By Laura Morris

We recently hosted a conference call that gathered progressive marketers from highly regulated industries (like pharma, financial services, and healthcare) to discuss how companies facing strict legal constraints could make the most of social media.  Here’s what they suggest:

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Advance warning: this post will likely open more doors than it closes. But they are important doors that need opening, especially if they aren’t already. Haniel Lynn pushed the first one open with his earlier post, asking if Marketing could foment a corporate cultural revolution through social media. Member conversations I’ve had over the past week have demonstrated there is a root-cause question that must come first – where does Marketing fit in the organization? Better yet, where should it? Read More »

You’ll find an extended report on social networking in this week’s Economist.  You may have seen it on the newsstand—it shows Steve Jobs, in Biblical raiment with nimbus, bearing the fabled tablet. 

Clever.  And glorious.  Or blasphemous, depending on your point of view. 

If you’re well-versed in social media, you won’t find the report mind-blowing, though it is characteristically well-reasoned.  If you’re newer to social media, I’d recommend it. Read More »

By Whitney Satin

Delivering a preferred customer experience boils down to three easy steps:

• Step One: Clarify what’s unique about your experience and the distinct benefits you provide to customers.  Check.
• Step Two: Understand how customers interact with a variety of touchpoints and emphasize your unique benefits at the touchpoints that matter most.  Got it.
• Step Three: Make sure the dozens (and dozens) of other touchpoints in your customer experience reflect your unique benefits.  Hmmmmm…

We see a lot of breakdowns when it comes to this final piece of the puzzle.  To ensure that customers really understand and appreciate your unique benefits, every touchpoint must be viewed as an opportunity to reinforce or support them.  The problem, as marketers are quick to point out, is that Marketing doesn’t have enough time, money, or control to manage all the different customer touchpoints.  While it’s easy for Marketing to adjust collateral or update the Web site to better reflect benefits, it’s a different story when it comes to modifying packaging or customer service touchpoints.  New set of stakeholders, new set of rules, a whole new ballgame. Read More »

We all know the recession has drastically impacted consumer behaviors, but we may often overlook its direct impact on brands themselves.   The recession has changed the way marketers manage their brand portfolios as they try to do more with less.  As such, marketers are taking a closer look at how then can stretch existing brand equity across a greater number of products, often taking a parent brand/sub-brand approach.   

We generally see four different sub-brand approaches, each with their own benefits and risks:  Read More »