Friday, February 6, 2009
Digital Marketing Factoid Of The Day:
Check out what data services Americans are turning to on their mobile phones. Pretty impressive numbers for communication and entertainment services.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
GOP Enlists Erudite Strategist Joe The Plumber
The Sanjaya of Sewage has a new gig to go with his $1200 in upaid back taxes.
From Politico:
Call it a pipe dream come true: When members of the Conservative Working Group held their weekly strategy meeting on the Hill on Tuesday morning, they were joined by none other than Joe “the Plumber” Wurzelbacher, who had come to offer his thoughts on the economic recovery bill.
The Senate staffers who showed up at 9 a.m. for the closed-door meeting refused to leak the contents of their discussion with the tradesman-cum-strategist, but Wurzelbacher himself revealed that the advice they soaked up was just good, old-fashioned “common sense.”
Wurzelbacher opposes the stimulus and said he questioned why the government can’t just cut its bills like other people do. He also advised staffers to take a harder line on the legislation: “Republicans on the Hill are afraid of saying too much,” he noted.
Further recommendations from the Karl Rove of the Commode included having “someone go in there and kick some ass.”
From Politico:
Call it a pipe dream come true: When members of the Conservative Working Group held their weekly strategy meeting on the Hill on Tuesday morning, they were joined by none other than Joe “the Plumber” Wurzelbacher, who had come to offer his thoughts on the economic recovery bill.
The Senate staffers who showed up at 9 a.m. for the closed-door meeting refused to leak the contents of their discussion with the tradesman-cum-strategist, but Wurzelbacher himself revealed that the advice they soaked up was just good, old-fashioned “common sense.”
Wurzelbacher opposes the stimulus and said he questioned why the government can’t just cut its bills like other people do. He also advised staffers to take a harder line on the legislation: “Republicans on the Hill are afraid of saying too much,” he noted.
Further recommendations from the Karl Rove of the Commode included having “someone go in there and kick some ass.”
Digital Marketing Factoid Of The Day: Online Gaming Explodes
When we ain't got no money cuz of the economy, apparently we turn to free online games. Check out this growth!
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
Check Out Knowledge @ Wharton's Joss Whedon Interview!
Surf over here and see a geat interview of Hollywood maverick Joss Whedon and his innovative plan to monetize entertainment content. Very insightful!
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Starbucks $15 Extra Value Meals
OK, I made the price up. But Starbuck's has signaled to the world that they will be offering pairings of food and drink items at attractive prices, in a nod to the economy and the continued strength of McDonald's and other fast fooders' value options.
So here are my totally out my tuckus predictions.
Venti Caramel Machiato and Classic Coffee Cake: $15
Venti Coffee and Reduced Fat Turkey Bacon Sandwich: $15
Tall Hot Tea and Apple Fritter: $15
Cheese and Crackers Plate and Grande Iced Tea: $15
Tall Caramel Frappucino and a lovely recycled napkin: $15
Large Green Salad and 4 ounce gratuity cup of tap water: $15
Tall Vivanno (chalk flavored) and a cut up apple: $15
I kid. Actually I love Starbuck's so consider these jokes of amour. But the idea of this company competing with the McSausage McBiscuit for a Mcbuck is an odd direction to take, in my view.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
White Paper Wednesdays: Social Network FUTURE
I really liked this one, from Charlene Li of Altimeter Group, on the futre trends in social media and social nets. Defintely worth a few minutes of your time.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
White Paper Wednesdays: Obama And Macro Trends
This preso is about Obama and how he is reflecting and shaping major cultural macro trends. But even if you ar enot into Obama, you'll learn a lot about the major cultural forces affecting our society.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
Digital Marketing Factoid Of The Day: Top 50 Comscore Sites - December
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White Paper Wednesdays: Consumer Site Usability
Probably the most important and overlooked area of ebusiness is the value of usability in improving ROI. You can drive all the punters int he world to your site, but if they can't make their way to the checkout you won't sell anything. Don't be a moron. Do usability work. By a sharpie named Paul Rouke.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
White Paper Wednesdays: Mobile's Future
Superb deck discussion what may happen to drive mobile between now and 2020. TrendsSpotting decks are always great and this one is no exception.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
White Paper Wednesdays: Marketing In A Recession
I really enjoyed this quick deck - full of good thinking and creative ways to turn the economic frown upside down. From www.marketingsavant.com
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
9 Questions for PR and Public Presence Expert Bronwyn Saglimbeni
I've known Bronwyn for some 5 or so years, and have never had a conversation with her in which I didn't learn something. I've also never had a conversation with her in which I didn't end up laughing with her until I cried. Always a marvelous quality.
Because she handles corporate PR and presence consulting in both advertising and tech, I thought it would be valuable to ask her to answer a few questions on how her business relates to ours.
Note: Catalyst:SF has no economic relationship with Bronwyn's own company or her new joint venture.
1. For those that don't yet know you, can you tell us a little about your background and experience?
I’ve been doing PR for nearly 15 years now, focused mainly on technology and professional services companies. I’ve managed global media relations programs for start-ups and well established companies alike, including Organic, Interwoven, Onyx (through Reidy Communications), E*TRADE, ClearStation and others (through Blanc & Otus) Carat Fusion, Isobar, Propel Software, Savvion and others as well. What I’m known for in the public presence space is my playful, irreverent approach to coaching, combined with a knack for delivering “tough love” in a way that allows executives to achieve true breakthroughs. I encourage clients to be authentic, engaging and approachable. As a result, many of my clients have garnered coverage in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Businessweek, CNBC and others. And make the most of speaking engagements at Ad:Tech, AAAAs, Under the Radar, Demo, and other top industry events.
2. You have a special interest in helping women build and refine their public presences. Can you explain how the "rules" of public speaking and presence are different for women than for men?
When you get down to it, the rules of public speaking are essentially the same for men and women. The special challenge women face is that we get so few opportunities to be on stage. If you think of the last several conferences you’ve attended, the ratio of male to female probably leaned overwhelmingly male. When a woman gets an opportunity to speak or present, she REALLY needs to nail it. She has to do twice as well as her male counterparts, so that next time the conference planners will be more open to booking she and other female executives. There are of course preconceptions the audience may have when a woman steps onto the stage, but those are easily dispelled if she finds a way to entertain, educate and inspire – in that order.
