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"

This amazing post on why Google loves Denmark inspired me. What do people search for? What are we thinking? What does Google think? I started this thinking I would find some funny stuff, but I was not at all prepared for some of these results. Some of them are offensive, so be warned. Some are absolutely hilarious. All of them say something about human behavior online...

First, some general questions:

Why...

Continue reading "Search Behavior Proves Humans Are Just Weird"

Another month, another successful MSM meeting...Josh kicked off yesterday's meeting with a comment about Google's recent announcement about launching interest-based advertising on partner sites and YouTube. This means that ads being served will be based on a user's browsing history. Josh asked the group: Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Continue reading "Middle School Marketing Recap: Interest-Based Advertising"

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"

The future will not only be filled with silver jump suits and blue hair, but some pretty incredible digital experiences as well. A few weeks ago, I read/watched a cool Razorfish post about the Surface Table Gestural Interfaces they're working on with the MS surface tables. Last week, it was Microsoft's vision for the future. This week, it's Intel's Shape-Shifting material. These amazing products will change life as we know it. And, even if they don't . . . these videos are worth watching.

Continue reading "New Technologies That Blow My Mind"

Anyone who has spent time in the brand space will have certainly come across Marty Neumeier's The Brand Gap - it's one of the foundational books on how to cultivate a brand, and is a must-read for any brand manager. 

The central premise of the book is that a brand is not simply a logo, identity or even product. Neither is it what you, the brand manager say it is. Rather, a "brand is a person's gut feeling about a product, service or organization.In other words, it's not what you say it is, it's what they say it is."

Branding is all about creating an emotional clarity by providing a story around what you are selling, and social media will fan the flames of those companies that live up to their brand promise, or quickly take down those that are merely selling a false idea. 

But what kind of role does social media play in crafting successful brands today? If at it's core a brand is "what they say it is," and we have more "theys" sharing their thoughts and ideas with the world, then what does that mean for how brands grow in today's marketplace?

Let's take a look at Neumeier's five basic principle of branding, and how each idea is transformed by social media.

Continue reading "Crafting the Digital Brand: Social Media’s Role in Brand-Building"

Like many of our peers in the media "middle," we've been doing a lot of thinking about 2009. So, we kicked off this month's Middle School Marketing meeting talking about our online marketing predictions for the new New Year. Rightfully so, this week there's been a lot of chatter about what's to come: Peter Kim's compilation of social media predictions, eMarketer's article of what lies ahead, and Clickz's What Next piece, to name a few.

Like many of our earlier MSM meetings, we talked about the utility, usage and future of Twitter. Lisa mentioned that she was surprised to learn over Thanksgiving that many of her high school and college-age relatives had never heard of Twitter. Dispite the 1.3 million users, how many of them are active, and what's the demographic breakdown? Even within our small group, there were various use cases: keeping up with current events, networking, RSS feed, following friends, following clients, and networking with other industry types. In the end, Twitter is simply another medium which can be used to broadcast message... in 140 characters or less, of course.

Continue reading "Middle School Marketing - Reflections & Predictions"

Two important reports were released today with enlightening perspectives on social networking and online communities. Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester Research released their Best and Worst of Social Networking, 2008, and Deloitte release the 2008 Tribalization of Business Survey, where the WSJ reports on the study’s findings of why most online communities fail.

The Forrester report has some of the more interesting results, with a great report card of notable case studies:

Forrester applied its Social Network Marketing Review methodology to programs run by 16 firms in four industries: automotive, media, technology, and consumer products. Only the BMW Series 1 received a passing grade, and half of the firms scored a zero or lower. But even with these dismal overall results, we found examples of specific best practices: The Dell/Microsoft (Red) program provided a rich media theme that was easily sharable, Sony’s BMG page for Alicia Keys was personable and interactive, and Kraft’s DiGiorno Pizza delivered a unique interactive experience with its members. To improve social network marketing, brands must develop community-centered content and activities, measure success based on new criteria, and be prepared to participate.

Continue reading "Reporting on the Best and Worst of Online Communities"

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"

Folks, it’s all about making people’s lives better. Facebook continues to be a solid social media tool because it can actually improve your life (or, destroy it through addiction ... either way) by effectively connecting you with your community.

Their people just published a white paper on viral marketing designed to teach businesses how to leverage customers through Facebook, and they’ve also added another feature that further enhances Facebook users to communicate and connect with their friends. They call it, c-h-a-t. You may have heard of it.

The whitepaper was actually a pretty good read--I learned a few things myself. This was a good move for them as it does two things: 1) It establishes their authority in viral marketing, and 2) Targets the growing Facebook business demographic. Facebook continues to distancing itself from its “Facebook is for kids” criticism as more and more people recognize the name. It is becoming so widspread that you are no longer considered a nerd or young-punk if you’re a Facebook user; instead, the question has become, “You’re not on Facebook?” I mean, my Dad is on Facebook (honestly...).

Also, the chat feature is pretty solid. While there are pros and cons to it, brands now have a new channel for making themselves available to customers. I know it’s already being done by some companies; but brands should be excited about another opportunity to listen to what their customers are saying.

Continue reading "Facebook Making Another Big Push"

UPDATE PT. 2Thanks to Joel, you can now view the commercial I was mentioning at his blog here. Thanks Joel!

UPDATE: Thanks to Muriel’s comment, here is the link to the DirectTV commercial series I was referring to. Unfortunately it doesn’t have the exact spot, but it does have some others that are in the same vein and equally as funny. Hopefully they’ll be posting the “Blog it Out” spot soon.

Direct TV has a new TV commercial series out featuring John Micahel Higgins and a chunk of the Christopher Guest Crew (Waiting for Guffman, Best In Show etc.). I bring that up because not only did the most recent commercial I saw make me laugh out loud; it was incredibly poignant.

The group is sitting around a drab executive style oval table, and they all look bored to tears. They are playing the part of the unnamed cable company executives. Higgins begins by stating that cable TV is losing it’s steam and something must be done. Rather than changing their policies, he says to the crew “We’re going viral. We’re gonna get online and start blogging it out.” I wish I could find that commercial on YouTube--if you find it, please let me know.

Anyhow, that is just a perfect picture of a typical view of digital marketing and social media. Someone, somewhere, heard of social media and decided they needed to be leveraging the new shiny toy. It was clearly not in Higgin’s original business plan to utilize digital marketing. Digital marketing is not a quick fix or a limited one-off; but rather a long-term invested approach of discovering where your customers are, and finding relevant ways to join their conversation on their terms

A recent study by Booz Allen Hamilton and the Association of National Advertisers suggests that fewer than 1 in 4 of the participants in Marketing & Media Ecosystem 2010 consider their organizations digitally savvy. Furthermore, AdAge reports that,

While every marketing executive recognizes the pervasive pull of the internet, most allocate only 5% to 10% of their ad budgets to digital media.

The article goes on to say,

Leading marketers such as Nike, Johnson & Johnson and Procter & Gamble are indeed recognizing that digital and interactive are no longer niche capabilities; they are a requisite skill set for all marketers.

Currently, the way in which legacy marketing treats digital marketing is akin to buying a cell phone for the sole purpose of replacing your land line: You never take the phone with you. You leave it at home, you plug it into your answering machine, and you bolt it to your wall. You now have your shiny new toy and you’ve now become ‘relevant.’ Great concept, but missing the point.

The issue for Higgin’s crew in the Direct TV commercial is that is that not only was it too little too late; but the culture supporting the “blogging it out” is not conducive to blogging.

Continue reading "“Blog It Out” - The Confusion of Digital Marketing"

Lately, I’ve been exerting mental energy over what it takes to ensure a marketing campaign, no matter the medium, is sustainable. The word “sustainability” has come to mean something different to everyone it seems...it has been hijacked by the evil buzzworders.

We need a sustainable definition of sustainable.

This morning while reading Brains On Fire’s latest post my brain literally lit on fire when both sustainability and hockey were addressed.

A few days ago, Geno from Brains On Fire summed up sustainability as being real

“when the community...can continue without having to stimulate conversation and the overall movement with continued funding to stimulate conversation.”

You should go read that post.

The idea here is something we’ve been blogging about as of late. It’s the idea of relational marketing. Conversations are taking place, it’s just a question of where and how to participate. A truly sustainable marketing initiative occurs when the creators are no longer required to catalyze conversation--be it through funding or other means. A campaign is sustainable when conversations spark other conversations, which spark additional conversations, and before you know it the “campaign” has become a living, breathing brand.

So why hockey?

Continue reading "Hockey is Sustainable"

It seems like I’m hearing more and more about the privacy concerns surrounding online marketing. While this has been an issue for awhile, it could be soon reaching a boiling point.

For a lot of people, Facebook’s Beacon initiative put online privacy concerns on the map.

I recently heard a piece on NPR regarding protecting your children from those vicious online marketers. It was just a little one-sided and motivated me to call in to the NPR show for the first time in my life--which I later realized made me the oldest person I know.

Another fascinating article, which had a similar doomsday feel, was a NYT piece entitled, “To Aim Ads, Web Is Keeping Closer Eye on You.”

And to top it all off, Anil Batra’s “Web Analysis, Behavioral Targeting and Advertising” blog just posted the following:

One New York assemblyman, Richard L. Brodsky, has drafted a bill that would make it a crime — punishable by a fine to be determined — for certain Web companies to use personal information about consumers for advertising without their consent.

While I do believe much of the fear is based on a lack of understanding; I also believe this issue will need to be addressed sooner or later--especially now that big bad Google is now allowing us to opt-in to analytics data sharing as well as target our ads based on demographics (also see this post).

Additionally, the fact that Google is uncomfortable with the title “behavioral targeting” speaks volumes as they are beginning to take tactical measures to invalidate the finger pointing.

...Keeping you protected from the savage data sharing pirates; I’ll provide updates when it’s safe to do so.

I just put down Advertising Age’s issue on the Digital A-List. If this issue is any barometer of how digital marketing is evolving, the lines between technology, entertainment and business goals are continuing to rapidly blur. Profiling the year’s best interactive creative work and the people who make it happen, it is this convergence that is defining the digital future:

“Our belief is that marketing and product have converged. The consumer doesn’t separate the marketing experience from the product experience.”

Rather than merely relying on clever creative work, brands are blending form and function to create branded utilities that effectively utilize social media to create community and brand loyalty. As one agency executive said, “The new ‘viral’ is going to be a business solution for clients.”

This whole new approach means that brands and agencies need to begin developing a marketing-as-service strategy:

In other words, marketers can build websites that do cool, useful stuff...examples include Johnson & Johnson and its BabyCenter, a deep repository of information about raising a newborn that’s a clear competitor to Bonnier or Meredith, the publishers of Parenting and Parents magazines respectively. Nike Plus, whose sharp interface connects runners all over the world, is a real threat to any traditional media owners who wants to engage with that running population.

It’s time for marketing agencies and the companies they represent to think different. Perhaps something a bit more radical like Jakob Nielsen’s perspective:

“The basic point about the web is that it is not an advertising medium. The web is not a selling medium; it is a buying medium. It is user-controlled, so the user controls, the user experiences.”

This represents a powerful shift for brands and agencies. Those that tackle this change with creativity and a marketing-as-service strategy that engages their audiences through useful and functional online experiences will be the ones that define success in this convergence of product and marketing.