Roger von Oech’s classic “A Whack on the Side of the Head” just turned 25. I used this book a lot in college and at my first agency job. We’d do a few of the exercise to kick start our creative sessions. This led to numerous fresh ideas.

The 25th Anniversary Edition of this creative classic has just been released. It is updated and features many new exercises, puzzles and more. There’s a good interview with von Oech at Guy Kawasaki’s blog on Sun’s SMB site.

Check out Roger von Oech’s Creative Think blog. My favorite part is his online creative whack. Just click on Roger’s photo at the top of the page and a new creative exercise comes up. A few of my favorites include Avoid Arrogance, Imagine You’re the Idea and Slay a Dragon.

Whether you’re working on an online community, creating original content or writing for a blog – these brain teasers will help you stay on your creative toes.

“Brand Building 2.0” is the manner marketers use to effectively reach and relate to their audience in today’s world. This method employs more than just digital media, such as the Internet and mobile devices. It requires consumer empowerment. This was the topic at last week’s ANA Conference at the Hard Rock Café Times Square in New York.

Presentations were made by such respected brands as American Express, P&G and Ford. Of these, Claire Bennett’s discussion on “How new media has enhanced the American Express brand” was the most compelling. “It takes risk” was her summation about creating online marketing programs. Courage was the word she pin-pointed as the important take away.

It also takes time, explained Bennett. Her experience has shown that program ROI can not be realistically expected in the first year. A web site needs an opportunity to build momentum through trial and error, refinement, cross media promotion and WOMM. American Express strives to create marketing programs that “surprise and delight.” AMEX had only two such web sites in 2004, but now has eight successful ones, including MembersKnow and OpenForum.

The most interesting presentation at the conference was made by Tony Hsieh. He is the CEO of Zappos “a service company that happens to sell shoes.” The business is steadfastly focused on culture and service. The vast majority of their marketing budget goes into improving the customer experience. This includes stocking millions of shoes in their warehouse, providing exceptional and untimed call center support and surprise overnight shipping upgrades. Items not normally found in a marketing mix.

The goal is to create as many “wow moments” as possible. This creates loyalty and referral business. The approach is working. Zappos was started in 1999 and is expected to achieve over a billion in sales this year.

The Zappos culture is shaped by passion, fun, values and humility. Their core values are published on their web site. And a Zappos Culture Book is published each year featuring entries by all employees of the company – even negative comments. This radical transparency and humility seems present throughout Zappos.

I find the Zappos brand refreshing and empowering – so much so that I placed an order at Zappos this morning. In addition to the cool Paul Frank monkey shirt I bought for my son, I ordered the Zappos 2007 Culture Book. I paid $15 for it despite the fact that Tony Hsieh said he would send me one free if I emailed him. I just felt compelled to support the Zappos brand, culture and employees. Now that’s brand innovation.

Powered recently updated our web site. This update includes a series of videos detailing things such as social commerce, consumer engagement and the gratitude effect. These videos can be viewed on the Powered web site or at the Powered page on YouTube.

Here’s a sample video about the Gratitude Effect.
Learn what the gratitude effect is, where it originated, and how Powered has implemented it into its social commerce programs.

Cool piece over at BusinessWeek. They had their communications coach analyze his last presentation at Macworld. Certainly advice to take to heart. Two that struck me:

#6 Create visual slides: As a former management consultant, I find myself guilty of not doing this one from time to time. I love the look and impact of a single offbeat or unusual visual. Obviously this approach demands the presenter have a command of the material and can hold the audience with words. The most recent great example I found of this was a show called I Am The Media. Very easy on the eyes, and I especially like seeing Orson Welles/Charles Foster Kane depicted as “old media.”

#10 Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse: Couldn’t agree with this more…especially if you’re presenting material others wrote. And ESPECIALLY if you combining it with #6. Professional entertainers do it. We should too.

In this industry, we’re in the business of informing, educating AND giving people a show (which coincidentally was #7). Tough to combine all 3 all the time, but worth shooting for.

A newly released study by Nielson Co. indicates that products placed in “emotionally engaging” television shows were recognized by 43% more consumers. The Nielsen Product Placement Valuation Study involved more than 10,000 individuals, 200 consumer brands and 50 programs.

