Don't look now, the agency handling the recruitment for the National Guard is targeting you Mr. Fisherman.

Does anyone else find the concept of Branding the National Guard as Rock Stars a bit of a disconnect?

In August, the US Army National Guard will launch a mobile marketing campaign, supported by outreach to local media, to sign up recruits at various music festivals and other outdoor events.

Developed and executed by RedPeg Marketing on behalf of prime contractor Docupak, the "Rock Star Hero Challenge," as the campaign is called, features a tour bus with 52-inch touch screen displays that allow potential recruits to see and participate in virtual missions.

Interactive kiosks where visitors can pose with images of rock bands will sit outside the buses, tying into the musical nature of the events and emphasizing the figurative "rock star" quality of Army National Guard members. The National Guard is currently on track to meet its recruiting goal for 2008.

Since 2005, it has increased its "end strength" total from 330,000 to 380,000.

"Recruiters will know about the events [in advance] and pre-market them," said RedPeg president and CEO Brad Nierenberg. "The events will be a way to engage with consumers who haven't considered the National Guard before now." Day said that recruiting is typically done on a local, grassroots level, with recruiters attending any large event where its "target demographic" might be found.

"The interactive nature makes the 'Rock Star Hero' different and will appeal to our demographic's thirst for technology," Day said.

Labels: Branding, Recruiting

In something we can call the Recession job diet, the US economy is shedding jobs at the rate of approximately 73,000 per month. Don’t look now but we lost about 60,000 in June and almost 450,000 since the beginning of the year. Not surprising, the losses are primarily in the support to the housing market: financial services, mortgages, construction and manufacturing.

But with the stock market imploding and grim forecasts ahead, more companies will no doubt follow suit just to keep fiscally fad-conscious. Some of this will be healthy shedding and some will be hard but the unintended result will also be fear and de-motivation among employees that you really want to keep away from the exit door.

Don’t believe me? Look at what’s going on at my nemesis Yahoo. Here’s an excerpt from a recent Business Week article:

Top Yahoo Talent Rushing for the Exits
Posted on: Friday, 20 June 2008, 12:05 CDT

Another day, another high-level exit -- or three -- from Yahoo! (YHOO). The most recent round came to light June 19, when TechCrunch reported the imminent departure of three prominent Yahoos: Vish Makhijani, general manager of Yahoo Search; Qi Lu, executive vice-president for search and advertising technology; and Brad Garlinghouse, senior vice-president for communications and communities and the author of a scathing 2006 memo dubbed the "peanut butter manifesto" that accused Yahoo of losing its focus. Garlinghouse and the others are among more than 50 high-profile Yahoo executives and managers who have left the company in the past three months or intend to leave, raising concerns that a leadership vacuum will ensue in light of failed merger discussions with Microsoft (MSFT), and amid withering public criticism of Yahoo management by billionaire investor Carl Icahn. The exodus makes it harder for remaining executives to persuade shareholders the company has the means to turn itself around.

Ha! As you know, I have hated Yahoo since the debacle when they lost my website (note: now I hate Verizon too since they lost my internet during the move) so in many ways it’s just desserts, but, as the President of a Corporate Communications company, I would still work with them if they wanted my assistance. Here’s what I would tell them.


5 Internal Communications Strategies to Deploy During Employee Layoffs

1. Employee Recognition Program- It may sound disingenuous to begin recognizing the contributions of your current employees at a time like this but hopefully you already have a program in place and you can just ramp it up. Studies show that even non-monetary incentives enhance teamwork employee contribution and morale.
2. Rumor Cooler- Spot communications that separate fact from fiction will keep everyone informed and show that senior management is in touch with grapevine and doing their part to create authentic reports of news as it’s breaking.
3. Surveys- Sample your talent and identify their issues and concerns. This information can be cornerstone of a holistic strategy that touches on training and developing the high potential employees that remain.
4. Social Networking Intranet- A hybrid site where employees can collaborate based on individual needs and form new professional connections will help both socially and strategically as you create a line of site from the staff to the business needs.
5. Strategic Rebranding- Energize and educate your workforce on business goals and objectives as you roll out a new Employer Brand based on the To-Be vision of your business.  
   

In general, over communicate. According to HR guru Dr. John Sullivan:

After layoffs, it is essential that you keep two-way communications going: first, in order to ensure that the employees know when the cost reduction targets are actually met, and second, to give them an avenue to vent their frustrations and to get answers to their questions. Open book management, although it may be initially uncomfortable, is the short-term solution to keep everyone feeling in on things.

