Awareness Strategy of The Day: Short, Subliminal Bursts

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/02/business/media/mob-city-uses-twitter-to-build-suspense-for-a-premiere.html?ref=todayspaper

From the “How To Create Awareness Today and Now” department, today’s news bulletins point to 2 unrelated stories aka case studies from New York Times reporter Andrew Adam Newman [Building Suspsene on Twitter for A Television Show About the Mob]  and WSJ’s Farhad Manjoo’s piece “Why Everyone Will Totally Read This…”

Before you click on either of above, the take-away is that both articles coincidentally profile “this week’s weapon of choice” for today’s “Awareness Creators.”Both also profile derivative forms of what this blogger suggests is a time-proven, “before-there-were-neuroscientists” narrative/story telling approach.

Tag-lines are out; in-vogue are tactics that leverage multiple mediums (traditional, new, digital and social media) and deliver “short-burst” messages over a series of days (i.e. single frames from a film clip, using Twitter to link to upcoming scripts of a widely-promoted TV show (i.e.AMC’s upcoming “Mob City”), or a series of 15 second video vignettes that are ‘episodes’ that tell a story that subliminally promotes a brand

Regardless of the specific weapon of choice, the objective is to assault the target audience with a string of increasingly intriguing (short!) messages such that each subsequent ‘hit’ leads to increasing degrees of recall and resonance..such that your audience, desperate to know “what’s next” proactively seeks you out. That folks is a Holy Grail for the current Madmen Generation.

Awareness Strategy of The Day: Short, Subliminal Bursts

How to Create Awareness: Social Networks Marry Uber-Rich With Investment Opportunities

Courtesy of Liz Moyer, WSJ (excerpt) :

“..A new breed of social investment networking is popping up, with the aim of helping wealthy suitors and private-business owners meet up and pair off. Call them matchmakers for the deal market. What the networks do best is give buyers and sellers the rough equivalent of a well-lit meeting place for a first encounter. The networks are generally open to “accredited” investors, typically those with an annual income of at least $200,000 or $1 million in investible assets..”

Firms such as Axial.net, Zanbato and FDX Capital are catering to deep-pocketed investors looking to buy majority stakes in closely held firms by introducing investors to business owners seeking that kind of long-term investment commitment. Zanbato and FDX opened their doors in the past year or so, while Axial was formed in 2010.

Zanbato’s network, Zanbato Sutter, launched in the spring. It connects about 800 wealthy families, as well public pensions and sovereign-wealth funds, with potential deals in real estate, media and other sectors. The firm, in Mountain View, Calif., charges investors a fee based on the size of a completed deal, says Nico Sand, its chief executive.

Here’s the link to the WSJ story

How to Create Awareness: Social Networks Marry Uber-Rich With Investment Opportunities

Corporate Brand Burnishing 101: #Citi Sings For Lunch with Man-in-The-Mirror

As reported in the WSJ weekend edition, what better way for Citibank to burnish its brand and show its humanity than to have its London-based bankers and traders perform their acoustical skills by singing a heart-rendering version of Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror” on BBC’s hit competition TV show, “The Choir” ?

The Citibank Singers not only perform one of Michael Jackson’s best, but the performance by the CitiTroupe was apparently so compelling, clips from their performance are scheduled to be used in the opening of each segment of the show’s Season 2 (which premieres Mon Dec 2).

Ironically, BBC2′s website indicated that none of the promo clips for Season 2 were actually viewable online (yet), and as much as some might liken the snafu to less-than-customer-friendly experiences encountered when dealing with financial institutions (and/or with “healthcare.gov”), the clip to left offers great transparency (a quasi-popular phrase on Wall Street) i.e. the type of returns Citi staffers deliver when prompted to sing for their lunch.
For the full story, click here to be redirected and watch the clips, 

Thought-Leadership Requires Thought & Leadership: Excellence Awards Go To Excellent Folks

Well-demonstrated by a short list of Wall Street women recently awarded for their excellence and contributions to their respective organizations and to the communities they serve.  We’re proud to be associated with one such winner.

