Play it safe

Promoting personal safety is not an easy task. On the face of it, it should be straightforward; it's only rational to preserve oneself. But safety is also very boring. That's why it's often more effective to take a lateral approach to safety communications.

I came across a good example of a saftety promotion in the Westfield mall in Cairns recently. Instead of hectoring people to watch their step on escalators, blue "feet" were painted on each step - turning escalator safety into a game.

Social Media ROI

Worth checking out - Social media ROI: Socialnomics video by Socialnomics author Erik Qualman. (Thanks to Salvador at Pure Profile for passing it on.)

People buy a story

It's amazing how much people will pay for a litte piece of history. When the property of former chairman of NASDAQ, now jailbird Bernard Madoff, was auctioned on Saturday, his personal property was much in demand.

A personalised New York Mets jacket, worth $720, sold for more $14,500. A set of golf clubs went for thousands of dollars above their intrinsic worth.

The Madoff "brand" is imbued with infamy and scandal and the history of the GFC. People clearly want a piece of it, at a highly inflated price.

It's a demonstration of the value of brands: people buy a story, not just a product.

It also goes to show that there are people more shallow at large in the world than the perpetrator of  what's been described as "the biggest fraud in Wall Street history".

Worldview

To clarify my earlier post, I don't actually feel that our trade press misrepresents us. It's quite a candid reflection of what our industry likes and is like. It's also an indispensable read if you want to be involved in marketing conversations.

What does concern me is that I also read and watch enough of the things my clients and consumers are into. I think some of the most useful questions to ask a client are: What do you consider indispensable reading/viewing? Where do you go for inspiration and entertainment? It helps me see how they frame the world.

An Introvert's Guide to Social Media

original image from mogul monolugues

Personality profiles, such as Myers-Briggs, cast people as introverts or extraverts based on their natural tendencies and attitudes, specifically, the degree to which they are energised - or not - by the company of others. People are roughly split 50-50, except for the Americans, who are overwhelmingly extravert.

As it turns out, I’m ideally suited to a one-man mission to Mars. Over the years I've adapted to human society through responding to my environment. I now speak to people on a daily basis and, at times, I even like it.

Enough about me (not least because hasty personal disclosure is naturally unsettling to me), the point of this article is as follows: in a socially networked, always-on world, in which people are increasingly defined by their social contacts, what hope is there for the introvert?

Social networking for introverts is not as counter-intuitive as it seems. Roy Morgan data indicates that teen gamers are highly likely to admit to both shyness and sociability - in other words, they have introvert tendencies, but they like to engage socially through online networked games. For those teens, who are too gangly, or too spotty, or too shy, the Internet is the perfect place to socialise comfortably. It’s like being together - on your own. A happy medium.

The Internet provides myriad opportunities for ‘hide and seek’ and, as such, is well suited to introverts. They can hide, or manipulate their identities, disclosing only what they want others to see. They can reinvent their appearance and their lives through creating their own imagery, through role play and storytelling.

The tools at their disposal include virtual characters, or avatars, blogging, gaming, texting and Instant Messaging. You may have heard that these are social tools, but don’t be fooled.

Blogging is something I’m personally passionate about. Unlike those who love forwarding YouTube content, bloggers tend not to be flashy extraverts. Video forwarders like to make a big impression quickly, impressing their friends by being the first to spot the next big thing. Bloggers like to disclose their true selves gradually, making others privy to some of their innermost thoughts, but in a controlled way.

Control is an important aspect of the online environment for introverts. Being able to set up your profile, your alerts and your news feeds to your exact specifications opens you up to the world, but on your own terms. It’s your very own walled garden, inhabited by your idealised version of yourself and your idealised friends.

In summary, it is possible to get social without baring all. Below are my tips and tricks to do just that.

1. Ignore ‘friend requests’ on Facebook. It may seem churlish at first, but would-be friends soon forget the snub; they're busy clocking up new friends. Also, look out for introvert-friendly promotions, such as Burger King's Whopper Sacrifice, a deliciously fiendish promotion, which encouraged people to shed extraneous Facebook friends in exchange for a free Whopper.

2. For profile pictures on social networks, use an obscure body part, reinvent yourself as a siren, or create an avatar. In Japan, where the culture is such that people are less inclined to plaster themselves all over YouTube, avatars are particularly popular and pets are more often the stars of online video.

3. If you’re one of the many people who’ve succumbed to gaming thanks to the deliciously versatile Wii, create your own Mii avatar and get social with other Miis online at Mingle.

4. If you have some time on your hands, get to know the worlds of second lives. Join World of Warcraft and become the alter ego you’ve dreamed of. If you think it’s weird, check out what kids are doing in Club Penguin, or Habbo Hotel. They already socialise in these worlds, as if they were extensions of the playground – but with considerably more freedom. In the real world they can’t even drive, while in Whyville they can take out a loan to buy their own, customisable Toyota Scion.

5. Join a niche social network that reflects your interests. Then you can get away from the masses and mix with people who are genuinely like-minded. If you love dogs, hook up with other dog lovers at Dogtree. If you’re into extreme sports, join Loopd. While you’re there, you can even get ‘sponsored’ by a brand (basically you get ‘insider’ knowledge about new products).

