There are a number of useful nuggets tossed out in the video, including the idea that curators get people to see normally-overlooked connections between things and think about what those connections mean. But it’s worth noting the two words that come up again and again in the video: “trust” and “interesting.” The connection is no coincidence. People (and brands) that become successful curators do so by earning the trust of their audiences, and that trust is built by continually prioritizing what’s interesting over what’s new (in the words of one speaker in the video). Trusting a curator really means trusting his or her guidance to information that’s worth your time, because you respect the curator’s perspective, opinion, motivation, and insight. Boy, that sure sounds like a strong foundation on which you can build your brand, doesn’t it?

Oh, and we shouldn’t overlook the company that brought you this video. Percolate offers a particularly valuable viewpoint on curation because of their publishing platform, which is specifically built to help brands create content that straddles both Guruism and Collective Curation. Central to Percolate’s approach is the concept of “stock and flow” content, which means striking a healthy balance of long-form insight pieces (“stock”) and quickly consumable bites that keep an audience returning on a frequent basis (“flow”). Taken together, stock and flow help a Curator become both a durable resource for timeless insights and a vigorous generator of easily shareable (read: tweetable) snippets. You can see this concept (and the Percolate platform) at work on the Healthymagination site from GE.  Trying to humanize a complicated (and typically B2B) organization like GE isn’t easy, but it’s a simple sell to get consumers excited about a site that provides visitors with a wealth of wellness information through homegrown, long-form content from health experts, augmented with a steady stream of short-form content captured from around the web.

But, what is a brand? We use the word all the time, but what do we mean by “brand”? How do we define a brand when thinking of brand promotions?

At Upshot, we define a brand as a promise. What’s great about thinking this way is that it puts it in a context of human terms—it’s easy to understand get your consumers to invest in. And the deeper you get into this notion, the more it brings out the emotion, the human connection inherent in consumers’ relationship with brands, which is vital as social media becomes more and more central to people’s lives.

Go deeper and a brand is not only a promise, but a promise from seller to buyer, built on understanding and rooted in emotion and trust.

A brand is a promise from a seller to a buyer
The brand is the “mark” a seller gives of this promise to the buyer. It’s an interaction with a mutual benefit—yes, the buyer has a need the seller is fulfilling, but the buyer isn’t expecting it to be met with altruism and recognizes the seller also gets something of equal value.

A brand is built on understanding
Branding begins with engaging with people constantly blurring their life experiences. From workplace to home, with friends and with family, people are continually shifting their perspectives and expectations. Essentially, people are ever-changing. Understanding these ever-changing people is the first building block of branding. You’d never be able to make a meaningful promise to someone unless you really knew that person and the different perspectives they enact throughout their day.

A brand is rooted in emotion and trust
Great brands appeal both to the head and to the heart. Emotion is another critical piece of branding.  People must feel comfortable about your brand, that it delivers what you are promising. That it reflects you and your personality it the best way possible. And that takes trust—a quality that takes time to win and can be lost in a second. Let’s keep it personal. A promise from someone you don’t trust is worthless.

So, why care about the brand now?
Three powerful business trends in today’s marketplace are making brands and brand marketing a priority.

Product differentiation. Any aisle in any store contains a mind-numbing array of choices, regardless of what you’re looking for.  Every major brand offers every permutation of a given product so consumers are left with little to no product differentiation. That leaves only brand differentiation to base decisions on—something a well thought out brand articulation and/or promotion can bring to life.  Without it, which brand to purchase could be boiled down to whether blue or red goes better in the kitchen. Or worse, which is cheaper.

Shorter product life cycles. The time between category adoption and brand preference has collapsed. The obvious example is the electronics category, where new technology drives life cycles, but this happens across virtually all consumer categories. You need to get your brand entrenched in consumer minds before you’re outnumbered and surrounded.

Growth of private label. The combination of better quality, consumer acceptance, and economic climate has set up private label to grow, and grow impressively, at the expense of accepted brands. They span basics to premium, and more and more consumers not only purchasing them but embracing them as their “go-to” choice. With space at such a premium, both at the literal shelf and in consumers’ minds, having a brand grounded in emotion, understanding and trust is more important than ever to ensure consumer preference over overtly rational private label products.

Brands and branding are central to the entire marketing spectrum
In an Integrated Marketing world, it’s important to keep in mind that brands and branding are central to all the work done across the entire spectrum of marketing—that’s above, below, through and all around the line. In fact, the “line” gets more and more irrelevant every day. And consumers don’t distinguish between the marketing they see that’s above or below this “line”. Keep the brand at the center of all their efforts to not only ensure its integration, but also consumer acceptance, receptivity to the message and overall engagement beyond mere purchase.

