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September 21, 2005
What do you want to know?
Posted by Jennifer Rice
I've been AWOL for a couple months; my apologies! I'm coming out of a severe blog burnout phase, but I'm back. I've missed everyone. To help me get ramped back up... do you, dear reader, have any specific areas of interest in this rather broad "branding" category? I think it would be great fun to discuss specific issues or questions that you have, rather than trying to come up with stunningly insightful, but not terribly relevant, ideas.
I was wondering: who's reading this blog, anyway? Are you agency or client-side marketers? CPG or technology? Terribly experienced or newbies? I suppose that's the problem with blogs; traditional measured media conducts reader surveys and knows exactly who's reading and who's buying. With a blog, you just throw out thoughts and hope they're relevant. Commenters may have blogs, but often they're just an anonymous voice with an email address.
What's important to you? Analysis of current marketing campaigns? How blogs & social technologies are impacting brands? Customer research applied to brand development? Written from agency angle or client angle? Let us know; we'd love to hear from you.
Comments (4)
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1. Robert Paterson on September 21, 2005 05:24 PM writes...
Hi Jennifer
Permalink to CommentWelcome back. I valeu all you talk about. Most of all when you talk about the changes in relationships between the consumer and the provider.
Best wishes Rob
2. kris on September 24, 2005 01:15 PM writes...
I'd enjoy some discussion around branding 'perception' in distinct market niches especially for tech products (podcasting, tagging, wikis, etc). Most of the population hears about this stuff and reacts with, "Interesting, but what does it mean for me"?
The conventional wisdom seems to be that as the younger audience matures, they will bring these products to the mainstream. Seems like a pretty passive strategy to me and I’d enjoy some commentary along those lines.
Here's an example - some schools are podcasting class lectures for students and using it as a means to provide class room lectures to students experiencing extended absenses. Now, maybe podcast tech providers have been actively marketing to this segment for this purpose - maybe not, but it’s a good example of a generic product branding 'perception' for a specific market. And the market is educational 'entities' – not the mass market of 'individuals'.
In this era of market fragmentation. brands are targeted at broad general audiences (more often than not the younger consumer). Could they be more broadly and quickly adopted by branding perception and understanding in the context of the needs of specific niches? It should be more than mere age and culture demographics.
Why do I care? I work in the enterprise technology arena as well as a fair amount of civic and volunteer involvement. It fascinates me how otherwise value-adding products, technologies, and approaches that are hot in the tech arena are pretty much ignored by enterprises and the general public because they just don't 'see' it for the particular things that they 'do' in their own arenas (myopic as they are).
In an earlier life, I also dabbled with some tech start-ups who tripped up badly on the brand ‘perception’ issue. They were amazingly good at branding for themselves but missing the audience perception completely.
Permalink to Comment3. tim rogers on September 24, 2005 01:25 PM writes...
Great questions, each and every one ... I'm not a marketer, not in the traditional sense anyway. I'm a public librarian with a big interest in how
people (in library land we nobly call them 'patrons') think about, find, use, and repurpose information. For a long time libraries have focused on access to information, but we're now starting to recognize that another big issue is getting them to the right info. As Barry Scwartz taught us in "Paradox of Choice," the more choices (content) we add, the harder we make it for (especially inexperienced) searchers to find what they need. Patron education, marketing, and promotion are the answers ... or really, the questions that require answers.
We're using blogs and soon more interactive social networking software to help communicate in real (non-artificial) ways to our patrons. We want to
be able to speak directly to the people using the library and needing real life help. Thanks for asking!
I love Brandshift ... one of the truly packed blogs. Thanks, and glad you're recharged!
Permalink to Comment4. Jayme Maultasch on September 25, 2005 09:35 AM writes...
Welcome back! I work in account management at a mid-size ad Agency and I'm a regular reader. I like your unique spin on the world of branding. I'm mostly looking for practical nuggets I can weave into my day job.
Permalink to CommentJayme