I’m going here tomorrow and I like it!

Brand yourself and the world with wine

I discovered Gary Vaynerchuk’s WineLibraryTV about a year ago. WLTV is a video podcast where Gary tastes and rates wine, typically three or four per show. So, what is so special about this? Well to begin with, it is estimated that it has 90′000 viewers. Daily. Gary has 155′000+ followers on twitter, and more than 14′000 fans on Facebook. Not bad huh? For a guy working for his dad’s wine business and happened to start a video blog in 2006. Even the world’s most famous wine critic couldn’t come close to those numbers. Even if he tried.

Besides from making wine accessible and fun (as opposed to conventional and uptight), Gary uses language we understand, scents and tastes we can relate to, in combination with an extreme portion of energy and dedication when assessing wines. WLTV is not for connoisseurs, it is for everyone.

But from being a wine video blogger, Gary has gone to being a social media marketing evangelist, frequently appearing at expos, conventions, shows and debates to discuss the importance of using 2.0 means to reach targets. He has become a spokesperson for direct social media branding, and stretched his personal brand far from just being a wine blogger.

He recognises that his father’s shop, selling low priced wines, together with chains like Wal-Mart are the ones actually benefiting from the world economic slowdown. But luxury brands, selling expensive watches or leather goods, spending thousands and thousands of $ in fancy magazines is completely detrimental since they have no idea who will see the ad. Watch Gary’s utterly spot on (and eccentric as always) discussion on branding and ROI here.

A bottle of Pauillac tonight, perhaps..?

check.it.out!

Tuesday fun!

I tried to tell this joke to my fellow group members in school last year. I was met by a long awkward silence followed by a couple of sighs. Then everyone went back to work.

I hope it was because of me being super bad at telling jokes, because I think it’s hilarious! If it doesn’t work in writing either, that’s just proof that I have no sense of humour…:

A Priest and a Rabbi are riding in a plane. After a while, the Priest turns to the Rabbi and asks, “Is it still a requirement of your faith that you not eat pork?”

The Rabbi responds, “Yes, that is still one of our beliefs.”

The Priest then asks, “Have you ever eaten pork?”

To which the Rabbi replies, “Yes, on one occasion I did succumb to temptation and tasted pork.”

The Priest nodded in understanding and went on with his reading. A while later, the Rabbi spoke up and asked the Priest, “Father, is it still a requirement of your church that you remain celibate?”

The Priest replied, “Yes, that is still very much a part of our faith.”

The Rabbi then asked him, “Father, have you ever fallen to the temptations of the flesh?”

The Priest replied, “Yes Rabbi, on one occasion I was weak and broke with my faith.”

The Rabbi nodded understandingly for a moment and then said, “A lot better than pork isn’t it?”

Using public opinion rather than own interests for branding?

Walter Naeslund writes a great blog about communication. This post about Viasat’s attitude towards IPRED is very interesting. Will more companies and organisations (naturally not the labels) follow in order to comply with what is likely to be the public opinion? In that case, will labels promoting the enforcement of IPRED have any credibility and trust left in the public eyes?

Personally, I understand that labels and creators want to get paid for their work. I clearly see file sharing as something completely contradictory to the philosophy of intellectual property; man owns his own labour and the fruits thereof. However, there is still a possibility that legislation will suffocate the goodwill (or what used to be) connected to artists, and instead generate a movement where the commercial entity (media distributors against labels?) most compliant with public opinion will win.

Power to the people, I guess..?

Good morning!

AT&T had visions for the future in 1993.

Welcome to the Digest!

Branding honeymoon is over in school and the Intellectual Value Creation (at least I think that’s what IVC stands for) course started today. Without revealing too much I can safely say that we are kept BUSY with forming a fictitious company strategy for the development and commercialisation of a very very very small electrical component.

Today is also the first official day of this blog, wow! It has yet to find its identity but I am sure it will come in due time. For now, I am writing predominantly as part of a learning process and will try to have focus on brand strategy which is where my interest lies.

But for now I will just finish this post with some nice effects from PUMA’s L.I.F.T

Nothing amazing until their clothes come off. The usual, in other words.

by BURT – Tech Crunch50

more about "untitled", posted with vodpod

New school/Old school

Last week we were fortunate enough to have Gustav Martner, Co-founder of Daddy as a guest lecturer. It was a very inspiring presentation, and of course extremely valuable to come in contact with the creative side of branding on top of the analytical approach we are more familiar with.

He told us; “If you like advertisement, don’t go in to the advertising industry. Consumer don’t want to face adverts, they want to be entertained. There is very little time in a persons life left for advertisement, but it is always possible to find some time for entertainment.”

Being a web-advertiser, he naturally means that we tend to find time off work, school etc for a funny viral, game or social media communication, and that these are the means by which we get susceptible for marketing.

Today, I found this quote here by the late advertising guru David Ogilvy: “If you spend your advertising budget entertaining the consumer, you’re a bloody fool. Housewives don’t buy a new detergent because the manufacturer told a joke on television…They buy the new detergent because it promises a benefit.”

Ogilvy was naturally painfully unaware of how the web would become such a powerful marketing channel, but dismissing entertainment as a marketing strategy seems rather harsh. However, one should keep in mind that commodities such as detergent where the consumer faces 10 different brands on the same shelf, and a decision is made in only seconds, may not benefit from the kind of entertainment Martner is talking about. Choice is often made based on a technical differentiator, the benefit that Ogilvy recognises. An already strong brand, for products where there is less choice and more time, however, will benefit from entertaining marketing since it is more about building a long-lasting strong brand where image and social values have a greater role.

My old friend Alex Steen scored for St. Louis Blues last night. Not a Blues fan myself I am really happy for Alex and hope that they will make the play-offs so he can show what he’s got. He’s had a tough season and has a lot more to give for sure!

References we can relate to

“Social media is like teen sex.

Everyone wants to do it.

Nobody knows how.

When it’s finally done there is surprise it’s not better.”

- Avinash Kaushik, Google