11 posts tagged “marketing boss”
Often companies spend enormous ressources designing a (new) corporate logo, product logo or campaign logo designed.
According to Wikipedia, a logo’s design is for immediate recognition, inspiring trust, admiration, loyalty and an implied superiority. The logo is one aspect of a company’s commercial brand, or economic or academic entity, and its shapes, colors, fonts, and images usually are different from others in a similar market. Logos are also used to identify organizations and other non-commercial entities.
Here are some logos that definately makes YOU think about something other than what was intended (I am sure)
I think the images speak for themselves
Clinica Dental, now what to expect? Perhaps the CMO should consider a new logo design (or perhaps not :- )
The Kunaware Pharmacy might want to consider designing the “K” differently.
The worst of the worst. Arlington Pediatric Center.
It’s simply a disgrace, and the CMO should immediately take steps to implement a new logo design. Perhaps using the letters APC might be the safest bet.
An unfortunate placement, or is it?
Difficult to avoid the situation in the Nestle outdoor add below. I think this picture might be staged, don’t you?
If you know of other examples, please do let me know
Nearly 50% of all marketing managers are contemplating a change of job this year, according to a survey conducted by Fokus Integrated and the Marketingboss Group residing at the social networking platform Xing.
343 marketing managers participated in the survey, which was carried out from January 2008 to April 2008. The vast majority of respondents reside in Europe.
Marketing managers are very optimistic
When asked the question “Are you optimistic about your company achieving your marketing objectives for 2008″, marketing managers respons was very optimistic. 90,68% answered they were optimistic, and only 9,32% that they were pessimistic.
Are you hiring or firing?
When asked “Are you hiring or firing in the marketing department this year”, 46,59% would not disclose, but 50% answered affirmative to hiring. Only 3,51% responded that they expect layoffs in 2008.
In the summer of 2006, Mark Kern, Bill Petras, and Taewon Yun met with advisor Jeff Loomans to discuss how to grow the Red 5 family. They all knew that recruiting (people) in the game industry was crazy. Still, the three Red 5ers were determined to hire the best and brightest minds in the industry, while communicating just how cool it is to work at Red 5 Studios.
The result is mind-blowing and a lesson in how to focus relentlessly on the right target group with the right message.
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Story below can also be found with images at the Red 5 Studios homepage
Laying the Foundation The more the group thought about it, they knew that just more of the same wasn’t going to work. Form emails and phone calls were overdone, passé: the gogo boots of the recruiting industry. They needed something that would be uniquely Red 5, something that would immediately grab a prospective applicant’s imagination.
Mark remembered that Steve Jobs took a uniquely active role when he started running Pixar. Jobs personally called the top fifty animators in the world, and extended an invitation to come and work for his new company. It’s that kind of rapport that the team most wanted to replicate, but they still needed a way to cut through the hype of traditional recruiting campaigns. So it was decided that instead of recruiting openly, the company would focus on personally meeting one hundred of the top people in the game industry. Red 5 would extend a singular, unique invitation to each of those one hundred people, and let them know that they were part of an event that happens once in a lifetime.
The project began by drafting a list of Red 5’s dream team, people whose work the studio admired. After the list was compiled, Red 5 researched each individual: they wanted to learn more about the type of work they liked doing, the game titles they had worked on, and what kept them inspired once they clocked off for the day. There was a lot of online research, as the studio read blogs posts, played games, crawled through forum posts, even Amazon wish lists—all in order to get to know each person a little better.
Eventually, the list of a hundred names was complete. It was time to start work on the invitation, like the kind people get to attend the Academy Awards. But, you know, without the swag bag. Or Joan
Rivers.
It Takes a Village
With the list in hand, Red 5 started thinking about the best way to grab each recipient’s attention, to show them that they were being asked to be part of something unique, something exciting. Over the next few months, Red 5 interviewed countless studios until settling on Pool, a San Francisco-based design firm. Pool just got Red 5, and had some really fantastic ideas on how to turn Red 5’s work into a memorable campaign.
After testing a few versions, the idea quickly evolved from a mailing piece into a multimedia event. The packaging took on a more important role that would reveal a story as the recipient stripped away each layer. And once the recipient got to the center of the packaging, they’d find a brand new stamp-sized iPod Shuffle, which hadn’t yet been released in the US.
Custom-engraved with each recipient’s name and a unique code, each iPod was more than a special gift: it was the key to accessing the Red 5 website, where they could learn more about the company, as well as the job that Red 5 had cherry-picked them for.
