I recently wrote about branded utility, and while many of the examples were full-on applications or products, I thought a more "simple" example of branded utility in advertisements would be a good follow-up. The photographs found in the article "192 Creative, Smart & Clever Advertisements" are indeed creative as well as inspirational, thought provoking, and useful. Many of the examples take a traditional issue and shed light from a new angle -- the kind of angle that makes you say, "Huh...I never thought of that..." That's what it's all about -- Advertising should surprise and delight.

Thanks @AvinashKaushik for the link - it's old but it's good! For some of you, this will be a flashback, for others it will (hopefully) provide first time inspirations. Here are a few of my favorites:

Continue reading "Clever Photographic Advertisements"

Most Fridays here at Viget, someone has an opportunity to present on just about anything (including hockey fighting), but mostly it’s on industry trends. I presented this last Friday and thought I'd pass it along for anyone who is interested (there are a few slides missing that were specific to Viget; but you'll get the picture).

The concept of “Branded Utility” isn’t new (we wrote about it here and here), but it's still in its infancy and by no means has it been widely accepted, or widely disseminated -- we're hoping to help change both of those things! Enjoy the slideshare!

Continue reading "Branded Utility - The (Already Happening) Future of Marketing"

I just read an awesome post by Paul Isakson entitled "Stuck in the Now." Here are a few great quotes:

I have a growing concern that much of our always-connected culture has become so caught up in the now that we're losing valuable lessons from the past and forgetting the importance of having a vision to work towards in the future.

Continue reading "Timeless Marketing & Advertising"

Does anyone remember Sutori.com? It came out in 2006 and has since gone offline. It gave people a space to rant or rave about brands. What ended up happening? It involves kindling, kerosene, and lots angry customers (*cough* UHaul) ... and that's about it.

Today, "telonu" allows people to anonymously post latest firings and layoffs, then leave their always-objective opinions. To their credit, they provide spaces for positive feedback (but, so did Sutori ... and their name wasn't "Tell on You"). I'm not a fan, mostly because of the anonymity rather than the concept. I agree with the telonu users, many of the company's people have written about on telonu need to change; they need to be held accountable.

I get the ideas here. Sometimes you would like advice, or the ability to ask questions anonymously. It probably helps to know that Company X is about to lay off 800 people. We all know it can be therapeutic to vent with others who feel the same pain, right? But, if the point of this is to affect true change, can it really work when so much anonymity is involved? I'm not sure it can.

My theory on why anonymity will always be less-than-effective:

 

Continue reading "Why Anonymity is a Problem and How Facebook Connect Can Help"

It's a new year and, with that in mind, I thought it would be a good time to do a quick rundown on the tools that are in my daily social media toolbox.

Netvibes
When you're keeping an eye on hundreds of blogs, custom search feeds and various social networking profiles, Netvibes does a bang up job aggegating my world's information into a simple, clean dashboard. Paired with a morning cup of coffee, it's a great way to start the day. And even when I'm on the go or standing in yet another line (this is DC, after all), it's slick iPhone optimized site keeps me informed and entertained

Twitter
What can I say, it's a veritable force to be reckoned with. On Twitter I'm keeping in touch with friends and business contacts alike, monitoring conversations for clients, keeping tabs on custom searches and simply valuing the wealth of information that rises to the top of the human-curated web. It's taken me a long time to settle on the appropriate desktop and iPhone apps for Twitter, but I think I've finally found a home with Tweetdeck for my desktop and Twittelator for the mobile play.

Continue reading "My Social Media Toolbox for 2009"

It seemed natural, given that marketing and social media are all about relationships, that our Middle School Marketing discussion for October spent a fair amount of time exploring commitment – and it should be no surprise that the darling of social media marketing, the corporate blog, was the center of conversation. Ryan Moede threw out the commitment question. Paraphrasing: “How do we set expectations around the level of commitment inherent to social marketing?”

Continue reading "Making the Commitment at Middle School Marketing"

With the Olympics in full swing, Nike has gone all out to promote their vast new lineup of products and the innovative technology behind them.

But rather than rely solely on classic Nike advertising with hardcore athletes doing their thing to a rocking soundtrack, they’ve rounded out their advertising strategy with an impressive, in-depth collection of conversations with the people behind the Nike magic - product designers, engineers and scientists in the Nike Lab.

Continue reading "Nike’s Branded Storytelling"

If it’s an 8am meeting with eager conversations about Twitter and measuring ROI, it must mean the Middle School Marketing crew was back in action yesterday morning at the Lab.

We gathered again this month to continue our conversation about bridging traditional best practices in online marketing with the latest trends in social media marketing.  As so many marketing conversations do lately, ours quickly focused in on Twitter (proud new owners of the local startup Summize). When it comes to the bottom line, one person asked if it is worth investing the time and energy into Twitter. (And for that matter, what about the rest of the social media utility world?) While the group had various perspectives on how they used Twitter, without a doubt it’s biggest value was in providing a radically improved tool to help companies do a better job of listening. Nicholas was even kind enough to put together a spreadhseet of helpful services.

Continue reading "Middle School Marketing Talks Twitter, Strategy and Twin Tech"

One week after the new iPhone’s debut, some of the most intriguing buzz centers around the development of native mobile applications. For marketers and brand managers alike, this poses one the best opportunities in a long time to create meaningful brand engagement.

