Attention, attention, read all about it! Promotional marketing is going to new heights with advertising products.  It’s no longer the 1900s when newspaper boys shouted headlines from the street corners.  Marketing strategies have changed since then by incorporating other advertising platforms.  Stop the presses and reevaluate the marketing strategy for your business to get the most out of your advertising budget.  Not everyone has the means to pay $100 million for a celebrity endorsement or $3.8 million for a commercial to air during the Super Bowl.  Promotional merchandise provides customers a daily reminder of the business or company that they received the product from.  For now though, Extra, Extra! Read all about it! The following infographic shows what companies pay to market their business through the various advertising platforms!

I have two teenagers at home, so I can safely call myself the world’s foremost EXPERT ON TEENAGERS!!! Actually, as a parent of teenagers, I have absolutely no clue what’s going on.  But that’s a whole different blog.  What I have noticed in 2013 is that my two teenagers aren’t using Facebook at all.  A sample of two:  my 16-year-old has only 5 posts this year and my 15-year-old has 7 posts.  I know 40 year-olds that have that many posts in a day, posting anything from photos of cute cats rolling on the grass to a hilarious video of an old lady dancing to 28 photos of their 3-year-old at the zoo pointing to a Lion or commenting on “what’s a color without the letter E in it”.

Delivering your message in different ways, over time, not only increases retention and impact, but it gives you the chance to describe what you're doing from several angles. In many ways, the mantra of permission conflicts with the mechanics of frequency. If people are loaning you their attention and you're delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages, your need for frequency goes way down.

 

I've been banging that drum for well over a decade now. At first, it was heresy, then it was wishful thinking and now it is suddenly becoming a reality. You know it's a reality when traditional advertising agencies are claiming that digital is just another kind of execution when - in reality - they're watching both their budgets dwindle and the lion's share of advertising dollars shift in ways the industry hasn't seen since television became a red-hot medium. This is further being validated as two recent studies came to light that paint a very interesting picture of the marketing dollar landscape.

I’m half way old enough that I’m straddling the fence on whether agencies are as good as the old days. But it seems that there are pitches going on constantly, and yet no one is really wanting to look themselves the mirror and say “Am I part of the problem?” I’ve been brought in a few times to look at the situation.  The first thing I normally tell the Brand Leader is “you have to fire yourself first” and then see if the agency is still bad. The best clients respect the process, the agency and their own judgment. And yet, most Brand Leaders under-estimate the role the client plays in getting to great creative.  As a Brand Leader, if you knew that showing up better would get you better advertising, do you think you could?  If there are 100 steps in every advertising development stage and you show up OK at each step, how are you possibly thinking you’ll end up with a GREAT ad at the end?

For senior marketers, it is a very humbling thought. What if your ideas, your thoughts and even your experience as a trained marketing professional didn't amount to a hill of beans in terms of the actual brand's advertising performance? What if everything you have been bringing to the table could be debunked with a simple multivariate testing regiment? There is a very real threat to the marketing profession, and it's one that has been present for quite some time, but it's gaining more and more momentum. The net outcome of this movement could prove that machines are better advertisers than humans.

Social Media doesn't work for the vast majority of small businesses. That was the main message in the USA Today article titled, Study: Social media a bust for small businesses, published on April 17th, 2013. From the news item: "About 61% of small businesses don't see any return on investment on their social-media activities, according to a survey released Tuesday from Manta, a social network for small businesses. Yet, almost 50% say they've increased their time spent on social media, and only 7% have decreased their time. What businesses are trying to get out of social media: 36% said their goal was to acquire and engage new customers, 19% said to gain leads and referrals, and 17% said to boost awareness. Facebook was most cited as the hardest to maintain social-media platform, according to the survey." There is a big lesson in this data...

 

I’m a marketer at heart. In terms of career, it’s all I know and all I am. I claim to love everything about marketing. Well, nearly everything. Here are 10 things I despise and even more importantly I believe give us marketers a bad reputation. As Mike Ditka would say “STOP IT”. These 10 things are very common to most consumers causing great frustration but also lack of respect for the marketing profession. And yes, it is a profession.

