Africa: 0-24 hours

Africa Blog: Day 1 7:33p.m. EST
397 people are crammed into the 747..... spectacular lighting and thunder storms forced the caterers to wait until they could stock the plane with mouth watering temptations.. A problem with the phneumanic (ok, I am not all that mechanical) has trapped us on board, seated, at the gate in terminal 3 in Toronto. Our scheduled time for departure was 5:45.
According to Gord we are collectively producing 84,000 BTU's of body heat per hour.
A baby stripper is toddling up and down the aisles. We all wish that pampers was our fashion statement.
Stripping's not an option as the heat climbs.
7:44 p.m. babies screams increase. A flurry of open overhead compartments. Stressed attendants pass out 6 oz containers of water. Mr. Bean settles into his hotel room in some European city, taking his little yellow duck into the shared bath.
We scheme. We had a three hour layover in Amsterdam. We have already spent 1.5 hours the layover at gate C34 in Terminal 3 in Mississauga. Perhaps Dave, who we anticipated arriving in Nairobi about 10 hours after we did, will arrive there before we do.
My battery on the netbook is hanging in there. But the plane doesn't let me access the internet. If I am reduced to boredom I can try to crack the last 6 levels in brick breaker. Or challenge my computer friends to a game of hearts.
7:53 p.m. Kevin is laughing uproariously. I forgot for a moment that Mr. Bean is providing comedy relieve to amuse the crowd jammed into 15 inch seats.No word from the captain.
8:13 p.m. We just had an announcement. Unfortunately, it was in Dutch. We are still sitting in the warm breeze of the plane's air system.
8:15 p.m. The attendants are handing out small celo packages of smoked almonds (I guess there are no allergy alerts in Amsterdam) and watered down orange juice. They tell us that they are taking all the precautions available for our safety. They have to start the engines again to see if this was the problem. They are hesitant to give us a scenario if it is not the problem. I already imagine the chaos of 397 people trying to reroute their travel plans. Do you think they will put us up at a 5 star on Airport Road?
8:22 p.m. 63% of my battery remains. Nearly everyone on the flight has had a package of smoked nuts. The prepackaged meals are cooling.
8:30 p.m. A flurry of authoritative Dutch and a scurry of attandents collecting plastic cups and celo papers. The captain changes to English. It's much more disappointing. AS it looks now the starter is failing and the mechanics are still working on it. The flurry was without hope. They will keep us informed as best they can. But they still don't know what the problem is. We have now spent 2 of our 3 hours of lay over at Gate C34 at Terminal 3 in Mississauga.
8:45 p.m. (54% of the battery consumed.... the net book does a lot better on battery than my tablet.) Gord has pulled up the KLM web site.... the next flight to Nairobi will be at 9:25 that night. We then arrive at Narobi at????? sometime in the morning... maybe our 5 star accommodation will be in downtown Amsterdam? There is a flurry of people on cell phones, trying to figure out how they are going to connect with their next flight. The attendance catch the vibe and come on the microphone: We're not to worry about connecting flights.... because the ground crews will make the arrangements for the connections we miss.....Gord is ordering pizza, but they're not sure the pizza guys can break through the security. There are not sharp objects or more than 100ml of liquid in pizza, is there? I may have to reduce myself to playing spider solitaire (unless Dan deleted it.)
9:13 p.m. We are going to debark. The part needed may or may not be in Toronto. I have to close my computer. The good news is I have 46% of my power and I can re charge at the airport.
9:44 p.m. successfully debarked. Found a plug in -- can play scrabble online now. The missing part has been identified and we have been told that we will know if the plane is able to be fixed by 11:30 tonight..... then they will tell us what to do. We can choose NOT to fly tonight, but they will KLM not take responsibility for our future travel plans. The pizza guy was unable to break through the security and deliver on board. But KLM cam through with meal vouchers and we have been able to scavenge some food from the airport. We assume the food supplied by the caterer on the plane will be revived at a later date.

taking a break?

The second and third week of July are most often selected by Canadians for vacation. But few marketing professionals can take a pure break -- because the summer months are the hot bed for new ideas, new campaigns and implementation for fall products.
In the next few weeks, I am taking off for a new journey -- Gord, our general manager and videographer, Kevin, partner, art director and photographer and I -- are off to Africa for a film and resource gathering trip with I.N.Network Canada.
Ultimately our goal is to gather the resources to produce a TV show to be aired in January.
I will keep you posted as we visit places we have read about, told stories of and raised money for. Now we will meet the people personally, walk in their community, visit their homes, eat their food.

