Jaffe Juice

Jaffe Juice #181 - Up Periscope with Jaffe and Joel

My brother-from-another-mother, Mitch Joel (a 2-time best-selling author with 6 Pixels of Separation and Ctrl-Alt-Delete, as well as a successful entrepreneur, having recently sold his agency, Twist Image to WPP) get together once a month to do a healthy debate about the state of the agency business, creativity, innovation or whatever is on our mind. We put this out on our respective podcasts (Jaffe Juice and 6 Pixels of Separation.)

In this episode we discuss live and streaming (they are not the same thing), the rise of Periscope (and fall of Meerkat) and a few zings on pundits and punditry to boot.

Give it a listen by downloading or listening here. Or you can subscribe to the show here.

2 episodes of Jaffe Juice - The New Marketing Podcast on Tech, Talent and Creativity

Hello strangers...

How about 2 episodes of Jaffe Juice - The New Marketing Podcast for the price of Z.E.R.O.? No actually, zero.

Plus you get Mirum's Mitch Joel as value add.

The first episode is #179 where we discuss the Wall Street Journal article, Tech Firms Pull Talent Away From Ad Agencies. 

You can listen live by left clicking or download by right clicking here

The second episode is #180 where we do an armchair quarterback deconstruction, unpacking, post-mortem of Cannes 2016. And yes, there is some bitterness, jealousy, cynicism and good old fashioned ranting as well. 

You can listen live by left clicking or download by right clicking here

Image credit 

JJTV #143 - The Engaged Leader with Charlene Li

Last month, I sat down with Altimeter's Charlene Li to discuss her new book, "The Engaged Leader." This is Charlene's third book and you may recall her first book, best-selling Groundswell.

Charlene is gracious, giving, smart, insightful and really understands the depth behind the superficiality of social media.

Hope you like the conversation and don't forget to buy her book. 

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Just Piv Ot (and more)

My last 3 Online Spin columns:

• Just Pivot May 13 - full text below
• The Death Of Anonymity April 29 - Anonymity was once the voice of the meek; now it is the voice of the coward (and bully)
• The End Of Advertising April 15 - First Brazil outlawed out of home / billboard advertising and now advertising to children; the end (of advertising) is nigh...

Just Pivot

I’m not sure when Nike ceased to be a shoe company for serious athletes and instead become a technology company for average Joes (like me) looking to enjoy a health and active lifestyle.

Perhaps it was Nike ID that first hinted at things to come. Or Nike +, Nike Running, or Nike Fuelband that finally drove home the transformation from Just Do it to Just Digit (sorry).

Thanks to technology, Nike has elevated its relevance and resonance from just a brand to something much more: a community-driven experience. Dare I say, a customer-centric ecosystem powered by technology.

Case in point: #runstronger -- a call to action on the first anniversary of the Boston bombing, offering to donate $1 for every mile completed by volunteer runners.

I’ve become somewhat of a Fuelband fanboy. I wrote about it extensively in my latest book, “Z.E.R.O,” and have dedicated several columns in Mediapost to the same subject.

Last week I was in Australia, where, during a presentation, several members of the audience pointed out that Nike will be discontinuing its Fuelband.

What an embarrassment for Nike. They failed. They lost the battle to Fitbit. They couldn’t cut it with a piece of hardware that just did not iterate or evolve quickly enough.

And if you think the above paragraph is accurate, you couldn’t be further from the truth.

The actual announcement was that Nike is discontinuing its Fuelband production in order to shift its focus from hardware to software. The company is going to focus on the data, analytics, dashboard, gamification and overall experience, versus just producing rubber bands.

Let me repeat the key phrase again in case you missed it: Nike is shifting its focus from hardware to software. This is -- or was -- a shoe company, remember?

Nike is doing a classic pivot, just as an enviable class of past successful startups -- including, but not limited to, GroupOn, Twitter, YouTube and Fab -- did before it.

Playing to its strengths (or weaknesses), and ultimately reconciling this with its business, Nike is choosing to focus and prioritize versus spreading itself too thin.

Company strategists are also choosing to align themselves with an incredibly like-minded brand: namely, Apple, which will most likely be producing the one band to rule them all soon enough. This has not actually been announced yet, but Nike has subtly (about as subtly as a bull in a china shop) hinted at the continuation of this relationship in the wearables market.

