Brand Central Station

Here’s an interesting piece on the importance of allocating budget for the customer experience. Remember, the only way brand value is built is by living up to the expectations you set through your advertising and PR.

A good read …

Good Experience Blog – customer experience, user experience

Here’s a nearly perfect start to a discussion on using Six Sigma methodology in marketing services practices. This blog is a nice job by Sam Decker, but I have to wonder if others will others join in the discussion?

It’s certainly a worthy one, considering the interest (and investment) in establishing agency quality standards by groups like the ICCO (International Communications Consulting Organization) and PRCA (in the UK). I encourage everyone to track-back to Sam’s blog and leave some thoughts. I’ll check back there myself in a week or two to see what we’ve learned.

Decker Marketing: New Marketing Processes with Six Sigma

Proof again that the best headlines are written by art directors …

Adrants: Oops, We Forgot to Proofread That Layout

Adrants, one of my favorite advertising blogs full of interesting material and snarky commentary is launching a networking service: The Adrants Network. The service combines many “of the features and functionality we have always wanted to offer Adrants readers.”

Definitely worth a look …

Adrants: Adrants Launches Network Discussion Group

The evolution of the mobile phone as something more than a utility continues. Adverblog provides some insights into the importance of ringtones in today’s youth culture. This post includes some links to great core materials …

Adverblog: web and wireless advertising in a blog

Here’s some common sense advice on creating bylined stories for clients. Highly recommended …

PR Squared: When Bylines are Bygones

As if Americans, in general, hadn’t managed to piss off most of Europe, now we pick on the Swiss. Technically, since Switzerland isn’t part of the EU, does this still count as Eurobashing?

And, more to the point, am I the only one who finds it ironic that a blog entitled “Micro Persuasion” would be picking on the poor, little Swiss? I guess he could have picked on Leichtenstein or Luxemborg …

Micro Persuasion: Swiss Say “We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Blogs”

Here’s a hilarious piece that kind of meanders from one point to another – starting with brand extensions – from the fine folks at POP! PR.

The birth of POP! Public Relations

All comments (c) 2004, Brand Central Station – all rights reserved. For more information about BCS, please visit our website.

Most blogs about blogging are droll and self-serving. This is an exception and worth noting, especially if you are in the PR or corporate communications business …

Strategic Public Relations: Weblogs & Crisis Communications

This is a marketing column, right? So, what’s with the political analysis.

Well, in truth, this is not so much about political analysis as an evaluation of what our media coverage (or lack thereof) of our presidential election is doing to the brand known as USA. Tim Rutten, in his LA Times piece on our national political coverage, only covers half of the issue. Rutten starts off with an interesting observation:

“The most serious problem confronting the American news media today is neither creeping political bias nor the tensions between new and old technologies … [but rather] corporate managers’ growing inability to distinguish between the public’s interest — fascination with entertainment and celebrity — and the public interest — a deference to the common good.”

Rutten’s complaint is clear and valid. Big media – specifically the three major television networks (ABC, CBS and NBC) have made a business decision with significant editorial and civic implications. By reducing their coverage of the political conventions to no more than an hour a night, they’ve abdicated coverage of the political process to a patchwork of newspapers, magazines, radio stations and cable networks.

And while I share Rutten’s concerns vis a vis domestic coverage of the political process (the last thing we need are uninformed opinions going into November) – he’s missed a very important point. There are 15,000 journalists at the DNC this week – and one would assume a similar number of journo’s covering the RNC in August. In both cases, the number of journalists covering the story will outnumber the delegates attending.

And not all of those journalists will be Americans.

In fact, what is happening on this country’s political horizon is of the utmost importance and interest to people living around the world and their media is here to cover it as well. Embarrassingly so, coverage on many foreign television networks will be much more thorough than what most American’s will be seeing on the big television networks that command most of the eyeballs in our country.

Everyone is here from Al Jazeera to the BBC. There are media representatives from as far away as Nepal in attendance.

Apparently, there’s just not enough reality television in the world to bring everyone to our level.

But my concern centers around what the implications are for Brand: USA if we’re disinterested in our own political conventions while the rest of the world watches and wonders.  What’s the signal we’re sending?

Much as the contentious situation in Florida in 2000 was widely misunderstood and misinterpreted by the world at-large when it happened, I fear we’re treading down the same path again in 2004.  It’s in our own best interest to be actively engaged and invovled in this election, no matter who’s side you’re on.  The more engaged the US population is in the electoral process, the stronger the signal we send to the rest of the world that the American people stand behind “our” brand.

And that will count for something.

If you travel abroad, you know that people in other countries are often quick to say that while they don’t like America, they like Americans.  What’s that mean?  It means they create a clear distinction between what our country does and the people they meet from the USA.  That’s understandable.  It’s much easier for people to “hate” a nameless, faceless institution rather than a person with whom they can make a one-to-one connection.

The secret to branding success, of course, is to create as much of a personal relationship between the customer and the brand as possible.  In this example, if people from other countries see and can identify with the people in America who stand behind Brand:USA, they’re less likely to dismiss concerns, fears, policies or decisions as being unilateral.  And, just as importantly, the more engaged the American public is in creating its brand’s promise, the more likely our policies will take these international relationships into consideration.

The end result, I think, will be a brand we can all stand behind.

Later.

15,000 journalists and still a dearth of coverage

I ran across Laura Reis’ blog on branding today. I admire what her father and Jack Trout both did by creating (or at least leveraging) the concept of positioning which managed to re-define the parameters of the how creative concepts (and the brands they support) are built.

What a let-down.

Read her comments about the “Mr. Six” campaign for Six Flags and then read the more cogent comments made by Ms. Trout’s readers. We’ll come back and give this blog another chance down the road.

The Origin of Brands Blog: Nobody wants to be like Mr. Six

In the world of corporate leadership, here’s a take on the future of the organization. I’ve asked this question myself for a number of a years and now, with the launch of The Ingenuity Partnership I think we’re taking marketing service companies to a whole new level of organization that is, in fact, more productive and value-driven than the movie production unit.

And for the record, I don’t agree that the “ultimate knowledge organization” is a movie unit. But that’s a blog for another day.

Gautam Ghosh on Management: An alternative view of Organizations in the future