While Pool continued work on the print design, Red 5 hired Airbag Industries to design a website that would match the ass-kickery of the invitation. The game geeks-cum-Photoshop freaks at Airbag had found a dream client in Red 5 Studios, and had a great time wrapping a compelling design around Red 5’s concept artwork and, well, storied staff bios.
Under the hood, Airbag created a souped-up Ruby on Rails content management
system that allowed Red 5 to manage all aspects of the site, from tracking new users to updating homepage copy. The CMS also presented a custom homepage to each prospective hire after they logged in, welcoming them to this one-of-a-kind opportunity. Users could also read individual team bios, see who else had joined the Red 5 family, and send website login codes to their friends so they could learn more
about the company and their unique job opportunities.
Of course, Red 5’s employees were intimately involved in every step of the process: they helped test the campaign, continued researching invitees, wrote personalized greetings, wrote website copy, and recorded the personalized audio greetings for each iPod. And throughout the entire process, the team worked day (and sometimes night) to meet major milestones.
After a few months of work, the campaign was finally ready to ship: the site was up and running, and the iPods were wrapped oh-so-beautifully. From a brainstorming session to a beautifully designed campaign that spanned on- and off-line media, the recruiting project was finally ready to be unleashed upon one hundred very lucky folks.
But it would all be for naught unless the packages actually got to the intended recipient. Kind of a key step, that.
Off the Grid
When it came to shipping, the best approach was to send the invitations to the recipients’ places of work, as those addresses were easiest to find with a little online search. But Red 5 was enticing folks away from competing companies, and didn’t want prying corporate mail rooms to intercept their carefully designed invitations. After months of work,having a mail clerk net himself a free iPod Shuffle wasn’t the most
appealing idea.
To add an extra layer of sneaky, the print invitation was specifically designed to fit inside plain FedEx boxes, which had a higher chance of slipping by the mail monitors. Furthermore, the shipping company could help ensure that the packages arrived to everyone nearly on the same day.
Whirlwind: Reaped
And it worked better than anyone could have predicted. The response rate was overwhelming. Red 5 had a nearly 100% response rate on their campaign; by comparison, most direct mail initiatives are considered “successful” if they hear back from two percent of their recipients. Furthermore, Red 5 got supremely viral: almost every person used the website to send invitations to their friends, spreading the word even more.
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Since the campaign, the Red 5 offices have been busier than ever: the team in Orange County has been meeting new friends and showing them around the corporate offices. And the campaign has gotten ridiculous amounts of buzz, with many saying that Red 5 really raised the bar to new levels in recruiting, while making an impact on the game industry itself.
The Future of Marketing is in focus at the European Chief Marketing Officer Conference taking place in Zürich, Switzerland on September 25th. 2008.
Featuring an impressive lineup of speakers, the conference provides top-management executives and marketing professionals access to the latest marketing thinking from distinguished global thought
leaders.
The speakers include Professor Emeritus David Aaker, Professor Jean-Claude Larreche, Michael Dunn, CEO of Prophet, Olivier Quillet - International Marketing Director of Nestlé Nespresso, brand strategist Martin Roll, Jacques Amey - Heidrick & Struggles, Julie Woods-Moss - VP Marketing & Global Service at BT and Michael Leander Nielsen - CEO of Fokus Integrated.
Members of the Marketingboss community are entitled to a 20% discount. Type “Marketingboss” in the partnercode filed.
As this is the first time I have been "speaking to the wall", the presentation is not as good as I would have liked. But eventhough I am studdering, caughing, confused and sound distracted, I hope the video will be beneficial for you.
Download Marketingboss_Community_Introduction_Michael_Leander_Nielsen_27May2008.wmv
The report "Marketing managers regrets 2007 and resolutions 2008" is now available. .
More than 400 marketing managers across the world participated in the survey. The results of that survey are published in the report.
Marketingboss member Poa Jonas says: “Considering the vast amounts of money spent on research it’s still surprising to me to see that so many marketeers responsible for high profile products and brands are still missing to hit the target - namely that of the individual consumer.”
In this article Marketing boss member Poa Jones offers 10 suggestions for marketers to improve the current situation.
Considering the vast amounts of money spent on research it’s still surprising to me to see that so many marketeers responsible for high profile products and brands are still missing to hit the target - namely that of the individual consumer.
Agreed, the landscape has become more complex but does that excuse the fact that so many campaigns don’t even touch the audiences they were designed to attract or influence?.
What can be done to change this sad state of affairs?
