01

Jun

Case Study: the Burberry brand

With the launch of The Art of the trench, Burberry certainly became the first truly digital luxury brand. The first luxury brand to really understand and adopt digital behaviours to conceive and support its brand online communications. There are many reasons why it became a clear success and digital is certainly one piece of a bigger picture.

However, I’d like to share some thoughts with you on what they’ve done rights and where they might go. All comments are welcomed!

View the presentation on Slideshare:

Burberry

 

268 days ago Short URL Comments

Digital Planning/English/I like/Luxury/Social media

29

Apr

Digital highness

This is an historical moment we’re living and a truly inspirational moment for all of us preaching for digital. As The King Speech demonstrated so perfectly, the British Monarchy as always been leading the adoption of technologies.

What’s impressive is how well they’ve understood how to use technology in order to federate a Nation, in order to help people to gather and live moments of history. Yes, Barack Obama did great for the last election but with today’s Royal Wedding, the bar just been raised.

One of the greatest lesson as us working in the communication industry is that you CAN control the message online, you CAN influence what’s being said and shared online, you CAN have a strong branding online. How is this possible in this area where millions are creating content? By OVERLOADING people with content, by being genuinely GENEROUS and CONNECTED.

For the last couple of days, the British Monarchy has kept the string of information and content high and intense so they became the #1 destination for Royal Wedding information. And it delivered. The D day, all searches would lead you to their own sources and in the a day where media don’t have budget they are plugging into the content provided by the “brand”.

… Inspiring isn’t it? Congrats to newly married couple, shame we won’t have cameras to see the dancing part of the day :)
———– Update——-
Oh! And they clearly get what it takes to create a “viral”: http://twitpic.com/4r3mes
Oh… And of course, the iTunes list

301 days ago Short URL Comments

English/I like/Neat ideas

11

Apr

The (R)evolution of strategic planning

Strategic planning

Credits: fred...66 @FlickR

It keeps surprising me the “traditional” agency vision on planning. Even though the media landscape is changing, consumers’ habits are changing but planning should stay as is: finding an insight an creating a message our of it. It really questions me why so many smart people hesitate to question and evolve the way they see the role of planning.

It seems to me that planning is the area where you have that luxury to find the best solution what ever the solution is without being attached to any particular mean, media or technology. This is the area of possible.

Why not evolving the art of planning and revise the way we see traditional planning to make it more relevant to how people live today. And yes. That means digital, mobile and social media are a big part of it. But considering these as new tools in your palette shouldn’t be seen as a limitation. That’s the exact opposite.

I truly believe that insights are still really relevant but they need to be evolved in order to match a more digital notion which is the concept of user’s needs.

At the end of the day the better you understand the needs of your market, the better you can:
- emotionally connect
- be remembered
- generate word-of-mouth

… and ultimately, grow your business, don’t you think?

319 days ago Short URL Comments

Connection marketing/Digital Planning/English

08

Apr

Rencontrons-nous !

Pour celles et ceux qui sont intéressées, je vous invite à deux événements la semaine prochaine:

  1. Mardi 12 Avril, 10èmeINTRACOM Montréal au Hyatt Regency Montréal à 16h20. Présentation “Je connecte donc je suis” Lancé il y a tout juste 20 ans, le web est aujourd’hui une réalité incontournable qui impacte l’ensemble de la société. Nos comportements, notre façon de communiquer, de travailler… L’impact est important et l’entreprise est souvent en mode de réaction. Les réseaux sociaux, le web 2.0, votre site web… Comment implémenter ses outils dans l’entreprise ?
  2. Jeudi 14 avril à 14hrs au Centre Mont-Royal,  RDV Infopresse, je participe au panel « Monitoring sur les réseaux sociaux: les stratégies à privilégier ». Avec le développement du web et des réseaux sociaux, l’information n’a jamais autant circulé à propos des marques. Pour une entreprise, la présence sur le web apporte le risque de voir son image de marque malmenée en ligne. Grâce aux nombreux experts présents, vous apprendrez quelles sont les meilleures stratégies de monitoring à déployer dans différentes situations.

