The Post2Post bus has just pulled in!

The Fresh Peel is pleased to welcome Daniel Burrus, technology forecaster, business strategist, and author.

In his latest book, Flash Foresight, Dan outlines the blueprint he has been using for years to help his clients predict trends and build solid strategies to take advantage of the changes on the horizon. Given the changes in how the work I do has evolved, this book has become a timely resource that has helped shape the way I approach planning and strategy.

In this interview with Dan, we touch on some of the core themes and principles from the book and what they mean for brands that are struggling to reinvent themselves in this ever-changing, fast-paced world we live in.

In contrast to the typical written interviews that I’ve produced for Post2Post tours in the past, I tried something a little different this time around and recorded an audio interview with Dan. Be sure and let me know in the comments which you prefer.

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Download the interview with Dan Burrus

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Find out more about the book and Dan at the Flash Foresight website. Also, when you buy your book, Daniel is offering $20,000 in Bonus Resources. Go to the site and click on the Bonus Resource Login button to get access to these resources.

Be sure to check out the rest of the Post2Post schedule:

With 2011  right around the corner, it’s time to start thinking and planning for next year. Rather than publishing an lengthy list of top 10, 50, 100…… I thought there would be more value in identifying 3 trending changes in behavior that I think will have the most impact in 2011.

Here they are:

Mobile Shopping

As smartphone adoption continues to grow and mobile technology continues to evolve, the usability of smartphones will continue to get smarter. Nielson is predicting in the US that smartphone adoption, which is sitting at 30% right now, will reach over 50% in 2011, overtaking feature phones. I imagine we will see similar growth in other countries as well. These developments will set the stage for brands to integrate mobile experiences that are more interactive and take advantage of a wider range of smartphone capabilities.

All of these factors will drive brands towards solutions that earn mobile a larger role in the shopping equation, especially at the point of sale. Smart brands will look for ways to integrate mobile into retail experiences, both online and off, creating a seamless connection between the two.

A huge implication of this mobile shopping trend is the effect it will have on price. Armed with quick and easy access to social networks, reviews, and competitor pricing through the mobile web and mobile apps, consumers will start to access these tools more frequently while shopping.

We’re already seeing signs of this trend in mobile barcode scanning, which some tech providers are saying is growing at a rate of 700%. On Black Friday alone, barcodes were being scanned at 20 times the daily average.

These accessible tools will create a breed of consumer that is more informed than ever, and evoke a deeper sensitivity to price. This will create a greater need for retailers to pay close attention to the shopping experience they provide, and look for ways to ensure that unique benefits aren’t overshadowed by price as the only influencing factor.

Mobile Brand Experience

What’s interesting about the mobile shopping trend I’ve just described is the opportunity that this creates for brands to deliver relevant content to consumers during all stages of the shopping funnel. Outside of in-store displays and product packaging, brands have had few opportunities to influence shoppers at the point of sale. As consumers integrate mobile into their shopping routines, brands will find unique ways to add value to the experience, and take back some of the control that has traditionally been left in the hands of retailers.

An example of this could be as simple as a adding a barcode to the packaging of a food product, that when scanned, sends consumers to a mobile website with seasonal recipes. It could also be a robust application that taps into the advanced capabilities of the phone, like using the GPS to help the consumer find nearest locations to buy a product when it is sold out at one store. The app could even connect consumers with social networks where they could see product recommendations from people they know.

Gamification

This is my pick for the buzzword of 2011. But buzzword or not, the concept of gamification is something that brand marketers should know and understand. To put it simply, gamification is adding mechanics typically used to keep people engaged while playing a game to other processes. Gamification isn’t anything new to marketing. After all, customer rewards programs have been around for decades and are built on an achievement model often used in games. Do X a certain number of times and you will be rewarded with Y and move up to the next level.

Game mechanics will find new life in 2011, as consumers become more and more connected to people and information through their mobile devices. The ubiquity of this connection will create an opportunity for brands to keep consumers engaged with regular branded content.

Mobile provides consumers a way to escape by dipping in and out of these connections throughout the day. They can easily take a five minute break to check what’s going on with their friends and family on Facebook, and later take another break to keep tabs on their Fantasy team.

Smart brands will find a way into this behavior by applying game mechanics to marketing programs and content, keeping users coming back again and again.

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What do you think?

This space is evolving.

I started this blog almost 3 years ago. At the time, I had been out of college and working at a small marketing and design shop in Oklahoma City for a little less than a year. I was still in the process of deciding exactly what where I wanted to go with my career, and I felt that the best way to find the right path was to continue learning and exploring.

This desire to learn started well before this blog. After graduation my desire to keep learning hit a new level. I became a sponge, soaking up information from business books, ebooks, blogs, podcasts and anything information that I could get my hands on. I absorbed it all. Or as much of it as a normal sized brain can.

