The Halo Group - Blog

Who Are You? Description, Clarification and Definition in the Visualization of a Brand

2009-07-08T09:36:00-05:00

By Tim Woods, Senior Creative Director, The Halo Group

What is a brand?

The word brand is thrown around these days wildly and erratically, like wet pigskin on a rainy autumn Sunday. It seems that the word serves as a catchall – nebulous and mysterious. Certainly it falls into to the category of most used, but least understood terms, not unlike, say, social media or even Wall Street.

So what is your brand? How might you define it?

First, the brand is not separate from the business – it is the business. Companies often overlook truly defining exactly what or who their brand is. For the record, a brand is your personality, philosophy, culture, design aesthetic, social responsibility and, of course, your products or services, all of which create a foundation from which everything else can be built.

Once defined, you need to reflect that, or those ideals, to your employees and customers, ensuring that your staff understands and embraces this. Some think a logo and a tagline can do this. Certainly the logo is vital brand signature, and yet, a signature mark could never impart the details that give a company personality, like, for example, the importance of a company’s customer service or its commitment to renewable resources.

The idea then, would be to create a physical representation of a brand – a singular piece that could make you feel what a brand is all about. We call it a proto-brand. It’s like a brand prototype, but much bigger. We are talking about the creation of a microcosm of an entire brand, something that conveys all those important brand attributes; all wrapped up like a tasty burrito.

So why is it important? Who cares? Well, you should. First, it serves as a brand’s touchstone. It is important when a company considers new ideas and new directions, and the proto-brand serves as a northern star, a reference piece.
Creating something tactile and dimensional gives a brand substance. It offers a simplified view of a company’s culture and personality, so that both newcomers and veterans alike, who work for the brand, clearly understand what that brand stands for.

To demonstrate how Wedgwood, the 250-year-old manufacturer of fine china, would adapt to the new generation’s demand for more flexibility in their dinnerware, Halo created Wedgwood’s Universal Table, redefining today’s casual luxury dinning experience. One table mixed and matched, combining the lowest to the highest priced products, illustrating unlimited versatility, modern elegance and timeless style for the consumer. It is the ultimate mash-up of fine china with the food, music and party ideas that are the elements of an unforgettable experience.

To help re-vitalize Guy Carpenter, the 85-year-old, trusted, “white shoe” firm, we created a stop-motion animated video that transformed a white shoe to embody the brand’s core competencies – creativity, technical savvy, transparency, strength and high performance. The video was then used internally as a rallying cry for the brand’s mission going forward.

These are just a couple of examples, but what it comes down to is that the proto-brand is a mirror reminding a brand of who they are, a visual guide into the future of a focused, healthy brand.

A Revitalization of the Old: The Rise of Indie Craft

2009-07-01T10:17:00-05:00

By Gillian Kindel, Account Executive, The Halo Group

Today’s pace of life has reached a fever pitch. We thrive on speed and having a constant influx of information at our fingertips about the world, our friends and our family. But recently, there has been a backlash against this obsession with being the fastest and the most connected. Instead, people are being encouraged to slow down, be more considerate of their actions and to focus on value rather than speed.

Chef Dan Barber of Blue Hill Restaurant and Michael Pollan, the author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, are examples within the culinary world of individuals who are taking new approaches to food culture and production. By encouraging people to think not only about the impact their decisions about food make on themselves but also on the world at large, they are helping people to become more aware of their consumption. Additionally, the recent economic downturn has forced people to become more discretionary in their spending habits, as they have less disposable income. According to Faythe Levine and Cortney Heimer, authors of Handmade Nation: The Rise of DIY, Art, Craft, and Design, what will survive this recession are products that people believe have true value, or are items that are perceived as being personal and authentic. People want to feel that they are not only spending their money in a smart way, but that they are also helping to support their local economy by actually putting a face to what they’re buying. Solution? Enter Indie Craft.

Our modern view of crafts is rooted in the Arts and Crafts Movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which was conceptualized around the ideas of William Morris and John Ruskin, who proposed that in pre-industrial societies, people achieved fulfillment through the creative process of handicrafts. Crafts allowed people to step outside industrial society to create something personal and meaningful that they could either use in their daily lives as decoration or as a form of gift currency amongst friends. The craft scene, both then and now, is inherently social and the proliferation of online message boards, blogs and websites has caused an explosion within the craft community. What differentiates modern crafts or “indie crafts” from those of the past is the marriage of new materials, like environmentally friendly dyes or recycled materials, to more traditional types of crafting, like knitting, needlepoint and paper cutting. This most recent boom in the craft movement utilizes traditional methods, but constructs them with modern materials. As Oliver Schwaner-Albright wrote in an article about the growth of Brooklyn’s artisan food scene, the producers “share an aesthetic that’s equal parts 19th and 21st century.” Examples of this can be seen in the Mast Brothers’ production of chocolate, which utilizes the most environmentally friendly ingredients but is manufactured using 19th-century chocolate production techniques and wrapping it all up with screen-printed paper by contemporary graphic designers; or Jenny Hart, who started Sublime Stitching in Austin, Texas, and develops needlepoint designs of pop-culture imagery that can be ironed on, instead of designing patterns that focus on specific numbers and griding of stitches.

So how does this resurgence of and shift to ‘craftiness’ affect the marketing of a business? There are some guiding principals about people who are interested in and utilize Indie Crafts that can be integrated into marketing:
•    Consumers are interested in knowing the back story for what they’re buying; if there are details that can be provided about how something was produced or tell its story, that is very valuable information.
•    Consumers want to feel like they are supporting something good. What they are buying is not just another item from a big box store; rather, they can form a personal connection to the maker. The success of Etsy, an e- commerce site comprised of hundreds of independent designers, can serve as a testament to this (“Handmade 2.0” by Rob Walker in The New York Times, December 16, 2007, gives some great background).
•    Consumers want to feel like they’re getting good value for their money; purse strings are being pulled tighter than ever, and people want to believe they’re spending wisely.

What is 21st Century Social Currency?

2009-06-29T10:15:00-05:00

By Chris Barredo, Brand Planner, The Halo Group

A curious term has been popping up pretty often here lately at Halo: social currency. And the way we use it seems much larger and more important than ever. So it seems fitting that we examine what social currency means today.

Social structure has evolved dramatically due to many innovations in many different areas that allow people to connect and share with each other. It has resulted in the creation of a tribal society with multitudes of tribes (Seth Godin's "Tribes") – tribes of every size, shape and sort; tribes for every interest and taste – and it’s social currency that makes them go round. At one point, social currency stood for the power of the relationships you had, but social currency today should also include the “relationships” you have with experiences and interests. It’s no longer just about who you know, but what you know.

Take a look at any Facebook profile (or Linkedin, if you so prefer) and you’ll likely notice social currency at its best. First you’ll see the number of friends or contacts, but then it gets broken down even more into an infinite number of groups for everything from politicians to favorite soft drinks. Then there are interests, favorite books, movies, music and quotes. All are sources of social currency with different values in different tribes and they help provide deeper, more meaningful insights into who this person is and their stature in the tribe.

For example, in the chocolate lovers’ tribe, knowledge of how chocolate is made and what characteristics to look for in dark chocolate might be highly valued social currency. In this person’s respective Facebook profile you might see “Grenada 60% organic dark chocolate” as an interest along with other gourmet things such as wine or cheese. Perhaps you’ll see favorite books about the benefits of organic foods. From this profile, we might see that it’s valuable for them to know where the cocoa beans come from, how it is manufactured, its unique flavor profile and what other foods or drinks it could be paired with.

Unlike money, the quest to acquire social currency isn’t about power; rather, it’s about individualism. Think of consumers today more as curators of social currency, finding the right balance to represent who they are, what makes them unique, and the value they add to whatever tribes – online or off – they belong to.