6. Get passionate about your favourite pastime and start a fight in Hey Monkey Brain!, located within the blogging site Squidoo. It’s a great way to engage strangers in a heated argument with no danger of any physical argy-bargy.

7. Make sure your contacts are up to date: that way you can vet your calls/Skype/IM more effectively. You don't actually have to disable IM - so you still have the semblance of being constantly in touch. Also, prepare a list of excuses for why you were indisposed.

8. Tweet disinformation. Create a fictional life of adventure and dubious virtue through your Twitter updates and Facebook status updates. But isn't this disingenuous and against the spirit of social networking? Bah, humbug, absolutely not. Provided your tweets are entertaining, who cares?

9. On the other hand, if you’ve no inclination to constantly update your status for the world to see, but are tired of being hounded by colleagues about whether you’ve joined Twitter yet, sign up and then never let Twitter darken your screen again. You can still say, “Yeah, I joined ages ago.”

10. Leave Facebook. Create your own blog or community on Twine. Define your own path. Even extraverts may find that the road less travelled can be the more interesting.


This article originally appeared in Marketing, October 2009.

Best Island in the World?

Much as I love the industry press, I always approach it with a degree of caution for fear of buying in to to our own bullshit.

Perhaps more so than any other industry, we have our own pet topics and we talk things up. To an outsider who landed in our world, Twitter is apparently the zenith of communications and the Whitsundays must surely be the most visited islands on the planet.

Mumbrella recently reported that the Whitsundays aren't in fact enjoying quite the boom that hype about the Best Job in The World campaign has led marketers to expect. That's because, in the non-advertising world, the campaign ran, spiked popular interest in Hamilton Island and then gradually faded - a fact which escaped us, because it continued to grab the headlines in our press.

The graph below, from Whitsundays online blog (for the full article see the post below) shows the spike of interest at the time of the campaign, in terms of online searches for Whitsundays, Whitsunday and Hamilton Island in 2008 to 2009.

But, for the advertising industry, thanks to awards, PR and general frenzy, the chart is more like this:

So, I tune out, turn off and drop out of adland as often as possible. I have entirely random interests and tastes. If I'm going to have a warped perspective - which is inevitable, in the absence of a god's eye view - I try to make sure it's warped in all sorts of directions.

Whitsundays News: Even the 'Best Idea in the World' can fail

Whitsundays News: Even the 'Best Idea in the World' can fail

Touch

Best Ads on TV - Publics Jakarta

I'm a firm believer that technology has the power to enhance relationships, not just through connecting people but through enabling a deeper bond. The following example is a great example of tactile tech.

Leveraging the insight that children need to be listened to, particularly as they face increasing pressure at school and high expectations from parents, Nestle Dancow in Indonesia recently ran a touchy-feely campaign to co-incide with National Children's Day 2009.

When parents placed their palm against the screen, a child would stop playing, appear to run up to the screen and "touch" them. Any loss of contact meant the child would return to her activity, whereas if the adult maintained contact, the child would relay a personal message.

It strikes me that the use of technology to convey the importance of the very untechnical activity of listening to one's children made it all the more powerful.

Moon

Moon is apparently the story of a lone man and a droid, who harvest helium-3 from the moon, on behalf of Lunar Industries, to provide the Earth with clean energy. Not your cup of tea? More's the pity.

Moon is actually the story of what it means to be human and how control is exerted through misinformation and the abuse of power. It turns out that Lunar Industries are a tad unscrupulous in the HR department.

The relevance to brands? A brand can appear to be socially responsible, through information control and careful positioning, whilst actually being quite hypocritical. But, should the truth emerge, the results can be very damaging.

This has a bearing on all sorts of debates in communication, for example, the question as to whether Dove can legitimately champion "Real Beauty" when the same company conveys the stereotype of female beauty in Axe/Lynx commercials. A Google search of "Dove + hypocrisy" currently yields 233,000 results.

Companies with high profile CSR programmes likewise need to ensure that their integrity isn't compromised. With the power of social media, the truth will out.

History of the Australian Web

The AIMIA have a great new data visualisation of the History of the Australian Web. It shows the top sites by year, according to page views, unique visitors and time spent. Visuals are available by category: commercial, government, IT, media, search and social. It's better than a lava lamp.

Neighbours

It makes no sense to make an arbitrary distinction between the digital world and the "real" world. The two are intertwined and I find the interplay fascinating.

Though some (a dwindling number!) would throw their hands up in despair at the negative effects of the internet on old-school socialising, in many ways, online environments fuel offline friendships. The net can help people get to know each other when very "real" factors, such as lack of time, or shyness, threaten to curb their social lives. 1 in 8 couples married in the US last year met online.

Stackd is a new US-based company that helps office workers get to know people from other companies, who work in their building. LifeAt connects people who live in the same building. It may seem preposterous, but with people migrating from different areas, compounded by longer working hours, getting to know your neighbours is no easy feat!

Location based services: seek and destroy

Location based services (LBS) on mobile provide exciting opportunities for advertisers to create highly personalised viral campaigns.

LBS campaigns are not without their bear traps, however, as not everyone wants their exact location to be known - especially to an unknown third party. This means opt-in is even more critical than usual.

Virgin Media Television's campaign Terminate-a-mate used the uncanniness of LBS to its advantage to promote Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. The campaign linked the unsettling feeling of being watched to the indefatigable persistence of the Terminator, who will seek you out wherever you are, find and destroy you.

Users were invited to enter a friend's mobile number or email address at the Terminate-a-mate website. If the recipient was willing to share his/her location, that person was sent a link to a mobile video, delivering a warning that a Terminator was nearby. It reminds me of the viral video used to promote Dexter.

Over 9,000 visitors to the Terminate-a-mate website clicked on the 'Terminate now' button to send the text to a friend's phone. The campaign was buzzworthy, with 2,865 recipients passing the message on themselves. The video was viewed 10,971 times, Revolution Magazine reported.

LBS worked a treat in this case, but not all brands set out to unsettle their audiences. Fortunately, there are other ways to use LBS, as mainstream brands are discovering. More on this to follow...

Real-time trends on Twitter: Trendsmap

Trendsmap is a great visualisation tool to check out real-time global trends, micro-trends and inanities, through Twitter.

Virtual Currency: an exciting new communications model in social media

I attended another social media seminar recently, hosted by Adknowledge. One of the most interesting developments is a new advertising model, which leverages consumers' love of online casual games. The new model of "Virtual Currency" is worlds apart from the type of "push" advertising that people find increasingly obtrusive in social networks.

The games, such as Mob Wars on Facebook and MySpace's Be A Tycoon, appeal across the spectrum of social media users, in other words they're mainstream, attracting large, valuable audiences.

Virtual Currency works through offering people rewards that enable them to have a richer experience in their favourite games. So, for example, in Mob Wars, they would acquire greater energy or weapons. It helps people do what they want, in the environment they want to do it.

Advertisers can offer virtual currency as a reward, in order to get people to do things that benefit their brands. It's like an exchange system. For example, advertisers can offer currency and in exchange, consumers would:

• trial a product
• sign up for more information
• subscribe to a service
• download an application
• take part in a survey

Thus, Virtual Currency facilitates multiple marketing tasks, including, lead generation, distribution, encouraging trial and purchase. Given that consumers are already in social networks, they'll also tell their fellow game players, generating additional "Earned" media.

I'm excited by Virtual Currency. As a way of communicating, it's in keeping with consumers' natural behaviour; it doesn't fight it or try to muscle in. And it takes brands to where the people are, in a natural and helpful way.

For more information, see the presentation below, delivered by Brett Brewer of Adknowledge:

Virtual Currency And Monetizing Social Media

View more documents from Markus von der Luehe.

Schweppes' Cool Ridge Facebook application promotes Movember

In preparation for Movember, Schweppes' new Cool Ridge application helps Facebook users express their inner mo. They can track their mo's progress and get some Mo Bros to join them.

Movember raises awareness of men's health, raising funds to treat prostate cancer and depression - through promoting a moustache revival! It's a great Australian tradition.

Dabbling in social media spells disaster

In social media, brands can't afford to do things by halves. Rather than reducing the risk, merely dabbling in social media spells disaster, as Kraft's "Name Me" campaign illustrates.

Kraft fell short on two fronts:

1. They were only semi-transparent
2. They were only semi-responsive.

The campaign lacked transparency in that, although the company invited Australians to name the new Vegemite cheesy spread (via an on-pack "Name Me" invitation) this was not subject to an open vote. Rather, the name "iSnack2.0" was chosen by the company behind closed doors, then announced. This meant that consumers didn't feel they'd collectively chosen a name, and there wasn't mass buy-in. 48,000 Australians voted, the SMH reported, yet a good proportion of them felt jaded. What a waste.

This is in contrast to Greenpeace's 2007 name the whale campaign. Greenpeace narrowed down the 11,000 entries to 30 and then instigated a public debate and vote. "Mister Splashy Pants" got over 78% of the vote, Greenpeace reported. No one could deny that fans had spoken and the "best" name won. Fans felt genuinely involved and continued to look after the interests of the endangered humpback whale.

Kraft also fell short in their response times. As negative word of mouth spread online, the company was slow to respond. In social media, a delay of even a few days is tantamount to ignoring consumers.

The old adage goes that "all publicity is good publicity". I'd say that's true only if bad publicity is handled well and mistakes acknowledged. Dell turned Dell Hell into a positive, and is now one of the foremost players in social media, even harvesting consumers' ideas and passions through Ideastorm.

Perhaps it takes a major cock up to convince brands that if you're going to be a success in social media, you have to go the whole hog. Most of the best players in this space, from Dell to Starbucks to Coke, have also been the worst culprits in the past. So perhaps there's hope for Kraft.

Privacy

Image from http://www.sarmady.net/images/ipages-i/privacy.jpg

Privacy is a thorny and multi-faced issue. Even the concept of privacy is shifting as people increasingly live their lives online.

A recent US study from the Annenberg School for Communication and the Berkeley School of Law suggests that consumers feel they have lost control over their personal information, but this is tempered by a sense that they are, to some degree, protected.

More than two-thirds of respondents felt they had lost control, however, at the same time, they believed businesses usually handled their data well and that they were already protected by current regulations. Most were in favour of regulations being bolstered, with 63% agreeing that there should be a law requiring advertisers to immediately delete information about their Internet activity.

