Easy Marketing is a Myth
Easy marketing is: spam, with no entry barriers, temporary, an escalation of force – expensive; http://eicker.at/EasyMarketing
Tagged: Differentiation Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Gerrit Eicker
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Gerrit Eicker
Google Plus vs. Twitter?
Scoble: Google Plus has made Twitter boring; http://eicker.at/2h vs. Siegler: Twitter is not Google Plus; http://eicker.at/2i
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Gerrit Eicker
Best Global Brands 2010
Same procedure as every year: Google and Apple gain strongly in the Best Global Brands rankings 2010; http://j.mp/d6C9XU
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Gerrit Eicker
Interbrand: “IBM, Microsoft and Google lead Interbrand’s 11th annual ranking of the ‘Best Global Brands.’ Google (#4) sees a 36% increase in value over last year, bringing the brand closer than ever to rival Microsoft (#3). HP (#10) enters the top 10 for the first time, having increased brand value under a new business model and brand platform. For the 11th year straight, Coca-Cola (#1) retains its top spot as the number one ranked brand on the list. … A number of prominent brands faced extraordinary crisis in 2010 resulting in stalled growth, value loss and in the case of BP, failure to make the ranking this year. BP’s environmental disaster and inability to make good on its brand promise of ‘Beyond Petroleum’ led to it falling off of the list and helped competitor Shell emerge as an industry leader, now ranked number 81, up from number 92 in 2009.”
Interbrand on Google: “As Google continues its upward path, it increasingly finds it difficult to reconcile its brand promise, ‘Don’t be evil,’ with the realities of a powerful global brand. Although it continues to leverage this messaging through investments in Google.org (its not-for-profit philanthropic arm) and a number of other initiatives, its access to user information and what it is doing with it is increasingly being scrutinized. Recently, it compromised a key value – trust – when it violated 176 million users’ privacy with Google Buzz. And though its effort to pull out of China, which was censoring the search engine, and realign with its message demonstrated its commitment to its promise, only a few months later, it was quietly persuaded to work with the regime again. Still, Google’s reach and record for innovation is undisputed. Expect the brand to continue to diversify and expand, even as it experiences increasing backlash.”
Interbrand on Apple: “Apple had another great year. Negative buzz over the iPad name was quickly replaced by glowing sales and avid converts. Meanwhile, the iPhone 4’s sales reached the 1.5 million mark its first day. It continues to control its messages very carefully, which creates enormous buzz and anticipation. Advertising campaigns and interactive websites remain distinct and consistent, keeping the role of brand exceptionally high. If the brand has one fault, it’s the failure to provide perfectly functioning new products. This year, iPhone 4’s reception glitches warranted a public apology from Steve Jobs – and left the door wide open for public criticism. Apple could also improve its corporate citizenship profile, which remains neutral. While it partners with the PRODUCT (RED) Global Fund, this remains relatively unknown.“
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Gerrit Eicker
Resonance: Identifying Ideas
Resonance: Film about design strategists and how they identify the right ideas; http://j.mp/9qCpnc (via @ingmardrewing)
Gerrit Eicker
Differentiating Commodities
VanAuken offers a long list of generic strategies for differentiating commodities; http://j.mp/hcRbM
Scoble: “For the past few days I’ve been hanging out in Jackson Hole with a bunch of geeks and one thing I’ve noticed over and over is how boring Twitter has gotten when compared to Google+. Why has Twitter turned boring? I’ve found several areas: 1. First experience. 2. Pictures and videos. 3. Control over content distribution. 4. No API, no auto pushing of content. 5. Signals are visible from who you excited and pissed off. 6. Auto flowing webpage. So, let’s take each of these areas on, and talk about what Twitter could do to make users excited again.”
Siegler: “Put more bluntly: if Twitter is batshit crazy enough to implement even half of the things that Scoble lays out, they will effectively kill their own product. … Twitter is not Google+. Nor does it need to be. If they tried to make it into Google+ on the fly, the millions of current users would rightfully throw a shit-fit. I have a feeling that Scoble would too. … The truth is that Twitter almost did kill itself a few years ago also due to scaling issues. But for whatever reason, none of their competitors were able to capitalize and Twitter emerged, stronger. … Twitter’s core concept is the extension of simple, short messages throughout the past many decades. The postcard begat the SMS message begat the IM status message begat Twitter. Sometimes the simplest ideas resonate because of the very fact that they are simple.”
Winer: “Scoble, my longtime friend, and someone whose chutzpah I admire, says that Google-Plus is making Twitter boring. – Yes, I agree – and that’s a good thing. – He says Twitter should evolve to be more like Google, but I disagree. … It isn’t until a technology becomes boring that it becomes truly useful. Because it’s the things people do with tech that are interesting. … Twitter has been interesting for far too long. What they should want now is to be used as an almost invisible, taken-for-granted but indispensible piece of the workings of the Internet. Permanent link to this item in the archive. – It’s way past time for it to be the precocious upstart. It’s used for all kinds of mission-critical communication. Reliability would be a better measure of its success over interestingness.“