07.18
Very excited that Semantic Argument has been selected as a featured blog on Alltop’s top branding news site. Alltop is a content aggregator site, an “online magazine rack” that collects “the headlines of the latest stories from the best sites and blogs that cover a topic” and groups them into individual web pages. The site was cofounded by Guy Kawasaki, ex-Apple guy and author of popular books Enchantment and The Macintosh Way. Come to think of it, I know way too much about this guy.
I’ve been recommending Alltop for awhile now as a good place to scan articles and blog posts on branding, so it’s an honor to be included on the page. I’ve added a widget to the lower-right-hand side of this blog, in case you’re interested to see some of the latest headlines from the branding page.
06.29
[This post was originally published on FutureBrand's FBlog.]
Recent IPOs from LinkedIn, Groupon and Pandora have all eyes on the “social media” industry. While that label may be useful in contrasting from more traditional brick-and-mortar businesses or the dotcom darlings of the early 2000s, it does the companies it refers to a disservice by failing to recognize diversity within the group. Facebook, Groupon, Twitter, LinkedIn—while they all allow us to connect with each other online, they are otherwise quite different businesses. (In fact, doesn’t it feel a little funny to refer to Twitter as a “business” at all?)
The success of LinkedIn is based on a simple tenet of brand strategy, and something that Facebook, Twitter and even Google mostly lack. Namely, LinkedIn has a niche.
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08.01
This is a pretty cool report issued by L2, in partnership with Labbrand (where I work), looking at the “Digital IQ” of prestige brands operating in China and ranking 100 of them. This version of the report identifies some strong positive correlations between Digital IQ measurements and the brand valuations published by BusinessWeek and Interbrand every year. Of course, correlations don’t imply causation, so the relationship between the numbers may bring more questions than answers.
Thanks to everyone at Labbrand and L2 that did the research and put this all together. Stay tuned for an article-form version of this report, which I’m currently helping to write. Should be available in a few weeks.
11.12
A few months back I read a post by Ed Cotton about Mission Street Food called “What brands can learn from Mission Street Food.” Aside from making me really anxious to go eat there (which I haven’t yet), it made me think of Kogi BBQ (which I have tried), a Korean-Mexican fusion “restaurant” that hawks its tasty tacos out of a truck window in LA and Orange County.
I decided to write a companion post—partly because I really liked Ed’s post and partly to demonstrate (to myself, if no one else) that SoCal has its own foodie-friendly offerings. This post starts with stealing Ed’s format but at times descends into blatant plagiarism. Sorry Ed (sincerest form of flattery and all, right?).
Here’s how it works.
MSF “leases” a Chinese restaurant on Mission Street for two nights of the week and invites guest chefs to come in and create menus and prepare meals.
What Can Brands Learn from MSF?
1. The Power of Surprise
MSF is based on a pretty smart assumption, people like to try new restaurants all the time, which makes it hard for a single concept to gain traction and gain a group of loyal customers. In a world of hyper-instant gratification, people are constantly demanding for and seeking out the new.
How does your brand surprise its audience?
What are you doing to prevent brand fatigue?
2. Partnerships and Collaboration
MSF partners with a Chinese restaurant to host the events, it gets access to its kitchens and staff and it also partners with guest chefs every night. MSF is really a facilitator to the process.
Who is your brand collaborating with to add value?
3. Understanding the Audience
MSF gets who it’s audience is and what they want. They know this is an audience that is easily bored and is looking for culinary surprises. They know they are prepared to trade off ambience for food quality.
Does your brand know its audience?
Do you know what they are looking for from you now?
4. The Concept of Value
MSF gets value right. This is of course not about low prices, but instead the combination of price and quality. The interesting items on the menu are priced perfectly to acknowledge the audiences understanding of value. There’s no sense you are paying for the priviledge of eating there.
Does your brand have its pricing right?
Do you know what people are prepared to pay?
Do you have value add and do you know what it’s worth?
5. Giving Back
MSF gives back profits to local organizations and non-profits giving diners another reason to eat.
What is your brand giving back?
How are your causes tied to your brand?
How open are you about your contributions?
6. A Story
MSF has enough layers to build a great narrative including its original incarnation as a taco truck.
What’s your story?
How do you share it?
How are you building on it?
Here’s how Kogi BBQ works.
As mentioned, Kogi BBQ sells food out of a truck window—actually multiple trucks, all in Southern California. But unlike your average taco truck, Kogi tweets (@kogibbq) to let potential customers know when and where they can find a truck in their area. The result, in the words of an LA Times article, is “a social-networking juggernaut, drawing 300 to 800 people each time it parks (often several times in an evening) and spawning a burgeoning cyber-hippie movement affectionately referred to as “Kogi kulture.”
So…what can brands learn from Kogi BBQ?
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06.23
Although I’d planned on entering, I narrowly missed the deadline (oops) for 2009 submissions to New Times’ 55 Fiction competition, which calls on readers to submit 55-word fictional stories. So I was excited to hear the announcement of NPR’s Three-Minute Fiction Contest, requiring authors to write stories that can easily be read out loud within three minutes (under 600 words, according to them, but shorter is fine).
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05.22
I know, I know. It’s the type of question about Twitter that you’d expect to hear from your parents, or from someone who still gets their news from a newspaper. But it’s a valid question, despite (obnoxious) responses having to do with “ambient intimacy.” Equally valid in my mind is the question of who reads the articles that are so frequently forwarded as links via Twitter.
I was thinking about this the other day when I came across a post by Bob Hoffman, The Ad Contrarian, entitled “8 Recent Observations About Twitter.” Specifically, I’ve been wondering what percentage of tweets are blindly forwarded links, aimed at making the tweeter look interesting or engaged without actually forcing them to do any work. Hoffman’s relevant points are:
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