Please read this article from The New York Times titled, E-Commerce Companies Bypass the Middlemen. If you think that branding and retail have become complicated because of stuff like showrooming and attribution, you need to take a pause and try to figure out the myriad of complexities that e-commerce has created in the retail chain when laid out in this article. We tend to look at brands like Warby Parker and wonder how they had such a stellar ascent. We also look to traditional retailers and wonder how they will keep pace against Amazon. For many, the argument is that the lowest price wins. That retailers have no chance against e-commerce plays when they're not dealing with the traditional supply chain and logistic problems. We praise companies like Walmart (#client) for their perfection of this channel and how that efficiency drives towards savings for the consumer.

I'd rather be saying happy spring at this point but with the chill in the air, it would just be salt in the wound. In better news, the period of January 1st - March 31st 2013 turned out to be an extremely busy quarter for mid-level marketing hires (manager -director). Anecdotally, I would argue it was quite possibly the busiest quarter I have seen since I started in the world of marketing staffing 8 years ago.Rather than going on hearsay, we took a look at our own company data and saw that we filled 40% more roles compared to the same period last year.Unfortunately senior marketing roles still seem to be scarce.

Opinions, ideas, creativity and more have become the battlegrounds in the war to figure out who is the better advertiser: human beings or robots? Think this is a scene out of some Mad Magazine parody that mixes The Terminator with Mad Men? It isn't. For years, marketing companies have existed that solve a very tactical and analytics-based problem: how does one create the best ad for Google's AdWords platforms? When you dig deep and uncover who the best advertisers are on Google, more often than not, what you discover is a lot of technology driving the solution, and very little creative effort that is being used to create these text-based ads. It is a complex system that melds keywords, geography, time of day, competitive terms, random terms that are highly-trafficked, bidding strategies, and other more obscure data points to widdle down to an ad that converts the best (and costs the least).

 

Do you lead a charmed life? Do you wish that every day was Groundhog's Day? Are you, literally, sucking the juice out of every day and accomplishing everything that you had hoped to accomplish? My guess is that there are very few people who can truly make these claims of unbridled glee. We live in an anxiety-riddled society, where even the people we look up to as the top performers suffer from the same stress, fears and concerns that the rest of us do. In short: life isn't easy. Being all Zen and at one with the quiet of the earth may be the daily spiritual ascent of monks and those fascinated with the new age, but for the vast majority of us (and I count myself as one of them), even a rigorous and regular schedule of meditation and relaxation is less about finding that Zen, and more about holding the anxious wolves at bay, if but for a few moments of solace in an otherwise calendar-packed day of meetings, assignments, pressures and more from both work and home.

Call me old-fashioned. Loving blogs has nothing to do with me not loving the newer stuff. I love Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and other places to publish, share and connect too, but I have a soft spot for blogs. It was a punch in the gut yesterday to read this tweet from Gina Trapani: "Wow, Google Reader shutting down. It really IS the end of blogging and old school newsreaders. Watch for 'Subscribe in Google+.'" So, am I supposed to forget about this blog and just post what I'm thinking about on Google+ or Facebook or tumblr or whatever? It got me down to find out that Google has decided to stop the service of Google Reader (you can read more about it here: Google Reader lived on borrowed time: creator Chris Wetherell reflects).

 

I do. I loved the introduction of Facebook's news feed when it happened. Many were up in arms and many thought that Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, was going to destroy the power and potential of the online social network. The idea that you would not explore other people's pages, but simply have their information, updates and content come to you - on your own profile page - seemed like a stupid idea. Who is laughing now? While many think that photos are the killer app of Facebook (and the reason the company paid a billion dollars to acquire Instagram), none of that would matter had Facebook not had the insight (and the courage) to imagine, develop and deploy this personal RSS feed of our social graph.

 

 

How long will the personal computer - as we have known it to date- be relevant? If you look at any data points surrounding mobile (and putting it in context on a global level), it seems like nobody is using a computer anymore, doesn't it? How often do you find yourself in need of a computer (be it a desktop or laptop)? When it comes to my work, I can't imagine a day and age when I would not require something that looks like my MacBook Air. Whether it is for writing or creating presentations, smartphones and tablets are just not up to snuff... at this point. And that's the rub, isn't it? "At this point."