Up until now, the excitement over mobile marketing had been trying to deliver relevant ads to various handsets. But the iPhone offers up a more relevant and useful platform for brands to develop applications that provide a real value for their users (And for those of you who track this blog, you know we love marketing ideas that provide a service for customers).

Continue reading "iPhone Helps Turn Marketers into Problem-Solvers"

As if by divine circumstance after Steph’s post about her experience window shopping on the MINI web site, a recent article highlighted MINI’s work to measure the connection between online buzz and actual sales of the diminutive but spunky car.

The marketing team at MINI worked with MotiveQuest to research and measure what people were saying online about the car and MINI brand, and through their analysis, created the the Online Promoter Score in order to “correlate the relationship between marketing and online brand advocacy to sales by measuring the net frequency of people recommending a brand online.” Truly a tall order.

Continue reading "Linking Web Buzz to MINI Sales"

Now that my awesome and totally reliable Saturn VUE is paid off, I realize there's no turning back -- I'm officially a financially responsible adult.

Ok, so I'm being melodramatic, but only to set up the premise for why I was checking out miniusa.com -- because I never had my, "that's financially stupid" moment all young people are supposed to have, (right?), such as buying a big-screen TV that doesn't fit in my house, or blowing every paycheck afforded by my first job out of college on some hot Audi that I treasure (while living on Ramen noodles and EasyMac as my sacrifice).

Anyway, I'm not about to jump on that stereotypical bandwagon, but I HAVE lately found my eye wandering to shiny new cars populating the beltway during my commutes. Particularly the European sporty numbers renowned for their handling and power. I imagine myself cruising in the mountains as the sun sets, windows down, wind whipping through my afro, and me feeling unusually free from my established adultness.

That all being said, I managed to find myself on miniusa.com, where I happened upon some crucial web writing that shouldn't go unnoticed.

Continue reading "MINI’s Website Makes Me Want a MINI"

Google just built a social media platform—and it’s not called Orkut.

By inserting a small snippet of code, Google’s new social media initiative, Friend Connect, will allow any web site to, "get social features up and running immediately without programming—picking and choosing from built-in functionality like user registration, invitations, members gallery, message posting, and reviews, as well as third-party applications built by the OpenSocial developer community."

The idea is to allow everyone, regardless of money or bandwidth, to integrate social interaction on their web site. I have a huge crush on Google.

In the words of Google’s director of engineering, David Galizer’s:

Google Friend Connect is about helping the ‘long tail’ of sites become more social. Many sites aren’t explicitly social and don’t necessarily want to be social networks, but they still benefit from letting their visitors interact with each other. That used to be hard. Fortunately, there’s an emerging wave of social standards—OpenID, OAuth, OpenSocial, and the data access APIs published by Facebook, Google, MySpace, and others. Google Friend Connect builds on these standards to let people easily connect with their friends, wherever they are on the web, making ‘any app, any site, any friends’ a reality.

Continue reading "Google to Unveil Friend Connect Tonight"

We’re all (too) familiar with the "This program has stopped responding" message when Windows decides to crash something. You know that little message that pops up after the error? The one that says "Report this bug?" What does Microsoft do with that information? Does it actually go anywhere? Does it suffer the same fate as Dwight’s complaints against Jim, stuck under Toby’s desk in a big trash bag? Or does that information actually help Microsoft debug and improve their OS/software?



The problem is, I have no idea what happens to that information. And that’s why I hardly, ever, hit "send." Why would I make the extra effort to contribute something if I have no idea if my contribution will matter? This, unfortunately, is an all too common error in customer service and marketing (which, I happen to think are one in the same). Companies, or inviduals for that matter, request user generated content with the promise that it will help "shape the future" or "make a difference," but what happens all those suggestions?

Continue reading "Liars! Why Talking to Your Customers Is So Important"

Tapping into your customers and your community to co-create content can be an excellent strategy for building engagement with your brand.

Let me emphasize the important word in that phrase: can.

Because sometimes, it just seems to go all wrong.

Like when Chevy invited customers to create their own Tahoe commercial, and people responded with taglines like, "$70 to fill up the tank, which will last less than 400 miles. Chevy Tahoe."

Unfortunately, CNN missed the lesson on how to appropriately work with communities to generate content with their new T-shirt generator that let’s fans create custom T-shirts out of real CNN headlines, or upload their "headline." CNN can now rest assured knowing that there are T-shirts in the wild proudly displaying the iconic CNN logo above the headline: "I prefer MSNBC."

Bonus points for the first person to submit a Viget headline to a CNN T-shirt.

[Update]

While there are plenty of great examples of excellent co-creation and customizing content, one of the newer entries to the field is Moleskine, who is offering customers an opportunity to upload their own design and have it laser engraved on their book. Perhaps altering the historic design of the Moleskine is an abomination to some, but others will no doubt find the personalization a wonderful enhancement to an already storied product. Great way to blend a strong brand with a personal touch.

DC has a strong buzz that’s fostering a growing tech environment in which Internet startups can thrive.  From the work and ideas being tossed around here at Viget, even at the micro level I am feeling the general buzz of new ideas, big wins, and an entrepreneurial spirit.* This morning’s panel discussion at Potomac TechWire hosted at the Ritz was exceptional commentary from some of the best in DC’s tech community. 

Continue reading "Potomac Tech Wire Internet Outlook ‘08 Recap"