Brand Managers - Drive Passion Using Your Brand Essence

Brand Managers are perennially in search of ways to not only maintain their standing with their customers, but increase excitement and strengthen passion for their products.  I have found articles reiterating the importance of allowing insight gained from your customers to drive innovation; ideas introduced to me as a graduate student at Northwestern University's Medill IMC program.

In the beauty world, there is the tale of two entities. There are the main industry titans and the newcomers garnering lots of buzz with their unique perspective yet both are fighting to attract customers, old and new. The most important action for each is to build desire, a thought expressed by Revlon’s CMO Julia Goldin.  This desire for the newest shades, trends and products helps your brand remain relevant. This is the charge for your brand; build, create and sustain desire.

After listening to your customer, the next and most crucial step is what you do with what you've discovered.  Translate this newfound information into customer-friendly innovation improving the customer experience with the products as done by cosmetic titan, L'Oreal.

How do we create this elusive desire?  The aforementioned articles and my studies in IMC have guided me towards these three items to implement and achieve your desired results. Listen to what your customers are saying and uncover what they are not able to express directly.  This can be done in several ways but none more important than engaging via social media, which provides a unique opportunity to learn more about the ways customers interact and use your product.  Capitalize by listening to your brand community on sites where they interact with each other most; the major social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Read comments left on YouTube video tutorials and gain a deeper understanding never before accessible.  Respond accordingly to customers needs and employ cutting-edge technology to create their desired iterations of products helping you retain and attract them.

In the cosmetics world with infinite possibilities for self-described "beauty junkies" companies are faced with the daunting task of differentiating their brand from competitors. Using the above actions will help your brand achieve the distinguishing qualities that build desire to draw your customer in and keep them coming back for more.

Jaclyn Bivins

@jaclynbivins

Jaclyn Bivins hails from Chicago, Illinois and is a graduate student at Northwestern University in Medill's Integrated Marketing Communications program. After graduation, she hopes to work in brand management and marketing strategy in the cosmetics and beauty industry. 

RSVP, in english please. (1/5 - Things to Remember for a National Ad Campaign )

While the title is catchy, it really doesn't speak directly to your targeted reader.  I would recommend you re-do the title to something shorter and more pointed to your reader.  Maybe something like "Not Deeply Understanding your Target Markets = Risks and Failures"  Or something like that.

Now, remember we are speaking with a very sophisticated but time compressed audience.  So we need to immediately get their attention and quickly move to your studies.  Therefore, your opening paragraph should be  2 short sentences focused on engaging the target reader and then establishing your expertise on the topic.  I would recommend starting with something like:

While agencies "preach" target markets, the explosion of social, mobile, and web touchpoints makes it imperative to really understand who they are and where they go to get information.  As a graduate student in the Northwestern Medill IMC marketing program and an executive with XXXX agency, I have been researching some of the perils of marketing in today's more complex marketplace and have found two articles which offer guidance and directions agency managers need to know.

Now, don't start with step 1 but start with the research.  I would start by discussing the Year of Mobile.  Cite the author and have another link to their site.  Tell the reader about the article in a single paragraph to highlight the key findings from the article.  Keep it short.  Avoid personal stories but keep your analysis of the article in a natural voice...which you are using very well in this document.

PS, one other thing.  It looks like this is a typewriter font.  I would change it to something which looks more modern like Ariel or another newer font.


Step #1 - Know your audience, determine the media, speak their language and they'll respond.

The various media outlets we have at our disposal today allow marketers extraordinaire to e-eavesdrop on our customers.  Finding out where your customers "are", what they're talking about and how they like to communicate are the keys to getting the RSVP you're looking for.
You really don't need the RSVP theme.  Start with the first article.  It looks interesting Don't you hate it when you send out 50 invitations, 5 people respond and 55 people show up? Me too.

Before you lick the stamps and mail the letters figure out who your customers are and THEN invite them to the party.  I manage several national ad campaigns during daylight hours and find it so easy to jump to " The Year of Mobile " when a client asks how they can expand their reach.  I've seen presentations from partners on geo-fencing and call transcription services and these are natural ideas to jump to.  Everyone wants to be invited to the party, right?

