I’ve just submitted my chapter to The Age of Conversation book which is the brainchild of Drew McLellan and Gavin Heaton. My chapter is entitled, “Authenticity-based Branding”.
Here is a preview:
I’ve yet to see a Brand Manager that focuses on conversation when it comes to branding. They typically look at promotions, advertising, logos, packaging and taglines. Now, I’m not going to say stop focusing on advertising or logo consistency or the unique cache of your tagline. Those are all important elements of your overall marketing plan. But to name that “branding” and call it a day is misguided. What I will say is that if you continue to ignore and stifle conversation between employees, suppliers, customers and their acquaintances, you’re not actively influencing your brand to the degree you should be.
The book pitch is to have 100 of the top marketing/business/design/PR/etc… bloggers each submit a chapter. Even the book idea is very web 2.0.
Here’s the list of the contributing authors:
Gavin Heaton
Drew McLellan
CK
Valeria Maltoni
Emily Reed
Katie Chatfield
Greg Verdino
Mack Collier
Lewis Green
Sacrum
Ann Handley
Mike Sansone
Paul McEnany
Roger von Oech
Anna Farmery
David Armano
Bob Glaza
Mark Goren
Matt Dickman
Scott Monty
Richard Huntington
Cam Beck
David Reich
Mindblob (Luc)
Sean Howard
Tim Jackson
Patrick Schaber
Roberta Rosenberg
Uwe Hook
Tony D. Clark
Todd Andrlik
Toby Bloomberg
Steve Woodruff
Steve Bannister
Steve Roesler
Stanley Johnson
Spike Jones
Nathan Snell
Simon Payn
Ryan Rasmussen
Ron Shevlin
Roger Anderson
Bob Hruzek
Rishi Desai
Phil Gerbyshak
Peter Corbett
Pete Deutschman
Nick Rice
Nick Wright
Mitch Joel
Michael Morton
Mark Earls
Mark Blair
Mario Vellandi
Lori Magno
Kristin Gorski
Krishna De
Kris Hoet
Kofl Annan
Kimberly Dawn Wells
Karl Long
Julie Fleischer
Jordan Behan
John La Grou
Joe Raasch
Jim Kukral
Jessica Hagy
Janet Green
Jamey Shiel
Dr. Graham Hill
Gia Facchini
Geert Desager
Gaurav Mishra
Gary Schoeniger
Gareth Kay
Faris Yakob
Emily Clasper
Ed Cotton
Dustin Jacobsen
Tom Clifford
David Pollinchock
David Koopmans
David Brazeal
David Berkowitz
Carolyn Manning
Craig Wilson
Cord Silverstein
Connie Reece
Colin McKay
Chris Newlan
Chris Corrigan
Cedric Giorgi
Brian Reich
Becky Carroll
Arun Rajagopal
Andy Nulman
Amy Jussel
AJ James
Kim Klaver
Sandy Renshaw
Susan Bird
Ryan Barrett
Troy Worman
It’s a pretty amazing group of folks if you click around their sites. I was honored when asked to participate and am excited to help make a difference. The proceeds of the e-book will benefit Variety, the Children’s Charity. Helping those that help others is a driving force at Cre8tive Group – in fact we’ve built our entire business around it. I’ll keep you in the loop as more details are made public.
Nick:
I’ll be curious to learn your definition of authentic as respects brands. I’m sure we’ll be the first 100 customers for this eBook.
Nick, I’m very much looking forward to reading your chapter. Mine is about conversational writing.
Valeria — you’re right. We will be the first 100 customers for the e-book, and I intend to devour each chapter. I have a feeling I’m going to learn a lot from me fellow contributors.
But I also hope the e-book raises a lot of money for the Children’s Charity.
Valeria, I define it as simply approaching brand communications and interactions from a place of honesty, transparency and concern for the other party. One of the items I talk about is how a conversation is broken down and how it works best when it isn’t driven by ulterior motives. As we all know, conversations are two-way. The traditional method of pushing a bunch of marketing messages or materials at the audience isn’t effective any longer.
I’m with both of you. I think the book will be great. To have 100 different view points on the same subject will be enlightening to say the least.
It has been fabulous to be part of this eBook, and for such a good cause! Your chapter sounds great, Nick, and I look forward to seeing how this all fits together. Anyone know the publishing date yet?
Can’t wait!
Hi Nick,
I am convinced that “authenticity” is a real key word of the Age of Conversation… Can’t wait to read you chapter and see how you will link brands to authenticity. Great to discover your blog following the list! : )
Nick – much looking forward to reading your chapter. The funny thing is I believe that good brand managers want to have those conversations, but company culture and/or not understanding how to leverage social media in a strategic manner puts a halt to the exploration. Hopefully your chapter will help brand managers understand that extending the conversation is not as frightening as imagined; and encourage many to join the conversation themselves.
Toby, I think you’re right to a degree. I think the words “good brand managers” makes the difference. I’ve met a lot of brand/product managers that rarely even talk to customers.
And you nailed it on company culture. Corporate america is still very wary of social media. It’s still thought of as MySpace and YouTube in a lot of organizations by senior execs.
I’m starting to really become inspired by my own topic – oddly enough. I had a hard time keeping my chapter short, but it’s obvious there’s a lot more to cover.
Sounds interesting. Looking forward to reading more soon.