Tom Asacker

Molly Wood on social networking

"Social networking is laboring under the inescapable weight of the dot-com curse: you have to find the money. No matter how cool your idea is, it's dead on arrival without an actual business plan. At least, that's the theory."

If you're curious about this phenomenon called social networking, check out this funny Daily Show clip.

Lily Tomlin on reality

"Reality is nothing but a collective hunch."

I need your help getting at the reality of brands and branding. First, Laura Ries was kind enough to leave a comment to my post disputing this statement: "Building strong brands is the key to success, in our opinion, not better products or better people." The following is her response. Please try to answer her by posting a comment (and please be pragmatic and nice):

"Is Google a 'better' search engine? Is Red Bull a 'better' energy drink? Is Microsoft a 'better' operating system? Or did these companies build better brands? Building a brand means standing for something in the mind of the consumer. What gets you into the mind? Usually it is by being first in a new category? Being first gets you PR, word of mouth and credibility. It earns your brand the top spot in the mind of the consumer. Having a great company, with great people and great products is great. But I don't think you will succeed long term unless you also get the marketing right. Of course, GM needs to build better cars, but they need to first work out the marketing issues. Saturn should work on being a simple, entry level car. Not a bigger, more expensive car or SUV. Would just a 'better' Pontiac solve the problem? Or it the brand also at fault? GM needs to decide what each brand stands for and then fix the engineering problems."

And one more request. I just received this email:

"Hi Tom,

I am a senior at Penn State University and I really enjoyed reading your book (in fact, I finished it, then read it again immediately!). It encapsulated how I feel marketing, especially to my generation, must be approached. In the afterword, you encouraged your readers to ask if they need help on their journey--and in this chaotic job-process, a bit of help is exactly what I need. I want to go into Brand Management, and would like to know what companies you think really "get it"--treat their branding, and their customers, like they should. What companies can I apply to where I can use what I learned in your book in the years ahead? Who makes the grade, and is best positioned to adapt to the new world of marketing?"

Any thoughts? What advice would you give this passionate young person?

Thanks in advance and have a great week!

Henry David Thoreau on being cheap

"There is some advantage in being the humblest, cheapest, least dignified man in the village, so that the very stable boys shall damn you.  Methinks I enjoy that advantage to an unusual extent."

I'm speaking in Las Vegas today and staying at the new and extravagant Wynn hotel.  Do you remember the days when the drinks and all-you-can-eat buffets at these joints were free? Not any more.  Here's a peak at some of the stuff inside my room that one can easily drop more than a few bucks on:

One ruby red grapefruit - $6.00
A small bag of potato chips - $8.00
A cup of tea - $7.00
Internet access for 24 hours - $11.99
American Kobe Beef Burger - $35.00
One hour on the treadmill at the fitness center - $25.00

Steve Wynn understanding that most people who travel to Vegas have no desire to be like Thoreau - Priceless!

P.S. I've been doing a LOT of traveling this past week (NYC, Miami, Vegas) and have been too tired to blog (Imagine that. Too tired to blog. Ha!). I honestly don't know how Tom Peters does it. Kudos Tom. Please email me your pharmacist's contact information. ;)

Abraham Lincoln on chopping down a tree

"If I had six hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend the first four hours sharpening the axe".

Instead, what do most marketers do? They take a whack at the tree, put down the axe, measure the cut, pick up the axe, whack the tree in a different spot, and repeat ad nauseum. Exhausting, to say the least.

But it looks like a few marketers may be catching on. This just in from BtoB Online:

Marketers say intellectual capital key in ’06

Feb 8, 2006 New York—A renewed investment in intellectual capital and less of an obsession with return on investment are among the major themes that will dominate the marketing landscape this year, according to panelists who spoke at the Business Marketing Association’s What to Expect in 2006 event Wednesday in New York.

“We need to refocus our attention on creativity to create big ideas,” said panelist Jim Speros, CMO of Ernst & Young.

“What I see is a preoccupation with ROI; but the role of marketing is to stimulate activity, while ROI is more of a rear-view mirror. We have to get back to thinking about ideas that drive new business.”

Carl Anderson, CEO of Doremus Advertising, said: “I’m only beginning to see an investment in intellectual capital. Not enough time, energy and money have been put into [developing intellectual capital in] the b-to-b space. Knowledge and insight are now king.”

Spencer Spinnell, head of business and industrial markets at Google, echoed the others, saying, “We've ROI'd ourselves into a corner, but that doesn't mean we can't measure and adjust our strategy day to day.”

