Archive for the ‘Media’ Category

BrandChannel reports that Apple has pipped Google at the post to become the leading brand in their Readers’ Choice Awards. The do note:

However, Apple’s cultural symbolism was not economically symbiotic. Its worldwide computer market share dropped to less than two percent in 2004 to a 1.87 percent share in Q3 of 2004 (down from 2.19% in Q3 2003).

So let me get this straight… You can be a great brand and have declining marketshare in major categories? Hmmmmm… Doesn’t sound like much of a proxy for business success. Far too many brand marketers focus on brand awareness and not business outcome. Ok, so now I’m whining…

One interesting new entrant in the Awards, Al Jazeera.

Rounding out the top five 2004 Global Brands is a surprise winner: the Arab-focused, 24-hour news source Al Jazeera. Based in Qatar and offering an alternative to BBC or CNN, Al Jazeera has over 35 million viewers (overwhelmingly Muslim) and 30 bureaus worldwide. As the issues of 2004 hovered heavily around the Middle East and Islamic populations, Al Jazeera’s relevancy soared.

Here’s their little chart:

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Had an email conversation with Robin Sloan regarding EPIC 2014. It’s a fascinating dialogue that points to how cool marketing and thinking needn’t cost a lot. It makes me think of the quote Jonathan Schwartz sometimes uses (attributed to Bill Joy I think) – “Innovation happens elsewhere”. Now Robin is working at INdTV in San Francisco, and Matt Thompson is working at FresnoBee.com in Fresno.

Robin says:

“… EPIC 2014 was made by two young journalists, Robin Sloan & Matt Thompson, while they were both working at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida…

Re: cost — EPIC was totally home-brew, so the only cost was in terms of time spent on it. Hard to see how much time we spent on the ideas — they kinda bubbled up over the course of many weeks — but the actual Flash production came out in a frantic rush over three or four days. I’m quite sure a seasoned Flash producer (which I’m not) could crank out something as cool & stylish in a week or so.

I gotta admit though, both the narration (by Matt Thompson, the Fresno Bee guy) and the music (by electronic musician Minus Kelvin) account for a lot of the movie’s effectiveness. So keep that in mind.”

Update:- we had to drop the zip link due to bandwidth issues. So, if you want the file beam me an email.

He makes one last point which is great news – “And keep your eyes peeled — an update is coming in a week or so that will take EPIC to the year 2015.”

I think Stowe might have already flagged this one but Tekrati looks at the current state of Analyst Blogs. Apparently 10% of the 350 firms they track have blogs with Jupiter leading the pack in terms of volume (some 20 plus). I’m following James and Stephen over at Redmonk most closely. Charlene Li over at Forrester is becoming a bit of a rock star as well. Gartner’s group blog has some interesting stuff – and is a good approach – but lacks focus.

This was a different kind of blogging conference. Attendees were predominantly communicators there to learn about blogging and social networking technologies.

Congrats to Elizabeth and team for putting on such a great event. It delivered on two fronts. First, plenty of networking time with great people like Stowe, Heath Row of FastCompany, Tom Formenski, Anita Campbell, Rennee (I will have a nickname for you soon!) and Evelyn Rodriguez.

Second, the education bias of the event was well placed. I attended a few of the workshops on the first day. Guillaume has plenty of links to commentary and content.

My keynote opened the second day. My one big disclosure/caveat is that I’m technically employed by Sun but winding down my work there, and I hold Sun stock. So, that should partly explain my enthusiasm for the company. Ok, so I’m completely paranoid about disclosure and ethics these days….

Second caveat is that this is what I remember as much as I can remember. (Stowe made me drink too much – HE MADE ME!). Seriously though, it’s interesting watching folks blog on the event (which is much, much harder than it looks – you need to be able to triple task, type at light-speed, report and absorb – and stay sane) – folks hear different things, see different things, write different things than you thought you said, said, or intended to say. Tip for Communicators: don’t blog your own events – hire a pro to do it, or give bloggers passes and access.

Since I’m technically not a Flak for the moment I disregarded all the communications counsel I’ve been giving people for decades and produced 87 slides. It was awesome – at least for me. It also meant I needed to pick-up to a Ferarri-like pace at the back-end of the preso. Tip for communicators: do as you preach. No more than 20 slides for any preso.

I opened with the EPIC 2014 webisode. I first encountered this at Pegasus News. Thanks to Ian Kennedy who pointed out this was originally created by Robin Sloan. So full attribution, congratulation etc. to Robin. People raved about it. Blogs are wonderfully self correcting in this respect.

I’m going to post longer notes in the next few days along with some of the scrapbook of stuff I assembled when researching the keynote. Active Voice has a good overview. Tom has a nice wrap-up on the workshop delivered by Alice Marshall on "How to Pitch Bloggers". Neville Hobson has tons of other links and highlights.

I’ll update more over the weekend. Thanks again for all the kind comments, thoughts, delicately delivered corrections.

Jeff Nolan has some interesting thoughts following a panel with PR pros. Jeff is right in that communicators are just starting to fully get with the social networking revolution. More need to read blogs, write blogs, turn-up those RSS feeds and readers and get behind the social networking revolution. Thanks to hyper-blogger Steve for the pointer.

Couple of Jeff’s comments are worth further discussion. Having seen and tracked the data on release click throughs and readership from the newswires and also company news sites people do, in mass, read news releases. They also are a ‘technical’ communications tool (for the media and disclosure purposes). Where he is right is that mediums like the blog are steadily increasing as a news desimination and triangulation vehicle. And at some point in the future they might just replace the need for a press release in order to satisfy fair disclosure. Jeff says:

My advice to professional marketing communication people is to get engaged with blogs now by reading and observing. Learn the etiquette and patterns before deciding to tackle strategy for dealing with blogs.

The creed of the professional communications executive over the years has been to control the message. Get over it because there is no chance you can do that in today’s world. At best you can shape a message by guiding and honestly responding to blog content where appropriate.

At the NewComm Forum Stowe made some really interesting points that expand on this. Network effects advantage the early adopters. As the network multiplies outward those who established the early advantage of linking, commentating, and engaging in the conversations are advantaged. The Blogosphere will favor the early movers. Tip for Communicators – Stowe gave you this one… If for some reason you don’t have the confidence to jump into the blogsphere, start sticking your toe into the water by commenting on other blogs. Before you know it, you’ll be up to your neck in the blogosphere.

Another thought that Jeff had that kept coming up at NewComm was the need for Communicators to focus on search engine optimization. I made the comment that you need to search, but you also need to hire people to do search. Tip for Communicators – hire search optimization specialists for every campaign, program and brand you manage.