To discuss the evolving role of content, gyro Denver, in partnership with Forbes and in conjunction with the Business Marketing Association, recently hosted a CMO roundtable to address the importance of content and its relationship to brand equity.

The panel unanimously agreed that the most important benefit to content marketing is using quality content such as infographics, white papers and case studies to effectively “soft-sell” targets through established thought leadership. Essentially, a brand can (and should) be using content marketing to increase its perceived trustworthiness, thereby elevating brand equity.

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to content marketing, but one tactic that bubbled to the top during the panel discussion was the concept of a “brand newsroom” approach. Now, more than ever, brands need to be nimble and employ a real-time approach with respect to content marketing.

This approach could entail creating a content editorial calendar, much like a magazine plans its upcoming themes months in advance. Another tactic—daily editorial meetings—also mimics real-time newsrooms. Gathering your team each day to discuss what’s working and what fell flat is a great way to keep the content idea mill churning.

There are also content marketing challenges facing today’s CMOs. According to the Content Marketing Institute, 64 percent of B-to-B marketers claim material and idea generation are the biggest content marketing challenges. However, with a little planning and creativity, content creation can become a turnkey process that ultimately leads to stronger brand equity.

Here are four key points to remember:
Define: It probably goes without saying, but defining content purpose can help determine the format. For example, do you want to teach your audience with a “how-to” or inform them by acting as an expert source?

Format: Before deciding on creating a white paper, case study, infographic, etc., make sure you take your content contributors into account. How many do you have and how much time do they have? Knowing these answers in advance can help guide your content format.

Create: You don’t have to be an amazing writer and you don’t necessarily need a large team to push out engaging, thoughtful content. In fact, you’re likely sitting on information that can be repackaged into a marketing asset. For example, internal training videos can be edited and posted on YouTube, or the key points from a white paper can be turned into a shorter blog post.

Content curation is another method of generating content if and when you don’t have the internal bandwidth. Curation is essentially finding, filtering and sharing useful articles and information. When combined with original content, curation can be an excellent tool for creating awareness and building brand equity. iQ by Intel is a strong example of this.

Variety: Your audience is varied, and to reach as many targets as possible, your content should be varied, too. For example, if you typically push out case studies, an occasional infographic could be a welcome change. A content editorial calendar can help plan content format in advance and make it easier to avoid content stagnation.

In conclusion, content marketing not only provides visibility, brand equity and a connection with prospects, but it also helps close the deal by providing varied content tailored to each stage of the buying cycle. Content is everywhere, and learning how to leverage this tool can result in numerous benefits for B-to-B marketers.

How are you using content marketing for your business?

Daphne Fink-Taber is the General Manager of gyro Denver.

For example, green packaging is for cheese and onion crisps (or chips for our American cousins). Simple, right? Not so fast. Walkers, the UK’s leading crisp manufacturer, uses blue for its cheese & onion, but did it do Walkers any harm? Far from causing confusion, the difference in colour has seen Walkers chart an inexorable march to the top of the UK crisp market.”

Burger King, McDonald’s and KFC all prominently feature red on their signs. Red has been shown to stimulate the appetite, so it should give them a competitive edge over those food outlets that don’t adopt the colour in their branding. And, indeed, the majority of fast-food restaurants feature red prominently in their colour schemes. What do we expect the primary colours of the number one fast food chain in the U.S. to be? Certainly not pink and purple as is the case for Taco Bell.

So, is it better to stand out from the crowd or go with similar branding so that it leads to a universal standard? Perhaps turning left when all others turn right is the way to go. When Apple launched its iMac G3, instead of using beige or grey as was de rigueur for its contemporaries, Apple decided to offer a variety of bright colours. From that moment, Apple began the rise from also-ran to market leader.

Our brains register colour, shape and then text when it comes to a seeing a brand. And of course brands (at least the big ones) conduct extensive research when it comes to choosing colours for their products, depending on the target audience. Want to make something exclusive? Black is likely to be the predominant colour (think American Express’s most exclusive card).

