NevOn

Transforming corporate identities beyond the razzle dazzle

The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas certainly was the place this week for many companies to announce a dazzling array of new tech products, alliances and ventures.

The best place I found to keep up with what was going on was the excellent Engadget CES blog which had a non-stop stream of posts. Another good resource - CES Blog 2006 from VNU. Certainly far better efforts than the CES' rather lame blog.

Amongst all the new products and cool things being talked about, I found two corporate announcements of particular interest, one from Eastman Kodak Company and the other from Intel Corporation.

A press release (reg required) on Thursday afternoon from Kodak has Antonio M. Perez, Chairman and CEO, talking about the future of digital imaging and a new alliance with Motorola. Buried down in the body text is this small paragraph:

[...] Perez also unveiled the latest evolution of Kodak’s brand logo. This new look moves the Kodak name out of the traditional yellow box; giving it a more contemporary design, a streamlined rounded look and distinctive letters. This introduction is the latest step in the company’s broad brand transformation effort, which reflects the multi-industry, digital imaging leader Kodak has become.

And here's that new logo alongside the one that's familiar worldwide.

For such a major transformation goal, I found it surprising that Kodak revealed their new brand image in such an understated way. Little specific information in their online press center to give you real insight into their strategic thinking and what this means for organizational change other than the corporate-speak in the press release (so you could think it's no more than a bit of razzle dazzle) and a page about the evolution of the logo over the years.

Perhaps this is indicative of Kodak's corporate style and the way they do things. I found much more information in a feature yesterday in the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (where the image above comes from) which gives you quite a bit more insight:

[...] The new mark, based on a customized typeface, is designed to give the company a contemporary look but be flexible enough to apply in new ways and new venues across Kodak's varied businesses - everything from tiny handheld digital cameras to computer software to the letters on Kodak buildings around the world.

The logo is one part of Kodak's larger effort to redefine its brand-name identity, through advertising, public relations, supplier and partner relationships and other in areas. "We want to break out of the box, in a lot of ways," says Betty Noonan, director of brand management and marketing services at Kodak.

While this gives you some more knowledge, it doesn't give you any sense of how Kodak plan to break out of the box or in what ways.

Contrast this approach with that of Intel, who pulled out all the communication stops to get their new message out to the world.

How to be an internet millionaire

Daily Telegraph: A student who hoped to graduate without debt by setting up a website offering internet advertising space has made £519,000 in only four months. Alex Tew, 21, a first-year business management student at Nottingham University, said he hoped to achieve his aim of making a million dollars - £578,000 - early in the New Year. "I thought I might make a few grand but I've made a fortune," he said. "It's been a crazy adventure."

This is the story of the MillionDollarHomePage, an internet site Tew set up where you can buy advertising space at $1 per pixel.

As of today, Tew has sold 990,000 pixels. Now he's auctioning the final 1,000 pixels on eBay. Bids close on 11 January.

Does he really need a business management degree?

What is 'it'?

Designed by German engineers and developed in Sweden by renowned Japanese scientists.

It can hold 2,500 of your favourite songs.

It has sleek design and incredible handling.

It can even cook chicken.

What is it?

No spoiler in this post - visit What Is It? to find out.

Oh alright, a little hint: clever online advertising.

Micropublishing: The next wave for advertisers

In its 24 October edition, Business Week has an analysis of the recent sale of Weblogs Inc to AOL from the point of view of the potential for advertising in blogs.

Written by Stephen Baker, one of the bloggers on BW's Blogspotting, the article focuses on what it calls the "promising new micromedia model" where "blogs are cheap, easily updated, and can focus on a niche market with passionate followers - an advertiser's dream."

The interesting bit - how Weblogs can expand to meet advertiser demand:

[...] So [Jason Calacanis, Weblogs CEO] is counting on AOL to give him the resources and freedom to run a blog empire from his base in Santa Monica, Calif. The former publisher of the Silicon Alley Reporter has proven adept at quickly zeroing in on target audiences and hiring part-time bloggers from all over. Jim Bankoff, the AOL exec who negotiated the deal with Calacanis, wants Weblogs to develop loads of new blogs, including sites with audio and video channels. "Micropublishing is the next wave," he says.

Indeed. The article also mentions the deal announced last month between Gawker Media and Dutch publisher VNU to launch European versions of Gawker's Gizmodo gadget blog (if you visit Gizmodo, note the little flags at top-right of the screen - links to the localized versions).

Some good comments to the article, especially this contra one:

The "blogosphere" will disappear much like the "webosphere" did in the mid-'90s. Once the e-commerce benefits were noted and capitalized upon, the geeks were out, the F500 in. No reason to think blogs will be that much different. Web 2.0 may remain the domain of the true believers - wikis and whatever comes next - but consider blogging to have already jumped the shark. Few consumers will really know or care about the difference between a corporate Web site and a corporate blog. The core of transparency will likely go by the wayside on many of these blogs once "big media" has taken control. Discerning consumers may be able to note the product placements and other BS in posts, but non-discerning ones won't - and that's the marketing payoff. I say this as someone with one company that has a blog as its only Web site and another company that consults on blogs. Hope I'm wrong, but I don't think so.

That's not a bad argument, although not one I agree with - I don't believe for one second that the blogosphere will disappear as the commenter envisions it might - and neither does Jason Calacanis. Take a listen to a 20-minute podcast where Stephen Baker interviewed him last week following the announcement of AOL's acquisition.

The broadband siren call

We all want fast always-on internet, right? Not a measly 8-megs-fast (that's what I get here in The Netherlands), something blisteringly fast:

Give me speed that terrifies the old and exhilarates the young. Let me download life with wild abandon. Make it ludicrously affordable, that I may infuriate my friends (but make it easy for them to switch once they have seen the light). Bind me not by annual contracts, but convince me to stay loyal. And give me 24/7 telephone support in case I ever feel lonely.

