Digital Asset Management – DAM-it !

Brand Stories are powerful.

They are the emotional glue that connects the storyteller with his audience and, more importantly, the audience with the idea the storyteller is trying to convey.

Stories tap into not only our minds, but also our hearts. They’re why we cry at movies, even though we know they’re fiction. They’re why a homeless man could go from panhandling on a street corner to working as the voice of Kraft in a matter of days.

When we were kids, stories were our lives. We’d incessantly ask our parents to read us storybook after storybook, even though we could literally recite the stories word for word. But that didn’t matter, because they connected us with our parents.

As we grew up, we lost our zeal for storytelling. We got our diplomas and put our picture frames in our cubicles, and we stopped telling stories. Visions of what could be were replaced with corporate jargon, features, awards (which were paid for), press releases, and bullet point-ridden PowerPoints. We lost perspective, forgetting about the audience and worrying just about our bottom lines.

The balance of power has shifted. It’s gone from advertisers with deep pockets, throwing money at one-way media, into the hands of the audience members. If they don’t like your television commercials, they’ll fast-forward their DVRs. If they don’t like your radio commercials, they’ll plug in their iPods. They block your telemarketing calls and toss your direct mail in the trash. The age of interruptive media is over, and that’s where brand storytelling begins.

The only messages audiences will see or hear are those they choose to see or hear. They demand to be engaged, valued, and entertained. That’s the way we felt when we were children, right? Begging our parents to engage us, value us, and entertain us. Those emotions we had as children are still within us all. Why would it be any different in business?

Instead, brands need to embrace storytelling. They need to find their inner brand stories and manifest them in ways that are so engaging, valuable, and/or entertaining that audiences want to tell their friends.

Your brand has a story too, whether you’re a Fortune 500 company or a solo entrepreneur. When you unearth that story and spread it in all forms and channels — that’s when your audiences let you into their lives and evangelize for you.

Great stories spread. And those who tell the best stories win.

Want to have a story for your Brand? Then Brand Diagonal  is way out.

Thanking You

Atul Sikrai.

Founder

Brand Diagonal.

The human — God’s masterpiece .

The human —God’s masterpiece
The human  is ‘ …the most complex and orderly arrangement of matter in the universe.

A group of salesmen went to a sales convention. All had promised their wives they would arrive at time for dinner Friday night. However, the convention ended a little late, and they came tardy to the airport. They all came in with their tickets and portfolios, running through the ails. Suddenly, and unintentionally, one of the salesmen stumbled on a table that had an apple basket.

The apples went flying everywhere. Without stopping, nor turning back, the salesmen continued running, and barely were able to get on the plane. All but one. This one stopped, took a deep breath, and experienced a feeling of compassion for the owner of the apple booth. He said to his friends that continue without him and asked one of them that when he arrived call his wife and explain to her that he was coming in a later flight. Then he returned to the terminal and found all the apples thrown on the floor.

His surprise was great, when realizing that the owner of the booth was a blind girl. He found her crying, with big tears running down her cheeks. She groped on the floor, trying, in vain, to collect the apples, while the multitude passed by, vertiginous, non stopping, without caring for her misfortune. The man knelt down with her, he gathered the apples, put them in the basket and helped her to setup her booth again. While he did it, he realized that many apples had been beaten and they were bruised. He took them out of the basket and put them in another basket.

When he finished, he pulled out his purse and told the girl,"Please, take these one hundred pesos for the damaged we did to you. Are you OK?". She, crying, nodded positively. He continued telling her: "I hope I have not ruined your day." As the salesman was going away, the girl cried loud at him, "Sir..." He stopped and turned around to see those blind eyes. She continued: "Are you God...?"

He stopped abruptly and swirled several times, before heading to board another flight, with that question burning and vibrating in his soul, "Are you God?"

And to you, have people mistaken you for God ? Because that is our destiny, isn't it? To resemble ourselves so much to God that people cannot see the difference. To look so much like God, as we live in a world that is blind to His Love, His Life and His Grace. If we say we know god, we should live and act as he would. To know him is much more that to cite the Gospels and to go to church. It is, really, to live His word each day. You are the apple of His eyes, even though you have been bruised by the falls. He left all and gathered you and me in Calvary; He paid for our spoilt fruit. Let's start to live as though we were worthy of the price He paid!

Being Human is best brand we can built for God.

Thanking You

Atul Sikrai

Digital World & Ways

Brand development has really come to the fore in digital marketing, likely because of the rise of social media, after the long obsession with all things direct response. I think this is a good thing and in line with what matters to us, as customers. So, for my first post on clever part.I wanted to explore some of the Brand Keys predictions further, share my thoughts and see if anyone else had things that they wanted to share on this subject given that “branding” and “brand development” have so often being misunderstood.

