Hard to believe it’s been 11 years since The Cluetrain Manifesto, and we’re still doing the same panel. And we’re still trying to teach big companies and ad agencies how to communicate like humans, how to listen, and how to use transparency as a messaging tactic. Brand Journalism is a way to take [...]]]> hashtag #brandjo

Hard to believe it’s been 11 years since The Cluetrain Manifesto, and we’re still doing the same panel. And we’re still trying to teach big companies and ad agencies how to communicate like humans, how to listen, and how to use transparency as a messaging tactic. Brand Journalism is a way to take those decade-old ideas and incorporate them into actual campaigns (we know, we’ve done it). The first step is to teach agencies and clients to think like publishers instead of marketers–it’s not a new idea, but it’s one that is rarely executed well. In this panel, Brand Journalism pioneers will share some of the secrets, successes, and obstacles of their award-winning campaigns.

An editorial approach to brand building. Do we need to start thinking like a publisher?

Audio of session

Presenters

Bob Garfield, Bob Garfield LLC

Brian Clark, Partner/CEO, GMD Studios

David Eastman

Kyle Monson, Editor, JWT

Shiv Singh, Mktg, PepsiCo

So what does this mean? The short description is taking an editorial approach to brand building. If you are in branding its not a choice anymore, it’s imperative to look at how you are approaching branding.

An example of brand as a journalist is mormon.org. They have turned their brand over to church members to tell their stories and they are not doing any editing of the stories.

Today’s consumers are more interested in speaking to your employees instead of those who write your mission statement. Think really hard about this. Are you ready to turn your brand over to your employees and consumers?

The Chrysler social media issue was brought up in this session and the panel made some good points. Their thoughts were that the Chrysler mistake was not having an employee tweeting. Brands should not outsource trust building. With an organization as big as Chrysler, why are they outsourcing their brand building and journalism to a social media agency and a 20 y/o running the Twitter account? Your journalists should be part of your organization, not outsourced. Do you outsource trust-building? AdAge’s Garfield: “Chrysler Tweet shows conflict between nature of social media and control freakdom of brands.” PR stands for public relations, why fire someone for saying something the public can actually relate to?

People like to bring up how many followers they have on Twitter and how many Likes they have on Facebook. What they need to realize is that its not the numbers, it’s about the engagement metrics.

Advertising goals = recognition and awareness. Social media goals = credibility and trust. Where do they meet for brands? How do we add value to a consumer’s life? Think about these questions when you putting together strategy. Branding magic happens when brand values and consumer values align.

@jaredroy

Claudia Lagunas Digital & New Media Director PepsiCo

Naveen Selvadurai Co-Founder Foursquare

Owen Thomas VentureBeat

Tero Ojanpera Exec VP, Member of the Nokia Group Exec Board Nokia

The definition for location based services at this session was determined to be -”You’re putting out signals, and you want to be rewarded with meaning.”

Location isn’t an end, it’s a means to what [...]]]> The Future of collective intelligence. Location
Hashtag #sxswlbs

Claudia Lagunas
Digital & New Media Director
PepsiCo

Naveen Selvadurai
Co-Founder
Foursquare

Owen Thomas
VentureBeat

Tero Ojanpera
Exec VP, Member of the Nokia Group Exec Board
Nokia

The definition for location based services at this session was determined to be -”You’re putting out signals, and you want to be rewarded with meaning.”

Location isn’t an end, it’s a means to what really matters; relevancy. The future of location based services is relevancy. I only want to be made aware of products, services and experiences that are relevant to me where I am. Don’t push a $50 salon offer my way, instead push a two for one Belgian beer special as I walk by the liquor store.

The mashing up of group buying/social deals with location based services is coming. How many group buying services do you subscribe to? I subscribe to six and get six separate emails a day letting me know of the daily specials. When is someone going to integrate these specials into a location-based application? Aggregate data makes the power of the check in even more valuable & rewarding. If I’m headed out to dinner and am “pushed” a group deal to a restaurant that meets my past experiences, chances are I’m going to try out that restaurant. If my location-based service knows that I need coffee before 9:00am, why not push a coffee offer at my while I’m travelling? How many of you have searched for a coffee shop when you are travelling?

Think about foursquare mayorships and airline status, they have eerie parallels. Both are achieved & retained based on fear of losing them.

So you still don’t see the value of location based services? Would you be interested in sharing your location if the app would give you real-time traffic light information and it reduced bad traffic patterns? I sure would light less traffic.

Right now location is the new digital divide. There is a part of the population that will never use it. It’s our jobs as digital leaders to find a way to make it useful to this population. Our challenge is to do more interesting and useful things with this location data.

So, are we freaks for using location based services, or are we early adopters? Only you can answer that, but I’m personally gaining utility through location.

I wrote previously on the amazing power of location based services in my SXSW wrap-up.

@jaredroy

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