April 18, 2010

Zeitgeists are not markets

Johnnie Moore

I’m Johnnie Moore, and I help people work better together

Nice quote from Lao Tzu

The highest type of ruler is one of whose existence the people are barely aware. Next comes one whom they love and praise. Next comes one whom they fear. Next comes one whom they despise and defy.

It comes from Anne McCrossan’s post The Price of Zeitgeist.

Anne reviews a book called Brand Zeitgeist, Embedding Brand Relationships into the Collective Consciousness. It’s hard to beat that title for hubris and ugliness, though it represents how many old fashioned marketers seem to see the networked world – just another way to peddle their wares. Anne’s a tad kinder than I am but I think gets to the same point.

Waterfalls and chaos

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.

Unhurried marketing

I’m experimenting with marketing less and listening more

Passion branding

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.

Medinge Moments

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

The volatile chemistry of trust

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!

Customer-centricity: is it the answer?

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?

What brand are you?

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

Just Undo It?

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

Putting humanity into branding

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

New Abbey

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”)

More Updates

Lessons from “The Logic of Failure”

Fascinating insights into the patterns of failure

20 April 2018

Emotional debt

Releasing the hidden costs of pent up frustrations

30 June 2017

Aliveness

Finding the aliveness below the surface of stuck

3 November 2016

They’ve seen it before…

Don’t get attached to your favourite process

24 September 2016

Keeping it simple

The virtues of stripping back your processes

31 May 2016

In a network, in a mess, or in a mesh?

Sometimes it’s ok to stay confused and entangled

1 May 2016

Dog vs Man

I enjoyed this interactive exercise in comparative anatomy from fellow improviser Chris Yukna. Unfortunately our researchers have not completed their investigation of male of the human species. We thought with

17 September 2004

Kindred spirits

Last week I met Matt Moore visiting from Australia. I didn’t know Matt at all but he introduced himself as a reader of my blog (obviously an endangered species) and

14 November 2006

No more heroes any more

Ok, a small additional riff on the theme of my earlier post. Katherine Stone wrote an interesting response giving some examples of personal experiences and stories having more power than

18 March 2005

Our Social World

Hugh talks about why people aren’t flocking to Our Social World. I agree with him that (to quote the Open Space mantra) the people who come are the right people.

Zeitgeists are not markets

Johnnie Moore

Share Post

More Posts

More Updates