Meme of the Week deconstructed: Antoine Dodson/Bed Intruder

This is fantastic. Lab-coat-wearing Internet Scientist ElspethJane from the Rocketboom Institute for Internet Studies investigates the phenomena of Antoine Dodson / Bed Intruder, his family, and his overnight success. (If you don't know who Antoine is, that doesn't matter--the video will get you up-to-speed.)

This video is the latest to air on the KnowYourMeme channel on YouTube. KnowYourMeme, a Rocketboom spin-off, describes itself as: "A web series and online database dedicated to documenting Internet culture, one scientismic investigation at a time." Others in the series include this one about the Epic Beard Man of Oakland.

(via brandflakesforbreakfast)

Advertising is the cost of being boring?

Print: Hugh MacLeod (Gaping Void)

Hugh MacLeod created this poster for Andy Servonitz's recent Supergenius conference in New York. It's a popular point-of-view. Here's a variation on the theme from David Taylor: "Great brands are all about the product 'sausage.' And if that product is brilliant it advertises itself." In this view of the world, there's a a pecking order and advertising is being pecked.

The net benefit construct I talked about in my post last week is less judgmental. It says that brand value is determined by the difference in what people are willing to pay its benefits vs. what it costs a company to deliver them. How you get there? That depends on your analysis of what will work and what won't. This analysis, in these days of fragmented media and harder-to-persuade consumers, needs to account for the fact that advertising is not as efficient or reliable as it used to be. But I don't think it's helpful for marketers to go into such an analysis thinking that choosing advertising is a sign of failure.

Take Old Spice, for example. How should a business like that eke out some meaningful brand value? New product and packaging innovation can contribute but it's the Emmi-winning commercial "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like" that's really moved the needle. You could argue that Old Spice is an exception and most ads are nowhere near as effective. I'd agree but also point out that there's a ton of wasted effort and cost in other areas of the marketing mix, especially in product innovation. Hey, it's not easy. All the more reason to have an open mind, I think.

Song of the week: Cee Lo Green

3 million plus views on YouTube and counting. Cee Lo Green is not happy about you driving around town with the one he loves. Here's the song. (If you don't like the "F" word, you won't like this.) As Billboard notes, a huge audience before the cleaned-up version even gets played on the radio.

Differentiating your brand cost effectively

It takes time, effort, creativity and money for brands to successfully differentiate themselves from the competition. It takes brilliance in innovation or design or advertising creativity or customer service or a combination of these and other factors to develop a brand that stands out from the crowd.

All this effort has its reward. Differentiation translates into products and services that are worth more to people. They will pay more for them and be more loyal to them. If the products are really differentiated, people may even queue all night for them.

But will consumers pay enough for all the brilliance and hard work? Can you drive enough revenue from your sources of differentiation to cover the cost of the resources required to create them?

This was a key principle expressed by Michael Porter in his book: Competitive Advantage, celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. As Porter says: "Differentiation leads to superior performance if the price premium achieved exceeds any added costs of being unique." It's the net benefit that counts.

This way of thinking comes in handy when considering brand architecture. In a typical scenario, we will be working with a business that has grown organically or by acquisition and has more brands in its portfolio than it can manage or support. The principle of net benefit provides a framework for evaluating the portfolio. Which brands are pulling their weight? Which are not? Could a streamlined portfolio widen the gap between differentiated-driven revenue and costs? Often it turns out that less is more, even when portfolios are made up of well-known brands.

And that's the beauty of this net benefit principle. It creates a bias towards simplification and puts the focus on sources of value. There are many ways to differentiate. The net benefit principle can help you evaluate which of all those ways is the most effective.

Photo: and sometimes I have to do it all in COLOR by Robert S Donovan on Flickr

Six of the Best:The end of the world as we know it edition

It's the third birthday for the blog. Yeah! What better time to consider these end-of- the-world-as-we-know-it stories:

1) The Web is Dead. Long Live the Internet Wired

Chris Anderson and Michael Wolff thought-provoked us this week with this Infographic and its accompanying proposition--the World Wide Web is dead (or dying anyway), eclipsed by Skype, Netflix, peer-to-peer and hundreds of thousands of apps. Chris looking on the demand side: "As much as we love the open, unfettered Web, we're abandoning it for simpler, sleeker services that just work." Michael considering the supply side: "Chaos isn't a business model. A new breed of media moguls is bringing order--and profits--to the digital world." The article has generated tons of comment and discussion including this graphic-disputing rebuttal from Boing Boing.

2) Who's Got the Money? - Visa, Mastercard, AT&T, Verizon, Discover, Paypal: The Phoenix Principle
So, the web may (or may not) be dying. What about money, checks debit and credit cards? Are they doomed too? In 10 years, we may live in a world without cash. Adam explores the implications of the news that mobile carriers are working on a venture to replace your credit cards with a smartphone app that acts as your debit and/or credit card. No cash. No plastic. Potentially massively disruptive. He asks: "What happens to cash registers? What happens to desk clerks in hotels - will they be necessary? What about cashiers in retail stores - any need? Will banks have any need for a local branch? Why would ATMs exist? Quite literally a raft of companies would be affected that deal in the handling of transactions - from Visa and Mastercard to IBM and Diebold."

3) Facebook Places: Foursquare Without the Fun? socialmediatoday
Big news of the week on the social media front is Facebook's launch of Places. It would seem like this would be the end of the world for Foursquare, Gowalla and the rest but, according to socialmediatoday, it looks like Facebook is in more of a partnering than obliterating frame of mind. Plus there are no badges or mayorships on Places. So, your choice may be: Function without Fun or Fun without Function. Here's more: 1) Places User's Guide 2) An NYT article on the bitter Foursquare rivalries and office battles.

4) The Last Exorcism
Early on, Merton/Ben Folds Five found a great use for Chatroulette. Now The Last Exorcism has found another use--marketing that makes your head spin:



5) How Snooki Got her Gucci: The Dirt on Purses: The New York Observer
Snooki, star of MTV's Jersey Shore, self-proclaimed "guidette," known as Nicole Polizzi at high school before earning her nickname (apparently based on the character "Snooki the cootchie crook" from the film Save the Last Dance) because she was the first of her friends to make out with a boy), is not that special someone that luxury brands typically want to associate with. (All Snooki info courtesy of Wikipedia, btw.) Yet, there she was, on red carpet after red carpet toting her Coach bag. Until she started to be seen with other bags--seemingly a different brand in every new tabloid photograph. Were other fashion houses gifting her bags? Yes, but not theirs. In perhaps the first known example of unco-branding, it seems like the fashion houses have been rushing to send her bags from their competitors. It's a race for disassociation!

6) The Majestic Plastic Bag - A Mockumentary: HealtheBay
A different type of bag--the plastic bag. Jeremy Irons narrates this mockumentary, in David Attenborough style, about a plastic bag's journey from your careless hand all the way to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, twice the size of Texas. Not sure about the effectiveness of this video. I found myself routing for the bag!



That's it! Back soon with more stories from the world of brand strategy. More thoughts and comments also available on Twitter (@martinjbishop).