Recently in Experiential Marketing Category

When you have kids you know when fall is coming - even in Southern California. I'm lucky enough to have a wife brave enough to take the children to Target for the yearly trip to pick up backpacks, crayons, pens, notebooks, etc.

(You know when I list all those things it makes me think of Susie Hall in the LA office, who must have loved going back to school. I've never seen someone so excited about gel pens and post-its in my life.)

If you haven't been popping over to the Aquent site to check out the events page, you may be missing out on real, life events that rarely ever make it to TV (The film Objectified, for one - "a feature-length documentary about our complex relationship with manufactured objects and, by extension, the people who design them". Don't look for that running against America's Next Top Model.)

For future reference, the events are all listed over there to the right and you can click the More Events link to get to... um, more events.

If you have anything you want to add, just email me and I'll pop it on our site (well, if it's related to Marketing and Creative, that is. I will not be advertising your garage sale, so please don't ask.)


(Photo by paalia)

What would Asia be without them? A quick bowl of "ramen," as they are called here in Japan, can bring you back to life on chilly winter nights or make you sweat like a hog in the summer. The busy Japanese businessman or university student can pick up the instant type for a few yen at the corner convenience store, make them and wolf them down in a matter of minutes.

Such is the love for ramen in Japan, that, ramen lovers, young and old, sometimes line up outside restaurants and even whip out their own fantasy noodle recipes! Well, lo and behold, the digital world has caught up to the world of cooking. The smart folks at Yahoo! Japan noticed "fantasy ramen" soup and garnish recipes floating around in blogs, as well as actual blogs and entire websites dedicated to noodle appreciation, tasting, making and just about anything about them. There is even a ramen museum here in Tokyo.

Those smart marketing guys then asked bloggers to come up with a winning noodle soup concoction and believe me, they received thousands. What to do next? Well, why not talk to Acecook, an instant noodle soup manufacturer, and get their product managers to develop a Yahoo! branded consumer originated line of products? They not only came up with one recipe, but many consumer originated variations including non-traditional ingredients like bacon and eggs.

The idea has been so successful that social networks like Mixi, the Japanese version of Facebook with more than 15 million members, have partnered with yoghurt manufacturer Calpis to get their members to contribute recipes. The project started late last year and 4 Mixi Juice mix products have been released to date. The online community was involved in everything from the recipe, catch phrases, right through to the bottle design. What a great way to get consumers involved in product development and marketing. The instant food and drinks market in Japan is a jungle, yet these innovative efforts do put brands ahead of the competition.

If you'll excuse me, I'm getting the munchies, so let me go for my Yahoo! Noodles and a bottle of Mixi Juice Mix for lunch.

Image courtesy of: moriza

Well, I'm back in the podcast saddle (thought I did one in September, but turns out I've maintained radio silence since May - yikes!) and talking with my friend Erik Hauser (with whom I've spoken once or twice before. Erik has done a lot from introducing Wells Fargo to Second Life (after a fashion) to founding and moderating the Experiential Marketing Forum. Most recently, he joined Euro RSCG 4D Impact in the role of VP, Executive Creative Director.

We tried to keep the conversation short this time around, but it still clocks in close to 30 minutes. Compared to past encounters, this one is fairly laid back, though nevertheless replete with nuggets of genuine human insight and emotion on everything from brand responsibility to the power of voice. Highlights can be located at the following temporal coordinates:

01:18 - "Experiential is just good, smart marketing"
03:55 - "Just because the technology exists, doesn't mean you have to use it"
06:18 - Make a good experience great, and a great experience epic
10:25 - Super Bowl 2009 Ads
14:22 - Budweiser and "the heritage play"
16:39 - "A brand is the sum of experiences you have with the brand"
21:19 - To get a job: use the traditional channels, but then go that extra mile
22:13 - "Desperation is a cologne that no one wears well"

To hear the podcast, please click on this here Flash device.

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You are also welcome to download an mp3 of this interview by "right-clicking" ("control-clicking," Mac-wise) on this link. Finally, this and other Talent Blog Podcasts are always available on iTunes. (Note: At the time of posting, I was having pinging issues with iTunes. If you can't find the podcast there now, it should appear within the next 24 hours.)

Finally, I have three words for you: Cash 4 Gold!

