Interbrand's best global green brands, 2013

Interbrand has announced its Best Global Green Brands 2013 with Toyota, Ford, Honda, Panasonic, and Nissan topping the list (5 of the top 10 companies are automakers --3 Japanese, 1 American, 1 German. 3 tech/telco companies. 1 pharma and 1 food.) The Interbrand website provides a page linking to company profiles, sector overviews, articles, interviews, etc.


Interesting side note -- example of sponsored content: Interbrand has a "sponsored feature" about the research at The Guardian.

100,000+ views daily

We at CCNY Department of Media & Communication Arts are very proud (and jealous?) of 2013 BA grad Vijay Nazareth -- one of 30 winners in YouTube's NextUp award competition.

Taking measure of the measurers: the 2013 Advertising Research Foundation Audience Measurement Conference

The Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) sponsored its annual Audience Measurement Conference, “Measuring the Unmeasured,” June 10-11, 2013 in New York for an enthusiastic and optimistic crowd. Presentations were, as typical of such conferences, dominated by the major suppliers of the industry – Arbitron, comScore, GfK, Nielsen and a handful of others. Some distinguished, major advertisers (including AT&T, Bank of America, Diageo, Facebook) were present to showcase impressive media research initiatives, and some of the leading media companies made appearances (ABC, NBC, Turner). Ad agencies were notable only for how few attended, and PR people were missing in action. (All company lists are illustrative only; others attended.)

The demographics of the presenters and attendees are remarkable in light of the dominant theme (implicit and often explicit) of most of the conference: we live in a multi-platform world; consumer impact is never achieved through one channel, but by inputs (messages) from multiple sources or -- as it was most often characterized – Screens (broadcast and cable TV, desktops, and mobile – both smartphones and tablets). Intentionally or not, the unspoken dominating perspective was that only Screens (and occasionally radio) really matter anymore. That’s a fundamentally problematic unspoken proposition in a multi-channel, integrated communications ecosystem, but probably reflective of the roots and habits of the ARF members.

The focus on Screens also dominated the implied reference in the title of the conference to “the Unmeasured.” The vast majority of the content at the conference focused on how to identify, monitor, analyze, and assign value to Screens and the behaviors of people behind screens. The work being done in this area is without a moment’s doubt very impressive. Considering the concept of multiple Screens barely existed three years ago, the ARF community has jumped into this huge change in the environment and developed some fairly awesome initiatives to track, understand, and evaluate the impact of Screens on consumer markets.

One of the kick-off presentations by Artie Bulgrin, SVP Research + Analytics at ESPN, was illustrative of much of what was presented across the two days. ESPN is undertaking a significant on-going to initiative to track ESPN consumers across five platforms: TV, PCs, smartphones, tablets, and radio (See ESPN announcement.) Bulgrin and his team have put together an array of the leading research industry providers for a custom-built methodology to answer ESPN’s 5-platform questions. Throughout the conference, one example after another highlighted major advertisers putting together collaborations of research suppliers to custom-build data sets that can help develop insights into how consumers are using, and being influenced, by the Screens.

The confidence and cheerfulness of the conference was probably rooted in the emerging sense from this ad research community that ‘We’ve got this under control.’ This same ARF conference in 2012 had for its theme, “The Measurement Crisis” – a far cry from the more self-assured (a little swagger?) 2013 theme of “Measuring the Unmeasured.”

You could hardly avoid the sense of social / digital / mobile media as having been tamed, after all, by the persevering and intrepid ad research community. ‘It took us some time. We were kind of shaken last year this time. But we marshaled our wits and our resources. We partnered with other companies – a bit of “united we stand; divided we fall.” But we got a handle on this. We corralled all this pesky new consumer behavior and changing technologies into our methodological frameworks. We don’t have all the answers yet, but we pulled through.’

This cheekiness is well earned, as was particularly evident in the arresting case studies presented, not only by ESPN, but by AT&T, Bank of America, Colgate-Palmolive, Facebook, and others. But the ad research community doesn’t recognize how much more of the Unmeasured they haven’t measured yet. Most of the presentations – insightful and worthwhile – still see digital and social primarily as channels for pushing out crafted, calculated messages, essentially as ad placement channels. Despite the lip service to engagement, there was virtually no discussion of what it actually means to engage (not just to send out minutely, exactly tailored messages and creative variants to exactly the right targeted people). Virtually no consideration of real online discussion or customer relationship management. One exception was the presentation from MotiveQuest, which – in the process of showcasing its Advocacy Index product – at least acknowledged the impact of (uncontrolled, independent, un-paid) brand enthusiasts.

