Tag: Marketing

Studio Co-Creative: The Anti-Marketing Manifesto

Creator

Studio Co-creative is a Canadian based ‘anti-marketing marketing agency’. Robyn Hounjet is the Founder and CEO, Mikayla Grace is the Creative Director and COO, and Lexie the Westie is their littlest Co-Creative.

Purpose

“We believe that the best brands are built from the soul up.” That’s the slogan for Studio Co-creative and this sums up the purpose behind their manifesto.

Studio Co-creative

Manifesto

Everywhere you look, you’re seeing the product of marketing. In a world where you’re constantly encouraged to buy more, we believe there is a new way, a way that’s rooted in connection and co-creation.

Entrepreneurs are faced with an interesting challenge in today’s technology-based world. It’s never been easier to create a business, but all of the tools and platforms that we have access to can be overwhelming. There’s always a new trend, a new strategy, a new tip to try.

Heart-centred entrepreneurs have an even harder challenge to overcome. How do we allow our gifts – our light – to translate into the online sphere? How do we balance traditional “marketing strategy” with nontraditional business?

We won’t argue that mainstream marketing strategies work. But even with the most technically perfect strategy, if it doesn’t resonate with the heart and soul of your business – let’s find a different way. Through being more real, less perfect, more relatable and approachable, we find our purpose and impact.

We believe in energy. vibration. resonance. We believe in what we call the lighthouse effect: your tribe will arrive in your harbour, so long as you are authentically shining your light. And ultimately, we believe in co-creation (in case you couldn’t tell). Co-creation means not only collaborating with each other and others to help you shine, but also co-conspiring, if you will, with forces seen and unseen. The earth. The cosmos. The seasons and cycles. The true source of inspiration.

So, what does this mean for you? It means that we want to uncover the best and truest version of your brand. The best and truest version of you. Chisel it away, polish it up, and put it out in the world so that those who need you can find you.

We won’t promise you perfect, but we can promise you beauty. Because beauty is found in truth.  In purpose. In service. And in great Instagram grids.

We are an anti-marketing marketing agency.
We are the ones who do things differently.
We are inspired and we are inspiring.
We are spiritual AND bad-ass.
We are beauty-makers and visionaries.
We are co.creative.

Principles

  • Empowerment
  • The Heart + Head
  • Spirit
  • Unfiltered You
  • Working Smart
  • Co-Creation

Source

https://studiococreative.com/about

https://studiococreative.com/begin-flash-sale

Thanks to Suzanne Mercier for sharing this one

Comment

While this is a good manifesto, my feeling is that it’s merely a starting point for an ongoing deeper exploration of the issues facing marketing today.

It starts with the bold statement of being ‘the anti-marketing marketing agency’. Being the ‘not-this’ in your category is a useful starting point but only until that new alternative emerges. What is the new thing that replaces that old one?

The classic example is the ‘horseless carriage’, which was an early term for the ‘motorcar’ or ‘motor carriage’. It describes the new thing in words that reflect the old thing. Now it is simple ‘a car’ and has nothing in the name to hint of its evolution from horses.

I’d love to know what the new marketing agency is – the one that goes beyond current thinking. An anti-marketing agency simply suggests something has begun but we’re not sure what that new thing is just yet.

There are some strong clues though in the Co-creation manifesto. Their tag line “the best brands are built from the soul up” offers three potential ideas:

  • A soul-marketing agency
  • A soul-branding agency
  • Or simply, a soul agency.

These ideas start to present a new concept – a new something. They are not simply ‘an anti-marketing agency’.

Another option is a ‘Co-creation Agency’. What would that look like if we took it all the way to its likely conclusion? It doesn’t speak marketing but it does say, ‘we work differently’.

I also love the ‘lighthouse effect’ concept – How about ‘a lighthouse agency’. What would that look like?

One of my benchmarks for a good new idea is to be able to say your concept to people and create intrigue and interest.

If we were at a networking event and I told you that I run ‘a lighthouse agency’, your curiosity would almost definitely be piqued and you would simply have to ask ‘what is that?’ Tell me more… thus engagement begins.

A crucial part of all manifestos is the new context you are creating and sometimes this takes courage and boldness to claim it, name it and declare it: this is that new thing.

More

Fader and Toms – Customer Centricity Manifesto

Creator

Peter S Fader and Sarah E Toms, authors of The Customer Centricity Playbook: Implementing a winning strategy driven by customer lifetime value

Fader is a Professor of Marketing at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Toms is co-founder and Executive Director of Wharton Interactive.

Purpose

Fader and Toms believe that your most value business asset is to understand your best customers. This means treating them as individuals.

They have adapted the Customer Centricity Manifesto from the Manifesto for Agile Software Development, which is the focus of Chapter Six in their book.

Peter Fader and Sarah Toms - The Customer Centricity Playbook: Implement a winning strategy driven by Customer Lifetime Value

Manifesto

Celebrating customer heterogeneity is our mantra. 

This tenet of customer centricity is a realistic view of the world, and is one that seeks to capture, understand, and build action in tune with these naturally occurring variances.

Cross functional uses of customer lifetime value (CLV). 

A truly customer-centric firm will seek to establish a variety of use cases across the organization that demonstrate the strategic advantages that a focus on CLV (and related predictive analytics) can provide. 

Metrics that reflect customer equity. 