I went to the New Marketing Summit (#nms08) not so much to learn as to meet people. Officially, I was on the hunt for potential webcast speakers, though what I was really after were those random, fortuitous connections that inevitably happen when I attend conferences. I'm happy to say that I did meet a number of folks who may fit into Aquent's dastardly webcast plans, and my circle of acquaintances was gratefully widened, but I must admit that I came away with a certain nostalgia for the pre-"new media" conference days.

Specifically, I missed the old-fashioned "raise your hand and get called on" approach to public presentations. At most sessions, participants were encouraged to "tweet" questions to the podium. This may have meant that more questions got considered, but what if asking questions at conferences isn't the main point of asking questions at conferences?

I believe that an important part of asking a question in a public forum is to introduce oneself to the audience. I've often approached askers during breaks and used their questions as a way of initiating conversations, and I've certainly used questions to make my own presence known at a conference, especially when I didn't know too many people there.

I did raise my hand and ask a question at NMS08, but I actually felt kind of funny doing so. That's weird. Conferences should allow people to confer. When we're all in the same room, let's turn off Twitter for a second and, ya know, get together.

And another thing: Although it might seem annoying, running concurrent sessions can also have the same "facilitating interaction" effect. Aside from the physical respite offered by moving from one room to another at regular intervals, the act of choosing sessions, finding a new seat in a new room next to a new person, and comparing notes during the course of the day are added benefits of this conventional conference structure that are frequently overlooked or disregarded.

A few weeks back, I conducted a webcast in which I said that the ongoing and relentless convergence of marketing and technology was THE factor determining the course of marketing careers for the foreseeable future. Many asked how they could learn more about this phenom.

Well, here's one way: MarketingProfs is holding a Digital Marketing Mixer in Arizona in a few weeks. If you thirst for digital marketing knowledge, and more importantly, want to meet a lot of great, smart people who know a ton about this rapidly evolving world, then Scottsdale is the place to be. Aside from getting to see and hear Arianna "Huffington Post" Huffington and Gary "Wine Library TV" Vaynerchuk, you'll even get a $200 discount on registration if you use promo code ESPNA08.

To be perfectly candid, we are helping sponsor this event, so I'm not just encouraging you to high-tail it on down to Arizona out of the goodness of my heart. Nevertheless, I wouldn't be recommending it if I didn't believe it was valuable. I attended the Summit MarketingProfs held in Boston in May and was lucky enough to meet folks like Chris Brogan, Valeria Maltoni, Greg Verdino, and the editorial light of MarketingProfs, Ann Handley. I was even more fortunate to meet a lot of regular folks like you and me who are struggling to find our way through the digital marketing wilderness.

Who mightn't you meet? There's only one way to find out. Get thee to Arizona and ye olde Digital Marketing Mixer!

Checking out my daily email of NY Times headlines, I was intrigued by this story, "Overcoming the 'Sway' in Professional Life." Looking into, I discovered it contained an interview with two fellows who recently published "a provocative new book about the psychological forces that lead us to disregard facts or logic and behave in surprisingly irrational ways."

What exactly is "new" about the fact that human decisions are directed by unconscious biases? Remember this guy Sigmund Freud? I think he published a book called The Psychopathology of Everyday Life in 1901(!). Guess what? It said that people's "normal" behavior betrayed unconscious, seemingly irrational influences. Guess what else? His thesis was "provocative"! For all the "discrediting" of Freud, people seem to make a lot of bank off rehashing his ideas. I'm just saying.

While I can understand people forgetting about, or "repressing," Freud, what about Malcolm Gladwell, whose Blink (2005) addressed the same topic, and whose writing on overcoming biases in the interviewing process through "structured interviewing" predates this book by 8 years?

Even more recently, Dan Ariely brought out Predictably Irrational (2008), which, lo and behold, describes the many ways that humans are subject to predictably fallible cognitive behavior and recommends ways to address this socially in order to, in a sense, save people from themselves.

How quickly we forget. Perhaps this points to a collective cognitive deficit when it comes to awareness of our cognitive deficits? I guess we'll have to wait for a "provocative new" book to find out what's really going on with us and our ever-so-faulty brains.

Image Courtesy of aturkus.