 

Online marketing has gone through several overhauls in accordance with the evolution of technology, which then makes us wonder, “What are the Internet marketing trends you should be focused on?” Check out the following list of Internet marketing trends that are already making 2013 one of the most exciting years ever. These may be more than trends - fundamental shifts in online marketing that are change the way we do business online. Be sure to read the entire post and comments to see how these influences are shaping our online marketing, today, tomorrow, and into the future...

 

Recently, a marketing professional with a major brand asked me this question: "typically, we brief the digital marketing team after we have a concept from our advertising agency, is that the wrong way to go about it?" It's a fair question that acts as a cold reminder. We have come a very long way in the world of digital media, in a short time. That being said, there are still some major (and not-so-major) brands out there who see it like this: we need to adapt the creative for the online world.

 

Something has been bothering me, lately. It's not overt. It's not obvious. But... it's there. Some will make the argument that Apple is loosing a little bit of its luster. That while the company in a post-Steve Jobs world is still churning out cutting-edge consumer electronics and digital services, that the market for that may be hitting a plateau (this is why their last quarter was seen as a disappointment to Wall Street when - in reality - it was one of the best quarters that any company has ever had). While I am an Apple consumer (and a fairly recent one), I'm hopeful that you won't misconstrued this blog post as someone who is a biased and loyal customer trying to defend a brand (Apple Fanboi!). 

 

People always ask me “So what is it that makes a Brand Leader good at advertising?” I used to think they must be more creative. Or they are more in touch with creative people. Or better yet, they are a visionary. I never really thought these answers satisfied me. Advertising is so much more than that. In fact there are many things around advertising that have nothing to do with the creative.There needs to be a great Brand Plan, the Creative Brief should be tight yet rich with insight. Brand Leaders have to manage the process and stay on strategy and they should have an ability to select the right media. They should take risks. They have to be able to handle the stress of ambiguity against deadlines, and the pressure to make the numbers in the face of art. Advertising is half art, half science. They have to be able to give some freedom on execution, yet maintain a tight control on the strategy. 

 

 

Training young people for the challenges of a fast-changing world has to be central to any strategy to rebuild the job market following a financial crisis that has wiped out millions of middle-class jobs over the past five years. That was the central conclusion of the annual Associated Press debate at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss village of Davos, which focused on the need to build up skills for a changing economy. “We need a young labour force,” said International Monetary Fund deputy managing director Min Zhu. “Government doesn’t pay enough attention to training and retraining.”

  

Slow media is patient. It's not on a deadline. It isn't measured in column inches. It can be calm instead of sensational, deep instead of superficial. In the age of "Breaking news, Emmy nominations announced!" and 140 characters, it's sort of surprising to realize that we are also living in the golden age of slow media. For years, on Sunday mornings, you could find me sitting in my driveway, recently arrived home from one errand or another, listening to Krista Tippett's extraordinary interviews on the radio. Thanks to the web, there's no need to sit in your car any longer, and Krista's groundbreaking approach is spreading.

 

I've been doing a ton of reading on Content Marketing. Ever since the Google Penguin update (yeah, Panda too), I'm seeing more information about content marketing. Essentially, the idea is to create unique, quality content for your blogs, websites, etc. And I get it, content is still king. But what is quality content? Content is no longer a simple article that covers a topic in your niche, I think its more than that.. it has to be! Quality content uses all types of media and packages it in different ways for a particular audience. Here are just a few pieces of "content" you should consider.

 

From my hotel room here in Kowloon the vista across Victoria Harbour to Hong Kong island is cluttered with brand names all vying for my attention (well, I’m assuming they it’s my attention they’re after…) Hitachi, China Mobile, Olympus, Galaxy, Epson, Panasonic, TCL, Phillips, Hyundai, Samsung, Nikon, Toshiba and a host of Chinese billboards have all been painstakingly bought and prepared for these precious moments of my attention. While I appreciate the effort, I’m not sure any of this is going to prompt me to purchase any of these products, define whether one electronics giant is better than another or indeed have me feverishly searching for each of the websites attached to these brand names.

