branding – Carlo Centeno

Data Management of the Highest Order

I recently attended the Digital Marketing Summit for Financial Services & Advisors in NYC. The sea-change in marketing as a science is nothing short of overwhelming. It’s not a stretch to feel data sets [Big Data] testing your senses of feasibility in order to select specific data that can help shape your marketing messages and strategies.

My fascination for everything that is Formula 1 is insatiable, including the way F1 teams develop new technologies to gain a competitive edge under the rules. In recent years, digital data procurement has become de rigueur , just as it has in marketing. There’s no escaping it, there’s no going back. The Summit was well attended, moderated with timely panels and break-out discussions; collectively the 2.5 days allowed me to get in over my head on various “How To….” and “Why Social Media is….” findings, benchmarks and strategies. Professionals from across the USA, Canada, Trinidad Tobago, Germany, England, and other countries were on hand.

The digital marketing and social media cognoscenti may know this already, but these are my Summit take-aways:

Be willing to experiment with your digital tactics, to try things and rule them in/out based on the experience & findings
Marketing, compliance, operations and client service represent the minimum of a purposeful “department” to keep your brand integrated in the customer experience. Working in silos will not provide insights or competitive advantages
It’s unreasonable to expect to have one, even two, IT professionals to manage the entirety that is digital marketing. You will need experts who specialize in a given field or discipline
Clients will expect “frictionless” and real-time interactions with financial services [Example: Amazon is testing AmazonGo, an app that allows you to physically walk into an Amazon store–bricks and mortar–select items you want, and then walk out of the store. The app takes care of all the financial interactions that had just taken place, in real-time
Technology, however sophisticated, can never be a substitute, let alone a panacea, for person-to-person interaction

The diagram noted above is the [estimated] output of a Formula 1 car during practice at this year’s Malaysian GP. The data set is a representative overview of what the driver must know based on speed, gear selection, braking points, acceleration points, track sections and the use of the car’s DRS [Drag Reduction System] to optimize aerodynamics. That’s just a partial list. All told, an actual race sends 1.5 billion data samples to race engineers who monitor the action from their paddocks.

Having access to data sets is far different from the utilization of specific data sets that you believe can optimize your marketing strategy. Ultimately, two goals need to be accomplished: 1) is to consistently, authentically provide to the client the experience that your brand promises, and 2) to deliver on that promise profitably.

Standing Out

In a short period of time, a tsunami of products and services have overwhelmed our values to such a point that we’ve conditioned ourselves to expect the next version of something, to be better than the one we already have. But we’re not any happier or better in our day-to-day lives. Not all consumers consume as such. There is a distinction between a collector and an accumulator.

The sheer number of branded products vying for our attention—and our money—is beyond words. Our attention spans are already fractured from our immersion in diversions and distractions. Is it any wonder that marketers are looking for that strategy which helps their brands to stand out, to be readily noticed and purchased, to be the “next best thing?”

So, how do we optimize the value of our brands, which by the way, also includes our personal brand?

Minimalism.

During my walkabout with camera in hand, I noticed in a meadow a particular detail that stood out: specs of white in an expanse of green, brown and yellow. If the meadow is a designated market area [DMA], the flora its products and services, then it’s easy to recognize the stand out among all the offerings. The simple, white flowers.

These flowers lack the colorful palette of warm yellows, reds and oranges, which is precisely the point. One color, was enough to make our “product” stand out from the rest of the other flowering plants. If we are to champion some level of emotional ownership for a brand, more is often not always better. In fact, the challenge becomes finding the single most relevant, genuine quality that deserves attention. That quality is a narrative that needs to be told.

That quality doesn’t need to be original [nothing is anymore, really], but must be genuine. The quality is accessible, identifiable, perhaps even an antidote to the distractions that contribute to our sensory overload. Marketing minimalism is the distillation of that particular quality that allows the brand to stand out. In this day and age of “reality-this-or-that,” there is a hunger for something far more genuine, more real, more tangible that removes us from our penchant to consume or accumulate things.

