In our research we’ve found a strong link between the positive impact a brand has on people’s lives and brand performance. So, to help you consider markets in human terms, here are seven essential elements of market anatomy:

1. Bellies
The most fundamental thing that people seek in consumption is basic nourishment. While countless brands—from your local farmer’s market to Whole Foods to the Wal-Marts and PepsiCos of the world—aim specifically to keep people’s bellies satisfied, there’s almost always an opportunity to make a difference in people’s lives by making a difference in their bellies. Swedish meatball, anyone?

2. Skin
Skin offers protection from the environment, but people need more safety and security. How can your brand fortify these feelings? Financial products promise such peace of mind; but after years of violating the market’s (read “people’s”) trust, fortification has become a laceration. While generally we have observed a strong correlation between the positive impact a brand has on people’s lives and brand monetary value, among financial-services brands, brand monetary value far outpaces the good those brands have done for their clients. No wonder the wounded market reacted so viscerally to Greg Smith’s public resignation from Goldman Sachs. But the need for security hasn’t gone away, and smart brands like Wal-Mart and Hyundai have stepped up, providing a valuable safety net in tough economic times.

3. Ears and Mouths
Humans are social animals; and marketing can be a powerful conduit for people’s relationships. Social networks like Facebook and service businesses like McDonald’s give people a place to connect, but so do less obvious brands. Though Microsoft is sometimes berated as a lumbering giant, we’ve found it to be among the front of the pack here, with V-Positive respondents consistently ranking it among the top 10 brands that satisfy their social needs. Just look at what they’ve built with their Xbox community.

4. Muscles
People want to puff their chests out a little bit and feel good about themselves. Marketers can help them. Infomercial marketer Beachbody has busted that genre by literally helping people puff out their chests, sweeping Capitol Hill in the process, while on the other end of the spectrum, wine connoisseurs, foodies, fashionistas and the like find confidence in their product expertise, a mutually beneficial way for marketers of any type to help people feel good about themselves.

5. Eyes
Can you help people realize their ideal vision of themselves? In our research we’ve found technology brands to perform well here because they are instrumental in people’s goal pursuits in all areas of their lives. Take Google: Want to learn how to run faster? Google it. Perform better at your job? Google it. Play guitar like a badass? Google it. Non-technology brands have succeeded here too. Campbell’s, for example, saw an uptick in helping consumers at the outset of the new year, when many were trying to idealize their diets, using soup as a tool, or the tool, in their arsenal. The unifying theme between Google and Campbell’s is that both are instruments for people’s achievements.

6. Brains
Sometimes people just want to unplug and take a break from goals, relationships and so on. This is a nice idea…that brains hate. People have a need to keep their brains focused, even when they’re trying to relax. Aimlessly browsing the web doesn’t help, but books and casual games do. In this light the move toward experiential marketing approaches is a positive one. The “gamification” of brands—like Red Bull’s Kart Fighter racing game—is good for people, as is the immersive take on retail. In V-Positive, Apple rates among the best brands in delivering engaging experiences; Apple keeps its retail customers engaged and earns a just reward in the process.

7. Hearts
People live for the moments that touch their hearts and make them truly happy, ephemeral and fleeting though those moments may be. Nowhere is the personal perspective on markets more important than here. Google has hit the nail on the head several times in its “Search Stories” videos; c’mon, you didn’t even come close to shedding a tear at the end of “Parisian Love”? At the same time, Coca-Cola and McDonald’s have both been successful at showing how they can provide a moment of levity in an otherwise ordinary or stressful day. Happiness doesn’t have to be the only thing on offer, but adding a little slice of it in people’s lives can go a long way. In V-Positive consumers consistently rate Google, Coca-Cola and McDonald’s among the top 10 happiness-inducing brands, ratings that are in step with these brands’ impressive financial valuations.

So remember the human qualities of your market. By connecting with customers on human terms, everyone stands to gain.

By Luke Kachersky, Ph.D. and Dawn Lerman, Ph.D.  Kachersky and  Lerman are, respectively, project coordinator and director of The Center for Positive Marketing at Fordham University, and are faculty members of the university’s Schools of Business.