I was driving on the highway and spotted a billboard. It was your average, run of the mills, type of billboard. It could have been for a local restaurant, something from the tourism council, a car dealership or even for a bottle of fine hooch. I can't remember. We see thousands (if not, hundreds of thousands) of messages on any given day. Our immunity is impressive. Some want to quantify all of these message as visual pollution. There are ongoing debates, along with areas of the world that are doing their very best to either cease the placement of new billboards or completely eradicate them from the landscape, to end the constant messaging.

 

Mothers are still one of the biggest shoppers around. Hey, moms have kids to shop for, their husbands to shop for, themselves to shop for too. In fact, moms still make most of the purchasing decisions for household items such as food, clothing and supplies and influence purchase decisions for large items as well. About 34 million moms in the U.S. use the internet for research, socializing. And of those, 70% use the Internet for shopping. You’d be a real fool not to try your hardest to market your business (Assuming it's applicable to a family) to mothers. Here's how to market yourself and your business to moms…

 

Traditionally, marketers were loath to inject themselves in the internal workings of customer service operations. Often considered the third rail of business, customer service groups were viewed as necessary evils filled with thick-skinned, unflappable folks who dealt with tough customers, handled customer complaints and tried to efficiently resolve questions. It was a grind and not at all very sexy work, despite it being highly visible and critical, both in terms of revenue protection/generation and brand equity.

 

Finally, collaboration is in vogue! So why is someone saying that it kills innovation?

"I’m sick of collaboration. It makes things mushy and kills innovation"

So spoke a participant impatient for change at a recent planning session.It could be that, in this person’s field, some of the collaborators are actually more interested in the politics, or the lowest common denominator, or worse … compromise!

 

The Globe and Mail's Report on Small Business, in partnership with Rogers, invited dozens of young entrepreneurs and students across the Greater Toronto Area and Waterloo to network at Via's Panorama Lounge in Union Station. Learn more about Toronto's leading entrepreneurs!

 

Mobile development and marketing has been the bane of marketer’s existence for some time. Companies understand the significance of reaching consumers via mobile devices but seldom understand the work involved in developing and maintaining a separate website. As a marketer you may know about the value of mobile but also understand the work involved in developing, maintaining, and marketing a mobile website. Given limited resources, companies have often “thrown up” a basic mobile site – if they have one at all – to meet the explosive demand of mobile. However, many of these sites have limited functionality and significant overhead.

 

In any supermarket chain, some things are easy to find. Apples. Milk. Bread. But if you're looking for flaxseeds? Coconut milk? Prunes? Who among us has not felt the stirrings of super-market rage as we crisscross the fluorescent-lit maze of shelves, our shopping carts banging together as we search for a single palatable salami? Meijer, a regional market and grocery chain, has close to two hundred stores in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky. Through their seventy-five years, the family-owned business has seen dramatic changes in their retail experience.

We're in a social business bubble. CIOs are buying social software by the pound, hoping internal managers will figure out how to use it. Interactive marketing departments are frantically accumulating fans and followers on Facebook and Twitter, praying the CEO will not ask too many questions about value produced. Even sedate HR people are lobbying for social enterprise initiatives because it is about people, isn't it? And of course, large hordes of software suppliers' salespeople are calling on everybody, promoting the new distributed power of cloud and mobile technologies, and stoking the collective fear of missing out on the Big Data opportunity.

It's that time of year again! 2013 is on the horizon, so whip out your crystal balls, marketers -- it's time to make some predictions about what's in store for next year. Don't have one handy? That's cool. You don't need to be clairvoyant to make a prediction or two. In fact, how about we get the ball rolling.

In 2012, the world of marketing underwent some major changes. We saw the rise of Pinterest, several IPOs and acquisitions, an aggressive political ad war, Facebook’s 1 billionth user, and watched one Korean artist turn into a global phenomenon thanks to YouTube. So what’s on tap for next year? 

 

 

I can't believe how quickly the weather turned, then again hard to complain with such a tepid fall. One of the things I am quite happy to see is that both consumer confidence and spending in the US has finally gone up a nice 12.8% over the Thanksgiving Holiday weekend compared to last year. This adds a nice extra $7 Billion into retailers pockets for a total of $59.1 Billion in consumer spending! This is good news for Little Brother Canada, at least historically speaking.

