Thursday, May 15, 2008

Mind Mapping Pigeon Holes

What's on your mind?

Noah Bier recently created 'brand tags' a word association game for brands -- the site shows you a logo, you enter the first thing that comes to mind, and then check out the cloud.

Two thoughts:
1. People will really define a brand; not just customers.
2. Not everybody sees the world the same (no real surprise there.)

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Grammatical Pronouns and Marketing

What do pronouns have to do with marketing?

In an article on Chief Marketer I argue the answer is 'a lot'. The point is that one of the difficulties in monetizing social media may come down to an issue of grammar. Social networks are conversational and participative - that is first person: we, my, our, us, and I. In contrast, advertising has a long history of being targeted and direct as in "hey you, listen to me and do something."

Changing the grammatical person will do wonders.