Don’t cease to innovate.
Don’t give me less than the best.
And don’t ever cap my dreams.

Compelling stuff. Great ad copy from Be's sponsor page in the PodcastCon UK brochure given out at the conference in London on Saturday, promoting Be's 24-meg broadband internet service in the UK.

Mind you, 24 megs seems positively pedestrian compared to the 100 megs that you can get in Japan or in South Korea - a statistic that Yat Siu mentioned when speaking at Les Blogs in Paris last April.

Whatever the speed, make it...

Exhilarating to many.
Frightening to some.
Compelling to all.

Brand creativity on show

I spent a couple of hours yesterday strolling through the 11 halls of the RAI Center in Amsterdam taking in the sights and sounds of the IBC 2005 exhibition.

This is a massive show. Imagine - over 1,000 companies exhibiting their wares occupying all 11 halls of the RAI. That's about 72,000 square meters (216,000 square feet) of exhibition space. Plus, there are outdoors exhibit areas.

My two hours yesterday was really a whirlwind tour; you need at least half a day if you want to spend any time on looking at a particular company's offerings and chatting with the reps on the stands.

So with my trusty Olympus C-3030 Zoom digital camera - only 3.3 megapixels but still pretty good after four years - I captured a good flavour of the show with shots of various exhibitors' stands and other things going on. Those 75 photos are online as a Flickr photo set.

One thing that always stimulates my curiosity is the tags or strap lines companies use with their logos. Especially with companies whose names are not that familiar to me, it's a fun exercise to view such imagery and think about my interpretation of them. What message(s) do I understand? How different might that be from the message(s) the companies concerned think they are communicating? I took quite a few photos of such logo-tag combinations, included in the Flickr set.

See what you think.

Alfa Romeo sponsors car blog

Italian blog portal Blogo.it has secured another first - Italian car maker Alfa-Romeo is sponsoring Autoblog.it from today, 1 September.

This is the first blog sponsorship deal for a European blog by a major automotive brand, Blogo.it said.

In a press release, Blogo.it's Luca Lizzeri said, "in January 2005 Autoblog.it had 20,000 page views in the whole month. At the end of August, page views were more than 25,000 per day, 500,000 in the whole month notwithstanding the holidays. And the 'back to work' growth record is very encouraging for September."

In July, Blogo.it announced a sponsorship deal with Ducati, the superbike brand, for its Motoblog.it motor bike enthusiasts' blog, the first sponsorship for a commercial blog in Europe.

Blogo.it certainly is blazing a trail in Europe in its success in attracting major commercial sponsorship for niche-interest consumer blogs.

Mars dog blog gets it right

With the focus on blogging in Europe and North America, it's good to have an opportunity to broaden one's horizon and gain some insight into contrasting uses of this medium in Asia from a business and marketing perspective.

Niall Cook reports on what two consumer product companies are doing with blogs as integral elements of advertising and marketing campaigns - Unilever with their Sunsilk shampoo brand in Malaysia, and Mars with their Cesar dogfood brand in Singapore.

In the case of Sunsilk, they have a character blog. What a pity. Such lame things are a waste of time, a view I've clearly stated before. But read the detail in Niall's post to make your own judgment.

Mars have done it right, as Niall reports:

[...] Mars, on the other hand, is doing some great things with the Cesar brand in Singapore, having launched My Cesar, "Your companion to online blogging". This blogging community encourages Singaporean dog owners to "create your own personal doggie blog where you can impart your thoughts about your favourite pooch."

Cesar could have done the same thing as Sunsilk. They could have set up a blog for the dog in the adverts, turning him (or her) into a canine character blog. But they didn't. They understand that consumers no longer want brands to talk at them, but give them the tools to talk to others.

Unlike a character blog, this approach creates genuine engagement. And that, surely, is what any company looks for.

More than ego-stroking the Top 500

ClickZ News: Feedster is floating a new top 500 list of blogs, ranked according to their accumulation of inbound links. Media buyers say they're watching the list, but they disagree on its value as a consideration tool for ad placements in blogs. The "Feedster 500," which challenges the long-standing Technorati 100 list and claims to contain "the most interesting and important blogs," will no doubt stroke the egos of many bloggers who appear on it.

Undoubtedly there's some truth in that last line. In my case, I'm really flattered to be in the list at number 221, now that Feedster got the right blog listed (see the comments to my post yesterday to understand that).

Yet at least one person thinks I'm a complete hypocrite after my post yesterday in which I questioned the validity of Feedster's list because it originally included my other blog, one that hardly appears on anyone's radar other than my own.

In an email, regular reader Joanne (I promised not to ID her more than that) gently asks, "How can you put the Top 500 logo on your blog after your post last night when you said you couldn't trust the list at all? Why should I trust it, or you?"

Those are good questions. In my reply to Joanne, I tried to give her some answers that didn't appear disingenuous (no doubt she'll tell me how successful that was) without being defensive of something I don't feel a need to defend.

Great resources for communicators

One blog that's in my RSS reader and which I regularly scan is Adverblog by Martina Zavagno. A great resource always full of interesting news and info about campaigns and on the global advertising and marketing scene.

Martina's put up two useful lists - one that lists advertising and marketing blogs, and another that lists advertising agencies who blog.

For PR agencies, look no further than the excellent PR Blogs List by Constantin Basturea. And if you'd like some insight from Constantin about all the many resources for communicators that he's created, have a listen to the conversation that Shel and I had with him a week ago.

Two professionals giving to the community. Great examples.