I was putting together a branding masterclass a few weeks ago and included some examples of when brands get it very wrong. I thought I had included some of the best, however I was running a marketing course yesterday and one of the delegates brought this one to my attention. Although it has been viewed by over 8 million people on You Tube, it had passed right underneath my marketing radar. It is a video posted by a guy who was upset with United Airlines as they broke his guitar. He tried to get them to admit responsibility and replace his guitar,but he had no joy. So he wrote a song about it and put it up on You Tube, it went viral and the rest is history. It has damaged the United Airlines brand and although there is some ongoing litigation, it hasn’t done them any favours. So take note, your brand is about so much more than just your logo.

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I asked my soon-to-be three year old daughter what she wanted to do this Sunday, her reply was as follows;

“Playing, then sleepies, then playing and park swings”

And it got me thinking, when did I last have a day of play and rest?

Being playful is a great way to access your creativity, but how many of us actually do it. When we were small it was something we did naturally, I have seen it all the time in my two daughters, they have used cardboard boxes, tables and blankets to make, dens, aeroplanes, trains in fact anything they wanted them to to be. But somehow as we get older, work our way though the school system, where everything becomes serious, we lose the ability to tap into that creativity that came so naturally to us when we were small.

Picasso said…

“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”

So the next time you have a problem to solve or need to generate some ideas, take yourself back to when you where a child, not in a woo woo hypnotic regression kind of way, but in a playful and free way. Think about how you as a child would have gone about solving the problem, there definitely wouldn’t have been any boundaries, kids just don’t see them, if they want a box to be a train, it will be a train.

And if you want to go one better, ask a kid to solve your problem, or ask them to come up with ideas for your next project, you’ll be amazed by the answers you get. You never know, your next idea might be sat there in a young child’s head just waiting to burst out.

I have know about Wordle http://www.wordle.net for some time now, but completely forgot to mention it on the blog.

It is a great tool for making your website, presentations and other marketing come alive with key words and what’s more it is simple and easy to use and will generate a word cloud in seconds. You either paste or type some words into the notepad, or type in a blog site or other URL which has an RSS feed and Voila your word cloud is created. You can choose from lots of different designs and I love it.

There are a few more word cloud creators on the web that don’t rely on the website having an RSS feed such as TagCrowd http://tagcrowd.com , but their finished image just isn’t as good as the on you can get at Worldle.

Spring is here (almost), I was out at the weekend and I could feel the heat and the faint rays of the sun on my face for the first time, in what seems like months. It felt lovely and it made me think about spring cleaning, something many of us do in our houses, but don’t take advantage of in our business lives.

Spring is a time of renewal and new life so why not spend some time giving your marketing a spring clean. Tell yourself that 2010 will be the best year yet  and take a a look at these top 5 spring clean marketing tips… Read more…

I stumbled across this video as I was looking for some inspiration on Ted, www.ted.com. I have posted some videos from Ted from time to time on this blog as it is an amazing website full of very interesting and creative speakers. This particular video is a lecture given by Professor Randy Pausch, who was dying of pancreatic cancer, when he delivered a one-of-a-kind last lecture that made the world stop and pay attention. It is all about how he achieved the things he wanted to in life. It is long - just over an hour, however, it makes you think about how you need to be focused, don’t put things on hold go out and achieve your dreams.

I was doing some reading today as I am putting the final touches to a course on psychology and emotion in marketing. I picked up Buyology by Martin Lindstrom, which I have referred to in previous posts. It is a book all about the science behind why we buy and make the choices we do and I  found this interesting observation, which backed up the Brighter Marketing  argument that there is a lot more going on in our minds than we realised when we decide to buy stuff.

Dopamine is one of the most addictive substances known to man, it has its part to play in illegal drug use and it makes you feel great.

What’s interesting is that purchasing decisions are driven in some part by its seductive effects…

When you see a shiny car, diamond ring or a great pair of new shoes, dopamine subtly flushes your brain with pleasure, then WHAM!, before you know it, you’ve got your credit card out and the rest is history.

The only problem is, that as you leave the shop or the car show room, the dopamine in your brain will slowly subside and it’s then that logic kicks in. So if someone asks you why you bought the new shoes, car or jewellery, your mind will revert to logic to justify and explain the purchase. After all how could we admit that our minds were full of emotion and dopamine, why would anyone believe that. We all make purchasing decision made on logic don’t we.

