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Live Blogging From AMA SF Blog Workshop

04/29/2005

Dana VanDen Heuvel, the meister of the blogosphere, once again does a great job live blogging the AMA Blog: Marketing Beyond the Website workshop. This time it was San Fransicso. Well worth a read. http://marketingpower.blogs.com/american_marketing_associ/

I don't know what happened to the Typepad icons for hyperlinks... weird.

Friday Fun: Freakin Ad Fun!

04/29/2005

Levi_blog_ad_spotThe Brands are getting the power of blogs. Henry Copeland, the visionary behind Blogads, posted that Levi's bought a series of ads. He links to the very cool video ad - See Spot Lose His FREAKIN Mind! Great spot...good enough for for Friday Fun! This one is very clever and funny too.

Coast-to-Coast Blogging Workshops

04/27/2005

On the road again talking about my favorite marketing strategy Roadtrip2- what else but blogs..bebe blogs!

AMA Blogs: Marketing Beyond the Website is coming to the City On the Bay - San Francisco on April 28th. Still time to get in on the action! We've listened and learned along the way (TDavid you'd be proud!). This new version (session on blogs and the law, a live case study and more) includes our favorite speakers -

-Ben McConnell
-Bill Flitter
-Wayne Pelletier
-Henry Copleland
-Dana VanDen Heuvel
and me - Toby Bloomberg!

and some new favs too!
-Shel Israel
-Sally Falkow
-Charles M. Smith

After the Workshop "Wonk" For Bay Area Bloggers
Ben started this at our first workshop in Settle. A "Wonk Happy Hour."

All blogers in the Bay Area - and people who want to see what bloggers actually look like - are invited to dish about blogs, or anything else, over a few - buy your own drinks.

Venue:The View
Time: 6p - ?

San Francisco Marriott Hotel
55 Fourth Street
415.896.160

Then it's a jump up the coast to Portland to talk blogs at the New Frontier Conference - an explanation of emerging tools and trends.

In June, AMA continues its coast-to-coast road trip bringing Blogs: Marketing Beyond the Web to Boston. My home town. Red Sox and lobsters and blogs...oh my!

When: June 24th
Where: Batterymarch Conference Center - near Quincy Market

Speakers include our favs -

-Ben McConnell
-Bill Flitter
-Wayne Pelletier
-Henry Copleland
-Dana VanDen Heuvel
-Charles M. Smith
and me - Toby Bloomberg!

and two very special new favs!
-Stowe Boyd
-John Cass
-Millie Garfield

I've had the opportunity to meet some of our industry's nicest and most talented bloggers during this project including Steve Rubel, Robert Scoble, Bob Bly, Rick Bruner. But Diva dahlings...I am so looking forward to meeting Thoroughly Modern Millie - an inspirational and a divine Diva!

The Boston Wonk is in the planning...with 5 speakers (Boyd, Millie, Wayne, John and Toby) from B'town this should be one of our most fun wonks!

Biz Blog Profile Series: Fresh Perspectives - Cheskin

04/26/2005

Biz Blog Profile is a behind the scene look at how corporations, non profits and higher education institutions are using blogs to support their marketing goals.

Cheskin is an international strategic marketing research firm that embraced blogging before blogging was "cool." Way back in 2003, before Mark Edeleman and Bob Lutz  hit the CEO blog scene, Christopher Ireland and Darrel Rhea were blogging at Cheskin's blog Fresh Perspectives.

Fresh Prospectives is a muli author blog that reflects the views of 25 diverse staff members including designers, strategists, marketers, researchers and Jennifer Gray, who holds an especially intriguing title - VP of Experience. Cheskin's blog is a great example of how a large service marketing firm (from a traditionally conservative industry - marketing research) can leverage blogs. Sidebar: Thanks Jennifer for your help with this case!

Cheskin_logoBiz Blog Profile: Fresh Perspectives

About Cheskin

Cheskin is a consumer strategy firm with a history in marketing and design research. Our core belief is that authenticity, meaning and relevance inspire trust resulting in lasting customer relationships. This philosophy has been the basis of our work for many of the Fortune 500 companies, across a wide range of industries.

Why Cheskin Is Blogging via Fresh Perspectives

We first heard of blogging at the 2003 TED conference. It was new and we like new. We blog because it’s the most immediate way to show Cheskin is the sum of its parts – our employees. We put a ton of energy into building eclectic and seasoned teams to answer a variety of client needs. Blogging amplifies voices that typically are silent on a corporate website. It also sparks internal and external debate and thought – a cornerstone of the Cheskin culture.

How Blogs Fit Into Cheskin's Marketing Strategies

It’s a part of the strategy. Some of our bloggers have a loyal following, but blogs usually have a narrow target audience. It has, however, become a surprisingly effective way to market Cheskin. Blogs provide an unvarnished cultural immersion for candidates and clients.

Selling-in To Management

Our then-ceo, Christopher Ireland, liked the idea and challenged our then-marketing director, Denise Klarguist to make it happen. Calling on a few Cheskin friends, like Stuart Henshall, to get the ball rolling, we published our first blog within six weeks of first hearing about blogs.

How Cheskin is Marketing the Fresh Perspective Blog

We aren’t. It’s on our website. We highlight it on our front page.  We link to it in our email signature lines. We talk about it. Other than that, it’s become a very active ‘passive’ marketing strategy. We do very little to market our blog, but increasingly, our blog is marketing Cheskin.