Remember that any brand-based efforts require both rational and emotional motivators. Relevant consumer insights must be tapped to ensure an emotional connection to the brand. Simple ideas need to be expertly executed across all tactics and touch points. Finally, all constituents (manufacturer, retailers, agency partners) need to collaborate as one.

It’s Potty Posting time! Need a refresher on the purpose of the Po

These monthly articles take a humorous, yet informative, approach to emerging cultural trends, new technologies, and innovative marketing tactics. And yes, they’re posted in the Upshot bathrooms, where we know we’ve got a captive audience. Click the image to the right for a PDF of the post and share with your network to build your Klout, duh.

You Know You Make Me Wanna Klout

To over 3500 brands, the world of online social networking is beginning to look a lot like a high school. Cliques are forming, popularity is becoming a tool, Lindsay Lohan is giving high-calorie nutrition bars to the Plastic Queen to sabotage her weight and status…

OK, maybe not that last part. But, when it comes to social media, brands are paying attention to the widening gap between those who matter online and those who don’t. By targeting the people who are most likely to influence others – the ones who inspire the most buzz with their tweets and posts – brands can maximize their reach while putting in minimal cost and effort. In essence, this online popularity contest could be the key to doing word-of-mouth marketing right, and Klout, a social metrics service, was made to do just that.

The aforementioned Plastic Queen, Regina George, owns a silver Lexus and allegedly does car commercials in Japan. She’s also teen royalty. So not only is she pretty popular, she’s also pretty influential. Now, if only there were quantifiable data to tell Mercedes how influential Regina George really is, especially on the topic of cars, so they can give her a free SL550 Roadster in the hopes that she ditches that Lexus and tweets about her new Mercedes.

“My Klout Score is so fetch, I haven’t paid for anything in months!”

Bingo. Klout is a website run by a team of digital engineers, marketers and analysts who have made it possible to quantify a person’s online influence, or ability to drive action on the internet. Taking data from a person’s social networking accounts, Klout measures True Reach (how many people someone influences), Amplification (how much that person influences them), and Network Impact (the influence of the people being influenced), with a single number between 1 and 100 as the result.

No longer is the internet democratic. No longer does everyone’s voice hold equal weight online. And far from being ashamed about being the harbinger of online social inequality, Klout is actually partnering up with thousands of brands to take advantage of it!

Brands have started using Klout to give away free stuff, “Klout Perks,” to the most popular influencers (or social networking users) in their fields and provide them with a good experience or a good product so they can tweet about it to their friends. For example, HP offered high-scoring film influencers an HP laptop pre-loaded with films from Cinequest film festival, and Audi invited top design, technology and luxury influencers to test drive their new 2011 Audi A8 at exclusive events.

Yeah, but does it work? Influencers who receive Perks aren’t required to post positive things about the brand. They’re not even required to post anything at all.

To ensure that giving away Perks will be worth a company’s expense, Klout has begun to up the demand and cool factor of a high Score and the Perks that come with it. When Spotify, a wildly popular music-streaming service, first came out in 2008, Klout gave free account access to only some of its high-scorers before Spotify was even released in the United States. In addition, some special events, like the annual after-hours shopping extravaganza, Fashion’s Night Out, require a Klout Score of over 40 points in order to attend. This not only ensures the exclusivity and coolness of the Perk, but the honor of having a high Score as well.

And it has definitely been working for a ton of brands. Like Virgin America, who offered only 120 free flights to top travel influencers, which generated over 4,600 tweets and, subsequently, led to over 7.4 million impressions and coverage in top blogs and news outlets. And, for a very small price, that’s good business.

But it hasn’t just been working for brands. While Klout’s expertise in generating buzz has been great for building brands’ reputations, it’s also been building their own. People have been putting their Score on their resume and many competitors and copycats have begun to emerge, like PeerIndex , Twitter Grader and, most recently, PeopleBrowsr’s Kred, which will up your Kred based on real-life achievements like degrees and awards.

“People have even started attaching it to their wardrobes. Ladies love it.”

