Dietrich Wegner shows us a new perspective on Brand Saturation

New Starbucks Logo: Certainly looks modern but will people recognise it without the name?

I’m sure we’ll all get used to it pretty quickly when we see it on every street corner! The new nameless logo hints at Starbuck’s plans for a future where the brand diversifies beyond its core coffee offering.

Read their explanation over at Starbucks.com

Social Media Summer School Day 4 - Set Rules

Maybe these are in your head, maybe they’re painstakingly documented but they’ll need to exist somewhere. What tone will you take, issues will you discuss, who will you converse with? Do you have a social media policy you share with your colleagues?

Setting clear rules that stakeholders agree on should empower you to run your social media avtivities without the need for anyone senior (or legal!) within your firm to try and micro manage your every moves. Above all make sure you’ve set moderation rules and have an idea of what you’ll do if things turn nasty - bad news travels just as fast (or faster) than good news on social media and companies which are not prepared can fall down badly.

Ultimately social media links people not companies so continue to be aware of wat your customers will want & expect - they may even find it helpful for your social media communications to be formally structured (eg certain challenges always happening on a certain day of a week). You’ll also want to consider the personality of your brand and to what extent you’re happy for this to come through - will it be just the voice of your social media manager or do you plan to empower others throughout your organisation?

Every situation is different, every company unique…

BzzAgent: Word of mouth advertising gives us something to smile about.

When I’m giving a presentation on social media it often helps to describe it as modern word of mouth, but instead of conversations happening over lunch or at the school gates they’re now happening through online community tools. It’s a simplification of course, but it tends to give people a good sense of how important it would be to be involved in those conversations.

Almost 5 years ago I did some work for a company called Bzzagent who run word of mouth marketing campaigns by working with a team of registered ‘agents’ who in turn receive free trials of new goods & services. It’s a transparent process where the agents are required to declare their situation when sharing any ‘buzz’ and are engaged just to get people talking about products, not to give them a hard sell or say anything they don’t personally believe.

BzzAgent creates a deep connection between consumers and brands to activate word of mouth across social and offline media. Through the engagement of our network of passionate, vocal and connected consumers, we provide companies the ability activate large-scale discussions, uncover hidden value, and drive measurable results. We believe in unpaid, unscripted ethical and authentic conversations (only!).

If you cast your mind back 5 years you’ll realise this was a time long before social networks were household names; when you had to go to certain universities to join Facebook, when you watched TV shows on TV and when you couldn’t imagine telling the whole world you’d just bought a coffee, let alone sharing your exact location and how much you paid.

It was interesting to look back at Bzzagent again this week and see how they’ve changed and developed to include these new tools that have grown up around them. Sure enough Facebook and Twitter integration is now throughout the site with live feeds visible on most pages and plenty of tools for actively pushing messages to your own accounts. They’ve also recognized the importance of blogs and comments and encourage people to be sharing buzz on their too - all tools which combine to make the potential impact of the service all the greater.

It’s probably not as authentic as efforts brands are making to engage and empower their own core fans but it is a great way of getting new products out to a wider audience and getting interest and feedback from them. It will be interesting to see if the company can develop more advanced social tools and empower their ‘agents’ to be leading wider conversations about the brands they represent.

Which reminds me, I’m trying out Arm & Hammer’s Brilliant Sparkle Gel for them this week - apparently it uses baking soda to remove up to 88% more plaque than a leading toothpaste as well as whitening as it goes. It certainly tastes nice and leaves my mouth feeling dentist-clean but it’s hard to evaluate those bolder branding claims! I’ve got vouchers and spare tubes if anyone wants to try it ;)

Absolutely beautiful architecture from our sister Gingerbread&Blog - conveniently in the branding colours of my current work place, we could move in straight away!

gingerbreadblog:

Part space, part cathedral and part vertical Greek village, One Shelley Street is a project designed by Clive Wilkinson Architects in Sydney as celebration of Macquarie Group’s new way of collaborative working celebration.