LOST IN MASTICATION

THEN

Marketing and branding were about pushing your message to consumers. You sold them what they never knew they wanted.

Marketing used to be all about the product or service. What made your product unique from anything else on the market? What was the value-add in your version versus a competitor? Did you have the best price or experience for the money?

Branding was all about the image of that product or service. What perception did you want your customers to have about your company? What did customers feel about consuming what you had to offer?

NOW

Marketing and branding are responses to real-time customer demands and needs. Customers are telling you what they want. You are listening – more than ever – to the consumer, instead of dictating to them what they can or cannot live without.

Marketing is now much more than the product or service.  While people still connect with an object such as a particular coffee brand or airline, it’s not enough to sell how tasteful your peppermint latte is or the extra 6-inches of legroom compared to a competitor.

Likewise, branding is now about customer interaction (not to be confused with customer service), corporate social responsibility, online culture and community, and much more.

Making this shift to social media isn’t an easy move. Wait too long to get on the bandwagon, and you’ve lost your first-mover advantage. Act too fast, and you may not have a well thought-out strategy.

So how do you know whether to jump into the next new web trend? How do you evaluate your presence in that landscape? How do you use the new media tool in such a way that no one else is using it? Thinking outside the box and being innovative with the new media tools will help in setting your company, brand and product apart.

Whether it’s a mobile app, interactive website that has nothing to do with your product and everything about your consumers, there’s definitely a niche that you can create for yourself within your industry that will accomplish the original goals of branding and marketing.

Here are a few new media integration examples that are successful at tying together “new marketing” and “new branding” into the digital customer experience:

Sonicare: Adopt-a-Tooth

The Sonicare Facebook application keeps the user engaged over and over again by encouraging good dental hygiene through a “pet” tooth.  Take better care of our “canine” and be privy to special gifts and promotions.

When someone takes action with their pet tooth, it can appear on their friends news feeds, and is always visible on the owner’s profile.

In today’s social network landscape where the popularity of social gaming such as Mafia Wars and Farmville are growing exponentially, it’s smart for a brand to jump into the arena with the right interactive app.

Coke Zero Facial Profiler

Coca-cola claims that Coke Zero has been one of the most successful product launches in its history. In the two years since its release, Coke Zero has sold nearly 450 million cases and is available in more than 100 countries. So why not take this success and broad reach to connect your fans online?

That’s exactly what cokezero.com does. The site says nothing about the product except for a wordmark that includes the tagline “Real Coke Taste. Zero Calories.”  Instead, their site is home to the Facial Profiler application, which uses Facebook Connect to troll tagged images of you to help find your look-alike.

The premise? A social experiment: If millions of people like you enjoy Coke Zero, then there surely is another person that looks like you that enjoys Coke Zero.

USAA Mobile App

Your new media presence doesn’t always have to be through a web browser. USAA takes personal finance management to a whole new level with their iPhone app. Unique features include:

• Deposit@Mobile — Depositing a check is as simple as snapping a photo.
• ATM Locator — Find the closest ATMs.
• Loan Calculator — Estimate monthly payments on a loan.
• Rental Car Locator — Find the nearest Avis, Budget or Hertz location.
• Accident Checklist — Record accident details to help you file a claim.

Rumors abound at SXSW via @kevinrose of Digg that iPhone 3.0 will finally have “cut and paste”.  Also rumored is “mutli-tasking”, which allows a user to run multiple applications and “alt-tab” between them.

Sadly, no confirmation of MMS.  And definitely no video capture ability either according to the interview.

My first impression of the adapted app?  Still a little clunky.

I’d seen the original Kindle here and there, and actually got a personal tour of the Kindle 2 this past weekend (courtesy @AdamAinbinder).  Whenever I have a new toy in hand, it’s like being a kid in a candy store.  The Kindle is no different.

Since I wasn’t completely convinced of the Kindle 2 yet, it was a pleasant surprise to read today that Amazon had released Kindle for the iPhone.  Why?  Because 1) no need to spend $359, and 2) wi-fi access!

Like any gadget geek, I downloaded the free installation from the App Store immediately (or as quick as the App Store would allow me since other brilliant minds had the same thought.)  This is where my excitement stopped, and this blog post began:

Peeve #1 – I went to download a couple sample chapters to test it out, and to my chagrin, I can’t download or purchase books directly from the Kindle App.

Peeve #2 – The app reroutes me to the Kindle Store on Amazon’s Web site and suggests I can do so on the iPhone Safari App.  But there is no mobile version of the Kindle Store, meaning there is no easy way to navigate it from the iPhone.

