Friday, January 22, 2010

The Horsepower of an NFL Brand - Indy Cashes In

With the AFC championship (Colts vs. Jets) this Sunday set as a rematch of Super Bowl III, the city of Indianapolis (and Indiana in general) will again experience the priceless brand development and exposure that comes from 40 million television viewers (not to mention all the NYC fans and corporate reps watching from one of the world's largest television markets).
Just how powerful is this exposure? Following is an OP-ED that I published in the Indianapolis Star a few years ago about the brand development horsepower from Indy's first AFC championship match-up, which even more valid today:

The Colts and Indy: An emerging mutual brand of excellence

By Michael Snyder

Taunting and loud, the voice pierced the din of the production bay at the radio station I was working at in Pasadena in 1984. “Hey Snyder,” the news director’s voice mocked, “Can you say ‘Indianapolis’ Colts?”
Long the brunt of many a “cornfield with lights” joke, ironically in a Southern California iconic city whose original name was “The Indiana Colony,” I was an overt lifelong Baltimore Colts fan. Even though the Colts at the time were the doormat of the NFL, I was still incredulous. From a west coast view, the mold seemed shattered. Against all odds, Indy was now part of the National Football League.
What was even more astonishing was the fact that there was even a place for the Colts to play. When I rolled out of Indy in 1976 – universally known in those days as “Naptown” – there wasn’t much of a noteworthy physical brand to leave behind: no Chase Tower, no One America building, and certainly no domed stadium. The downtown Circle was defined by decaying retail storefronts, presenting a strong impression that this was a city enthusiastically racing toward the 18th century.
Even a few years later, the city and state still weren’t projecting a brand that would quite attract the best and brightest. While in New York City on business later in the 1980s, I politely declined a dinner invitation, citing the fact that the Colts were making a rare Monday Night Football appearance and I wanted to catch the game. In the pre-Internet and zillion-channel satellite days, Colts games were seldom broadcast live in Southern California.
In between plays, the sports commentators seemed singularly unimpressed by the Hoosier Capital City. Based on repeated messaging, the national TV audience was left with a shallow brand perception. According to the commentators, Indy’s solitary redeeming factor was that it had a pretty good steakhouse.
Today, as the Colts and Indianapolis prepare for the first-ever AFC Championship here, a completely different city is deservedly on deck for a national re-branding. The sweeping vista shots panning the city during television timeouts reveal a progressive metropolis that has redefined itself as a 21st century global player. The Indy “brand” – that all-important Holy Grail of marketing – is in positive transformation, taking the Hoosier state with it. Representing a marketer’s dream of a worldwide showcase, the reach and frequency of Indy’s new brand message remains firmly at the high end of gold-plated media. Every time a commentator couples words like “powerhouse” with Indianapolis, it rubs off. In a classic marketing matchup, people are presented with a believable reason to reconsider Indiana and Indianapolis as something quite different from years past. All week long, the city’s positive brand equity will grow.
An old saw in brand development goes as follows: “There’s nothing like great marketing to kill a bad product.” Heightened brand awareness of flawed merchandise will drive away consumers.
Fortunately for Indianapolis and Indiana, the product is solid. “Naptown” of old is no more. Want proof of Indiana’s new emerging brand? Consider the headline from the Detroit News last year [in 2006]: “Michigan should fear Indiana, not India” for competitive economic development.
Regardless of how the game turns out today, Indianapolis and Indiana win dual victories. Many corporate site selectors are rabid football fans at this time of year, and the multi-faceted live commentary out of the RCA Dome [the Colts now play in the all-new Lucas Oil Stadium] only reinforces one brand fact: Indianapolis today represents a force to be ignored only at the peril of the unenlightened.

Managing principal of The MEK Group, a marketing consulting firm in Carmel, Snyder returned to Indianapolis from Los Angeles in 1993.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Wrapped a Little Too Tight about Social Media?


When law firms start touting social media, you know for sure that you're at the end of a trend. Whether that's totally true or not, the current social media hysteria reminds me of the late 1990s, when companies by the thousands suffered widespread panic attacks over the fact that they did or did not have a Web site.

Never mind that these same companies didn't have a online strategy or much in the way of real digital objectives, they just had to be on the Web and be on the Web NOW. Is this phenomena repeating itself in the second decade of the not-so-new century?