As a betting man, I’m going to fairly confidently place my chips in the Nike + Apple camp. It’s a fairly inevitable no-brainer that Apple and Nike will join forces -- and when they do, it’s game over.

Enjoy it while you can, Fitbit.

In making this announcement, Nike has shown -- proven, in fact -- that it is a technology company -- a lean brand of sorts.

It’s demonstrated how an 800-pound gorilla can think and act like an agile gazelle.

At a time when most companies are still debating if they should sell directly to their customers via their website, what their Facebook strategy should be, which mobile platform they should develop in (because for some reason the budget allows only one) or how to approach a one-off pilot program with a startup, Nike has entered the next phase of its evolution.

By my count, v2.0 beats v0.1 any day of the week.

Not bad for a loser.

A fresh dose of Innovation

My last 4 Online Spin articles are pasted below for your convenience and reading pleasure:

• Innovation Is A Life-And-Death Decision  April 1

Using a Texting and Driving case study, I draw an analogy with marketing innovation in general and ask why we hold back investing in innovation efforts (in particular when it comes to incusive coverage across all mobile platforms), especially when we're talking about rounding errors.

• Socialdipity  March 17

Serendipity reinvented in a social age and social world. A report back on SxSW and how relationships are being rediscovered and shaped in a world of digital connections.

• Startups Care More About Consumers Than Established Brands Do  March 3

This one got a lot of traction and deals with the idea that startups are much more active "testers" or experimenters of consumer action, reaction, behavior and ultimately insights....than brands. The best way to understand consumers is not through one-way mirrors and focus groups, but rather through actual interactions. Startups remind us to "learn" by "doing".

• The Gap Between Intent And Action Is A Chasm Feb. 17

I draw an analogy between weight loss and innovation as it relates to change. Best laid plans or fear of making the first move lead to the same outcome: lethargy, inactivity and essentially stagnation or decay.

Enjoy the articles and feel free to "join the conversation" with your thoughts, feedback and/or pushback.

 

 

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Z.E.R.O. Interview on For Immediate Release

Those of you who don't subscribe to Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson's For Immediate Release are probably still blissfully living underneat the rock of ages where 4-color bleeds, mechanicals and 30-second spots reign supreme.

For the rest of you, you would know FIR is one of the longest standing P.R. and Communications podcasts out there. Period. And the best.

I also had the pleasure of working with both Shel and Neville during the crayon days.

Last week, my co-author, Maarten Albarda and I had a great conversation about Z.E.R.O. and I particularly enjoyed the questions from a slightly different perspective (P.R. v Advertising)

You can listen to the post directly here (or if you're subscribed to Across the Sound or Jaffe Juice podcasts, it will download automatically via iTunes). The very thoughtful post on the podcast can be found here.

If you're still interested in reviewing the book, I'll send you a copy. Let me know.

If you'd like to purchase the book, you can do so here. It comes with a full 100% money back guarantee...however you do need to pay us a 10% fee on any incremental revenue or cost savings generated beyond $1,000,000 that comes from the book. Hint: The latter scenario is much more likely (you have been warned)

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Jaffe Juice #169 - New Business Networking with Dave Delaney

I recently sat down with old friend and social media veteran, Dave Delaney, and now author of New Business Networking: How to Effectively Grow Your Business Network Using Online and Offline Methods.

Here is our conversation on how to ahead in today's increasingly cluttered digital, social and connected world. Download or listen live by clicking this link.

And as a reminder, you can purchase his book here.

Subscribe to the podcast via iTunes here for more interviews like this one, as well as my monthly debate with fellow author and thought leader, Mitch

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Jaffe Juice #168 - Attack of the Customers with author, Paul Gillin

It's like Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, but much scarier, especially if you don't know what you're doing with respect to dealing with "backlashing" customer. Fortunately for you, author Paul Gillin, who - along with Greg Gianforte - wrote "Attack of the Customers' does know a thing or two about the emerging space.

Purchase the book on Amazon.com here.

In this Jaffe Juice podcast conversation, I spoke with Gillin and you can listen via streaming or download here.

