Carnival of Marketing #4

UPDATED | Dec. 8 | repaired a broken link

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For this week's installment of the Carnival of Marketing, I have divided it up into two parts. The first part includes smart marketing-related posts culled from reader submissions. The second part contains a few links to worthwhile marketing reads as selected by me. Since you are all over-achievers, I expect you'll be interested in reading both sections. Right?

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Be Proud of Your Mistakes
Matt Heinz explains how to turn failures into learning experiences creating a culture of innovation.

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Book Review: GRAPEVINE
Spike Jones shares his take on GRAPEVINE, the recently published book on Word-of-Mouth Marketing from BzzAgent's Dave Balter.

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Your Brand = Your Employees.
Jonathan Dampier reminds us to not forget the Employee variable in the marketing equation.

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Pay it Forward
Peter Caputa explains how connecting people with people leads to creating a sales machine.

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MarketingSherpa's "Landing Page Handbook" -- Who to believe?
Louis Gudema ponies up thoughts on a recent MarketingSherpa study about website landing pages.

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Advertising Relevance
Michael Caffin offers up some sharp advertising “Do’s” and “Don’ts.”

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The Gap in The Gap's Strategy
Laura Smart has smart musings on Gap’s strategy of using celebrity endorsers.

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Why People Don’t Pay Attention to the Price of a Room at The Four Seasons
Doug Davidoff riffs on creating remarkable experiences for customers and clients.

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Participate in the Reputation Marketplace
John Winsor’s thinking syncs up with my thinking that managing a brand is really just managing a reputation. Yep, brand management is reputation management.

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Interview: Douglas Rushkoff, author of GET BACK IN THE BOX
Marc Babej posted a thought-provoking interview with Douglas Rushkoff. Yeah, I’m pimpin’ Rushkoff again.

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Preaching About Your Products
Jackie Huba eloquently and passionately makes the case for companies adopting customer evangelism practices in this online only interview with US News & World Report.

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Direct-to-Brain Marketing
A new application for the MRI brain scan has marketers hoping they can create more effective ads. (From Marketplace.org -- 3:00 audio)

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Tapping the Field of Conversation
Evelyn Rodriguez links to and riffs off a worthy read article on what we can learn from the American civil rights movement as it relates to making change happen at our businesses.

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NPR’s Podcast Success
An informative article on how National Public Radio has become a leading podcaster in just two months.

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Christmas Creep: The Shopping Season Is Longer, But Is It Better?
Every year, retailers seem to start the Holiday shopping season earlier and earlier. Knowledge@Wharton examines if a longer shopping season is better.

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Media Age Business Tips From U2
Sound business lessons from the brand … I mean the band … U2. [PDF version available here.]

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Comments

[Mitchell Caplan]

I thought that Spike Jones' comments on "Grapevine" were a bit harsh. This book clearly wasn't directed to maktg pro's who already understand WOM, it was targeted to those who are just starting to dabble in this area.

I think Dave and his co-writer have done a nice job explaining some of the basics of WOM marketing in a way that it very easy to understand. A perfect example is on pg 42 where they give one of the best descriptions of the difference between Buzz and WOM, two separate tactics that are often lumped together.

Is the book a bit too long? Maybe. Is the case study a bit simplistic? Sure. But for the uneducated mktg professional, it's a good, simple, straightforward introduction to WOM

[Laura]

Hello all. I'm the author of the Gap in the Gap's Strategy post. I would like to apologise profusely that the post is no longer available. I hope that those of you who were able to visit it before it disappeared were able to enjoy it and I'm sorry for those who missed it.

Yesterday someone got into my account and permanently deleted all the posts on my blog so they are irretrievable. Once again, many apologies on my part.

For anyone who did happen to find my blog interesting and wanted to follow it, I was planning on closing that blog within the next month and a half anyway and starting a new blog with different software, so if it's ok with John I can let you know the URL here when it's up and running.

[DUST!N]

Laura,

Lookie here:
http://url123.com/mkz9s