Building brands in the age of digital - The power of "brand utility " in action

This is a really interesting video and article about Nike + and how it represents the power of digital to really change the ways marketers approach communications. It's no longer about building brands through comms alone, now a brand services is equally important in delivering a brand's promise as the digital revolution has meant that alomost any brand can connect and deliver a service to consumers - this is brand utility in action!

Nike+ was born as a multi-channel, multi-sensory marriage of Apple and Nike technologies. See the video case study of the Nike+ campaign. The campaign was created by agency R/GA from New York and won a Grand Prix Cyber Lion at Cannes 2007.

The concept is smart, simple, creative and innovative. It makes Nike running shoes speak to Apple iPod nanos, which sync with iTunes in turn sending your personal workout data to the Web.

Nike+ integrated an online community inside it’s website but also launched the Official Nike Running Blog- Run Faster, with integrated forums. That’s engaging target groups and smart community marketing.

Nike also integrated widgets and below viral commercial to spread the word about Nike+.

I think that CMO’s can learn this from the innovative Nike approach: don’t always listen to your media agency. Since most most media agencies tend to kill great creativity and big ideas by shopping for the cheapest production company. Do all media agencies know how to value engagement? Or are they just preaching for cheap reach? And, does cheap reach drive consumer engagement, loyalty and eCRM?

The collaborative "we"

Now, on this blog we talk a lot about collaboration and the collective power of the community, and how the true power of digital is in harnessing consumers collective thoughts / might to empower them to do greater things.

Indeed, the "democratisation of communication" runs through a number of campaigns we are executing for our clients currently (hope to bring more on this shortly).

So just to help explain the concept of "we" here is a great presentation I happened upon from Marieke Schoenmaker. The slides below are a great introduction to the subject, and the case studies at the end of the deck (including Nike+ and Zopa) are world-leading examples of the power of we.

The We Experience

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: sport media)

Brand autocracy; give way to democratisation of communication, oh and a little love please :)

Nice little video that won a bronze Lions at the Cannes Ad festival recently (by MS Ad solutions) - depicting the changing nature of communications in the digital age!

Clients - pay attention, and pleases stop shouting and start listening :)

All i want is a hug and to feel a little bit loved!