FireStarter

December Bulletin

2010-12-22T10:57:00.000-08:00

Happy Holidays Everybody. Here's our December bulletin. If you'd like to cycle through the articles use the following bundle link: http://bit.ly/bundles/zachary/3

Eight Principles To Innovation
Ideas, creativity and innovation are a big part of our business. Although these elements of our business are intangible and are perceived to be intrinsic qualities, there are many factors that lead to their realization. Here are eight principles when approaching innovation along with some examples to get you going.
http://bit.ly/9WsKfd

Consumer Journey
Looking to create comprehensive customer experiences and discover new ways of engaging your audience? Look no further than customer journey maps. Understanding the minutia about audiences’ behaviour and brand engagement is a demanding and enlightening exercise. Here are a few tricks to keep in mind and be sure to speak to your Account Planners on the latest BBDO/Proximity engagement planning tool: InciteWorks.
http://bit.ly/fq9vlV

The Movement Is The Medium
Creating a branded movement is a strategic goal many organization hope to achieve yet few will realize. In all sincerity, it’s a tall order. The motivation behind “the movement” is to strengthen customer loyalty, integrate your brand with culture and provide visceral “ins” for consumers to connect with your brand. Although the strategy is far from news, the following is a good introduction to the basics of creating a branded movement.
http://bit.ly/dLRHpn

Social Shopping
It’s time to start thinking of point of sale in a whole new light. In 2010, we've seen the rise of so-called "social shopping" services. They rely heavily on technologies such as social networking, crowdsourcing and smart phone scanners. Here are five of the main social shopping developments of 2010.
http://rww.to/dKQqj9

Hack Your Brain
The evolution of video game interaction (Wii & Kinect) has revealed that different types of body movements have varying affects on emotion. Why is this important to marketers? Well, marketing has embraced engagement and interaction. In the same way we focus heavily on the details of messaging, we must now draw the same level of attention to interaction.
http://bit.ly/eKMljG

Gut Check
Years of market research have confirmed that emotion drivers have more impact that rational drivers. There’s no doubt, people are motivated by their visceral intuition. The following is a look at thirty seven human needs which can be met by purchasing a given product or service.
http://bit.ly/epncWO

Eight Principles To Innovation
Ideas, creativity and innovation are a big part of our business. Although these elements of our business are intangible and are perceived to be intrinsic qualities, there are many factors that lead to their realization. Here are eight principles when approaching innovation along with some examples to get you going.
http://bit.ly/9WsKfd

Consumer Journey
Looking to create comprehensive customer experiences and discover new ways of engaging your audience? Look no further than customer journey maps. Understanding the minutia about audiences’ behaviour and brand engagement is a demanding and enlightening exercise. Here are a few tricks to keep in mind and be sure to speak to your Account Planners on the latest BBDO/Proximity engagement planning tool: InciteWorks.
http://bit.ly/fq9vlV

The Movement Is The Medium
Creating a branded movement is a strategic goal many organization hope to achieve yet few will realize. In all sincerity, it’s a tall order. The motivation behind “the movement” is to strengthen customer loyalty, integrate your brand with culture and provide visceral “ins” for consumers to connect with your brand. Although the strategy is far from news, the following is a good introduction to the basics of creating a branded movement.
http://bit.ly/dLRHpn

Social Shopping
It’s time to start thinking of point of sale in a whole new light. In 2010, we've seen the rise of so-called "social shopping" services. They rely heavily on technologies such as social networking, crowdsourcing and smart phone scanners. Here are five of the main social shopping developments of 2010.
http://rww.to/dKQqj9

Hack Your Brain
The evolution of video game interaction (Wii & Kinect) has revealed that different types of body movements have varying affects on emotion. Why is this important to marketers? Well, marketing has embraced engagement and interaction. In the same way we focus heavily on the details of messaging, we must now draw the same level of attention to interaction.
http://bit.ly/eKMljG

Gut Check
Years of market research have confirmed that emotion drivers have more impact that rational drivers. There’s no doubt, people are motivated by their visceral intuition. The following is a look at thirty seven human needs which can be met by purchasing a given product or service.
http://bit.ly/epncWO

November Bulletin

2010-11-23T10:34:00.000-08:00

We’re gonna do things a little different this month. Instead of uploading the individual articles as blog posts, we’ll simply post the newsletter and you can choose to engage with any content you wish from one post. Click on the article headlines to be linked.

We’ve also created a “bundle” of all the articles in the event you would like to cycle through them from one link. Simply click here.

We apologize for not providing content during the month of October. Due to medical reasons I was not able to pull together the bulletin. For ongoing content, follow us on Twitter.

Beyond Paid Media

Changes to the way consumers perceive and absorb marketing messages is forcing marketers to not only change their thinking but also the way they allocate spending and organize operations. Paid media remains important however its role within the grand scheme of the strategy has shifted dramatically. Discover four other forms of media and modern challenges for marketing organizations.

Disconnect For The Sake Of Creativity

Interruption-free space is sacred. Yet, in the digital era we live in, we are losing hold of the few sacred spaces that remain untouched by email, the Internet, people, and other forms of distraction. The consequence is the death of deep thinking and creativity. Find out how to fight the invisible forces for the connected world.

The Six Drivers Of Brand Utility

Is this marketing or just ridiculous? Many brands are experimenting with an approach known as brand utility. In short, brands are providing audiences with services & goods that aren’t necessarily sold but given away. Although it sounds similar to sampling, it’s not. Discover the difference between the two and learn about the six fundamentals to creating successful brand utility.

The Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted

The world, we are told, is in the midst of a revolution. The new tools of social media have reinvented social activism. With Facebook and Twitter and the like, the traditional relationship between political authority and popular will has been upended, making it easier for the powerless to collaborate, coordinate, and give voice to their concerns. Malcolm Gladwell argues this isn’t the case by exposing the shallow underside of Twitter.

Digital Relativity

Space on the Internet is infinite. Time and attention, meanwhile, remain finite. This challenge to marketers has been dubbed “Digital Relativity”. In order to garner the attention of your audience in a world of Digital Relativity, you will need to create a compelling narrative--an emerging set of skills called Transmedia Storytelling. The following is a top line exploration of why Transmedia Storytelling is the right tool for the job.

The Future Is Eff’d

We’re all screwed. Douglas Coupland reveals the shape of things to come, with 45 tips for survival and a matching glossary of the new words you'll need to talk about your messed-up future. Don’t read this in a dark place or you’ll be sad.

If you have any questions, thoughts, etc please contact us or leave a comment.

Update

2010-11-09T08:12:00.000-08:00

Our apologies that we've been off the radar for the last while. We're currently in the process of updating our past newsletters given the slacking we've been doing on our blog. You can check them out by going to older posts. For timely content from Firestarter please follow us on Twitter. Thanks for checking us out.

Welcome To The Decade Of Games

2010-09-01T13:31:00.000-07:00

Game dynamics are fast becoming a critical currency of motivation. Their power lies not in connecting us to our friends, but in directly influencing our individual behaviour. More and more of these dynamics are being cleverly leveraged in real-world scenarios to influence your behavior. Smart companies will take this time to look at their product portfolios and community behaviors through the lens of game dynamics.

For those of you still trying to wrap your head around the meteoric rise of social networking over the past decade, this post might hurt a little bit. Because just as you and most of the world were getting a handle on it, the decade of social abruptly ended.

I don't mean that we will stop using Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr to share with our friends, colleagues and families. In fact, quite the opposite is true, our combined usage of these social networks will continue to increase. Rather, the decade of constructing the social layer is complete. The frameworks that we'll use to share socially are built, defined and controlled. Construction on the social layer ended with the launch of Facebook's Open Graph protocols over the last several months. All the interesting social stuff that will occur over the next decade (and there'll be lots, I'm sure), will exist within this predefined framework built and controlled by Facebook. In short, the decade of social is over.

What's taking its place? The decade of games.

When you hear games, you probably immediately think about things like World of WarCraft, the Nintendo Wii and Farmville. And while those are huge (and will get even bigger) I'm talking about the underlying game dynamics that are the core building blocks of those games. And in this decade of games, these game dynamics will move far beyond your computer screen and into decidedly non-game like environments, like the way we court customers, engage with others at work, discover where to hang out on Saturday nights and what, when and how we choose to purchase. More and more of these dynamics are being cleverly leveraged in real-world scenarios to influence your behavior. While the last decade was all about connections and integrating a social fabric to every facet of our digital and analog existence, this next decade is all about influence.

Game dynamics are fast becoming a critical currency of motivation. Their power lies not in connecting us to our friends, but in directly influencing our individual behavior.

