A few more things to check out...

...when I get the time...

Alain de Botton (@ Wiki), a Swiss philosopher, who wrote (amongst other books) a book called Status anxiety, about how we lead our lifes today, and how status and what "everybody else" thinks of us, affects us. (For Alains own webpage, click here.)

Martin Lindström is a "brand futurist". He works with sensory branding and neuromarketing. He is part of a project called buy-ology (which coincidentally is also the name of his book ;). The project studies neurobranding (a mix between science and marketing), and they scan peoples brains to find out WHY we buy certain stuff. A few steps further than "lovemarks", I can tell you...

Another interesting article, reviewing another book from Martin Lindström. The book is called "Brand Sense - Build Powerful Brands through Touch, Taste, Smell, Sight, and Sound". That's what sensory branding is all about!

Drug taglines?!?

At school, we are discussing taglines (check out Wiki's description). And it got me thinking of "probably the worst tagline in the world" (pun intended ;).

Personally I would vote for: Coca-Cola's: "Coke side of life". I mean, how did they think? I can not help but associating to drugs (cocaine, know on the street (at least in the movies ;) as 'coke'). Why did they choose this particular tagline? Was it intended? Like "all publicity is good publicity", or what?

If you have any ideas, please leave a comment!

Project Management

I stumbled upon a book, some sort of handbook for project management, created an distributed by Project management Institute (PIM): A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge. I would like to read it, because in the advertising/promotion of it, they state that "...the PMBOK® Guide, now considered one of the most essential tools in the profession and is the de facto global standard for the industry." Since I have worked within "the industry", I would like to compare the project management control methods/models that I have been in contact with, with the one in the book.

I actually own another book (also about project management), that I received during my last project management programme (and which I unfortunately haven't had the time to read yet) that also seems quite interesting: James P. Lewis: Project Planning, Scheduling & Control, A hands-on guide to bringing projects in on time and on budget.

Nice perfume?

I so love this (guerrilla) marketing campaign, created for a Non Smoking Generation in Sweden. A "perfume" was invented, with everything: a photo shoot with models, a seductive perfume bottle design, and a sampling event in four malls. In the malls, perfume testers were given to customers, there were big stands and big posters with the perfume name on them: "Deception". But, the smell of the perfume was that of old cigarette butts... yuck! A Non Smoking Generation wanted this campaign to show how cigarette manufacturers can make anything look seductive...

The article is unfortunately in Swedish, but hey, I don't have the time to translate it... ;)

Miami

I just love this guerrilla advertising agency: Miami.
Check it out!

Interesting idea

Check out this web site: helpareporter.com. You join the emailing list, and then you get forwarded emails with questions from reporters. If you think you can help, just email the reporter back, and you might see your name in print...

Again, this link was stolen from Seth Godin's blog (too bad I don't have enough fantasy myself...)

Quote from the previously mentioned article

In the article "Kultur som kassaklirr - så skapar upplevelsebaserade evenemang nya värden åt turismen", by Niklas Gustafsson (University of Stockholm) and Staffan Holm (EMA Telstar) (link to my post about it) there is another interesting quote:

"Upplevelsen skapas därför genom komplexa, ofta ickelinjära och ickesekventiella nätverk av företag och individer som fokuserar i tid och rum på eventet och dess omgivning. ... Dessa komplexa nätverk är i högsta grad intressanta att studera både för akademiker och för praktiker."

My translation: The experience is thus created through complex, often non-linear and non-sekvential networks of companies and individuals, who focus in time and in room on the event and its surroundings. ... These complex networks are of highest interest for being studied, by both people with academical skills and by people with practical skills."

I wish I had more time, so that I could really study these things that interest me so!

