Perry

Hewitt

Tag: brand

  • Friday 5 — 1.17.2014

    Friday 5 — 1.17.2014

    1. Nest thermostatThere are now 3.2 billion compelling reasons to get excited about the internet of things: this week, Google acquired connected home device maker Nest for a whopping $3.2 billion in cash. In return, Google gets a jumpstart in hardware and an ace design team. Privacy concerns abound, of course.
    2. Trying to make sense of this week’s ruling on net neutrality? Read this, and start to use preferenced as a verb. It’s an abstract concept for most people to grok, and a tough issue to get the general public get excited about — until it drives up the price of Netflix.
    3. Here’s a succinct piece on content principles for brands on social media. We try at Harvard to reinforce the principle of sticking to your guns on value and not falling prey to the endless RT ask.
    4. This HBR blog takes a stab at defining the endgame for social media in the enterprise. The third wave of individual use is here, and the onus is on the enterprise on finding ways to facilitate and empower connection.
    5. On a wider scale than social, how do organizations measure their progress in adopting digital practices? This MIT Sloan report (sign in for limited free access) looks at nine elements of digital transformation that distinguishes the organizations doing it best — and dubs them the Digerati.  

    Weekend fun: Miss the Golden Globes last Sunday? No worries — relive it through the magic of animated GIFs.

    Every Friday, find five, highly subjective links about compelling technologies, emerging trends, and interesting ideas that affect how we live and work digitally.

    Photo credit: James Britton

  • .nyc enters the domain name fray

    nyc domainJust over a year ago, I wrote a couple of posts about generic top level domains (gTLDS) — what people were applying for, and the risks of domain expansion.

    Last week Mayor Mike Bloomberg announced .nyc, a top level domain the city will make available only to NYC-based businesses and residents. The theory is that a high-rent, sought-after internet domain is a brand benefit, and an opportunity for NYC-based businesses. There are still a number of legitimate questions about the both the execution and the benefit, but it’s an interesting effort in the context of Bloomberg’s broader digital innovation legacy.

    On the coattails of this announcement, GoDaddy announced a marketing effort to push Los Angeles firms to adopt the .la domains. Unlike the newly approved .nyc, the domain is already available, and assigned to Laos. Not sure how much traction this will get as a non-exclusive offer without alignment to broader digital city initiatives.

    Is there value in .nyc and other city-based geographic domains promoting locale as brand? Or will knowing domain names become a charming anachronism, like knowing telephone numbers (1-800-54-GIANT, anyone?) before an age of one-click mobile Yelp and speed dial? Traffic referrals today come primarily from search and social, with mobile social on a rapid rise. If I had a relative investment to make, I would prioritize optimizing for social before the additional domain, but am curious to see who opts for both.

  • Brand democracy is not brand anarchy.

    Just read The Role of Brand in the Nonprofit Sector which pointed to the emerging acceptance of brand as strategic asset that goes beyond tactical fundraising tool.

    There’s an interesting tension between the rise of individual voices through social media, and a dated perception that messaging hierarchies mandate institutional lockstep. This is definitely a  top  FAQ: “why bother with any kind of communications coordination in the age of social media?” For me, the answer is that social presents an opportunity to reinvigorate brand messaging – to listen and to reach out to constituents (be they employees, supporters, alumni) to understand more about your brand’s resonance — and then to use that understanding to craft messages that stick.

    The authors said it best: democracy != anarchy. Working with nonprofit brands serves up an opportunity to learn and engage with social to refine brand positioning.