The decade of games is starting now because cultural and technological shifts have led us to a perfect convergence of reach, relevance and demand. We're able to reach people anywhere at any time thanks to the powerful mobile devices that now travel everywhere we go. Facebook's Open Graph enables us to provide relevance to anyone with instant access to the social graph of connections. And there's the demand. Traditional forms of entertainment (movies, television... remember books?) are in a rapid decline. The demand for entertainment hasn't decreased, it's just shifted to a more interactive, pervasive form of entertainment. It's shifting to games.

I've been playing games for at least half of my life (granted, I'm only 21) but that's still a long time. And, I'm currently the Chief Ninja (that's the non-game company equivalent of CEO) of SCVNGR, aGoogle Ventures backed mobile gaming company. Needless to say, I tend to think of life as a giant game. A somewhat poorly designed for sure, but one big game nevertheless. I enjoy watching how game dynamics subtly, often invisibly, influence almost everything that everyone does.

At SCVNGR, we've been able to examine the statistical effects of introducing game dynamics into situations that are decidedly not games. We've seen simple game dynamics increase traffic to locations 4X over a matter of days. We've seen others extend the average amount of engaged time consumers spend at a business by upwards of 40%. This propagation of game dynamics into the real world via the social graph and mobile devices will have powerful business consequences for those who understand how to leverage them.

At SCVNGR we like to joke that with any seven game dynamics you can get anyone to do anything. So with that, I'll present three of our favorites here:

The Appointment Dynamic

The appointment dynamic is a famous game mechanic in which to succeed a "player" must return at a predefined time to take a predetermined action. It's simple and immensely powerful.

The appointment dynamic is powerful enough to alter the behavior of an entire generation — "happy hours" are appointment dynamics, as is the pervasive game "Farmville" by Zynga. But we've barely scratched the surface of what it can do. Imagine companies like Vitality leveraging this dynamic to improve the adherence rate to often less-than-pleasant medicinal regimens, or the government creating a large scale game (with financial incentives as rewards) to alter traffic patterns to decrease highway congestion in the mornings.

The Progression Dynamic

In the progression dynamic, a "player's" level of success is displayed in real-time and gradually improved through the completion of granular tasks. Somewhere deep-rooted in the human psyche we have this desire to complete any progression dynamic put in front of us as long as the steps to do so are itemized and clear. With this as a known dynamic, it's not hard to envision the ways that this can be leveraged even further in the real-world.

The canonical "game" example of the progression dynamic exists in Blizzard's World of WarCraft, the most popular immersive online game with over 11 million monthly players. In WoW players follow a well-defined progression dynamic as they level-up from a weak paladin level 1 to an unbelievably powerful paladin level 60 by completing missions and tasks.

But like most game dynamics, real-world implementations of this mechanic are not hard to find. Coffee shops regularly use this dynamic with their "buy nine cups of coffee and your 10th is free" cards. Next time you log into LinkedIn, check out how complete your profile is. If you're one of the lucky ones who's figured out how to have a complete LinkedIn profile, then you've won this specific game, but for the rest of us, you'll see a now familiar looking progression dynamic, urging us to take a couple more steps to move that blue progress bar from the left edge of the screen to the right.

Communal Discovery

Communal discovery is a mechanic which involves an entire community working together to solve a problem. The reason I've saved the communal discovery dynamic for last is that it, perhaps more than all others, presents incredible opportunities to positively influence the world as we enter this decade of games.

In an effort to illustrate the immense data-collection power of the now mature social layer (and incidentally the burgeoning game layer), DARPA launched a challenge late last year. They hid 10 red balloons at different locations all across the continental United States and offered $40,000 to the first team to correctly identify their locations. The winning team (a group from MIT) constructed a strategy that in many ways mirrored a pyramid scheme. It was a cleverly constructed waterfall of incentives that encouraged massive cooperation. Essentially everyone to give them data about any balloon's location won some portion of the prize money based on how many other people also submitted the location of that balloon. This created positive communal incentives across what rapidly became a large and self-propagating network. Their strategy managed to accurately identify all locations in less than 9 hours.

This communal discovery mechanic is immensely powerful and, as DARPA so elegantly displayed, can be used to solve immensely difficult problems in record time.

These are just three out of a myriad of game dynamics that will act as the core building blocks used to construct the game layer over the next couple years. We're right at the beginning of this decade of games and so now is the time for everyone to learn about these game dynamics and discover new ones. Smart companies will take this time to look at their product portfolios and community behaviors through the lens of game dynamics. Where could you employ progression or appointment dynamics on the existing social graph or through mobile to encourage upsells or repeat visits? The time is now to map out your game dynamic strategy. The more people that help in the construction of these frameworks, the better they will be. So, go play some games. Then start building.

Source - Harvard Business Review

LBS – Foursquare & Facebook Places

2010-09-01T13:23:00.000-07:00

Insights from the internal, Dino Demopolous sheds some light on the differences in location based services provided by Facebook & Foursquare. Through the exploration of people and places the present and the future, Dino provides some interesting thoughts on the future of “checking in”.

I have been thinking about Facebook Places over the past couple of days. Though I have yet to try it since it has not been made available in Canada, I am interested to see how it differs from Foursquare. Or, more accurately, how I will use it differently, how brands might use it differently and how it might co exist with Foursquare.

In my mind, I find it useful to view location based services and what they offer through two distinct lenses. The first is, of course, the lens of PEOPLE that use these services. The second is the PLACES themselves, the actual locations in which we check in. Sure, it is an obvious distinction, but here is how I see some of the implications when we think of these two lenses as they apply to what is happening NOW versus what has happened in the past, or THEN. In other words, how do these services play out in how they deliver value right now, in real time, and how does that differ from how value accrues over time? And how is that different for people and places?

Here is my rudimentary chart:

I. Places, Now

This is the data that is made available in real time about what is currently popping at a given location. It is the basic role of Foursquare, as far as Places are concerned; animating the present. How many people are right here, right now at this place? Think of, say, a bar or club, and in many ways this is pretty obvious, people have been doing it with text messages or by telephone for ages. I know that as a DJ this is a behaviour that we saw evolve through the medieval ages (the 1990s, as people would rifle off text messages to their friends upon walking in the club to let them know if the party was happening.

Of course, the present is most definitely vital to location based services, but it is far from everything. Making use of the real time information that is being provided is a huge benefit for places, especially commercial places, but it is different than the long term breadth and depth of information and data that location services can provided. More on that below, but Yelp is just one starting point as an example.

2. Places, Then

I think of this as the layers of meaning attached to locations over time. Yes, much of this can be, and is, commercial in nature. Things like loyalty programs, CRM type stuff. Huge for business. But I think it is quite telling that the example used by one of the Facebook developers when Places was launched was of a beach that you were at, and discovered that this was the place where your parents had their first kiss. How sweet!

This hints at the long term project and goal that transcends the present, commercial or otherwise, and is the beginning of an underlying digital archive of information and meaning attached to physical locations, or places. I should say, it is a beginning, instead of the beginning. There is a lot of interesting work being done by the folks at Bing Maps, for instance, to develop rich layers of meaning on city maps. But given the sheer size of Facebook, this project can take off in a very natural, mass way, by making it part of the regular social stuff we share with friends.

So, in contrast to Foursquares game mechanic driven focus on what is going onnow, I think Places strength will be in building meaning over time for locations. This is a lofty goal, but as long as the behaviour of checking in becomes adopted and second nature, it will happen given the sheer size of Facebook. Here is how Augie Ray from Forrester put it,

Soon, the local restaurant or hiking trail may have as rich a personality as do the people on Facebook, not because everyone has visited but because your friends have. And in the end, isn’t that what we really care about? Not who is mayor of our local coffee shop, but what our friends did, said, and liked when they were there before us

3. People, Now

When Foursquare launched, it was described as one part social city guide, one part mobile friend finder. For users, the mobile friend finder is exactly the benefit of real time location data. Knowing that your buddies are drinking at the bar around the corner from where you are right now is compelling, and at its best, this is where Foursquare and the other services shine. It is why unlocking badges is such an important engine to the game. And though you are encouraged to leave tips or reviews for your friends or others about places, it really is one of the lesser used functions. The focus is on the now, the game and collecting badges. Indeed, the whole idea of the resetting leaderboard underscores the inherent temporal logic of Foursquare.

4. People, Then

This is where Facebook has the biggest opportunity. The goal is to make checking in and the social relevance of location on par with the many other social behaviours and interactions we already share on Facebook, like tagging each other in pictures or posting on each others wall.

This is from the Facebook Places page:

If you're already using Places, it's like you checked in yourself without having to do a thing. If you're not using Places yet, it's just like being mentioned in a status update.

Putting the check in in the wider context of social behaviours we are already familiar with will be a huge accomplishment if they can pull it off, and if we actually adopt it as users, because we will have the potential of seeing a lot of rich meaning emerge over time for how we relate with places in the real world. This can be incredibly relevant to our friends and network.

