Alex Mari

1. Every brand lover regularly uses a  set of brands  from several product categories to express his or her personality. Brand lovers have a simultaneous emotional connection with multiple brands in their daily life. Brand communities will no longer form around a single brand (e.g. Nutella) but around a network of brands (e.g. Nutella + Apple + Mini + Gucci).  2. Brands see themselves at the very  center of a relationship  with thousands - if not millions - of consumers. A Brand Manager needs to realize the limited importance that people attribute to a single brand.  Brands will no longer be the focal point of brand community, single consumers with their sophisticated consumption habits will. 3. People out there have  brand preferences  that are similar to yours and current technology allows us to bring these invisible links to life enabling the creation of communities...

The world’s most valuable company and the second-most valuable brand doesn’t have an official social presence. A decade after the rise of social media, a significant number of ‘digital experts’ still find Apple’s indifference to social platforms puzzling, to say the least. The notoriously social-shy giant hired some of the best talents in digital last year and begun spreading corporate messages through their executives on Twitter. Apart from owning the social network Ping, the monitoring company Topsy and using the platforms LinkedIn for recruitment and YouTube  (were comments are turned off) , Apple seems to refuse joining the rush to social. Its CEO, Tim Cook, publicly stated ‘ We have no plans to be in the social networking area ’, also referring to a hypothetical competitive attack against Facebook. A few questions might have popped up in your mind. 1) Why Apple is so adverse to social media?  There are at least four good reasons why an organization like Apple d...

A recurring discussion in marketing departments is how to  identify, engage and collaborate  with strategic individuals given the numerous possibilities offered by digital technology. Although the involvement of influential people has become a common practice in several industries, their role and contribution are often misinterpreted by managers, creating a sense of  general confusion in the field . Recent technological and sociological changes heavily contributed to the rise of empowered consumers  that communicate on behalf of brands, also enlarging the meaning of the term  ‘influencer’ . A regular consumer can today evolve into recognized brand influencer, advocate or ambassador, without necessarily being a celebrity or professional endorser with millions of fans. Although, I have noticed a convergence of these three strategic profiles, I believe there are still  significant peculiarities among them . Brand Influencer : is usually a celebri...