Anyone who thinks that we’re not living in a visual society should watch — and rewatch — the Presidential debates. Specifically, the first one at the University of Denver gave us an incredibly smart example of how important visual perception can be.

The screen was split for much of the contest, giving us the opportunity to evaluate the real-time gestures and facial expressions of the candidates. We saw the genuine, undeniable demeanor of the both speakers at a level of scrutiny never witnessed before. Large high definition screens didn’t betray the slightest grimace, smile, wince or blink of an eye; contemporary sound systems reflected every miniscule inflection of their voices. As if that were not enough, we had the immediacy of Twitter observations to validate or correct our thoughts. And the fact-checkers and pundits were all there the second the debate was finished to elaborate on what we thought and felt we had just witnessed.

I’m not exactly a political pundit, but even I could sense the energy and confidence, the sense of assertiveness and the will to communicate better, all imparted by Mr. Romney. Conversely, President Obama appeared tense at times, defensive and even resentful to be defending his position. On the occasions when the President appeared engaged, his inclination to quietly, intellectually analyze the situation was in stark, flat contrast to what felt like a passionate commitment and determined style of communication by Mr. Romney.

I’m bipartisan in my views of political doctrine and I can admit that I believe the President has done a fine job in many areas of policy, not the least of which has been navigating an increasingly dubious and tricky position in foreign affairs. But the differences seemed clear, even magnified by the resolution of the image and the severe crop on the faces of both candidates. Even The New York Times, historically positioned on the left, published an article declaring Romney as the winner:

Romney Seen as Winner; Obama Faulted for Flat Debate

For me, this was a great example of what visuals can achieve in terms of brand image. I always tell our clients that design is important, that the creative expression of their brand can provide a perception of greater credibility. Design and visual expression can add authority to the brand, change erroneous views, build recognition, create joy or fear, or instill feelings of security or even nostalgia. In this case, it was not a photograph or animation or video or even soundtrack. It was a subtle nod of the head, a glance down or away, a telling look of disgust, a smug shrug of the shoulders.

Will Mr. Romney’s performance be considered a critical success and box office bust? The debate was viewed as a success for Mr. Romney, but will that be only through the eyes of news anchors and journalists? Or will it carry through to a larger audience of voters? In time, I’m sure the polls will share more. But one thing is certain: If brand and marketing is about gaining access to eyeballs, both candidates certainly managed to do that. About 40 million viewers were expected to tune in; as it turned out, 60 million watched. And those eyeballs were watching; they captured images that resonated, they formed opinions and lasting perceptions that will no doubt have some impact on the election, as well as our views on both the Republican and Democratic parties for many years.

What Romney and Obama’s Body Language Says to Voters

Tags: brand image, campaign, Democrat, election, marketing, media, Obama, Presidential debates, Republican, Romney, social media, twitter, visual perception
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Marketers at leading global corporations are well ahead of the curve in their request for a new top-level domain, or the suffix that follows the dot in any URL. Among the top applications is .app, of course.

ICANN, the company that governs naming for the Internet, has announced that it will approve hundreds of requests for the .app name, which should be in effect by next year.

Adding .app to the Internet

What are among the rejected applications? Well, they have not authorized: .walmart, .heinz, .nyc or .paris, nor are we about to see generic categories like .bank, and .home, anytime soon.

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Getting Less Social

In recent weeks, there’s been an interesting backlash to what seems like the most bullish of bulls, technology companies. Fresh out of the I.P.O. gate, Facebook was fumbled by Morgan Stanley and we all read the news-by-the-second reports of company capitalization diminished, consumer investors burned. An investigation is still ongoing. Difficult to fathom, I know for a lot of folks, that one of the big brokerage houses did not apply a best-practices ethical standard on this. Facebook’s rapid, steady increase in users has also trickled, with analysts estimating that the company has reached saturation in North America. If memory serves correctly, there’s only one way to go after that.

This month, LinkedIn had its data hacked and in a recent New York Times article, the company was criticized for not being better prepared, given its rich war chest of investor money. Hashing and salting techniques were not put in place soon enough, making the professional network an easy target for hackers.

Lax Security at LinkedIn Is Laid Bare

Not even Wall Street darling Google has escaped the media frenzy over mishandled business dealings. Google now states that the practice was wrong, but it captured private data from 2007-2010 through its Street View Mapping technology.

Daily Report: Google Employees Know Nothing

At a conference this week, I learned that the fastest growing sector of the internet 10 years ago was porn; today, it’s online dating. Now comes news that Skout, a social networking site that connects strangers, is battling new accusations and media scorn after three men were arrested for raping minors, having used the mobile app created to facilitate dating among adults.