So as you're contemplating either getting into social media (and joining the "conversation" -- whatever that happens to be) or improving your overall digital strategy by truly targeting your customers' needs, here's 25 thoughts on social media from Ragan Communications to help you get a little unwound (warning, you might find more than a little truth in these hysterically funny points):


25 random reasons we’re sick of social media

By Lindsey Miller and Jessica Levco


These may make you laugh out loud—or perhaps just LOL

1. We can now only communicate face-to-face with people in 140 character blasts.
2. It’s only a matter of time before those drunken office holiday photos surface online.
3. Keeping up with the Joneses is harder now because we have to keep up with the Joneses’ blogs.
4. Too many passwords to remember for each account.
5. We’ve got only six people following us on Twitter. Our self-esteem is at an all-time low.
6. Everybody seems to be talking about how great LinkedIn is for networking. The only people we know on LinkedIn are our co-workers.
7. When we go to a networking event with human beings, we wear our nametag on our left-hand side and give a limp fish handshake. We’ve forgotten how to interact with real people.
8. We can't remember the last time we wrote a letter. It’s hard to remember how to hold a pen correctly.
9. Our grammatical muscles spasm when we use the words “Tweeted” and “Facebooked” in casual conversation.
10. Even though our co-worker is less than three feet away, we haven’t spoken to each other in seven months. Thanks, G-chat.
11. Since we’ve been doing so much typing, our fingers have mutated to the size of a Kielbasa.
12. We can’t tell north from south after we downloaded the Google Maps application on our iPhone.
13. We have nightmares about losing our BlackBerry.
14. People always want to know where we are, but last week we Tweeted during a colonoscopy.
15. We invited 651 people to a party. We got 21 replies. Only four showed up.
16. Like our relationship status on Facebook, we find ourselves saying “It’s Complicated” to every business situation that presents itself.
15. Life would be better if we could add five hours to our day. Not for time with our family or friends, but for spending more time on all the social media sites we’re addicted to.
16. We call all the time we spend on social media sites “networking” or “business.” Well, at least that’s how we justify it when we check and see who our high school sweetheart is dating.
17. We change our profile pictures, interests, and activities on Facebook at least twice per week. Perhaps we should change our religion status to solipsism.
18. We need to be instantly validated—we ate a tuna salad sandwich for lunch! Now, it’s time to blog about it.
19. We don’t bother asking our co-workers what they did this weekend. There’s no point—we read about it on Twitter.
20. Our social workload is rapidly becoming another 40-hour-per-week occupation. But this one isn’t paid.
21. Forget sipping coffee and reading the newspaper. Now it’s all about Twittering like crazy, downing nine Red Bulls and stuffing our face with Power Bars.
22. We’re more excited that we learned how to re-Tweet and reply on Twitter than we were at the compliment we got this morning from our boss.
23. Work now reminds us of the movie Wall-E: people moving around on hover chairs and communicating through computer screens in front of their face.
24. The only way we can start a conversation is by asking, “What Are You Doing?”
25. One of our Facebook “friends” asks us to write 25 Random Things About Yourself. We’re tired of typing after two.

Friday, January 15, 2010

Where Does the U.S. Buy Its Oil? - Major Security Issue


As consumer gas prices nudge up towards $3 a gallon again, The Center for American Progress (courtesy of The Business Insider Green Sheet) published the featured map detailing where America currently buys its oil (outside North America).
On a sober note, America buys more than $360 billion of non-U.S. oil annually, much of which comes from the U.S. State Department formally designates as "dangerous or unstable" countries.
Two years ago America imported about $150 billion of oil from these same countries.
The Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) estimates that America today imports between 9-10 million barrels a day. During the first global Energy Crisis (when OPEC nations openly used what was labeled "the oil weapon"), America imported about 3-4 million barrels a day, less than half of today's totals. Issues related to that 1973-1974 global crisis nearly spawned a direct Soviet-America confrontation.
According to RMI, "In 1999, oil was $16/barrel. In 2008, it crossed the $140/barrel mark. No consensus yet exists on exactly why the price has jumped so much. Options range from growing demand in India and China, to political instability to shady oil financial trading."
Regardless of why, (and as U.S. Senator Richard Lugar has been proclaiming for two decades) continued U.S. oil dependency remains a major Homeland Security issue.
At the first Lugar/Purdue Energy Summit in 2006 (four years ago), scientists and researchers called for a U.S. energy technology emphasis on the scale of the 1940s Manhattan Project. That was four years ago. Where are we today?

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Thursday, January 14, 2010

Sharpen up E-mail subject lines in 8 words or less

Want to break through the clutter of an overstuffed InBox? Check out Ragan's advice through the following link.

E-mail subject lines in 8 words or less Article Homepage articles

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Wednesday, January 13, 2010

TED: The Most Powerful Word in English


A couple of months ago, a TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design - the world's ultimate social media-fueled idea-sharing Web site) researcher posed an inquiry on TED's LinkedIn page. They wanted to know people's thoughts on the single most powerful word in the English language.

Some 144 comments later, the word "yes" is thus far the runaway favorite. "Love" and "hope" are trailing in second and third place, respectively.

Other entries include (in no particular order): think, now, happy, welcome, next, no, happy, please, peace, God, passion, why, thanks, forgiveness, humility,believe, smile, faith, imagine.

The dialogue is still going on, for those who would care to weigh in the LinkedIn page.

Given the perceived audience of TED, I would have thought that either "why" or "love" would have topped out higher. So much for politically correct thinking!