A few side panels addressed the ‘unmeasured’ Hispanic market; one session at the end of the second day addressed local media (again, only Screens and radio). Those topics were clearly sidebars to the big story of the conference. Even more striking, there was not even a nod (pro forma or even dismissively or patronizingly) to any kind of earned media (public relations), non-screen word-of-mouth, or public events (for example – industry trade shows to cite the in-your-face example). The world of Measuring the Unmeasured is a peculiarly Screen-centric world. (But the ARF is the ARF, after all, and it’s rather beside the point to belabor it. When you go to the PR research conferences, you’d rarely get an acknowledgement that paid media has any impact.)

(Integrated marketing or integrated communications is not being integrated at the level of the ARF or the PR research community. More often you find that CMO or CEO perspective coming from the consultants and technology analysts. A blog post by Tobias Lee, CMO Thomson Reuters, Tax & Accounting Division, at COM.com serves as just one example of where integrated communications thinking is really present: “Critical to marketing today is integration across functional departments, such as sales, marketing, and customer service, and also across marketing mediums . . . with the right people, processes, and centralized technology, integrating your marketing efforts in the age of the social Web becomes much more feasible.” The consulting and tech firms are also stepping up with the real integrated or CMO perspective with products, just for one example, such as IBM’s enterprise marketing management suite for customer analytics and multi-, cross-channel campaign management.)

The really discordant, if entertaining, note at Measuring the Unmeasured, however, was the keynote speech. Bob Garfield, MediaPost columnist, NPR’s On the Media co-host, long-time former Advertising Age columnist, and author, most recently of Can’t Buy Me Like (Portfolio, 2013; co-authored with Doug Levy) delivered the Tuesday luncheon speech with good humor, color, and charm. And he essentially told the audience that their whole enterprise, their business and their industry, research-driven consumer advertising, is anachronistic and doomed (at least in the form that we all know it).

If the ARF concept of “social” is weak, Garfield’s concept of “social” is strong. One anecdote after another, in Can’t Buy Me Like, and in his keynote speech, called into the question the ultimate (and future) efficacy of advertising in effectively pushing messages out to receivers (by any Screen). He concluded his speech with a Santander Bank anecdote (recounted in detail in Chapter 10, Bank and Trust, of Can’t Buy Me Like) in which he claims that some funny-cute YouTube baby/kitten videos distributed courtesy of Santander had more positive consumer impact than three strategically conceived, professionally produced advertisements (read the book and decide for yourself).

Garfield, by implication, threw down the gauntlet: ‘Sorry. No, ad research community, you haven’t tamed social/digital media and brought it under your control. “Social” is about authenticity (real, not a researched, calculated and created, positioning of authenticity).’ Garfield’s challenge did not shorten the line of ad researchers, copy of Can’t Buy Me Like in hand, who waited over an hour for Garfield’s autograph.

This post
 also appeared
 at commPRO.biz, 
June 11, 2013

Game of brands

Now that we've had the Season 3 finale, if you're wondering how you'll get by until the next season of Game of Thrones, you can indulge in some imagineering about the Game of Thrones Houses/Families as modern corporations.

Forbes: Most valued luxury brands

Stats and research from Interbrand and Bain and Company on luxury brand performance reported at Forbes.

Whither content marketing -- or how the latest battle between advertising and public relations is remaking how we all think about institutional communications

Advertising and PR agencies are just fated to fight each other, continually, for "territory" (a.k.a. clients' money -- a.k.a. a credible, exclusive claim to a communications tactic, channel, or technology). The battleground of the moment is, of course, content marketing (a.k.a. branded content, a.k.a. native advertising, etc.)

Such a plethora of a.k.a.'s suggests something inconclusive is in the works.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) announced June 6th that a little definition is in order. Susan Borst, IAB's Director of Industry Initiatives, blogged about IAB's new Native Advertising Task Force (over 50 member companies and over 60 individual participants) with its aim "to establish a framework for the native advertising space by putting forth a prospectus that clearly lays out today's 'native' landscape." And, IAB also kicked off a Content Marketing Task Force (with 25+ member companies and about the same number of individual participants). (Ad Week picked up on the ironies of IAB's attempts "to bring some clarity to the Babel-like confusion" by noting that "it's unclear if the latter [Content Marketing Task Force] is a cousin to or umbrella of the first [Native Advertising Task Force]." Cousin -- umbrella -- we can't even get our metaphors on the same page.

By the way -- no PR firms on either IAB task force.

IAB obviously hadn't read Forrester Research's Laura Ramos' blog from May 6th: "The Role of PR in Content Marketing and Thought Leadership." Ramos calls out the argument for PR to lead the content marketing charge: ". . . the advantages of PR to stimulate conversation, engage in two-way interactions, and develop interesting story lines that involve the intended audience are a natural fit for creating great marketing in this new digital world." Ramos gives kudos to Richard Edelman's evolving stance, most recently sketched out in his April 30th 6 A.M. blog post, "The New Look of Public Relations -- A Dissenting View." in which he discusses his agency's intent to "expand the remit of the public relations business . . . to take full advantage of the inherent advantages of PR, which are credibility, speed, two-way interaction and continuous story creation."

Edelman had set many PR people buzzing (some grumbling) earlier, back on January 7th, with his 6 A.M. blog post, "Paid Media -- A Change of Heart," in which he gingerly, but "unafraid," embraced the brave new world of paid content: "I can assure you that Edelman will be at the bleeding edge of aiming for the right thing, unafraid of the wrong thing."  (The "right thing" he refers to there, that he is edge-bleeding towards,  is "'own-able' insight" that is to be "co-produce[d] content with media companies.") (PRNewser's report made this sound a bit like going over to the Dark Side: "Edelman Switches Sides, Joins the 'Paid Content' Team.")

Presumably, all this doesn't mean PR is going the way of Buzzfeed.  (Does it?) In the meantime, however, you'll find the PR trades, the tip sheets, the boot camps and webinars are now providing non-stop, fully confident advice about how surely PR people can succeed wtth content marketing (I guess PR is ahead of the IAB after all, since advertising is only at the point of  forming task forces?).

This is the point at which the blogger (wisely, humbly) must write, "Time will tell."  But a last reflection: this current battle between advertising and PR for ownership of content marketing is coalescing as a stand-off between Money/Scale  vs. Righteousness (the much greater resources and infrastructure of advertising vs. the moral/authenticity claim of public relations). Was it ever so? Or is there some hint at a synthesis of a new institutional communications function that both demonstrably works and can have sustainable integrity?

Google's style guidelines

Fast Company Design published today some insights into Google's visual asset guidelines.

"The rare glimpse into the company’s design process comes in the form of two documents--'Visual Assets guidelines'--freshly shared on Behance. Compiled over the last 18 months by senior graphic designer Roger Oddone and art director Christopher Bettig, along with designers Alex Griendling, Jefferson Cheng, Yan Yan, and Zachary Gibson, the guidelines focus on iconography, covering both broader principles and pixel-level details as they relate to both app icons and UI elements. The aim, an introductory blurb notes, is to set down the 'solid, yet flexible, set of guidelines that have been helping Google’s designers and vendors to produce high-quality work that helps strengthen Google’s identity.'"

Ideo: Not a case of shoemaker's children syndrome

The global design and brand consultancy, Ideo, recently turned its brand- and business-building attention on itself. A recent post at fastcodesign.com looks at the rebranding process the firm used to focus on "intent, not just presence":  "The brief the [Ideo] designers received that morning didn't just ask them to come up with a new identity system for Ideo. It asked them to come up wit a new way of thinking about corporate identity altogether."

The process set up by Ideo is interesting for at least two attributes. First, it started out with an acknowledgement that it's almost too easy, with the digital technologies available today to designers, to express variation and contextual change -- but harder to articulate an enduring, yet "responsive identity." Second, the one-day, multi-office kick-off project for the rebranding was a kind of selective crowdsourcing; results of this phase will be subjected to a smaller, perhaps more conventional review and decision-making.

The Ideo rebranding process is also profiled at core77.

"UCONN" -- it's offical

brandchannel reports today that the University of Connecticut has re-branded itself using the name by which it has been known for some time.

Why BIC is not an online degree

David Brooks
Columnist, The New York Times

David Brooks at The New York Times wrote on April 5 a column on "The Practical University."  He writes, " . . . universities are places where young people acquire two sorts of knowledge . . . technical knowledge and practical knowledge. Technical knowledge is the sort of knowledge you need to understand a task -- the statistical knowledge you need to understand what market researchers do, the biological knowledge you need to grasp the basics of what nurses do. Technical knowledge is . . . the sort of knowledge that can be captured in lectures and bullet points and memorized by rote.

"Practical knowledge is not about what you do, but about how you do it. It is the wisdom a great chef possesses that cannot be found in recipe books. Practical knowledge is not the sort of knowledge that can be taught and memorized; it can only be imparted and absorbed. It is not reducible to rules; it only exists in practice."

Brooks notes that online education has proven to be as effective as sitting in class lectures -- and that's a good thing.  Good (great) lectures from the best professors in the world can now be available to anyone with an internet connection. We need more, not less, online study and academic resources.

But for practical knowledge you need, well, "practice" -- your own and the examples of others (this sounds like the Buddhist or Yogic terminology of "having a practice" -- contemplation, physical discipline, etc.  You just gotta do it; talking or reading about it isn't enough).

The new Master's program in Branding + Integrated Communications at CCNY will provide young marketing communications professionals with the information and data that they need for success in the industry today. But we will also be providing BIC students with the practice -- in the classroom and in the workplaces of communications enterprises -- of marketing communications today.

Bad girl branding

Marian Salzman
Chair, Havas PR

Marian Salzman, chair of Havas PR since 2011, wrote at Forbes this week about bad girl branding.  Salzman summarizes key points from Nancy Shenker, founder of the business development consultancy theONswitch.

Some advice if you want to brand yourself (or your company) as a bad girl (boy):

Don't be afraid to be the weird kid.

No one has ever been fired for innovation.

Confront bullies.

Use logic, facts and statistics to sell your ideas.

Be a big provocative in your choices of words and speech.

Bribing people with food and other treats always works.

Rise above the gossip, bitch slapping and emotional crap. It's not personal . . . it's business.

Even services need a brand

David Johnson, CEO of Strategic Vision, LLC in Atlanta, posts at CommPRO.biz about the necessity for service companies to be concerned about their brand and their customers' brand experience.  He writes, "Sadly, we see way too many 'service oriented' companies out there that say their brand is all about integrity and reliability, or some other overly used and vapid term. Please understand this just positions you and makes you sound all the more like a commodity." He's certainly right -- think of the greatest service brands -- Amazon (after all, they just provide services -- selling and delivering to you other peoples' stuff: "We seek to be Earth's most customer-centric company for four primary customer sets: consumers, sellers, enterprises, and content creators"); McKinsey  ("Our mission is to help our clients make distinctive, lasting, and substantial improvements in their performance" ), IBM (see John Iwata, IBM's SVP Marketing and Communications, discuss the IBM brand, here).

Weber Shandwick stakes out content creation territory as its own

Jason Wellcome, EVP Digital
Weber Shandwick

PRNewser followed up on March 28 its previous reporting on PR firms grabbing hard and fast onto the content creation model for a reconfigured agency services biz model. Weber Shandwick's digital EVP, Jason Wellcome, makes the agency's own brand claim -- 'every agency client becomes a media company /publisher, and the new Weber Shandwick divison, Mediaco, has assembled the talent and skills to deliver the new model.'

AdAge positions it a bit differently: "Weber Shandwick Sets Up New Unit to  Capitalize on Content Creation Craze."

Branding + integrated communications business models at the big agencies

PRNewser reported today about how major agencies (McCann, WeberShandwick, Edelman) are adapting their business models to provide professional services that straddle the ad-PR divide and the traditional-digital media divides. The topic, of course, isn't new; it just gets reformulated as the technologies continue to reconfigure how consumers gain information, form opinion, and fulfill transactions.

These are the kinds of enterprises at which our future BIC graduates will build their careers.

2013 best retail brands

Interbrand has released its 2013 report on Best Retail Brands.  Biggest gains in reputation this year are shown by Macy's and Amazon -- each in its own way demonstrating it is "best in class" with consumers.  Perhaps significant, brands with more specific positioning -- in some ways more distinctive in product offering -- fared much worse: examples are Abercrombie & Fitch and Toys R Us.  Forbes magazine coverage, here.

Inside the FutureBrand - American Airline rebranding

PRNewser posted today an outline of the decision making process that led American Airlines and FutureBrand to the new logo and airplane design.

IBM: brand as -- only as -- corporate character

Jon Iwata, SVP Marketing and Communications (left)
with Harris Diamond, Chairman and CEO, McCann Worldgroup
at the 2012 Global PR Summit

Jon Iwata, IBM Senior Vice President, Marketing and Communications, narrates a new  2 1/2-minute video, "IBM on Brand."

Jon makes the assertion that IBM has never defined its brand -- and it certainly has never defined its brand by products it has made (otherwise, we would have our minds cluttered up with associations to IBM of things like punch-cards, Selectric typewriters and ThinkPads. Which they don't make anymore. Which are not IBM).

