I saw this video on DeanHunt.com. Well, actually, Dean posted a slightly earlier version of it. The one below dates from June 2007:
The main point seems to be that the world is bigger, more connected, and changing faster than we realize. It's interesting in part because it illustrates at least one of the points it is trying to make: originally created for a presentation to 150 people, the various versions have collectively been viewed over 5 million times on YouTube.
There are a lot of thought-provoking tidbits in here and I encourage you to find them for yourself. To save you a fraction of time, I'll share these two with you:
- By 2013, supercomputers will exceed the computational capacity of the human brain;
- By 2049, a $1000 computer's capacity will exceed that of the human race.
As the authors point out, it is very difficult to predict what will happen between the first date and the second. One reason for this unpredictability is something Vernor Vinge dubbed, "The Singularity," way back in 1993. As he wrote then, "Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended."
In other words, once an intelligence greater than our own appears on Earth, the possible futures ensuing become as unknowable as the events occurring beyond the event horizon of a black hole.
Action Item: During your next job interview, ask the interviewer what plans the company has for The Singularity and the need to serve super-intelligent customers.
I am generally bored by presentations, business, academic, or otherwise. I fidget, I doodle, and my comments or questions tend to fall into the "distracting/sometimes comedic" category. And while I've sat through my share of boring presentations, I will freely admit that I have likewise conducted some of my own. Moreover, I have known the searing pain and embarrassment of consciously doing so.
I've tried to play with the genre in order to liven things up. At academic conferences, I've eschewed the traditional reading approach and spoken ex tempore. In business contexts, I've used Godin-esque PowerPoints featuring provocative images and 5 words or less per slide, and I've even daringly presented without a PowerPointed net.
Still, I have yet to try Pecha Kucha. A Pecha Kucha Night is an event whereat designers present their ideas on design under rather strict limits: Each presenter gets 20 slides and 20 seconds per slide. If you do the math, you'll realize that gives each presentation 400 seconds, or a little over six minutes.
The founders of PK Night, Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham of Klein Dytham architecture, realized that, if you "give a mike to a designer (especially an architect) ... you'll be trapped for hours." At the same time, they wanted to create "a place for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public." Incipit Pecha Kucha.
I'm loving the concept. Can you imagine a speaker telling you, "Yes, I'd be happy to present at your conference, but I refuse to speak for more than six and a half minutes"?
If that sounds like a dream come true, CALL ME! I would be happy to speak anywhere, on ANY SUBJECT, Pecha-Kucha-style. Even if I'm boring, the light at the end of the tunnel of boredom is coming atcha in twenty 20-second increments. So don't worry. It will be over soon.
The fellow who made this, Chuck Lewis, is also known as "The Poetic Prophet," and, more to the point, "The SEO Rapper." In addition to dropping science on the importance of design and coding - "please don't use tables even though they work fine/ when it come to indexing they give searches a hard time/ make it easy for the spiders to crawl what you provide/ remove font type, font color and font size" - he kicks serious k-nowledge on conversion, social media, and paid search. Check it out, boyeeeez! (I almost can't believe I just wrote that.)
Long story short, if your page rank is illin' and your SEM isn't "fillin'" it, go on and pick up on what the SEO Rapper is puttin' down. He'll school y'all. Peace. Out.
Special "shout out" to Shelli and Mariam in Aquent's Detroit office for turning me on to this dude.
I'm going to set aside my "career advice" hat for a second and put on my "marketing thought leader" hat so that I can briefly discuss some interesting things I noticed about the Super Bowl ads.
First, GoDaddy. For a few years now, they've been posting the "hot" versions of their notorious ads on their website. While last year the message was "marketing has all the fun," this year, the message seemed to be, "the hot ads are on the web." In fact, the commercial explicitly mocked people for watching the ads on television.
So, Interesting Integration Strategy #1: Create a television ad that is basically an advertisement for the on-line ad (which happens to be on your website).
Second, Under Armour. Apparently, as their Apple-esque ad ended, if you were on their mailing list, you received an HTML email allowing you to pre-order the future of the athletic shoe. The obvious assumption is that even when watching television, people are on-line, either via their cellphone, their Blackberry, or their household PC.
Interesting Integration Strategy #2: Supplement broadcast advertisement with immediate on-line call to action.
Look, the interweb is really big and my time is limited, people!
Anyway, while trying to find out more about Mr. Webster and is non-stop funniosity, I came across this gem, apparently created for the ADDY Awards by The Meyocks Group a coupla years ago:
What I appreciate most about this video is the way that it makes fun of an entire industry AND every individual contributor! Thank GOD I don't work in advertising! Marketing is a whole different ball of wax....
