Why do some companies/brands/products mean something to us, while others do not? What is the magic glue that adheres consumers to Google, Mini Cooper and Oprah, but not to others? Why do many brands with great product innovation, perfect locations, terrific customer experiences, even breakthrough advertising fail to get the same visceral reaction in the marketplace that brands like Apple, Starbucks, or Nike have?
Full Description >

Why do some companies/brands/products mean something to us, while others do not? What is the magic glue that adheres consumers to Google, Mini Cooper and Oprah, but not to others? Why do many brands with great product innovation, perfect locations, terrific customer experiences, even breakthrough advertising fail to get the same visceral reaction in the marketplace that brands like Apple, Starbucks, or Nike have?

Patrick Hanlon, CEO and founder of Thinktopia set out to find the answers. His search revealed seven definable assets that together construct the belief system that lies behind every successful brand, whether it’s a product, service, city, personality, social cause or movement. These assets became the framework for his best-selling book, Primal Branding. In this exciting and interactive session,

In this powerful kickoff to Brand ManageCamp 2008, Patrick Hanlon will:

• reveal the 7 definable assets that together construct the belief system behind every successful brand.
• teach you how to use and combine these 7 components, or the “Primal Code,” to create a community of consumers who develop powerful emotional attachments to your brand.

< Back

In this engaging session, Jonathan Littman invites attendees to take the next step in building their innovation muscles. We have all met the Devil’s Advocate – the people and forces that hinder and block innovation. Now learn the strategies gleaned from IDEO, one of the most creative companies in the world, to defeat the Devil’s Advocate and drive creativity and innovation throughout your organization.
Full Description >

Why do some companies and teams have the knack to respond to market challenges and come up with genuinely new products and services? What enables top individuals and project teams to anticipate and adapt to the latest trends and quickly introduce new offerings? How is it that the best most companies can deliver is "New and Improved" while only a few sport the innovation gene?

Jonathan Littman has spent six years collaborating with Tom Kelley of the renowned design firm IDEO exploring these and other key elements of product innovation. Their research has turned up a powerful counterpoint to what they term the Devil's Advocate, the people and forces that hinder and block in innovation in many companies. Nearly universal in business today, the role of Devil's Advocate allows individuals to step outside themselves and raise questions and concerns that effectively kill new projects and ideas, while claiming no personal responsibility, Nothing, according to Littman and Kelley, is more potent in stifling innovation.

Over the years, IDEO has developed ten roles people can play in an organization to foster innovation and new ideas while offering an effective counter to naysayers. In this engaging session, Littman invites attendees to take the next step in building their own innovation muscles by focusing on the four key roles needed to increase your personal innovation capabilities

• The Anthropologist - brings new learning and insights by observing behavior and developing a deep understanding of how people interact with products/services/spaces.
  
• The Experimenter - understands the art of quickly and cheaply prototyping new ideas.
• The Cross-Pollinator - boldly mixes and matches ideas, people and technologies to create genuinely new products.
• The Storyteller - the vision and glue that holds together the team and the brand.

Filled with engaging stories of how companies have incorporated this thinking to transform the customer experience, this session will begin the path towards nurturing and sustaining a culture of continuous innovation and renewal.
< Back

In our increasingly experience-driven world, consumers crave what’s authentic. Has your company figured out what to do about it? And what is “authentic” anyway?

In this provocative and practical session, Joseph Pine will define what authenticity means to the postmodern consumer and will demonstrate how companies can render their offerings as “really real.”
Full Description >

In the emerging Experience Economy, consumers now desire distinctive and memorable experiences in addition to quality goods and service excellence. Every marketer needs to go beyond experiential marketing and turn marketing (and selling) itself into a distinctive experience.

Advancing consumer sensibility has also given rise to a new emphasis in staging experiences: namely, the desire for Authenticity. People no longer want to buy the fake from the phony; they desire the real from the genuine.

This has big implications on branding and advertising: most companies work to create a brand identity, consisting of such items as taglines, logos, and colors. However, these are not elements of identity; they are representations of identity. Marketers still must fully understand the "self" to which they must be true and then they can create the true representation of that self to others. Managing customer perceptions of authenticity through such tasks is fast becoming the determinant of branding success.