3. How much of being successful in public speaking is a function of learning the rules versus knowing yourself?
What a great question! What a great metaphor for life as well. The show stoppers are those who learn the rules, toss out the rules that don’t serve them, and have the courage to bring their authentic selves forward on stage. This takes a tremendous amount of confidence, creativity, and passion. But it’s an irresistible combination for an audience.
The best advice I can give to anyone about public speaking is this:
A) Treat each opportunity as if it may be your only shot, and give it all you’ve got. The good news is: the bar is set low. 95% of public speakers are god awful and painfully dull.
B) Don’t begin your presentation planning efforts in PowerPoint. You may end up there, but it’s not a good place to begin. Start by asking yourself “What do I want the audience to learn? What do I want them to feel? And what do I want them to do with the information I give them?” Start building your story from here. Once you have it outlined, then open PowerPoint.
C) Whatever you do, don’t be boring. Give yourself license to be creative. Adults don’t learn new information by staring at words on a slide. We learn through storytelling, and often humor is a great way to impress an idea in someone’s mind. Some of the best advice I ever received about public speaking was from Pat Morrissey, back when we were working at Scient together. Before a speaking engagement I had, he said, “Bronwyn, the minute you set foot on that stage, you are in the entertainment business.” What he meant was we need to educate the audience, but if we’re not interesting, no one will hear what we’ve got to say!
4. What special challenges do women face in owning a room and having the impact they deserve?
Many of us tend to fall into unfortunate stereotypes or archetypes when we are in a public speaking setting – be it a crowded meeting table or a speaking engagement. In some instances, we perceive that the room questions our credibility or experience, which can sometimes trigger defensiveness. In other instances, we may put on the old armor of sexuality, and use flirtatiousness as a shield. Other times we worry about preconceived notions that we are busy mothers -- distracted and emotional -- so we become icy and abrupt.
Women who have learned to observe the feelings that trigger bad habits are those that pave the way for a new generation of women who won’t have to worry about overcoming these stereotypes and preconceptions.
5. I read on your blog that you are in a new sort of partnership with Kristine Schaefer. Tell us about the new partnership and the services you are offering.
Kristine Schaefer is one of the best executive communications in the country, and has coached hundreds of top executives. Recently, she and I began discussing the issues women face as they grow in their public speaking abilities. We realized that most women in business don’t get the opportunity to participate in our corporate coaching sessions, so we developed a workshop that was accessible to them as individuals. Hence, The Power of Our Presence workshop was born.
6. Can you identify a prominent corporate leader that you think embodies what are the keys to effective presence and gravitas? And what is it about the way they present themselves that makes them so powerful?
Whether you agree with her management philosophy or political position, Carly Fiorina is an excellent presenter. Here is a link to a wonderful example from Stanford’s speaking series: The Dynamics of Change and Fear.
She projects a feeling of confidence and credibility, without being intimidating. Notice how she uses her body movement and voice to tell a story and engage the audience. She is fluid, she is strong, and she is completely at ease in her skin. Also notice she is not chained to a presentation deck. She is connecting with the human beings in the audience, occasionally using notes to support herself where necessary. Lastly, she knows how to use silence to bring emphasis to her points. When making a particularly powerful statement, she pauses afterwards to let the idea sink in. This gives weight to these sentences. If she’s struggling to find the right word, she pauses. She doesn’t fill the space with “ums, uhs” etc. She is poised, she’s in control, and she’s delivering a set of messages that are compelling to the audience. Bravo, Carly.
7. I know one of your specialties is in helping people present themselves better in public. How has the advent of all of the virtual communication tools affected the importance of face-to-face presence and interactions?
I had a revelation along these lines recently when I participated in a video conference meeting. I noticed in fairly short order that the energy in the room (both the room I was in, and the room I was virtually peering into) was incredibly low. Even when people were making emphatic points at each other, there was just no real connection, no real feeling of presence. Suddenly I realized that the skills I teach executives for CNBC appearances are the very same skills we need to employ in these situations.
When a client goes in for an on camera interview with CNBC, he or she needs to make eye contact with the camera lens as if it is a human eye vs. a cold black metal circle. For those hoping to have presence in video conferences, they need to find that camera lens and treat it just like an extra set of human eyes – and connect as they make their points in the conversation. As executives, we need to find that “human eye contact” metaphor for whatever the medium is… how do we really reach out and connect if we are an avatar in a SecondLife meeting? On a conference call line, etc? We have to make a conscious effort to bring out our personalities and presence into every interaction – be it virtual or real – otherwise, we become another forgettable voice on the other end of a hopelessly long conference call.
8. So I have to ask. Half the PR people I've met say it's all about connections, and the other half say it's all about strategy and inventiveness. Which is it?
20 years ago, connections made all the difference during the days of the martini lunch (oh how I wish I could have been there for those days;). Now, it is an entirely new ballgame. While connections are important of course, they don’t get you very far when suddenly many of the reporters you’ve worked with over the past 10 years are now unemployed and calling YOU for leads on new jobs. The reality is that there are too many PR people and too few reporters. The print media industry is in crisis, and readers have interest in reading only so many different online publications. So you have a few key journalists and a few key bloggers (many of whom have become syndicated) to work with – it’s a small world indeed.
This new media reality requires PR people to be equal parts strategist and news-chaser. For example, you could pitch a story your client is excited about for weeks with no success. Why? Because the overtaxed reporter is covering 5 different beats -- responsibilities that may not completely intersect with the story you’re pitching. Meanwhile, if you see some breaking news happening in that sector, and offer up your client for commentary, you’ve got yourself a golden opportunity to give a reporter what she’s looking for – insightful commentary on something she may not know a lot about. Assuming the interview goes well, you now have a good relationship with a reporter that knows you’re actually paying attention to her needs. She may even listen to your story idea next time.
9. A lot of your focus is doing PR for agencies and tech. How have bloggers and citizen journalists affected how you market companies in these two sectors?
