This month’s content roundup is geared toward small business owners.  I don’t write a lot about small business since, to date, I’ve worked mostly with larger companies, but I just had to write this post because I recently read that 52% of small-business owners don’t have a website (source:  Yodle).  I could barely believe that statistic, but having done some research, it seems like business owners need to get back to small business basics.

That shocking statistic came from a piece by a friend/colleague Erika Andersen.  Actually she was reporting on a post by Rieva Lesonsky, Snap Out Of It! The Surprising Basics Business Owners Are Ignoring.  In addition to the above statistic about half of small businesses not having a website, Rieva also shared that 70% of small-business websites had no call to action on their sites, 68% don’t have an email address on their home pages, and 27% don’t have a phone number there (source: Small Business B2B Call to Action Study).  SMB DigitalScape concluded that 98% of the nation’s small businesses were “woefully unprepared” for the coming wave of mobile commerce.

I’m baffled why small businesspeople would be so behind in valuing digital as critical element of their business, but I’m guessing it’s either ignorance or resistance to change.

Ignorance — If you don’t know how to use digital, thankfully there are plenty of helpful resources.

Emma Lou Sheppard has written a terrific overview post, How to Build a Digital Strategy for Your Small Business.  The piece takes you through 10 steps to build and define your audience, develop and deploy a content strategy, and monitor the outcome.  It’s a great starting point.

John Jantsch’s Duct Tape Marketing site has a wealth of information, insights, and instructions — like this post by Ellie Martin, 6-Step Checklist For Revamping Your Small Business’ Online Presence.  Ellie wisely starts at the very beginning with “1. REASSESS AND SEGMENT YOUR TARGET MARKET. Before you jump into any actual changes, it’s important to sit back and reconsider your target market.”

Resistance to change — If you’re used to doing things a certain way, you need to understand that digital darwinism applies — evolve or die.

If you’re used to doing things a certain way, you need to understand that digital darwinism applies — evolve or die.Click To Tweet

David Newman provides an example in his post/rant Why You DON’T Want to Be in the Book.  David argues against old-school marketing tactics like advertising in trade magazines and exhibiting at trade shows. He explains, “We’re living in an ATTENTION economy. Meaning, first you must earn your prospect’s attention. And only then do you get the chance to earn their money. And these days, it’s damn difficult to earn anyone’s attention with a BIGGER ad, a BOLDER directory listing, or a SPLASHIER banner…Today, you can save all that money and put it toward creating resources, tools and content that your target market will VALUE, will KEEP and will SHARE.”

Jeannie Walters offers an additional perspective in 3 Ways Your Small Business Can Clobber the Big Guys.  “Customer expectations are formed by the world around them, not just your service,” she writes. “If the expectation is to be able to purchase a product via mobile, then it’s imperative to make that happen…Understanding your customers and discovering new avenues to serve them (or just ways to serve them better) can help any business, but small businesses often skip this step.”

I know I’ve only scratched the surface on this topic, so I’d love to get your suggestions for how small business owners can overcome their ignorance or resistance to change.  Please share resources people can use to get back to small business basics. Use the COMMENTS section below or post to me on Twitter at @deniseleeyohn.

related:

Building a Small Business Brand

Brand-building for Small Businesses

How to Succeed in Small Business

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By Alex Parkinson, Associate Director, Society for Communications Research of The Conference Board The Conference Board and the Society for New Communications Research (SNCR) has today released Unlocking the Value of Integrated Corporate Communications and Marketing, a new report which explores the trend of companies operating communications and marketing as a single function. The research […]

As usual, the TED community has lots of news to share this week. Below, some highlights.

