Hammertime at Business Schools

After speaking at GSB and HBS, perhaps Hammer is working on creating a personal brand not as a revived musician/dancer/entertainer, but as a savvy entrepreneur/branding expert!  Having removed the distance between him and the public and having opened his life for public consumption, can any tabloid/shock jock/paparazzo touch him?

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=526630

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=6928447

What (brand) time is it?

Here’s an interesting branding exercise from Dear Jane Sample (shared with me by a friend via my Facebook feed). What does your brand timeline portrait look like?  Or maybe a more insightful question, what does your customer’s brand timeline portrait look like? I felt this could be an interesting exercise combining insights from Hammer’s talk on personal brand and Oren + Justine’s visit on storytelling.  This portrait is really the story of an individual in a single day…and things seem to get kinda interesting around 10pm .

- Shal

Personal connection. When and when not?

I want to be more explicit about my comment of yesterday class.
Hammer talked about the humanization the brand in his case. There are a lot of people that don’t want to do this because they create a distance between the consumer/public and the star/brand. Obviously if you are closer or far you have pros and cons. He talked about the business of being far and the opportunity he created being closer.
When I translated this to our personal situation, I had the doubt of when to increase the connection and when try to decrease it. How important it is to know this in different situations of the professional or personal life. I really think it must be very dynamic in order to take advantage of the situation.

The Thinking Man’s Rapper

Spring Quarter of my second year, and Stanford GSB outdoes itself again. M.C. Hammer guest-lecturing in the Building Innovative Brands class – how do you outdo that?

Hammer was extremely approachable and gracious, taking photographs with everyone and joking around as the earlier class trickled out v-e-r-y  s-l-o-w-l-y, until Prof. Aaker had to call a group photo and get us in our seats.

Hammer just impressed me so much with how on top of things he is, and how strategically and thoughtfully he approached every aspect of marketing – starting with his early days launching his first album in 1987, selling records out of his trunk. I was eight years old at the time (!) Hammer may well have come through GSB Executive Education, he seemed to hit on every major point Prof. Aaker has been taking us through all quarter – this guy is just a natural Social Media marketing machine. 2 Legit 2 Quit.

Takeaways and priceless quotes:

Every thing you do can be used to craft your brand, to “create and control…perception.” E.g. his first song, “Let’s Get it Started,” answered in the first verse who he was and why he was there – “put on the Hammer” and he would help you p-a-r-t-y. His first video was as much a “commercial”  for the Hammer brand as anything else. He looked outside the industry to find a hot new director who would understand Hammer’s desire to capture the energy of his moves.

Get ahead of the curve. Hammer got curious about the Internet early (‘94-’95) and went looking for whoever would help him realize the vision he saw for it. Silicon Graphics, Apple, YouTube (when it was two computers above a pizza place), what have you.

Web 2.0 gives you an important tool - the ability to humanize yourself, reach your audience without intervening layers, and immediately and directly counter less direct forms of negative media.

The way to push your brand is to put it in the hands of very creative people. Create a groundswell, word of mouth.

“Every superhero must have one” - Hammer on Will.I.Am’s song for President Obama

“I have 20/20 vision – I didn’t need glasses – I wore them foryou to see me better” - Hammer on why he wore glasses when performing

“Never apologize for your success. Just tell the other guy he’s gotta work harder”

Class Notes: 5/18 -> Falcons & Hammer

• Tool #2: Off/On Brand Exercise (NFL)
  • Off/on brand exercise in which various visuals / examples are brought up and the target audience decides whether what is presented is well aligned with the brand (“on brand”), is completely unrelated to the brand or even takes away from the brand message (“off brand”), or is neither related and nor unrelated to the brand (“in the grey area”).
  • Making ‘on-brand’ decision is not always black and white… sometimes it’s grey. There is not always a 100% correct answer. Requires consideration and debate. Discussion about examples in the grey area typically yields the most insight.

Hammer’s Pearls of Wisdom

1. I was really impressed by what he had to say. Here are a few sticky insights that I left with..
2. As brand managers we must create perception, control perception and manage perception.
3. Hammer was able to do this by creating his own pandemonium when his songs were playing in the club.
4. Hammer always make sure to listen to “haters” so that he can be more resilient and  preempt set backs.
5. Think of Hammers term “Momentum Marketing.”

Thanks from Hammer

Thought I would post Hammer’s tweet following his visit…

“Stanford Business School was great …thank you for the exchange.. Fervent minds …fertile ground .. Good harvest (ROI)…”

Can’t Touch This…

…unless it’s an HP touchscreen, that is!  I’m a little nervous about blogging about social technology given that I’m a definite non-expert and in the minority as a non-Power of Social Technology student, but I am just going to put it out there, if you don’t like it, just send it right back(TM Ron Burgundy, SPEAKING of strong brands…).  I thought the anecdote about Ellen and Hammer’s twitter/video exchanges and the disintermediation of the 4 layers of management and handlers was great.  (PS – I am totally taking POST next year).

1. I thought Hammer’s role as a visionary early adopter of Twitter, and his impact on the adoption behavior of the “early majority” or “herd” (Read: Ellen and Diddy) was a great illustration of the phenomena we discussed with Geoff Moore.