It has come to my attention that my traffic, which is growing decently Monday through Thursday, plummets on Friday. So I have decided to declare Fridays Lip Synch Celebration Days. To wit...
Funny AND disturbing. Particularly the Second One...
True Confession...I liked Wannabe. And saw Spice World. Twice.
Regarding the Below: Yes you've seen it before. But still high larious.
My Hump My Hump
Friday, March 21, 2008
Tight Ideas
Nothing valuable to say today. So instead I thought I would treat you to the original designer jeas ads from the 70s and early 80s. Apropos of nothing. Enjoy the weekend....one's an SNL spoof. Can you guess which one?
Thursday, March 20, 2008
The Magic of UGC
I don’t care what your politics are. And I am sure you could give two turds about mine. But take a look at this.
www.Youbama.com
I don’t think it’s a stretch to think of candidates as brands. And I can’t imagine a more powerful and compelling digital political experience than seeing hundreds of videos that supporters created for a candidate.
Many of these messages contain messages, themes, and ideas that would have a tough time making it through a campaign advertising filter. There are just some things a candidate cannot say.
But the Obama brand is unique in that such a huge component of it is bottom up and populist in style and expression. “We Are The Ones We’ve Been Waiting For.” So while the campaign may not have made the messages, the sheer existence of this UGC site does more to reinforce the brand, in my opinion, than any :30 aired in the Super Bowl.
And that there, my friends, is the magic of the new marketing world. UGC that reinforces the essence of the brand, even if it doesn’t use approved or orthodox images, themes, colors, fonts, or casting. That’s what’s possible today. It scares the pants off me, but it gives me goosebumps as well.
PS: To my GOP readers: I am happy to plug a McCain UGC site like this in my next entry if you send me the link. I am an equal opportunity opinionated bastard.
Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to write.
www.Youbama.com
I don’t think it’s a stretch to think of candidates as brands. And I can’t imagine a more powerful and compelling digital political experience than seeing hundreds of videos that supporters created for a candidate.
Many of these messages contain messages, themes, and ideas that would have a tough time making it through a campaign advertising filter. There are just some things a candidate cannot say.
But the Obama brand is unique in that such a huge component of it is bottom up and populist in style and expression. “We Are The Ones We’ve Been Waiting For.” So while the campaign may not have made the messages, the sheer existence of this UGC site does more to reinforce the brand, in my opinion, than any :30 aired in the Super Bowl.
And that there, my friends, is the magic of the new marketing world. UGC that reinforces the essence of the brand, even if it doesn’t use approved or orthodox images, themes, colors, fonts, or casting. That’s what’s possible today. It scares the pants off me, but it gives me goosebumps as well.
PS: To my GOP readers: I am happy to plug a McCain UGC site like this in my next entry if you send me the link. I am an equal opportunity opinionated bastard.
Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to write.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
A New Voice: Ryan Digicrest
Oh, dear readers, you MUST head over to the newest blog from a Catalysta - our very own Adam Bergman has launched Ryan Digicrest - and its the exact mix of insight and snarkiness that is sure to become a global blog phenom. BTW, there's quite a resemblance...Cruise on over, and add his RSS to your start page...
That name again...Ryan Digicrest
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
That name again...Ryan Digicrest
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
The Shirtless Brand
I’m 43. The last year of the baby boom. And probably the biggest difference between a boomer and a millennial (digitally speaking) is a concern for privacy. We generally have it. They mostly don’t. Even when I looked good with my shirt off, I don’t think I would ever have dreamed of putting a topless picture of myself in a place where everyone could see it. It just wasn’t done. And…why would I want to do that?
Ditto my partying self. I would no more have wanted to let the world see a photo of me with a lampshade on my head than I would have EL Marko’d 666 on my forehead at a Pentecostal Revival. And yet I have friends in the younger set that have plenty of red eyed party photos hanging out there on the web.
The same goes for less extreme expressions of openness. I am not comfortable with the idea of a FaceBook page that merges my personal and work lives. But millions are.