First – It’s important to recognize that building a strong brand has always been important if differentiation and avoiding having a commoditized product or service matters to you. It’s not new, and yet the Internet has significantly changed what it means, and how crucial it is to business growth today.

Customers need the “reason to buy at all”, it’s obvious that that any product has to be great value but the point here is the meaning behind the brand, to “me” as a the consumer. Answering the “why should I” at an emotional level. For digital marketers, that means you need to give your audience an amazing reason to visit, to remain on your site, to return, to refer and to give you their contact details. So – think about our Brand Diagonal and if you create lead tools for data capture then ensure that they add value to the intended recipient rather than do the bare minimum. Imagine the impact if you aimed to give 10x the value to visitors, leads and customers at every touch point?

The value of goods and services will increasingly be defined by what’s wrapped up in the brand and what the brand stands for. Though not new, it’s more important when there are potentially thousands of people sharing stories about your brand online. “…true brands provide meaningful differentiation in a world over-run by commodities.

We Brand Diagonal have that expertise to build Brand through Social Media .And if you are reading this blog today shows our expertise to use this medium. At last you have made you mind to use us?

Always Happy to Build Your Brand digitally.

Atul Sikrai

Chief Mentor & Founder

Brand Diagonal

Old Spice "Woman": Short-Term Laughs, Long-Term Gain ?

Can your Brand DO standup comedy?

Getting people to laugh is probably even harder than getting them to buy. To me “to make someone laugh is to disarm them.” Deciding to buy is as much a release of tension as laughing, especially when people aren’t buying on the basis of need alone.

People may watch a comedian expecting to laugh, but they still need to be disarmed and won over. It’s a competitive environment, just like business. What does a comedian say after he leaves the stage with the audience cheering? “I killed ‘em out there.” What does a great salesman say after a fantastic quarter? “I made a killing in the market.”

Brands have to do more than just meet expectations; they have to penetrate the built-in resistance to commit. That energy and insight has to be supplied by the performer, not the audience.

Good branding and design, like good comedy, is often the art of sacrifice. You are defined by who and what you’re not for, thus freeing you to excel within the audience that gets you.

Innovation, like comedy, is a messy, often counter-intuitive business. It’s an iterative loop of creation, feedback, revision, rejection, and creation again. Used correctly, research fuels the understanding that leads to real breakthroughs. In the wrong hands, it all but assures the death of originality.

So, I killed some frogs here, but if one more good idea sees the light of day, perhaps they did not die in vain.

When it comes to innovation, the customer is rarely right. At least, they’re rarely right about what they want next. Businesses run on process, and the traditional market research process of concept testing is indeed an efficient process: Nothing kills ideas faster than concept testing. That doesn’t mean research has no place in innovation development; the key is to use it to understand, not to evaluate.

A comedian doesn’t ask the audience what the next joke should be about, he has the skill to tell them. Great comedians are tremendously astute observers of human beings. They know how people think, what experiences we have in common, and how to direct (or misdirect) our attention. They have to be ahead of their audience, but not so far ahead that they baffle us instead of amusing us. Similarly, the best market research is aimed at understanding how customers interact with a given product category, not asking them what should come next.

Regards

Atul Sikrai

Chief Mentor & Founder

Brand Daigonal.

Topsy-turvy, hurly-burly Tactics!

The normal business process is to have a product, start looking for prospects, and make the sale. Guess What? Normal businesses also don't work very well!

Let's turn business upside down!

If you would really love to have a radical change in your business, you are going to have to make some radical changes in your methods.

One definition of insanity that I feel is especially appropriate for business owners to understand is, "Doing the same thing over and over and expecting to receive different results."

If you continue to run your business in a "normal" way, you will always be limited to "normal" results.

If you want to have "exceptional" results in your business, you are going to have to put "exceptional" methods to work for you.

If you are like 99% of internet marketers I know, I will venture to bet that you have a web site & product and that your biggest problem is building the traffic to your site. I will also bet you aren't making very many sales!

What happens if we turn this process upside down?

What happens if we choose to find the prospects first...build a relationship with them...and then find a product that they Dream about?

Everybody online appears to have a product. How many of them have an audience?

It is kind of funny...I always have people coming to me that they have an awesome product they want to sell to the world. They just can't get anyone to visit their site.

I rarely ever have anyone saying, "I have too much traffic and I just don't know what to sell." When they come to me. I can guarantee you that those people are the easiest people in the world to help.

If you have the traffic, all you have to do is ask them what they want. Then, find it for them.

If you have a product, we have to figure out a way to get traffic to your site, set up the sales process, and start making sales.

I am not saying this isn't possible. We do it all the time. What I am saying is that it is the wrong way to do business on the net.

Let's turn it upside down.

Instead of starting out with a product, let's start out by figuring out what it is that you are passionate about. What is it that is exciting in your life and that you have experience and skills in?

What is it that gets your fire burning? Way too many people have decided to just follow the pack instead of being creative and coming up with their own ideas.