Contact them at luke.kachersky@centerforpositivemarketing.org and dawn.lerman@centerforpositivemarketing.org

Follow them on Twitter @PositiveMktg and @kachersky

Originally published at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network

As every b2b agency will know, the Internet’s innate sharabilility is returning us to a community-focused society that cherishes “we” over “me”. This networked economy affects contemporary marketing hugely. With people more open to building closer connections with brands than ever before, brands must be more human and open to co-creation of the marketing messaging and the product simultaneously with their customers to put the aforementioned honesty into practice. Tapping into the collective experiences, skills and ingenuity of hundreds of millions of people around the world is a complete departure from the inward looking, producer- versus-consumer innovation model so common to corporations around the world. And there are many a b2b agency out there still following in this vein.

Brands need to go beyond loyalty to establish mutually beneficial networks to give customers what they want; otherwise the Internet will allow them to find another route to get what they want. After all, customers are becoming competitors and brands are better off “employing” them by pulling them into their network. Brands are sitting on a bed of emotional human beings eager to be a part of brand creation.

Women are almost completely responsible for Pinterest’s success—according to Inside Network’s AppData. In fact, 97 percent of the site’s users are women.

Women trust recommendations from Pinterest more than any other platform, per BlogHer’s annual study on women and social media. Eighty-one trust Pinterest versus Facebook (67 percent) and Twitter (73 percent).

Why? Because women trust other women in their circles more than anyone else. As a result, 47 percent of women bought something based off a recommendation from Pinterest where as only 33 percent bought because of a recommendation on Facebook.

It’s no surprise that brands have been jumping on the Pinterest bandwagon in troves and have seen their followers grow over night. Many products are getting more exposure than they ever could on Facebook and Twitter, and it’s relatively easy to see why.

To sum it up, here are four reasons why Pinterest is superior to Facebook when targeting women:

1. It is simple, clean and fuss free. This makes browsing delightful and easy: two main components to marketing success. Because of Pinterest’s visually appealing layout, consumers just see a picture with very little text. Facebook on the other hand is very word heavy and can turn off potential consumers.

2. Marketers have an open window into consumers’ interests. They can easily see a gold mine of information on potential customers. For example, an interior design marketing team can see who is influential in the ‘home decor’ section. They can then start following and see what trends people are repining and liking.

3. It’s relaxing. Pinterest creates a curated experience for its users in a fairly anonymous way. No constant updating of feeds, no overload of people’s lives. On Pinterest it’s about enjoying your hobbies—not having to like someone’s status or wish anyone a Happy Birthday. It lets users share experiences in a negative-free zone, briefly comment and move on without the weight of Facebook etiquette.

4. Brands have found cool ways to use it. Martha Stewart Living and Kate Spade are pinning like crazy with overwhelming response by adding more than 19,000 and 34,000 followers respectively. Kotex even has bragging rights for hosting one of the first Pinterest campaigns. The brand found 50 “inspiring” women in Israel and looked at what they were pinning on Pinterest. Then, Kotex sent the women a virtual gift. If she pinned the gift, she then got a real one in the mail that was based on something she had pinned. The result: success—nearly 100% of the women pinned and commented on their gifts.

All told, Pinterest has brought women together online in a way never seen before and tapped into an extremely influential consumer market without even trying. In many ways, this makes Pinterest genuinely more appealing than Facebook and far more trendy among women consumers who get the picture.

Melissa Pitts is a marketing intern at gyro. She blogs regularly at Newstaco.com, FlamingTortillas.com and Americas Quarterly.
Follow her at @mpittsm

Originally published at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network

After the financial turmoil of the last few years, we learned that Americans yearned to feel in control of their lives again. Lack of trust in institutions and a sense of insecurity about their futures fed this desire. This insight was the seed of our “You’re In Charge” creative platform.

Americans are optimistic by nature, and despite all of the economic turmoil of recent years, 72 percent of Americans are still optimistic about their futures and 68 percent are optimistic about their financial futures, according to our MOOD (Measuring Optimism, Outlook and Direction) of America survey. Whitman Insight Strategies polled 803 adults late last year to uncover these findings, which also revealed that 66 percent of Americans feel in control of their lives.

While others in the category seemed to be drawn to using fear in their advertising, we felt the time was right, given these empowering and inspirational insights, to try a new, more optimistic approach.

On launch day, our new campaign promoted everyone to chief executive officer of his or her own life. Someone we call the “Chief Life Officer.” It recognizes the fact that our lives are in many ways like businesses. We’re in charge of making big decisions, managing finances and keeping employee morale positive. We are chief  401(k) officers, chief turkey-carving officers, chief tuition officers, and chief I really need a vacation officers. Whoever you are, the main message we wanted to get across is that you’re the boss of your life, and Lincoln Financial is here to help you “Take Charge.”