The more you understand what are considered valuable interests, experiences and knowledge amongst your target audience and their respective tribes, and how they are used, the more you can understand how to fit your brand into their lives.

Today's Creative Presentation

2009-06-15T09:22:00-05:00

By Meg Moody, Associate Creative Director, The Halo Group

So you’re a butcher. Or a baker. Or a candlestick maker.* And you’re questioning your creative presentation-—are you using the right media elements to build your message and develop your brand? But you’re inundated with options and choices and articles proclaiming, The new trend is here! It’s sweeping the world. It’s the new obsession with preteens, teens and post-teens.

You start to ask yourself, “what is a post-teen?” and make a note to google Wikipedia for the definition of post-teen just as your phone rings ... and it’s your ad agency, or your marketing guy or your kid, for that matter, singing the praises of the next new thing, which happens to contradict the article you just read about the previous new thing... You sigh, and mutter, “too many things, too many channels, far too complicated.”

But rest assured, there’s a small secret that communications folks would like to keep on the down-low: The basics are the same. There are just a few new ingredients. And so this brings us to cookies...

Cookies aren’t too complicated are they? No. Never. They are delicious. And consumable. And easily made into a metaphor for today’s creative presentation.

In your basic cookie, let’s say chocolate chip, you’ve got butter and flour—print media. You’ve got sugar—radio. You’ve got eggs—outdoor. Baking soda—sponsorships, and chocolate chips—television and product placement. You used to have to decide the simple ratios, cream the butter and sugar, add your dry ingredients and pop them in the oven. And if you were really adventurous, you chose dark chocolate chips instead of milk (gasp!)....

But today, you’re bombarded with candy-covered chocolates, chocolate chunks, sprinkles, coconut flakes, peanut butter, oatmeal ... in the guise of interactive site buyouts, banners, sponsorships, ambient outdoor ... Twitter, Facebook, YouTube...

Today, a new monster cookie** has been created, leaving you to decide which ingredients will come together to make the best creative presentation.

Well, it’s really pretty simple. When you boil it all down, today’s creative presentation is the same as it has been since the dawn of time. It begins with your message-—what do you want to say to your consumers? Are you chocolate chip, are you sugar, are you peanut butter or are you oatmeal? Then, decide which ingredients will best enhance that message.

Look at your ingredients-—your various media options—as a way to give your brand some personality, some texture and a flavor that makes it stand out from the competition.

Use your ingredients purposefully. Use interactive site buyouts to talk to very specific groups of people-—Twitter to make a direct connection with consumers who have already opted in, Facebook to build a virtual community around your brand and ambient outdoor to put your brand in the middle of actual community.

While the recipe can get a bit complicated, the good news is that most of today’s media options are quantifiable, trackable, justifiable, customizable, targeted and if by chance you don’t see the results you might be hoping for, they’re easily changeable.

The good news is that if you begin with the basics, if you begin with your message, you can have some fun with the ingredients to make the best darn cookie on the market.

* The Halo Group realizes that you may not be a baker, a butcher or a candlestick maker.
   But there are nuggets of wisdom still to come, so we do hope that you will continue reading...

** In case you’re curious, Monster Cookie: 1/2 C flour
                   4 tsp Baking Soda
                   1 lb Brown Sugar
                   1.5 tsp Vanilla
                   2 C Sugar
                   6 Eggs
                   .5 lb Butter
                   1.5 lb Peanut Butter
                   9 C Oatmeal
                   1lb of any kind of candy you’d like

                   Cream butter and sugar, add eggs, vanilla and peanut butter,
                   fold in dry ingredients followed by candy.

                   Bake 10–12 minutes at 350.

Environmentally Conscious Printing Practices: Are They Ready for Prime Time?

2009-06-12T12:03:00-05:00

By Michael Aaron Frandy, Studio Manager, The Halo Group

Even if it's not yet a company-wide mandate (or goal) to implement environmentally friendly "green" practices in your business, there is certainly a global paradigm shift toward compliance to the utilization of renewable resources in the workplace. At a minimum, many companies and governmental entities now require the procurement of 30% post-consumer-waste paper stock. Some even require the use of soy-based inks in jobs that are offset printed.

In marketing communications, where voluminous quantities of paper and ink are utilized to manufacture printed materials, the shift in ad agency procurement of printing vendors leans toward those who have certifications from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) — a non-governmental agency that gives its seal of approval only to member organizations who comply with a stringent set of rules about paper stock procurement only from well-managed forests. According to the FSC, each ton of paper equals approximately 8.5 trees.

At Globe Litho, one of Halo’s offset printing vendors, Vice President Bob Lion has received another title, which reflects upon his company's commitment to environmentally sound practices: Chief Sustainability Officer. In a recent television interview with BBC News2, Lion states, "If (Globe) weren't FSC-certified today, there's a possibility we might not even be doing business." Aside from ensuring procurement of paper stock from FSC-sanctioned channels, Globe also purchases electrical power for manufacturing from renewable sources such as solar-energy and wind-turbine power.3

The next time you’re in a situation to direct the green efforts of your company’s printing process, we present you with the following facts — covering both sides of the recycling debate — to consider:

PROS:
The main advantage of utilizing recycled paper product is the contribution to conservation of natural resources, such as habitats where virgin timber is harvested, the trees themselves, water used in both the logging and paper milling processes, and the energy used to operate the machinery during the entire process — usually electricity and petroleum-based fuels. Also, less chlorine-based bleaching agents are necessary to make recycled paper white, as the raw materials have been through the process before. Purchasing recycled stock also ensures that there is that much less paper being treated as waste — taking up space in landfills and emitting environmentally damaging gases, such as carbon dioxide, during decomposition. From a technical standpoint, recycled paper stock handles application of inks and varnishes and is able to be run in virtually any type of offset-printing press as comparable paper stock made from virgin timber.

CONS:
In the arena of business practicality, there are actually a few disadvantages to relying solely upon recycled paper product for printing: There is generally a longer lead-time for print vendors to obtain recycled paper stock (which can add a few weeks to tight production schedules); the brightest of the whites in the recycled category are still dull by comparison to a bright-white virgin stock; the cost of most stock in the recycled category tends to be about 3–10% more expensive than virgin stock; and there is a considerable lack of information — from even the most verbose recycling vendors and proponents — as to where the solid waste product (i.e., ink, clay, paper) from the de-inking process ends up after the recycled pulp is harvested.

On a much smaller scale, we can all take baby steps toward less waste in our immediate working situations. Staples, Office Depot and other big-box office supply chains have myriad 30% post-consumer-waste paper products for sale. GreenPrint4, a unique Windows and Mac software program, eliminates wasteful pages in any printout. And it’s easy enough to read a document, PDF or email on your computer’s display — as opposed to hitting “print” each time. Many corporate email footers now end with “Please consider the environment before printing this email.”

No matter any of our personal or professional opinions on the matter, there’s a strong likelihood that we will, to some degree, be corralled into adopting greener processes — especially in the hopes of obtaining/maintaining working relationships with governmental and municipal entities.

1 FSC
2 http://www.globelitho.com/company-info/bbc-features-globe-litho/
3 Center for Resource Solutions (CRS [green energy])
4 http://www.printgreener.com/

Recession! Crisis! Scandal! Steady Your Brand with PR and Grab a Little Market Share While Youre At It

2009-05-29T14:34:34-05:00

By Denise Goodwin Pace, CCO/Co-Founder, The Halo Group

What do you get when you add a 24-hour news cycle to voraciously expanding social media to a pressured and shrinking cadre of experienced journalists to a worldwide recession to chilling headlines about multi-billion dollar swindles, tainted food sources, and corporate wrongdoings?

A crying need for good old-fashioned public relations.

Tell Me the Truth
Smart marketers keep PR as a central steadying component of their brand work. It’s part of the way they tell their story to the various people, customers, and “publics” that should know it. Right now, in the tumult of these crazy times, consumers are begging to believe. They want to find someone, ANYONE, to trust.

