The Brainzooming Group

Thanks to Brenda Bethman, I received a last minute ticket to TEDxKC last Thursday at The Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City. Titled “What the World Needs Now,” five speakers (four live, one on video) and a visual/musical/performance art group presented rapid-fire perspectives not really answering the title question – since it wasn’t stated as a question – but more as persuasive speeches on innovative global strategies in a college communications class.

The Set-Up

That isn’t to say TEDxKC wasn’t thought-provoking; it was just never designed as an interactive dialogue on our collective future. Unless you call the audience mingling and getting to write on a big poster what we think the world needs now after the event (all over 1 free drink) an interactive experience.

TEDxKC was certainly much anticipated (although not necessarily well-publicized) in town, with the original 300 free tickets for the Nelson Gallery auditorium being claimed in an hour. Another 500-600 people were ultimately accommodated via video feed in a separate Nelson viewing gallery.

Personal Resonance

Because of a client meeting, I never had an opportunity to vie for a TEDxKC ticket. Having known people who have attended TED and TEDx events, however, TEDxKC certainly felt like an innovation-rich event to attend. Looking back in light of my personal experience and the relevance of the innovation messages, a TEDxKC ticket materializing Thursday afternoon couldn’t have been an accident.

The strategic, unifying thread for meat TEDxKC was the speakers articulating aspects of themes touched on and evolving within the Brainzooming and Aligning Your Life’s Work blogs over several years.

As I’ve said, writing a blog, absent all the other human interactions which are vital to surround it, is a pretty isolated experience. With my professional situation changing so much in the past year(moving from a corporation to pursue The Brainzooming Group full-time), that’s been even truer. The original target persona for the blog was me: someone in a not particularly innovative or creatively-oriented organization wanting to grow, develop, and have a bigger positive strategic impact on those around them.

As my life has changed, I’ve wondered whether my new perspectives resonate with all of you who are so generous to share your time in following Brainzooming. While new innovation-oriented themes have emerged for me professionally and found their way into the blog (thus all the social media and here’s what The Brainzooming Group does content lately), it was tremendously helpful as TEDxKC put into a global context the core strategic themes which mean so much to me personally and professionally:

• The importance of broad, integrated, innovation-oriented strategic thinking for personal and organizational success
• The value of more and diverse people thinking strategically in their lives
• The advantages of rapid trial and improvement in thinking, innovation, planning, and implementation
• The changing nature of what prepares people to be successful personally and professionally
• Servant leadership’s position at the core of personal success
• Searching for positivity amid life’s challenges

The strategic innovation messages at TEDxKC really resonated, serving as catalysts for my thinking right now. Tomorrow, we’ll recap the great TEDxKC speakers and the important innovation messages they shared.  – Mike Brown

When it comes to conferences, high impact presentations, and live event social media content, The Brainzooming Group is expert at shaping the right strategy and implementation to create unique attendee experiences before, during, and after an event. Email us at brainzooming@gmail.com or call 816-509-5320 to learn how we can do the same for your event!

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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Always watch out for the quick, “just go with it” ideas presented to you. While it’s really cool when the first (often “obvious”) idea works, at least ask the question, “What about the idea might not make sense?” In asking the question, force yourself to explore all aspects of the customer experience which might readily not fit with the idea. Doing this helps eliminate the awkwardness of moving ahead with a first idea which doesn’t really make sense.

I’ll share an example close to home illustrating the point.

We have a great offer $100 discount offer for the American Marketing Association Marketing Research Conference in Atlanta. It’s available to anyone attending last week’s virtual conference, “Unveiling Marketing Research’s Future Online.” Since I’m chairing the in-person conference, Brainzooming readers can also use the $100 discount if you register by July 2. The September conference is an outstanding learning and networking opportunity featuring presenters with strong points of view and a few surprises thrown in, all in keeping with its “Unfiltered Perspectives, Unexpected Opportunities” theme.

Back to that great $100 discount off for VIRTUAL event attendees. How do you take advantage of it?

By CALLING 800-262-1150 and using the reference code “VIRTUAL.”

Just CALL and use the code “VIRTUAL.”

Something about that doesn’t make sense does it?

