What’s consistent about all these personal brand identities, is that that they have built an authentic brand without necessarily using their real faces or their real life names. That’s not to say they aren’t also known as their real life names, only that they have constructed a consistent and authentic online or brand persona that lives over and above their real life personality. Its the consistency in communication or voice as suggested by Seth is what makes the personal brand authentic.
advertising
Flight of the Conchords rock social media
Flight of the Conchords is a great HBO television show about 2 NZ singing dudes who “make it” in New York City. Flight of the Conchords has a Facebook fan page they actually use. I say that in all seriousness, as so many Facebook pages get set up and then forgotten. Or ignored. On Facebook, […]
Why it takes balls to Skittle
The Skittles social media mashup site works on so many levels. Firstly, it shows confidence in the strength of the Skittles brand. The social media strategy behind Skittles site shows confidence in being able to go with the conversation about the product. While I was on Twitter yesterday, the chatter around Skittles wasn’t necessarily positive, but it added to the general momentum of Skittles being talked about and staying in the top 2 or 3 trending topics on Twitter (a bonus really). Lesser brands would be feel buried in negative conversation.
This is an unscripted Brand Review™ review
When I wrote about digital video recorders killing TV advertising, one of the comments (thanks Doingwords) suggested that there will be an increase in “home shopping” type of advertising where the ads are extended into infomercial lengths. Given this is a trend happening in the US too, watch E! channel Australia to see the millennial […]
Is timeshifting killing television advertising?
Nielsen report 37% more consumers are watching programs via DVR (digital video recorders) which timeshift TV rising about 9% in the fourth quarter from the third quarter. The other key of the report is that viewers are watching their television content online, and on mobile devices rather than watching it through the television itself. Nielsen’s report covers the US but the same trends are taking place here in Australia. Foxtel is now in nearly 1.6m Australian households. One-third (more than half a million) of these subscribers have a Foxtel IQ digital video recorder. Subscriber’s are up 7% and Foxtel’s revenue is up 13%
So instead of watching TV when the advertisers and the networks intended them to be watched, viewers are watching them in a different timezone or online or on a mobile phone. The viewers who watched TV online consumed even more video content, to the tune of another 3 hours per month. Even Nielsen’s report is called the “3 Screens Report” reflecting the fact that the traditional TV screen is only one of the delivery mechanism for television content. What happens to the ads ? The fast forward button is killing television advertising.
Your brand is just not that into you
As advertising and marketing budgets are being slashed (don’t mention the “R word”), it’s probably worth looking at the way brands engage and relate to their customers. I’m inspired to put this into relationship terms after seeing the film, “He’s Just Not That Into You” (HJNTIY) . One of the male characters, Alex, is brutally frank in telling Gigi, how she is deluding herself on male romantic behaviour when a series of guys don’t call her or ask her out again – all when they say they are going to.
In much the same way Alex did, I am going to tell it like it is, with regards to the way brands (and the agencies acting on their behalf), toy with customers’ feelings, and keep them at arms length, or promise to contact without any actual delivery.
Here are my interpretations of the classic, dysfunctional customer relationships where customers are treated badly by brands: