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

Hollywood comes to Indianapolis

The annual Heartland Film Festival kicks off a 10-day run in Indianapolis today. This year’s festival features a record 87 films from around the world.

Heartland Truly Moving Pictures
is a non-profit organization that seeks
to recognize and honor filmmakers
whose work explores the human journey
by expressing hope and emphasizing
the best in human spirit.

The Festival will award cash prizes totaling $200,000 to winning dramatic, documentary, short, and student films at the Crystal Heart Awards ceremony on Saturday, October 17th. Audiences rate movies and vote for their favorites throughout the Festival and Audience Choice Awards are presented at the end of the Festival.

The Heartland Film Festival awards ceremony

“We’re excited about the number of opportunities film lovers have to experience the Festival this year,” said Jeff Sparks, Heartland Truly Moving Pictures President and CEO. “If someone has never attended the Festival before, this is definitely the year to give it a try.”

Over the past year, Brainstorm partnered with Heartland Truly Moving Pictures on the architecture, design and development of their Truly Moving Pictures website and we’re proud to be a 2009 Premier Level sponsor of the Festival.

A Mark Left

I live in an urban environment with a bus stop near the front of my house. One morning, my neighbors and I were dismayed to awake to graffiti. Our bus stop had symbols painted on it, store front windows were etched, a residential fence defaced, and the light post marked.

“The value of identity of course is that so often with it comes purpose.”

-Richard R. Grant

While I don’t think anyone in the neighborhood was surprised that it happened, we were grossly disappointed. We all work hard to maintain our beautiful space, but someone with a different connection to our space worked hard to mark it as their own. How hard they worked is debatable but they made their mark.

Leaving a Mark

Our identity is hugely important to our success, whether we’re a small business, an individual or a gang. We all create an identity, intentional or not. Some of us leave a mark and some of us don’t. I learned something from the “un-identified” (in my world) gang. They have an identity that means something to their audience, probably their enemies. It means something to me too – there is never an appropriate time to push an identity on someone, or a community, if they don’t want it.

Likewise, how your identity is imposed upon and received in today’s social media communities is a critical component of any brand design and marketing strategy.

Consider yours carefully, seek good counsel and identify yourself properly.

Image: Robyn Gallagher

Her love of
chicken and waffles

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

Top 20 Reasons We Like Margo

1. She can call Goldie Hawn Mom, and get away with it
2. She sits funny
3. Her love of chicken and waffles
4. She always smells good
5. Bubbly personality
6. She makes random outbursts!
7. Denies ever being married
   to a Black Crowes band member (see #1)
8. She’s shorter than me
9. Her outgoing nature
10. She listens to me ramble all day
11. She’s a good superb stellar designer
12. She can talk and work at the same time
13. She talks to herself more than I do
14. It makes Jenni us all happy to have her here
15. Post-It note® reminder to herself: No candy No candy NO CANDY
16. Cute as a Kate Hudson button,
    sweet as a Kate Hudson pie (see #1)
17. Even her name is fun
18. She breaks into spontaneous song
19. Her smile :)
20. Because she limited herself to adding only 2 items to this list.
21. She won’t take offense at this board

See the entire board

“Do what you do so well that they will want to see it again and bring their friends.”

- Walt Disney

Uh Oh

Recently, the iSight Camera on my MacBook Air quit working. I’d purchased the three-year Apple Care program, but was hesitant to engage in the repair process. My past experience with technical support from other computer companies has been less than pleasant.

11:30 Sharp

From the Apple website, I learned the initial step is to call technical support to rule out any software issues. Argh.

Then I found “Ask an Apple Expert” on the website, with the option to have them call me at my convenience. I scheduled a call and at the appointed time on the dot, a very courteous technician called me from Northern California. She patiently walked me through the diagnostics, focusing only on my account—no interruptions, no multitasking. Within 30 minutes, she told me I’d need hardware diagnostics that could be done at my local Apple store. She even scheduled the appointment for me.

A Matter of Minutes

When I arrived, my name was listed on a plasma screen as the next customer at the Apple Store Genius Bar. After a 5 minute wait, I met my service Genius who apologized for the delay.

Within 10 minutes he’d performed the hardware diagnostics and confirmed the machine needed to be sent to a “repair depot” for service. He gave me an 800 number to call for a shipping box and told me the repairs would take approximately 4-5 business days.

This is where I started to get anxious. I needed time. Time to prepare myself to function without my laptop for 5 business days.

Next Day, 8:00 a.m.

I called the 800 number and by 8:00 a.m. the next day, a custom box with packing material, simple instructions—even packing tape—arrived at my office. I let it sit, procrastinating the separation from my laptop.

Finally, I ran Time Machine to back up my data, filled a thumb drive with recent docs, and prepared myself for 5 days without my computer. I packed up the MacBook Air, took it to my local Kinkos, and said my prayers for its safe trip to Houston.

Time Flies

The next morning, I logged into FedEx to track the package. It had arrived safely at 6:54 a.m. local time! Wow, a quick trip and an early start. Then I logged into the Apple site to check on the status of the repair. By 9:00 a.m. EDT, it was finished and pending return.

My laptop arrived via FedEx at 9:00 a.m. the next day. I pulled it out, tested my new camera, and crafted this post, amazed that my computer traveled 1,700 miles round trip, was repaired and returned to me—all within 40 hours.

Thank you Apple for great service and great tools to keep me informed all along the way.

Your brand’s reputation is established by your actions and interactions. The best example of customer retention management is the one you deliver today. Make it count and keep them coming back—and telling their friends.

Image: Marcin Wichary