Incito MentisA blog by Syed Abdul Karim

I have always believed brand building is about creating experiences. It can be anything from an immersive on-ground event, an engaging website to a holistic 360° experience. But lately I have realized that content and entertainment have also become a vital aspect of the experience mix. The business of building brands is now more than ever like the business of making movies. Seriously!

Before seeing this awesome DC Shoes infomercial (yeah right!) I had no idea what the brand was all about. The shoe bit was obvious, but that was about it! For me when it comes to sports footwear my universe begins and ends with Nike, Adidas and Reebok! This video changed everything! Besides its sheer entertainment value the video has truly contributed to building the DC Shoes brand. Why do I say that?

To qualify as a piece of branded entertainment the content has to be entertaining, that bit is obvious! But how does that same piece of entertainment build a brand! This is the crucial bit which is not always easy to crack! This is where DC Shoes really shines with this piece of marvel. For one, if I am trying to communicate “performance” then this is as good as it gets. Considering the fact that this is a space all sports footwear brands need to associate with, DC Shoes has done it in a way that is uniquely their own.

The other reason why this video builds the DC Shoes brand is the targeting. They have chosen to focus on extreme sports. It comes through no doubt. Not that I am going to be doing any of those things in the video but upon further exploration I realized that the web experience, the online store and most importantly, the shoe designs consistently delivered on the promise made in the video – performance, extreme sports and coolness!

So despite the fact that DC Shoes makes performance footwear for people who are into extreme sports, you know what I would be looking out for the next time I need sports footwear. Now that’s brand building!

Find out why by watching the video below!

How many times a new invention has had such a profound impact on existing technology that it is donned as nothing less than a game changer? In 1454 it was the printing press which ushered in a new era of modernity, disrupting the slow and expensive parchments used at the time. Today the very same printed word is at the brink of extinction! Overstated you might think?

Let’s go back five years to a time when convergence was the big buzz word. It was believed that the internet was going to impact two very large industries – telecoms and media. Today it seems that the internet is bigger than both. In fact it is actually hard to tell them apart. Let’s take the example of Google. What started as a simple internet search engine has certainly come a long way. With Google Voice, Android and Nexus it is clearly in the telecom domain. With all their investments in content, their ownership of YouTube – the biggest online video sharing site that now gets 24 hours of video uploads every minute, and with news of Google TV on the horizon, they are also big in the media domain. And of course, everything else about Google is deeply entrenched in the internet space, from their successful internet advertising model to their experimental venture as an Internet Service Provider (ISP). Google is clearly a great example of a company that has converged all three industries into one.

How does all this relate to the iPad? In some profound way the power of the iPad is in its innate ability to converge print media, video content and the interactivity of  the web into a single platform, thereby changing all three of them forever! Imagine a new way of experiencing the printed word, integrated with video and web-like features! Five years from now how would you tell each of them apart? Disruptive isn’t it!

Further proof is as below!

Wired Magazine’s Official iPad Demo:

Sports Illustrated iPad Concept Video

VIV Mag Interactive Feature Spread – iPad Demo