Part of this relevance will be in the now, so that we know where are friends are in real time, but in contrast to Foursquare, that relevance will also grow and emerge over time as it is woven in to the fabric of our social behaviours. Or, as the clever Facebook put it, the where joins with the who, what, when. Smart.

Thinking back to that first kiss on the beach example provided by the Facebook developer, it is worth noting that he intended it to show how Places will be meaningful twenty years down the road, as we develop the shared social history of location awareness with our friends and network.

With respect to brands and commercial applications, I think that Facebook might have got it right this time around. Instead of jamming an intrusive and strange interaction down our throat, like Beacon, it is banking on first socializing the check in among users so that it becomes second nature. I suspect that they are purposely waiting to roll out commercial applications because job one is to acclimatize Facebook users to using location features and discovering the many ways that they can deliver value, over time, in ways that go beyond just collecting loyalty points or a free latte.

Source - Chroma

Experiences Trump the Material

2010-09-01T13:01:00.000-07:00

Consumers continue trading in material spending for experiences. Initiated by the recession and maintained through positive reinforcement, consumers are finding greater happiness through social interactions and personal experiences. It’s long but it opens up the conversation around brands as experiences vs. products. Marketers pay heed.

A two-bedroom apartment. Two cars. Enough wedding china to serve two dozen people. Yet Tammy Strobel wasn’t happy. Working as a project manager with an investment management firm in Davis, Calif., and making about $40,000 a year, she was, as she put it, caught in the “work-spend treadmill.” So one day she stepped off.

Inspired by books and blog entries about living simply, Ms. Strobel and her husband, Logan Smith, both 31, began donating some of their belongings to charity. As the months passed, out went stacks of sweaters, shoes, books, pots and pans, even the television after a trial separation during which it was relegated to a closet. Eventually, they got rid of their cars, too. Emboldened by a Web site that challenges consumers to live with just 100 personal items, Ms. Strobel winnowed down her wardrobe and toiletries to precisely that number. Her mother called her crazy.

Today, three years after Ms. Strobel and Mr. Smith began downsizing, they live in Portland, Ore., in a spare, 400-square-foot studio with a nice-sized kitchen. Mr. Smith is completing a doctorate in physiology; Ms. Strobel happily works from home as a Web designer and freelance writer. She owns four plates, three pairs of shoes and two pots. With Mr. Smith in his final weeks of school, Ms. Strobel’s income of about $24,000 a year covers their bills. They are still car-free but have bikes. One other thing they no longer have: $30,000 of debt.

Ms. Strobel’s mother is impressed. Now the couple have money to travel and to contribute to the education funds of nieces and nephews. And because their debt is paid off, Ms. Strobel works fewer hours, giving her time to be outdoors, and to volunteer, which she does about four hours a week for a nonprofit outreach program called Living Yoga.

“The idea that you need to go bigger to be happy is false,” she says. “I really believe that the acquisition of material goods doesn’t bring about happiness.”

While Ms. Strobel and her husband overhauled their spending habits before the recession, legions of other consumers have since had to reconsider their own lifestyles, bringing a major shift in the nation’s consumption patterns.

“We’re moving from a conspicuous consumption — which is ‘buy without regard’ — to a calculated consumption,” says Marshal Cohen, an analyst at the NPD Group, the retailing research and consulting firm.

Amid weak job and housing markets, consumers are saving more and spending less than they have in decades, and industry professionals expect that trend to continue. Consumers saved 6.4 percent of their after-tax income in June, according to a new government report. Before the recession, the rate was 1 to 2 percent for many years. In June, consumer spending and personal incomes were essentially flat compared with May, suggesting that the American economy, as dependent as it is on shoppers opening their wallets and purses, isn’t likely to rebound anytime soon.

On the bright side, the practices that consumers have adopted in response to the economic crisis ultimately could — as a raft of new research suggests — make them happier. New studies of consumption and happiness show, for instance, that people are happier when they spend money on experiences instead of material objects, when they relish what they plan to buy long before they buy it, and when they stop trying to outdo the Joneses.

If consumers end up sticking with their newfound spending habits, some tactics that retailers and marketers began deploying during the recession could become lasting business strategies. Among those strategies are proffering merchandise that makes being at home more entertaining and trying to make consumers feel special by giving them access to exclusive events and more personal customer service.

While the current round of stinginess may simply be a response to the economic downturn, some analysts say consumers may also be permanently adjusting their spending based on what they’ve discovered about what truly makes them happy or fulfilled.

“This actually is a topic that hasn’t been researched very much until recently,” says Elizabeth W. Dunn, an associate professor in the psychology department at the University of British Columbia, who is at the forefront of research on consumption and happiness. “There’s massive literature on income and happiness. It’s amazing how little there is on how to spend your money.”

Conspicuous consumption has been an object of fascination going back at least as far as 1899, when the economist Thorstein Veblen published “The Theory of the Leisure Class,” a book that analyzed, in part, how people spent their money in order to demonstrate their social status.

And it’s been a truism for eons that extra cash always makes life a little easier. Studies over the last few decades have shown that money, up to a certain point, makes people happier because it lets them meet basic needs. The latest round of research is, for lack of a better term, all about emotional efficiency: how to reap the most happiness for your dollar. So just where does happiness reside for consumers? Scholars and researchers haven’t determined whether Armani will put a bigger smile on your face than Dolce & Gabbana. But they have found that our types of purchases, their size and frequency, and even the timing of the spending all affect long-term happiness.

One major finding is that spending money for an experience — concert tickets, French lessons, sushi-rolling classes, a hotel room in Monaco — produces longer-lasting satisfaction than spending money on plain old stuff. “It’s better to go on a vacation than buy a new couch’ is basically the idea,” says Professor Dunn, summing up research by two fellow psychologists, Leaf Van Boven and Thomas Gilovich. Her own take on the subject is in a paper she wrote with colleagues at Harvard and the University of Virginia: “If Money Doesn’t Make You Happy Then You Probably Aren’t Spending It Right.” (The Journal of Consumer Psychology plans to publish it in a coming issue.) Thomas DeLeire, an associate professor of public affairs, population, health and economics at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, recently published research examining nine major categories of consumption. He and Ariel Kalil of the University of Chicago discovered that the only category to be positively related to happiness was leisure: vacations, entertainment, sports and equipment like golf clubs and fishing poles.

Using data from a study by the National Institute on Aging, Professor DeLeire compared the happiness derived from different levels of spending to the happiness people get from being married. (Studies have shown that marriage increases happiness.) “A $20,000 increase in spending on leisure was roughly equivalent to the happiness boost one gets from marriage,” he said, adding that spending on leisure activities appeared to make people less lonely and increased their interactions with others.

According to retailers and analysts, consumers have gravitated more toward experiences than possessions over the last couple of years, opting to use their extra cash for nights at home with family, watching movies and playing games — or for “staycations” in the backyard. Many retailing professionals think this is not a fad, but rather “the new normal.”

“I think many of these changes are permanent changes,” says Jennifer Black, president of the retailing research company Jennifer Black & Associates and a member of the Governor’s Council of Economic Advisors in Oregon. “I think people are realizing they don’t need what they had. They’re more interested in creating memories.” She largely attributes this to baby boomers’ continuing concerns about the job market and their ability to send their children to college. While they will still spend, they will spend less, she said, having reset their priorities.

While it is unlikely that most consumers will downsize as much as Ms. Strobel did, many have been, well, happily surprised by the pleasures of living a little more simply. The Boston Consulting Group said in a June report that recession anxiety had prompted a “back-to-basics movement,” with things like home and family increasing in importance over the last two years, while things like luxury and status have declined.

“There’s been an emotional rebirth connected to acquiring things that’s really come out of this recession,” says Wendy Liebmann, chief executive of WSL Strategic Retail, a marketing consulting firm that works with manufacturers and retailers. “We hear people talking about the desire not to lose that — that connection, the moment, the family, the experience.”

Current research suggests that, unlike consumption of material goods, spending on leisure and services typically strengthens social bonds, which in turn helps amplify happiness. (Academics are already in broad agreement that there is a strong correlation between the quality of people’s relationships and their happiness; hence, anything that promotes stronger social bonds has a good chance of making us feel all warm and fuzzy.)

And the creation of complex, sophisticated relationships is a rare thing in the world. As Professor Dunn and her colleagues Daniel T. Gilbert and Timothy D. Wilson point out in their forthcoming paper, only termites, naked mole rats and certain insects like ants and bees construct social networks as complex as those of human beings. In that elite little club, humans are the only ones who shop.

At the height of the recession in 2008, Wal-Mart Stores realized that consumers were “cocooning” — vacationing in their yards, eating more dinners at home, organizing family game nights. So it responded by grouping items in its stores that would turn any den into an at-home movie theater or transform a backyard into a slice of the Catskills. Wal-Mart wasn’t just selling barbecues and board games. It was selling experiences. “We spend a lot of time listening to our customers,” says Amy Lester, a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart, “and know that they have a set amount to spend and need to juggle to meet that amount.”

