Next time you're in the shower

…think about how you can make people’s lives better.

Last week, I went to a Contagious lecture called Brand as Interface. This means, in this cluttered world, where every brand is vying for a piece of your time, brands need to work harder to justify the time they want in peoples’ lives.

Like I mentioned in my previous post, to satisfy our client’s objectives we need to put the customer at the heart of the solution, creating a valuable exchange. How can we do this? Let me explain through an example:

The Red Tomato VIP Hungry Button, is a button you push and it automatically orders your desired pizza from Red Tomato, a pizza company in Dubai. 

The objective was how can we get people ordering more pizza?

Rather than going to the old standby offer - buy one get one free, etc., they looked at the barriers to ordering a pizza. Instead of looking to gain more market share, they looked internally at their customer journey first, and realised there was a significant language barrier when people were calling to make their order. The realised that in Dubai, with people from so many different countries with many different accents, the typical call to order took something like 9-minutes. The barriers were too high to order pizza regularly.

Taking this insight, they created a button people register online with their mobile number and favourite order. Then when they're hungry for a pizza, all they have to do is push the button and within 30-minutes their pizza is delivered.

They distributed the button to their existing customers, passing out about 3,000 buttons, which resulted in around 97,000 requests for the button after hearing about it.  This simple solution increased deliveries by 500% in only 4 weeks. And it only cost the business $9,000 to make!

A simple solution, with massive impact, because it provided meaningful value to their customers, while also meeting the business' objectives.

So next time we get a brief from a client to do a promotion pushing more product, get more people to do ‘X’, etc, lets take a step back and look at what’s preventing people from doing what the client wants them to do, and start thinking of the solution from here, looking for the desired outcomes first, in relation to the customer, and then devising the solution.

So, I challenge all of us, when we’re in the shower, cycling or walking into work, lets think about what we can create, on behalf of our clients, to make people’s lives better.

Questions before Answers

48 Sheets, Facebook pages, TV commercials, mobile apps, Pinterest boards, etc. are not questions. Rather, they may be the answer...maybe!

To get to the answer, we need a specific question - a question based on a business specific challenge/opportunity/etc. (i.e. our NPS is low, our conversion rate a low, retention keeps declining, our call center calls are doubling, we're losing margin, we have a random group of people who have found a new use for our product, etc.), while centering it around the customer's needs - what's the outcome/result we're trying to achieve for the customer.

It's important to map out the customer's journey in relation to the client's objectives to determine the task. Mapping the journey begins to identify gaps, pain points and other opportunities the organization to can solve to enhance to person's experience, providing them with genuine value. Once you have a particular gap identified, you can begin to frame your question/task.  And only at this point can you start to explore the types of technology and/or platforms you can leverage to solve this question.

So, the next time you think your brand needs an app, ask why? What am I really trying to achieve here? Maybe an app isn't the right solution, maybe there's a more effective and meaningful solution at the heart of my actual objective.

The same goes for agencies - the next time your client asks for a Pinterest idea, etc., ask why before saying yes. Determine the root business challenge they're trying to solve. Then say yes to solving that question, which may result in a partnership program, a bespoke community, a new product, who knows what it could be, but at least you can be sure your client's objectives are being met with the consumer's interests and needs in mind, resulting in an effective, insight driven piece of work that matters.

Spontaneous Brand Value

Last week, my flat was robbed, and to my surprise an interesting brand related observation came about.

To anyone whose home has been broken into, I'm sure you will agree it's an awful feeling - knowing someone has riffled through your things, without any consideration of the personal value you have for your possessions, picking and choosing what to take based on what they think will sell the fastest and for the highest price.

It's a horrible experience, but I couldn't help but think, "what an interesting way to gauge spontaneous brand value!"

In my case, Apple and Tiffany were clear winners of high spontaneous brand value.

The scene was strange to me, with a Louis Vuitton speedy bag, Chanel earrings and an external hard drive laying on the bed, along with my Tiffany silver key necklace on top of the chest of drawers. What wasn't there made the scene even more bizarre - surprise surprise my MacBook and iPad were gone, along with all my heirloom jewellery. Then after a couple hours of the initial shock, I realised the robbers took my empty Tiffany boxes, but left the actual Tiffany necklace on the chest of drawers!!

Wow! Talk about the power of well branded packaging! It proved to have higher spontaneous brand value than the product itself!

