I posted the new ad from Microsoft last night as soon as it came across my YouTube filter. Like it or not, it's working. I just pulled this chart from Nielsen's BlogPulse site looking at the blog chatter between Microsoft and Apple.

Note that the only point where Microsoft passes Apple is yesterday's ad release. I think if you are Microsoft looking at the results from an ad that is solely created to create conversations, you have succeeded. How would you try to measure the value of the conversation online? What metrics or formulas have you seen?

The challenge for Microsoft and their agency is how they follow up in act two.

Make sure you weigh in on the ad by voting below:

Technorati Tags:
advertising, Matt Dickman, Microsoft, Techno//Marketer, Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Gates

When I talk to people about their visual branding they immediately think about their printed sales materials — business cards, letterhead and brochures.

Often the one branding item that is “out there” as the first touch is not even mentioned. The website. And another item that is one of the key selling tools isn’t thought about either: the sales PowerPoint.

I believe that there are four electronic headers that need to visually tie together for strong visual branding:

• Website Header
• PowerPoint Header
• E-Newsletter Header
• Blog Header

Each of these items shouldn’t be the same, but they need to incorporate elements of your branding — color, icon, logo. Each needs to have a consistency in use.

Take a minute today and look at your four electronic headers. Have they been playing on the same team? Or does it look like their uniforms were selected by different coaches?

Update, the contest is over. Voting can continue, but I took a screen grab of the votes when it expired and will be posting it in another blog post soon. You can still vote if you wish, it just won’t count.

Ok, it’s time to vote. Watch the video and look at the entries, and vote in the poll below for your favorite picture. The winners, who will be the top 5 vote getters, will each get a $100 Zappos.com certificate to buy anything they want on Zappos, even more mandals!

Yes, you can vote for yourself and you can encourage your friends to vote for you. I would!

Remember to follow @zappos on Twitter and join the Zappos affiliate program.

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Update, the contest is over. Voting can continue, but I took a screen grab of the votes when it expired and will be posting it in another blog post soon. You can still vote if you wish, it just won’t count.

Ok, it’s time to vote. Watch the video and look at the entries, and vote in the poll below for your favorite picture. The winners, who will be the top 5 vote getters, will each get a $100 Zappos.com certificate to buy anything they want on Zappos, even more mandals!

Yes, you can vote for yourself and you can encourage your friends to vote for you. I would!

Remember to follow @zappos on Twitter and join the Zappos affiliate program.

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I walked out of the HHgregg store disgusted. The salesman had just assured I’d never walk into that store ever again. How dumb. I’ll never shop at HHgregg again, ever.

I don’t care what discounts or coupons they may have in the future. One employee, with one horrible sales tactic and personality destroyed their brand for me. That’s how easy it is to do. Scary, huh? Remember, here I am now blogging about it to potentially millions of people, and I will tell my story to every single person I meet for the rest of my life. Bad word of mouth is not good for your brand.

For the full story, watch the video below. Suffice it to say, I have some harsh lessons for bad salespeople and for the brands that employ those people. This is why it’s so important to hire the right people, who understand your brand and who won’t work to destroy it.

Have you experienced bad sales teams? Have you written off entire brands because of people like this? I’d like to hear about it if so.

How do you measure Brand Awareness?  How can you find out how much awareness your target market has of your company’s brand?  Some people call this top of mind awareness.

There are 3 important steps.  First screen the people who are answer to make sure they are in your target market.  And you know which part of your target market. 

For example: If your target market is blog readers, you may want to segment your survey by geography, by activity (those who read blogs and those who also write blogs) or by profession.

The next step is to probe for aided and unaided awareness.  To create an Aided and Unaided survey, you start with Unaided:

“When thinking of blogs that speak to business professionals to help them with their branding and marketing, which blogs come to mind?”  _____ “What else?”  ____ “Any others?”  This is an example of unaided.

Then you prompt with competitor’s names and your name.

This is when you say next:  “Have you ever heard of Branding & Marketing?”  “Of InPageAds?”  “Of Blog ‘Til You Drop?” 

Then you go for the descriptions. How would you describe “Branding & Marketing?”  “InPageAd”  “Blog’Til You Drop?”

By the way… the answer “I don’t know” is not bad.  It’s easier to brand a blank slate than to change an unfavorable brand description.

 For more infomation check out these resources:

• Joy Brazelle at Endless Communication 
• SEO Marketing Research - How to Make Survey Design

Ok, it’s time to vote. Watch the video and look at the entries, and vote in the poll below for your favorite picture. The winners, who will be the top 5 vote getters, will each get a $100 Zappos.com certificate to buy anything they want on Zappos, even more mandals!

Yes, you can vote for yourself and you can encourage your friends to vote for you. I would! Voting will end at Noon on Thursday, September 4th. Vote!

Remember to follow @zappos on Twitter and join the Zappos affiliate program.

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Employee Evangelism will increase sales, increase relationships, increase brand visibility and result in people caring more about the organization, because they start to care more about the people in the organization.

