Vote on Gigaom: Will $80M Ad campaign give Microsoft brand a boost?

Vote here (scroll down).

- Shal

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

Can Kelly Ripa sell me a wine refrigerator?

In search for a new wine refrigerator this weekend I found myself in the middle of a personal brand / marketing experiment. Kelly Ripa is the Electrolux lady. You’ve probably seen the commercials playing up her busy, busy life: actress, talk show host, dutiful mother of 3 and celebrity husband.  The ads align her brand attributes to those of the Electrolux system which are high-tech, state of the art, and most importantly make it easy for you to be a (crazy) high powered multi-tasker.

That’s one way to spin it … SNL took on the same personal brand attributes with a different spin here:

I wouldn’t  have thought Ripa’s association with the Electrolux brand would be really influential to me – and it’s not…well I didn’t think so, but why then did I keep coming back to that brand? I felt duped.  

So I’m left wondering, will Kelly Ripa ultimately sell me a wine refrigerator? Stay tuned ….

- Shal

Hammer @ TWTRCON

On the subject of building personal brand and our upcoming guest speaker, I thought it would be of interest to highlight the upcoming Twitter conference in San Francisco.  Hammer will be speaking in an afternoon breakout session on “How to build personal brand”.  The conference list of speakers and agenda  looks interesting.  Looks like the agenda is still being confirmed and they are asking for suggestions. If you have ideas let them hear it by sending a Tweet to #twtrcon
- Shal

But I transgress …

Inevitably in every relationship transgressions occur. Some are deal breakers and some are easy fixes. The measure for how big or small they are, and more importantly how to fix them, depends on the promise – or as the Seinfeld episode demonstrated, the deal that was made.  

One key insight from the Harley lecture is: Transgressions are not always bad.  The key is to fix them quickly (timeliness is important – another insight) and choose a method of remedy that is authentic to your brand promise.  

So, transgressions are inevitable, they are not always bad, *and*if you can fix the resolve the issue quickly and well they can in fact be opportunities for “consumer-brand” relationship. Seinfeld once again helps illustrate this final point: 

Jerry: Let me take a guess. She cried and you caved. …

George: I got to tell you I felt terrible. …

Jerry: tes, it’s very difficult. Few men have the constitution for it. That’s why breakups take two or three tries. …Well, at least you probably had some, uh, pretty good make-up sex after.

George: I didn’t have any sex.

Jerry: You didn’t have make-up sex? How could you not have make-up sex? I mean that’s the best feature of the heavy relationship.

Source

- Shal