Tom Asacker

Interesting Week 35 of 2009

1. A short manifesto on the future of attention

The Design Observer Group

2. A manifesto for slow communication

The Wall Street Journal

3. Dan Pink on motivation

Ted Talks

4. Despite our inter-connectedness, we're now more alone than ever

Newsweek

5. Sentiment analysis takes the pulse of the internet

The New York Times

Interesting Week 34 of 2009

1. The Next Evolution in Economics: Rethinking Growth

In the human body, only cancerous cells grow constantly, yet we still expect companies to post ever-larger earnings figures every quarter. Instead of unsustainable growth or stagnation, Stan Stalnaker proposes companies invest in "circular growth," a pattern of development, replacement and renewal that can be maintained indefinitely.    HarvardBusiness.org

2. Find out what the Internet really thinks of you

Googling yourself can be fun, but it's hard to get a sense of your true online identity from a few scattered links. That's where Personas, a new Web site created for the MIT Museum comes in. Just type in your name and the program goes to work, creating a graphic representing the contexts in which your name is mentioned online.  MIT

3. What's really killing daily newspapers

The decline of American newspapers has almost nothing to do with the Web, veteran reporter Bill Wyman argues, and everything to do with editorial standards and bad strategic planning.  SpliceToday.com

4. How to Discount (If You Insist)

Discounting can wreck brand value and profits. Follow this discount strategy to avoid those pitfalls.   BusinessWeek

5. Shoppers shift loyalty from brands to retail experiences

Based on years of studying people's shopping habits, Hartman Group's researchers predict consumer loyalty is shifting from products and brands to retailers, particularly those that offer shoppers an experience rather than just goods.  The Seattle Times   Check out Jonathan Salem Baskin's thoughts on his Dim Bulb blog.

6. The future of phones?  I want one.  Engadget

One leader's response to my latest article

I found this in my inbox this morning, and thought it would be worth sharing:

"As I was reflecting on your interdependence premise as a fundament of a brand, a couple of other random thoughts zipped around the old cerebellum. A few annual letters back, Warren Buffett was opining that all big businesses ultimately lose their lofty position because they develop an institutionalized smugness that leads to increasing levels of inward focus, which numbs them to the ever changing environment. Drucker chose the glass half full side when he described a good business as one that identifies its clients needs before they do; as he put it, the aim of marketing is to make the role of sales superfluous.

I used to think that it was just monopolists and recovering monopolists that had this problem, but your tale of working with Coke disabused me of that notion. The only difference is monopolists are born with the smugness attribute, big businesses gain it over time as the passion for idea generation and action exuded by the founder dissipates.

Finally, it all came together for me watching the movie 'Gosford Park' (I wonder if I would ever have been able to think if movies hadn’t been invented). At the end of the movie one of the top maids was describing what made a great servant. And as she did so the clouds parted for me. CEOs with all these ill-gotten riches have lost sight of the fact (and in most cases never had seen it) that they are in the business of service. Horrors among all horrors; they are servants!! They don’t see that to maintain a successful business they must maintain (or attain) a humility that reminds them that the customer made them, not the other way around.  I pasted the relevant portion of the screenplay below:"

What gift do you think a good servant has that separates them from the others?

It's the gift of anticipation.

And I'm a good servant.

I'm better than good. I'm the best.

I'm the perfect servant.

I know when they'll be hungry and the food is ready.

I know when they'll be tired and the bed is turned down.

I know it before they know it themselves.

A Brand is Not a Separate Thing

This month's article came to me in a blog post (they used to come to me in dreams). I guess the internet IS changing everything. :)

Read "A Brand is Not a Separate Thing" when you get a chance. Here's the link (PDF):

http://tinyurl.com/r6y25q

If you enjoy it, please pass it forward. Just right click the link directly above, click "Copy Link Location," and then right click and paste it into your email. Or blog about it, or get crazy and Tweet it!   :)  Thanks in advance.

And as always, if you're interested in receiving notification of new articles by email (along with some random statistics, news and interesting links that you won't find on this blog), you can join the legion of others by entering your email address, clicking the submit button, and then confirming your subscription from Aweber. Thanks!

Interesting Week 33 of 2009

1. The Promise of Private-label Media

The growing popularity of “private-label media” is one of the more provocative -- and potentially disruptive -- developments occurring in today’s marketing and media ecosystem.   Strategy+Business

2. Marketing's Drift Away from Media

A broad recovery may not bring advertising with it. Companies have found other avenues amid "below-the-line" marketing     BusinessWeek

3. What's in a new logo?

Updating a company logo can be an invitation to disaster, write Blake Ellis and Josh Glasser, since even subtle changes can wipe away decades of consumer goodwill. The pair discuss why some new logos become iconic and others are brand embarrassments.   CNNMoney.com/Fortune

Bonus links: 25 logos with hidden messages -- Amazing Graphic Designing tricks!  Graphic Design Blog

25 meaningless tag lines  Beg to Differ

4. Oops! 13 Management Mistakes

13 business practices that waste time and money -– and what every manager should do instead. A slideshow, illustrated with Play Doh stick figures.  BusinessWeek

5. Humanity's 10 greatest mysteries

From the sublime (dreams, art, altruism) to the ridiculous (nose-picking), there are still a number of human traits that baffle scientists. Check out these 10 mysterious characteristics -- along with researchers' best guesses as to why we developed them.   New Scientist

Will the branding noise ever cease?

