Pinwheel allows you to “find and leave notes around the world.” In other words, as you’re gazing at a monument, a store, or an amazing view, you can see meaning it has for others, what interesting insights they have about the spot or leave your own comment about the space. Ahh, the power of geo-location!

The service expands on location-based social media such as FourSquare by expanding the relevant places and things on which to attach notes. Here’s a nice review of the service.

How could you as a marketer think of using these tools for your business?

Here’s a quick list for handy reference:

1. Contextual Offers – Probably the most logical and the cash cow that location-based services like Foursquare are hoping to cash in on. Serve up that coupon while the consumer is standing in front of the store or gazing at the box on the shelf!
2. Relationship and Advocacy  – If your goal is to build brand relationships you can use AR to send customized messages to customers and/or fans. My favorite example is still the personalized billboard messages that Mini Cooper would send a few years ago to their customers as they motored by on the highway. Now who wouldn’t drive all their friends by that billboard several times just to show off? 
3. Instant Training and Action Prompts - Never underestimate the power of confusion for eroding your marketing's ROI. AR can be used to provide instant training or answer typical questions as a consumer hesitates ever so briefly at the right place at the right time. This presentation has a few good examples. 
4. Brand Interaction – From AR scavenger hunts to virtual flash mobs to virtual test drives, there are some amazing things going on out there to capture that precious few seconds of focused attention from consumers. 

As with every other marketing tool from social media to traditional advertising, the question comes down to ROI. How should your firm measure the impact of AR for growing brand, revenue and relationships? 

At Mythology, we work with our clients to first go very deep on understanding their own unique value proposition. Then, we look at those key differentiation points and ask, how could a sticky, engaging tool such as AR be exploited to blow out the understanding and remembrance of those differentiations? 

It's easy to get distracted with all the whiz-bang marketing tools out there, but when your marketing strategy stays focused on this formula, the likelihood of wasting your time and money is diminished: 

Stickiness (Simplicity x Unexpectedness) x Brand Differentiation Message Alignment x Relevant Call to Action = Return on Investment 

Why? "Blogging requires more investment. You need content regularly. And you need to think about the risk of blogging, accepting comments, liability issues, defamation," says Nora Ganim Barnes, a professor at the university who wrote the report.

So, are blogs dead? That’s a little like asking if television is dead because of the rise of the Internet. It’s not that a form of communication is dead; it’s that it is constantly evolving and we need to understand its relationship to other tools in our marketing toolkit. 

Blogging and Social Media: Yes/And, Not Either/Or

I’ve personally done a lot less blogging since the rise of Twitter and Facebook. It’s just simpler and faster to develop a brief post than a longer blog post. However, less blogging is not necessarily a good thing. I’m lazier with social media. I tend to retweet and post others’ work vs. showcasing my own original ideas. After all, anyone can “curate” interesting links and retweet them, but that in no way shows off your own expertise and insights.

A blog showcases, at its best, your organization's personality, thought leadership and unique perspectives. It can include any number of content types, such as written copy, pictures or videos. Good content becomes a magnet on your web site to pull in (hopefully) qualified viewers. After all, all those social media retweeters have to retweet something. It might as well be your expert insight.

The USA Today article went on to outline some of the reasons organizations have tossed in the blogging towel. I have a few ideas to share that are highlighted in our Meaningful Social Media workshop (we’d love to have you join us!). Here are the things we discuss: 

Time Investment

The article states: “Companies often underestimate the amount of work a blog requires, says Pete Steege, director of marketing communications and Web strategy for Rimage, a digital storage device maker. "They think it's like a newsletter or an ad." That is absolutely true. A blog is a commitment to publish, and to publish requires editing, writing, approval and other processes that many organizations under-plan and under-resource.

However, that can be overcome through the use of a little education and some simple planning tools such as these we’ve shared in the Meaningful Social Media workshop. In addition, through new, speedier micro-blogging tools like Tumblr, your blog publishing can become more streamlined with briefer, punchier posts vs. long, extended form blogs (like this one, for example).

Liability

Milton Gray Draper, director of investor relations at Core-Mark Holding, says they don’t blog because “it’s worried about running into trouble with federal regulators about proper disclosure.” That is an appropriate concern, but it’s not an excuse for abandoning your blog. Highly regulated (and often sued) organizations like banking and insurance companies need to streamline their compliance and review process for the Internet-speed economy, not ditch the medium altogether.