 

I don't know about you, but I used to come from work and charge my smartphone at the small table near my front entrance. It was a parlour trick. It was a way for me to not think about my mobile device from the time I walked into the house until I had to leave again. It worked well for a couple of a years... and then something happened. We can blame it on the apps, we can blame it on the music, we can blame it on our lack of desire to have a hardwired phone in the home because mobile works so well, but these smartphones slowly crept their ways into our living rooms and have now made their way into the bedroom.

 

Startup businesses are often founded on leaps of faith and developed on the basis of hunches and snap decisions. But when it comes time to hire staff, acting on impulse often leads to blunders that can be costly setbacks for budding companies, human resources experts warn. Here are five common rookie gaffes to avoid:

We have a major issue with marketing and it needs to get solved soon if our future it to be as bright as we hope. Bottom line: marketers need to prove the business impact of our work. Seems simple enough, doesn't it? Well, the CEOs of our world do not believe that we are delivering on this concept. That is the sad (and, ultimately, very scary) news out of the Fournaise 2012 Global Marketing Effectiveness Program, which interviewed over 1,200 CEOs from across North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.

 

Ability is actually quite simple to assess, especially if you use the two-question interview approach I suggested in an earlier post. Motivation to do the work, on the other hand, is a bit more complex, and quite frankly, more important, since this is the universal trait of success.

 

A Super Simple Explanation of Inbound Marketing: Check out this info-graphic to really understand how inbound marketing works AND how you can utilize it effectively within your marketing strategy! A great piece of work from The Whole Brain Group.

Some 72 per cent of respondents in the Sun Life Financial Inc. annual health survey said they are experiencing ‘‘excessive” levels of anxiety. Employment status is a key source of strain, which explains why younger workers are the most stressed in the country. Ninety per cent of people aged 18 to 24 say they are feeling overwhelmed.

“Canada’s weak economic recovery – now in its fourth year since the financial crisis of 2008 – is a driver of remarkably high stress levels, particularly among young adults across the country,” the study says.

 

“If you want to build a brand, you must focus your efforts on owning a word in the prospects’ mind. A word nobody else owns” – Al Ries

There used to be a time in the evening, when I would close the lid of my MacBook Air, plug in my iPhone for the night and turn to the warm glow of the television to forget about the day I just had and not spend too much time thinking about the day that was ahead of me. It could be an episode of Charlie Rose, but it could also be something a little more mindless like American Pickers. It was my way of unplugging and letting someone else do the heavy lifting for my media diet. Nothing to friend, follow, respond to, create, post, publish, etc... Just sit back and let some content wash over me. It was the perfect way to sail off into the night.

 

Think having a bold, eye-catching homepage is enough? Think again. Outbrain's CEO shares his best strategies for attracting quality visitors to your site--and keeping them engaged. This strategy may bring some measure of success to business owners with lists consisting of hundreds of thousands of contacts, but not for the average entrepreneur. According to Yaron Galai, the CEO of Outbrain, a content-discovery platform that places their clients' articles, mobile, and video content on high-profile publisher sites, you need to get creative about how you market your content. 

 

One would expect nothing less from the director of marketing for Joe Fresh. Stepping out for a coffee near the Joe Fresh offices in Toronto’s Liberty Village neighbourhood, the 29-year-old is outfitted in the brand, from top-not-quite-to-toe: the leopard-print loafers are Nine West, she notes somewhat sheepishly before quickly adding, “We have great shoes.”

Have you ever heard of the "razor and blades business model?"

 

The unemployment rate in the U.S. unexpectedly fell to 7.8 percent in September, giving President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign a boost a month before the election.

Techcrunch recently featured an article that mentions the test Google has been running on a limited scale with Google Fiber. The first time I read about Google entry into the cable market, I got a knot in my stomach. Personally it's a little too "big brother" for me, but the fact that they are able to transmit data almost 100 times faster than what we have now was pretty exciting to say the least. Now the coverage has moved from speed and clarity to programming.

 

It turns out that trying to standardize advertising sizes and formats may have been a bad idea for online advertising.

