Even better if he/she was not paid to do so initially.

When asked in 1954 what she wore to sleep, the ever seductive and sensuous Marilyn Monroe purred, “Five drops of Chanel No. 5.”

Her famous answer made her  the poster girl for  Chanel No. 5, possibly one of the top 10 perfume in the 20th century. Chanel No. 5  was created by  Ernest Beaux. In 1921,  he presented Coco Chanel with two sets of five test fragrances numbered 1 to 5 and 20 to 24.  The rest is history.

Chanel No. 5 is where you wore to sleep, or to charm the special man in your life in the evening. This seductive and sexy perfume is somehow not seen as a beach perfume where a woman wears when she sashays in a skimpy bikini.

Chanel No.5 was a simple name. Even plain. The plain and simple name is echoed by a similar simple and plain square bottle with black and white label. This simplicity  was considered an ingenious and revolutionary marketing during that time.

Today, Marilyn Monroe and Chanel No 5 are still linked together. The perfume remains one of the top-selling perfume in the world. Well, it is reportedly said that one bottle is being sold somewhere in planet Earth every 30 seconds.

What is Brand Essence?

The Brand Essence is a two to three word phrase (typically in the format “adjective adjective noun”) capturing the “heart and soul” of the brand.

The Brand Essence is simple, concise, aspirationally attainable, timeless, enduring and extendable. Examples include “fun family entertainment” (Disney), “genuine athletic performance” (Nike), “saving great places” (The Nature Conservancy) and “caring shared” (Hallmark).

It is not a tagline or slogan, but rather the first thing an employee might say to quickly describe the brand to another in an elevator conversation (“This brand is all about…”). While a brand’s positioning might differ slightly from country to country and while its advertising campaigns might change over time, like a person’s character, the brand’s essence will largely remain unchanged.

What is Brand Promise?

The Brand Promise is a sentence that communicates the one thing that the brand intends to own in the target consumer’s mind. I prefer to express it in the following form: “Only (brand) delivers (unique benefit) to (target consumer).” A brand promise must be understandable, believable, unique/differentiating, compelling, admirable and endearing.

The ideal benefit to claim in a brand promise has the following three qualities: (1) it is extremely important to the target consumer, (2) the brand’s organization is uniquely suited to delivering it and (3) competitors are not addressing it. As an example, Harley-Davidson’s brand promise might read as follows: “Only Harley-Davidson delivers the fantasy of complete freedom on the road and the comradeship of kindred spirits to avid cyclists.”

The brand’s promise should drive everything an organization does and be manifest at each point of contact the brand makes with the consumer.

Red: Red increases your heart rate and causs you to breathe more rapidly. Red is an aggressive, energetic, provocative and attention-grabbing colour. Count on it to get a passionate response. However, be aware that red can means danger too.

Green: Green is commonly associated with health, freshness and serenity. Deeper greens are associated with wealth or prestige, while light greens are calming.

Yellow: Yellow is associated with the sun, brightness and light. So yellow is about optimism, positivism, light and warmth, thus motivating and stimulating creative thought and energy. It is a great colour to use at point of sale.

Purple: Purple is a not a common color. Usually favored by creative types or those with blue blood. Purple is about mystery, sophistication, spirituality and royalty.

Pink: Diiferent shades different meaning. Hot pinks convey energy, youthfulness, fun and excitement and are great for trendy products for women or girls. Dusty pinks appear sentimental. Lighter pinks are more romantic.

Orange: Cheerful orange evokes exuberance, fun and vitality. Bright orange resonate well with fun-loving product and services. Lighter shades appeal to a more upscale market. Peach tones suits health care, restaurants and beauty salons.

Brown: Earth colour is about simplicity, durability and stability. Certain shades of brown, like terracotta, can convey an upscale look.

Black: Black is serious, bold, powerful and classic. It creates drama and connotes sophistication. Black works well for expensive products, but can make a product look heavy.

White: White connotes simplicity, cleanliness and purity. White is often used with infant and wellness products.

Why?

Here are a few straight answers

1. Marketing is constantly changing, and so must your technique. Internet is the new cool. If you are not blogging, participating at MySpace, YouTube, and the likes, you are uncool. In the fast changing economy, you cannot afford to be seen as out-dated. Be where your target audience is. Most of them already read blogs.

2. Blogs are growing in popularity and are common marketing tools to promote not just product and services but your credibility and brand values.

3. Giving consumers free information will keep them knowledgeable about your product, service and brand values. Eventually that will lead to better host-customer relationship, increase sales and profitability.

4. You can measure your results.

5. Blogging is one of the cheapest form of marketing. Though it is better to get your own domain, there’s no stopping on using free server either.

If you don’t know how to set up a blog, get someone to help. You can even outsource the full works so that you can provide the essential guideline how it should run.

Technorati Tags: corporate blogging, blog

With blogging getting more and more popular, smart marketers leverage on them by inviting popular bloggers to write reviews on their product and services. In exchange, they were offered fees or products or both. Very quickly, entrepreneurs saw this as an opportunity and paid post brokering as a business bloom and flourish. Paid post brokers are the bridge between marketers and bloggers. They matched the right blogs to the right advertising.

Bloggerwave is one of them. Bloggerwave, a Danish set-up established in March 2006 had received initially received bad reviews on it’s sluggish payment. Many bloggers lamented in their blogs that it took months to received payment. Some said bad publicity is better than no publicity. Not quite, especially when it is about monetary issues. I thought Bloggerwave was proactive in addressing the sensitive issue. It issued a statement on 6 January 2007:

We apologize for the delays in the payment process which has been subject for discussion on a number of blogs – the delay was external and not directly under our control or caused by our system. This is not an excuse as it our responsibility to make sure that you are paid on time and in accordance with the agreement. We further apologize for any inconvenience that could have been caused to you as a result of the delays. We are now looking at various options to have a backup payment system in place to ensure you receive an improved service from bloggerwave.com.

We are about to fine-tune several things at bloggerwave.com so we can meet the growing expectations by our advertisers and bloggers and you will witness these improvements over the coming weeks and months.

Not only did they published the statement on its website, it was also emailed to the members on 6 January 2007. This is good crisis management. Contain and control the fire before it spread further and cause more damage. I applauded Bloggerwave for it’s wise move. Probably because it had taken the necessary steps to allay the concerns and doubts of marketers and bloggers that more advertisers are partnering Bloggerwave now. It recently launched an opportunity by Coke Zero. If the soft drink giant, Coca Cola, can go with Bloggerwave, it could only mean that Bloggerwave’s credibility is back. So marketers, check Bloggerwave out.

If you are a blogger, do consider joining Bloggerwave. So far, it is the only paid post broker I know that did not restrict the number of opportunities you can take up. Go read it’s point 12 at the FAQ. I just wonder why this USP is not played up more prominently as it’s competitors restrict to 2 posts a day or 10 posts a month. Anyway, getting paid is not the only incentive. It offers you an opportunity to visit new websites, learn new thing and gain new insights that you would not otherwise know.