It’s very easy to write off smaller bloggers or citizen journalists, and many companies do. Actually, what such new media people are is yet another means of connection with the outside world. While a company may not have the time to individually respond to each blogger, that company does have the ability to make a blogger’s life easier by distributing news in a more “grab and go” format. Most of the smaller bloggers or citizen journalists don’t expect to get an interview with the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, but they better be able to grab a screen shot of a new product or easily grab a quote or two from a press release. You would be surprised how few press releases include visual assets – even something as basic as a company logo. Luckily, the PR industry is getting better about this, and many of the wire services offer excellent social media press release formats.
Thanks Bronwyn!
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
It's Official (Sorta): 500,000 Kindles Sold
Amazon has been cagey about Kindle sales since its launch and as a result pundits have been projecting sales. A lot. And those projections seems to range from about 6 to a quadrillion.
But a crafty analyst at Citi named Mark Mahaney has a much better way of estimating. By using the Sprint 10-K, which lists the number of Kindles that have been activated over the past months, he has found that about 500,000 Kindles have been connected to the Sprint network. That's about $180,000,000 retail! And for a device that looks uncannily like a little Commodore 64.
So what's in store for '09? With the widely expected launch of an attractive Kindle 2 this quarter, sales of 1,000,000 Kindles aren't out of the question. $300-$400 Million bucks plus the book sales.
Wow. Could Kindle hardware be a billion dollar hardware seller in '10???
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
Blogosphere Abuzz WIth Sentinel's Revelation of Thousands of Sex Offenders On FaceBook
Yep, you[ve probably read about it in a few places already. Actually more than a few as Google blog search indicates that there are 1785 posts about the issue from the past 24 hours at the time I am writing this.
A security company run by a former NYC police officer says that it has found 8,000 sex offenders on Facebook without much effort. The company, which is used by MySpace to police its membership, made the revelations this week in an announcement that Facebook has since responded to.
Here are a couple of quotes I culled from Tech Crunch:
Of the 8,000 matches, Facebook spokesman Barry Schmidt responds:
Obviously, we are going to investigate. We hope to define them and remove them as soon as possible.
He also cautions that these should be viewed as potential matches:
Facebook does not allow the same investigations by an outsider as by insiders. Saying there is a positive match of 8,000 sex offenders is difficult to for an outsider to do. You would need would need more than a name and a photo the size of your thumb. The correct way would be to characterize them as potential matches.
And he says this of Sentinal [sic]:
For a company that has a mission to keep kids safe, we find it irresponsible that they wouldn’t share this with us. Or, if not with us, how about with law enforcement? This could have been an announcement that Sentinel and Facebook removed 8,000 potential sex offenders. We still don’t have the information on who they are. If you are willing to share that with us, we will investigate immediately.
Later, Facebook issued a release saying that they are turning off the accounts associated with IDs of the alleged offenders as a precautionary measure.
Facebook detailed in a press release that they have a number of initiatives designed to protect people from sexual predators.
Whether Sentinel offers a solution that is better than Facebook's homegrown stuff is something I dunno. But this is clearly an issue that is going to get a lot of attention this week.
A security company run by a former NYC police officer says that it has found 8,000 sex offenders on Facebook without much effort. The company, which is used by MySpace to police its membership, made the revelations this week in an announcement that Facebook has since responded to.
Here are a couple of quotes I culled from Tech Crunch:
Of the 8,000 matches, Facebook spokesman Barry Schmidt responds:
Obviously, we are going to investigate. We hope to define them and remove them as soon as possible.
He also cautions that these should be viewed as potential matches:
Facebook does not allow the same investigations by an outsider as by insiders. Saying there is a positive match of 8,000 sex offenders is difficult to for an outsider to do. You would need would need more than a name and a photo the size of your thumb. The correct way would be to characterize them as potential matches.
And he says this of Sentinal [sic]:
For a company that has a mission to keep kids safe, we find it irresponsible that they wouldn’t share this with us. Or, if not with us, how about with law enforcement? This could have been an announcement that Sentinel and Facebook removed 8,000 potential sex offenders. We still don’t have the information on who they are. If you are willing to share that with us, we will investigate immediately.
Later, Facebook issued a release saying that they are turning off the accounts associated with IDs of the alleged offenders as a precautionary measure.
Facebook detailed in a press release that they have a number of initiatives designed to protect people from sexual predators.
Whether Sentinel offers a solution that is better than Facebook's homegrown stuff is something I dunno. But this is clearly an issue that is going to get a lot of attention this week.
Digital Marketing Factoid Of The Day: Search Share A Bright Spot For Yahoos
ScrapBlog And PC Based Scrapbooking
Those of us living in SF, NYC, or LA may only be tangentially aware of the scrap booking phenom in millions of US households. Though doubtless there are hundreds of thousands of scrap bookers in these cities as well.
A company called Creative Memories bakes bajillions of dollars helping scrap bookers make beautiful memory books -- and in an age where people are coming to reconnect with the idea of family as a touchstone in their lives, the trends is surely to continue.
Now a company called Scrapblog is Hell bent on making the phenom digital, and with a new chunk of VC money, they may just their way. Essentially this is a way to make books out of photos and other such valuable elements in our lives, and present them in attractive and interactive ways. You can share them online or print them for a more tangible offering.
Here's a vid to give you an intro to the service.
Interestingly, they also offer a marketplace of gorgeous graphics to help you make even more attractive works. An opportunity to make an online scrap booking tool at least as profitable as Creative Memories!
Whether you are currently a scrap booker or not, give it a look. The designs really are something to see. Now, whether , who often work in groups, take to doing it on PC versus the more tactile cut and paste method, I am not sure. But I have great hopes for this cool service.
A company called Creative Memories bakes bajillions of dollars helping scrap bookers make beautiful memory books -- and in an age where people are coming to reconnect with the idea of family as a touchstone in their lives, the trends is surely to continue.
Now a company called Scrapblog is Hell bent on making the phenom digital, and with a new chunk of VC money, they may just their way. Essentially this is a way to make books out of photos and other such valuable elements in our lives, and present them in attractive and interactive ways. You can share them online or print them for a more tangible offering.
