gicavallo

Beyond positioning, there is your brand’s reputation

Posted by gicavallo on May 21, 2013 in Branding | Tagged brand, public relations, reputation

A few months ago, during a meeting of the Medinge Group, a think tank around brands with a conscience I am honored to be a member of, a colleague made a statement that struck my cords: “brands have to move from positioning statements to positioning intention.” I found this idea really contemporary, in line with what is happening in our society. In only a few fast years, the public has changed in nature, from recipient of messages to creator of personal micro-worlds. While in the recent past, brands had the luxury to make the agenda for their public, they find themselves now running after influencers, begging an endorsement or a [...]

How to build a compelling brand experience

Posted by gicavallo on May 14, 2013 in Branding | Tagged Barcelona Motor Show, brand, brand experience, brand identity, conversation, customer touchpoint, marketing, Motor Show, storytelling

Last Friday I went to a party organized by the Italian car company Lancia for a Barcelona Motor Show pre-opening ceremony. I felt a bit strange when only two years before I had been the organizer of such events, and now I was on the list of invitees. Looking at the PR and marketing folks of the automotive brands -old colleagues- trying to give their best, I was filled with emotions and a touch of nostalgia. A motor show is an important element of the marketing plan of a car brand. It takes a lot of energy, intelligence, and time to be organized and it is an incredibly expensive exercise. [...]

How to build your brand communications ecosystem – 1 of 3

Posted by gicavallo on May 7, 2013 in Branding | Tagged (RED), Apple, brand, brand ecosystem, conversation, Detox Campaign, marketing, Samsung, stakeholder

Whether your brand is part of a large corporation or of a small company, you need to communicate with your public in an integrated and systemic way. It is important to understand that our brands serve the lives of real people that live in the real world. They live complex lives: they have jobs and hobbies, they have families and friends they care about, they like some things and dislike others. Not always are they clear about what makes them happy: between the black and the white of our marketing research results, they experience not only a wide array of grays, but also the rest of the color palette. Narrowing [...]

From unmet needs to unresolved crises: branding is changing

Posted by gicavallo on April 30, 2013 in Branding | Tagged archetype, barcelona, bio, Biocultura, brand, crisis, Douglas Holt, ecology, myth, organic, unmet needs

Last weekend I repeatedly visited BioCultura, the fair for ecologic products and responsible consumption in Barcelona. Yu could find organic food, ecologic devices, therapies and all sorts of conferences for the eco-conscious individual. Looking around me I noticed something had changed from last year; I think it was the kind of people visiting the fair. While in the former years (this is the 20th edition BioCultura in Barcelona) you could see mostly the ordinary ‘eccentric’ avant-garde folks with a strong and clear identity, this year I saw a lot of individuals you may equally have met in a shopping center or in a big supermarket. I regard this as good news. The discourse around [...]

Does your brand have an opinion?

Posted by gicavallo on April 23, 2013 in Branding | Tagged archetype, Beyond Buzz, brand, conversation, empathic conversation, Lois Kelly, myth, opinion, Patagonia, positioning, strategy, The Body Shop, Triodos Bank, values, vision

Lois Kelly writes in her book Beyond Buzz that it is important that a brand has an opinion and expresses it. Having an opinion is only a part of a well articulated marketing methodology that Lois Kelly shows in her book, but it stroke my attention for its simplicity and power. Think for a moment of your brand as a person. Would you be interested in a conversation with a person that has no opinion whatsoever on anything? I would not. I would regard this person as lacking personality and she or he would slip out of the list of my acquaintances probably very quickly. I tend to have more intense [...]

Your brand according to Socrates

Posted by gicavallo on April 17, 2013 in Branding | Tagged brand, Socrates, strategy, vision

If Socrates, the ancient Greek philosopher, was alive today, he would certainly have much to say on how to manage brands. I can visualize the great man slowly walking along a sunny country path, followed by a small group of young brand managers. Socrates would suddenly start to talk, not even turning his head, knowing that the eager youngsters following him were all ears. ‘Know thyself,’ Socrates would say. He would stop for a moment and his piercing eyes would scrutinize the wondering gazes of the young followers. With a grin, he would start walking again. Only a moment later he would add: ‘Accept that you know nothing.’ Again the [...]

Your public has invaded your company

Posted by gicavallo on April 9, 2013 in leadership | Tagged employee engagement, internal communications, Jose Luis Montes, motivation, purpose, Turris, values, vision, Xavier Barriga

There are only two bakeries that we buy bread from in our neighborhood. One is next to our home and the other is next to Voxpopuli, my agency. The reason why we buy only from those two bakeries has nothing to do with the vicinity; it relates to the type and quality of bread they sell. It is clear that similarly to Paris a few years ago, Barcelona has a bread-problem. The quality of bread is very low. Bakers live under the illusion that Nature’s rhythm can be altered and use chemical yeast to attain faster baking processes. And it is clear that similarly to Paris a few years ago, something [...]

Perform a rite to become a leader

Posted by gicavallo on April 2, 2013 in storytelling | Tagged Andy Palmer, Annette Simmons, brand, Easter, Guy Kawasaki, myth, nissan, original act of love, rite, storytelling

While I am writing this post, we are just coming out of the Easter celebrations. For Christians, it’s been a week full of events charged with highly symbolic value. The whole set of celebrations associated with Easter forms a construct, a story that gathers the Christian believers around key pillars of their religion and exposes them to the effects of various symbols on their individual and collective consciousness. For western Christianity the story starts with forty days of penance, called Lent. A time of introversion and thoughtfulness, that purifies and prepares the believer to the experience of the Holy Week starting on the Sunday before Easter. The Palm Sunday, as [...]

How to build your personal brand and be happy

Posted by gicavallo on March 26, 2013 in personal brand | Tagged brand, personal brand, swami Vivekananda, The brand called you, Tom Peters

Personal branding was born on August 31, 1997. This is when Tom Peters published his famous article The Brand Called You in the on-line magazine Fast Company. The deck (as a subhead is called, normally) was quite clear: “Big companies understand the importance of brands. Today, in the age of the individual, you have to be your own brand.” The birth of a new discipline with its own specific rules was set. A good personal brand strategy today is an indispensable tool to find a place in your profession, be it in the corporate world or in the wilderness of the open market. What should you ask of a personal branding program? [...]

How to forget plans and win an award

Posted by gicavallo on March 19, 2013 in Branding | Tagged brand, nissan, NV200, van of the year

It was a cold day in the winter of 2008. I was in a meeting room in Tokyo with with my boss in the department of global communications at Nissan. Our company was launching an innovative new van and we believed it had the credentials to win the International Van of the Year 2010 award. The election as van of the year would have been an extremely valuable expert endorsement and something we could capitalize in our marketing activity. Nissan had won the coveted title only once in its entire history and the competition was fierce, so we needed a good strategy and the strongest support from many departments in [...]

gicavallo

Beyond positioning, there is your brand’s reputation

How to build a compelling brand experience

How to build your brand communications ecosystem – 1 of 3

From unmet needs to unresolved crises: branding is changing

Does your brand have an opinion?

Your brand according to Socrates

Your public has invaded your company

Perform a rite to become a leader

How to build your personal brand and be happy

How to forget plans and win an award

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