Change is tough enough. Going green or embarking on a sustainability initiative can be even tougher. One of the biggest concerns we hear from clients is that they are hesitant to embark on such initiatives because it’s a clear-cut admittance to your public that you’ve been “at fault” or “doing things wrong” up until now.

This is circular thinking and is an age-old dilemma that marketers face with anything new or innovative. If my product is “new and improved” does that admit I’ve been selling something less/inferior all these years? For big ticket items (particularly in b2b spaces) how do you look valued customers in the eye and sell for today, when you know there’s more in the pipeline you can’t tell them about for tomorrow?

On the green/sustainability front, this dilemma is front and center. If my product is now “eco friendly” or we’re embarking on an eco-initiative does that indirectly say we’ve been trashing the environment all these years? Or will doing something send off a beacon to my brand or company, alerting the green activist community to dig up my past?




These are all legitimate concerns and should be sorted through as part of any strategic process. Unfortunately these questions also lead many into a form of green paralysis. It’s much easier to do nothing.

Our perspective is this: unless you’ve been hiding something from your customers (do a search on SIGG and their issues with BPA to get an idea of public backlash),




(Ecorazzi/ September 2009)

the public seems to generally forgiving of your past in this space IF they think you’re trying to do the right thing for the future. You need not look any further than Walmart and the positive reaction to their green initiatives for proof.



(Fast Company/ July 2009)

More importantly, and the purpose of this blog entry, is to emphasize that companies need to think of going green as brand innovation. It is not something to be scared of, and has enormous potential (for those that are genuine) to re-invigorate and energize your brand. It’s also an opportunity to have new conversations with your customers and invite in new customers that would have never considered you. Now what’s so scary about that?

Nearly every panel on Social Media mentions Marcel Lebrun’s team and the Radian 6 platform. With that comes the obligatory mention of the Listen, Measure, Engage methodology. During the MITX Brand Personification #MITXSM panel on September 17,2009, there was mention of the usual tenets of social media:

• Be transparent
• Do not attempt to control the conversation
• Engage

Each of these is riddled with theory versus practice, but the focus for now is engagement.



How do you decide where to engage?
Deciding where to engage should come from two angles. First, you need to decide how you want to represent your brand in social spaces and therefore you should have an idea of how you want to align with conversations that you deem important to you and your success. Important: you need to be willing to allow this to evolve.

Offline your brand is what you say, in online spaces, your brand is what the crowd says about you.

The second angle is listening to the crowd. At #mitxsm, we established that in online spaces, your brand is what the crowd says about you. That means you need to listen to the crowd. They are going to dictate the conversation whether the brand likes it or not. A brand can choose not to participate, but there are consequences to ignoring a conversation with significant participation. Significant participation is not always number of people, it has everything to do with who is participating. Pissing off one influential individual can have a serious ripple effect.

What are the 2 Rules of Engagement?

Respond
A brand needs to speak to the people who are engaging. When someone addresses the brand, it should respond in kind with an honest answer. This is not always pretty. Even brands who are known for engagement like @Jetblue and @SouthwestAir get the occasional hater. [aside: @JetBlue seems to be ignoring a couple of haters. I am talking to them to see why they hate and if the brand has enaged them via DM versus openly]. It’s how you handle the feedback that counts. You can win the haters over or at the very least you can show how you graciously accept them and incorporate their feedback. Both win you points. Your brand may be late to the game because the crowd has already kicked off the conversation on Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter etc, but it’s never too late to join.



Provoke
The conversations that you care about may not exist the way you envision them. That does not necessarily mean that the crowd does not care or want to have that conversation. Brands need to be willing to provoke, instigate, antagonize or tease out a conversation. The best way to start conversations is to seek out individuals who would be likely to participate.

What? Well, if your product is adventure oriented, you might seek out people in the extreme sports, mountain climbing, hiking, mountain biking, kite surfing and shark tossing crowds. Then kick off a conversation. If you want to be known as the fertilizer expert, then talk about fertilizer with people who like to talk about landscaping, lawn care and gardening. Do not worry about whether you know people. Jump in. Discuss your views. Push out content that your audience cares about. Debate the merits of your ideas and the merits of the ideas of others in the crowd. Eventually you will make new friends. You will even get to a point where you are meeting people “offline” and while you may start your conversation with a “nice to meet you” handshake, your conversation will pick up where you left off online because you already have a relationship.



Brand can be complex because companies and people are complex. Remember, when these rules apply to both personal and corporate brands. Mine is about social media, measurement, emerging technology, burrito enthusiasm, events, beer (which i channel through an alternate persona) and a little about style. I outwardly do not take myself too seriously but I do take my brand seriously.

