Brand Central Station

Minnesota Public Radio’s Weekend America program featured an interview with marketing blogger Rex Sorgatz (you’ll find Rex’s take on it here). The piece is interesting but seems to confuse viral marketing (sometimes referred to as buzz marketing) with more covert efforts.

For the record, I think we need to work out a better understanding of terms like viral/buzz marketing, “word-of-mouth” marketing, experiential marketing and guerilla marketing. It’s far too easy to paint these emerging marketing disciplines as something covert and subversive, devaluing them in the process.

Thanks to Steve Hall’s AdRants blog for this.

Rex Sorgatz on Viral Marketing

A January posting to their blog on customer insights brought Big Research to the attention of Media Post today – and for good reason.

Statements like “Most of what is masquerading as customer insights is data processing,” are provactive. The company offers a complimentary, video newsletter full of juicy tidbits to make you a smarter marketer.

Highly recommended.

BigResearch Summary Report

Jack Shafer, Slate’s editor at large, provides an insightful look ahead for CBS. In a related story, there’s now a transcription of Walter Cronkite’s interview on CNN with Wolf Blitzer.

Like him or not, Dan Rather’s retirement is a noteworthy milestone in the history of broadcast journalism.

CBS, What Is the Frequency? – What the network should do in the post-Rather era.

Site 9 kicks up some links to more information on Open Source Marketing.

Is Open Source Marketing just the latest marketing cliche or something more noteworthy? The jury is still out as far as I’m concerned.

Open Source Marketing defined in new ChangeThis Manifesto

If you run a marketing company or a small business and you’re not up to speed on the ChoicePoint debacle, it’s time to educate yourself. Anita Campbell does a great job of getting your education started in her Small Business Trends blog.

We’ll be researching this issue in more detail and preparing a summary article for an upcoming issue of the BCS TuesdayReport. If you don’t have a subscription, click here to sign up now.

ChoicePoint’s Small Business Action Raises Bigger Issues

Talk about perceived brand value – here’s a bit from Yahoo! News about a woman who fights off a burglar to save her designer wallet.

Thanks to Seth Godin’s blog for this.

Japanese woman tackles burglar to save designer wallet

Seth Godin provides an insightful look at his customer experience with Apple computer (Part One; Part Two) – and other bloggers have chimed in with their observations, as well (Small Business Branding Blog’s Michael Pollock provides his take).

I did my part about two weeks ago with my diatribe on Gateway’s self-destruction (read it here).

The point is the same, though. Your brand is only as strong as its ability to meet the expectations of your customers – and that requires constant communication with your team (internal communications) and re-evaluation of the “quality” of the experience at every brand touchpoint.

Seth’s Blog: Expectations Matter (Part 1 of my visit to Apple)

We blogged on about this yesterday, but here’s another article on CNet’s News.com about fraud perpetrated against those who pay per click via Overature and other online advertising services.

Interesting stuff.

Click fraud roils search advertisers | CNET News.com

Thanks to Jennifer Rice and her blog: “What’s Your Brand Mantra?” for this link to CMO Magazine’s feature story on corporate blogging. If you’re starting one or thinking of helping a client start one, this is a good place for you to start.

Follow that? I need more coffee.

CMO on Blogging

Geek Factory’s Head Geek, Peter Shankman, wants to find out how much value his opinion has so he’s opened himself up to the free market.

Now you can buy five opinions from Peter on eBay.

I told him that if this works, he may have discovered the ultimate e-business model. The opening bid is $1.50 – and believe me, Peter is worth almost every penny.

eBay item 5563183783 (Ends Mar-11-05 12:33:34 PST)

I saw this a few weeks ago and didn’t blog it.

Consider this my contribution to humanity for the week. Great work, Ze!

Communication Skills – Zefrank

AdRants reports MARTA (Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority) is outfitting cars with flat screen televisions and radio transmitters.

Atlanta Subways to Get TV And Radio