Comments on: All Brands Are Politicians

By: Sam

Sam — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 01:37:44 +0000

However, I think your is a great father, and how can be a good father，i like it .

By: electronic components

electronic components — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 01:34:21 +0000

Your article made me see a great father, thank you.

By: Willemarck

Willemarck — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 09:37:41 +0000

Thank you John. I think you’re right and some of the above comments forget that on average , 5% of the people dare to express themselves but the 95% left just enjoy reading what they say. And That givres a lot of power to activists and lead users through word of mouse. Therefor, I agree with you, brands cannot escape engagement. What they need more than ever is what politicians need too: a program and an ideology. And at the core of the ideology there is the word idea. Too many brands live or survive around while failing to get their brand associate with their reason of being. Often because they have simply no idea of what they want To stand for. They’re copycats lost In the red ocean. Social Media will help corporations and brands delivering Sense besides the product or services. Forporations is the future od corporation as Umair Haque claims. No?

By: rachel

rachel — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 04:38:49 +0000

Andy Havens says is true, I agree Andy Havens, this has been going very long. and it was not possible this soon changed. in the grouping of the targets we do not restrict it too.

some of them had been willing to pay more for it. the most important thing for me in promoting namely in terms of quality rather than quantity.

By: Andy Havens

Andy Havens — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 15:18:55 +0000

Not sure I agree with you. Even if an advertiser did something egregious in terms of segmenting/targeting a specific group for a product, I doubt people would get up in arms about it. Most people think that advertising doesn't affect them personally and specifically. We all think we're too smart for it. We're all wrong, of course, but I can think of very few cases where people would get mad because they were part of a group that was targeted "inappropriately" using a data-driven model.

In some ways, we're more flattered than afraid when we get marketed to. It's attention, and we like attention.

Plus, this has already been happening for years (see credit cards and credit scores), and nobody is doing much about it. We just elected a bunch of R's who are going to insist on weaker financial protection and consumer banking oversite, too. So... you'll have to wait two years for anyone to officially care about this, and, even then...

By: Jan Simmonds

Jan Simmonds — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 09:15:49 +0000

Excellent piece John thank you. This is one of many reasons why I have been advocating for several years that brands engaging at crowd level with social media are creating the monster that eats them. Brands, whether they be physical products or celebrities etc. are aspirational and need to stand out from the crowd, or the position of authority or respect necessary to achieve the above will not carry the weight they require. We've already seen several high profile cases of brands diluted by engagement (Coca Cola, Gap, Woolworths etc.) and I suspect this is just the beginning. I agree of course with the increasing responsibilities too, but it's rather like a teacher wearing the same clothes as their students and talking the way they do, it just doesn't reinforce aspiration or encourage respect for their knowledge.

FMCG products can get away with some level of engagement because they can offer POS offers and use sm to give the impression of benefit, but let's not get blinded by those successes to justify a lemming like journey into the abyss.

By: not-so-elite

not-so-elite — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 19:16:25 +0000

Elites are selfish.

John, yeah organic food may be good or may not be for your body, but it surely is not good for the environment.

You know why organic food costs more? Because it requires more resources. If the entire planet has to eat organic food, we either would have to cut all the forests or define poor as somebody who can't even get food. Forget about unhealthy fried food.

Also do you know what is one of the most important factor affecting our enironment? Inefficient use of land. Because when land is used inefficiently, trees are cut.

So just like government cares about miles per gallon, there should be minimum requirement on efficient use of land. But not, because you elite would not allow it. An apple organic or not tastes the same, but you taste not only for your tongue but also for your elitism.

If you care about environment, care about poor, and the world, stop eating organic food. Eat local, since it saves energy. But demand your local farmer to produce as much food as possible. More food they grow, less needs to be transported.

Simple math: If you anyway want to eat organic, eat organic food from far away land. It will require less energy to tranpost organic food to satisfy the elitism, and grow as much inorganic food locally to satisfy hunger.