DR4WARD

Twitter Roundup (Curated Tweets) of Laura Fitton's @pistachio presentation to AIM West

I've listed (curated) some of the great live Tweets below from Laura Fitton's (@pistachio) presentation "Twitter is Your Business" and included a brief video clip from her presentation to the AimWest 2009 Midwest Social Media Confab. 

An estimated 240 professionals and members of AimWest: The Interactive Association of West Michigan attended the day long event that featured Laura Fitton as the keynote speaker.  Unfortunately, I was not able to attend the event held on Thursday, November 19, 2009, in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  However, I was able to participate live by following Realtime Twitter Search results for #aimwest and got a lot of great ideas and information from Laura's presentation.

Laura Fitton (@pistachio Twitter) is founder of the world's first Twitter for Business consultancy, Pistachio Consulting, co-author of Twitter for Dummies, and now Founder/CEO of Twitter appstore Twitter appstore oneforty.  Fitton helps people understand why Twitter is a game changer and what makes Twitter so effective.

I look 4WARD to your feedback and hope you enjoy the Real Time (Curated Tweets) from Laura Fitton (@pistachio) presentation to AIM West.

Keep Digging for Worms!

Curated Real Time Live Tweets from Laura Fitton (@pistachio) presentation to AIM West.Real Time Live Tweets fro

KateWashburn: "The more I was a little personal in my professional account, the more things took off for me," @pistachio #aimwest (via @creister)

davevalko: @pistachio illustrates the future is mobile. #aimwest

namtrok: About 5-8% of the crowd is dedicated to Social Media in their Org. #aimwest

namtrok: @Pistachio hates the #retweet feature of #twitter #aimwest b/c no customization.

rickhopkins: poptarts are apparently the most popular food in the social media world... i've hard a lot about them today #aimwest

jcrowleygr: @ pistachio Per WalMart > Two products people most likely to buy in days leading up to hurricane? PopTarts and beer. #aimwest.

elementalprojec: RT @namtrok: Build a Culture first, then a biz around that.... good luck!! only top 1% can do that like Zappos #aimwest

cwadecom: Does Twitter still irritate your family and friends? @pistachio teaches people how to find the benefits, Laura Fitton oneforty.com #aimwest

whitemice: FB and TW combined have ~300M users (ASSUMING NO OVERLAP!) that is ~5% of the worlds population (6.5B). #aimwest

jcrowleygr: It is what you make it! RT @namtrok: Starting Twitter = like opening an email account & staring at an empty inbox: boring & stupid. #aimwest

derekdevries: #aimwest Corp. culture based on secrecy won't survive. U can't control I.P. or inside dirt - consumerist.com, wikileaks.org, versionista.com

DR4WARD: Great points on using Twitter/social media fr @pistachio at #aimwest. Thanks to all live Tweeting fr: event & extending the power of ideas

namtrok: Starting twitter is like opening an email account and staring at an empty inbox... boring and stupid. #aimwest

Nature's Lesson on Design

Day 5, Friday and my last day here at the Cannes Advertising Festival. I started off the day with yet another great workshop. This workshop was called designing naturally and was presented by Frederico Gelli of Tatil Design.

"As design makes its debut in Cannes, this seminar takes advantage of the new ground to discuss the role of simple, clean, intelligent design in the industry. In this context, nature is the best place to find stimulation and perfect ideas for low impact solutions that maintain high sensorial impact. Why not observe how the atmosphere packages the earth, or how the rind of fruits protects their insides, in order to create more clever packaging solutions?"

This workshop was really interesting. Frederico discussed natures strategic design and how it must inspire projects in the future. As designers we have the ability to integrate design and nature. We need to start thinking like nature and create solutions out of the problems.

He discussed natures way of packaging. These are things that i had not thought of, like the way a woman's body packages a baby in the womb, the way a peel protects the fruit of an orange.

As designers we need to take the problems and develop solutions out of them.

Lessons from nature
• Optimum-conserve the most amount of energy.
• Cycles—everything that goes in must come out (waves)
• Interdependence (birds living on other animals)

Federico also showed photography by Peter Menzel
Peter photographed families with all their belongings outside of their houses. Americans, on average have 10,000 items in their homes.

a couple other artists were also discussed.
Justin Gignac , Justin sells garbage in air tight containers.
Brian Jungen , Brian creates art out of everday material, such as white plastic chairs.

The engineering of flowers was then brought up. I never had thought of how complex and important flowers were to our being. Architecture is now becoming heavily based on the principles of flowers. There structure and strength provide a great amount of information on how to build. Using shape, texture and color to ignite all senses and alluse the consumer. An example of this is the design of an apple store on fifth ave.

