Kenny: Agencies Can Discover Affirmations Via Social Media

MediaPost Publications, April 2, 2008 — BE CONFIDENT. DON'T FEEL THREATENED. Step back and let consumers build your brand.

That was Digitas Chairman and CEO David Kenny's central message to brand marketers and advertising agencies in a presentation on digital advertising at the Advertising Research Foundation's Re:think 2008 conference in New York on Tuesday.

Of course, joining the consumer-in-control movement born of Web 2.0 applications and social networks isn't so easy for multimillion or billion-dollar brands and the large agencies traditionally entrusted with their care. After all, what role does that leave them?

The Brand Called Obama

Win or lose, Barack Obama's rise changes business as usual for everyone. Here's why.

Fast Company, March 19, 2008 — The fact that Obama has taken what we thought we knew about politics and turned it into a different game for a different generation is no longer news. What has hardly been examined is the degree to which his success indicates a seismic shift on the business horizon as well. Politics, after all, is about marketing — about projecting and selling an image, stoking aspirations, moving people to identify, evangelize, and consume. The promotion of the brand called Obama is a case study of where the American marketplace — and, potentially, the global one — is moving. His openness to the way consumers today communicate with one another, his recognition of their desire for authentic "products," and his understanding of the need for a new global image — all are... continue reading