That strong sense of privacy also affects my feelings about how to market. My instinct is to provide a defined, finite message. 2-2-2-mints-in-one! This is what I want you to see and think and repeat. That doesn’t work anymore. If as a marketer I don’t let it all hang out, people online will either let it out in spite of my wishes, or publicly surmise about what I haven’t revealed.
I think there is no better evidence of this than Wal-Mart’s PR issues over the past several years. Nothing can be guaranteed to stay secret anymore. Except the identities of the oil execs that wrote the energy policy with Dick Cheney. But that is not something for this blog.
What is is is beginning to formulate ideas on a new definition of integrated marketing. Of recognizing that what’s important in providing an integrated message is not that everything be PMS 243, but rather that we define a brand in the context of its meaning rather than its brand dress. OK, OK, you can say “d’uh” all you want, but think about your last 10 comments in creative meetings. And then you’ll see that you aren’t all Mr/Ms Perfect. Take that, smug ones!
Today, we haven’t a prayer of ensuring that text not appear within 10 picas of the logo – in part because no one remembers what a pica is anymore. But we can create assets that reflect the spirit of the brand, of which appearance may – or may not – be a part. That reflect the voice of the brand, rather than necessarily a tagline. Or if we have a tagline, to have the sense to make it emotive rather than kerplunk descriptive.
One thing I used to use in presentations was a graphic I found online of the Coke logo with the red swapped out for Pepsi blue. It was made by a fan of Coke who thought it looked better. That sound you just heard was the simultaneous dry heave of half of the people of Atlanta. Coke in Pepsi blue? It’s sacrilege! I’d never say a brand should ignore that sort of thing. But not all UGC is harmful, even if it isn’t approved by the brand cops.
Note to self: spend less time worrying about the size of the logo in an ad, and more about the spirit expressed in the message. And get with the digital program.
So I made a MySpace and a Facebook page. Hey, I’m a joiner. And I think I would be drummed out of digital if I didn’t have a FunWall and a Facebook Newsfeed that told me that someone I barely know is eating bacon for breakfast.
I changed a bit. But I categorically refuse to post shirtless pics on those pages.
You’re welcome.
Thanks for reading and don’t forget to write.
Ditto my partying self. I would no more have wanted to let the world see a photo of me with a lampshade on my head than I would have EL Marko’d 666 on my forehead at a Pentecostal Revival. And yet I have friends in the younger set that have plenty of red eyed party photos hanging out there on the web.
The same goes for less extreme expressions of openness. I am not comfortable with the idea of a FaceBook page that merges my personal and work lives. But millions are.
That strong sense of privacy also affects my feelings about how to market. My instinct is to provide a defined, finite message. 2-2-2-mints-in-one! This is what I want you to see and think and repeat. That doesn’t work anymore. If as a marketer I don’t let it all hang out, people online will either let it out in spite of my wishes, or publicly surmise about what I haven’t revealed.
I think there is no better evidence of this than Wal-Mart’s PR issues over the past several years. Nothing can be guaranteed to stay secret anymore. Except the identities of the oil execs that wrote the energy policy with Dick Cheney. But that is not something for this blog.
What is is is beginning to formulate ideas on a new definition of integrated marketing. Of recognizing that what’s important in providing an integrated message is not that everything be PMS 243, but rather that we define a brand in the context of its meaning rather than its brand dress. OK, OK, you can say “d’uh” all you want, but think about your last 10 comments in creative meetings. And then you’ll see that you aren’t all Mr/Ms Perfect. Take that, smug ones!
Today, we haven’t a prayer of ensuring that text not appear within 10 picas of the logo – in part because no one remembers what a pica is anymore. But we can create assets that reflect the spirit of the brand, of which appearance may – or may not – be a part. That reflect the voice of the brand, rather than necessarily a tagline. Or if we have a tagline, to have the sense to make it emotive rather than kerplunk descriptive.