Keeping up this habit for a period of months I felt like I needed a place to share my own thoughts. I was making connections between the things I was reading, and the world around me, but these thoughts never went any farther than the inside of my head, and maybe a few friends and colleagues. I needed a place to capture these thoughts. A place to share ideas and make them real. A place to connect with others that were interested in the same ideas. And with that The Marketing Fresh Peel was born.

A lot has changed since the launch of this site. The initial content idea for this space was to write about marketing strategies and ideas. But my curious nature combined with my interests in technology, social media, brand strategy, and an ever-growing obsession with studying human behaviors have led me to thinking and writing about topics I never envisioned in the beginning. But that’s how blogging goes. It’s an evolving process.

I’ve also changed. As I announced at the beginning of the year, I relocated to Dallas to join ranks of Fleishman-Hillard’s growing global network of digital professionals. We have a stacked team in Dallas, full of talented people with experience from various disciplines: film, digital shops, advertising, public relations, word of mouth marketing, and a lot more. And we’re still learning how to work together, building our own model for how we think a new age communication firm should work. And we’re still growing.

During this building process I landed a spot in the strategic planning group. My natural curiosity and addict-like habits for consuming and curating massive amounts of online content were a natural fit. I finally have an outlet and the needed tools to satisfy my love for research, and I can put my obsession with human behaviors to good use.

Things have changed. My thinking has evolved. I’ve evolved. It’s only natural that this space evolve as well. So here’s what’s changing:

1. New Name

The name of this blog is changing from The Marketing Fresh Peel to simply The Fresh Peel. Having “marketing” in the title made sense in the beginning, but it doesn’t quite fit the range of content published here anymore.

2. More Research

Now that I have access to a wider range of research tools, I’m going to make it a point to use these resources to help connect the dots and paint a clearer picture around the ideas presented here.

3. More Exploration and Experimentation

In the past, the collaboration and comments on this blog has come and gone in waves. I’m going to make an effort to use this space more as a testing ground for ideas, and I’ll need your help with feedback and thoughts along the way. I won’t be looking for comments for comments sake, but people who enjoy challenging and improving ideas.

4. Curation

This is one of the things that I am most excited about. I’m revamping and systematizing the way I collect and share other content. Sure I consume and share a lot of content, but the sharing part typically ends up happening at random. So I’ve created two different Tumblr sites where I’m sharing all of the interesting things that I come across, and it gives me a place to reference back to when I need to find something again.

The sites are: Freshly Peeled, which will include content like infographics, charts, slide decks, videos, and pdfs. Juicy Finds, links to articles written by others.

Everything posted to these sites will show up in the Fresh Peel RSS feed, but will only be posted to the individual sites. (If you’re not subscribed, you can do so for free via RSS or Email.)

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This space has evolved. What do you think?

Just in time to add it to your summer reading list, the third installment of the AOC collaborative project has hit store shelves!

For those not familiar with the series, it first started as an experimental writing project, which brought together over 100 bloggers from 9 different countries to produce the aptly titled book, The Age of Conversation.

The Age of Conversation legacy continues as 171 authors from 15 different countries came together to write The Age of Conversation 3: Itís Time to Get Busy. The book discusses the distinct shift from social media as a hypothetical consumer loyalty tool, as it was considered only a little more than a year ago, to its current state as a staple in the modern marketing toolbox. The book covers more than just social media, but the topic is woven throughout the books 10 sections:

• At the coalface
• Conversational branding
• Influence
• Getting to work
• Corporate conversations
• Measurement
• In the boardroom
• Pitching social media
• Innovation and execution
• Identities, friends and trusted strangers

My contribution to the book takes a look at the idea of making the branding process more organic, growing a brand, in contrast to the traditionally rigid structure of building a brand.

As it has become customary with past editions, all of the proceeds from this yearís book, will be donated to an international charity of the authorís choosing.

- Get your copy of The Age of Conversation 3 -

A big thanks to my fellow authors this year!

“We’ve got to stop interrupting what people are interested in and be what people are interested in!” – Axel Chaldecott, JWT

The idea of branded utility is nothing new. In fact, it’s an idea that has cycled in and out of popular conversations for almost a decade, and yet there is still debate on exactly what it means and whether or not brands can truly provide branded utility in a way that makes a relevant connection to the brand.

(Slide from my Micro-Pulse presentation)

I roughly define branded utility as any way that a brand can truly make the lives of consumers better. Branded utility is something that brands can create in different ways, which are often overlapping. I suggest that there are 6 key ways that brands can look to provide a branded utility:

• be creative – something new, unexpected and original
• be helpful – make something easier for consumers
• be relational – be in a convenient location
• be interesting – arouse curiosity and hold attention
• be relevant – do something that makes sense given the context
• be useful – serve a practical purpose

To make it simple, look for ways to provide value. That’s the key. Instead of looking for ways to shout a marketing message, create situations that add value to consumers so that they desire to engage with the brand.

For many this is the ending point in the discussion on branded utility. The thought is that if a brand can provide value in anyway and connect it to the brand, then they call it a win. I’m not so sure about that, in fact, I believe the Holy Grail of branded utility is found in when the solution is both utilitarian and (most importantly) on strategy. In my mind, you’re wasting your money if you can’t connect your efforts to the brand in a way that makes sense.

So what does on strategy branded utility look like?

This year at SXSW, Chevy brought some fine examples of how brands can provide value and stay on strategy.

(Disclosure: My employer, Fleishman-Hillard, was the agency for record for Chevy at SXSW 2010.)

Gowalla Airport Shuttle

Chevy partnered with the location-based travel game, Gowalla to provide a pop-up to randomly selected people checking in at the airport, offering them a free ride to downtown Austin. It was a fun way to experiment with emerging technologies, provide a helpful service to people (saving them a $50 cab ride) and give them an opportunity to experience riding in a Chevy vehicle first hand.

Read how Mike Schneider, one of the first to find and redeem a free Chevy ride, describes his experience.

Volt Recharge Lounge

During the Interactive portion of SXSW, the Volt Recharge Lounge was like finding a oasis in the desert for attendees desperately needing to charge their smartphones and laptops. SXSW can be draining, on both your body and on your devices. The Volt Lounge provided a great place to relax, recharge and even try some refreshing Sobe.

This made the lounge a great spot to meet new people and power-up community at SXSW. On a recent episode of JaffeJuiceTV, Joseph Jaffe called the lounge both “rescuing and rewarding.”

Catch a Chevy

At SXSW, a majority of the people in attendance have no choice but to walk. Most don’t have cars and if they do, parking fees can quickly add up when moving from one venue another that most choose to walk it. That all changed this year. Chevy provided attendees free rides to strategic stops around downtown Austin, helping them get to their destinations faster and save the souls of their shoes, all while experiencing a 2010 Chevy vehicle.

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Do you have any good examples of branded utility?

Where you at SXSW 2010? What do you think of the examples I’ve written about here?

I haven’t really been a fan when it comes to listing trends and predictions for the new year. After all, shouldn’t we always be looking forward? Especially with the rate of change that currently exists?

That’s not to say that I haven’t contributed my thoughts as to what 2010 holds. Check out the 100 Social Media & Content Marketing Predictions for 2010, where I along with 60+ other marketing minds made our predictions.

I find a lot of value in being able to see future through so many different lenses this time of the year. I can see what topics are repeating and if there are any irregular gems that catch my eye as something to keep a close eye on in the coming months.

So with that goal in mind I’ve listed 46 different 2010 trends and predictions posts, that I’ve organized (as much as I can) by topic.

Please let me know I missed your predictions post. Go ahead and leave a link in the comments. I welcome different perspectives on what 2010 holds.

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Digital

• 100 Social Media & Content Marketing Predictions for 2010, by Various Authors

• 2010: Year of Digital Distraction?, by Pete Cashmore

• Twitter at a Crossroads: Audience Growth Won’t Be Enough in 2010, by Josh Bernoff

• Social Media 2010: it’s time to get boring, by Jackie Huba

• Top Digital Trends for 2010, by Brian Morrissey

• What’s the Twitter of 2010?, by Mark Evans

• 5 Social Media Implications for Brands in 2010, by Sienna Farris

• 2010 Social Media Influencers – Trend Predictions in 140 Characters, by TrendsSpotting

• ReadWriteWeb 2010 Predictions, by ReadWriteWeb

• The 10 TENsions That Will Define 2010, by Ross Dawson

• Top 5 Predictions for the Next 5 Years in Business Social Media, by Tac Anderson

• 10 Ways Social Media Will Change In 2010, by Ravit Lichtenberg

• 6 Social Media Predictions for 2010, by Amy Porterfield

• 9 digital trends to watch in 2010, by Nuri Djavit

• Nick Law on 2010 Trends, by MediaBeat

• (Social Media) Trends to Watch in 2010, by Mike Sansone

• 2010 Trends: Social Media & Paid Content, by Debra Aho Williamson

• 10 Web trends to watch in 2010, by Pete Cashmore

• 100 Things to Watch in 2010, by JWT

Mobile

• How Carrier Evolution will Affect Mobile in 2010, by Vince Lesch

• What will be the major trends in mobile marketing in 2010?, by Giselle Tsirulnik

• 9 unpredictions: What’s not going to happen with mobile in 2010, by Vanessa Horwell