And while there certainly are downsides for the people being judged on their Score, there are also downsides for brands. How does a brand do damage control when a top influencer receives a product, hates it, and blasts the company on Twitter? The best response is to turn it positive – using Klout, brands can decide which reviews they can ignore and which they need to address. 70% of companies ignore their customer complaints on Twitter, yet nearly half of Twitter complainants expect the company to read them. Plus, 83% of complainants on Twitter who have received a reply either liked or loved the fact that the company responded.  So, when a brand comes across a bad review from a top influencer, they should see it as a great PR opportunity.

While the concept of Klout is certainly proving to be integral to brand marketing, its underlying foundation is nothing new. They’ve recognized social group behaviors and separated the popular from the ordinary, but by mathematically proving the amount of a person’s popularity, Klout is able to help brands single out the people who will, hopefully, inspire action and do a good chunk of their marketing for them. And therein lies the innovation:  realizing the marketing potential of good ol’ fashioned cliquishness brought into the modern, digital age.

Want another good Klout read? Take a gander at OMG! Your Klout is Showing! posted earlier this year by Jaclyn Gordyan.

Pros. The high demand created exponential word of mouth for the promotion. Created new news for the brand. Most likely, brought in new consumers that might not already shop there. And, sold out in record time. All great for a return on investment.

Cons. Frustrated shoppers that didn’t get the offer or product. Loss of other (non-promotion) sales during the downtime. Possible negative brand image impact.

In these two promotions (Missoni at Target and Whole Foods on LivingSocial), I’m convinced the pros outweighed the cons. The offers were compelling. They created high consumer demand and the site overloads made consumers want it even more. The offers alone gave consumers a reason to care about it, and more importantly, a reason to share it with others (Facebook posts were flooded with people bragging what they scored). Ultimately, it built equity for both the Target and Living Social brands. And, most importantly, doing what promotions do best—motivate behavior.

Social media is hyperactive word of mouth, only there are so many mouths talking you need a way to know how your brand is influencing and who it is reaching. It’s not new news that brands want to connect with consumers. What is new to the speed at which they can track and affect their influence digitally. This media channel is a main conduit for brands to express their voice, promote new products and even tell a larger brand story. It’s not hard to see why and how social media efforts have become the most valuable back-channel way to communicate and build a following. (If your brand isn’t into it, work on that.)

So how do you track all your social media efforts? Who’s talking? How do we keep them talking? With Klout, the current leader in the “social analytics” provider, it all boils down to engagement based on click-throughs, comments, likes, retweets or how often your message is passed along. The number of services they track for you is growing (it now includes the top 10 digital forums, with 3 more coming soon).

Recently celebrities have been using Klout for PR pushes and testing. Brands are also reaching into the system to understand how their audience is listening or if they’re listening at all. They’re taking notes on what topics resonate and using that information to build a stronger brand presence and gaining followers as well as traction in the marketplace as a resource, leader or otherwise. Klout’s easy-to-digest “social analytics” has potential to build smarter partnerships, promotions and more believable categories of influence. Plus, you’ve got to love the dynamic nature of the data. In my opinion, “instant” is the new “ASAP.”

Don’t forget the perks for having influence. Klout Perks are great place for brands to highlight and use those influential talkers directly. It’s kinda like a social media pat on the back from brands to their fans. I’m on board—are you?

Who’s Talking?

Someone needs to spread the message. Called connectors, accelerators and influencers, they have deep and wide social networks and pass along information they care about to others. The key is to tap into the right people for your specific product or service. Here are three types of “go-to” people:

Enthusiast. The stereotypical brand advocate who serves as a passionate brand ambassador.
Local Expert. The know-all about a specific category—car or gadget nut, knows about new restaurants or TV shows.
Jack-of-All-Interest. An interesting know-a-lot vs. an annoying know-it-all.

What Are They Talking About?

First of all, forget everything you learned about traditional brand management. If this process starts by trying to convert a well-crafted brand statement into a word-of-mouth campaign, it won’t be successful. The product or service must be looked at through a different lens.

It’s not what you want to say about your product or service, but what consumers find talkable about it. Finding the relevance in a product or service is crucial. If it’s relevant, the more likely it will be deemed worth sharing. Once something is worth sharing, it has value. High-involvement categories tend to increase information value. The collision of talkability and relevancy becomes the social currency in the message.

Dig deep to understand the consumer. Think about what people like to talk about, why they like to talk, and how an actual conversation might transpire. Remember the book Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus by John Gray? It’s quite appropriate when creating word-of-mouth messages.

When developing word-of-mouth messages directed toward men, think in terms of Guysmanship. Male word-of-mouth triggers tend to be competitive, fact-based and opinionated. Men talk to “show that they know” or “be first.” Look at ESPN or read the sports page—facts and opinions are expressed in sound bites.

