Great PR ideas often come from making connections

Posted by: Alex Erasmus

As this blog post attests, Steve Jobs has come up with some great quotes in his time. This one particularly stands out for me:

“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people.” Read the rest of this entry »

When a brand becomes super – what PR professionals can learn from Starbucks #markchat

Posted by: Alex Erasmus

I recently read a great article in The Economist about Starbucks decision to change its logo. For those who haven’t seen, Starbucks has removed the words ‘Starbucks’ and ‘coffee’ and also the circle around the mermaid, or whatever she is.

As the journalist says, there are relatively few brands that are recognised purely by a logo – think Nike, Adidas, Playboy, McDonalds and Apple. It’s part of the evolution of a super brand to announce itself as such an integral part of our lives that words are no longer needed. The company now transcends the product itself, which tends to be tied in to the fact that the company then starts selling more stuff it wasn’t traditionally associated with. For Starbucks, this means alcohol and various beverage accessories.

I won’t go into any more detail about why companies do this and why it works or doesn’t as The Economist covers this off well. Instead, I’d like to discuss the other element of this move – the community and ownership of a brand. Read the rest of this entry »

PR People Take Note - Targeted Social Networks Are Coming

Posted by: Alex Erasmus

We have Twitter for instantaneous news collection, dissemination and research; Facebook for a mix of personal and professional networking and larger community collection; LinkedIn for keeping our professional profile updated and for recruitment; Foursquare for broadcasting your location; Facebook Places for following the location of others, blogging for deeper content and so on and so forth.

It seems we have all we need in terms of the large social networks. What we need now is services that filter, structure and personalise the kind of information that flows through these channels. In essence, this is the reason why the Old Spice virals took off. The minute the personalised videos started appearing is when it went from very successful to stratospheric promotion for the brand. We also need products that better connect the ‘real world’ with the internet, in a meaningful way of course.

A couple of resources come to mind here. One is Planely, a service that allows you to see if anyone in your network is getting on the same flight so you can meet for a drink or share a cab. That’s all it’s for, and therefore some would say limited. However, I’d argue that it’s useful for the very same reason – there is no confusion as to why you are using it so you are more likely to achieve outcomes for your input of time. Read the rest of this entry »

#markchat : The Idea Economy – how do we think creative before delivery?

Posted by: Alex Erasmus

We increasingly speak about the difference between online and offline and how, sooner rather than later, we will all be walking around with iPad-style devices. In a few years, we won’t read print newspapers, certainly not on a daily basis, and we will consume only nuggets of information. Anything bigger than that will be too big for our shrunken attention spans to comprehend. And Social media has been the greatest accelerator of these trends. As a result of this wave of digital activity, you’d think it’s made the world more creative and more linked to the business objectives because there are more opportunities to talk direct to consumers and more channels for releasing ideas into the world. But, I’m not sure this is the case. Read the rest of this entry »

#markchat Summary: Personal Authenticity vs Professional Brand – Where Do They Meet & Diverge?

Posted by: Alex Erasmus

This week’s #markchat was all about the blur between personal authenticity and professional brand. How do you ‘keep it real’ online while at the same time not losing professionalism?

I personally tend to steer clear of talking about my personal life online, especially on Twitter, LinkedIn and on blogs like this that are to do with work. This isn’t because I am worried that a client will sack me if they knew I was hungover from too many mojitos last night. It’s more to do with whether people in my overlapping yet different networks would be interested in what I’m saying. For example, I assume most people following me on Twitter do so because I discuss marketing, PR, social media and media in general. They mainly have shared interests to me, in some way, shape or form. This is why I re-tweet stories I find useful about media stuff or ask questions I think have relevance to my community. Read the rest of this entry »

#markchat : Personal Authenticity vs Professional Brand – Where Do They Meet & Diverge?

Posted by: Alex Erasmus

We all have perceptions about ourselves that aren’t necessarily what we would want them to be. Think you’re known for being really creative? Maybe you are. Or maybe you’re known for being really resourceful, but lacking the spark that generates relevant ideas.

Either way, how others perceive you is, ultimately, very important when it comes to your business life. Whether you like it or not, your personal brand impacts heavily on your business brand, whatever sector you’re operating in. This is especially true for those of us who operate at least part of the time in the online marketing world.