Privacy relates to behavioural advertising online, the merits of which are debated. Different research reports suggest consumers' preference, or distaste for behavioural advertising. Generally and unsurprisingly, consumers are more in favour of targeted offers and discounts than advertising.

My view is that the consumer response very much depends on the context. In some cases, people might feel like they're being stalked - in particular, if the advertising relates to something personal in their lives, such as relationships, or pregnancy. Other behavioural advertising is less emotionally charged and I imagine this is more acceptable, and even considered relevant and useful, for example car or insurance ads targeted at those in the market to buy a car.

Nokia phones get you talking

A new campaign for Nokia shows how Ovi picture sharing phones get you talking through a bit of customised film, which you can naturally share via Twitter, Facebook and your blog. Make your own here.

The Nokia version is cinematic, if perhaps a tad serious. Simple, funny customised virals, like Elf Yourself and Simpsonize Me are just silly enough to get people participating. (See my earlier post, 4 examples of contagious customised virals.) I'll be interested to see how the Nokia approach fares.

The Man Booker and 16th Century Soap

The subject of this year's Man Booker Prize winning novel, by Hilary Mantel, is the relationship of King Henry Tudor and Thomas Cromwell. The judges described it as "a contemporary novel, which happens to be set in the 16th century".

It struck me that the popular TV series The Tudors might have had something to do with it. It's a rollicking good drama, whose characters happen to be the movers and shakers of 16th century England. Thomas Cromwell is a shady character, who features prominently as King Henry's advisor in the second series. He's not the most hyped figure in history, which is perhaps why he inspires curiosity and sparks the imagination.

I'm sure the literati would deny making any connection with the grubby TV genre...but the subconscious is a tricky thing.

RJDJ Soundscapes

I love my music. I always have done, "balls to bone," as the Oracle said. I am intensely irritated by namby pamby musical morons who "like a bit of everything".

Music tells the story of your life. The songs that were your lifeblood as a teenager. The bands you worshipped. The songs you danced to, first loves and last rites, anger and pain and ecstasy and wine. The Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine.

As you travel, your experiences have a musical accompaniment that instantly evokes the time and place and space and feelings. That's why I love this app. It's called rjdj. It creates a personalised musical travelscape that reflects your environment - reacting to speech, the sound of a train, the clink of cutlery. Check it out.

Red sky in the morning

I wonder what omens or portents our ancestors would have read within the red skies of Sydney this morning. Much more than "a shepherd's warning" it was truly apocalyptic.

5 million tonnes of topsoil were dumped by north westerlies across New South Wales, sending pollution levels rocketing to around 1,500 times the usual levels, SBS reports.

Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest

For me, competitive eating brings to mind a scene from Cool Hand Luke, in which Luke (the inimitable Paul Newman) announces that he can eat 50 eggs. I always thought that was pretty cool. Though I've never reached those heights, I remain proud of my capacity to eat unfeasibly large amounts of pizza at one sitting. 

Competitive eating contests aren't too fashionable these days. So respect to the max to Nathan's Famous Corporation, the Coney Island restaurant, which continues to stage a world renowned annual hot dog eating contest, thereby celebrating the brand's unique heritage and provenance and poking a finger in the belly of obesity.

The tradition began in 1916, when four US immigrants set out to settle the score as to who was the most patriotic. Today, Joey "Jaws" Chestnut is the undisputed patriot. In 2009, he ate 68 hot dogs in 10 minutes, beating his previous year's record by 9 dogs.

If you fancy eating for your country, check out the International Federation of Competitive Eating website. There's a World Burrito Eating Contest, or you may prefer The Upper Crust World Pizza Eating Championship. You can even scope out the competition - a surprisingly diverse bunch of somewhat bonkers men and women, from doctors to long distance swimmers to pure greedy guts.

Testing moblog

Just checking my moblog's working. Sorry to anyone who subscribes -
I'm sure that was as riveting as your average tweet.

--
Sent from Gmail for mobile | mobile.google.com

District 9

There's something you need to know. Something you need to see. Whatever your predilections, proclivities, or predispositions when it comes to movie genres, go and see District 9. It's one of the most stunning films of recent years.

It deals with big social themes in a way that makes you cringe and laugh and think hard about your own values. And it does this through the use of man-size alien "prawns" that have become stranded in Johannesburg! Ostensibly sci-fi, it's the best of the genre, exploring how people would react and feel in a difficult new situation.

In fact, it's a very old and familiar scenario of how people relate to those who are different from themselves. What makes them empathise? How do they justify cruelty and humiliation? How do the unlikeliest of people find it in themselves to make sacrifices for others?

Setting the film in South Africa gives the story a very real and chilling dimension. Directed by Neill Blomkamp, District 9 features an entirely South African cast - and the lead is brilliant. OK, that's enough gushing, just go and see it.

Bought, Owned, Earned

The world is constantly transforming and these changes are driven by technology. More information will be generated this year than in the previous 5,000 years. There are 31 billion searches on Google every month. Consumers are overloaded with choice.

Technology has had a massive impact on consumers’ everyday lives, on their brand choices and media behaviour.

In a world in which mass media have given way to masses of media, Bought Owned Earned is a framework to understand and manage all consumer touchpoints. It replaces outmoded classifications like “traditional” vs. “digital” and encompasses all managed and unmanaged media. It makes a complex media landscape simple and manageable.

