This blog was originally posted and featured on FastCompany.com. The original post can be found here: http://www.fastcompany.com/1675170/tony-robbins-perosnal-branding-breakthrough

By Nick Nanton, Esq. and JW Dicks, Esq.

If you missed Tony Robbins’s new mainstream premiere of Breakthrough, his new reality TV show, you missed the evolution of the blending of infomercial, reality TV, and soap opera.

While these adjectives describing Tony Robbins’s new show could be viewed as negative, we don’t intend them that way. It is the representation of the re-launch of Tony’s career in personal development and the launch of a new and powerful blended medium. Had this show been an infomercial, there would have been a strong call to action for viewers to buy the hot product Tony was selling. This may have resulted in successful front end sales followed by following up the sale with offers for additional products and services under the traditional infomercial format.

In the new media, Tony’s production company has mixed reality with message and created fans instead of buyers. While this may have a slight delayed effect in product sales, that delay will undoubtedly be outweighed by a strong new fan base for the entire spectrum of Tony Robbins Experiences including product sales as well as high end events and personal coaching at price points that might have seemed unattainable prior to the new show’s launch. Make no mistake, this show will be a commercial success–perhaps even on the front end from ad sales, but it will be also undoubtedly be a success for Tony Robbins Productions, the producer of the show, and the mix of Robbins’s products and services that will be revived as well as newly created, all at the same time.

First, from a reality TV test, the show was good. Great production, good story and the people were unquestioningly real. From Tony’s prospective, he too is to be congratulated because he recognized that in the new economy (arising post Great Recession), the focus will be on credibility as much as celebrity. People are tired of what they see in the news and the “BP BS lie detector” will become a new method of judging what people and companies say about their products and services. If you aren’t transparent from today on, you won’t pass the public BS lie detector test and you will get raked over the coals by your prospects and customers for anything your try to “sneak” by them–publicly we might add. On the other hand, if you are able to pull off what Tony Robbins did last night, which is to set up the next sale at the expense of a short term gain, the world will be your oyster.

This Blog originally appeared on FastCompany.com. — Original post: http://www.fastcompany.com/1671298/harry-potters-personal-brand-profits

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter opened at Universal Studios Orlando June 18 and the studio is reporting rising attendance and guest spending. This is of particular significance since Universal’s theme park attendance had been hurt by the global recession and travel slowdown. The opening of the new attraction had been a long awaited event for Universal and Harry Potter fans, so the news of positive performance brings a welcome sigh of relief for the hefty $250 million bet Universal placed when they went after the Harry Potter attraction and scooped it out from under Disney who resides only a few miles away.

While all looks great with Harry Potter and the investment Universal made, the naysayers have been wondering out loud if Harry Potter will indeed have legs for years to come, after the last movie is out. After all, J.K. Rowling has said she will write no more Potter books and she certainly has enough money (Forbes estimates her net worth at more than $1 billion) to make that statement believable.

First, it will be a very long time before all of the Harry Potter fans even have an opportunity to go to the attraction. By then, many of the readers will have had more of their children come of reading age and turned into Harry Potter fans. And at some point, the books will pass down to the next generation. Additionally, just because J.K. Rowling doesn’t want to write any more books, doesn’t mean she won’t license different forms of Harry Potter adventures, from cartoons to video games. All of this brand continuity is up to Universal, who has both the burden and the opportunity, to make the Harry Potter brand stay fresh and make its product line continue to flow.

The lesson in all of this for us is to remember that we too must be vigilant with our own brands and work to keep them fresh with new ideas and expanding products that not only grow in number, but also lead into new business verticals and opportunities. Like Universal, most of us have invested lots of time and money to build our brand and in doing so have secured a bit of intellectual property that we have that is unique. While our brand may not have the value of Harry Potter, it doesn’t have to for it to be an opportunity to create more jobs, economic growth contributions, and a nice nest egg for ourselves and families. That’s a bit of “Wizarding” magic in and of itself.

We talk a lot about technology because it’s new and sexy, but sometimes it’s important to refocus on the basics. The basics may not be as sexy, but they have built great businesses for years and are still working for branding and marketing in the new economy.

Even in our highly digital world, branding consultants will tell you that the direct-mail campaign is still one of the most important tools in a branding agency’s bag. But even if you plan the best campaign, if your campaign doesn’t reach your intended recipients, you might as well throw your cash out the window.

When your mail piece arrives at the post office, it is feed into a machine to read the address and give it a barcode for delivery. That’s right, a machine. There is no guy in the backroom assigned to reading every addresses piece of mail that comes through the PO. Since you are dealing with a machine, you have to think like a machine, so while Florida, Fl, Fla, FL. and FL all mean the same thing to a human — to a machine reading a bulk list only one of these is correct. What does that mean? It means the other labels could delay or completely prevent your piece for ever reaching its destination. It’s true. (Wondering which one is correct? The two-letter state abbreviation in capital letters, no period.)

The problem with lists is that often the person entering the information is copying and pasting from another location. Sometimes that information is up to postal regulations, sometimes it is not. So, it is important for the person creating and maintaining your lists to know what is acceptable and what is not.

Here are some more pointers from USPS about addressing your mail:

• All capital letters
• No punctuation
• At least 10-point type
• One space between city and state
• Two spaces between state and ZIP Code
• Simple type fonts
• Left justified
• Put the attention line on top — never below the city and state or in the bottom corner of your mailpiece
• If you can’t fit the suite or apartment number on the same line as the delivery address, put it on the line ABOVE the delivery address, NOT on the line below
• Make sure your labels are straight — mail processing machines have trouble reading crooked or slanted information
• Words like “east” and “west” are VERY important

Learn this lesson now, friend. Otherwise you could loss a good portion of your list before you even get the mail out the door, and what will that do to the statistics for your personal branding?

If you’re looking for something a little different for your website, whether it be for marketing or for pleasure, you’ve got to check out Animoto

It turns your photos and videos into movie preview style videos. They look better than just about anything else I’ve seen. Enjoy!

I’ve just finished working on a product with Music Marketing GURU, Bob Baker, author of the best-seller Guerilla Music Marketing. It’s called “7 Secrets to Making Real Money with Your Music.”

Check it out, I think you’ll like it!

http://www.bob-baker.com/music/make-money.html

For those of you who haven’t heard the OaKs, you’re missing out. Check them out at www.myspace.com/wearetheoaks

Anyway, they are great people and great musicians, I got this from Matt Antolick today, the OaKs drummer and I figured I’d share it. You don’t even have to give anyone your email address to help them with the first part, it will literally take 10 seconds. Take a minute to help them out, they’d really appreciate it and so would I.

thanks for your support!

–
Hi everyone.

It’s Matt from the OaKs. We’ve had the honor of being featured on this month’s BMI Podcast. Not only that, but we’re up for a really important prize — whoever is voted the favorite band on this podcast will win a CD Dupilcation package from Discmakers. We could really use that, we’re almost completely out of the first printing of Songs For Waiting! The address is:

www.bmi.com/podcast

And you DO NOT need to enter an email to do this. Just click the button next to The OaKs and you’re ready to go!

We’re also in the running to be a part of the 2008 Lollapalooza Tour! Round one of voting has just begun, and you can vote here :

http://www.sonicbids.com/lollapalooza08/BandProfile.aspx?candidate_id=4816

Now, you do enter an email for this one, but only to confirm the vote. This keeps things legit and all.

If you can find it in your heart to do this, we’d be so thankful. So thankful, in fact, that we’ll give you a code to download The OaKs new and acclaimed album, Songs For Waiting, for FREE. These are 256Kbps Hi-Res MP3s with no restrictions.

And for those of you in the Orlando area, we’re playing a FREE ALL AGES in-store performance at the Virgin Megastore in Downtown Disney this Sunday, June 8th @ 7pm. Bring the family and friends. This will be our last Orlando performance for a while as we are preparing to write towards the next album(!)

Nick Nanton, Esq. with Conrad Dimanche, originally uploaded by ndnproductions.

I met Conrade Dimanche last year for the first time at the 4th Quarter Entertainment Music Industry Seminar. You may recognize him from MTVs hit show Making of the Band. Conrad is Senior Director of A&R at Bad Boy Records. I have a lot of respect for Conrad, he’s a hard worker and for all the hype that his boss (Sean Combs, a.k.a. P. Diddy, Puff Daddy, Diddy, Sean Jean, etc.) creates, Conrad understands that hard work and No B.S. is at the core of creating great music and great artists.

It was great reconnecting with him this year and speaking on panels with some other great industry folks. If you missed it, shame on you. Check it out next year.

Tim McGraw PreShow Party, originally uploaded by ndnproductions.

Up close and personal with Tim McGraw at the pre-show party to kick off his first show on the 2008 Live Your Voice Tour. It was great to see Tim again and the show was great!

Be on the lookout for Tim’s new singles. You won’t be disappointed.

but at least it will be a broken multi-platinum record.

I know I’ve already posted twice on this blog about Colbie Caillat. And I don’t know how to explain it other than I just know when I hear something special.

My prediction is her record “Coco” will be one of the top 3 records of the year and maybe the biggest record from a new artist period. If you haven’t picked up a copy yet, you need to do yourself a favor and pick up a copy. Its definitely this year’s “room for squares.” Its so even tempered and intimate you can’t help but love it.

I guessed that Daughtry would have the biggest record last year, and I was right, but I didn’t post it before it happened so I don’t expect you all to believe me (Although on January 27th 2007 I can prove that I was already touting it!)

Let’s see what happens. Good luck Colbie…my money’s on you!

Check out this article from CMJ that certainly opens your mind to this as a new model and possibly makes it the “highly coveted prize” of today (similar to how major label record deals used to be sought after)

http://prod1.cmj.com/articles/display_article.php?id=54047375

I’ve had great experience with licensing music for television. It has really brought some great revenue to some of the band I have worked with.

Special thanks to Matthew Antolick from the Oaks for sending it my way.