I receive a regular newsletter from Mel McGee at Super Mummy a Mumpreneurs network. Her newsletters are always upbeat and full of useful information to inspire the mummies of the world to do more and create amazing businesses from scratch. I would like to link to the article but you have to be a member so I have included the article for you to read below. It is a great reminder of how creating a buzz about your marketing is half the battle and if you can create an excitement about the products and services you have to sell, you are usually onto a winner. Here is the article, and here is a link to Mel’s website www.supermummymumpreneurs.com where you can join her community for free and gain access to articles and make friends with like minded mumpreneurs.

What You Can Learn About Marketing From Santa by Mel McGee

Have you ever thought about what a great brand Santa has?  Talk about consistency.  Year after year ‘brand Santa’ delivers the same results.  He never let’s us down.  The emotional appeal that brand Santa brings is incredible.  All that excitement and anticipation.  That is if you are a child of course! But, that’s the point here.  Santa’s target market is children, always has been.

Although he might have been tempted to appeal to to teenagers, adults and everyone. But could you see his magic still working? Even the tiniest of niches is huge and niches have a way of expanding by themselves.

At the end of the day, it’s the consistency that counts and sticking with your niche. Too many small businesses lose focus and try to please everyone. They get tired of their brand and decide to change things around, wasting time and money. Santa has stuck with the same style, colours and image forever.  Who else can you think of that wears red and white, rides on a sleigh and delivers presents? Postman Pat?  Santa is different.  He stands out from the crowd, his marketing message is consistent and we as marketers have much to learn from ‘brand Santa’. Ho, Ho, Ho!

I was reading the Sunday Times this morning and was looking through the business section, when a job advert caught my attention, not because I want a new job, but because I couldn’t actually understand what role they were trying to fill. Whoever had written the advert had obviously had a thesaurus at hand and used it every available opportunity to the point that nothing really made any sense any more. In fact, each week the columnist Roland White who writes his Atticus column in the Sunday Times, takes time to point out the most pointless job of the week and the language used to advertise the position. Which got me to thinking about how important it is keep things simple and straightforward, especially in the the world of marketing. People need to understand what the benefits of your product or service are quickly and easily, if you make it difficult for them you risk losing their attention. It then brought to mind the chaps at Common Craft, who have been making plain English videos to explain new or complex products for the past few years.

Here is one that is a couple of years old, but it explains how social networking works, it is fun to watch, easy to understand and most of all it is only a couple of minutes long, So the next time you sit down to write something, keep it simple, benefits focused and think about the person on the receiving end.

Oops, it has been almost three months since our last blog post and the words “decorator’s or builder’s house” come to mind. It always seems to be your own house that suffers most when you are an expert as you are busy doing work for other people. We decided to make our offline marketing more proactive over the summer months, i.e. more networking, telemarketing and some other marketing initiatives, which paid off. However, gaining more clients always means that while you are delivering work, it can be difficult to keep up with all your other marketing activities. It is a balancing act and inevitably sometimes something has to give. However, Christmas is coming and as we have a little bit more time as clients slow down for the festivities, we can make up for lost time and post some useful posts about some new marketing approaches we have been using. So in the meantime, here is an advert that we found on You Tube which we thought was simple yet had a really strong message, it made us smile…

In the last post we talked about how by rule breaking you can tap into your creativity and generate new ideas. It’s with this in mind that the following blog  from Innovation Zen made me think that even experts sometimes put self imposed rules on themselves that can stunt creativity.  I guess Siobhan and I do it  we give out advice on the best way to do a direct mail etc. However, sometimes we are proved wrong and we learn about new ways to undertake marketing activities. In fact we never stop learning about marketing and are always open to better and more ingeneous ways of doing things.

The reason I liked Innovation Zen’s blog post is that it is all about predictions that experts have made over the years, which in retrospect look a little foolish. Such as

“There is no reason for any individuals to have a computer in their home.”
Ken Olsen, President, Chairman and Founder of DEC, 1977

Take a look, it might just get you to break your pattern of thinking, just click on this link http://innovationzen.com/blog/2006/07/17/predictions-gone-wrong/

and this link for the second part http://innovationzen.com/blog/2006/07/31/more-predictions-gone-wrong/