Corporate Eye » Brand

Feed Your Branding Addiction with Logo Game Apps

Susan Gunelius — Wed, 30 May 2012 08:23:51 +0000

Feed Your Branding Addiction with Logo Game Apps

Time to have some fun with branding. After all, branding is a creative process, and we need ways to keep our creative juices flowing! For most of us who work in the world of branding, it’s a bit of an addiction, and we feel more for logos than people who don’t share our addiction. Fortunately, there are ways to feed our branding addictions, even when we’re on the go.

Thanks to some really cool logo game apps for the iPhone, iPad, and Android devices, you can quiz yourself anytime you want. Put your logo knowledge to the test with any of these free and affordable games. But I warn you, once you start, it’s hard to stop guessing logos!

iPhone and iPad Apps

Logo Quiz: There are two versions of this app. Logo Quiz Free and Logo Quiz which costs $0.99. The paid version offers a few more features, but give the free version a try first.

Logos Quiz Game: This is another great option for a logo game. It’s free and offers fun features like challenging friends.

Android Apps

Logo Quiz: The free Logo Quiz app is one of the most popular free games downloaded from Google Play.

Logos Quiz: This is another very popular free Android app that you can use to test your logo knowledge.

All of these apps are fun, and they’re sure to feed your branding and logo addiction for many hours. Take a look at your mobile device display when a variety of logos are shown together. Which stand out? Which colors jump out at you, and which shapes are most eye-catching? Your customers are moving more and more to becoming completely mobile. Is your brand ready for mobile consumers? Not only can these apps be fun, but they can jump start your thinking about how your brand identity will transition to the mobile space.

Images: App Store, Google Play

Corporate Eye

Huffington Post to Manage Content Sites for Brands

Susan Gunelius — Mon, 28 May 2012 07:14:23 +0000

Huffington Post to Manage Content Sites for Brands

The Huffington Post is known for its relentless pursuit of mastering search engine optimization techniques and creating content that people want to read. Now, The Huffington Post wants to give extend that expertise into a new revenue opportunity by creating content sites for brands. Ad Age reports that the new content sites will likely be white-labeled versions of the Huffington Post publishing platform, and brands could either manage the sites themselves once they’re up and running or The Huffington Post can manage the sites on an ongoing basis by helping with content creation, curation (including content from The Huffington Post), and distribution.

The reason for this new push is simple. Brands are realizing they need to be in the content publishing business. Content marketing is powerful, but few brands have the in-house talent and expertise to instantly be great publishers. The Huffington Post has been perfecting its publishing strategy for several years, and brands could surely benefit from that experience.

For media companies, giving brands an opportunity to own a space on a media website has been a marketing strategy for years, but bringing the media company to the brand is a new twist that has a really good chance of working — assuming the price is right. Rumor has it that The Huffington Post will urge participating brands to use parent company AOL’s Devil ads or other AOL proprietary ads on their white-labeled sites. However, the AOL advertising team claims this won’t be a requirement (at least not yet).

Participating brands will also get access to the same analytics and content performance reports that The Huffington Post uses to manage its own content strategy. Of course, it can be assumed that much of the behind-the-scenes performance analysis that The Huffington Post does is coveted intellectual property. It remains to be seen if the reports brands will get truly are the same ones that The Huffington Post uses. Even a confidentiality agreement could be risky for The Huffington Post in this area.

According to Ad Age, a major consumer goods advertiser is already in discussions with The Huffington Post (through Razorfish) to create a branded website with lifestyle content. We’ll have to wait to see the rest of this story play out. What do you think?

Corporate Eye

CEOs Cite Social Media as Number 2 in Hierarchy of Customer Interaction Methods

Susan Gunelius — Fri, 25 May 2012 06:15:42 +0000

CEOs Cite Social Media as Number 2 in Hierarchy of Customer Interaction Methods

Traditional marketing practice for years has placed face-to-face as the number one method of interacting with consumers with websites coming in second place. However, new research by IBM, which surveyed over 1,700 CEOs across 18 industries and 64 countries, reveals that CEOs expect social media to steal the second spot within three to five years. Traditional media will plummet to the bottom of the hierarchy of customer interaction methods during that time.

At the heart of social media is transparency, and CEOs are catching on that people expect honesty and forthrightness from brands and companies just as they expect those traits in other people. Many CEOs who responded to the IBM in-person interview research study indicated that they’re prioritizing internal openness through a more social workplace. Of the top 20% of companies included in the study (based on revenue and growth) nearly one out of two reported that they promote social workplaces and openness in an effort to increase collaboration.

However, the social media learning curve is still huge, particularly where performance measurement is concerned. The majority of CEOs indicate that they don’t have access to the data they need to make decisions. For those companies that have found ways to measure social media efforts and turn that data into strategic decision-making, there is a new understanding that engaging consumers, lengthening conversations, and listening to people can mean the difference between brand success and failure in the future.