 

Labels: Branding, employee retention, Employer Branding, internal communications

OK- Believe it or not- even though I’m still in love with everything Zappos, this is about finding the love for Twitter. Never heard of it? No worries, that’s what I’m here for- (and Wikipedia).
From Wikipedia:

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send updates (otherwise known as tweets) which are text-based posts, ranging up to 140 characters long. Updates are displayed on the user's profile page and instantly delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them.

From another blog:

The key to Twitter is the level of listening you do as well as talking. It is definitely supposed to be an interactive program. And, in fact, this is where you build the majority of your Whuffie (aka social capital). The more you interact on Twitter, the more people will interact with you, which attracts others to you as well.

From Tony Hsieh at Zappos:

You send an SMS text message to Twitter with your note, and your message will be automatically broadcast (like CB radio) to whoever is choosing to follow you (your friends). If people don’t care what you’re doing, they won’t follow you, so don’t worry about sending out trivial messages.

At first, it will seem really weird and unnatural for you to do this, but just trust me on this one. You will find that it’s actually a really good way to stay in touch with all your friends and know what’s going on in their lives.

…I was flying in to the Vegas airport, and I twittered “Just landed in Vegas airport.” I would have never texted anyone that message, but in the Twitter culture, that’s exactly what you’re supposed to do. It just so happened that someone on my Twitter network was about to fly out of Vegas, so we met up at the airport bar and had a drink. I would have never known otherwise that this person was at the airport, nor would I have ever sent him a text message or called him that I had just landed.


Stuff to Tweet About

There are no rules about what you should tweet out, here are a few suggestions for you. It is important that you balance the ‘outbound’ with the ‘inbound’. In otherwords, the announcements with the conversations:

1. Personal thoughts and reflections that suit your brand - this helps people feel more trust towards you and your brand and strikes up conversations
2. Events (both your own and other events your audience may find interesting) - this makes things interesting and, perhaps, gives you a way to meet your followers
3. Contests (”The first three people who answer this trivia question get….”) - they drive more followers and interest in what you tweet
4. Replies (@twittername) - this comes from listening to your followers (you have to follow back to see their tweets). The more personal the reply, the higher the impact.
5. Direct replies (d twittername) - this isn’t in the public timeline, but it helps build deeper bonds to talk directly to someone like this. This is helpful to answer people when it is a private matter or when you want to show concern (i.e. someone reports an accident, etc.)
6. New blog posts - you should keep these to one per day at the very most and you should also promote other people’s blog posts that are of interest
7. Announcements - if it is interesting, tweet it
8. OH’s (overheard) - someone say something in the office or when you are out and about that cracks you up? Type OH: “well, if you don’t mind, im trying to work on my love life” or something else funny (sometimes used to offset potentially racy comments…if you didn’t say it, but are just REPEATING IT, then it’s okay)
9. Rickrolls or other fun internet games - this shows you are a bunch of fun and has people trying to do the same for you. Spreading as many internet memes as possible is good.
10. Lyrics and quotes - especially fun are the lyrics: ♪Never give the game away | Try to keep me entertained, baby | Don’t make it too easy | Leave something for me and my imagination♪ as the musical notes make for lots of questions
11. Links to media you create - video is fun, podcasts, perhaps interviews that are posted online about you, etc.
12. Shout outs - @twittername rocks! Thanks for the great link: http://insertlink.com These make people feel great, too.

Tweets that make people laugh are awesome, but tweets that make people think are even better.

I'm not going to lie- I don't totally get Tweeter but I've heard enough people talking about it to know that it's resonating in certain circles.

So, I'm going to give it a whirl. Connect with me if you want to and we can all be bored together.

But, if you really want to know what I'm addicted to--- its ChaCha.

Labels: Branding, Tweeter

Here’s the Zappos follow up I promised you.

The backstory is a recent posting you can view here or continue reading the short and sweet version.

I came across an article about Zappos paying employees $1,000 to quit their job following training. The ones who stay become the Brand Ambassadors— committed employees who stay, perform and recommend.

I did some follow up research and found a presentation made by Tony— my NBF (new best friend) and also the CEO. At the end of the presentation, he said anyone who wants a culture book could send him an email. I did.