The famous Tiffany blue and it's iconic boxes are imbedded in people's minds around the world as a symbol of high value products that even my robbers, who are clearly not very bright, leaving Chanel boxes, let alone the jewellery, behind, assumed high return on theft based on the packaging alone - no matter what's inside, the blue box told him it's worth something.

This made me realise there's an interesting way to determine/measure brand value - ask your ideal consumers to take what ever they think has the greatest value (which would be first to sell and for the greatest amount) on first sight, from a selection of you and your competitors' products.

This then tells you if all your marketing initiatives are adequately adding up to a strong positioning and perceived value in your market.

Even though I could have done without this experience, it's always best to look for opportunities. This is why I'm going to see how long I can go without a computer, relying solely on my iPhone for all my personal computing needs, hence this post has been written on my iPhone this afternoon :)


Chat soon,
Nik

Engage with Purpose

Lately, I've been working with a number of organisations on how to leverage social media to help define their brand. And what I've come to realise, is that most brands are not using social media intelligently. Rather than thinking about what role they want social channels to play in delivering the brand's promise, while satisfying key business objectives, they begin yelling, trying to out-post the competition. Sadly, this results in either upset followers, who then unfollow those brands or, worse, they become jaded and skim over anything those brands have to say, as followers become conditioned to believe that it's another meaningless piece of branded content.

Brands need to smarten up, and have more realisations like the one my client had last week, where they said, 'for too long we thought social media was a free place to post all the stuff we didn't have budget for...but to do it right, it requires budget, focus and effort' - Amen!

So, rather than trying so hard to engage with consumers, which results in a ton of meaningless content pushed onto people, let's be more precious with those moments to engage. What do I mean by this? I'm talking about Precious Posting - engage with purpose, less often and with greater impact!

Treat engagement on social channels like a beating heart...if your heart beats too fast, it's unable to push an adequate amount of blood through your body, making it work harder and, over time, causes stress to the heart which may lead to heart failure down the line. But if your heart stops completely...well, we know what happens then. So really, you should have a steady heart rate with adequate pauses between beats, allowing each beat to be strong enough to push the right amount of blood through your body.

This works the same for engaging with people online. If a brand pumps out tons of 'engaging' content everyday, followers eventually just skim over the content because it becomes overwhelming. Then the brand works even harder to get its message heard/experienced for little to no impact. On the flip side, if a brand isn't present on social channels, it won't appear on people's radars one bit, making the brand irrelevant compared to its competition, who is present.

So, what's the happy medium?

It's to engage with followers when the brand actually has something to say. Don't post anything that doesn't serve a purpose. It must engage with followers in a way that is useful to them and contains a singular message, so not to confuse or overwhelm them. Then, during the times you aren't doing anything new and noteworthy, stay quite. Continue to create meaningful content, but on a significantly lower frequency.

With Precious Posting in social media, brand's are able to put more energy towards creating truly remarkable moments of engagement, during periods that are important to the organisation and the followers. This results in greater standout among the competition, because rather than just pushing out lots of average content, your brand will push out one amazing thing, that is relevant to your followers, capturing their attention and stimulating the domino effect of organic reach as they share the cool thing your brand just did.

So before you decide you need to be in social channels, ask yourself why? And what role can your brand play in this space? If you decide it's the right place for your brand, be considered with your engagement and only post when you have something of merit going on to maximise your impact.

Make each post precious!

The Fundamental 3: Dynamic - Versatile - Personal

To kick-off my blogging, after a 4-month break, I thought I would start by talking about MIT Media Lab's logo - I know, ironic, considering this blog is called More Than A Logo, but that's why I want to talk about this logo in particular.

MIT Media Lab's logo is one with an algorithm that creates 40,000 permutations and 12 colour combinations, which supplies the lab with approximately 25 years worth of personalised logos! So really, MIT Media Lab has realised that their brand is more than A logo.

This is not the first of flexible and adaptable logos, consider the logo Wolff Olins created for Aol. a few years ago. But what I like about these dynamic logos is that they reflect the importance in not being precious about your logo, or even your brand for that matter.

Brands, today, need to be dynamic and flexible to continually remain relevant in their market. As technology continues to rapidly change, it becomes easier for new, agile competitors to enter the market and change the rules of the game. So, existing brands need to find ways to break routine, process, and the overall mind-set of '...but this is how we've been doing it for 25 years' to stay ahead of these new entrants and even be daring enough to reinvent the market themselves!