Thought-Leadership Requires Thought & Leadership: Excellence Awards Go To Excellent Folks

Advanced Branding: Story Tellers Rule The World

Caleb Ferguson for The New York Times
Dave Goldberg, left, Shane Snow and Joe Coleman founded Contently, which aims to be the “anticontent farm.”[/caption]

Kudos to NY Times’ David Karr re yesterday’s article profiling upstart company Contently, and narrowcasting on the increasing trend on the part of companies to disintermediate their intermediary media companies by creating [in-house] story-telling-style content and delivering this well-proven, brand value strategy directly to the consumer.

So as not to infringe on the NY Times copyrighted story , below are the excerpted “take-aways”:

“..At a time when advertising is achieving diminishing returns and public relations has trouble breaking through, companies are learning the value of putting their names around — but not in the middle — of memorable stories.”

“..In 1947, General Electric had an in-house reporter telling the company’s stories — a guy named Kurt Vonnegut.”

“…the bar has been raised by companies like Red Bull, whose incredibly popular extreme sports videos almost make it seem like a media company that sells beverages on the side..”

Call it “brand positioning” or call it “spinning”, companies who aspire to innovate need to pull no punches and understand  the art (and science) of telling stories as a means to ingratiate your targeted audience is a critical component to your overall brand messaging strategy.

This self-acclaimed expert re topic of spinning strongly advocates the successful and time-tested use of  compelling story-telling as a means to inspire and influence your audience to respond to your story accordingly.

Kurt Vonnegut might have pioneered this corporate branding strategy for GE, but to truly appreciate how a good story can have a meaningful impact your audience is to consider the success of The Bible.

Advanced Branding: Story Tellers Rule The World

Citibank's New Strategy: Cozy-Up to Customers; A Case Study

Thanks in part to the “financial crisis of 2008″…whose after-affects remain resonant in the minds and real lives of millions of people, this iconic brand has been the subject of countless critiques and criticism, including the re-purposing of their corporate name from Citibank to “Sh*%tyBank” by certain fun-loving anti-brand protagonists who believe that major banks care only about their bottom lines, and least of all, the consumers they exploit .

Even this blogger has, up until recently, been in the camp that decries the big banks that rest on the fine print that can’t be deciphered, and does everything to squeeze as much money as they can from the millions who have few alternatives re: credit card services. Until that is, last night, when I had an encounter via phone with a Citibank rep in connection with a notice I received about a credit pending to my account with regard to a Citi-promoted credit protection service I had apparently subscribed to during the 2000-2004 period.

The phone number included in the mailing directed me to a lovely lady who answered with “Hi, I’m Cathy xxx (no need to broadcast her last name here)…”I’m your Citi representative based here in Orlando, Florida and I’m here to help you..”

1. The Citi script was perfect..it provided subliminal comfort by immediately informing me I was speaking with someone here in the US (when one typically finds themselves speaking with an outsourced call center staffer with less-than perfect grasp of English and located in a different hemisphere) and their mission was to help me.

2. Before I could fully pose my query in connection with the notification, “Cathy” had my entire Citi history dispalyed on a screen in front of her, and immediately told me why I was calling and explained that I would be receiving a credit to my account that very evening.

3. After that’ business’ was concluded, Cathy offered to address any other concerns I might have. So, I figured that I should raise the issue of the usurious interest rate that seemed to be stuck to my corporate credit card account for the past 5 years. Cathy placed me on hold for 2 minutes and then came back on line, this time with her associate “Angela (whose last name is not necessary to post on the internet), who introduced herself in the same way Cathy did and told me where she was located (Atlanta).In less than 5 minutes, Angela advised me that she was authorized to reduce my annual interest rate by 30%, a change that if accepted, would be implemented immediately.

I had actually attempted to secure the same type of reduction for each of the past 4 years, with barely a budge in the rate.  Angela made me feel like a VIP and we proceeded to talk about sports teams and the weather in the northeast vs. southeast.  Bottom line? I had 2 different experiences with 2 different Citi employees in 2 different locations, working in 2 different departments. Both of those engagements left me with a warm and cozy feeling and I now tip my hat to Citi for flawless customer service.

 

Citibank's New Strategy: Cozy-Up to Customers; A Case Study

Dept of HHS ACA Website Snarl: PR Crisis Management Report Card: "D" For Just Plain Dumb

The media has convinced us all that Kathleen Sebelius, President Obama’s designated point person re the implementation of the government website to support the Affordable Care Act,  should be fired for failing to have taken a much more intelligent and well-informed approach to manage the design and roll out of the federal government ‘web portal’ intended to be used for signing up millions of Americans who need affordable healthcare.