Peeve #3 – The Kindle Store is not integrating my Amazon Wishlist which has both books and periodicals.  Instead it’s suggesting, I might be interested in Danielle Steele.  (Uh, no thanks!)

Getting past these issues, I do like the fact that in the Kindle Store, I’m able to purchase – or better yet, preview – chapters of a book directly to my iPhone.  Which, then lead me to the next issues with the Kindle App (and I stand to be corrected on these points since I’ve only tried sample chapters of a book):

Peeve #4 – I can’t search terms, phrases in Wikipedia like you can on the Kindle 2.

Peeve #5 – I can’t search definitions for words in a built-in dictionary like you can on the Kindle 2.

Obviously the screen is much smaller on an iPhone and the readability of the screen is not akin to the Kindle’s screen.  But the idea that I don’t have to carry one more electronic gadget on my travels is nice. (I already can’t leave home without my AmEx, laptop, SLR, Coolpix, and iPhone!)

Put another way, my ideal e-book reader would:

1. Be a part of my phone, with a screen that is easy on the eyes;
2. Have wifi capability;
3. Scroll pages with the swipe of a finger;
4. Have all the functionalities of the Kindle 2 (screen, dictionary, wikipedia, highlighting, etc.);
5. Use open DRM so as not to be locked into the Kindle or other e-book reader only;
6. Allow upload or purchase of independent/self-published books or any PDF content;
7. Share CC-licensed books across machines; and
8. Issue five licenses so that I may load books on my computer, phone, e-reader and maybe one day my interactive kitchen for the e-cookbooks.  The last license would be so that when I’m done reading the ebook, I could pass one license on to a family member or friend – much like I can a hard copy book.

I’m living in an ideal world.  But if just the other day I’d wished for a Kindle App for the iPhone and it’s come true… I’m guessing the list above isn’t too far away from reality or fruition.

From a business perspective, I’m glad Amazon has released their e-books to the iPhone.  It’s a huge opportunity and marketshare that Amazon can access easily.  It also – maybe – provides Apple an incentive to beef-up their next version of the iPhone so that readablity is improved!

Sometime back Richard MacManus of Read Write Web (@rww) asked readers what their top mobile Web apps were on his blog.  I submitted the following response via Twitter, which subsequently was posted:

Sherry Main: for iphone: facebook, twitterific, wordpress, scribeshare, google maps

I’ve changed my mind, and in closing 2008, I deem the following as my favorite mobile apps of the year:

• Facebook
  
• Twittelator Pro
• Wordpress
  
• Jott (voice-to-text app)
  
• Shazam (identifies music)
  

I would have loved, wait… LOVED to have been able to attend the Web2.0 Summit.  In fact I had an invite to meet someone there, but alas real life got in the way.

Moya Watson gives a great recap on her blog.  Here are some highlights that I enjoyed from the recap:

Web meets the president

“Were it not for the Internet, Obama would not have been elected President,” said Arianna Huffington in Friday’s great panel, The Web and Politics (with John Heilemann, Arianna Huffington, Gavin Newsom, and Joe Trippi). “It wasn’t the age of the candidate that mattered in this election,” she continued, “It was the age of the ideas.”

Web meets (dirty) politics

We’ve just experienced the terrible flipside of “truth into our living rooms,” which is that the Internet can also be used, with devastating effectiveness, to spread attacks and lies into our living rooms. Here are some specific examples from the fight against Proposition 8 — all true:

• Videos propagated on YouTube in which the official “Yes” campaign equated gays with Hitler
• No On Prop 8’s Web site attacked by denial-of-service (which we overcame mightily, thanks to our Web techs)
• Personal attacks from people in the blogosphere throughout open, unmoderated threads (when another side might have had closed threads)
• Videos propagated by the official “Yes” campaign using children without their parents’ agreement or permission
• Gay people (and straight alike) getting anti-gay “Yes” ads served on their site because the yes campaign invested heavily in Google AdWords

Web meets TV

“TV is the biggest medium in America that hasn’t been democratized yet,” said @ev. “Twitter changes how people connect with people – if you expand that to a very large user base, it can change culture.” Pointing out that it’s not just social, Evan continued, “it has potential to see aggregate real-time information, like during the election.” Add Current TV to the mix and what happens?

“With Twitter and this broadcast model together, what happens is that you can get alternate viewpoints WHILE they’re being broadcast” -@ev

Green is the new Web

Calling himself a “recovering politician,” Al Gore took stage late at the summit to a standing ovation, saying that the “redeeming quality of the election” was that “all humans are created equal” and that this “would not have been possible without the Internet.”

Web meets the iPhone

AND more…. read the whole blog post and video/photos links here.

Hoping to get to the Web2.0 Expo in the spring.  Anyone wanna’ go with??