Umair at bubblespace draws attention to the success of MakeUpAlley. Here’s a nice irony: a site about cosmetics that looks pretty scruffy but is hugely effective – because it provides a simple way for its participants to connect about something they’re passionate about.
Umair sees big lessons here for VCs and geeks and I see big lessons for marketing. What a stunning example of the declining value of pretty packaging and making yourself look good, in favour of helping your users look good.
I linked to this paper on wicked problems the other day and Chris Corrigan commented “there’s a lot in that paper eh?”. Which is true.
I’m experimenting with marketing less and listening more
Passion brands bring people together based on common interests and excitements. I’m particularly interested in ones created from the bottom up, as opposed to driven by producers concerned mainly with profit.
Just back from another extraordinary gathering at Medinge where the community that has produced Beyond Branding meets each summer. I was planning to keep this
Interesting research from Stanford suggests that exciting brands get more trusted after making mistakes and putting them right whilst more “sincere” brands start with more trust but lose it more easily. Perhaps the sensible interpretation is that second-guessing customers can be a waste of time!
Michael Hammer’s new book, The Agenda, is about the rise of customer power. But is customer-centricity really such a good model for business and society?
Thanks to Matt Tucker at Smith Associates for telling me about What Brand Are You. It strikes me that lots of companies waste money on
We live in a world of too much marketing and too much branding. People’s faith in advertising has fallen to new lows as we simply
So the Abbey National is rebranding itself this morning. As I write this entry, they are revealing their new look, their shortened name (just “Abbey”)
The AntiBrand: blackSpot sneakers, a project by Adbusters attacks Nike directly. In doing so they take on what has become one of the great icons
Viv had an old fashioned afternoon tea filled with gossip. And reflects: It was a different world in the days when this sort of afternoon tea was more common. No-one
Gavin Heaton has some good ideas about what works and doesn’t in social media. This one definitely resonates for me. Nervous – Does your content make you nervous? Do you
Alan Mitchell reviews Kevin Roberts’ Lovemarks pitch: In other words, the role of the marketer is to ‘drive’ people to ‘love’ you so much that they no longer use their
Danny at Adpulp pointed me to Adweek’s coverage of O&M Execs accused of fraud on the US Government’s anti-drug account. Danny comments Anyone looking for a revealing look at the
