Blog Yes & Know

Always About Engagement

We all want to be new school and know that the latest top hit song (via iTunes) is a song called SOS by Jonas Brothers. I had to look that up. Because what I pay attention to the most are things I already love. While I’d like to be super hip, the songs that run through my head are more like “The Way We Were” if I’m feeling melancholy, “Sweet Home Alabama” if I feel good, or Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” if I feel, ya know, sassy.
What does this have to do with marketing, you ask?

Aptitude vs. Attitude: HP Knows it Takes Consistency

HP watchers have been on quite a ride over the past few years. It’s been full of thrills, change, some major bumps, and, finally, a financial performance that has shareholders applauding. How did they get to this point? There are many explanations, but I like the contribution that consistent product messaging has made to their new situation.

Involved vs. Committed

There’s a difference between being involved and being committed. To be an athlete you must be committed.

Where to Look When Performance Breaks Down

When it comes to improving performance, most organizations’ problems can be traced to their inability to think and talk together at critical moments.

A friend sent this to me today

By letting go
It all gets done.
The world is won
By those who let it go.
But when you try and try,
The world is beyond winning.

Standing Apart: How a Blender Creates Affinity

The central goal of online marketing isn’t awareness, it’s engagement. And the five key tools to produce engagement are affinity, personality, community, co-creation, and advocacy. Engagement at the broadest level is getting the customer involved with your company, with your products and often, with your people. You want your customers to get to know your organization, its values and services. When customers like what they see and experience, the relationship deepens and it leads to affinity. Thus what was once a distant relationship becomes personal. Another way to same thing perhaps is to say that “Personality replaces traditional brand marketing”

The Buying Experience: Part of the Brand

When some people thing of “brand” they might think of the stuff that the PR team or the corporate marketing team does to create a tag line or the pretty slicks of stuff to “position” the company. But a brand is (and I know you readers have heard me say this before so my apologies for being redudant!) more than the fluff. It is the ultimate integration of everything a company does. It is the packaging because the ease, simplicity, etc of “getting the product” is part of the experience.

Mobile Commerce, Really?

A colleague recently bent my ear regarding mobile commerce and how she can barely wait for some of the new services (like this one) to become available in her area. I love a good gadget as much as the next guy, but having lived through electronic wallets and many of the other “great ideas” on the front-side of the dot com boom, I’m a bit skeptical.
For those that are willing to learn, failures teach us more than successes, so this got me thinking about what the past can teach us about these new service offerings. I’m not talking about ringtones and wallpaper; I’m only talking about stuff you buy with your phone, not for your phone.