Elon or Dee? Let's eat strawberries.

Yo! The teen cast an eye at Buckingham Palace as she and I drove in a modern Black Cab (so awesome!) to the Taj St James Court in London. She couldn’t believe someone rich would want to live in that giant old place. The Royals are clearly not building their brand on Insta or TikTok! Think of what they could have done for tourism by allowing Harry Potter to be shot there! ?

Line up for the strawberries!

My first trip to London was when the internet was young and Infosys was a rising tech brand. Thanks to growing up on a diet of Enid Blyton books (yes, Gen Z & Gen A, you may google who she was!) I wanted to try tongue, pudding, strawberries and cream, and scones. I did not try tongue after I figured out it was literally a tongue.?

Books can clearly mislead. Just like social.

The viral chocolate covered strawberries at Borough Market were considered a must-eat and we duly queued up for our GBP 8.50 (Rs 850) cup, that we had to eat standing, shooed by security. They were delicious, but I was left in awe of the marketing genius that is able to build virality out of a combination of fruit and chocolate sauce. In truth it was a combination of scarcity and social proof rather than the actual product. Oh, and there was a smidgen of drama to keep the mystique going when the place was shut down by the market as it did not technically meet their standards of being a fruit. ?

Next up, viral nails?

We went to Brixton (!!!) to get our nails done at the Reel famous 10:15 Aesthetics. They are sold out of appointments for months, and seem to operate only 4 days a week, using the other 3 to make videos :) The nail artist was really good, but, I was taken aback by the presence of a person with a professional camera, who was there to take photos of the nails and also looking for a good story. She or her team members spend one day a week at their clients’ businesses looking for stories. While nail art is much harder to get right than chocolate strawberries, again the winning combination was scarcity and social proof backed up with great storytelling. Interestingly the same agency handles social media for the Borough Market too. ?

Third Stop, tiny restaurant in Cascais, Portugal

My friend took me to a highly recommended restaurant. It certainly looked pretty with lots of Insta worthy nooks. Food was just ok. Then the waiter arrived with an instant camera and took a photo and gave us the printout. Clearly in today’s world if you don’t have a photo it didn’t happen! I recently went to a very happening restaurant off St Mark’s Road in Bangalore. They provide a golf cart for the 100m from the main road to the restaurant presumably so that the Jimmy Choos are safe. The decor was fabulous and the bathrooms have the best lighting! ?Which is what matters right? ?

What is the actual experience you are providing?

Should there be ring lights in the washroom? Make up assistant? Photographer? What we want from a restaurant keeps evolving. As social media turns into a lifestyle discovery engine, there are many new opportunities to be relevant to your customers by understanding the experience you can deliver. Reconsider the experience you are delivering keeping social media storytelling in mind. For example Mumbai Airport recently brought in emotional support dogs for a day to interact with passengers. While I’m not sure if dogs should be used for this, the idea seemed very insta-worthy and driven by the sort of stuff that gets shared there, though the story showed up in my LinkedIn feed.

Elon vs Dee - creating a destination business

CEO branding is always an important part of corporate branding. Elon, Anand Mahindra, Ratan Tata - they all contribute in a big way to our perceptions of their organizations. Typically large orgs have relied on traditional PR and LinkedIn to do this, and small organizations on “thought leadership”, podcasts, and personal outreach. Most successful small orgs on social tend to be based on the personality of the CEO who is the sole “actor”. The nail salon shows how this storytelling can be scaled beyond the CEO, Dee, with a stream of situational skits shot with models. Today our social feeds are flooded with videos of street food vendors with innovative takes on various traditional snacks. However it requires finesse and investment to create a steady stream of engaging content that creates a destination business. CEO Social Media Specialist could be the new EA!? For one thing, we could stop those “I met an Uber driver” posts on LinkedIn and replace them with livestreams of the interaction! ?

What makes a great CMO today?

As part of Paul Writer’s CMO exec search practice, we researched what CEOs want from a CMO. Here’s the report. Ground reality from our search practice is that today’s CMO has to be an all-rounder and use social media to drive conversations and conversions. Yes, this is an age old requirement, the change is the sheer volume and frequency of content required to stay relevant. A key strength has to be creating a brand architecture that allows all brand participants to participate in the narrative.

My Shiny New Certification!

I've been giving career and business advice for years in my various roles. ?I wanted to learn more about the structure of this process and signed up for an NLP flavour of it. ?I found the course very useful in clarifying my own priorities. ?And am happy to say that I now have a new certification: Professional Entrepreneurship Coaching Certification from NLP School! Some of you have asked what I do - I like to help businesses present their best version of themselves to solve customer needs. ? It's marketing strategy plus branding. ?The Writer in my company's name is actually derived from the old English usage in the context of being an agent. Same reason as Kolkata has a Writer's Building to house its government officers. I have written two books on frugal marketing, but my company actually no longer offers content as a standalone service. ?If you're an enterprise that has a good product or service that you think should be getting better traction, talk to me to understand the blockages.? Best regards Jessie?Paul [email protected] CEO, Paul Writer