The Rights Marketing Company’s blog

Delighted that a recent metaphor developed in our TouchStone framework development work with Bacardi Global Brands’ Digital and Insight and Planning teams, is gathering currency amongst both friends and colleagues …

If you watch this and then this first …

20th century media was about targeting and hitting consumers with the same message repeatedly - and repeatably. All the energy was provided by the planning and buying investment of the brand. We can also call this MacroMedia. This is where the bowling analogy seems to explain the dynamic neatly … whereas …

In the 21st century, we score highest - as per the pinball analogy - when we get the ball (the brand) into the high-scoring bumper zone at the top of the table. This is relatively out of control, serendipitous, and the only control we have is the feeble flippers at the bottom of the board. And we use those only to try to get the ball back up those riotous bumpers - just like tribes of networked consumers, who when they take on a piece of media or an idea and start kicking it about, brand awareness and often equity explode upwards. We also call this MicroMedia.

Key takeaway? The energy in the second model - the pinball machine - is primarily owned by the consumer tribes. Excessive brand energy? Well, neatly, it just tilts the whole machine and game over.

I love this job sometimes!

Have just started a Facebook group for victims of Orange UK’s inability to fix their 3G service in Central London. It’s been about 2 months now, and when I ring the service folks they talk rubbish about when the service should be back up, engineers on the case etc … what the hell is going on here?

…. in London yesterday. What a smart and well-informed - and, critically, intellectually alive character he is! Also fascinating to hear about what he's up to outside his excellent blog.

We’re delighted to announce, further to time spent together at the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad, that Prof Paddy Miller of IESE, the top business school in world (FT, Economist etc) has invited Rights Marketing to assist with the development and delivery of the new Leadership in Media MBA program (NY) and the media component of the core MBA program (Barcelona).

We’re beginning the development process on this today, for launch in both NYC and Barcelona in the fall. A priviledge and a pleasure.

…. after an AMAZING week in Mumbai and Hyderabad with top business school IESE and the marvellous Indian School of Business. I’ll be podcasting on this with Jonathan Lakin my co-founder in Rights Marketing in the next few days, but high points included:

• Flying into Mumbai to see the incredible sprawl that is the city.
• Meeting the IESE and ISB teams and working with them for a week of deep learning and many laughs.
• Visiting with India’s hottest companies - Infosys, Tata Group and many more
• Lectures from some of the brightest minds in Indian commerce and culture.
• Cab rides with lepers banging on the window at traffic lights - makes New York seem … suburban.
• The glorious quality and range of India’s quality newspapers, in particular The Times of India.

So … back in the blog saddle and normal service to be resumed.

New Scientist on those Superbowl ads …

Brain scans of Super bowl viewers suggest that certain commercials more effectively excite the brain’s empathy and reward centres, making them “light up”.

Now, if we can just make the ads more interesting than watching paint dry, we’re home!

… both cool and scary.

Two employees have been injected with RFID chips this week as part of a new requirement to access their company’s datacenter.

Michael and Umair Haque of Bubble Generation examine the state of play and strategic implications of Media 2.0 in the first of a series of podcasts.