So, have you ever gone back and re-read your personal tweets, Facebook or LinkedIn updates from the last month? And, if you blog, have you taken a look at what the content of the few months of blog posts has been like? No? I hadn’t either so I thought it wise to take a look and see whether it gave the impression I would want to project.

To use the example of Twitter, I separated my updates into the following categories:

· @’s where I was asking or answering questions to people in my network

· Re-tweets

· Independent updates where I wasn’t asking or answering questions (this consisted mainly of my own, self-absorbed musings)

· Sharing personal links (i.e. those related to Bullet PR or other associations I’m involved with like Social Media Club)

· Sharing other links to sites on the web with which I have no relationship

NB – I excluded #markchat updates as there were so many and I felt this would skew the results Read the rest of this entry »

Two Ears, One Mouth: Social Media and Continuous Dialogue

Posted by: Alex Erasmus

I’ve heard or read that many marketing types believe that one of the themes of social media next year will be continuous dialogue with customers. For a while I thought this sounded great; ongoing dialogue means more opportunities for marketing. And this is all synonymous with social media, or so they have us believe…

Having mulled it over, I’m not convinced that ongoing dialogue is the right way forward for most brands. Let me quickly clarify something. I feel that, broadly speaking, there are two types of brands when it comes to social media and online marketing: those that I call ‘utility brands’ and those that aren’t. Utility brands are those in the utility sectors themselves, along with pseudo-utility brands like telcos, banks and public sector organisations. Utility brands are those where we have few opportunities to switch (think long term contracts with electricity companies or telcos). Non-utility brands are those that we can pick up and discard easily. If a restaurant is rubbish, we just won’t go back, for instance. Read the rest of this entry »

Clever Uses of Stickers in Advertising

Posted by: Alex Erasmus

I recently stumbled upon this cool collection of advertising stickers on StumbleUpon, the bookmarking website.

It’s a fun list and shows the creative ways advertising can be used. I would also say it’s in the realm of experiential marketing as these kinds of stickers always make people look twice, which is a form of brand engagement.

It just goes to show, not all effective communication is online these days.

Marketing in NZ: Where’s the Experience?

Posted by: Alex Erasmus

Experiential marketing is about bringing the customer closer to the brand and, by its very definition, creating an experience. It’s fair to say New Zealanders love experiences like anyone else; tons of graduates take an OE and the country is full of different tours, promising the ‘Kiwi experience’.

In addition, there are plenty of campaigns that tap into Kiwiana and play on the strong sense of national identity. You only have to look at the extremely successful ‘Tourism Paeroa’ campaign by L&P and the newly launched ‘Get Some Kiwi in Ya’ concept from Kiwi Bacon to see that we all love engaging with a brand that feels alive.

Read the rest of this entry »

Five reasons why blogging makes sense for smaller businesses

Posted by: Thom James

I spoke at an Auckland Chamber of Commerce event this week on the benefits of blogging for small to medium businesses. It really is an ideal channel for companies offering niche products and services that lack the brand presence of larger organisations. Here are five reasons why blogging is such a great tool for SMEs:

1. Cost - Access to free software such as WordPress make a blog an extremely cost-effective branding tool for companies that lack a substantial marketing budget
2. Presence - A blog site external from an organisation’s website expands its online footprint, increasing its visibility. There are a lot of poorly-optimised company websites out there, making a blog a particularly vital SEO tool
3. Personality - Blogging gives a business a means of breathing a bit of personality into its brand, conveying an authenticity that engenders loyalty and trust in consumers. Many small businesses are run by the individual(s) that started them, so why not give an outlet for the passion they have for what they do?
4. Conversation - A blog is a great opportunity to instigate conversation with a customer base. I spoke with a lady at the event who was a naturopath. A blog is an ideal communications channel for such a business, allowing it to hold conversations with customers who are seeking advice or who might have queries about natural medicines. That one-to-one relationship adds significant value to a company’s offering
5. Community - As I have noted, with many SMEs operating in niche spaces, a blog is an opportunity for them to position their brand as a community hub. For example, I spoke with a chap who sold kickboxing equipment. Setting up a blog on kickboxing would give him a platform to position himself as an expert, provide his customer base with a focal point to discuss the discipline and deliver his company with excellent brand positioning, and an avenue back to his sales channel.