Over the weekend I attended the second annual PodCamp un-conference here in Boston. It was great for a lot of reasons, chief among them being the chance to meet people I've corresponded with or spoken to, but had until then never seen in the flesh, as well as the opportunity to meet folks I didn't know before but am glad I do now.
On the "glad I know them now"-front, there were, among others, the "Hollywood Podcaster," Tim Coyne, Doug Haslam and Sandy Kalik of Topaz Partners, the "golden" Jay Berkowitz, and the "twisted" Mitch Joel.
While many folks at PodCamp made an impression on me, I would say the impression I've been wrestling with most vigorously was that made by Mr. Joel. Mitch's presentation was entitled, "Building Your Personal Brand," and, frankly, I wasn't planning on attending it until C.C. told me that Mitch was a great speaker.
The other day I had the good fortune of speaking with Paige and Gretchen of MommyCast, a popular podcast devoted to moms the world over and one that has been featured everywhere from Variety and USA Today to the BBC and the Wall Street Journal. I asked them about their editorial perspective, what works and what doesn't when companies approach them with sponsorship offers, and why their podcast has been so wildly successful.
If you haven't listened to their podcast, you should. If you'd like to listen in on our conversation you can use this device:
You can also download this interview by right-clicking (or "control-clicking," Mac-wise) on this link, or access it (along with other Talent Blog Podcast episodes) via iTunes or at Switchpod.
Some points of interest:
2:55 - How moms share information
4:20 - Successful pitch approaches
10:05 - People who don't get podcasting
13:33 - Measuring the impact of a podcast
21:00 - Media kits matter!
Paul's book is an insightful, articulate, and information-rich overview of the new social media from blogs to YouTube and beyond. If you are a marketer and want to figure out how you can succeed in the new media landscape, or at least avoid some of its precipitous pitfalls, you should tune into the webcast and check out The New influencers.
As an added bonus, I recorded an interview with one of the influencers Paul profiles, Peter Rojas of engadget fame. I will be posting the interview as a podcast here tomorrow. I beg of you to do us both a favor and come on back to listen to it. You'll be glad you did.
There is plenty of stuff out there that you can read about in-game advertising. What's strange is when games become so popular that they can serve as the setting for real-live commercials, like in this one for Toyota Tacoma:
Because I don't live in New York, and have thus not yet seen the giant two-storied rears smiling down on passers-by from high above Times Square, I had to discover the Washlet via AdCritic Interactive. Of course, after that initial tip, I learned all I needed to know about this "revolution in personal hygiene" from the amazing clean is happy site itself.
I'm not sure what is more impressive about this site: the remarkable technology that allows you to go to the bathroom and have a "hands free" experience; the use of Flash and video (which is undeniably great); or the way ML Rogers turns getting your bum sprayed by a self-sterilizing wand into a quality of life issue.
Given the innuendo and double entendre that drives the fairly self-parodic (one commentator wrote, "If I were to make a parody website this would be it") humor behind the "clean is happy" campaign, it's no surprise that most folks writing about it have a hard time reigning in their inner child. AdAge refers to it as "cheeky," Alissa at mediabistro.com's UnBeige calls it '"assvertising," and John at menuism.com's blog writes demurely about the "pleasant buttocks" which adorn the site and the outdoor advertising. For my part, I still can't watch the site without cackling in infantile glee and then, just as the designers no doubt envisioned, gleefully sharing it with others.
All scatology aside, the site is clever, well-designed and, as far as interactive advertising goes, fairly effective. Flash designers, graphic designers, and marketers in the personal hygiene category could all learn something from it. It might even make you happier.
One of the things that I have done on at off during my tenure at Aquent is write songs about the company and it's various initiatives. I have not recorded many of them, but recently started doing so.
Most of these songs have been for internal consumption, but I thought that I should start sharing them with the world. To that end, I created a MySpace page devoted to the songs and other cultural artifacts (like poems) that I have created for Aquent. Right now there are only two songs there - one about our "Talent Bridge" approach to getting a permanent job, and a very rough, soon-to-be remade demo of a song about the importance of "U" to Aquent.