The future of event management

I read this very interesting article (Swedish): "Kultur som kassaklirr - så skapar upplevelsebaserade evenemang nya värden åt turismen", by Niklas Gustafsson (University of Stockholm) and Staffan Holm (EMA Telstar). I have unfortunately not been able to find the article on the net, I don't know here it was published, nor when (I only got the article as a printed copy), but the article writers belive that event management has a brigth future, lucky for me :)

They have an interesting quote in the article: "Experiences have become the hottest commodities the market has to offer. No matter where we turn, we are constantly inundated by advertisment promoting products that promise to provide us with some ephemeral experience that is never, better, more thriling, more genuine, more flexible, or more fun than anything we have previously encountered. In turn, consumers themselves are increasingly willing to go to great lengths, invest large sums of money, and take great risks to avoid 'the beaten track' and 'experience something new'." By Odell & Billing, 2005.

So I will have to check out this book: Experiencescapes: Tourism, Culture and Economy. Written by Tom O'Dell and Peter Billing. But maybe I will also look into other works by these two gentlemen...

Guerrilla marketing = ambient marketing?

I came across a new term today, that I haven't heard before: ambient marketing.

Just for me not to forget: amibent media @ Wiki, and a very interesting definition from Google answers. It touches ambient marketing, viral marketing and roach bait (which I hadn't heard of before either).

To be investigated further within the near future...

Other "gurus" within event management

Haven't had time to check these authors out yet, but I will:

Joe Goldblatt

Craig Wilkinson

Oh, and it turns out I can borrow Getz's book at school. As soon as I get a little more time, I will try to borrow it and read it.

Donald Getz

Today I learned about "the father of event managemenet"; Donald Getz. (Click here for his info page at the University of Calgary.)
I would like to read one of his books; Event Management and Event Tourism, but it is quite expensive. $74.50 at Amazon.com! Too expensive for a poor student as me :). Maybe I could borrow it at school?

School...

Second day of school. Project Management. A bit interesteing, but mainly repetition for me. I attended a programme at IHM Business School this spring, Project Management. The programme was arranged by IHM and the company that I work at, and was extremely useful. It gave me konwledge of a lot of tools that come in handy when planning a project.

In the IHM programme we discussed and learned about how to create background, scope, goal. Time plans, mile stone plans, gate plans. Timing, budget, risk mitigation lists, stake holder lists etc. We also got to practice on a "live" project from our company, and of course I also got to practice on the project where I was project manager in my "normal "every day job.

So, this course will probably be mostly things I know, but it can never hurt to repeat stuff you once learned.

Tomorrow: Event and tourism. Stay tuned for the next exciting report ;)

Back to school!

Well, well, today is the first day of school! I hope this programme will be useful for me, and maybe in the end lead to a job within the event business :)

Guerrilla or viral?

Hmm, I just realised that one of my previous posts (found here), about Seth Godin going Guerrilla, should probably really have been called "Seth Godin goes Guerrilla AND Viral". He is not only promoting his book with very little (and maybe somewhat unconventional) means, he is also asking you to spread his message (the book) by viral marketing. You, reading the book, telling your friend, who tells his sister and his colleague, who tells their families, and so on... Smart.

Well, I just keep learning more and more stuff, every day. I love it! :)

Viral marketing (again)

For more reading about Viral Marketing:

At Wiki: viral marketing.

At Web Marketing Today: The Six Simple Principles of Viral marketing.

Viral Video Marketing

Check out this blog post, about Viral Marketing. Mike Laurie (who is a digital planner at JPMH Integrated Marketing Communications) has, on JPMH's blog Ship's Biscuit, tried to identify different patterns within viral video marketing, videos mostly posted on YouTube or forwarded by email, by someone who might do it for fun, or maybe even by a company wanting to market themselves. If you are "smart" enough to get your brand name into one of these viral videos, you have got yourself some "free" marketing. I discover new and interesting stuff on the internet all the time, and I intend to write more about this phenomena.
I haven't checked out the full article/post yet but I will sure do!

BTW; I got the tip from Seth Godin's blog, of course ;)

Carsonified and moving

Oh boy, would I like to work here! 4-day week but full time paid! The guys at Carsonified seem to be working mainly with computers and web apps (none of which are my strong sides), but anyway, one can always dream ;)
What I found interesting on their site is that they recently moved all their email to Gmail. I m very much in love with Gmail and I really like the idea of companies having Gmail as their standad email program.

