I stumbled upon this Adweek column, When Silence Can Be Golden, written by Benjamin Palmer, co-founder of the Barbarian Group. It’s one of the more interesting pieces I’ve read about social media recently. It’s particularly insightful about the challenges that many agencies and brands face as they incorporate social media into their strategies. 

Palmer, in his common sense style, brings up great points — namely, social media wasn’t devised as a marketing medium and that perhaps the industry should consider social media as less of a marketing platform. Instead, it should be thought of as a place where people go to chat about what’s going on in their lives … and, in some cases, interesting marketing.

Increasingly, the type of work our agency produces doesn’t fit in tidy, one-size-fits-all categories such as a banner ad, website or email. When it comes to social media, we closely examine the type of products and services that our clients produce and whether they’re a good match for social media. Many times they are, and the conversation flows. Sometimes they’re not, and the outcome would be forced.

One thing is for certain: Agencies shouldn’t think of social media as just another marketing platform. As a means of monitoring customers’ opinions and prolonging conversations, its relevance can’t be underestimated. As a marketing tactic, it’s important to remember what came first: The medium was there before your message. Be respectful of that fact. 

 

It’s a situation most brand managers would kill for: a small business evolves into a global success — consistent products and experiences, stores on every street corner in the world. The brand played all its cards right, and the market graciously rewarded its business model. But looks can be deceiving and, after time, the public starts to see the brand as too big, too popular and too polarizing.  Some swear off the company altogether.

What’s a brand to do? Go undercover — at least that’s what Starbucks is doing. The captain-of-industry coffee titan is opening new stores in the Seattle area sans Starbucks branding. Customers walk into 15th Avenue E Coffee and Tea (in fact, the bizarro Starbucks) and are greeted by what the designer of the project calls a "true reflection of the neighborhood": organic, raw and mercantile. Not a Starbucks logo to be found. What seems to fly in the face of accepted branding rules is evidently gaining popularity.

This new brand nihilism meme even spills into fashion. The clothing brand Freshjive, recently announced that it will no longer print its logo or name on its products. The brand’s founder and designer states that when he sees kids wearing company logos it reminds him of a tribe or a gang.

Have people grown tired of being walking advertisements? Do consumers want to cut ties with corporate personalities? Probably not. Starbucks is the most popular brand on Facebook. It’s interesting to see the brand develop the beginnings of a dual identity: on one hand embracing social media to expand its reach in the virtual world, and on the other hand covering up its identity in the brick-and-mortar world to attract jaded customers.

Do marketers really think this will work? If redesigning your logo or changing your name doesn’t change the public’s perception of your brand, what happens when a brand sheds its identity altogether? Will the public be able to distinguish the brand from its competition or even know that it’s still there?

What do you think? 

In this tough economy, many municipalities are looking for new ways to make ends meet, and, wouldn’t you know it, advertisers are answering the call. Many cities are turning to corporate America to help fund public services in exchange for naming rights.

While selling naming rights is nothing new for sports arenas, entertainment venues and even museums, it’s a rarely an out-in-the-open phenomenon for public services, despite years of private-public partnerships. But attaching corporate identities to public services appears to be gaining traction.

In Tampa, there’s the Teco street car line, which is sponsored by Tampa Bay Electric. New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority recently approved an agreement to rename a Brooklyn subway station to coincide with the development of a new NBA arena. Naming rights to the Barclays Center stop costs the company $200,000 a year.

Looks like a win-win for both cash-strapped cities and companies looking for new ways to connect to consumers. But the question is: how far does this go? A swig of water from an Ozarka water fountain in the city park? Sitting in traffic on The Goodyear 101? Taking snapshots of the FreeCreditReport.com Statue of Liberty?

Marketers need to evaluate the impact on brand equity before dishing out the dollars for naming rights.

Bus displays are one thing, but if I were a phone or a cable company I’d think twice before branding an entire transit line with my logo. As a consumer, I’ve spent more than my fair share of time on hold waiting for customer service. Waiting for a bus or train brought to me by the same friendly folks who bring me the internet would aggravate me to no end.