In response to my last post, commenter Rob weighed in with an interesting question: "Do you think that the evolution of user-produced media (YouTube, Current.tv, etc.) is a positive or negative trend in marketing?" For my part, I don't think of the trend as positive or negative, because the fact is, it's happening. Design, production, and publication tools have been democratized, taken out from behind the wall of professionalism and placed in the hands of the general public. User-generated content is perceived as having integrity, as coming straight from the mind and soul of the consumer. It also has a certain in-your-face charisma-- right now, to express oneself in media that were formerly reserved for professionals feels like rebellion against an elite. It's exciting to see the wall between how products craftily represent themselves and how their target audience actually perceives them knocked down with creativity, wit, and talent.
Think of user-generated media and an identifiable aesthetic comes to mind: low-fi, "reality-style" production values; irreverent, ironic humor; and use of a product in a way the manufacturer didn't intend to make a statement that is in no way tethered to the commercial interests of the product. Just as important as user-generated media is user-transmitted media. It's funny, the hottest word in marketing right now is "viral"- marketers are always trying to figure out how to generate the next piece of commercial media that is going to be picked up and spread like wildfire from one consumer to the next. And yet, while trying to harness it, the trend has also been viewed with some apprehension and even hostility, because it's still an unknown quantity that can't quite be controlled.
Mike Wagner recently posted to his blog a piece on raw marketing. "Raw marketing" involves "a raw, direct, and honest invitation to become someone's customer," while the "cooked" variety makes him feel like "some marketer is trying to yank me around."
I think a lot of job seekers could find a lesson here. When composing a cover letter, assembling a resume, or constructing a portfolio, where are you "cooking" your brand? When you find yourself doing that, pause for a moment and ask yourself, "If I were going to approach this prospective client or employer directly and honestly, what would that sound like?" Then try it.
Of course, you'll have to overcome the idea that honesty and directness are out of place in a job search....
News travels fast these days, so I don't need to tell anyone that, right here in Boston, a guerrilla marketing stunt mobilized the police force and shut down significant parts of the city for several hours. If you don't know what I'm talking about, then you are welcome to read this news story about what happened and the artists that got arrested for doing it.
It happened almost a week ago, so it's basically ancient history at this point, but if anyone is still interested in reading about it, they should check out this engaging post from the blog of John Cass, the Immediate Past President of the Boston chapter of the AMA.
Aside from pulling together a representative sampling of blogospheric responses from the MySpace Generation - most of which were critical of both the guerrillistas as well as the city officials who had in fact overlooked the offending devices for several weeks before responding with overwhelming force - I appreciated that John turned the discussion to a broader consideration of marketing ethics.
In addition to making some very practical and reasonable recommendations regarding the proper conduct of guerrilla marketers, such as asking property owners for permission if you are going to put things on their property, he also quotes from a number of ethical codes, including that of the AMA itself. The particular passage of that code which he cites begins, "Marketers must foster trust in the marketing system."
Why don't people trust the marketing system? Because they understand that the purpose of marketing is to influence their behavior. Given that, can any kind of marketing that goes beyond the straight-forward communication of unbiased and objective information about the benefits and risks of particular products and services ever be entirely trustworthy?
To put it another way, would it be unreasonable to amend the AMA's code slightly to read in the following way? "Marketers must foster trust in the marketing system by simultaneously fostering a healthy skepticism towards all marketing efforts."
The Wall Street Journal published an interview [registration required] with David Neupert of M80 on the subject of word-of-mouth marketing. M80 was behind a recent Nestle campaign to mobilize 24,000 raving chocolate enthusiasts to evangelize on behalf of their high-end baking chocolate brand, but they also caught the attention of he WSJ because large marketing and ad concerns are beginning to buy up firms like M80 (which was purchased in June by WPP) as the demand for experiential and "viral" marketing increases.
The interview is worth a read in part because it discusses some pitfalls that marketers may encounter when undertaking word-of-mouth initiatives. Aside from the fact that many products lack a well-defined and rabid fan-base, even when they do, sometimes the rabid fans don't want to spread the word. For example, when reaching out to hard-core devotees of Yanni, Neupert discovered that they were a fairly insular group and reluctant to "share" Yanni with anyone else. Talk about brand loyalty to a fault!
Nowadays everyone is talking about getting into "conversations" with consumers and trying to leverage blogs and a range of social media to make that happen (although it is unclear how much "conversing" actually happens between web-sites and their audiences). Not surprisingly, Mr. Neupert talks about it as well, stressing that companies "always" need to "participate in the conversation with the consumer." He warns, however, that, even when you are actively conversing with your consumer-base, you may not be able to "get them onto a team that is going to be driving extreme word of mouth."
What, pray tell, is "extreme word of mouth"? Something like this? Or maybe this?
