Influential Marketing Blog

The 3 Philosophies of Word of Mouth Marketing

Late last week I had the chance to participate as a faculty member at WOMM-U, an engaging event put on by the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (which my employer, Ogilvy PR, is a member of).  My role was somewhat unique among other speaking events that I have done - along with Jason Anello from Yahoo!, I was meant to lead six half hour sessions on the topic of "speed trials" of tools in the WOM and social media space.  It was a relatively open topic, discussed in round table formats, however the nice thing about it was that it really gave me a chance to spend some time individually with many of the attendees of the event in a way that I typically don't get.  As a result, I came away extremely excited about the interest level in WOM among top marketers, as well as the common challenges that many of us face. 

As WOM emerges as a notable branch of marketing (and by most reports at WOMM-U, it has already done so with nearly a billion dollars expected to be spent on WOM this year alone), people start to take different approaches to defining it within their organization and to their peers. The most interesting thing for me from WOMM-U was that three core philosophies seemed to emerge for how people were defining word of mouth, and they each have some interesting lessons for you if you are planning to start a word of mouth effort or need to justify one to your boss:

1. WOM is a channel. This is one of the most popular ways of looking at word of mouth marketing, promoted by groups such as BzzAgent and RepNation because of how easy it is to explain to traditional marketers.  When you treat WOM like a media channel, then you can buy and sell it just like you do for TV or Radio or Online Ads. This is a great way to describe it if your audience is people who understand traditional media planning and think in terms of impressions and CPCs. This also plays well to models like BzzAgent where you have a defined pool of people who are measurable because they represent a subset of an audience. It becomes tougher (but not impossible) when you focus on a wider pool of people.
2. WOM is an outcome. A refrain heard from many people at WOMM-U, this was the broader view that WOM should be a core element of all your marketing.  Everything from your TV spots to your online community is driving people to share their experience with others.  Think of this not as "conversion-based marketing" but rather as "conversation-based marketing." When WOM is treated as an outcome of all your acitivities, you can start to think more broadly about what your marketing is doing.  Jeffrey Graham from the NY Times shared an interesting point that you need to think of your newspaper budget (for example) as a WOM budget. Once you do that, there is a whole difference lens you can use on your current marketing (without having to find new budget too!) aa
3. WOM is viral/buzz. This is one of the most common perceptions about WOM, that it is all about having something go viral or building a buzz. At our round table, this question came up frequently. There are indeed some poeple who believe that WOM is all about viral marketing and it is a valid point of view. The way I usually describe the difference is through the importance of belief.  Viral or buzz marketing is all about having one person pass something along to someone else for any quality (not necessarily one that is around the brand). You may pass a viral video about Burger King onto someone else because it's funny, not because you love Burger King. WOM on the other hand, typically involves some kind of belief.

Have you made word of mouth marketing a core element of your marketing strategy?  If so, which philosophy has worked for you to describe and position it within your organization?  And are there any others that are missing?

The Future of Marketing at New Comm Forum

Today I will be moderating a panel at the New Communications Forum here in Santa Rosa, California which I'm particularly excited about because it's exactly the kind of juicy broad topic that I think can yield really interesting discussions. Our panel has the open charge to talk about the future of marketing and advertising (doesn't get more broad than that!) and has a great diversity of speakers including Ken Kaplan from Intel (representing brands), Neil Chase from Federated Media (representing publishers and networks) and David Takheim from Six Apart (representing platforms and publishing tools). The composition of the panel should already tell you something about what the future of marketing and advertising may hold ... as I'm probably the one representing the traditional model since I'm from the big agency (ironic considering what I do for a living!)

There are a few big questions on my mind for this panel that I plan to share in our conversation. I don't usually do this, but here are the questions that I predict I will ask during our panel session:

1. The ongoing tension between PR and advertising silos often comes down the difference in philosophy. In PR, we talk about "earning" media, and in advertising we talk about "buying" media.  In the new world of marketing and advertising, how will we see the balance between earning and buying shift?
2. Are blogs really the future of media? How important are or should they be in an an overall communications or marketing strategy?
3. A hot topic in most marketing trades is the shift of dollars to the online and social media space from advertisers. A hot topic in the general media is the consumption behaviour or people shifting. Is one ahead of the other?  If so, do the dollars need to catch up to the audiences, or the audiences need to catch up the dollars?
4. How important is or will content be to the future of marketing and advertising? This is not about taglines but about actually creating something useful, interesting or entertaining for people to watch or read ... and having that be your marketing message.

For those who have participated in panels with me before, or heard me speak about doing it, you'll know that I have a rule never to walk into a session like this with more than 3 to 5 pre-scripted questions. The reason is that it forces me to pay attention and react to the conversation on stage by coming up with new questions on the spot. In the end, usually the result is a much more interesting panel discussion.

* Full Disclosure - Intel is an Ogilvy client and I work directly with Ken.

Inside Lenovo's Olympic Blogging Program

This past week in the string of posts about the book coming out, I've been stockpiling ideas for "real" blog posts and wanting to write about them more and more. Thankfully now that I launched the Personality Matters blog, I will post most of the updates about the book there and refocus on marketing strategy and insights here. I can't promise I won't share the occasional post about the book ... but I know that you're giving me your time to read this blog because you want marketing ideas and you want lots of them. So this post is about one I'm particularly excited about.

The Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence team recently finalized the details to take the lead on what I would have to call my dream project. Those who know me know that I am what you might call a full on Olympic enthusiast. I went to college in Atlanta and was there for the 1996 Olympics. I moved to Sydney in 1998 and lived there during the Sydney Olympics, and my first son was born right in the middle of the Athens Olympics (during the women's marathon, ironically). So I've been there and seen it, and more importantly, I think it is a world stage that nothing else even comes close to.

Which brings me to this very ambitious project that we are helping Lenovo with. David Churbuck, our main client, posted about the idea behind the project on his blog and it is a brilliant summary of a big vision that Lenovo and David himself has for this project. Here it is in a nutshell:

The Problem: Media coverage of the Olympics has become about melodrama that is broadcasted as "real" stories. But those producers only choose the athletes who have overcome quadruple knee surgery and the lack of a college degree to become a world champion ... in other words, the extreme stories.

The Insight: What about the real athletes who spend every day training and working hard just to get to the Olympics whether they have a shot of winning or not?  Their voices could be the most powerful and this Olympics more than any other promises to offer the chance for them to do that.

The Project: We are seeking 100 potential Olympic athletes from around the world to all start and maintain a blog all about their experience leading up to and during the Games. In return, Lenovo is offering all participants the chance to use a new IdeaPad laptop for their blogging and help from our team to set up and maintain their blogs. 

This is a big project on a scale that is completely global, multi-lingual and very ambitious. Lenovo, to their credit, are not content to sit back with their sponsorship of the Olympic Torch Relay and Olympic Village (already considerable efforts) and call it a job well done.  If this is the year for Olympics 2.0, this program should be one of the best examples of it. Our main goal right now is finding Olympic athletes, so if you know any (or you happen to be one), please get in touch with myself rohit [dot] bhargava [at] ogilvypr.com or David.

PNI: Introduction ... Get Your Exclusive Download!

As part of The Official Reader's Group for Personality Not Included, I just released a first look at the full introduction for the book on my Facebook group. If you're not yet a member, you may want to join now so you can get access to exclusive content like this, and find out first about all the great launch parties and activities happening over the next few weeks. Otherwise, you'll be a few hours behind when I post everything here. Here's the link to get the introduction:

www.personalitynotincluded.com/introduction.pdf

Though I feel a bit like a guy in a dunk tank encouraging people to hit the target ... if you have a blog and haven't had a chance to submit your 5 questions - make sure and send them to me so you can feature a virtual interview on your blog on Friday.  I know I'm getting dunked (so to speak) with another set of questions to respond to (I'm already nearing 35 bloggers I need to get back to!), but its all for a good cause (promoting the book).  And speaking of good causes, if need a great place to order PNI, or any other book - visit the Ultimate Marketing Bookstore. It's a store I set up to benefit DonorsChoose.org, a wonderful charity dedicated to helping teachers do the most for their kids. All the Amazon affiliate fees from your purchase will go straight to Donors Choose. Great books, great cause ... what more do you need?

Be Part Of The Personality Not Included Book Launch On March 28th

There are a lot of ideas for how to launch a book online. As I head toward launching* Personality Not Included this Friday, I've looked at most of them. Some authors create a group and ask all their contacts to all hit an online bookstore like Amazon at one time to create a surge in sales.  Others coordinate big launch events in the real world and aim to use those to propel interest in their book. Bigger books might buy advertising to announce a launch and, of course, there is the old PR method of blasting lots of press releases at people who may or may not be interested in the book. There is one big problem with all these approaches: none of them are very conversational.

A conversation does not start instantly with a big spike and then trail off. A really good conversation builds momentum steadily and eventually turns into something more powerful. So my aim today is not to create a short term spike, but to start a conversation about the central idea of the book - which is that personality matters, and continue it over the next few weeks and months. To jumpstart this conversation, I'm asking for your help - and offering you something in return.

My idea is simple: if you send me five questions that you want to know about the book or personality, I'll write you a response on Friday that you can publish on your blog. Let's call these virtual interviews (ie - interviews by email). You choose whether to post the interview on your blog or not after you get my responses, but I am essentially offering for ANY BLOGGER to send me interview questions and I will respond with answers that are NOT cut and pasted, but specific to your questions. I will send all my responses to you on Friday in the order that I get your questions, and I will link to all the posted interviews on Friday.  On Monday, I'll be running a competition on my blog to let readers vote on the Best Interview. The winner will get a signed copy of my book and a gift certificate for $100 from Amazon. Here are a few reasons you may want to do it:

1. For relatively little effort, you'll get a customized post by me that you can use exclusively on your blog
2. Your blog will be featured in my follow up post compiling all the interviews (getting you more visibility)
3. You have a chance to win a signed copy of my new book and a gift certificate for from Amazon.com if your post is voted "Best Interview" by the readers of my blog.

That's about it. I'll be answering review questions in the order that I get them, so please send me yours soon at rohitaustralia [at] gmail [dot] com and I will add you to the list. If you don't have a blog, you can still ask questions by leaving a comment on this post - there will be a prize for best question from the comments too. For the latest news about the book launch and access to exclusive content which you can't get anywhere else, be sure to join my Facebook group for the book if you haven't already and also follow the launch in real time by adding me to your Twitter follow list (Twitter ID - rohitbhargava), or friending me on Facebook (which republished my updates if you are not a Twitter user).

Update (3/26/08): Up to 25 interview requests in less than 24 hours ... thanks to all the bloggers for your interest - I'm hoping to make it to 50 request by Friday!

* The book bindery date is this Friday, which means the book is complete and printed and they will be shipping out to those who preordered over the weekend or on Monday (so you should have your copy by early next week). The official date when they will be in bookstores across the US and Canada is likely to be around April 14th - and the book will be released internationally about 4-6 weeks after that (across Europe, Asia, Australia). If you have a specific query about your country and when the book will be out, please send me an email and I can let you know.

10 Easy Ways to Piss Off A Blogger (from SXSW)

At SXSW yesterday, I ran a "core conversation" called 10 Easy Ways to Piss Off a Blogger.  This year at SXSW, these aptly titled "conversations" were a type of speaking slot where there was a round table and the challenge of engaging people in a discussion about a particular topic.  Mine was one close to my heart ... the best way to piss off a blogger.  I had created a Facebook event page before the session to try and build the buzz and going into yesterday I had almost 50 people signed up.  So I figured we'd get about 20 to 25.  After the session, I spoke to one of the participants who said he counted about 70 - so we had a really tough challenge of having a conversation with 70 people.

Learning from some of the feedback that came from a panel on Social Media Metrics that I had participated in a day earlier, my main aim was to make sure everyone walked out of the session with what I had promised them ... the 10 easy ways.  The format of the session was a bit different too - as there was no presentation or powerpoint, and I didn't walk in with the 10 ways.  Instead our aim was to collaborate, discuss and walk out with the ten.  I think we managed to make it to more than ten.  A few folks kindly offered to take some live notes and have posted about the ten, but without further ado ... here are the 10 Easy Ways to Piss Off a Blogger, as defined by a group of super smart and engaged folks who all made it to be part of this conversation:

1. Invite bloggers to participate in something and don't give them a chance to talk about themselves. This was what I opened the session with, followed by letting people around the group introduce their name and their blogs.  A list of people who chose to share their names and blogs is at the end of this post.
2. Pretend to be a "long time reader" when you actually just visited the blog once and read a few posts.
3. Use a blogger's content or identity without giving proper attribution
4. Send irrelevant information that exhibits no understanding of what they care about or fail to personalize it
5. Add them to a PR list and don't let them get off of it
6. Make it hard for them to link to something by hiding your content behind usernames/passwords, giving them uncertain directions or requiring them to take multiple steps
7. Ask for favors as part of your first outreach to them without building a relationship or earning the right to ask them to help you
8. Fail to identify yourself or falsely represent yourself as something or someone you are not.  This includes failing to mention something about your or your employer that is relevant.
9. Set an unreasonable expectation for a blogger and expect things in an unreasonable amount of time ... ie - sending informaiton and expecting them to post within a few hours.  Quick poll of our session showed that for the vast majority of bloggers, it's not their day job.
10. Get the journalism relationship right.  Some bloggers consider themselves journalists and others don't.  It was clear from the participants that this is a tricky subject, as some people also noted after the session. 

I think we actually ended up with more than ten, but these were the main ones.  I'm looking forward to hopefully hearing more thoughts from some of the participants as the SXSW haze settles and they get a chance to get back to their computers.  It's a crazy show ... lookout for a post here tomorrow on what I think has been the most interesting cultural and technological story of the show: the dominant use of Twitter.

Finally, special thanks to Aaron from Longstation and Steve Harbula (Director of Marketing for the Denver Broncoes) who were both kind enough to take live notes and post them almost right away after our session.

============================

Partial List of Participating Bloggers (from a list passed around - we missed many bloggers, so please add your name and thoughts in a comment if you were there and I'll update the post):

• Destin Joy Layne - The Green Fork http://www.eatwellguide.org
• Biray Alsac - Fitness & Technology Blog http://www.befitwithberay.com
• Beth Carls - K-Ized Mindoh! http://mindoh.wordpress.com
• Lindsay Yaw - Body, Mind & Soul http://www.bethree.com
• Sunil Doshi - http://blog.swiftmob.com
• Adam Brohman - http://amediacirc.us
• Brian Buser - http://www.minggl.com
• Daniel Englander - http://www.greentechmedia.com
• Meghan Warby - http://withoutayard.blogspot.com
• Ruth Ward - http://ruthward.wordpress.com | http://www.sxswm.com
• Jonny Goldstein - http://www.jonnygoldstein.com
• Eric Bryn - Real Estate Relativity http://www.realestaterelativity.com
• Heather Barmore - No Pasa Nada http://www.nopasanada.com
• Amy Bills - Bullblog http://www.bulldogsolutions.com/bullblog
• Eloy Zuniga - http://www.eloyz.com
• Aaron Long - http://www.longstation.com
• Greg Swan - Perfect Porridge http://www.perfectporridge.com
• Danielle Kozich - http://danipennsylvania.blogspot.com
• David J. Neff - Futuring and Innovation in Non Profits http://www.fispace.org
• Marjan Jindrich - Consumers Union Blogs http://www.consumersunion.org/blog
• Tara Anderson - http://iquitforlijit.typepad.com/i_quit_for_lijit/
• Eric Berto - http://www.etelos.com/blogs
• Jackie Huba - http://customerevangelists.typepad.com/
• Samantha Warren - http://www.badassideas.com

Also, thanks to Maura Welch, Sanjay Sabrani, Tracy Locke, Liz Link, Shannon McKarney, Gladys Kong, and many other participants who didn't add their names to the list for sharing their perspective as people who interact with bloggers and want to do it better.  We may have focused on ways to piss off bloggers, but clearly there is some great interest and emerging guidelines on how to end up with happier bloggers.  For reference, the guidelines from our 360 Digital Influence team that I mentioned to several of you at the session can be found here: http://blog.ogilvypr.com/?p=244

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SXSW Swag: 25 Marketing Ideas From The Big Bags

As anyone who has been to SXSW (a huge music, film and interactive conference happening now in Austin, TX) knows, after you have registered for your badge, you have the chance to go downstairs to a different room where you will pick up your "big bag."  It's the canvas bag with all the brochures, flyers, magazines, and other assorted free stuff that you get as a registrant to the event. If you are registered for the Film, Interactive and Music events, you get three of these big bags ... accompanied by the question of whether you will take them all now or come back later.  Why?  They weigh a ton. 

So, of course, the first rite of passage here is to go through all that stuff and toss out the things that are either too heavy, or not interesting enough to carry.  What's leftover is what you take with you. Here are some quick notes with marketing ideas and pieces I found interesting from the big bags.  Also, to follow my live updates from the event, go to www.twitter.com/rohitbhargava and follow me.

1. Toyota - Not sure how strategic this is, but Toyota has randomly parked two cars in the room where all registrants go to pick up their big bags.  This might be part of some kind of contest or promotion, but I didn't see any signage when I walked quickly by.
2. Adobe Fortune Cookie Box - Chinese takeout box stands out and who doesn't like fortune cookies?
3. Zone Perfect Nutrition Bar - the only such bar in the bag ... seems like an obvious opportunity for other snack food makers. After carrying those bags, attendees can use all the energy they can get.
4. Blue Man Group Recruiting - a postcard about open tryouts on March 14th to join the Blue Man Group.  Men or Women, 5'10" to 6'1", acting skills, drumming skills, and willingness to relocate.  They accept women?
5. US Army Entertainment - 5x7 card with plastic GI-Joe figure tied to it inviting bands to come and play for the army on aircraft carriers.  Slightly creepy with cheesy ad copy - eg "Plug in your weapon, turn up the power and fire away. Your limo is a Humvee and your ride is a Blackhawk."
6. YouTube 5x7 Card - Says "Every Song Deserves A Video" and points musicians to a website: www.youtube.com/musicpartners
7. Dell Lounge and Music Exclusive - Dell is all over the place at SXSW, including a well placed lounge on the main level of the convention center.  At the Lounge, they are offering exclusive digital downloads of the latest music from Billy Bob Thornton & Boxmasters.  Well, $2 off if you buy all 10 tracks.  Seems to me that offering 2 free tracks would have been much more useful promo ...
8. Lifebeat.org - One of the few issues related marketing piece in the big bag, it talks about "how music can save a life" and points people to the website to learn about HIV/Aids prevention. 
9. Dentyne Ice - A GREAT idea, they offer three packs of gum as well as two free downloads on iTunes if you visit a website they set up around Ben's Brother, a band they are promoting: www.bensbrotherdentyne.com and take a quiz. I bet the Dentyne pack is one very few people throw away.
10. Last.fm Artist Guide - In a very smart move, Last.fm decides not to focus on free downloads or losable cards, but instead produces a comprehensive list of all the bands that will be performing throughout SXSW.  The guide features 1547 artists, all identified by musical styles as well as a short bio.  Great way for Last.fm to stand out.
11. Freshbooks - Included a flip guide the features user stories from their 2007 surveys.  The design of the piece demonstrates their ease of use, and their tagline (painless billing) as well as their promise to help freelance entrepreneurs and professionals to get paid faster will capture attention.  Given the number of freelance designers, coders and social media types at SXSW, I'm surprised there aren't more products and services targeting this group.
12. Miami Visitor's Bureau - So far, these twin pieces have to be the winners for most beautiful printed pieces included in the bags.  Miami produced two horizontal half page sized mini-guides to the wonders of Miami.  The first is a guide to all the great shooting locations in Miami.  The second is a guide to the boutique hotels in Miami.  Together, they present a pretty compelling picture of the great things of Miami.  The only problem is, with pieces this slick, produced and obviously expensive ... it might be easy for a filmmaker on a tight budget to conclude the Miami is just too expensive.
13. Jaman - A site that I joined a long time ago (maybe around the time of the last SXSW?), they have a 5x7 poscard that invites people to try out the site with 3 free movie rentals.  Just go to www.jaman.com/sxsw
14. Frrvrr.com Party - There are a ton of parties happening and at SXSW, sending an RSVP for anything is never a guarantee that people will show up.  So Frrvrr included an actual wrist bracelet to their party in the bag. You still might not go, but hey - at least there's a reminder around your wrist of a party that you are (presumably) already registered for.  Great idea ... I just signed up for their Alpha.
15. Games & Puzzles - O'Reilly had a few marketing pieces in the bag, including a card about the Graphing Social Patterns event in DC (I need to get on the speaking roster for that) and a cute little book including games and puzzles you can play ... a good idea considering the long lines to get into some of these parties.
16. Made to Stick Chapters - Chip and Dan Heath are selling individual chapters of their book Made to Stick with the tagline, "If you can buy pie by the slice, why not a book by the chapter?"  They have a URL (www.randomhouse.com/madetostick), where there will be doing the selling.  I would love to get some numbers from them after this promo about whether there is an appetite among people to buy just a chapter of a book at a time.  For readers, is this like buying one song from an album (which makes sense), or like buying one verse of a song (which doesn't)?
17. Metanotes - I usually throw away the notepads that you get in bags like this, but Metanotes looked a bit more interesting because on their notepads they have an area for followup and another for tagging your notes. 
18. The People Powered Party - The one party that I am most excited about is Sunday evening at a co-sponsored party hosted by Moo, Timbuk2, Etsy and Threadless.  Ironically, all 4 are sites that I researched for the book and three of them are actually in the book.  I'll be at this party talking to all of them and sharing details about the book, and hopefully doing a blog post afterwards.
19. BeThree Site Launch - In a nicely designed card, the site launch of BeThree promised to deliver on mind, body and soul.  Looks to be a female focused lifestyle social network.  Tagline: "BeThree. Finally ... Where Hip Meets Health."
20. Emma Email Marketing - I have always liked emma's branding when it comes to selling their services for email.  It's a tough and crowded market, and they are doing a great job of standing out.  They have an extremely well written card in the bag, which features lines like: "Can Emma help your business? Find out by visiting www.myemma.com and mention SXSW to receive $50 off your brand new Emma account. It's our way of saying, 'Hey, you were at SXSW. That's cool. Maybe we can go bowling sometime." We're surprisingly good bowlers, that's all." They are also planting trees at SXSW (great relation to email marketing versus snail mail).  Follow their progress at www.myemma.com/sxsw.
21. Animoto - In a small square card, Animoto promises "the end of slideshows" - which is an intriguing enough claim that I will likely go and check out the site.  Mission accomplished.  To get a free video credit, enter the code "sxsw08"
22. MIT Technology Review - Is running an interesting subscription drive.  Get your first issue for free - www.trsub.com/conf
23. BrightQube - An image library sort of site that promises to make it easy to browse images to find the one you want.  Doesn't look like they bring in photos from istockphoto.com though.
24. DirectTV - Put a packet of playing cards in the big bag.  Not sure I get the strategic idea behind this, as opposed to just putting in a giveaway that people might actually use more often.
25. Everywhere Magazine - In addition to free copies of Wired, Fast Company, Popular Science, Create Magazine, there was also an interesting new travel publication called Everywhere which features user generated content that is voted on by the community.  I'll be joining the site as well and definitely doing a longer blog post about it at some point in the future.

Otherwise, stay tuned for lots more marketing thoughts from SXSW tomorrow.  YAWN ... good night.

Trained Messengers at the Wharton Business Tech Conference

I spent the day this past Friday speaking and participating in the Wharton Business Technology Conference in Philadelphia where I moderated a panel all about the future of marketing and interactive media. For those of you who have been following my last few events, you know that many of the more recent ones have been quite interactive marketing centric.  If you are going to attend an event called the Social Networking Conference, or another called the Online Marketing Summit ... chances are you are looking for a particular type of information. 

The Wharton event, by nature of the fact that it was organized by one of the most well known business schools in the world, drew a different audience.  Attracting a high percentage of senior level speakers, the event was largely attended by students, with some other brand marketers rounding out the attendees.  When you get this many higher level speakers from big brands together, the vibe of the event becomes quite different from a smaller event.  The main difference that stood out for me was how clearly all the participants were message trained on their key points.  The gentlemen from Nokia, Microsoft, Yahoo, Time Warner Cable, as well as many others delivered their party lines with consistency, clarity and clear experience. 

For example, when the Nokia CFO shared that Nokia is predominantly a software company, a student asked whether they were worried about Google's Android announcement.  Richard A. Simonson (CFO for Nokia) said "with all due credit, Android is a press release right now" and shifted the point to the fact that Nokia is already doing this and has been for some time. The nice thing that you get with message trained executives is that they bring a clearly articulated point to their spoken points.  The down side, of course, is that often they tend to share less "insight" than someone who knows a business and does not come to an event with a clear list of points to cover and extensive training on how to do it.  The other nice thing is that if you are able to inject humor into an event like this, and speak on a level that feels less scripted, you can stand out for your authenticity.  In a situation like this, authenticity definitely matters.

Inside the 5 Badges of the Conference Caste System

At every conference or tradeshow, you get a badge.  I have a box full of them on my desk, an increasing number of them with the title of "Speaker" affixed beneath my name.  I recently had a conversation with some colleagues about the importance of being a speaker at an event.  Often, the most important benefit is not just the visibility of speaking, but the license that speaker tag gives you to have a conversation with other speakers.  If you think about it, the badges at a conference are like a caste system.  Your badge identifies which group you belong in and can often dictate how people embrace or shy away from a conversation with you. 

There are usually only five types of badges that you can get at a conference (listed in order of importance):

1. Speaker
2. Media
3. Sponsor
4. Attendee
5. Vendor

Being a speaker is usually the best choice, because it positions you as an expert at the event and you also have a chance to demonstrate your expertise in front of a subset of attendees.  Media is usually second best, because just about all the sponsors and vendors want to get media coverage.  Last week at an event like the Consumer Electronics Show, however, most people would agree that media was definitely number one because of the relative importance of media coverage to that event.  The interesting thing about "media" at CES (as well as at most other large events today) is that this group is usually divided into two categories: bloggers and press.  For CES, the blogger badges were gray, and the press badges were red.  Thinking this would be a good chance for a bit of a social experiment, I went and got both badges ... the blogger badge by virtue of my blog, and the press badge as a result of my writing being republished by the good folks at Digital Media Wire (sorry I missed the Insider event, Ned).

What did I learn?  Probably not surprisingly, the blogger badge got a lot less attention and special treatment.  It was an odd feeling to walk through certain booths first with my gray badge and then switch to the red one.  There were different rooms for bloggers versus press, and in the press room there was real food (not just snacks), rows of press releases that you could pickup and many invites for private parties or events.  Clearly, there is a gap in perceived value between bloggers and journalists from the organizers of CES, as well as many of the vendors exhibiting at the event.  It really is no different than a caste system where individuals are judged based on the color of their badges.  The question is, when will we see this situation change?  Already, there are signs that it is changing.  Most notably, the fact that there is a blogger room and blogger credentials at an event of this size at all.  The way I see it, in another few years, events like this will start to embrace bloggers and media on the same level and apply a similar criteria to who gets credentials.  This means the real metric will be audience and reach.  Regardless of whether you write for a blog or something else, your credentials will be based on the number of people you reach.  It's just a matter of time before it happens.

CES Extreme Event: Notes From the Vomit Comet

One of the big themes for Intel's effort at CES this year is the extreme.  Extreme computing and extreme gaming.  There is a big truck in the Central Plaza where gamers can check out new superfast systems, play games, and win a chance to go on a Zero G flight operated by a company called Go Zero G.  This is the same flight that they used to film the weightless scenes with Tom Hanks and other actors from Apollo 13, and the weightless training flights that the astronauts take.  So this morning, Intel took 35 people, including contest winners from 6 different countries up on an extreme Zero G experience.  I'm part of the team - and just uploaded a full collection of images to Flickr and was Twittering updates throughout the day. 

Want to know if the "vomit comet" lived up to its name?  Check out the photo collection. 

It Won't Stay in Vegas (Especially If You're A Blogger)

What happens in Vegas this week won't stay here for too long.  If you have been watching or reading any media at all this week, you have seen all the rampant coverage of everything from CES.  Being here at the epicenter of the hype has been an interesting experience.  Think of it as a cross between a museum exhibit of never before seen artwork, and walking past storefront display windows on 5th Avenue.  If you have been to a normal tradeshow, you're used to booths where products are showcased by booth babes and just about everyone has a digital camera to capture the babes and pretend that they're photographing the products.  CES is the same thing, only multiplied.  The booths here go on and on, and fill not just one huge convention center, but dozens of hotels around town as well.  The toughest thing to get used to is the pace.  The event itself publishes a magazine called CES Daily twice a day.  And this is not a little newsletter.  Each issue is the large format size of AdAge or another industry pub and nears 250 pages.  Clearly, information overload is the big danger at CES.

So this leads me to the bloggers.  Thank god for them.  Walking around the booths, taking photos, writing super fast blog posts, and twittering the event live ... CES is being recorded and shared live with the world by the bloggers.  NBCU may have set up two broadcast studios, but the guy propped up against the wall typing with one hand and chomping on a slice of Sbarros pizza in the other has a mobile studio of his own.  I have been walking through the event carrying three cameras, two lenses, a flash, a laptop, and a bag full of cords to connect just about anywhere.  All for my blogging mission which is the same as anyone else here ... to make sure what happens in these halls doesn't stay here.

Tonight we'll all have a chance to do it together.  The It Won't Stay in Vegas Blogger Party is the hottest event for bloggers at CES and will be taking over the Atomic Testing Museum later tonight.  Intel is the title sponsor and we just confirmed that Virgin America (another client) will be giving away 80 free roundtrip tickets to anywhere they fly in the domestic US.  There are going to be lots of giveaways, plenty of other festivities and (of course) lots of people sharing everything happening there with the world in real time.  It may be the most real time live virtually blogged and twittered party ever.  Too bad there's not Guiness World Record for that.  In any case, it will be fun to watch and report from.  Keep watching my Twitter updates embedded above to keep tabs on what's happening throughout the day (and tonight as well) - or just add me to your list (Twitter ID - rohitbhargava).

Live Blog Post from Intel WiMax Shuttle

Blogging live from the WiMax shuttle and embedding a YouTube video below.  Will be posting more about this later today:

Update - See badge for Flickr Images from today:

www.flickr.com

This is a Flickr badge showing public photos from Intel CES 2008. Make your own badge here.

Blogger Social 2008 and the Art of Personalized Outreach

The first thing I should say is that I was planning to write about Blogger Social 2008 anyway.  You'll see why I started with that disclaimer in a moment ...

Just about everyone in any kind of communications role has probably reach out to at least one blogger at some point to share something of value and ask for a link.  For most bloggers, the greatest value they can offer to someone is to choose to post about something they are doing.  One lesson I have been reminded of time and time again, though, is that sometimes having great and relevant content is not enough.  I was reminded of this fact on two distinct occasions over the past few days.

The first was Steve's recent post on Adrants about how Amber Lee (Obama Girl) created a personalized video for him talking about how much she loves Adrants.  It's a brilliant move by BarelyPolitical.com to create something specifically targeted at Steve and Adrants, as well as a strong relationship builder.  There's a lesson in this for any marketer hoping to build a connection with a highly influential blogger in any industry.

The second was when I started to see lots of anticipation posts from fellow marketing bloggers sharing that there are just 90 days left until Blogger Social 08.  This is going to be a great informal gathering of marketing bloggers and something long overdue.  Organized primarily by marketing bloggers CK and Drew McLellan, the event now has a trailer of sorts, thanks to Mark Goren.  The video features images of all the bloggers attending the event, including me.  Which brings me back to my disclaimer from earlier.  I was planning to write about this event.  The video made it personal again for me and helped propel me to do it sooner rather than later.  It just goes to show, sometimes a bit of personalization (along with a play to blog ego - which we all have) makes the difference between just having great content and getting it talked about:

PS - If you are a marketing blogger, you should definitely consider registering yourself for Blogger Social 08 - it will be in NY on the weekend of April 4th.  Below is the list of just a few marketing bloggers already registered:

Susan Bird Tim Brunelle Katie Chatfield Terry Dagrosa Matt Dickman Luc Debaisieux Gianandrea Facchini Mark Goren Gavin Heaton Sean Howard CK Valeria Maltoni Drew McLellan Doug Meacham Marilyn Pratt Steve Roesler Greg Verdino CB Whittemore Steve Woodruff Paul McEnany Ann Handley David Reich Tangerine Toad Kristin Gorski Mack Collier David Armano Ryan Barrett Lori Magno Tim McHale Gene DeWitt Mario Vellandi Arun Rajagopal Darryl Ohrt Joseph Jaffe Rohit Bhargava Anna Farmery Marianne Richmond Thomas Clifford Lewis Green Geoff Livingston Kris Hoet Connie Reece CeCe Lee Jonathan Trenn Toby Bloomberg Seni Thomas

How to Build Your Personal Brand - Live Blogging the Personal Branding Summit

This is a great sign.  Today there is a very unique event happening throughout the day - the Personal Branding Summit is a telesummit of some top speakers all talking about the topic of personal branding.  It is a topic that is very close to my heart and one that I have been and will be writing about quite a bit in the coming months.  I am listening this morning to one of the first calls, featuring a panel discussion moderated by Guy Kawasaki and including Andy Sernovitz, Krishna De, John Jantsch, Tim DeMello.  The telesummit throughout the day is featuring lots of panels with some top speakers that you will definitely be able to learn a lot from.  I am not sure if I will be able to make any of the afternoon sessions, but here's my effort to live blog the session that just ended a few minutes ago by collecting the wisdom each panelist shared and pulling out some actionable insights for you in building your own personal brand:

1. Andy Sernovitz - One of my favourite writers and speakers, his Word of Mouth Marketing book belongs in your collection if you haven't already read it.  One of his main points was that if you don't have a personal brand, you have to sell yourself twice.  Having a personal brand answers the "who" question in a new situation and allows you to get right to the "why" and what you can do for someone.  Another point he made which I disagreed with somewhat was that you can never build a personal brand in someone else's empire.  I am in someone else's empire and building what I think is a fairly decent personal brand.  Could it be better or stronger if I was on my own?  Perhaps.
2. Krishna De - Krishna is someone who has just recently gotten on my radar for about a few weeks now, but she had some very smart things to say about personal branding and reputation.  Her main point was that we all have a personal brand, which is the same thing as our reputation.  What we need to focus on is using this as a way to differentiate ourselves.  She offers a great example of that herself, in what she has managed to do with list of blogs and podcasts: www.bizgrowthnews.com, www.todayswomeninbusiness.com, www.thepodcastsisters.com and www.talkingcoaching.com.
3. Guy Kawasaki - Guy was moderating the panel and used his engaging and laid back approach to again produce a session that people listening to could get a lot out of.  If you have never heard Guy speak and have the chance, I would suggest paying whatever you need to in order to make it happen.  His approach, method of delivery and thinking is inspirational for anyone marketing anything.  One of his most interesting points from the session was to point out that in his line of work (venture capitalism), a personal brand matters much less than the quality of an idea.  He noted that he would far rather find 2 guys in a garage somewhere who are unknown but have a great idea than people have a personal brand and are already established. 
4. John Jantsch - John is also someone I have admired for some time because of how he has created his Duct Tape Marketing method and helped small businesses around the world to market themselves better.  His core insight was that building a personal brand can help you charge more money for what you do.  It's an important distinction in a world where the ultimate goal that we all want to get to is selling our business to clients where money is not an issue and they will gladly pay what we ask because we provide that type of great value.  His second related point was that having a personal brand helps you to do what you want to do ... and choose work that is interesting for you.  His book, Duct Tape Marketing, is another that you should definitely pick up.
5. Tim DeMello - Founder of Ziggs.com, Tim shared the view that the way people find out about you today is the Internet.  There are 55 million searches a day for proper names - so you need to pay attention to your personal brand online.  His site, Ziggs is a beta community designed to help you do that.  I just signed up for a profile there to test it out and so far it seems great.  After a few days, I'll go back to test and see if my profile on Ziffs starts appearing on Google against my name.

Key Insights to act on:

1. Build your personal brand around a single word - You need to select a word you can own and then focus your marketing around that.  One great soundbite from the event was "there is no 'and' in brand."  Guy astutely pointed out, however, there is a "bra" in brand.  Not sure what to do what that, but maybe you'll come up with something.
2. Personal brands overlap company ones - get used to it. Sometimes this humanizes the company brand (Steve Jobs) and sometimes it creates risk (John Mackey with Whole Foods).  I tend to believe that the positives of this far outweigh the negatives.
3. The stronger the personal brand, the more easily you can get through the obstacles.  Essentially, a personal brand helps you to open doors and establish your reputation before walking into a situation, which helps you get to business once you're in the door.
4. Your personal brand lets you be more than your job.  This is a insight that was not really shared on the panel, but has been my experience with personal branding.  Just as the Internet once created a level playing field for small companies to compete with larger ones, personal branding has now become much simpler thanks to the Internet.  You can create your brand online and through doing so, you can rise out of whatever constraints you might have on your role or responsibilities at work.  It is the ultimate way to prove what you are capable of doing and not just doing a job you have been hired to do.  For the vast majority of corporate workers in roles where they are working for someone else, building a personal brand is the single best thing they can do for their careers.

Creating Talkability - Ad:Tech Panel Today

I am on my way to New York today for a morning panel discussion about how brands can "create talkability."  This is a topic I have been spending a lot of time on recently, because it brings together a lot of diverging ideas and is central to what most brands are trying to do.  In many ways, it could be the ultimate goal of your marketing because everything can follow from it.  If you have created something that people can't help talking about, that means they are probably buying it, and telling others to buy it.  Of course, there is a downside to talkability, and that is people talking about how dumb, lame, misguided or useless your product or service is.  Some say there is no such thing as bad publicity, but there definitely is. 

So how do you get people talking in a world where they are unlikely to listen to you, care at the time you are reaching them, and fall in love with your product in the way you want them to?  Our panel is going to be seeking the answers.  We have a great list of folks who will be participating, including:

• Samantha Skey, Executive VP, Strategic Marketing, Alloy Marketing
• Josh Warner, President, FEED Company
• Christian Anthony, Chairmand and Co-CEO, Special Ops Media
• Edward Sussman, President, Mansueto Digital
• Terence Thomas, Manager, Interactive Marketing and Client Services, BIA Information Network

It promises to be an insightful session and I'm looking forward to hearing what they all have to say, as well as sharing some quick impressions from Ad:Tech today.

 

 

 

                   

 

                   

RSS Ray Radio Show Today: An Inside Look At PNI

I give a good ten minute presentation.  In fact, if you think about the usual types of speaking outside of keynotes, ten minutes is really all you get.  This is not just for public speaking, but also in front of clients.  Talking for a long time rarely pays off.  On conference panels, the people rated smartest are usually those that make the shortest insights and avoid going on for too long.  In client situations, the most trusted advisors and consultants are the ones that can explain complex concepts quickly.  Length is your enemy, it seems, when it comes to speaking.

Yet every once in a while you do have a moment when you have the chance to have a longer block of time to speak.  Enough time to really explore a topic or share more than just a few soundbites of opinion or insight.  This is not the type of speaking that everyone does, because its far more likely to expose your weakness.  Yet on the few occasions when I have had the chance to do it (including a few weeks ago in Austin), I have found it enormously fulfilling.  Today at 2pm EST, I am doing a radio interview on the RSS Ray Online Marketing program for just about an hour.  We will cover a great range of topics, and more importantly I will share more details about Personality Not Included (PNI) and offer an inside look to what you'll find in the book.   

If you have time and can tune in, the show is available free online.  The show will also be uploaded to iTunes afterwards so you can download it and listen to it at your leisure.

A Lineup of All Stars at New New Internet in DC

This Thursday I have the chance to moderate a panel titled "Engaging your client community via blogs and social media" at the New New Internet event right here in the Washington DC area.  Aside from being one of the few local events that I have the chance to speak at after my whirlwind of events over the past few months everywhere but DC, it is also a sign of what Geoff Livingston (a great blogger and fellow member of my panel) called the "DC's red hot internet scene."  Frankly, that's nice to hear because it's easy to feel forgotten as a DC blogger if you are not writing about politics or the city itself.  Washington Post's Blogger Directory doesn't even have a category for business or marketing.

But small gripes aside, the tech space in DC has always had an interesting home and New New Internet is shaping up to be not just a great who's who of people in the DC area, but has also attracted some international bestselling authors, influential bloggers and top government officials.  Tim Ferriss will be there, as well James Suroweicki, Ted Leonsis, and Om Malik.  The full list of speakers goes on and on with some amazing names and personalities.  Our panel has a post-lunch spot in the main conference hall and is the main marketing panel of the day - so I am anticipating a great turnout.  We had a call with our panelists yesterday to chat about our session and it is one that I think is going to offer some great insights about using blogs and social media. 

Look for a recap from me on the entire event later this week - and if you happen to be in DC and can make it, click on the link from my sidebar for a $100 discount on your registration.  Also, check out Geoff's post on our panel from earlier this week where he asked a few of us to answer the question of what we saw as the greatest change that social media was bringing to marketing.   Here was my response:

I believe the greatest change that social media brought to marketing can be summed up in two words … accidental spokespeople. Marketing was once about creating and controlling the messages that built perception of your brand. Now those messages are being crafted by others. Those others are your accidental spokespeople, who are speaking for your brand even though they have not been trained or key messages or even authorized by you to do it.

Yet the answer is not to give up control - the answer is to share it. And control is the wrong word anyway … because now that everyone and anyone can speak for your brand, the important thing is to find your own accidental voices to tell your story. These may be your employees, or they may be your best and most vocal customers. Call them citizen marketers or call them consumer evangelists.

Either way, the change that social media has brought to marketing is the opportunity to find your new spokespeople in real voices. Whether or not you succeed depends in large part on how effectively you interact with these voices.

Here is our full list of panelists:

    Gary Vaynerchuck, WineLibrary.tv, Director of Operations
        Frank Gruber, AOL, Product Manager
        Geoff Livingston, Livingston Communications, CEO

 

A Recap of Ideas from Nielsen's CGM Summit 2007

I spent the day today at the Nielsen CGM Summit in NY listening to some panels and presentations from Nielsen and many of their clients about the future of measuring CGM.  One thing I was looking forward to about this event in particular is that the percentage of brands vs. agencies in attendance would be much more favored toward brands.  It is sadly ironic when you think about all the events that agency folks attend to basically talk to themselves, while their clients are all interested in (and spending time attending) events on measurement (which few creative folks from agencies would be able to stay awake through).  I must admit, I had a bit of a hard time staying awake myself today ... but to be fair, that was probably due to my redeye from the west coast to NY last night. 

In any case, I managed to stay awake throughout the day long enough to take some notes on some key takeaways from the summit which you will find below.  I also had the chance to meet several folks in person that I have been reading or known from afar, including Peter Kim, Henry Copeland, and Emanuel Rosen (author of The Anatomy of Buzz).  Though some of the "wonder of Nielsen" presentations that I expected throughout the day ran a bit long (not yours, Pete!) - overall the day was a great deep dive into all the ways we can and should be measuring.  As one speaker shared earlier in the day, "media is not an island" and is interconnected as consumers watch and interact with messages across mediums. Marketers may be specialists in one particular channel (TV, Online, Mobile, WOM, etc.) ... but consumers are most definitely becoming experts in all of them and use them concurrently. 

Anyway, here are some key notes and insights I took away from the event:

1. Influencers are emailers.  There was an interesting data point in one of the presentations that said that 55% of people who were considered "speakers" (those who share opinions vocally) have emailed directly to a company about a product that they liked.  This was a big insight throughout the day, as it indicated that brands seeking their influencers may simply need to listen more closely to the feedback they are already getting.
2. CGM generates powerful insights, not just influential voices to "target" - In response to a question from Max, I shared this point of view during the recap of the day and it was something that came up repeatedly throughout the morning.  Listening to CGM can drive strategy if you find the gaps which you can use CGM and social media to solve.  One example I shared was using CGM to find the conversation about Julian Beever (a sidewalk chalk artist) before we started our Fountain of Youth program for Aveeno.  We learned that there was lots of discussion online where people wanted to see more of his images and know how he does it.  So we created a Flickr gallery of all his images and a video of him drawing to rave reviews online.
3. Buzzphrase #1: Consumer Fortified Media - This was a new concept that Pete introduced in his presentation about how brands are putting their commercial messages online (like Dove Evolution), and consumers are talking about them and adding credibility to these messages, thus making them fortified.  Of course, there is a handy acronym for this as well: CFM.  (I suppose it could be CFM2 when those commercial messages are for products already "fortified" ... um, like Fruit Loops).
4. A new reason 2008 Superbowl ads will be better than the game - The guy from Fox Interactive shared that next year Fox has a deal with the NFL to create an official site where the 30 second spots will be accompanied by "long form video."  The smart marketers will take the chance to create "making of" secondary ads around their $3 million Superbowl spots.  Not sure how CGM plays a part here (unless lots of brands do the "you can create our Superbowl ad" thing again), but I still thought this idea of extending the most watching ads in the world with long form content behind them is a great concept.  Maybe worth an idea bar post at some point ...
5. "Getting out of the way" is a strategy - During the panel where media brands shared what they believe will happen in 2010, the guy from CBS talked about the things that they are doing and noted a significant moment where a random user placed a clip from Letterman where he interviewed Paris Hilton on YouTube and the clip got millions of views.  His point ... we didn't go after him, which signifies a great case study.  I loved the irony that getting out of the way is now considered a strategy.  Actually, sometimes it's the best one. 
6. Buzzphrase #2: Consumer Emulation - In this second concept from Pete's presentation early in the day, he talked about how we are in the midst of a wave of "consumer emulation."  Citing examples like the JetBlue and Mattel CEOs addressing the public as if they were doing consumer produced Youtube videos, or politicians and celebs who have Facebook or MySpace pages  - the point he made is that the pros are sometimes emulating the amateurs.  And of course, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't ...
7. It's not about volume anymore - The great conflict with how brands used to purchase media to buy influence online versus how they do now is that tricky measure of CPMs.  When you are buying in blocks of thousands of impressions, it is impossible to say you are not buying volume.  Yet as many marketers noted today, less is really becoming more.  One thought I shared is that sponsorships of blogs and social media sites that are persistent can offer a much higher value, but not measured in terms of page views, but rather in terms of brand perception.
8. The silo-fication of marketing remains a barrier - Many of the brands that participated in the day were large ones, and all seemed to struggle with similar issues when it comes to ownership.  This was not about the typical debate on whether blogs belong in corporate comm, or product development, or marketing, etc.  The silos on a macro level are those between marketing/communications, customer service, product testing, and other large divisions.  In many large organizations, these groups are in geographically disparate locations.  CGM may be a brilliant place to gather insight, but if the marketing team who gets the blog monitoring reports isn't sharing them with product development, or the customer service team who is speaking with a blogger doesn't share that information with marketing ... the power of CGM is never realized.

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Blog Action Day: 7 Tips on Eating Differently To Impact Climate Change

One thing I can't resist is an ambitious project.  As a marketer, if there is a groundswell for something that I believe in or find interesting, I am highly likely to try and be a part of it.  That's why I join all sorts of groups, and why I try to lend my voice to causes that I believe are worthwhile.  The latest effort that I have been looking forward to being part of is also the reason why I'm posting twice in a single day ... something I don't usually do.  Today is Blog Action Day - something I have been promoting on the sidebar of my blog for several weeks now.

The aim of the project is to collect together all kinds of bloggers to talk about the environment.  The site featured a very smart way of letting bloggers sign up early and attaches a currency to being first in how all the blog participants are listed (in order of joining rather than by size of blog - so I'm in the 4001 to 5000 list).  The built in measurement of the site is also done through aggregating the readers via RSS, which they planned for by requesting the RSS link for every blog that wanted to participate when you signed up.  So far, it's a brilliant model for how to run a blog centric social marketing campaign - and the results are stellar so far.  The site boasts more than 15,000 blogs participating with an aggregated RSS reach of more than 12 million readers, and is publishing real time updates on buzz on the Blog Action Day blog.

Let's consider this reach for a moment.  One of the big measurement challenges in blogging is to equate an RSS reader with a regular old impression.  Impressions are typically measured on a monthly basis and multiplied out.  RSS readers are individual readers and therefore far more accurate.  I happen to believe an RSS reader is more involved than a regular impression as well - but how much more?  Even if you conservatively say it is worth 2x as much, this gives the reach of Blog Action day nearly 25 million readers.  On a single day.  That's pretty impressive.

But the point of this post is to talk about the reach but to talk about the environment.  My original thought was to come up with something new to say about it ... but while I was live blogging at the Corporate Climate Response event a few months ago, I published a post about tips for eating differently to impact climate change.  That's my contribution for Blog Action Day, republished below:

7 Tips on Eating Differently To Impact Climate Change

During a session run by Tara Garnett from the Food Climate Research Network at the Corporate Climate Response Conference, she shared a wide range of interesting research that was likely difficult for most participants to absorb quickly enough (and extremely difficult to keep up with for blogging purposes!). Luckily, FCRN has a fantastic research archive published online at their website and also provide links to an assortment of research from other groups collected into a single archive. One of the more interesting points Garnett raised was what steps regular consumers could take in order to change their own eating habits to make an impact on CO2 emissions. This is often a little talked about topic, and as Garnett noted, it is notoriously difficult to ask consumers to do - mostly because of the huge cultural significance of food and the difficulty of sacrifice. For many consumers, however, it may simply be a lack of information. For all of them, here are 7 tips Garnett shared about ways you can change your eating habits to have an impact:

1. Change the balance of what you eat (less meat and dairy, “lower down” on the food chain)
2. Choose seasonal field grown foods (require less storage, heating & transport)
3. Do not eat or purchase certain foods (including foods that are hothoused or those that are air freighted)
4. Reduce your dependence on the “cold chain” (get rid of the second freezer, choose less processed robust foods and do more frequent non car-based shopping)
5. Waste less food (improve your “food turnover” to eat what you buy sooner and reduce wastage)
6. Cook more efficiently (cook for more people and for several days at a time, use the oven less frequently)
7. Redefine your ideal for quality (be willing to accept variability in quality and supply

In addition to this post, here are a few other posts from this blog over the past year which may hopefully inspire your thinking and perhaps even inspire some action:

"Greenest Hits" From Influential Marketing Blog:

• The Greenest Sports Event on Earth
• The Marketing of "An Inconvenient Truth"
• Live Earth Includes DC, Thanks To The Native Americans
• One Hour No Power Campaign - And Other Ways to Save the World
• Wikimapia, Google's Green Summer and Marketing Mashups

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