As a creative director, one of my consistent objectives is to look at problems from new and different perspectives. Each one of us has a unique thumbprint, DNA and personal style. These contribute to an almost automatic approach to problem solving. The universal challenge is after you have exhausted all the ideas that come naturally — how do you push yourself further? How do you explore new angles that typically aren’t your first thoughts?

In a recent article, Tina Seeling, a PHD in neuroscience at Stanford University, offers many excellent examples and analogies on how taking different perspectives can lead to breakthrough thinking in any industry. Read, enjoy and apply!

The idea of marketing to your brand’s influencers is not new. But it’s important to understand who they are and what will influence them. Finding out how you should rev up or change your messaging to meet their particular needs is also key. We’d like to offer some basic considerations on how to do that. But keep in mind that re-evaluating who your influencers are — and changing your approach and researching the affects of your actions — should be an ongoing process.

Identifying your influencer: Who?

There is never just ONE influencer. Identifying your audience(s) is essential. Let’s say you work in marketing at Bacardi. Your influencers can be anyone from the bartender, server, food and drink bloggers to the retail sales person at BevMo — you name it. The best way to identify these groups is to ask the following:

• Who recommends my product/service?
• To whom do I want to recommend my product/service?
• Whose opinion would I trust about my product/service?
• Who would I ask when deciding products/services?

The “I’d Google it” response is simply not sufficient to answer these questions. How do you know what articles or resources to trust?

Engaging your influencer groups: How?

Marketing to your influencer is probably the most difficult part. Often, it will come down to trial and error. Although we have laid out the steps above in a linear fashion, many times the research needs to come before the initiative. We’re all inundated with consumer product marketing in our everyday lives. Influencers are too, so keep the following suggestions in mind:

Be authentic. Why do YOU recommend your brand? If you are Vizio making TV sets for far less than the competition — but you have a killer story and the technology to match — talk about it! Engage your influencer with emotional brand stories — the kind you buy into, like the ones that made YOU drink the company Kool-aid in the first place. Influencers are influencers because they are seen as experts in “this thing,” not because they can spew back marketing speak.

Teach them. Many influencers don’t know anything about your competition. They have their go-to brands and products — and that is what they recommend. This has worked for them in the past, so why stop? When you are not the company being recommended…teach them. Spend dollars educating your influencer on your product. Retail sales associates across the globe have to know about the products they are selling, so training initiatives can be vital. That’s why manufacturers often use existing marketing budgets earmarked for field marketing and other purposes to finance product training.

You’ll need to go through some trial and error to figure out what works and what doesn’t and what may need to be revved up. Maybe you have a killer field group, but you have been trying to educate influencers through digital webinars. Step back and consider the big picture. Then adjust your approach according to your strengths.

Research: Why?

This is all about follow through. Over and over again, we hear “what you measure, you improve.” So measure it! Of course, this will involve time and money, but it’s important to track how your initiatives are affecting your sell-thru and impacting your bottom line. Obviously, this action will help champion future influencer programs with your company’s leadership. But it can also show you where your initiatives are working and where you need to try something else.

Recently, we stumbled across a company called MSS (http://www.mssmulti.com/) — Multi-Sponsored Surveys. They primarily focus on point-of-purchase influencers, but what they offer can be invaluable. It can help guide every aspect of your marketing and branding. With multiple competing brands, they survey influencers to find out what they recommend, why they recommend it, what questions they get asked, what the market looks like, etc. Of course, using MSS is not the only way to do this kind of research. The important thing is to just get it done. However you research your influencers and what moves them will change how you market, price and develop future offerings. Essentially, it will help you make your business more successful.

No power. Never have two little words meant so much, especially in regards to the recent devastating hurricane damage dominating our newsfeeds — and the occasional local electricity disruptions we have been experiencing in our locale. To consider that thirty-four percent of American households have only wireless telephones, (according to the most recent data from the National Health Interview Survey, recorded late 2011) that’s a lot of people who might be lining up at the pay phone during a long power outage.

So with our incredible dependency on the electric grid to keep our gadgets and cell phones going, I’ve gathered a list of some alternatives to help you power up: enough to keep you juiced up in a major (or minor) emergency or just to make sure you have enough battery potency to meet your friends at the right place for Happy Hour.

1. This portable USB power pack is about the size of a credit card — so long as you’ve remembered to keep your charger charged — this can keep your phone working during long days on the go.
2. A functional double duty iPhone case that’s also a back-up battery: adding up to 6 hours of extra talk time.
3. Solar battery chargers are plentiful, and practical not just for sunny weather residents.
4. Let’s not forget the combo mini-wind/solar/handcrank charger!
5. Bicycle chargers, this one also charges your bike lights.
6. Emergency single battery charger. A single AA battery charger is small enough to fit in your emergency kit or your handbag.
7. This super-useful hand-crank generator gets my vote as it takes 120 volts so all kinds of devices can be plugged in.