One reason that paying for experiences gives us longer-lasting happiness is that we can reminisce about them, researchers say. That’s true for even the most middling of experiences. That trip to Rome during which you waited in endless lines, broke your camera and argued with your spouse will typically be airbrushed with “rosy recollection,” says Sonja Lyubomirsky, a psychology professor at the University of California, Riverside. Professor Lyubomirsky has a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to conduct research on the possibility of permanently increasing happiness. “Trips aren’t all perfect,” she notes, “but we remember them as perfect.”

Another reason that scholars contend that experiences provide a bigger pop than things is that they can’t be absorbed in one gulp — it takes more time to adapt to them and engage with them than it does to put on a new leather jacket or turn on that shiny flat-screen TV. “We buy a new house, we get accustomed to it,” says Professor Lyubomirsky, who studies what psychologists call “hedonic adaptation,” a phenomenon in which people quickly become used to changes, great or terrible, in order to maintain a stable level of happiness.

Over time, that means the buzz from a new purchase is pushed toward the emotional norm. “We stop getting pleasure from it,” she says. And then, of course, we buy new things.

When Ed Diener, a psychology professor at the University of Illinois and a former president of the International Positive Psychology Association — which promotes the study of what lets people lead fulfilling lives — was house-hunting with his wife, they saw several homes with features they liked. But unlike couples who choose a house because of its open floor plan, fancy kitchens, great light, or spacious bedrooms, Professor Diener arrived at his decision after considering hedonic-adaptation research.

“One home was close to hiking trails, making going hiking very easy,” he said in an e-mail. “Thinking about the research, I argued that the hiking trails could be a factor contributing to our happiness, and we should worry less about things like how pretty the kitchen floor is or whether the sinks are fancy. We bought the home near the hiking trail and it has been great, and we haven’t tired of this feature because we take a walk four or five days a week.”

Scholars have discovered that one way consumers combat hedonic adaptation is to buy many small pleasures instead of one big one. Instead of a new Jaguar, Professor Lyubomirsky advises, buy a massage once a week, have lots of fresh flowers delivered and make phone calls to friends in Europe. Instead of a two-week long vacation, take a few three-day weekends. “We do adapt to the little things,” she says, “but because there’s so many, it will take longer.”

Before credit cards and cellphones enabled consumers to have almost anything they wanted at any time, the experience of shopping was richer, says Ms. Liebmann of WSL Strategic Retail. “You saved for it, you anticipated it,” she says. In other words, waiting for something and working hard to get it made it feel more valuable and more stimulating.

In fact, scholars have found that anticipation increases happiness. Considering buying an iPad? You might want to think about it as long as possible before taking one home. Likewise about a Caribbean escape: you’ll get more pleasure if you book a flight in advance than if you book it at the last minute.

Once upon a time, with roots that go back to medieval marketplaces featuring stalls that functioned as stores, shopping offered a way to connect socially, as Ms. Liebmann and others have pointed out. But over the last decade, retailing came to be about one thing: unbridled acquisition, epitomized by big-box stores where the mantra was “stack ’em high and let ’em fly” and online transactions that required no social interaction at all — you didn’t even have to leave your home. The recession, however, may force retailers to become reacquainted with shopping’s historical roots. “I think there’s a real opportunity in retail to be able to romance the experience again,” says Ms. Liebmann. “Retailers are going to have to work very hard to create that emotional feeling again. And it can’t just be ‘Here’s another thing to buy.’ It has to have a real sense of experience to it.”

Industry professionals say they have difficulty identifying any retailer that is managing to do this well today, with one notable exception: Apple, which offers an interactive retail experience, including classes.

Marie Driscoll, head of the retailing group at Standard & Poor’s, says chains have to adapt to new consumer preferences by offering better service, special events and access to designers. Analysts at the Boston Consulting Group advise that companies offer more affordable indulgences, like video games that provide an at-home workout for far less than the cost of a gym membership.

Mr. Cohen of the NPD Group says some companies are doing this. Best Buy is promoting its Geek Squad, promising shoppers before they buy that complicated electronic thingamajig that its employees will hold their hands through the installation process and beyond. “Nowadays with the economic climate, customers definitely are going for a quality experience,” says Nick DeVita, a home entertainment adviser with the Geek Squad. “If they’re going to spend their money, they want to make sure it’s for the right thing, the right service.”

With competition for consumer dollars fiercer than it’s been in decades, retailers have had to make the shopping experience more compelling. Mr. Cohen says automakers are offering 30-day test drives, while some clothing stores are promising free personal shoppers. Malls are providing day care while parents shop. Even on the Web, retailers are connecting on customers on Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare, hoping to win their loyalty by offering discounts and invitations to special events.

For the last four years, Roko Belic, a Los Angeles filmmaker, has been traveling the world making a documentary called “Happy.” Since beginning work on the film, he has moved to a beach in Malibu from his house in the San Francisco suburbs. San Francisco was nice, but he couldn’t surf there. “I moved to a trailer park,” says Mr. Belic, “which is the first real community that I’ve lived in in my life.” Now he surfs three or four times a week. “It definitely has made me happier,” he says. “The things we are trained to think make us happy, like having a new car every couple of years and buying the latest fashions, don’t make us happy.”

Mr. Belic says his documentary shows that “the one single trait that’s common among every single person who is happy is strong relationships.” Buying luxury goods, conversely, tends to be an endless cycle of one-upmanship, in which the neighbors have a fancy new car and — bingo! — now you want one, too, scholars say. A study published in June in Psychological Science by Ms. Dunn and others found that wealth interfered with people’s ability to savor positive emotions and experiences, because having an embarrassment of riches reduced the ability to reap enjoyment from life’s smaller everyday pleasures, like eating a chocolate bar.

Alternatively, spending money on an event, like camping or a wine tasting with friends, leaves people less likely to compare their experiences with those of others — and, therefore, happier.

Of course, some fashion lovers beg to differ. For many people, clothes will never be more than utilitarian. But for a certain segment of the population, clothes are an art form, a means of self-expression, a way for families to pass down memories through generations. For them, studies concluding that people eventually stop deriving pleasure from material things don’t ring true. “No way,” says Hayley Corwick, who writes the popular fashion blog Madison Avenue Spy. “I could pull out things from my closet that I bought when I was 17 that I still love.” She rejects the idea that happiness has to be an either-or proposition. Some days, you want a trip, she says; other days, you want a Tom Ford handbag.

Ms. Strobel — our heroine who moved into the 400-square foot apartment — is now an advocate of simple living, writing in her spare time about her own life choices at Rowdykittens.com. “My lifestyle now would not be possible if I still had a huge two-bedroom apartment filled to the gills with stuff, two cars, and 30 grand in debt,” she says. “Give away some of your stuff,” she advises. “See how it feels.”

Source - NYT

Five Ways Big Brands Are Using Foursquare

2010-09-01T12:35:00.000-07:00

Unlike other more mainstream social networks, the business potential of Foursquare may not be immediately apparent. At present, the location-based network is less about conversations and resource sharing, and more about tying your social activities to physical places.

For brick-and-mortar businesses, a Foursquare strategy makes a lot of sense. But what about brand promotion in general, say in the entertainment or publishing worlds? With Foursquare, it’s not about linking users back to your site or products, but creating a new location-based product that has value for fans and followers. Here’s how five big brands are attempting to connect location to their online social presences.

1. Recommendations with Personality: Bravo

In the television industry, Bravo was one of the first networks to get on board with Foursquare, and 50,000 of its fans have followed so far. The network’s programming is a mix of food, fashion, and reality drama, and the TV personalities and hosts that viewers love are the ones making recommendations on Foursquare. Restaurant, shopping, and hotel suggestions reinforce Bravo’s image as a network of culture experts, and the personalities who leave tips through the brand add that bit of personal flavor or sass that draws viewers to the shows in the first place. Fans don’t follow for Bravo per se; they’re following to see where Top Chefs andMillionaire Matchmakers spend their time in New York and LA.

2. Restaurant Reviews: Zagat

If there was ever a brand made for Foursquare, Zagat is it. The 30+ year-old publication is the go-to guide for restaurant and hotel reviews, and their embrace of numerous social media channels is noteworthy. Zagat uses Foursquare the way many individual users do — by leaving food-related tips about locations. And Zagat is not city-specific. You’ll find foodie tips from Los Angeles, to New York, to Cambridge, MA. Zagat’s Foursquare account is an obvious way to reinforce everything the brand is known for, and perhaps tap into a new demographic of diners who may be reluctant to carry around a paperback guide in addition to their smartphones.