It astounds me when I read web sites whose prevalent voice is replete with “we” words rather than “you” words. “We do this, we do that, our products have these features and those attributes.”

In any business, there are customers that run the gamut from ideal to horrible. The ideal ones are those who buy your product or service and, eventually serve as a brand ambassador for you to the larger marketplace. They make no silly demands or harbor unreasonable expectations. In essence, they are loyal, profitable customers. These customers you keep.

Hear Craig Lund (President of American Marketing Association Toronto & Marketing Talent Inc.) speak about the current state of marketing from a Canadian stand point on Business Cast. Craig covers a few issues that were discussed during some of the 2011/12 AMA roundtable discussions such as the future of marketing, the future skill sets and tools for marketers, and what senior marketers are looking for in their next job.

There’s been lots of talk lately about how much marketing and brand management has changed. I’m not sure it’s changed at all. As Brand Leaders, we still need to start with the consumer, drive for insights, match up their need states to your brand’s offering and then create a competitive offering that you can own so that no else can. A great brand has to be either better, different or cheaper. That still holds true, and we still aren’t at the media decision.

Yes, the media options have changed, but there is so much more to running a brand than just the media options.

As a card-holding member of Generation X, I adopted an early disdain for temporary work, often equating it with the McJobs popularized in Douglas Coupland’s quintessential book. But with the changing economic climate – one that waves goodbye to the notion of long-term job security and loyalty – temporary work has gradually become normalized.

Author Daniel Pink first documented this phenomenon over 10 years ago in Free Agent Nation: How America’s New Independent Workers Are Transforming the Way We Live. Increasingly, these free agents include executives who find themselves in-between roles or committed to working only on short-term contracts. A recent Harvard Business Review article called them “supertemps.”

What's your endgame?

You won't be surprised to know that so few brands actually have an answer to that one, specific, question. Without an answer to that question, you wind up getting the type of branded content that we're all being inundated with, day in and day out. It seems like a never-ending slew of silly questions, random polls and worse. Brands are, sadly, playing it safe when it comes to content and, while it is authentic, it lacks any form of life. So, with that, it comes off as a subtle version of advertorial content. Nothing more.

How old should a Social Media Manager be?

It's not hard to create an online firestorm by blogging something that is more perspective than experience. No one is feeling the brunt of this more than Cathryn Sloane these days. On July 20th, 2012, Sloane published a blog post titled, Why Every Social Media Manager Should Be Under 25, over at the Next Gen Journal in which she attempts to explain why the best Social Media Managers are those who understand the Internet more than everybody else because they grew up with it. She states: "...every generation...

Lululemon is quickly becoming a Beloved Brand, with an extremely loyal following that love not only how the brand makes them feel (healthy, comfortable, free) but also love the product which is reliable, ethical and of a high quality.

At the core of Lulu’s Brand DNA is Yoga. Yoga has a balance of rational and emotional benefits–and Lulu shares most of those same balances.

Leadership too often is defined in big terms like Charisma, or Being Bold, or Visionary Public Speaking but none of these are the root of leadership. We all know bold, visionary, charismatic people who are not great leaders, nor are these the first characteristics required to start change and deliver exceptional results.

As a brand, do you find it hard to put your message in front of the right audience?

This used to be the major challenge. The entire construct of the advertising industry was built on the scarcity model. There was only a finite number of pages in the newspaper allotted to advertising. There were only so many commercial breaks during some of prime time's biggest TV shows, and if you didn't get your spot on the local radio morning program, they were only on air for a brief time because traffic only lasts for a couple of hours if you want that captive audience.

They say that 'free' is the most powerful word in marketing... and in most cases the promise of something for nothing is VERY enticing.  I would say it's often more than enough for consumers to take action. The question we must answer is when to give something away and when to charge for it.

Here are three crucial questions every marketer should consider asking potential agencies in a pitch process:

Question 1: 

Wow, things have really changed.  Google Panda, Penguin, and Peanut Butter.  Okay, I don't know what comes after the "Penguin" update but things are certainly going to change.  As I think about marketing online and what will differentiate those who find success (versus those who don't), I can't help but think about key characteristics that drive online success.

The two factors that I believe have the greatest influence on online marketing success - today and well into the future - are content and community.

