Sharp Thinkers & Digital Guides. Part 1.
People worth listening to.
Digital has changed the world and the world of advertising that I work in. Understanding the changes, seeing the patterns and turning insights into actionable information is difficult. It’s difficult for everybody, for every agency, no matter what the size, not matter what the client. Some people are a bit further ahead on the learning curve and are thankfully willing to share their thoughts on the monumental changes, new dynamics, dare I say paradigm shift happening in advertising today. I’ll call this group of digital guides and sages Sharp Thinkers.
Sharp Thinker: Ana Andjelic.
Ana’s bio reads:
i finished my ph.d. dissertation on digital branding. i have also been working in the new york digital marketing industry for some time now. i love both things. i also love thinking about digital marketing. and hoping to make some useful contribution to it. i like to talk to people who work in digital marketing and love their ideas. i find it all pretty exciting.
I came across Ana’s site I [love] marketing while cruising through the blog role on MikeArauz.com. It was Ana’s post, there’s something wrong with the brand promise, that really grabbed me. In it she explores how the foundation of traditional media advertising, the brand promise, lives on in the post-digital world where persuasion marketing is far less effective. Using the findings of a recent study, “Rethinking Brand Contamination”, Ana suggests the “brand promise, instead of being something “in the mind of a consumer” is actually something “in the clues through which a brand delivers.”. It’s a powerful idea that supports a new awareness in advertising that brands are what they do, not what they say. It suggests that the context in which people interact with a brand, the user experience, the interface, the community, the information design is the new expression of the brand promise. It leads me to think about the essential role creative technologists will play in shaping the work agencies create for their clients. But more on that later.
For now, read Ana’s post for yourself.
there’s something wrong with the brand promise