While colour is far from the primary reason why any of these brands has reached the top, it is an example of the kind of mould-breaking thinking that takes them there. In the end, the true color of success can very well be a mark of familiarity or individuality.

Richard Musgrave is a financial assistant at gyro London.

Bank of America: (BOA) sits in an industry where frequently asked questions occur every second, so it makes sense that it has such a robust page FAQ page.   A big plus to the page is that it has a “Top 8 FAQs” list on the right of the page. This is great for speeding along the majority of the questions it handles.

A big minus is that the FAQ page redirects you to other FAQ pages that serve as dumping grounds for sputtered-out sentence fragments.  We clearly know this page is not working as number eight on the BOA “Top 8 FAQs” is “What if I want to chat with Bank of America?”

A much better approach for a brand so large is to incorporate their answers into site content with tool tips and pop-up modal windows.  BOA has many ways of contacting a representative, so why bury many of the answers throughout multiple locations when they can be listed on one page with a drive to contact?

Cal State LA: Cal State LA starts off by placing visitors them into appropriate categories (like applicants, those admitted etc.) However, unlike BOA, Cal State LA has a simple list of the most relevant questions. Otherwise, site visitors can just contact a representative. There’s no sifting through questions and answers that don’t commonly come up.

Accenture: Accenture has FAQ pages that visitors can reach only after they have been arrived at a section that pertains to their needs. There are four in total: 1, 2, 3, 4. Grouping it like this is an excellent way of keeping down the amount of information you need to present on the FAQ page. Additionally, each page has fewer than 20 questions answered and provides easy contact information.

eBay: eBay is a glorious example of taking things a step further for customer service when there are too many questions. Take note, eBay has a very simple FAQ page, which is built into an answer center, which has multiple other ways of delivering complex answer to its visitors. For example, their use of forums walking you through the resolution is a big help.

Zappos: Zappos customer service is just too darn good to begin with. Not surprisingly,  Zappos has done an excellent job of helping visitors categorize themselves and finding a specific category of answers. Yes, it is a bit lengthy, but it does not send visitors on a wayward journey cross multiple sites much like BOA does, so Zappos gets a pass this time.

If your FAQ answers are turning into scenario answers that have multiple contexts and visitors that they apply to, you should consider building a case study to provide an example of how your service works. A full-page case study or video gives you a lot more freedom to answer the question appropriately.

All told, a complex answer in an FAQ is just taking up space on a page and aggravating your visitor before that person jumps on the phone to talk to a representative. It’s better to just make contact details easy to access. That’s the answer, right there. Do it frequently.

Frank Lockwood is Associate Creative Director of gyro, New York

Follow Frank @iwillbefrank

Originally published at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network

If caught early enough, these issues can be easily connected. To do so, marketers must identify which types of data patterns to pay attention to and use that data to inform their next steps.

1. Home Page Bounce Rates of 55 Percent or More
If more than 55 percent of visitors are turning around as soon as they reach your site, it’s a major red flag that something is terribly wrong. It’s likely that visitors aren’t finding what they’re looking for. (BTW: You should know that the average industry home page bounce rate is around 50 percent, and that a well-performing home page has a bounce rate of between 0 percent and 25 percent.)

So what gives when this issue arises? It’s usually due to something with layout, design, navigation, site elements, functionality, content or messaging. By conducting A/B and multivariate testing on these home page elements in various combinations, marketers can discern which elements are contributing to a higher conversion rate, and which are contributing to the high bounce rates.

2. High Average Shopping Cart Abandonment Rates
Many online shoppers initiate a purchase only to leave the items behind in their cart. The Baymard Institute found that the average cart abandonment rate is about 65 percent. Luckily, there are a number of options you can test to bring this number down. These options include estimating shipping costs at an earlier point in the buying process, allowing guest checkouts, highlighting in-stock versus out-of-stock status, providing auto-fill forms based on cookie tags for repeat visitors, and using shipping discounts or specials.