Bought media include all media that you can buy, be they traditional TV or print, online media, paid for sponsorships, or paid for Search.

Owned media are brand-owned properties, from stores, to packaging to brand owned TV programmes to websites.

Earned media are consumer generated. This includes word of mouth, viral and social media.

All three can be made to work together synergistically...

From a consumer point of view, Bought media often reprsent the way in, as they generate awareness and help people shortlist brands. Through Bought media, consumers may be made aware of Owned media, such as a website. They may enter a competition online and Tweet about it, or post their video competition entries on YouTube, generating Earned media. The consumer journey is not linear, but rather a process of investigation, referral and corroboration of brand choice, which often takes them repeatedly between Owned and Earned media.

I presented on the topic of Bought, Owned, Earned at Carat's Future is Now breakfast, held on 20th August at The Establishment. To view the presentation, click here. The presentation will soon be posted on the Carat Australia website.

My Space and the New Music Paradigm

I was fortunate enough to get a preview recently of where MySpace are going with MySpace Music. Lately, while other social networks like Facebook and Twitter have stolen the limelight, MySpace have been quietly industrious, building up MySpace Music, making deals with major and indie reord labels and fostering music-based communities.

Now, MySpace are poised to spearhead nothing less than the new music paradigm. It's as big a shift as that from storing music on CDs to iTunes. iTunes gave people access to all their music on the go through downloading to their iPods. Now, with MySpace, music is to be stored in the 'cloud', that is, the unlimited and universally accessible internet, giving people free access to music from any computer.

When MySpace Music goes mobile in around 12 months' time, people will ultimately be able to access all the music in the world from anywhere in the world, through any internet enabled device, without the need to download anything. And all they pay are their broadband charges.

Users can share their playlists on MySpace Music, thereby defining themselves through their musical taste and linking up with others with similar passions. Naturally, they can hook up with their bands, who are equally active in the online community.

As part of the broader MySpace Music initiative, they'll still be able to sign up for Secret Shows, or exclusive gigs by their favourite bands.

These shows are brand sponsored in the strongest sense: they wouldn't happen without the support of brands. This is a great way for brands to genuinely bring something valuable to consumers and be duly appreciated.

MySpace Music just feels right - it taps into what consumers are feeling and doing, riding the wave, not fighting against it. It leverages trends like freeconomics and curated consumption. And MySpace are being true to their own heritage, in driving community, music and fame.

Obama vs. The Fly

Obama's anticipation and reflexes are gob-smacking. He is clearly the first Jedi president.

An article in the UK Telegraph highlights just what an accomplishment it is to score a direct hit on a fly. The insect can change course in just 30 thousandths of a second.

According to Professor Michael Dickinson of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, who has studied fly behaviour extensively, the most effective way to swat a fly is not to aim for its starting position, but anticipate where the insect is likely to jump when it first sees danger. This is no mean feat, as, when confronted by a predator (aka swatter), a fly rapidly initiates a manoeuvre, combining near-360 degree vision with complex postural movements, depending on the direction of the attack.

Twitter

Everyone's doing it - signing up for Twitter, writing about Twitter, even actually Tweeting. Everyone who works in communications and marketing, that is. No wonder the Twitter user profile is older than Facebook or MySpace.

I would rather eat my shorts than constantly Tweet about what I'm up to. On the other hand, I don't believe that Twitter is a flash in the pan. A recent article in the Australian (April 30 2009) "Time is up for Twitter", which suggests that Twitter lacks content to create communities, was misguided.

Granted, plenty of people (curious marketers) sign up and then hardly or never use it. But, outside the communications industry, Twitter is genuinely gaining traction thanks to the fact that it provides the public with a legitimate way to stalk celebrities - and for celebrities to exercise personal control over the manner in which they're stalked. Oprah, Stephen Fry and Ashton Kutcher are compulsive Tweeters and they have rapidly attracted huge communities.

Perhaps the most powerful aspect of Twitter is its real-time nature. It's increasingly used as a Search service to get the pulse on the very latest sentiment across the globe instantly. Twitter is increasingly the first to receive breaking news stories from people on the scene. Major news organisations, including CBS and The Washington Post teamed up with Twitter to improve their own news service, in particular coverage of last year's US election campaign.

Twitter provides genuine opportunities for brands. They can communicate updates on products and offers to everyone who has signed up as a follower and moreover, they can have conversations with their fans. Provided they keep their information up-to-the-minute, in keeping with the way of Twitter.

Tourism Queensland has over 3,000 followers, thanks partly to its "Best job in the world" campaign. Since joining Twitter in December 2008, the World Wildlife Fund has gathered over 2,000 followers. Boardshop, a small Australian business, has recruited 1,500 followers since last October, to whom it largely communicates promotions. Clearly there's potential to go beyond one-way marketing to have a conversation with boarders. For more examples see Online Marketing Banter.

Storytelling

The scene from Madmen season 1, "The Carousel", in which Creative Director Don pitches a campaign to Kodak for their new slide projector, is still the best example of storytelling from a communications agency, fictional or otherwise, that I've seen. Don deftly turns a story about technology into a story about family and nostalgia.