For women, it’s all about Fempathy. Female triggers are more empathetic or deal with community building and emotional outreach. They talk “to help” and “to be heard.” And far from sound bites, their conversations are centered on shared experiences and expressed as complete stories. It’s Oprah and Lifetime and their stories of women facing their challenges, from the life-changing to the day-to-day.

So Get to It.

Find the right people to spread the word. Craft the right message that’s talkable and relevant. Activate it using the tactics most appropriate for the topic. There’s a world of technological options; be sure to find the tools that will best seed or spark the conversation. And remember, the true magic lies in the social currency of the idea—it’s what keeps the idea moving to others.

You gotta love how the typical spokesperson has evolved over the years. Even the word has evolved from spokesman to spokesperson (gender neutral, thank you very much). Nowadays the successful spokeperson is no longer just an attractive face or a name in lights—it’s a person that embodies the brand. To ensure a perfect fit, the equities of the person’s brand must complement the equities of the product/service’s brand. So how does that happen?

A screening process or partnership evaluation is a great way to find a good match. Beyond budget and timing, there are five core components to consider: Brand Fit, Target Relevance, Awareness, Heat and Creative Potential. We could go into each of these deeper and craft a delicate ranking system, but remember, it’s Friday. Let’s keep it effortless and get into the fun stuff. With a simple “yay” or “nay,” let’s put the screens to the test by evaluating a couple of current partnerships.

Troy Polamalu and Head & Shoulders

Click here to view the embedded video.

Brand Fit: yay
Target Relevance: yay
Awareness: yay
Heat: yay
Creative Potential: yay
Success!

Patty Duke/George Takei and SocialSecurity.gov

Click here to view the embedded video.

Brand Fit: nay
Target Relevance: yay (maybe)
Awareness: nay
Heat: nay
Creative Potential: oh boy nay
Failure!

If a brand can’t find the perfect match in existence, well then, they can make one up! That way, the brand dictates the essence of the spokesperson (or puppet), ensuring that all essential brand characters line up for a successful fit!

Doug and Ford Focus

Click here to view the embedded video.

Brand Fit: yay
Target Relevance: yay
Awareness: yay
Heat: yay
Creative Potential: yay
Success!

Share your examples, whether they’re good, bad or just plain entertaining!

Introducing: Kraft Smile Tagging!

Because I know we’ve all got places to be and stuff to sell, here’s my short but sweet explanation (with pictures, yay!).

Pick a site, any site (as long as it’s not a nudey one) and find something on it that warms your heart, that’s been hardened by long commutes and people cutting in front of you at McDonald’s, and makes you smile. If you’re having trouble finding something, you can borrow this example below from me.

Click here to view the embedded video.

While you’re letting said video or image turn that frown upside down, take a picture of your reaction at that moment with your web cam and upload it to the Smile Tagging Facebook app.

Along with your smile to tag the video, you can tag your link with categories like, Funny, Amazing, Cute, and Weird. (At first I considered this cheating, but then I realized that some people have cry-face when they’re actually laughing, and it’s really smart of Kraft Mac ‘n Cheese to give users a way to identify what they may actually find when they click a link).

Then, instead of sharing just a boring old link with a thumbnail, you can share your smiling face to let friends see just how funny that link is that you’re forcing them to watch when they should be working or eating a ham sandwich instead.

And, that’s it!

What do you think about this idea that’s been labeled as a way to “grin and share it”? Personally, I think it’s fan-freaking-tastic and if I had a web-cam I would show you what my face looks like right now**!

Kraft Mac ‘n Cheese, a brand that has been bringing smiles to the dinner and college dorm table for YEARS, has taken the simplest idea of sharing a link to something that makes you smile, (which everyone already does anyway) and attempted to own it by being the brand that not only lets you share the best content on the internet, but also lets you accompany said content with your reaction, and their logo, of course! And let’s face it, that’s pretty awesome marketing.

*Rolling On The Floor Laughing Until You Couldn’t Breath Anymore, Duh
**That’s a downright lie. I had 10 minutes to get ready today, so I would only show you what I looked like right now if right now meant 30 minutes from now and I had access to some P&G (client shout out) hair and makeup products or our design studio had time for some serious re-touching.