On the flip side, if the cable provider could provide broadband in the bus or an accurate, real-time map of when the next coach would arrive, it could give me a positive impression of the brand.

What’s more likely to be the case is that corporations will provide little more than a lump sum subsidy to the municipality in exchange for the naming rights. Rather than enhance the quality of public services offered to citizens, the corporation’s funds are a band-aid effort to keep public services afloat, which means that citizens aren’t going to realize what the brand involved has provided. All they’ll see is a logo.

And that’s the moral to this story in this brave new world of branding: if the public feels short-changed by these naming rights partnerships, it’s a failure to both the municipality and the brand involved. Citizens shouldn’t feel like their government sold them out for nothing in return. Brands need to offer more than just their calling card.

Microsoft’s new search engine Bing is garnering attention these days, backed by news that it surpassed Yahoo as the second-highest ranked search site for a day. This development prompted critiques and sound bites from notables such as Yahoo’s CEO and Google’s CEO. Naturally, I figured I’d get in on the action, too,  and test drive Bing for a week.

If you haven’t tried it or seen one of the information-overload TV spots Microsoft is airing to raise awareness, Bing is being marketed as a decision engine, not a your run-of-the-mill search engine. What’s the difference, you ask? This marketing video outlines the finer points, complete with enthusiastic voiceover.

And so armed with the information above and looking at a few blog posts, I entered the world of Bing for one week. Here’s what I found:

The look of Bing
The first thing you notice about Bing when you land on its main page is the image of the day, a kind of new-agey, glorified stock photo. You can mouse-over areas of the image for interesting, time-wasting facts. Not sure who wins out here: Bing’s main page photo or Google’s logo swap-outs.

The main page also features an explore tab that lets you drill down to information. Bing’s initial focus is on shopping, planning a trip, researching health conditions or finding a local business. As Bing expands its expertise, perhaps a more robust interface will be developed.

Search results
Bing organizes its search results with a sponsored URL first, with the site’s deep links exposed for quick access. Subsequent hits are sub-divided with headers, which appear to be based on related searches, a definite plus over Google’s long lists of pages. Bing also provides you with options to refine your search. The left-hand column offers related searches and filtering criteria to help you get closer to your destination.

New creature comforts
Bing’s creature comforts are top highlights for me. When searching for videos, mouse over a thumbnail for a video preview, complete with audio. A seven-day price predictor comes in handy when booking airfare, along with Bing’s filtering tool that helps you comparison shop. The image search process greatly benefits from something Microsoft is calling infinite scroll — no more paging through pages of images, just scroll away to your heart’s content.

The verdict
While I’m not willing to part with my Google searches and the comforts of my iGoogle page just yet, I am interested in seeing the upgrades Microsoft has planned for Bing going forward. I'm not sure if Microsoft is refocusing its efforts in innovation — Bing is a good first step.

We’ve all been there: It’s late at night. You can’t sleep. You flip on the TV. It’s one of those annoying infomercials.

Then the unthinkable happens: You think about reaching for your credit card. 4 easy payments of $19.95 makes a lot of sense.

Turns out, it’s the same case with online ads. Timing’s everything.

The U.K. Internet Advertising Bureau with Lightspeed Research reported that online audiences of all ages are more receptive to marketing messages from the early evening hours onward. Here’s Ad Age’s recap of the survey’s findings:

• Just 4.6% of those surveyed pay attention to ads before 9 am
• 11% of people pay attention to ads between noon and 2 pm
• 55% paid attention to ads after 6pm

Pretty simple: don’t bother people when they’re waking up or eating lunch — and sell when people are in a buying mood, which is apparently in the evening.

On the heels of Google’s announcement that display ads are just as effective as search, it’s time for marketers and agencies to look at how they’re handling online ads. If time of day isn’t part of your online media buys, it probably should be.

The clock is ticking.