Here's a vid to give you an intro to the service.
Interestingly, they also offer a marketplace of gorgeous graphics to help you make even more attractive works. An opportunity to make an online scrap booking tool at least as profitable as Creative Memories!
Whether you are currently a scrap booker or not, give it a look. The designs really are something to see. Now, whether , who often work in groups, take to doing it on PC versus the more tactile cut and paste method, I am not sure. But I have great hopes for this cool service.
Starjacking And The Service Or Else Economy
An acquaintance sent me an email today suggesting I write about starjacking. I had not heard of this phenomenon, but quickly learned what an incredible development it truly is. And no, this isn't about stealing Starbuck's WIFI access.
Starjacking works like this: a consumer gets bad service from a company, complains, and said company does nothing to make restitution. In retaliation, the consumer and hundreds or even thousands of other people visit the various rating sites online and negatively rate the company’s offerings, until the collective starsault depresses the company's ratings.
Zorro!
So, for example, say you run an airline that currently enjoys a 5 star rating (aside: yes I know, it is to laugh!) on various feedback sites. Then your team makes a passenger sit on a seat soggy with a child’s pee, and offers no compensation for the moist inconvenience. You wake up tomorrow and discover that your rating has dropped to 1.5 stars, and hundreds of text complaints have been added to your ratings soup. Now you’re pissed instead of the passenger. Arr arr.
Zorro!
The vigilante nature of the digital public never ceases to amaze me. And doubtless there are companies that deserve their overcast ratings from such starjackings. Doubtless too, some companies will suffer from star theft for no good reason.
I am reminded of the sage words of PR pro/maven/diva Bronwyn "Own The Room" Saglimbeni who once said to me, “The difference between PR today and PR 20 years ago is that you cannot ignore anyone. Some blogger you’ve never heard of calls with a request, and if you don’t answer it quickly, you’re in for a somethingstorm.”
With starjacking we are now in an age when anyone with a beef needs to be treated with courtesy. Fancy that in a so-called service economy. A lesson that mobile companies, to take a particularly glaring example, would be wise to remember.
Starjacking works like this: a consumer gets bad service from a company, complains, and said company does nothing to make restitution. In retaliation, the consumer and hundreds or even thousands of other people visit the various rating sites online and negatively rate the company’s offerings, until the collective starsault depresses the company's ratings.
Zorro!
So, for example, say you run an airline that currently enjoys a 5 star rating (aside: yes I know, it is to laugh!) on various feedback sites. Then your team makes a passenger sit on a seat soggy with a child’s pee, and offers no compensation for the moist inconvenience. You wake up tomorrow and discover that your rating has dropped to 1.5 stars, and hundreds of text complaints have been added to your ratings soup. Now you’re pissed instead of the passenger. Arr arr.
Zorro!
The vigilante nature of the digital public never ceases to amaze me. And doubtless there are companies that deserve their overcast ratings from such starjackings. Doubtless too, some companies will suffer from star theft for no good reason.
I am reminded of the sage words of PR pro/maven/diva Bronwyn "Own The Room" Saglimbeni who once said to me, “The difference between PR today and PR 20 years ago is that you cannot ignore anyone. Some blogger you’ve never heard of calls with a request, and if you don’t answer it quickly, you’re in for a somethingstorm.”
With starjacking we are now in an age when anyone with a beef needs to be treated with courtesy. Fancy that in a so-called service economy. A lesson that mobile companies, to take a particularly glaring example, would be wise to remember.
VaticanTube And The Attraction Versus Promotion Dilemma
Two years ago I rode a plane from Rome to London next to a Roman Catholic priest from Ireland and got to talking about him on the Church;s evangelical efforts. As many know, the number of people who identify as Roman Catholics in the Western World has declined pretty steadily since Vatican Two, although the number of Catholics in Developing Countries has increased markedly.
Naturally this poses a number of issues for the Church, including a decline in the number of people with lots of money or even some money by Western standards giving to the Church.
But our discussion wasn't about that - rather it was about how the Church was looking to the hard core Protestant faiths in the US and how they were growing rapidly at the same time as main line churches like Catholicism were on the decline.
He told me, and I have since heard confirmed by various news sources, that Rome has decided that the way to grow again is to go hard core -- to cease efforts to be more relevant to the prevailing culture and instead return to the principles of significant demands for Catholics. As evidence, he told me that the numbers of people 18-24 in the Church were increasing as young people sought the absolutism of Church doctrine.
The Church is also experimenting with catholic living arrangements, among them the city of Ave Maria in Florida which markets itself as a Catholic community and is centered -- literally -- on a massive church in the town square.
So I was interested to see that Rome now offers a YouTube Channel, which, at the time of this writing, contains 34 videos, mostly of the Pope speaking about various religious and cultural issues he cares about.
My observation is from an uneducated perspective -- I am not a Roman Catholic nor am I considering joining the Church. But I was struck at the quiet approach they have taken with these videos. Benedict is no Swaggart, and thank the Lord for that.
It's gotten me thinking about branding to a hard core audience and how perhaps we need to rethink the way we create messages, moving from a concerted effort to appeal to the wisdom of the crowd to trying to attract a crowd with our own wisdom. Rome appears to have made its choice, and Protestant Chruches in the US that have created such seemingly bizarre concepts as Christian yoga classes have made theirs. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out, and how the results might have an impact on the ways we brand today.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Eight O'Clock Coffee Gets The Makeover You Pick!
Little known fact: Eight O'Clock Coffee, which used to be an A&P brand and now has broader though still somewhat limited distribution, is celebrating its 150th anniversary by doing a packaging makeover. And they are asking consumers to vote on which package design is better.
They're using the ePrize platform to manage the contest.
Coffeephiles should know that Eight O'Clock is consistently rated the best or one of the best coffees in America, and at a pricepoint considerably lower than the Illy or Starbucks you may use.
Drink for thought. Arr arr. And if you don't pick the bag on the left, you're a nutter.
Where Have I Been? The Making Of Powered By You...Coolest Car Ad Campaign in Decades!
