Case Study. Old Spice Guy flexes his Muscles.

August 5th, 2010 • View Comments Ads, Strategy, We like
Tags: Adaptation Marketing, Ads, Agencies, Brands, Case Study, Creativity, Funny, Ideas, Old Spice, Presentation, Social Influence Marketing, Truth, We like, wieden & kennedy

Yes, we all love Old Spice now. No, it was not at all unsuccessful. In fact Wieden + Kennedy did not only stage a highly entertaining stunt with ‘the man your man could smell like’ – obviously it had exactly the effect a great campaign is supposed to have. It sold stuff.

I admit, ad agency case studies should always be watched with a certain skepticism. But hey, the best social media first ad campaign of the 21st century rocks big time (via adweek).

Social Currency. Where Brands meet Dynamic Context.

Mai 2nd, 2010 • View Comments Brands, Social, Social Business, Strategy
Tags: Adaptation Marketing, Brands, Business, Report, Reports, Research, Social, Social Business Design, Social Currency, Strategy, Study, Trends, Vivaldi, World

One of the really good studies about brands and their social environments has just been published jointly by NYC think tank Vivaldi Partners and Professor Johann Füller (University Innsbruck) in cooperation with Lightspeed Research.

The report ‘Social Currency’ asks what a brand’s social currency is, and what it takes to build and nurture it. And, the report indeed brings a couple of crucial things across – it defines the buzzy term Social Currency and attributes success metrics for brands here.

Defining Social Currency

So what is Social Currency and why is it important? From the report’s perspective it is the contextual sum of experiences users can have in relation and interaction with a brand. And a brand’s social currency is bound to a dynamic process that we call reality.

Social Currency is the extent to which people share the brand or information about the brand as part of their everyday social life at home or at work. (…) It is neither a product feature, nor a communications or PR campaign that is completely managed by any one company. From this perspective, social currency is a far more delicate asset to build, nurture and maintain than is brand equity.

Social currency represents a shared asset of consumers and company-owned brands. It originates from interaction between customers and consumers. And it is the material a brand’s success will be fundamentally influenced by…

1. Across categories and brands, 53% of consumers’ brand loyalty can be explained by social currency
2. Users of brands with high social currency show a significantly higher willingness to pay a price premium (correlation=0.73)

The study’s explanatory strength does not only lie in these results – it is remarkable as it tries to define what social currency is made of. Since the research assumes that social currency is crucial for brands to create customer loyalty it consequently also reveals its components. No, a brand does not necessarily have to access all levers – this varies in regard to which industry and brand is involved…

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Dear Forrester. No, We Are Not Going to Die.

März 29th, 2010 • View Comments Business, Strategy
Tags: Adaptation Marketing, Agencies, Brands, Business, Diagram, Forrester, Future, Ideas, Industry, Reports, Social Business Design, Strategy, Trends, Truth, World

Since Digital has initiated the revolution in Marketing the question for the ‘Agency of the Future’ has almost become an Internet Meme. Pretty much every agency around claims to have found the recipe. That’s in fact no very surprising. Over the time the already-complex agency-marketer relationship has been significantly altered by factors such as the recession and the rise of social media. With brands and agencies stumbling into the real time web and over interacting customers (OMFG!) the key question is obvious: Whose agency future is it anyway?

The challenge

In their late Forrester report about ‘The Future of Agency Relationships‘ Dave Frankland, Sean Corcoran, and Vidya Drego have tried to define a CMO’s challenges and their criteria catalogue when it comes to choosing an Agency of Record – a highly complex task. Agencies have always managed to adopt to changes. There were many paradigm shifts from the ad sales era of the early 19th century to our wired reality. Nevertheless agencies (or similar institutions) managed to offer services which were relevant enough. Today, once more, agencies are faced with new requirements in what they are supposed to deliver:

That may not exactly sound completely new. But it is quite interesting to ask which agency model might be able to accept these challenges.

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My Perspective. The New Rules of Relationship Management.

