Campbell on Branding and Innovation

A Few Interesting Articles

Doing some reading over the past week or so, I came across a few interesting articles I thought I'd share:

In an earlier post on ad agencies as commodities, I mentioned some examples of good/new/different/game-changing/relevant agencies, including Anomaly. Ad Age has a nice write-up of what they're doing well including, most importantly in my opinion, addressing compensation and working on innovation of offerings not communication about offerings.

Spending less on TV, more on worthwhile areas such as interactive, experiences, etc. And make sure and short the stocks of those media giants.

Building off my last post, more on Obama's marketing. Brands that are dynamic and relevant to their audiences generate this kind of work.

Chris Anderson, Wired editor and Long Tail author, on Free and Abundance. Anderson spoke at the Design Strategy Conference last year and previewed this book topic. Smart stuff. And you can get the issue for free.

I was excited to see Lara Lee, former Vice President, Enthusiast Services at Harley-Davidson, with a Business Week article regarding the danger of over-promising on the power of design thinking, lest it come back to haunt you when the economy is down.

Kluster.com - a fantastic concept! Why didn't I do this? (don't answer that) This is sweet and potentially super huge. Any chance they need someone to help integrate innovation frameworks to provide some structure and direction?

And building off my Linkages post, this Business Week article gives me hope that Motorola sticks with mobile phones in spite of themselves.

I hope you enjoy. If it seems like people are getting value out of these types of roundups, I'll post more as I come across good pieces since I'm always reading and harvesting information from all over.

Wanna see a great example of an integrated digital campaign?

You can receive text updates and reminders straight to your cell phone.
You can follow along on Twitter.
You can become a friend on Facebook and MySpace.
It’s hard to avoid the banner ads on sites and blogs.
You can view remix videos on YouTube from rabid fans and celebrities alike.
You can check out photos shared on Flickr.
Sign up on the web site and receive relevant, timely permission-based e-mails.
Hundreds of thousands of online transactions are taking place on the web site.
Even a profile on LinkedIn.

A profile on LinkedIn?

Okay, that tactic may not fit for a packaged goods brand. That’s because the campaign is Barack Obama’s. And, regardless of political leanings, this is one of the finest examples of a coordinated, integrated online marketing campaign I’ve ever seen, having followed politics avidly for years and been involved in the online space for just a little less time.

It’s possible to look back to 2004 and Howard Dean to see the beginnings of this type of campaign with his emphasis on online donations, his strategy of using MeetUp and so on. But this is at a different level, which I suppose shouldn’t be shocking in 2008 except that it is so far beyond anything any candidate has ever done or any competing candidate is doing.

Here is an article and a column that speak to some of the tactics. Permission marketing. Interactive marketing. Together they’re incredibly powerful. To paraphrase from a speech, if politicians can set this up from scratch in less than a year then your brand can do this as well. Yes you can.