Perhaps a mobile campaign IS the right way to go.  Companies like xAd offer both search and banner options that may fit your clients' audience and there are many reasons for a "why wouldn't you do it?" argument...but...getting back to the RSVP...where are your clients? what are they talking about? and, how are you going to get their attention?
While personal stories are interesting, either make this your second article or drop it.  It makes the blog too long and more difficult to read. I was recently involved with a client who conducted a trial with CityGrid for several months.  Previous to this test they believed that their B2B model wasn't a match with advertising on an interactive network, but much to their surprise, it is now their top converting platform with conversion rates in double-digit excess of their other efforts.  Why?  Well, it turns out that people who are faithful CityGrid users (CitySearch.com, UrbanSpoon.com etc.) are the same customers our client is looking for.  They like food, they like eating and apparently they like reading advertisements while they're at it.

It isn't a novel concept, I know.  But I'm a bit of a traditionalist (and, yes, I keep Emily Post on hand).  Once you find your guests and pick out the best invitation, attract them with a message that sounds like them (skip the photos of your dinner/cocktail/dessert please).  They want to know about how awesome the party is going to be, and how going to the party will do so much for their social status.

Cutting-edge technologies and new media platforms can drive insane results...or, they can fail to provide any calls, clicks, emails, "likes", pokes or tweets because your customers aren't there [yet].  Stay tuned for steps 2/5 of Things to Remember for a National Ad Campaign...and remember, know your audience, determine the media, speak their language and they'll respond.
This should be your second article.  Structure the blog to have the first article, the graphic, and then the second article assessment.  Tell the executive what you want him/her to understand from the article.  If you like it, they will like to know what you found. This post was written by Christina Kellman - Interactive Strategy

After the 2 sentence intro, the second paragraph on article one, the graphic, the third paragraph on article two, now you are ready for the action items.

Start with something like "From these two articles and my studies at Northwestern, here are three action items I recommend you initiate.

THEN, give them 3 bullet points.  They most be short [2-3 words] and really memorable.  Draw them from the two articles.  After each bullet point, you can put a dash and then a single sentence of explanation.  No more than that.

THEN, give us a great, short summary paragraph.  1-2 sentences.  Encourage the reader to act on the three action items and tell them the benefit.

Then you have your personal paragraph.   Try this format and, when you are happy, publish it and let's get testing.


Christina Kellman is an Interactive Media Manager in Orange County, CA. In addition to her active role with the agency, she is in the midst of obtaining her master’s degree in Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University’s Medill School. Want to Follow her on Twitter?

Pinterest's New Business Pages Befriend Brands

Boards, pins, likes, repins—what does all of this Pinterest jargon have to do with building your client's brand? As a chief brand strategist, you must learn this social media startup's lingo. Pinners are your brand's new evangelists, driving more traffic to your website, stimulating engagement through comments, pins and repins and influencing trends. With Pinterest's launch of business pages on November 13, brands with an aspirational, visual content focus that want to speak to a female audience now have another way to engage consumers. As a Medill IMC graduate student at Northwestern University, I have experience crafting social media best practices for brands and as an avid pinner who follows her favorite brands on Pinterest, I have firsthand experience with the platform.

Image source: Curalate Insights

With a 56% increase in unique visitors year over year (TechCrunch.com) and with 11.7 million members as of May 2012 (MediaBistro.com), Pinterest is becoming increasingly influential. Once considered a mere virtual scrapbooking pastime for housewives, today Pinterest is an optimal platform for brands to engage with consumers. An Advertising Age article published earlier this month underscores the importance of brands establishing an identity on Pinterest, especially given the launch of business pages. Brands that were early adopters of Pinterest have already realized the strong correlation between browsing pins on Pinterest and subsequent online purchases. For example, early adopter Real Simple (the magazine with the most followers on Pinterest—over 100,000), regularly experiences surges in referral traffic to its website and bumps in subscription rates because of the popularity of its Pinterest boards. Its "New Uses for Old Things" board, which illustrates how ordinary household items can be used in novel ways, has over 166,000 followers. One of the board’s most popular pins, a Heinz ketchup bottle repurposed as a pancake batter pourer, generated 390,000 impressions and 4,260 repins. With the advent of Pinterest's business pages and its introduction of two widgets that allow brands to embed pins and boards on third-party sites, brands' potential for reaching consumers across platforms through sharing is amplified.

