The future of social communication is mobile, at least if you believe the latest round of evangelism coming from the technopunditry. I actually buy it, mostly, and I think the idea of being immersed in a web of background, insight and opinion at any given moment is kinda cool in a cyberpunk consensual hallucination sort of way.
Jonathan Salem Baskin mobile innovation digitalI may be dim, but I love this ad. A dad leans through an open window of a car door, dispensing driving advice to his 7 year-old daughter who’s behind the wheel. The little girl is giggly cute and after a bit tells her dad she’ll be fine. Cut to dad who winces his agreement, then back to the daughter, only now we see her as she really is — not through her dad’s eyes — and she’s a mature-looking teen. The car pulls out of the driveway as dad watches. “We knew this day would come, and that’s why we bought a Subaru,” the narrator intones.
Jonathan Salem Baskin Subaru adsI may be dim, but I’m having deja vu all over again after reading that the unions of newly-bankrupt American Airlines would rather consider a merger with habitually-bankrupt US Airways than pursue a draconian business plan proposed by their own management.
Jonathan Salem Baskin airlines mergersI may be dim, but have you ever thought about how people talk about brands? The brand stands for something. The brand does this or that. The brand value is whatever. The brand has a conversation with people. The brand tells stories.
Guess what? There’s no such thing as “the brand.” It has no consciousness or personality. It can’t do things. It simply isn’t.
branding brands Jonathan Salem BaskinWe marketers are a funny lot, in that we seem to learn far better from examples than we do from theories or explanations, however detailed those descriptions might be. I’ve often argued that this penchant of ours keeps us from ever straying far from The Conventional Wisdom -- in that the next campaign must look much like the last one, by definition -- and it means most branding conversations amount to little more than vocational quibbles (versus the thoughtful, strategic analyses our business needs so desperately).
advertising Jonathan Salem Baskin Weight Watchers ChryslerChances are you've come across a bundled services offer from your friendly neighborhood phone or cable companies lately. It's actually the primary slant of their marketing strategies, so you really can't avoid them. The pitch is simple: buy more of the things we sell and you'll get a better up-front discount.
bundles discounts incentives Jonathan Salem Baskin selling special offersI had the incredible honor to spend the second half of 2011 as a Goldman Sachs Senior Fellow at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington, DC. This was a dream come true for me, since I've been a museum fanatic since I was 7 or 8 years old (I had fantasies of hiding in the bathroom at Chicago's Museum of Science & Industry until it closed so I could spend all night playing with its humongous HO-scale train).
Jonathan Salem Baskin curated contet museumsSo the US domestic car business is picking up this year. No, it’s flying high, so much so that manufacturers are worried that they won’t be able to keep up with demand. I wrote earlier this week about how familiar this is...business is up, workers are rehired, marketers go about selling cars just like they’ve always sold them...until the economy changes, sales crash, employees are fired, and the cycle repeats.
Jonathan Salem Baskin oil companiesThe U.S. auto industry is heading for a banner year...so much so that there’s a question whether manufacturers will be able to keep up with demand, especially for trucks. Tens of thousands of people are being put back to work at auto plants and parts suppliers, not to mention the additional work available from everyone involved in the activities (from transportation to coffee shops along the way).
automobile automotive Jonathan Salem Baskin strategy“I hope your clients don’t read Ad Age,” quipped a comment at the end of my latest essay in which I said Chrysler’s “Halftime in America” movie was a great piece of entertainment, but that brands need to be built from behaviors, not image or content.
Jonathan Salem Baskin content behaviour content marketing branding
