avin narasimhan

often rambling, but hopefully always interesting

Posts tagged brands

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#newpresentation: Brands And Digital Culture— It Doesn’t Have To Suck

Presentation_full_of_shit
In late February, I was invited out to the Olin School of Business @ Washington University in St Louis to speak at a new marketing seminar series they’ve just started this school year.


(Full disclosure, the professor in question who invited me is my father, and I’m still not sure if I deserved the privilege on my own merits. But was glad to get the chance to meet and speak with some future clients).

Basically, the seminar series is designed to bring more industry people into the classroom, and provide lessons of both success and failure for MBA students. Sessions so far have ranged from how to develop brand strategy, to how to manage agency-client relationships. Specifically the session I was asked to speak at revolved around what role digital platforms can play for brands. Obviously something I’m kind of interested in, but I have to admit I am always more nervous to speak in front of students than I am in front of executives.

Anyway, I tried to approach the session by providing a few broad principles/guidelines/themes based on stuff I’ve learned and done, stuff others have done, stuff I’ve shamelessly stolen from people far smarter than me (though I tried to credit you when I did, please don’t hate me if I missed something). I originally planned to talk about 5 such themes, but the night before I called an audible and cut it to 3 due to time constraints. But, I’ve included all 5 in the deck below should you be curious. Don’t think any of it is revolutionary, but more so I hoped to give the class some ideas they could act on in the near future when they get the chance to put class lessons to action in internships or full-time jobs. And so, with that long-winded introduction…would love to hear any thoughts/feedback/comments/criticism/insults/etc.

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Filed under adagency branding brands digitalculture digitalstrategy socialweb technology

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Pre-Holiday Reading: Most Contagious 2010

The latest installment of Contagious Magazine’s ‘Most Contagious’ is out, and always is full of inspiring ideas and work. Particularly enjoyed section 08 on Gaming, and not surprisingly, Angry Birds gets its fair share of time (hate it or love it, it’s hard to deny that it’s taken hold of an unhealthy amount of many people’s time).

Full pres is worth a few minutes of your time, and definitely one to keep on hand for quick reference.

via slideshare.net

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Filed under accountplanning branding brands brandstrategy contagious contagiousmagazine digitalculture innovation mostcontagious2010 technology trends whatsnext

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Pre-Holiday Reading: Most Contagious 2010

The latest installment of Contagious Magazine’s ‘Most Contagious’ is out, and always is full of inspiring ideas and work. Particularly enjoyed section 08 on Gaming, and not surprisingly, Angry Birds gets its fair share of time (hate it or love it, it’s hard to deny that it’s taken hold of an unhealthy amount of many people’s time).

Full pres is worth a few minutes of your time, and definitely one to keep on hand for quick reference.

via slideshare.net

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Filed under accountplanning branding brands brandstrategy contagious contagiousmagazine digitalculture innovation mostcontagious2010 technology trends whatsnext

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#greatpresentationsof2010: Starbucks On Social Strategy

This deck (and video of the keynote, included below) have been making the rounds over the past few days, but thought it was worth sharing here as well (and a semi-decent way to break a new business induced post drought, I suppose). Concise and to the point, but probably the most important idea to me comes on slide 10:

Social fits within a larger digital, and integrated strategy

Simple and intuitive as that seems, to me that is a point that is so often missed and/or forgotten. I think far too often it seems people are still looking for some kind of ‘social media silver bullet’, planned for (or rather, not really planned for) in a silo outside of larger brand strategy. Great to see a brand like Starbucks giving a simple reminder that without a more holistic approach, in which all aspects of the business are aligned around a common point of view and purpose in the world, success isn’t likely to follow. Worth 20 or so minutes of your time to watch the actual presentation as well.

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Filed under accountplanning branding brands brandstrategy coffeeculture community creativity innovation socialstrategy starbucks strategy whatsnext

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Comedic Genius: Mel Gibson vs Old Spice Man

This has to be one of the best mashups I’ve seen in a long time. From the talented people at smallpoppy, very well done and the timing is brilliant.

Good thing is they had plenty of material to choose from, not just Gibson’s rants but also from the 180+ videos coming out of the brilliant Old Spice responses idea. Parodies often tear down a brand but in this case Old Spice can be happy they’re the hero while Gibson takes the heat (as he should). Enjoy.

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Filed under branding brands coffeeculture collegehumor community creativity immaturity mashupculture melgibsonracism oldspice socialweb whatsnext

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Genius: Old Spice Even Responds To Removed Comments

We’ve all been hearing and talking about the brilliance of Old Spice’s latest effort today, so I’ll try not to add to much to the echo chamber right now. But I just caught this vid that I think says a lot— taking the time to make a personal response even to a comment that was removed? Priceless.

Job very well done to all involved, though clearly you already knew that. Amazing.

via youtube.com

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Filed under branding brands community creativity innovation oldspice onlinevideo socialweb twitter wiedenkennedy wk youtube

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iPhone Fan vs PhoneMart Employee

via sethgray.posterous.com

Another hilarious production made possible by xtranormal. This is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a while, and absolutely worth reposting. As much as I fall into Apple fanboy mentality sometimes, stuff like this is a good reminder to shake you back to reality of how annoying it can be to those who don’t buy into the madness (for more on that, see The Onion’s brilliant ‘Apple Friend Bar’).

And, the fact that this scenario probably isn’t too far from the truth in many situations is an amazing reminder of just how much people buy into this brand.

For better or worse.

Enjoy.

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Filed under android apple branding brands collegehumor google htc immaturity iphone mobile parody wtf? xtranormal

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Snapple’s Biggest Lunch Table Tour

Caught this just outside the Prudential Center this afternoon while running out for a quick moment of sunshine. Wasn’t sure if it was a big effort happening elsewhere, and google didn’t reveal much other than Snapple’s own FB status letting Bean residents know it was coming and a few twitpics from people who’ve seen it too. While it wasn’t packed, however, I was surprised at the lack of info about it:

Seems like the right idea for them as a brand. Fun way to bring a little bit of happiness into someone’s day that they otherwise wouldn’t have had the chance to enjoy. Not unlike what, in theory, a Snapple contributes to your life as a whole. Unless I’m completely missing the point, seems like an opportunity that could’ve been so much more. Maybe there’s more to come, so I suppose I’ll just have to wait and see

Anyone else seen this Lunch Table Tour in your own city? Thoughts on what Snapple is trying to do? Very curious to know more than I’ve seen so far.


 

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Filed under brandexperience branding brands community culture prudentialcenter snapple socialweb whatsnext

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How Not To Suck At Banner Ads— Uniqlo Breaks It Down

via mediabistro.com

Just the latest in a string of awesomeness from Uniqlo. It’s not often that banner ads do something other than clutter up and derail user experience on your site. While you could argue even this example is still a bit noisy, can’t argue the fact that it appears to have worked, and clearly added to rather than taking away from site experience.

Nice example of rethinking an experience that many people have written off. And showing that an idea doesn’t always have to be overproduced or epically done to be successful.

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Filed under bannerads branding brands creativity design digitalculture innovation uniqlo userexperience whatsnext