3. Low Search Engagement
The importance of search on visitor engagement and purchases is often overlooked. By encouraging consumers to explore the site and streamlining the shopping process, the chances you’ll turn more visitors into customers increases. Every single component of the search feature—placement, layout, default search box text and even the color, size and design of the graphic elements—affects engagement with this important tool. Multivariate testing can help marketers discover which combinations work best for their target audience

4. Unsatisfactory Average Order Values
What about those customers who just aren’t buying as much as they could be? Chances are they have a very specific product in mind and aren’t being persuaded to add more items to their cart.

This is where personalization can really help. By inserting and/or customizing information that’s relevant to a specific user based on implicit behaviors (items purchased, pages viewed) as well as explicit details (location, age, gender) provided by that particular user, you’ll be able to customize their recommended items. Product recommendations and behavioral targeting are two common ways to combat this problem.

5. One-Time Buyers
Sixty-six percent of Amazon.com’s sales are attributed to repeat buyers. Remarkably, only 7 percent of the entire e-commerce industry can say the same. But it’s going to be tough to match this success without employing automated personalization with behavioral targeting solutions.

Using data such as previous purchases, searches, page views, geography, demographics, type of button click, transactions, etc., is crucial to keeping customers loyal. Behavioral targeting tailors content and offers to individuals based on both their past behaviors and their unique “buyer personas.”

Placing customers at the heart of online content decisions and giving them unique, personalized experiences is an important part of faithful consumer relationships.

Paul Dunay is an award-winning B2B marketing expert with more than 20 years’ success in generating demand and creating buzz for leading technology, consumer products, financial services and professional services organizations. He is the Global Vice President of Marketing for Maxymiser, a leader in web optimization and analytics, and author of five “Dummies” books:Facebook Marketing for Dummies, Social Media and the Contact Center for Dummies, Facebook Advertising for Dummies, Facebook Marketing for Dummies 2nd Edition and Facebook Marketing for Dummies 3rd Edition .

Follow Paul @PaulDunay

Originally published at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network

We’ve got four of the largest marketers in the world trying a variation of the same marketing/public relations tactic. It begs the question: Has crowdsourced marketing hit its pinnacle?

According to some experts, the answer is a definitive yes. “It’s probably as big as it’s going to get,” said Todd Wasserman, marketing and advertising editor at Mashable. “Personally, I think it’s been done so much that it’s no longer that notable.”

Crowdsourcing hit it big in 2006 when Doritos invited fans to crash the Super Bowl with homemade videos. Many, many brands followed suit, including vitaminwater, which asked consumers to create their new flavor in 2009. Most recently, “Hawaii Five-0”asked viewers to pick the killer at the end of the show.

“Everyone is waving the same flag. Crowdsourcing is like everything else marketers get involved with — they end up f—— it up,” said John Palumbo, president of The Big Heads Network, which taps a diverse group of people for product development ideation. “Marketers have simplified the idea of open collaboration so much that it loses all of its sophistication. All you’ve got left is a PR stunt.”

But is it a successful PR stunt? In simplest terms, yes, for some, said Robert Passikoff, president of Brand Keys, a loyalty marketing consultancy. “There’s always a hard-core group of people who really care about things like getting their photo on the Pepsi halftime show. It’s a small group though … Everyone is going to get their 15 megabytes of fame. After that, it’s all over.”

As for Doritos, which has stuck with the formula for a seventh year, Wasserman said the quality is all that matters. “Consumers really don’t care one way or the other. I think a lot of people see the Doritos Super Bowl ad and don’t know they are crowdsourced. They know it’s good or bad.”

That’s not to say new tricks won’t be tried. Stunts like allowing people to pick a movie’s ending live in a theater or creating a crowdsourced video game aren’t likely that far off, said Palumbo. But the risk is always run that you’ll end up with the next “Snakes on a Plane.” Arguably the first crowdsourced movie, “Snakes on a Plane” ended up generating a lot more hype than box-office dollars. “Everyone is going to use crowdsourcing until the next PR hook happens. After that, it will be just another tactic,” Palumbo said.