@Direct_Tire engaged me today when I was talking about walking to work after dropping my car off for repairs. They got me to respond, but missed a chance to have a real conversation with them after I responded.

If you are a band, engage your fans or engage fans of music that you are paired with in the music genome project (Pandora), but find out what they like beyond your music. Analyze and choose the commonalities and have the conversation stem from there.



Remember, you are now building relationships, not just pushing out content. You can sponsor user generated content to get conversations going as well.

You can create campaigns using outreach programs that give people who like your products resources to create content for you, like Ford did with the #Fiestamovement. Oh and you thought I was just going to dog Ford in this article. Nah. They have made some good moves. And If you’re really feeling bold, engage your competition. That’s a sure fire way to get people talking.

The bottom line is that social media is not for the meek. What brand do you know that has a tenet of meekness? None. Is your brand engaging? What is holding you back?

In the days of yore, that would be back only 10 or so years ago, marketing musicians and bands was the job of the record companies. They produced the marketing materials, which usually consisted of press kits sent to radio stations, promo materials, displays and posters for record stores, and the occasional ad in a trade pub.

The band would tour of course. Hoping to gain interest in their new album by playing live. The tour would boost sales. More records/CD’s sold. Ta dah. Everyone was happy. Or were they?



Fast forward to 2009. Web sites, social media and marketing, and free music downloads have changed the music marketing landscape. And now the bands are marketing themselves as is the case of Boston based rock band, Endway. http://www.endway.com/


Endway felt that the best way to get notoriety was to give out their music for free – bypassing iTunes, Amazon and the record labels – and use Web 2.0 technologies to connect with their fans.

And in return for free tunes, Endway suggested fans donate to local charities through their web site. The money donated would then go to a favorite charity, the Boston Ronald McDonald House. Donating all music sale proceeds to a charity had never been done before, how could we get the message out and make this work? By using web 2.0 technologies.

a&g developed the Endway web site as a portal to existing social media applications. Instead of developing a video sharing platform, a&g used one that was already freely available – YouTube. Rather than develop a photo-sharing application we connected to the best – Flicker. For creating multiple contact points with the band, a&g encouraged Endway to further develop their presence on Facebook MySpace, Twitter, YouTube and Pure Volume - so that people coming from those sites would have content and links back to the “home” site – much like spokes on a wheel. These Web 2.0 tools also allow for real time content updates, heightening Endway’s connection to their fans, and vice versa.

Within the site itself, a record of all user interaction tracks videos and photos uploaded (through Flickr & YouTube), comments posted, shows attended, friends referred, etc. This allows Endway to identify and reward their “super fans”.

So visit www.endway.com today, download some free music, make a donation and enjoy what’s become Music 2.0.

Cool huh?

Straight from attendance at LA Roadshow,the perception of this brand promotion marketer is for another banner year at the movies in 2010. The studios put their best foot forward to unveil sneak previews and plans for blockbuster movie releases.



There is an unnerving trend to sequels of established film franchises that may not allow enough development of new original content. However, it is a safe and smart move by the studios. Look for movie sequels like Sex and The City 2 & Hangover 2 from Warner Bros.

There is a lot of movie remakes coming our way in 2010 that will appeal both to baby boomers and a new generation of movie lovers, including Poltergeist and Red Dawn from MGM Studio and United Artists. How about the foot tapping dancing movie Footloose from Paramount Pictures!

If that wasn’t enough, then get your 3D glasses ready for lots of animated films like Toy Story 3 from Walt Disney Studios.

The key for brand marketers is how to navigate the studio labyrinth of approvals and licensing fees while never losing sight of your brand strategy. Perhaps a blockbuster DVD program is better suited for your brand especially because no licensing fees usually will be involved if enough media support is planned. a&g brand promotion can help you maximize a forecasted blockbuster 2010 movie year.

Photo Credit: www.flickr.com/photos/7294653@N07/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

A&G’s media team won 4 out of 10 awards at the Ad Club’s Media Maven Award Show honoring the Boston media community.

The highest honor went to Melissa Romig who was named Media All Star, an honor that recognizes the best and brightest Media Executive. We already knew that but now so does the industry!

a&g also took home:

• Best Use of Digital Media for Bright Horizons
• Best Use of Research for Berklee College of Music
• The Risky Business Award (for a media plan that took a significant risk and went against the conventional media wisdom) for Bright Horizons

Congratulations to the media team — we truly have a New Model Army.  This recognition is another validation that we are reshaping the ad industry with our thinking.