Technology has also made it easier for people to influence and define brands based on their interactions and subsequent conversations about them within their networks. This is not new news, but the level to which their impact has been amplified is new and cannot be ignored.

So, what MIT Media Lab's logo can teach us, is that today's brands need to be:

1. Dynamic - never fearing change, rather embracing it and leading the way
2. Versatile - don't be bound by bureaucracy, routine or 'it's the way we do things' process
3. Personal - avoid being generic, and become something relevant  to individuals 

To ensure all of this can happen, there needs to be, like MIT Media Lab's logo, an algorithm at the heart driving the organisation together at one, so that no matter how many variations of bringing to life the brand it still talks, walks and looks like the same organisation - and that algorithm is the brand audacious noble purpose - the reason it exists, and why it will remain in existence.

I'm Back!

There's a saying in the agency world - 'Always be pitching' - and that is just what I have been doing. So after a rather intense 4 months of pitching with a rewarding win and even a graduation speech back in Canada to 2000 people, I'm back and ready to start blogging again.

Just as these past busy 4 months kicked off, I read an amazing HBR article mentioning how stress isn't the enemy. It mentioned how, like physical training, it's important to push yourself out of your comfort zone and challenge your mind to feel truly engaged, but then intentionally take time after to rest and restore to then be able to amp your ability even further going forward.

So, this time, rather than to just keep going, I took two weeks to find time and focus on my daily projects, run, sleep through an entire evening, take in some exhibits and read. This restoration period was very intentional, and it has worked!

Yesterday, during my run, I found that my brain was suddenly full of inspiration and thoughts for blog posts. But these thoughts wouldn't have been planted had I not pushed myself so hard these past 4 months, and then took the time to rest and let all my thoughts subconsciously come together.

I really challenge anyone to push themselves to be uncomfortable and think hard about problems they haven't solved before, or try to solve a challenge in half the time. Then take time to purposefully relax and rejuvenate - let your mind wonder and have all the things you've been thinking about come together forming clarity of mind. It's rather nice.

Needless to say, I'm excited to start blogging again :)

Facebook, take credit for what you do!

Facebook - THE Social Network. It's used by 800 million+ people regularly. So regularly, that there are people who check Facebook first thing when they wake up, before they go to be and, yes, sometimes in the middle of the night! Facebook has made us realise and amplify our need to be social and remain connected. They have done this so well that its market value is around 100 billion dollars!

But I read an Interbrand article the other day that made me realise, that while Facebook satisfies people's connections today, this perfectly seamless utility isn't taking credit for the role it plays in people's lives.  You see, Facebook is continually inventing ways to make our lives better through sharing, connecting, etc., and while we use and benefit from these services daily, if not many times a day, we are building loyalty to those features, not the Facebook brand!

Unlike Google, Facebook has yet to give meaning to what they do - giving their brand a higher purpose than providing a utility that, as their homepage says, 'helps you connect and share with the people in your life,'

REALLY?! That can't be simply what Facebook does - it's not!  So I can't help but think after reading this weak role is, why does that matter?

Google helps organise the world's information making it universally accessible and useable - now that's a role. And it's a role, whether explicitly said or not, that allows Google to grow its business in new areas, and taking what's at its core, quick, easy and effective search, to new and exciting business areas (like email, maps, translation, mobile, etc.), while maintaining the trust of its users. After all, user trust is essential because it's our information and eyeballs that's at the heart of both Google and Facebook's revenue generation.

People are more trusting of Google having access to their information than Facebook, because, through its purpose and branded actions on that purpose, people know why Google has/uses your information, and how it benefits us!  

But with Facebook, on the other hand, we aren't explicitly shown in a branded way how its service and the use of our information is benefiting us, nor are we clear why it matters that we're using Facebook. This is opposite to Google, who, when I get to amazing things because of them, make sure I know it's them providing that killer service...thank you Google Maps, etc.

Being an organisation whose users are loyal to its features rather than the brand, as Facebook seems to be at the moment places it in a rather precarious situation. Because, let's be honest, we never know when the next revolutionary thing is about to pop up, and Facebook needs a strong brand to remain competitive.

So, although Facebook is incredible today, and winning because there is a critical mass of people on their site with high switching costs to move to another social network, if they don't articulate a meaningful brand purpose, which is demonstrated by taking credit for the amazing, and free, services they enable, trust in the brand will remain fuzzy and people will remain loyal to the service but not the brand. Additionally, once they establish a far reaching purpose they will be able to evolve the brand over time, with greater credibility, to ensure it's relevancy and revolutionise new areas as it has done with socialising the web.