GenY

What do college students think is the most critical in their world? A new survey by SurveyU found:
81% think education is very important
68% consider child endangerment/abuse prevention critical
The next most important are: rape prevention (65%), civil/human rights (65%) and cancer (62%) round out the top five, with drunk driving prevention (61%), genocide (59%), domestic violence (57%), AIDS (57%) and environment/conservation (54%).
Poverty does not appear -- although one could argue that poverty is an issue that intersects many of these issues.
Most interestingly, GenY -- the generation where access to global information is the most ubiquitous (there is no "time before web" in their memory) -- they are most interested in issues related to their own lives, their own community and their own country.
Marketers and communicators must learn to navigate in a global world where personal takes precedence. We have the technology.... but do we have the will, the patience and the savvy?

the power of brand

We often talk about brand personality -- the character of the product, organization or service.
Building brand is about creating a poignant (and positive) experience with the brand. Disney is all over that. Coke cuts through the heat with icy cold refreshment. The i-phone is the fastest, most powerful and totally cool smart phone (the blackberry, the business phone -- not so cool but reliable).
The experience of using the i-phone or blackberry affirms the brand. The i-phone is slick, cool and operates with the flick of a finger. The blackberry is clunkier, and uses a key board.
If I close my eyes and imagine... the i-phone user is wearing designer jeans and t-shirt and the blackberry guy has a suit. The i-phone user is smiling and flicking, the blackberry guy is frowning and thumbing. This all affirms the brand experience.... notice, the logo was never mentioned.
Here's an interesting study.
Elizabeth Loftus studies false memories -- memories which actually create the brand experience. A group of people were shown a photo of Bugs Bunny in front of Disney Land shaking hands with people. A photo shopped image, as Warner Brothers and Disney rarely share their brand icons.
Then they had the participants carry out different tasks. Later they asked the participants to share their members of a trip to Disney Land. 30% remembered shaking Bugs Bunny's hand.
Brand is made up of a complex mix of personal experience and marketing messages.
When your brand is in the hands of a variety of stakeholders, building a consistent experience can be challenging. If your marketing message is creativity, but your presentation is linear and lacks interest, the marketing message will be lost. Each individual in your organization carries your brand message -- what brand experience do they give?

Flurry

How many weeks until the holiday season?
Not enough!
Integrated marketing efforts for the 2009 holiday season should be well mapped by now... but many organizations are still putting their plans together. As we continue to receive requests for holiday programs that include print, mail, web and e-mail, I was wondering how many dollars were lost each year simply because the planning was not in place.
I just read an article this morning analyzing the decline in retail revenue. The author implied that while there is decline in some markets, when studying the numbers, it appears that retailers with a strong brand, solid investment in marketing and adherence to brand promise are actually gaining in the current market.
As we assess our marketing results, we need to be very careful not to use declining economy where our own strategic plan and marketing spend has been weak. We haven't seen a significant drop in client's revenue -- with the exception of clients who have decreased their spend.
Interesting, eh?

u@?

I may have gotten distracted by Twitter (I was shocked to find out my last entry way April 15th...) But back to Twitter -- imagine giving inspiring, informative, interactive messages in 140 characters. It tweaks (yeah,yeah...) the imagination, doesn't it?

How are you using Twitter?

As millions of Tweets appear on my personal tweetdeck.com, I need to refocus.....

On Friday, May 15th we launched the results of a youth survey... over 1200 young people participated in the survey. One of the unique features of the survey was that 80% of the respondents are faith-based.

The overall goal of the survey was to discover trends in the teen and college aged market -- focusing on the teen market. One of the most interesting tidbits in the survey is that teens do not like country music (it's rock, pop and hip hop!).... but, hands down, they like Cold Play (Alternative -- but a bit poppy) and Taylor Swift (country)!

The survey shows the interactivity of young people's forays into communication... while Google dominates, Facebook and You Tube are stars.

To get your copy of the survey, just email me and I will send you a PDF.

We'll have it up on our web site (barefootcreative.com)......... give me a day!

I'm looking for wisdom in the next phase of social media.... as MySpace dwindles to less than 60 million users and 35+ are taking over Facebook.... Where is the next digital hang out for teens? Will MySpace have a A&W renewal?

sink or miss the boat?

Choosing marketing strategies is a tough call -- especially entry level activities. For instance, the pioneers who advertised in TV made decisions that changed the way they did business. We hear of the successes...
Like Kellogg's whose story is popping up all over the place right now. They increased their advertising dollars during the 30's and experienced exponential growth. ... but what about the thousands of companies that went bankrupt?
Revenue growth is a complex art...
Academics Peter Dickson and Joseph Giglierano suggest businesses are concerned about two kinds of failure:
“sinking the boat”: making a bad decision at a key time that sinks the company.
“missing the boat”: simply ignoring opportunity or taking too long to adopt.
When is the right time to make a bold business decision: Kraft launched Miracle Whip in 1933. Hardly the right time considering the economic climate.
Ford launched the Edsel in the 50's -- at the height of commercial success. Thousands of case studies have focused on the stunning failure of the Edsel -- the wrong car at the wrong time.
Audience affinity for your product -- whether an actual physical product, service or compassionate opportunity -- is critical.