Brussels Express: Transportation in a city with a similar mindset to our own
Posted on 18. May, 2012 by Jonathan Cherry.
MTV suggests that you recycle old bank cards as guitar picks with their Green Picks Recycle Machine.
How awesome is that? Sadly banks kind just rely on your to take care of your own expired plastic – when they could be turning the opportunity into this. This makes us want to own an airline just so that we can install an instant origami machine for all those old boarding pass stubs.
The Cherryflava Peep Show presents: Lessons sport can teach business
Posted on 17. May, 2012 by Jonathan Cherry.
On Tuesday 5 June at 18h15 we’ve invited Dr Ross Tucker [from The Sports Science Institute} to present his insights into 'Lessons sport can teach business' at Dear Me [165 Longmarket Street, Cape Town].
There are a lot of similarities in the way world-class athletes train their minds to deal with pressure, and get that winning-edge, to the way the world’s leading entrepreneurs and business people think and succeed. Dr Ross Tucker has done extensive research into this field and we are very excited to host him and offer you the opportunity to get some exposure to his findings.
It promises to be a fascinating presentation by one of the countries leading sports scientists. The whole affair shouldn’t last more than an hour or so and afterwards you’re more than welcome to join us for a drink at the bar upstairs.
Space is limited [ just 50 places] so if you’d like to attend – please RSVP on our Facebook Event page here.
—————————–
The Cherryflava Peep Show is a live marketing get-together for those looking for the darker side of business inspiration. It’s a flirtatious undressing of South Africa’s pop culture marketing icons. Previous guests included Fokofpolisiekar, Dave Levinson and Justin Bonello.
Branded entertainment: What’s the future of advertising?
Posted on 17. May, 2012 by Jonathan Cherry.
Branded entertainment and the community it builds, is the future of advertising. The challenge for brands is how do they now equip themselves to be media companies that sell stuff – rather than just interrupt consumers of mainstream media with their intrusive ads.
How can brands add real information value, offer entertainment, build a community and then service that community with products and services? The answer is that brands will need to become far more proactive and strategic about how they build that community in the future.
We call it community marketing and the idea is to authentically build a connection with people for the purposes of making your marketing budget far more effective.
And if you want case studies of brands that are getting it right – look no further than the surf, skate and energy drink guys for inspiration. Their customers are the future buyers of Volvos, managed investment portfolios, short-term insurance and baby products. They don’t do traditional advertising, they join movements.
So how do you start building a strategy of community marketing?
- Get real: Stop trying to sell your stuff and rather offer a solution. Be it a lifestyle, a cure, an answer – talk like a human being who gives a damn.
- Dedicate resources: Don’t just do some community marketing because it seems to be ‘hot right now’. Do it too add value to society in general so that the community considers your brand as the choice of partner to help them out. You should be a communications company that solves problems not just a product company that advertises your stuff wherever you can get eyeballs.
- Think holistically: Sure, building a fan base on Facebook and Twitter is a good idea, but what about events, seminars, pop-up shops and real-world stuff like that? Gone are the days where marketing was about signing off your media schedule at the beginning of the year and then spending the rest of it drinking cocktails at media functions. It’s active work where you actually have to get off your arse and do some physical labour. It’s not just about digital content, but human interaction and physical experiences of the brand too.
- What about your staff? Your staff are already big fans of your brand – they love it so much they spend all of their time helping to grow it. So why don’t you consider them as a hugely important community audience? Often the staff are almost forgotten by marketing departments or force-fed internal communication that can hardly be considered inspirational. Treat your staff with respect and add value to their lives first.
People don’t want your sales pitch, they have lives to live. If you can add value to their lives, hopefully they’ll join your cause.
Winning elections in America is a business. You need strategy, consultants, huge budgets, catchy ads, dancing girls, pompoms, ticker tape, more ads, debates, more huge budgets and brand postioning.
If people like what you’re selling – you win the contract for a few years.
In South Africa – sticks and stones win elections, in the US it’s psychology that works.
BTW – Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital is the majority shareholder of the Edcon Group.
Coca Cola hosted a ‘Lucky Strike’ style secret gig last Friday as part of their involvement with the Olympics. Featuring producer Mark Ronson and singer Katy B – it’s interesting to see how advertising is going niche rather than the traditional mass reach route.
Controlled by a Nike shoe that’s been wired up with a bunch of pressure sensors and plugged into an Arduino board – this building mapping is an effective interactive promotion for what the shoe does.
You’ve gotta love these shoes that can literally double over on themselves. It’s an impressive feature, but seriously how often is this needed when your foot is actually in the shoe? Podiatrists would be making a killing if everybody was subjecting their feet to the capabilities of what this shoe can do.
Previously: Cherryflava conference projection mapping – Cherryflava
We had a cat once that used to love the idea of burying her claws into the cushions of the couch and then joyfully bounding after the goose down that flew all over the place as a result. Not sure how her next owners enjoyed that trick, but it was slightly annoying to us.
McDonald’s seem to have tapped into the same strange phenomenon with kids. Fuelled by abnormally high levels of sugar and processed trans-fatty acids – that same thing seems to happen to the children when placed in a home-like environment.
Don’t have the party at your place? Rather don’t have the kids in the first place!
Men and woman are simple creatures. Give them ice cream, pizza and cars and all is well in the world.
Social media monitoring company NetBase put 365 days worth of its own data about online conversations up against a recent Harris poll that asked, “What is the one thing you want right now?”
The results show that people are generally emotional sharers when it comes to social media, but they are much more logical when asked a direct question. For instance, 80% of the “I want _____” updates were about food, whereas 50% of the survey responses were related to personal finance (money, financial security, a new car). via
The conclusions are fairly pointless however. All it really indicates is that when you ask loads of people what they want – you realise that everyone is just a 6 year-old trapped in the body of a grown up.
Music + snowboarding. That’s all.
