brand as business bit:  At CES last week, I couldn’t help but feel a little like I was in Apple’s 1984 commercial.

People seemed transfixed by screens -- and the 3D glasses made it even creepier.the crowd transfixed by LG display

no grey uniforms but...

I could only take comfort in knowing that adoption of wearing glasses to watch TV will never cross the chasm into the mainstream — they’re impractical, they’re too invasive, and they detract from the shared viewing experience.

2012, according to the Chinese calendar, is the Year of the Dragon.  In Chinese tradition, each year is dedicated to a specific animal and predictions for 2012 are for a dragon-like year of excitement, unpredictability, exhilaration, and intensity.

With this expectation in mind, I’ve selected several brands to keep my eye on.  They’re likely to shake things up, surprise customers and the Street, and make for an overall exciting year:

Smashburger – By most accounts, 2011 was the year the “better burger” category went mainstream.  I predict 2012 will be the year that separates the category men from the boys.

While growth is on the menu for big chains like Five Guys and smaller ones like Burger Lounge and The Habit, the darling of the industry in 2012 is likely to be Smashburger.  With 143 existing units and 450 franchise agreements on the books, Smashburger is on a roll (pardon the pun!)

But don’t take my word that Smashburger is a brand to watch — Forbes Magazine recently named the chain “America’s Most Promising Company.”  To make the list, Smashburger had to pass muster as a privately held up-and-comer with a compelling business model, strong management team, notable customers, strategic partners and precious investment capital.  The Forbes write-up reported on key differentiators such as the chain’s “blend of thoughtful product design and deft execution” and great service.

What makes Smashburger particularly interesting to me is its unconventional company culture.  At the 15th Annual UCLA Extension Restaurant Industry Conference, CEO Dave Prokupek explained he’s modeling his culture after Google’s and Netflix’s and hiring half of his employees from outside the restaurant industry (read more in my Brand New Perspectives column in QSR Magazine).  The concept seems to be firing on all cylinders – 2012 will reveal whether it has the right ammunition to take down some of its formidable competitors.

JC Penney – Will Ron Johnson’s gamble on JC Penney be a boom or bust?  We’ll get a good idea in 2012.

The former head of Apple retail has put all his chips in on the department store chain.  He’s recruited key people from Apple and Target, where he fueled that chain’s design strategy by bringing in a line of household items designed by Michael Graves. And he’s already signed a deal with Martha Stewart to create an e-commerce site for cross-licensed products and develop shop-within-a-shop retail spaces.

Building a stronger brand portfolio is only one aspect of Johnson’s efforts to “transform JC Penney into America’s Favorite Store.”  Other planned moves include restructuring its home merchandise-dominated online business, instituting a new pricing strategy, and focusing on the 18 to 35-year-old market.

All of these are smart, much-needed changes, but it’s Johnson’s vision for brick-and-mortar stores that stands out to me.  In an interview in the Harvard Business Review, he explains, “A store has got to be much more than a place to acquire merchandise. It’s got to help people enrich their lives. If the store just fulfills a specific product need, it’s not creating new types of value for the consumer. It’s transacting. Any website can do that. But if a store can help shoppers find outfits that make them feel better about themselves, for instance, or introduce them to a new device that can change the way they communicate, the store is adding value beyond simply providing merchandise. The stores that can do that will take the lead.”

Such comments not only reveal clues to how Johnson plans to jumpstart JC Penney in 2012 but also how other retailers might revive their own businesses in the coming year.

Chipotle – Chipotle appears on my list of brands to watch for the second year in a row because it continues to grow, innovate, and set the standard for the QSR industry.

The chain has grown spectacularly, from 16 units in 1998 to 1,200 today – quite an amazing feat considering its an ethnic concept and has a limited menu.  And it’s expected to increase the number of its stores by at least another third in the next few years, while McDonald’s (which has been doing quite well lately) is struggling to find growth markets.  In the litmus test of growth, Chipotle increased its valued by 6x over the past 5 years (McDonald’s only increased by 2x.)

Chipotle’s innovation has come in the form of a new concept, ShopHouse Southeast Asian Kitchen, which opened in the D.C. area this past fall.  With recipes inspired by the cuisines of Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Singapore in a store modeled after fast food kitchens in Asia, ShopHouse is billed as serving “delicious, stylish, natural, nutritious, and affordable” food “lightening-quick.”  No expansion plans have been announced, but we’re sure to see another location (or two or five) pop up in 2012.

And, in regards to setting QSR standards, Chipotle Co-CEO and founder Steve Ells has been on a crusade to make fast food good and good for you.  As an investor-judge on the America’s Next Great Restaurant reality TV show earlier this year, Ells declared, “Just because it’s fast doesn’t mean it has to be a typical fast-food experience.” As a strong advocate of “natural” food, Ells urged Congress just last month to curb the overuse of antibiotics in meat production. And after a government crackdown earlier this year found the chain had hired hundreds of illegal workers, it has become an unlikely champion of immigration overhaul.

Chipotle may reach its peak in 2012, but I expect it will be quite a summit.

Bluetooth and ANT+ – Wireless will take a huge leap forward in 2012, thanks to Bluetooth v4.0 (aka Bluetooth Smart Ready) and ANT+.  These lightweight, low-power technologies are going to revolutionize wireless devices and applications, particularly in digital health and fitness.

Digital health and fitness is a trend to watch on its own.  It’s the fastest growing segment of the consumer electronics industry, and if the buzz leading up to the Consumer Electronics Show next week is any indication, technology innovations in healthcare and fitness are going to steal the show.

Now with new wireless capabilities, digital health and fitness is crossing into the mainstream market:  Wireless sensor data streaming enhances people’s activity-tracking – everything from how many calories you burn to how well you sleep each night — and assists in the real-time monitoring of personal medical statuses and record keeping, the need for which increases as health problems like diabetes and obesity grow.

The ANT+ technology has been around for over 10 years and its alliance members include prominent brands like Garmin and adidas.  Bluetooth, with a Special Interest Group of 14,000 members, just launched v4.0.  In 2012 according to IMS Research, over 35% of smartphones will be shipped with dual-mode Bluetooth low energy, and over 10 million ANT+ enabled phones will be shipped.

There’s a lot of debate as to which technology will prevail – Bluetooth or ANT+ — but with the market growing as quickly as it is, both are sure to be winners in 2012.

***

I’m sure each of these brands is hoping http://chinesenewyear2012.net/ is right in its description of 2012: “Dragon years are lucky for anyone thinking of starting a business or initiating a new project of any sort because money is easier to come by for everyone.”

related posts:

• companies to keep an eye on in 2011
• Robin Raskin on living in digital times
• 2011 year in ideas

My curiosity was piqued by the headline of a recent article comparing Siri, the personal assistant application on new iPhones, to Speaktoit, currently available on Android phones – but not because I wanted to understand the differences between the apps.  I was struck by how different the two names are – Siri:  short, cute, a person’s name, vs. Speaktoit:  longer, cumbersome, a function.

I got to thinking about what makes a brand name effective and how that’s changed over time.  As I’ve dug into the trends, I’ve discovered how brand names reflect the business climates they’re developed in – and how understanding the relationship between the two can help people develop effective brand names in these modern times.

In the past, brand names have served as labels for companies, products, or services.  The role of name-as-label is description and the purpose is primarily to instill confidence.  That’s why founders’ names (e.g., Disney, McDonald’s, Hewlett-Packard) and functional names (e.g., Burger King, IBM, Weight Watchers) have been popular.  The names tell people either what the company/product/service is, or what it does, or who’s behind it.  Names as labels are about consumer risk-reduction.

But in today’s marketplace, it seems brand names need to do more than that.  Modern names need to stand out, draw people in, and inspire their imaginations.  These days the most effective brand names don’t serve as labels – they’re more like identities.  They declare instead of describe, convey personality instead of confidence.  That’s why we see names like Jack for radio stations, Freebirds for restaurants, and Zappos for e-tailers.  These names as identities are about consumer attraction.

Which brings me back to Siri vs. Speaktoit.  The name Siri is derived from the SRI International Artificial Intelligence Center which developed the technology that powers the application.  Fortunately the founders were prescient enough to understand the technology’s potential and adapted the center’s name into woman’s name instead of forming it as an acronym.  An actual person’s name makes the application seem personal and approachable — the precise attributes the technology needs to attract people and generate trial.

The name Speaktoit Assistant, however, seems pedantic.  While the name clearly describes the technology, its descriptive nature genericizes the product.  It emphasizes what the user can do vs. suggests how the user will feel.  The potential of the technology seems more limited with a functional name and the name almost begs for copycats (I’m sure plans for Talktome, SayIt, and JustSpeak are already in the works.)

And that’s really the point.  An effective brand name conveys – or at least evokes – differentiation.  And while differentiation has long been an important part of brand-building, in most categories today, differentiation is achieved less with features and functions and more through values and personality.  The former are easily and quickly copied and commoditized; the latter, less so.  Modern brand names need to tap into the differentiating power of values and personality.

An effective brand name also supports the primary marketing task, so modern brand names should facilitate the marketing task of today’s market.  Companies have and always will need to assure customers of the brand quality in order to reduce the perceived risks of purchase – but now that is achieved less by promotion and more by identification.  Modern consumers trust brands that demonstrate interest in them and the things they care about – they’re attracted by the sense of affinity.  So marketers should select names that facilitate this connection through identity.

There are two other factors to consider. First, salience. With the growing number of competitors and the shrinking size of screens – not to mention attention spans – the need for salient brand names is greater now than ever before.  Short, pithy names stand out quickly.

Second, if ICANN’s push to add as many as 1,000 new top-level domains is accepted (and it’s looking increasingly like it will), descriptive names will become even less important.  No longer will a company need to spell out that it’s an eating establishment if it can use the “.restaurant”  or “.eat” domain.  So marketers will enjoy more freedom when selecting modern brand names.

Brand names are an interesting sign of the times.  And it’s clear, it’s a brand new world out there (pun intended.)

related posts:

• a tale of two re-brands: syfy and starbucks
• losing more than a brand name
• fundamentals of brand naming

Today we get to hear from Marti Barletta, the foremost authority on marketing to women.  Marti is the author of the groundbreaking books, Marketing to Women: How to Increase Your Share of the World’s Largest Market,  and more recently, PrimeTime Women™: How to Win the Hearts, Minds, and Business of Boomer Big Spenders.

By now the purchasing power of women should be obvious to any marketer, but women in their prime (ages 50-70) represent a real silver bullet for marketers because of this segment’s unparalleled growth, size and spending.  I asked Marti to join us to help us better understand how to tap into this extraordinary opportunity.

Marti explains:

• why PrimeTime Women are a marketing “trifecta”
• common misconceptions about PrimeTime Women
• how PrimeTime Women have been insulated from the economic downturn
• why marketers often overlook the segment

Please take a listen and then check out Marti’s site, TrendSight, to learn more.

other interviews:

• David Aaker on Brand Relevance
• John Gerzema on Connecting with Today’s Consumer
• Jonathem Salem on the History of Social Media

Today we get the opportunity to hear from someone who has spent the past 30 years exploring what it means to be living in digital times.

Robin Raskin is an author, editor, magazine publisher, blogger, TV and radio personality, consultant, and most notably producer of the Living in Digital Times summits and exhibits at CES.  These summits, including Mommy Tech, Silvers Summit, and FitnessTech have become the highlight of show for me and many others who are interested in the latest developments in digital technology.

Robin is going to tell us the story of how she got to become an advocate for what she calls “technology’s second citizens” (kids, seniors, and women).  Our interview also covers her work at the intersection of fashion and technology and how technology can help you achieve your personal best.

Take a listen, and then check out www.livingindigitaltimes.com to learn more.

related posts:

• on tech innovation in health and fitness and beyond
• CES 2010 highlight video
• soundbites from CES 2010

other interviews:

• john costello on behind the scenes at dunkin donuts
• omar green on solving people’s problems
• michael tchong on trends to pay attention to

Last week I started a recap of the History of Marketing, which was actually inspired by the future – that is, the comments I got about my write-up on the Future of Marketing micro-conference in which marketing experts like Guy Kawasaki, Scott Monty, and Frank Gruber shared what they expect the future of marketing will bring.

The source for my analysis of the History of Marketing is a Google Labs N-gram Viewer which shows the frequency with which “marketing” appeared in English books between 1800-2000. My last post left off in the early 90’s when case-study and principle-laden texts like The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing and Managing Brand Equity were published.

Now to the recent past:

Beginning at the turn of the millennium, books about marketing took a more of a philosophical, idea-inspired tact.

Seth Godin’s Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers into Friends, and Friends into Customers, published in 1999, is a good example.  In it, Godin contrasts “interruption marketing” with a new idea, “permission marketing.”  That is, if you want to grab someone’s attention, you first need to get his or her permission with some kind of bait.

Come to think of it, the anthology of books Godin released at an annual clip throughout the past decade provide a good summary of what marketing has become:

• Unleashing the Ideavirus (2001) challenged readers to “stop marketing AT people!  Turn your ideas into epidemics by helping your customers do the marketing for you.”
• The Big Red Fez: How To Make Any Web Site Better (2002) provided a practical guide to making websites more attractive to browsers.
• Survival Is Not Enough: Why Smart Companies Abandon Worry and Embrace Change (2002) encouraged readers to teach their companies to “zoom” – that is, embrace change without pain.
• Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable (2003) suggested that marketers should create products and services that are worth marketing in the first place.
• Free Prize Inside!: The Next Big Marketing Idea (2004) explained the way to make any product a bestseller is to couple it with “a feature that the consumer might be attracted to” whether or not she really needs it or wants it.
• All Marketers Are Liars: The Power of Telling Authentic Stories in a Low-Trust World (2005) clarified that great marketers don’t talk about features or even benefits. Instead, they tell a story.
• Small Is the New Big and 193 Other Riffs, Rants, and Remarkable Business Ideas (2006) included ideas like the “first key to successful marketing is to produce something remarkable and let it grow.”
• The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick) (2007) was about “the Dip” — “the long slog between starting and mastery” in which those without the determination or will find themselves burning out.
• Meatball Sundae: Is Your Marketing Out of Sync? (2008) explained that New Marketing treats every aspect of interacting with customers—including customer service and the product itself—as an opportunity to grow the organization.
• Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us (2008) introduced the idea that lasting and substantive change can be best effected by a tribe: a group of people connected to each other, to a leader and to an idea.
• Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? (2010) exhorted readers to be people who invent, lead (regardless of title), connect others, make things happen, and create order out of chaos.
• And finally Godin’s upcoming release Poke the Box (2011) is supposed to be a call to action to take initiative.

I don’t intend the above to suggest that the only meaningful books of the recent past have been written by Godin, nor that he speaks, er…writes, for all — but I do think this compilation reflects the marketing of recent history — it’s all about new:  new ways to engage with customers/people in general, new tools, and new approaches to thinking about and doing business.

History of Marketing Observations

This analysis of the History of Marketing raises several points for me:

A lot has changed, but some things never do. We continue to struggle with how to define marketing and how to do it.

The trajectory of marketing reflects broader business, economic, and cultural trends. At the dawn of the last century, the shift to an industrial age produced new business challenges to which marketing was applied.  At the turn of this century, innovation, relationships, and values have risen as top issues for almost all organizations – and marketing has evolved to address these.

Marketing is a popular topic. Once it surfaced as a concept in books, it was mentioned at levels comparable to God:

related posts:

• history of marketing, part one
• future of marketing
• insights and soundbites from seth godin

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blog post, Future of Marketing, which recapped the themes, tools, and tactics that 60 marketing experts expect will shape the future.  Given the interest the piece raised, I thought it might be equally interesting to review the history of marketing.  After all there’s a reason why philosopher and poet George Santayana’s quote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” resonates.  History is full of great lessons.

As my source for the history of marketing, I turned to a culturomics project which recently made headlines (culturomics is the application of high-throughput data collection and analysis to the study of human culture.)

Back in December, the folks at the Cultural Observatory at Harvard, Encyclopaedia Britannica, the American Heritage Dictionary, and Google launched the world’s first real-time culturomic browser on Google Labs. It uses a corpus of over 5MM digitized texts containing about 4% of all books ever printed.

A detailed explanation of the undertaking, along with an explanation of the methods of validation, an acknowledgment of its limitations, instructions on proper interpretation, and usage ideas, can be found at http://www.culturomics.org and in a dense but enlightening paper in Science magazine.

Ultimately my research led me to The Google Labs N-gram Viewer through which I produced a graph showing the frequency of “marketing” appearing in English books between 1800-2000.  On that timeline, I plotted some of the more significant events in general U.S. and business history and then looked into the books which were included in the search.

I recognize the limitations of my approach, not the least of which is that the database is comprised of books only and excludes content from magazines, newspapers, and motion-media which would probably represent a much more accurate view of marketing.  But even so, I believe the results are as telling as are the insights from my Future of Marketing analysis.

Here’s Part 1 of what I found (Part 2 will be published next week):

Pre-1920

The concept of marketing was virtually absent from books until the early 1900’s. “Marketing” finally did show up in texts with titles like Marketing: Its Problems and Methods, Principles of Marketing, and Marketing: Methods and Policies.

The last of these, Marketing: Methods and Policies published in 1921, provides a quite entertaining read as it seeks to explain what marketing is:

“There are three different kinds of things that must be considered by everyone who has anything to sell.  One group of considerations has to do only with personal salesmanship and sales management. Another has to only with advertising.  Still a third is concerned solely neither with personal salesmanship nor with advertising, but is common to both…

“The plan behind the campaign is the thing that primarily determines the success or failure of every salesman and of every advertisement.  On it depends the selection of advertising or personal salesmanship as a marketing tool; on it depends also the choice of one trade channel or of another and the decision to use established methods of reaching the market or to hew out some new road between distributor and consumer…There is no name in general use to indicate those activities that are included in the complete campaign…the word “marketing” is gradually coming into popular use to apply generally to the distributing campaign…Marketing methods, in a sense, are inclusive of everything that is done to influence sales.” (emphasis mine)

1930-1970

Marketing seemed to flat line between 1930 and 1970, with very little change in the frequency of its appearance in books.

1970′s

Then in the 1970’s marketing took off, nearly doubling in frequency in 10 short years.  Books which brought an analytical approach to marketing appeared, as evidenced by titles such as Marketing: An Integrated Analytical Approach.

In 1972 Philip Kotler wrote Marketing Management, long considered to be the bible on modern day marketing.  In it, Kotler legitimized and standardized marketing by synthesizing ideas from economics, behavioral science, organizational science and mathematics.

He argued that companies ought to be driven by customers and markets, rather than by the intuition of marketing executives, saying:

“Marketing is the science and art of exploring, creating, and delivering value to satisfy the needs of a target market at a profit. Marketing identifies unfulfilled needs and desires. It defines, measures and quantifies the size of the identified market and the profit potential. It pinpoints which segments the company is capable of serving best and it designs and promotes the appropriate products and services.” (emphasis mine)

(BTW, Kotler continues to enlighten us – the 14th edition of Marketing Management was just released.)

Also International Marketing and similar texts reflected the influence of globalization in business which occurred in the 70’s.

1990′s

After another, albeit shorter, period of stalled growth, the mid-1990’s showed renewed interest in marketing.  Actually, it wasn’t so much in interest as it was insurrection.  Books seemed to focus on calling out the misuse or misunderstanding of marketing which must have occurred in the interim.  Three seminal texts (all of which grace my bookshelf) were published at this time:

1.  The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk by Al Ries and Jack Trout (1994).  In this instructive text, the authors took on marketing:

“Billions of dollars have been wasted on marketing programs that couldn’t possibly work, no matter how clever or brilliant.  Or how big the budgets…As far as we can tell, almost no one is willing to admit that there are any laws of marketing – certainly none that are immutable…We have been studying what works in marketing and what doesn’t for more than 25 years.  What we have found is that programs that work are almost always in tune with some fundamental force in the marketplace.”  (emphasis mine)

They outlined the Law of Leadership, the Law of Focus, and the Law of Exclusivity, among others.

2.  In 1991 Kevin J. Clancy and Robert S. Shulman wrote The Marketing Revolution:  A Radical Manifesto for Dominating the Marketplace.  In similar fashion to Kotler, these authors condemned the marketing practices of their day, saying:

“The marketing revolution is coming because failure is self-evident and everybody…is angry because marketing, which should be driving business and marketing, doesn’t work.

“…Many company managers in their deepest hearts regard production or finance as the secret to success. Too many still regard marketing as an adjunct to sales.  And even within companies serious about marketing, executives disagree over basic methodologies.” (emphasis mine)

Clancy and Shulman predicted a marketing revolution that would “transform American business in the 1990s as top managements comprehend marketing’s significance to their companies’ future and drive this new thinking through their companies.”

3.  In the same year, Managing Brand Equity was written by David A. Aaker.  He explained the need for his book:

“Brand equity is one of the hottest topics in management today…Yet research shows that managers cannot identify with confidence their brand associations, levels of consumer awareness, or degree of customer loyalty.  Moreover in the last decade, managers desperate for short-term financial results have often unwittingly damaged their brands through price promotions and unwise brand extensions.” (emphasis mine)

The book set out to “define and illustrate brand equity, providing a structure that will help managers see more clearly how brand equity does provide value” and “to discuss how brand equity should be managed.”

These three texts – and others like them which were published in the same time period — were similar not only in their disdain for the marketing practice of their time, but also for the case study and analytical approach of the content.  By the time of their writing, the authors had years of good and bad stories and mounds of data to draw upon to make their points and call for a new understanding and practice of marketing.

Today

Most recently, marketing has evolved even further. Check back next week for the History of Marketing Part 2 which outlines what the books of the most recent decade say about marketing today – and concludes with some overall observations about the history of marketing.

related posts:

• future of marketing
• favorite brand books
• stuff that matters (write-ups from recent talks given by Kotler and Clancy)

The Founder and CEO of Brand Value Advisors, Mike Kelly, joins me to talk about what’s hot, what’s not, and why in the restaurant industry.

Mike should know.  Brand Value Advisors is a marketing and branding advisory firm which private equity and VC investors call upon to provide brand strategy, brand valuation, and sales and marketing implementation.

They’ve worked for the folks behind Epic Records and Cannondale bikes.  And of particular interest to me is their work with restaurant concepts like Sbarro and Hooters.

In this interview, Mike:

• explains why the investor class he works with is very interested in the QSR and fast casual category
• describes the game-changing trends and concepts in the industry
• highlights several concepts which are doing it “right” – and one which causes him to pause

Take a listen and then share your questions and feedback with me and/or Mike.  Mike can be reached through his firm’s site – www.brandvalueadvisors.com .

P.S.  If you’d like to see me cover a person or a perspective in an upcoming interview, please use the comments section to let me know.

other interviews:

• jonathan salem baskin on the history of social media
• doug stebbins on the retail outlook
• dick lynch on the turnaround at popeye’s louisiana kitchen

Late last year, 60 marketing experts shared their visions of the future of marketing through a “micro-conference” run by Sam Rosen of thoughtlead.  It found it fascinating on several levels.

First the “micro-conference” is a really neat format.  It’s a podcast-type audio event in which each person has only 60-seconds to speak.  Sam initiated the format with The Influencer Project, billed as “the shortest marketing conference ever” and featured thought-leaders on the subject of increasing your online influence.

In just one hour a “micro-conference” gives listeners a broad range of perspectives – it’s a little random, and by design, there isn’t a lot of depth, but nuggets of wisdom emerge throughout.  It’s kind of a buffet for the brain.

Also the types of thought-leaders who participated in the Future of Marketing were interesting.  There weren’t any real surprises in the speaker list – it included the expected experts (e.g., Guy Kawasaki, Charlene Li, Steve Rubel, and more), popular business figures (e.g., Scott Monty, Tony Hsieh, Alex Bogusky, etc.), and the authors everyone has read (e.g., David Meerman Scott, Brian Solis, Chris Brogan, etc.)  No real academics, no one from outside the field of marketing, and no celebrities (although Alex Bogusky might have as many fans — and critics — to qualify for that designation!)

I’d guess the speakers’ average age was around 40 (with Barry Schwartz representing the top end of the scale at 65 and Frank Gruber at the low end at 29).   Only 15 of the 60 speakers were women; only 6 were people of color.  All the speakers were U.S.-based.

I’m reporting these stats not to pass a judgment on who was/wasn’t included, but rather to paint a profile of the type of person who is leading the marketing profession these days.   And that profile — white, American middle-aged male marketing leader with an established platform — was another of the things that fascinated me about the event.

tag cloud of transcript from Future of Marketing

Finally the content itself was fascinating but even more so was the types of topics discussed.  I did a quick classification of the topics mentioned and my tally showed:

25% focused on social (social media, social commerce, social search)

Amber MacArthur talked about “the idea that more and more people are going to different social networks to get recommendations for products and services they buy versus is going to traditional search engines like Google.”

Ekaterina Walter, Social Media Strategist at Intel, declared, “Revolutionary marketing strategies are nonexistent without social media nowadays.”

20% talked about a broader aspect of business beyond marketing

Sonia Simone, Chief Marketing Officer of Copyblogger Media, suggested, “Everything we do is marketing, from our supply chain to what our CEO says over drinks to how our support teams treat our customers.”

