Great piece on NPR this morning ( > http://n.pr/wvcmzR) about the growth of car-sharing and the expansion of new models of experience built around individual car owners “renting” their cars to strangers through companies like Wheelz.

The evolution of this business offering over the past decade is a great example of creating a new experience that reflects changes in consumer behaviors and attitudes (e.g., more urban population, eco-consciousness, recession). What’s fascinating (as the story reports) is how established brands like GM are staking a claim through investments rather than seeing such businesses as a threat. That’s good experience brand thinking. 

photo source: NPR

I had a fascinating conversation with colleagues in Beijing a couple days ago about brands in China. For me the stunner was learning that Walmart and Pizza Hut are considered aspirational brands in China; however strong they are as brands here in the US, they’re not that.

But after listening to NPR’s great story on brands in China, I completely get it. It’s definitely worth a listen/read:  http://www.npr.org/2011/06/22/137320938/chinas-businesses-boom-but-its-brands-dont

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Today is the 50th anniversary of humans entering space. This was a huge accomplishment that opened opportunities for new research, which led to many of the discoveries of the last half-century. It yielded deep national pride for the Soviets and an imminent sense of the need to capture the moon for the Americans.

This is an analogy for brands: where’s the new frontier to cross? Who’s leading the way? Who needs to catch up? What are the new discoveries? What’s the competition doing?

And now fast forward to today: the US space program is winding down and humans may for the first time in history be moving slower than in previous generations (walking to horses to trains to cars to air flight to space to ???).

So what do brands need to do to keep the momentum moving? Was your brand’s last campaign like a sustained rocket ship? Or did it fizzle out?

Shout out to Google for the cool landing page today and NPR’s article!

I am a huge fan of NPR’s “This American Life” — and this week’s podcast, “Scenes from the Mall,” features the voices of some people who really really love the brands they work for, and who represent them really well.

TAL is decisively NOT about marketing or brands, just great storytelling. The most successful T-mobile salesperson at the Tennessee shopping mall featured this week, or the Chick-fil-A manager who knows who her customers really are, are worth checking out. There’s also a really sad one here about an un-named woman whose store is being closed.

Here’s the podcast on iTunes » http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=201671138

Later on today I’m speaking at the Word of Mouth Marketing Association Summit in Las Vegas (wish me luck) but here are a few choice tidbits consumed so far:

• The Kitchen Sisters of NPR fame gave an outstanding keynote on storytelling this morning. Needless to say there were a lot of food stories — including a great one about King’s Candy (I got a free sample… yummy)
• Attended a great session about how Ben & Jerry’s extended their long-running in-person summer sampling program (kicked off by Ben and Jerry themselves in 1986) with social media. Cool stuff (and I got a coupon for free ice cream… love that)