This vid is a must see -- a making of video for an incredible campaign airing in Canada to reposition a car company. And its a year old. Where was I?
I view this as as groundbreaking as Mercury doing the 60s songs for Sable in the 1980s. Though perhaps even more groundbreaking because of what it says about the car company. And that company? Japanese? Nope. German? Nope. French...Itialian...Swedish...Korean? Nope. North American.
Ford to be precise. Can you believe this is from the company that used to have the jingle
Have you driven a Ford...
...then you don't know what yer missin',
...have you driven a Ford...
...lately?
No jingle here. Just a magnificent idea, wonderfully executed in a way that makes you think Dearborn may actually be changing.
Oh, just watch the damned vid.
Cool, hunh? Or should I say Cool, eeh?
Let's hope they start airing this in the good ole USA.
Y&R Canada made it BTW.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
I view this as as groundbreaking as Mercury doing the 60s songs for Sable in the 1980s. Though perhaps even more groundbreaking because of what it says about the car company. And that company? Japanese? Nope. German? Nope. French...Itialian...Swedish...Korean? Nope. North American.
Ford to be precise. Can you believe this is from the company that used to have the jingle
Have you driven a Ford...
...then you don't know what yer missin',
...have you driven a Ford...
...lately?
No jingle here. Just a magnificent idea, wonderfully executed in a way that makes you think Dearborn may actually be changing.
Oh, just watch the damned vid.
Cool, hunh? Or should I say Cool, eeh?
Let's hope they start airing this in the good ole USA.
Y&R Canada made it BTW.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
Hot Metal From Ford: The Flex
Don't let all the bailout talk distract you from this pretty new car. Sttttts. The Flex = hot.
The gargantuan sun room is nifty!
The gargantuan sun room is nifty!
25 Years of Mac Pictures
Applephiles will delight in this post on Read Write Web showing the evolution of Apple's flagship brand.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
LunchBreak Viral Video: Interesting Anti-Abortion Ad Rejected For Super Bowl
From a group called CatholicVote.com. Typically, the nets reject advocacy ads for major sporting events and other spectacles with enormous reach.
Digital Marketing Factoid of the Day: Inauguration CRANKS Online Video
Where were you when President Obama was inaugurated? Well, if you are like millions of people, you were in front of a PC. Check out the Comscore traffic growth on Inauguration Day, across the board and especially on the big three cable news sites:
An aside, aren't you capital T thrilled that we can say President Obama now?
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
An aside, aren't you capital T thrilled that we can say President Obama now?
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
Kindle 2 Buzz
Boy Genius Report has a bunch of advance pics on what is said to be the Kindle 2.0. I read some of the advance stuff from Amazon about an important business announcement booked for 2/9 at the Hudson Library in NYC. Now, that isn't NECESSARILY about Kindle, but there is so much sneak peek stuff out there that I can only presume that the Amazon "oh please don't talk about this" both protest too much PR org is in high gear.
Whatever, I'll be buying one, that's for sure!
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
Six Ways to Laugh Your Way To Success
Humor has largely supplanted other emotional styles as digital media have grown. Here are six ways to more effectively use humor in the service of brand building.
Special thanks to iMediaConnection for publishing this pieve first.
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What happened to schmaltz?
The sort of ads where kids ran and hugged their moms in delirious approval for peanut butter sandwiches or quilted toilet paper? Ditto enjoinders to “Bake someone happy?” Or Puffy doughboys giggling when poked? How 'bout bottles of fluorescent whitening agents giving Mommas the magic? These used to be the keystones of branding, at least in Mom centric dayparts.
What happened to schmaltz? And maudlin? And “slice of death”?
Digital happened. Since the advent of digital, the number of brands using humor to deliver their messages has grown markedly. One can only surmise that this is because humor “works.” Works at both connecting brands to audiences and at reshaping brand imagery in powerful ways.
Of course, humor doesn’t always deliver results for brands. Many have tried to “do” humor and flopped,. Sometimes the jokes get overshadowed by the ferric fist of brand ID. Sometimes we laugh at the ad and forget the brand, And sometimes the humor is gratuitous – a way to attract attention, but not shaped to serve brand messaging goals.
Humor is hard to do, but perhaps even harder is crafting funny programs and messages that deliver real brand benefits. As we all know, assessing the impact of any creative on brand strength is pretty squishy science. But we can identify creative programs that drove buzz and virality online, and through this identification process attempt to tease out some core principles of brand beneficial humor.
So let’s begin, shall we?
1. BRAND FUNNY HAS TO BE TARGET FUNNY
Humor is not necessarily universal, and understanding what makes your target laugh is, naturally, a critical consideration when you use humor to reinforce or evolve your brand imagery. Even the broadest comedic concepts have their detractors – not everyone even liked I Love Lucy.
Even if much humor were universal, it STILL might make sense to focus on target specific laughs, because these reflect an insight into that might ultimately aid in honing the best brand image possible. Check out these examples of how target specific humor really helped deliver for a brand.
Suave and Sprint: In The Motherhood
One of the chronic problems in the ad biz has always been men writing ads for themselves, thinking they were going to resonate with women. The most glaring example in my career was the development of an animatic for drain opener where the drain was left SO OPEN that it sucked the entire house down the plug hole.
And what did the research tell us? Women didn’t want their houses sucked into the sewer. They like their homes, thank you very much, and found the ad, which was conceived of written, art directed, animated, account managed, and approved by men, irrelevant at best and violent at worst.
The people at Suave and Sprint are clearly much smarter than we were. Their In The motherhood series generates millions of voluntary views, driven by the quality of the stories and the decidedly female POV. By humorizing the daily lives and situations Mom faces, In the Motherhood rings the bell for brand relevance and liking.
http://www.inthemotherhood.com/
Command and Conquer 3: Conquer This Life
From Draft FCB came this wonderful, 102% bizarre viral website for Command and Conquer 3. I don’t understand it, but I do know they got giant traffic and that game sales have been brisk. Game marketing largely boils down to showcasing graphics and gameplay, and this site does that but does it in a way that clearly resonates with core and noncore strategy gamers alike.
http://www.conquerthislife.com/
2. BRAND FUNNY IS FUNNY YOU CAN SEE
So much of advertising is about tapping into the conventional wisdom, and as a result advertising imagery has become just as much a core element of our culture as is going to church on Easter Sunday, Trick or Treating on Halloween, or seeing an action flick on Fourth of July weekend.