One thing I used to use in presentations was a graphic I found online of the Coke logo with the red swapped out for Pepsi blue. It was made by a fan of Coke who thought it looked better. That sound you just heard was the simultaneous dry heave of half of the people of Atlanta. Coke in Pepsi blue? It’s sacrilege! I’d never say a brand should ignore that sort of thing. But not all UGC is harmful, even if it isn’t approved by the brand cops.
Note to self: spend less time worrying about the size of the logo in an ad, and more about the spirit expressed in the message. And get with the digital program.
So I made a MySpace and a Facebook page. Hey, I’m a joiner. And I think I would be drummed out of digital if I didn’t have a FunWall and a Facebook Newsfeed that told me that someone I barely know is eating bacon for breakfast.
I changed a bit. But I categorically refuse to post shirtless pics on those pages.
You’re welcome.
Thanks for reading and don’t forget to write.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Citizen Journalists and Citizen DeMilles
Parody is often a form of flattery. At the very least it is a route to notoriety. 10,000 years ago when I was knee high to a grasshopper, there was a Saturday Night Live TV Ad Skit in which Gilda Radner discussed Autumn Fizz, the first carbonated douche. It was a spoof of those Summer’s Eve commercials in which a Mother and Daughter discussed vaginal freshness while cruising in a rowboat. Parody is nothing new.
But now, Saturday Night Live makes a Clinton/Obama debate spoof and it becomes the topic of a presidential debate for several minutes. I won’t try to read too much into this as evidence of the decay of our political system. There have been, after all, 20 Democratic Presidential debates so they may have said about all they have to say about how ready they are going to be on day one.
What it DOES demonstrate, though, is how important parody has become in our culture. And it has also become a critical part of what drives brand impressions. Go to YouTube and type in commercial parody and see what you find. Well, don’t bother, I’ll show you some of what you’ll find here:
Well, a HUGE portion of the vids are Apple spoofs. And some are critical of the company. But most aren’t. They are really more about the ad campaigns, which are always iconic.
I think it’s great when companies just let this happen. No cease and desists, no quiet efforts to get the messages pulled. They just let what happens happen.
The thing is, by respecting the freedom of expression of others, companies score points. Consider Amazon’s Kindle.
Unquestionably an important initiative for the company, the device attracted competing choruses of believers and detractors when it launch a couple months ago. Like all products on Amazon, Kindle’s pages allow people to make comments, either positive or negative. The result? The device had a score of about three (of five) stars for its first couple of weeks. Now it’s running at 3.5 stars.
I don’t doubt for a moment that Amazon people watched this scoring with some misgivings. But they let the voting and the commenting continue. Because they made a commitment to consumer comments for their whole site. They understood that the implications of such a commitment don’t always go how you want them to.
In my decidedly unscientific sampling of comments, I found that Kindle positives were from people who had the device and liked it. Most pointed out a few issues.
The negatives were more often than not people who had never touched the device but had passionate comments about Kindle’s appearance, the whole DRM issue, and the pricing. In the end, I bought one satisfied that the positives outweighed the negatives for me, and I’m pleased with it. But I am even more pleased with Amazon because they did the right thing, not the easy thing.
Of course, in a way they had no choice. Censorship is easy to spot online. And impeding negative posters on the Amazon site would only enrich their passion for being heard off the site. The message would get out. As would the evidence of censorship. And such evidence would have done far more damage than a thousand or so negative comments about cost and DRM.
Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to write.
But now, Saturday Night Live makes a Clinton/Obama debate spoof and it becomes the topic of a presidential debate for several minutes. I won’t try to read too much into this as evidence of the decay of our political system. There have been, after all, 20 Democratic Presidential debates so they may have said about all they have to say about how ready they are going to be on day one.
What it DOES demonstrate, though, is how important parody has become in our culture. And it has also become a critical part of what drives brand impressions. Go to YouTube and type in commercial parody and see what you find. Well, don’t bother, I’ll show you some of what you’ll find here:
Well, a HUGE portion of the vids are Apple spoofs. And some are critical of the company. But most aren’t. They are really more about the ad campaigns, which are always iconic.