Instead of routing a blog post through endless rounds of attorney review, policies and guidelines can be set up beforehand to guide content producers. These policies need to leave room for the organization’s personality to come through lest they become limited to tweeting insanely boring “approved factoids.” For the most part, there is no federal law against being interesting, but many organizations use compliance as an excuse to put their customers asleep.

Customer Focus

From the article,T.J. Crawford, a Bank of America spokesman, says the bank dropped their blog “because its social-media strategy is focused on Facebook and Twitter. ‘We want to be where our customers are,’ he says.” Yet that is an erroneous “either/or” statement. Yes, of course, Facebook and Twitter are where customers are, but the point of a blog is that when the consumer is ready to engage a little deeper in your content, your blog is THE primary showcase that YOU control. It’s a next step in the consumer development funnel. To limit your engagement on social media platforms is to relegate your conversation to superficial levels.

To be sure, Facebook is providing marketers with more flexibility on their pages so more content and content types can be presented without having to leave the Facebook page. While that is of course a self-serving goal of Facebook to keep users on their network, you have to think through whether it makes sense for your goals to limit your engagement on the still relatively rigid controlled environment vs. nurturing the customer over to your web site. Again, it’s not either/or, it’s “and.”

Lack of Content

Finally, a blog post represents a rich source of social media material. Re-purposing content is one of the most underutilized tactics in marketing today. Every company builds content in the form of PowerPoint slide presentations, reports, marketing plans, newsletter articles. Yet few realize that each of these sources are rich in “tweetable” material. We like to suggest that each blog post can produce between 5 to 10 tweets (and we’ll demonstrate that with this blog post).

Organizations often get tunnel vision when it comes to content. They think that only a handful of assigned team members should be responsible for content ideas and creation. Yet the most effective content marketers (and therefore social media marketers) are those organizations who have learned to put the spotlight on their customers and partners for content ideas, and who tap a broader set of internal team members for ideas and contributions to the publishing stream.

Your blog is still your best platform for representing your brand’s personality and unique value proposition through the use of compelling, unique content. As it draws clicks, it enhances your search engine ranking credibility. It’s a powerful interest-generating step in the consumer funnel towards purchase. 

Stoute says of his work, “What I do is contemporize a brand." But, he emphasizes, "I don't take the brand away from what it stands for. I don't change who they are in order to appeal to the next generation."

Stoute is the hip-but-safe go-to guy for large companies like Hewlett-Packard, Target, Samsung, and many more. I have to admit that just one short month ago, I had never heard of the guy. Never.

And then I started searching to understand why I was so uncomfortable with the idea of “diversity” marketing. It’s a genre I have been cast in, for reasons including the fact that I am one of few African Americans in my state working in the marketing industry and because I possess a passion for thinking about who has been forgotten in any given campaign.

I’ve always felt that “diversity” tactics seemed to simply swap out white faces for black ones or strive to target messages along racial lines. I wanted to develop an inclusive and holistic approach to “diversity.”  That’s when I came across Stoute’s book, The Tanning of America, and - eureka!  - there it was.

“Tanning” is the term Stoute uses to describe the blending of class, race, and culture in America, with a significance given to the reality that by 2020 America will no longer be majority white. Stoute’s basic point is that the demographic and social changes facing America are leading it to become more multi-hued and tolerant. This was the information I was looking for. At least information-in-progress; “tanning” and its tactics of translation are still evolving, in both Stoute’s theory and in mine.

I was first faced with the need for translation when working with our former client, the Boy Scouts of America (BSA). It took the Boy Scouts’ project to really start challenging my thinking as we began to understand the desperate need to Translate BSA values (the “Scout Law”) to a new generation. How to be cool, yet maintain BSA core values? With the right Translation, BSA could usher in a new generation of Scouts as they seek to revitalize their 200 year-old organization and re-brand it to a “tanned” American generation.

The Boy Scouts know all about the demographic shifts in America. Many companies know this, too, and are also trying to simultaneously update their brands to reach new audiences while maintaining their core values.

It’s not an easy thing to do; in fact, I know this from experience, as I am experimenting with translation right now in my community life.

I am co-chair of the West Virginia Symphony League Fashion Show, a fifty-year tradition in Charleston, WV. Since its inception, this event has always pulled its models from a veritable “who’s who” list of prominent women in the community. Although I didn’t necessarily fit that mold, I did start modeling professionally at a very young age, and, because of my experience, I was always asked to be in the show.

This year is special. I’m not a model. The leadership of the show has decided that it’s time to change. They want to reach out to a broader sector of the community in direct and indirect ways, while staying true to their fifty year-old roots.

They asked for my help.  I understand the integrity and core values of the event. I also understand its vision and purpose. It has been a part of my life for twenty years and it’s not rocket science. Like Stoute says, first get “cool” and then you can succeed at making as many people as possible the show’s glamour and opportunity, in ways both direct and indirect. At its essence, what the Symphony Fashion Show needs is a translator to bridge the old and the new.

The show is March 14, 2012, and new sponsorships are coming in every day. We opened the door to new models by holding an open model call. We launched into social media and are utilizing a host of other tactics to re-brand the fashion show for a wider segment of the community.  

Check out the video.

Fashion from Ben Robinson on Vimeo.

Tanning?  Yes. We have black, white, and Asian models, in addition to a diversity of sizes, ages, and socio-economic backgrounds.

One thing Stoute’s book does is remind me how influential hip hop is, and will continue to be, in America. He makes this argument throughout the book, describing hip-hop’s rise and gradual commercialization, starting with the grassroots success of the first Sugar Hill record “Rappers Delight” and the legendary 1986 concert where the German executives of Adidas first heard Run-DMC’s “My Adidas” rap song.

That being said, I’m still working out the details for the show to feature its first ever DJ, International Core DJ Charlie Blac to be the 2012 WV Symphony Fashion Show’s maestro.

We’ll see how it goes.                                   

With a little luck and little open-minded support, even the elite of Charleston, WV, might be able to get a tan in the middle of February. 

In a time when Social Media 2.0 is growing and the need for brand advocates is becoming more of a necessity in order to achieve “brand success,” it should be understood that being a leader in your field is not a right, but an earned privilege.

These days, consumers and potential clients are not limiting themselves to a company that can offer them products or services. Rather, they are looking to deal with businesses that come across as genuine and relatable.  In Credibility: How Leaders Gain it and Lose it, Why People Demand It, authors James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner note that  people are energized by values and visions that give their lives meaning and purpose.  These can be experienced in a single contact or conversation. 

I think of my grandmother, Mable Landis, and her loyalty to Sears, which dates back some 30 years now.  She always relates it to the fact that they show they care because “they always have the best sales going on and their employees are always so friendly no matter how you act towards them!”  She spreads the word as if it is the gospel because she lives by one simple rule: “Be nice no matter what and God will handle the rest.”

This is an example of a brand advocate.  She shops at Sears before looking anywhere else. She has no bad words to say about the company, and will defend the brand as if it were part of her bloodline.  It is this kind of earned credibility that drives one of the most powerful forms of marketing there is: word of mouth.

There are three qualities Kouzes and Posner say that you can find in every leader: Integrity, Competence and Leadership. 

For a brand leader, integrity does not stop at just being trustworthy; you must also display strength of character and conviction.  This may mean owning mistakes made due to a fault in your system during the return process and fixing them, or acknowledging that you did not offer the best products or services to a disgruntled customer and offering solutions to make it right. 

Those brand leaders that have been labeled “wise” – like Apple, for example - not only know themselves but have great competence in understanding their competition and surrounding environment. Typically, these “wise” companies are well aligned – both internally and externally. The employees know the company well, trust its decision-making and direction, and, therefore, have the credibility of believing what they say when speaking about the company’s product or services to others.  Brand leaders tend to inspire their followers, promote action, develop advocates, and provide direction to an improved lifestyle.

Achieving this status is simple.

BE CREDIBLE. 

Be consistent in all you do, believe in what you say, and know what you are saying is right for the one listening.  Get people to believe in you, and watch how effortlessly they will work with you to help grow your brand. 

