Yesterday I was sent an email from The Economist through their social communication agency We Are Social. The mail presented their latest campaign – Thinking Spaces. A campaign presenting a number of opinion leaders and their ‘Thinking Spaces’. One part of the campaign contains a social component where they’re asking bloggers to contribute with our own stories alongside those of the leading personalities already featured like movie director Claudia Llosa, musician Jamie Lidell and Spotify founder Daniel Ek among others.
The campaign piss me off cause they’re asking me to contribute with quite a lot of content and traffic generation without really giving anything back. On top of that it’s clear that Spotify is featured for more than one reason as there’s obviously a hidden marketing component where I’m asked for my favorite Spotify playlist. (I would know since I’m running a Spotify playlist site on the side)
Dear Economist, let me tell you a little bit about me and MY thinking space.
This is MY thinking space.
If you would have respected my thinking space you would have started this campaign entirely different. I don’t get [click to continue…]
Domino’s Pizza has gotten themselves into a lot of trouble thanks to one of their employees. What’s interesting is the fact that they’ve ended up there even though they’ve done their homework on online presence. What’s lacking is obviously enough brand fans.
ReadWriteWeb reports on a video broadcast by two of Domino’s employees. The video that among other things, features an employee who farts and sneezes on a sandwich, was viewed over 500,000 times. RWW writes that Domino’s were quite fast to publish the response (below) to the video where they of course are explaining how something like this could happen – but is it enough?
This is only the beginning. As technology becomes easier to use brands will face industrial sabotage like this every week. The problem tomorrow or obviously already today is the fact that one single employee or competitor for that sake can do a lot of harm…A LOT OF HARM.
In order for companies to stand future attacks, brand communication becomes more important than ever since it’s the only protection they’ll have once something like this happens. Brand communication is the one thing that turns us into loyal and long term brand fans and therefore also gatekeepers.
Brand fans = drones. (Star Wars rock’s, doesn’t it?)
Imagine if Domino’s Pizza would have had a couple of million brand fans only waiting to be called into war. The fans would have killed the employee video with comments and created related videos. Once the official response above was published fans would instantly have created a viral spread of the video. Blogs would have been swarmed and Microblogs would have been buzzed until nothing stood in Domino’s way…
If you’re a brand owner. Start thinking. What can your brand really do for your customers. What can you give away. How can you make your brand fans loyal. And how can you gather their contact details so that you can direct them straight into the war zone? Start building walls, tanks, guns, jet fighters and everything you can think of. Then get your brand fans into training cause when the shit hits the fan you’ll be to close to the front and recruiting new soldiers will be the last thing on your mind.
ps. Just to clear things up. I’m a drone in many cases
This morning I read this survey on ‘Trends and Best Practices in Adopting Web 2.0 in 2008’ made by Awareness, a US based research company. The report explores the adoption of Web 2.0 technologies and the future of social media initiatives for Enterprises in 2008.
Of course it contains a bunch of interesting stuff (read more about that on RWW where I found it) but I’ll focus on one thing that I think is typical for companies today.
In the report I read that blogs are on top of the list when companies tell us what external-facing Web 2.0 technologies they plan to implement in 2008. Photo sharing, wikis and podcasts get the bottom score.
When it comes to Web 2.0 and social media, to me this is typical. [click to continue…]
The mission is basic and simple. I was picked as one of Per’s favorite blogs. And therefore I should tell the world about my 7 favorite reads. So here we go. (oh, before we start, Mine goes to eleven is one of them, but I’ll list another 7.)
I basically start everyday with logging into my Netvibes account. I read about 70 feeds a day to keep myself updated on everything that has something to do with innovation, digital communication, social marketing, typography, design, inventions, research, datamining, softwares etc etc etc.
But if I’m stressed for time. These 7 blogs would never escape my eye.
ReadWriteWeb – It’s The ONE source if you wanna keep track of what’s up in the digital world.
SwissMiss - Tina Roth Eisenberg from the beautiful little country in the Alps delivers insights into the world of design and creativity
FFFFound – I like images. They start things up in my head.
ronnestam.com was voted Sweden’s first blog on Innovation, future trends and digital communication. It’s written by Johan Ronnestam. He's widely regarded as one of Sweden’s leading speakers and authorities in the field of modern creative and conceptual thinking and skill of innovating brands and their communication.