März 7th, 2010 • View Comments Allgemein
Tags: Adaptation Marketing, Altimeter, Brands, Business, Monitoring, Reports, Social, Social Business Design, Social CRM, Social Influence Marketing, Strategy, Tools, World

Altimeter Group has just published its new report entitled ‘Social CRM. The New Rules of Relationship Management.’ It assumes that companies are simply overwhelmed with social interactions. They need tools, but they need tools to deliver on certain, clearly defined objectives. This report tries to give an overview on the tech-related maturity of SCRM tools and their relation to company objectives. Most of you will find it f*****ing boring. I don’t.

About half a year ago I posted an article entitled ‘Social CRM. Ready for action?‘. I tried to give a rough overview on the relevance of a new approach to brand-customer-relations in an era shaped by interactions among users via social software.

Of course I am not the first one to reflect the outcome of a world gone social for CRM. People like Esteban Kolsky (read his articles ‘The Roadmap to SCRM‘), Wim Rampen, and a few more CRM guys try to define the role of SCRM for today’s marketing. And now there is a new report by Altimeter’s notorious Jeremiah Owyang and Ray Wang – Social CRM: The New Rules of Relationship Management.

What’s it SCRM?

Social CRM extends the classic definition of Customer Relationship Management. According to Paul Greenberg…

CRM is a philosophy & a business strategy, supported by a technology platform, business rules, workflow, processes & social characteristics, designed to engage the customer in a collaborative conversation in order to provide mutually beneficial value in a trusted & transparent business environment. It’s the company’s response to the customer’s ownership of the conversation.

SCRM accepts the fact that there are millions of people virtually interacting . They are chatting about your brand, recommending your sneakers, or rate your restaurant online. This is where SCRM starts off…

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adidas. Preparing the Social Push for NBA All–Star Weekend.

Februar 5th, 2010 • View Comments Brands, Experimental, Social
Tags: 180, Adaptation Marketing, adidas, Agencies, Brands, Cool, Creativity, Dwight Howard, Experimental, Ideas, Riot, Sharing, Social Influence Marketing, Strategy, TBWA, Tools, We like

For about three years I worked on various adidas accounts here at my employer, Neue Digitale / Razorfish. That’s why I’m pretty interested to watch what the brand is up to when it comes to new digital (mainly social) concepts. In fact, the days of big digital presentations are over are getting reinterpreted at adidas HQ, Amsterdam.

On NBA’s All-Star Weekend Orlando Magic Center Dwight Howard takes the lead in a push by 180/TBWA Riot and adidas to socialize….umm…..big shiny ad productions. They will air a 30-second spot starring the basketball god which unlocks more Howard-related content the more it is shared. Additionally it will be intertwined with the website and a Youtube channel.

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Technographics. Forrester’s Ladder just got a new Rung.

Januar 19th, 2010 • View Comments Reports, Social, Social Business, Strategy
Tags: Adaptation Marketing, Conversationalist, Diagram, Forrester, Groundswell, Model, Social Influence Marketing, Social Networks, Strategy, Technographics, Tool, Tools, Twitter

In 2007 Forrester’s Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff introduced the world to the Groundswell model. It has become something like a standard (if there is one) in Social strategies, summarizing data-based strategies for companies that want to harness the power of social technologies. One key aspect of it was the Social Technographics Ladder that profiled users from all over the world according to their level of tech-savvyness in the social realm (plus, they offer a handy online tool too).

No doubt, the Technographics Ladder was a great first model to profile overlapping customer groups and their ability to move in the social space. And – what I liked most about it – Forrester fed it with up-to-date data to turn it into a valuable model for marketers. Nevertheless there were too few rungs on the ladder. We understood that there are Inactives, Spectators, Joiners, Critics and Creators…but something was missing.

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Slightware. The difference between a campaign and a conversation.

Dezember 22nd, 2009 • View Comments Brands, Social, Strategy
Tags: Adaptation Marketing, Agencies, Brands, Campaign, Conversation, Diagram, Social Business Design, Social Influence Marketing, Trends, visual, World

Kenneth J. Weiss’ book Slightware is a book on the challenges brands face in nowaday’s complex marketing realities. Reader praise the book as a great compendium about today’s marketing. Plus it comes with quite a bunch of great pictures info visualizations. I found this one particularly interesting: Campaigns vs Conversations. No, it is not completely new. But it summarizes a couple of key properties in one visualization. Info visualizations – a great way to promote your blog, book or whatever since 1853.