Rural Marketing

It’s a wonderful drive to get there. Along the way, you’ll see some of the most pastoral and picturesque landscapes that New England can offer.

The restaurant at South Face Sugarfarm is celebrating its last season. For over 30 years, the family has been serving a variety of New England breakfast fare to visitors from all over. Many visitors become regulars who then make the trip every Spring to partake of homemade waffles, pancakes and more. Naturally, the sugarfarm’s maple syrup is the siren that prompts visitors to make the trek. Ours is a leisurely one hour drive.

As far as I can remember, they didn’t do much advertising through the years. You might open a Thursday Lifestyle section of the local newspaper and see a small ad. That was it. No radio, TV, outdoor, direct mail and so on.

I suppose in its purest form, word-of-mouth marketing is its biggest champion in generating traffic. Whenever we’re there, it’s often crowded and if the weather is half-way decent, people who signed in for a table wait outside. We’ve since learned to go as early as possible. People don’t mind waiting; call it rural networking if you will, as you’ll hear introductions and conversations that could work just as well in a big city cafe.

The experience at South Face Sugerfarm Restaurant defines the brand. It’s consistently congenial, comfortable and more. The food is great of course. The service is very good and the overall feel is one of down-to-earth simplicity. Paper plates and plastic utensils are the order of the day. Everything else is home-made if not uniquely belonging to South Face.

On some visits, there’s a cacophony of “hellos” and “great to see you again” mixed in with small talk and the occasional hearty chuckle or a chorus of “No way!” The cozy dining room can be whisper calm one moment and bustling the next.

I know I’ll miss the drive up to little Ashfield, Massachusetts and miss the South Face restaurant even more. But this is New England and somewhere, another sugarhouse beckons an introduction.

CORRECTIONS: I received word from the owner that advertising was actually regularly done via newspapers in the area as well as on the online directory, massmaple.org as well as more recently on Facebook. My apologies for the error.

Like a song stuck in my head…

Here’s my actual post:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/youre-my-mind-like-song-radio-carlo-centeno?published=t

The home that becomes a house

As is often said, the only constant in life is “change.” From the simple, to the complex, there’s an undeniable commonality about anything that changes: something is altered, modified, created or destroyed.

Such is the case when the Homestead recently sold. No longer a home, it is now a house, an empty canvas ready for what every new homeowner does to a key living space: change it to make it their own. In effect our ancestral abode has shed the attributes that made it our home. Think of a brand losing or morphing its attributes into qualities altogether different. Such qualities are not entirely alien, but changed enough to see and feel a difference from what was once a space all too familiar.

It’s been decades since I lived at the Homestead full-time. At present, I choose to recall good memories as the not-so-good memories dissolve into the negative space created by vacated furniture and other items. As noted in a lyric from a Carol King song, “…yesterday’s gone, but today remembers…”

Selfies and Brand Perception

Categorically speaking, the selfie is one of the top elements populating sites today. Somewhere in our digital world, popular media has put the spotlight on this ubiqituous “self portrait.” As much as I like coming across a selfie here and there, my preferences for this form of actualization is more personal if not deliberately planned. Not to say that a selfie cannot be personal for the sender or subject. Certainly to each his/her own; I’m in the minority as I don’t send or post selfies unless they’re for family. I suppose people who make selfies and photo bombs part of their daily life think nothing more of them. Thus, I can appreciate the spontaneity and the fun aspect of creating and sending them.

If selfies are genuine windows to our inner selves, then I’d think common sense should prevail. A selfie taken with pals in front of a questionable location will not play well. One example is the selfie of a twenty- or thirty-something doing same, with a brown bear in the background. If I recall, the location was in Alaska at a place popular with tourists and brown bears. The bear was just 30 or 50 yards [27 to 45 meters] away. That’s too close for an apex predator that can reach speeds of up to 35 mph [56 kph] in 100 yards [90 meters]. Safety considerations aside, think in terms of centers of influence [COF] who happen to catch a glimpse of the image.That being the case, the question then becomes:

What does a selfie say about you?

