Browsing Tag

Marketing and Advertising

You can’t move a brand without moving people…

212 slides on positioning your brand, sorta.  More about Innovation and Brands and how the channels of communication may just be the innovation. Great break down on brands by Johan Ronnestam, I’ve never thought of my name as a google keyword though.

Conclusion: It is no longer possible to say ANYTHING original about social media

So it sorta feels like the oxygen has been sucked out of social media or at least the originality.  While I like the slight metaphor twist by Krista Neher and the apparent use of the 5 step approach she undoubtly had ingrained at P&G, where’s the new content?  This isn’t Krista’s fault, the presentation is solid and spot on. The next steps close with connect is classic 5 step, but even with that I still find myself wanting in general for something new to happen in the scene.

Perhaps we are just entering the “no original thought” part of social media.  Pirates, defenders, advocates, rouges, creators, lurkers, trolls, detractors, blah, blah, blah…. Brands in social media need to change their approach to engaging and listening needs to central to the brand’s digital strategy and anyone that doesn’t already know this is just 1 bad quarter from a new job or no job.

Again, NOT to pick on Krista, because she did nail it and is further spreading the word which everyone needs to know, so take a look, since she did get a slot in Vegas which is no small feat:

Brand Management Pubcon Vegas09″>Online Brand Management Pubcon Vegas09

View more presentations from Krista Neher.

Exit Strategy: Sue Gartner for $1.696B

I’ve seen a good deal of crazy valuations and market activity to boost share holder wealth, but sometimes you should just choose the maintenance increase.  Ultimately it appears ZL tech doesn’t realize that not all revenue generation ideas or exit strategies should be prioritized solely by the top line opportunity value.  I mean the return on investment is pretty straightforward and simple: legal fees under say a million and a crazy $1.696B top line.

I can see the retort when question on the top line estimate:

Even after negotiations it is still a $600M pay day.  Add in some contingency legal fees and the net is like $400 or like a gabillion times more than current revenues.

So while ZL clearly admits a short coming in marketing, which is the reason they aren’t leaders, thus the law suite, they might want to spend some time reflecting on the Ability to Execute concept when this is all over.

Below is a simple overview how marketing and branding just might influence a given organization’s placement in any given magic quadrant.

Many thanks to Hub Spot Marketing for their grader tools.

Turnarounds are more cultural than process based

Everyone’s an expert…   Andee Sellmen’s presentation on 7 steps to Successful Turnaround misses a bunch of obvious items and focuses on just a few too many items most of us learned with our lemonade stands – more cash in is better than going out.  Hmmm… seems reasonable, but a turnaround is more about instantiating a new culture than hiring a lead gen consultant/cash flow KING.

From my limited experience, the concept of turnaround assumes they have a product, some revenue and opportunity. So assuming that is the case, you probably need new operational processes across the board, financial controls and different people more so than a lead generation/mgt process.  I’m just saying there may be a more complete way to look at it…

Check out his website – http://www.onesherpa.com/  – I guess it is a hard climb up the profitability market from these 7 tips, but apparently you can get a membership to his site and get clued in how to become cash flow positive in 30 days or whatever.