In his presentation, author and business provocateur Joe Pine will discuss the key principles and frameworks for thinking about these imperatives. Using exemplars from across a wide swath of B2B and B2C examples, he will show attendees:

• How progressive organizations have already turned their marketing into an experience, with the commensurate returns that it can bring.
• The nuances of how to grasp, manage, and excel at the new management discipline of rendering authenticity.
• What successful companies can do today to identify themselves with their customers’ self-images and desires.

< Back

Full Description >

Powerful product, functional and even country silos are preventing the creation of great marketing. They result in the misallocation of resources, inconsistencies in message, the absence of scale economies, and a failure to leverage successes - factors that jeopardize the success and even survival of brands and companies. Allowing unfettered decentralization is no longer competitively feasible in today's marketplace. The new marketing imperative is to break down the silo walls to foster cooperation and synergy.

The task is not easy because the silos may lack motivation to change and guard their autonomy vigorously. The silo's power is vividly illustrated by the fact that the average CMO tenure is just 23 months. So how to proceed? Drawing on interviews with some 40 CMOs, Aaker explains how to:

• Strengthen your credibility with silo teams and senior management
  
• Optimally utilize teams and other strategic linking devices
• Foster communications across silos
• Adopt the right marketing leadership role, ranging from facilitator to strategic captain
• Develop common planning processes
• Adapt your brand strategy to silo units
• Allocate marketing dollars strategically across silos
• Develop synergistic marketing programs that span silos

< Back

Music and sound are important, highly effective additions to the design equation, which strengthen emotional bonds between brands and customers. They have an incredibly strong ability to serve as a memory trigger that increases the brain's propensity to remember.  Sonic Branding is nothing new (think of the jingle of an ice cream truck, the sound logo of Intel, the Nokia ringtone, the sound of Microsoft Windows, or the reassuring sound of the closing of a high quality car door), yet it is still severely underutilized by the majority of products and services.  How well are you leveraging the power of sound in delivering your brand message across all avenues?

Gain an understanding, from a panel of experienced marketers of brands big and small, of the valuable role audio plays and learn how to apply best practices in Sonic Branding to your brand.
Full Description >

Music and sound are important, highly effective additions to the design equation, which strengthen emotional bonds between brands and customers. They have an incredibly strong ability to serve as a memory trigger that increases the brain's propensity to remember.  Sonic Branding is nothing new (think of the jingle of an ice cream truck, the sound logo of Intel, the Nokia ringtone, the sound of Microsoft Windows, or the reassuring sound of the closing of a high quality car door), yet it is still severely underutilized by the majority of products and services.  How well are you leveraging the power of sound in delivering your brand message across all avenues?

Gain an understanding, from a panel of experienced marketers of brands big and small, of the valuable role audio plays and learn how to apply best practices in Sonic Branding to your brand.
< Back

Brands have always promised happiness.  Yet, over the past 70 years, the number of Americans who say they are very happy has slowly inched down.  Clearly there is a disconnect between what brands promise and what they deliver.

Learn how, by altering your brand strategy to address the functional, emotional, and social needs people have to be happy, you can overcome the gap between creating products/services that merely satisfy customers and those that actually enable people to become happier.
Full Description >

Brands have always promised happiness. Yet, over the past 70 years, the number of Americans who say they are very happy has slowly inched down - even as the number of products intended to make people feel good about themselves has exponentially increased. Clearly there is a disconnect between what brands promise and what they deliver.

This session explains how, by altering your brand strategy to address the functional, emotional and social needs people have to be happy, you can overcome the gap between creating products that merely satisfy customers and those that actually enable people to become happier.

David Norton, Principal and Lead Strategist for Stone Mantel, will focus on three areas where brand experiences could be much more effective: understanding how different people experience happiness, how design can impact happiness, and new measurements that can better capture the effect on offerings. You will leave understanding:

• The difference between producing happiness and producing loyalty
• The four basic design dispositions for producing happiness
• How designing happiness affects culture, individuality, and choice making
• The functional, emotional and social jobs necessary to enhance happiness
• Frameworks for gathering insights about, designing for, and measuring happy customers

< Back

eMarketer CEO Geoff Ramsey will cut through the hype and the clutter of contradictory research data to paint a clear picture of today's digital marketing landscape and give you the clarity and insight you need to optimize your interactive marketing programs.

