Business

Google's introduction of the Nexus One, a phone to truly call its own, is a necessary move for the company. Only by taking ownership of the whole user experience will Google really be able to prove the value of its Android platform.

Nexus means a series of things connected together, an appropriate name for a phone where Google is taking more control of both the hardware and software, and therefore much more of the user experience.

We are at interesting inflection point with smartphones, a point where we have two competing development models playing out and a future in which probably only one will survive: Highly integrated, or highly modular.

Until recently, most smartphones have been modular affairs--with a few exceptions (BlackBerrys and to a lesser extent Palm Treos): hardware from one company, operating system and software from another company, wireless network from yet another. This has led to disjointed user experiences that have limited the appeal of the phones to more mass-market audiences. The success of the iPhone with mass consumers showed that it was vital to integrate all these elements together seamlessly (and that integration goes beyond the phone itself to content on the PC and in the cloud).

In the early stages of a category such as smartphones, the usage experience is often rough and incomplete. Early adopters will look past this, but until a more refined experience arrives that delivers the right recipe of capabilities, ease of use, and price, then the majority of people will stay away. I refer to this as an experience gap--a mismatch between what people want to do with a product, and what the products on the market can actually deliver.… Read more

For the first time in 23 years, Pepsi has decided to not run any advertisements during the Super Bowl. Instead, the nation’s second-biggest soft drink maker is plowing marketing dollars into its "Pepsi Refresh Project," an online community that lets Pepsi fans list their public service projects, which could range from helping to feed people to teaching children to read. Visitors to the site can vote to determine which projects receive money. The program will pay at least $20 million for projects people create to "refresh" communities. Last year, Pepsi spent $33 million advertising products such as Pepsi, Gatorade, and Cheetos during the Super Bowl, according to TNS Media Intelligence, $15 million of it was on Pepsi alone. Ad time last year for the NFL championship game cost about $3 million for 30 seconds, on average. Pepsi spokeswoman Nicole Bradley said Super Bowl ads don't work with the company's goals next year: "In 2010, each of our beverage brands has a strategy and marketing platform that will be less about a singular event and more about a movement." Pepsi's remarkable decision epitomizes the new paradigms of marketing: Online instead of TV; many-too-many instead of one-too-many; engagement instead of advertising; sharing instead of broadcasting; movements instead of events; communities instead of campaigns.… Read more

I attended the Trendforum in Munich last week, a two-day conference that gathered European innovation, marketing, and R&D executives to explore emerging technologies, social trends, and innovative business models. The program was eclectic and the content mostly of high quality. I was particularly intrigued by the opening session that intersected macro-economic forecasting with geeky trend evangelism as well as a humanistic pledge for meaning-driven business (in fact, the other sessions didn’t even come close, including special guest Ray Kurzweil, whose remote keynote, given by way of 3D-holographic projection, remained utterly flat).

As the first speaker, Markku Wilenius, … Read more

Google is turning its sights squarely on the local ad market, with plans to promote its local business listings in storefronts around the U.S.

Stickers bearing Google's logo and a QR code have been distributed to 100,000 of the most popular businesses in Google's Local Business Center database, and starting this week consumers will be able to use code-scanning applications on modern phones to look up the Google listing for that particular restaurant, store, or dry cleaner. The stickers will be prominently displayed in store windows of participating businesses, and represent a shot across the bow … Read more

I was driving along the other day and saw a lime green Ford Fiesta--a car that is not currently available in the US, but which launched recently in Europe. It's combination of good looks, driving fun, and low prices has quickly made it the second-best-selling car there after the Golf.

Ford is planning to bring the Fiesta to the US in 2011, an excellent move, as we need more good "economy" cars here that are not boring and/or ugly. Ford is doing an interesting viral/social campaign ahead of the launch. It has engaged 100 "… Read more

Reading the business section of yesterday's New York Times, you couldn't help but notice the juxtaposition of two seemingly different companies, which, at second glance, have more in common that you might think. One is Bloomberg, the financial data juggernaut that has enough cash to aspire to become “the world’s most influential news organization.” The company has placed its bets on the acquisition of the venerable BusinessWeek, trusting that it will broaden its reach into a mainstream business audience. A few pages later, Digital Domain columnist Randall Stross reveals Apple’s pending patent application for a new advertising pop-up technology … Read more

What a season finale it was. ‘Shut the Door. Have a Seat’ was a “tight balance of emotionally pungent drama and company coup d’etat,” the LA Times wrote. And indeed, Mad Men came through in the end. And all the mad men and women came through: Sterling, Cooper, Pryce, Pete, Peggy, Joan,  and, more than anyone else of course, Don Draper.

He took Conrad Hiltons’s advice to heart and instead of “crying and relying on other people’s moves” he became the master of his fortune and finally did something meaningful. You could see the glow in … Read more

It's always good to be the first, and while crowdsourcing, the trend, may have jumped the shark, a fully crowdsourced creative agency is a bold creative experiment and still news. Two Crispin Porter + Bogusky alums, John Winsor and Evan Fry, together with Claudia Batten, the founder of Microsoft-acquired video game advertising shop Massive, have launched Victors & Spoils (V&S), "the world's first creative agency built on crowdsourcing principle."

V&S says it will "provide businesses with a better way to solve their marketing, advertising and product-design problems by engaging the world's … Read more

Forrester is about to release a new report on “Adaptive Brand Marketing: Rethinking Your Approach to Branding in the Digital Age,” in which it proposes replacing “brand managers” with “brand advocates.” Advertising Age provides a sneak peek at the ‘new 4 Ps of Marketing’ presented in the report: permission, proximity, perception, and participation. Other core elements include: “embracing an expanded role for consumer intelligence, focusing on strategic brand platforms, and empowering a federated organization."

A fervent advocate of marketing as a cross-organizational catalyst for change myself, I wholeheartedly agree with BBH Labs which believes the Forrester report points to … Read more