That's the Slogan for the Cannes Lions, dedicating to celebrating the world's best advertising in the world's best place Cannes, France. This week, judges are voting on over 25,000 films, billboards, radio, direct marketing and interactive ads.

Just seeing the entries are inspirational for a Brand-loving technology phenom like myself.

How about this. The Global winner for the best outdoor billboard goes to Nedbank in South Africa for an Ambiant Billboard. It not only harnasses the power of the sun to Advertise; but goes a step beyond to then power the kitchens of a primary school nearby-- feeding more than 1,100 people.



Great advetising, great idea, great message to all of us.

And, speaking of great-- I'm off to a great vacation in nearby St. Tropez. (That's nearby the Cannes Festival, not necessarily nearby to you dear readers.)

The BRANDEblog is taking a well deserved rest and will come back after the 4th of July POWERED UP with more great samples of great things going on in our world.

xoxoxo
Happy Birthday America.
Jody

Labels: BRANDEMiX, Cannes Lions, Interactive Technology, Online Advertising

It seems like just yesterday that I was in Syracuse speaking before the wonderful group of Communications Professionals within the State University of New York college system.

The subject was "Mental Telepathy? Staying Ahead of the Curve: New Communication Techniques"

Kreskin, Uri and Houdini couldn't make it, so it was up to me to present the latest technology trends and how to use them for Branding, Bonding and Best Communications Results.

For a moment I was a rock star, but that was then and here I sit today, trying to catch up again.
I've mastered the blogs, wikis, social networking, interactive telecommunications and virtual worlds only to discover that the next new things are widgets: portable chunks of code that can be installed and executed within any separate HTML-based Web page by an end user .

Since I've been usings MAC computers forever, I'm totally in love with my widgets. Here's my list:

Cheapest Gas on Long Island

Where to find WiFi

Weather
Ad-Ology (the latest advertising news)

Technorati pings

Leo Horoscope

(ok, you caught me, the Tarot too!)






Dave Morgan, Chairman of the Behavioral Targeting advertising network Tacoda believes that over the next three years, widgets will change online advertising as we know it today.

Here are his reasons:

• Personal media. Widgets are all about people -- content creators, content modifiers, content critics, critics of content critics, content distributors, content trackers, content viewers, and content engagers. Widgets are to media what Transformers were to children's toys. Widgets puts content -- and ultimately advertising -- in the control of people that use them.

• Lots of "widgetable" content. Widgets are just ways to display or distribute digital content. We have a massive World Wide Web of digital content. There is no shortage of content out there for everyone and anyone -- from professional publishers to content creators to archivists to users -- to put into widgets.

• Lots of distributors and lots of places to distribute. Everyone is getting into the distribution of widgets. The television companies, from NBC/U and Fox to CBS, are doing it. Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL are doing it. Almost 2 million folks have downloaded WeatherBug's various widgets and gadgets, including those built for Vista, Google, Yahoo and Apple. Widget enablers like Brightcove are doing it. MySpace and Facebook are doing it, and so are millions and millions of their users. Millions and millions of blog writers are doing it. The Web is already awash with widgets, and they're all just getting started.

• Desktops are valuable pieces of marketing real estate. On the desktop your brand is constantly displayed, whether it's a permanent home for your logo in the system tray, the toolbar, the start menu, etc. For every minute customers are using their computers, they're viewing your brand in some fashion. And as Eluma's Joe Lichtenberg noted, "a desktop community provides you with a constant connection through which you can stream relevant information, messages, alerts, and offers."

• Sight, sound and motion. Most of the widgets out there today are Flash-based, which means that they can carry video. Video means sight, sound and motion, which is music to the ears of advertisers. Mix that with lots of highly attractive consumers who are deeply engaged in viewing, distributing, modifying and interacting with widgets, and you have a recipe for a robust ad-supported media platform.

• Highly measurable. Where consumers go, advertisers follow with their money, if they can track and measure it. Of critical importance here is that widgets and user interactions with them are highly trackable and measurable.

• Portable to mobile. Finally. While widgets are just starting to explode on the Web, lots of folks are already porting widgets for mobile usage, and Apple's iPhone introduction certainly won't slow that down.

According to my search on indeed.com, there were 344 openings for widget developers so he might be right.

Looks like I'll have to get myself on the SUNY guest list for next year with an update on Mental Telepathy......

I'm thinking of a wonderful marketing communications agency.....