In this fast-moving, rubber-meets-the-road session, you’ll get a 30,000-foot view of the digital marketing landscape – all supported by hard numbers and case studies from a wealth of researchers and industry trend leaders. Attendees will take away specific tactics and metrics for success in 2008 and beyond.
Full Description >

How do you get solid direction about digital marketing? Among digital developments like social networking, online video, blogs, viral campaigns, the latest search techniques and a renewed interest in mobile advertising, marketers today are plenty busy—and plenty confused—about which trends are important and how to best leverage them for their brands.

eMarketer CEO Geoff Ramsey will cut through the hype and the clutter of contradictory research data to paint a clear picture of today's digital marketing landscape and give you the clarity and insight you need to optimize your interactive marketing programs.

In this fast-moving, rubber-meets-the-road session, you’ll get a 30,000-foot view of the digital marketing landscape – all supported by hard numbers and case studies from a wealth of researchers and industry trend leaders. Attendees will take away specific tactics and metrics for success in 2008 and beyond.

Get straight answers on tough questions, such as:

• How much are marketers allocating to digital marketing and shifting away from traditional formats?
• Is it true that word-of-mouth techniques can serve as a powerful tool to extend your reach and bolster your credibility, and at a far less cost than traditional media?
• How are savvy marketers using social network techniques and tools to bolster their brands and solicit vital market research feedback?
• Is the rush to online video marketing a fad, or a fantastic opportunity?
• Should you be investing in virtual worlds like Second Life, or sitting this trend out?

< Back

In his over 25 years of creating and working with valuable brands, Bruce Turkel, author of Building Brand Value: Seven Simple Steps to Profitable Communications, has developed a simple method for creating great messages - or, as he calls them, BRAIN DARTS.

In this highly actionable, practical and entertaining close to Day 1 of Brand ManageCamp 2008, you will learn:

• The seven simple techniques to building brand value;
• How to get your message across clearly and effectively;
• What Johann Sebastian Bach can teach you about building your brand;
• How something called BrainDarts will change your brand and your business.

Full Description >

Why do you pay three bucks more for Starbucks than a cup of coffee at your local diner? Why do you drive past convenient gas stations to fill your tank with your favorite brand? What was the secret that helped Apple sell over 100 million iPods while Microsoft has sold less than one million Zunes? Most importantly, how can you put the answers to these questions to work for you?

As the author of Building Brand Value: Seven Simple Steps to Profitable Communications and the leader of the brand marketing firm of his name, Bruce Turkel has utilized his proven techniques to build and grow successful brands ranging from the City of Miami to the Discovery Channel Latin America.

In this highly actionable, practical and entertaining close to Day 1 of Brand ManageCamp 2008, you will learn:

• The seven simple techniques to building brand value;
• How to get your message across clearly and effectively;
• What Johann Sebastian Bach can teach you about building your brand;
• How something called BrainDarts will change your brand and your business.

< Back

The web has profoundly changed the rules. Smart marketers now communicate with buyers through content rich Web sites, blogs, YouTube videos, ebooks, and other online media that buyers actually want to consume. Just recognizing that the rules have changed, however, is not enough. To enjoy success is this new world requires new skill-sets and a shift in how we think about brand communication.
Full Description >

For decades, marketers have relied on buying expensive advertising and begging the media and analysts for coverage. We interrupted “prospects” with our egotistical “messages,” in the hopes of generating interest from buyers (who usually ignored us anyway).

The web has profoundly changed the rules. Smart marketers now communicate with buyers through content rich Web sites, blogs, YouTube videos, ebooks, and other online media that buyers actually want to consume. The products and services offered by tuned in companies resonate with people who willingly buy without being coerced.

In this entertaining and informative kick-off to Day 2, best-selling author David Meerman Scott will:

• Teach you how to leverage the new potential that Web-based communication offers
• Provide a step-by-step action plan for harnessing the power of the new rules of marketing and PR
  
• Show how to identify audiences, create compelling messages, get those messages to the most consumers possible, and lead those consumers directly into the buying process.
  

