Blessed Are The Meek
March 3, 2010 by Mike Troiano · Comments
Look at this piece of utter hackery at left. It breaks every rule of good marketing communications. It’s unfocused. It’s ugly. It has giant freaking dollar signs, for chrissakes. Blecch.
And yet…
I find it interesting that humble brands – local restaurants, obscure b-to-b specialists, retailers like this one – seem able to embrace the “Content Marketing” ethos more readily than their advertising-addicted counterparts.
I look at this primitive execution – unfocused, horribly designed, e-mail based, etc. – and can’t help but admire the way it’s rooted in the belief that the best way to sell is to inform and empower.
And you know what? This stuff works. It’s arguably the best of two worlds, combining pull-worthy content with push-enabled reach. That would certainly explain Constant Contact’s lofty growth and impressive market cap.
While I of course believe that a dose of “professional marketing” could make something like this a lot more effective, I think there’s much to be learned from it by me and my fellow Big-Time Brand Folk.
Look again. What do you see?
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Chris Colbert joins panel at MITX on the future for advertising agencies
February 24, 2010 by Anita Tandon · Comments
- Image of Chris Colbert
Here at Holland-Mark, we’ve been thinking out loud for a while now about how the agency business has changed for good. It’s no longer good enough for marketing to just be interesting – it must be imperative. As CEO of our resurgent business, Chris Colbert has been asked to join industry heavyweights from Mullen, Razorfish, Sapient, and W2 Group to discuss his perspective on the new age of agencies. The event by the Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange (MITX) will be held on February 25 from 6-8 p.m.
Keynoted by Sean Corcoran of Forrester Research, the group will discuss how agencies will adapt to new marketing paradigms, the impact of technology, and agency/client relationships in a new era.
“When I restarted Holland-Mark in 2007, I did it because I knew it wouldn’t be business as usual. The economy has allowed us to reinvent how advertising agencies work – and it’s a good thing.”
We’ve been thinking about this for a while, and we look forward to being a part of this new conversation. Come by and have a listen.
More details on this MITX event can be found on the event website.
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Achieving Scalable Intimacy
February 4, 2010 by Mike Troiano · Comments
Here’s my presentation from today’s LaunchCamp. The live version had a bit more energy, but this combination of audio and slides is easier to follow.
Anyway, here it is…
What do you think? Were you at the event today? Any questions I can answer, or comments on the day?
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Mike Troiano keynotes at LaunchCamp 2010
February 3, 2010 by Anita Tandon · Comments
Our very own Mike is the lunch keynote speaker at LaunchCamp Boston 2010 this Thursday, February 4. From what he’s told me, he’ll be sharing a bit about Scalable Intimacy, his philosophy on maintaining personal relationships while scaling your business. In short, what it takes to effectively leverage digital and social media to build meaningful relationships with your target consumer.
As most of you know, Mike joined Holland-Mark at the end of last year to head up our digital practice. In that time he has focused his efforts on imbuing new and existing clients with a practical understanding of the criticality of social media, as well as how it can be used to engage in more effective business practices. It’s great to have him out there sharing the wealth.
“Using the Web to build your brand is less and less about creating destinations, and more and more about creating content useful to the people you want to reach, then empowering them to access that content wherever and however they like. When you do this, you create a distinct and direct connection with a motivated consumer.”
A handful of Holland-Mark folks will be there and we’d love to see some of your familiar faces.
LaunchCamp is a day-long bootcamp focused on identifying and replicating some of the best practices in the market for moving entrepreneurial organizations along the growth curve. LaunchCamp takes a fresh look at the technologies and tools that are driving PR, marketing, social media and management, and attempts to identify the challenges that organizations face in the launch process.
More details on LaunchCamp can be found on their event website.
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“Truck” Beats “Machine” in Massachusetts
January 20, 2010 by Mike Troiano · Comments
For those of you new to this blog, Holland-Mark’s branding approach is based on the observation that people have a tendency to boil things down to One Simple Thing™. We all do it, it’s part of our genetic code and an important adaptation to a world overrun by complexity.
We do this for brands (Coke = Real, BMW = Performance, Zappos = Service) and for just about everything else. We saw a potent example of One Simple Thing™ – or OST™ – thinking writ large last night in Massachusetts politics.
The truth is that comparatively few people met Scott Brown and Martha Coakley before yesterday’s election. Few closely followed press coverage of the two in the weeks leading up to the vote, and even fewer read their various position papers on the Web.
The vast majority of the 2.2 million votes cast yesterday were cast based on a single, simple distillation of what each candidate represented.
Martha chose her OST™ first, focusing on “Democrat,” which seemed like a sure bet for the seat vacated by Ted Kennedy, our beloved Lion of the Senate.
Scott Brown, though, chose a different OST™: “Truck.” Seriously. For those of you who don’t live here, Mr. Brown and his pickup truck were everywhere on Massachusetts media over the last few weeks, which for a long while made the Coakley team feel like this was going to be a cakewalk.
Well… it turns out that in an environment where voters feel Washington isn’t listening to them, “Truck” trumps “Democrat.” People like “Truck.” It’s solid. Populist. Dependable. When this began to become evident in the polls, the Coakley campaign tried to give Mr. Brown a new OST™: “Republican.” The Brown campaign countered by giving Ms. Coakley a new one as well: “Political Machine.” There was a shouting match for a while, in which Mr. Brown appears to have been more focused and effective, after which voters went to the polls ready to cast on the side of “Truck,” or “Machine.”
“Truck” won. By a lot. At least that’s how we see it.
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