brands

I’ve been busy with end of the year work and now I’m back on track. For those of you that follow the design damage blog since the beginning, I want to take this opportunity to thank you for the support and hope I can continue to provide value for your time. Although no new entries were posted for the past weeks, I continue to follow...[read more]

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing This past year brands large and small rushed head on into social media marketing. They had to learn about all things Twitter, hire social media consultants and create special social media metrics and budgets. Now that hype surrounding the next new thing has settled a bit, businesses are coming...[read more]

It's ten days to Christmas and we're already two days into Hanukkah, so I'm ready to call the season's retail sales: The worst performing stores and brands will often evidence the "best" advertising, only the results won't be their fault. The best sales results will come from businesses that offered low prices, and they won't get...[read more]

Tealeaf provides online customer experience management (CEM). Their CEM solutions include both a customer behavior analysis suite and customer service optimization suite. I have written about them before (see: Understanding Your Online Customer's Moves with TeaLeaf). They also sponsor an annual Online Consumer Survey. Here is my post on...[read more]

Time to re-evaluate just what we consider “good brands” vs. junk.  I could not resist the summer back-to-school discounts and upgraded two laptops – one of them is already making funny noises. Tired already? It’s an HP. Perhaps just a co-incidence -- but my desktop monster, just two years old has long been pretending it was a...[read more]

I’ve been thinking about my recent American Express experience – outlined in AMEX discovers new depths to customer service. It is clear to me that companies have the right to choose which customers they deal with. But it seems that how they remove those customers from the books is the critical thing for brand and customer experience. I’...[read more]

I came across two posts today that I wanted to share with you. The first one is by Al Ries called “Social Media Not the Answer for Weak Brands,” and the second post is called “When Big Brands SHOULDN’T Listen to Their Customers.” Both of these posts highlight valuable lessons and learning from the social media world which is why I...[read more]

By Frank ReedOk, let’s get everything out on the table before we really get going here. Social media helps a brand build a following of people who believe in the brand. It creates little armies of brand zealots that do all the promotion for you on a grassroots level. It is the next level of the evolution of the online commerce experience...[read more]

An email for a conference arrived the other day, and it enticed me with the tag line: Learning how to leverage Web 2.0 and Social Media sites to market your brand and control your message This got me wondering can brands really control their message using social media? One thing I know from experience with social media is that it is...[read more]

One of my clients is looking into launching a specialized job site, in a space that seems to have been overlooked. One thing he’s wrestling with is whether to (a) start small, dominate one niche, and expand, or (b) go after something a bit bigger right from the start. I vote (b). Here’s one of the primary reasons, written by Seth Godin...[read more]

Last week BusinessWeek published its 100 Best Global Brands 2009 and to no surprise, financial brands were largely untrusted, which dragged all brands down with it. Moving forward, brands are rethinking how they can win back the trust focusing on the psychological aspect of marketing and advertising in an attempt to rebuild its...[read more]

When I spoke to a group of advertisers last Wednesday, there were a few stalwarts who wouldn't have anything to do with my premise that the traditional model of branding is broken. The next day, P&G's CEO Robert McDonald weighed in on my side of the debate. Well, not on purpose, but the steps he outlined that P&G is taking to...[read more]

Storytelling began thousands of years ago, and today, stories are infinitely more impactful than advertising and brand marketing. In June, BusinessWeek wrote about the power of stories: “If you want to connect with your audience, inspire them, and motivate them to action, start telling stories.” The internet lets us share them globally...[read more]

With the recent acquisition of Zappos by Amazon, many companies are now taking a serious look at social innovation, especially after the latest Engagement report by Wetpain and the Fluent report by Razorfish on social influence marketing. Basically these reports prove that brands with high social media activity increased revenues while...[read more]

If you were asked who the power players are in social media, what names would spring to mind? Chris Brogan? Robert Scoble? Gary Vaynerchuk? Brian Solis? How about Super Mario? Yes, that Super Mario. The Italian plumber dreamed up by Shigeru Miyamoto and who would go on to become one of the most iconic video game characters of all time,...[read more]

An occasional series in which a review of recent posts on MyVenturePad reveals the following nuggets:Social media what?The tough part about social media at this stage is that companies don’t know what they want and they don’t know what to expect from working with a team, consultancy, agency, etc., in social media. They may ask for a...[read more]

There is no doubt that there is a profound interest in the social web. On the consumer side, social applications allow us to connect with friends, acquaintances, celebrities, politicians and anyone else we find “interesting”. It can help us organize our lives, share our knowledge or expertise and, if we are lucky, find a life partner....[read more]

Lately I’ve been researching on how brands are using social media to improve their business. While doing a bit of thinking on social branding, I recalled a conversation I had with a friend that just launched a Web2.0 startup business. The one advice I gave was to launch it as soon as possible without worrying too much on branding. The...[read more]

While Web 2.0 and social media tools provide great opportunities for businesses from a branding and marketing point of view, there are also a raft of other opportunities which are easily overlooked. The very same benefits that can be achieved through your social media efforts can also be applied across your enterprise – from employees to...[read more]

In the past few weeks I’ve experienced a decent amount of spam from social networking sites ranging from people marketing their books, selling “make money online” information, to promoting their personal brand.  It’s indicative of the fact that individuals and businesses are viewing the space seriously as it takes on the mainstream...[read more]