Categories: Articles

Marketing Magazine Goes Blog With A Twist

Marketing Magazine formally launched a Blog, The Marketing Briefing, this week, but it’s not what you might think. The Blog is an actual case study and ongoing discussion between Pamela Davis, Director of Marketing at the WWF – World Wildlife Fund – and Bill Baker, Vice-President, Business Director at FCB – Foote Cone and Belding – in Toronto. The two will be “openly” discussing the work they are doing to rebrand the WWF.
Here is an overview from the Marketing Magazine news item on this, WWF Canada Rebranding Process Featured On Marketing’s Blog:
“Davis and Baker will, over the next several months, write about the rebranding effort the WWF has recently started. Readers will find out about new WWF campaigns while they’re still at the discussion stage; meet the people inside the WWF who toil on important issues far from the media spotlight; and get a warts-and-all glimpse of the day-to-day work that goes into maintaining an agency-client relationship…Why devote Marketing’s first Blog solely to the WWF and FCB? The relationship between the client and agency-and the new brand that will come of it-will make for a compelling story, one that we will tell in the pages of our magazine, but another that Davis and Baker can tell, from their perspective, within the Blog.”
I have been following the Blog for the past several days and I’m not feeling real sincerity. I could just be jaded by this industry and immediately feel that both sides will definitely be pulling punches, but I do find it difficult to imagine either side will really open up and let loose on a Blog, especially under the Marketing Magazine moniker.
My hopes are that this is not merely a good PR pull for the WWF, FCB or Marketing Magazine. Anyone involved in Blogging knows that it’s easy to tell when something doesn’t read right. As Herb Cohen says: “a nose that can hear is better than two that can smell,” or something like that.
You can check out the Blog here: Marketing Magazine – The Marketing Briefing Blog.

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.