Anyway, I have had some holiday time and I used it wisely. I packed all the stuff from my apartment because I'm moving up North! I have been accepted to a one year school program that deals with event management and event producing. I'm really looking forward to it and I will hopefully have more time to update the blog with relevant stuff!

IKEA goes guerrilla

And I just love this guerrilla marketing campaign in Brooklyn, by IKEA. From my favourite blog for the moment: Guerrilla Marketing Defined.

Emotions, emotions

As I wrote earlier, a few weeks ago I attended a seminar with professor Dmitry Repin.

It was a very interesting hour and a half that I spent listening to his research and to other researchers' theories. As I also mentioned earlier, his research is mainly about the stock market, but when I was there I could see the connection to Lovemarks and other marketing theories. They are all based on the answer to the question: "What makes a person (customer) choose one thing over another?"

Prof. Repin spoke about the Ultimatum Game. Terry Burnham did an experiment with the Ultimatum Game. He measured testosterone in the saliva of persons playing the game, coming to the conclusion that things that we might not be able to measure in everyday life (such as testosterone levels), effect people when making decisions. Repin also showed us the result from a study made by Anna Krivelyova and Cezare Robotti (Playing the field). They studied geomagnetic storms and the effect the storms had on people's moods and, in the prolongation, the trade on stock markets. Days when geomagnetic storms were present, the trade in stock markets was lower than other days.

An experiment carried out by Repin and Andrew W. Lo measured different physical factors at 8 traders at the Boston Stock Exchange. One of the traders did one transaction per second during certain time poeriods! Reason is probably not a big component when making those decisions, so one can assume that emotions have a big significance here. They also performed a study called "Fear and Greed in Finacial Markets", trying to map wether different personality types are "good" or "bad" traders, and also how the trading result effects the trader. I will not go into details, but check out a presentation of the studies here.

What is the most interesting is that emotions (of all kinds) and maybe other things such as "natural phenomenons" effect us when making decisions. They are very hard to measure, and very hard to model. So, we need to find ways on how to relate to them. How significant is this influence of the "emotional" component? Are emotional components sometimes more important than other components that effect us? In my opinion: yes, probably. But how do map them? How can we reach and effect peoples feelings, guide them in the direction we want? Lovemarks might be a step in the right direction, but I do belive we need to do more.

Lovely blog

Due to some personal problems, I've not done much updating lately, but now I am back! :)

Start by checking out this lovely blog: http://blog.guerrillacomm.com/.
The blog is run by a US company that works with guerrilla marketing: Guerrilla Communication.

And FYI: Guerrilla Marketing at Wiki

Lovemarks forever?!?

I wrote an earlier post with a link to allaboutbranding.com. I read an interesting, but frankly quite basic, article written by Kevin Roberts (about Lovemarks of course).

I also stumbled over another article from the same site, written by a Dr. Dan Herman.

Creating Enticing Brands, not 'Lovemarks'

Dr Herman uses more than half of his article to write about how bad Kevin Roberts is, and that Roberts has no clue about branding. After he is done with that, he writes about emotionally strong brands. He accuses Roberts of not being able to understand research, and that you can not disconnect emotions from logic, you have to have both. Herman writes about creating a social or psychological benefit created from the benefit of the brand. And also, he has some very interesting points about building an emotionally strong brand that people love. Try using "off-core differentiation" for example.

Lovemarks book review

Grant McCracken has written a review of Kevin Roberts book "Lovemarks".

Even though the criticism is quite harsh, I'm thinking about buying the book. Simply because I want to create my own opinion.

Grant McCracken's blog: This blog sits at the...

Seth goes guerrilla?

Seth Godin wrote this book a year ago (The Dip) and now, on his blog, he is asking people who bought the book, to lend their copy to a friend, family member or colleague. By doing this, Seth is spreading his word, with the help of people who already believe in what he writes. (Not that there is anything wrong with that, I don't really have an opinion yet, since I haven't read any of his books, only his blog.)