Au plaisir de vous y voir :)

 

 

322 days ago Short URL Comments

Uncategorized

02

Apr

From branded utility to meaningful utility (3/3)

Credits: BretBernhoft @ FlickR

I believe that branded utility is required to move to the next level and to move outside of being just utile. Every brand in a category could potentially bring the same utility to the market as an extension to its product. So the question is how could you express your brand positioning through a new utile experience that aligns with your brand DNA.

This very one thing you create is now also unique – and this might be strong enough to become your very own digital communication platform. Something strong enough to gather the attention of your own community of consumers-users (ie: Burberry – Art of the Trench). It becomes a value added to your brand – a social capital – something that creates a connection above the product itself. (ie iTunes for iPod back in the days).

How does this apply?
Facebook and social media: to turn your facebook fans into a truly engaged group of people, you need to offer them some branded utility platform that has a true meaning to them. As seen in the previous posts, this could be brought by technology through data collection and analysis for example.

In a nutshell:
A brand should insert itself meaningfully into people’s lives by enabling and enriching their existing behaviors, not by requiring new ones. This is the next generation of branded utility something that ties back to a brand DNA instead of being true to a product category.

328 days ago Short URL Comments

3 years from now/Connection marketing/English

30

Mar

Making invisible things visible (2/3)

This example below shows population centers in San Francisco filtered by a certain demographic.

If we take that thinking about technology and emotion a step further… There is something that technology allows – that no other medium allowed before. It’s its capacity to visualize things that people didn’t know before about themselves, or about a group of people or about a bigger trend. ie: fascinating Hans Rosling animations about population growth

The trendy “gamification” of things is a good example of how technology allows digital communications to bring something traditional media couldn’t offer between brands and people.

How could you plan your brand communications to allow for those “moment” with your consumers/users/people?

1. ADDING THE NOTION OF TIME.
When planning your communication strategy, you can consider when is the interaction happening with your brand.

  • Before you do something
  • After you did something
  • While you’re doing something

In all 3 situations, you generate a positive emotion by revealing to users something they weren’t aware of based on the action they’ve taken.

2. ADDING THE NOTION OF CONTEXT
You can plan for your message to be revealed when users:
1-   do something (running, talking, touching)
2-   join a group of people
3-   are in a particular venue (store or else)

In those 3 situations you can add the notion of mobility because the phone can help you track the activity, or connect you to your community or geo-localize where you are. You can also use the 3 at a time.

331 days ago Short URL Comments

Connection marketing/Engaging/English

28

Mar

Could technologies generate emotions? (1 of 3)

Credits: kylanicole @FlickR

Our world is getting more and more digitalized, our actions can now be linked to community of like-minded people or to online games. This gives us access to a new dimension for brands communication, an area that creates links between people via technologies. Digital allows the creation of a network of relationships made by mixing user’s behaviors and technologies.

For example:
- Foursquare allows me to know who is at my favorite bar on a Friday night, it also allows me to connect with them.
- Nike+ allows me to see what’s the 5km track people enjoy the most near my place.

I’m trying to think of how a brand could benefit from those new opportunities, and to me that comes back to finding: “how can I use a technology in order to trigger a human emotions?”. The kind of emotion a TV spot would product on my parents’ generation, an emotion that will leave a lasting impression to consumers. The type of lasting impression you need to build a brand in the digital area we’re living in.

Let’s sit down for one sec and see what emotions technologies could generate and how:

EMOTION HOW TECHNOLOGY COULD MAKE USERS FEEL IT
Wisdom & knowledge Integrate user’s data into a bigger scheme (Nike – the Grid).
Courage Give a voice to people (ie: BP, Nestlé, Gap Logo)
Humanity Allow people to get together, communicate and share (Facebook and social media).
Justice Equal access to everyone that has an Internet connection (WikiLeaks)
Temperance Allow people to learn more about their actions in order to lower their impact on society (Eco-Drive)
Transcendence Games (Got Milk, Stella Artois…) and other immersive experiences.