Most agencies can raise their game when it comes to presentations. This doesn't just mean abandoning Powerpoint (although it helps). It means weaving a story - the most compelling story, not the most obvious story - that draws the audience in, holds their attention and closes the deal.

You can't do this unless you really believe in what you're presenting, unless you give something of yourself in the presentation. This may be a personal anecdote, or experience, or a way that you connected to the target audience. Whatever it is, unless you take a personal interest, neither will your audience.

The Catch

This is the first time I've come across a restaurant in Sydney that actively leverages social recommendation. The Catch at The Spit in Mosman is a fantastic cafe, which serves the best Tuna Nicoise I've ever had - and the blue swimmer crab rigatoni isn't half bad either. I eat out at least 3 times a week and I know and love my food - and this place is good. Perhaps that's why they don't shy away from asking their very satisfied customers to review them on Eatability. Perhaps that's why they've got an average rating of 8.5, with 9 out of 10 for food.

People Power

The collaborative, social web, Web 2.0, has driven a shift in values from individual to collective, from hierarchy to egalitarianism, and from absolute ownership to a more blurred concept of ownership.

This manifests itself in open source technologies and file sharing, in mass collaboration on documents and books through cloud computing and in Creative Commons licenses, which allow a scalable amount of sharing of content with attribution, depending on the license. (This blog, for example is licensed under Creative Commons.)

An interesting development is that the global recession is driving similar social values, as people pull together to help themselves. A greater emphasis on community is apparent in Australia. Neighbour Day took place on 29 March and there is increasing press coverage on the topic of neighbourliness.

The old hierarchies are no longer unquestioningly accepted, as runaway capitalism - not least, massive CEO bonuses - falls under scrutiny. Barack Obama recently announced that following the current crisis, it will not be business as usual for Wall Street.

Co-operative movements are growing in numbers and strength globally. In tandem, social lending, a form of social networking, is becoming more prevalent, with loans given out to collectives to help them become self-sufficient.

In Argentina, where recession started much ealier (Argentina the country was declared bankrupt in 2002) co-ops are particularly strong. Under the Movement of Recovered Companies, former workers took over operation of failing companies under a share and share-alike self-run system. Now, as unemployment rises again, the movement has renewed support. A key facilitator is not-for-profit organisation The Working World, which lends to groups via La Base Solidarity Fund.

The new co-operatives may conjure up images of Communism but they are different in an important respect: they are driven from the ground up, not imposed top down, much like the communities of Web 2.0.

We live in a topsy-turvy, bottom-up world, in which people power is growing. In marketing, this means engaging consumers, earning their respect and supporting their causes, so they spread the word about brands. Their causes may be big or small and opportunities for brand involvement are diverse. Billabong, for example, supports and propagates surf culture, through its programme of branded content, as Julian Lee's recent article in the SMH describes. Coles is currently making itself useful to families with its feed the family for under $10 campaign, promoted in their TV campaign and supported with online meal plans.

Tales from the brink

Dr. Manhattan, Watchmen

I have always been a fan of post-apocalyptic tales. In the current climate, I'm spoilt for choice. In fiction, Cormack McCarthy's The Road and Jim Crace's The Pesthouse are haunting, simple, achingly beautiful depictions of humanity in a ruined world.

On TV, Battlestar Galactica shows the demise of mankind, repeatedly destroyed by its own creation and abuse of AI. From Watchmen to new renditions of Terminator, the film scene is as bleak as can be. Meanwhile, the current issue of Time Magazine heralds "a new age of extinction" as we continue to ravage the planet, damaging wildlife and ultimately, ourselves.

Somewhat perversely, I see all this in a positive light. These are times of reflection and they are reflected in our stories, which, despite their darkness, have a glimmer of hope. It's as if people sense that we've brought the world to the brink of disaster. Now we're staring at the precipice and reevaluating what's important.

'Economics' and 'morality' were never heard in the same sentence, now they are increasingly bedfellows. Barack Obama has made it clear that, after the financial crisis, it will not be business as usual for Wall Street.

Climate change is on the agenda, not just out of necessity, but through a growing sense of moral obligation. Through our actions, we're signalling that our planet and the beings upon it are worth saving, hour by hour (e.g. Earth Hour) and job by job (e.g. job sharing).

The current crop of fiction is also making us think: are we worth saving? While most superhero films assume that humanity deserves a helping hand, Watchmen takes the opposite tack.

One of the characters, Dr. Manhattan, a supremely powerful being, who resides (in his birthday suit) in a quantum universe (and hence perceives time and space differently from humans) becomes increasingly detached from human beings, with their humdrum lives and inconsequential cares - in a cosmic sense. The one thing that draws him back is the epiphany that human beings are in fact remarkable - the combination of accidental connections that creates one individual is nothing short of miraculous.

Perhaps, in a sense, people are developing a greater sense of self-worth. Who knows? There have been five global extinctions to date and who's to say we won't be the cause of another?

2010 World Expo

"My Dream, Our Vision"

Singapore recently held a contest to design a pavilion for the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai. The theme is "Better City, Better Life". This entry is an awesome interpretation of a digital cloud skyscraper. It's also a great piece of engagement marketing for the brand "the future". Visitors are invited in to post their wishes for tomorrow.

How do recessions affect people's attitudes towards risk?