Lets Play A Game

This past week, I participated in M&C Saatchi's first hack day, Game5hack, which was 6 teams building fully functional online based games over two days. It was the first time I had ever done something like this, and I'm certainly glad I did, and it won't be the last. What a great experience!

As a strategist, who believes everything an organisation creates should be dedicated to delivering the brand's promise, it was really great to be exposed to the world of play - something that doesn't necessarily have purpose other than to be fun and entertaining! It was wonderful to let brainstorming start from a blank slate and think of fun ways to engage people and immerse them in a world of fun.

This experience has made me realise the importance of fun and game play. In fact, I see great value in brands building more play into their customer experiences. After all people respond instantly to entertaining/engaging experiences, and games are just that. And with technology becoming more mobile and social, we're able to bridge the gap between online and offline experiences, which creates a marvellous environment to introduce game play to certain elements to the brand experience.

Although the wicked 1980's arcade style game, inspired by the classic Wall Street film, we built last week was purely a game, it got me thinking about how you can take a human action/behaviour, like trading stocks, and add playful elements to make the experience more entertaining and engaging. These then work together to motivate the user/customer/person to remain involved with the game, or the brand, in the case of an organisation.

Games seems like a great way to immerse people in a brand, involving them in the content. It goes back to that Benjamin Franklin quote I love so much:

"Tell me and I'll forget,
Show me and I might remember,
Involve me and I'll understand"

The more we involve our audience in the brand, through relevant and fun experiences, the more they will be able to associate with the brand, increasing advocacy.  The influential and highly motivating nature of games, makes them prime candidates to help change behaviour, teach new skills or simply maintain attention for a long period of time, which is ideal for branded experiences. However, brands must be sensitive to force the creation of games, or it seems contrived, and, frankly, people see right through this nowadays. A brand must have a relevant reason to build a game, and it should be rooted in insight based on existing human behaviour, which is relevant to the brand's purpose/role.

So for instance, McDonalds created Pick n' Play last year, which was a massive interactive billboard in Sweden where people could use their mobile devices to play ping pong on a giant billboard. This lived up to the brand's purpose of making people happy, but it also created a fun/positive way for people to engage with the brand for a long period of time, giving them a great story to share with their friends.

You can even build games into the way people interact with products, extending the brand experience beyond the tangible item. For this we can look at Lego's Life of George set. It's a lego kit that has you download a mobile app where you build various objects, take pictures of them timing how fast you are versus other players. It's another way to increase time spent with the brand, but it also creates a sense of achievement, which acts as another way to fuel brand stories furthering the brand conversation/story.

Lastly, we can look at games that are dedicated to positively influencing behaviour change like Nike+, which allows you set running challenges for yourself or even run against others. This has revolutionised Nike to begin looking at both product and service offerings. Nike+ has made the brand more relevant, defining its role and becoming a facilitator/motivator of fitness.  I personally think it would be interesting to see gyms build games into their offering. I mean we see this with some fitness equipment, where they place you on a track and you can race against the person exercising next to you! What a great way to distract you from the pain/boredom of riding/running in one spot for an extended period of time!

All-in-all, I'm excited to think more about gaming and how we can incorporate play in a relevant and meaningful way to stimulate fun and exciting brand engagement. Sometimes, in business, we think everything has to be so serious (I'm one to fall into this trap) and we often forget about our love of games, and that they can make simple things, like spelling words from a collection of random letters (i.e. Scrabble), a lot of fun!

So in the spirit of 2012, which I believe to be all about engaging experiences, lets talk less and play more!

Contextual Content is King

Note: This is the first program to air on TV, where people started to see a meaningful need for one of these big boxes in their home over a radio.

I've been thinking a lot about content lately, and how we've grown to be so dependent on it. But not only that, it has to be the right content on the right channel in the right moment.  Content is no longer king on its own. Rather, it's contextually relevant content that's king.

This concept isn't new in the slightest.

Just look at the TV.  No one could rationalise why they would ever need a TV over a radio for information and entertainment. That was until special TV programming was introduced in 1930s. It all started with a test to prove the medium's ability through its first ever television drama The Man With the Flower in His Mouth. The test was a success, and, well, the rest is history.