It’s basic – the brand must be true, inside and out, and the brand’s voice should be steady, trustworthy, clear. That message constancy, the happy hum, has always been created best through proactive public relations efforts. It’s not news to anyone in our business that positive media coverage is seen by consumers to be more credible than advertising. And fee-based PR, more “affordable” than traditional advertising buys, is a great way to reach them. It should always be part of the mix and its efforts can be targeted anywhere, from traditional consumer and trade print and broadcast, to the Internet and the exciting new world of social media.

How do you know when a brand is doing it? Simply ask yourself, “What company do I admire?” Even in the face of unexpected crises, that company generates good will. That company is true to itself, behaves responsibly, and then lets the world know. That company tells the good news. Hershey’s Chocolate, with its long-standing corporate social-responsibility commitments, national baking events, and cookbooks, is a great example of smart and proactive PR at work.

And While You’re At It, Inspire Me
Please PLEASE tell us something good. With so much wrong in the world, we want to know what’s right. Add the power of social media to the mix and who knows what can happen. Ask Susan Boyle.

Of course, she is not a company (though she IS developing as a brand), but within two weeks her talent-show performance, uploaded on YouTube (well over 100,000,000 views) and buzzing through the social media world, spilled over into traditional media with major TV, newspaper, radio, and magazine placements, turning the unknown Scottish woman into a worldwide phenomenon … with a brand new lucrative recording contract.

On the corporate side, think about Patagonia and Tom’s Shoes too – more good examples of good companies telling good stories and seeing growing numbers of customers because of it. All because we consumers are human first – we adore being inspired.

These are turbulent days. The brands that speak consistently, in a clear, powerful, coherent, and positive voice, like that delivered through a PR program, will be the ones heard. The ones remembered.

Luxury: Aspiring to a New Ideal

2009-05-22T09:27:53-05:00

By Mark Sutter, Chief Strategic Officer, The Halo Group

There has been a lot written lately about the death of Bling. Could the confluence of social, economic and political change finally be the consumer tipping point? Karl Lagerfeld noted a shift in global cultural values, calling it an “era of new modesty.” President Obama has called for a “new age of accountability.” Others have proclaimed that the age of consumerism is over and that emerging American values will forever change luxury brand marketing as we know it. Luxury marketers are being told that consumers are rejecting the trappings of wealth, and are instead reconnecting with family and friends, and joining a kinder, gentler, less conspicuous world of consumption. But is that really true?

It seems that with every recession we seem to get the same populist message: Luxury is dead. Restraint and simplicity will rein. According to Fortune magazine, Faith Popcorn, Chairman of BrainReserve, a consumer research firm, calls the phenomenon ‘cashing out’: less concern for material things and more emphasis on things money can’t buy. She sees it as symptomatic of “America’s fatigue with excess.” Funny thing is that quote was printed in 1990, nearly 20 years ago. Since then, three recessions have passed and arguably we have enjoyed one the most decadent luxury bull markets in American history.

So is Bling really dead? Or have we just come down with another mild case of affluenza? With each upswing, our aspirational culture proves the pundits wrong. The American capitalist culture can’t be shaken. The desire to acquire beautiful things is irrepressible.

Certainly, there’s no doubt that the way consumers value luxury brands is now under scrutiny, perhaps more so than ever before. But smart marketers have known for years that there has been a shift from conspicuous consumption to life enriching consumption.

Live Life Enriched

Consumers are aspiring to a new luxury ideal. They have become collectors of life experiences.
High-end hotels like The Ritz-Carlton have moved beyond service excellence to position themselves as global portals to new life-enriching experiences. Louis Vuitton luggage is a “worthy companion for life’s incredible journey,” and Tiffany helps you hold on to those moments that that matter most, capturing “The Story of Your Life” for all time. These are the aspirational qualities that consumers seek from luxury brands today.

All of these products offer more than status and prestige— they help consumers savor and celebrate life and connect them with the world around them. Product authenticity and craftsmanship help them tell their personal life stories. And socially responsible brands help them contribute to something larger than themselves. These brand qualities are timeless, and offer the lasting value consumers have come to expect from luxury today.

So while some in the industry are retreating or irrevocably tarnishing their brands, those that understand how to communicate the value of luxury to today’s consumers will survive, and perhaps even prosper in this downturn — emerging more powerful than ever before.

Reporting from Millennial Island: Recession Edition

2009-05-04T09:12:00-05:00

by Chris Barredo, Brand Planner, The Halo Group

Because no (wo)man is an island… but all islands are special and unique, right?

Recession? What Recession?
Ok, I don’t mean to be so blasé about a financial downturn whose full potential is yet to be realized and will undoubtedly have an impact on many people. It’s just that people often cite one seminal moment or event that has shaped every generation’s identity – WWII for the Greatest Generation or The Vietnam War and Sexual Revolution for the Boomers – and many think this recession going to be the test for us Millennials.

But not so fast there. We have bigger plans, grander goals, than just overcoming a recession. There are a few Millennial traits that make us well suited for the task and that should be important to brands who count Millennials as key to their success. Ultimately, you should feel confident handing over the keys to the Porsche.

Our Confidence and Optimism will not be Overcome
If there’s one thing that’s lacking during recessionary times, it’s consumer confidence and optimism. Above all, those are the things Millennials have an overabundance of. Millennials are so confident and optimistic in their ability to succeed, what makes you think a recession – even one longer and deeper than imagined – can stop us?

For example, Generation Blend’s take away from Randstad research about the Millennial attitude towards work during a downturn sums it up nicely: “Across several metrics, Millennials are tops among all cohorts surveyed in their willingness to change jobs, and the most optimistic about the prospects for getting hired elsewhere if they move on.”

Individuality Spawns Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Another important factor in pulling an economy out of the gutter is harnessing intellectual capital and focusing it on innovation to create momentum. Millennials are the most educated generation ever and a recession will only ignite more academic endeavors as Millennials seek out new skills, new experiences, and/or return to school. According to the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC) applications were up for the majority of MBA programs in 2008 and are expected to continue through the 2009/2010 school term.

Much has been made of the Millennials’ obsession with individuality, good or bad; the result is a constant belief that they can do better and that is the seed of innovation. With a majority of the generation still in school or returning to school, we have yet to experience the first true wave of entrepreneurial innovation from Millennials (if you thought Facebook was it, watch out!).

Social Responsibility is Ingrained in our DNA
While overstated, Millennials do have an affinity for environmental sustainability and both social and corporate responsibility. We recycle, celebrate Earth Day, witnessed the Berlin Wall fall and saw Enron implode. We’ve seen multiple bubbles burst. We were taught about global warming and we were in school on 9/11.

This doesn’t mean we only eat at Whole Foods or only wear Tom’s shoes and American Apparel (not yet, at least). But we gravitate towards brands that are seemingly honest and transparent, and as much as you might argue about the merits of their cause, what’s important is that they have one. Millennials know that brands, like people, are not perfect. Responsibility doesn’t mean you don’t make mistakes, it means you own up to them, and, like a good Millennial, always strive to be better.

Motivating Millenials
What sets us apart from Gen Xers the most is that we are self-centered enough to believe change can start with one person. The best, most successful brands make connections by empowering, encouraging, and facilitating Millennials in their pursuit of individuality, freedom and innovation. They do so by staying positive and optimistic and back it up by being real and authentic. The 2008 election and Barack Obama’s campaign – rooted in hope and change – was a good example of how to motivate and move Millennials into action (as are the three brands listed above).

I should not be so quick to say our problems can and will be easily solved by Millennials. There are many skeptics about this generation’s ability, or inability, to overcome bumps in the road. Truth is Millennials haven’t actually done much yet. But when the smoke clears, it’ll be the Millennials leading the way. Why? Because there is no other way. Eventually you just have let go and do as Millennials do: be optimistic that we will succeed.