Man vs. machine? It took Danit Peleg just 100 hours to print the dress worn by fellow TEDster Amy Purdy in the opening ceremony of the Paralympics in Rio (if that sounds slow, consider that it took her 300 hours to print a dress a year ago). Peleg had never met Purdy before the first fitting, so she used Nettelo, an app that allows users to create a 3D scan of their body, to make sure the dress fit Purdy perfectly. Since Peleg used a soft material called Filaflex to print the dress, it moved beautifully as Purdy, a Paralympic medal-winner who lost both legs to bacterial meningitis at age 19, mesmerized audiences with a bionic samba routine. (Highlighting the fact that Purdy was also a finalist on Dancing With the Stars.) The dress was perfectly in line with Purdy’s dance, a reflection on the human  relationship to technology and its ability to allow Paralympic athletes to reach their full potential — one point, Purdy even danced with a robotic arm. (Watch Danit’s TED Talk and Amy’s TED Talk)

For the problems that affect us all, start small. Our national and international political institutions are hopelessly ill equipped to solve the complex, interdependent problems of the 21st century, says Benjamin Barber, but a solution is close at hand — cities, and the mayors who govern them. Barber has long dreamed of building on the urban networks that already exist in specific policy domains to form a global parliament of mayors, and with the inaugural convening of the Global Parliament of Mayors in The Hague, September 9-11, that dream is now a reality. More than 60 mayors agreed on The Hague Global Mayors Call to Action and discussed future governance of the GPM. They also discussed action-oriented plans for such issues as climate change, migration and refugees. (Watch Benjamin’s TED Talk)

Taking the measure of fragile cities. Robert Muggah’s Igarapé Institute is behind a data visualization platform on fragile cities, which launched at Barber’s Global Parliament of Mayors and includes information on more than 2,100 cities with populations of 250,000 or greater. Developed along with United Nations University, World Economic Forum, and 100 Resilient Cities, the cities were graded on 11 variables, including city population growth, unemployment, inequality, pollution, climate risk, homicide, and exposure to terrorism. Surprisingly, the analysis revealed that fragility is more widely distributed than previously thought. (Watch Robert’s TED Talk and read this Ideas piece co-written by Barber and Muggah)

Image permission granted by Robert Muggah.

Biodiversity in The City of Lights. Shubhendu Sharma’s project to promote biodiversity in Paris has been selected as one of 37 projects to improve the city that will be put to a public vote. The vote is part of the city’s Participatory Budget Initiative where residents submit proposals on concrete ways to improve their district or the city at large. The proposals are narrowed down before being voted on by residents (projects for the city at large and projects for specific districts are voted on separately). All residents, not just those who submitted the project, can help bring winning projects to life. Between 2014 and 2020, Paris has dedicated 5% of their capital budget to fund these projects and in 2016, that commitment totals €100-million. By 2020, the investment will total close to half a billion Euros. (Watch Shubhendu’s TED Talk)

The poetry of dissonance. “I don’t remember the last time police / sirens didn’t feel like gasping for air,” writes Clint Smith in his debut poetry collection, Counting Descent, released on September 15. Weaving between personal and political histories, Smith masterfully tells a coming-of-age story exploring the cognitive dissonance that occurs when the community you belong to and the world you live in send you two very different messages. Specifically, he renders the dissonance stemming from straddling a world that frequently depicts blackness as a caricature of fear and communities that ardently celebrate black humanity. (Watch Clint’s TED Talk and read his Ideas post)

Listen up, language lovers. Many of us lament the shifts that occur in language over time, maintaining that language is steadily deteriorating as it succumbs to a steady onslaught of acronyms from our text messaging habits or a misuse of words that grows to be common and accepted over time, like the use of “literally” to mean “figuratively.” But linguist John McWhorter thinks you should think twice before complaining. His new book, Words on the Move, published September 6, explains why the evolution of language is not only natural, but good. (Watch John’s TED Talk and watch for a new talk from John this fall.)