When you look at the companies who best market their mojo, it might seem as though they don’t have much in common. But regardless of their industry, or whether they produce goods or services, the companies that market their mojo all share the following characteristics:

Inspired sense of purpose

They’re not all out to save the planet, but they all have a meaningful purpose behind why they do what they do. Employees willingly and enthusiastically embrace this purpose across all levels of the company, regardless of their position or the industry. The purpose is a rallying cry that creates passion. Zappos isn’t just selling shoes; they’re delivering happiness, and everyone in the organization is an active part of it.

Unique cultures and work environments

Their cultures are guided, but never overly controlled. Well-crafted and meaningful core values define what makes the company truly unique. They go beyond words on a page and become a way of life. Environments allow employees to flourish, live the values and interpret them individually. Each employee in the organization believes that their workplace is different from all others in the marketplace. At Disney, employees are “cast members,” theme park rides are “attractions,” visitors are “guests” and all the areas visited by guests are referred to as “on stage.”  Cast members know there isn’t another company on the planet like Disney.

Strong and passionate leadership

Leaders that are passionate about the company are at the helm. They truly care about the culture and the people. The term “mojo” might not be used, but they know it’s what they’re after. In many cases, it starts with the company’s founder. ING Direct’s founder, chairman and president, Arkadi Kuhlmann, believes that employees should feel like they are on a mission, not just completing a task. He thinks that instilling a strong brand-culture connection from day one, and institutionalizing an “orange code” on a daily basis, is critical to their success.

Collaborative relationships between employees and key constituents

No ivory towers. These companies care about the employees and the employees care back, and it shows in their interactions within the company and with their customers. The result is a workforce willing to go the extra mile for one another. In June 2010, Clif Bar initiated an Employee Stock Ownership Program that handed over 20% ownership of the company to its 200+ employees. It solidified their relationship as a team—in addition to having financial stake in the company—where each employee’s success was dependent on the performance of their peers.

Vision, culture and employees are part of the brand

The good ones put it all together seamlessly. The brand is a reflection of the culture. Employees are evangelists and a critical piece of the brand. They let the world in on their company’s inner-workings. Their mojo is present in marketing and in frontline employees. Have you ever been on a Southwest Airlines flight where the flight attendant actually raps the safety instructions? That’s mojo. 

Click here to view the embedded video.

Stay tuned for Part Three next week: Marketing Your Mojo

As a runner (and a marketer) I had several preconceived notions about the race—I won’t share them all, but here are a few that really struck me.

Firstly, I assumed live music would somehow be integrated into the actual run. With a tagline “The World’s Largest Music Festival just got a little more sole!” was I crazy to think so?

Hey Summerfest, you’ve developed a stellar brand. You’re noted around the Midwest for the best array of live music from all genres, all in one place. If you’re going to host a race, slap your name on the logo and email participants non-stop for 6 months with messaging focused around music, you have to know people are expecting some live tunes during the race. Silly me, I almost didn’t bring my iPod!

Now let’s pretend there was live music during the painstakingly long run over the Daniel Hoan Memorial Bridge. Still wouldn’t have covered up the fact that the water stations shut down before any of the 10Kers had a chance to get a drink. That’s right, the water ran out! So my second preconceived notion: a sufficient water supply.

OK Summerfest, here’s the deal. Always learn from other people’s mistakes! No one will forget the 2007 Chicago Marathon and its water shortages, overwhelming runner dehydration and communication breakdowns, all because of a midday temperature reaching a record 87 degrees. That was October, not July. No excuses.

Guess what, I do have a compliment. The problems were addressed without finger-pointing. It’s a bummer when things go wrong, but it’s much appreciated when someone takes responsibility. Kudos to the Race Director for emailing a note of apology that very evening and a high-five to the President and CEO of Summerfest offering a refund for a portion of the registration fee a couple of days later. Thank you for addressing the chaos and taking responsibility!

Some fun thoughts for next year (if there is a next year).

Use the assets that are right at your fingertips. Round up local cover bands to play some peppy tunes every couple of miles. It’s a great opportunity for the bands and the race. There must be a huge waiting list of groups vying to perform for anything related to Summerfest.

Don’t overlook the meaning of your well-established brand. Summerfest stands for music almost as much as a music note itself. Be sure to use the brand properly because your messaging might mislead your target. It’s always useful to take a step back out of the “weeds” and get an outsider’s (or a runner’s) opinion. Nothing better than to get the thoughts of your audience—they’ll be truthful.

Best of luck next year. I’m kind of curious how things will pan out. I might even run it again, if you promise to offer live music (did you see that one coming?), change the course and drench the runners head to toe in water!