The presentation. When Function follows Form.

August 6th, 2010 • View Comments Social, Tools
Tags: Funny, Presentation, Social Business Design, Strategy, Truth

The greatest sin in marketing is when function follows form. In fact this is more the rule than the exception – also in social. Like the comic. Thanks to Conversation Agent.

PSFK. The Future of Retail.

Juni 3rd, 2010 • View Comments Retail, Social Business, Tech, Trends
Tags: Business, Creativity, Experimental, Future, Ideas, Prediction, PSFK, Report, Retail, Social Business Design, Strategy, Trends, World

As the world intertwines the web and reality, retail becomes one of the most crucial sectors to stage new marketing experiences for customers. Notorious PSFK has just staged its deck about ‘The future of Retail‘. The free 80 page analysis highlights how new technologies and senses play a crucial role in shaping shopping experiences. The trends identified within this document and the examples used to bring them to life are inspired by innovation from around the globe. And as usual it comes with a handy guide what is going to be hot in tomorrow’s retail experiences. PSFK, I love your decks.

Collaborative Movies. Under the Iron Sky needs your help, Frankfurt.

Mai 5th, 2010 • View Comments Movies, We like
Tags: Cinema, Cool, Creativity, Experimental, Finland, Frankfurt, Iron Sky, Movie, Participatory Cinema, Social Business Design, Trends, World

In 1945 the Nazis fled to the moon. In 2018 they are coming back – this is the plot of one of the most exciting movie productions right at the moment, ‘Iron Sky’. The Finnish feature-length comedy science fiction film, directed by Timo Vuorensola and produced by Samuli Torssonen, will be in cincemas in 2011. And it is far more than just an ordinary movie production.

‘Under the Iron Sky’ is one of the most promising new movies of participatory cinema – projects in which producers have invited everyone interested in joining in with their ideas and creativity. Cinema enthusiasts can also attach media to their shots.

‘Iron Sky’ is not the first collaborative movie. Its predecessor ‘Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning‘ was one of the most successful Finnish movies ever (with a Creative Commons License). Currently at least three more major collaborative movies are being produced (e.g. ‘A Swarm of Angels‘). And these productions have grown to a serious size by now. With a well known international cast (Udo Kier plays the evil German again) and major, professional shoots. If you are as interested in the project as I am, subscribe to the team’s blog, Facebook page or follow them on twitter.

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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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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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Adaptive Marketing. How not to go the Dodo way, Part 1.

November 5th, 2009 • View Comments Intelligence, Reports, Social Business, Strategy
Tags: Adaptation Marketing, Business, Forrester, Future, Ideas, Intelligence, Reports, Social Business Design, Social Influence Marketing, speed, Strategy, Trends, World

Forrester has just published an article called “Adaptive Brand Marketing: Rethinking Your Approach to Branding in the Digital Age”. This article comes up with a couple of thoughts which aren’t completely new but leave you thinking. Agility and adaption are defined here as preconditions for brands to survive. Not new, you think? I think it is new in a certain way…simply because it left me with a couple of questions (which I try to discuss in the second part of this article, next weekend).

It’s good to have clever buddies. One of them is Johannes, my colleague who regularly sends me the articles I miss to read and starts a good discussion about it, usually. I had read a good post by BBH labs about a Forrester article which wasn’t even published at that time. But I missed the original Forrester report. Johannes made me read it (thanks again). And I recommend it as well now. Key question of the report: How do organizations respond to an even faster world in which they struggle to survive?

The challenges of speed and dynamics were always hard to put into a model for our social web driven world. All too often we focus on a different question as marketers: How do we respond to customers at all (not even really focusing on the real-time aspect of our digital world)? The question on how we hold conversations at all took our full attention away from its inlying dynamics and what it does to companies. But it’s crucial.

Think of the Dodo. A flightless bird endemic to the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius. Related to pigeons and doves, it stood about a meter tall, weighing about 20 kilograms , living on fruit and nesting on the ground.

The dodo has been extinct since the mid-to-late 17th century. It is commonly used as the archetype of an extinct species because its extinction occurred during recorded human history, and was directly attributable to human activity, hence the phrase “going the way of the Dodos.” (thx to Wikipedia). The Dodo and his ancestors were intelligent enough to survive for millions of years. But as his environment (well, humans came) changed he could not adapt fast enough. And this is a perfect example to introduce the topic I actually wanted to write about: Adaptation. Because evolution is a process that rewards the organism most capable to adapt to new environments, not the biggest or most intelligent. It’s an opportunistic and fast system…for the Dodo as well as for brands.

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engagementDB. Altimeter’s social business compendium.

Oktober 19th, 2009 • View Comments Allgemein
Tags: altimetergroup, Brands, Business, Diagram, engagmentdb, Presentation, Reports, Social Business Design, Social Influence Marketing, Strategy, Tools

Actually I am pretty well informed of what’s happening in the wild, wild world. The fact that altimetergroup published this fantastic project without me knowing it for months can only be explained through my vacations (at least I hope, otherwise I would have to reconfigure my Feedreader).

Engagementdb gives an overview about brands in Social Media. Currently it comes with two key features: A very handy, insightful diagram, which dynamically positions brands in regard to their engagement intensity and platform distribution. Additionally the findings of altimeter concerning brands in the social web are put down in the engagementdb study. In addition to the live assets altimeter wants to build up on its core finding and asks users to integrate ‘their’ social brand assets. The goal: to build a comprehensive overview of the market.

To sum it up: Even for altimeter this looks like a challenging project. But it’s definitely worth a look for everyone who works in nowaday’s Social Business.