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#MarketingTitbits – Volkswagen Crisis, Must-Read Books, Mission Statements

volkswagen-books-statement1. Social media and crisis management: a Volkswagen case study
The Volkswagen emissions scandal has raised many questions – but what has happened to their social media activity? On Friday 18th September, Volkswagen sensibly stopped posting to Facebook and Twitter after the emissions scandal broke out in the US, but they can’t hide forever!

The accounts were dark and gloomy for a whole week until a statement was posted from Michael Horn, the US CEO. The silence from Volkswagen, as you would expect, didn’t stop consumers having their say on the scandel.

To see more on how Volkswagen handled the crisis, click here.

2. The entrepreneur’s ultimate list of 8 must-read books

Business owners, entrepreneurs and business leaders know there are no shortage of business, entrepreneurial and leadership-related books out there on the market, but with time so precious, what should we be reading?  To help direct our attention on the best books out there at the moment, the good people at Amazon have compiled ‘The Entrepreneur’s Ultimate List of 8 Must-Read Books’.

There are some old favourites on there like The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber. As well as others we haven’t read yet.

To view the list, click here.

3. Infographic: the 24 most inspirational company mission statements

There is much debate about the importance of a mission statement. Done well they are a very clear and succinct way of communicating the purpose of a business and a means of keeping in focus why it exists. Done badly and they represent just a series of nice sounding statements that bear no relation to the actual day to day running of a business or organisation.

The insurance company Unum have collected 24 ‘inspirational’ mission statements from some of the world’s biggest brands, including Nike, Google and Ikea.

To find out what they are, along with the full list, click here.

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#MarketingTitbits – entrepreneurs, branding, Pepsi

social-apple-pepsi-smaller1. Insights from the world’s best social entrepreneurs
There is a new type of entrepreneur emerging, one who see business as a way to fight poverty and focus on developing products that the third of the global population who live on less than $2 a day can benefit from. These people are known as social entrepreneurs and include the likes of Sam Goldman, Jordan Kassalow and Prema Gopalan. For them, creating products to improve the life of the people who need it most is not only a huge business opportunity, it is a moral duty.

Their mission is to change the world and they have shared some of the strategies they are using to do just that.

  • Hiring local individuals who have the drive to change things in their community but also know the local market is a key to success
  • Think about the bigger picture and how the impact of your product can go further than what one organisation is doing
  • Encourage competition, it means that more people are trying to solve the same problem that you are
  • “You have to be dedicated to a cause. It’s mission, not money, which is the great motivator of people.”

To find out more about the social entrepreneurs who are changing the world and how they are doing it, click here. 

 

2. How Steve Jobs ignored the rules of branding

Steve Jobs, the co-founder, chairman and CEO of Apple Inc. was an inventor, marketer and once upon a time was an entrepreneur just like you. Apple Inc. has been named the most admired company in the United States by Fortune Magazine and the world’s most valuable brand in the Omnicom Group’s “Best Global Brands” report.

To acquire this status, Jobs changed the rules of branding; he didn’t pursue the standard checklist and knew that imitating somebody else’s success would never yield success. The brand that is ‘Apple’  maintained consistency in their products, operations and services and left their competitors to create naff computers with colourful lids and rubbish ads that made the simplicity of Apple look even better.

Steve Jobs taught marketers that “You must deliver a great business. The brand will be the words and emotions people use to narrate it.” To read more about how Apple changed branding as we know it and what tips you can take away from this, click here. 

 

3. Pepsi Max do augmented reality

Last month, Pepsi Max surprised London commuters with an augmented reality experience. They set up a camera and played the normalities of the street onto a screen next to the bus stop bench but added a few extra features to the scenario.

They have recorded the reactions as tigers chase passers-by and flying saucers appear in the sky. To watch the video, click here.

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Marketing Titbits – free social media monitoring tool, Google URL builder & Huggies!

  1. ‘Mention’ is a comprehensive online monitoring tool, which covers both web and social media. Businesses can use ‘Mention’ to monitor their brand, company, keyword, competitor and more ‘mentions’ online, in real time. Unlike some monitoring services, ‘Mention’s’ pricing offers something for everyone, including those that want something for free! For more information and to sign up click here.
  2. Google Analytics URL builder. We’ve referenced it before but it is so useful we’ll mention it again. If you are keen to monitor more effectively your online campaigns, Google Analytics URL builder is a fabulously effective tool (and its free!) for generating trackable URLs for your custom campaigns. Review your Google Analytics and see what the impact is of each campaign on your website.
  3. And finally, here’s a little bit of positive inspiration for you, from a Huggies advert of all things. You can’t always control what happens to you but you can control how you respond to it. Enjoy! Always look on the bright side of life.

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#MarketingTitbits – Hootsuite, shopping and Science World

1. Hootsuite – for begginers
If you haven’t heard of Hootsuite already then it is about time that you did. The social media management site now has 7 million users in over 175 countries around the world. It is basically a website that allows users to integrate all their social media channels and control posts across them; particularly handy for businesses.

This week, we’ve found a great article on Mashable entitled ‘A beginner’s guide to Hootsuite’. If you don’t already have Hootsuite or a struggling with it then we suggest you check it out. To read the article click here.

2. How is shopping changing in the future?

The way that we do our shopping is changing rapidly. More people shop online now than they ever have before, especially the generation of 14-19 year olds. This week we came across a very interesting article in Marketing Week that explores how the face of shopping is changing and how brands can and need to keep up with it. To have a look at the article click here.

3. Wonderfully creative adverts from Science World Vancouver

The Science World Museum in Vancouver is notorious for its slightly controversial exhibits –Body Worlds and The Science of Sexuality exhibitions being just two examples that courted controversy. This risqué and alternative attitude extends into their marketing. They are now known across Vancouver for their innovative and attention grabbing campaigns. They have amassed a vast array of eye-catching and intelligent adverts that have been used around the city to raise awareness. We think they are brilliant, so thought we’d share some with you. To have a look at some of them and get inspired click here.

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