BE THE BRAND:STOP ACTING LIKE A COMPANY, START BEHAVING LIKE A MOVEMENT

On September 29th at Altitude 360, London, NBT
(www.newbrandtribalism.com), The Alternative (www.thealternative.co.uk) , Communicate Magazine (www.communicatemagazine.co.uk) along with seven leading speakers, are hosting a one -off event that we hope will inspire, ignite passion, spark ideas and challenge the old industrial model of business.

Speakers include:
Andrew Coull- Vice President Retail at Everything Everywhere,
Anthony Thomson- Chairman & Co-founder of Metro Bank,
Lee Cooper- Creative Director at White Stuff,
Justine Roberts- Co-founder & CEO of Mumsnet,
Linda Summers- Director of Marketing & Operations at Skype,
Tim Pethick, Group Chief Marketing Officer at Acromas Holdings (Saga & The AA)
and
Luke Johnson-, Ex-Chairman of Channel 4 Television Corporation(2004 to 2010) ex-owner of Pizza Express, Columnist at the FT, Business Author and one of the UK’s leading business people is speaking on the day.Luke has one of the most impressive and diverse CVs in British Business,

Be the Brand is an event which celebrates the competitive edge you can create for your business, through engaging people with your brand and its cause: be they customers, employees or wider stakeholders. Essentially it’s about trying to BE Different and performing when Everyone Else Is Doing the Same!

There’s always the chance that you’ll get nothing you believe to be valuable, however, to give you a flavour of the calibre, one of the speakers successfully set up Australia’s answer to Innocent(Nudie Drinks), another has been a leader at a company rated amongst The Times Best Companies to work, another runs a movement that lead the newspaper The Mirror to label her part of the two ” most powerful women in Britain” during last year’s general election campaigns, and that’s less than half the list of speakers.

Real leaders aren’t afraid to leave their comfort zones. They are keen to listen, meet new people, learn, experience, and ultimately try different things. We’d love to see you at Be the Brand.

To buy event tickets http://bethebrand.eventbrite.com/
Price: £65 each
Everyone who attends the event will receive a free copy of Luke’s yet to be released book .

Service Affiliates- Part of the NBT Tribe.

A few people have asked about the types of service affiliates who are part of the tribe, so whilst i’ve probably mentioned these company’s in past posts I thought I’d do a direct but brief feature on 3 companies who go down as the earliest adopters of the NBT philosophy.  It goes without saying if you want one of these company’s to help you out of a pickle get in touch with us here and will put you in touch with the right people.

The Alternative: www.thealternative.co.uk . They are about activation and delivery of engagement programmes and communication. Historically they work with senior managers (HR, Marketing, Product, Comms, Retail or even Operations), they get called in when people are beginning to feel under pressure as the future they were building is now starting to look uncertain due to financial constraints.  Most worry about launching new initiatives in a market, where there is little or no room for error. Others are frustrated by the lack of creativity from their current agencies, whilst they are working in a climate to deliver more with less. It’s not unusual for them to be meeting people who are anxious to guarantee that their next event or communications push delivers clear results.

The Alternative believes true engagement and performance comes from having the ability to deliver deeper feeling with meaning to customers, employees and stakeholders, so that’s what they’ve recently been doing with clients, including Orange, Skype, American Express and WTTC.

Rambutan: Co-founders of NBT and experts in management communication and leadership development. www.rambutan.biz .  Rambutan help evolve leadership style and practice so that managers become fully engaged chieftains for your new brand tribe. Amongst other things they can also help practically deliver enhanced inter-personal; engagement and communication skills amongst leaders at all level. Can assist with Coaching, NLP, Presentation Skills, Facilitation and so on. Clients include board level directors at companies like Metro Cash and Carry, Northern Rail, Ventura etc.  Get this Rambutan guarantee results on a better than risk-free basis. There are plenty of consultancies, training companies and coaches out there who can offer you similar solutions and skills… but how many of them are really confident and willing enough to put their money where their mouths are and say this?

