Brand Central Station

I had an opportunity to interview with Matt Mickiewizc, the US representative for 99designs.  The site, a spinoff from Sitepoint, puts clients in direct contact with graphic designers from around the world.

Over 22,000 graphic designers from over 100 countries.

And the results can be pretty amazing.  So far, 99designs has helped broker over 14,000 projects, soliciting creative ideas from places like Africa, South America, Asia and all over Europe and North America.  Each project is presented as a “contest,” complete with prize money and a creative brief to provide direction. Each entry submitted by a designer is posted for public display (check out examples of contests here, here and here).

(more…)

One of the things clients seem to hate is budgeting.  I get it.  Nobody likes to feel they’re the equivalent of somebody else’s Sunday dinner.

Last week, I had a client say to me: “I’m reluctant to give out a number for that project because I don’t want the vendor to keep loading it up with bells and whistles to meet my budget.”  It was a refreshingly candid (and honest) statement.

So in a world of creative smoke and mirrors – where every job seems to be a custom job requiring (at best) “educated” guesses at costs and production timelines; how does an in-house marketing manager get things under control and make sure he or she doesn’t get taken for a ride by an unscrupulous ad agency or design boutique?

Believe it or not, the best process to use for controlling production costs on the client side is very much the same kind of process agencies should be using on their side as well … but more on that later.

The secret to controlling production costs is to take the guesswork out of it. 

(more…)

If you subscribed to a Brand Central Station RSS feed over a year ago, read this …
(more…)

ADOTAS — Unsurprisingly, females are using sites like Facebook and Linkedin to connect with colleagues and friends and check out products, but they also worry about privacy protections.

According to “The Power of Social Networking For Women Research Study” from female-oriented social networking site ShesConnected, substantial majorities use social networks to research products and services (79%) and finding deals and discounts (64%). While users understand the need for revenues, networking, self-promotion, keeping in touch and privacy remain their top priority.

Read the whole story.

by Mike Bawden
President & CEO; Brand Central Station

I’m sure I’m not the only one who has dropped out of the Twitterverse a time or two. Right now, I’m on a Facebook diet – only updating my status in the morning and checking on “friends” at lunch and before I turn out the lights in my office at the end of the day.

I’m blogging again, but only at night. I cue up the posts for the next day and if I don’t get much into the pipeline, I deal with it.

I’ve developed a love-hate relationship with social media that only my Bowflex and treadmill enjoy. I know these things can be good for me, but they take up soooooo much time.

Of course, I don’t work up a sweat with my Bloglines account like I do when I run for 40 minutes. And my wife and family seem to appreciate my time spent at the home gym more than they do on YouTube.

But I need to be here. I need to work on my business’ cyber-presence in small, digestable chunks. Not because my life depends on it, but because my livelihood does.

It’s important for PR practitioners, advertising creatives and marketing consultants to spend time in the social web – learning about what’s new and, more importantly, what can’t (or shouldn’t) be done. We have to learn how to manage the overlap between time spent in the real world and time spent in the virtual one, for one very important reason:

Someone has to explain to clients how it’s all done. And we need to be credible when we do.

I can’t tell you how many times I”ve sat through presentations where people started pitching Web 2.0 ideas to a client who didn’t have a clue. There’s nothing worse than the pit that develops in the bottom of your stomach when that client turns to you and asks for confirmation of a half-baked idea from some marketing pinhead who doesn’t know his widget from a hole in the ground.

But even if you know about all the cool technology, soon-to-be-coming applications, theories on WOM Marketing, stories about guerilla marketing, legends of buzz building … whatever. If you don’t know how to do it and keep it from overtaking your life, your advice to a client is nearly worthless.

The client will get that. They’ll re-trench back into older, 20th-century marketing tactics that won’t ever work like they used to. And worst of all, you’ll lose credbility in their eyes.

Dropping out of the social web is a bit asocial for a marketing guy. Having a client fall off the social media bandwagon can hurt you far worse than it hurts them.

So, I’ve re-emerged. Climbed back on. We’ll see how far we can go – and enjoy the ride in the process.

I saw this article on MarketingVox over the weekend and thought it might be worth spending a little quality time discussing the social merits and marketing opportunities presented by corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs.

Over two-thirds of companies surveyed by a team from IBM claimed to take a more “strategic” view of CSR programs than simple philanthropy.  And over half of the companies interviewed said their CSR programs were profit centers. 

IBM Report on Corporate Social Responsibility - (download the report here)

What it comes down to is the fundamental premise that companies can make money by doing social good.  But this is more than just having corporate “nice guys” finish first. (more…)