When I asked about having to call to get the discount, it’s because of technical limitations with the registration system. Whatever. The “first idea” of making the discount code “VIRTUAL” makes sense if people can register directly within the virtual environment (or at least online). When you have to make a phone call though, it doesn’t make sense any more. At that point, it makes much more sense to pick something related the in-person event, such as “UNEXPECTED” or “ATLANTA” neither of which point right at our registration limitations.

Certainly not the end of the world, but all preventable by asking, “What about the idea might not make sense?”

Irrespective of the registration code, though, check out the lineup for the event and take advantage of $100 discount offer. It truly is the best value in a market research conferences you’re going to find.

And remember, just mention “VIRTUAL” when you call. - Mike Brown

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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I’m excited to see “Trust Agents” co-author Chris Brogan present in person for the second time this year at the BMA Engage conference tomorrow. Having seen him earlier at the Kansas City IABC Business Communications Summit in February, his innovative presentation style is one unlike I’ve never seen, and I really can’t imagine anyone else pulling it off successfully.

Speaking from what seemed to be a handwritten “set list” on a folded up piece of paper, Brogan spent an hour sharing his strategic perspective on how people behave, interact, and expect to be treated. Quite frankly, he struck me like the smart, quiet guy you see in a corporation who observes everything, sees the strategy gaps the big business so obviously misses, and figures out all the answers while hardly ever getting the chance to share them.

Through a patient strategy of freely sharing insights and perspectives from his innovative viewpoint, Brogan has created the opportunity to share his strategic wisdom in increasingly rarified venues. For all the “GET MASSIVE FOLLOWERS, BE A SOCIAL MEDIA ROCK STAR QUICK ” scams floating around the web, Chris Brogan has transferred a consistently, strategically constructed online platform to an IRL business where he routinely gets the chance to share his much sought-after answers.

Among the great strategic insights at his Kansas City presentation about better cultivating and growing customers with the help of social media:

• A company can best help its people understand what it means to represent the brand by providing some level of media relations training to every employee.
• The best social media people come from customer service. They’re used to talking with customers and representing the business across many situations.
• The first steps in social media strategy should focus on prepping for crisis communication, marketing at the time of need, better addressing customer service, and conducting research on customer needs.
• Don’t spend so much time on yourself. Brogan tries to communicate 12 times more about others than about his own stuff (a remarkable strategy considering some of the authors who pound relentless tweets and Facebook updates all about themselves).
• A brand lives or dies by its database and how the company cultivates it between the times it is marketing to people.

His most important statement? The importance to Brogan of keeping people who matter to you when you don’t need anything at all from them. It’s an important life lesson, irrespective of whether you use social media or not.  – Mike Brown

The Brainzooming Group helps make smart organizations more successful by rapidly expanding their strategic options and creating innovative plans they can efficiently implement. Email us at brainzooming@gmail.com or call 816-509-5320 to learn how we can develop an integrated social media strategy for your brand.

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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I’m presenting today to Max Utsler’s sports marketing class at the University of Kansas on sponsorship strategy from a corporate perspective.

Working through what subjects to cover reminded me of an unanswered question. Someone on the team side in NASCAR racing had asked me what business people look for in racing sponsorship proposals. The list below highlights characteristics that would set a sponsorship pitch apart as warranting attention beyond its move to the physical or virtual recycle bin:

• You MUST GET THIS! You have a brand, just as a potential sponsor does. Be ready to explain how the brands fit with one another. You want your brand and the sponsor’s brand to enter an extended relationship. For the relationship’s success, your brand must be supportive and complementary to the sponsor’s brand. Clearly show you’ve thought about a strategy and share what you do to actively manage your brand to maximize audience awareness and ensure a strong reputation.
• Do homework on the potential sponsor and its BUSINESS objectives. Don’t start with sports talk. Show right away you’ve made an effort to understand what’s important in the sponsor’s business. Connect the assets you have to how the sponsor can create more happy customers, revenue, and profits from doing business with you.
• Focus on what the sponsor’s trying to achieve in its primary business activities and how the sponsorship contributes – not the other way around. I’ve actually had drivers start with how important a sponsorship is…in helping them achieve their racing ambitions. Frankly, the sponsorship pitch isn’t about making your dreams come true. Enough said.
• Talk about how your sponsorship assets can help attract attention. Pretty pictures of sponsorship assets (i.e., racing cars) are in everybody’s presentation. What’s rarely seen is a creative treatment of how these assets can be strategically and innovatively used to grow revenue and profit for the sponsor. Don’t simply say how many tickets are available. Share the innovative ways you’ve considered to maximize the value and reach of those tickets.
• Your audience may not be fans – but they do want to know what you can do to make their fans feel special. It’s dangerous to assume a potential sponsor is a fan of your sponsorship category. Certainly though, they’re big fans of their own businesses, brands, and customers.  Focus your appeal on how you can make the sponsor’s fans feel special with insider and exclusive experiences.
• Demonstrate you’re legitimately metrics-driven. While this includes background on your sponsorship performance, it’s really important to show how many of your target sponsor’s customers you can reach along with numbers on how effective other sponsors who’ve partnered with you have been at growing their businesses. Provide real ROI metrics, or at least important components in the ROI equation.

There you have it from my perspective. In reality, the specifics work for preparing other sports, entertainment, or charitable sponsorships. The list can also help marketers determine whether a sponsorship proposal is worth considering for a next step. So how about it marketers – what else would you add to the list of requirements you have for groups seeking sponsorships?

If you’re pitching sponsorships, adopt these principles, and you may have a shot at a second phone call. – Mike Brown

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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As we’ve mentioned previously, during Super Bowl XLIV as part of #BZBowl, Brainzooming Strategic Contributor Barrett Sydnor focused on rating Super Bowl ads based on the memorability criteria highlighted in the book, “Made to Stick.” Here’s Barrett’s assessment:

“I loved that ad with the little kids, you know, the one for . . ., Well I can’t remember who it’s for, but I loved it.”

We’ve all said those same words more or less. Most critiques of Super Bowl ads operate on that level. The ad someone “liked” or thought was the funniest is declared the best Super Bowl ad.

But that isn’t why advertisers buy Super Bowl time. They want to sell stuff, lots of stuff. To accomplish that, the message must be memorable. As Chip and Dan Heath write, it must be “Made to Stick.” So in generating ratings for the Brainzooming Super Bowl XLIV ad analysis, I was more systematic in assessing the best and worst Super Bowl ads using the six strategic characteristics Made to Stick says make for memorable messages.

Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotion, Story

From kickoff to final whistle there were 31 breaks containing 67 national commercials and at least one very memorable promo. I watched each ad only once—as it ran—and made my judgments as to whether each met the six criteria (yes/no only, no shades of gray here) in as close to real time as possible. I haven’t looked at any best and worst list other than Mike’s.

Most Memorable Ads

• Based on the Made to Stick criteria, I rated Doritos “Keep Your Hands Off My Momma” as the most memorable Super Bowl ad. It hit on all six cylinders.
• The runner-up is Google for Paris. I thought it hit on five of six. (Mike and I disagree here.  Actually the next best ad was for The Late Show with Dave, Oprah, and Jay–but I think advertising is like therapy, it doesn’t count if you don’t pay.)
• Tied for Third: Snickers, Coca-Cola (Simpson’s characters), and Teleflora. All had four of six and all were well done tactics with clear strategies.

Least Memorable Ads

• The least memorable Super Bowl ad was Diamond Foods. The totally overproduced and under-communicating ad for Emerald Nuts and Pop Secret met none of the “Made to Stick” criteria.
• The next least memorable ad was Vizio. It did meet one criterion (Unexpected), but the rest of it was so bad it drops to the penultimate place on merit.
• Third worst went to the Go Daddy spots collectively. They met no criteria and made you feel bad for everyone involved.

A full listing of all the ads with their Made to Stick criteria ratings and my pithy comments can be downloaded at the end of the post.

Summary

Using the same criteria, someone else might reach a different conclusion about most and least memorable, i.e. your mileage may very.  But we should be able to agree that memorable communication counts for something in marketing.

Right now, we’re applying these principles for an event strategy project, designing an innovative positioning and strategy to create greater memorability and impact for attendees. What we’ve found at Brainzooming is beyond applying the “Made to Stick” criteria after the fact, the big opportunity is to innovatively use them in developing communications creative strategy. – Barrett Sydnor

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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Since Super Bowl XLIV is a great opportunity to review how successfully other marketers are linking strategy and creativity, Brainzooming will feature a live Super Bowl XLIV Twitter stream and before, during, and after game ad and social media analysis.

