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The hero of the modern brand story is no longer the brand
Email and social marketing, Key to communities, Marketing and branding, Storytelling and marketing
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Before I went on my digression about Steve Jobs and his untimely passing, I was writing a series of entries featuring Dunkin’ Donuts and their innovative use of e-marketing promotions. Let’s look at some of the lessons we can learn from this company’s use of social media. Branding is changing in some fundamental ways: Brands no longer shape people’s ideas. The days when companies could tell end users what to believe through creative TV ads are long gone. Increasingly, modern consumers are influenced by the comments of Facebook friends, by blogs or by online chatter, far more than by any messages they might be hearing from companies. More and more … Continue reading
Fan engagement at Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts
John's reflections, Key to communities, Marketing and branding, Storytelling, Storytelling and marketing
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In the previous post, I wrote that Dunkin’ Donuts seems to do better than Starbucks at engaging their fan community. Let’s look at why. As a regular visitor to Starbuck’s Facebook page, and a subscriber to their emails, I am often puzzled by the lack of storytelling in their communication. If there is a company with some good stories to tell and an impressive following of loyal customers who could write about their in-store experiences, it would certainly be Starbucks. So, I sometimes wonder: Are they still living mostly in the old world of marketing, the world of one-way messages to their fans? Much like IKEA, Starbucks seems to have … Continue reading
IKEA and authentic storytelling: Are they missing a great opportunity?
After last week’s blog entry, I got a bit curious about IKEA and went looking for further information. In particular, I wanted to see how good they are at storytelling. Much of the information I found is from sweden.se, the gateway site to Sweden. According to this site, IKEA’s catalog has become something of a style Bible for people all over the world. And, the Bible analogy is perhaps a good one. In 2008, the catalog had a print run of 175 million copies, in 27 languages and 35 countries, giving it the highest circulation of any publication worldwide—surpassing the Bible. The British design magazine Icon has called IKEA “the … Continue reading
Leadership and branding: The importance of personalization
“The great question of leadership, about taking real steps on the pilgrim’s path, is the great question of any individual life: how to make everything more personal.” –David Whyte, Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity David Whyte’s observation about leadership echoes one of my most frequent pieces of advice to clients about improving their communication: Make it more personal. Excellent leaders understand that the most meaningful communication happens when we reveal ourselves in personal ways. We show our passion and enthusiasm through the personal stories we tell; it is through these personal stories that we make deep, emotional connections with our audience. My coaching experience has … Continue reading
