Trends in the 2007's Business and Design Landscape
Jess McMullin over at bplusd has created and visual graphic of the Business and Design Landscape for 2007.
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On this blog we assemble the world's sharpest minds in marketing and strategy innovation. People who spark exceptional insights in their field of expertise and inspire their readers to action.
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March 31, 2007
Don't Forget to Love Your Own Company's Brands
by: John Caddell
I had a web hit from someone at Microsoft today, and what I thought was funny was that the searcher used Google.com. That reminded me of a story.
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Science Daily Week
by: Guy Kawasaki
This is the final issue of Science Daily Week. Here’s a three-fer.
March 30, 2007
Science Daily Week: Advertising and Sexy Content
by: Guy Kawasaki
Today’s Science Daily tidbit is that advertising during television programs with sexy content is less effective than during programs with no sexy content. This is the research finding 
of Ellie Parker and Adrian Furnham of the Department of Psychology of the University College London.
Continue reading "Science Daily Week: Advertising and Sexy Content" »
Dear Marketers, Stop Creating Replicas Of Your Shops In SecondLife
by: Karl Long
In what appears to be the greatest lack of imagination since someone put a radio show on television marketers continue to build shops in secondlife. Just stop it, secondlife is an environment where you can build anything, ANYTHING, replicas of buildings are about the most mundane thing you can possibly build there.
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Pitch Samsung your R&D Ideas
by: Dominic Basulto
It looks like Samsung is opening up its R&D process to outsiders. (Hat tip: Chris F. Masse of the Midas Oracle) The new Pitch Your Ideas site from Samsung encourages Internet visitors to type in ideas for new products and services to a group of three actor-avatars: a Kelly Ripa look-alike; a dude in a nondescript gray business suit; and an eccentric, Dieter Zetsche-y fellow in a white lab coat.
March 29, 2007
Think business as usual doesn't cost you money? Check out Parker Hannifin
by: John Caddell
If you thought cost-plus pricing went out with the Reagan administration, read today's front page Wall Street Journal article on Parker Hannifin Corporation and the efforts by its CEO to overhaul its decades-old pricing approach.
Continue reading "Think business as usual doesn't cost you money? Check out Parker Hannifin" »
Science Daily Week: Hype Kills
by: Guy Kawasaki
Science Daily Week continues with the study of assistant professor Vanessa Patrick (University of Georgia) along with co-authors Debbie MacInnis and C. Whan Park (University of Southern California): “Marketing: Too Much Hype Backfires.”
What Madonna can teach you about innovation
by: Dominic Basulto
What if Madonna had a sale at H&M to unveil her new special-edition clothing line and nobody came? Judging by the obligatory "empty store" pics in newspapers around the world, this is exactly what happened.
Continue reading "What Madonna can teach you about innovation" »
March 28, 2007
Tape Trading in the Digital Age
by: Nancy Baym
I’ve had a half-written post lying around for a long time in which I wanted to reflect on the change from tape trading to torrenting but I’ve never been quite sure what its final point is. This excellent article about bootlegging, in conjunction with a couple of emails I’ve gotten recently from people talking about differential levels of respect for bands that do and don’t allow bootlegging, makes me want to finish that post.
Second Life Shorts, Set 3
by: Ilya Vedrashko
I just watched Second Life hit five million residents (happened between 3.47 and 4.04 pm EST). It was three million last time I did the Second Life Shorts edition in end-January.
Painful Sushi and Other Pricing Blunders
by: Roger Dooley
What’s the worst way to sell something? According to Carnegie Mellon University economics and psychology professor George Loewenstein (see The Pain of Buying and Brain Scans Predict Buying Behavior), selling products in a way that the consumer sees the price increase with every bit of consumption causes the most “pain”.
Continue reading "Painful Sushi and Other Pricing Blunders" »
March 27, 2007
The Economist and Project Red Stripe
by: Dominic Basulto
The Economist has caught the innovation bug -- as part of Project Red Stripe, a team of Economist staff members are assembling some of the best ideas from around the Web in order to generate innovative new ideas for the magazine:
Green Consumer Behavior – Part III: Changing Behavior without Changing Attitudes
by: David Wigder
Marketers have historically faced an uphill battle when it comes to marketing eco-friendly goods. Simply put, it is difficult to influence consumer purchase behavior without first impacting attitudes and values. These values, however, take a concerted effort over a long period of time to change.