Our Chief Life Officer campaign, created with gyro New York,  is bringing a very different message to consumers because it inspires them by showing them that they are in charge and that they have the tools necessary to build secure financial futures.

Optimists are realists. They take charge of things they can control; they don’t worry about the things they can’t. The Chief Life Officer (You’re In Charge) campaign we created with gyro New York celebrates the richness of life and drives people to take action.

Jamie DePeau, corporate chief marketing officer at Lincoln Financial Group in Radnor, Penn.

Originally published at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network

Being creative requires far more than original thinking.

Being creative means that your idea needs to be able to be executed and produced. It needs to engage, be humanly relevant and ultimately drive the response that’s expected of it.

Being creative means knowing how your mind works and how to spot and best capture those flashes of genius. How many of us keep a moleskin note pad or sticky notes by our beds, just ready for when inspiration strikes?

Coming up with creative concepts that aren’t bound by existing thinking is an important aspect of ideation, but the world is full of Walter Mitty-like characters whose ideas are never really strong enough to go anywhere. Moving from the ignition point of an idea to making it happen and pushing it live across the world requires far more than the idea itself.

We’re all competitive when it comes to who has the best idea, be it a hidden trait or an overt characteristic. Competition drives us, it’s a good thing, and it’s pervasive in our society. However, one of the reasons team sports are so popular in our culture is that they provide individuals with the opportunity to compete and cooperate at the same time. At gyro, we believe nurturing an inclusive culture where both competition and cooperation can thrive provides the best setting for being consistently creative.

We have actively embraced creative collaboration. To be creative and innovative is everyone’s responsibility at gyro, not just the creative department. Solving modern business problems in an ever-changing digital landscape requires a team that’s equipped with a mind-set as eclectic and well connected as the world itself. There’s no room for creative apartheid anymore. Anyone can come up with an idea, at any place, at any time.

So whether you believe it’s possible to be consistently creative or not, one thing’s for sure: Great ideas require something far more precious than original thinking alone. They require teamwork.

Peter Davis is executive creative director at gyro Manchester.

Follow Peter on Twitter @digitaldavis.

Originally published at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network

Advertising was based on a simple funnel concept called the Hierarchy of Effects. The funnel said, push messaging out using these three networks and some print and radio, and people will become aware, form an opinion, make a commitment to buy, and then stay loyal to the brand–the traditional push/pull advertising model. Then the model broke—actually, it shattered into thousands of fragments.

After Al Gore re-invented the Internet (wink), everything changed and the funnel was turned on its head.  Now, people started to form opinions based on well, other people. Networks and communities arose, and some voices were stronger than others. And the others followed.

Social media went from an interesting idea to one of the most powerful tools in the toolbox. Why? Because advocacy started to help form people’s opinions before branding. This is the polar opposite of the shotgun approach of many forms of traditional media.

So where does this leave us? What is media? The answer: It is a series of connections. Today’s media mix is about finding the best ways to connect with the consumer or decision maker.

It is about finding the best ways to connect with the target, with our planning, account and creative peers, and with the ever-increasing world of vendors who bring new ideas to the table every day. Together, we have the opportunity to become an incubator of media firsts via all of the emerging outlets as well as the tried-and-true.

In fact, sometimes the best route is still the traditional route. That aspect of the mix isn’t broken. There is nothing to fix. We just need to connect the old with the new. Awareness building and advocacy are far stronger together than separately.

There is more creativity and excitement around developing media plans than ever before. And the way we connect with our audiences will only continue to become deeper, richer and more engaging. For folks involved in media planning, or better yet, connections planning (such as myself) there has never been a better time to be alive.

Richard Lefkowitz is Connections Planning Director of gyro North America

Originally published at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network

It is pretty clear that the initial appeal to Facebook for advertisers was the sheer volume of “eyeballs” or in other words its reach, scale, and frequency. However, a shift is occurring due to a recent and small, yet important new feature: Users now have the ability to create “lists” and to select what story on their newsfeed is “important”. We can quite literally segment our friends and elevate the prominent stories that captivate our interest. With each click, the algorithm gets smarter, so the net effect is increased relevancy of future content published by your “150”.

The ability to segment your friends was included in the initial launch of Google+ as a point of differentiation, and portrayed in the recent Samsung Circles commercial, which highlights digital intimacy. Digital intimacy is the idea that we desire to share a limited set of information to a select and small group of people online. That theory aligns well with Google+’s positioning and may give it an edge on Facebook.

