Brands are people too!

So just randomly today I was trying to figure out why the "Get a Mac" commercial spots, you know the ones where Justin Long matter-of-factly says "I'm a mac", were so successful. I think its because by putting a face to the brand, apple did something that we all do naturally. People quite naturally personify things they interact with. Just yesterday I called my printer "evil" when it refused to print one of my final papers this morning. I realize that printers usually don't have a sense of morality but this was an example of how people apply human characteristics to things in their environment. Brands have for a long time have tried to give a "face" to their brand and apple has taken this quite literally. By making a brand a person instead of a logo they have seemed to reach people on an emotional level. Many firms have recently tried to connect with their consumers by allowing their employees to blog or having a representative twitter and I believe this is all an attempt to give a personality to their brand. Brands are people too, but there are many firms who still resist this type of advertising. Instead of the classic way of advertising where a person passively stares at a commercial on TV, I think a good ad should be a start of a dialogue between the consumer and the brand. People quite naturally endow brands with specific qualities and advertising firms can use this behavior in order to shape brand preference.

Trident X Beyonce Dance

So if you have not seen this video of Beyonce 100 Single Ladies Flash-Dance then you haven't been on planet earth... or maybe just youtube in a while. Check it out and let me know what you think? What do 100 single Ladies have to do with Trident?... Beats me but I know I enjoyed this video ;)

4A's Conference addressing Diversity

Diversity sounds like a good concept, but too often does it remain a concept rather than a workable objective. More often however do people and companies forget to ask themselves "Why do we want Diversity?". Is it so that we can use the term as a talking point in our marketing? Or is it that we really do think that having a broad range of ideas and cultures makes us a better company? At 4A's Leadership Conference in San Francisco, Dan Wieden spoke about how firms can more easily attract talent from diverse backgrounds. He urged agencies to partner with local arts organizations they feel passionate about. I agree with Mr. Wieden that an agencies' involvement with minority communities can be a huge benefit in attracting talent from these places. I know from growing up in harlem that there is a wealth of talent there and its all about identifying those transferable skills that are suited for the advertising business. I've added the link to an article that covers this part of the conference but I just want to commend the 4A's for addressing the very important issue of Diversity and Multiculturalism in the business. This issue is especially relevant to MAIP participants because it's programs like this that are actually trying to change the situation that Mr. Wieden is talking about.

Where Wieden Finds Future Minority Hires

Reggie's Favorite Quote:
"We have to do better, and we have to do better quickly." - Mr. Wieden when discussing Diversity in the Advertising Business.

OK guys, I know I've been blogging a lot but this is because I've had so much on my mind to write about before I registered for this site so now I'm just pouring everything in. If you can give me suggestions on how I can improve my writing please let me know! Thanks for reading.

The Generous Brand

While reading yet another article on AdAge I stumbled across an article that addresses how companies can start attracting consumers by being generous. This was kind of a new concept to me because especially in this economy, firms are trying to cut back on a lot of extra spending so I wasn't sure if giving would be a great idea. This article however convinced me otherwise by suggesting that we use generosity in a much more general way. One example would be General Mills' decision to place Box Tops for Education on all its products (and the products of its competitors, by the way) providing social value. John King then talks about how the image of a brand as generous will create a more loyal customer who takes on ownership of the brand. I think it is truly important for advertisers to look past just messaging and more into experience and involving the consumers in the process. This takes an engagement on a different level then how king describes it "the baseline of trust and awareness". Generosity Works.

Building a Generous Brand

Reggie's Favorite Quote from Article:
"If the microsite isn't dead, it just drove away on a crotch rocket wearing a windbreaker and no helmet. Digital is no longer about investing in sticky online real estate and expecting the audience to come to us"-John King when describing the need for "slippy digital"

Reggie's Second Favorite Quote from Article:
"The generous brand has a much bigger cupboard to draw from. We're now in the business of building brands about ideas. And that means a car company can sell fun, a soda company can bottle optimism and a chocolate company can make joy. For us, it means advertising just might be able to change the world"- John King

Can Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube ever be profitable?

So I read an interesting article on AdAge (my favorite website) about whether these social networking sites will ever be monetized. In the article (I'll add the link), Simon Dumenco examines the strategies these companies have used to bring in money from a basically free service. Youtube has started to increase the number of videos with ads as well as selling prime spots on the websites front page to firms looking to utilize the millions of views that youtube gets in a second. The real roadblock to these websites generating money is that they were never built on a profitable business plan. When the original creators of the youtube or facebook were making the website they were thinking "how can we attract the most people to our site and make it as fun and useful as possible" and not "How can we make this website the most profitable". The consequence of this is that the websites don't make much money and actually cost a lot more to run (buying bandwidth and site maintenance). There is some talk about maybe charging a subscription fee but how many of us will actually pay for a service that we have received for free for so long. I think our generation particularly has expected everything on the internet to be free and if its not then we will search for something else that is. The paradox is that these websites popularity is due to the fact that they provide a free resource for us to communicate with friends and family in a very user friendly way and if we take the free out of the equation, this bond we have to these companies will break down. These websites may never be profitable but as long as venture capitalist keep funneling in the money, we will continue using them but how long can they keep being in the red before people that fund these website disappear? It's hard to imagine a world without Youtube, twitter, facebook, or myspace but I believe that this is the inevitable future and its going to happen sooner then you think. The world is constantly changing and people are always looking for something new. Once youtube gets too ad heavy we will find something else and when twitter tries to place context sensitive ads in the middle of our tweets, we will leave that too. What do you think about these social networking sites? Can they ever be profitable and if so, how can they achieve this?

The Coming End of YouTube, Twitter and Facebook Socialism

Dwele X McCafe?

McDonalds is spending an incredible amount of money trying to push their new coffee line but I think this little jingle from Dwele is perfect for trying to present the brand in a more sophisticated way to the African-American Audience. Dwele is also featured in a new McCafe commercial that I just saw during an NBA play-off game. A great Jingle is such an underestimated component to a great ad campaign.

Santo

What could be better than an advertisement about advertisements?