Thursday, March 29, 2012

Nouns to Verbs

: Sherrie Perkovich

The ultimate in “free advertising" comes when your brand is synonymous with the product. This can be considered the holy grail of marketing = you achieve brand enlightenment.

This is what I like to call a "noun" brand. Brands themselves went from being a proper noun to being a common noun. Let me illustrate...

Kleenex = facial tissue
Band-Aid = adhesive bandage
Xerox = photo copy
Vasoline = petroleum jelly

In today's world, common nouns are.. well... common. It's all about action these days. Customers/consumers demanding more from everything they consume. CEOs demanding more ROI out of their marketing and advertising. With that we've gone from creating nouns to creating verbs. And at the very root of the word "verb" is action itself. Again, allow me to illustrate...

Google = online searching
Digg = bookmarking
Yelp = providing your opinion
Mapquest = getting directions
Tweet = microblogging
Facebook = become my friend

So what's next you may ask? Verbal nouns and verbal adjectives of course!

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Finding the White Space

: Sherrie Perkovich

Its not news that marketers are under constant pressure to keep finding new and interesting ways to reach their target audiences. With the introduction of seemingly daily media choices, our task is a great one.

I read an article that spoke of marketers nearly over stepping their bounds to put our ads anywhere where there is available "white space." I agree with this, but only to a point.

Yes, its true that we are not only advertising in places that are surprising and walking the line of obtrusion. But we are also, thanks in part largely to technology, able to serve you up advertising messages that you actually want to see, when you are open to receiving them.

Advertising has an exciting future. And the future is in behavioral marketing via the social graph and mobile. Instead of trying to merely find available white space to brand with our messaging, we can pinpoint advertising based on consumption behavior.

Serving up ad messages and offers based on behavior is the key to truly being able to communicate to an already interested consumer. In the near future, gone will be the days of sitting through non-relevant advertising messages. And soon you'll only be getting advertisements targeted to you as an individual consumer. White space that you never saw coming.