How many times have you been asked, “What’s your social strategy?” As Facebook’s IPO grabs the headlines, and new social sites like Pinterest and Tumblr grab consumers’ attention, many marketers are wrestling with what brand building looks like in today’s social world. But the real question you should be asking yourself is, “How does social media change your brand strategy?”  

Marketing leaders now view social media as critical for brand building. In our February 2012 Marketing Leadership Online Survey, nine out of 10 marketing leaders told us that social media is fundamentally changing how brands are being built in the 21^st century. In fact, they view it as second only to search for brand building. But many are still struggling to determine how to integrate it into their marketing plans. The truth is, while social is a great new tool, it lacks the power to build a brand alone. Marketing leaders such as Coca-Cola and JetBlue recognize this and are integrating social with paid and owned media to build a 21^st century brand experience. In my new report, "How Social Media Is Changing Brand Building," I identify three ways social media can help marketers harness the power of social to build their brand by 1) building a relationship to become more trusted; 2) differentiating through an emotional connection to become more remarkable; and 3) nurturing loyal fans to become more essential.   

How is social changing your brand building strategy? What challenges are you facing in the social brand building world? Comment here, or join the conversation in our community of marketing leaders.

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As digital infuses every medium, one of the oldest advertising mediums around — out-of-home — is getting a digital makeover. Forrester Researcher Cory Madigan recently attended a MediaPost summit on this topic. Here’s Cory’s take on the event:

On April 11th, MediaPost hosted a Digital Out-Of-Home Summit in New York. The event was primarily attended by digital out-of-home (DOOH) vendors, and the content was geared toward that audience, focusing on what the DOOH industry can do to help media planners and buyers shift spend to that channel. The opportunity is clear: As the medium closest to offline purchase, marketers can use DOOH to complete a marketing loop that involves TV, mobile, social, and out-of-home media. Tricia Nichols, global lead of consumer engagement and media strategy for Gap brands, noted that the interactivity of DOOH screens lends itself to in-store experiences, going beyond offers and into social loyalty. But with what seems like an obvious way to spend ad dollars, young DOOH media is having a hard time selling itself to media buyers and advertisers. How can the industry rise to the challenges it faces?

• Media planners: Break out of your silos. Rather than plan with a customer-centric approach, media planners focus only on their channel with little collaboration across other media. Because many advertisers are already unsure how to integrate DOOH into broader campaigns and programs, opportunities to marry place-based media and mobile programs, for example, go by the wayside. Agencies and marketers need to plan media according to the customer life cycle, and DOOH will be more likely to add value and find the relevance it seeks by marrying the targeting and geolocation capabilities this medium offers with content made for its place in the customer life cycle.

Last week, Forrester got about 700 of our friends together (ok, conference attendees) to figure out what is cool and what is critical in marketing today as well as what is likely to cross from the former to the latter. We had amazing presentations from major consumer goods, retail, insurance, and technology brands tackling these different issues.

Below, I have included the graphic illustrations of these presentations (courtesy of Kate Dwyer at Collective Next), highlighting the key takeaways from each. In them, you can see the stories and concepts that our speakers revealed to help the audience progress in this complex marketing world we now live in.

What's cool?

• Branding is cool again, according to Chris Stutzman. He studied the relationship expressed by consumers between things like brand pride and brand uniqueness and how they influence premium prices and willingness to recommend. His insight: 21st century brands will be built on different foundations than 20th century brands, especially as they  relate to what leads the marketing effort. Product-led brands will suffer as experience-led brands thrive (Note: His report will be coming out soon, but here is preview from Advertising Age). 

Forrester applauds GM, Goodby, and McCann for breaking ground to create a new genre of agency orchestration.

Last week's announcement of Chevrolet's new global creative agency Commonwealth, a joint venture between Omnicom's Goodby, Silverstein & Partners and IPG's McCann Erickson Worldwide, is further evidence that the complexity of managing a global brand demands marketers and agencies to work together in new ways.

Despite being created primarily out of financial necessity — to cut more than $2 billion in global marketing expenses — CMO Joel Ewanick and agency leaders at Goodby and McCann arrived at an innovative solution to improve the brand's global creative stewardship. Less-committed CMOs might've given up on the idea that they could get their two most important creative agencies, from different holding companies, to work together. And lesser agencies might have folded up the tent and retreated to greener pastures, before sharing brand strategy and creative duties. But they didn't. They stared a cold financial reality in the eye, apparently over a hot coffee at a shop named Commonwealth.

So what kind of music will Commonwealth be playing for Chevy?