3. Celebrity Sway: MTV

While we may not yet live in a world where celebrities want fans to know their locations in real-time, filtering their favorite places through an over-arching brand is a good start. Fans can keep tabs on the favorite haunts of stars from Jersey Shore and The Hills, driving the social connection to these personalities beyond the TV and into The Real World (pun intended). Not only can users see where the stars have been, but what they did, enjoyed, and recommend. And there’s always the possibility that visiting a bar frequented by a celeb increases your chances of meeting him or her. That aspect is certainly part of MTV’s Foursquare appeal.

4. Urban Exploration: New York Magazine

New York Magazine uses Foursquare to drive home its coverage of city-specific culture. This account is about much more than just food. It targets the social New Yorker with tips on retail stores, bars, and public spaces. The tips not only offer details on pricing and goings-on, but provide links back to the magazine’s website for deeper coverage. In this regard, New York Magazines’ approach to Foursquare is akin to the Twitter strategy of many publishers, with the added value of location.

5. Edutainment: The History Channel

Staff at The History Channel know what their viewers are into — it’s fairly obvious, given the namesake. So while Foursquare doesn’t offer much in terms of driving traffic to a program or website, locations are fostering an interesting kind of brand engagement here.

The account leaves tips at various sites, including interesting historical background on the locations. It’s trivia, but with a real-world and educational context. For instance, did you know that the Wabasha Street Caves in St. Paul, MN are man-made sandstone mines that date back to the 1840s, and were opened as a restaurant and night club in the 1920s?

This is a clever use of indirect marketing. The History Channel doesn’t have to promote its shows or link back to content to remind fans why they enjoy the programming. More than 47,000 followers are already enjoying the historical tips left by the account, since its launch in April.

Conclusion

The trouble with emerging networks like Foursquare is that users and big brands alike are having difficulty sticking with it. In all of the examples above, you can see that brand representatives jumped into the checkin game with vigor early on, but eventually updated the accounts less and less — some have not added tips for months. For now, location services are still an ancillary part of many social media strategies, but they won’t be forever. Many predict that when cultural acceptance, mainstream social integration, and business value finally coincide, location sharing will be as common and natural as updating your Facebook status. When it happens, will your brand be ready?

Source - Mashable

The Internet & Inanimate Objects

2010-09-01T12:11:00.000-07:00

The relationship between the possessions we value and the narratives behind them is unmistakable – the snow globe from Niagara Falls, our faded Gap T-Shirt from two summers ago. Current technologies of connection, and enterprises that take advantage of them, surface this idea in new ways — but they also suggest the many different kinds of stories, information and data that objects can, or will, tell us. The research shows that goods that have an attached story sell faster than those without. Can we say, “once upon a time….”

Ask anybody about the most meaningful object he owns, and you’re sure to get a story — this old trunk belonged to Grandpa, we bought that tacky coffee mug on our honeymoon, and so on. The relationship between the possessions we value and the narratives behind them is unmistakable. Current technologies of connection, and enterprises that take advantage of them, surface this idea in new ways — but they also suggest the many different kinds of stories, information and data that objects can, or will, tell us.

A project called Totem, financed by a grant from the Research Councils U.K., concentrates on the narratives of thing-owners. The basic concept is that users can write up (or record) the story of, say, a chess trophy or a silver bracelet and upload it to TalesofThings.com. Slap on a sticker with a newfangled bar code, and anybody with a properly equipped smartphone can scan the object and learn that the trophy was won in a 2007 tournament in Paris and that the bracelet was a gift purchased in Lisbon. In May, Totem researchers worked with an Oxfam thrift store in Manchester, recording stories by stuff-donors, for a spinoff project called RememberMe. Shoppers could hear short back stories for about 60 pieces of secondhand merchandise. The used goods with stories were swiftly snapped up, says Chris Speed, who teaches at the Edinburgh College of Art and is the principal researcher at Totem: “You pick up these banal objects, and if it has a story, as soon as you hear it, it becomes something far richer.”

A second outfit, called Itizen, based in Minneapolis, also uses a tell-and-tag approach. Dori Graff, whose background is in marketing, and her co-founders became interested in how brands were using new forms of bar codes and the like in various creative ways and also noticed that, in their personal lives, they were doing more sharing and swapping of clothes and other items. So why not match that up with the tracking technology? “Our big superlofty goal would be to influence a shift in how people view their possessions,” Graff says, because a thing’s story makes it more valuable and less disposable.

Most Itizen stories are still, like Totem’s tales, more like anecdotes than real narratives. But some Itizen users have been employing the service to tell stories of object creation — a clothing designer, a bike messenger-bag maker and others are attaching to things the story of how they were made or by whom. The ArtCrank Poster Show in Portland, Ore., next month, for instance, will have Itizen tags on the various bicycle-themed artworks sold there. The next narrative twist would be, more or less, a customer buying the thing.

A third entrant in the object-story field, StickyBits, distributed 300,000 of its custom tags at a technology conference earlier this year, assuming that people would put them on particularly meaningful or interesting possessions. But its app can also be used to link content to an existing bar code. “People were scanning Coke cans and jars of peanut butter or A.1. steak sauce,” says Seth Goldstein, a StickyBits founder. Goldstein theorizes that the motive was the same “microboredom” that inclines users of mobile check-in apps to announce that they’ve arrived at Chili’s — except that users could broadcast not just where they were but also what objects were around them. Some do use StickyBits to communicate something specific to people they know, but many essentially use it as a media platform. Not surprisingly, StickyBits has begun to work with the likes of PepsiCo Inc. and Campbell’s to devise promotional campaigns that take place via bar code.

Under that scenario, things are being linked to a story not so much in the form of narrative as of cumulative data. The continuum moves even further in the direction of raw information when you consider what tech experts call the “Internet of things” — more and more stuff produced with sensors and tags and emitting readable data. ReadWriteWeb pointed out that the number of objects (digital picture frames, GPS devices) added to the networks of AT&T and Verizon in the previous quarter was greater than the number of new human subscribers. Imagine, the site suggested, future bulletins on your Facebook feed like “Your toaster is using more electricity than it should be.” We appear to be inching toward a concept advanced in 2004 by the writer Bruce Sterling, who hypothesized objects he called “spimes” — embedded with technologies that carry, collect and communicate data — becoming “the protagonist of a documented process.”

As more objects have more to say, the question becomes what we want to hear, and from what. Which brings me back to this old trunk I have that belonged to my grandfather. He died before I could know him, so there is much about the thing I will never learn. Still, I have carted it around the country for more than 20 years and consider it one of my most (personally) valuable possessions. That’s not despite its muteness, but because of it. Sometimes the best narratives about objects are the ones we can only imagine.

Source - NYT

Fantastic Service through the Lens of Maslow’s Hierarchy

2010-09-01T11:59:00.000-07:00

People who work on the customer service end of your business are some of the most important marketing touch points. Even if your organization believes “the customer is always right”, there are number of additional practices that are necessary for amazing service that your customers will tell others about. The following is a look at customer service through the lens of Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs. And yes, the devil is in the details.

At the heart of the intersection of brain science and marketing lie customers’ needs and motivations, right? After all, the customer experience is essentially the laboratory where companies’ theories about consumer psychology are tested. If a company understands what motivates customer behavior, it has a better shot at influencing that behavior by meeting their customers’ needs. This became clear to me as I navigated through three different reads about customer service in the past few weeks.

Simple Promises, Strong Delivery
The first tidbit appeared in last month’s Harvard Business Review. Some Corporate Executive Board researchers issued a provocative point of view based on results from a study they conducted. Their research shows that “Loyalty has a lot more to do withhow well companies deliver on their basic, even plain-vanilla promises than on how dazzling the service experience might be… When it comes to service, companies create loyal customers primarily by helping them solve their problems quickly and easily.” (emphasis mine) This is a distinct departure from the “surprise and delight” aspiration which many companies hold when it comes serving their customers.

Getting Emotional

In the same HBR issue, there was another article that seemed to counter the point. Tony Hsieh the CEO of Zappos and the author of the recently released book, Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose, described his company’s customer service philosophy:

"We don’t have scripts, because we want our reps to let their true personalities shine during every phone call, so that they can develop a personal emotional connection with each customer, which we refer to as PEC. When one of our reps found out that because of a death in the family, a loyal customer had forgotten to mail back a pair of shoes she’d planned to return, the rep sent her flowers; now she’s a customer for life.” (emphasis mine).

Hospitality

What helped me understand the juxtaposition of these two points of view was this quote from Susan Reilly Salgado, managing director of Danny Meyer’s learning business, Hospitality Quotient: “What many people refer to as ‘great service’, we call hospitality. Service is all about the technical delivery of the product, while hospitality is about how guests feel during that transaction. Hospitality happens when guests believe you are on their side. For people to rave about their experience and become repeat customers, you need to have both – but what surprises customers and makes them feel genuinely cared for is the hospitality.”
(The quote appeared in a release from American Express, announcing their new Global Customer Service Barometer, a survey conducted in the U.S. and 11 other countries exploring attitudes and preferences toward customer service.)