Since the rest of the pack seems to be slowly moving away into oblivion (Over 95% of internet sites are losing money), shouldn't you make a change of direction?

Once we figure out what it is that you love, let's decide where you can find other people just like you.

Regards

Atul Sikrai

Chief Mentor & Founder

Brand Diagonal.

Whacky Brand Dressing

Revamping one’s brand does not only maintain a good image, it also repairs a damaged one. As written, no matter how bad your reputation gets, you can always turn it around.

How, then, could you revamp your brand? Here are a few suggestions.

Boost your promotions campaign. Aside from improving your packaging, have some “widgets” or extras to go with your products. You could use “more for less” campaigns. Make buying your product more exciting for your customers by giving free items or services for every purchase.

. Improve your product availability and compatibility with other products. Make sure your product doesn’t get overlooked by enhancing your point-of-purchase advertisements. You can also try tying up with another establishment so you could both endorse each others’ products along with your own.

•    Building brand presence by getting product to market faster with little to no investment or inventory risk. 

•    Accelerating the ability to gain additional shelf space or enter into new channels or regions. 

•    Delivering valuable and steady royalty revenue increasing cash flow and operating income. 

It is no surprise that academics and professionals alike are calling for new approaches to marketing, because the old approaches are inadequate to the challenges. New forms of media are showing up all the time. Consumers are faced with a turbo-charged range of choices, and an array of new technology is available to support marketing decisions and programs.

Marketing is still about identifying needs so that people line up to buy. The change is in how consumers learn about products and services and receive the messages. We are entering a ‘post-mass media’ marketing world.

1. Learn everything about your customers. Understand them at a deep level. Know what motivates them. Know what they aspire to and what they fear.

2. Stand for something important to your customers. Let them know that you share their values.

3. Interact with your customers as if they were your partners. Respect them. Listen to them. Collaborate with them. Co-create new products and services with them.

4. Grow with your current customers. Identify how you can meet more and more of their needs. It is much less expensive to sell a current customer one more thing than it is to gain a new customer.

5. Innovate. Don’t rest on your laurels. Anticipate your customers’ needs. Give them something that they would really appreciate but perhaps had never conceived of before.

Happy2Help you to create Brand People shall Love.

Atul Sikrai

Chief Mentor & Founder

Brand Diagonal.

Why You Wont Use Us !!!!!!

You're about to discover the true

Secrets for advertising now—before it make you Mad...

As every dedicated watcher of Mad Men knows, advertising is built on the genius of ideas. Inspiration can strike from any corner (and in every flashback). And beware: Even the greatest ideas are fleeting.

But every now and then, an idea comes along those changes the game for good. Yes, the campaign generates huge, instantaneous buzz and moves plenty of product--but it also stands the test of time, infiltrating the culture in subtle ways for decades to come.

The Art of Mad Ads

Mad ads are all about fun; it’s about laughing and having a good time. For the rookies, mad ads are a crude form of theatre, though not accepted as one by theatre hardliners. Its genre is mainly comedy. As the name suggests, it’s about mad advertisements. The name's also a bit of a misnomer though, in the sense that it’s not about making your own ads but, spoofing existing ads

A good script is the basic requirement of a mad ads team. Sit down with our team and brainstorm to get those whacky ideas outta ur butts or wherever u've them hidden. Ideas need not always be excellent and path breaking. No matter how bad it is, put it across to the team. Many a times, such flop-ideas lead to the best of the jokes. Before finalizing our script, make sure it makes u laugh in the first place.

Golden Rule: Something u can't laugh at can't make others laugh for a sure!!

As a consumer you’re inundated with literally hundreds of messages on a daily basis so it’s little wonder that when you change hats and become an advertiser you may wonder where to start.

It’s really not that complicated. At MAD IDEAS we’ll start by helping you to identify who you most want to reach. When we know more about their lifestyle, their habits, their likes and dislikes, we’ll help you find the right publication to advertise in or the right channel for a Direct Mail Campaign.

After that it’s all about standing out from the crowd or in marketing speaks achieving ‘good cut through’. Essentially it just means using the right tone and language to really speak to your target market. 

And finally - "My Accountant Thinks I’m Crazy Sale"

This is a tongue in cheek sales letter that talks about your annoyance at your nagging, domineering, penny pinching, scrooge-ish accountant. How he bullies you, pushes you around and watches you like a hawk…but now he’s out of town on vacation for the week and you’re going to have some fun… with the wildest, most generous offers in the history of your business.

How We Can Help You

We'll happily listen to any of your own mad marketing ideas and give you feedback.

Our high quality service and "raving fan" clients are the result of our commitment to excellence. Above all, we never lose sight of the premise that our prosperity is directly linked to yours.

Promise to make you Mad.

Atul Sikrai

Founder & Chief Mentor

Brand Diagonal.