I learn something everyday. For example, I found out today what a flog is. Well, actually, I found out that "flog" can refer to a number of phenomena, but specifically I learned about "fake blogs" that companies create to hype new products (if you clicked on that link and found a blank page, I believe it's because Sony removed the flog, or "frog," as Joseph Jaffe called it, after its flog-hood was revealed). Flogs should not be confused with splogs.
Long story short, if you are going to market yourself by blogging, try to keep it real. If you are a marketer who thinks that creating a flog will make you all viral and stuff, prepare for a viral backlash.
"As a result of the growing popularity of consumer-generated pictures, videos and e-mail messages on Internet sites like YouTube and Myspace, advertisers are getting consumers to essentially do their jobs for them."
The above quote may be found in this article [registration required] from the New York Times. It focuses on the emergence of Times Square as "a publishing platform," as Peter Stabler, director of communication strategy for Goodby, Silverstein and Partners puts it. In brief, thanks to the ubiquity of digital cameras and the rise of user-generated and social networking sites, marketers are finding that "experiential marketing" (or what used to be called "publicity stunts"), such as Charmin's fancy public restrooms, are growing long legs on the Web. These restrooms alone, "[u]sed by thousands in Times Square [were] viewed by 7,400 Web users on one site alone."
While this raises a lot of interesting questions about the meaning of "product placement" and whether or not advertisers should start courting, and compensating, particularly popular or prolific private citizens for featuring their products on Flickr and YouTube, I was particularly struck by the formulation "getting consumers to essentially do their jobs for them." Now it is certainly the case that YouTubers and Flickr-ers are, wittingly or un, doing things that benefit advertisers and the brands they promote. But so is anyone wearing a t-shirt with a visible logo.
It is not the job of advertisers to wander around the city in sandwich boards; it is their job, however, to come up with novel ways of getting brand-specific messages out to the world. If they create a spectacle noteworthy enough to generate spontaneous buzz promoted by random individuals, then they have done exactly what they are supposed to do. In fact, by now, I'd be astonished if the folks who conceived of and executed these events weren't planning on a significant "web" effect. In a sense, if no one had posted this stuff to the Web, then you could rightly accuse advertisers of shirking.
Or do I, and not the paper of record, not understand what advertisers are supposed to do?
After writing about Second Life on Friday, I came across two interesting references to it from a marketing perspective.
First, Max Kalehoff cited a Wall Street Journal story about the marketing strategy for Toyota's Scion brand on his blog. In addition to highlighting Scion's move away from televsion advertising as well as their decision to scale back production in order to keep the brand "special," the WSJ article also mentioned that they are moving their "online social-networking marketing focus" from myspace.com to Second LIfe. WSJ says that Scion made this move because they want to be "up to the moment and beyond." I say, "Don't we all?"
Secondly, I was perusing the latest issue of Fast Company and discovered this article on viral marketing. The focus of the article is a firm called Campfire that specializes in engineering viral campaigns. Campfire, which was founded by a couple of the guys who worked on The Blair Witch Project, has already had success creating viral advertainment for Sega and Audi and has now been tapped by Pontiac and Leo Burnett to help them "build a community around the carmaker in Second Life."
Community is key to being viral in at least three ways:
1. You need to immerse yourself in the target community before releasing your marketing pathogen.
For example, while developing their Sega campaign, they hung out on gamer fan sites and message boards to learn the lingo and identify opinion makers to whom they "leaked" bootleg versions of the game they were promoting.
2. Don't piss off the target community.
The quickest way to do that is to make them feel like they are a target community. The other way is to violate communal conventions or traditions. Campfire pointed out to Leo Burnett, for example, that one car manufacturer who had tried to gain traction in Second Life annoyed long-time users by giving away cars for free, thus wrecking the market for established, in-world carmakers.
3. A virus creates a community.
This community consists of the people who "catch" the virus. In order to grow this community, you will not only need content that draws people in, you will also need to cultivate a rank of "hardcore" participants who will actively generate interest in it. In fact, you might have to invent such fans to push things (just make sure you don't violate Rule #2), as Campfire did for one of their campaigns.
The idea of "viral marketing" is itself a kind of virus and infected marketers, specifically those, as the FC article points out, who talk about campaigns being viral before they've even launched, need to be reminded and warned: You don't make the campaign viral. Far from it.
Just as "it takes a village to raise a child," never forget that it takes a community to spread a virus.
I'm going to set aside my "career advice" hat for a second and put on my "marketing thought leader" hat so that I can briefly discuss some interesting things I noticed about the Super Bowl ads.
