Business Storytelling and Brand Development

There is always “new” media.  And there is always brand.

(Among all the other possible and essential marketing disciplines.)

Today I am updating my view of how these essential elements need to be updated for today and the future.  (on-line customer “engagement”, brand ambassadors, customer service?) I’m feeling more confident than ever, about my ability to help companies choose the right or best avenues to build their brands, tell their stories, and make money.

New Media Marketing is great to study.  I love new toys and marketing is certainly getting more and more “new” toys and applications.  The month long class, I just finished focused on social media, mobile applications, and virtual worlds.  As with everything, and every brand, there are best practices developing, but there is no one “right way” to apply these great tools to sell or to build a great brand.

As marketers though, we have these great and powerful tools available to us.  And there is certainly no doubt about the rise of social media and how it is changing markets and marketing.  I love new media and feel more and more confidant about continuing to use it for real marketing success. (ROI).

Now I’m starting a class that is really an extremely old discipline updated for a new media world. I have worked professionally and extensively in these areas, but “sharpening the saw” is always valuable.  Here’s the course description.

Storytelling and brand development are two integral aspects in building a strong presence in business and the consumer market. In this course, you’ll learn how to implement brand-development strategies that help companies emerge as icons within their industries. You’ll also learn how to use storytelling principles to strengthen a business and deliver a superior customer experience. Finally, you’ll use this information to develop your own personal brand identity and create tools for real-world business use.

Hmm…, my own personal brand…?  Watch for changes in this space !

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…

New Media Marketing Analysis

So…I’m taking these classes…

The class I just finished required the final biz plan to be delivered as a GarageBand podcast.  Fun…almost.

Here’s the description of the class I start today.  It’s great.

Today’s companies have no shortage of options when it comes to new media to enhance their marketing approach – mobile technology, websites, email, virtual worlds, social media networks, podcasting, interactive television, and location-based technologies are just some of the tools that are at our fingertips. Still, many marketing divisions struggle with determining how to budget for and choose which new media channels will best market and brand their company’s product and/or service. This course addresses how a company establishes which new media will accomplish its marketing goals, meet its budget and further the company’s success.

http://www.fullsail.com/online/degrees/internet-marketing-masters/courses/14630-new-media-marketing-analysis.html

I am thoroughly enjoying my fully loaded Mac Book Pro, and the proprietary interface that the school provides to keep a class of people from all over the country engaged with a teacher and each other.  Lots of contribution from the class most of whom are well into their careers.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…

I just got home to full time high speed internet access. (Hallelujah!)
 I have been on the road (vacation) at a beautiful place with no internet access. I got to be a very good friend of the folks at the Mill Creek Cafe for their internet access and food.
  Anyway, here’s what I have learned a bit too late but really cool.

For you Blackberry heathens, like me.

You can purchase and download “TetherBerry” for Mac or PC. It allows your 3G enabled Blackberry to function as a modem for your laptop. It’s 50 dollars.

I got the email that said they had released the Mac version right at the end of the vacation. Mary used the PC version all week at the rural lake we were at. I could not make Second Life, (large real time file sizes)  work very well, on it, but all the interactive mail, school downloads, social media stuff seemed to fly around fine.

It makes me think. I am aware that lots of you “youngsters” are giving up home “landlines” completely, for your cell. I wonder when and if, my 3g type modem lets me drop the payment from the cable company in favor of the smart phone?

Anyway, check TetherBerry. (http://www.tetherberry.com/)

$50 bucks to use your BlackBerry “smartphone” as a 3g modem where you don’t have a wi fi network that you want to be on. Kind of a pain to set up. But we got there without tech help.

This week I start work on a Masters Degree in Internet Marketing.  I am excited to add the disciplined study to what I have already read, learned, and experienced.

The program is at Full Sail University and is all online.  Makes sense… don’t you think?

The courses: Media Literacy and Research Methodology; Internet Marketing and SEO; New Media Marketing Analysis; Business Storytelling and Brand Development; Advanced Internet Strategies; Web Design for SEO; Internet Consumer Behavior and Analysis; Advanced SEO; Strategic Internet Public Relations; Web Metrics and Analysis; Internet and The Law; and Campaign Development.

I have to write a thesis too. I’ll share some of my experience here and on twitter.

When is “paid to tweet”, payola? Always? Never?

Are there best practices for disclosure?

For example…

According to the 3/19 Wall Street Journal, Telefonica, the biggest ISP in Brazil, will pay comedian Marcelo Tas to mention Telefonica’s new fiber optic ISP services, in his tweets. Mr. Tas is a popular “Jon Stewart type comedian” in Brazil. The deal was put together by Sao Paulo’s digital agency iThink.