I think it’s great when companies just let this happen. No cease and desists, no quiet efforts to get the messages pulled. They just let what happens happen.
The thing is, by respecting the freedom of expression of others, companies score points. Consider Amazon’s Kindle.
Unquestionably an important initiative for the company, the device attracted competing choruses of believers and detractors when it launch a couple months ago. Like all products on Amazon, Kindle’s pages allow people to make comments, either positive or negative. The result? The device had a score of about three (of five) stars for its first couple of weeks. Now it’s running at 3.5 stars.
I don’t doubt for a moment that Amazon people watched this scoring with some misgivings. But they let the voting and the commenting continue. Because they made a commitment to consumer comments for their whole site. They understood that the implications of such a commitment don’t always go how you want them to.
In my decidedly unscientific sampling of comments, I found that Kindle positives were from people who had the device and liked it. Most pointed out a few issues.
The negatives were more often than not people who had never touched the device but had passionate comments about Kindle’s appearance, the whole DRM issue, and the pricing. In the end, I bought one satisfied that the positives outweighed the negatives for me, and I’m pleased with it. But I am even more pleased with Amazon because they did the right thing, not the easy thing.
Of course, in a way they had no choice. Censorship is easy to spot online. And impeding negative posters on the Amazon site would only enrich their passion for being heard off the site. The message would get out. As would the evidence of censorship. And such evidence would have done far more damage than a thousand or so negative comments about cost and DRM.
Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to write.
Vortex Me
You want into Facebook right? Of course you do. It now represents a significant percent of Total page views and time spent online. People spend hours there a month. But what should you do? Make a brand page? Well, that’ll work if your brand is the Lakers, but what if it’s a mop? Are there tens of thousands of people who want to friend a mop? And even if there are, are you prepared to connect with people who are clamoring to be friends of a mop?
I work with a client called Real Time Matrix that has an interesting option to consider, whether you're the Lakers or O-Cedar. It’s called Vortex, and it’s a modular content unit that can live in Facebook. And when it does, it gives you control of a full page of completely customizable real estate. It can also live in iGoogle, Netvibes, and on a desktop.
It may be an interesting option if yours is a brand with content, both as a way of growing reach and as a new ad channel that you can monetize. It is particularly relevant for publishers in this regard. Some online publishers are using it to develop an ad network with leading bloggers. AN example is Social Media Today.
It may work for you alternatively as an advertising solution if you crave to be connected to a certain kind of content or passionate user.
I fully admit I am biased on this. Personally and professionally. But it’s free to look. www.vortexme.info.
Thanks for reading and don’t forget to write.
I work with a client called Real Time Matrix that has an interesting option to consider, whether you're the Lakers or O-Cedar. It’s called Vortex, and it’s a modular content unit that can live in Facebook. And when it does, it gives you control of a full page of completely customizable real estate. It can also live in iGoogle, Netvibes, and on a desktop.
It may be an interesting option if yours is a brand with content, both as a way of growing reach and as a new ad channel that you can monetize. It is particularly relevant for publishers in this regard. Some online publishers are using it to develop an ad network with leading bloggers. AN example is Social Media Today.
It may work for you alternatively as an advertising solution if you crave to be connected to a certain kind of content or passionate user.
I fully admit I am biased on this. Personally and professionally. But it’s free to look. www.vortexme.info.
Thanks for reading and don’t forget to write.
Mommy Hogs the Computer...
Earlier in this blog I waxed adoringly about eMarketer's daily newsletter. You NEED to subscribe. Here's another amazing set of free data that they have provided. If there were ever a more compelling set of reasons for CPG (among other categories)to be EXTREMELY active in digital...
Proof positive that the emarketer newsletter is a must read.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
Proof positive that the emarketer newsletter is a must read.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
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