As Google+ and Facebook battle it out, expect to see this continued tug-of-war between digital openness and digital intimacy. The “lists” feature and “circles” represent a serving up of key advocacy identification – with users defining who and what resonates with them along their personal chain of influence. What this means for advertisers and brands is that Facebook and Google have the opportunity to deliver even more precise data on your target audience because they can measure influence and engagement.

By Donald Ball

Follow Don on Twitter @DonaldJBall

Originally published at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network

Staff who believe in the brand, product or service they are marketing can become or act as “brand advocates.” It therefore makes absolute sense for businesses to take advantage of this opportunity. There are no additional marketing costs, and the staff effectively market a brand or service to a wider yet targeted audience of their friends and family. Office dynamics can help by creating the right breeding ground for brand advocates. But how do you create this?

Internal communications.

Digital has had a revolutionary impact on the ease with which people now communicate and no less in internal communications. Social networks present a realm of endless possibilities for employers to provide places where staff can discuss their work and how it inspires them, spreading a positive message to the rest of the company. Creating staff-only social network pages is a major step toward cultivating brand advocates, and it’s something that many companies forget when setting up pages for clients or fans.

gyro’s Facebook page, for example, is a place where internal communications and personal employee messaging combine, enabling staff to feel truly involved with the company whilst also providing a place for internal communications to be less corporate.

One such gyro communications scheme epitomises what can be done through this platform. As gyro rebranded itself last year, employee buy-in for the new ethos of the company was essential. Creativity is intrinsic in everything we do, and so we challenged staff to be creative with the new brand ID, incorporating their own personal images within it, offering an overseas trip to another office as the prize. Not only did this approach offer a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for an employee to travel, but it also let different global offices feel connected and motivated as part of one community. An overwhelming response saw employees from all 18 global offices uploading countless inspiring works that our Facebook community discussed and judged.

The use of digital was the driving force behind this competition, letting the creativity present in the marketing industry not only flourish and spread but also promote integration and company buy-in across gyro’s global network. Employees bonded over their work, becoming motivated as part of one community, despite living on different sides of the globe. This is something not possible without digital technologies. Moreover, employees became empowered by their work and the clients for whom they produce such work. These employees quickly became brand advocates, extolling the virtues of both their agency and their clients.

What other digital channels can marketing agencies use to create brand advocates? In an extension of social networks, blogs have become increasingly popular in many industries, not the least of which is marketing. An outlet previously reserved for those in senior roles (often limited to CEOs), blogs are a great way of giving employees at all levels the chance to air their views on anything from topical events to the latest office Christmas party. This transparency and inclusion can serve to make employees feel empowered and integral to a business far more than social networks can, where single contributions are often devalued by the deluge of comments. Encouraging comment through company blogs is a key stage in creating a dedicated workforce.

Dedication comes when employees feel like they actively contribute to the business, and blogging for a company is an apropos way of achieving this goal.

And what about apps? They’re often overlooked, but businesses are using apps to communicate with their customers, so why shouldn’t there be a corporate app for internal communications that can be delivered straight to employees’ mobile devices? Such a tool could be an attractive alternative to blanket company emails on topics suitable for a more sociable and less formal platform. Employees would be able to engage with their employer on their own terms, as app content is consumed when and where the user sees fit. This permission-based interaction constructively grows the employee-employer relationship. An internal communications app just makes sense.

Digital also can be used to promote, support and raise awareness of initiatives that staff may not be aware of. For example, gyro works with Business In The Community (BITC), an organisation that gives businesses and their staff the chance to volunteer for good causes on Give and Gain day. Such activities promote well-being and goodwill amongst staff, and so are well publicised through digital internal communication channels to encourage staff buy-in and involvement.

Involving and inspiring employees are the main goals of internal communications. It enhances productivity and can produce those all-important brand advocates who can turn a good campaign idea for a client into a great one, while also promoting that client amongst their social circles. Digital technologies can play an integral part in this, giving staff the chance to socialise online, develop working relationships and inspire each other. Integrating current communication programs with digital tactics can spread the company message throughout the entire business via all formats, be they Twitter, the blogosphere or apps.

Remember, a company is no longer a specific place or office building. It is made up of the thoughts and ideas of its employees, and so creating a positive working dynamic that utilises this source of creativity is integral to a successful business.

by Patrick Danaher
Director of Marketing
Cross posted at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network

Follow Patrick on Twitter @PatrickDanaher.