“Mr. Tas twitter page will carry a discreet Telefonica logo, ‘because he is not going to hide that he is promoting the product’.”

Wall Street Journal Article

Where are we going with this?

I see that paying Mr. Tas to mention an ISP is “relevant”. Do we call paid endorsement “authentic”?

What should the expectation of disclosure be?  NASCAR wears logos everywhere they can put them.  If I don’t disclose clearly, is it payola? plugola?

We now hear cable news talking head analysts regularly disclose that they are stock holders or paid by a party they are commenting on.

I believe that years ago there was a standard in government and journalism, that even the possible appearance of a conflict of interest would be reason to not make that “engagement”, whatever it was.

Today, I think the standard is “plausible deniability”.

Is there a point at which some tweets become the functional equivalent of telephone solicitation?

And do you care? If there is a buck in it, who can knock it….right?  Caveat Emptor? What do you think?

First, it’s all whitewater…

It’s the bleeding edge, a moving target, holy wars, show me the money, destabilizing technologies, cultural movements, tectonic shifts, paradigm shifts, innovation, future shock, unsustainable business models, and the demise of the buggy whip industry.

It’s all good.

There’s enormous opportunity in the whitewater. And costs are comparatively low. I am accomplishing my personal goals and the business opportunities seem so very, very obvious. It’s game changing stuff. Everyone can be published. And they can hear feedback from everyone who cares to offer it. As marketers we can categorize, and measure the interactions in anyway that is meaningful for our goals.

Social media is marketing

… and brand building, and customer retention, and PR, and market research, and customer service, and lots of other things that are valuable to marketers. (It’s other things too.)

Some bloggers, who claim clear social media expertise, take an emphatic position that social media is NOT marketing. They say it’s not a business channel, and certainly not “sales” in any way. That position stands out in my mental “idea follow list”. I intend to give it more consideration.

But to me, for business, these tools can so clearly help to reach the goals of integrated marketing communications, that I don’t yet understand the “It’s not marketing” position.

Twitter is valuable.

It is working, very nicely for me. Networking? Twitter rocks.  (And thank you so much for great posts you Charlotte twitterers.)

Relevant and authentic matters.

We all know this from “life”. And I knew it about social media before I got my current “opportunity” to study. We are all expert at choosing the people and opinions we choose to identify with and trust, over time. Trust, and human attention are available via social media. And they can be lost, too.

We must remember to value diversity of thought, experience and position.

This is the thing that I think I know, but wonder about the most. The web, and social media make it very easy to form, choose, and join communities of practice. These communities can self select into rigid, commonly held, and self reinforcing, sets of belief.

Of course, the opposite is true as well. I don’t have to look very far outside my community to find different ideas.

I mistrust cultures of politics. I love cultures of ideas. Social media interactions can promote a culture of politics and/or a culture of ideas. And both will flourish. But for me, ideas!

I’m going to read up today to better understand the idea some have that social media is not marketing. I am confident that there is some understanding I can gain from the idea that will be useful and enlightening.

Comments? Ideas?

Radioparadise.com is a commercial free, listener supported, on-line “radio station”.  I love it.  It is the music that is on while I write, study, blog, tweet, facebook, cook, and fold laundry.

I do Pandora, and Rhapsody, and Slacker, and iTunes, and…

There are so many great music options streaming on-line.  At Rhapsody I pay about 100 bucks a year for amazing functionality, infinite channels, and I can program my own channels and playlists out of their huge on-line library.  It’s cool.

But Radioparadise.com is where I keep landing.  They have been “out there” for quite some time.  In some ways they are old school.  One channel, no commercials, a very mellow and judicious DJ, and, they remind me of what we used to call “progressive” radio when we had longer hair (or had hair at all!).

They say… You’ll hear modern and classic rock, world music, electronica, even a bit of classical and jazz. 

Here’s the big kicker for me. The Radio Paradise people, Bill and Rebecca, make it really free and easy.  They provide many different technical streams.  You can listen in iTunes, Windows Media Player, Real, whatever. My favorite is the 192 kb mp3 stream, playing through Winamp, with the Octoshape  “mesh” network plugin.  It’s all free, all digital, all the way to my receiver amp. 

It’s a very sweet sound.  And I love their taste.  It’s great to have on all day.

Tell me what you like.

Last night I saw the new brand image tv spot for Bank of America.  I liked it.