Big Advertisers Insanity - The Upfront For A Theoretical YouTube Killer
by: Karl Long
In an recent article on MarketingVox with the headline “Advertisers Line up at YouTube Killer’s Door” they talk about how big advertisers are all getting behind a video site being planned by NBC.
Continue reading "Big Advertisers Insanity - The Upfront For A Theoretical YouTube Killer" »
Is 'The Long Tail' a Misnomer?
by: Iqbal Mohammed
[An excerpt from my recent paper entitled 'The Elongating Tail of Brand Communication: An approach to brand building incorporating Long Tail economics.']
March 26, 2007
Advertising with Twitter
by: Ilya Vedrashko
I still can't understand why everyone's so excited about Twitter, which looks like a pinnacle of narcissism and is more boring to read then The Dullest Blog in the World, but in case you care, here's how an online shop Woot is using it to send out alerts about its new products.
Original Post: http://adverlab.blogspot.com/2007/03/advertising-with-twitter.html
Ask more of, and raise rewards for, employee idea-generators
by: John Caddell
Innovation via employee-generated ideas fails at most companies. Employees generate a number of ill-thought-through concepts that management, to its embarrassment, must quickly discard. "Winners" get a handshake, a plaque, perhaps a $100 check. Eventually comes a suspension, termination or petering out of the idea-generation initiative, which then finds its way into the lore of company failures, never to be repeated.
Continue reading "Ask more of, and raise rewards for, employee idea-generators" »
The Corporate Climate Revolution Will Be Televised
by: Joel Makower
Thanks in large part to Al Gore, climate movies are the new black.
There are two out this week with a distinctly business focus -- both making the case that proactive corporate climate initiatives can be a boon for the economy, the environment, and for company competitiveness.
Continue reading "The Corporate Climate Revolution Will Be Televised" »
March 25, 2007
Welcome To Haute Mexique - High Mexican
by: Scott Goodson
One can find wisdom in the most unlikely places they say. For me last week, it was on a beach in Mexico. This house (below) and it's owner got me excited about understanding what's happening in Mexico.
One can find wisdom in the most unlikely places they say. For me last week, it was on a beach in Mexico. This house (below) and it's owner got me excited about understanding what's happening in Mexico.
Continue reading "Welcome To Haute Mexique - High Mexican" »
March 24, 2007
The YouTube Approach to Lead Nurturing
by: Jon Miller
Content is critical for lead nurturing. Whether it is a case study, new research on some aspect of your industry, a how-to guide, or a whitepaper, content is what makes your lead nurturing programs work – and lead nurturing is what helps marketing drive more revenue to sales.
A Tale of Two Architects
By: David Armano
"design" is inherently about control.
~Ed Lee
Allow me to tell a story. This story is fictional, but maybe you’ll find value in it and maybe you wont. Either way, I'll be honored that you read it.
Branding, Customer Engagement, and Neuromarketing
by: Roger Dooley
One of the great buzzwords in recent years has been “customer engagement,” generally taken to mean how emotionally involved customers are with a product or brand.
Continue reading "Branding, Customer Engagement, and Neuromarketing" »
March 23, 2007
The Biased Frontier
by: C. Sven Johnson
Earlier this week I read that NASA was getting into the MMOG scene (Link - PDF for internal call for proposals). Far from coming as a surprise, I find it odd that they’ve not already developed a space-based property. How many people have ever played simple “Lander” videogames where you have limited fuel and have to settle your little 2D vectorized, spindly-legged spaceship on harsh “moon” terrain? Many, I’m sure. It’s an old game. And it always seemed to me that NASA was a natural for this stuff.
