Marketing Pilgrim

One of the attractive feature of Apple products in general is the relative insignificance of viruses, malware and overall mischievous behavior by those who like to mess things up for folks in the Internet age. Most of the wrath and venom of hackers and others has been pointed at Microsoft based products because Microsoft is cast as the villain of the tech world, whether it is deserved or not.

Marketers need to pay attention to systems that they tie their success to as well. Stability and safety are two things that corporations like. Apple’s iOS usually provides that. A story from the Apple Insider, however, made me wonder if Apple will continue to be more of a tech safe house if more headlines like this occur.

Last week I talked about how marketers should leverage culture to promote brands. Today I would like to talk about why we also can (and should) change culture.

As I watched the video above I couldn’t help but ask myself, “Is marketing changing culture? Or is culture changing marketing?” Or in other words, are these ads changing our perception of beauty or is our perception of beauty changing the ads? I still don’t have the answer, but maybe it;s a little bit of both.

In the end it doesn’t really matter, the bottom line is that the concept of “ideal beauty” has been around for a very long time. However, that doesn’t mean that it has to continue, and as marketers we have a unique ability to make a difference. Because as marketers we, in part, define culture.

I am a Seinfeld fan. A fan of the show that is. His standup? Not so much. So, I got a little nervous when I heard he was doing a Super Bowl commercial because we know how these things can go. Well, this one wasn’t too bad. Oh and the folks at Acura? Smart move promoting the ad now rather than waiting to “premiere” it during the game. You’ll get more attention now. Very smart.

Of course, being a New York Giants fan, I won’t be paying any attention to ads during the game. Have fun “analyzing” the commercials. I’ll be watching the game and that’s it.

How uncool, huh? Watching a football game for the football. Can you forgive me?

Back in November I shared this image on Google+. Chris Brogan, re-shared it and then 370 others followed suit! It is by far the most popular thing I have posted on Google+. Also, in April I blogged about how a piece of my content went viral on StumbleUpon, which as of today has gained over 1.2 million visitors.

Every time a piece of my content goes viral its completely unexpected and leaves me asking, why? I could just ignore things and go eat hot dogs, but, as a marketer its my job to answer that question.

Recently Jared Keller tried to answer this question, and in my opinion did a great job. Keller tells us that the secret to virality isn’t structure or social tools but rather the inherent culture of the given online ecosystem:

Google must have had a meeting at the end of 2011 that possibly went something like this.

Larry Page: We are going to do so much stuff at the start of 2012 that it will get the Internet industry types’ knickers in such a twist that they won’t know what hit them.

Staff: Will our bonus be tied to it?

Page: Yes.

Staff: We’re all in.

The latest update is regarding Google’s privacy policies. In short, they are attempting to consolidate products and the privacy policies that each carry. Oh and according to the Washington Post there is no opt out. But first let’s have a video interlude courtesy of the Google blog.

Back to that little opt-out thingy from the Post.

Have you ever wondered how you can get a bit closer to the CMO of your company? Are you looking for a way to network your way up the corporate marketing ladder? Well, according to a study released by Forrester Research and Heidrick & Struggles you may want to pass along some of your tech knowledge to gain their favor.

The study called “The Evolved CMO 2012″ shows that the highest levels of the marketing environment knows it could use a little help with technical knowledge.

This can’t be an easy thing for those at the top of the marketing ladder to admit. With marketing as a whole becoming more and more digitally focused there is the reality that those who have reached the top of the marketing profession have done so with much of their experience and success coming from the traditional marketing world.

Remember all the talk about how Google was going to give free high speed Internet to Kansas City, ahem, Kansas City, Kansas that is? Well, that goal hasn’t changed (in fact it has expanded to include Kansas City, MO as well) but apparently there is more to the logistics of the plan than originally met the eye. You had to think that this was too good to be true when you first heard it and now we find out that maybe it is.

The Kansas City Star reports

When Google Inc. announced last spring that Kansas City, Kan., had landed the tech company’s much-pursued super-speed Internet project, the company gushed about the local utility poles.

They were flush with space nicely suited for hanging Google’s cables.