 

B of A is a company whose brand, rightly or wrongly, is taking some major hits through this economic upheaval.  It certainly must be tough to be a Citi, or B of A marketer, in the midst of this preventable financial meltdown, while trying to protect a brand positioning of “Bank of Opportunity”. 

The spot is a classic image spot.  It is 60 seconds of beauty shots. It’s a diverse selection of Americans, mostly moving purposefully through various kinds of doors.  It has the absolutely requisite thoughtful and emotional sounding music underscore.  The music tells us how to feel.  It’s a classic tried and true film format, well produced.

The only voice over copy in the entire spot is:

This is America.

 And no matter how…  No matter where…  No matter what…

 We…   keep… moving… forward 

It’s not innovative creative.  But it is the right message for “the bank or opportunity”.

The message that we are all in passage to something new or different, on the other side of the door, seems like the right message today.

After seeing it just once, as intended, in the midst of Ugly Betty (!) I got just a bit of believable optimism, along with a sense of facing the future with all of America and Bank of America.  It kind of circles the wagons, begs for compassion, and promises to keep moving forward. Good stuff.

On the critical side a bit…

After watching it many times on youtube, it started to feel like the Poseidon Adventure with the theme song,  “There’s Got to be a Morning After”. 

I sure hope the “opportunity” ship hasn’t capsized, but things surely are upside down a bit .  Comments?

 

 

Managers do things right.  Leaders do the right things.

In the business of business, the business of politics, religious organizations, the military, becoming “a leader” depends in part, on spending time and expertise at being “a manager” in the system.  That makes sense.

Yet sometimes the skills, beliefs, and habits that make successful managers and help them through the ranks of their organizations are not “leadership” skills.

Large organizations are usually “political” to some extent, if not highly politically charged.  In political systems, movement, ANY movement, has meaning.  Working “the system” well, means “doing things right” and seeming to get things done.  Following protocol has as much “meaning” as the actual results of the effort.  It’s the doing and selling that matters most in that culture.  The actual goals or results of the efforts are actually less scrutinized.

So what happens when something “systemic” is the problem? What happens when desired results can’t be delivered by the status quo?  What happens when real change is necessary?  That’s a big part of the role of leadership.

I want to trust the leadership of bank presidents and senate committee members, but …

Every one of those “leaders”, CEO’s and Senators, knew of the sub prime credit problem long before it was an irreversible crisis.  All the bankers and all the senators were aware of the long-term risk that was being taken, and the level of effect it might have on the general health of our economy.  But no meaningful steps were taken to reduce the risk.

Our leaders have known of our precarious dependence on foreign oil at least since the oil embargo of the early 70’s.  Our leaders have predicted the inevitable short falls in Social Security over the same period.  There has been lots of political talk and action, with no meaningful results.  This is not a junior or senior management problem.  It’s not liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican.  It’s leadership.

Problems often can’t be solved at the level of thinking that created them.

I believe that for most successful managers it becomes very difficult to change habits or lead change in any meaningful way, and certainly not at the “expense” of legacy systems.

Where are the leaders who do the right thing?

Although I can’t cite the source,  somewhere along the way this idea got in my head.

Free is the most powerful word in marketing.  If I think traditional advertising and promotion, and item and price, free attracts my eye and it certainly gets action.

In the 09 Super Bowl, Denny’s advertised and gave away free breakfast.  They estimate they received 50 million dollars in media coverage alone.  Search “Dennys Free Breakfast” and articles from all over the country come up, as well as lots of marketing discussion.

They got two million people to go to Denny’s and sample their “Grand Slam” brand.

Sure that cost something, but the benefit of getting that many people to act and actually visit, and the media coverage is just enormous.

Free works in advertising.  But free is also a powerful business model that we have become used to and take for granted.

For me, posting this blog…?  It’s free.

The social media platforms? Free… and let’s see how they continue to  “monetize” them.  Twitter would be a good example.

iTunes and other media players are free.  Browsers are free.  The online world has given away its basic product for the sake of network market share with a long tail of revenue, for a long time now. 

Come to think of it…television broadcasting has always been free.  Nothing new there. 

In Kevin Kellys book, New Rules for the New Economy, one of his points is, “Follow the free.  The net rewards generosity.”   He argues that “the net” causes many things to become more valuable as they become more of a commodity.  That’s right.  As they become more valuable they become cheaper.  Not exactly supply and demand.

But in his “free” chapter Kelly also says “the only factor becoming scarce is human attention.”  That is the challenge communicators face.

It seems to me that Denny’s did quite well with the scarce value of human attention.