The hierarchy of customer interaction methods looks like this today according to the IBM report:

Face-to-face
Websites
Channel partners
Call centers
Traditional media
Advisory groups
Social media

CEOs don’t expect that hierarchy to stay the same for long. Is your brand ready for the shift? There’s no turning back now. Leave a comment and share your thoughts on the future of the hierarchy of customer interaction methods.

Image: IBM

Corporate Eye

Consumer Engagement is on the Rise for Google+ Company Pages

Susan Gunelius — Thu, 24 May 2012 04:10:32 +0000

Consumer Engagement is on the Rise for Google+ Company Pages

Google+ introduced Company Pages in November 2011, just a few months after the social network rolled out in full to the public. Emarketer explains that it’s been estimated that fewer than 10% of the U.S. consumer population has a Google+ profile, far less than its social networking competitors like Facebook, but that hasn’t stopped brands from creating Company Pages and trying to engage with consumers via those pages. Given the fact that Google+ is already affecting social search on Google, having a Company Page is an essential part of many marketing plans. However, Google+ still fails to drive the deep levels of engagement that brands want.

Simply Measured studied the Google+ Company Pages for Interbrand’s top 100 global brands and found that 64 have verified pages. More Google+ members are starting to add Company Pages to their circles, too. Here are some highlights from the Simply Measured report (data as of May 7, 2012):

Approximately 5,000 people had added 35% of the brands from Interbrand’s top 100 companies with verified Google+ Company Pages to their circles (up from 21% in February 2012).
22% of brands had been circled by more than 100,000 people (up from 13% in February 2012).
Video posts were the most popular content on Google+ Company Pages with 115,000 +1s, comments and shares during the second quarter of 2012 (up from 66,000 during the first quarter of 2012).
Automotive brands have been doing the best on Google+ in May 2012 (2.7 million users have added an automotive page to their circles). Luxury and Internet services brands are also doing well on Google+ now. This is a shift from February 2012 when electronics and beverage brands were in the most user circles.

The study found that people are participating far less frequently on Google+ than they do on Facebook and other social networking sites. As of May 9, 2012, the industries that were in the lead in terms of fan engagement on Google+ among Interbrand’s top 100 brands in the world (based on number of circlers) were:

Automotive = 2.7 million circlers
Electronics = 1.9 million circlers
Luxury = 1.3 million circlers
Internet services = 1.1 million circlers
Beverages = 1.0 million circlers
Apparel = 0.7 million circlers
Restaurants = 0.6 million circlers
Sporting goods = 0.2 million circlers
Business services = 0.02 million circlers
Computer software = 0.01 million circlers
Media = 0.01 million circlers
FMCG = 0.008 million circlers
Financial services = 0.006 million circlers
Diversified = 0.004 million circlers
Transportation = 0.002 million circlers

As a social network, Google+ has a long way to go, but brands can’t ignore it. The relationships between Google+ and Google’s other products, particularly Google search, are simply too important to ignore. Is your brand on Google+? What has your experience been so far? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Image: Fabrizio Van Marciano

Corporate Eye

Coca-Cola Takes Content Marketing to a New Level with the Content 2020 Project

Susan Gunelius — Tue, 22 May 2012 02:24:10 +0000

Coca-Cola Takes Content Marketing to a New Level with the Content 2020 Project

The Coca-Cola Company is prioritizing content more than ever in its marketing strategy as part of a new mission to move from “creative excellence to content excellence” through its Content 2020 Project in the U.K. The company defines content as “the creation of stories that are to be expressed through every possible connection.” For the Coca-Cola Company, “each story must have value and significance to people’s lives.”

The Coca-Cola Company views content as an opportunity to “create ideas that are so contagious, they cannot be controlled.” The company calls these ideas “liquid” and explains them as follows:

“[Liquid ideas] are so innately relevant to our business objectives, our brand, and consumer interests, we call this ‘linked’ and through the stories we tell, we will provoke conversations and earn a disproportionate share of popular culture.”

Using a Conversation Model, the Content 2020 Project starts with brand stories that become liquid ideas to which the company reacts. Leveraging technology, the Project is built on what the Coca-Cola Company refers to as a “demand culture where consumers can turn their demands on 24 hours a day.”

You can learn more about the Content 2020 Project in the two-part videos below.

Already, the Coca-Cola Company has launched a variety of content initiatives on Twitter, Facebook, videos, live online events, and blogs as part of the Content 2020 Project. With a goal to increase reliance on listening to consumers and engaging with them to gain deeper insights than traditional market research can provide, the Coca-Cola Company expects that the Project will enable it to create content that can be flexible and evolve with consumers’ demands.

What do you think of the Content 2020 Project? Leave a comment and share your thoughts on the Coca-Cola Company’s new strategic focus on content marketing.

Corporate Eye