During the past few weeks, the "branding" debate has raged once again. Over at ClickZ, Dr. Augustine Fou declared branding "Ineffective, Irrelevant, Irritating, and Impotent." Roger Dooley set him straight on his Neuromarketing blog, citing experiments from the book "Buyology:"

"The truth is that we are ALL influenced by branding messages that hit the emotional part of our brain without being consciously processed. In Buyology, author Martin Lindstrom describes an experiment in which 600 women were shown a box in Tiffany blue - their measured heart rates jumped 20%."

In "Bursting the branding bubble," The Economist reviewed my friend Jonathan Salem Baskin's new book "Branding Only Works on Cattle," which set off a flurry of creative comments.  And various news sources recently reported that many firms are turning down pricey “branding” sponsorships that are designed to get their names out in public.

And now this from TechCrunch (which may put the final nail in branding's coffin):

"Every now and again, you come across a service that promises to disrupt and change the entrepreneurial landscape for good. Buildabrand (@buildabrand) could do just that. The service provides high quality “strategically correct” branding for your startup for about the same price as domain registration, effectively bypassing what is a traditionally expensive and time-consuming process.

Answer a few questions about your business and buildabrand will provide a selection of brand identities: logos, fonts and so on. You can then apply that branding (after customising it, if you choose) to downloadable graphics, stationery, website templates and even - eventually - merchandise like pens and beach towels. You just pay for the items you order or download. The service requires no creative skills from users."

So there you have it: point-and-click branding.  Will the branding noise ever cease? If this doesn't kill it, at least in the C-suite, then nothing will.

P.S. For what it's worth, this is what I wrote in the introduction to my book "A Clear Eye for Branding," and I stand by it:

"In The Practice of Management, Peter Drucker wrote, 'Because it is its purpose to create a customer, any business enterprise has two -- and only these two -- basic functions: marketing and innovation.'  The execution of those two functions is what I’ll be referring to as 'branding.'  The effect -- in the mind of the customer -- is what I’ll mean by 'brand.'"

A haunting thought

“A mind that questions everything, unless strong enough to bear the weight of its ignorance, risks questioning itself and being engulfed in doubt. If it cannot discover the claims to existence of the objects of its questioning -- and it would be miraculous if it so soon succeeded in solving so many mysteries -- it will deny them all reality, the mere formulation of the problem already implying an inclination to negative solutions. But in so doing it will become void of all positive content and, finding nothing which offers it resistance, will launch itself perforce into the emptiness of inner revere.” - Emile Durkheim

I fear this may be the mindset of many smart people at many stalled organizations.

Is your search engine the best?

You probably believe that your brand of search engine is the best brand of search engine.  That's what brands do; they help us choose and reinforce our choice over time.  And once we have adopted a particular brand, we are very reluctant to change.

For example, try this blind search engine taste test: http://blindsearch.fejus.com/

Now, even though I preferred Yahoo's search results, I'm still going to stick with Google.  The difference wasn't great enough to make a difference to me.  Such is the power of brand; especially brands that you've made part of your daily routine.

Interesting Week 32 of 2009

1. Dean Kamen dissects innovation

The inventor of the Segway discusses the psychology of innovation.   Forbes

2. The trait that trumps intelligence

Grit -- the quality that allows a person to overcome setbacks -- may be the most important predictor of success, researchers argue.  The Boston Globe

3. The rise of ‘challenger brands': no longer the underdog

Consumers don't root for the little guy just because he's little, notes author Adam Morgan. Small companies garner goodwill by being "Game Changers," "People's Champions" or one of 10 other archetypes that capture consumers' imaginations. Knowledge.insead.edu

4. How Whirlpool Puts New Ideas Through the Wringer

The appliance maker has formalized the process of evaluating and testing the thousands of notions that bubble up.   BusinessWeek

5. How Different Groups Spend Their Day

The American Time Use Survey asks thousands of American residents to recall every minute of a day. Here is how people over age 15 spent their time in 2008.  The New York Times

Rational man is a myth

Gertrude Stein once remarked, “Everyone gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense.” This is precisely what has happened to today’s customers. They simply cannot rationally cope with the overwhelming amount of choice, conflicting information, cognitive dissonance, and various influences. So, they respond as people do who are under information load: They cull information based on what feels right to them and, ultimately, reason and choose with their guts to feel good about themselves and their decisions. 

So ask yourself: Do I know how people are presently "reasoning" with their guts about various marketplace offerings (a.k.a. brands)?  And, Are we appealing to that "reasoning" process with the expression of our brand?

Here are some clips from a recent presentation where I discuss this new customer reality:

Here's the YouTube link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXdOCawOVpc