Marketing & Strategy Innovation Blog

Continue reading "Social Media And Social Network Marketing" »

Posted by Futurelab at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Jon Miller

The relationship between Sales and Marketing at B2B companies is too often precarious and subject to change day by day.

Continue reading "Sales is from Mars, Marketing is from Venus - Podcast" »

Posted by Futurelab at 1:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: David Armano 

Chris Gokiert is the COO for Critical Mass (the company I work for).  Though Chris started his career as a  working archaeologist, he eventually found his way into the ever changing world of digital media and has never left it. 

Continue reading "Q+A With Chris Gokiert: COO of Critical Mass, Chief Guitar Hero + Karaoke Coach" »

Posted by Futurelab at 1:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Ilya Vedrashko

Gamespot's Dubious Honors Awards for despicable use of in-game advertising:

2004 (Need for Speed Underground)
2005 (SWAT 4, where the dynamic in-game ads made one of the first appearances)
2006 (Fight Night Round 3, a boxing game with the Burger King's King in it)
2007 (Need for Speed ProStreet):

Continue reading "Despicable Use of In-Game Advertising " »

Posted by Futurelab at 2:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: David Armano

I'm updating some thinking on the "3 U's". The word and idea of "Unity" doesn't quite work even though there is some overlap in my thinking. So here's another take swapping the idea of "ubiquity" for "unity". Seems more appropriate. Let me know what you think.

Continue reading "Thinking Through The "3 U's"..." »

Posted by Futurelab at 2:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: David Armano

BusinessWeek's Bruce Nussbaum recently wrote a terrific post in which he dissects the effects of social media in the business world. In part of his write up, he analyzes the My Vegas effort. While of course I think that's great--what he says here really stuck with me:

Continue reading "The 3 U's: A Model for "Advertising" in the App Economy" »

Posted by Futurelab at 3:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Scott Goodson

Here is my second interview in a series of interesting and wonderful personalities who are shaping the marketing landscape.

Continue reading "Kerri Martin. Goodson Does The People - Lunchtime Chats" »

Posted by Futurelab at 2:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Scott Goodson

I want to do a confrere-to-confrere interview series on this blog. Nothing too serious, just chats with the those people out there who are the most interesting and wonderful minds in the advertising and culture business. Sounds like fun, no? Not necessarily the media darlings or the most famous names, but just people I like and admire and learn from.

Continue reading "Stanley Hainsworth, Creative Director of Starbucks. Goodson Does The People - Lunchtime Chats" »

Posted by Futurelab at 1:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Joel Makower

I've spent the past few weeks on the road talking about the State of Green Business, listening to the questions and concerns of audiences at the companies and conferences I've addressed. There's one constant query: In a world gone green, how does a company make itself heard, credibly and authentically? And how does it do this in a way that minimizes the risks of being charged with greenwash, or worse?

Continue reading "Green Corporate Communications: The Unstoppable Urge to Talk the Talk" »

Posted by Futurelab at 1:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: David Polinchock

While readers of this blog will know that the ideas in this article are at the core of why the Brand Experience Lab exists, but it's always good to see other people thinking the same way. Especially when the author is with the Boston Consulting Group and yo know that this is coming from a business POV. I have excerpts here, but click on the link for the full article.

Continue reading "reportonbusiness.com: Build Your Brand - but Don't Forget to Deliver an Experience" »

Posted by Futurelab at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

Here's a counter-intuitive thought: Shoppers with less information about a product are happier than those with more information. Researchers at the Tippie College of Business came to this conclusion after conducting a study in which people were asked their opinions of chocolate and hand lotion.

Continue reading "If You Want Customers to Be Happy, Give Them Less Product Information" »

Posted by Futurelab at 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: David Polinchock

If you want to know what's wrong with advertising and why it has so many problems, take a look at the list of reasons that mobile advertising isn't working. You'll notice that not one person mentioned there's no real value for the consumer. That's why mobile marketing isn't working right now.

Continue reading "Being Peter Kim: What's Wrong with Mobile Marketing" »

Posted by Futurelab at 9:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: David Wigder

Today, online influentials are emerging as "celebrities" of sort, based not only on their domain knowledge but on their ability to attract and engage audiences online.

Continue reading "Tapping the Emerging Celebrity Power of Online Influentials" »

Posted by Futurelab at 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: David Armano

"...Journalists and PR professionals, the influence brokers of traditional media, have lost a huge degree of influence on the web in large part because they don't link to anything. While traditional media brands are still powerful channels on the web, they are losing influence everyday to the link-driven web network -- journalists and PR professionals can no longer depend on controlling these former monopoly channels to exert influence online."
~The New Influentials (PSFK)

Continue reading "After The Click" »

Posted by Futurelab at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Idris Mootee

The hottest new agency is WANAA (We Are Not An Agency). Ok, there is no agency called WANAA. You get the point.  Headhunters are calling everywhere tyring to recruit new heads for interactive agencies as many have plans to replace theirs. The problem is the interactive heads just move around from one agency to another...with little result...sadly. This is not going to change anything. Coming back to the topic of agency consolidation, these are the questions:

Continue reading "The Hottest New Agency for the Year Is WANAA!" »

Posted by Futurelab at 12:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Christian Smagg

Got your marketing plan ready for 2008?

Let me first ask you this simple question since you would be surprised (or not) to discover that a startling 40% of marketing professionals don't even have a formal marketing plan. Surprisingly, not everyone develops a plan - even though most will agree that it is the foundation to successful and effective marketing.

Continue reading "36 Online Techniques to Supercharge Your 2008 Digital Marketing Plan" »

Posted by Futurelab at 5:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Idris Mootee

I've seen a few downturns and what happened to ad spend. In most cases ad-spending plunges 8-12% when there is a slow down, but I think this time is little different. I was having lunch with a friend who is the CEO of a vertical content and search company in California and we're talking about this subject and we shared the same opinion. Digital media will be a shining star in this downturn.

Continue reading "Ad Agencies and The Perfect Storm - Adv Giants Like Ogilvys Are Facing the Biggest Challenge in 50 Years" »

Posted by Futurelab at 2:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Guy Kawasaki

You've got to read "Is the Tipping Point Toast?" by Clive Thompson in FastCompany. The gist of Thompson's piece, based on the work of Duncan Watts of Yahoo Research, is that the theory that a select few "key influencers" matter more than "the rest of us" when it comes to viral and word-of-mouth marketing campaigns is flawed.

Continue reading "Forget the A-List After All" »

Posted by Futurelab at 12:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Dick StroudThis is a general observation about marketing not something specific about the 50-plus.

Continue reading "Marketer's Inward Focus" »

Posted by Futurelab at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

 by: David Armano

The question isn’t if we’re heading into a recession. It’s how bad will it be—and what we learn from it? As marketing budgets feel the squeeze of the housing crisis and a slowing U.S. Economy, now is a good time to think about opportunities. That’s right. Opportunities. It just happens that the digital medium could be your best friend in a time when belts tighten. Here’s a few starters for how digital can help your business or brand thrive in a recession:

Continue reading "10 Ways Digital Can Help You Thrive in a Recession" »

Posted by Futurelab at 1:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Yann Gourvennec

Very often, I hear people say that you have to make your end-user’s lives easier to generate a marketing success. However paved with good intentions this statement may be, I did ask myself the question whether making users’ live easier is a sustainable marketing argument for the development of a business.

Continue reading "Is User-friendliness a Sure Marketing Bet?" »

Posted by Futurelab at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Roger Dooley

Brain studies are providing lots of new insights into consumer behavior, but this post recognizes a new and important role for marketing based on neuroscience research. If you are an occasional Neuromarketing reader (or grazer!), this is one post that you may want to bookmark.

Continue reading "A New Role For Marketing" »

Posted by Futurelab at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Roger Dooley

For Neuromarketing readers, it’s not big news that the perception of wine drinkers is altered by what they know about the wine (see Wine and the Spillover Effect, for example). Now, researchers at Stanford and Caltech have demonstrated that people’s brains experience more pleasure when they think they are drinking a $45 wine instead of a $5 bottle - even when it’s the same stuff.

Continue reading "Why Expensive Wine Tastes Better" »

Posted by Futurelab at 12:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Joel Makower

Can a major consumer packaged goods company with a name indelibly associated with household bleach become a leading light in the green marketplace?

Continue reading "Clorox Aims to Show that 'Green Works'" »

Posted by Futurelab at 1:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

This is the season where many bloggers are providing their predictions for the year ahead. I tend to opt out of these because a year is both too long and too short to foresee many types of change, which are like rainstorms or earthquakes: you know one's coming, but you don't know quite when or where until the early warning signs appear. I'm more of a Long Bets man, so today I'm going to revisit something I've touched on occasionally in the past, most recently nearly two years ago: the falling price of MP3 players and the possible implications for listening/buying experiences.

Continue reading "The Age of the Free MP3 Player" »

Posted by Futurelab at 9:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Joel Makower

I've long been an admirer of Gary Hirshberg, the idealistic and iconoclastic "CE-Yo" of organic yogurt maker Stonyfield Farm, which he co-founded in 1983. I first met Hirshberg a decade later, in 1993, when researching my book about corporate social responsibility, Beyond the Bottom Line. I recall being impressed at the time by his passion and commitment, but also his humbleness and honesty. "I think whatever your definition is of social responsibility," he told me at the time, "if the message is, 'Look how great we are,' then you're missing the boat." It was a refreshing change from so many companies' arm-waving, self-congratulatory approaches to social responsibility, both then and now.

Continue reading "Gary Hirshberg: Changing the Culture and 'Stirring It Up'" »

Posted by Futurelab at 8:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

Continue reading "Consumers treat advertising like trains" »

Posted by Futurelab at 9:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

Continue reading "what are marketing and advertising's social responsibilities wrt youth?" »

Posted by Futurelab at 9:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

What would you say if I introduced you to an environmentally friendly cigarette — one made of organically grown tobacco, with organic cotton filters, rolled in eco-friendly paper, all manufactured with renewable energy, with a portion of proceeds going to environmental charities?

Continue reading "Introducing . . . The Eco-Friendly Cigarette?" »

Posted by Futurelab at 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

Continue reading "Advertising During Recession" »

Posted by Futurelab at 11:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

Continue reading "Rendering Authenticity" »

Posted by Futurelab at 4:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: John Caddell

I recently saw a to-do list on the wall at a company's marketing department. At the top of the list was "re-branding." And I've been thinking about that for some days. What is re-branding?

Continue reading "Re-branding: an oxymoron?" »

Posted by Futurelab at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (1)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Guy Kawasaki

This summary of an article from the December issue of the Journal of Advertising Research (good luck finding the issue online because I couldn’t) says that common word-of-mouth advertising by regular folks is more powerful than “key influencers.” Which is to say that sucking up to A-list bloggers may not be all that it’s cracked up to be. It seems like it’s bad day for celebrity endorsements.

Continue reading "Word of Mouth Versus Key Influencers" »

Posted by Futurelab at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: David Wigder

So far, this holiday season has seen a rather muted push on green by retailers, both in terms of the products they sell and the messages they communicate to consumers. Marshal Cohen, Chief Industry Analyst at NPD Group, recently suggested that such lack of enthusiasm by retailers reflects waning interest in green.  Cohen stated: “It’s basically a card that a lot of people played while it was hot and trendy…and it got overplayed.” 

Continue reading "Green May Be Ho-Hum for the Holidays, But It's Here to Stay" »

Posted by Futurelab at 9:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

by: Jon Miller

No one enjoys blind dates. Whether you’re introduced by friends, the Internet, or your neighborhood matchmaker, it’s nerve-wracking to meet for the first time.

Conversely, everyone loves weddings. The flowers, the tradition, the drunken dancing at the reception, you can find something you like.

Continue reading "Lead Nurturing - Dating for B2B Companies?" »

Posted by Futurelab at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

Continue reading "Dashboard Spy: A Blog About Business Dashboards" »

Posted by Futurelab at 10:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

Here'€™s an idea to save traditional media. What if marketers and agencies viewed every ad they create and buy as a medium for word-of-mouth.

Continue reading "Brand New Day Word of Mouth: Madison Ave.--Are You Listening? - BusinessWeek" »