From the article…

Mining the masses for ideas about everything from ad slogans to doughnut flavors is growing as a popular method of idea creation for companies in a wide array of industries.

Known as crowdsourcing, the practice is possible because of the proliferation of social networking Web sites. Tapping into the wisdom of the crowd is emerging as an easy way to generate ideas cheaply, and at the same time engage customers in a discussion about the brand.

Controversy over crowdsourcing has sprung up among some designers who think that the technique cheapens what they do. Most marketing executives have a ready response for detractors.

“The designer piece to me is such a tiny piece of what crowdsourcing is,” said Andrew Graff, CEO of Watertown-based Allen & Gerritsen. “It’s challenging traditional marketing and that’s where the backlash is … they’re scared by it.”

Read the full article at boston.bizjournals.com

We are focused on content in any form. Whether it’s a :30 TV spot, or creating an entirely new branding experience with emerging technology.

One of the missions of the a&g Contributions group is:

“to provide insight for our clients and give them the resolve to make important business decisions”

a&g is a company that firmly believes in using data to drive business decisions. We are entrusted with the following data sets:

• sales by store or customer
• web
• digital / social / traditional media

Enter a&g Savvy. Savvy is a line of products designed to optimize business efforts. Typically we are informing sales, marketing, web, technology and experience related initiatives. Savvy products inform teams about customer behavior both online and offline. They provide strong cases that optimize media buys, user experiences and customer segments. They drive towards precision targeting, maximizing value and elimination of waste. They supply insight on conversations, content and offers.

Varying levels of service ensure that people who live close to the data get the level of detail the need to make decisions at all levels. Thoughtful dashboards are created to tell specific stories in a visually consistent fashion. Campaign summaries summarize the entire program so that months of learning are always easy-access. Competitive reviews advise how your business stacks up against your rivals in digital and social spaces.

For more information on how Digital Savvy, Social Savvy and Segmentation Savvy can give you a competitive advantage, email mschneider {at} a {dash} g {dot} com for a demonstration.

It was a star-studded group of social media mavens at Harvard, both on stage and in the audience. Presenters included Southwest Airlines Social Media Manager Christi Day (@christi5321), Rebel Industries Josh Levine (@jlevine), and Dominos Pizza Super-Francisee Ramon DeLeon (@Ramon_DeLeon). EMC’s Polly Pearson (@pollypearson) stressed the importance of community as an internal resource, allowing insight into cross-discipline initiatives. And Red Cross Social Media Director Wendy Harman (@wharman) stressed the importance of Twitter as a disaster management communication medium. A very interesting case on a regionally distributed brand personification strategy.

Key themes that reigned throughout the day: Listen to your user base, learn from them, and react accordingly. Perhaps the group was best summed up by the conference’s first Keynote Speaker Stanley Kirk Burrell (aka rapper, musician, and preacher MC Hammer) when he said: in this day and age, “perception has trumped reality, and if you’re allowing somebody else to control the perception of your brand, you’re in trouble.”

Gary Vaynerchuk (@garyvee), true entrepreneur, famed host of the widely popular Wine Library TV, and fearless leader of “Vayner Nation” hosted a high-octane question and answer session where he offered summit attendees a couple of key messages: “Sweat equity will define winners and losers,” and it is ON YOU to leverage the tools available to you.

The day closed with @garyvee offering to the audience a challenge when he said that “It blows my mind that we’re still debating whether THIS is going to stick. If you have eyeballs, you can make money. You can sell eyeballs. Period. End of story.” How you decide to do it is up to you. Inspiring words.

We found it interesting that all these brilliant innovators came together in the hallowed halls of the Harvard Faculty Club. Marketers and technologists talked about the future of business not at Harvard Business School but in the center of Harvard’s campus on the first floor of one of Harvard’s oldest buildings. Old meets new? Perhaps. But we saw it as a metaphor for how these trends in technology are changing us from the inside out.

Kudos to the Gravity Summit team for putting on a great day. Excellent presenters and good content. And those who couldn’t attend were treated to solid streaming coverage via cnn.com/live.

Some feedback to consider: We’d like to see more interaction between those presenting and the audience. Considering you have all of those social media mavens in a room, we’d love to see more audience participation. And while the day was rich with content, oddly there was too much reliance on PowerPoint as the platform.

A summary video by @needgraphics can be seen here: http://www.viddler.com/explore/KnowItUp/videos/21/.

Photo credits: @gradontripp, http://www.flickr.com/photos/goodguygrady/