Jon says: "We do't try to manage the IBM brand, we try to manage our character as a business."  If we're not going to define our brand by what we make, what defines us? ... and it comes back to this notion of our corporate character, our belief system, and our purpose and our mission. And what makes us "Us."  If we take care of that, the brand takes care of itself."

CCNY MCA's new Master's program featured in Ad Age

Belle Frank, EVP-Global Director
Young & Rubicam
and BIC Adviser

A new Ad Age feature on the necessity for aspiring advertising professionals to hone their data analytic skills cites the creation of CCNY MCA's new Branding + Integrated Communications Master's program, and quotes our adviser, Belle Frank, EVP-Global Director, Strategy & Research, at Y&R.

What's that advertising professional of the future going to be like? "The next-generation advertising exec will be a data geek with the soul of an artist, the business acumen of Warren Buffet and the storytelling skills of Don Draper "

News on the hipster branding front

Just in case you're not following it -- PRNewser is keeping us posted on developments in hipster branding.

Harris Poll 2013 Reputation Quotient puts Amazon on top

Online pollster Harris Interactive released in February  its 2013 Harris Poll Reputation Quotient for corporate America in February showing the public taking a more pragmatic and positive view of corporate reputation -- generally rating corporate America more positively. The top five companies in America are Amazon, Apple, Disney, Google, and J&J.  The bottom of the list?  Financial services giants, Halliburton, and American Airlines.

Tech companies have an edge in getting the good reputation scores from Harris.  The research company also asserts that to "play a valuable social role" is a key driver of reputation -- a theme reported widely, such as here by PRMediaBlog.

Google discusses Art, Copy & Code -- a partnership with brands to develop state-of-the-art digital ads

Google, one of the most powerful channels for advertising today, is also maneuvering its way into creating ads. Last week, the Google | Official Blog posted about its new project, Art, Copy & Code -- "a program to partner with advertisers and agencies to re-imagine how brands tell stories in a connected world. . . . a series of projects and experiments to show how creativity and technology can work hand in hand . . . through a whole range of digital tools."

The project (wouldn't you know) even has its own trademarked slogan: Advertising Re-imagined.

The post goes on to give a preview into its first project for Volkswagen.

Art, Copy & Code was presented at SXSW yesterday by a panel consisting of Aman Govil, Product Marketing Manager, and Ben Malbon, Managing Director of the Creative Lab at Google, along with Kevin Mayer, VP Marketing from Volkswagen and Winston Binch, Chief Digital Officer at Deutsch Advertising.  Engadget, among many others, announced over the past few days.

You can subscribe for updates on Art, Copy & Code, here.  Facebook page, here.

Bad news for Detroit brands

Consumer Reports' auto top picks for 2013 have the Japanese brands leaving Detroit in the dust.

This, from Automotive News, says it all: "For the first time in several years, Detroit automakers did not claim the top spot in any vehicle segment, continuing their longstanding struggles in the magazine's rankings.

"Consumer Reports, an influential shopping guide with 8 million magazine subscribers, said the six lowest-rated brands were Buick, Chrysler, Ford, Lincoln, Jeep and Dodge."

GfK on tech trends of 2013

Global market research firm, GfK, has published "Tech Trends 2013" which explores several ways in which technology is helping brands know consumers (and vice versa) in more powerful ways. A PDF can be downloaded here, and a short video on "The brand of me" provides an intro.

GfK has a suite of brand research offerings packaged as Brand Value Optimization.

Supply chain and waste stream as fashion brand attributes

Do you know where your leather comes from?

Lucy Siegle reports in The Observer about how Gucci and other fashion brands are beginning to acknowledge their responsibility and influence over the whole supply chain -- in her example, particularly, about how quality leathers and other materials are sourced and processed sustainably and safely. On their own initiatives and in cooperation with NGOs such as the Green Carpet Challenge (GCC), brands are working "to raise the profile of ethics in the global fashion industry."

Willie Nelson and Emmy Rossum help launch
H&M's global recycling program
at Global Green's 10th annual Pre-Oscar party.
Photo: EnergyDigital

In a related story, H&M announced on February 21 a new garment recycling program which includes in-store discounts for consumers who bring in a bag of garments to be recycled.

So God made a designer

David Brier,
Chief Gravity Defyer, DBD International

Fun -- and insightful -- video, ripping off the Dodge Ram Superbowl ad. DBD International's brand identity specialist, David Brier, produced the video and blogged about it at Fast Company.