Social media puts a point on what every great brand has always done.

I picked up my latest issue of Marketing Management tonight to wind down after another great day sharing the plans, vision and the new name for a community we are creating outside Seattle. Not wanting a huge commitment of time, I flipped to Don E. Schultz's column that I read with interest every issue. A short column, it's always pithy and thought-provoking. Tonight did not disappoint, but I think he missed the point.

His column talks about the whole new world we live in, where the customer has control. He asks, "Is Persuasion Dying?"

That's not the point. That hasn't been the point in meaningful, customer-focused branding for years.

I mean years. Many marketers may have only woken up to this fact in the last 3-5 years, and point to social media as the game changing reason why. But truthfully, all of us, as consumers, have been in control a lot longer than that.

What social media does I think is give those smart brands out there more opportunities to be talked about. You Tubed about. Tweeted about. The core premise of a brand, when truly used as a business asset, has and always will be a promise you make to your customers. It's never been about short-term interchangeable brand concepts that are more ad slogans than anything else, designed to persuade buyers. That's promotional marketing. That's ad copywriting. That's all good too, and it has its place.

The article asserts that social media is the reason why "having one clear, distinct, incontrovertible brand image is becoming harder and harder to develop and maintain". I don't agree at all. Social media simply gives us and our customers more channels and vehicles with which to share and communicate. And that includes communicating about powerful, great experiences we have with brands that work hard to deliver on their promise at every opportunity. It isn't an excuse to not work hard until your brain hurts to find the authentic nugget inside your company or product that connects with and matters to your customer.

That's what this crazy business has always been about. Social media has simply given us a faster, more expansive view into how we are performing as we continue the hard work each day of defining and delivering the promise of our brand. Meeting our customers' needs, while finding ways to co-create with them has always been the heavy lifting of successful businesses. Social media doesn't make it new. It just puts a big giant point on it!

Casual Gaming. Big Escape. Bigger Money.

News broke today that Electronic Arts is acquiring the mobile game creator, PopCap, for $650M, and additional stock and performance bonus options that take the price up to $1.2B.

Wow. Big money for the mobile games, casual entertainment space. Bejeweled is one of PopCap's most popular assets, and with this acquisition it joins Angry Birds (from Chillingo) under EA's growing ownership.

Whether waiting at the doctor's office, or for your carpool buddy to join you on the ride home, or when attending a boring speaker at a conference, or waiting to pick the kids up at school, there's nothing casual about casual mobile games. They are ubiquitous and obviously fill a void. Space. Time. Easy escape. Whatever this void is, the value continues to increase.

What happened in days of old before handheld devices created a captive market for new casual games? I remember the very rare occasions I took an airplane trip as a kid, and buying word search and crossword puzzle books to pass the time. or MAD comics, and the Archie Digest. Same deal. Different time. Different media. And I would bet a whole lot less profit.

Find a void to fill.
Create a product that sticks.
And sell to the highest bidder. Then enjoy the ride until another innovation comes up to fill that space we humans need to constantly fill up with stuff like Bejeweled that exists to just give us a break.

Facebookers organize post-riot clean up event

It's 8am and already 12,000+ people indicate they are attending an event communicated on Facebook to clean up last night's mess.

http://on.fb.me/lfPyNp

THAT's the Vancouver the world knows and loves. Again, the power of the social media community