It’s also important to remember that courting consumer opinion isn’t a new idea. After all, isn’t the “Hawaii Five-0” you-pick-the-ending ploy really just a variation of a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book? “Technology has just made it easier, said Passikoff. “You have higher levels of engagement. But, you’ve also got higher levels of desperation as this thing ratchets up. You often have no sense of what crowdsourcing actually does.”

Whether these campaigns succeed or fail on Sunday will largely lie on brand marketers’ (and their bosses’) expectations. However, one thing is for certain. Consumers are expected to do a lot more for Super Bowl XLVII than pony up for their office pool and order chicken wings. After all, they’ve got pictures to email to PepsiCo, snack-food commercials to be created and baby horse names to think up.

Kenneth Hein is the marketing director at gyro.
Follow him at @KennethHein

Originally published at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network

Billy Corgan, Chicago restaurateur and frontman for the rock group Smashing Pumpkins, has quietly won a decision in a battle over that very question.

After recently opening Madame ZuZu’s Tea Shop in suburban Highland Park, Ill., Corgan learned his 4-foot-tall-by-13-foot-wide storefront window sign was five times bigger than what was allowed by the city’s zoning ordinance.

Corgan wrote a letter to city officials arguing that his neon-illuminated “ZUZU’s” sign is not distracting to drivers, does not compete with traffic signals, and the advertising nature of the sign is crucial to attracting customers who drive by the tea shop. City officials agreed with him last week and granted Corgan permission to keep his signage.

This story triggered a memory from the spring of 1996 when the Chicago Bulls were making a run for their fourth of six world championships. Popular area men’s clothier Bigsby & Kruthers featured a 32-foot-high painted mural of renowned basketball rebel Dennis Rodman on the side of a building along Chicago’s Kennedy Expressway.

The advertising changed the color of Rodman’s hair on the mural every few days and even depicted him wearing a suit with cut-off sleeves tailored to accentuate his heavily tattooed arms. The result?  The ultimate gaper’s nightmare when the murals pretty much stopped traffic heading into downtown each morning for more than two weeks.  Advertising engagement met advertising disruption head-on when an additional 40 minutes was added to what is normally a lengthy commute on the Kennedy and Edens expressways, and the experience was compared to a bad road-construction project.

“Look, honey, his hair changed from red to green overnight.”  Engagement. “For those of you driving on the Kennedy, you may want to consider a reroute to Elston and Milwaukee avenues due to the backup.” Disruption.

The verdict was informally ruled as disruption when Bigsby & Kruthers decided to paint over the likeness of Rodman and repaint him on the other side of the building so he could been seen at a distance only by commuters heading out of the city.

Two case studies across 17 years. Has any clarity been shed on when the engagement-disruption line is crossed? Perhaps outdoor advertising should be a separate conversation, because these contacts can impact driving safety and human lives. And so can texting, reading paperbacks and applying makeup while driving.

But what about digital media? Most of us marketers hope our online executions turn heads and grab attention. However, the lines can grow blurry when those same executions can intrude on a consumer’s ability to consume Web editorial content.

Advertising often works best when it is a synergistic extension of the reader’s/viewer’s editorial consumption and when information is delivered seamlessly to an information-seeking mind-set. Likewise, advertising fails when it is not seen, ignored or forgotten.

In response, digital marketers are moving more and more away from standard banner ads toward executions that online surfers cannot avoid because the ads either come first or ultimately block a user from the site’s content. Is that wise? Ask five different online marketers the meaning of the word “intrusive” and you will likely get five different answers.

What cannot be neglected, however, is the necessity to always give consideration to the consumer experience. We must take off our “expert” hats and listen to the opinions of the most important voices, and those are the ones we are trying to reach. The consumer. What does she think about interstitial ads that are served up when she moves from one site or page of Web information to another? What does he think about that push-down unit that seemingly drives down the content he was happily reading a second ago?

