
Where Do Brand And Omnichannel Deployment Intersect?
Today’s pace of change is causing many CMOs to struggle in the design of compelling customer interactions. As consumers demand more and more engaging omnichannel experiences, CMOs must add another arrow to their marketing quiver — the ability to deploy multiple and compelling channel-native experiences. While we’ve been creating digital channels for quite some time, […]

Event Report: Glassdoor Employer Branding Summit
Employer Branding Comes of Age On September 12th, Glassdoor kicked off its Employer Branding Summit in San Francisco at the Hotel Nikko. Social recruiting, employer branding, and talent acquisition pros gathered to hear how branding impacts the recruiting landscape. Robert Hohman, CEO of Glassdoor welcomed the audience to set the stage (see Figure 1). […]

A Social Branding Moment
A little while ago I wrote about New Coke and the time in the 1980’s when Coca-Cola tried to change its formula (without much prompting from customers). As you may recall, especially if you were alive and drinking the stuff at the time, the customers didn’t much like it. They were miffed about the new […]

The Rise of Social Media Advocacy
A funny thing happening on the way towards widespread adoption of social media marketing: The use of global social networks as traditional publishing — and hence brand marketing — platforms was rightly perceived as a fairly limited way to connect with and gain the trusted, meaningful engagement of customers and prospects. By now, everyone has […]
Ethnography & The Customer: Building a Compelling Brand
This post is dedicated to Molly Miller, my soon to be former VP of Customer Discovery & Innovation, whose passion for uncovering the needs of customers and developing innovations that meet those needs is unmatched. For those of you that don’t know what ethnography is, its the act of immersing yourself in the customer’s context […]

Tuesday’s Tip: Apply Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs To C-Level Business Strategy
Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs Provides Prioritization Of An Individual’s Needs In 1943, Abraham Maslow put forward his paper A Theory of Human Motivation. Eleven years later in 1954, Maslow went into detail on his hierarchy of needs in his book titled Motivation and Personality. The framework outlined five needs from the most fundamental or “deficiency […]

Brands in Google Plus
Google+ has captured the imagination of marketers. So much imagination that Google responded early saying Plus for Businesses is on the way: “Right now we’re very much focused on optimizing for the consumer experience, but we have a great team…

Video: Influencers to Brand Advocates
This week I was invited to participate in a panel hosted as a live event by BrightTalk and sponsored by Think Influence to discuss influence. I was joined on the panel by Don Bulmer, VP of Global Communications at SAP…

Buying Influence
Read this and found it really provocative. Despite this data, many marketers are on a seemingly relentless quest to beef up their own social network profiles and reach users with lots of friends and followers. In the Vocus-Solis study, 57% of respondents said they’d be willing to pay for an influencer to help them “drive […]