Art that mixes oil and water. Fabian Oefner is on a quest to unite art and science. As he told audiences at TEDGlobal 2013, “On one hand, science is a very rational approach to its surroundings, whereas art on the other hand is usually an emotional approach to its surroundings. I’m trying to bring those two views into one so that my images both speak to the viewer’s heart but also to the viewer’s brain.” His latest work, Oil Spill, is no exception. The photographs show the captivating result of mixing oil and water. The bright colors result from the refraction and reflection of light as it travels through the lens of the camera. (Watch Fabian’s TED Talk)

Do judge a book by its cover. How do you read a closed book? It sounds like a trick question, but Ramesh Raskar and colleagues have developed a camera that can do just that. In order to test the prototype, the researchers used a stack of papers, each sheet with one letter printed on it, and the camera was able to correctly identify the letters on the first 9 sheets. The camera uses a type of electromagnetic radiation called terahertz radiation and could eventually allow academics and researchers to access ancient books and documents too fragile to open. The system could also be applied for analysis of other materials that occur in thin layers, such as the coatings on machine parts or pharmaceuticals. On September 13, Raskar was awarded the Lemelson-MIT prize for his co-invention of many breakthrough imaging solutions including this camera, a camera that can see around corners, and low-cost eye care solutions. (Watch Ramesh’s TED Talk, and read more about the technology behind the camera in this Ideas piece.)

The real meaning of conspiracies. In The New York Times, Zeynep Tufekci explains how the prevalence of conspiracy theories in America’s current election cycle — think Hillary Clinton’s body double or the head of her Secret Service who’s really her hypnotist — is not an anomaly, but a symptom of problems that run much deeper. Conspiracy theories are nothing new, she says, but the growth of technology and declining trust in public institutions means that their number is only growing. “Conspiracy theories are like mosquitoes that thrive in swamps of low-trust societies, weak institutions, secretive elites and technology that allows theories unanchored from truth to spread rapidly. Swatting them one at a time is mostly futile: The real answer is draining the swamps.” (Watch Zeynep’s TED Talk and watch for a new talk from her this fall.)

Have a news item to share? Write us at [email protected] and you may see it included in this weekly round-up.

In a previous article, “The Life and Times of the CMO,” we addressed the importance, and often unrecognized contribution of the Chief Marketing Officer in driving today’s brands.

However, the opposite is often the case with the Chief Executive Officer. In today’s marketplace, it’s not uncommon to see the vision and convictions of the CEO on full display via advertising, public relations or social media that, in effect, shape the brand’s perceptions in ways that may or may not be scripted into the brand strategy.

We can trace this phenomenon back to the beginnings of modern industrial brands with a national footprint. Henry Ford not only revolutionized American industry and created the first significant automobile brand that bore his name, but he was also an active social engineer and even established a “Social Department” within the company to police his standards of conduct among Ford Motor employees. Though he was responsible for much advancement in manufacturing (the modern assembly line) and worker compensation (the five-day work week), Ford’s combative, take-no-prisoners approach, whether dealing with his son Edsel or labor unions, or his anti-Semitic stance and pacifism about World War I, was well known at the time. His controversial personality, in spite of all that he and his company accomplished, became a brand liability, and helped enable competitors such as GM and Dodge to gain a foothold and grow their market shares.

Clearly the DNA of company founders and CEOs like Ford is fiercely potent (or else they wouldn’t be the CEO) and at times, can be over-shadowing to the brands that they are ultimately responsible for. And as in the Ford example, they can become synonymous with the brand in the consumer’s mind, either by design or through media coverage. An example here would be Steve Jobs for Apple, who, through a rocky and tumultuous ascendancy to lead the very company he founded, became the face of the world’s most innovative brand. Even his successor Tim Cook inherited the mantle of fierce Apple independence by staring-down the FBI over unlocking its iPhone encryption technology. Both Jobs and later Cook have, through the force of their personalities and commitments, guarded the Apple brand’s essence and maintained its anti-establishment status going back to the days it tangled with IBM.

Very often the brand story is shaped by the very beginnings of the idea for the brand and the likeability of the founder and CEO who will ultimately lead the brand to greatness. Such is the case of the world’s largest do-it-yourself retailer, The Home Depot. If you have ever read the book “Built from Scratch” you will understand why. Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank were both fired from Handy Dan Home Improvement Centers with what Marcus refers to as being “kicked with a golden horseshoe.” All throughout the impressive growth of the chain, Marcus, and later Blank, guided the brand by principles they learned early in their retail careers. Both men would pay surprise visits to stores and their folksy, down-to-earth demeanor fit the home improvement warehouse chain’s personality to a tee. While only Home Depot shareholders knew them during their tenures as CEO, they have retired to become well-known philanthropists and community leaders in their home of Atlanta … and thus further enhancing the brand’s legendary reputation.

Of course, no discussion of CEOs and brands would be complete without the acknowledgement of CEO as pitchman. Usually the criticism of this strategy is that the ad agency couldn’t come up with anything that the client would approve of, so they put the CEO in front of the camera. Ironically, for all of their usual bravado, most CEOs are reticent to take on the role as campaign spokesman. Often, they will cite that “the message is bigger than one person” or that “people will think I’m on an ego trip.” The smart ones will set those concerns aside if the strategy soundly supports the brand. And there are many memorable and effective examples where this was the case. Here are ten:

• Dave Thomas for Wendy’s
• Frank Perdue for Perdue Chicken
• James Dyson for Dyson Vacuums
• Neil Clark Warren for eHarmony
• Victor Kiam for Remington
• Lee Iacocca for Chrysler
• George Zimmer for Men’s Wearhouse
• Colonel Harland Sanders for Kentucky Fried Chicken
• Orville Redenbacher for Orville Redenbacher popcorn
• Michael Dubin, Dollar Shave Club

Chief Executive magazine quoted a Forbes study that claimed that TV spots scored higher in desire for the product, viewer relevance and being informative when the CEO is pitching the goods. After all, who should know more about it?

The risk, of course, is that in a high profile campaign, the CEO becomes the brand’s “celebrity spokesperson” and is subject to scrutiny of his or her personal lives or political views just as anyone else. That was true with Henry Ford in the 1920’s and is still true today.

The Blake Project Can Help: The Strategic Brand Storytelling Workshop

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Licensing and Brand Education

FREE Publications And Resources For Marketers

Many start-ups get derailed because they don’t get their brand right.  To avoid this fate, you need to develop a Minimum Viable Brand (MVB).

Short on time and money, many start-ups rush into the marketplace thinking that a creative name, cool logo, and pithy tagline are all they need to launch their product idea. But without being grounded in a strategic foundation that provides the internal focus and clarity and external relevance and differentiation, the fledgling business has little chance of surviving the myriad of challenges and threats facing new brands, much less to thrive as the business scales.  Sooner or later the upstart finds it’s not attracting customers or investors, so it retrenches, plots a pivot, and tries (and fails) again — insanely doing the same thing over again expecting a different result.

Start-ups should consider using an MVB. Click To Tweet

Start-ups should consider using an MVB. With a MVB, you expend the least amount of time, effort, and money necessary to develop enough of a launch brand concept to center your organization, convey your value, and to collect learning. As an alternative to a complete strategic brand platform or simply a shell of a brand, a MVB provides you the perfect balance of structure and flexibility.

My latest ChangeThis manifesto, “How to Start Up Your Brand: Develop a Minimum Viable Brand” explains:

• why start-ups need strong brands
• the MVB framework and how to use it, including guidelines & examples
• how the MVB is used to make progress through process

Please check it out — and if you like what you read, please consider subscribing  to my “brand-as-business briefs™^TM” so you can get helpful content like it delivered direct to your mailbox each month.  Thanks!

Related content:

Building a Small Business Brand

Pivot Your Business Plan, Not Your Brand Core

The MVB Framework (Entrepreneur Magazine Video)

The post how to develop a minimum viable brand (MVB) appeared first on Denise Lee Yohn.

Is there ever a right time to get on the front foot and call out your competitors by name? Motorola seems to think so.

The very first rule I was taught as a junior copywriter was to never give your competitors real estate that you had paid for. Don’t compare with them, don’t criticize them, don’t even mention them … And yet that’s precisely what Motorola did recently when they suggested that smart phone buyers should “skip the sevens” and invest in their new model instead. Apple had lost their way they suggested, using their competitor’s own language to suggest that the company with the “Think different” ethos had been reduced to “incremental improvements”.

As the AdWeek article points out, if this was Motorola’s strategy coming into the launch (or even if it wasn’t) the timing couldn’t be better. Both Apple and Samsung have had underwhelming releases. It got me thinking about what other prompts, if any, challenger brands should be looking for when deciding whether to attack head on.

First though, why be a challenger? Challenger brands have one simple motivation for being the brands they are. They lack the influence to change the market. If you believe in Rule of Three dynamics (the top three brands in any category dominate that category and drive the rules), then any brand below that in the pecking order either needs to grow their way into that top set, or challenge their way in. Challenger brands have the ambition, but they need an effective means. And that means rewriting the dominant narrative by telling a different type of story that redefines their place in the world.

According to The Challenger Project, there are three ways that challenger brands look to do that:

1. They stand up for the consumer against perceived exploitation.
2. They bring a rich sense of purpose to a market, actively advocating for change in what they see as ethically or ideologically wrong.
3. They position themselves as the ones to whom the baton should be passed – the next generation brand that deserves to take over from the old ways of doing things.

Interestingly, Motorola have combined approaches 1 and 3. Their pitch essentially is that consumers are no longer getting the phones they deserve when they upgrade and that, for this upgrade cycle at least, consumers should advocate for greater change by switching.

So when might a brand openly look to name and shame others? Here are four occasions to pull the gloves off:

• You want to reposition yourselves as a contender – brazen acts generate headlines, and headlines can give an old brand (or an unseen one) new relevance and influence in crowded markets. With this ad, Motorola have looked to step back out of the shadows and reassert their right to be taken seriously. It’s a great approach for brands that really have nothing to lose from taking on the mainstream – and, when done well, it can transform a brand that would have been dismissed into a consideration.

• The dominant brands have been arrogant or lazy – the incumbent brands have done or said something that has really riled consumers, or they haven’t done enough. This is a classic opportunity for a challenger brand to step up, play the people’s champion and lead the revolt. The message here is: ‘you don’t have to take this anymore’. It requires a very strong and very simple call to action.

• You want to disrupt an assumption – as noted earlier, most brands work to a predominant narrative, and, alongside that, they encourage look-alike behaviors and processes that work for the brand but can really annoy customers. In this situation, challenger brands can look to feed on people’s indignation at being treated like cattle. The message here is ‘Look what they make you do’. This approach requires not just identifying the behavior but providing an alternative that is simple, brand-specific and that consumers will (hopefully) see as sensible, enjoyable and a way of voicing their displeasure. Motorola is doing that here by challenging the automatic same-brand upgrade cycle.

• You want to make them look less appealing – one of the most effective strategies that challenger brands can use is to make the more dominant players look joyless. Here, challenger brands use their informality and cheekiness to call out bigger players as lacking humor and/or humanity. This is an effective approach for brands that are personality-driven and that are looking to pressure a monolith. This is all about: ‘We are what you see. Look at them. How can you trust a brand that seems so faceless?’

Having got the attention, the validity of Motorola’s approach will come down to its bottom-line effectiveness. If it works to move the market share dial, good enough. But then how will they capitalize on a shift in sentiment to take loyalty beyond the next upgrade cycle? (Because that was the term they referenced in their own advertising.) And if their approach doesn’t work to change consumer loyalty and behavior, what then? They may have got back into the trade press but where will they take their strategy going forward?

The Blake Project Can Help: The Strategic Brand Storytelling Workshop

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Licensing and Brand Education

FREE Publications And Resources For Marketers

– the book:  A Lapsed Anarchist’s Approach to the Power of Beliefs in Business is the 4th in a series of books, Zingerman’s Guides to Good Leading.  If you’re not familiar with Zingerman’s, check out their online store (prepare to drool) and their training company, ZingTrain (prepare to be amazed).

– the brains:  Ari Weinzweig, co-owner and founding partner of Zingerman’s.  As a self-described “lapsed anarchist,” he had always been suspicious of institutions like business.  But founding and running Zingerman’s has helped him discover that structure and leadership can actually help people succeed, rather than just oppressing them.

– the best bits:  At 588 pages, A Lapsed Anarchist’s Approach to the Power of Beliefs in Business is an extensive resource on the power of beliefs in business and so much more.  For this write-up, I’m only including some of the many tasty bits on beliefs:

“Every single thing we do, every single thing we experience, everything others around us do is being radically influenced — and more often than not initiated — by beliefs…Strongly held beliefs are at the core of everything we experience.”

“Beliefs can be negative, neutral, or positive.  In each case, I believe, they are essentially self-fulfilling.”

“The real work isn’t to cut out bad behavior; it’s to change the beliefs that put it in motion.”

“When you buy our bread, you’re also buying our beliefs.”

The book also includes an illustrated history of Zingerman’s, recipes for some of its iconic products, and a suggested reading list.

– the brand story:  Of course the brand story here is Zingerman’s.  The company uniquely engages its employees in so many ways; but rather than tell you about them, let me share what Zingerman’s employees have to say about their working experience:

“Something that changed for me when I came to work at Zingerman’s was the knowledge of what it feels like to work for a company that cares — in a foundational way, not just person-to-person — about how we operate in the bigger picture; our footprint, how we treat people, the impact we have on community, who and what we’re ‘responsible’ for.”

“Rather than consider [my job] as a mere stepping stone to something bigger and more important…I started to see my job at the Deli as an occupation worthy of my best creative work and attention.”

“I now believe in myself…and believe that what I am doing makes a difference in this world.”

– the bottom line:  A Lapsed Anarchist’s Approach to the Power of Beliefs in Business is part philosophy text, part personal memoir, part corporate story, and part leadership & business book (with a recipe book thrown in for kicks) — the perfect concoction for a deep dive into beliefs and Zingerman’s.

Listen to my interview with Ari to:

• how beliefs differ from values, philosophies, principles, etc.
• learn why “the customer is always right” is wrong
• get the six-step recipe for changing a belief

Resources:

• Contact Ari at: [email protected] (yes Ari checks and responds to his own email)
• Get copy of the book: http://Zingtrain.com
• Learn about Zingerman’s: http://zingermans.com

related Brand Book Bites:

– The Five Hour Workday by Stephan Aarstol

– The Business of Belief by Tom Asacker

– Dare to Serve by Cheryl Bachelder

The post brand book bites from Zingerman’s A Lapsed Anarchist’s Approach to the Power of Beliefs in Business appeared first on Denise Lee Yohn.

Over the years, we’ve had so many wonderful and moving talks at the TEDWomen conference, but perhaps one of the most striking was Malawi activist Memory Banda. The amazing 18-year-old presented at last year’s event – and inspired us all with her story.

Memory began her talk by reciting a poem written by another young woman she knows, 13-year-old Eileen Piri, entitled “I’ll Marry When I Want.” Memory told the audience that the poem might seem odd written by a 13-year-old girl, but in her home country of Malawi, she called it “a warrior’s cry.”

She told the audience how there was a traditional rite of passage in her country in which young girls who have just reached puberty were sent to “initiation camps” to learn how to please men sexually. As part of their initiation, a man visits the camp and the young girls are forced to have sex with him. Many girls end up pregnant or with sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS.