If we place consumer experience and the inherent insights at the heart of our communications planning, we can create more cohesive marketing efforts that truly do drive engagement and offer value to our prime prospects.

Tom Ferry is Director of Media at gyro Chicago

Originally published at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network

Here are four lessons from the Manti Te’o fiasco that can serve as fresh reminders for marketers:

1. If you lie, you will get caught. While the fictitious girlfriend may have lived a fulfilling (fake) life on social media, her existence was eventually debunked. In today’s digital age, it’s increasingly hard to get away with lying. It’s worth noting that this is not the first high-profile fake online persona. In 2006 lonelygirl15 blazed this trail. She published a blog discussing everyday life and even responded to her fans through a MySpace account. It became evident that this “blogger” was an actress and she was outed after a few months. There have been plenty of poor social media attempts by brands to, well, make themselves look more popular than they are. And there was even a batch of fake movie reviews compliments of Sony. (But, really, no one could make us believe “The Animal” was capable of getting a good review.) So whether it is duping your friends, consumers or the media, you’ll get caught and the aftermath will be embarrassing.

2. Think through your PR stunts. The media is a powerful tool for raising awareness and speaking to an enormous audience. Manti Te’o’s story was tailor-made for coverage. But, the press giveth and taketh away. Yes, he’s still in spotlight today with his interview with Katie Couric, but for all the wrong reasons. Brands make this mistake too. ConAgra tried to pull a fast one on the press by pretending it was serving a big, fancy meal, when in fact it was Three Meat and Four Cheese Lasagna by Marie Callender’s. The media was not amused.

3. Shape the story before it shapes you. So, you got caught. Here’s what not to do: According to reports, Manti Te’o had known his relationship was a hoax since December. It wasn’t until sports site Deadspin reported the news on Jan. 16 did it become public. Notre Dame conducted its own investigation and cleared him before the story broke. Why then, didn’t the university come out in front of the story? Precious days were lost, and in the meantime, the 21-year-old became the butt of every joke on late-night television, painting him as a fool. The lesson: Respond to the story while it’s still a low hum, before it becomes a loud roar. Because it will. Also, communicate to the right audience. For example, if a PR crisis begins on Twitter, address it on Twitter. Responding via the radio, TV, etc., doesn’t speak to the people who need to hear your message.

4. Be real. Authenticity creates loyalty. Being true to your brand and your audience goes a long way. Think of brands like Patagonia, which is clearly communicating its impact on the planet. Whole Foods

undefined touts itself as America’s healthiest grocery store. These brands communicate directly to their consumers in way that it humanly relevant to them. No smoke and mirrors; just transparency. Zappos has built its company and its reputation on its openness, and customers have responded with their dollars and their loyalty. In addition, JetBlue, which definitely knows what a PR disaster looks like, has learned the power of being open. Its head marketer,Marty St. George, has earned many fans for his proactive use of Twitter. And the list goes on …

So as the details of Manti Te’o and his fake girlfriend continue to have us shaking our heads, it also give us chances to reflect on what not to do.

Additional reporting by Kenneth Hein.

Melissa Pitts is a marketing assistant at gyro. She blogs regularly at Newstaco.com, FlamingTortillas.com and Americas Quarterly.
Follow her at @mpittsm

However, even a RIM spokesman and Luddite like me would grudgingly concede the iPhone changed everything. Phones that were pre-iPhone were made for texting, making calls and, if you really had to, browsing the Internet and sending emails. By introducing the idea of the app and an all-screen multitouch interface, the iPhone changed the future of smartphones and touch interfaces forever—arguably leading to the emergence of all-in-one PCs, tablets and Microsoft’s riposte in Windows 8.

gyro’s research with Forbes, the @Work State of Mind, showed how this technology has enabled work to permeate our life, blurring the boundaries between work and leisure. We now have the Internet (and email and social media) 24/7 at our fingertips. For 79 percent of business users, smartphones are the phone they use the most to conduct business, as compared to an office phone or home phone.