In recent days, I’ve picked up a bit of a hobby in my spare time: working with a production company. Now it’s not really “working” in the traditional sense of the word where one expects to be compensated by money or other means. In fact, profit isn’t the end goal for this production company; their end goal is creation for creativity’s sake; a bit of a refreshing rhetoric for a company to have these days.

The company I’ve been speaking of is hitRECord, incorporated about three years ago by actor Joseph Gordon Levitt who started the project several years before that. In his words, hitRECord is an “open collaborative production company,” meaning that anyone can contribute to projects they’re working on and anyone can download, remix, and upload those projects. This is, in it’s basic form, how they work together and generate the art they later exhibit on road tours or through books, DVDs, records, clothing, etc. they sell through their store. After recouping the costs of production, hitRECord will split the profits 50/50, half going to the company and half being distributed amongst the artists who contributed to the finished work. The pay isn’t much, if anything but, like I mentioned earlier, the money isn’t the reason for participating — it’s more of a bonus, really.

So why am I writing about hitRECord? There are not a whole lot of companies out there that do what they do the way they do it for the reason they do it: to create, that’s it. It’s why I got into the creative field in the first place — to put something into the world that wasn’t there before, to share what I have to an audience that may take enjoyment or, better yet, inspiration from it. And even more incredible, I get to work with and draw inspiration from brilliant minds all over the world!

It’s an incredible blessing to get paid to be creative, but it’s nice to be able to separate creativity and creation from financial need. It’s nice to step back and create just because it’s what you need to feel fulfilled. It’s something that I feel is not exclusive to those we consider “creatives” either. It’s why some keep a garden, why some build furniture, why some perfect a pie recipe. We need something we can nurture, grow and call our own. It’s our banner we can hold up and say “this is why I’m unique,” and it’s nice to have the opportunity do that for a reason other than to pay the bills.

Calls to action are nothing new. Whether you’re aware of them or not, you hear them every day. Companies fly banners and shout rallying cries constantly to get you to march in line with them; “Just do it.” “Think different.” Why do they have these? Because they work. They speak to the core of what it is to be human. They tap into our personal beliefs—both about ourselves and the world at large.

Consumer facing brands have long understood the power of a rallying cry to encourage people to buy their products. Companies have the same opportunity to attract and retain employees with internal branding. They can use the rallying cry tool to allure the type of talent they want, engage their employees and create loyalty within their ranks. As mentioned before, calls to action are effective because they’re simple and speak to our emotional core—our “gut” as it were. Finding this core, this “gut instinct,” within your company’s values is the secret ingredient to developing an effective call to action. Simon Sinek asks, “Why do you do what you do?” Surprisingly, this is a challenging question for many organizations. He then goes on to state “people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” If you can accurately and simply express what it is you believe, you’ll attract like-minded people who align with your purpose and vision. They will be your fiercely engaged employees, your brand advocates and ambassadors. Your call to action is simply the expression of your company’s core belief and the rallying cry you use can garner the culture and talent you desire.

Follow this link to find tips on creating your call to action and see how other companies are utilizing their rallying cries

Transmedia is the telling of a story through multiple media. Though, there’s another part of transmedia that many forget – it’s a two way street. Traditional marketing techniques limit themselves to one campaign across multiple platforms. Transmedia storytelling, though not new, is a technique that creates a universe that your audience not only interacts with, but contributes to as well. You tell the story; your audience develops and applies it.

With technology as advanced and rapidly improving as it is today, transmedia storytelling is not only more easily applied, it’s becoming absolutely critical to engaging your audience.

To delve deeper into the subject and find out how it applies to you, visit our latest insight, Transmedia: Unlocking your brand’s narrative potential.

Who in the world?

Who uses IE6 still? China. That’s who. Usage of Internet Explorer 6 remains a stubbornly high 24% there. That’s IE6 -– the 10-year-old, non-standards compliant browser. The browser that even Microsoft, its inventor, no longer supports. In most of the rest of the world, usage has dropped below 2%.

Why in the world?

So why would anyone ever spend the extra design and development time to build a site compliant with IE6 (or IE7, for that matter)? Well, China (or Korea or Vietnam). To reach a broad consumer audience there. But if your focus is the business and investment class in the US, Europe or elsewhere – let’s safely assume they’ve been afforded some computer upgrades over the years that automatically come with updated browser software.