Imagine having a guy coming up to you on the street saying: "Hey, you wanna read my book?". You would probably consider him to be some sort of nutjob, trying to sell you something or wanting to show you the wonderful world of the Lord. Imagine your friend, over coffee, telling you: "Hey, I read this great book some time ago, wanna read it?" You would probably consider lending the book and reading it. Maybe you like it so much you buy it for yourself, and a few weeks later you tell your sister about the book, and so it goes...

The "official" definition from Wiki reads: "an unconventional system of promotions on a very low budget, by relying on time, energy and imagination". Well, what Seth did is my notion of how guerrilla marketing is done. Marketing with very little means, quite imaginative (without pushing to "sell" something), and he is probably quite successful too, judging by the comments to his post. Good job, Seth!

Emotional markets

So, in Kevin Roberts article about Lovemarks (link to my post about it) he is talking about emotions.
I'm going to a seminar by professor Dmitry Repin. He is going to talk about "Emotional markets and Emotional Traders". Since he is a finance guy, I guess his seminar is about stock market trade, but I can't keep myself from wondering wether his theories can be applied to "normal" trading?!?!
Emotions ARE important. A report will be posted after the 8th of May.

Toyota Prius

Well, it turns out Seth Godin drives a Toyota Prius. (At least that is what he writs in this post: You're right)

In my opinion the Prius is almost the best car in the world right now (yes, we own one). Almost the best car because you can not change the GPS while the car is moving. Safe? Yes. Good? Maybe. Annoying? Definitely! If you drive with a passenger, that person can not do anything either, you're stuck with the address you added from the beginning, even if you would rather stop somwhere on the road. I think I have to write to Toyota about that.

What is also interesting is that Saatchi & Saatchi (where Kevin Roberts, the creator of Lovemarks, happens to work), was, together with another advertising agency, the creators of the advertising for the Prius. (Saatchi & Saatchi News, at the bottom of the page).
I like it.

Seth Godin

Seth Godin is "a bestselling author, entrepreneur and agent of change". He writes books and run blogs about marketing (and other stuff I suppose, I haven't had the time to check everything he does). I have read som posts though, and I do find them very interesting. Check out

Seth Godin's blog

Or, check out one of his older blogs (from 2005), which I suppose he started in order to promote his book "All marketers are liars". I will look deeper into his blogs, because they seem very interesting.

All marketers are liars blog

Kevin Roberts on Lovemarks

An interesting article from allaboutbranding.com, explaining Lovemarks a little deeper. (By Kevin Roberts)

Lovemarks

Books

I bought two books the last time I was in the States:

Entrepreneur Press and Amy Jean Peters: Start your own Event Planning Business
and
Susan Freidman: Meeting & Event Planning for Dummies

I haven't had the time to read any of them yet, due to a very intense period at work, but soon... Reviews to follow!

Event management education and sun

What else could you want?!? ;) This is an Event Management Programme in Brisbane, Australia. (Actually "Diploma of Business with major in Event Management")

IBS Event Management (site in Swedish)

I wish I could apply for this school, but it's not really possible. I mean, apply; that I could do, but to actually go through with the education; not so much. Family issues and other things make it kind of impossible for me to move far away, even for a year. There are other schools though, and some of them in Sweden. Not as much sun as in Brisbane probably, but I have applied, so we'll see what happens with that. (To be continued...)

Lovemark(s) on the net

Some background information from Wikipedia and Saatchi & Saatchi (the advertising agency where Kevin Roberts, the "inventor" of Lovemarks, works)

Lovemark at Wiki
Lovemarks.com

To be or not to be...

I am.
And I am interested in lot's of stuff.
I am also changing careers.
I am a project manager.
But I am much more interested in planning event projects rather than other projects.
I really am.

What this blog is all about

Ambivalent is NOT what one would normally call me, but when deciding to start this blog I had no idea what to call it.

The purpose of the blog is to gather information on diverse subjects that interest me, subjects that I would like to learn more about. These subjects consist of, but are not limited to;
event management
marketing strategies (such as "guerrilla marketing")
branding strategies (such as "lovemarks")

Since I couldn't settle for one interesting subject and/or name I combined them: "Love" from lovemarks and "Event" from event management.