Starting an Employee Evangelism program is not that hard. Take a small group of people that are already doing it, probably in a less organized and intentional way, and train them in the tools and messages that make it easier and more effective. Once that team is doing employee evangelism well, have them mentor others in the organization and grow your buzz with each person.

Jason Falls makes the case for me regarding Paul Fresty’s post on the tension between designing and blogging about design:

Sure, someone will probably jump in the comments and say, “Yes, but if it’s not a provable profit center, then it doesn’t make sense for a business.” Providing your employees with good benefits isn’t a provable profit center but without them, your personnel will be less than desirable. If you don’t provide your customers with a human connection to your brand, your customers will be less than desirable, too…

Sure it’s hard work crafting a post. But if you’re not talking the stuff you’re learning and doing, who will? Sure, some of your customers may be raving fans and it’s a boost to the ego to have someone give you kudos, but who (and how) are your potential customers connecting with your brand?

Social Media And The Hype Cycle | Social Media Explorer

Ok, it’s time to vote. Watch the video and look at the entries, and vote in the poll below for your favorite picture. The winners, who will be the top 5 vote getters, will each get a $100 Zappos.com certificate to buy anything they want on Zappos, even more mandals!

Yes, you can vote for yourself and you can encourage your friends to vote for you. I would! Voting will end at Noon on Thursday, September 4th. Vote!

Remember to follow @zappos on Twitter and join the Zappos affiliate program.

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Mention the phrase green marketing and watch the reactions.  Some are sceptical.  Others enthusiastic.  Most are slightly confused.

Definition of Green Marketing: Promoting a companies green efforts.  Using green methods to do the promoting.

But how do you quantify green? 

In the Coming Backlash Over Green Marketing Seth Godin says: “Marketers who truly care about the green thing should be scrambling right now to find a number or an organization that can defend the green brand. If not, it’s going to be worthless and a great opportunity for improvement is going to be lost.”

In today’s news from Brandweek:

• Coke Greens the Democratic National Convention  (No wonder people are confused… now “green” is a verb!)   Hybrid electric delivery trucks, which reduce emissions by 37%, were used to deliver its products.
• Anheuser-Busch Amplifies Green Message – By year’s end the company expects its breweries will create more than 5 billion 12-oz servings of beer by using renewable fuel.

I’ve always been cautious about promoting green marketing because it seems no matter how socially responsible you are, it’s not enough for the people who are “truly” green.  It’s like giving good parenting advice, good financial advice or good health advice – to me it all is matter of a measure of degrees, but no one gets a perfect score.

In fact I used to tell clients that it is a slippery slope.  If you take credit for the ways you are going green, you open yourself up for criticism that you’re not doing enough or not doing it right.  Better not to say anything than to open yourself up to scrutiny.

But then last spring I noticed a trend in my business.  Not only are my clients asking about using green marketing measurements and marketing their green efforts, but several of the companies we represent are dedicated to producing products that solve environmental problems.  Now if that isn’t green, I’m really not sure what is. 

But still, if I mention green marketing in a group — I get scoffs like I mentioned ”snake oil”, hear stories of how the recycled trash gets put with the regular trash after hours by the cleaning staff, and see raised eyebrows of confused.

So maybe the problem with green marketing is being considered green enough?  

Meanwhile, we’re learning about LEEDS certification, cavitation to create alternative fuels, the chemistry of carbon black and the differences of soy based inks printed on recycled paper stocks.   Oh and we’re trying to separate and recycle our trash at the office in a town that doesn’t offer recycling.

Read more about our green marketing efforts at the company website.

Do NOT miss this podcast. Andy Sernovitz (THE mast of word of mouth) from Gaspedal.com gives some unbelievable advice about how anyone can get started with word of mouth marketing.

Buy Andy’s Book at Amazon.

We talk about what WOM is and how anyone can do it, with examples of how real companies are doing it every day, and get this… with no real money spent! Andy gives two major things that you need to know about WOM. Huge tips that will make you start thinking right away.

Consider this: “Never let anyone walk out the door without something to share”. Think about that for a second. Are you letting the WOM get away from you?

Oh yeah, be on the watch here on this blog for some free copies of Andy’s book!

Here are the show notes:

What is word of mouth marketing?
How to get started?
Who’s gonna talk about my stuff? How do I make it easier for them to share it?
Identify the talkers.
Offline wom principles, never let anyone walk out the door without something to share.
(examples: bloomingdales big brown bag)
Send everyone back to office with 6 extra desserts, they’ll talk about it.
Email is a huge part of wom.
Emotional reasons wom works. Does it make me feel good? Does it make me look smart?
Makes me feel important (give away discount code).
Fun gets forwarded.
Potbelly restaurant sent coupon for 10 free sandwiches to old customer to giveaway.
Freshbook invoices, hosted dinners for travelers in every city.

I keep bringing expert self-publishing and book marketing people on because, well, it’s relevant to me and I like to educate people about how it can be done. So here’s another interview with a person who wants to help you promote your book. Penny from http://www.amarketingexpert.com/.

Penny gives some amazing information and tips about book marketing. We talk specifically about what authors can do to begin to promote their books. We also talk about the future importance of web video when trying to promote your book.