We’ll use the #BZBowl hashtag, and invite all of you to participate on Twitter with your opinions on the Super Bowl ads before, during, and after the game between the New Orleans Saints and Indianapolis Colts.

Here are some cool, innovative tweeters who’ve said they’ll participate:

• @ealvarezgibson – Whip-smart wordsmith. Media maven. Bon viveur.
• @Reaburn – fulltime husbandfatherfriend, servicemarketer, studentobserver, sarcasmoblaster
• @prather45 – Corporate Troubleshooter, Opportunist, Futurist, Editor Armada Executive Intelligence Briefing
• @barrettsydnor – Strategic Contributor at Brainzooming
• @JohnDigles – Category-Creating CMO. NYSE:IPG Agency SVP/GM. Award-Winning Indie Filmmaker. DePaul Univ MBA Adviser. Social Entrepreneur.
• @a_greenwood – Public Relations pro extraordinaire, writer, indie novelist, raconteur & man about town. Author of thriller ebook Pilate’s Cross
• @DebDobson - Social media, Technology Consultant. Former Law Firm Assistant IS Director. Love tennis, cycling, music, football. Love people & business.
• @AlexisCeule – Social Media Mamapreneur: Making your brand social, by word of mouse. Let’s get snarky! (I love me some @Train music too!)
• @melrp - Market researcher (qual.), photographer, tomato grower, appreciator of most things.
• @FunnyEye – Immortalizing Corporate Screw-Ups, Stupidity, & Jargon
• @BizDriveTime – Marketplace news hub for leadership, innovation and new products. A service of NeuVision Group and Dave E. Anderson
• @ariegoldshlager – Customer Management, Information-Based Marketing, and Innovation expert.
• @MeghanMBiro - Founder/Entrepreneur + Career Strategist + Mentor + Idea Incubator + Blogger + Culture (people, green, innovation, new media, arts) Enthusiast @TalentCulture
• @Brainzooming - me

Join us on Twitter and share your perspectives! All you have to do is include “#BZBowl” in your Super Bowl ad tweets. (Click here to learn more about hashtags and what they do.)

We’ll also be assessing Super Bowl ads, using the “Made to Stick” formula that make up the great book by Chip and Dan Heath. They spell out 6 characteristics for ideas with staying power:

• Simplicity
• Unexpected
• Concrete
• Credibility
• Emotion
• Stories

Grab a listing below of expected ads for the SuperBowl to keep track at home.

Brainzooming will also feature our picks for the best and worst Super Bowl ads based on these criteria. We’ll see how the formula and strategy match up with other best/worst ad lists.

Check the Brainzooming update page to view the tweet stream, updated commentary, and the “Made to Stick” recap.

Other Articles

• Who is the MVP of the Marketing Bowl: Social Media or Super Bowl Ads? by Augie Ray
• Super Bowl Ads – Spoiler Alert from Adland.TV
• Leading Super Bowl Brands Mentioned on Twitter

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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It’s a challenge to objectively examine your own website as if a prospect or customer seeking information would. There’s a strategic thinking approach you can follow to get ideas flowing though: Look at a direct competitor’s online presence, trying to shoot holes in it based on how a customer might view it.

You should really be able to get into it by answering a few questions:

• What misleading or out-of-date information is presented?
• What’s not compelling about the website?
• What’s confusing about the navigation?
• How much unnecessary detail do I have to supply to get a copy of the “free” download?
• What questions do I have that the website doesn’t answer?
• Do I know where to get my other questions answered?
• In what ways did I get smarter by browsing this website?
• In what ways were my information needs left wanting?

After doing this, go back and see how your own online presence compares. Looking at yourself from a customer perspective should now be much easier! – Mike Brown

The Brainzooming Group helps make smart organizations more successful by rapidly expanding their strategic options and creating innovative plans they can efficiently implement. Email us at brainzooming@gmail.com or call 816-509-5320 to learn how we can develop an integrated social media strategy for your brand.

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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Follow Me:

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