Told with many case studies and real-world examples, this will be a practical discussion about the new reality of PR and marketing.
< Back

Trend used to be so simple. Once upon a time a trend was a trend because everyone wanted the same thing. Today, the 'next big thing' is in reality many different things, and it's not unusual for complete opposites to be deemed trendy at the same time.
Full Description >

Trend used to be so simple. Once upon a time a trend was a trend because everyone wanted the same thing. Today, the 'next big thing' is in reality many different things, and it's not unusual for complete opposites to be deemed trendy at the same time.

Robyn Waters, Target's former VP of Trend, Design and Product Development (and one of the key figures who helped that small regional discount chain become a national fashion destination), will address the contradictory nature of the consumer and make a case for the power of paradox.

Through the concept of Trend/Countertrend, Robyn will explore the polarity of macro trends influencing the marketplace today, answering the following questions along the way:

• Can a commodity be a luxury?
  
• How do you customize your product for the masses?
  
• How can you make something old 'brand' new?
  
• What is extreme relaxation all about anyway?
  
• And can you do good AND make money in today's business environment?

F. Scott Fitzgerald once said that the test of a first-class mind was the ability to hold two opposing ideas in the head at the same time and still be able to function. This presentation will help you embrace that concept in practical manner that makes sense for business today.
< Back

“Design is to branding as jazz is to music.” According to design legend Marc Gobé, brands today must shift from ‘communications’ and ‘commodities’ to ‘emotion’ and ‘inspiration.’ We must revive our exhausted, overly familiar offerings. It is time that branding embraces the same philosophy that is at the heart of the jazz culture and starts ‘jamming,’ or more exactly, ‘brandjamming’ - leveraging collaboration, innovation, intuition and risk to make brands motivating for both the audience and the players.
Full Description >

“Design is to branding as jazz is to music.” According to design legend Marc Gobé, brands today must shift from ‘communications’ and ‘commodities’ to ‘emotion’ and ‘inspiration.’ We must revive our exhausted, overly familiar offerings. It is time that branding embraces the same philosophy that is at the heart of the jazz culture and starts ‘jamming,’ or more exactly, ‘brandjamming' - leveraging collaboration, innovation, intuition and risk to connect brands with people in a visceral and irresistible way.

The solutions are not always found in so called "mature economies" but in countries that are emerging as world powers.  In his presentation, Marc will share some of the learning he has collected through his new documentary filed in Sao Paulo, "The Day Advertising Came Down."  The story, filmed in Brazil, is based on a recent ban on all forms of outdoor advertising by the Mayor of Sao Paulo.

Through examples from Marc's documentary you will see how the people of Sao Paulo are demanding a completely new relationship with their brands and, in the most vivid way, the stimulating new creativity that has emerged following the loss of outdoor media - a medium that was a massive force within the local advertising culture previous to the ban.

You will discover what might be the new formula for marketing and brand communication in the future.  Most importantly, you will see how this amazing story could not have been possible without a full engagement of the population and a true partnership between the government and residents of this city.

In this engagingly visual presentation, one of the most respected names in brand design will leverage his concept of Brandjamming to teach you:

• How to make bold decisions through true partnership
  
• How you can innovate by taking away one "thing" in your process
  
• How to Jazz up an audience with emotive ideas that change their lives forever
  

< Back

At most companies today, market researchers and marketing managers are about as close to a productive working relationship as the Democrats and Republicans in Congress.  Like kids and spinach, marketers know they need the research, but they don't want to eat it.
Full Description >

At most companies today, market researchers and marketing managers are about as close to a productive working relationship as the Democrats and Republicans in Congress.  Like kids and spinach, marketers know they need the research, but they don’t want to eat it. 

And with good reason, says Peter Krieg.  Research departments have been known to serve up “data” that is more than a little suspect and analyses that are more perfunctory than insightful.  Many studies don’t seem to address real-world marketing decisions and actual business criteria.  Research presentations can be either numbing or painful, but rarely enjoyable.  And, all of that is the product of a project that took way too long.

Marketers, for their part, are not without fault.  Research is often a last minute decision.  And they want the results to impact this years’ plan.  And their motive isn’t always to get to the truth, either. 

And both departments don’t seem to have the time to get things right.  Staffs are leaner than ever.  Daily issues and crises make it difficult to do a “project.”     