To prove the relevancy of this product, the TV, it needed to become the answer to a consumer need, even if that need hadn't been fully realised yet. By giving people content in a way that both satisfied their current needs and made them realise new ones (i.e. 'You mean I can see what people are doing while they speak, just like the cinema, but in my home?!"), you can carve a space in those people's lives for your offering. And the better a brand meets these needs, meaning the more relevant the solution is, the more it will be embedded in their daily routines.  


Clearly, by me using an example from 1930, this is not a new concept.  But what is new is that we're seeing this kind of thinking injected in the world of brand positioning and communications, blurring the lines between product development and marketing.


In the recent Most Contagious 2011 report, it talks about marketing as service design. With brands' ability to access and use consumer data, that's available because of people's digital lives, it enables brands to see gaps and/or unmet needs it can fill.  Additionally, because consumers are aware that brands know more about them, they expect more relevant and ultimately less company-serving marketing being presented to them.  


In fact, for people to stick with a brand these days, they expect to be to engaged in a relevant manner, which encourages their participation (collaboration in product/service/experience design) in both on- and offline arenas seamlessly, while still delivering what they want before they even have to ask. 


At the heart of engagement, which is seen as a branded service more and more, is the delivery of content beyond the product extending its value. This proves the brand's value in people's lives because it's demonstrating that it 'gets' you and why you buy its products/services/etc.

But it's not content alone. There's a lot of content out there - too much in fact! It's about contextual content. Contextual content has been curated by subject matter experts and delivered to you at that moment of need.

This is where the branded service comes into play. The brand can be the subject matter expert for a topic they are known for and deliver on based on their brand purpose and existing products/services/etc. They can then create and/or curate interesting and useful (aka relevant) content and provide people access to it during a moment of need.

Take Simple - the "Worry-free alternative to traditional banking" for example. Simple is not a bank. In fact it uses another un-named bank as its banking provider, but what it does do, which is the reason for all its popularity, is overlay a service on the banking experience. This service is providing content that people feel is missing. Like being able to see real-time transaction data or using natural language to search your  entire transaction history (i.e. "How much did I spend on lunches in July?"). By making this content not only more accessible but contextual, the brand is able to establish more loyalty from users because it creates an extremely useful experience.

Another example, featured in the Most Contagious 2011 report, is Sneakerpedia by Foot Locker. Sneakerpedia is a: 

"Wiki-esque website [that] enables users to create a profile and then upload pictures of all the cool kicks in their collection - complete with a brief history and info on the make, model, material etc. This tagging helps the site to then archive each model correctly, creating a vast and infinitely navigable database of every significant sneaker ever bought and cherished"

Here Foot Locker has created an environment where people can collect and curate their personal shoe data, while learning from a large body of other shoe data they wouldn't normally see, to see what other amazing kicks people have and connect with those who share their passion. So not only are they offering unique content, but they're also inspiring their customers to create their own content and foster their passion! Further embedding the brand into its customer's lives.


I recently read a great quote from Mark Addicks, CMO of General Mills, which I feel sums this up perfectly:

"In 2012, many marketers will start with content as a way to engage their best customers and grow their business versus advertising...They will realise the power of content to enhance the brand experience, deliver the brand's purpose and extend opportunities for the brand to serve"

So how is your brand going to get to know its customers and their behaviour to provide branded content in a way, and at a time, that provides value to their daily lives beyond the product?  
How will you make contextual content king?

Patagonia - Legally Bound to its Purpose

Finally, a brand, other than Apple, we can express immense admiration for, or as my flatmate tweeted this week, "open-mouth kiss" - hello Patagonia!

Last week, I wrote about its Common Threads initiative, where Patagonia clearly establishes its role/purpose within the global community - "to build useful things that last, to repair what breaks and recycle what comes of its useful life"- then asks its customers to do the same to help accomplish its purpose.


Now, Patagonia has asked the government to help it truly live by its purpose without boundaries, becoming California's first Benefit Corporation. This gives Patagonia's directors legal protection to consider social and environmental benefits over financial returns!


"This new legal status was designed to embed goals into companies’ missions that go beyond profitability"


For too long, companies have had to sacrifice their brand purpose - the big hairy audacious goal they set out to accomplish upon inception - to meet the short-term demands of shareholders when going public.  I'm ecstatic to see a brand who wasn't afraid to challenge the rules and ask for support from the government to ensure its ability to live up to its brand purpose everyday.


