Surprise! Your Brand is a Media Company now!

What?  Not a funny April Fools joke Chris, we most certainly are NOT a media company.  We make fantastic widgets for crying out loud...

Not so fast my friend.  Look at your brand platform these days - website, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube - all sponges requiring brand content and engagement with your core audience.  You are making videos folks, face the facts... YOU are a media company.

In the past, brands such as Tide, Coca-Cola, etc created aspirations for their core audience - i.e. the Brand trended the expectation to the masses - Good mothers use Tide, etc.  The Brand centralized the message back to its product/service. 

 

Nowadays, the customer is making that aspiration due to the immediacy of today's technological innovations.  Our focus as marketers is consumer driven based upon instant feedback received from - you guessed it - our Media Channels!  We are able to interact with our core audience in such a proactive way these days, that what is driving revenues - and Brand loyalty - is the content we create!

Read this article on how Red Bull has lead the way with this view of Brands as Media companies.

Case Studies: Have they become obsolete in the Social age?

In the promotional products industry, case studies are a vital bullet in a salesperson's arsenal.  A strong case study can show a company's creativity, it's project management capabilities, and most importantly it's solution-based initiative.  Case studies also show how important promotional products can be in an overall marketing strategy, and by clearly defining the ROI, gives the salesperson a competitive advantage against the typical "mom and pop" shop.

However, in today's socially-generated ratings world, the case study may be losing it's lustre.  The key knocks are that a case study has a limited shelf life, especially in the Millenial "what have you done for me in the last minute" mindset.  More importantly, a case study is primarily company-driven - i.e. it is designed to show the company in the best light possible. That's all well and good - but can sometimes come off as disingenuous, not a good look for most salespeople...

With the trend towards buying online in the promo products industry, the testimonial has the preferred vehicle of establishing brand trust - look at my website and you'll see the same!  I am as guilty as the next guy when it comes to not showing Case studies, I'd rather have a client speak to our reliability than it come from my mouth.

With Yelp and other review-based methods of 3rd party recommendations, the problem becomes that of control - you piss one person off and it can ruin a good Yelp day...  So, what to do as a promotional marketer?

The answer may be a solid blend of both, I know for me I will be including case studies going forward as a means of differentiation and control of my own brand.

Please read more on this trend Here

What do Walter White and Steve Jobs have in common?

Hmmm, now that's an intriguing question to ask on a Wednesday.  How can a science teacher turned meth kingpin have anything in common with the Apple guru?

In actuality - quite a bit!  You think about how Apple came on to the computer scene in the 70's, how it's design techniques and customer-driven laser focus created several industries, and then apply that to the drug business, and well you have synergies that can be applied to basic branding principles.

1. Market recognition:  Steve Jobs saw the future of personal computing very early, and recognized the vastness of the emerging market.  Jobs also was able to hone in on what the end user wanted, and simplified it so that it applied to everyday life - i.e. creating the MacIntosh desktop graphical interfaces that, well mimic someone's desktop.  Very simple, yet applicable to everybody's life!  Walter White saw that Methamphetamine was rapidly becoming huge, and took his expertise in chemistry to a new level by developing a better product which his market truly wanted.
2. Product Integrity:  Walter's formula in the show is a 99% pure product - well above anything in the marketplace, and its distinctive blue coloring made it easily identifiable.  To the consumer, it was a mark of drug excellence and created a huge demand for the Blue.  Jobs created a closed product, so that anyone who wanted to create an application or software had to utilize Apple's parameters, thereby ensuring that any software or hardware component worked seamlessly with Apple products.
3. Distinctive Design:  From the branding to the packaging, everything that Apple creates has a distinctively clean and intuitive design.  The iPod/iPad/iPhone have limited product directions as earch are easily implemented - kids can operate them without any real instructions.  Walter White's Blue meth is completely different than anything in the fictitious marketplace, and it's brand name of Heisenberg appeals to the end user, and strikes fear into the competition.
4. Market Dominance:  Apple has revolutionized 4 industries, and in each has been an industry leader, leaving competitors, particularly in the cellphone industry lagging behind.  Walter White's ruthless attention to his marketplace has placed his product as the standard, and his competition has not been able to copy and/or destroy it's way back.

Yes, we're talking fiction vs. reality, but these four principles can be put in to your own branding culture.

Marketing - The Classical approach

Sometimes, as marketers we get too gimmicky or enthralled with the latest technological trends.  But, just like in fashion, you can never go wrong with the classics!  Here are four tried and true marketing approaches for your next campaign!

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