Recently I’ve been immersed in Zag, the inspiring book by branding guru, Marty Neumeier (which I suggest you buy immediately if you have anything to do with marketing). His ideas present the new reality for corporate and retail brands in today’s media-cluttered marketing landscape. Here are some of the insights I have gleaned from his observations, along with some of my own thoughts.

Advertising, then and now

Things have changed radically in a relatively short amount of time. In the past, traditional advertising relied on limited research with a heaping helping of mass market messaging, based primarily on an agency’s intuition. But today, agencies and marketers have new, more sophisticated analytical tools where we can slice, dice and regress our customers’ likes and dislikes into all manner of demographic groups and sub-groups. So, agency clients are looking for defined, measurable results for the money they’re spending on securing their brand in the marketplace.

Today’s challenge

But even with these new tools there are challenges in getting a successful brand built due to the fractured media landscape (I’m old enough to remember when there were three major TV stations!) with the nearly unlimited message distribution outlets, including hundreds of cable stations, online and viral marketing, email, social media, radio and so on. Read the rest of this entry »