In 1951, Time magazine dubbed US youth born into the Great Depression as the "Silent Generation," berating an entire cohort for being too cautious, introspective and unwilling to engage in the great issues of the day.

Various research studies have indicated that children of previous depressions have tended to return to traditional values. There is a current trend to go "back to basics" in terms of placing greater value on close family and friends and in being more community minded.

While this doesn't exactly raise alarm bells, if people were to become over-cautious, what would it mean for innovation in enterprise in the future?

Innovation requires risk-taking and recessions tend to make people more risk averse. Research by Berkeley University, "Depression Babies: Do Macroeconomic Experiences Affect Risk Taking" indicates that a generational cohort's experience of economic factors, such as stock returns and inflation, has a significant impact on its willingness to bear financial risks at any point in time. So those who experienced high inflation early on were still cautious later in life, even if there was a subsequent boom. The study examined investors in the early 1980s (post-bust) compared to those in the late 1990s (post-boom).

So, perhaps people will be more cautious in the future, but I'm hopeful that the future won't be devoid of measured risk or innovation. The current climate is giving rise to staff retraining in parallel fields and more people are performing cross-functional roles. This could potentially raise ingenuity amongst the broader workforce, as people draw on knowledge from parallel fields.

Future Interfaces from Microsoft

The touchy-feely, simple interfaces of the future - according to Microsoft

Culture Bytes

I like mosaic images, generally - the fact that if you look too hard you can't see the wood for the trees and only if you step back do you get the picture. I spotted this one on picocool (originally for Time magazine). Picocool is well worth a look - random bytes of culture, design and trivia that caught someone's eye, somewhere.

Video is the New TV

Cadbury's "Eyebrows" video once again demonstrates the rising power of online video. Since it was first uploaded in January on YouTube and other video sites, the company estimatest that it has been viewed over 4 million times - that kills the uptake of its famous drumming gorilla campaign.

Rapidly going viral, "Eyebrows" has alread been parodied and mashed up and is firmly becoming entrenched in throw away pop culture.

Facebook Revises Terms of Service (again)

http://cruisin-mob.blogspot.com

Further to my last post, where I mentioned the difficulties Facebook has faced in monetising its offer, yesterday Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg backed down on proposals to revise the Terms of Service, following strident protests by members.

The revised terms would have allowed the site to keep a record of users' details and updates even if they left the network, which raised privacy concerns.

Facebook continues to face the conundrum of how to offer advertisers the benefits of access to over 175 million consumers worldwide without raising the hackles of its members. Its recent foray into user polls may still be a sticking point. AT&T and CareerBuilder.com have experimented with polls on people's home pages and the service is something Zuckerberg is keen to expand.

Marketers can also use Facebook Lexicon to track the topics users are talking about (e.g. via public posts on the Wall).

I think Facebook is potentially a fantastic source of market research information. But Facebook users are characteristically militant and prone to protests when they feel advertisers, or the Facebook founder, infringe on their liberties. It is their site, after all.

The Digital Tipping Point: The Future of Branding and Social Media

I attended a conference in Sydney yesterday called The Digital Tipping Point: The Future of Branding and Social Media.


That we have reached a digital tipping point is abundantly clear. IBM has already proclaimed that there will be more change in the next 5 years than there has been in the past 50 years, thanks to digital technologies. User time spent on social media increased by 43% in 2008 compared to 2007 (Pew Internet and American Life Project). Facebook has over 220 million members worldwide. Niche interest based networks are rapidly proliferating.

The future of branding and social media, on the other hand, is less clear-cut - or at least, success is not evenly distributed. MySpace, for example, has had much more success in monetising its offer than Facebook. To some extent this is a reflection of the different uses of these sites, Facebook being about connecting with friends and MySpace about discovery and fame.

But, as a rule of thumb, social media are more successful at carrying brand messages if they were designed to do so from the offset. Otherwise, established communities tend to react against the introduction of commercial messages because it feels to users as if the space they have taken ownership of is being invaded by an uninvited third party.

A growing number of emerging sites are both consumer centric and fiercely commercial, leveraging the insight that consumers are happy to use and manipulate brands to their own ends, be it self-expression or getting support for their passions.

Venture capitalist Brian Garrett, MD of Crossout Ventures, pointed out some new players: Social Vibe, Loopd and Flipgloss. While they may not be delivering great numbers yet, in terms of consumer eyeballs, these new models show commercial promise.


With companies placing greater emphasis on meaningful CSR, e.g. Kraft's "Give 6 Meals to People in Need" campaign, Social Vibe helps people get brand sponsorship in suppport of their causes. Brands, such as Colgate, provide artwork which people post to their blogs or social media profiles in support of their cause. The more views the profile gets, the more money Colgate and Social Vibe donate.

Extreme sports social network Loopd lets brands "sponsor" members - through providing branded stickers and discounts. The budding skateboarder feels like a sponsored pro, while brands get free viral marketing and an e-commerce channel.

Flipgloss is an intriguing proposition. Noticing that most glossy magazines don't migrate online very well, the developers set out to create print advertorials specifically for the online space. Instead of using small images and crowding the web page with text, Flipgloss has big muthas of images - looking just as delicious as the cover of Vogue. It then uses overlays (hover your mouse over sections of the image and contextual information appears). By clicking on these overlays, people can access information on where to buy products, or even buy directly. Flipgloss is not just a site, it's a widget which people can post to their own profiles.

