On digital branding

18Nov09

A slideshare presentation inspired me to think more about the development of branding, more specifically digital branding.

Why does a company brand itself and its products? My response is to create a link between the customers and itself. Links in terms of web 2.0 refer to dialogs, dialogs about the brand, about the people – involving thus a community, developing a sense of togetherness around the brand. When people talk about your brand, your brand exists. The more people talk about it, the more visible and efficient your branding channels are.

People crave for guides for everything nowadays. Somehow they’re reticent to discover and create their own ways. On twitter there are links to lots of guides, best SEO strategy, monitoring your brand awareness, your revenue, how to use twitter best, how to use Google Wave and so on. However, new 2.0 tools don’t yet have a certain way of being utilized.

The beauty of 2.0 communication is that rules are being created as we speak, its novelty can be intriguing at times and that’s what scares people who are constantly in need of guides. Why not be bold and discover new ways for creating dialogs with your customers? Experiential marketing is about co-creating value without predetermined rules. Risky you might think. Indeed, there are budgets and risks. Some companies do not risk, or are just not visionaries. Blue oceans and new rules for competitions will emerge.

Filed under: Advertising, Social media, Technology, innovation   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: competition, dialogue, web 2.0, rules, guides, creating, dialogs, experiential marketing, blue oceans

Start-up secrets

03Nov09

Secrets gathered from an article in Inc.com. Very good learning tips that can be applied. I took each and added to it myself a few words.

1. Stick with it: startups don’t die, they commit suicides –> that when entrepreneurs get bored, discouraged or just don’t persevere. Start-ups need work and faith, and most of all a clear vision and game plan.
2. Simplify your mission. Know for sure what your business is, what the goal is. Eric Koger from ModCloth recommends the 60- to 90-second synopsis.
3. Ditch your safety net, because it might keep you from moving forward and trying harder.
4. Exceed expectations.  When you over-deliver, you draw attention and most likely success.
5. Do more with less. When you are creative, you can do with fewer resources. It works the other way around too. As a consequence you spend less on better more creative products/services.
6. Don’t go it alone. This one is sometimes difficult, especially when you do not feel you can transmit the same excitement and vision about your start-up idea. It happened to me at a small level, but still. Emily Olson from Foodzie recommends you partner up with someone, build a great team and support each other through the tough times. Because there will be tough times.
7. Be nimble. Be aware of changes, as well as opportunities. The idea is constant adaptation, flexibility and awareness of what’s out there.
8. Have a plan for actually making money. This one speaks for itself.. No one will come to offer you money. When you have a plan, it means you know the steps you should take in order to reach a goal. It also motivates for trying harder, improving weaker spots.
9. Do your homework. Be clear about what assumptions you make about the industry, the competitors, the products you’re planning to introduce. Verify assumptions and be cautious. Better be safe than not.
10. Be prepared. Linked to the previous one, by doing your homework you are not prone to be taken advantage of. Know when and how to negotiate, be realistic and know what you can expect.
11. Stay genuine. Do what you love doing and do it well.
12. Send in the geeks. What can I say, having them on the founding team sort of ensures web technology flexibility and hence quality from the very beginning.
13. Don’t manage angry. Anger means lack of emotional control; if you cannot control yourself, don’t expect to be able to control others.
14. Don’t be afraid. “If you have an idea, do it! Apply your idea while you’re still in your 20s or 30s, so you can be bold and take risks.
15. You can’t mask mediocrity. “Be undeniably good.” — Anthony Volodkin, Hype Machine
16. Do what you love. This point can’t be stressed enough. Loving what you do makes everything else easier.

Filed under: entrepreneurship   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: entrepreneurs, Inc.com, secrets, start-ups, startups

health beyond concept

02Nov09

Nestle’s strategy in a period of recession focuses on nutrition values from its sweet products. The Economist has an article about this, questioning whether the shift towards healthy chocolates and sweets is advantageous in present times.

Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, the firm’s chairman, and Paul Bulcke, its chief executive, hope to transform the food company into the world’s leading health, nutrition and “wellness” firm.  The Economist

I truly wonder at the realistic venture of such an idea, be it as commercially logic as it is argued to be. It does sound rather preposterous when one tells you that what you should not actually eat, would become the healthiest products on earth. Would chocolate and sweets become medicine? Where would then be the treat in the  indulgence? How would the subconscious justify the “food for soul” and (most likely) the money spent? Indulging in medicine.

I love chocolate, in small pieces, in exquisite packaging and because of it resemblance to something beyond the green, the healthy or the “right” thing to eat. If chocolate becomes like medicine and sweets become recommended by specialists, the world might as well turn upside down. What can I say, I am a skeptic in this matter

Let us think back at the fantastic product that chocolate is. It represents lust for the taste and delight for the senses. Its concept is represented along the concept of love and romance. It’s effects are wondrous in senses, without having to be in large quantities. As a matter of fact, chocolate is best savored in small pieces/quantities, as a marvelous treat. I don’t believe in chocolate as “food” – it’s more of a delight for the moment.

Nevertheless, the overall movement towards green, ecological, ‘the healthiest” will undoubtedly have an effect on the chocolate/sweets industry. With Nestle being the leader, this has already started. It makes me curious. I just cannot picture the exquisite chocolate treats promoted as nutritious healthy products – food for the healthy, instead of food for the thought (love and indulgence). However, in the end it is all a quest for better, most innovative, a competitive R&D action that hopefully will still benefit consumers.