Innovation was Virgin America Marketing VP Porter Gale’s point:  “We tried to use the central part of innovation at the core of our DNA.  We looked at the product.  We looked at the guest experience. We looked at all of our marketing channels and made sure that we pushed beyond the traditional landscape and changed the game.  For us it’s plugs at the seats; it’s wi-fi in all of our planes; it’s food on demand; it’s mood lighting; it’s things that guests actually didn’t even realize they needed.”

10% focused on content

Victoria Harres from PR Newswire explained, “The role of the marketer will be to facilitate rich and useful content to that well researched audience. And that is what I mean by the future of marketing isn’t selfish.”

“Focus your marketing on helping other people,” was the advice from Michael Stelzner of socialmediaexaminer.com.  “Everybody wants access to great insight and have great people who can help them, so produce engaging content that meets people’s insatiable demand for how-to information.”

the remaining 31% ranged across a bunch of marketing tactics and approaches — from mobile to shopper marketing to email marketing and more

Here’s the most fascinating part: only 3 made the customer their main point

“The real best companies in the world and best marketers imagine the unrecognized needs of their customers,” declared author Chip Conley.

Chris Brogan encouraged marketers, “…to incorporate [listening] into both your lead development, your awareness, your sales, and your customer service.  Basically do more to understand your customers in a 360-degree way.”

Todd Defren at SHIFT Communications challenged listeners saying, “So many companies and marketers think about taking a content-specific approach where they put ‘creative’ at the forefront of everything.  Really what they should be thinking about in the social media era is putting relationships at the center of everything.”

and only 3 people focused on the brand as the future of marketing

Michael Margolis, President of GetStoried.com, said, “People don’t buy your product or your solution or even your idea.  What they’re buying is the story that’s attached to it, or more importantly, the story they tell themselves about what your brand means to them, which is why you need to give people something to believe in, a bigger story. When your brand stands for something larger than just a widget, a sale, or a transaction, you invite people to find the deeper meaning.”

Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh spoke on his resounding theme, saying, “A company’s culture and a company’s brand are really just two sides of the same coin.”

Jeanne Bliss of CustomerBliss.com explained that brand experience is driven by five things:

1. clarity of purpose: redefine your purpose from your customer’s point of view.
2. recognize that employees are the brand in so many interactions.
3. be human and real in your communications.
4. become a talk-able brand by delivering a reliable experience your customers can tell others about.
5. be there on customers’ terms and nurture your humility and your humility muscle in how you say sorry and respond to customer disappointments.

On the one hand, this breakdown is concerning – only a handful of marketing experts put customers or the brand in the center of their vision of the future of marketing, while over half are betting on social or some marketing tactic.  It would seem they’re forgetting the fundamentals of marketing.

But as I try to be open-minded and give these people (many of whom I respect a lot) the benefit of the doubt, I think I may understand their perspective.  Customers and the brand are indeed marketing fundamentals — the core of the discipline — and their importance is timeless.

But perhaps it’s the tools and tactics that are what’s changing. And they are ushering in the new marketing era.

related posts:

• five leading business ideas for 2011
• michael tchong on trends to pay attention to

]]> http://deniseleeyohn.com/bites/2011/02/08/future-of-marketing/feed/ 10 http://deniseleeyohn.com/bites/2011/01/18/jonathan-salem-baskin-on-the-history-of-social-media/ http://deniseleeyohn.com/bites/2011/01/18/jonathan-salem-baskin-on-the-history-of-social-media/#comments Tue, 18 Jan 2011 16:09:31 +0000 denise lee yohn http://deniseleeyohn.com/bites/?p=4566

Is social media a new phenomenon, or one that’s been around for centuries and is simply being fueled and shaped by the latest technological developments?  In today’s interview, Jonathan Salem Baskin offers his point of view.

Jonathan is a global brand strategist, leading a global network of partner companies in the Baskinbrand Alliance and managing North American business for the global marketing consultancy Futurelab.  He’s also an author, having written the book Branding Only Works on Cattle, as well as the newly-published book, Histories of Social Media.

In Histories of Social Media, Jonathan analyzes two thousand years of history to uncover ideas and tips for today’s work with social media. Reading it is an interesting, provocative, and sometimes humorous “back to the future” kind of experience.

You can learn more about the book and its companion blog through the website www.historiesofsocialmedia.com and you can learn more about and contact Jonathan through his website jonathansalembaskin.com .

Take a listen and let me know what you think.

related interviews:

• john gerzema on how to connect with today’s consumer
• andy beal on the social web and brand building
• scott goodson on cultural movements