Explore Posterous

This shouldn't come as news: one swallow doesn't make a summer - nor does a fancy Facebook profile (even though some brand profiles speak of that hope). If you don't have friends in real life, why should someone be your friend in the digital sphere?

I think I'm going to make this my New Years wish. It's about f***ing time I can use the music I already paid for on audio cassette, Vinyl, CD and Itunes as my own - whenever I want, wherever I want.

Luckily there will be alternatives beyond the control of the 4 major record labels and iTunes coming soon. There are interesting projects being developed as You read this.

If you didn't know - most artists earn less per downloaded album than per album retailed. I will not go into deepth, but please take time to read this article from Wired.

Shocking!

"We have finally realized that the Internet is much more than a network of computers. It is an endless web of people. Men and women from every corner of the globe are connecting to one another, thanks to the biggest social interface ever known to humanity. Digital culture has laid the foundations for a new kind of society.
And this society is advancing dialogue, debate and consensus through communication. Because democracy has always flourished where there is openness, acceptance, discussion and participation. And contact with others has always been the most effective antidote against hatred and conflict.
That's why the Internet is a tool for peace.
That's why anyone who uses it can sow the seeds of non-violence.
And that's why the next Nobel Peace Prize should go to the Net.
A Nobel for each and every one of us."

This is the manifesto of a campaign launched this week by Wired Italy to nominate the net - and thereby all of us - for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010.

Sign the petition and find out more on InternetForPeace.org.

Excellent write up of Wired writer Evan Ratliff's attempts to vanish and remain hidden. Fascinating stuff.

"This time around, the Touareg features such cool features as a carbon fiber-reinforced outer skin that weighs a mere 50 kilograms, a braking system capable of exerting pressure equal to that of 700 meters below sea level and a data acquisition system that can store 250 MB of data that is read and analyzed by race engineers at the close of a days stage."

This is a good example on how Twitter works as an extended customer support.
I tweeted:

"My subscription to @Wired ran out and when I was trying to buy it at the newsstand in Sthlm they only had the UK Wired. - Why? Why? Why?"

The reply from Wired came 10 minutes later.

Wired @WaldeckS - "Serves you right for letting it lapse :) -- not that the UK version is exactly a dog's breakfast. Where were you exactly?"

I replied: 

@wired "I know, I'm a bum - I was at Pressbyrån in Swedens biggest railway station. It's huge. You need to get back into distribution."

In all it took 15 minutes.

I believe more brands should be listening to what their customers think and say about their company/brands and join the Social Media conversation.

This is an great example - because Wired is sold via Newsstands all over the world, pretty much like a Canon camera or any laptop is sold via retailers. Often without the producers have any knowledge about the customer experience at the retailer.

Now producers can get feedback - directly from the buyers how the retailers are performing and get in touch with buyers and the retailers if needed.

Another great infographics - This time from Wired Magazine. Some colors are more popular than others and the name and logo tell us very little about the company. Therefore each Brand owner have to load the Brand with all the information and expectation, they want associated with the brand (eg a company, organization, product or service). 

This is done via marketing, mostly advertising and PR.

The brand experience is the sum of all points of contacts with the brand. The brand image is what is in peoples minds, their information and expectations associated with a product or service. Often there is a gap between the brand experience and the brand image.

Marketers all over the world invest billions of dollars, mostly in advertising, to close this gap, because if done right, it will convince consumers to to pay a lot for products that often are cheap to produce and of little difference.

Successful brands gets well known in the marketplace. They get positive brand recognition.

We all know that, don't we?

Take a look on the logos in the picture above again. Start with the blue companies and ask yourself:

1/ If you know the brand

2/ Do you know the industry they work within or any products or brands

3/ Do you know if they have a brand tagline (eg Nokia - Connecting People)

4/ If you have a positive attitude towards the brands that you recognize

5/ You can remember any advertising campaigns from the brands

This is interesting, because these companies invest millions of advertising dollars, yet I could only tell what industry most blue logo companies are within. The reason could be I'm not in the target group (or that I'm Swedish, and a few of the companies are not present in the Swedish market). 

I hope you did better - Or what does it tell us about the state of brand advertising?

I don't know, but even if the color and logo design tell us little in an overcrowded and competitive world - Imagine the same infographics made for all the stock exchange companies in the world, or all the companies worldwide represented by a website. If not exposed to some kind of advertising or PR, we would probably be clueless.

Marketing is complicated and it's probably the reason why I love it.