The Secret Diary of a Bonafide Marketing Genius

Yesterday’s WOMMA webinar, where I presented Smart Marketing in a Dumb Economy, generated a lot of excellent questions—including “how do you convince a reluctant executive to experiment with digital and social media?” “Who within an organization ‘owns’ the conversation?” and the infamous “How and what do you measure exactly?”

I did my best to answer each of them—and will post the audio of the webinar as soon as WOMMA makes it available.

But there was one question that came via email after the webinar that I couldn’t resist sharing and answering here. continue reading »

by murplej@ne - under deconstruction

I guess this is “old news,” as the data I’m about to share comes from a 2007 IBM Global Business Services study (aptly titled “The end of advertising as we know it”)—but perhaps that makes it even more compelling. Here goes:

71% of the 2400 consumers surveyed across five countries said they spend >2 hours/day on the Internet—not including continue reading »

In December of 2006, brand-building power-house JWT produced a list of “70 Things to Watch in 2007.” A copy of it landed on my desk earlier this year, and at the time, I thought… well, this is kind of interesting.

Being a genius and all, I dipped it in a healthy dose of skepticism and filed it away in my wait-and-see-what-the-idiots-think file, where it sat collecting dust until… this morning.

I am particularly fond of the intro that frames the list:

“As globalization continues to make our world seem smaller, localization will come to a head in 2007,” says Ann Mack, director of trendspotting at JWT. “We’ll put great emphasis on sourcing everything from food to textiles. Decadent and excessive consumption will fall to the wayside as we stress quality, minimal environmental impact and support of local producers.”

Right… and Hillary Clinton will ask Monica Lewinsky to be her Vice President, and a dozen purple pigs will fly out of my butt.

Of course the sad part is that I desperately wish Ann’s prediction came true… but then what in the world would I do for a living if there were no more interest in decadence and excessive consumption???

Anyway… here’s the list—with a few brilliant comments from Your Truly in bold. See how many of these things you’ve heard of—er, agree with. My personal fav has got to be #30: “brand sluts”. How and when did that become a cutting-edge trend???

Seventy Things to Watch in 2007 (by the folks at JWT):
1. Skype/VoIP
2. Wii and the next-generation gaming systems
3. The business of social networking (love it!)
4. Pop-up stores, restaurants and bars … installation style
5. Shrinky Dink technology (TVs are flat and hidden, iPods are down to half an ounce,
speakers are smaller and less visible, and so on)
6. The rise of nanotechnology
7. Sustainable construction/green buildings
8. Hydrogen fuel cell technology
9. Veggie-bus: school buses running on biodiesel fuel
10. Trans-fat fallout
11. Reality show talent searches (is that an oxymoron or what?)
12. Ohio State’s freshman basketball phenom, Greg Oden (who?)
13. Fear of agri-terrorism (Is that like, when McDonald’s runs out of Happy Meals?)
14. Halal foods
15. Participatory advertising (user-generated advertising and music video competitions) (love it!)
16. Premium-drink bars (thirsty just thinking about it….)
17. Organic fabrics
18. Stem cell research
19. Iceland (???? Really?)
20. Hybrid dogs (Dogs that run on batteries or solar panels? Huh?)
21. Locally sourced produce (how retro!)
22. Churchonomics: religion as big business
23. Reunions of donor insemination siblings (that’s an after-school special in the making, no?)
24. Hitting the off button: demanding downtime
25. Indian cross-over actress Aishwarya Rai
26. Home-schooling (EW!)
27. Natural building materials such as stone and wood
28. Binge chilling (sweet!)
29. Personalized diets
30. Brand sluts
31. Modernized tradition
32. Chindia
33. Alpha moms
34. Internet TV
35. Citizen journalism
36. RSS feeds
37. Fresh Direct
38. Google domination (Google as acquirer, and Microsoft as Google follower)
39. Mobile video
40. Rachael Ray
41. Inconspicuous consumption (like when I hide my copy of People under the whole wheat tortillas at the check-out line?)
42. X-Factor’s Leona Lewis
43. Dreamgirls’ Jennifer Hudson
44. Environmental causes
45. Companies going green
46. Barack Obama
47. Soft, natural hair
48. Microgeneration (generating one’s own energy)
49. Party planning for teens
50. Paying for user-generated content (sweet, maybe I’ll make a few bucks after all)
51. Higher-waisted pants
52. iPhone (this should have been at the TOP of the list!)
53. Co-branding (think Nike plus Apple)
54. Britain’s Amy Winehouse
55. The rebirth of raves
56. Energy-saving lightbulbs
57. Sacha Baron Cohen
58. Mash-ups (music, Web sites, everything)
59. Japanese apparel chain Uniqlo
60. Promoting “Brand Me” (uh… hello… that’s so 1999)
61. Ensemble TV casts (Ugly Betty, Grey’s Anatomy, Heroes, Criminal Minds)
62. Multilingual cinema
63. “Kidults”
64. Transformers (the movie)
65. Web-based microfinancing
66. Generosity (not that!!!!!)
67. Al Gore, the environmentalist
68. Unstrategic alliances (Paris and Britney, Tom and Brooke, Bush Sr. and Clinton)
69. Europeans getting fatter (it’s about time!)
70. Age shuffling (40 is the new 20, for example)