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Showing posts from June, 2007

The Advertiser and the Consumer – Breaking up!

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How would you describe the relationship between Advertiser and the Consumer? A romantic couple flirting with each other or an irritated couple not getting along at all, ready to separate.. A recent campaign on this " Break up ” personifies this very relationship, and wonderfully articulates the differences cropping between them. Have a look .. So, what exactly is the issue? - Agencies don’t realize that there is a problem and consumers don’t think that there is a solution to this problem – so most of them don’t speak up. It simply reflects in the results! The campaign, titled “ Bring the love Back ” addresses the first part of the issue – the disconnect between the consumer and the advertiser – how they do not get along, how the advertiser does not understand the consumer, how he simply assumes that what he is and what he is doing is simply the best, and cannot figure out why the consumer does not like it….and how all this culminates into their separation – their break-up ! The

Consumer Education for Brand Engagement: Context without Content?

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I have earlier discussed about Engagement marketing and Media Engagement in detail . Another facet of Engagement Marketing is Brand Engagement , which I briefly mentioned earlier. Just to recap, Brand Engagement is the last step of Engagement Marketing (From Media Engagement to Ad Engagement to Engagement Marketing to finally, Brand Engagement). It ensures sustainability and loyalty towards the advertised Brand. This happens when the messages and experiences blend into a combination culminating into a strong association with the brand per se, and not only the communication [ previous post ] An article at Marketing Profs “ Brand Engagement: Teach Your Customers Well ” by Nick Wreden , published last week focuses on a specific component of Brand Engagement – Brand Education and its various forms and methods. According to the article , Brand Engagement and Wikification have replaced previous models like “positioning” and have emerged as the “two great trends reshaping branding today” (as

Error 404! Cannot find server..er..Consumer!

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If you want to connect to your consumer, you need to talk to them in their language, using the tools they use, the forums they visit and communicate your differentiating point where it hits the most to them - in their own conditioned environment . Thanks to Martina ( Rocco Stallvord , actually) , I could identify yet another conditioned view that we come across more than a few times daily – Error 404 – Cannot find server ! Basically, the website of West Wayne Agency , the page first seems like the same error 404, but then when you refresh, you notice that the same page communicates something different – just like the URL tries to connect to the server, the consumer tries to connect to the brand – and this is what happens when he cannot find the connect… and he disconnects!! Solution? Have a look to what West Wayne suggests - call them people not consumers, and build a relationship with them... Interestingly, one thing I noticed what worked in favor of West Wayne for such a creativ

Tomato Juice in Margarita? Using B2C learnings in B2B space

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Jason, from Centric , a media agency, had given an interesting perspective on the essentials of B2B branding , and certain misconceptions that marketers have, with regards to the techniques that qualify as B2B. In his post, The Key Failure of B2B Branding , Jason believes that most of the marketers consider B2B as a microcosm of B2C branding , and attempt to incorporate B2C marketing components in the B2B space, too. His innuendoes on how consumer marketers, specifically, Procter & Gamble has some of the strongest brands, are worth mentioning… "..if you throw tens of millions of dollars at promoting a product over a period of decades, of course it’ll have a strong brand. It’s been seen so many times that it’s become part of the culture. So yes, when you look at the strongest brands, they’re going to be consumer brands ." But where most of the marketers go wrong is when they take this understanding of “ successful branding ” and use the same recipe for their industrial br