The Mercurial Marketing Mash-up

2009-05-04T09:04:00-05:00

By Tim Woods, Executive Creative Director, The Halo Group

To market a company or product in the 21st century, we can no longer rely simply on the single benefit of a television spot, thrown like spaghetti on a wall to reach the masses. We need to combine the best ideas of print, television, interactive, and other tactics to connect to our customers in interesting and relevant ways. It’s taking this mix and match approach to marketing to survive in this mash-up culture we now inhabit.

So then, what is a mash-up? In its simplest form, it is creatively combining elements from different genres, cultures, and categories to create something new. The mash-up was a term coined first when DJs began taking digital music files and mixing them together, stripping away the vocals from one track and adding beats and riffs from one or many songs to create something entirely new. Some say DJ Hellraiser was first when he artfully blended together The Strokes and Christine Aguilera.

What has made mashing up a current cultural phenomenon is technology. It’s easy to mash-up music, video, fashion, design and put it on the web. Now, like many ideas in this age of information, the mash-up has spread like wildfire. There are movie trailer mash-ups (The Shining as a comedy), web app mash-ups (Flickrvision), news mash-ups (Digg), data mash-ups (using Google Maps and overlaying other data like Starbucks locations). The list goes on.

The next logical question becomes, how then can this mash-up philosophy be used in business? Converse is a good example. To celebrate their 100th anniversary, Converse wanted to acknowledge personalities who bucked the status quo; remarkably, many individuals, both figuratively and literally, could all be connected by their love of the Chuck Taylor sneaker. To further that idea, besides creating a website, Converse commissioned three disparate and commercially successful artists to write, produce, and perform a song. Converse became a catalyst of creativity, because of the uniqueness of its product, and because of its joy in the core identity of its hipster individualism. The facts back up the idea — visits to the Converse website resulted in thousands of downloads of the song, not to mention the radio airplay and the public relations garnered from the unique and groundbreaking partnership of Converse and the musicians.

How can mash-up ideas work to reimagine products in other categories? The entire category of fine china, for example, needs to examine how it is talking to people and make china more relevant to customers who are shying away from luxury goods and no longer see dining at home as a formal affair. The Halo Group would recommend dismantling old ways of thinking about eating and turn every meal into entertainment. Begin by giving customers the ability to collect, over the course of their lifetimes, customized sets of china, allowing them to mix and match in whichever fashion they desire. Mash-up music, menus, and party recommendations should be part of the brand experience.

New creativity is always born out of the old. It is the blend of what is and what has been. Mixing different ideas isn’t a new concept; consider the Reese’s peanut butter cup. No longer can companies dictate how their products can be used. It is truly up to the customer. It’s an important shift to note. So when you think of your brand, don’t be afraid to put it in a blender.

Looking for an Agency? Its Not the Same as Searching for a Washing Machine

2009-04-09T16:14:00-05:00

an Interview with Tim Brenton by Denise Goodwin Pace, CCO/Co-Founder, The Halo Group

The success of any marketing communications agency search is predicated on creating an honest and open dialogue between the client and the agency. Only that openness can ignite chemistry. We talked to Tim Brenton, CEO of The Brenton Group, who trains businesspeople to facilitate business relationships built on trust and confidence. He’s very clear on what’s required.

“During a search for a new agency, clients play their cards close to the vest from fear of being taken advantage of,” says Brenton. “But sharing during the process is exactly what is needed to assess compatibility – the heart of the potential relationship.”

Brenton has seen client behavior during the search process that is often antithetical to the formation of a strong client-agency relationship. He claims that a good agency must be a diagnostician about the hopes, dreams, goals and aspirations of the potential client. Yet clients are often loath to share that during the search process.

What the client should bring to the table

According to Brenton, there are specific steps a client must be accountable for at the beginning of the search for the right agency:

An understanding of the real problem that led to this new agency search. Brenton believes that the client, in collaboration with the new agency, should delineate the “lessons learned from the past” – specifically, what worked and what did not work in the previous client-agency relationship.
An inventory of the actions taken to solve the problem. The client must be open and honest so that history does not repeat itself.
A realistic and true budget. “No agency can offer recommendations on a zero-based budget and it’s an exercise in futility for a client to project an inflated budget. It’s not fair to the agency and it dishonors and devalues both the client and the agency,” says Brenton.
Your expectations on ROI. Ask the agency to demonstrate projected ROI. Brenton says, “If an agency truly believes in ROI, that agency should almost become an aggravation to the potential client, continually asking about the budget and the expectations on return.”
The decision makers. Who is involved? The agency that is given the task of solutions has an obligation to look at possibilities through different filters. The client should be upfront about who is involved and give the agency access to those people.

The bottom line

According to Brenton, if the client consciously avoids being its own worst enemy, the successful client-agency relationship is born and both sides are open and honest from the outset. That willingness to share information leads to the partnerships that make marketing history.

As EVP at Arnold Advertising, Tim Brenton led his company in providing world-class advertising and marketing programs to his clients. Tim founded the Brenton Group to help CEOs and senior sales management make quantum leaps in the performance of managers and sales representatives. Tim delivers custom sales programs to corporate clients, as well as frequent sales and management workshops. He brings over 25 years of advertising, marketing, sales management and recruiting expertise to his clients.

Beyond the Dog and Pony Show: What Clients Should Pay Attention To in the First Agency Meeting

2009-04-09T16:12:00-05:00

an Interview with Tim Brenton by Denise Goodwin Pace, CCO/Co-Founder, The Halo Group

Choosing a new marketing communications agency partner is one of the most important decisions a CMO can make. It can be a career-maker, if the agency delivers the goods. It can be a career-breaker, if the fit is wrong or if the agency ultimately does not perform. Tim Brenton, CEO of The Brenton Group, says that even in the first presentation, there are key indicators by which to gauge if the agency in the room with you has earned the next meeting.

What the agency should demonstrate

Agency presentations are usually fun and often dramatic. But during that process, Brenton says the decision makers should look past the agency “show” to make certain the potential agency partner demonstrates:

Case histories that dignify and value the client contribution. A good agency presents its success as a result of collaboration with its valued client. A bad agency presents the work as the agency’s alone.
Their process. The agency process must promote the client contribution to the work – collaboration between the agency and client is key.
Hard metrics on ROI. Brenton advises clients to look at hard metrics, such as profit generated from increased sales, rather than soft metrics alone, such as increased awareness.
Positive interaction between the agency team members. The agency people must treat one another respectfully in the presentation. Brenton says that too many times, presentations reveal an agency of individuals, not a team, all fighting for the microphone. A good agency’s people obviously value each other, actively listen to one another, and refrain from interrupting one another.
Its own unique differentiation. A client that wants unique positioning to separate itself from the competition in a meaningful way should see the same thing at work in an agency presentation. Brenton claims that, all too often, agencies say the same thing, with the only differentiator being the production values of its leave-behind. “An agency should be able to clearly articulate its core competency. A simple but telling question the client should ask the agency is, ‘If there is one thing I should take away from this meeting with you, tell me what it is in one sentence.’”

Brenton claims the tenor that will underlie the future client-agency relationship can be obvious from the outset. Pay attention at the beginning to make certain that what you’re choosing is what you want.

As EVP at Arnold Advertising, Tim Brenton led his company in providing world-class advertising and marketing programs to his clients. Tim founded the Brenton Group to help CEOs and senior sales management make quantum leaps in the performance of managers and sales representatives. Tim delivers custom sales programs to corporate clients, as well as frequent sales and management workshops. He brings over 25 years of advertising, marketing, sales management and recruiting expertise to his clients.

