HotHouse makes brands work for people online

By Simon van Wyk

I have a background in marketing, but my understanding of branding seems at odds with the 2010 opinions I see from social media commentators, marketing and advertising agencies.

I read LoveMarks, but I don’t love brands. I read the definition which says: “Lovemarks reach your heart as well as your mind, creating an intimate, emotional connection that you just can’t live without. Ever.” I don’t actually feel this way about any brand. My life is busy and I reserve that level of investment for the important people in my life, not the stuff I buy. I assumed other people felt the same.

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By Simon van Wyk

Your online presence fairly bristles with opportunities to collect data about every visitor to your site. And it’s also easy to collect information about the competitive environment in which that your site operates. Measurement and analytics tools can inform your marketing with hard data about consumer behaviour that just can’t be measured in the offline environment.

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By Simon van Wyk

In this month’s HotHouse podcast, Econsultancy vice president Rebecca Lieb talks about how web content strategies are going to take over from traditional advertising strategies. Here are links to a few case studies about companies that have already taken the plunge.

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The oldest of all marketing techniques, word of mouth (WOM) has re-emerged as the most powerful selling tool of the 21st century, thanks to digital technology.

HotHouse is offering you and your team a singular opportunity to learn how to apply WOM to your business by attending a seminar by international WOM authority Justin Kirby

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By Simon van Wyk.

Following on from our discussion on content strategies in this month’s HotHouse podcast, it’s worth learning more about this emerging framework. Here are some good places to find out more about developing and executing a content strategy:

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There’s been a lot of talk (including in this blog) about how the evolution of the Internet is bringing about the death of traditional media and advertising. There’s also been a lot of strong disagreement about this prediction (admittedly largely from people who have a vested interest in the status quo).

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By Simon van Wyk

As Peer Group Media director Andrew Reid mentioned in an the earlier post “The music in me…”, successful music marketing campaigns are a multi-year commitment, which means there are a wide range of things that need to be measured to gauge the overall success of the venture.

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By Simon van Wyk

We recently discussed the merger between art and commerce represented by brand music marketing with Peer Group Media’s strategy and research head Andrew Reid. Here’s a bit more information on a couple of Peer Group’s projects:

• The UncharTED program for Lion Nathan’s Tooheys Extra Dry: This program, now in its fourth year, has moved from origins as a talent quest to uncover new Australian artists, to a full-scale mentoring program. Recent winners, along with a cash prize and the chance to play at concerts including Big Day Out and Splendour in the Grass, also win a trip to a New York recording studio and assistance in producing music to be used on a TED commercial. A documentary is also being filmed. Nearly 5,000 bands applied for UncharTED’s two competitions in 2009.

  

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By Simon van Wyk

Music is a powerful tool. It can affect people emotionally and physically. Hearing a few bars from a familiar tune can immediately take you back to a time long past, when you first heard that song or when something significant happened while the song was playing.

It’s no surprise that sharing music has emerged as one of the most popular ways people have used the personal realm of social media.

As most people know, music was one of the first media to be transformed by the Internet – think Napster and Kazaa. But just as illegal file sharing led to iTunes, music has moved from a grassroots phenomenon online to one that is becoming entwined with big brands.

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Determining the success of word of mouth marketing activities, like measuring social media campaign success, is best done on a case-by-case basis. Importantly, it needs to integrated with the measurement of other marketing activities, particularly since so much word of mouth activity happens offline.

Having said that, there are a few general guidelines to follow when attempting to measure word of mouth. Larry Freed from US website satisfaction agency Foresee Results has identified what he calls the six truths of word of mouth measurement:

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