Maslow, and a New Hierarchy of Service

It helped to distinguish between service as “technical delivery” and service as “fantastic experience.” And the distinction reminded me of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs which suggests that people have different levels of needs which need to be met — and needs at the bottom of the hierarchy must be fulfilled before needs higher up can truly be met.

The points of view I had been reading suggested that a similar hierarchy exists when it comes to meeting consumer needs and motivations with customer service. There are different levels of service which companies may provide, but the ones at the bottom of the service hierarchy need to be delivered before the ones higher up can be meaningful and have impact.

Here’s what I’m thinking:

If Maslow’s level 1 = physiological needs — literal requirements for human survival. Then Service level 1 = basic delivery – simply delivering the requirements. For a fast food restaurant, this would mean the food is hot, the drinks are cold, the service is fast and accurate.

If Maslow’s level 2 = safety needs – needs that express a yearning for a predictable orderly world in which perceived unfairness and inconsistency are under control, the familiar frequent and the unfamiliar rare. Then Service level 2 = commitment and consistency – This is about doing what you say you do (no brand promise:reality gap) and doing it consistently.

If Maslow’s level 3 = love and belonging — emotionally based relationships – friendship, intimacy, family. Then Service level 3 = personal and personable service – Calling people by name, showing appreciation for their patronage, attending to their personal needs are some examples.

If Maslow’s level 4 = esteem – needing to be accepted and valued by others. Then Service level 4 = making customers feel accepted and valued – By rewarding high value customers, offering ways to connect with others in the brand community, and being transparent, companies deliver this service level.

If Maslow’s level 5 = self-actualization – needs to realize a person’s full potential — to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming. Then Service level 5 = helping people feel good about who they are – This last area is a little of a stretch but I do think this is where the right kind of service can make the most difference. This is about making people feel smart rather than stupid because they had to ask for help; helping them feel like they’ve made a good choice by supporting their purchase decision with added-value services; making them feel like they’re important, not only to you, but to others in their lives or in the brand community.

With Maslow’s theory as a model, the Service Hierarchy explains why a company can’t expect to truly fulfill its customers’ service needs if it skips over the fundamentals at the bottom of the hierarchy and only focuses at the top – e.g., giving me a special “thank-you” gift is pretty meaningless if my order was incorrect in the first place.

Resolving Problems – The Hierarchy

This is particularly true when it comes to resolving problems, which was the topic of the Conference Board’s HBR article. Their findings make a lot of sense when viewed through the lens of the Service Hierarchy: you can’t compensate for the lack of basic service resolution by “wow-ing” the customer.

So in regards to resolving problems, I’d suggest the Service Hierarchy looks something like this:

Level 1 (basic delivery) – delivering a sincere “I’m sorry” (yes, that’s a basic) and a quick and easy resolution to the problem

Level 2 (commitment and consistency) – honoring the promises you made(e.g., “satisfaction guaranteed or your money back” means just that – it doesn’t mean your money back less a service fee, nor only if you jump through hoops, nor let me try to fix it first.)

Level 3 (personal and personable service) – tailoring the problem resolution and the way in which it’s executed to the customer and what’s convenient to him/her.

Level 4 (making customers feel accepted and valued) – showing your regret for the problem by doing something extra

Level 5 (helping people feel good about who they are) — demonstrating your appreciation for them bringing the problem to your attention and your commitment to addressing that which caused the problem in the first place.

Levels 4 and 5 are truly satisfying and fulfilling to customers when Levels 1 through 3 are being delivered. The reason why Zappos can concern itself with making a personal emotional connection when people contact their serve reps is because they’ve got the basics down – they offer free and easy returns, and they pay the shipping costs. The basics may not be exciting, but they’re the basics nonetheless – so companies should deliver on them brilliantly before moving on.

An understanding of the Service Hierarchy is important now more than ever. According to the aforementioned American Express study, a majority of Americans report that quality customer service is more important to them in today’s economic environment (61%).

Source - Neuromarketing

Interruption vs Engagement

2010-08-01T11:56:00.000-07:00

The traditional advertising model has received a heap criticism in light of more contemporary approaches to communication. Labeled as “intrusive” and “interruption”, traditional marketing media channels and tactics have been basterdized by those who champion marketing’s ongoing buzz word: “engagement”. The following article comes to the defense of traditional marketing tactics and sheds some light on our assumptions about contemporary marketing strategies.

I know we're not supposed to say it out loud, but a lot of CMOs and agency types think that advertising is going the way of the dinosaur, the Model T and conversation without emoticons. Consumers want to engage with content instead of get interrupted by ads, or so the logic goes, so we celebrate social campaigns like the recent one from Old Spice, and find favor only for commercials that are entertaining. Making a sales pitch just isn't credible anymore.

Now that we're well into the social-media revolution, I think it's time to revisit the three assumptions on which this argument is based:

The first assumption is that ads aren't credible so they can't play a meaningful role in our conversations with consumers. But nobody wakes up in the morning hating ads, do they? That's like saying a particular print font angers you, or that the hardcover book format keeps you up at night. I say ads aren't credible when they're useless or dishonest, which, unfortunately, describes most advertising. It took consumers a generation to figure out that we marketers are expert at slicing and dicing the truth. Oil companies claim to care about the environment by hyping inconsequential investments in alternative energy. Pictures of stuffed fast-food sandwiches have the real innards artificially pushed up to the front. Opposing political candidates are in league with the devil. Worse, we've been creating utter nonsense as product benefits since the 1960s. 7Up will make you hip like a Peter Max poster. Use Hai Karate cologne and pretty girls will jump you. It's cool to use a Microsoft PC.

Telling a half truth or a made-up benefit isn't the same thing as outright lying, but it's certainly not credible and consumers know it. Yet we continue to do it. I wonder sometimes if we're too willing to throw out the medium with the message, or at least defeat ourselves with misguided excuses for why we do what we do.

This relates to the second assumption, which is that consumers don't want to be bothered. Commercial speech is an intrusion, so brands must avoid producing anything that even hints at a sales purpose, and then wait and hope to be invited to do so at some later date. "Permission marketing" is a glorious babblespeak idea that easily embraces the egg without acknowledging the hard work of a chicken, and writ large shows that we've forgotten there are good reasons why consumers want to know things they may not have asked for:

Relevance. When people find themselves with available time and nothing available to do, they're open to receiving a pitch. Waiting in line. Sitting on a jet looking for its gate. TV channel-surfing. Creatively making those situations better lets you risk selling just about anything.

Immediacy. Messages like "move; there's a piano about to fall on your head" are acceptable to anyone, anytime. Give them obvious utility that addresses a need, not just a benefit, and it allows you to sell and them to say yes or no. "There's a sale at the store in front of you" on a mobile phone counts in this regard.

Meaning. Most people can't remember how to tell a joke, but something that is meaningful is hard to forget. So proactively offering information that really matters to consumers is doable, irrespective of most times and places, and they're more likely to use that information to buy something later on.

The third assumption is that entertainment is an alternative to selling. It's not, and it never was; it's like thinking all you need for a great book is a lot of words and punctuation, or that a smiling face in a photo constitutes a happy moment in time. Purpose matters, as does how you accomplish something, and it's this 800-pund gorilla that's a part of every conversation we have with consumers. They know we're trying to sell to them, whether we acknowledge it or they consciously think about it. Is it possible that consumers suspect our motives when we produce "content" without any admission of sales intent? Could the all-time lows in corporate reputation and credibility be partially a result of these purposeless conversations? We can entertain all we want, but perhaps we're just swapping empty social calories for the substance we once aspired to deliver via advertising.

Brands always had conversations with consumers, whether via broadcast TV or chiseled on clay tablets. The rules have also been consistent over time: Tell the truth and tell it with relevance, immediacy and meaning. That's why ads that interrupted with sales messages worked so effectively for so long; making the content worth consumers' time meant that brands could risk asking for the sale. It's not a new idea, and today's consumers aren't a new breed of human being. Yet we've assumed that the old rules no longer apply. Delivering engagement and its metrics of time spent and forwards clicked trumps the historic measures of interruption, all of which got to a sales result pretty quickly.

I'd choose effective interruption over pointless engagement anytime. Why wouldn't you?

Source - Advertising Age

Online Behaviour: Lobster Traps & Panda Forests

2010-08-01T11:00:00.000-07:00

The following article examines why Google has had such a hard time breaking into the social media realm of the Internet. Although the article itself speaks to competing corporate online goliaths, it provides some insight into consumer behaviour online and suggests some best practices to keep people coming back. R.I.P Wave 2009 – 2010.

After researching what pandas do all day, I was struck by how panda-like we are when we use the Internet.