A friend of mine had gotten kind of burnt out at his job and had reached the point where he was pretty much phoning it in. Then one day, he up and decided that, if he was going to continue working where he was, he needed a new attitude. To that end, he chose the continual, daily improvement of the company as his primary motivation for coming in to work every day.

Committing oneself to continual improvement is not like accepting a particular task or project, each with its own envisioned state of completeness. It is more akin to assuming an infinite responsibility, a responsibility that involves, first and foremost, maintaining the commitment to continual improvement.

What do you want to improve?

Image Courtesy of juria yoshikawa.

A week ago I posted that I would be attending the MarketingProfs' B2B Forum here in Boston and, long story short, I did.

My überboss asked if I would put together some slides on what I learned there, but I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone by writing about it here. After all, isn't Web 2.0 about sharing knowledge, insight, information, and, well, love?

So, in no particular order, "My Learnings."

1. Aquent Finds Marketers Job

Here's an anecdote: I was late to lunch on Tuesday and had to find an available seat for David Meerman Scott's presentation. Introducing myself to one of my tablemates, she said, "I know Aquent. I got my first job through you and a good friend and mentor of mine used to work for you guys." This was actually the second meal in which I heard words to that effect.

2. Aquent Finds Marketers Marketers

The other type of conversation I had, again fairly randomly, involved people who identified themselves as clients of Aquent. These were smart people doing innovative things at big companies.

3. Marketers Turn to Aquent as a Resource

I met people who said, "Oh, I was on your site looking for a new gig." I met others who said, "Oh, maybe you guys can help me find a new job." Another person wanted to know if job titles were a good vector of segmentation (if that makes sense).

Ever since I spoke to Erik Hauser last year I've been looking for an opportunity to speak with him again. He's optimistic, he's infectiously enthusiastic, and he has a lot to say on a lot of different topics almost any hour of the day or night (as anyone who follows the Experiential Marketing Forum knows).

Long story short, I asked him if I could interview him for this here podcast, and he amicably agreed. Rather than asking him to define "experiential marketing" for the umpteenth time, I thought instead it would be more illuminating to talk about emotionally connecting with brands, using experiential marketing techniques when searching for a job, and, of course, Gene Simmons. So that's what we did.

I invite you to listen in on our conversation. You can do so by clicking on the Flash device below. You are also welcome to download an mp3 of this interview by "right-clicking" ("control-clicking," Mac-wise) on this link. Finally, this and other Talent Blog Podcasts are always available on iTunes. Heck, you can even subscribe to our podcast there!

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A few highlights of the interview can be found at the following time coordinates:

00:59 - Gene Simmons: The Genius
05:19 - You need a 3rd Party to serve as "Keeper of the Brand"
10:04 - You want to raise demand? Decrease the supply! (From Hydrox to Polaroid)
12:01 - The "outside perspective"
14:45 - The EMF: How moderating discussions increases their value
16:08 - Keys to nurturing a vital online community
20:05 - "Experiential" is a methodology, not a tactic

In Part 1 of our podcast interview with James Intriligator, Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Wales in Bangor, we talked about branding, loyalty, and consumer psychology.

In Part 2, we discuss personae and customer motivation, different neuormarketing approaches, and how understanding the brain can help us make more effective commercials (among other things, of course).

Listen in on our conversation by clicking on the Flash device below. You are also welcome to download an mp3 of this interview by "right-clicking" ("control-clicking," Mac-wise) on this link. You can also check out this and other Talent Blog Podcasts on iTunes. Heck, you can even subscribe to our podcast there!

powered by ODEO

A few highlights of the interview can be found at the following time coordinates:

01:50 - How to Get the Most out of Focus Groups
03:52 - Aunt Sally and the Straw Man
05:03 - Customer Motivation: Dreams and Aspirations (not just Fears, Uncertainties, and Doubts)
09:59 - Marketing and Branding from a Strategic, Artistic Perspective
11:55 - "There are a lot of good things you can do with marketing"
13:39 - Defining "Neuromarketing"
15:16 - Pros and Cons of Different Neuromarketing Approaches
17:15 - "If someone wants to pursue marketing from a neuromarketing perspective..."
20:44 - The Classic Mistake that Most Ads Make
21:58 - Another Classic Mistake
24:16 - Segment the Emotional and Attentional Aspects of Your Campaigns

Image Courtesy of Looking Glass.