For what it's worth, I submitted "go."

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Monday, January 11, 2010

US State Governments Choking on Budget Dust


As we move into the current economic "recovery," states across the U.S. try to figure out what to do with empty tax coffers. The dilemma remains that most states need to raise taxes in order to service leftover debt from the "aught" decade and pay for current services to their citizens. Problem is, with tax revenues in the negative and tax-paying businesses still trying to crawl out from under a fiscally devastating 18 months, it's ugly, ugly, ugly.

The latest e-mail update from Stateline.org (see photo) is soaked in red ink, as states try to scrape more shards out of empty revenue buckets. Meanwhile, where's the Stimulus dough that was supposed to right this fiscal ship? State officials complain that its taking way too long to get needed cash into the right hands.

The irony of all this? Indiana, traditionally a state that lives hand-to-mouth, entered the Great Recession with more than $1 billion in reserves and a balanced budget. The Hoosier state has subsequently taken its own share of blows to the head, but is still standing on its own while its neighbors are wielding panic-guided axes. No wonder Republicans are talking about Mitch Daniels, the fiscal architect of this current Hoosier stability, as a possible candidate for Prez.

It will all work out, but golly is it painful at the moment...

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Slate PC Tablets - Sweeping World-changers?


A resurgence in newspapers? A whole new era of journalism and information exchange? Formerly finicky subscribers gladly buying online content? Technology information convergence like we've never seen?

The rumble of record holiday sales of the iPod Touch -- once considered a pricey niche knockoff of the iPhone -- may represent the tip of a new disruptive technology that could profoundly change media, consumer behavior and how we all work.

Hubris? Hyperbole? Maybe.

Or maybe not.

Consumer interest in the iPod Touch - which provides access to thousands of iPhone applications without the AT&T contract -- attracted a seabox of interest from analysts for very good reasons besides increased revenue. For a knockoff product, iPod Touch sales did some real interesting things in 2009 -- like manifesting a sales growth rate of 100% over 2008. Consumer pulled 11.3 million off the shelves in Q4 alone.

Why the surge in iPod Touch interest and what does this have to do with slate tablet PCs?

As millions of buyers of the iPod Touch eloquently demonstrate, consumers WANT the connectivity, 100,000+ applications and portability of a mobile device as defined by what the iPhone offers. They want this functionality so bad, they'll carry a separate phone, even though the total package is available.

Perhaps that's why Microsoft rushed out Steve Ballmer at CES with an HP slate tablet, and multiple slate PCs and new tablets were all out with concepts, including Dell. Could they be anticipating what Apple may be trotting out in the tablet world at the end of January?

So why such interest in tablets - slate-like, thin and powerful? Try out the following:
  • Ultra-easy-to-use, HD screen, light-weight computing horsepower that you can carry around like a magazine?

  • The ability to instantly access both business and entertainment options without the hassle of booting-up a three pound laptop?

  • New convergence opportunities galore - tablets may well become fixtures around consumer HD TVs, dropping TV spot AD ratings even further on both cable and commercial stations (unless they're timed to push out messages to tablets) as consumer check e-mail and surf during long commercial breaks muted out.

  • Enhanced and customized consumer content that transcends "breaking news" which consumers will happily pay for, reversing trends of consumer reluctance to buy online content. Newspapers (particularly those who have cross-trained their journalists in video) could see a remarkable resurgence in an online realm.

  • Real videophones for mass use, as tablets incorporate video cameras and link up to other tablets in hot-spots and wireless-enhanced homes/offices across the world (Skype, look out), much like fax machines suddenly hit their tipping point.

  • If all of the above occurs, why text? Why even go to work? If you can carry a lightweight video connection around, that's realtime facetime.
Now if Steve Jobs has a tablet that can achieve all of this...

David Ogilvy used to assert in a 1960s creative world that content was king. If touchscreen tablets really deliver this capacity, we could be looking at a disruptive technology of extreme magnitude, touching virtually part of our 21st century lives. Content will not only be king, it will dominate.

I'm buying one.

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Friday, January 08, 2010

Brand Development of Epic Proportions


Big bucks, mind-blowing brand development? When you're a multi-national company with a major global stake in PCs, video, movies, music and all media in general, how do you capture and communicate a multi-level, hideously complicated, all-encompassing brand element in 90 seconds? Perhaps mirroring the epic scope of the infamous one-time Apple Macintosh "1984" Super Bowl spot, Sony has released a senses-numbing 90-second spot called "Make Believe" that, well, totally immerses the viewer into all things Sony. Cataclysmic car chase, collapsing buildings, tumbling airborne sand buggies, pulsating rock concert - all at the touch of a digitized button. The underlying message delivered by the bewildered and awe-struck urban youth stumbling through the fantasy vision served up by technological special-effects wizardry is simply this: Sony owns the digital universe.

What's real and what's fantasy? In the Sony tag: "Believe that anything you can imagine, you can make real."

Whew.

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