Meme you. Meme me. Meme everybody.

Let's start with a little background: Facebook now has over 150 million users. In terms of size, this would be the 8th largest country in the world and more users than there are people (in total) in France and Great Britain combined.

There is a meme burning through the Facebook society. According to wikipedia.com, a meme is "a catchphrase or concept that spreads quickly from person to person via the Internet, much like an inside joke" In this case, the "25 things about me" meme is basically a little quiz that is spreading organically from person to person. You write 25 little "facts" about yourself, tag people in the message and then it gets passed along to the next person and so on. There are a lot of memes out there, and most professionals consider memes to be the basis of viral marketing. Youtube.com, blogs, twitter, and really anything you can hyperlink is essentially the concept of memes - things getting passed along to friends. But what had my interest was these quizzes, these lists that many people spend a lot of time and thought on.

I completed my "25 things" yesterday (a little late to the party), and as a marketer, this had me thinking "are there new ways I can exploit leverage these quizzes for branding purposes?" Seem far fetched? One of the previous memes was an iTunes quiz that asks you questions about your music library in itunes. Before that, there was one whose first instructions asked you to "Put your iTunes (or any other media player you may have) on shuffle." As a marketer, I read this and think, "wow, great marketing for Apple".

The facebook community has gotten so unwieldy large, that it makes sense to think about these in the same way we think about other marketing... locally. Why not start a quiz that asks specifically about your product? It may not get 100 million responses in 50 countries, but wouldn't it be better if it gets 100 responses within 1 mile anyway? There would be a fine line (obviously) between a fun quiz that people want to pass along to their friends vs. overt marketing, but if you think of it as a joke that you are passing along it seems that this may offer a new avenue for building brand affinity. Another option is to use it as a way of getting others to promote your product for you. Create a quiz that your product, website, or store would be the answer to some of the questions. Of course, there is a population out there that hates these memes (maybe you're one of them). They don't like to fill them out, but my experience has been that most of these folks read them anyway. For the purposes of branding, really, that's all we need.

Of course, measuring this is pretty much impossible, but with the exception of the time you'll lose writing, answering and reading your friends responses, it doesn't really have many other costs (that time cost shouldn't be underestimated, though). So, what do you think? Could you write a meme promoting your business without promoting your business? Maybe this will be your first foray into viral marketing. Give it a try, I'll fill it out!

There's a lesson in all of this.

In the words of reality tv show fans, the world is a "hot mess" (if you listen to the pundits, that is). That's part of the reason why President-elect Obama's message of Hope played so well this election season. But there are other marketing-related reasons why he did so well...
- he had a much more consistent and singular message than his rival
- he had a huge following of younger activists that were engaged and participating
- he presented a compelling image that was easy to understand and get behind

I'm not at all going to dive into the specifics of policies between the two campaigns or examine ideology or tax policy or anything political really, that's not the point to this article. But what I do want to look further into a few things that I gleaned from that second point...

Obama's campaign was very effective at "getting out the vote." A lot of individuals got involved and many, I believe, felt a tangible part of Obama's election because of their participation. (Ok, I'm not going to argue that this is a simplistic view of what occured, but again, we're not talking politics in this article, its just to see the lesson for us marketers. And that's all.) I have several friends who participated in the Obama campaign, some traveling great distances to canvass or offer help. Some took time off work to do community events for Obama. And when I speak to them about it (once you get past the politics), the reason is because they felt they were physically doing something that they were passionate about.

Earlier I posted an article about DIY projects and why those appeal to me. I suspect that there are fundamentally similar things going on deep inside the brain of community activists for Obama: These community activities are hands-on, they are interesting (moreso than people's day-to-day activities), they are social, and a fourth item (not included in the DIY article but I think applies to both), is that they tap into people's passion (you may not be passionate about calling strangers during dinnertime, but are passionate about the cause).

There's three important lessons for marketers in this:

1. To get interest from people to participate in your branding or marketing, you are going to have to make it interesting, hands-on, and social. Just putting a message out there, that doesn't have aspects these three things is going to be dropped quickly by target consumers.
2. To compel people (stronger than just interest in), you have to tap into their passion.
3. Finally, the conversion to action for both the campaign and a brand is a critical final step, that is often ignored

That final step of converting "potential customers" into current customers is what is going to make the difference between an interesting conversation with folks vs. having a business relationship with them.