In my view, visual humor is much more likely to “work” in digital environments than verbal humor,. Though words definitely bring the point home once visuals have grabbed the eyeballs. Because online is a scanned medium, telegraphic imagery can offer the stopping power necessary to grab consumer attention. Words do matter, but the challenge of word-driven humor is that it is hard to “get” when scanned, and indeed hard for many people to “get” at all.
Slapstick and physical comedy are forms of visual humor that helped give TV its start, and making the joke visual has been a critical part of humor that works for brands online
Smirnoff Ice Tea Partay
How do you make a tea flavored alcohol beverage relevant to young people? And do it without seemingl like a company trying too hard o make tea relevant to the younger set? Smirnoff Raw Tea’s P-Unit uses the refined, stuffy, irrelevant essence of the brand equity of “tea” to make the Raw Tea offering supremely relevant.
After seeing this image of the small-ass butt shot in white chinos straight out of The Talbots (a move I call the Lil Kim-berly,) who could resist sending this vid to all 297 of their Bebo friends?
Carlton Draft Flash Dance
Here the visual humor is using the iconic imagery of the “tairedest” American movie and the physical consequences of drinking lots of tasty Australian beer. All leveraged to connect with users, demonstrate the greatness of Carlton, and show how much the brand should mean to you.
Durex 100 Million Reasons
If asked to think of condom imagery, many people would conjure steamy silhouettes on condom packages, or something extremely explicit. Problem is, sexuality is so prevalent online that it would be challenging to find prurient imagery to support a brand. Add to that the different senses of what men versus women find “hot” and it’s easy to see why a condom brand would turn to humor to capture and hold attention.
This video of a man and his “boys” has the sort of stopping power that keeps people talking about it years after it hit the digisphere. I remember getting a link to this from about a dozen people – men and women both.
Yes, one could certainly say that it doesn’t say a whole heckuvalot about what makes Durex different, but sometimes all we have is imagery to differentiate us. And seriously, what are they gonna talk about? Ribs for HER pleasure?
3. BRAND FUNNY MAKES CONSTRAINTS WORK TO ENHANCE THE LAUGHTER
Often, teams view creative constraints as barriers to great ideas. And they can be at times. But they can also be ways to create humor in service to building and changing brand perceptions. Surprise and redirection are, of course, two of the keystones of (at least American style) funny. By challenging the creative constraints online, brands can truly deliver chuckles.
Wario Game: Shake It!
Wii has transformed the gaming business. This is a viral site for the Wii title Wario, where the key difference was the addition of shaking the controller in an otherwise telegraphic side scroller. The difference really came to life in this powerful and funny destruction of the rules about how web pages work.
Check out their execution to see how breaking the rules of how online and in particular online advertising works to really dramatize what’s special about this title.
Apple: New York Times Ads
Banners occupy clearly defined spaces -- largely ignorable on pages. That’s how many consumers see them. But by flowing messages together, and using the look and feel of the content on the page to enhance their presence, Apple drives home the CW about Microsoft Vista.
4. BRAND FUNNY IS OFTEN NOT READY TO TV
Consumers appear to have a much higher level of tolerance for “edgy content” online. A big factor in this is that we can more accurately pinpoint target segments and deliver messages attuned to THEIR particular tolerances, rather than the limited tolerance of the most conservative members of society.
Caterer.com: Little Gordon
Gordon Ramsay has created a powerful personal brand among foodies and through his four letter centric approach to running restaurants. A jobs website for hospitality employees was very successful in using the Ramsay brand to connect with restaurant insiders. First see Gordon Ramsay, then one of the viral messages for Caterer.com.
Charmin: Slang
Who would expect the following message to come from the company that also makes Ivory Snow? But while such a message might have driven a backlash on TV (at least in the US…); it drives a lot of viraling online. What better way to connect with the sophomoric in (many of) us.
What’s interesting here is that this is one of the relatively few examples I know of where an audio joke has really viralled well.
5. BRAND FUNNY MAKES BRAND ATTACKS HILARIOUS
Anyone who has been on the Internet for more than a few days knows that the range of opinion online is much broader and more direct than in other media. What’s funny to many of us is when enormous megacorps start sending around cease and desist letters to 15 year olds with blogs nine people read a month.
“Dear Mickey, Your blog Mickey’s Place and the mention of a rodent in your post of September 9 is a clear infringement on our trademarks…”
Alternatively, if they address an attack with humor, they are better able to defend themselves while bringing the online audience to their side.
Paris Hilton Brand: The Old Guy
McCain/Palin attacked Obama by associating him with Paris Hilton. In the process, the hotel heiress’s personal brand suffered. The ads made her seem too shallow. (?)
But Paris and her PR organization squashed the GOP like a bug with this online only video that made us celebrate and actually root for la femme du empty. First the ad, then Paris’s response:
Levi’s: Unbutton Your Beast
Levis understands that 501s are a little dirty, though dirty in a “good” way. They constantly offend conservative groups with groin centric messaging, and don’t care a whit about the angst they cause. In fact, their quite funny mini site “Unbutton Your Beast” seems to bait it. The video below is the result of their personalization engine, which allows you to choose a phallic avatar and deliver a message to friends.
One in three Americans may be a conservative evangelical Christian, but the viral users of this site are certainly telling the world that they are not in this population.
6. BRAND FUNNY LETS USERS BRING THE FUNNY
Because of the two way nature of the web, UGC is powerful currency online, and UGC on behalf of brands can be quite powerful in enhancing/evolving brand perceptions. Combine that power with humor and a brand can make enormous strides in growing relevance and purchase intent.
The additional advantage of asking users to bring the funny is that there is a greater likelihood that the humor of the message will actually resonate. Humor is difficult to do, and empowering a flock of users to take their stab at it means that your brand has more chances to be more vivid to your target.