After Rapes Involving Children, Skout, a Flirting App, Bans Minors

Besides the obvious, horrible implications of this as a society, it strikes me that Skout has more than just reputation to repair; its signature logo is essentially a target. I’m not always a proponent of changing the signature logo, but in this case I don’t think the company can do so too quickly. A top 24/7 damage control agency should be retained tomorrow morning to start the inevitable clean up — and better controls will have to be put into place.

Hacked data, insider trading, privacy abuses and rape charges. . . Has the social network frenzy come to an end of the road? Or is this the beginning of a reversal, or even a new development in technology channels? Look for continued fracturing of these markets into ever-increasingly splinters of audience and community. As far as investor dollars and value, the risks seem few for a company like Pinterest, but one can never know.

Tags: facebook, investors, logo, marketing, mobile app, online dating, Skout, technology companies
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Business news in the first few days of summer has been not unlike our weather here in the Northeast: A little of this, a little of that. As a result, it’s been almost impossible to connect any of the dots. What follows is my best attempt at a compendium of branding business notes, with strategic insights or clever commentary added for entertainment value.

I. Shuttled Barges and Celebratory Flotillas
Did anyone pick up on the irony of having celebrations either on, or over, rather large, floating barges on opposite sides of the pond last weekend? As Queen Elizabeth II and crew were commemorating 60 years of her tenure as the wise, indisputable, moral compass of England, workers at JFK were securing the space shuttle Enterprise to an admittedly less festive barge, poised to make its way up the Hudson and ultimately rest atop a cousin-removed, the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum.

I could not help but consider who had a better platform for public relations. Just 15 years ago, the Queen’s public image was at least in part suffering through the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. She was viewed by many as not being in touch with the working class, unconnected to the masses. Today, she is regarded as a stalwart, the vanguard of enduring leadership. In the meantime, I’m fairly sure that the Intrepid also managed quite well. That I could tell, the story was so unique that in public relations, the museum never paid for a dime more than the cost to transport a 150,000-pound prototype vehicle to New York and through the harbor. Every news outlet carried this story to complete and utter saturation of brand.

Quick F.Y.I. — The Queen ascended to the throne in 1952, the Enterprise prototype was completed for debut in 1976; the image of both will be studied and marveled over for centuries; one led arguably the oldest, strongest country on earth, one was the first of its kind to travel to space.

II. New Rules to Meet a Brave New World
We’ve all read the plethora of tedious articles about online privacy, but Danah Boyd is one of the most insightful people to come along in some time. Ms. Boyd studied children’s use of the Internet and privacy issues.

Rethinking Privacy in an Era of Big Data

She says in a quote in The New York Times, “Defaults around how we interact have changed. A conversation in the hallway is private by default, public by effort. Online, our interactions become public by default, private by effort.” That’s brilliant.

One of her most fascinating observations is how teens are encrypting their language in ways we can no longer decipher. “Someone writes, ‘I’m sick and tired of all this,’ and it gets ‘liked’ by 32 people,” she said. “When I started doing my fieldwork I could tell you what people were talking about. Now I can’t.”

Boyd is absolutely sure that new legislation is coming. She sees the need for technologists to connect with administrators and policy makers, something that is sorely lacking, resulting in a lack of a complete understanding of consumer usability. “Regulation is coming,” she says. “You may not like it, you may close your eyes and hold your nose, but it is coming.”

III. Bugs, Worms and All Bad Things Internationally Cyber
From the world of data abuse, cut to nation states and James Bond-like news about super viruses. I watched a great story on 60 Minutes a few weeks ago about the Stuxnet virus, and more juicy turns in the plot continue to develop.

No one seems to know who was responsible for the Flash virus, but one assessment is clear: The global sphere known as earth and its human-kind inhabitants have moved into a brave new age of digital warfare. From satellite-controlled drones operated half a world away to countries invading each other through computer viruses, this is not your father’s beachhead war. Kind of makes one nostalgic for President’s Reagan’s vision of star wars.

Expert Issues a Cyberwar Warning

The really odd thing about all of this is that it still comes down to a redux of the cold war. Eugene Kaspersky, a Russian computer security expert, was the man who discovered the Flash virus and spoke recently about the growing threat. “Cyberweapons are the most dangerous innovation of this century,” he said at the CeBIT conference last month in Sydney, Australia.

Kaspersky is advocating an international treaty that would eliminate cyberweapons, but the U.S. has shown a staunch opposition to any type of online arms ban. According to James A. Lewis, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, “This is a global diplomatic ploy by the Russians to take down a perceived area of U.S. military advantage.”

