Everything is changing. As it turns out, brands don't "own" market segments. They are simply nodes in complicated human networks. And they're either influential in their networks, or they're not. To have influence, brands must become knowledge brokers. And they need to learn how from the ultimate brokers: humans. Your brand needs to learn to be more human.
USA Today has some stats on recent campaigns. They called out the sleep aid Rozerem. Check it out here. This is just an update from a blog post a couple months ago about what the drug company behind this ad should do seeing that sales are very far behind the category leaders.
We’re back on Broad Street. Morning engagements kept me from the first two presenters, and I’ve come into the middle of a presentation on “Entertainment.” The session is “curated” by Lee Maicon; Bald Guy, and Head of Planning at StrawberryFrog. The program doesn’t contain the names of the three panelists. One of the panelists is a particularly smart cat who is speaking about narrative and meaning. He (the smart dude) just walked us through some movie clips – one from Kurosawa’s “Ran”, and one from the Matrix. I haven’t been able to determine what exactly they’re trying to tell us, but I’ve only been here for a few minutes.
I’m sitting here in the “Downtown Ballroom,” 41 Broad Street, NY, NY for the futuremarketingsummit. As of fifteen minutes ago, Scott Goodson was to begin his keynote. It has yet to begin. Okay, well he’s just starting now. Technical difficulties with projectors and computers were repeatedly met with Scott’s opening line, “Welcome to the Future.”
A recent article in B-To-B Magazine shows how many publishing companies are getting into territory normally handled by ad agencies. The expanded offerings include online and word of mouth marketing services. This is getting traction in the business publication sector but consumer oriented pubs are going in that direction too. The trend appears to be that media companies are acquiring agencies with expertise in web site design & development, word of mouth marketing and PR.
This is silly. Red Sox management is pissed about a TV ad airing in Japan and featuring their new star, Daisuke Matsuzaka, drinking a beer. From the article:
“The ad is consistent with what’s acceptable in the Japanese marketplace,” a spokesperson from MLB International said in the report. “We did approve it with him drinking the beer outside of his uniform. It’s a type of commercial that is really commonplace in Japan. It is not really that farfetched.”
Though the ad may adhere to the law, the Red Sox are concerned with how it will look to have shots of their hot acquisition drinking beer juxtaposed with images of him in uniform.
“It is a perception,” Blake said in the report, “and we certainly want our players to be perceived in the right light.”
Oh, really? The “right light?” This is transparent bullshit. What an exquisitely sensitive bunch of milquetoast slack wits we’ve become. Here’s my proof that Sox management is demonstrating their unprincipled perfidy.
As may be obvious, I take no issue with Daisuke’s ad, or the uptick in beer sales at Fenway. I only wish we collectively had the stomach to tell the handwringing, Calvinistic, moral scolds where to stick it.
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