If you’re writing a book, self-published, or not, and even an ebook, you need to listen to this podcast.

Here are the show notes.

What are the most important things an author needs to do to promote their book?
Gotta start with a website at least. Talking about what the book can do for the reader, not about the book.
Start navigating social networking sites like Facebook and make a Squidoo profile.
You’ll be surprised at online networking opportunities.
It’s like moving into a new neighborhood. Find out who is there and where stuff is. Explore.
Never try to do it all at once. Start somewhere.
99% of media finds their experts online. Is your book online?
You can’t just build a website or social profile and forget about it. It’s work.
You should have a blog. It’s a great way to express thoughts about your book and let the community know about you. Also a great thing for the search engines.
It’s much easier to sell something to somebody who’s already interested. That’s what a blog and website can do for you.
One the secrets of getting your website better exposure is to have high-quality, high-traffic incoming links.
It’s a lot of work, but the payoff can be enormous.
Future books in your niche are easy to sell in your community.
Should authors experiment with web video? It has a huge stickiness factor.

Today I chatted with associate Marty Fahncke, who is a consultant and electronic marketing expert who I’ve known for a few years. We talk about the “web biz” and Marty provides some excellent tips and strategies he uses to be successful for himself and his clients.

One really neat thing is that Marty has been working with famous artist Thomas Kinkade to help him sell his works online.

Our discussion revolves around retail online sales and why people buy or don’t buy. We also talk about how to use social media channels to promote a brand for sales. Lastly, we discuss Twitter some more and how we both use it.

With over 18 years of experience in sales & marketing, Marty has been involved in campaigns responsible for nearly $1 BILLION in revenue. With experience in direct sales, sales management, marketing, product acquisition, infomercials, e-commerce, and international marketing, you are assured of receiving high quality, professional services that will grow your business.

• First rule of branding: Focus on your position and become known for that one thing.  Jay Ehret at The Marketing Spot calls out a major branding mistake in Barack Obama’s campaign: Everyone knew that Barack Obama stood for change. 
• Even those who shun branding as being just for big business or deceptive or phoney find that they have a brand affinity toward products that they like.  Jackie Huba of “Church of the Customer” in her post 10 questions with Rob Walker is surprised at the feelings she gets toward her Converse sneakers after Nike buys Converse. Hat tip to Tom Fishburne at Brand Camp on the Evolution of Marketing.
• Still not sure that branding makes a difference?  Try looking at a series of logos for the gut feelings the logo evokes.  Read Lolly’s “What Consumer’s Really Think of Your Logo” .  She’s a ” Qually” — a market research professional in London who really knows her stuff.  I prefer playing the brand versus brand battle mode.  Who wins: HP vs Dell?  Canon vs Kodak?

A few weeks ago I got to spend a day and a night hanging out with Gary Vaynerchuk of Winelibrary.tv as he was in town for a book signing. The full video experience of my time spent with him will come later, but for now, I have a video about a person I met who was in Gary’s entourage… Marianne Frantz of the Cleveland Wine School.

The video below is an interview I did with Marianne about the Cleveland Wine School, with a funny impromptu appearance from Gary V in a few places. Pretty funny. The video was shot at lunch after a live taping of the Thunder show with Gary in Cleveland Browns Stadium (personal video on that to come later). Go watch, great episode.

Why am I posting this video about a regional company when my blog is read by thousands of people who don’t live in Cleveland? Well, it’s a perfect example of how anyone can make a video commercial for their company with a simple inexpensive camera. Something I encourage all businesses to do. Tell me this isn’t a video you’d like to show to your customers to educate them about your business?

The whole thing took me 10 minutes to edit, and by using the Flip camera, easy to record. Why aren’t you doing video yet? Give me a ring so I can help you get on it, or sign up for my free Online Video Toolkit for some free advice.

Here’s the video on Youtube if you wish to view it there.

Flickr Photo uploaded by je suis erin

Sometimes the lure of licensing a strong brand for the extra revenue it brings in because too tempting.   Take the three examples that Robyn McMaster highlighted in her Obsessive Branding post:

Reebok Tennis shoes by Kool Aid
Cologne by PlayDoh
Romance novels by Nascar

Sure the wild colors make you take a second look, but does the marriage of Kool Aid and Reebok make sense?  To me licensing a brand name to extend a product line really only makes sense when it’s a natural marriage of the two brands.  Sometimes licensors get greedy for a little more of the pure profit that comes back when they put their brand name on another company’s products. 

I think that they may be short sighted in terms of long term brand image. 

Shmuly gets it. He’s taken a traditional piece of Jewish headdress called the Kippah and combined it with current trends, in this case the Presidential election here in the USA. Check out his product at VanityKippah.com. Pretty smart.

In this video I talk more about how smart marketers like Shmuly know to take their product or service and combine it with current events or trends to make more sales and get publicity. It works. You can do it too.

Take a moment and think about how your product or service relates to what’s hot right now. Sports (the Olympics?), entertainment, politics? You get the point. Now make the connection and do something creative. The press will eat it up.

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Music on video from http://cantorgottesman.com/chazzan-first-cd.htm