Thankfully, it turned out to be neither. The musical offering on Cesar’s Pandora station is a rotating selection of recent cuts by bands such as the White Stripes, the Pixies and Parachute. No beat-you-over-the-head holiday theming, but as Cesar brand director Tierney Monaco was reported to explain, “We thought a playlist of songs to enjoy with loved ones would be an exciting way to give back to our supportive consumers.” The station is also promoted on Cesar’s Twitter page.

While I don’t know the details of Cesar Canine Cuisine’s target demo, I do know that the brand aims to appeal to the owners of small dogs, and to women in particular. I have no doubt that Peeps and Tuni (sorry—our own two astonishingly adorable Chihuahuas) would rip into a can of the gourmet-ish meals like rabid micro-Rottweilers if given the chance; but the positioning of the product, as well as its branding, is just a little too precious for my taste. But then I’m not the demographic—or so it seems safe to assume on the basis of the Cesar/Pandora repertoire. (If Ingrid Michaelson is too vapid, Seal is fine; but Radiohead isn’t likely to show up on the playlist, unless they happened to cover “Let It Snow” and I missed it.) For the engagement and loyalty that the Mars company seems to want to build with its ideal consumers, the Cesar brand team is doing a nice job with this seasonal promotion.

Curiously, though, a part of the campaign seems to be missing in the execution. Press releases early this month announced a QR code on retail signage at more than 14,000 major retail stores, designed to help shoppers connect instantly with the Cesar Pandora station. Billed as the first QR-code promotion that Pandora has done, this publicity campaign would engage dog owners through a savvy integration of in-store and online touchpoints. Unfortunately, the Achilles heel of this strategy is that it depends on the retailer to set up and maintain the signage—often a futile hope, while at the same time a critical portal for the shopper.

I’m a sample of one, and the Cincinnati market may not be representative; however, after two weeks of looking high and low in major retail stores in this area, I have yet to find any signage about the Cesar/Pandora promotion next to the Cesar products on-shelf. A disaster for the Cesar brand? Not likely, but I’d bet that signage in more stores would generate substantially higher traffic to the Cesar site. So, with apologies for the, well, shaggy-dog story to get this far, we’re reminded that in the age of so much digital whiz-bang marketing, our ability to engage, win and satisfy customers still depends on the hard work of executing at street level. If that’s a yeoman’s job, it remains as important as it’s ever been for the best marketers.

Well, Best Buy and Research In Motion’s tablet may have the answer: price point. And while this strategy may be meeting with some backlash today, on Black Friday when Best Buy offered a 16-GB and 32-GB PlayBook for $199.99 and $299.99, respectively, those tablets flew off the shelves.

In addition, Amazon’s family of Kindle product sales has quadrupled from a year ago. The new $200 Kindle Fire announced eight weeks ago has helped Amazon boost sales, and the Fire is a top-selling product.

So, the question at hand is, is a price point of $199 the magic number to move the sale of a tablet within a middle-income buyer’s reach? According to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, this may be the case.

Pew Research reports that “about half, 51 percent, of (current) tablet users have graduated from college, compared with 28 percent of all U.S. adults; 62 percent are fully employed, compared with 44 percent of the population overall. They are nearly twice as likely as U.S. adults overall to have a household income of at least $75,000 per year (53 percent versus 28 percent).” And, most intriguing of all, “the largest share of tablet users, 46 percent, are in their 30s and 40s, compared with 35 percent of the population overall.” These numbers suggest that a lot of potential sales of tablets are out there for the right combination of brand credibility, functionality and price.

Implications for marketers …

This holiday season is being called the year of the tablet. Expectations for tablet sales are running very high. In fact, ChangeWave surveyed 3,043 North American consumers Nov. 1-13 (2011) about their consumer electronics purchasing plans in the next 90 days. The results showed that 14 percent planned to buy a tablet in the next three months. Of those, 65 percent planned to get an Apple iPad 2 and 22 percent planned to buy an Amazon Kindle Fire. Samsung’s Galaxy Tab was a distant third with 4 percent of respondents.

So, the good news is that in early 2012, we are likely to have more potential customers we can reach with marketing communications on their tablets. The bad news? We are likely to have more potential customers we can reach with marketing communications on their tablets. More devices mean more operating platforms, which means more expense to develop and deliver marketing programs. Just as marketers have been grappling with mobile platforms, 2012 looks to be the start of multiple tablet platforms as well.

by Carolyn Ladd
Vice President Account Planning and Digital Strategy

Cross posted at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network