All that you consistently do and say is part of your brand. Variations to such, well, that’s another posting altogether, expecially variations that put you on an orbit other than the one you and others know you’re on.

If selfies are self-portraits and thus a physical extension of one’s personna, then I can surmise that one individual is the champion of such image making: Rembrandt van Rijn [1606-1669]

courtesy: The National Museum of Stockholm

Not only was Rembrandt a Dutch master, he was a creative genius. His “selfies” had much to say about the genius he possessed. He imbued the intangible [his sense of purpose, his focus, his sophistication, e.g.] alongside the tangible [his style of attire, its texture and color; his facial expression, his eyes and hands, e.g.]

courtesy: National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

Yes, I’m certain there are other artists who can stand alongside Rembrandt, but he owns the niche.

With age, his selfies contain more detail and texture. There is a quiet confidence—almost regal in tone—that radiates off the canvas. In all of these portraits shown here, the subject is both an aristocrat and an artist, the benefactor and the painter, the model and the creator.

Rembrandt_Self_Portrait_1669 — Bequest of Benjamin Altman

There are other artists who have done self-portraits, that we know, but none have the power of Rembrandt’s canvases. Noted photographer Richard Avedon mentioned that he loved doing portraits because the face is a landscape that tells a story. Just as Rembrandt’s portraits offer something about his brand, so can yours, in this case, the selfie.

But be warned about where you send/post your selfies. You might forget what went where; while others will remember exactly where to retrieve them.

Personal Branding & a Jellyfish

Noted marine biologist, Edith Widder, Ph.D. has spent much of her life under water. She has in fact devoted her professional energy to creatures living in oceans so deep that the light of day will never reach them. On November 23, Dr. Widder will be giving a talk, open to the public, about her work on bioluminescence and marine life. I’m looking forward to it for a variety of reasons not the least being my curiosity and fascination for things different.

This photo is a good example of what she studies, specifically, bioluminescence. It’s that unique ability to generate light, light as the result of chemical reactions inside the organism. On the one hand, you have the image on the right side of the frame. It shows the jellyfish as it appears under natural light. The image on the left is the same animal but in suroundings totally devoid of light.

The point I’m getting to is this: is your personal brand consistent across work environments? Does it change in any way, and if so, is the change pronounced enough to be noticed? Think of mannerisms [behavior and comments] and appearance [attire and grooming].

I suspect that under extreme conditions, some people undergo changes that could leave others scratching their head. “When did he decide to wear really nice-looking suits?” However, for most of us, we don’t so much change our personal brand as much as we do tweaking it. We dial in some adjustments to reinforce an attribute or suggest another. A long time ago, I read somewhere—and it probably came from an Italian designer—that three things signal a person’s sense of accomplishment, confidence and purpose: a wristwatch, shoes and writing instrument. Interesting.

Regarding wristwatches, using mechanical watches—either hand wound or self-winding, reinforces to an erudite observer that the wearer has a sense about time’s importance. Mechanical watches require attention. A nice [Swiss, German, e.g.] automatic watch represents a high level of skill and expertise in watchmaking. Costs aside, I like to think that the wearer of such accessories has an awareness and appreciation for fine watchmaking. The same can be said of the other 2 items. A good pen—especially a fountain pen—speaks volumes about the user. And like the automatic wristwatch, observations cover both positive [learned, confident, assured, accomplished, e.g.] and negative [flashy, poor use of money, attention seeker, pretentious, e.g.]. I don’t think I need to elaborate on footwear at this point.

So then, what aspects of your personal brand are you fine tuning? Are the adjustments or changes subtle or dramatic in their expression….like our jellyfish?