It makes sense, then, that they would launch an upscale community travel site that’s exclusively available to American Express cardholders, right? And that’s what AmEx did.

As branding and marketing evolve, companies are and will need to change how they reach customers. Tops on the list is what I’ll call ‘tangential branding:’ creating experiences that incorporate your brand into the associated lifestyle of your customers. You company isn’t driving the brand. You’re understanding who your customers are, what they like and dislike, what they think about your brand, and why they choose (or don’t choose) to incorporate it into their lives.

In the case of American Express, the choice is obvious: travel and dining. With Starbucks, it’s cool coffee-house music from around the globe. With Scion, it’s independent movies and DJs that spin rare grooves. It’s all about understanding what else your customers are into and developing experiences where your brand is a part of — but not central to — the experience.

In it, Middlebrook covers everything you would need to know before getting started with Twitter: etiquette, branding, tools, mashups, and promotion.

Related posts

• On Twitter-ing
• Twitter meta: It does too have a point
• Recommended: Social Networks Aren’t Products
• This is why, this is why, this is why I Tweet.

Nobody gives a damn how good the cupcakes are; if scarcely anybody shows up, your party is a failure. Equally, nobody goes to MySpace or Match for the cupcakes — or, to be more precise, the quality of the user experience. People flock there because that’s where everyone else is.

That point brings to mind the Twitter versus Pownce debate. I have parallel networks on both (i.e.: same friends, different sites) and most of them are pretty hard-core Twitter-ites. In fact, Twitter is king even among those who prefer the features and interface of Pownce. Why? Because Twitter is where everyone is conversing (though some would argue that Pownce’s lack of an API is the reason why it’s community isn’t as active).

In other words: community and activity is what counts. Before your launch your social networking site, make sure you have a plan for driving community — not just attracting users. Flickr’s founders, for example, greeted every new user on signup. MySpace tapped into a vibrant, established off-line community.

However you do it, remember that your site’s value comes from the people involved. It’s not features. It’s not ease-of-use. It’s the people.

Related: “Facebook Follies� and what might an open social network format look like?

We also launched a new look for our website (designed by Brad Sarmiento, developed by moi) that reflects our new approach.

I’ll save the more technical how-I-did-it stuff for another post. But I would like to hear your feedback about both web sites and whether you agree that the advertising industry is broken and what — if anything — you think we need to change.

Related: Madison Avenue Journal’s Marketing and Technology. For the People.

In other words, the level of CSS and HTML support that Internet Explorer 6 provided for Outlook — and that Internet Explorer 7 would have provided — is gone.

There is an upside to the change. With the switch to a Word rendering engine, potentially dangerous tags like applet, object and script are not supported. But there are a whole lot of downsides as well, mostly in the form of diminished or non-existent support for several HTML attributes and CSS properties.

Some of what’s out:

• Background images. URL values for HTML background attribute and the CSS background property are no longer supported.
• Colspan, rowspan and frameborder values equal to zero. Colspan is still valid (i.e. colspan="2"), but colspan with a value of zero is not.
• background-position, background-attachment, background-image and background-repeat. The only supported background-* property is background (color values only) and background-color.
• Support for custom list images using list-style-image.
• Support for animated .gif files. End-users will only see one frame.
• Support for Flash. Flash support in e-mail clients has always been iffy. Now it’s completely out for Outlook 2007.
• No support for floated elements. Keep in mind that most e-mail clients aren’t all that great at handling floats anyway.

If you’re using Dreamweaver MX 2004 or Dreamweaver 8 for Windows, you can download an Outlook validator that will tell you whether your email will work in Outlook 2007.

I’m also guessing that you can view your HTML file in Word (say, if you’re on a Mac or something) and get a rough idea about how it will look in Outlook.

More information

• Microsoft takes email design back 5 years
• Using CSS and HTML in email
• Word 2007 HTML and CSS Rendering Capabilities in Outlook 2007 (Part 1 of 2)

• How to Code HTML Email Newsletters – Lots of good bits at the bottom
• Designing, Coding & Delivering HTML Email [PDF] – from the MailChimp folks who are personal acquaintances of mine.
• Optimizing CSS presentation in HTML emails
• CSS and Email, Kissing in a Tree
• StyleInEmail from CSS-d

The big ol’ pitfall in using CSS in HTML emails is two-fold:

• There are scads of different e-mail clients.
• CSS support, if it exists, is usually quirky.

Using CSS in email is possible, though. I’ll distill the best advice into four points:

• Use simple HTML. Go for 3.2 or HTML 4.1.
• If appearance is your primary concern, use tables for layout. You can use the div element. Just be aware that your users may receive linearized text instead of your floated div goodness.
• Use highly-specific selectors. Give that wrapper div or that table an id. Use elements and ids or classes as selectors (example td.main).
• Use inline styles. For the greatest level of consistency, use inline styles. Yes it sort of defeats the purpose of using CSS.