Adaptive Marketing. How not to go the Dodo way, Part 2.

Dezember 9th, 2009 • View Comments Business, Intelligence, Reports, Social Business, Strategy
Tags: Adaptation Marketing, Business, Forrester, Future, Ideas, Reports, Social Business Design, Social Influence Marketing, speed, Strategy, Trends, World

I did write about the concept of Adaptation Marketing two weeks ago. I admit, it’s another buzz word in the digital/social realm. But it’s a meaningful idea for what brand management might be like in the near future. A model which enables brands to deal with the social sphere without necessarily focusing too much on Facebook, Twitter & Co. A thoughtstarter for rather traditional as well as new marketers alike.

Adaptation is a term from Darwin’s evolution theory. Wikipedia knows that “when the habitat changes, three main things may happen to a resident population: habitat tracking, genetic change or extinction. In fact, all three things may occur in sequence. Of these three effects, only genetic change brings about adaptation.”

The life of the last Dodo ended in the 17th century. His habitat changed drastically when men appeared. An unwelcome surprise for Dodos as for brands who also struggle with real people who behave different than what they are used to. They talk and they walk and they don’t necessarily care for Dodos and brands. We, marketers or advertisers may like it or not – but things in our habitat change. Quickly. And two key aspects of it are  feedback and real time.

How social will we have to be?
The Dodo formula is simple: Humans arrive = Problem. Brands know this problem since the social web startet going mainstream. Some of them adapt quickly. But most of them behave like rabbits in the headlight.  Caught between a rock and hard place, the challenges seem to leave no other way than to use it or lose it, Facebook Fan Page or nothing at all.

I think there is a third way.

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Time. Much more than the Present.

November 15th, 2009 • View Comments Strategy
Tags: Adaptation Marketing, Agencies, Bud Caddell, Business, Cool, Creativity, Fast, Future, Philosophy, Prediction, Presentation, Strategy, Time, Trends, Undercurrent, World

Bud CaddelI is a strategist the awesomest strategist ever at Undercurrent NYC and I read his blog for quite some time. This deck by Bud is about time. Basically about the question how we design experiences around how humans perceive time. I am not quite sure if you gave an answer to this question, Bud, but I love the way you tell your story (especially the Austronaut Allen part). By the way, I found this deck on Griffin Farley’s blog which I hereby recommend to my readers as well.

Adaptation Marketing. Miracle Whip on the fast lane.

November 13th, 2009 • View Comments Ads, Brands, Experimental, Ideas, Media, We like
Tags: Adaptation Marketing, Brands, Colbert, Cool, Creativity, Experimental, Fast, Funny, Ideas, Media, Miracle Whip, Real time, We like

About a week ago I reviewed Forrester’s concept of Adaptive Marketing – a framework in which brands react fast on a given context using the means of microstrategies. This week Miracle Whip showed how this might look like. Background: On October 15 Comedy Central’s notorious Stephen Colbert made fun of Miracle Whip’s new ad campaign which stages urban, young hipsters doing fancy stuff with Miracle Whip (you know what I mean).

As a traditional brand you would not react on it. But now comes Adaptive Marketing into play: Miracle Whip’s declaration of war to Stephen Colbert ran as full-page ad in various American newspapers only a couple of weeks later, striking back at Colbert (see the full size ad)… “On Thursday, November 12, we will dominate the airspace on your show. With every commercial break, your viewers will be exposed to hardcore Miracle Whip attitude and revelry. You will see our legion of (as you call them) “mayo nay-sayers” snarfing sandwiches topped with our one-of-a-kind flavor in a very cool and totally hip way. They will be in your face and massively dope. It goes without saying, they WILL NOT TONE IT DOWN.”

And

“We’re on a mission.

We’re taking no prisoners. We’re raising Hell, Man.”

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