Labels: Online Advertising, recruitment technology, technology, widgets

I owe this blog to Bruce for emailing me the article about companies going "female-friendly". 13 is the lucky number because only 13 Fortune 500 companies boast a woman CEO. (And we just got to 13, thanks to Wellpoint's decision to promote Angela Braley.

I myself don't think I'd be especially eager to join a network with only women but apparently, here are 3 companies that are making it work.

As for the title of this blog, check out the story below at GE.

Or, for the real deal watch Ari on Entourage right after the life's final episode of the Soprano's.

GE

Formed 10 years ago after a handful of senior female employees had dinner with Jack Welch, the GE Women's Network has since grown to 40,000 active members worldwide. Its focus on leadership, advancement, and career-broadening opportunities has helped GE get to the point where women now run businesses generating some $40 billion in sales, more than 20% of total revenues. One distinguishing feature of the network: Its annual Leading & Learning summit that brings together about 150 top-level women, two-thirds of whom are customers or suppliers, to discuss a wide range of ideas and issues. "We did it, thinking it would be a one-off," says Susan Peters, GE's vice-president of executive development and chief learning officer.

Five years later, the Leading & Learning summit has become a coveted invitation both inside and outside the company. Susan Phillips, vice-president of marketing at PayPal Inc., says she came because "the agenda topics and speakers looked amazing and compelling, and I knew there would be a networking opportunity with senior women." The fact that it was an all-female gathering just made for a richer experience, adds Phillips, as she "felt the ability to relate with other participants." Among the speakers at the May 15-16 event this year: eBay Inc. (EBAY ) CEO Meg Whitman, author Karenna Gore Schiff, playwright Sarah Jones, Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, and Today co-anchor Meredith Vieira. CEO Jeffrey R. Immelt also came, as he always does, to speak and spend a few hours with the participants.

Within GE, the benefits of linking the company network to outsiders are many. One big positive is the exposure. "I don't get an awful lot of opportunities to interact with customers in my job," notes Tracie Winbigler, an executive vice-president at NBC Universal and co-chair of the network. "This gives me a chance to have more external focus." Another payoff to hosting such events is having customers form "a favorable impression of GE," adds co-chair Julie DeWane, who works as a general manager at GE Transportation.

That's one reason why each geographic network "hub"--there are 140 of them around the world--is asked to participate in a range of community activities, from philanthropic ventures to other customer-oriented events. Network members in Europe now plan to hold a similar high-level summit there, and others are looking to extend the concept elsewhere. The buzz is already mounting. "I heard from past participants that it is an incredible opportunity to meet people doing fascinating things," says Michelle McMurry of the Aspen Institute, a GE partner, who went to the May summit. "They were right."


BEST BUY


Julie Gilbert doesn't mind admitting that the women's network at Best Buy started with some hugs. Three and a half years ago, Gilbert, who launched the company's store-within-a-store concept for home theater buffs, noticed that during store visits the few female staffers she'd see would come up and hug her. When she asked a store greeter about it, the young woman told her: "Every day when we have people in from the corporate office, they're all guys. When we see you, we realize if we just keep working hard, one day we'll [get there], too."

Such chummy beginnings belie the pragmatic nature of the network Gilbert would go on to create. Inspired by the encounter with the greeter, Gilbert typed up a business plan for a new women's initiative that night. Unlike the women's network that existed at the time--a 25-person shell of a program at Best Buy's Minneapolis headquarters--Gilbert designed the program as a way for employees, from top executives to cashiers, to get more deeply involved in core business issues. "The frame on it is leadership," she says, "but you don't go to a course to build a leader. You learn by doing actual business issues, by solving business problems."

One problem was coming up with better ways to recruit and retain women in Best Buy's male-dominated, techie culture. In the home theater department, for example, the rate of female turnover was double that of their male colleagues. But just as important, Gilbert wanted the network to be an innovation engine for the company's woefully underserved female customers. At the time, Best Buy was grappling with how to better appeal to women, who influence 89% of consumer electronics purchases and spend $68 billion on them each year.

Gilbert's program, known as WOLF (Women's Leadership Forum), includes a web of regional "WOLF packs" and innovation teams, which are based in Minneapolis. Each of the innovation teams chooses a project, such as finding ways to attract more female customers, and then has to get the ideas into a few stores in three months and into a large number of stores in six. Next month, for example, one WOLF group will launch designer iPod holders and laptop cases in 100 of Best Buy's stores. Another WOLF team is revamping the online gift registry; yet another is working with designers to make stores more woman-friendly.