Allrecipes, the world's largest digital food brand, has experienced the power of pinners to evangelize content and to grow its online food community. A recently published Pinterest case study about Allrecipes demonstrates how Pinterest, when used by brands alongside other channels, including the brand's website and email marketing, creates a seamless experience across touch points and deeper engagement with the brand community. By adding "Pin It" buttons to its website, Allrecipes experienced more sharing of its content and extended the reach of its brand. For instance, Allrecipes redesigned its website during last year's holiday season to include the "Pin It" button above the fold and alongside videos and photos of food, making it easier for people to share content. The results were unprecedented: within three months, more than 50,000 recipes were pinned to its boards, creating 139 million Pinterest impressions and increasing clicks on Allrecipes' Pinterest content by more than 900%. Featuring strong Pinterest calls to action in its email marketing, including "Give it a Re-Pin," to its 6 million subscribers generated a fourfold increase in clicks to Allrecipes' website from Pinterest and a threefold increase in likes and repins. Further, Allrecipes identified key social media influencers—the Allrecipes Allstars—to create and share content on Pinterest, thus growing the passion community organically.

As a chief brand strategist, here are three ways you can advise your agency clients to best leverage their business pages on Pinterest:

1.  Create inspiring content. See Pinterest's platform as a way to further engage your brand's intended audience through captivating visuals and through presenting a specific topic your followers care about. For example, the holidays are a perfect time for retailers to create boards about seasonal trends and gift ideas. Follow Nordstrom’s Pinterest lead in terms of seasonal fashion trends with sales and aspirational visuals.

2. Share your brand’s core values. Express what the brand stands for through boards and pins. That is, what does the business care about? Whole Foods exemplifies communicating its mission of sustainability through its boards on DIY (Do-It-Yourself) projects and volunteering efforts.

3. Build a community. Use Pinterest to get feedback from pins and generate consumer insights. Listen to customers to learn what they want from the brand and keep their recommendations in mind when planning future products and services. Utilize Pinterest to identify brand evangelists who will be inspired by your content and who will share it accordingly, thereby strengthening ties to the community and helping to expand it. Brands such as Z Gallerie host “pinning parties” for pinners to collaborate on boards, creating opportunities for followers to create their own content and to further engage with the brand.

With the introduction of business pages, Pinterest is laying the foundation for an increasingly brand-friendly platform. Social media industry analysts believe that this launch foreshadows the release of Pinterest tools with greater data and insight-generating capabilities for businesses. Pinterest is moving away from a purely editorial model to a more commercial one that brands should embrace to extend reach and drive engagement. Brands, welcome to the new social media trifecta of tweets, likes and pins.

Maegan C. Paniewski is an IMC graduate student at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications where she is pursuing a concentration in Brand and Advertising Strategy. She is an experienced creative director and photographer and enjoys running and practicing yoga. Connect with her on Twitter @mlotusdesign and LinkedIn.

What Chief Content Creators can learn from TV Development

Creating captivating content for a brand isn't as hard as it looks - just flip on your television sets and watch some factual programming. As a television development manager, I've always found that what's true is what rates, and brands can use this knowledge to leverage compelling content for all their channels. By putting aside traditional marketing scripts and finding the truth behind your brand, content will drive value.

In a recent Fast Company article, “How Chief Content Officers Can Resurrect Marketing Communications, the idea of creating “not boring” content was hailed as a revolutionary idea. As with most flashy new buzzwords in marketing, the article focused a lot on the “why” and very little on the enigma that is the “how-to.” So, if you’re one of those C-suites that they were talking about in the article and are still scratching your head – I’m here to fill in the gaps.

As a television and film development manager I have often found myself on corporate websites/social media for products and brands thinking how they missed the mark with corny or cliché content yet again. To better understand content creation and how to apply this mindset, the basic tenants of my own job should be explained; it’s one part journalist, one part subculture interloper, and one major part storyteller. If you can encourage those on your content team to think in this mindset, you will captivate your audience.

• Journalist: Scripted is unbearable if done badly, and that happens more often than not. If there is an opportunity for your company/brand to tell a real story with real characters and real drama, conflict, and story arc, tell that story! The kind of content that touches the most emotional side of an audience does not come with airbrushing and professional lighting.