Oh, and by all means, make your CSS embedded (included in the HTML file), not linked.

Related content on this site

• Blog customization: DIY or Hire and What to Expect
• Understanding CSS and Methods for Hack Management

Plus

• Snickers’ Instant Def campaign featuring the Black Eyed Peas.
• With a Cellphone as My Guide from the Sunday New York Times

Jay-Z has sworn off Cristal after the Champagne maker’s managing director, Frédéric Rouzaud, said he’s not all that happy with rappers associating themselves with his brand.

Jay-Z called the statements racist. But somehow I doubt Cristal would have a problem with Oprah, Kenneth Chenault, Wynton Marsalis or BET founder Bob Johnson sipping its bubb.

The difference to my eyes is couth. I mean, really Jay-Z: is a self-proclaimed former hustler/drug-dealer who plead guilty to stabbing someone. Does he really not see why Cristal might not want the shout out?

Hip-hop, though I (mostly) love it, is generally some of the most uncouth sh*t on the planet. It makes anything associated with it seem crass, excessive, and tacky. As my mama put it: “When rappers hold Cristal, it makes it look like Sneaky Pete.”

Hip-hop’s whole ethos replaces price with quality. I can completely understand why brand snobs and wine snobs would look askance at people who — if Cristal were priced the same as, say, Barefooot Bubbly — might not know the difference.

That’s not to say that the largely white music genres of pop, rock, or country are somehow more classy than hip-hop. Hell naw they ain’t. Shoot, if I were Krug, I’d be mad as hell to find out that Madonna and her would-be-trailer-trash-but-for-her- dance-moves-and-marginal-ability-to-hold-a-note self name-checked my product in a song. And Britney Spears? Pure trash. (I tell ya, the minute she endorses Old Navy, I’ll be done as a customer.)

But this debate goes to the core of luxury brands, and their associated snobbery: if trashy-acting “common folk” — and recording artists are basically common folks with money — they run the risk of their regular customer base eschewing the brand for something else that differentiates them. See Burberry vs. Chavs.

Or remember when Cross Colors died at your high school: the day you saw that nerdy kid sporting his brand-new, bright green jeans.

Central themes:

Don’t be afraid let the community play with your brand.

Can lead to greater interest in your brand, and a deeper relationship with your business. Spolan cited the Verizon ‘In’ campaign, and how the brand was extended into Yahoo! avatars.

Cool and edgy isn’t always successful.

Cool and edgy means bupkiss if your audience or product is neither cool nor edgy. Make sure you are using techologies that support your audience and goals for the product.

RSS isn’t being widely used by the audience

Marketers, however, are planning to use it. (Probably means less for marketers than it does for public relations specialists. It’s a way to deliver content.)

Technology-specific ideas / points

Mobile carriers ultimately control mobile content.

How you send it may not be how it arrives at the user’s device. Carriers may optimize your content for delivery over their network. Carriers have multiple, sometimes incompatible guidelines for content delivered over their network. (Not sure whether this is referring to ‘walled’ content like T-Mobile’s T-Zones, or to all mobile content. Also no mention of Google’s service that ‘optimizes’ web content for mobile devices. Related: Notes from “Demystifying the Mobile Web” panel at South by Southwest).

How many users will be able to take advantage of mobile offerings?

Again: knowing your audience. How popular are polyphonic ringtone capable phones (in the case of ringtones) with your audience?

Take advantage of context and ‘always near’ nature of mobile devices

Spolan suggested offering SMS/e-mail reminders. In the case of CNN, for example, they might send a mobile reminder to watch a particular show. Yahoo! calendar and Google calendar offer this.

Leveraging trusted social networks for marketing / advertising.

This was a Yahoo! MyWeb-specific example from Spolan, but could easily be applied to Friendster or MySpace, or Ma.gnolia: posting context-relevant advertisements with the number of friends in your network who have bookmarked, clicked or blogged about the same thing. (An idea that is likely to come; Not many doing this now.)

Blogs/vlogs/podcasts reach niche audiences.

In the case of the DIY Network, the issue was how to reach people with an interest in do-it-yourself topics like home improvement, gardening and crafts. Answer: blogs, message boards and existing passionate communities. The campaign featured banner ads with embedded videos. The ads, besides being eye-catching, also showcased both the network’s television and online offerings. They then plastered those ads all over blogs and sites that reached the niche they were targeting.

Random tidbits

Atlanta PHP: Zend Framework, Thu, May 4, 7 p.m.

Ben Ramsey will give a presentation on the ins and outs of the Zend framework. The group has found an interim meeting place at the Consulate General of Canada, located at Colony Square.

Signal vs. Noise Job Board

37Signals opens a job board for web designers, programmers and strategists.

50-year mortgage debuts in California

Up next, the 80-year multi-generational mortgage! Stay indebted forever!

Technorati: Atlanta, marketing, interactive marketing