In his talk, Peter Krieg will draw from his new book, Your Gut Is Still Not Smarter Than Your Head and real-world examples to demonstrate that it’s infinitely easier (not to mention better for your brands) to take the steps to bridge the great divide with researchers than to explain to CEOs why you have nothing more than your good name to back up a decision.  He will address the obstacles and offer specific steps, tools, and questions to ask to avoid problems.  As important, he will clarify the benefits of a research “project” that is well-done and clearly actionable.   

Attendees will walk away with a clear understanding of:

• The core suite of five types of research studies that everyone should be aware of, the most important features/to-do’s for each one, and basic time and cost estimates.
• The key benefits, and ROI, of each type of study
• The most prevalent problems that occur with each type of study
• The respective roles of the research department, the marketing manager, and the research vendor and how they should work together efficiently. 
• The role that senior management can, and must, play if the situation is to be improved.
  

< Back

Companies must innovate to grow, but they often forget to look beyond their own brands. According to best-selling author Joachimsthaler, companies with talent can generate innumerable ideas for new or improved products every day. Ideas layer upon ideas; success begets success. But every layer of creativity, every success, can inch a company farther from its customers. A smokescreen develops that can blind firms to the biggest opportunities for innovation and growth – though they’re right there (for an example, look no further than Sony’s loss of the mobile music market to Apple!).  Learn how to spot such opportunities before your rivals do.
Full Description >

Companies must innovate to grow, but they often forget to look beyond their own brands. According to best-selling author Joachimsthaler, companies with talent can generate innumerable ideas for new or improved products every day. Ideas layer upon ideas; success begets success. But every layer of creativity, every success, can inch a company farther from its customers. A smokescreen develops that can blind firms to the biggest opportunities for innovation and growth – though they’re right there (for an example, look no further than Sony’s loss of the mobile music market to Apple!).

In this session, Joachimsthaler will explain how to spot such opportunities before your rivals do. Through eye-opening stories from companies like BMW, Apple, Frito-Lay, GE Healthcare and Allianz, you will learn the demand-first innovation and growth (DIG) model – a systematic and repeatable process that helps you see the biggest opportunities hidden in plain sight.

Through this presentation you will:

• Discover how to identify the biggest and most obvious opportunities for innovation and growth in plain sight.
• Learn how to build demand-first growth platforms that go beyond innovation around products and services.
• Find out how marketers apply entirely new models of building strong brands.
• Learn how to create unimagined growth by redefining your market boundaries and developing fresh new business models

< Back

What’s more important than being on-message? It’s being on-emotion, and here’s why. As breakthroughs in brain science have confirmed, rational utility is overrated in business planning and execution. The factors that fatten your company’s bottom line – stopping power, relevancy, recall, credibility and loyalty – all hinge on the emotional verdict. In other words, those factors represent hurdles that companies can’t jump over successfully unless they get the target emotionally on-board.

In this fascinating close to Brand ManageCamp 2008, learn how to strategically model your emotional value proposition and pitch as well as measure its success by not only owning and leveraging unique emotional positions, but also by utilizing the science of facial coding to gauge consumer response.
Full Description >

What’s more important than being on-message? It’s being on-emotion, and here’s why. As breakthroughs in brain science have confirmed, rational utility is overrated in business planning and execution. The factors that fatten your company’s bottom line – stopping power, relevancy, recall, credibility and loyalty – all hinge on the emotional verdict. In other words, those factors represent hurdles that companies can’t jump over successfully unless they get the target emotionally on-board.

In this talk, Hill, the author of the critically-acclaimed book, Emotionomics, takes an accessible, actionable approach to explaining why emotions matter and how companies can strategically model their emotional value proposition and pitch as well as measure its success. Not only can companies own and leverage unique emotional positions, they can also utilize the science of facial coding, originated by Charles Darwin, to gauge consumer response. The research tool made famous in Gladwell’s Blink and Pink’s A Whole New Mind is demonstrated here by the practitioner who first applied it to business, starting a decade ago.

Since less than 1% of consumers’ thought process happen consciously, the key is to make the quick intuitive, emotional connection that enables awareness, consideration and persuasion.

Key take-aways include:

• A working model with guidelines, reflecting how consumers actually make their decisions, integrating the brain’s three parts: sensory, emotional and rational
• An understanding of why the human face must be leveraged from both a research and marketing perspective in order to achieve full potential
• Specific examples of why brand positioning strategies, design options, and advertising approaches do or don’t work, and how to enhance their effectiveness

< Back