Filed under: Marketing, Product Development   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: branding, chocolate, consumers, ecological, functional foods, green, nestle, R&D, strategy

purpose of economists

05Sep09

I am reading an exciting article in the Financial Times on the purpose of economists and their role in predicting the crisis with all its mismatched predictions. David Marsh considers that economists don’t really serve any special purpose, that they’ve come in the same package with modernity and now we just can’t do without them. His article is most wonderfully written in the literary sense and I find great similes that make one smile, were they of the profession or not.

“a continuous carousel of spectacle that helps put the things we don’t know about the world into some sort of warped perspective”

However, Mr. Marsh finds some sort of use for economists in behavioral studies, wraped in a predefined project:

Studying their attributes and affectations has become an advanced branch of behavioural psychology.

Robert Skidelsky considers that the economics profession does not have pretenses beyond other sciences, it is not more special and therefore could not have entirely predicted and foreseeing “the exact risk in the system”.

There are more opinions in a well-written combo of trying to define the purpose of economists. You can read them all here.

Filed under: FT, economy   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: crisis, economists, foreseeing, predictions, profession, purpose

Life lessons from Project Management

01Sep09

I have recently read an article in Project Management Today magazine, about being involved in projects and the difficulty of bringing them successfully to completion. No doubt it is not easy at all to stop a project, be it so that we might be blinded by several factors on the way – one being the must-do task of completion itself, no matter whether the project is itself successful in the first place.

Some featured causes for the reluctance of stopping a project are:

-          Emotional attachment

-          Confirmation trap

-          Where’s my next job

-          Fear of not reaching personal goals

-          Fear of disappointing the sponsor

-          Sunk-cost bias

If your project is not what it should be, would you rather stop it or go on with it changing things on the way? Which is your immediate goal?

We encounter such projects in our every-day lives. The important point is to be aware of your motivations and how they match the actual environment and state of things.

Example: Is it a good time to renovate the living room? Can I really do it myself? Do I need to borrow money for this? Is it too big of a hassle at the moment? Do I need to do it because of my own personal goal and sense of achievement? Can I rather hire someone to do it?

Filed under: others   |  1 Comment
Tags: completion, confirmation trap, emotional reluctance, personal goals, PM, Project Management, sponsors, stopping a project, sunk costs

Join the conversation

13Jul09

“Customers want to see inside your organization, they want to talk to the people who make it what it is, they want to hear their stories. What they don’t want to hear is  you telling them why your company, producs and services are the best.”

Enterprise 2.0 by Niall Cook

Filed under: Social media   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: conversation, dialogue, Enterprise 2.0, Social media

Enterprise 2.0

12Jul09

McAfee suggests that Enterprise 2.0 has become a reality because of three broad and converging trends:

1. Simple, free platforms for self-expression: A.J.Liebling said that “freedom of the press is limited to those who own one”
2. Emergent structures, rather than imposed ones: technologists started to build tools that let structure emerge.
3. Order from chaos: the ability for people to quickly and easily filter, sort and prioritize the flood of new online content.

Enterprise 2.0 by Niall Cook

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Tags: communities, Enterprise 2.0, sharing, Social media

social flavors in media

24Jun09

Social media is getting tremendous load of attention these days: which makes me happy, since I am writing my thesis in the field.

I have recently learned about the Master Programs in Social media, offered by Birmingham City University and University of Salford. It is getting more and more serious this way.

I want to share with you an intro video to Social Media. I wonder how they would actually teach Social Media in universities …

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Tags: MA, Social media, video

Talking green online

23Jun09

Green conversations are everywhere.

Last week, Mashable highlighted 75 Twitterers talking green online, but they’re not the only ones. Now with the increasingly widespread proliferation of social media in the corporate world, nonprofits and companies are getting into the mix, too.

Here are the top 5 discussions recently monitored on Twitter:

1. Celebrating World Environment Day: UN commiting to plant a tree for every follower on Twitter
2. World Environment Day Dell:  Dell encouraging followers to upload photos about what they’re doing for the environment
3. Pushing brand towards corporate responsibility: with campaign to be launched by GreenpeaceUSA
4. Highlighting the impact of global warming: by the Environmental Defense Fund
5. Promoting the electric car: by GM

Find more details about the aforementioned on Mashable.

Filed under: Promotion, Social media   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: campaigns, discussions, green initiatives, online green, Social media, talking green, twitter

Human nature and social media

30May09

“It is human nature to trade. People want to do it. People want to meet other people. People want to learn. They want to share. People want to buy things and people want to sell things. They want to congregate. They want to travel. People want new experiences. They want to laugh, smile, sip tea, and listen to music. They want fond memories and beautiful carpets. So why is monetizing social media so complicated? What is the big secret?” The Ingenesis Project

I am compiling research and recent studies on social media, perceptions and discoveries. It relates a lot to human behavior and relationships. I really enjoyed Dan’s post on the culture of buying and it makes me wonder about the development of what social media can become. That’s why  Ihave decided to write my thesis on the this topic, focusing more though on consumer centricity, from the firm’s point of view.

Filed under: Social media   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: buying, culture, human nature, selling, Social media