Monthly Archives: November 2009
Susquehanna River, Asylum Township, Bradford County, PAby Kevin RobertsI’ve written in April and June this year on Brand America, which had became deeply unpopular through the decade. I had put my case for new actions and new messaging to The Pentagon through to Paper magazine. I tell people that what made the USA great is still there in abundance – a tremendous human energy, ideals of a better future, and the capacity to be the force for good in the world.While the reality that President Barack Obama is only human has only recently dawned, and his popularity is now ranked at about 53% approval, his inspirational message already has delivered benefits to the USA as far as the ROW (Rest Of World) is concerned. In the week that Fortune magazine named Steve Jobs as CEO of the Decade, FutureBrand, which ranks country brands, has announced that the United States is … Continue reading
What do you with a hotel brand that’s become outdated, irrelevant, and in some ways a signal to stay away from the properties to which it’s attached? If you’re InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), owner of the Holiday Inn franchise, you take a zero-tolerance approach to revitalization.A November 13 Wall Street Journal story reported that IHG is preparing to pull the Holiday Inn flag from as many as 300 hotels in North America whose franchisees won’t spend as much as $250,000 per property to overhaul their lobbies, signage, lighting and bedding, among other things. Said Kevin Kowalski, SVP of brand management for IHG, “On the compliance date, Feb. 1, those hotels will get a failure letter and so will their banks.”Those are tough words, and they back up a tough policy announced back in 2007 – before the recession made financing for such renovations difficult to acquire. But IHG has little … Continue reading
by Kevin RobertsDon’t you love it when scientists come out with studies proving the completely obvious? The advertising industry is not immune from such studies, as the American Association of Advertising Agencies has recently released a paper entitled: “Why You Need to Incorporate Emotional Messaging Into Your Marketing Communications.” It states “Recent studies have proven that emotional advertising is more effective than a rational strategy.”The AAAA paper points to a study of the 880 winners of Advertising Effectiveness Awards from the UK’s Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) which has offered further proof (as if there was any doubt) that if you put your message in emotional terms, it will carry more weight. Some highlights from the analysis:Emotionally based campaigns outperformed rationally based campaigns on every single business measure in the cases studied—sales, market share, profit, penetration, loyalty and price sensitivity.Emotional appeals are almost twice as likely to generate large … Continue reading
At a conference in Malaysia, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said the Suggested Users List (SUL), a boon in followers for anyone on it, will be going away sometime in the future:”That list will be going away,” Stone said at a conference in Malaysia. “In its stead will be something that is more programmatically chosen, something that actually delivers more relevant suggestions.”See that term? – “Programmatically chosen” – Hmmm…The SUL was hand picked by the staff of Twitter. Which meant if you weren’t included on the SUL, it felt like a snub if you had established a large presence on the service. It was also celebrity-heavy, which was nice if that’s your thing. But people have a range of interests beyond Hollywood and music.How do you suppose suggested users will be be “programmatically chosen”? My guess is that is that this new reputation score we’ve been hearing about will be part … Continue reading
I’m a proponent of spreading strategic thinking broadly in a company and not readily handing off strategy development to outside parties exclusively. Yet I’ve been a part of many examples where an outside perspective helped move strategy development ahead much more quickly.Here are several examples you may be facing where it’s good to get outside expertise:Turning Talk Into a PlanA small subsidiary’s three-person management team was told to get a plan in place to show corporate management the company’s direction. They had no planning process and only ten business days to deliver a comprehensive strategic plan. We brought in the Brainzooming process to develop an innovative strategic plan in one day. The output couldn’t be simply a bunch of ideas nor could it be only a rote plan with little strategic insight.Structuring a day-long session using question-based exercises allowed the team to answer questions about the business, participate in exercises … Continue reading
From Ideation to Collaboration to Executionby Robert F. BrandsInnovation: What a great idea!Innovation thrives on a diet of news ideas. It needs fresh thinking and a different perspective from across the organization.We’ve noted that Innovation = Creative x Risk Taking. Setting aside risk for the moment, creativity is a central element to the innovation process. But it must continually be nourished with new ideas from a variety of sources.Ideation is not a single event. It doesn’t originate from a single silo or one person or one department, although it can come from a single source. Ideation thrives in an open environment; think Wikipedia, the open-source, online repository of the world’s specialized knowledge. It is the result of a collaborative process that welcomes minds and teams from across any organization of any size. How can you foster a fertile ideation environment?Start by creating an “idea hopper.” This idea bank is the … Continue reading