The Client-Agency Pre-Nup Agreement, Or, Writing Service Protocols That Lead to a Wonderful Future

2009-04-09T16:10:00-05:00

an Interview with Tim Brenton by Denise Goodwin Pace, CCO/Co-Founder, The Halo Group

Finding the right marketing communications agency partner could be the beginning of a beautiful relationship, according to Tim Brenton, CEO of The Brenton Group. But Brenton, who trains businesspeople to facilitate business relationships built on trust and confidence, believes there is an additional step both parties should take – crafting a specific contract that includes agreement on those things that can make or break a relationship. He calls them specific servicing protocols.

Keep the relationship healthy

It’s a good idea to build relationship guidelines upfront with specific servicing protocols that can ward off potential problems. Brenton supplies an interesting example:

At an unnamed agency known for its big ideas and great creative, the servicing protocol, agreed to by both client and agency at the outset of the relationship, mandates that an agency Big Idea gets a Big Listen.

“Big Ideas can be scary,” says Brenton. “And it’s human nature for middle management at the agency AND the client to want to get their fingerprints on the output of the collaboration. That’s how Big Ideas get watered down.”

So, this top agency put a fail-safe process in place that practically guarantees that Big Ideas see the light of day. Brenton explains, “When the agency Lead decides that the idea about to be presented by the agency qualifies as Big, he calls his counterpoint, the client’s Lead, and requests him or her to be at the first creative presentation. The agency built that into the service protocol and it’s one example of best practices on how you build a successful relationship.”

Linda Passante, CEO of The Halo Group, adds to that:

“We request that, overall, the decision-making team at our client be limited to one or two people,” says Passante. “Once the client team says ‘yes,’ both client and agency work to get any internal buy-in that the client needs on. Decision by committee often leads to what we call ‘Frankensteining’ – powerful work dissected and reassembled in a way that negates the heart of the idea. But, client leaders who are empowered to make decisions on the agency offering see greater brand clarity and speedier results when that kind of damaging process is avoided.”

Other examples of servicing protocols include scheduled semiannual meetings between C-level players at both the agency and client to make sure the relationship stays on track; the right for the agency CEO to call the client CEO when “scope creep” enters the relationship; and the client CEO to call the agency CEO if the agency is not performing as expected.

Specific servicing protocols are common sense parameters that serve both sides of the client-agency relationship. Developing a list of expectations right up front helps keep the client and agency bonded when the inevitable demands of business test the relationship in the future. Smart marketers require them to keep the road to brand ROI smooth and successful.

As EVP at Arnold Advertising, Tim Brenton led his company in providing world-class advertising and marketing programs to his clients. Tim founded the Brenton Group to help CEOs and senior sales management make quantum leaps in the performance of managers and sales representatives. Tim delivers custom sales programs to corporate clients, as well as frequent sales and management workshops. He brings over 25 years of advertising, marketing, sales management and recruiting expertise to his clients.

The Next Big Idea is the Little Idea

2009-04-09T16:09:00-05:00

By Guy Sealey, Creative Director/Digital Strategy, The Halo Group

Each with unique circumstances, there are many reasons why a brand doesn’t evolve to take advantage of new market opportunities. It may be that the brand lacks clarity of vision or is just unwilling to defy category convention. It may well be it is looking hard for the “Next Big Idea” and missing the one right in front of it. Brands need to know why they are missing opportunities and analyzing them is a good thing. But, seeking out the easiest opportunities may be more useful.

In the old days — circa 1994 and before — brand communication with the world consisted of brands telling consumers who they were, what they stood for, and how the consumer should use their product or service. Consumers were more or less left to decide if they believed the brand issuing the edict or not, and that was the end of the dialogue. Brands told consumers what to think. It was a one-way street of communication.

That all changed with mobile phones and the internet. Suddenly, a second lane, one that challenged the one-way street of brand communication, was opened up. This second lane is the lane in which consumers control the brand through discussions between themselves in the interactive space. It is also a lane in which consumers tell brands directly what they are thinking.

This lane represents the biggest opportunity for brands: LISTENING and WATCHING what is being said about them, and then REACTING directly to the online chatter. The internet represents one huge feedback loop for the brand that is paying attention. No longer does a brand have to solicit surveys from consumers. On a daily basis, a brand can follow what consumers want and expect from it and then not only modify its messaging, but also change its behavior accordingly. It can make incremental improvements to either its service or product offerings based on what customers actually want.

Look at the online shoe seller Zappos, for example, and how it expanded on what it sells. The redesign of their user interface in 2008, and the expanded categories (like small electronics and cookware) are based on the company’s mind-set of finding out what the customer wants and then figuring out the best way to deliver that. CEO Tony Hsieh has said that Zappos has branched out based on what its customers would like to see from them. “If they say, ‘I wish you would sell this because I just had a horrible experience somewhere else,’ we’ll look into it.”*

In another example, Apple, notorious for not using public mediums to get feedback about its products, has recently done just that. The company conducted online surveys about Apple TV among that product’s users, partly to understand what can be changed about it, but mostly to better understand how to build more consumer interest in the device. Apple’s next big breakthrough for Apple TV may come from user feedback, either in the form of product updates or in terms of the user group understanding.

A brand can also quietly and smartly enter its customers’ dialogue in tweets and blog postings from Facebook to Ning. This is where the next big idea lies, indeed, the big idea, which is really the incremental changes that a brand makes in response to what its customers really want.

(see Apple article: http://www.edibleapple.com/apple-conducts-survey-about-apple-tv-asks-users-for-input/

*Margaret Kane for CNET newsblog April 18th, 2008 http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9921188-7.html

Marketing Actually Defines Opportunity for the Entire Organization

2009-04-09T16:04:00-05:00

By Mark Sutter, Chief Strategic Officer, The Halo Group

While there are many departments that impact profitability, marketing is the engine room for company growth. Marketing, more so than any other department, is best suited to help shape a company’s or brand’s vision. No one understands changing customer behaviors and market dynamics better than marketing. In fact, it should help lead organizational priorities and shape customer strategies that impact each and every department.

Some companies still view marketing as a support function— tactical rather than strategic. They seek out marketing services rather than marketing strategy. They see it as a cost center rather than a revenue generator.

Today, marketing is responsible for driving profit and revenues. Marketing is tasked with solving consumer problems profitably. And guess what, that’s not a one-man or a one-department job. It needs customer service, sales, IT, finance, operations, and of course, the CEO to make it happen. It takes an organization. In fact, all departments should be a support function for marketing, not the other way around.

Marketing can actually define the roles every department should play in seizing market opportunity and growing the company. For example, customer adoption of technology has been moving faster than business, so quite often IT priorities need to be reexamined to ensure they meet consumer expectation. Companies have also been redefining consumer expectations for customer service. Marketing can help provide focus and guidance to ensure that customer service is seamless across all connection points. For example, Four Seasons Hotels have excelled at actively creating and strengthening relationships with customers by employing “guest historians” at each hotel. These guest historians work to further customize customer experiences based on the customers’ preferences. CEOs have become celebrities— and customers, not just investors, hang on their every word. What they say can have direct impact on customer perceptions and the bottom line.

In most organizations, different functions and departments vie for budget and resources. At the end of the year, they answer first and foremost to department goals. But they’re not always corporate goals. And that’s a problem. Marketing must be at the forefront of the discussion. Helping articulate a company’s vision and goals. Creating a shared commitment and understanding of customer priorities among all departments.

Everyone in an organization should think like a marketer, asking not how will this serve my department, but rather, how will it serve the customer? How will it help achieve the company’s goals?

