We’ve identified five focal points of opportunity for 2010. They’re not an end-all priority list for brands, nor predictions, but rather initiatives, items born of trending behavior and emergent technologies being embraced by consumers.

1. Mobile-based marketing

Smartphones are fast becoming the center of consumer experience for work, home and play (see: Is Your Mobile Presence Brand Immobile?). A device capable of connecting people, places and things via text, voice, social networks, apps, tools, email, video, and images is a powerful medium. And the medium’s delivery mechanism is already in your audience’s hand, on their belt or in their purse. Smartphones are a direct way to connect with your audience and influence their behavior each time they use the device.

2. Location-based marketing

Aligning cultural trends and consumer behavior with location-based kiosks mobile and social apps can elevate your brand from relationship marketing to direct sales. Online and mobile apps such as foursquare combine locale, social game play and entertainment with information and tangible incentives. Geo-based marketing can deliver the closest, most highly-rated businesses, directions to get there and real-time incentives to entice a visit.

3. Brand design

Design continues to differentiate, now more so than ever. In a world deluged with cookie cutter applications and off-the-shelf adornments, consistent, appropriate and user-centric brand design compels and communicates amid the cacophony of visual noise.

4. Branded Edutainment

YouTube had more than 120 million viewers and 10 billion video views in August 2009 according to a September 2009 ComScore report. With the proliferation of on-hand, video-ready, mobile devices and a broad array of storage and sharing sites like Hulu and YouTube, online video is becoming ubiquitous.

Video is a powerful and potentially amplifying medium for your messaging when produced, integrated and distributed properly. But, it must be engaging, relevant, interactive, easily-consumed, readily-shareable, educational and/or entertaining for full effect.

5. Strategic Integration

There are many ways to reach and influence your audience—perhaps too many. Just because you have more options to extend your media mix doesn’t mean it needs to be less strategic. In fact, to penetrate the noise and stand out, strategy is more important than ever.

Facebook has hundreds of millions of subscribers. So what? Citing large numbers isn’t a strategy. And developing stand-alone initiatives without an integrated and targeted plan risks losing your message in a sea of irrelevant noise. Be it a person wearing a sandwich board on the sidewalk or an online video, your marketing efforts must be strategically integrated, well-planned, consistently branded, distinctively designed and metric-driven.

This year, don’t obsess over New Year predictions or resolutions. Assess, and act.

Related Reads:

Is Your Mobile Presence Brand Immobile? [.think]
Coca-Cola’s 100-Flavor Interactive Freestyle Soda Fountain
Shazam To ‘Tag’ Dockers’ Super Bowl Ad
Foursquare’s Marketing Potential

Voodoogoo Jam

Perfecting Good Taste

Friends from afar sent me not one but seven jars of assorted gelatinous delights for the holidays. Each homemade delectable is tastefully adorned with an elegant custom label and a short background regarding the origin of the harvested contents. Perfect.

I can barely wait to taste them all. But await I will.

The Assortment Include

Grape Jam · Wild Plum Jam · Apricot Peach Jam · Banana Butter
Chokecherry Jam · Black Raspberry Jam · Voodoogoo Jam

Panic room, interesting video

Our latest list of inane musings from the Brainstorm office white board:

Top 20 Favorite Friday Night Wind-Downs

1. A placid dip in the sensory deprivation tank
2. Appointment with my masseur
3. Brainstorming upcoming Top 20 board topics
4. Watching 4 episodes of “24” back 2 back
5. Pizza, wine, movie, couch
6. Dining out
7. Quiet room, good book
8. A nice relaxing mosh pit!
9. DANCE PAARTY!
10. Panic room, interesting video
11. I enjoying bathing in the blue glow of multiple computer screens.
12. Family movie night
13. A first class flight to a tropical island,
    or even a coach flight to a regular island.
14. Dress like a bear and hang out in the park
15. Yak Stew, read the health care bill, watch Enemy of the State, go to Don’s Guns
16. PJs & slippers & coffee with a little something extra
17. Firepit
18. Trip to the Wii Resort (or any resort)
19. A long drive through the country
20. Marching band practice

See the entire board

Image: Hotzeplotz

“The reactions I’ve experienced confirm
that it is a part of my personal brand.”

A Scent of Brand

Patchouli is my signature fragrance, it’s been my personal aromatherapy since I was a teenager. Visceral, exotic…not sure I can explain the magic it plays on me when I wear it. Of all the essential oil concoctions I’ve invented over the years, this distinctive scent is, at its base, ME. Ask anyone who knows me to shut their eyes, sniff an open vial of patchouli oil and say what comes to mind; I guarantee my name comes up every time.

There are some interesting studies on the science of smell and its link to memory, and I have first-hand experience proving the theories. More times than I could possibly count, a total stranger has stood next to me and asked, “Are you wearing patchouli?” The question isn’t as amusing as the way in which it is often asked, posed in a dreamy voice extending the last two syllables like this: “…patCH- OUUUUUU-LIII? [insert long sigh].”

A Brand Ascent

Sometimes their eyes will close while they smile and breathe deeply as they conjure up a wonderful memory of the scent. These strangers are often compelled to tell me exactly what their remembered visions entail. All ages approach me, yet boomers are usually the dreamiest, reminiscing of old loves, music, and recreational activities from days gone by. It takes a strong emotional connection to share memories—conjured from just a scent—with a complete stranger.

Run down a list of memory-evoked sensory experiences—songs, visual images, flavors—our sense of smell is the strongest link to memory. I never set out to draw attention with my fragrance, but the uniqueness it provides and the reactions I’ve experienced confirm that it is a part of my personal brand.

It all boils down to what “important stuff” echoes back about your personal or organization’s brand. It takes talent and creativity to pull together a branding strategy that gives you an identity worth remembering. Rarely is it as easy as finding a fragrance you enjoy.

Image: Divyanshs

More than 30 percent of households with a TV now have a DVR device

Impressions Less Control

At more than double the price tag, CBS has very few 30-second Super Bowl spots left while NBC is struggling to sell 2010 Winter Olympic ads.

Yes, the Super Bowl has a prestigious reputation for the most watched and talked about commercials, but the Olympics start just one week after Super Bowl Sunday. Advertisers invest so much in creating the commercials, why not rerun the same 30-second spots at half the price?

Impressions Remotely Controlled

More than 30 percent of households with a TV now have a DVR device. If most people are like me, they’ll record the Olympics to watch at a more convenient time, and scan through to parts they’re most interested in. We’ll speed up the process and not take the time to view every commercial.

Have DVR, Tivo and YouTube viewers changed the way traditional TV is being watched so much so that advertisers are looking for alternative ways to reach their target market, even during widely viewed, mainstream television events?

Impressions User Controlled

There are certainly options to target more specifically and less expensively, and whether you advertise on the Super Bowl or through an alternate media there’s always the chance your ad will go viral, extending your reach even further—for free.

Image: Tsmall