A ll Posts

For Brands There’s A Fine Line Between Capitalism And Capitalization – At Least There Should Be

I realized in penning this particular article that there are some brands who simply will not care. They will not care about crossing any lines – fine or otherwise. They will do whatever it takes, regardless of such minor details as ethics and morals, to move their product, whatever said product may be.

They will go right on doing what they’ve always done which is to essentially use any medium necessary – email, print, direct marketing, TV, radio, mobile and on and on to drive their message home to as many consumers they possibly can.

For these brands there is no line between capitalism and capitalization.

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Moneyball For Sales And Marketing (Infographic)

I know what you’re thinking, Steve’s writing about Moneyball only because of the incredible physical similarities between himself and Brad Pitt – who starred in the movie of the same name.

Well, Mr. Pitt’s and my striking resemblances aside, the reason for my article is to share with you something I discovered that ties in the concept of Moneyball with sales and marketing. Now for those of you who are not familiar with the term “Moneyball” please allow me to explain.

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Q&A: Why the Future of Business is Shared Experiences

Jeff Ashcroft (@JeffAshcroft) along with @TheSocialCMO host the popular #MMchat (Marketer Monday) every week at 8 p.m. eastern on Twitter. It’s a rapid fire exchange not only between the organizer and the guest but also everyone following along #MMchat. It certainly makes for exciting dialog in real-time and also later when the full transcript is published. I recently joined them to discuss the future of business and why now is the time to become the hero in your hero’s journey. I’ve recreated our exchange (each in 140 characters or less) for you here…

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Only You Can Make Zero Unemployment Real

A dozen generations ago, there was no unemployment, largely because there were no real jobs to speak of. Before the industrial revolution, the thought that you’d leave your home and go to an office or a factory was, of course, bizarre.

What happens now that the industrial age is ending? As the final days of the industrial age roll around, we are seeing the core assets of the economy replaced by something new. Actually, it’s something old, something handmade, but this time, on a huge scale.

The industrial age was about scarcity. Everything that built our culture, improved our productivity, and defined our lives involved the chasing of scarce items.

On the other hand, the connection economy, our economy, the economy of the foreseeable future, embraces abundance. No, we don’t have an endless supply of the resources we used to trade and covet. No, we certainly don’t have a surplus of time, either. But we do have an abundance of choice, an abundance of connection, and an abundance of access to knowledge.

We know more people, have access to more resources, and can leverage our skills more quickly and at a higher level than ever before.

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Who Benefits from Entertaining, Non-Brand Centric, Commercials?

relevanceWhat did this last round of Super Bowl ads do for the brands who created them? In my opinion, not much—when you consider the colossal price tag of the ads compared to brand perception. This past year a 30-second spot cost $4M to air, not counting the costs for an agency to produce it.

According to MediaLife, $1.85 billion was spent on these ads over the past 10 years, and all the while TV viewership has flattened. So who really benefits?

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B2B And B2C Marketers Agree – Relationship Marketing Is Where It’s At

Part of me is truly amazed that has taken this long to realize something that should have been obvious to all of us from the beginning of time. Well, the beginning of advertising and marketing time, that is.

Regardless of the medium or platform or whatever word you prefer to describe all the ways we communicate with consumers, shouldn’t we all collectively been trying to establish a relationship and engage with our customers from the proverbial get-go?

Shouldn’t adopting this type of approach bring with it the subsequent increased revenue we all seek but done in so in a more, of I don’t know, natural way?

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Twitter Set to Institute New Hashtag Controls

Due to the confusion and number of complaints Twitter receives surrounding the misuse of hashtags and people using the same hashtag for different uses they are preparing to set new controls.

Effective May 1st Twitter will be introducing a new registration system for hashtags so that the first to register a hashtag with a specific meaning will be official for use going forward.

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Using Branded Content In Your Content Marketing Arsenal

Regardless of what mediums are in your content marketing arsenal: mobile marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, direct mail, outdoor, and on and on – “branded content has the ability to create brand differentiating by bridging the gap between TV’s emotive power and digital media’s efficient reach.”

The reason for the quotes is that line comes directly from a recently-released Forrester report entitled How To Build Your Brand With Branded Content.

Penned by Forrester Research Principal Analyst Tracy Stokes, the report is chock-full of valuable insight and while stating, as mentioned previously, that branded content offers brands the opportunity to differentiate themselves – “marketers are struggling to build content at scale — to get the right message to the right consumer at the right time.”

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Building your backlist (and living with it forever)

Authors and musicians have one, certainly. This is the book you wrote seven years ago or the album from early in your career. The book keeps selling, spreading the ideas and making a difference. The album gets played on the radio, earning you new fans.

“Backlist” is what publishers call the stuff that got published a while ago, but that’s still out there, selling.

The Wizard of Oz, Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits and Starsky and Hutch all live on the backlist.

Without a backlist, all book publishers would go out of business in no time. The backlist pays dividends long after the work is over.

Advertisers didn’t used to have a backlist. You paid for that magazine or newspaper or TV ad, and within just one cycle, it was gone, forever.

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What Is Programmatic Advertising And Is It The Future?

I am by nature a very curious person especially when it comes to the world of marketing, advertising and branding. Be it the latest mobile technology or the newest social media platform or whatever, I am usually instantly drawn and my curiosity piqued.

So when I heard about “programmatic advertising” I knew I wanted to learn more. As I began to delve into it, I learned of some very interesting statistics related to it and specifically real time bidding (RTB). According to the IDC, “spending on real time-bidded display advertising will accelerate at a 59% compound annual growth rate through 2016, making in the fastest growing segment of digital advertising over the next few years.” 

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