On average it’s about 30-100% more work to program for these outdated browsers. Not to mention the client and IT time spent beta testing and reprogramming to keep that ever so small and decreasing percentage of non-consumers in the loop.

The newer browsers are safer, have faster download times, offer better SEO functionality and have more features for a better web experience – and they reach the desired audiences. So unless you’re targeting the general Chinese population, it’s time for your enterprise to upgrade. It saves time and money.

Help us join the countdown … http://www.ie6countdown.com/ and http://theie7countdown.com/.

Statistics source: StatCounter, March 2012

“Don’t write because you want to say something. Write because you have something to say.” F. Scott Fitzgerald

He’s referring to PURPOSE.

Purpose powers anything meaningful and lasting. It is the deepest expression of a brand, drawing on its essence to determine its path in the world. Purpose captures the relationship between organization and community, integrating financial, social and environmental arenas into a single clearly articulated and demonstrated approach.

Every brand makes a promise but a purpose is what defines and truly separates one brand from the next. Making money allows the organization to STAY in business.

Purpose is WHY they are in business.

Purpose can’t be faked.

Building a brand on a purpose helps consumers understand what the brand stands for, but there’s more to it than that. Perhaps more critically, it helps employees become brand ambassadors by having them understand why are we here? Because Apple, Google or Whole Foods employees understand their reason for being, it not only clarifies their roles but also signifies their intrinsic value to the organization and its reputation as a brand. An organization whose employees can answer why are we here? will be the one that makes stronger connections with consumers in search of solutions to life’s challenges. Essentially, it’s building a strong organization from the inside out. Actions directed by the brand purpose can unlock an organization’s true potential for growth and success on every level.

Consumers are smart and will identify a fake. Posing can lead to permanent damage of the brand. Purpose should be something that the consumers are able to sense, not something they are to be told explicitly. Authenticity is very essential for the success of a brand. If a brand gets that right, it can take on competitors of any size and number.

It’s great to be wanted.

As competition increases, the challenge of attaining and retaining consumers increases as well. Consumers believe, until they are shown otherwise, that the hidden motive of any brand is to sell something. This reduces their affinity towards a brand, and with the growing number of options available, it is easier than ever for a brand to lose consumers to competition. But if the brand is able to prove to the customers that its profit making is only a by-product of a larger purpose, it gains the affection of the customers—making it harder for the competition to break this customer-brand bond.

Be honest with yourself.

To define your purpose, you need to ask yourself questions. What is your organization’s passion? What are its greatest strengths? What need do you see in the world that you are ideally placed to address?

These answers are the essential start to a great brand. Let’s get to work!

To introduce a new line of deodorant LYNX created the first invisible ad. Special LED screens were mounted to windows of an abandoned terrace house. To the un-glassed passerby there is nothing special to see. But if you have sunglasses on the voyeur in you got a treat.

I’ve lived by a few simple mottos. One of my favorites is: ‘put yourself in your client’s shoes.’ Over my 28-years as sole proprietor of Baker, this motto has served me well. I am grateful for the many successful, long-term relationships that I have had with both companies and clients. However, equally valuable have been the blunders I have survived. Many times, those lessons have taught me even more. So with a little humility I thought I would share (as an on going series) —‘The things I will never do again’ or if I do just shoot me.

#1 Don’t deliver surprises. Pretty basic, right? Yet, this one I never saw coming. We had won a Fortune 100 account because our insights and creative brief demonstrated we understood that the company’s new brand positioning was their main corporate story. Soon after, we presented creative concepts for their upcoming annual report. Everyone loved the creative and was enthusiastically on board. We had hit a home run and it felt great.

We flew back to our office, and sent meeting notes to our client confirming their comments. We began refinements for the next presentation to the C Suite. Our team worked diligently to build on the win from the initial concept presentation. A few weeks later, when we walked into a boardroom filled with the company’s senior management. We were confident that we had “polished” our initial concept “just right.” To my surprise, it bombed! I was devastated and shell-shocked. What had happened?

The answer was simple. Things got lost in visual translation. Although our client agreed, in theory, with the ideas of how we were going to evolve the initial concept, she was visualizing something very different than what we presented. She was greatly disappointed and ultimately embarrassed in front of her supervisor, the CFO. She never got over it. The following year we lost the account and she returned to her incumbent.

Lesson learned at Baker: Always build a preview with a first time client into the project schedule. We must give clients an opportunity to make adjustments they deem necessary before proceeding to a design presentation that includes their superiors. Corporations are political animals; politics will always be in play. It’s our job to make our clients look good and to be 100% comfortable showing proposed solutions that best differentiate their company and facilitates getting their stories heard. Absolutely, deliver no surprises!