They are also encroaching on computers as well, with 34 percent of people using the smartphone more than the computer for business. In fact, 7 percent don’t even bring their laptop when they travel for business if they have their smartphone.

The iPhone has also changed our lives in these other ways:

1.   Wiped out actual maps, cameras, diaries, phone books, to-do lists, music collections and this week in the UK, contributed to the decline of two major high-street retailers: HMV and Blockbuster.

2.   Caused corporate IT functions to rewrite their entire device-usage policy.

3.   Tied with having intimate relationships (40 percent) for being the number one thing people cannot survive without.

4.   Given brands a seamless way to get in front of the right consumers at the right time with the right advertising content.

5.   Driven increased response with 71 percent of smartphone users who see a TV, press or online ad doing a mobile search for more information.

6.   Enabled brands to truly market their products on a personal level by bringing them to their consumer’s phone.

7.   Provided us an instant outlet to social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

On a fundamental level, the iPhone opened up the Internet and computer experiences to people who were reluctant to use computers (like my mum). I think it’s sometimes understated how important that first iOS really was. It was the first mass-market idiot-proof touch-to-get operating system that provided a computer experience to people without the experience or the inclination to use one.

I’ve also had a lot of conversations with mobile and smartphone users (in reference to marketing SMS and apps) about how they view mobile devices as part of their personal space. The prevailing feeling was that such devices are intrusive for work (or a brand) to call or text a personal mobile number, hence the preference for separate work and a personal mobile numbers. However, as the iPhone is so treasured (it’s not only people’s whole worlds in terms of the contents on it and the in-the-moment access to the wider world), there is greater reluctance to leave it at home. The benefits the iPhone brings is seen to outweigh the negative of work intrusion. The line between personal space and workspace seems less defined and defended these days.

The iPhone plays into that servile product/brand thing. It effectively arrives as a basic tool for you to customise with apps to create the kind of mobile device that suits your lifestyle. One of Nokia’s many mistakes was to persist for so long in trying to make a different mobile phone per lifestyle.

As a result, has Apple set the bar too high for itself? Where can it go next? Is Apple losing its “cool” edge the more it develops and launches? I can’t help thinking that if Steve Jobs were still alive, he’d pick up on this and slow things down a little. Maybe it’s just coincidence, but it does feel like Apple is starting to capitalise massively on the success of what it has created, which isn’t a very Apple-like trait.

In recent weeks, the share price of the suppliers for iPhone parts has fallen due to Apple reducing orders. It appears, after six revolutionary years, the “Mac-lash” is coming.

Happy birthday, iPhone.

Danny Turnbull is managing director of gyro in Manchester

Follow Danny on Twitter @TurnbullDanny

Follow gyro Manchester @gyroMCR

Originally published at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network

Each year, countless new products appear in hopes of being the next vitaminwater or Vita Coco.

One of the key behind-the-scenes players attached to the success of both of the aforementioned brands is Ken Sadowsky. Those in the beverage industry know Sadowsky and his track record for making good bets in this highly entrepreneurial field.

Sadowsky began as a very successful distributor in the Northeast. He was asked to join the board of Vitaminwater and was an early investor in the brand, which Coca-Cola acquired for a gaudy $4.2 billion. Then he became involved with Vita Coco, which continues to enjoy triple-digit growth and is the leader in the category. Sadowsky also has ties to up-and-comers like Hint Water, Inergetics, Bai Brands and Sambazon.

I caught up with Sadowsky during a rare moment of downtime (he was recovering from the flu), and asked him, given his reputation as something of a beverage whisperer, to identify the five biggest micotrends in the industry. Here is what he had to say:

Drinkable oats: There will be an oat category. Five legitimate oat entries already exist, including Sneaky Pete’s and Alpina. They are trying to get into mainstream accounts. Some are positioning themselves as satiating, as a meal replacement alternative. Others see it as dietary, something that can provide the fiber component. I am also interested in a brand called Oat Works, featuring a proprietary ingredient call Promoat.