Here’s what I wrote (please indulge me my sales pitch— I’m an entrepreneur)
“I love your site. I love your culture. (And great shoes help.) I develop marketing and communications that support the attraction and retention of talent and if you ever need a hand- please count me in. Thanks,”

I also started following him on Twitter, http://twitter.com/zappos, and saw that he was in London.

Guess what! Tony wrote me back within hours and said
Hi Jody,
It's a physical book so I just need your mailing address...
Re: attracting/retaining talent, I've cc'd Christa who heads up our recruiting department and she will be following up with you!

Not only did the book come, following an awesome email from someone in shipping inviting me on a tour of the facility any time i’m in Vegas, but the call from Christa came along with a potential opportunity to assist them with their employee communications!

So, operationally, externally and internally, ZAPPOS goes from A to Z, or in actuality Z to A in living ther brand!

Great job Tony and friends.

Labels: BRANDEMiX, Branding, internal communications

I wish I was Pepsi’s website- Every 2 years it gets a facelift.

It’s latest iteration, launched in early May, is awesome. Using the latest technology that reminds me of Leopard- the newest Mac OS, it’s streamlined and uber easy to navigate-- and even offers visitors the chance to redesign its can. More impressive— we’re given the choice of regular or diet can.

John Vail, director of interactive marketing group for PCNA, Purchase, N.Y. Had this to say- "Lots of assets live on our pages. We wanted to make an easy way to find so consumers don't have to hunt and peck... This is the authentic place to see the brand spots," said Vail.

So, with all the hoopla surrounding the launch, and entertained by the cool music- I couldn’t wait to visit the Careers Site— After all, isn’t a seamless experience the new name of the marketing game??

Boom— I was instantly transported back into the last century — as the static stock photography and thousands of clicks to get to meaningful content overwhelmed me even as the music continued to play.

Even more disappointing, while I didn’t mind having to install the latest version of flash onto my computer, I do very much mind the greeting that I got when attempting to search for jobs.

Apparently at Pepsi, though diversity is in

– Firefox is not.

Consumers may not have to hunt and peck, but job seekers using Firefox do.

(John-- call me--Jody)

Labels: Integrated Marketing

OK. It’s graduation, Father’s Day and another sunny Sunday— maybe instead of inspiration, I save perspiration and discuss this recent article from the Harvard Business Review.

One Reason Women Don’t Make It to the C-Suite
According to Louann Brizendine, MD, the distinct demands that are put on men’s and women’s brains at key career phases may help explain the gender inequality in top management.

Many women are sidelined, ultimately, by a timing issue.

There’s a certain age, long established by large organizations, at which professionals must decide to make their play for the big promotion—the one that will put them in line for the C-suite—and while it’s a good time for men, it’s not a good time for women.

That go-for-it moment typically comes in one’s forties, when managers have gained the knowledge and perspective needed to take on real stewardship of a business. But at that phase of life, women with children already have a lot on their plates. Not only are they usually expected to handle the lion’s share of responsibility on the home front (even when both members of a couple hold full-time jobs), but their own brain chemistry makes it hard for them to do otherwise. For reasons important to the survival of the species, women in childbearing years undergo changes that intensify their focus on the viability of offspring. It’s a passing phenomenon, but ill-timed for those with career ambitions.

It’s not the quantity of care required that taxes the brain, however, so much as the unpredictable need for care.

When any decision maker’s brain function is overburdened, the result is stress, and nothing taxes the brain more than unpredictability.

People coping with heightened levels of unpredictability rarely go looking for even more ways to mix it up.

Ironically, if the same call came a few years later, many women would seize the opportunity. The very woman who could not find the capacity to green-light her own promotion in her forties can be, in her fifties, ready to take on the world.

No surprise that it is that exact time that I founded BRANDEMiX.

Predictable success.

This was supposed to be my Zappos pt.II post but a funny thing happened to me on the way to the shoe store... sorry Tony. Next week.

Recently I was asked to give advice to women everywhere about having their own business. For those of you who don't know me, take a peek. For my friends- is it true the camera adds 10 pounds?



Since the launch of BRANDEblog, more than 3 years ago, I have been steadily moving away from musing about the joys and despairs of owning my own business. I think that there's value in the reading, though not necessarily for this audience, so stay tuned for the launch of another blog.

My I'm busy.

Labels: BRANDEMiX, Jody Ordioni