We want to see firms adopt a broader set of metrics that directly or indirectly reflect customers’ propensities to be acquired, buy repeatedly, maintain the relationship, refer others, respond to the right messages, and so on.     

Clear Communications with external stakeholders. 

Customer centricity creates a natural alignment to get internal and external stakeholders to agree on metrics that are helpful for day-to-day operational purposes as well as the evaluation of a firm’s long-run health.

Source

The Manifesto: http://customercentricitymanifesto.org

The Book: https://wsp.wharton.upenn.edu/book/customer-centricity-playbook/

Comment

The thing that stands out for me around this manifesto is the language used.

In the field of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) they identify that some words show a link to our sensory systems. For instance, the words ‘look, hear, feel, touch, taste and smell’ represent the senses of ‘sight, sound, feelings (kinesthetic), gustatory (taste) and olfactory (smell)’.

Other words that don’t fit the senses are known as ‘Auditory Digital’ or non-sensory words. These are concept words such as: system, belief, customer and communication.

Typically, we all have preferences around the words we use. Some people use more ‘visual’ words and others more ‘feeling’ words. Academics tend to use a lot of concept words and this is consistent with this manifesto.

While this is a powerful approach, as with all things, it has its limits.

If your manifesto is just for you, then you can use any words that you like. However, if you want to engage, enrol and invite others to join you in your manifesto journey, then using words that will appeal to a wider audience are worth considering. For example, do you know what the word ‘heterogenity’ means? I had to look it up. (It means ‘being diverse in character’.)

One strategy for this is to have different palettes or different language styles for your manifesto. For example, having a formal palette and a casual one.

Compare this to the simple and casual language in Emily McDowell’s Let’s Get Real manifesto.

The current manifesto by Fader and Toms could be their formal language manifesto. And it may be complemented by a simpler, more casual version such as this:

  1. Customers come in lots of different shapes and sizes. Celebrate this.
  2. Give your customers different paths to walk down. Create this.
  3. Notice the value your customers give you. Measure this.
  4. Talk with your customers and your team in the same way. Align this.

Consider that you may need to create different versions of your manifesto to appeal to different audiences. This might also include both a visual and a written form.

Four Ways to Make Your Manifesto Visually Appealing

More

Agile Software Manifesto

Christopher Carfi – The Social Customer Manifesto

Joseph Jaffe – The Customer Service Manifesto

Birdsong Gregory Manifesto

Birdsong Gregory Manifesto

Creator: Birdsong Gregory delivers ‘integrated shopper marketing campaigns to help our clients grow’ and are based in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Purpose: A statement of beliefs and views as to how to successfully enhance your marketing and branding in the digital age.

Branding Manifesto

  1. We have killed the Golden Age of Advertising with our smart phones, TiVo, pop-up blockers, and a hundred other new disintermediary tools.
  2. Long live the empowered consumer. Farewell to the quaint notion of a linear path to purchase. That path has become a raging river, and from the high ground, we witness the retail landscape taking new forms.
  3. Moving people from indifference to action has never been easier. Moving people from indifference to action has never been harder.
  4. Until now, marketing has been a department, ads an expensive, inefficient interruption, and brands have taken our loyalty and attention for granted. you have only two choices: evolve or become irrelevant.
  5. Birdsong Gregory celebrates a new era of commerce: one where shoppers make decisions based on objective truth and authentic 1:1 engagement – not empty intrusive promises. Brand equity is built one positive online review at a time, and you will earn my purchase – not buy it.
  6. We believe marketing actually needs to be useful, providing relevant information and meaningful inspiration. In the networked economy, consumers trust consumers more than they trust brands.
  7. Thanks to the Digital Revolution, a brand can deliver a singular message to a specific person at precisely the right time. After all, the Web isn’t just one channel or device. It’s a medium that has inspired a thousand other media.
  8. Another word for creativity? Courage.
  9. We want to help you say and do things that matter. What’s the use of giving a skeptical audience more of the same? Let’s start by being honest and authentic. Let’s create memorable experiences and passionate conversations.
  10. We believe in the limitless potential of the new shopper marketing paradigm. It is time to demolish the walls between what people want and what you have to give them. The essential elements of our work will be originality and excitement.

 

Source

Manifesto on BirdsonGregory.com

 

Mike Markkula: The Apple Marketing Philosophy

Mike Markkula: Apple Marketing Philosophy

Creator: Mike Markkula was an investor and for a short time the third partner in Apple with Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.

Purpose: Markkula wrote this three point call to action as a basic philosophy for the fledgling Apple computer.

Manifesto

Point No. 1: Empathy

Apple should strive for an “intimate” connection with customers’ feelings. “We will truly understand their needs better than any other company,” Markkula wrote.

Point No. 2: Focus

To be successful, Apple should center its efforts on accomplishing its main goals, and eliminate all the “unimportant opportunities.”

Point No. 3: Impute

Apple should be constantly aware that companies and their products will be judged by the signals they convey. “People DO judge a book by its cover,” Markkula wrote. “We may have the best product, the highest quality, the most useful software etc.; if we present them in a slipshod manner, they will be perceived as slipshod; if we present them in a creative, professional manner, we will impute the desired qualities.”

 

Source

Found here: Blog Post by Jason Fell, technology editor of Entrepreneur.com

Original source: Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs. Book cover used as image on this page.