It's now much easier to get your brands on to social networks, thanks to Adknowledge, which describes itself as a social applications ad network. Marketers can thereby take advantage of the thousands of applications that have already been developed, such as video applications. HBO, Neutrogena, 3 and Coldplay have already done so.

Adknowledge's President is Brett Brewer, the Co-Founder of MySpace, who knows a thing or two about social media marketing.

Oh, and he predicted that by 2015, the last major metropolitan newspaper will fall.

Making work safety sexy

I like this campaign. It's not an easy brief: Get twentysomethings engaged in work safety. But, with The Pain Factory, Worksafe Victoria and ninemsn have done a great job of making safety at work an engrossing topic.

A series of 9 videos, sourced from Funniest Home Videos, shows people getting smacked up through performing various risky or stupid activities. A smart feature is that 3 of the "sickest" videos are locked until users accrue enough points, by engaging with the site.

The use of a virtual host is effective. He has the right kind of attitude to appeal to the target audience. At one point he says something like: I don't know about you, but I'm not about to get myself messed up just for my job. Fair point.

Data visualisation

http://www.wordle.net/

The data we’re constantly creating is growing exponentially. But unless we can make sense of this data, as consumers and businesses, what use is it? Data visualisation enables us to tell stories with information.

Wordle and IBM’s Many Eyes help users analyse online text through representing the frequency of words in terms of letter size. Social news site Digg graphically represents conversations about various topics through DiggSwarm to monitor the buzz.

http://labs.digg.com/swarm/

Microsoft's phenomenal Photosynth (now out of Beta) collates people’s digital photos to build a 3D model of locations around the world for anyone to explore. CNN created a Photosynth of the of the Inauguration of Barack Obama. They invited anyone to contribute simply by taking a digital photo and sending it to themoment@cnn.com. Photosynth software compiled the shots, creating a spectacular, hyper real reproduction of the scene.

Organisations collect vast amounts of research data, much of which is under-utilised. Visualisation tools can help them make better use of company data. Marketers can use word clouds to instantly get a snapshot of what consumers are saying about their brands. They can easily share data visualisations with other offices to collaborate more effectively.

Tracer, an Aegis proprietary tool, enables us to quickly spot trends and correlations in media and sales data over time. These can then be modeled.

I love playing around with visualisation tools, particularly as they have a social networking element. On Many Eyes, for example, users share and comment on others' visualisations, which generates new ideas.

Ingenious hybrids

The internet has, for some time, encouraged user creativity. Now, forced to respond to change, people are becoming even more adaptable. Boundaries are blurring between genres, with creative and technological skills increasingly in demand. As a result of mergers and redundancies, staff are retraining in parallel fields. Reduced workforces are performing cross-functional roles. This is likely to raise ingenuity in the future, with hybrid staff drawing on different, related skills to arrive at new solutions – rather like a human mashup.

Organisations need to consider to what extent they're welcoming hybrids to gear up for the future. Rather than just recruiting people who’ve always done the same role, consider “mashing up” your staff and harnessing new combinations of skills, such as TV production and strategy in marketing roles. As the adage goes: If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got.

The hybridisation trend extends to brands, which are flouting category conventions and pushing into new market spaces. PlayStation’s LittleBigPlanet is a hybrid online game and social network. Levis, P&G, Coca Cola and Starbucks all have their own music labels. Musicians Groove Armada just signed up with drinks firm Bacardi, rather than opting for a normal record label.

Generosity

It may seem incongruous, but in hard times, people are becoming more generous. This relates to my previous post on changing social currency. Being less reliant on money for happiness, they’re finding meaning in generosity of spirit - the mutual-support of family and friends. This is apparent in community co-operatives, in a willingness to reduce their working hours, so co-workers can keep their jobs, and, in greater engagement with brands that support communities. Sociologists at Harvard Medical School point to the contagious nature of happiness and generosity, which are transmitted via social networks.

By reflecting consumer values of generosity and kindness and supporting communities, brands stand to gain. For example, I've previously highlighted ColaLife.org, whereby Coke’s global distribution network will help deliver medicines to the world’s poor.

Nestle flooded Tokyo with cherry blossom, as a symbol of goodwill towards exam takers, helping to defuse a highly stressful situation.

Brands that trade on optimism, helping people celebrate the good things in life, will be remembered. In Australia, insurance company IAG’s ‘Unworry’ campaign captures the mood. This is in keeping with theories of social influence. Spending time with positive people - and brands - reinforces positive feelings and behaviour (which is why people have exercise partners).

In general, brands that offer better deals and/or better experiences, helping consumers through tougher times, will generate goodwill.

Changing social currency

The global economic situation is causing people to see their lives and brands through a new lens. This reframing is a catalyst for accelerated change in values. 88% of Americans now think the US is too materialistic, a study by Boston College suggests. People are going back to basics, realising that the most valuable currency is relationships with the people that really matter.

Having competitively collected any old random acquaintance as a Facebook "friend", people are now cutting back to just the real ones - a trend, which Burger King exploited fiendishly, with their Whopper Sacrifice campaign. (Facebook users could trade in the friends they didn't really know or like for free Whoppers.)