Last night, I headed over to IceBox Co-Labs for the October Social Media Club of Louisville event featuring Dave Knox, chief marketing officer at Rockfish Interactive and former brand manager at Procter & Gamble.
Knox’s presentation was titled "Brand Manager 2.0" and it focused on managing a brand and digital marketing from a big brand perspective. He quoted the American Marketing Association when he explained that marketing has changed more over the last three to five years than in decades before that. How do we marketers survive and thrive. Well, in five easy steps:
1. Become a marketing technopologist - this is from a WSJ article which originally coined the term that describes a person at the intersection of anthropoligist, technologist, and marketer.
2. Try purpose-inspired brand building - as Know explained many of the products that have been marketed over the last 20 years have focused on upgrading products to better, faster, cheaper, whiter, brighter, etc. Companies that are standing out from the pack and doing the right thing include those like Nike who is "bringing inspirational innovation to every athlete" and (a favorite of mine) LEGO who is "providing fuel for children's imaginations."
3. Practice consumer collaboration - if you think about it, the most successful companies stay close to their customers. Knox gave the example of how Starbucks is running "My Starbucks Idea" to gather feedback from their customers.
4. Facilitate conversations and community - Knox's example here was a site created by P&G called "Man of the House" that focused on the men who are shopping and taking care of kids who were not only P&G customers but who appreciated talking with other guys like themselves and who don't want want to be marketed to like the lady of the house.
5. Get to know the everywhere shopper marketer - marketers need to understand that the "digital revolution" is all about customer empowerment. Every product review, recommendation, piece of signage, and ad is helping customers make decisions. To ignore that this is happening can be a waste of your marketing budget and efforts.
Special thanks to Jason Falls for organizing it and to Kix.com, the Kentucky Indiana Exchange, an online community that presents a new opportunity for growing, retaining and attracting talent in the Wired65 region for their sponsorship of the event.
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