Burke McCarron: Brand architecture and analysis consultants.  www.burkemccarron.com. Burke McCarron provide understanding and analysis of how to align brand attributes into practical and effective internal values and behaviours, ensuring that neither brand nor operational culture are misaligned.  BM would support relevant projects by ensuring the interfaces between brand and organisational design / culture are focused.

Uninventing the Wheel- A New Year Message from NBT

The new year is a time to reflect on the past year as we look forward to the coming one. As such it our hope that all our tribal friends and their companies will see their productivity efforts bear fruit in 2011 and beyond.

I wonder what the year holds? If only we had a crystal ball!  Here at NBT HQ amongst other things we’ve decided to start the year by writing a little article to share with you. Please click on the link and download it here Uninventingthewheel, I would very much welcome your thoughts on it.

2010 was an interesting one for us, we still observed many managers and even directors who were stuck on automatic and defaulting to the tried and tested – seemingly trapped in what we’d call the corporate straight jacket- and fearful of the unknown.    I guess it’s no surprise given the unpredictability of the economic climate and how many people’s old certainties are becoming less certain by the day.  We also saw people overloaded and feeling like there was inadequate time, budget and resources to deliver their objectives. In our estimation this fostered yet further reluctance to embrace new ideas. The headspace was not there.

We typically found ourselves invited in by some ambitious HR and Marketing Director types who were determined to move things forward. Despite the pressure to align their activities and plans with the wider strategic goals (usually cuts), many were uneasy about falling behind the curve. The “soft stuff” like People Engagement and Communications needed to inspire people into action despite fewer resources (more with less). Did you come across these issues in 2010?

I sincerely hope that we will be able to make meaningful contributions to individuals, companies, and organisations this year.
In all this, we will be relying on your support and cooperation and looking forward the new decade hoping  that you are with us in our productivity endeavours.

The music tribe ask Weezer to retire-is this for real?

Check out this Guardian article by clicking on the link below

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/oct/07/weezer-offered-10m-split-up

Clever PR stunt or something more interesting?

Would love to hear your thoughts

Refreshing People- Introducing the Rambutan approach.

Hey all, thought i’d highlight a little story not about our chums and  New Brand Tribalism service affiliate-Rambutan . Rambutan refresh the way people communicate, think or lead so that business, team or personal goals can be achieved. We think the link below which featured in their local newspaper might be something interesting to take a look at, it also gives you a little taster of their approach.

http://www.harboroughmail.co.uk/news/DIFFERENT-APPROACH–firm-offers.6509863.jp

If you’re interested in finding out more check out www.rambutan.biz  or contact us here at New Brand Tribalism and we’ll help connect you.

Marketing Week Opinion-Can a rebrand save your ailing brand credibility?

Check out some of our views.

http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/opinion/real-meaning-of-csr/3013683.article

Tim’s comment back in May about BP  was in response to the  article below written by Mark Ritson, in case you have read it here’s the link below.

(http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/opinion/rebranding-cannot-plug-credibility-gap/3013343.article)

We’re thinking of making an appearance at an industry conference on rebranding in the next couple of weeks so that reminded me to post the above links.

What do you think can rebranding plug the credibility gap?  Do you have some other examples other than M&S and Skoda where a new brand position has positively changed a struggling business?  What about examples of rebrands that have spectacularly failed?

NBT service affiliate Milana Marketing launches with Enlightened CRM offering

“No human being is an island, so it’s no longer useful to consider them as one.”

Sooner or later, you are going to have to decide whether you want to get competitive by continually lowering your prices or by investing in the one advantage your competitors can’t replicate: your engaged, valuable, community.  It’s time for your 20^th Century CRM focussed purely on transactions, data and efficiency to evolve; it’s time for some Enlightened CRM.