• Subculture Interloper: I’m not talking tattoos and anarchists – what I mean is the sub-communities and pre-existing cultures that are worth exploring. Your team can find these by exercising a healthy sense of curiosity, meeting as many new and different people as possible, and even asking friends and family about their lives. Content about subculture isn’t limiting the audience to that particular group – quite the opposite, the most powerful content transcends demographics, and can speak to any viewer.

• Storyteller: At the end of the day, you have to remember your content is only as powerful as the story behind it. This content shouldn’t sell the consumer on a product; it should act as a conduit that pushes a consumer into a mindset, whether that’s inspired or infuriated - that is up to you as the storyteller to convey. Once you’ve primed your customer, bring in the marketing side and give them a way to take action based on that story.

Don’t just try to be “not boring,” try to be authentic, true, and daring in your content. Don’t hire just marketing professionals, look to journalists, writers, and film people to add to your mix. If you follow those steps, real content can turn into real business. 

Meghan Cassin is a part-time graduate student pursuing a M.S. in Integrated Marketing & Communications  at Northwestern University. Meghan began her career in television development for National Geographic Channel and is currently at Siskel/Jacobs Productions.

Follow Meghan on Twitter or LinkedIn

Harness the Power of People for Fitness Marketing

By: Mike Logan

If you’re not familiar with Tough Mudder, you should know that it’s marketed as “Probably the Toughest Event on the Planet.” Each race features a 10-12 mile obstacle course riddled with obstacles designed by British Special Ops.  Who in the hell would want to do that? Before coming to Northwestern to pursue my degree in IMC, I participated in the 3^rd ever Tough Mudder. Afterward, my eyes were sunken, my whole body hurt, and all I wanted to do was… run it again. And it seems I’m not alone in my enthusiasm for the event.  According to a recent article, 500,000 participants are expected in 2012 (3.5x that of 2011). How did they do it? The power of community.

Tough Mudder stresses the importance of camaraderie at each of their events; moreover, most participants are first-timers and people who’re only casually into fitness. By providing these people with communication infrastructure like the ‘Mudder Nation’ (currently 23,000+ members) and Tough Mudder-themed fitness classes in 24-Hour Fitness gyms, they remove a number of barriers-to-entry.

• “Am I fit enough to finish?” Sure you are! Here are the workout plans people have used to get ready!

• “What if it’s too hard?” It’s supposed to be hard. And guess what? Everybody else around you will help you. It’s the Mudder Way.

• “I don’t know, I’m pretty shy…” Even better. Tell your friends and sign up as a team.

Tough Mudder even provides those who’ve finished their race with a way to connect on LinkedIn through the ‘Tough Mudder Alumni’ group, ensuring that their brand enthusiasts spread the word through their professional networks.

What does this mean for your fitness event? I can’t promise you that you’ll enjoy the success of Tough Mudder. But you can learn from their success and adapt their model by taking these fundamental steps towards building your own brand/fitness community.

• Partnerships: Even local events like triathlons and 5ks can partner with nearby gyms to hold classes that you’ve developed to be geared towards the event. This symbiotic partnership will get business both for your event and the gyms & fitness centers where you hold events.

• Communities: As an event organizer, you should become a contributing member of other fitness communities before forming your own. This means: go to r/fitness boards of reddit.com, go to MudderNation, and become an active and valuable contributor. Post your personal experience with supplements, training programs, and other events. Trying to brute-force your way into these communities simply will not work.

• Tap Fitness Bloggers, or Become One: Seeing is believing. People want to know that a product or service will work before they use it. Demonstrate how your fitness plan/supplementation will benefit them by posting weekly results, transformations, and fitness milestones. Digital word-of-mouth will spread amongst your target communities like wildfire. Just look at P90x.

I may be in a marketing program aimed at understanding the consumer, but none of this is revolutionary thinking. If you haven’t taken one or all of the steps listed above, you’ve been missing out on a fully fleshed out customer-base. Remedy the problem as soon as possible. Don’t be a loser, be a Mudder.

Follow me for more: @MikeAKAMaverick on Twitter

Or Connect with me on LinkedIn at: http://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeplogan