Creative Traction » Marketing

Ambassador vs Advocate: Which do you want for your company?

Duane Brown — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 10:00:53 +0000

I had a stimulating conversation this past week with a colleague about the difference between an ambassador and an advocate….. well more to the point if there was a difference. There are some who believe they are one and the same but I don’t believe there are. There is a subtle difference and that difference is important for a company to know.

Advocate: They are the people who defend a company against all odds. They can be considered the vocal few. Apple is a perfect example of a company that has many advocates working for the brand. Advocates love the brand, follow new product releases and general show their support for the brand. However, advocates are not sanctioned by the company as an official company spokesperson.

Ambassador: Are exactly the same as an advocate but are sanctioned by the company as an official company spokesperson. In a community there is the majority of the community, then advocates and then ambassadors and after that comes moderators/ director of community and finally the company.

To get back to the title of this post. I think a company needs a healthy balance of both in order to survive in this environment. Apple does seem to make it work with only advocates but Apple is a rare exception. I don’t think many company’s can operate like Apple does in this day and age.

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A Guerilla Experiment in Sentiment Analysis

Duane Brown — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 23:59:20 +0000

Syncapse, a digital technology agency, recently release a new whitepaper on Tuesday called A Guerilla Experiment in Sentiment Analysis

The summarization of large amounts of information into a single digestible Key Performance Indicator is a major problem in social media measurement. The dominant paradigm in social listening tools is to rate all content with a positive, neutral, or negative value. We call this the Generic Sentiment Score. A major source of dissatisfaction among marketers and PR professionals is the overall accuracy generated by this score and the machines that try to approximate this value. This experiment proves that there are many versions of truth among humans when asked to score the same content. The authors conclude that the Generic Sentiment Score is not enough and that a more comprehensive approach is required.

Read the report this week and it’s an interesting look at one aspect of social media monitoring that defiantly needs more work and research into.

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Custom Facebook Pages

Duane Brown — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 03:55:42 +0000

I’ve been doing a lot of research the last week for a new project I’m working on. I’ve been researching options and possibilities for Facebook Pages as well as seeing what some of the biggest and not so bad brands on Facebook have been doing. As you can imagine, there is a wide spectrum of creative and great execution from different brands like H&M, The Free Press and Red Bull. However, there was a fan page that stood out to me and I really felt tried to being its personality to life:

Adidas

Really enjoying their “Your Area” tab. It mixes photos, video and helps fans locate stores (link to main Adidas site store finder)
What really makes the fan page stand out is the attempt at making an augmented reality app based around their sneakers
The fan page has the usually events listing, and YouTube channel integration

If you are on the hunt for examples of some custom Facebook Pages like me. Then check out Custom Facebook Pages. A few of the Facebook Pages have changed since they were added to the site, which is a great thing as we can see how the branding is changing on Facebook over time.

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Google’s Super Bowl Ad

Duane Brown — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:38:03 +0000

I didn’t spent yesterday watching the Super Bowl like most people. I was at a friend’s house having a potluck. Everyone seems to be talking about Google’s Super Bowl Ad and having just watched it. I really enjoyed the ad.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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The 2010 Ipsos Canadian Inter@ctive Reid Report

Duane Brown — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:28:45 +0000

Last week Ipsos Canadian released the The 2010 Inter@ctive Reid Report. It’s interesting that 89% of Canadians have access to the Internet and 8% of those people still happen to be using dial-up. I’d think that the 8% is mostly up in Northern Canada near our provinical boarders. The report also covers:

Online Security and Privacy
Social Networking
Online Teens
Twitter
E-Commerce/Online Coupons
Online Travel– Brand vs.Price
Online Financial Services

The report is only 3 pages in length but a good quick read to stay current on how Canadians are using the Internet compared to Americans and the rest of the world.

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Geo-Mapping: Changing Demographics

Duane Brown — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 20:35:35 +0000

Today I spent the day at a client’s conference: CFA Marketing Day 2010 and saw a great presentation on Geo-Mapping: Changing Demographics:

Wouldn’t you love to see exactly where your competition is located? How about finding out whether the area you have in mind can support the business? Wouldn’t you just love a road map to business success and savings? Geo-mapping may be the answer. In this session, learn how you can leverage existing data through geo-mapping and how geo-mapping has revolutionized market research and practices.

Presented by: Paul Thompson P.CRM, Senior Manager, Client Services, Pitney Bowes Business Insight
Paul Thompson draws upon over 15 years experience in helping franchisors and franchisees better manage their operational strategies. Having worked with the who’s who of Canadian retailing and restaurants, Paul brings intelligence, insight and intuition to bear on the tough challenges facing today’s retailers.

Still digesting alot of what I heard but it was a fascinating look into an area of marketing that I don’t spend a lot of time playing in.

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I’m not my client

Duane Brown — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 00:47:10 +0000

I’ve been putting in new processes at work and trying to streamline my workload. This way I can spend more time working on projects that I love and being creative in my job. Part of this means making sure everything I create circles back to the marketing and brand I want to get across to clients.

As I’m going down this journey in 2010 and look back at the last year. I often have to remind myself that I’m not my cleint. I don’t spend all day surfing the internet reading news, checking out new technology and generally have a great time with what is possible. I’ve to make sure even more that I don’t over complicate proposals and focus even more on the end result. Taking all of that and making sure the critical thinking I do ends up on the paper. I’m often worried about adding to much information to a proposal but I need to work on finding that balance between not enought and to much. It’s a fine line and one I want to find the balace between. Something to think about as I start creating more client material for 2010.

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New Creative for Video Game Rating System

Duane Brown — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 03:58:04 +0000

Cristina Gomez created some really cool new material for her senior thesis at Middle Tennessee State. Check out the work over at GameSetWatch.

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TinyURL.com in a Print TTC Ad

Duane Brown — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 20:47:58 +0000

I was traveling on the TTC on Tuesday headed out to Yorkdale mall with a friend from out of town. I tend to check out all the ads on the subway and look for new ones. I noticed that an ad for St. Stephen’s Community House, which is a social agency helping people develop skills and back into the work force.

The URL they were using on the ad (www.TInyURL.com/JobConnect) just took people to their homepage. However, I thought it was interesting to see a non-profit use a URL shortner in one of their print ads. Traditionally you wouldn’t see academia & non-profits take such and upswing in the use of “cutting edge” technology. I’d have rather they used Bit.ly so they can tracking the stats of how their ad is doing. Maybe even use different URLs for different prints ads to see which ones are driving traffic to their site. But the fact we are starting to see non-profits harnessing the latest techology to market themselves is great. Check out below for a couple photos I snapped with my BlackBerry.

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Blackbox Republic Launches

Duane Brown — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 03:45:20 +0000

Blackbox Republic is a new site that lunched tonight at 9pm PST. You can check out the launch video below and learn how Sam & April are looking to change the social network-cum-dating site profile game.

Blackbox Republic is looking to let people express who they are and not confine themselves to just one area. I’ve been messing around with the site for the last few months as a founding member and giving the team as much feedback as possible. There is still one bug issue we’re trying to workout but so far the site is preforming really well. There are about founding 500 members from over 12 countries right now and lets hope we can grow that with the launch tonight. Sam founded the site because…

We need a new melting pot. A label-free place to complete our personal life. Welcome to Blackbox Republic. Social networking revolutionized life for millions. That revolution has remixed dating, love, and social life. Blackbox Republic is the place to let go. No matter where we are or what we’re doing, we can instantly discover what we need today. Whether it be dates, hookups, friends, or just a damn good party.

I’m really looking forward to trying out the site as it grows over the holidays. You can check out what a typical profile within the site looks like. Look me up if you sign up and lets connect.

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