Attached our my notes from the day. Hope they are informative!!

Download cannes_friday.htm

also...please check out Tap Project

until next time...

Kayla

NIKE PLUS DIGITAL SUCCESS CHANGES RUNNING FOREVER

I often point out marketers who do not get it.  However, I have to admit that I would much rather point out innovators and brands that I admire and think we can all learn from. Nike is one of them and it starts with their mission statement. The Nike mission statement is to bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete (anyone who has a body) and help improve their lives and reach their potential.  Nike has created innovations with their physical products since the beginning but  now they are creating digital success through the Nike Plus Apple iPod and Nike iD.  The merging of the digital and physical world for Nike and the 360 Degree Brand Marketing focus on improving the lives of the consumer has changed running forever.
 

A sensor in your Nike shoe wirelessly talks to your iPod as you run and you can hear your pace, time, distance and calories burned while you run through your headphones.  You can download your runs on NikePlus.com, set your goals, check progress, challenge friends and interact with runners from all over the world.  You can even share your music and running routes.  The physical world of running and Nike products is now enhanced with the digital social network experience.  In 2007 I attended the Cannes Lions Interational Advertising Festival where Nike was awarded a Gold Cyber Lions and a Titanium Lions recognizing Nike Plus as one of the world's top interactive marketing and integrated advertising campaigns.

Nike iD also improves the physical experience with the digital ability to custom design your shoes, clothing, and equipment by selecting the materials, colors, and features.  You can visit the NikeTown store or go online to customize through Nike iD and have your order shipped directly to your home.  The success of Nike digital and innovation points the way towards success for other companies.  Do you have examples of other companies that have supported their mission and enhanced the physical experience through digital?  Are  there  digital ideas that you would like to see enhance the physical experience of your favorite brands?

I look 4WARD to your feedback.

Keep Digging For Worms!

LUNA-TIC SPORTS / CAUSE MARKETING TO WOMEN NOT SO CRAZY

In my coverage of this year's Super Bowl ads I noted that marketers forgot that almost half of the 90 million plus audience watching the Super Bowl were women.  Most of the Super Bowl ads used frat, gross- out humor and sex to target young males, while alienating half the female audience, not to mention many of the fathers, brothers, and husbands to these women.  Where was this year's Dove Real Beauty? 

Yvonne at Lip-sticking talks about smart marketing to women and how few companies get it.  After watching the Super Bowl ads I agree.  However, I believe that LUNA Bar, a whole nutrition bar for women, not only gets it, but is combining smart sports marketing and cause-marketing that all brands can learn from and that deserves Olympic gold medal recognition.  Here is what I think we can learn from LUNA Bar:

SILENCE SPEAKS VOLUMES THANKS TO PEPSI

How do you cut through all of the noise and clutter and get viewers to pay attention to your marketing? Do you try to out spend and out shout the crowded field of super brands?  Do you spend your money on celebrities, rock stars, or special effects in the hopes that someone will pay attention?  How about a contest? Do use sex or frat humor?  How about a monkey or a talking baby? 

While the other brands choose to shout an annoy us Pepsi instead chose the bold move of using complete silence with their Bob's House  ad featuring American Sign Language and closed captioning.  Pepsi used silence not for silence sake mind you, but silence to get a message out creating awareness of the deaf and hearing impaired community.   

Silence  alone has been done before and could have been just another gimmick if it wasn't strategically combined with the cause of the deaf.  Pepsi was also smart enough to know that the viewers and Pepsi fans around the country appreciate a good laugh more than a good cry. 

Cause-marketing, combining a brand with a cause, is an important and growing marketing strategy by associating a brand with a cause important to the consumer.  Marketers can mess things up when the cause and brand seem like a mismatch.  I think Pepsi manages to come across with sincerity related to the cause of deafness by also being the sponsor of close-captioning for the Super Bowl and their corporate Enable initiative for employees.  Cause-marketing must be part of a brands integrated marketing communications to be believable.  Do you have any examples of cause-marketing mismatches or particular successes or failures that standout to you? 

WELCOME TO THE DR4WARD BLOG

My name is Dr. William J. Ward but you can call me Bill, a.k.a DR4WARD.

I have been "Digging For Worms" and applying my "4Ward philosophy" since I was nine when I started my first business selling night crawlers on Cowan Lake in Rockford, Michigan where I grew up.   My business grew by providing my customers with the best, freshest worms and fishing tips around.

The purpose of this blog is to provide diagnosis and prognosis of concepts such as integrated marketing communications / 360 degree branding and to engage readers in a discussion of their impact on society.  I hope we can help each other understand what these terms really mean. Do these concepts have any impact on your life?