

Social WAVE Report.

Universal McCann has has released their 5th Social WAVE report with almost 40,000 respondents globally. The report focus on how the growth in social media is opening avenues never seen before by brands, and show insights on how brands can look to use social to it’s maximum potential.

You can read more about it here or on slideshare.

Wave 5 the socialisation of brands - report

View more presentations from Thorsten Linz.

Statistics: The Growth Of Mobile Into 2011 | Digital Buzz Blog

Statistics: The Growth Of Mobile Into 2011 | Digital Buzz Blog

Very good read.

AR - another interesting example.

The humble "visiting / business card" can be made to amazing things. Here's a superb example of Augmented Reality, which brings a simple thing like a visiting card alive. 


I suggest you visit the site and take a print of the sign and then use it with your webcam on to "EXPERIENCE the introduction with the business card"

AR - Skoda Fabia Rally Driving - experience !!

Here is another good example of AR being used for an extremely experiential product - a car. Skoda Fabia has used Augmented Reality on this promotion are able to diliver much more than merely awareness. Think about what you (as a consumer) are getting beyond merely visiting a website or seeing and add. 

Rather than waiting for foot falls in their showrooms, Skoda has been able to take the fun of a test drive into the houses of it's potential customers and to get them to experience the thrill of driving (almost) without ever leaving their house. 

Augmented Reality - will finally take things to the next level of connection.

Augmented Reality (AR) has always been exciting however, how finally it is being adopted by more and more brands everyday and it could be / would be is the next big (really big) to hit the marketing community. AR enables a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are “augmented” by virtual computer-generated sensory input such as sound or graphics.

AR brings the virtual & real world a lot closer and open up a host of opportunities which are being increasingly exploited by brand owners. Here is a simple example used by Burger King to highlight “Value for a 1 USD” – an interesting and effective way to get the point across and ensure the engagement is longer, personal and more sharable. 

AR brings the advantage & need of physical engagement to the virtual world. It changes the one way communication to a far more engaging conversation. Each experience is very personal and unique to the consumer - enjoyable enough for him / her to share with friends on the social networks. 

AR is integrating well with all other media devices be it mobile, newsprint, internet, last mile / retail etc. Look out for more examples in the next few posts. 

Media & the power of social networks.

The impact of the social media on traditional news media and the societies they serve is enormous. While the traditional media houses claim to be embracing the social media power by of twitter accounts of their star journalists and integrating tools of SM within their programming, they seem to be battling a new age business model in journalism, which moves away from the massive “organization” set-up to a more nibble organizations set-up which takes it’s power from crowdsourcing.

Wikileaks is a shining example of this new age of journalism. Read more about Wikileaks.

A significant number (almost 50% of broadband users world wide) confess that mobile or online is their main source for news. There is opportunities for organizations like Wikileaks to move from only addressing the “long tale content” to even main stream news content and needless to add that they cut across to reach audience across the world.

While there are those who would still think that citizen journalism would not overtake traditional journalism – I differ in my views. I would expect the emergence of a large number of “content” specific platforms – which will aggregate content, which even the traditional media would need to feed on.

Meanwhile the following stats should reinforce the view on the rise of sites like Wikileaks.

While you can read more about Wikileaks here, it is however, what is quite interesting to see how the traditional press is worried about it and how petty can an organization like CNN be – instead of focusing on the serious issue of thousands of deaths of civilians in Iraq, they decide to focus on the irrelevant issues prompting the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange walked out of an interview with CNN in London. 

Almost looks as if the CNN is running a government agenda. 

Integrating Facebook into your email marketing campaigns

Integrating Facebook into your email marketing campaigns � SimplyCast: Interactive Marketing Blog

I thought it would be good to share this as a simple yet power tactic to integrate your regular email campaigns (which tend to have a very very low response rates - sub 0.1% in cases) with the powerful ability to create shareable content.

Consumer Involvement Theory - insights for advertising communications

Consumer Involvement Theory - insights for advertising communications

Here is a good note / post on how to approach brand communication based on the level of consumer involvement in the purchase cycle. Experiential communication methods make a lot of sense in high involvement categories (both B2B & B2c as well as Emotional and Rational). Even in case of impulse purchase it is BTL communication methods which make a difference more by way of effective last mile tactics.

Google Instant..

I had written an earlier note on the impact that Google Instant would have on the brands and their strategy on SEO and SEM. Found this very relevant article on the same subject on fastcompany.com. Read the article here.

Google Instant - game changer for Brands and their agencies.

Google Instant – Google’s new, very quick, letter-by-letter search result offering, would have huge impact on brands and their online spend strategies. Almost instantly the user behavior has adopted to “acceptance of suggested search terms”, this was something which was completely missing earlier.

The results seem to be driven by user history and geo-locational logic and therefore a boon and a matter of concern for brands who are vying for attention and click thrus’.

Just typing “a” in India (ND) throws the following brands up.

The Instant would have an impact on the entire logic of SEO. Previously, search-engine optimization for brands was about making sure your web pages rose to the top of Google’s results once someone had typed in the company’s full name. Now, it appears that a brand that wants to remain top in Google Instant also needs to see a critical mass of repeat visits in relevant locations in order to shore up their results. SEO will have to become a more local, retail-oriented endeavor.

While at the onset, the differences seem trivial but they will get critical as soon as one starts to look at consumer search behavior while using a mobile phone, where in keying is is tedious and hence instant suggestions would be taken quicker.

Brands that can ensure constant presence within search results for just one- or two-letter searches can expect to substantially more hits than those that require a full word for relevant results. Add this to the location-aware mobile ads run by Google, and one can visualize the SEO relevance battle turning very geographically driven.

The Promo & Activation Shortlist from Cannes

Its taken us over 7 days (and on some days late into the evening) to get to the shortlist for the category of Promo & Activation for the Cannes Lion. The list has been churned from over 1200 entries from around the world and represents some of the best work in the category.

You can view the list here.

Over the next few weeks (and after the awards are announced tonight. There is a information embargo on at the moment!!), I look forward to reviewing from of my favorite work from this list. Look forward to discussions then.

Another superb activation by KLM

I loved this campaign by KLM. It captures attention and is difficult for anyone to ignore. I brings about a bit of smile.



Also good to see that travelers stop, engage and in a number of cases take a picture to share.

Activation + Facebook engagement.

Diesel created an interactive installation in a Diesel Store in Spain, allowing users to share the moment of buying with their Facebook friends while being in the offline store.
With this the consumers are able to make pictures and publish them directly on to their very own Facebook account.

The promotional campaign ensures that Diesel no longer engages with the single consumer, it is about engaging with the consumer’s entire social network.