Roaming a massive world wide web of forests, most of our time is spent searching for delicious bamboo and consuming it. 40 times a day we'll poop something out — an email, a text message, a status update, maybe even a blog post — and then go back to searching-and-consuming.

For a decade, Google has trained us to optimize our pandic selves:

The kind of application that Google knows how to make well are the kind that embody a panda's "eats, shoots, and leaves" model of Internet behavior. Pandas spend every waking hour foraging — aka searching — and consuming. The most successful Google applications serve such a utilitarian mandate, too: they encourage users to search for something, consume, and move onto the next thing. Get in, do your business, get out. Do a Google search, slurp down information, move on. Pull up Google maps or Gmail or Google news, do something, leave. Where Google does not excel is in making applications that are by their nature for lingering and luxuriating — the so-called social applications.

What's the main difference between successful Google applications (search, maps, news, email) and a successful social applications? With Google applications we return to the app to do something specific and then go on to something else, whereas great social applications are designed to lure us back and make us never want to leave.

Consider this example: Google Answers focused on answers and failed; Yahoo! Answers focused on social and succeeded. The primary purpose of a social application is connecting with others, seeing what they're up to, and maybe even having some small, fun interactions that though not utilitarian are entertaining and help us connect with our own humanity. Google apps are for working and getting things done; social apps are for interacting and having fun.

Put another way, Google designing social apps is like Microsoft designing iPod packaging.

Now, consider the Four Horsemen of Hotness in 2010: Facebook, Quora, Foursquare, and Twitter. Think deeply about why none of these four could have been developed inside Google.

Facebook is a lobster trap and your friends are the bait. On social networks we are all lobsters, and lobsters just wanna have fun. Every time a friend shares a status, a link, a like, a comment, or a photo, Facebook has more bait to lure me back. Facebook is literally filled with master baiters: Whenever I return to Facebook I am barraged with information about many friends, to encourage me to stick around and click around. Every time I react with a like or comment, or put a piece of content in, I'm serving as Facebook bait myself. Facebook keeps our friends as hostages, so although we can check out of Hotel Facebook any time we like, we cannever leave. So we linger. And we lurk. And we luxuriate. The illogical extreme of content-as-bait are the Facebook games where the content is virtual bullshit. Social apps are lobster traps; Google apps do not bait users with their friends.

Quora is restaurant that serves huge quantities of bacn and toast. Quora is a dozen people running dozens of experiments in how to optimally use bacn to get people to return to Quora, and how to use toast to keep them there. Bacn is email you want but not right now, and Quora has 40 flavors of it that you can order. Quora's main use of Bacn is to sizzle with something delicious (a new answer to a question you follow, a new Facebook friend has been caught in the Quora lobster trap, etc.) to entice you to come back to Quora. Then, once you're there, the toast starts popping. Quora shifts the content to things you care about and hides things you don't care about in real-time, and subtly pops up notifications while you're playing, to entice you to keep sticking around and clicking around. Some toast is so subtle it doesn't even look like a pop-up notification — it just looks like a link embedded in the page with some breadcrumbs that appear in real-time to take you to some place on Quora it knows you'll find irresistible. For every user's action, bacn's and toast's fly out to others in search of reactions. (Aside: if I were Twitter, I would be worried. Real-time user interfaces are more addictive than pseudo-real-time interfaces; what if Quora took all of its technology and decided to use it to build a better Twitter?). Social apps are action-reaction interaction loops; Google apps are designed just for action.

Foursquare exists in a dozen dimensions. That statement is ridiculous on its surface; after all, even String Theory has only 11 dimensions. (Technically, it's 10 dimensions, because they start numbering at zero.) Whatever higher-than-the-highest reality Foursquare thinks it's building, one thing is clear: this company is more about chemistry than physics. Foursquare has studied the works of David A. Kessler, who studied hyper-palatable foods that had various combinations of salts, fats, and sugars that stimulate the diner's brain to crave more, rather than satisfy their hunger. The more a person uses Foursquare, the more a person wants to use Foursquare: the points are salts, the badges are fats, and sweet sweet mayorships are sugars that we fight over like we're Sneetches. Ok, so Foursquare's leadership thinks they're only 10% of the way there — I guess they have 11 other combinations of salts, fats, and sugars to perfect so that all we do all day, every day, is check into Foursquare. Social apps offer a steady diet of junk food to keep us addicted; Google apps offer mostly bamboo.

Twitter is a giant blue ball machine. Even the New York Times says not enough people understand what the heck Twitter is, for them to be willing to use the word tweet in polite company. But that doesn't stop lots of people from using Twitter. Perhaps they are enamored by a word that sounds ornithological in nature. I tried to explain it to my brother like this: tweets are little blue balls, and they get bounced around by a giant machine so others can enjoy them. Those people can react by copying the balls (retweets), swinging at the balls (at-replies), or beaning the originator in the head (direct messages). There are also lots of whales on Twitter—celebrity whales to attract us, and fail whales to repel us. As opposed to Facebook, which hates whales because whales distract the lobsters from the traps. At this point, my brother gives me a blank stare and says he's going back to Facebook. Which goes to show that a social app doesn't need lobster traps, bacn and toast, or 12 dimensions to be successful; it just needs balls. Social apps are whimsical and fun; Google apps are whittled and functional.

So why can't Google build social apps? Because Google's core values ("be useful", "do good by users") reject the very notion of lobster traps, bacn and toast, a dozen dimensions of junk food, and giant blue ball machines. Understanding those concepts is not easy. It takes lots of practice, and lots of patience, and lots of learning.

2010's leadership of Facebook, Foursquare, and Twitter struggled for YEARS learning from FriendFeed, Dodgeball, and Odeo, respectively. The main mythical man month mega mantra—"build one to throw away"—isn't just a clever way to gracefully fail on the first iteration; it's the way we learn. I believe those collective experiences have given them the humility to know that most things don't work; the confidence to know that simplicity is more important than features; and the stamina to see their visions through the good, the bad, and the ugly that accompany startups.

Does Google have the patience to launch social apps that aren't widely used so they can learn from them? Not Lively.

Does Google have the ability to launch social apps that aren't utilitarian? Repeat after me: "A Buzz is a high-frequency Wave." And neither pandas nor lobsters know what those are, other than wacky experiments gone awry.

Has Google's culture-of-facts ever learned from Orkut? Good question for thetriumvirate. A humbler panda than me once tweeted:

So, to summarize: Google is responsible for Orkut, Wave, and Buzz. Ex-Googlers are responsible for Facebook, Foursquare, and Twitter. Discuss.

Ok, I'll discuss. I have three main points:

1. Google cannot hire a Head of Social because no individual can change Google's DNA of building applications for pandas, not lobsters. Googlers who wanted to develop great social applications had to leave Google to do so.
2. Google cannot buy Twitter or LinkedIn or Quora (or all three!) because Google's culture has no respect for successful social applications. YouTube's office is still far from the Google campus to avoid the toxic attitude described by a former Orkut employee, "[Google has] an environment that viewed social networking as a frivolous form of entertainment rather than a real utility, and I'm pretty sure this viewpoint was shared all the way up the chain of command to the founders."
3. Google cannot focus group its way to successful social applications. Henry Ford opined, "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."

And three reasons why Google should be concerned:

1. Facebook serves 3 billion LIKE buttons a day, serves one-sixth of all U.S. ads, hasmore traffic than Google or the next 99 sites combined, has 100 million mobile users and five times as many web users, and when it launches a Facebook search engine, it will be the second biggest search engine in the world right out of the gate.
2. Twitter's search engine is bigger than Bing and Yahoo combined. Not only is Twitter doing 800 million searches a day, but apparently they're the fastest growing search engine in the U.S.
3. Bing actually seems to have a better relationship with Facebook and Twitter, and in addition, Bing has gone out of its way to partner with Amazon as well as Appleand its soon-to-be-100-million iPhone OS devices.

So... Now would be a good time for a bold move from Google. YouTube is the only social application Google has ever bought that was and remains #1 in its category. What can we learn from that?

1. Google FAILED going head-to-head against YouTube. Buying YouTube in retrospect was a great idea, and keeping YouTube separate from Google HQ was a great idea.
2. Google FAILED in acquiring and integrating other social products. Blogger, Picasa, JotSpot, Dodgeball, Jaiku. None are their category leaders now. Some are dead. Why?
3. Google FAILED to create Google Contacts that are easy to edit and integrated with Facebook and Twitter. Why then should we believe Google can do something simple, entertaining, and interesting with Google Profiles?

Google is filled with adrenaline now that Facebook and Twitter are juggernauts in social advertising and searching. Google is ready to fight, but social applications are about loving not fighting. Google is from Mars, and social applications are from Venus. Anyone know someone who can build a rocket ship so Google can ride to the world of social applications?

