Just as everyone’s putting the final touches on their ‘09 marketing plans, I’d like to throw the proverbial wrench into the equation. I’m sure everyone’s got a nice chunk of their advertising budget set aside for print, a good bit for broadcast, maybe some for outdoor. Oh, and don’t forget the cool new(ish) kid on the block – online.

But what about those crazy ideas that come to you out-of-the-blue? The ones that don’t fit neatly into any of the categories mentioned above. These are often one-off type projects with limited impressions, but huge impact. These are the types of ideas Challenger Brands can thrive on, and we need to make sure these moments of genius come to fruition.

I’ve always been a big fan of planned spontaneity, and I think more marketing plans need to integrate the concept. Here’s what I propose: set aside a small amount of your budget (maybe 5-10%) every year for these “out-of-the-blue” projects. If by October nothing has been proposed that blows your socks off, then use the money to extend some other buy. Seems simple enough, but there’s probably a reason they don’t let creatives do the marketing plans.

And for inspiration, I’ve collected some examples of these nontraditional projects. Enjoy.

Mr. Clean takes it to the streets.

(more…)

There are currently over one billion people online. There are only 6.865 billion people in the world (for an up-to-the minute count see this), so that’s about 1/7 of the global population. Wow, are you as amazed by that as I am?

Well it’s no wonder then that with the potential for 1/7 (or 14 and a half percent) of the world population to all communicate with each other at any given moment, one person’s opinion matters so much. Many branding and marketing experts are awakening to this phenomenon. Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell have called it the Church of the Customer or Citizen Marketing. Trend spotters call it the “tyranny of transparency.” Whatever you call it though, the fact remains, whether your product or service is the best ever or a total disaster, millions and millions of people will know about it in real time. I think of this observable fact as “word-of-mouth on steroids with a Star Trek transporter.” Anyone, anywhere, can trash you or sing your praises…and they do!

And as if that weren’t thought-provoking enough, soon online critics will be able to save 1,000 words or two by including the audio track they just recorded with Skype-recording or the picture they just took with one of their camera phones. Scared yet? If not, maybe you don’t know about YouTube, where every brand’s a star…or not. Now there are even sites that encourage real time uploading of video like comvu or ustream.tv.

OMG!