Join Doug Wood as he moderates a panel of leading in-house counsel on ethics issues.

What marketers need to know this week: Heinz brings Don Draper’s vision to life, a movement to make the “Fearless Girl” statue a permanent fixture on Wall Street gains steam, General Mills brings the plight of bees to its cereal boxes, and more.

Watch stunt driver Debbie Evans challenge the icy landscape of the Yukon in this new commercial created by The Brooklyn Brothers for Castrol Edge Titanium Ice inspired by Fast & Furious, The Fate Of The Furious.

CREATIVE CREDITS:
Advertising Agency: The Brooklyn Brothers
Creative Director: George Bryant
Director: James Bryce
Producer: Garfield Kempton
Editor: Colin Sumsion/ Big Chop

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DKNY launches it’s Spring/Summer 2017 intimates, hosiery and sleepwear campaign, titled #GoodMorningDKNY featuring actress and model Emily Ratajkowski.

The ad was shot by fashion photographer, Sebastian Faena, on location in DKNY’s native New York.

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ANA members view the recently announcements by Facebook and YouTube that they would break down their “walled gardens” and allow independent audits by the Media Rating Council as positive developments for the advertising industry.

Giving a presentation is a fantastic opportunity!  Whether you’re a paid professional speaker, an executive addressing your colleagues, or simply someone whose been asked to make some remarks to group, getting to share your ideas/thoughts/message with others is a great opportunity to positively influence others.  It’s a privilege to have people actually listen to what you have to say — and a responsibility to make sure you use their attention and time wisely.  Here’s how to prepare for a presentation that honors that privilege and responsibility:

How to Prepare for a Presentation

Ask yourself these three questions:

1. Why am I the absolutely right person to be speaking to this group?
2. What are the audience’s biggest challenges and how can I help them address them?
3. What should people know/think/feel/do as a result of participating in my session?

I’ve been speaking professionally for many years now and, while I still have a lot to learn and improve on, I’ve found it’s really helpful to ask myself these questions as I prepare for a presentation.  I go through them before I create the content of my talk, and again after I’ve put together my presentation to make sure I’ve addressed the points, and then once more right before I go on stage as a last reminder of what’s important.  These questions help keep me singularly focused on how I can be of most value to my audience.

In addition to doing prep calls with the client who booked you or the person who asked you to speak, I recommend you ask to do calls with a few participants so you can get their input as you think through the questions.  These calls are usually extremely helpful and they also help establish some rapport with the audience if you acknowledge from the stage the people who helped you prepare.

Three Questions to Prepare for a Presentation

Let me unpack the three questions to prepare for a presentation.

1. Why am I the absolutely right person to be speaking to this group? In other words, what do you know that fits perfectly with what the audience wants or needs to know? Of course, not every speaker is a fit for every audience, so what is it that makes you uniquely qualified to be speaking to this group at this time?

There is usually a specific reason why I’ve been asked to speak to a group — people have read my books or other content or have seen me speak at other events and they want me to share some point(s) that resonated with them.  You were selected for the opportunity before you for a specific reason as well.  If that reason isn’t clear, ask about it directly — but remember that sometimes people don’t know what they don’t know, so you need to think deeply and critically about the unique insights you can bring to them.

2. What are the audience’s biggest challenges and how can I help them address them? Again, ask your client or contact person directly about the audience’s challenges, but also try to “listen between the lines” because sometimes people think they have one need when they really have another.  Do desk research on the industry or company, perhaps even reach out to colleagues who may have insight into the business.

Then map your content to your audience’s challenges and fill in gaps with new research or insights so you’re clear on how you can reframe or break down their challenges, present solutions to their problems, and answer their questions.

3. What should people know/think/feel/do as a result of participating in my session? We’ve all sat through a presentation that we thought was entertaining or funny or inspiring but the next day we can’t remember anything about it.  This question helps ensure that people don’t leave your session saying, “That was nice,” but not changing anything as a result of it.

Whether it’s just a subtle but significant shift in perceptions or an action to be taken or a decision to be made, there should always be at least one change that should happen as a result of your talk. You might try drawing before and after columns and writing down the changes — what do people know before your session and what do you want them to know afterward, what do they think before and after, etc.  I usually very explicitly tell people at the end of my talk what changes I recommend they make — it’s usually a great way to summarize or synthesize your points.  There’s no sense in leaving them guessing.