Lessons Learned

The technology and design interface matter, so spend time on it.

Designate a blog champion or a blog-spotter. When you hear something good, make a habit of saying, ‘blog that’. Encourage the good bloggers – applaud them and send good blog ‘fodder’ their way.

Keep an eye on your blogs. A naively written blog or a fringe point of view can create problems. Don’t censor, but do pay attention.

Future Direction 

Podcasting and project-based blogs for project teams are what we’re looking into now.

Christopher Ireland, Cheskin Principal, On Blogging

It's refreshing to point my clients in the direction of our blogs for frank and up-to-date information on topics of interest. While blogs can occasionallly be off-mark or not exactly what I would say, it's great to see a group of people thinking, exploring and having the guts to share that with the outside world.

Marketing According To Bloggers

04/24/2005

Bloggers_vs_kotler_2Brand Autopsy is running a pretty slck series based on the guru of marketing, Philip Kotler's book, According to KotlerBrand Autopsy: According to Marketing Bloggers.

Over the next month Paul <ooops> didn't notice that John Moore, not Paul Williams will be leading the charge on this one!) will post the same questions asked of Dr. Kotler to the community of marketing bloggers (or should it really be readers of blogs?). In addition to a fun series, this post is a great example of a couple of content blogging strategies.

1. Creating a "series" encourages repeate visits
2. Creating a challenge to beat the Guru at his own game (should) encourages comments

"Marketing is not the art of finding clever ways to dispose of what you make.
It is the art of creating customer value."
Philip Kotler

By the way, love the the graphic and title (Marketing Bloggers - According to Bloggers) take off on the book! Brilliant John (and Paul too). Perhaps...this is The Book...hmm..where have we seen that play before ..?

A New Voice in the Blogosphere

04/24/2005

The blogosphere has a new voice - Jane Genova. Jane is one smart diva whose thoughts challenge, as well as, delight. Nice post on women who have found and are projecting their authentic voices

Drill down to the essence of who you are, not who you think you should be presenting yourself as, and let that loose. 

Welcome Jane!

Hey - TDavid - another blog to check out!

Online Extra: Six Tips for Corporate Bloggers

04/23/2005

BusinessWeek online has one of the first articles on business/marketing blogs that I've read that stays on topic. Online Extra: Six Tips for Corporate Bloggers. Meaning no meandering about citizen journalism, teen diaries or politics.

To quote from the intro - "Those who figure out how to mine this treasure while protecting their own gems will fare just fine in this new world. But it's a risky world, full of  hazards."

Six Issues Discussed
1. Training Bloggers
2. Fake Blogs
3. Track Blogs
4. Public Relations
5. Transparency
6. Corporate Secrets

Friday Fun: Pamper Pets

04/22/2005

Puppy_martiniHappy Friday Divas and Divos! Friday Fun is our - yours and mine - virtual pre happy hour space to be silly-sophisticated as we count down the seconds to martini time. Sometimes this spins into an idea for a marketing strategy. Sometimes it's just for fun.

Yesterday, Max got a hair cut. Max is my absolute wonderful, but sometimes very bad Westie pup. (A rescue from my dear friend Alf.)  To complete his new look Jenny sent him off with a cute blue & white bandanna. What a handsome puppy!

Dahling, everyone, even your sweet pets, not only deserves but needs to be pampered. The High Maintenance Bitch is stylin' and profiln' the diva way for your pets! From the products: Martini Collection of feather boas, Poochie Purses, Doggie Disco DiamondsHoroscopes (Max is a Capricorn and this Diva is an Aries) and more  to the website and other marketing strategies the concept and execution are great examples of innovation and creativity.

Sidebar: How can you spin this type of strategy for your brand? All silliness aside, what can you do to add innovation to marketing your products/services? It may not be a feather boa. Within a B2B environment it might be more of a challenge. The end result maybe a campaign that helps break through the clutter.  Would love to hear your story.

For Julie and the Divas at Coopermark Bank, the Atlanta GNO Babes, Divas Kate & Polli and all the Divas reading this  - here's one for us!

High Maintenance Bitch Martini (tm)
Martini glass should be chilled or not

1. Rim Martini glass - dip edges of glass in cherry syrup thin dip in sugar
2. Add stoli vanil
3. Stewarts cherries and creme soda
4. Add ice to martini shaker and shake it up bebe!
5. Garnish with cherries

Heard it from: Seth's Blog

No Easy Answers As Blogs Enter The Biz World

04/21/2005

Dana VanDen Heuvel, the meister blogger, poses an important question. In a recent post he asks, "Who's thinking of the corporate governance of weblogs?"  Within a boutique business or a one person shop, it's not too complicated to ensure that confidential strategies stay in-house.

What happenes when corporations add blogging responsibiities to a job description? How does the business world walk the fine line of keeping the spirit of blogging alive with quality control or (gasp) post monitoring peaking behind the virtual corner?

Seems to me this soon could be questions that keep managers up at night.

Feed Your Blog To The Shark!

04/20/2005

Nicole Eddington passed this Free RSS submission tip along and asked that I share it with you. Feed Shark is a tool that submits your blog or RSS feed to over 20 different sources.

Tiara_diva_1Thanks Nicole! The Diva Tiara Award to you!