New Metrics for a New CMO

2009-04-09T16:02:00-05:00

by Michael Pierre, VP/Connection Planning, The Halo Group

Ask three CMOs to define their roles and you’ll get three different answers. But one thing they will all agree on is that they are ultimately responsible for and will be evaluated on the growth of their business. The role of CMOs is changing; therefore, the metrics that are used to evaluate the programs they put in place, and that ultimately drive their business, have to change as well. With the consumption habits of today’s consumer in constant flux, CMOs need to build programs that reach consumers across multiple channels. In order to measure these programs effectively, an entire new set of metrics has to be developed that takes into account all the different connection points where consumers go to consume their media, TV, radio, print, online, mobile, and now even social media. These new metrics then need to be put in place, not only to measure and evaluate the effectiveness of the overall marketing campaign, but also to see how each program impacts the others. Did the offline campaign drive people to the site? Did the online campaign drive people to call or go directly into a store? So, taking the time to put these key metrics in place will provide value and will provide the structure needed to properly evaluate what does and does not work.

There are three key metrics that can be chopped up and dissected to meet the needs of any business and that should be at the top of the list: maximize ROI, identify and reduce waste, and compare performance to internal and external benchmarks (if internal or external benchmarks haven’t been set up, that’s an entire topic in itself). Once these metrics are established, a system should be established to enable the results to be communicated to the appropriate people. Hidden within these three key metrics is an ever-growing number of new metrics, such as:

Company Buzz — The level of buzz a company, brand or product is generating over time.
Relevance — How relevant is the company, brand or product to its consumers’ needs?
Sentiment — What’s the positive, negative or neutral opinion about the company, brand or product?
View Throughs — A user sees the company’s online creative and goes to the site, but never clicks on the ad.
Interaction Rate — The amount of time a user spends interacting with a piece of a company’s creative.
Video Plays/Streams — The amount of time an online video was played.

Fortunately, technology is playing a big role in helping to pull all of these metrics together. With the continued evolution of ad-serving companies like Mediaplex and Dart, old-school monitoring companies like Nielsen and Arbitron increasing their digital capabilities, and new technology companies popping up every day, developing new metrics and tying all of this data together is not only a necessity, but is also essential for the new CMOs in driving their business and their bottom line.

What the Hell is... Textroversion

2009-02-20T00:00:00-05:00

By Michael Aaron Frandy, Studio Manager, The Halo Group

There's a relatively new term to describe a person who might be quiet and noncommunicative in person—-but who is rather loquacious when utilizing text (or instant) messaging and email: textroverted.

If you’re a textrovert, you gain your courage to communicate through these modern technologies. Imagine the freedom afforded to a shy teenage boy who might not have the intestinal fortitude to call up a girl to ask her for a date. Now, he can easily pick up his iPhone or BlackBerry and send off a quick offer to go out.

Textroversion also has its place in today's world of business communication. Since it is now de rigueur to have a two-way electronic device holstered to your hip, shooting off a brief, succinct request — and receiving a reply in kind — can quickly cleave through the sometimes unnecessary, time-wasting layers of in-person/verbal-based social pleasantries.

In today's business climate, where we're all called upon to do more with less person-power and fewer resources, you've got a finite amount of time to solve a seemingly infinite amount of problems. These new communication technologies afford nearly instantaneous responses in time-sensitive —and potentially money-losing — situations.

Just don't forget to occasionally take a break to look out the window, to catch up in person with your friends and workmates, and, most importantly, to breathe.

What the Hell is...Crowdsourcing?

2008-11-21T00:00:00-05:00

The concept of crowdsourcing involves using large groups of people, often connected by the Internet, to achieve a task or answer a series of questions. The idea of outsourcing to crowds is that either access to a pool of expertise or the collective response will yield more efficient (dollar-wise and time-wise) and/or accurate results. Author Jeff Howe refers to it as the "application of Open Source principles to fields outside of software," which turns consumers into creators.

In 2005, Amazon introduced the Amazon Mechanical Turk, where users can reach out to a collection of researchers who answer "human intelligence tasks." The idea is that a group of people with predetermined qualifications can perform certain jobs more effectively than computers, whether it is scanning photos or providing shopping recommendations.

The most controversial area of crowdsourcing is likely in the field of citizen journalism, wherein web publishing might be outstripping an editor's ability to monitor what is going out. As the news cycle gets faster, the danger is that journalistic standards could be relaxed because of an assumption that mistakes tend to be discovered and amended quickly. Consider the recent example where a post on CNN's iReport website claimed Steve Jobs was hospitalized for chest pains. Apple's stock plummeted and the company was forced to issue a statement denying the report.

Origin:
Writer Jeff Howe coined the phrase crowdsourcing in a June 2006 article in Wired magazine to discuss how cheap labor was being discovered via the Internet. Howe later wrote the book, Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd is Driving the Future of Business, which theorized that we were undergoing a cultural shift that redefined corporate research and the marketing process.

What the Hell is...Meme?

2008-10-24T00:00:00-05:00

A meme is a concept or behavior that spreads via learning or imitation. That idea isn't rigid, but instead changes and is adapted to the new context in which it is being used. A meme can be as diverse as a bit of technology or a piece of advice; it's essentially anything that can be adopted by other people. The easier it is to adapt, the sooner the meme becomes part of the cultural zeitgeist.

With the rapid spread of ideas on the Internet, memes have exploded online. An Internet meme starts with a song or catchphrase, for example, that is spread virally. Bloggers often add their own spin or humor to the original idea and that sparks even more discussion. One of the most popular Internet memes is LOLCats, where cat photos are paired with grammatically incorrect captions. If you want to track Internet memes, you can use a service like GoogleTrends to look at a concept's popularity through search engine results.

Marketers have tried to take advantage of memes, which are essentially viral campaigns. The challenge is to discover what makes one meme successful, while another languishes.

Origin : Researcher Richard Dawkins coined the term "meme" in his 1976 work, The Selfish Gene, as a "unit of cultural transmission." He used it to describe how evolution could account for the proliferation of religious ideas or building techniques.

What the Hell is...Mashups?

2008-09-29T00:00:00-05:00

A mashup is the melding of two sources of material or data that when combined create a new utility or something completely different.

The concept of a mashup dovetails with the rise of social networking as websites like Digg or Reddit, acting as aggregators, pull together news or feeds from multiple sources. That platform is then often designed to be interactive, allowing users to share opinions, reviews, or update information in a fashion similar to Wikipedia.

The idea of creating web-based applications is also a popular choice for mashups as developers have used mapping software, such as Google Maps, to create everything from restaurant guides to real estate comparison sites. Mashups have also been popular in music as artists sample parts of another song to remix an entirely new song.

The mashup is indicative of the way we now consume media as traditional sources are intermingled with online campaigns in an attempt to discover what appeals to consumers.

Origin: Mashups are considered a part of Web 2.0. The term was first used to describe a web application that pulls together content from a variety of sources to perform a specific function, whether it is comparing airfare rates or finding new restaurants.

What the Hell is...Fansumers?

2008-09-19T00:00:00-05:00

A fansumer is a consumer online, who is a promoting a brand through word-of-mouth marketing. It is a direct reference to Facebook's "fan" designation, wherein a user can be a fan of a given product or celebrity and establish a connection on the social network. A fansumer identifies with a brand's values and promotes it as a trusted voice to those within his or her online community.

Accordingly, the ways in which products are being marketed have shifted online. As brands accumulate information about consumers' preferences, they can place advertisements in front of customers who are more likely to champion their message. Companies are now becoming personalities on Facebook, with brands like Seventeen encouraging people to become fans online and promising insider access.

Corporations seek out fansumers to act as brand loyalists, translating the virtues of a product or service online into the new world of social media.

Origin:

Forrester Research introduced the concept of the fansumer in order to describe the evolution of the consumer online as they interact with targeted advertising on social networking sites.

What the Hell is...Uncanny Valley?

2008-09-12T00:00:00-05:00

The uncanny valley is a theory that suggests there is a tipping point where people will reject digital or technological representations that appear too similar to human beings. By making artificial movement or speech appear too natural, a robotics or model designer will inadvertently trigger feelings of revulsion. The concept of the uncanny valley initially only referred to robotics, but as computer graphics have evolved, the same phenomenon has been observed in the world of film and video animation.

