The Mobile Singularity: New Rules For Marketing To Smart Networks?

Futurists talk of a “singularity” when everything is connected into a single, conscious network that is smarter than its parts. Smartphones and other mobile devices are already making this a reality for consumers, which means new questions for marketers: Will branded content play the same role, are there limits to how much consumers want us to know about them, and do we need to redefine the very substance of our conversations? Baskin will provide answers, based in part on research conducted exclusively for this AZIMA presentation.

Jonathan Salem Baskin is a thought-leader on 21st century branding and corporate reputation, and the relationship between business and culture.

He has been called “a merry iconoclast,” “lucid and cutting,” and “groundbreaking,” among other things both favorable and not. He is the author of six books, including Branding Only Works on Cattle and Tell The Truth: Honesty is Your Most Powerful Marketing Tool.

Jonathan is president of Baskin Associates, a marketing decisions consultancy that offers products that make brands more reliable, sustainable, and profitable, managing director of Consensiv, a reputation ROI advisory that gives public companies first-ever objective financial tools upon which to build and protect reputational value, and a managing director of TechNexus, Chicago’s venture collaborative that helps entrepreneurs and startups collaborate with established companies. He possesses 30 years of experience, having led a number of marketing initiatives that crossed both digital and offline domains for such worldclass brands as Apple, Blockbuster, ConAgra, and most other letters in the brand-name alphabet.

When he’s not working with clients, Jonathan writes a bi-weekly column on leadership for the CMO Strategy section of Advertising Age, twice-weekly contributions to Forbes, and daily tidbits of social history on the site for his third book, Histories of Social Media (a second edition was published in April, 2013). He is a speaker at corporate and association events around the world, at which he talks about the importance of understanding “brand as behavior” (a term he has trademarked) and applying the lessons of the past to the future.

Jonathan is also a Senior Fellow Emeritus at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

He began his career at Grey Advertising, where he worked on integrated marketing campaigns for consumer products such as Duncan Hines’ cookies and Joy Dishwashing Liquid. He also ran major public relations programs for Edelman Worldwide, both in New York and Los Angeles, including Apple’s launch of the first iMac. He received a degree in English Literature from Colby College, Waterville, Maine, in 1982.