That's why this time of year is so special. Whether you celebrate Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa or all three, it's a time to reflect on meaning and faith. Our team at Mythology, like the rest of our society, shares many common beliefs, and diverge on a few others. But we focus on the unifying beliefs of our team and our world so that we can make a difference. 

C.S. Lewis talks of "myth become fact." The stories we share, the stories we believe, lead to the good that changes our world. Myth becomes fact every day, if we let it. Beliefs matter. 

And since businesses and "work" are where we invest the majority of our days, shouldn't we make the most meaning there? 

We wish you the most amazing holiday season ever. And we look forward to working with you to build belief in all those things that matter. 

Have a belief-building holiday season and a truly mythical 2012! 

As a marketing management consulting firm, we believe that for your company to flourish there must be proper internal alignment. Many companies tank when they reach a point where alignment is lost. This often happens when a company or division grows faster than its capacity to build internal processes or infrastructure to keep up.

James L. Garlow’s book, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership - Tested by Time, puts businesses in two simple categories: “There were those who followed…and those who didn’t.”  While most entrepreneurs know their purpose and plan for their company, they do not know how to keep it consistently communicated among their employees at every level. 

First, it starts with selection: you need people who are bought into your brand values and company purpose and who are ready to work towards those goals.

Secondly, consecration (the “the solemn dedication to a special purpose or service “) is a necessity:  clearly state your expectations and stick to them. A good on-boarding process in partnership with HR can go a long way towards building this commitment from the beginning.

The next step is impartation and demonstration: it is critical to lead by example. Show your employees your successful habits so that they are “fully charged” and ready to do what is appointed to them.  This is also where the leader shows by “doing” or on-the-job training. A well-defined internal mentorship program can do wonders in this area.

Finally, delegation and supervision.  This is the time to trust your staff and empower them to work on their own.  While everything will not be perfect, this is where your staff will mature and grow the most.  Once your employees have finished their allotted tasks the manager will step in and “clean-up” or approve the work in ways to keep it aligned with your company’s mission and brand values.

In a business environment where employees are not allowed the opportunity to grow or contribute, the company itself suffers and cannot grow.  But when a company aligns its people with its goals, the business maximizes its opportunity to flourish.  The main principle of leadership, according to James L. Garlow, is “being able to multiply yourself.” 

Do you know who your best friends are (from a business perspective)? Who are the pockets of customers who are most influential and valuable to you, and how should you engage them?

Bain & Co. defines customer segmentation as “the subdivision of a market into discrete customer groups that share similar characteristics.” Pretty straightforward, right?

Segmenting your customer and prospect base by logical, actionable criteria can turn marketing mayhem into a meaningful marketing. Rather than diluting yourself with a generic message and engagement approach, you can focus and magnify your impact.

This year was a big year for customer segmentation projects here at Mythology. We helped non-profits such as the National Boy Scouts of America identify priority segments for launching the Summit Bechtel Reserve and International Justice Mission prioritize key pockets of avid advocates to grow in their fight against human trafficking.

Corporations weren’t far behind. A major insurance firm needed to improve their emotional connection with their customers, so we helped map the right audience triggers. A gaming company needed to transition from good old coin-operated bar games to the fast-growing iPad consumer market, so we helped develop influencer audiences to target.

Unfortunately, there are many ways to segment and it can get pretty confusing. You could potentially target a group of similar customers by any number of criteria:

• Demographic – Stuff you can easily find out about people such as age or income.
• Geographic – It’s pretty easy to figure out who’s in your market region, if you’re limited to that.
• Psychographic – Lifestyle preferences and core beliefs can be reliable predictors of response.
• Behavioral – Identifying who and when the best targets are open to your value proposition based on recent or consistent things they do, such as visiting a web site or moving from one community to another.

So which do you pick, or which combinations do you concoct? The simplistic but true answer is, whichever helps you engage most effectively and generate the most return on investment (ROI).

In a world where people can gather around random topics instantly via social media, this can require some trial and error. But often you can eliminate more of the error by utilizing test campaigns, simple surveys or social media interaction to capture a relatively good idea of what will generate response and conversion.

We like to look at targeting in terms of emotional archetypes. What role do you play in filling an emotional need for your customers? The answer to that can go a long way in helping you target more people with that need.