The movie "Polar Express" was panned, with critics contending that the motion capture process created animated characters that were more disturbing than cuddly. And video gamers have remarked in recent years that digital characters are becoming unsettling.

The idea of the uncanny valley has even been extended to photo retouching, as consumers have difficulty reconciling digitally altered photos with their expectations of a subject's appearance. A recent advancement in photorealistic characters from design firm Image Metrics may have provided an answer by analyzing specific movements and timing gestures.

Origin: Japanese robotics inventor Masahiro Mori defined the concept in 1970. He was looking to explain why people suddenly rejected his creations as they became more evolved. ~~Mori based his theories on the philosophies of Ernst Jentsch and Sigmund Freud,~~ in which both men expounded on the idea that something can be familiar and unknown at the same time.

Correction: One of our eagle-eyed readers noted that the connection between Mori's theory and the work of Freud and Jentsch was made after his postulate was released. Mori's work was not based on their philosophies, it is just a correlation that has been drawn by subsequent researchers.

What the Hell is...Contextual Marketing?

2008-08-29T00:00:00-05:00

Contextual marketing is online advertising placed and appearing according to how relevant it is to the content the consumer is viewing in response to a search. It is targeted advertising that looks to align with the interests of a web surfer.

Google AdSense is the most popular form of contextual marketing. A search engine bot, known as Mediabot, indexes the material on a website and determines which advertisements submitted to Google are a match. Search engines, including Yahoo! and Microsoft, display advertisements on search results pages. Those advertisements are selected based on the key words that a person enters into the search engine.

The idea of contextual marketing has been controversial because critics claim it represents an invasion of privacy. In 1999, when the search marketing company DoubleClick (now owned by Google) attempted to use the information it had collected online about consumers to create targeted promotions offline, the corporation was taken to court over its privacy policies. Public reaction led online marketers to focus on delivering marketing messages that drive responses without being intrusive.

Origin: Contextual marketing is based on the idea of personal profiling, where information about web surfers is collected via cookies. In 1995, permanent cookie technology was invented, which allowed servers to send packets of information to web browsers, and vice versa, in order to track the websites visited by the person at the computer.

What the Hell is...Participatory Advertising?

2008-08-08T00:00:00-05:00

Participatory advertising is the idea of co-creation, where a marketer introduces a concept to the public and then asks consumers to use their creativity to expand upon that idea.

Corporations reach out to brand evangelists to ask them to create commercials or new brand messages for products they love. The user-generated content is then uploaded to brand-specific websites or video-sharing sites like YouTube. By yielding brand control, companies like MasterCard and Converse have managed to engage customers in promotion across social networks.

Participatory advertising also involves the changing manner in which people consume marketing. Instead, customers are now interacting with brand campaigns, as the Internet has moved marketers away from traditional, static methods of advertising. Under this methodology, consumers are no longer willing to passively digest product information, but instead want to form a connection with a brand. In a recent successful example, Dove leveraged this approach with the Campaign for Real Beauty, which asks consumers to help change stereotypical ideals of beauty.

Origin:

The first examples of participatory advertising were seen in the early 1990's as Nike parlayed a series of advertisements with Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny into the creation of a feature-length cartoon, "Space Jam." Advertising evolved into a participatory model with the introduction of the Internet and a corresponding change in consumer culture.

What the Hell is...Murketing?

2008-07-11T00:00:00-05:00

Murketing is a combination of the terms murky and marketing. It is a deliberate choice by a corporation to create a brand image that is mysterious or not well-defined in order to inspire curiosity in the consumer. With technology changes and new approaches to viral and word-of-mouth advertising, it isn't immediately clear that a brand is behind a new video or message -- be it mobile phones that pop popcorn or a giant LEGO boulder chasing Indiana Jones.

A successful murketing campaign is intriguing enough that potential customers will seek to discover exactly what is being sold or who is the one selling to them. The consumer then ascribes values to the brand and is the one to proactively establish a relationship. Critics are split on whether the murketing of viral videos, like BMW's "Rampenfest" ads, will ultimately damage or save brand reputations.

Origin: New York Times columnist Rob Walker coined the term "murketing" in an article for Outside magazine when he was seeking to describe the deliberately obsequious marketing of Red Bull. He regularly explores the relationship between consumers and marketers on his blog, Murketing.com and in his new book, "Buying In."

Bringing the University to Market

2008-07-09T00:00:00-05:00

By Mark Sutter

The University President: The New CMO

Why would a prospective student, faculty, donor or alumni want to live your brand? Why are you the first choice for some students? What gets your faculty up every morning? What keeps alumni connected emotionally and financially? It is the desire to be part of a unique community that shares a vision. It is participating in a differentiated experience that springs from the very soul of the institution. It is the university brand.

Administrators, faculty, and students all contribute, shape and help build a brand. Traditionally, the university president's responsibilities have been focused on institutional planning, balancing the budget and exceeding university fundraising and endowment goals. Over time, the president has become responsible for student recruitment and retention and improving the overall student experience.

Who is the custodian of the soul of a university? Now, it has become a university president's responsibility.

Voice of the Customer

In other industries it is the CMO, or Chief Marketing Officer, who is responsible for ensuring that a company remains focused on the customer. The CMO manages a company's communications and actions to deliver a clearly defined customer experience.

"Many colleges and universities are failing to develop their marketing potentials because their presidents are mistaking insular admissions, promotion or development activities for total marketing activities," writes Dr. Eugene Fram .

Higher education institutions historically do not have a centralized customer marketing organization. As a result, college marketing efforts are often disjointed, occasionally overlap, and lack a university-wide focus. Many institutions have let the market define who they are. Today, to be successful, a university brand needs a champion at the top to lead that process and provide focus to the university's message.

Evangelist for the Brand

And no one is better positioned to be that champion than the president. He serves as the public face of the university, and acts as an advocate for his or her faculty, administration and students to the Board of Directors. As such, the president has the unique perspective to create a shared vision for a university, one that can align internal stakeholders and more effectively utilize resources and actions. The president's commitment to marketing and communicating a university brand sends an important signal to the institution. But how do you deliver on student expectations and ensure student retention without first defining those expectations?

Translating and expressing the brand is the first step. By working with an agency or brand consultancy that specializes in education marketing, the university president can develop a plan for approaching university stakeholders in order to help them understand the brand's values. Once you've established the basis for a unique experience, the key is to roll out the new identity from within.

Catalyst for Collaboration

Successful university marketing begins with internal constituents, especially faculty. Stereotypically, faculty is resistant to marketing efforts because they have not been involved in the choices that led to resource allocation. This can be avoided, simply, by including faculty in the formative stages of the brand decision-making process. You can build trust and buy-in by demonstrating how a new brand vision will not only benefit the students, but also the faculty and university as a whole.

Then, when the president reaches out to all constituents to bring them together to find common ground, he or she is acting as a powerful instrument for collaboration and change.

Champion of Resources

The president is also responsible for institutional planning and budget allocation, a political hotbed, yet an important strategic component in brand building. When budgetary resources are prioritized and allocated to deliver on a promise of a quality student experience, all constituents are working toward the same goal. Discussions can begin by simply asking: "How does this decision strengthen our brand, our student experience? Are there other priorities?" Soon all funding discussions of any institutional initiatives, be they faculty recruitment or meeting student enrollment goals, have a singular focus.

Another area that needs to be aligned is the disparate communication resources spread across the university. By tradition, education budgets are fragmented under different departments, reporting structures and promotional goals. The approach and strategies for individual schools and programs are frequently inconsistent with overall university messages. Often there isn't a singular communication plan that focuses all of the university's resources on established goals.

Without a definitive message, you can't expect students, faculty and donors to come to the same conclusion about what you stand for. The president must integrate all communication efforts, from advertising, public relations, website development, search engine marketing, brochures and newsletters to student retention efforts, under a specific reporting and management structure in order to easily direct university-wide communications. Establishing a consistent brand message for the university allows you to use resources more effectively and increase the impact of outreach initiatives.