Other major trends that came up in the discussion included marketing with wireless portable technology, finding ways to measure online and offline elements of a campaign in tandem, as well as the continued importance of live events to maintain the high-touch contact necessary in marketing to b-to-b customers. —Carol Krol

That being said, this just strikes me as overkill as well as a little comical (from AdAge.com):

FIVE YEARS IN THE MAKING, TIDE GETS A NEW AD CAMPAIGN
P&G Spends a Week With Consumers to Help Break Creative, Strategic Logjam

CINCINNATI (AdAge.com) -- After five sometimes grueling years -- at one point punctuated by departure of key agency account executives -- Procter & Gamble Co.’s iconic Tide finally has a new umbrella ad campaign. And the process to get there was quite literally a gamble for the brand's associate marketing director and her crew.

As is customary at the company where “the consumer is boss,” P&G talked to consumers before it came up with the Tide push that broke the creative and strategic logjam. This time, however, they didn't spend a day focused on laundry rooms or basements. Executives from P&G and its longtime agency, Saatchi & Saatchi, spent a week with consumers in Kansas City, Mo., and Charlotte, N.C., going to work, movies, dinner, manicurists -- even gambling together.

Laundry's role in life
“We got to an incredibly deep and personal level,” said Julie Woffington, Tide's North American associate marketing director. “We wanted to understand the role of laundry in their life. And it’s really not a huge role like it was in the 1950s.”

Duh?  Read the rest.  Unless, that is, you're up to your elbows in laundry.

Seneca on citing an author

"I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good."

And so Senenca, I thought I'd repost my most popular post of 2005 titled Tom Peters on "The Brand Called You."

"Regardless of age, regardless of position, regardless of the business we happen to be in, all of us need to understand the importance of branding. We are CEOs of our own companies: Me, Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called 'You.'"

I'm getting a kick out of these silly little Technorati-based value boxes popping up everywhere. The one to the left is from Evelyn Rodriguez's blog. Here's the irony of her blog's "value," according to Evelyn:

"Ah, now if only I could cash a fraction of this blog's net worth to fund the tsunami anniversary artisan journalism trek to Asia!!"

Most people get this "personal brand" thing all wrong. They think that awareness equals a strong brand.

"I got it! I'll start a blog, befriend A-list people like Godin, post comments, link to big shots, blah, blah, blah and the traffic will come rollin' in.  Game over."

Far from it. Being the head marketer of brand you is NOT about being interesting (Seth's bald head and Hugh's cool cartoons notwithstanding). It's NOT about cosmetics and "promoting a persona." It's about being interested in the dreams and desires of others. It's about creating an expectation and delivering on that expectation, such that people will trade their attention or money for it.

Some bloggers - like Seth and Hugh - feed your dreams with inspirational blog posts. "You too can become a global microbrand phenomenon. And here's how."  And because you keep coming back for more, they can eventually monetize your attention. Either with a new business model (squidoo.com), with Google ads, or by selling their blog attention grabbing expertise (e.g. Stormhoek and English Cut). And as they say on Seinfeld, "There's nothing wrong with that."

Others resell the gained attention to larger advertisers interested in a particular audience. Still others sell (or gain commissions from the sale of) products and services as part of their business model. And that's cool, too. I'm simply saying that your blog's economic worth is directly related to the value others get out of it.

So if you want to refer to yourself as a "brand" - if you want to play that "game" - then you must understand and accept the realities of the marketplace. Most importantly, the cold, harsh reality that the marketplace doesn't care about you. We care about how our association with you is going to benefit us. Will it make me feel smart? Will it make me feel right? Will it make me feel more connected? Will it help me do my "job?" Will it give me something to talk about? Will it bring me more blog traffic? Will it make me feel less alone?

Am I suggesting that you play the personal brand game? That you try to figure out how to "monetize" your blog writing?  Hell, no. Write because it turns you on. Write because it helps you understand. Write . . . just because.  Or better yet, go for a walk. Play catch with your kids. Relax under a tree. Make a whistle from a blade of grass.

Friedrich Nietzsche on stupidity

"To forget one's purpose is the commonest form of stupidity."

USA Today has published its 10 rules to make ads magical in today's Money section. Here you go advertising wannabes (with excerpts):

