With so much questioning about how the media handle tragedy, there’s an interesting alternative —Wikipedia.
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Communications
Got two minutes for a survey on cell phone and PC use?
If you could spare 1.8 minutes of your time, I am doing a quick survey of mobile phone and PC use.
Just 2 questions.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=290313739972
I’ll be reporting results here on Friday the 27th.
“YNRs” could add new meaning to VNRs in YouTube politics
Not to long ago politicians issued statements via Video news releases the old fashioned way -on tape.
Just two years ago, for instance, Gov. Schwarzenegger was a big user of the VNR. His administration was reportedly using it to sell his tough agenda.
But a new kinds of intro could become standard as politicians rush to employ social media.
Check the opening line of this:
 clipped from www.cnn.com
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On Being – a different kind of newspaper
Speaking of social media, below, there’s an interesting new project called On Being, by the Washington Post.
As the video team leader Jennifer Crandall notes, they are outtakes that retain the goofy and heartwarming parts.
Lost keys for Nissan integrates grassroots and online
I like how Nissan’s agency, True, used grassroots and online for the Nissan Altima campaign. Also, they find a simple way for keys to become a novel medium.
It’s a targeted campaign, at a very specific demographic, in just six cities.
It’s reasonably low-budget, too. All it’s taken is 20,000 sets of keys, intensionally ‘lost’ at some 50 locations in clubs, stadia, and other popular venues in those cities –presumably where this demographic inhabits.
The concept: To illustrate the benefit of keyless entry in the Altima. The key tag describes the benefit, saying "If found please do not return." There are also instructions to visit AltimaKeys.com to renter for a prize. The site talks of the "Next Generation Nissan Altima has
Intelligent Key with Push Button Ignition" and why the owner hasn’t been "paying
attention to my old keys."
Which brings me to the point I try to make all the time: the need to integrate (translated: connect) anything we do to, so that it leads back to the communication objective, and not just enhance the coolness factor of our creative. Like keys, which by themselves are not very sexy (in the marketing world where branded trinkets, and branded foreheads, and even underwear rule) we often have great opportunities with which to connect to targeted audiences, but they hide in plain sight.
The other thing that’s not often said, for fear it will upset too many people, is that memorable branding is not what you slap on to objects, but what you get people to do with your brand. If they see your logo and do nothing about it, it’s still an impression, not a brand experience. You want your audience to start a conversation, with others, and ideally with you as a result of your message.
AIM’s location tracker could be useful for small groups
AOL’s back in the game now innovating in the social media, and it’s not just it’s support of a YouTube killer, and partnerships with NBC and MySpace that’s interesting.
It’s Location Finder, for AIM users, still in beta, will use Wi-Fi hotspots to triangulate a user’s position, much like the way GPS would do, but with more accuracy. This needs work; unless the user ‘teach’ the software by specifying their location it will not be accurate. But with the right inputs it could do better than what triangulation achieves now, using cell phone towers.
Which makes me wonder what this might do, if Twitter could add a similar feature. After all, the major interest in Twitter is the ability for groups to connect and keep tabs on each other. I could see a huge interest in a micro version of Twittervision.
Twitter in the UK
Drew B at the Blog Consultancy, writes one of the most thoughtful explanations of Twitter –what it is, could be, and is not.
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clipped from theblogconsultancy.typepad.com |
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Bum Rush the Charts campaign
Here’s an ambitious project worth supporting. A group calling itself BumRush The Charts plans to propel an indie music band to the top of the iTunes charts. The date is March 22nd.
All they ask is for people to swing by iTunes.com and buy the song Mine Again" by the group Black Lab.
Thanks to Shel Holtz who featured this in the FIR Podcast and blog.
If you’re not sure about making iTunes rich on this day, you’d be glad to know that there’s a sizable payoff for the band. Moreover, the band will donate a big part of the proceeds to a college scholarship. The stats are compelling enough for me to want to support this. When a $0.99 cent song is bought from iTunes, if the artist is represented by a Big Music record label, 0.75 cents goes to the label, and just 0.05 cents to the artist! (Apple keeps 0.19 cents)
For this particular download by Black Lab, 0.40 cents will go to the band, and 0.45 to a scholarship fund (Apple will keep 0.14 cents)
Stengel’s Second Life pitch – lame or clever tactic?
I suppose the theatrics of introducing Jim Stengel as a Second Life avatar, and then teleporting him back to his first life appointment at the AAAA conference last week, was a good way to get the attention of the ad industry –especially the ones who are still holding on to traditional media. Unfortunately, this trick (jumping back to earth from a virtual place) has been done before, and apart from the bragging rights of saying P&G gets Second Life, I am not sure this was the best way to lay the groundwork for the ‘relationship’ theme that he introduced. Or, rather, he use it to underscore his point.
His bigger themes were not about SL, however, but about ‘constant connectivity,’ relationships and co-creation –borrowing from the wikinomics concept.
"We’re getting much more comfortable with the idea that consumers truly
own our brands, and our brand messages. It may be a little scary for us
to "let go," but in the end we must realize that what people say about
our brands is valued far more than what we say.
Just for the record, the focus on building relationships is a recycled one –‘touching lives and improving life’ was a big theme two years ago.
Having said that, I have to say I am a huge fan of Jim Stengel, and have been following his mission to clean up the stables of old-style advertising by challenging agencies with new marketing. In 2004, he announced to a horrified audience that the 30-second spot was dead, and there was no ‘mass’ in mass media. I don’t think he said anything as mind blowing this time, though, except urge agency people to keep stepping out of their comfort zone.
If I was him, I would have delivered my entire speech from Second Life, just to make the point that it was one of the discomfort zones we had better get used to. To get the Leo Burnet Avatar to lecture to him about what Second Life was all about ("Second Life is a virtual world which acts as a really big online brainstorm, yada yada…") was a bit lame, I think. Or maybe he was trying to tone down his antagonistic approach from previous years. Without the marketer hectoring the agencies about what they ought to be thinking about, he gave the agency a chance this time to make him look like newbie.
If this was the idea kudos to you Jim.
Micro, micro targeting
Remember the billboard ads in Spielberg’s Minority Report? The ones where the ads start addressing the potential customer (John Anderton) by name? We’re a long time away from that projected future (2054) but we’ve known for awhile that one-to-one marketing was getting well, funky. This technique is technologically feasible using SMS, for instance, but until now it didn’t take it to the point of actually using the name of the person on outdoor ads .
Now it’s being done. Two strong cases have shown up.
1. Mini Cooper, USA is using RFID that gets customer participation. It’s an interesting case of looking like an intrusive ad, when it’s not. Why? because the customer has to register on the site, receive an RFID key fob, and carry it when driving, which triggers off the messages
2. Wilkes University (as reported by NY Times today) is taking it one step further, by targeting the students on billboards and posters, without their consent –just like direct mail. Apart from the risk of investing so much in a handful of potential students (where there is no real guarantee that these few would respond to the message) they have built other one-to-one elements into the effort. Such as giving the students being targeted in the ads the contact information of current Wilkes’ students who had attended the same high school.
So much more refreshing than the the wasted efforts in mass targeting, a la Super Bowl ads, that are repeatedly proving to be inefficient.
Hoipolloireport 