IV. Celebrities and Brands Go Together Like Peas and Carrots
That the agency business world is crashing together like so many episodes of Mad Men and Entourage is not a new concept. Technology firms are being hired for strategy, advertising agencies and publishers are getting into branded entertainment, and talent agencies are going all brand-creative. United Talent has opened a new branding division called Brand Studio, appropriate to their L.A.- and celebrity based roots.

Talent Agency Adds Brand Strategy Unit

It’s a smart move. Think of U.T.A.’s clients: Johnny Depp, Channing Tatum, Judd Apatow, Jennifer Lopez, Gwyneth Paltrow, Mark Ruffalo, Wes Anderson, Joel and Ethan Coen, and Charlize Theron. These celebrities bring whole communities of like-minded fan base audiences to the market (and to products and brands). If they’re not creating their own, they’re pitching for someone else. Just last weekend, I read in The Wall Street Journal about Justin Timberlake hosting the shareholder conference for Walmart, which has earned a reputation for celebrity mega-stars leading the annual meeting.

In past years, U.T.A has been dipping into services that were traditionally outside the realm of a Hollywood talent agency business through its licensing or endorsements divisions. The agency helped a client, Gwen Stefani, create the Harajuku Lovers and L.A.M.B. apparel brands.

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So far, it has been a veritable potpourri, a summer soufflé of branding and business news. As technology and communications continue to create greater access to information, opinion, and ideas, the rapid and inevitable reaction to shared knowledge or thought should continue to make for interesting future forecasts.

Will “I’ll Have Another” win the Triple Crown on Saturday? Who knows. But one could place a reasonable bet that the fine folks in marketing at Crown Royal Liquors are discussing the promotional possibilities, that the Queen might actually raise a toast, and that United Talent will be in line to create the brand. Most importantly, once the race is finished, more people in the world will know the result — within seconds — faster than ever before in the history of our planet.

Tags: advertising, advertising agency, brading agency, Brand Studio, branding, cyberweapons, Intrepid, new business
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I rarely use this Blog to make personal or professional announcements, but I am so proud and excited by this news that I’ll make an exception. As of today, I’ll be a principal in a new venture called OrgCentric, a company created exclusively to serve nonprofit organizations and deliver expertise across three inter-related disciplines – strategy, branding, and communications. More information about OrgCentric can be found at the OrgCentric website.

With offices in Washington, DC and New York City, OrgCentric will be a partnership of two respected and accomplished firms – IridiumGroup and McGill + Partners – that have served more than 200 leading nonprofit organizations and commercial companies. Through OrgCentric, the collective experience, creative energy, capabilities, and resources of the two parent firms will be focused on delivering innovative, best-practices solutions to meet the strategic, branding and marketing, and communications challenges of member organizations, associations, foundations, charities, and institutions.

Principals of OrgCentric are: Frank McGill, Chief Strategy Officer; Dwayne Flinchum, Chief Branding Officer; and Gary Dolzall, Chief Communications Officer. A team of 13 professionals with expertise in strategic planning, branding and visual identity, communications and messaging solutions, media (digital, social, mobile, print, and event) channel integration and monetization, Web and interactive design, and marketing systems will provide a valuable and highly tangible resource for the nonprofit community.

“Our firms, working collaboratively, have had the privilege of effectively serving a wide range of leading nonprofit and member organizations,” said McGill, “and the formation of OrgCentric demonstrates a further commitment to and, as our new name conveys, a singular focus on assisting and serving nonprofit organizations.”

OrgCentric’s three aligned and inter-related disciplines are:

• Strategic Planning: OrgCentric helps organizations develop an energetic vision; define organizational missions, goals, and objectives; map a scalable approach for tactical implementation; and establish metrics to measure success.
• Branding and Visual Identity: OrgCentric brings brand attributes, messaging, visual identity, and marketing elements into alignment to demonstrate the values, brand promise, and tangible benefits of an organization.
• Communications: Through communications audit, strategy development, and integration of channel and platforms, OrgCentric helps optimize member and constituent engagement, increase advocacy and policy impact, and enhance communications and media contribution to non-dues revenue.

I invite anyone who would like to learn more to email, call or even make plans to meet. Follow us @orgcentric and like us on Facebook. I’m enthusiastic and eager to continue my work on behalf of nonprofit organizations, to ensure that their strategic plans, brands and communications are relevant and best-practice applications.

Tags: branding, communications, member organizations, nonprofit, nonprofit advertising, nonprofit branding, nonprofit marketing, OrgCentric, strategy
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