Great article in the New York Times today (Do you want to “Friend” a Detergent?). It speaks to the difficulty for brand managers of using social media to promote their brands … or their incompetence in doing so and, in fact, of trying to do so.

Ted McConnell, the manager of interactive marketing and innovation at P&G, is quoted as saying “I don’t want to be best friends with a brand. Its just stuff.” McConnell’s suggestion is, by and large, that brands frequently assume that the large number of people on Facebook and other like social media applications can be segmented into their customer base or target audience and approached via that medium. However, they seem to ignore the reason why their consumer or target audience is on Facebook in the first place, which is to maintain a conversation with their real friends. It is not to be talked at by brands.

Of course, some brands align neatly with social media as a mechanism for brand expression and conversation. But many don’t. Its just another bad attempt at brand extension, trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

That, in a nutshell, is the creative direction of a lot of current advertising. Make a conscious effort over the next few weeks to watch the TV, listen to the radio or review online or print ads through this analytical lens and see how often marketers have used base stereotypes of gender differences in their advertising.  As household and discretionary expenditure has become increasingly controlled by women, marketers have pandered to this primary source of purchasing power. Men are being presented on the one hand as lovable and cuddly, but also prone to acting like a cute dog that doesn’t know better. On the other hand, men are being presented as misogynists. (more…)

I am a sucker for kung fu flicks. Anything high kickin’, screamin’ and fist pumpin’ gets me reaching for my yellow onesie. So when I saw this Bruce Lee Nokia N96 TV Ad I watched it over and over and over.

Of course, Bruce Lee is dead (right?), so this nunchuck wielding martial artist must be a double. But what I still don’t understand is just what a dead celebrity has to do with Nokia’s N96 telephone. Maybe it has something to do with the brand archetype that the marketers have established for the phone, but because I cannot read Cantonese/Mandarin, I don’t know what their Web site says. And I would still be surprised to see a recognizable association between Bruce Lee, the global martial art hero, and a cell phone.

The use of celebrity endorsements is a trite marketing tactic, but still potentially effective. The use of dead celebrities is more interesting, but no less trite.

Anyway, I’m off to watch that clip again.

The Brits have found the golden lining to gray economic clouds, with the yummiest example being a new candy created for the London department store, Selfridges & Co.

While Credit Crunch candy may seem a simple indulgence to help ease the force-fed diet of economic gruel, it illustrates one smart tactic to encourage consumers back to the stores. The British Retail Consortium states that retail sales are down 2.2% for October on a same-store basis, so they need to take steps to tempt consumers back. In America, Deloitte’s 23rd Annual Holiday Survey of retail spending and trends indicates that 59% of consumers expect to spend less this season. In fact, 11% are still paying off last holiday season’s spending binge. (more…)

People lie. It is a sad fact. I don’t. But then maybe I am lying. What gets really interesting, though, are those circumstances when people do lie. Take this recent study that suggests that email is the most deceitful form of communications in the workplace. Not only that, but people actually felt more justified when lying by email, as opposed to lying using a pen and paper. (more…)