If you want to read more on positive emotions (go to CSV)

333 days ago Short URL Comments

Connection marketing/English

18

Mar

Why don’t we just reboot brand communications?

So that’s it: how can you create a campaign that no one did before? Isn’t it what we’re all looking for? Coming to a client with a solution that fits today’s reality when it comes to media fragmentation, social media… mobile. All those things that are required to capture consumers’ attention and support brands.

No, I don’t believe there is a magic recipe but I’d like to suggest you some basics ingredients. I’m into reading video game conception and movie narratives things in order to understand how do they achieve what would be ideal for our clients’ brands. Getting people to love and support you, getting consumers to advocate and come back to you and really own that share-of-heart.

3 components that must be considered:

  1. Time: why do we conceive campaigns or communication platforms that are restricted or contained to a time frame. What if we would conceive something that builds one over time – like if we were conceiving season 7 of Lost in year 1. What if you brand communications were planned this way?
  2. Places: why should our messages contained to a media space? What if our message could be contained in multiple places and be as relevant as it is when displayed on TV or magazine. What if your message could not be medium based.
  3. Users (aka people): what if your brand story could exist only if users create the next steps. Something that would grow only based on people’s actions?

Food for thoughts as they say… but personally, I think this would give a brand a kick-ass branding  effort!!


343 days ago Short URL Comments

Connection marketing/Digital Planning/Engaging/English

14

Mar

With no context…content is dead!

The unique thing the web brought to the media table is the capacity of linking things together. Using the Internet to broadcast content is cool but this is using the media as a traditional one. You actually don’t need the web to do so – it could be proprietary format – if you do so, you actually loose the potential of the web in terms of  interactions (engagement).

With no links and context, Internet is just another media

…And no interactions mean no reach. Because online, people decide to watch, read or play with your brand.

‘Content lives in context with the collaborative interactions around it’

- Clay Shirky

The magic of viral was to invert the audience flow – the audience finds and shares the content, instead of us taking it to them. The implication being that they are out still there somewhere, waiting.

- Faris Yakob

So how can you get your content to live online – I mean after launching it?

  1. Create a content that refers to (digital-interactive) behaviours (ie: OldSpice turned Youtube into a live video chat)
  2. Conceive an interactive content through gaming: ie: The Beast game, for the A.I movie that was solved by the Cloudmakers
  3. Get your content “endorsed” and spread by people with a high reach (a.k.a influencers or any media brand)
  4. Create something so unique and appealing that it has the appeal to create its own audiences, I love the Lady Gaga example Faris Yacob shares here
  5. Create a content that’s relevant to every user – through the use of personal data or individual behaviours data (like cookie-based ad serving) read previous post

In that sense, BMW Documentaries is a great example of content created for and by the people of the web.

“The films are designed to be non-linear, hypertextual. So you can explore additional pieces of content around the primary narrative, in real time, inside the video player, and then jump straight back into the primary narrative.”

In every situation, the foundation is to design an ecosystem for your content to live in and spread within, how? By leveraging the existing digital platforms that instantly connect you to “massive” number of people. Plus, it saves you production costs you could allocate to create a value added content that will deliver great results online because it will make sense only if broadcasted in an “interactive” media (web or mobile).

If your content can live outside of the web that means you missed something.

347 days ago Short URL Comments

Digital Planning/Engaging/English

10

Mar

Hey brand! Gimme some lifestyle

I had a great dinner with friends earlier this week, we had maybe too much of that but, we got all passionated about life, future and advertising. I took a picture of my napkin – I’ll try to explain what came to my mind as a big realization at this time.

With the facebookization (sorry Mark) people craft, adopt or simply expose a lifestyle through things they like, share, comment etc. And I was thinking that brands could play a bigger role in feeding that purpose.

Of course, there is the transfer between brand values and the end user, ie: CoKe is happiness, if I drink Coke I feel happy… But from a broader perspective… How can brand provide users with stories that will give them the impression that the brand initiated them to a better lifestyle?

351 days ago Short URL Comments

Connection marketing/English/Humanified brands

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