Selection for the curious: not the headline news in brand

Retail: Zara back in black for the first time since 2007. Zara returns to profit as new shops boost sales via@retailweek

Design: Students from Les Ateliers-Paris Design Institute have created a project called Fabrique Hacktion that aims to improve collective spaces in the city via @LSNglobal

Design: Why two brains think faster than one. Video interview with Antenna Design by @the99percent

Big ideas: No Boinking: Raising awareness of India’s population control problem with a playful ad that works even without understanding Hindi for Idea 3G, by Lowe and partners: When the power goes out, don't boink, play 3G games!

Social / Tech: White House: Twitter helped debt agreement. Virtual pressure pushed the deal, whilst Obama lost 36,000 followers.

You’ve got FAIL: Windows Office365 team Punks Gmail via @ADWEEK

TaskRabbit iPhone App Lets You Post Errands On The Move via @PSFK

Innovation: The British Egg Market—An Incubator of Innovation via @popsop_com

Does your brand have a life after death?

I recently saw an amazing Ted Talk by Dr Nicholas Christakis about the social connections between people and how they affect health outcomes. It got me thinking about how social connections affect brand.

They showed that there is a hard correlation between people with obesity - so much so that if one of your direct connections is obese, you have a 45% likelihood to be obese also. This diminishes with distance of connection.
Why is this?

Dr Christakis categorises 3 main drivers for this 1) induction, if I gain weight it causes you to gain weight 2) homophily, or birds of a feather flocking together and 3) confounding (science speak for some effect that we haven't yet been able to identify). They found that all 3 elements were in play affecting the incidence of obesity. You are not only affected by others, associate with people like yourself....but the effect of that lingers beyond your connection, even beyond death! What lingers goes beyond immediate cause and effect - it becomes part of the fabric, ideas and norms affecting the entire network.

Once the Idea, or connection exists, it remains like a cloud in the air. Intrigued, they then tracked this for positivity, finding that like a common cold, postivity is catching too.

We know that Word of Mouth (WOM) is one of the strongest stimuli influencing purchase behaviour (for B2B and B2C). But what happens when we go beyond WOM as a purchase influencer to the notion of a Sustainable Idea?

Some examples of this notion of a sustainable Idea that is harnessed and propogated by a brand are Earth Hour, Contours (the notion of fast, effective and female friendly workouts), Facebook (an online meeting place) and Nike (perform at all points in your life). Which brands do you think do this well?

What Sustainable Ideas exist around your brand, your business and importantly your tribe? How can you help them spread, connect and grow so you too can spread your own brand of positivity, even after the death of your current campaign?

hat tip: Heidi Allen for pointing out this amazing piece of work. Flickr credit:Binkiexxx

positive social impact from marketing

If marketing is spreading the word about a certain product, service or issue, then surely this power can be equally harnessed for good as it has been for over-spent, over-produced and over-analysed advertising campaigns?

If you take marketing to its most BASIC principles, it is about discovering what people want and need, and giving it to them.

Right now, there are many people who are in need. Perhaps even more than are in want.

I believe marketing can induce positive social impact in many ways. These are the (arguable) top 3:

1. Spreading the word. Knowledge and understanding are the first steps in creating change. People don’t donate or contribute to a cause if they a) don’t know about it and b) do not understand it.

2. Engaging people. Marketing uses tools to help people connect with brands, companies and organisations. The more engaged people are, the higher propensity they have to donate or volunteer. Each new person who is engaged can then lead to many more eventual contributors.

3. Understanding. Marketers have skill sets developed to understand customers and their potential revenue. This skill set can also be applied to understand the needs of communities and their stakeholders and the potential impact of a project. Instead of potential revenue as a measure, there can be education level achieved, small businesses started or simply happiness! If a country, Bhutan, can do it…

Some amazing, world changing organisations that are using the power of marketing to spread positive change include Kiva, Project H, Ted and Akoha

Or marketing campaigns such as Buy Pink and Red

This thinking is not new. However, I feel that the last people to actually realise this power are marketers themselves.

Do you have any great examples? Disagree?

(13 April, 2009)