We have a lively discussion about whether this is attacks or just overdue customer activism, how to deal with customers in a public space. Whether customer attacks are premeditated and much more.

PS Our friends at JCPenney could probably take a leaf out of this book!

Subscribe to the podcast via iTunes here for more interviews like this one, as well as my monthly debate with fellow author and thought leader, Mitch Joel.

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From Z.E.R.O. to Hero via Kickstarter

It's hard to resist making this a looooooooooooong post, so instead I'll do my best to be as brief and succinct as possible, so here goes...

My good friend and ex-client, Maarten Albarda and I are co-authoring a book together. It's my 4th book (after Life after the 30-second spot, Join the Conversation and Flip the Funnel) and Maarten's first. Besides sharing the same vision and passion for the subject, we're bringing a 1-2 punch to the table in the form of advertising-agency perspective on the giant elephant in the room: media or rather paid media.

The book is called z.e.r.o. and the sub-title, "zero paid media as the new marketing model" kind of says it all (and in less than 140 characters).

The book posits that in a perfect world, your paid media budget would be z.e.r.o. - literally, but also figuratively in the form of an acronym which stands for Zealots (advocacy), Entrepreneurship (innovation), Retention (customer centricity) and Owned Assets (moving from tenant to landlord)

On one hand, it's me returning to my "Life after" roots, but on the other other (and more poignantly), it's our set up of our premonition of a perfect storm approaching in marketing; one in which the bottom could conceivably fall out of the media model. Fortunately, the world is not perfect and change takes longer than we expect, but then again...just look at how your world has changed in the past few years to validate the fact that sitting and doing nothing is not a viable solution.

For me, it's a bold move for two reasons:

1. I've made the move from being a 3-time published author to self-publishing (thanks to Richard @ Wiley for everything to get me this far and props to my new home, Archway Publishing)
2. We're kickstarting this revolution and here's how you can play a key role.

Kickstarter component:

• Go to Kickstarter and visit our page or just search Kickstarter for Z.E.R.O. or zero
• Check out the video and the overview of the book
• Review the various pledge rewards and become a backer. We've named them after famous misers.
• From the Hetty Green and Warren Buffet (digital and hardcover copies respectively) to the maximum reward, which delivers 10 autographed books and an in-person keynote from either Maarten or myself (only 2 available per person)
• The no-brainer and value rewards are the Mr Burns and Mr Krabs respectively, that also include a 140-character acknowledgement (plug) in the book itself

We just pre-launched the book and Kickstarter campaign at the Festival of Media in Montreux, but here's the crazy part...in just over 24 hours after I hit the publish button (in stealth mode), we've almost hit our initial funding goal of $10,000. With your help, we'll push this over the edge and see how far we can take it.

The wild thing is that the book will become it's own case study insofar that it will demonstrate how we were able to self-publish our book for "z.e.r.o." by tapping into our advocates and leveraging our owned assets. It's U.N.M.2.P.N.M. circa 2005 retooled for 2013.

So...if you're part of my community and/or appreciate my content, show your support on Kickstarter with the pledge amount (or more if your heart desires). I will post regular updates over the 6 week period to acknowledge my backers (which would be you)

And all things being equal, Z.E.R.O. will launch in September of 2013 and will contain the 10-point action plan towards implementing this bold vision towards helping marketing evolve, normalize and allocate scarce resources to a re-prioritized hierarchy of connection points.

 

Two Jaffe Juice Podcasts with Mitch Joel and John Wall

Daily Double Dose of Jaffe Juice podcast (especially for those asking where they've been)

The first is one of the semi-regular podcast debates with Mitch Joel. This one is on "The New Creativity".

Click here to download/listen.

Join the Conversation dammit (it's not a cliche when I coined the term and wrote the book on it!) @jaffejuice on Twitter and @mitchjoel on Twitter.

The second is an interview with friend, podcasting veteran and now author, John Wall, where we discuss his new book, "B2B Marketing Confessions."

Click here to download/listen.

Follow John Wall on Twitter.

And be sure to forward this to any brand marketers you think would benefit from the discussion and ultimately give their perspective on the theme at hand.

Subscribe to the show via iTunes here

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