Today marks the launch Milana Marketing, a consultancy specifically designed to help organisations adopt a more enlightened approach to customer relationships, enabling them to better compete in a world where increasingly customers are more democratised than ever before.

Societal, environmental and technological changes in the marketplace are forcing organisations to adapt to a new social dynamic. The tried and tested business thinking has become tired and testing and the associated models that have been used must also evolve and respond.  CRM, Social CRM, direct marketing, loyalty marketing- call it what you will, at the end of the day, it’s really all about relationship-building and engagement, it can also mean the difference between future prosperity and struggle or decline. 

In short, Enlightened CRM presents many opportunities to build a distinctive presence that can serve as a building block of high performance: a method to potentially accelerate the sales process, influence and connect more tightly with customers at lower cost and in a way that provides a real differentiation from competitors.  “It’s not just about the customers who connect to your brand; it’s the communities they create – and the other communities, networks and brands they connect to as well” states  Nazia Khan, Managing Partner, Milana Marketing.

“Working with a pioneering brand like Harley Davidson as they activated and influenced their advocates and brand fans, I have been able to understand the principles behind building a flourishing and sustainable community. It’s with this thinking together with insights and knowledge from the marketplace that we’ve been able to bring out a differing and compelling consultancy offering for brands looking to move things on without large investments or taking massive risks.”

“There are many CRM tools and services that claim to support all relationship needs out of the box, these claims should be met with  healthy scepticism. Your CRM system is only as good as the community you inspire.  Unless your system brings in the human elements and helps you to understand, connect and commune appropriately with all of your constituents, it is an expensive and inefficient part of the problem”

Outside of its consultancy services, Milana is also part of the New Brand Tribalism Community designed to increase knowledge and participation in 21^st Century business practices. Members come from a variety of backgrounds, ranging from CEOs and leaders in HR, Communications, Organisational Development, Management, Marketing and Branding, to academics and analysts predicting future trends.  To find out more check out www.milanamarketing.com or contact us through the NBT website and we can put you in touch.

American Chamber of Commerce in Europe features New Brand Tribalism story in Q2 publication.

One of our articles has made it’s way into the American Chamber of Commerce in Luxembourg’s connnexions publication.

Check it out

http://www.amcham.lu/uploads/tx_usermagazines/amcham_Q_2_2010_FINAL.pdf

How brand can be a powerful tool in employee engagement and loyalty.

We’re in HR review talking about New Brand Tribalism and considering how a brand can be a powerful tool in employee engagement and loyalty.

http://www.hrreview.co.uk/articles/analysis/analysis-hr-strategy-practice/beyond-engagement-are-you-evoking-or-provoking-your-tribe/10610

The one about the Marketing publication editor and Wikipedia

A while back we met with an editor of a marketing trade publication, in talking about various things we made a statement linked to brand tribalism and his reponse was “I’m going to check that out, If it’s not on Wikipedia it’s not true and it doesn’t exist”.

Interesting thought “not on wikipedia……..doesn’t exist?” what did we do for knowledge before Wikipedia?, it’s just an encyclopedia at the end of the day. I remember as a kid referring to the annual publications like Encyclopedia Britannica or World Book for pearls of wisdom that was before technology changed things.  Wikipedia has tranformed how we share knowledge and you just need to look at the statement of that magazine editor  to realise how much.

My full cabinet of World Book encyclopedias are small and outdated compared to the collaborative depth and up dated nature of wikipedia’s knowledge.  It’s an example of the instant, consensus-driven nature of information which fuels much of the 21st Century.

The knowledge retained and guarded by one person is no longer the power, Knowledge is Energy. Knowledge Shared – is Energy Shared™

Interestingly as much as we hear lots of people talking about brand tribes, and brand tribalism no one had actually defined it on Wikipedia until

we spent a few hours, a couple of debates and more than one re-edit to get it accepted by the reviewers.  So  Brand Tribalism is now on Wikipedia here  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand_Tribalism