Last week, emarketer.com sent this email to me. It had some interesting facts about digital music and its growth over the last couple years. As consumers (me included) increasingly switch to digital devices and legal purchases of music, I began to wonder why digital packaging has not caught up to this trend.
The chart above shows that almost half of all US teens did not purchase a CD in 2007 ( a number which is sure to continue to rise). If teens are switching to digital music at such a dizzying pace, why has the packaging not caught up? Most digital albums still include mirror images of their in-store counterparts. Why not progress to something more dynamic to reflect the new error?
Dynamic digital album artwork is the next progression in terms of packaging design for a digital universe. I could see a whole industry built around buying cool iPod/iPhone screensavers with animated capabilities. Does anyone else agree?
A whitepaper my company put out last year states that CPG (Consumer Product Goods) product launches can increase buzz by leveraging media spend. That buzz is significantly multiplied by a variety of factors surrounding a product launch. And major public announcements can be amongst the biggest drivers. The above chart shows how Led Zeppelin’s announcement of a charity performance gig sparked major ancillary insights. These secondary branches off of original announcements provide valuable insights, via CGM (Consumer-Generated Media), into your current brand.
What can you mine about your brand from the chatter around the internet?
Today on Armano’s blog he mentions something called “ambient interruption.” Its about the pervasive ever-present aurora of brands in the digital space. Its true that we are facing more subtle engagements from brands everyday. Email, display advertisements and search are all forms we experience on a daily routine. Our minds are able to block out many of them but they still seep into the brain.
All this “ambient interruption” has some interesting side-effects including subsurface recall. What is this? Today’s consumer is bombarded so frequently by messages that they are able to ignore most of these ads. But some are ignored at the conscious level and soaked into the subconscious for later recall.
These messages however sit inside the mind and can infect you at any time. Do you remember seeing and ad and wondering why it was astonishingly familiar? Perhaps because you have seen it before but blocked it out only to have it find it lodged in your subconscious.
I have been reading quite a few blog posts lately discussing self-branding. And, in the world of social media and fragmenting media models it’s important to realize the breadth of our brand online. A digital trail of “brand you” is everywhere–from Google SERPs to social networking profiles.
Due to this increasing lack of control over one’s digital image, I started to think about my real image as seen by the outside world, and whether that image aligned with my own thoughts and digital interactions. In a highly unscientific study, I asked a few friends (some who know me well and others who know me casually) to suggest five adjectives that they felt described me. Their answers represented an interesting range of ideas with some overlap. Here is a list of the adjectives I received from my subjects:
Subject #1 - Creative, Conversational, Inquisitive, Immature, Selfish
Subject #2 - Driven, Consumer, Abstruse, Elusive, Charming
Subject #3 - Cultural, Particular, Confused, Smart, Inquisitive
Subject #4 - Funny, Stylish, Happy, Flirty, Cute
Subject #5 - Creative, Driven, Intelligent, Hard-working, Flaky
The interesting takeaway here is that each subject has a slightly different idea of me, but overall, their descriptions do reflect me. The pattern that emerges is of a creative, self-driven, and fun person. The results are not quite what I hoped for but I think with a new year it’s a good start and gives me a solid place to start improving.
If you know me I would really appreciate your input. What five adjectives do you think describe me? Please use negative or positive words to help with accuracy.
Delta Airlines is now out of bankruptcy and looking smart with a new brand makeover. Despite the new look it seems to be business as usual at Delta as they disappointed me at a number of touch points this week. The first was a cynical interaction I had while taking the train to work.
The signs that line the top of the cars always strike my interest and I often wonder if they are effective. I can see some definite brand equity but not much ROI but that is for another post. This particular car was lined with Delta ads and I love to read headlines so I naturally read them. One said something about a flight you would want to spend extend. I get the irony of the ad but the core irony is that I was stuck on a Delta flight for 3 extra hours recently. I assure you I did no want another minute on this flight or any Delta one!
This ad was funny but to me it just underscored one of the worse aspects of Delta that you sit around and wait. What marketing genius came up with this one? The same guy that decided to market an automobile in a Spanish speaking country that was called Nova(or No Go)? Ha.
That was the first erosion of my faith in a brand that was badly damaged but slowly moving up. Second was when I tried to redeem a voucher given to me for volunteering to get off a flight. I decided to use the website to book a flight to Savannah but only to find that Delta made no mention of redeeming vouchers.
My inital reaction was to call and wait to speak to someone but I figured keep at the website. I continued to navigate through this site and eventually reached my limit. No mention of voucher redemption anywhere!
I called customer service and after 25 minutes of being on hold and being shuttled to different departments I was talking to a live person. She informed that delta.com was not Safari compatible! Can you believe that? No mention on the homepage of site requirements it took almost 30 minutes to find this out.
In today’s age of consumer empowerment, why are airlines consistently aloud to treat us as steerage class passengers with no consequence? I have to say some airlines do listen and they are getting it. (read JetBlue) Most though treat us as they want and we take it. I wonder how long this will last before they feel the backlash.
Delta, how long before you start listening?
I was riding the train today, when I saw a young man reading Wikipedia articles whilst studying his class work. It immediately started my brain to think about my time in College and the amount of information available back then. The Internet was in its infancy and things like Wikipedia were mere ripples on the horizon. The internet was a series of message boards loosely or not so loosely tied together. Collaborative learning meant organizing a study group and hoping everyone showed up.
All the information available to Kids today is amazing. They are constantly being bombarded by information and must learn to quickly process or dismiss it. Today’s youth must be eons smarter than past generations due to the resources available.
They have become hype-sensitve filters able to block-out advertising and absorb content they desire. This is bad news for brands who face a huge challenge in the coming years attempting to break through these hyper-sensitive filters and score a remarkable product.
Published on November 1, 2007
in branding.
Dictionary.com has six different definitions for the term brand and branding. Some of them reference a sword (ie. excalibur); others recall the term in the context of marking ownership of livestock. All seem to be slightly askew for the term branding as it relates to marketing and advertising. Branding has both holistic and physical properties and creates confusion for marketers who hastily try to build brands using poor core values. Brand building is a process which takes time, and must be done with exact strategic goals set in motion long before the brand is born.
Contagious is something less confusing to define but no easier to implement. It is defined this way on dictionary.com:
tending to spread from person to person: contagious laughter.
Brands typically hope to incorporate some degree of contagiousness that embody? its essence in order to spread the ideas centered at its core. That is where the name of this blog comes from. BRAND + conTAGIOUS = brandtagious. And it is my sincere hope as I embark on this journey that I learn and experiment with ideas and thoughts that relateto branding development, strategy and marketing.
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