Somewhere in brandland

They say, travel broadens the mind, well then, following the links sent by your more clued in friends opens it up with pneumatic piledriver. Now, the odd corporation may label this activity as ‘de-efficiencyfying individual productivity’, or whatever the current, popular jargon is for ‘wasting time’. The thing is, it is anything but. The output of your brain is linked to the input. No maths class, ergo no one knows two plus two is equal to five, oh sorry, six.

Over the last few days I have made like a digital Columbus and stumbled onto some cool places on the expanding map of branding. All of them are interesting; some of them challenge common held notions. For instance, is it just social media or a sales channel? Is loyalty demonstrated only through the purchase of a brand? Can letting people mutate your product make you cooler? Read on and draw your own conclusions.

TOPEKA, KANSAS BECOMES GOOGLE, KANSAS
Some time back Google launched its experimental Fiber for Communities program. The plan is to build and test ultra high-speed broadband networks in a small number of trial locations across the United States. Their goal is to experiment with new ways to help make Internet access better and faster for everyone.

They invited applications from small towns across the country. One sleepy city in the American Mid-West took their sales pitch to another level. In order to show their enthusiasm for the program the citizens changed the name of their city to Google, Kansas – the capital city of fiber optics.

The name change isn’t just media fluff. Few days back the mayor bestowed citizen Paul Guffey with a ‘Champion of Character’ award for rescuing two juveniles from a burning car; Guffey was given the award on behalf of Google, Kansas.

SONY MAKES MONEY ON TWITTER
Sony Vaio’s Twitter account has generated over £1 million in sales. Speaking at the Social Media for Brand Building event, hosted by Marketing Week on February 25th, Sony head of corporate communications Nick Sharples said the company sees Twitter as a viable sales platform as well as a tool to amplify PR activity, New Media Age reports. Sharples said, “The marketing budget is now skewed towards integrated campaigns and includes PR and social media at the inception of a marketing campaign. Even if we decide to run a big above-the-line campaign or focus on TV, we’ll apply social media amplification.”

Katy Woodrow Hill said that while “product focused brands” may look to use social media as a sales channel, for most brands it is a communication channel. She added, “You have to work with your consumers, your advocates and those that don’t like you in order to develop a social media personality.” NOKIA ASKS PEOPLE TO HACK THE N900
A while back Nokia launched the N900, a powerful device built with an open source software called. It is that it means the N900 can be taken apart and rebuilt, or modified into something that is totally new – capable of doing stuff no device has ever done before.

But things like what? Well, that’s exactly what Nokia asked teams of hackers all around the world. They created Nokia Push, a contest where tech savants were invited to hack the N900 phone and make it do what the designers never dreamed it could do. In response, they got hundreds of inspiring dreams and visions. To check them out go to http://blogs.nokia.com/pushn900/.

This is a great example of a brand showcasing peoples’ creativity and in the process it got showcased big time among opinion leaders in the category.

They are a few more cool things I happened upon, but since we are running out of space I will hold them for another day. Maybe. As always, if you run into summin nice do email it to b.pawar@mudra.com. Happy exploring everyone.

(The author is the Chief Creative Officer of the Mudra Group)