Preparation Is the Key to Success

Whether or not you use these specific questions, you do need to prepare diligently for a presentation. Sometimes people think they can just “wing it,” but it’s usually clear to your audience when you do.  The best speakers make it look like they are speaking extemporaneously, but I can almost guarantee you they’ve done a lot of preparation.

Remember you have a terrific opportunity — you seize it and steward it well when ask yourself some probing questions as you prepare for a presentation.

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The post prepare for a presentation with these three questions appeared first on Denise Lee Yohn.

If you are like most business leaders around the world, you probably want to improve your employee engagement — for good reason.  The Gallup organization estimates that actively disengaged employees cost the U.S. $450 billion to $550 billion in lost productivity per year.  It’s clear employee engagement should be a priority for you, but in addition to asking how to engage employees, you should also ask what to engage employees with.  I’ve found that great brands intentionally and specifically engage their employees with their brands.  Employee brand engagement is the critical link between employees and customers.

Employee brand engagement involves:

• ensuring your employees know what your brand stands for, the values and attributes that differentiate it, who your brand’s core customers are, and the unique benefit your brand provides to them
• using your brand’s purpose and values to inspire and unite employees — connecting them to an idea or mission that is more substantive and influential than their job or the actual products or services offered
• giving them the information, instruction, and tools they need to make on-brand decisions and to nurture, interpret, and reinforce your brand in everything they do
• helping employees understand their roles in designing, managing, and/or delivering customer experiences that inspire customer engagement and loyalty
• closing the gap between how employees and customers are engaged
• recruiting, motivating, and retaining employees based on alignment with core brand values
• linking employee engagement metrics to overall company performance and brand metrics

Of course it’s important for employees to generally be excited about and satisfied by their work and to feel emotionally engaged to their companies, but that’s no longer enough.  If you want to cultivate employee relationships that outlast leadership changes and volatility in the business and positively  impact customer relationships, you need employee brand engagement.

The Human Capital Institute, The Conference Board, Engage Business Media, and many technology solutions and service providers stage events and conferences that focus on employee engagement.  I’ve been invited to speak at several of these because of my emphasis on employee brand engagement.  Check out this excerpt from a talk I recently gave on the topic, including a simple assessment question to determine the existing strength of employee brand engagement within your organization, as well as an introduction to some of the ways you can achieve it:

related:

develop greatness among employees to deliver greatness to customers

Design Your Employee Experience as Thoughtfully as You Design Your Customer Experience

circumvent a HR crisis with employee brand engagement

The post employee brand engagement appeared first on Denise Lee Yohn.

By Katie Paine Although Twitter has been around for a decade, never in its history has 140 characters had the power and influence it’s enjoyed since November 9th. Sure, when the Pope began tweeting it made headlines. But it didn’t impact markets the way @realdonaldtrump has in the last few months. One outlet estimated that […]

In this webinar, Ben Brown, Senior Global Strategic Sourcing Manager – Intuit Inc., focused on what prompted them to begin this journey, what their selection criteria was and the considerations they needed to keep in mind in the selection process. He also shared key learnings from their journey, suggested any pitfalls one can avoid and shared how marketing automation and CRM has helped their marketing teams.

At a recent event my colleague Kristopher Hull looked at advertising in an enlightening way: despite all the speed and complexity in the world today, marketers still need to reach the same brain. A consumer can be hit by up to 3,000 advertising impressions a day from hundreds of brands, but can process only a limited amount of this information.

Conventional wisdom suggests that the attention span of consumers is getting shorter. But going against this wisdom is the fact that people of all ages binge-watch shows for hours on Netflix. Further, Gen Z and Millennials, often stigmatized for suffering from Attention Deficit Disorder, spend hours on end at music festivals, mesmerized by the performers on stage.

Indeed, people pay attention to information (and brands) that are relevant and meaningful to them and ignore everything else. Neuroscience-based research conducted by Kantar TNS brought to light the fact that in a typical consumer journey only 20% of touchpoints account for 80% of the decision.

To succeed, brands must deliver a message that is meaningful to their audience across all these touchpoints.

1. Educate Your Customer

This starts at the top of the funnel, where brands must provide value beyond the product by educating consumers. Indeed, 73% of consumers say that getting useful information from an advertiser is the most important attribute when they are selecting a brand (Google Analytics).

This information can be related to the product itself or to the universe of the brand. For example, luxury jeweler de Grisogono recently created an interactive tourist guide to St Moritz. This chatbot provides users with insider advice and points out unique and hidden venues at this famous ski resort. From the brand’s standpoint, it celebrates de Grisogono’s Swiss heritage and contributes to its image of creativity and glamour. The chatbot also enables the brand to interact directly with consumers.

Rather than creating content themselves, a brand can save time and money by leveraging content created by its users. Ritz-Carlton guests can share their travel photos on its Ritz-Carlton Memories website. Photos are then localized to each specific hotel, providing valuable travel information and engaging content to other guests. The luxury hotelier also encourages guests to use hashtags and amplifies their message through one of its 12 social channels.

The Ritz-Carlton website now hosts over 30,000 pages of information, photos and videos. Most of these are generated by its hotel guests. When planning their future travel, prospective guests can live their experience vicariously through the pictures and videos posted by other members. This content inspires these prospective guest to create new memories, which ultimately may lead them to book a room and companion services such as Spa treatments and dining experiences.

2. Leverage Or Create Heritage

To be meaningful, a brand must also come across as genuine. One way to achieve this is by emphasizing the brand’s heritage. The likes of Louis Vuitton and Burberry are at an advantage in this arena, thanks to their older European heritage. Although more recent, brands such as Patagonia (founded in 1973) and L.L Bean (founded in 1912) have been very successful by leveraging their American heritage. Both clothing companies play up their roots in their branding to capture their share of the newly-booming “Athleisure” market. Patagonia was initially known for its tools for climbers and L.L Bean began as an outfitter for fishing and hunting supplies. Today, both brands market extensive product lines that include both everyday wears along with their original hardcore products.

If your brand does not have any heritage, it is up to you to create one. Herschel Supply Co. has been making backpacks, luggage and duffle bags since…2009. Their old-time logo, apparent leather-straps and rustic colors all contribute to creating a sense of American nostalgia. By using this strategy and aiming at 18-35 years old hipsters, the brand has now expanded to 10,000 point-of-sales in 70 countries.

3. Build Consumer Tribes

Beyond educating consumers and leveraging their heritage, what all these successful brands have in common is they give people something to belong to. In his presentation on the inclusive future of engagement, J. Walker Smith suggests that our desire to belong provides the basis for everything we stand for.

In line with his work, academic research has brought to light that experiences shared with others are some of the most anticipated, enjoyable and memorable. Sharing emotions provides the foundation for a community. In a similar vein, Bernard Cova argues that consumers become members of “tribes” that are defined by hobbies, passions and shared emotions rather than demographics such as age, gender and income.

These “consumer tribes” do not simply consume goods in the sense of using and destroying them, but also contribute to shaping the meanings behind the products. Tribes give priority to human connections, which are always the core source of emotional value. Products on the other hand simply help facilitate linkages between these consumers. Indeed, social relationships (the “links”) are more important than things (products, brands, ideas and experiences).

Unlike traditional tribes that are bound by kinship and geography, today’s consumers belong to “neo-tribes” that don’t rely on historical tradition and are not bound by geography. Consumers do not belong to only one tribe, but to many little tribes. The core meaning of human social life can be found in the multiple social groupings we all become involved in throughout our lives. Successful brands foster these neo-tribes, turning prospects into loyal customers and advocates. These brands leverage their tribes to expand quickly all over the world and cross-sell companion products and services.

Airbnb exemplifies the power of this model, in less than ten years it has grown from a single apartment in San Francisco to over 2 million listings in 190 countries. This social marketplace is now expanding its service beyond offering only accommodation by matching travelers with the neighborhoods, homes and experiences that meet their needs. Airbnb’s ultimate goal is to deliver a much broader travel offering and have the core of its brand value proposition surpass accommodation.

To sum up, brands no longer stand out with more advertising, more products or more customization. And thanks to Amazon, consumers now take quality, service and speed for granted. Brands must give consumers something to dream about, something to believe in and most importantly something to belong to. In the words of J. Walker Smith, the value in the market place is now relationships.

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