When I was a kid, it was so much fun to go up to the pop fountain and combine every flavour: a little bit of Coke, a bit of Sprite and Orange or Root Beer and back to the coke for a bit more.  But Coca Cola Freestyle takes that to the next level by combining art, science, entertainment and design to give you up to 100 options to make the fountain drink of your choice.  These new machines, in mostly high-profile locations, not only give you a drink, but a fun and very cool interactive experience.

Should the CEO blog?

It seems like a question rooted in 2008, but now that blogging could include things like tweeting, creating videos on YouTube, updating a Facebook profile or taking part in LinkedIn, it may well be high time to start asking these questions all over again. The reasoning for this line of questioning comes via a press release issued today titled, Fortune 500 executives behind on social networking. A study done by Domo and CEO.com looked at the online engagement of Fortune 500 companies' top brass and compared it to that of the mass population.

There is a major shift in business focus that is under way.

Digital media has forced businesses to change. Dramatically. This is nothing new. What's interesting is that we're seeing two, distinct, breeds of business being born: product or people focused.

I was opening a Christmas card from a great leader I had just stopped working for. It said “I hope our paths cross again one day soon – maybe me working for you!” Him working for me? What an outrageous thought! This card resides in my Christmas bin and I see it every year when I pull out the decorations. It always makes me smile.

This acknowledgment was from many years ago and yet it stands out in my mind because I felt seen and appreciated.  It shifted what I believed I was capable of doing.

“Everything that can be invented has been invented.”

Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, US Patent Office,  1899

Don’t feel bad about being at the Like It stage, because that’s where most brands are.

A well-written Brand Plan helps to align an organization around the direction, the choices and the tactics that need implementing for a brand to achieve their goals.  The Brand Plan unites functions such as marketing, sales, product development outlining what each group needs to do for the brand to be successful, while setting goals that operations and finance need to support

The Brand Plan gains approval from senior management around spending options, strategic choices and sets forth the tactics that will be implemented.  It holds senior management accountable to the plan.  The Brand Plan helps frame the execution for internal stakeholders and for the various agencies who will implement programs within the plan...

Sometimes the decision to undertake an agency review is clear:  International alignment.  Competitive conflict.  Regional mandates.  Perhaps even irreconcilable differences.

But what if the reasons aren’t so clear yet there’s something gnawing at the back of your mind that an agency evaluation or review is something you should consider?  Those reasons can often point to bigger issues and underscore the fact you’re not maximizing value from a particular agency relationship.

Ten warning signs that your agency relationship isn’t as strong as it needs to be...

Here’s something to consider next time you’re out looking for a new agency – particularly if your company splits its brand and digital assignments among different agencies: Every pitch is (and needs to be) a digital pitch.

Even if your assignment(s) are purely brand focused and your primary requirement is for solutions based in “traditional” media, you’ll benefit from a digital approach to development, execution and results.

As consumers, we have all been the beneficiaries of some great retail recession bargains. I have also been amazed at how easy it has become to negotiate services at major retailers, leverage multiple discounts at others, and return used goods with no questions asked and no receipt.  I recently had a wonderful retail experience at Holt Renfrew in this regard that will endear me to this retailer to infinity and beyond!

Recently MTI president Craig Lund was interviewed by the Globe and Mail about the use of Botox among young men to reduce the signs of aging.  He was asked about how Botox could influence ones prospects in the Job hunting game.  While not endorsing Botox, Lund's comments speak more to being generally healthy and rested, and suspects the use of Botox may also be boosting the self confidence of the user.

What happens when two identically skilled talent are in the running for the same job for example.

 

In our recently released discussion paper resulting from our last Leaders Forum, we encourage those responsible for their organization’s brand (which includes the CEO, don’t forget) to consider the emotional side of the branding conversation in contemplating their brand’s appeal.

The Emotional Science Behind Effective Branding: A Better Way to Grow Your Branded Business discusses the idea that the rational mind has some pretty influential company when it comes to identifying those decision drivers that motivate purchase. The emotional mind—surprise, surprise—brings heavy weight to bear on the business of brand selection. Given that at least 50% of the purchase decision is emotional, ignore it at your peril.