Essentially the study states that the more a viewer enjoys and is engaged by a TV show, the more likely they are to have positive feelings for brands that appear in the show. The same also holds true for ad spots during the show. The effect is multiplied with a combination of product placement and advertising.

Results varied across program categories, with dramas scoring the highest. “Dramas have the most to gain from higher viewer enjoyment: positive brand feelings increased a blockbuster 198% during highly enjoyable dramas.”

No matter the media format, connecting emotionally with consumers is essential for successful advertising.

Good read over at BusinessWeek on the Year in Advertising.  Yes, it’s another piece on how its all changing for we marketers.  But I  clicked through on the slide show, and was especially intrigued by Samsung’s charging station and what they referred to as “branded utility.”

They state that “Taking advertising and making it into something useful may be a trend for the future.” I think that’s really true.  Your marketing has got to be meaningful to the new consumer and something they’ll want to seek out.  Which means it should probably be funny, entertaining and/or provide them utility so they will seek it out.  At Powered, we’ve adopted Next Century Media’s term the “Gratitude Effect” for this dynamic and found it creates a helluva ROI.

So, ask yourself…what % of your marketing spend is directed towards things that are providing utility to the consumer vs. marketing at them?

 Aflac’s spoof of the Rankin-Bass classic Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer is stirring up some good conversation. But personally, it’s got me thinking about the role of TV spots in our new world as marketers.  “They” say people are watching fewer commercials.  And “they” say even if they’re watching the spot, it’s only because they can’t hit the fast forward button on the DVR.  And, “they” say, they’re definitely not paying attention while the spot is on because they’re listening to their ipod, talking on a cell phone, sending email, IMing, making a YouTube video, posting to a message board, writing their blog, reading someone else’s blog, subscribing to an RSS feed, listening to a podcast, playing a video game and updating their profiles on any number of social networking sites at the same time.  And who knows? They may be doing all that while having a good old fashioned human conversation with someone sitting by them in the same room.

Personally, I like the spot. But I also love the nostalgia of those old TV specials and memories of going through the Sears Wishbook to write down the GI Joes I wanted (and I’m talking 12” GI Joe here folks.) I also respect what Aflac has tried to do with its category, injecting a bit of fun and humor into the mix.  And based on how many duck spots I’ve seen so far, they must feel good about the results. 

But it got me thinking about new debate on an age old question - what’s the point of ads NOW? Obviously, it’s still to support brand strategy in an effective way, but should it be…

• Memorable, even if it is painful to watch? Think Head On.
• Funny like the Aflac spot or any number of Bud Light spots? (some of my recent favorites here and here)
• Just a bit louder than what you were watching so you look up?
• What we’re used to seeing since TV was invented – a little bit of everything, even if it just plain blends in?

For me, I think TV spots will have to be more like good, viral web video.  And that might be like the first 2 choices.  But what do you think?

There’s been a fair bit of conversation about MySpace’s Never Ending Friending report. I was at the IAB event where the study was unveiled. Interesting stuff to be sure, but also befuddling (I suspect) to marketers. For me I think it boils down to…

It’s not just about what your marketing and advertising says anymore. I think that’s a really, REALLY hard thing for most for us to accept. I mean many of us have spent most of our careers agonizing over marketing plans, creative briefs and agency meetings. It was so much easier in the old days when you had a decent shot at making people think about your brand in the way you wanted them too. But the increasingly collaborative nature of the internet is really changing that. Now your products - and the experiences people have with your brand - really almost need to stand alone.

Of course you still have your shot at getting your message out. Not everyone is that connected. Yet. But more and more it’s going to be about what you do and how it gets other people to say things. Brands almost might want to go so far as thinking of themselves as a consumer to consumer matchmaker. Learning what other people think is a powerful catalyst for choosing a brand or staying loyal to it.

And it seems to me one of the more important things a brand can do is take to heart what the word of mouth marketers have been saying for a while now – “be worth talking about.” In a cluttered and noisy world, that may seem daunting. But the good news is that when you consider applying that principle to not just your products, but your marketing as well the number of opportunities open up. And the other good news is there are more ways than ever to get that message to spread if it truly is worth talking about.