1. Make 'em laugh out loud. "Like my commercial, and there's a chance you'll like my product," says Bob Kuperman, vice chairman of DDB, which has created Super Bowl ads for Anheuser-Busch for years.
2. Shock 'em and surprise em. Viewers watching the Super Bowl have a mindset that dares advertisers to "show me something I've never seen before," says Nina DiSesa, chairman of McCann-Erickson New York.
3. Let em see the point. "Complex dialogue is your enemy," warns Jeff Goodby, co-chairman at Goodby Silverstein & Partners. "If your commercial works without sound, all the better."
4. Let animals be people, too. I would be a fool to try to explain the magnetism of animals," says DDB's Kuperman. "Their power to entertain and engage has been proven undeniable."
5. Let celebrities be people, too. Phil Dusenberry, former chairman of BBDO, has overseen many of Pepsi's celebrity-laden Super Bowl spots through the years. "The celebrity must have some believable link to the brand," he says.
6. Coin a catchphrase with legs. There's little more satisfying for a Super Bowl advertiser than to hear an ad slogan created for Super Sunday repeated incessantly in schoolyards and around water coolers on Monday. Creating a message that becomes part of the pop culture is solid gold in Super Bowl advertising," says Kaplan Thaler.
7. Make it bigger than TV. Super Bowl spots now must be interactive — or die. They must alluringly link the viewer with the advertiser's website. As a culture, "We don't just want to consume the brand — we want to swim in it," says Steve Conner, chief creative officer at Burrell Communications Group.
8. Pluck the heartstrings. The Super Bowl might seem an odd place for sentiment. Who wants to get teary-eyed among friends or co-workers? Answer: Actually, everyone — even a Super Bowl viewer —wants to care. "I think that men who are filled with beer cry more easily," jokes DiSesa.
9. Reflect diversity — smartly. Diversity without stereotyping ranks among the most difficult concepts to pull off in a Super Bowl ad. "Cultural intelligence is a part of being smart," says J. Melvin Muse, CEO of Muse Communications.
10. Be topical — carefully. It's not easy, given that many Super Bowl ads are filmed months in advance, but being topical can be huge. Critical point: Make sure the joke is understood — as this was. "You can't tell an inside joke," says Conner, "if no one's on the inside with you."

Maybe I'm being a little picky, but wouldn't it be nice to weave the product or service benefit into the ad? I mean, if we must keep the list to ten, then let's get rid of the celebrities.  We're all a little tired of them any way, right?

Without stimulating someone to try - and then buy - isn't it simply entertainment? Kind of like this list of winning words published by The Washington Post, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words, is to litterateurs?

1. Coffee (n.) the person upon whom one coughs.
2. Flabbergasted (adj.) appalled over how much weight you have gained.
3. Abdicate (v.) to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
4. Esplanade (v.) to attempt an explanation while drunk.
5. Willy-nilly (adj.) impotent.
6. Negligent (adj.) describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown.
7. Lymph (v.) to walk with a lisp.
8. Gargoyle (n.) olive-flavored mouthwash.
9. Flatulence (n.) emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.
10. Balderdash (n.) a rapidly receding hairline.
11. Testicle (n.) a humorous question on an exam.
12. Rectitude (n.) the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.
13. Pokemon (n) a Rastafarian proctologist.
14. Oyster (n.) a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.
15. Frisbeetarianism (n.) (back by popular demand): The belief that, when you die, your Soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
16. Circumvent(n.) an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.

Enjoy the game!

Naomi Klein on competitive branding

“Competitive branding became a necessity of the machine age – within a context of manufactured sameness, image-based difference had to be manufactured with the product.”

On my way to the office this morning, I drove by one of those Red Bull branded vehicles. To be more precise, I flew by it. And as I glanced over my right shoulder and observed the passive little truck chugging along Route 101, the brand's meaning changed for me. Now this just in:

CHICAGO (AdAge.com) -- Coca-Cola Co. is out to prove size does matter, using the Super Bowl kickoff to air a 60-second chest-beater of a spot for its Full Throttle energy drink that sports the innuendo-laced tagline “Let Your Man Out.” Coca-Cola Co. wants you to 'Let Your Man Out' with Full throttle.

The spot is part of Coke’s sponsorship of ABC’s pre-game “Full Throttle Kick-Off Show,” and throughout the segment teaser ads will air for the energy drink, along with its Vault hybrid energy soda, leading up to a 60-second spot for Full Throttle that caps the pre-kick advertising pod. In the commercial from Mother, New York, hoards of men shed the shackles of their everyday grocery shopping, car buffing and jogging to hop into whatever vehicle is handy and draft off of the alpha-maleness of a passing Full Throttle monster truck.

But Coke also takes the radical step of tweaking category leader Red Bull: The commercial shows a tractor trailer carrying a massive replica of a 16-ounce Full Throttle can charging up behind a mini truck that’s hauling a relatively puny replica of an 8-ounce Red Bull can. The unsubtle reference is to the leader of an energy drink category quickly moving toward 16-ounce and 24-ounce cans. Speculation has swirled for months that Red Bull, which remains at 8 ounces, will be forced to super-size as rivals chip away at its market share.

Note: When you observe image-based branding - as opposed to the enhancement and promotion of superior products, services and people - you're experiencing sameness, plain and simple.