After all, we all now know the roll-out hasn’t been simply ‘soft’, the snarled software project has increasingly becoming a harbinger of potentially much worse to come: the possible failure to sign up a minimum number of people required to prove the basic economic thesis of ACA.

This writer has been involved in multiple, enterprise-level technology initiatives over the past 20 years. Most have been related to the financial industry or the insurance industry. Mission critical stuff that has been the backbone to $ multi-billion industries.  The most important thing I learned is that software is called software for a reason, and this particular project is particularly complex when considering the the number of  independent federal and state government databases, as well as insurance company exchange member platforms that need to be linked and synced in order to make the platform work.

That said, when HHS Secretary says “we’re now going to bring in an A-team of technology experts to fix this..”, that’s when heads need to roll, starting with this Secretary–who along the way, has embarrassed herself by appearing on late night comedy talk shows.

Rule #1 re PR Crisis Management: Get out in front of the problem the moment it arises. DO NOT LET THE MEDIA MANIPULATE THE STORY WHILE YOU ARE TOO BUSY HOLDING INTERNAL STAFF MEETINGS DEBATING ON WHAT TO SAY TOMORROW IN RESPONSE TO YESTERDAY’S TWEETS.

Rule #1 re Leadership: DO NOT POINT FINGERS, DO NOT BURY YOUR HEAD IN THE SAND, DO NOT CLAIM TO BE “WAITING ON INTERNAL REPORTS THAT WILL IDENTIFY WHO SCREWED UP”…INSTEAD…YOU NEED TO MAKE AN EXECUTIVE PRO-ACTIVE DECISION AND IMMEDIATELY RECRUIT THE VERY MOST RESPECTED PROBLEM SOLVERS, REGARDLESS OF “ADDITIONAL COST”.

 

Dept of HHS ACA Website Snarl: PR Crisis Management Report Card: "D" For Just Plain Dumb

Financial Industry Marketing: A Social Media Video Lesson From World-Famous Hedge Fund Manager

Known for being secretive and stealth in the course of managing Bridgewater Associates, one of the world’s largest hedge funds, Ray Dalio has been called many things; we know him for (among other things) being someone who embraces video, and uses this tool to extend a broad assortment of messages…including the one below that targets the universe of investors.

Sight, Sound and Motion…a time-tested tool that makes your message resonate.

Financial Industry Marketing: A Social Media Video Lesson From World-Famous Hedge Fund Manager

How The Economic Machine Works by Ray Dalio

Owning Stock in Pro Athletes & Celebs, Just Like Owning Shares in #GOOG!: Calling All Sponsors!

Calling all sponsorship agents!

As noted in today’s NYT DealBook story, start-up “Fantex Holdings” is a new trading exchange backed by executives from Silicon Valley, Wall Street and the sports world that can enable investors to buy and sell equity interests in professional athletes, and ultimately, entertainment industry celebrities. The vision is that investors can participate in the revenue generated by these individual ‘brands’ by virtue of owning stock in them.

[For those not familiar with the machinations of Wall Street, the inspiration to this concept comes from the 1990's, when a financial industry genius created "Bowie Bonds"--a bond issue that paid interest from current of future revenue of albums from rock star David Bowie..]

The latest iteration from Fantex (whose execs include a former West Point grad-turned megamillionaire after selling a software company for $600 mil, a former partner of VC firm Benchmark Capital, a former Goldman Sachs exec and now partner of hedge fund Glenview Capital  and a former technology wizard from E*Trade), envision Fantex as the ‘hub’ for IPOs and secondary market trading of ‘stocks’ whose underlying value is the revenue generated by the individual ‘brand’ celeb.   Sponsorship gurus will necessarily have an ‘axe’ in the equity value of the athletes, as its the sponsors who will serve as a primary source of revenue to that ‘brand’.

If the whole idea sounds convoluted and potentially subject to ‘gaming’, this “pontificator” says:

1. Brilliant Idea. I’d like to be the agent that is selling stock in those athletes.

2. When will Fantex facilitate selling shares in politicians? Once that happens, it will become a lobbyist’s wet dream.

3. Sounds like the SEC will have one more asset class to monitor. Rots of Ruck

 

 

Owning Stock in Pro Athletes & Celebs, Just Like Owning Shares in #GOOG!: Calling All Sponsors!