Author Archives: John Lane
Three Keywords (And One Mantra) For 2012
The idea of setting up three keywords (or touchstones, or filters) to guide the year is something I saw exactly one year ago on the stellar blog of Tom Webster. It’s far past time I did something with the idea for myself. But first, a quick note on “why?” Last year was a good year professionally. I accomplished many of … Continue reading
Room For Squares: Brand Marks That Work In Social Media
Yesterday I wrote about the heightened importance of a powerful, consistently applied brand mark in our social media world. Your mark should be a quickly identifiable image that let’s your fans/friends/followers who are scanning their social media feeds know there is valuable brand information right beside it. And there’s a simple design parameter that goes along with this: think “square.” … Continue reading
Social Media Makes Logos More Important
I think Scott McCallion did a great job of exposing the fact that where GAP really went wrong in their logo redesign was spending money on a brand mark rather than crafting a better way to become relevant in people’s lives. I highly recommend reading the post. But I think he went wrong with this point: “Simply put, no one … Continue reading
The pitfalls of thinking tactically.
“We’re looking for a 2:30 to 3:00 video.” That’s a common statement I hear on calls with clients about new projects. What I want to know is: Why? What got that length of time in their head? I’m sure if someone at a cocktail party came up to them and asked about a new product, the answer would be either … Continue reading
Was the Old Spice campaign marketing? Or market research?
Yesterday, my Brand Aperture cohort wrote a great post, examining the extent to which consumers discuss brands on Twitter, by the numbers. The points and questions he raised got me thinking about many things. But for this post I’ll concentrating on the following question: If the data is plentiful and brands could *potentially* find insights on Twitter… what does the … Continue reading
People don’t really hate marketing.
I have a hypothesis that I tend to look at clocks when there is a pattern present. It always reads things like 11:11, 12:34, or 5:55. Happens all the time. I’ve told my wife this several times. And every time I do… she tells me I am crazy. Instead, she thinks I look at the clock all the time but … Continue reading
Twitter Influence. Beyond followers, replies and retweets.
Every time I write a post about Twitter, I vow it’ll be the last time. The problem is Twitter is too damned fascinating of a phenomenon to not write about. And the more people try to explain it, harness it, and measure it, the more holes we reveal in our understanding of it. The latest couple of posts I’ve seen … Continue reading
Social Media Measurement: An Owned-to-Earned Spectrum
This post from David Armano does a great job of exploring three types of engagement that are near omnipresent in our digital world—interactive, social and mobile—and where they occur. Where they occur doesn’t mean a specific location, though, like “website” or “while at the laundromat.” Instead it’s more about who controls the domain; whether it is: – Paid The organization … Continue reading
Metrics Make More Successful Creative
A New Approach to Marketing Research and Creativity.
The Brand Aperture Blog exists to explore the connection between real-time research and 21st century brand expressions. Think about it in the simple terms of… Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. It’s not as complicated as you may think, and the relevance of the theory to marketing in today’s digital marketplace is fairly clear. In a nutshell, the Principle states that certain physical … Continue reading
