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Nike: A Cautionary Tale

Building a brand is:

  • Expensive in the short run
  • Cheap in the long run

But a strong brand can also become a crutch.

See: Nike.

When you’re trying to build a brand you’re aggressive. Focused.

Your focus is on meeting your customer where they are and doing the things that create moments of delight for them. On doing the things that make people, first, fall in love with your brand and, then, talk about it to others. To begin to incorporate your brand into their identity.

Once you’ve built your brand—reached that mountain top—you can start to lose focus.

You can start to forget about everything you did to get to this spot and start to think you deserve this spot.

You can make choices based on financial models and balance sheet forecasts and forget those dollars come from people.

And while you’re looking in the wrong direction, the next group of brands is doing all the stuff you did to get here.

Building a brand is the beginning. Once built, it requires maintenance.

Brands aren’t owed anything.
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Everything is customer service.

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Meta is all about Reels, but video is the hardest asset type to produce (I’d accept the argument for audio, but it’s not relevant for Meta). So this note is welcome news for many:

carousels with music are now also eligible to appear in the Reels tab

More from the head of IG:

Why [do] carousels often get more reach than photos? Two main reasons. One, multiple pieces of media are going to mean more interactions with your carousel posts, and more interactions is going to mean more reach on average. And two, if someone sees your carousel post but they don’t swipe, we’ll often give that carousel a second chance and automatically move to that second piece of media for the viewer.

Just remember the secret quality score, this won’t be a silver bullet.

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I posted on LinkedIn to “pay attention to the details.”

Called it a note to self, maybe should have been a note to Costco.

Costco recalled nearly 80,000 pounds of its Kirkland-brand butter products last month because they were missing a legally-required “Contains Milk” allergy statement.

This recall could’ve been avoided and impacted completely usable products, which has the potential for major losses for Costco. Don’t let this be your product – always make sure to double-check product packaging before going to production.
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Customer service is a chance to create delight and impact. It can amplify or undermine the marketing investments that you say are important

As in all things, getting the systems right is the foundation for everything else that follows.

Everything is customer service

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According to EMARKETER, we’re almost at peak media with “a plateauing of consumption in the 11 media formats measured.”

Americans are forecast to add 5 minutes of media consumption next year, and 4 the year after.

Social is basically saturated.

What’s your reach strategy now?

Think outside the feed.