What Marketers can learn from #RoyalWedding, Twitter & #cnntv

Its 4.53 AM CST (10.53 in London) and I've just been woken up by wife's alarm as she dashes to the tv and logs into facebook, while I remain in bed and bleary eyed fumble for my phone and  onto twitter.

The royal wedding proves that when you have a remarkable event and a motivated community people will connect and participate. This ranges from the truly devastating events in Japan, uprisings and political upheavals in the middle east and Africa and well yes who designed Kate Middleton's dress.

Right now the top 10 trending topics (aka brands) are of course all British including #BuckinghamPalace #ClarenceHouse #Royal Wedding and...... #Cnntv !!!???

So, despite the fact it's a (pardon the pun) Royal Flush, CNN have mastered the art and science of motivating their global audience of (consumers) to act, and simply use a hashtag. To be honest, I was expecting to see BBC.

I'm surprised at my own behavior, as well as the masterstroke of CNN. It goes to show that brands which understand their equity and consumer will thrive in this diverse new media web 2.0 age.......

Now ive woken up a bit I'm off to see that dress live...

Stop press.......Its BBC America on the TV....British marketers may once again rejoice.

Marshall Headphones - watch out Bose

In a 'sea of sameness'  - and dominated by plastic see through packaging,  the possession of a distinctive brand equity will help you win.

The genius move by Marshall Headphones is to hide their product in a brown cubed box design.... that provokes instant curiosity. 

My compulsion  to discover - and open the box proved insatiable. Although I like my Bose, I really want these as well! Marshall simply oozes lovemarks status. 

Milwaukee Day

could this go viral ?.... As i write there are 408 facebook fans...and with a population of 600K+  in Milwaukee theres a huge community who have pride in their city and could be part of this movement.... An  example of marketing at its very grass roots. Brand Managers take note

http://milwaukeeday.tumblr.com/

Unusual Suspects

Which brands did you instantly recognize in this Identity Parade? (police lineup to my US readers!)..... proudly on display at one of the worlds busiest airports.

Not being able to control your brand message is a pretty hard concept to accept.  So it must be nauseating for Coca Cola and Volvic to have their brand equity subverted and be cast as prime suspects at airport security checkpoints....Perhaps it pays to be mediocre after all !

The Social Network II

"I was only saying the same things as my friends who work here, I just hit enter and went for lunch. I deleted it straight away, but my boss didn't see that as proper apology". 

It's only a matter of time before Anderson Cooper announces the sad but true 'sign of the times' faux pas....A sorry tale of the poor Gen Z multitasking intern who inadvertently announced on Linked In (while also auto posting on their blog, and twitter feed) their hatred of their employer, boss and leadership  using sms profanity of the most vulgarity ......

No, not a deleted  Facebook movie scene, but an observation of Linked In.  A once simple, uncluttered and intuitive professional networking platform that is transforming into a business social network.  Now filled with a landscape full of dashboards, ads, and tabs, and peppered with likes, comments, pictures (of babies ..perhaps) and youtube videos. 

Is the brand manoeuvring its way into future convergence with the hyper-stimulated, hyper-sticky, informational super-channel-esque - Facebook behemoth ? Fiction ?  Melodrama ?....Partial truth ?  Irrelevant !  As user numbers continue to increase and embrace the new experience, the business led by Jeff Weiner is an indellible disruptive force heading for an IPO. 

As I write this post, ad agency planners the world over are scheming to uncover killer insights,  brand managers vy to launch their first hybrid campaign, and media mavens are seeding content amongst the most coveted 'sociopro' influencers......

I used to love Linked In as I knew exactly why I was there, what I was going to do and how long I was going to spend there.  Yet the online version look and feel changes, added features, and constant refreshes echo the rhythm of Facebook, and I sense its now too late for them to dial back. My only solace is the Iphone version -  (the  app development team are genius architects for mobile).

Failure to understand their brand equity and user base may lead to the creation of a 'Bring back old Linked In' group.  Start to worry if a cut the rope 'corporate ladder edition' replaces the 'People you may know' section......

PS, while the opening quotation is currently fictitious, I sadly predict to see it reported true pretty soon.