Is your brand dead? Does imagery matter anymore? (Part II)

I (finally) finished the book, Branding Only Works on Cattle by Jonathan Salem Baskin. The basic premise is that communicating brands as we know it is actually dead. Before you start writing a eulogy for your long, lost pal, Tony the Tiger, Baskin does have some fascinating points. As you may recall from Part 1, I claimed to not be fully on board with Baskin’s claims in the book, then he called me out on some of my points (see comments from Sept 21 post).

Now that I’ve read it, I think that Baskin and I are not that far apart actually. I think that the main area we differ is in the definition of branding. I suspect that my textbook definition that I provided was not complete enough to clarify how I actually think of branding. Baskin summed it up perfectly on page 185 of the book:

“Company activities and customer perceptions are intertwined in many ways – communities, dependencies, partnerships, outsourcing, transactions, partnerships, product or service experiences, - and it is in these relationships that brand and business are realized. Brand is the verb of these behaviors made relevant to your bottom line.”

This definition of branding is a much more “practical” form than Tony the Tiger or the lust for Louis-Vuitton handbags implies (perhaps “useful” is the word that Baskin would use). I must admit that the more I thought about it, the more I agree with Baskin. His book lays out a nice road map, particularly for small or midsize businesses that are looking to grow and don’t quite get how branding could work for them.

In my opinion, if marketers (note that I don’t just limit this to branding experts) only take one thing from the book, it is to think of branding as game theory. Baskin purports that games have:

• Goals/a payoff – a purpose that requires an action (a.k.a. give branding a practical goal).
  
• Context – the universe where the game is actually played must guide the branding
  
• Narrative flow – prompt action, facilitate learning during the game, and then only talk to those who its relevant to talk to
• Use a variety of tools – the entire company is your toolbox (customer service, shipping, finance, etc.)
• Winners and Losers – engage with people to push them forward (winners), though there may be some that will therefore be pushed away (losers). That's ok, not everyone will buy your product anyway.
  

This kind of thinking, positive customer engagement with the company at a variety of points, is the definitely the direction branding communications needs to be moving.

So, am I a convert? Is branding dead?

Well, hold on a second. Brands are still very much alive. Another book I’m reading by Lucas Conley, “Obsessive Branding Disorder”, shows many different examples of branding out of control - both the comical (Christina Aguilera trademarking her name to market 450 separate products including modeling clay and contact lens) and the tragic (like New Orleans Mayor, Ray Nagin, who declared that New Orleans murder rate was “…not good for us, but keeps the New Orleans brand out there, and keeps people thinking about our needs…”). Conley proves that branding is still very much alive and still highly profitable (for both the branders and the branded business). People are still buying products because of its brand. But businesses are having to work harder, advertise in more places, and creative (read as, "crazy") things that in many cases make no sense to keep their brands in front of potential customers.

So, yes, Tony the Tiger is still going to don the cereal box and your kids will still scream for him. Louis-Vuitton will still drive people to buy (and make) cheap knock-offs. Paris Hilton will still draw millions of dollars for putting her name and likeness on perfume, bad music, or whatever else her agents think they can sell. A lot of companies will continue to brand in much the same method. But as Baskin (and Conley) points out, the challenges of communicating is getting increasing difficult, and the companies that can recognize this and truly connect with their customers on a variety of levels and points are the brands that will remain relevant and important.

Interbike 2008

This week is the Interbike Expo in Las Vegas. It is the premier bike industry show and showcases new products, people and trends in the bike industry.

This year they are doing an Urban cycling fashion show to showcase the equipment and clothing for the increasing cycling as transportation trend:
"A self-propelled cycling art and fashion show, Interbike's latest addition brings the cutting edge of urban cycle culture to life"

This is another example of business lagging the trend. I can tell you that just from the communities I interact with here, this trend of urban cycling has been growing for a couple years now (and if I can see that from my seat here in auto-centric Detroit, what does that say about the trend in forward looking cycling communities on the west coast!)

I applaud Interbike for adding this LONG overdue fashion show, and I'm looking forward to the seeing reaction to this show.