Capital C

The Scrutiny of Others

The saying goes; "a smart man learns from experience, a wise man learns from someone else's experience."
The challenge for the modern business/marketer is that consumers have gained the tools of wisdom.
They now have the ability to learn from the experience of others.
The 3 'R's of the hyperconnected world- Reviews, Recommendations and Ratings are demanding that our offering hold up against the scrutiny of OTHERS; yet another reason why winners in the new economy need to dramatically up their game, overdeliver and create something worth recommending.

Rapid Response

It’s become a truism among the blogging pundits that in the age of social media, it’s imperative that marketers listen to the conversation. Makes sense, we should know what people are saying about us and we should be responsive…but how? One way is to create rapid response campaigns based on the stuff customers are saying in social media.
Steve Rubel warns;
Digital marketers who continue to plan campaigns months in advance and then unleash them will lose relevance…They will need to be dynamic, adaptable and able to turn on a dime depending on where the live conversation goes. That's no easy feat and it will require brands and agencies to rewire themselves for speed. Get ready to race.
‘Rewiring for speed’ means agencies and clients have to have, what David Armano calls, a “rapid response culture". Agencies will need the flexibility to act; and the client approval process will need to be lightning fast if responses will be timely enough for consumers. Practically speaking, it means a tighter partnership between agency and client and a ‘social media brief’ that focuses more on ‘conversational guidelines’ and less on brand messages.
We’ll talk about what those adjustments need to be in an upcoming post.  ---   Jason Dojc

Super Short Book Review

My Past few books-

The New Rules of Marketing and PR-
Wish I could flip a switch and have people understand how powerful these ideas are- (5 stars)
MoneyBall
Innovation and analytics wrapped in killer narrative- fuckinawesome- (6 stars)
Grapevine-
Love BzzAgent or hate it, massive big insights inside, great writing style- (4 stars)
Influencer-
Wow, scary how the ideas in the book can send us to the dark side of commercial persuasion...(5 stars)
Conversational Capital-
The boys from Sid Lee show their brilliance once again- (3 stars)
Buyology-
The art and science of neurobranding- sweet and smart- (4 stars)
Bang!-
Wasn't expecting much from this audio book, but turned out delightful- (3 stars)
Outliers-
I'm sick of his genius- listen to the author read audio book, love his enunciation- (5 stars)
Competing on Analytics-
Thought I'd have to have a few naps in between chapters, but it was actually quite riveting- (4 stars)
Tribe-
Quick, fun and easy, the junkfood of B books, VERY inspirational- (3 stars)

Better Get Good Grades

In the real world, I was once told, you don’t get A’s and B’s anymore…until now. Reviews are playing an increasingly important role in consumer buying decisions. Let me share with you a personal anecdote. My automatic garage door opener broke. So I did a Google search for a repair service in Toronto, clicked on a couple of entries, poked around their web sites…then I remembered my bad contractor experience a few weeks ago with another home repair issue. So I looked for a reviews site and found HomeStars.com. It turned out that a couple of the top Google ranked companies (who looked like they spent some spent some time and money on search engine optimization), had very poor ratings. Steve at Open Sesame in Toronto didn’t even have a web site but he did have a 9.8 out of 10 rating with excellent write-ups. Did a great job too at a reasonable price.

Bottom line, getting to the top of search engines, or getting brand awareness period isn’t enough. You have to deliver results and your customers will evaluate you accordingly.   ---Jason Dojc

In Honour of Quixotic Creativity

Quixotic Creative.

The kind of thinking that grows something new. Really new.
But it involves a lot of failure, embarrassment and improbability.
It requires bold stupidity and wide eyed ignorance.
It demands the intestinal fortitude to stay a hopeless course in the wake of criticism and diminishing trust.
But the result is new. Sometimes shockingly, which is misunderstood.

Let the punishment begin.