Memory chose a different path. She refused to go to the camp. She wanted to continue her education and had dreams of being a lawyer. She became an activist and, with the help of the Girls Empowerment Network (Genet), a group dedicated to ending the practice of forced child marriage in Malawi, she began talking to other young women about their experiences.

At the time, Malawi had the highest rates of child marriage in the world. A 2014 Human Rights Watch report outlined the shocking statistics: one out of two girls in the country on average will be married by her 18th birthday. “In 2010, half of women aged 20 to 24 years were married or in unions before they were 18. Some are as young as 9 or 10 when they are married.”

Memory continued with her own schooling and began teaching other young women how to read and write. With the support of Genet and Let Girls Lead, she worked on a storytelling project in which girls were encouraged to share their stories – the dreams they had for themselves, as well as the obstacles they faced – in art, poetry and storytelling.

Memory says that participating in Genet’s River of Life project was transformational for her: “Until then, I always thought I was the only one who suffered. But sharing my story gave me strength to know that I wasn’t alone.”

As she explained in her TED Talk, the girls published their stories and they became part of a campaign to outlaw child marriage in Malawi. A female chief from Memory’s community joined the fight, and the girls worked with her and other village chiefs to develop bylaws banning the initiation camps and child marriage. Eventually, their advocacy went all the way to President Mutharika, who agreed with the girls that the sanctioning of child marriage was a “national disgrace.”

Last year, Malawi officially outlawed the marriage of girls younger than 18 years old. But, as Memory explained in her TED Talk, changing the law is one thing, enforcing it is quite another. Today, she continues to work on the issue, not only for young women in rural areas who might not be aware of the new protections that exist for them, but for young women in other countries where laws still need to be enacted.

Since Memory appeared at TEDWomen in 2015, response to her TED Talk in Malawi and around the world has been phenomenal – it has been viewed over 1.1 million times! This visibility has helped raise Memory’s profile as a global advocate and Rise Up girl leader. Memory is a globally renowned champion for girls’ rights and an advisor to global leaders on the importance of investing in girls. She is currently beginning her sophomore year of college in Malawi, achieving her dream of completing her education.

The TEDWomen conference is sold out now but we have decided to offer discounted registrations that include all conference activities except for guaranteed seats in the theater. These registrations provide comfortable viewing in the Simulcast Lounge where everyone gathers during breaks between sessions.  Find out more at the TEDWomen website.

Green Giant teases the return of its iconic mascot with this :60 spot created by Deutsch, New York. “The Giant Awakens” digital media spot is filled with anticipation as we don’t see the big green giant, rather the ad captures the frazzled looks of people across the country, heads gazing in ah upward, eyes wide open, as they catch a glimpse of the him. As for us, we only see his shadow and enormous footprints. The light-hearted music eases the mysterious, frightening even mood of commercial, and now we wait.

The work is Deutsch New York’s first step in reinventing the Jolly Green Giant for a modern audience and making him just as culturally relevant to Americans now as he was in his glory days. “The Giant Awakens” was directed by renowned commercial and music video director Patrick Daughters.

Says Dan Kelleher, CCO, Deutsch New York, “The Jolly Green Giant is a true icon of American advertising. So having the opportunity to bring him back is a rare honor. This is not your typical packaged goods spot. And that speaks volumes for the bravery and long-term vision of the B&G Foods team and the future success of the Jolly Green Giant.”

“The Green Giant is a legendary mascot, and working with passionate partners like Deutsch and Patrick, we’re excited to be reconnecting him with consumers in a seismic way,” said Jordan Greenberg, Vice President and General Manager, Green Giant at B&G Foods. “We’ve got a lot in store for consumers and this marks the beginning of our marketing efforts.”

Credits:
Ad Agency: Deutsch, New York
Director: Patrick Daughters