The Colin Kaepernick Nike Ad, Not a Smart Branding Move

How to stand out from the crowd?

There are 2 really obvious ways to stand out that I think "lesser minds" quickly resort to. That's 1) controversy and 2) sensationalism. I'm not a fan of those two methods and think they are at the root of the many problems we have in our media today. So I want to explore some deeper, more interesting concepts with you. #1) Early Adoption DME = Not just entire social media platforms, but specific features that are rolled out for those platforms. Great example of this is Instagram stories. Also Twitter's new live audio feature. #2) Enter a room after many have left DME = Facebook pages are a great example of this. Many brands are leaving suspending their efforts due to the algorithm changes. That means now is a great time to stand out. #3) Cross the relevancy spectrum DME = Snapchat is a great example of this. Mostly used a place for young people to "snap" photos and video with filters back and forth to one another. Not exactly a business environment. Which is why very few people are on there talking business. You can. #4) Go deeper on a subject or topic then anyone else is currently willing to go DME = This is more in terms of content. Things you publish online. A great way to stand out is to deeper into certain subjects related to your brand. There are always greater levels of depth that people are not yet willing to go. #5) Go to an insane level of detail. Inspiration = Jiro Dreams of Sushi DME = The same applies here in terms of detail. The craftiness and detail in regards to everything you do online. How your website is built and designed. How your Linkedin profile is laid out and the detail with which you use to describe your past experiences and expertise. Etc. #6) Think about "standing out" in terms of how you stand out to 1 person. Rather than thinking about how you stand out to a large amount of people. DME = Don't think you're not standing out simply because you're not getting as many "likes" or "engagements" as others. These are vanity metrics. They can be great indicators of your ability to stand out but contextually they don't explain the entire story.

The Colin Kaepernick Nike Ad, Not a Smart Branding Move

Today we discuss the new Nike Ad featuring Colin Kaepernick and why it's a terrible idea. We also discuss what we can learn from this for our own brands. Particularly, how taking a political side on certain issues can be divisive and tear your audience in half.

2 Crazy-Effective Productivity Growth Hacks

Today I'm reviewing with you two productivity growth hacks that have been absolute game changers for me in my business and career. I'm sharing them with you as well as some technical details behind how I do them and all the benefits I get from them. Let's get more efficient with our time and solve more problems at the same time.

Walmart's Click & Collect - The Engine Behind Their Recent Ecommerce Growth

Something really interesting is happening with Wal-Mart https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/08/19/walmarts-ecommerce-investments-are-paying-off.aspx They posted 40% online sales growth last quarter Plan on reading pretty much the entire Montley Fool article How is it doing all this? The new Click & Collect experience. https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/walmarts-stock-price-e-commerce-business-grows-faster-than-amazons-2018-8-1027471160 What does this mean? 1) Wal-mart is working to maintain it's corner of retail shopping. That being the world of groceries 2) Groceries from a logistics perspective is the hardest part of transitioning to online retail. Which means if Wal-mart continues to do this well, the next step to non-grocery goods will be much easier to accomplish for them at scale 3) Which means Amazon will have real competition 4) Grocery pickup is a massive user experience improvement. While it's not as good as delivery, it's incredibly more efficient than the traditional way of buying your groceries. 5) Nobody is better positioned than Walmart to absolutely dominate the grocery pickup and/or delivery service 6) Yes Amazon ownes this space right now.. 49% of all ecommerce retail spend is on Amazon! But… Ecommerce retail spend only represents about 10% of all retail spend. That other 90% is happening offline. And Walmart is best positioned to usher in a big share of that if they continue down this path. https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/13/amazons-share-of-the-us-e-commerce-market-is-now-49-or-5-of-all-retail-spend/ What does this have to do with digital marketing? 1) I believe Walmart will become an online sellers paradise soon. Similar to Amazon's Seller Central 2) Walmart and Google are going to continue to work together to compete with Amazon. #mutualinterests - Back in August of last year (2017) Google and Walmart partnered to integrate walmart products with the Google Assistant (voice search) https://blog.walmart.com/innovation/20170823/walmart-google-partner-to-make-shopping-even-easier-heres-how https://www.blog.google/products/assistant/shop-walmart-and-more-your-favorite-stores-faster/ - Back in March, Walmart and Google partnered on google's new feature called Shopping Actions. https://www.cpcstrategy.com/blog/2018/03/google-shopping-actions-program/ https://mashable.com/2018/03/19/google-walmart-shopping-vs-amazon/#hn_qTL_G_sqt - In July of this year, Walmart partnered with Waymo (a subsidiary of Alphabet a.k.a google). Waymo has launched a test program in Arizona for Walmart for self-driving grocery delivery. https://mashable.com/2018/07/25/waymo-walmart-partnership-amazon-google/#4zPAvEP6_qqb - But the partnership between Walmart and Google has much more significance for both companies: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/302243 - Oh yeah = back in 2016 this happened https://news.walmart.com/2016/08/08/walmart-agrees-to-acquire-jetcom-one-of-the-fastest-growing-e-commerce-companies-in-the-us 3) This partnership between the two will help you greatly if you are a Walmart.com seller. #thinkaboutit

Netflix payment system changing? Facebook's new user rating system.

Netflix looking to avoid the 30% Apple death grip https://bgr.com/2018/08/21/netflix-subscription-payment-might-change-iphone-ipad/ Facebook comes out with a user rating system for fighting fake news https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/7067261/facebook-trust-rating-score-check/