Brand Rants

See you in August!

This summer's "Elf Yourself"

BRILLIANT VIRAL CAMPAIGN FOR PALTALK 

Subject: Is it true?

Message: I went on this online community thing and everyone was talking about you... what is going on? There's even a video about it on News3Online.
 

Can pharma cure its brands?

HOW SALES-CENTRIC MARKETING KILLS PHARMA BRANDS

Excerpt from Life Science Reporter article by Jacob Fleming:

" What is the best way to help doctors and patients to get our messages?
Stop communicating with them as if they were idiots. Really. Most medical advertising is banal and lifeless. I understand the regulatory environment imposes restrictions, but most pharma companies and their ad agencies seem to interpret those restrictions as a license to bore.  It doesn’t have to be that way.  There are lots of engaging stories that can be told within regulatory restrictions. It just means applying some creativity and talent. The companies who figure that out get a lot more bang for their promotional buck."

Pharma brand killer: A phrenetic mess of tired clichés and flawed metaphors. The rule in pharma advertising.

Pharma brand builder: A focused idea well executed. The exception in pharma advertising.

To read the entire interview click here.

Person Jacob Fleming

Right click for SmartMenu shortcuts

Web 2.0 enters its Cambrian period

 HOW TO DEAL WITH THE EXPLOSION OF WEB 2.0 SITES

About 542 million years ago life on our planet experienced what geologists call the “Cambrian Explosion”. After 3 billion years, conditions on Earth had reached some sort of biological tipping point and mother nature went mad inventing every type of life form imaginable. Most did not survive the grand experiment but those that did formed the basis for life on Earth today.

I was reminded of this when I recently started a project to catalog all the Web 2.0 sites out there. The reason I care at all is that my clients rely on me to be up to date on the latest sites. I was pleased to find Orli Yakuel and Eyal Shahar had beat me to it. That is until I arrived at their site GO2WEB2.0.

When the page opened in my browser I was overwhelmed by a never-ending wall of Web 2.0 logo art. As of today, the site lists 2,539 social media sites with new ones being added every week. If you can link people together with it, you’ll find it on this site. The problem is that there are so many sites that it is pretty pointless to try to keep on top of all of them. Better to stand back and let them fight it out for evolutionary bragging rites.

In recent months I’ve begin to feel paralyzed by Web 2.0 options. I like choices, just not choking on them. Barry Schwartz gave a talk on this subject “The Paradox of Choice” at TED a couple of years back that is still worth checking out. In the mean time, I found another much more manageable list at Movers 2.0 It is a list of the top 100 Web 2.0 sites.

So here’s my coping strategy.
1. I check in every week or so to see what’s new on GO2WEB2.0. If something is really interesting I’ll try it.
2. Otherwise I step back and wait and see what from GO2WEB2.0 makes it up to the top 100 list on Movers 2.0.
3. I’ll also check on Alexa top 500 to see what’s happening there. 
4. My goal is to be familiar with the top 100 and aware of any others that catch my eye

It’s not rocket science, but it has helped reduce my Web 2.0 anxiety. The thing with all these social sites is that most of them need a certain critical mass of users to function properly. When I can sign up on one of these site with my first name and its not taken yet - its a good indication that there are not many people on board yet. 

I for one can’t wait until Web 2.0 reaches the more manageable Jurassic period. That took mother nature about 300 million years. Today I reckon that’s about four years in internet time.

Duffy Reunion BBQ 2.0

IS NOTHING SACRED?

It all started when my brother Kevin set up a Wiki to help organize our family reunion. The welcome message on the Wiki landing page said: 

"OK everyone, let's use technology to make this reunion the best ever."

I saw this sentence and couldn't resist. It being a Wiki and all, I made a small edit (see below). Kevin liked it and advised me to share it on my blog. So here it is, Duffy Reunion BBQ 2.0:

OK everyone; let's use technology to make this reunion the best ever. I need you all to bring your laptops. Sean will establish a secure wifi zone around the perimeter of the cottage. We'll arrive and all start blogging. Remember gossip, conflict and nudity get traffic. When we're not blogging we'll Twitter. Twitter like a nest of frightened magpies in a hailstorm. Kevin will set up a live feed on Ustream.tv and videos uploaded to YouTube on the hour. Still photos, of course, will be uploaded to Flicker on the half hour by Bub. Trish, you'll be on seeding detail with Mary Pat. Seed every blog from Boston to Boise - let them know what's going down. Erika will man the chat lines with Adium.  I've attached Google analytics to all of our blogs. Marybeth will keep an eye on our traffic and monitor buzz with my new beta-buzz-tracking algorithm. John will Digg, Del.icio.us, Reddit, Furl and Stumbleupon every post we make. Is anyone on speaking terms with Scoble? Tell him you'll sign up for FriendFeed if he shows up with his camera. I've also set up a community for people who like to eavesdrop on other people's family reunions on Ning. I expect heavy traffic as I've advertised the event on Upcoming and established pages on both FaceBook and MySpace. Nate, contact Linden Labs, buy some virtual lakefront property. Kate you buy some virtual swim suits for our avatars. I want to recreate the event in near-real time in Second Life. Jo, I need you to get on top of Zude, Xing, Xoost and Yelp — I have no idea what they do but I'm sure they'll come in handy. Paul will be in charge of the music — but remember: The world is listening as I have set up an account with Last.fm. Nancy is still working on waterproofing some iPhones so we can keep in touch when swimming or snorkeling.  Any questions? If so go to Yahoo Answers.  See you on Saturday. Love, Mom