Schick Quattro: Make an Ad
Doritos: Winner
Polk Audio: Best Rap Ever
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
Special thanks to iMediaConnection for publishing this pieve first.
-----
What happened to schmaltz?
The sort of ads where kids ran and hugged their moms in delirious approval for peanut butter sandwiches or quilted toilet paper? Ditto enjoinders to “Bake someone happy?” Or Puffy doughboys giggling when poked? How 'bout bottles of fluorescent whitening agents giving Mommas the magic? These used to be the keystones of branding, at least in Mom centric dayparts.
What happened to schmaltz? And maudlin? And “slice of death”?
Digital happened. Since the advent of digital, the number of brands using humor to deliver their messages has grown markedly. One can only surmise that this is because humor “works.” Works at both connecting brands to audiences and at reshaping brand imagery in powerful ways.
Of course, humor doesn’t always deliver results for brands. Many have tried to “do” humor and flopped,. Sometimes the jokes get overshadowed by the ferric fist of brand ID. Sometimes we laugh at the ad and forget the brand, And sometimes the humor is gratuitous – a way to attract attention, but not shaped to serve brand messaging goals.
Humor is hard to do, but perhaps even harder is crafting funny programs and messages that deliver real brand benefits. As we all know, assessing the impact of any creative on brand strength is pretty squishy science. But we can identify creative programs that drove buzz and virality online, and through this identification process attempt to tease out some core principles of brand beneficial humor.
So let’s begin, shall we?
1. BRAND FUNNY HAS TO BE TARGET FUNNY
Humor is not necessarily universal, and understanding what makes your target laugh is, naturally, a critical consideration when you use humor to reinforce or evolve your brand imagery. Even the broadest comedic concepts have their detractors – not everyone even liked I Love Lucy.
Even if much humor were universal, it STILL might make sense to focus on target specific laughs, because these reflect an insight into that might ultimately aid in honing the best brand image possible. Check out these examples of how target specific humor really helped deliver for a brand.
Suave and Sprint: In The Motherhood
One of the chronic problems in the ad biz has always been men writing ads for themselves, thinking they were going to resonate with women. The most glaring example in my career was the development of an animatic for drain opener where the drain was left SO OPEN that it sucked the entire house down the plug hole.
And what did the research tell us? Women didn’t want their houses sucked into the sewer. They like their homes, thank you very much, and found the ad, which was conceived of written, art directed, animated, account managed, and approved by men, irrelevant at best and violent at worst.
The people at Suave and Sprint are clearly much smarter than we were. Their In The motherhood series generates millions of voluntary views, driven by the quality of the stories and the decidedly female POV. By humorizing the daily lives and situations Mom faces, In the Motherhood rings the bell for brand relevance and liking.
http://www.inthemotherhood.com/
Command and Conquer 3: Conquer This Life
From Draft FCB came this wonderful, 102% bizarre viral website for Command and Conquer 3. I don’t understand it, but I do know they got giant traffic and that game sales have been brisk. Game marketing largely boils down to showcasing graphics and gameplay, and this site does that but does it in a way that clearly resonates with core and noncore strategy gamers alike.
http://www.conquerthislife.com/
2. BRAND FUNNY IS FUNNY YOU CAN SEE
So much of advertising is about tapping into the conventional wisdom, and as a result advertising imagery has become just as much a core element of our culture as is going to church on Easter Sunday, Trick or Treating on Halloween, or seeing an action flick on Fourth of July weekend.
In my view, visual humor is much more likely to “work” in digital environments than verbal humor,. Though words definitely bring the point home once visuals have grabbed the eyeballs. Because online is a scanned medium, telegraphic imagery can offer the stopping power necessary to grab consumer attention. Words do matter, but the challenge of word-driven humor is that it is hard to “get” when scanned, and indeed hard for many people to “get” at all.
Slapstick and physical comedy are forms of visual humor that helped give TV its start, and making the joke visual has been a critical part of humor that works for brands online
Smirnoff Ice Tea Partay
How do you make a tea flavored alcohol beverage relevant to young people? And do it without seemingl like a company trying too hard o make tea relevant to the younger set? Smirnoff Raw Tea’s P-Unit uses the refined, stuffy, irrelevant essence of the brand equity of “tea” to make the Raw Tea offering supremely relevant.
After seeing this image of the small-ass butt shot in white chinos straight out of The Talbots (a move I call the Lil Kim-berly,) who could resist sending this vid to all 297 of their Bebo friends?
Carlton Draft Flash Dance
Here the visual humor is using the iconic imagery of the “tairedest” American movie and the physical consequences of drinking lots of tasty Australian beer. All leveraged to connect with users, demonstrate the greatness of Carlton, and show how much the brand should mean to you.
Durex 100 Million Reasons
If asked to think of condom imagery, many people would conjure steamy silhouettes on condom packages, or something extremely explicit. Problem is, sexuality is so prevalent online that it would be challenging to find prurient imagery to support a brand. Add to that the different senses of what men versus women find “hot” and it’s easy to see why a condom brand would turn to humor to capture and hold attention.
This video of a man and his “boys” has the sort of stopping power that keeps people talking about it years after it hit the digisphere. I remember getting a link to this from about a dozen people – men and women both.
Yes, one could certainly say that it doesn’t say a whole heckuvalot about what makes Durex different, but sometimes all we have is imagery to differentiate us. And seriously, what are they gonna talk about? Ribs for HER pleasure?
3. BRAND FUNNY MAKES CONSTRAINTS WORK TO ENHANCE THE LAUGHTER
Often, teams view creative constraints as barriers to great ideas. And they can be at times. But they can also be ways to create humor in service to building and changing brand perceptions. Surprise and redirection are, of course, two of the keystones of (at least American style) funny. By challenging the creative constraints online, brands can truly deliver chuckles.
Wario Game: Shake It!
Wii has transformed the gaming business. This is a viral site for the Wii title Wario, where the key difference was the addition of shaking the controller in an otherwise telegraphic side scroller. The difference really came to life in this powerful and funny destruction of the rules about how web pages work.
