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added: Fri, 09th September 2005 | 626 views | 0x in favourites
feed url: http://www.greg-brooks.com/index.rdf
Commentary on communications, public process and business development from a guy who \"used to do PR.\"
More than a year ago, I came across Chiristopher Allen's solid analysis of several social networking sites and bookmarked it; I re-read it today while cleaning out my bookmarks (a singularly post-modern, 21st century drudgery) and pretty much everything he wrote still holds true. I use LinkedIn (profile here, although I doubt you can view it unless you're a member), and the basic Cocktail Party Rule applies: If you are polite and know how to gently work a room, you can make some spectacularly useful contacts; if you wander around like a bull in a china shop wondering how many...
I don't post a lot about advertising. This is not because I think it's unimportant, but because there are a lot of people doing truly great advertising blogs. But this is too smart to resist. Retail Store Blog has a great little summary on what makes sexy ads work -- and what doesn't. The short version of Greg Manter's three-point test: Do you remember what the ad sold? Or do you only remember the sex? Is the ad "hot" enough to be remarkable (literally)? Is the sexy ad part of a whole brand identity or just a one-off titillation? Good...
Colin turned my tale of Kinko's joy into a blog post. I'd feel left out of my own party if I didn't link to it....
I sometimes think I shouldn't have original thoughts in this forum at all (and, yes, there are those who argue that I don't!), but, rather, should just point people to the wisdom over at Crossroads Dispatches. Evelyn makes a big, big point about sales and marketing with a simple analogy: I have noted time and time again that most marketing and sales professionals take on the role of a beggar more often than not.It's a pitiful sight. They are frantically running up and down the beach jumping up and down waving dim-bulbed flashlights hoping beyond hope that any passing ship...
Friend and uber-flack Peter Shankman (professional, personal, unfortunate headshot) is more of a "pure" PR guy than me -- he manages to get great media hits for everything from porn distributors to yarnmakers. Peter's good, but he also has interesting products and services to pitch to the media. What happens when your product isn't buzzworthy? James Archer has some thoughts. And they're good ones. James makes several points and it's a short read -- so go read it. The closing graph even has some takeaway for those who market themselves, not just products: Above all, remember to be fascinating. If...
Over at Collaborative Marketing Services, they're asking a question sure to warm the collective hearts of the buzzword-compliance set: What is open source marketing? Great question. Unfortunately, I'm not sure they have the full answer. OK, I am sure, but I'm being professional. The article's thesis goes something like this: More choice in the marketplace means monolithic brands -- and the equally monolithic media buys used to support them -- are going the way of the dodo. (Insert Cluetrain-ish stuff... insert Seth-like stuff... etc.) There are good points in there, but much of it has a dotcom-heyday feel. More importantly,...
Colin has such a great post on the importance of personalization during the pitch that there's not much for me to add. Go read it, and follow the great links....
Rob Thrasher has an interesting take on using Google to reverse-engineer a brand. Good stuff, although it's certainly just part of any larger branding effort. One thing that's usually an eye-opener -- particularly with smaller clients -- is the concept of branding forward vs. backward: Branding forward: You start with a brand that reflects back to customers things you know the they want, and then build a product around that brand. Branding backward: You can start with a product, and refine from its characteristics (both existing ones any any additional ones the branding team may imbue it with) a successful...
Mike Bawden pointed me to this excellent, metaphorical article on positioning over at 101PublicRelations. It's smart stuff, but I may be biased because the author used two of my favorite airlines as examples. An aside: I like long blog entries -- as long as they have something to say. For me, the link-and-run miniposts so ubiquitous in blogging (and yes, I'm guilty myself -- with this very post!) are a little bit like fast food; fun, but not really filling... and your mom would tell you to eat better....
Jennifer Rice brings up some stats -- and their importance -- in such a direct way that all I can do is quote (emphasis mine): The Conference Board found that the top four chief executive challenges for 2004 were top-line growth (52%), corporate agility (42%), customer loyalty and retention (41%), and innovation (31%). By contrast, Booz Allen Hamilton found that marketing executives were focused on branding guidelines (83%), counseling divisions (52%), best-practice sharing (52%), and developing capabilities (47%). No wonder the ANA concluded: "Marketing is disconnected from the CEO agenda."...The ANA study concludes that "a surprisingly high percentage of correspondents...
Earlier this month, I was a panelist at an American Marketing Association disucssion about blogs and branding. It was a good group -- attendees who ran the gamut from students to senior corporate marketers, and fellow panelists with far more brain power than I. One question that came up -- the same one that always comes up when you get marcom gatekeepers in a room and start talking about decentralized communications -- went something like this: "But how do you control the message? You can talk all day about potential, but what are the risks?" :::queue sinister music::: Enter these...
One question we're increasingly asking clients up front -- particularly in the public sector -- is a very basic one indeed: How serious are you? In public involvement, there's a large continuum between "window-dressing" projects (those designed more to publicize a predetermined program than to gather input) and the intense engagements that can really affect policy and planning. We've done both types of projects (although we prefer the latter), but the biggest key to executing without missteps is the same: Figure out the project owner's level of commitment up front....
Brand Autopsy riffs on a WSJ article exploring how economists find new insights by watching the ebb and flow of major e-commerce sites. The jury is still out, but it's starting to look like reputation trumps brand -- and reputation is something that's damned hard to grow through traditional advertising and marcom. Interesting stuff -- go take a peek....
Hard to know whether to file this under Business Development or Marketing -- but it's spectacularly bad practice in any event. The folks over at Vaughn Whelan & Partners attempted to hijack the agency review under way by Molson Canadian. Their site, established especially for this effort, lays it all out in 22 points. Bottom line: They weren't invited to the party and thought they should be, so they took their case public. Ballsy? That's not the half of it. Airing an unauthorized commercial for your potential client's product is the ballsy part. And it blew up in the agency's...
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