At Mythology, we discovered that our best segmentation wasn’t necessarily by industry, or region, or even size of company. We found that the best predictor of whether a client was a “fit” or not was how ambitious they were and how much they recognized building an effective marketing system was key to their growth. Those types of clients value what Mythology brings to the table with our comprehensive approach to growing marketing ROI.

Everyone can’t be your best friend. But those special friendship connections can often last a lifetime.  

So say some bloggers regarding Frito Lay's content-driven Asylum 626 and Hotel 626 campaigns targeting teens. (NOTE: The sites are only "open" from 6pm to 6am, because, says the agency behind the campaign, "We wanted people to visit the site at night, after hours, when guards are down and they are the most immersed in what could happen.")

Here's a snippet of what Frito Lay has produced: 

This is another great example of how brands, in order to customize and control the context in which they sell their products, have begun to create their own content and gaming experiences. It is a tricky thing to pull off, especially for the teen audience Frito Lay is shooting for, because brand-produced content has an automatic barrier of lack of authenticity. Kids are smart. They know when you're trying to push your products. 

However, some brands are pulling it off by letting the content speak for itself vs. becoming a direct shill for the product. Frito Lay has done a good job of that here. 

The digital age is creating many situations where the lines of content vs. sponsorship advertising are blurred. The traditional :30 or :60 spot continues to struggle to break through, especially for younger audiences, so more and more companies are looking to produce their own content where brand themes are woven into the storyline. 

A valid question to ask is, does scaring teenagers help sell Doritos? Like any marketing investment, the proof will be in the measurement. But for a low-consideration consumer goods purchase scenario that relies on brand awareness, affinity and (to a certain extent) emotional loyalty to drive sales, the answer is "probably." 

What content makes sense for your company to produce? Entertainment, educational or both? Mythology has some strategy workshops available to help you find out the answer to that and other key questions. 

Perhaps we can make your marketing ROI a little less scary in 2012. 

At Mythology, we like to be students of belief-based movements, both social and commercial. While being criticized by some as not having a clear message, the idea behind OWS is powerful and simple. From a web site that seems to serve as a rallying hub:  

Occupy Wall Street is leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%. We are using the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to achieve our ends and encourage the use of nonviolence to maximize the safety of all participants.

This #OWS movement empowers real people to create real change from the bottom up. We want to see a general assembly in every backyard, on every street corner because we don't need Wall Street and we don't need politicians to build a better society.

Of course, it's also fully exploiting the power of instant media and social media platforms: 

And it has already spawned its own parodies: 

For the most part, organizations with formal brands still have not embraced the full power of the "sticky" elements of true movement-building: surprise, unexpectedness, emotion. There is a hesitancy that comes from clinging to structure and control that many formal institutions will never quite embrace. And no true movement can be completely developed top-down; by definition it must be participatory and free-flowing (within certain boundaries). 

Still, it's interesting to think of things to learn from these grass roots movements, fueled by rebellious, often unscripted energy (although, as the movement matures, we're seeing signs of scripts and real strategies). 

What can your brand or public institution learn from the success of the OWS movement? 

Michael Porter introduced the concept of “Value Chain” back in 1985 to identify, measure and optimize how each touch point along the chain can (or should) add value. The main point being, that at every step, is the value is undefined or poorly executed, you have a kink in your chain that will impact the bottom line through late deliveries, poorly-made products, inferior service, etc.

In my experience, most marketers have lagged in their understanding of the marketing value chain. Marketing disciplines can seem like a hodgepodge of independent efforts, poorly connected and therefore not delivering as much marketing value – or return on marketing investment – as they should.

• How many market research studies have gathered dust with no action taken to embed their insights into the next campaign?
• How many strategic marketing plans are sitting on the shelf while short-term marketing campaigns get developed in a vacuum?
• How many sales kickoffs have been launched without a clear service-level agreement with marketing on the exact type of leads that sales expects to receive to make their number?
• How many new employees have been hired without HR integrating the company’s brand values into the selection criteria?

It’s this very problem that inspired me to develop the “Ten Pillars of Meaningful Marketing.” Each pillar is an opportunity to shine a light on a stage of the marketing value chain for assessment, brainstorming, planning and measurement.

We have a series of workshops designed to shine a light on your marketing value chain. It’s a low-risk, high-reward opportunity to work out those kinks.