What I’m thinking about this morning
Brand consultant Simon Mainwaring on why brands need to stop thinking about themselves:
The fastest way to reach Millennials is not through twitter, Facebook or any one of the location-based services, but through their hearts and minds by adding meaning to their lives.
It’s easy to dismiss this assertion as obvious or redundant. But judging by the number of companies whose social media workshops and seminars focus solely on the technology rather than on the engagement it enables, it seems that much of the marketing world is mistaking the map for the landscape.
And in the comments, Megan Strand reminds us that doing well by doing good means not focusing on the doing well part:
Second, IMHO cause marketing can be risky if taken as a marketing tactic versus a genuine extension of a company or brand’s identity. If you’re simply using cause marketing because you think it’s the marketing tactic-du-jour, you should probably skip it. However, if you’re willing to spend the time to come up with an innovate way to both express the personality of your brand and benefit a cause at the same time, excellent! Consumers can smell a shallow or inauthentic cause campaign a mile away, marketers beware.