Study: Second Lifers Unhappy with Brands
by: Ilya Vedrashko
Press release: "In a survey of 200 participants conducted by the agency Komjuniti, Second Life users (“avatars”) were questioned about their perceptions, their satisfaction with the products on offer and the brand content in the online community.
Continue reading "Study: Second Lifers Unhappy with Brands" »
Pain, Fear, and Vicarious Learning
by: Roger Dooley
Why do people react with fear when they see a snake, even though they have never been bitten by a snake or even had much contact with the reptiles? New research shows that the same areas of the brain that react to a personal experience involving pain or fear also react to watching someone else exhibit fear in response to the stimulus.
Innovation's Silver Bullet
by: Dominic Basulto
Coors Light is planning a new online advertising campaign, scheduled for mid-April, that will promote 4:53 as the new 5:00 for office workers.
Getting Companies To Do The Right Thing - dotherightthing.com
by: Karl Long
Of all the various social networking, citizen media, digg like things going on, dotherightthing.com appeals to me a great deal. Essentially it is a site that allows people to share stories about companies and how their policies are effecting the world, and people can vote on the “importantness” of the stories.
Continue reading "Getting Companies To Do The Right Thing - dotherightthing.com" »
March 22, 2007
to remember or to forget? on babies and beer goggles
by: danah boyd
At a dinner party long ago, a debate emerged about the importance of forgetting versus the techno-utopian desire to remember *everything*. As the animation level of the debate approached unmanageable, a woman at the table confronted the most vocal of the anti-forgetting people, asking him if he was the first child. He looked at her oddly and said no, the second. She smirked and told him that he should be thankful for the power of forgetting because no woman in her right mind would ever go through childbirth a second time if she could clearly recall the pain involved. Needless to say, her point resulted in many muted giggles.
Continue reading "to remember or to forget? on babies and beer goggles" »
Designing Conversations In Beta
By: David Armano
"David—good design is good business and you have demonstrated an ability to design conversations".
This is part of a handwritten note I recieved from Valeria Maltoni a while back, which came along with a signed copy of Mavericks at Work. The book and note was a nice gesture. And a source of inspiration.
March 21, 2007
Candor in business storytelling
by: John Caddell
It's called a "confidence" game, right? Why? Because you give me your confidence? No, because I give you mine. So what we have here, in addition to "Adventures in Human Misery," is a short course in psychology. - David Mamet, House of Games screenplay, p. 34 (Photo still from the MGM DVD.)
B2F Connections
by: Dick Stroud
According to WS’s study, titled "B2F Connections," boomers serve as important information sources for fellow boomers when making purchasing decisions.
The Tom Sawyer Effect of Ad Widgets
by: Ilya Vedrashko
Wired ran a story yesterday by Dave Demerjian on the future of ad technologies. I've got a chance to share a few thoughts for the article (ad robots and such), but naturally not everything we talked about found its way into the print. Here are a couple of questions that have come up that I thought I'd share. (image credit)
March 20, 2007
Clickless Computer Interface
Ever wondered what if a computer was designed with an interface that never required using a button for clicking? Is it more intuitive or has clicking been ingrained in our psyche?
Designers Are The Enemy of Design
By: David Armano
Stop what you're doing and go read this.
B2B Branding - Why Branding Matters in B2B Marketing
by: Jon Miller
Strewn around my house are pens, coffee cups, calculators, USB memory sticks, and assorted swag from various companies I've met over the years. What is the purpose of all this stuff? Does having a leather portfolio with a vendor's logo on it make me more likely to buy their products?
Continue reading "B2B Branding - Why Branding Matters in B2B Marketing" »
The Business of Innovation: The role of customers
by: Dominic Basulto
In Part 3 of CNBC's Business of Innovation series, Maria Bartiromo and co-host Roger Schank focus on the role of the customer during the innovation process.
Continue reading "The Business of Innovation: The role of customers" »
March 19, 2007
Green Labels as Driver of Consumption and Loyalty Programs
by: David Wigder
It was not too surprising that Wal-Mart announced last week that it intends to provide its customers with carbon ratings for the electronics products it sells.
Continue reading "Green Labels as Driver of Consumption and Loyalty Programs" »