Mr. Wilson is, drum roll, successful.  He is because he “fails harder” as Dan Wieden of Wieden + Kennedy says. Or “falls forward fast” as Joe Nacchio used to say.   Mr. Wilson is smart, hard working but most importantly unafraid to look to the future. He goes where the herd will be. Where the herd is is a little stinky –albeit an active breeding ground. Mr. Wilson looks for clean air.

Brand Planning.

Good brand planning and good VC investment share this “ahead of the herd” mentality. When I present a great branding idea there is often an odd look in the eyes of the decision maker.  It’s part smile, part fear.  The smile connotes I get them.  The fear can result from a few things but usually it’s the unknown.  When presenting to Newsday the brand idea “we know where you live,” they thought it too intrusive, maybe a bit creepy. But it was their differentiator. They added a little water and bought it.  For a health care system the strategy “a systematized approach to improving healthcare” felt cold and calculating.  Finally they agree as long as we didn’t use the “s” word, we were good.  They came to grips with the fact that they were a system. Herds are safe. Bold wins out. Peace!

Possibly Related Posts:

• Brand Plan(ks)
• Question Something!
• Acute ear and silken tongue.
• Brand Strategy vs. Brand Anomie
• Account Planner. Mediator, conduit or ophthalmologist?

My head is spinning this morning having just read David Carr’s smart column in the New York Times which lead me to ponder the future of online content. He so right when he implies we will all be paying subscription fees for our online content soon. Good newspapers are paid for — compared to bad newspapers, which are free – because advertising alone can’t keep them afloat. And it’s not just the paper that adds to cost though that is a factor. It is the news gathering and editorial infrastructure. The science and the art requires a premium.  

And then I read about AOL and started to realize what is killing them is not only their lack of focus and “master of none” strategy but horrid usability. Usability is the driver of online business. (I worked for company that didn’t no shizz about usability and we failed quickly.) AOL’s email, browser, and portal business had to be free –it was so poorly designed no one would pay for it. Rather than fix what was broken, AOL decided to go commando. Free.

Venture money often screws up internet businesses by keeping them afloat while management tries to figure out “the model.” Are you listening Mr. Zuckerberg?

Carr’s right, the model is subscription. Make something people are willing to pay for and you have a business. There. My head stopped spinning. Peace!

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• NFL and Marketing Futures.
• Reach and Free-quency
• Life Imitating the Internet.
• Poor Sprint.
• A Tale of Apple and Yahoo.