Check out their execution to see how breaking the rules of how online and in particular online advertising works to really dramatize what’s special about this title.
Apple: New York Times Ads
Banners occupy clearly defined spaces -- largely ignorable on pages. That’s how many consumers see them. But by flowing messages together, and using the look and feel of the content on the page to enhance their presence, Apple drives home the CW about Microsoft Vista.
4. BRAND FUNNY IS OFTEN NOT READY TO TV
Consumers appear to have a much higher level of tolerance for “edgy content” online. A big factor in this is that we can more accurately pinpoint target segments and deliver messages attuned to THEIR particular tolerances, rather than the limited tolerance of the most conservative members of society.
Caterer.com: Little Gordon
Gordon Ramsay has created a powerful personal brand among foodies and through his four letter centric approach to running restaurants. A jobs website for hospitality employees was very successful in using the Ramsay brand to connect with restaurant insiders. First see Gordon Ramsay, then one of the viral messages for Caterer.com.
Charmin: Slang
Who would expect the following message to come from the company that also makes Ivory Snow? But while such a message might have driven a backlash on TV (at least in the US…); it drives a lot of viraling online. What better way to connect with the sophomoric in (many of) us.
What’s interesting here is that this is one of the relatively few examples I know of where an audio joke has really viralled well.
5. BRAND FUNNY MAKES BRAND ATTACKS HILARIOUS
Anyone who has been on the Internet for more than a few days knows that the range of opinion online is much broader and more direct than in other media. What’s funny to many of us is when enormous megacorps start sending around cease and desist letters to 15 year olds with blogs nine people read a month.
“Dear Mickey, Your blog Mickey’s Place and the mention of a rodent in your post of September 9 is a clear infringement on our trademarks…”
Alternatively, if they address an attack with humor, they are better able to defend themselves while bringing the online audience to their side.
Paris Hilton Brand: The Old Guy
McCain/Palin attacked Obama by associating him with Paris Hilton. In the process, the hotel heiress’s personal brand suffered. The ads made her seem too shallow. (?)
But Paris and her PR organization squashed the GOP like a bug with this online only video that made us celebrate and actually root for la femme du empty. First the ad, then Paris’s response:
See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die
Levi’s: Unbutton Your Beast
Levis understands that 501s are a little dirty, though dirty in a “good” way. They constantly offend conservative groups with groin centric messaging, and don’t care a whit about the angst they cause. In fact, their quite funny mini site “Unbutton Your Beast” seems to bait it. The video below is the result of their personalization engine, which allows you to choose a phallic avatar and deliver a message to friends.
One in three Americans may be a conservative evangelical Christian, but the viral users of this site are certainly telling the world that they are not in this population.
6. BRAND FUNNY LETS USERS BRING THE FUNNY
Because of the two way nature of the web, UGC is powerful currency online, and UGC on behalf of brands can be quite powerful in enhancing/evolving brand perceptions. Combine that power with humor and a brand can make enormous strides in growing relevance and purchase intent.
The additional advantage of asking users to bring the funny is that there is a greater likelihood that the humor of the message will actually resonate. Humor is difficult to do, and empowering a flock of users to take their stab at it means that your brand has more chances to be more vivid to your target.
Schick Quattro: Make an Ad
Doritos: Winner
Polk Audio: Best Rap Ever
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
New Online Video Game: Hero On The Hudson
Addictinggames.com has a new flight simulator online game about the US Air Crash. Find it here. Apparently I am not as good a pilot as Sully.
But I got better.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
But I got better.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
Imagine: Blurb.com Is a 2.0 Startup That Is Profitable!
ReadWriteWeb had a funny post about Blurb that pointed out that unlike many of its brethren, this 2.0 does something really unusual -- they make money! That's such a wonderful thing that I thought I'd add my meager voice to the publicosphere.
Blurb is a digital book making offering that lets you upload text and assets, make a book, and order copies for as little as $4.95.
It's a really impressive offering in terms of both ease of use and the creative freedom it allows. And celebrates.
The democratization of book publishing is a remarkable development -- there are now machines that will soon allow a person to order a copy of ANY BOOK in print and get one copy made of it by machine while they wait.
But let's get back to Blurb. With the power to add pictures, graphics, colors, text, and a host of other elements, people with a decent design eye can really make gorgeous offerings. I have made books using the platform on online photo sharing sites, and those are fun and easy, but this is really on another level.
Pricing is also impressive, with a range of offerings at prices that match or beat those of mass produced books. How's that for value?
Try it. Publish your magnum opus. Bring together your cookie recipes. Take all those doggie daycare pictures and bring them together in a single volume.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
Pipl: Deep Web Database Interaction Brings Results
Search is, of course a fascinating and ever changing world. As I have noted in a number of reviews of new semantic and other forms of search, most new options are a variation on the basic oogle or Yahoo concept, with additional layers of social activity or semantic meaning stuck to the top.
Not so Pipl.com, an amazing people search engine that offers a far better way of finding information about people by INTERACTING with the databases of the massive databases that underpin the web.
Think, for a moment about how much more MySpace knows about you than is available on your public profile. Or how much of your personal info is in profiles stored on relational databases instead of pages.
Pipl thought about that construct and did something different. Their model is to query the massive public databases available online and report the results in a well designed, simple results page.
Here's what they say about themselves:
Unlike a typical search-engine, Pipl is designed to retrieve information from the deep web, our robots are set to interact with searchable databases and extract facts, contact details and other relevant information from personal profiles, member directories, scientific publications, court records and numerous other deep-web sources.
Pipl is not just about finding more results; we are using advanced language-analysis and ranking algorithms to bring you the most relevant bits of information about a person in a single, easy-to-read results page.
You should NT expect the site to magically identify the one and only one John Nichols. Or, as the results above indicate, one James Nichols in Oakland CA. There are a number of us, but the page does identify some results about me, and someone who knew me could figure out which pretty fast.
I was very impressed by both the depth and breadth of Pipl. I have used sites in the past through Google and even my beloved Yahoo to no effect. Pipl is different in a remarkable and powerful set of ways. You should definitely give it a flutter to find your missing persons!
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
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