Below I listed a few suggestions (some serious, some more light-hearted) and invite members of the Marketing Boss group to comment and/or add to it as they see fit.
The objective is to help future marketeers to look beyond conventional wisdom and develop strategies that truely engage and add real value to consumers lives thereby creating long term and sustainable competitive advantage for the products, brands and companies they are, or will be, responsible for.
Here are some suggestions:
1. Stop looking from the inside out. Step out, look back (as a consumer) and then go back inside and start changing all the things you didn’t like when you looked back.
2. Avoid mass media solutions, look at environments which you can enrich and take ownership of.
3. Turn your brand into an entertainer.
4. Align yourself to the lifestyle interests of your target audience and then engage, by providing access to unique and privileged experiences.
5. Surprise your customers by providing real and relevant added value, they will not only stay yours but will also become your most effective sales force.
6. Be passionate about your brand, it’s contagious. If you can’t, change jobs and find a product or brand you can truly believe in.
7. Stop managing your brand as you were ‘painting by numbres’. Be creative, break out to break through.
8. Seek partners that provide you with access to your target audience and then invest in new win win actions that convert this ‘captive’ audience into new and loyal customers.
9. Don’t settle for conventional solutions. It only takes a bit of gut and imagination to cut through the clutter and make a huge impact.
10. Don’t round up all the edges, irregular shapes will help to make your brand stand out.
11. Forget what the text books say, reinvent the rules and you will succeed, even on a relatively small budget.
12. Inaction will cost you existing and potential customers. Stop thinking and start doing.
. . . (over to you!!)
Poa Jonas is currently based in Rome, Italy, where he serves as a Creative Director at Ignitesparks. You can connect with him here: (https://www.xing.com/profile/Poa_Jonas)
You’re in a hurry. You want to complete your
business and the person serving you is preoccupied with something other than
serving you. Then when you are served, you might get an insincere apology for
the delay followed by the completion of your transaction. If asked to describe
this experience you would likely respond "That’s typical" or
"It’s nothing more and probably a little less than I expected."
Has
this ever happened to you?
In this article Ray Miller, the author of the book "That’s Customer
Focus and The Customer Focus Companion", reveals the benefits of customer focus and the link with customer loyalty and profitability.
Read the full article here
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Following the inaugural webinar (online seminar/webcast), which took place on April 22nd. 2008 in cooperation with FEDMA, many Marketing Boss members have asked for more. And while a number of members expect participation to be free, others are willing to pay an insignificant amount for participation.
This is our plan for webinars/online seminars….
The Marketingboss group will launch a number of webinars/online seminars in the coming months. In fact the plan is to organize 1-3 new webinars each month. With an approximate duration of 45-75 minutes, each online seminar will feature 1-2 speakers. The speakers will share insights into strategical and/or tactical marketing topics, which members will have indicated to be of interest to them in our surveys.
–> Be sure to be notified when we invite to upcoming online seminars, please sign-up here
We will offer three types of webinars/online seminars:
TYPE 1. Sponsored online seminar - one sponsor speaker, one expert speaker.
A sponsored seminar will be free. You, your team, colleagues and friends may participate at no cost to you whatsoever. If, however, you sign-up and do not attend, you will have to pay a small "absence fee", typically € 50.
TYPE 2. You decide the price you want to pay - 1-2 expert speakers
The quality of contents for webinar type 2 will be on par with the two other types. The difference is you decide how much you want to pay. For each webinar, you will be offered the choice to pay - for example - €15, €35 or €50. We are sure that you will pay according to the value the webinar brought to you.
TYPE 3. Paid online seminars - 1-2 high profile expert speakers
For this type of online seminar/webinar, we will offer attendance with a price tag of €50, €100 or €250. The speakers and presenters will typically be recognized experts in their respective fields, book authors, renowned marketing researchers and scholars or marketing gurus. But we might also offer marketing diploma rewarding contents, for example a 5 part course with a final "exam" at the end.
If you have suggestions, ideas, comments, please do not hesitate to contact Michael Leander.
Once again DMA (Direct Marketing Association), FEDMA and ICEMD are collaborating to bring marketers one of the most outstanding summer schools for marketing professionals around. The event will take place in Madrid, Spain from June 2-5, 2008.
Faculty includes highly respected speakers from all over the world, including Neil Feinstein, professor Joost van Nispen, Richard Min from infonet Korea, Angel Moroto and - well - the author of this blog - Michael Leander Nielsen.
Members of Marketingboss are invited to join at a reduced rate. Contact me for more info.