The efforts are paying off. Recruitment of female sales managers is up 100% over the past year, and the company has a greater share of female customers than before the network started. Internally, the network has found fans among executives like Midwest regional manager Shawn Score, who has attracted more than 300 new female employees and seen turnover among women managers in his territory drop almost 10 percentage points in the last year thanks to the WOLF program. He has also tapped the network to help him better serve women customers. One WOLF team suggested switching signs on washing machines to promote how many loads they hold instead of measuring the machine's volume in cubic feet, leading to more pertinent, mom-friendly signage. "We think that's going to be an absolute home run," says Score.


DELOITTE

Few women's networks can boast of a track record like that of Deloitte. Now in its 14th year, Deloitte's Initiative for the Retention and Advancement of Women, known as WIN, has been lauded for its success in promoting women to the most senior ranks: 19.3% of partners are women, the highest percentage among the Big Four public accounting firms. That's up from 7% since WIN was started in 1993.

One reason for its success? Many of the programs born out of Deloitte's women's initiative are geared toward both women and men. For instance, the firm is piloting a "mass career customization" program that will give every employee a framework for dialing up and down their hours, travel demands, and responsibilities as their personal needs change over the course of their careers. Unlike flextime or job-sharing policies, which men often avoid because of the stigma still associated with opting into them, everyone in the pilot locations will be enrolled in the program.

Still, such initiatives have little direct impact on hard-charging audit partners whose idea of work-life balance is a three-day weekend after tax season. When asked, says Cathy Benko, the national managing director in charge of WIN, men almost always say that the women's initiative is important. "But then they'll stop, and if they continue, they'll say 'but it hasn't done anything for me.'"

To help change that thinking, Benko came up with a new program two years ago called Women as Buyers. It would specifically help men with what mattered to them--winning more clients--while improving understanding between men and women at the firm. Noticing a dearth of research on how executive women make decisions, the WIN team sponsored a yearlong study on the topic. It has been presenting its findings in four-hour workshops made up of two-thirds men and one-third women.

The sessions remind men of simple differences such as client entertaining (women prefer breakfast to dinner, since they often have more evening responsibilities at home) and communication styles (just because a woman is nodding doesn't mean she agrees with you). While male executives may prefer consultants or accountants to sit by their side, women are more visual than men, the research found, and partners should face women executives in client meetings.

And because women tend to see leadership roles as positions of responsibility rather than power, partners should think carefully about whom they parachute in to help sell services. "If it's a guy, you might want to bring your big mucky-muck in," says Paul Silverglate, an audit partner who went through the training. "Women partners are more focused on who's going to do the work with their team day-to-day. That was very interesting to me."

The feedback from men has been overwhelmingly positive: More than 90% say the workshops were useful. Silverglate, who's also a leader in WIN, says he's even had male colleagues tell him they've used the tips in their personal lives. "If you really want to make a difference for women," says Silverglate, "it has to make sense for all the partners."

Labels: BRANDEMiX, women's networks

1. Update Blog:

I go searching for something new that inspires me to share. MediaPost tells me that marketing professionals seek new metrics other than page hits because new technology makes that irrelevant. Yawn.

Some interesting statistics on Social Media:

* 1.3 million blog posts daily (18 per second)

* 100,000 new blogs daily (2 per second)

* More podcasts than global radio stations

* 100 million MySpace profiles

* 1.6 million Wikipedia entries

* 4 million registrations in Second Life

* But only 15,000 concurrent users at any one time

OK. That might have legs.


Second Life has 4 million registrations but only 15,000 users. 15,000 users doesn't seem like a lot. Then I read a story on SHRM that changed the numbers to 6 million registered users and 25,000 - 40,000 users on at a time.

Since it's only 7:30 am, maybe by this evening the numbers will go up again. But, whatever the actual numbers are, it didn't stop 800 companies from signing up at a 3-day recruiting event on Second Life sponsored by TMP. Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, eBay, Sodexho, T-Mobile and Verizon signed up for the event and companies are spending 75,000 - 100,000 to build destinations, with an additional $10,000/mo support fees.

But in the recruiting space- who are these people and how will they fit with the REAL culture of your company.

In a survey conducted by Park Associates, over a fifth of users said that they have more SL friends than in real life, and 29% felt that SL interfered with their real-world social life.

Labels: BRANDEMiX, Metrics, Recruiting, Second Life