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."