Magnet for Support

According to the Council for Aid to Education, declines in government funding are requiring colleges to actively solicit private donations ($29.75 billion in 2007 ) and rely more heavily on fundraising. Being a worthy cause just isn't enough anymore. There are many institutions vying for project funding. Donors want to invest in institutions and programs that share their values, have a clear focus and can make an impact. Fundraising can be more effective when you have specific student goals in mind because it helps donors understand where the university is headed and how contributions will help achieve that goal. The more powerfully you can make your brand's purpose come to life, the more effective you will be at generating support for achieving its goals.

The Brand Starts Here

When a president starts thinking like a CMO, all of those seemingly disparate duties become unified under a clear objective: building the university brand.

The university president must be ready to provide the inspired leadership that will define what a school stands for and where it is going. By actively defining the values and marketing position of the university brand, the president can galvanize resources to gain university endowments and exceed performance goals. The brand vision must start here.

The customer or student can get lost without a champion at the top. The time has come for the president to take responsibility for defining and executing the university brand. He, or she, is the difference engine who will shape the future through a well-articulated higher education marketing initiative that involves all aspects and participants in the university life.

What the Hell is...Piggybacking?

2008-07-03T00:00:00-05:00

Piggybacking is where smaller brands use well-known brand names, trademarked terms, or slogans in their online search advertisements to draw traffic to their websites. It is a growing issue for search engine marketers and Fortune 500 companies as advertising dollars shift online where brand abuse is rampant. Google's trademark policy is hands-off and encourages advertisers to resolve trademark disputes directly with a company that they believe is violating their trademark rights.

Marriott International and American Airlines contend that this practice is potentially driving up costs and confusing potential customers. American Airlines filed suit against Google last year, arguing that unchecked piggybacking was a case of trademark infringement.

Origin
Piggybacking was initially a business term that referred to reducing costs by adding a new project to an existing one. It was extended to the online arena with wireless networks to refer to computer users hopping on an unprotected wireless connection.

What the Hell is... Digital Immigrant?

2008-06-09T00:00:00-05:00

A digital immigrant is a generational term, used to refer to people who were born before a given piece of digital technology was invented. It is a generation of baby boomers and consumers of a certain age (even Rupert Murdoch), who are approaching technology as if it were a foreign language.

As such, digital immigrants experience the same difficulties when they come into contact with digital technology as adults. Their learning curve is steeper and they may be reluctant to adapt to new systems.

The process of assimilation is always easier for those that learned the language of our digital world while growing up. Digital immigrants are often juxtaposed with digital natives, the younger generation that is accustomed to using the wealth of digital technology. The Digital Natives project, a collaboration between Harvard University and the University of St. Gallen, is looking to understand how different generations understand and apply information.

Origin: The term digital native is attributed to writer and consultant Marc Prensky. He coined the term in a 2005 piece for Educational Leadership, while explaining what teachers have to do to reach students based on how they currently receive and process information.

What the Hell is... Flog?

2008-05-04T00:00:00-05:00

A flog is a blog that, on its surface, appears to be written by an average consumer or person, but is actually the stylized creation of a public relations firm or marketing department. In many ways it is an online extension of the concept of astroturfing.

Wal-Mart came under fire in 2006 for failing to disclose that it was funding Wal-Marting Across America, a flog that featured a couple traveling cross country in an RV and sleeping in Wal-Mart parking lots. When it was discovered that the blog was the creation of the public relations firm Edelman, the backlash was swift and strong from the blogosphere where transparency is considered the first rule of the social media realm.

Blogs are a form of participatory journalism, and the risk a company runs in starting a flog is that the act will be seen as a violation of the reader's trust because the content is being misrepresented, a la James Frey's A Million Little Pieces.

Origin: The term flog was likely coined by designer Matthew Oliphant in February of 2005. Within a year it was being used regularly to refer to the Edelman-created blog, Wal-Marting Across America. The name flog is short for fake blog or "flack blog."

What the Hell is... Onsert?

2008-05-02T00:00:00-05:00

By Halo

An onsert is a standard marketing piece commonly used with newspapers and magazines, and recently applied to direct mail. It is a separate advertisement that is attached to a page of a publication or a customer mailing, and usually is in the form of a takeaway product, like a compact disc, magnet, or small booklet.

Onserts have recently been used to explore the field of scented advertising with newspaper companies like Gannett considering pages or stickers imprinted with smells.

A derivative product of the onsert is the "onstatement," where advertisements are included on an invoice or account statement from a corporation with no distinction between the content.

Origin: Onserts were developed, and named in contrast to the insert (where a marketing piece is included within a publication). Early uses of onserts were the ubiquitous AOL membership CDs or the sticker covering the masthead of your USA Today.

Corporate Blog: Worth the Commitment?

2008-04-30T00:00:00-05:00

Let's begin by acknowledging that you are reading this entry on our corporate blog and you've probably already launched some sort of interactive communications with your customer base. Even Wal-Mart has a blog, featuring its in-store buyers. Corporate blogging has taken a seat alongside the most traditional communications tools and deserves serious consideration when looking at how you currently develop your brand.

Why you should have a corporate blog:

You can align yourself with your customer's values. A corporate blog lets you establish a dialogue with the people who use your products and services most often. It can even lead to the organic creation of brand devotion blogs.

You can change ingrained perceptions. Beginning in 2000, Microsoft launched a series of employee blogs that showed a human side to the monolithic corporation. Microsoft employee Robert Scoble has an estimated 3.5 million readers.

Mainstream media journalists read blogs. The Wall Street Journal recently quoted Google's corporate blog and a new study suggests that 75 % of journalists get story ideas from blogs.

Proper blogging helps improve your search engine rankings. Corporate blogs drive traffic to your company's main website by allowing you to continually upload new content that is rich in keywords for search engines.

It's a trend that is not going away. 10 % of Fortune 500 companies currently operate corporate blogs. Whether the business is General Electric or Amazon, corporations are finding ways to connect with their customers.

An effective corporate blog can be a sales and marketing blockbuster. Or it can be a public relations disaster careening down the Internet superhighway challenging your carefully crafted brand message. And, if not built and managed properly your blog can remain unsearched or blacklisted by the big bad Google. So, it is important to acknowledge that a blog takes a seemingly disproportionate amount of commitment. The process of creating new content for a blog can become a task that even a company with the most enthusiastic prospects begins to dread.

You can combat that by identifying the stakeholders in your organization- those responsible for the design and generation of content, monitoring responses, and improving your search rankings. Work with them in the launch phase to establish your expectations and make sure the blog is a responsible extension of your brand. After that, give them the resources and time that they need to succeed. Once out of the launch phase, there are a few more difficulties you may encounter.

A blog requires transparency. The blogosphere (collection of bloggers and readers) demands an honest view, one that acknowledges criticism and mistakes, for you to establish credibility.

The blogosphere thrives on conflict. Perceived slights or corporate indifference fuels Internet watchdog groups like the Consumerist. If your response isn't appropriate, the resulting public relations fallout can be bigger than the initial issue.

Your ROI is undefined. It may be difficult for you to determine your return on investment. If you can't develop metrics to measure how the blog integrates with your marketing and sales strategy, you can't assess the value of your assessment.

With imperfect metrics, it's ultimately up to you to decide what you need from your corporate blog and establish an acceptable rate of return. Whether that comes in the form of sales leads or mainstream media coverage, you can begin to measure the efficacy of your blogging after the first six months of being online. If you don't have six months to wait for results, then don't launch a blog.

You don't need a corporate blog; but a well-managed, tightly focused effort could improve the public relations and sales initiatives of your organization. As you work to increase the transparency of your organization and develop values that align with your customer base, you can develop a comprehensive marketing strategy that synchronizes traditional and new media components.