• 10 Trends to Watch in 2010, by David Stutts

• Six Social Media Trends for 2010, by David Armano

• Top ten digital trends for 2010, by Drew Neisser

• 8 Mobile Technologies to Watch in 2010, by Sarah Perez

Marketing

• 10 Internet Online Trends for 2010, by John Arnold

• Trends That Will Shape Market Research In 2010, by Reineke Reitsma

• 2010: The Year Marketing Dies…, by Augie Ray

• 2010 Marketing Predictions, by Matt Granfield

• Three Words to Sing in 2010, by Pete Blackshaw

• 5 Trends That Will Shape Small Business in 2010, by John Jantsch

• Four Email Marketing Predictions for 2010, by Chad White

• Top 10 Brand and Marketing Trends for 2010, by Robert Passikoff

• 11 Smart Marketers Shared Their 2010 Predictions, by Various Authors

Public Relations

• What to Look Out For in 2010, by PRSA

• PR Trends in 2010: The Future of PR, by Sally Falkow

• Jeremiah Owyang: Public relations will be impacted by ’social CRM’ in 2010, by Dave Armon

• Envisioning Media Relations: 2010 Predictions, by BurrellesLuce

• Public Relations Measurement 2010: Five Things to Forget & Five Things to Learn, by Don Bartholomew

Customer Service

• 10 Customer Service Trends for 2010, by Barry Moltz

Journalism

• 8 News Media Business Trends for 2010, by Vadim Lavrusik

• 10 Reasons Media Relations Will Get Easier in 2010, by Jeremy Porter

Nonprofits/Social Good

• 3 Powerful Social Good Trends in 2010, by Ben Rattray

• Five Social Media Fundraising Trends for 2010, by Beth Kanter

Music

• 5 Predictions for the Music Industry in 2010, by Nick Crocker

Finally, to put all of these predictions into perspective, Iain Tait from Crackunit has some mockingly humorous Trend Predictions for 2010.

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What did I miss? Let us know what you think 2010 holds in the comments, or leave a link to your trends and predictions post.

This is something I think we really started to see come to life with Twitter and the evolving network of connections it provides. We are able to maintain loose connections with large groups of people around a number of different interests. For example, I’m connected with people on Twitter around a very eclectic set of topics: branding, social media, music mashups, location (Oklahoma City), mountain biking, and other topics might be on my mind.

Some have argued that these loose connections don’t provide as much value that a smaller community that is focused around a specific problem or topic can provide, especially when it comes to solving problems or making something happen. And I agree totally, but I also think that the value of Twitter comes from the way it creates serendipitous crossroads of opportunity for us to connect with others we may never have come into contact with otherwise.

It’s amazing to watch Twitter, which is seemingly unorganized, to see how people cluster together in discussions around ideas.

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Have you found value in loose connections?

How often have these connections developed into something greater?

It’s time again for the Coolest & Gaps Branding Survey. This is your chance to take part in a worldwide branding survey conducted by Allegro 234 brand consultancy in Madrid.

The survey is a unique initiative that looks at your personality and personal preferences in relation to brand experiences. This provides some very interesting perspectives and results. Heck, just participating in the questionnaire alone might give you some new ways to look at your brand.

The survey will be open until 12/18/09 so you have two weeks to participate. Click the button below to get started.

It’s short and should only take you about 4-minutes to complete.

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Also, if you have a moment, take a look at the 2008 Coolest & Gaps results.

I’m still curious to see if any retailers have the guts to make Black Friday something more than a price war. More specifically, will any realize the day as an opportunity to create a positive brand experience and cultivate fans?

After my recent post on the topic, I was pointed towards an event that is slowly becoming something of a tradition at Bass Pro Shops. (Thanks zgilliam) It’s called The Great Turkey Campout and it happens in the parking lots of stores around the country.

Customers are invited out on Thanksgiving night for s’mores cooked on an open campfire, hot chocolate and coffee. There are also a number of drawings for camping gear and gift cards.

When the event ends, customers are invited to pitch their tents and camp out the rest of the night, where they will be first in line when the doors open on Black Friday.

Bass Pro saw Black Friday as an opportunity to create a positive experience for it’s biggest fans, instead of focusing on price along to lure customers to the door.

I hope they will continue this event in the coming years and make a tradition out of it, but I challenge them to up the ante a bit. Think of ways to further highlight and encourage the community that Bass Pro supports around camping and hunting. Here are a few ideas:

• Serve everyone deer chili.
• Bring in a storyteller to tell stories around the campfire.
• In the morning, drive coffee around to everyone in a fully outfitted ATV.

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What would you add to this list?

Have you seen any retailers like Bass Pro Shops that are breaking the mold this year?

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Via: The Social Path

Download the Brand Touch Cycle pdf

A discipline that I consistently see organizations struggling with is in fully understanding the importance of touchpoints of their brand.

Yes they understand the basic idea of a touchpoint—that interactions with their brand is a touchpoint that influences the overall perception of their brand. And yes they know that it is to their advantage to integrate the touchpoints of their brand as much as possible.

The disconnects start to happen when we start to dig a little deeper into the organization and really start to identify all the ways in which consumers experience the brand. You then start to see areas where the brand experience doesn’t flow quite as smoothly as it should.

This typically happens because of lack of clarity in three areas:

1. Identifying all the touchpoints of a brand—large and small.
2. Understanding how consumers tend to move from one touchpoint to the next.
3. Recognizing that all touch have an impact the brand experience.

While working with clients to help them continually improve and grow their brands, I’ve developed a framework to help them fully grasp the depth and complexity of the many ways that consumers experience their brand, and also help them improve this experience over time.

I call it the Touch Cycle. Here are the steps:

1. Choreograph Touches
Map out as many different paths that a consumer might take with your brand, from start to finish. Think about all the interactions that consumers have with your brand, large and small.

Don’t forget the small touches here. We have a tendency to let all the big things our brands do overshadow the small things that slowly chip away at our brands.

How do they fit together? How do consumers move from one step to the next?

Play out these scenerios in your head. Do they flow together well?

2. Listen and Watch
At each of these touchpoints listen and watch what consumers say and do. What are they telling you through their actions, or what they tell others?

Take note of any confusion or frustrations that consumers might have at a specific touchpoint.

3. Reinforce Behaviors
Support the positive reactions and actions happening around with the touchpoints of your brand. Strengthen those touchpoints by encouraging good behaviors.

For example, if someone refers a friend to your product or brand, at the very least thank them. Or better yet, reward them in some way.

This is especially important when it comes to your brands online touchpoints. When someone says something good about your brand, engage with them. Thank them and encourage them to continue being advocates for your brand.

4. Evaluate and Expand

Take a look back at all the work you’ve done in steps 1, 2, and 3. Evaluate the effectiveness of the touchpoints you identified in step 1. Determine what’s working and what’s not.

Are there touchpoints that we should eliminate? Are there areas what we should expand into and add new touchpoints to the brand experience?

Download the Brand Touch Cycle pdf

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It’s at this point that the cycle starts over and begins again. Obviously this is something that needs to be worked into a larger brand strategy, but I’ve found it to be a great tool to help organizations start to think of their brands in a more holistic way.

Thoughts? What say you?

A few months back I was approached by Leslie Scott’s publicist about setting up an interview with Leslie regarding her book About Jenga. At the time I had no idea who Leslie Scott was or why I would be interested in a book about that I assumed to be a history book for a board game.

But, luckily for Leslie, her publicist had clearly done her homework and was on target with her pitch. I kept reading and found out that Leslie was the creator of the popular household game, Jenga, and her book is packed full of stories and lessons learned on her lifelong journey with the game. Leslie’s extraordinary experiences fit nicely with unique approach to content I try to provide here at The Fresh Peel.

Jenga is a game that has always intrigued me because of it’s simple complexity. It’s such a simple game to understand, but a complex game and somewhat stressful game to master. And Leslie’s story has taken many twists and turns, with many great lessons learned along the way. (Disclaimer: I received a free copy of About Jenga from the publisher.)

In this interview, I quiz Leslie on a variety of topics that she touches in the book, everything from her experience working at Intel to her intuitive understanding of the need to maintain the Jenga brand.

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Also, Leslie’s publicist sent me a signed holiday edition of Jenga that is signed by Leslie herself. I’ll be randomly giving this away to anyone that comments at the the end of this post. You have until Friday, November 20th to leave your comment for a chance to win!

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Q: Where did the idea for the game Jenga come from?

Leslie: Jenga was based on a game that my family devised in the mid-1970s using my then five-year-old brother’s wooden building blocks. We played this game within the family, and with friends, for several years before I decided to modify it, name it, manufacture it and take it to market in 1982.

Q: What triggered Jenga’s rise to its iconic status in the world of household games?

Leslie: This is a difficult question to answer in just one sentence as it begs further questions, such as what makes a good game in the first place, and even why do we play games at all? But in brief, I think Jenga satisfies all the basic requirements we have of a game. It demands skill, involves interaction with other players, provides suspense, and takes place within a finite period of time.

Q: In the book you stated that you were, “convinced that once buyers saw it, they would tumble over each other in their eagerness to put Jenga on the shelves in their shops.” That wasn’t exactly how things played out. What additional steps would you have taken in the beginning if you knew what you know now?

Leslie: I started a company with the sole purpose of taking Jenga to market. This meant that when I launched Jenga at the ’83 London Toy Fair, neither my company (Leslie Scott Associates) nor the product I was trying to sell had any name recognition in the business whatsoever. With hindsight I now know that it is exceedingly difficult for an unknown business to break into any market with an entirely novel product. At the time, I had naively assumed that the toy and gift business thrived on novelty. If I had been aware that this was not the case, I may have tried to license the game to an established company, one that had traction in the toy trade. But would they have been interested in this unknown game? Probably not.

Q: I was surprised to read that you worked for Intel for quite a long stint early on in your career. This was before Intel was the chip inside the world’s computers. How did this experience prepare you to become the creator of Jenga?

Leslie: Whether this was deliberate policy or not, in the early days, Intel fostered a culture of entrepreneurship within the company. By this I mean, employees were encouraged to take risks, and make their jobs their own. I discovered that I thrived in this environment. As Intel expanded and my job became (by comparison) a little more structured and lot more routine, I found I wanted to recreate the excitement of those early years, and did so by starting my own business; to put Jenga on the market.

Q: What lessons can we learn from games and gameplay that can be applied to the world of business?

Leslie: Games can provide an environment in which we can test ideas, or carry out thought experiments without risk of causing any real harm. There are lessons that one can learn from playing games that might be applied to the world of business, providing great care is taken never to fall into the trap of considering business as ‘ just a game.’ It is not. Business is real life, with real life consequences.

Q: How did you come up with the name Jenga? How important do you think the name has been to the games success?

Leslie: I wanted to give the game a name that would not mean anything, at least not in English, so that in due course, the definition of the word Jenga would be my game. I was born and raised in East Africa, speaking Swahili, from which I ‘borrowed’ the word Jenga. Jenga means ‘build!’ in Swahili. The fact that Jenga is now synonymous with the game (to the extent even that the word is frequently used as a metaphor for a certain type of instability), is certainly very important to the continuing success of the game.

Q: You have had some interesting experiences with trademarks and patents throughout the course of your career. What advice would you give to those interested in legally protecting their work?

Leslie: If you have invented a new device (for example, a new kind of randomizer); then patent it, if you can afford to do so. I filed a patent pending on Jenga, but could not afford to take it any further. If the word(s) you have chosen to name your product are not descriptive of the product; then trademark the name. And always copyright your rules.

Q: When it comes to branding Jenga, you said that there were, “two key moments in the history of the game, that were decisions as a result of an intuitive understanding of the art of branding.” Can you tell us about those two key moments?

Leslie: The first ‘key moment’ came when I refused to allow either Irwin Toy or Hasbro Corporation to drop Jenga as the name of the game. Both companies wished to acquire the rights to the game (Irwin for Canada, Hasbro for the rest of the world) at a time when I was up to my ears in debt from having published and marketed the game for three years entirely on my own. Both companies loved the game, but both ‘hated the name because it didn’t mean anything’. It was a potential deal breaker, but I stuck to my guns.

The second moment came when I begged Hasbro not to publish a range of ‘Jenga wooden puzzles and games’. I was certain that this would be entirely missing the point that Jenga was known as a very specific game.

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Thanks Leslie!

Now leave those comments.

Think about all the brands you interacted with today. Nearly everything you have done so far today involved a brand, was enabled by a brand or was accompanied by a brand. These interactions are just one of many touchpoints with a specific brand.

Touchpoints, or touches for short, work in a way similar to that of how blood flows through our bodies. Your heart pumps blood through your body, providing it with the oxygen and nutrients it needs, but the heart alone isn’t solely responsible for enabling a steady, healthy heartbeat. Every vein, artery and vessel has an impact on your heartbeat. No matter how small a constricted vein may be, it has an impact on the flow of blood.

The same true for brand touches. There are probably some big touchpoints that your organization tends to focus on, like advertising and other outward facing communications. But while the focus is being put on these areas that tend to be seen as more important, the small touches are ignored and are chipping away at the heartbeat of your brand.

Because of the abundance of times that brands touch our lives in a given day, and the fact that we now have access to brands wherever and whenever we want to, every touchpoint has become a crucial interaction.

The Micro-Pulse is an idea that I introduced a few weeks ago at OpenBeta. On Wednesday at the InnoTech conference in Oklahoma City, I was given the opportunity to give a talk that expanded on the idea even further. I focused more on touches in social media with this presentation, since I was speaking to at a technology conference, but I plan on applying this concept to both the online and offline brand worlds.

I’ve posted the deck below. I welcome your comments and suggestions on this. It is an idea that I plan on developing further.

Feedreaders click here to view the presentation.

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What do you think?

Do you have an example of a time when a small touchpoint mattered to you?

There is a lot great content on the web. (Understatement of the year.)

Everyday I wade through piles of RSS feeds, funneling blog posts and the long list of various industry and client-related keywords that I track into one spot. And everyday I come across some really cool stuff, stuff that I find valuable in some way. Whether it be an interesting case study, a informational slide deck, or an original and creative marketing approach, I take it in, store it, if I think I might want to reference it later and then share it if I think you will find it valuable.

If you are following me on Twitter (@freshpeel) you probably see some of this content, because I share a good portion of it there.

A few months back I started a posterous account to collect and share more of these chunks of content with you. I’ve found posterous to be the perfect place to record and share slide decks, infographics, videos and content that doesn’t need much, if any additional commentary. It’s become a new bucket for me share things of value.

If you haven’t already, please check it out. And I hope it will be a nice accompaniment to the content you find here at the Fresh Peel.

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This year featured an awesome collection of technology demos, most notably a soon to be released iPhone app called Audio Footnote, which lets users record and attach audio notes to podcasts and audiobooks. The keynote featured Josh Williams, the CEO and founder of Alamofire, the creators of Gowalla and the Facebook app, Packrat.

The tradition after the keynote is a rapid fire series of Lightening Talks, which is a lot like the PechaKucha 20×20, where each speaker delivers a talk on a set of 20 slides in 5-minutes. My talk was a quick look at an idea that I’ve been brewing for a while. I call it Micro-Pulse: how small touches impact the heartbeat of your brand.

The idea is that in a world with an unlimited amount of brand touchpoints, some in a brands control and many not, and the fact that consumers can interact with a brand whenever and wherever they want to, every touch matters. I credit the birth of this idea to David Armano and his Micro-Interactions presentation.

In this very short form the idea is still ripe, but I’ve posted the slides below. I welcome your thoughts.

View the slideshow: Micro-Pulse

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Do you have any personal examples of how small brand touches have made a big impact on you?

Have you seen this in action in social media?

The FTC’s recent Guidelines on Endorsements and Testimonials has gained a lot of attention for such a dry, lengthy document at 81 pages long, emerging out of the fast, bite sized world we live in. The reason for this attention is well deserved because for the first time these guidelines will include blogs and other forms of digital publishing.

Rather than give you my own opinions on the document and how I interpret the them (as some have done), I’ve decided it would be much more beneficial to round up some more qualified explanations of the document, so that we can dispel the myths and opinions and find out exactly what this means for everyone working in the digital space (especially bloggers).

Legal Interpretations

The two posts I’ll point you toward, are a written by individuals with professional legal experience. The first is written by blogger, podcaster and former attorney, Whitney Hoffman. The second is by Thomas O’Toole, who is the managing editor of the Electronic Commerce Law Report for the Bureau of National Affairs, e-commerce and tech law blogger and attorney.

The New FTC Guidelines on Endorsements by Bloggers – by Whitney Hoffman.
Takeaways for Social Media Advertisers in the FTC’s New Endorsement Guides – by Thomas O’Toole

Update: WOMMA hosted a webinar last week to discuss the new FTC guidelines and their impact. The webinar was hosted by Paul Rand, WOMMA’s president and CEO of the Zocalo Group, along with WOMMA’s legal counsel Anthony DiResta from the Manatt Phelps & Phillips law firm. I’ve embedded a short summary slide deck of that presentation. (Thanks to Brand Autopsy for the tip)

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After reading these dissections of the FTC Guidelines, here are a few questions for you. I’d enjoy your thoughts.

Does this at all impact what your organization’s digital strategy?

If your organization hesitant to get involved in the online space, will these guidelines make it easier or harder for them to make the leap?

(Photo is a mashup of Flickr pics credited to jasoneppink and St_A_Sh.)

The reason I’m mentioning this here is that Solis also had some important things to say about how reaching the right group of people takes more than a look at a data sheet.

“They are not demographics, they are not statistics, they are not avatars, nor are they waiting with baited breath for you to friend or market at them and their network friends. This data represents whole numbers and is not representative of the individuals that are looking for resources and guidance, and in turn, will help you participate as a community member.

So, how will you use this information to engage more effectively and genuinely?”

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Great question. How will you use this information to engage more effectively and genuinely?

Have you looked for pockets of consumers in smaller niche networks? What are you doing to connect these smaller groups?

1. Creating yet another outlet for brands to monitor
2. Further fragmenting conversation
3. Overwhelming potential for spam

And that’s just to name a few.

I don’t deny that these are issues that Sidewiki will have to deal with, but I see this as just another inevitable phase in the evolution of the web and the world, with life continuing to become more and connected and more social. (Social business design anyone?)

Let’s look at Google’s explaination of Sidewiki:

“Sidewiki enables users who have installed Google Toolbar to contribute information alongside any page on the web, inside of a simple sidebar UI. This information, which can include text entries, links, and embedded videos, will be ranked by quality and community ratings. For instance, on a site about a specific beach town, a user could add a relevant YouTube video showing local attractions. Once users opt in to the feature, they’ll be able to view annotations contributed by other users within a browser sidebar, and can choose to hide the sidebar at any time. Google Sidewiki also won’t change the appearance of any web page – all Sidewiki entries will be displayed only in the sidebar.”

The game changer here is that Side Wiki gives users the ability a comment or add more information to any page on the web. It allows comments to go where no comments have gone before. While some may see this as Google unleashing a tool that can’t be controlled in place, I think we should be grateful that Google has started experimenting in this space before other, possibly less accountable, companies have a chance to gain significant ground.

Something else to note: Sidewiki requires that users have a Google account before they comment. This ensures the users identity. And with the introduction of Google profiles, identities can potentially be extended even further by giving the contributor a point of reference to everyone else. This doesn’t eliminate the potential for spam, but I would think lessens that potential.

Augmented Reality: Sidewiki for the World

If you’re having some trouble swallowing Google Sidewiki, then you’re in for a rough ride. This is just a glimpse of how the world will continue to become more connected and more social.

Now imagine that consumers are given the ability to comment on every aspect of your organization — everything — the bathrooms, the waiting area, the parking lot, and even the performance of employees. And the comments wouldn’t be on some obscure site, they would be right next to the item or desk of the person being discussed.

If the things happening with mobile augmented reality are any indication, this scenario isn’t far from being a reality. Just look at what Yelp has done with their iphone app. The app contains an augmented reality component that provides users with an overlaid view of how far away a business is, user reviews and ratings, all in real-time within walking distance of the company. It’s a good demonstration of how a brand’s ability to control and manage is further slipping away.

You can probably see how this could evolve into the situation that I described above, where every choice that a company makes becomes a whiteboard for comments that all can see.

What if my friends that work at the Dell office in Oklahoma City were able to leave comments on what floor has the best vending machine, or what people to avoid in the company. Better yet what if another one of my friends, who was laid off from Dell a few years ago, was able to comment in the same way? He might have some very revealing things to say.

Learn to Adapt

The point I’m trying to make here is that things are going to continue to change. Walls will be broken down. The internet is going to evolve in ways that will continue to make us feel like we are losing control of our brands.

We can’t fight it. Our only choice is to continue to adapt and stay connected to the ways that consumers are communicating, no matter where that may be, or how hard that is to swallow.

When it comes building a strong brand that matters to consumers, differentiation is a key in separating your offerings from competitors. But what if you don’t have any competitors? Does brand differentiation matter then?

Last Friday, I received a phone call from a guy who had been referred to us by a client. He was an entrepreneur who had recently started a new business and was looking for someone that could consult him on building a solid brand right out of the gate. He told me a little bit about his company and then asked me to explain our process for working with clients.

I started by taking him through the steps we lead clients through, helping them discover, define and execute a brand strategy. Everything was great until I started explaining differentiation and how we would help him reveal what makes his brand unique and sets it apart from competitor brands. This is where things got interesting. He quickly told me that he doesn’t have any competitors and that we can just skip that part.

I wasn’t expecting this at all. He did have a point. Without any competition his brand is unique by default.

Unique Value

But this logic misses the point completely. Even if without direct competition, searching for the unique value that your brand offers is a healthy exercise. If you know what unique value you provide consumers, you can form a foundation to build your brand on. For example, CEO Tony Hsieh realized Zappos unique value for extraordinary customer service and made it a core component of what the company believes and how they make business decisions.

Stake Your Claim

In today’s crowded marketplace, a company without a single competitor is rare. How many brands can you think of right now that don’t have any competition? Probably not more than one. If you can even think of one. That leads me to another point: A brand with no competitors won’t stay that way for long if there is any money at all to be made in the industry. That’s why it is crucial for brands that are paving the way for a new industry or category to start carving out what differentiates their brand from the start. Stake your claim and become the leader in the category before competitors arrive and crash the party.

Marty Neumeier, in his book Zag calls this the “power law that governs brand leadership,” which he reduces to a simple formula:

In this equation being a first mover matters a lot, but popularity is equally important. And a brand has to find it’s unique value to consumers in order to be popular.

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So you tell me, does brand differentiation matter when you have no competitors?

Alan Wolk over at The Toad Stool, pointed to this meme resurrection, as he was one of the first to participate last year. Since I didn’t participate, I wanted to give it a go this time around.

Here’s my brand timeline.

Isn’t it fascinating how many things you can learn about a person just by knowing what brands they use. You can probably look at my timeline and make some accurate guesstimations as to what my typical day looks like.

Now it’s your turn.

Create your own brand timeline and share it in the comments. The William Burk Agency has created a web application to make the process a lot easier. Click the start button below to get going.

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(A side note: It’s interesting to see how some things on the internet come and go in waves, a lot like fashion trends that come back around every few generations.)