Texturally modified beverages (TMB): Like the oat drinks, there is a move toward drinks that have texture including aloe and chia. A lot of aloe entries are already out there, including Aloe Gloe and even a carbonated aloe drink that’s hitting the market now. One of the knocks on the category has been calories, so Aloe Gloe has substituted the water for juice, leaving in all the effective ingredients but taking out some of the calories. The other issue had been viscosity, but consumer tastes are changing. Now having chunks in a drink isn’t a bad thing. There are also chia drinks, like Mamma Chia, which have chia seeds in it. In the early days of alternative beverages, Clearly Canadian Orbitz and Mistic Jumpin’ Gems, with gelatin bits in it, tried to the lead the way in TMB, but they weren’t ready for primetime. It’s important to be evolutionary versus revolutionary. A lot of revolutionary drinks are too far ahead of their time.

Coffeefruit: After coffee is roasted, a berry is left over. It’s a byproduct of the coffee industry and it’s heavy in antioxidants. Bai 5 is five calories, it’s all-natural and it fights off free radicals. It has a lot of positives, and that’s why I invested in it and am on the board. The other brand in this category is Kona Red.

Fruit juice made fresher: An iterative change has taken place, in that Odwalla and Naked (owned by Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, respectively) are using a technology called high-pressure pasteurization (HPP). HPP maintains the natural freshness and extends microbiological shelf life. Not wanting to miss out on the ultrafresh juice market, Starbucksacquired a drink company called Evolution Fresh that uses a purer method called cold pressing. I haven’t seen that scaled yet, but both types of technology are about keeping juices as fresh as possible. These are game changers, but it’s incumbent on those brands to possess multiple supply chain options, because the shelf life is only 21 to 30 days.

Gum sweeteners: We are starting to see more drinks using xylitol. Xylitol is a natural non-nutritive sweetener more commonly used in gum. The xylitol beverages that I have seen are sourcing xylitol directly from birch trees. The potential exists that a mainstream xylitol beverage could reach the market.

These five are all microtrends, but each has something to offer. It just needs to be a careful blend of head and heart. By head, I mean it could be the best thing to drink, but there is no brand or it doesn’t taste great. Too much heart means the brand is there but not much else. It takes both.

Kenneth Hein is the global marketing director at gyro.
Follow him at @KennethHein

Originally published at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network

1. The power of trial in behavior change. The inflection point in the success of Winfrey’s OWN channel could easily be this high-profile interview. Many of the most loyal Oprah Winfrey fans (myself included) have not watched a single show on OWN since the big move. This interview gave the many un-budging loyalists a compelling reason to try. In addition, as all good marketers know, the period when buyers (in this case, viewers) have the highest receptivity to cross-sell efforts is shortly after first purchase. Very smart that OWN ran ads for other interesting upcoming shows; have to admit I’m likely to now try another.

2. The power of believing in and living your brand. While Armstrong was downing performance-enhancing drugs and partaking in blood doping, he clearly believed it was not only just, but also necessary. Putting right or wrong aside, many of us never believed (for too long) what his detractors were saying, in part because Armstrong deeply believed that he was doing nothing wrong. Moreover, many were inspired by the “good” in his story: the applied passion and discipline, the repeated wins, the personal fight against and triumph over cancer, the Livestrong organization. I came away from the interview acknowledging again that the power of believing in and living a brand cannot be underestimated, that audiences can be greatly inspired by the authentic values a brand represents, but also that what people do will never cease to amaze.

3. The best market researchers interview like Oprah. Clearly well prepared with an insightful list of questions, but gifted in identifying “in the moment” the rich places to dig deeper, Winfrey revealed emotional drivers behind the decisions. One could now argue that what drove Armstrong was a long-held, deep-seated need to win, expressed with singular focus, determination and applied discipline. It will be interesting to see how this drive will play out next and if Armstrong will further strive to win in the courts of public opinion and U.S. law.

Judy Begehr is senior vice president of account planning at gyro

Originally published at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network