Often, shareholders are so concerned with short-term returns, that they forget to take a long-view perspective of the brand.  By Patagonia actively, consistently and, now, legally living up to its brand everyday, helping reduce unnecessary purchases and creating products that will live 'forever', it establishes immense trust and advocacy for the brand, which creates demand and sustained or even increased value for itself in the long-term.

It's a step in the right direction, having brands ask for and receiving support, to create, and be truly caring, responsible and sustainable brands.  I look forward to seeing more brands become Benefit Corporations or finding other creative ways to satisfy their big hairy audacious dreams!  The key is not to be afraid to imagine what isn't possible today and ask for it, so it can be a reality tomorrow!

Note: Image found here

2012 - Let's Say Less and Play More

Image Found Here

Happy 2012!! 

I think we're in for another exciting year, and I'm rather pleased where branding is going, maybe slowly, but it's in the right direction...let me explain...

With so much distrust and uncertainty - lots of skepticism - towards corporations and advertising, people are more receptive to brands that are consistent in their actions, transparent with information and good to everyone around them.

However, a consistent, transparent and good brand cannot be developed through an ad campaign any more. People are too smart and have endless access to information (thanks to Google searches and social network, SMS, etc. conversations). Rather, brands have to prove this behaviour and be truly recognised for it and its brand claim, which should be or be tied to its brand purpose.

So for 2012, rather than the 'x' number of things we need to be on our radar this year, I think there is only one to focus on: brands needs to think about long-term engagement programs not campaigns.

Campaigns are born to die, which don't lend themselves to the consistency people want, no demand from their brands. Programs come from the heart of the business, and are built to grow and evolve with purpose at the root.

For a program to be successful, it requires the support of various internal parties, along with engaging and collaborating with consumers. This creates a transparent and communal environment around the brand's purpose/essence.  

The ecosystem created from an initiative is beneficial for a couple reasons:

1. The IKEA Effect - being a part of something, either helping it take form or being involved in someway makes someone proud of their creation/involvement and, therefore, more attached to that brand stimulating loyalty and advocacy
2. Real-Time Consumer Insights - by having people involved enables the brand to learn more about their consumers in context with how they interact with the product, service, program, etc., creating a continuous learning loop to optimise, not only the experience/message but also the product/service being offered. This ensures your brand evolves in a way that is relevant to the market.

To encourage a deeper level of engagement, creating meaningful social connections within the brands community, created from the initiative, there needs to be a powerful motivating purpose exciting both internal staff and consumers to choose to be involved and, more importantly, stay involved.

To do this, the initiative has to be focused on something the brand actually cares about and has the ability to act on, both physically (you can actually do it) and mentally (it aligns with, or delivers on, your brand purpose).  This becomes the brand's opportunity to prove what it stands for while making a positive impact in the real world.

Initiatives are by far not new, just look at the Dove Real Beauty campaign, which is a long-term campaign aimed to do good. Or Threadless, which is a highly engaging platform, nay business model! But what we're seeing is these two elements coming together more and more. So it's becoming something with relevant do-good meaning at the heart, fusing with consumer involvement and engagement to provide some kind of relevant experience that defines a role for a brand in those people's lives.

Just look at Patagonia's Common Threads Initiative where it partnered with eBay to reduce excess consumption by creating a site where people can buy pre-owned Patagonia merchandise. This proves Patagonia's role as a builder of "useful things that last, to repair what breaks and recycle what comes of its useful life", while giving its consumers a role in aiding Patagonia's mission.  Consumers are asked"to buy only what [they] need, repair what breaks, reuse (share) what [they] no longer need, and recycle everything else". This initiative not only becomes a reason to believe in Patagonia's purpose, but gives its consumers the tool they need to hold up their end of the bargain, helping the brand sustain its purpose. I LOVE IT!

Consumers are beginning to expect these kinds of programs from their brands, which aids in re-building trust and loyalty, in addition to maintaining this as markets become over saturated and people spend less on things and more on life enriching experiences.

So this year, rather than just saying stuff to our consumers, let's ask them to play, hangout, share stories and build things together. After all, isn't that how some of our closest and most meaningful relationships, which we feel comfortable confiding in, are built? 

Let's do the same for brands. Lets help them build ways to play and engage with their consumers over the long-term creating an ecosystem that gives them a role in their consumers' lives that they will happily welcome you into because it offers them real meaningful value.

Happy 2012!! Let's play!