My advice for Google's Trinity is to put on your thinking caps about social apps. Think really carefully about what you need, and why. Look to the glorious words of jwz:

"Social software" is about making it easy for people to do other things that make them happy: meeting, communicating, and hooking up.

And for all us lobsters, I just have one thing to say: "Yeah, you're all gonna be okay."

Source - Gizmodo

Why Your Ideas Suck

2010-08-01T10:48:00.000-07:00

Advertising isn’t a creative industry, it’s a commitment industry. What separates those who sit in the corner office and those who just sit on the corner is their willingness to see an idea through. The following explains the non-creative components which go into success in the creative industries – and why your buddy may actually have had “the best idea ever” at the bar last night.

I hear it all the time. In fact, I’ve even done it myself and just recently a good friend of mine said it to me over a beer: “man, I had this great idea the other day but I didn’t write it down.” Sounds like a pretty shitty idea to me…

Sorry, KF but you know I’ve done it too. What about this one: “Oh man, we had the best idea but the client wouldn’t go for it”. Sounds like a pretty shitty idea too.

Here’s the thing: coming up with an idea is a very small part of what we need to do to create great work. I look at this way - you should spend about 20% of your time coming up with an idea and the other 80% making it happen. We all know, if you don’t make it happen it doesn’t exist. It’s that simple. That’s how great ideas get shitty. I was thinking about this this morning on a flight and quickly wrote out the steps I believe are taken in order for something great to take shape. It looks something like this:

The first thing I realized was that I may have left something out: luck. Or timing, or as some would say: the alignment of planets. Yeah, I think that should be in there somewhere, but that’s the one thing we’re not in control of. Everything else on the list we are.

At the very top of the list, you’ll see that I’m not sure if the need for an idea always comes before the idea. Actually I’m pretty sure that’s not always the case, so let’s keep that part loose. We know at some point there is a need for an idea or an idea presents itself and we find a need. Either way, that’s when the real work begins. And this is the place where I think most juniors struggle…

You have to sell it. And I’m pretty sure at this point I can say, this is often the hardest part. Sell the damn idea! Sell the shit out of it and spend a good amount of time preparing to do so. There are all kinds of tactics and techniques used to do this and in many ways, that’s what makes some agencies and agency folks better than others: their ability to sell the work. And if that’s not the hardest part, then keeping it sold is.

Between focus groups, internal politics, someone’s fear of the colour blue or what their spouse will think, this is always a challenge. You need to try as much as possible to keep the idea in tact. Yes, you need to be open to evolving it and making it better, but always try to stop it from getting worse.

Craft. I remember judging an awards show one time when I was faced with the best example of why craft is important. Two ads were on the table. Both were for a shopping centre. Both were for shopping there at Christmas. Both were the same idea. One was well crafted, the other not so much. Can you guess which one won an award? Me neither….

You have to deliver. If you can’t execute what you promised - forget it. Game over. And finally you have to flexible enough to monitor whether your idea is working and be ready to refine it and get it back out there. Gone are the days, of sending an idea out there and hoping for the best.

So, after all this, I’ve tried to make one point clear: the idea is not the only thing that matters, and isn’t always what makes brilliant agencies or agency employees. Now that I think about it, there really is only one thing that does: commitment.

Advertising or not - you really need to be committed to make great things happen. If you think about it, it really doesn’t matter what it is - your work, your relationships, your therapist - commitment. So, are you committed?

Source - I Have An Idea

10 Biggest Tagline Mistakes

2010-08-01T10:44:00.000-07:00

Creativity should never fit a mold. Despite this, we are seeing more and more taglines conforming to what is safe and easy – two words that should be stricken from any advertiser’s vocabulary. The following article delves into what separates poignant and flat taglines. Have a look…just do it.

The art of tagline development is to distill the meaning of a big idea into a cogent message that’s easy to say, easy to understand, and easy to remember.

To ensure your brand expression is impossible to forget, use the following checklist to avoid the most common mistakes that plague aspiring taglines.

1. Speaking in Cliché

There’s a tendency to use words that have recognized meaning in today’s workplace. However, that doesn’t make them meaningful. Many can be described as trendy jargon and doublespeak. Take “innovation” and “solution.” Instead of telling people you’re innovative and deliver solutions, show them how you’ll make their lives better and their jobs easier. Rocking their world is what being a solution-oriented innovator is all about. One word you should avoid is “unique,” or you’ll end up being unique just like everyone else. Find a way to express your difference so that it “makes a difference” – clearly demonstrating why your customers need you now.

2. Being Bland

News Flash: Bland is boring. It may not offend but it doesn't excite or inspire either. If your tagline appears safely and predictably generic, your brand is going to be perceived that way, too. To freshen up your expression, try using uncommon words, speaking in the vernacular, inverting words, altering the tone or rhythm, or even breaking the rules of grammar. Whenever possible, try to rise above the pedestrian and couch your ideas in language that is stylistically fun, surprising, and inventive. Keep this one thought in mind: Think brand, not bland.

3. Being Too Literal

Great taglines often express ideas with multiple, metaphorical, or unexpected meanings. If an expression has a single, obvious meaning which is taken literally and at face value, it’s one-dimensional at best. Even though you want to make sure your message is loud and clear, try broadening the meaning of your tagline by relying on words and ideas that connote, not merely denote; imply, not simply state. In other words, embellish. Go against the grain. Reveal the artifice. It’s not surprising that taglines that make use of hyperbole, irony, and double meaning garner open-ended interpretations and enjoy more widespread appeal.

4. Imitating Other Taglines

We’ve seen it all before…and that’s the crux of the problem: Me-too, cookie-cutter slogans. Why? Because being original and breaking new ground are scary propositions. Remember, the whole goal of a tagline is to illustrate what’s novel about your organization – and that includes the way your tagline looks, sounds, and feels. Borrowing the familiar trappings of another tagline may be tempting, but it’s not going to set you apart from the pack. Like a good wardrobe, your tagline should be well-crafted, look sharp, and fit perfectly. More importantly, it should be custom tailored to your organization.

5. Not Being True to Your Brand

Tagline ownership means laying claim to an expression that reflects your brand attributes and communicates your brand value. So be sure to select one that is truly representative of your brand. Otherwise, you’ll experience brand disconnect and find yourself saddled with an unsupportable message and an unbelievable promise. The solution: Know your brand and what it stands for. Familiarize yourself with its strengths and weaknesses…and special uniquenesses. Be true to your brand!

6. It’s All About “YOU”

If your tagline appears self-centered and self-serving, it probably is. Sure, we know your organization is smart, savvy, and successful -- and that you’re the best, biggest, and brightest resource around. But what promise do you fulfill for your customers? What values do you share? How do you float their boat? Put your customers squarely in the equation by turning your tagline inside out. Shift its focus so it reflects their needs, their point of view, and their brand experience. If your tagline has too much “YOU,” then put more “THEM” in it. After all, they’re the ones keeping you in business.

7. Sounding Too Somber

Not all taglines are funny. Nor do they have to be. However, I believe that taglines shouldn’t take themselves so seriously. They’re not engraved in stone and, anyway, nobody reads tablets these days. If your tagline comes across as a bit overblown or pretentious, lighten it up! Give it some attitude and plant tongue firmly in cheek. Just make sure it reflects your brand’s tone and personality. Enduring taglines often have a humorous edge and an ability to reveal a disarming universal truth to which everyone can relate. Discover the universal truth in your brand. Smiles and grins will surely follow.

8. Loose Verbiage

Taglines should express your brand message simply and succinctly. That doesn’t mean a tagline has to be, say, four words or less. Some of the best taglines I’ve seen contain five…even six words. The point is: Crispy thoughts lead to punchy messages. Try not to use any more words than necessary. If you can achieve the same or better effect with one word less, lose the excess baggage. If a particular word is long, awkward, or complicated, replace it with another. Also, if your tagline needs one word more to achieve balance or closure, don’t be afraid to add it. A well-turned phrase should be compact and elegant, and make its point without any fluff.

9. Lack of Vetting

Okay, you’ve selected a fabulous tagline and can’t wait to reveal it to the world. Have you properly vetted it? Have you done a Google search to see whether your tagline is already being used commercially? Does it have an “SM” (service mark) or “TM” (trademark) after it? Is this expression found in the masthead of someone else’s web site? Have you checked to see whether it’s available as a domain name? And, most importantly, have you checked for potential trademark conflicts on the U.S. Patent & Trademark web site? In order to protect your brand investment, it’s absolutely essential to look for red flags before you plant yours in the ground.

10. Poor Visibility

Now that your tagline has been vetted and meets the standards of clarity, simplicity, originality, and believability, it’s time to put it to good use. It isn’t going to do you any good sitting on a shelf or stuck in a drawer. Use your tagline on your web site, business card, ads, brochures, and as part of your e-mail signature. Use it consistently with your logo. Incorporate it into your sales talks, team meetings, and public presentations. Be sure your employees and external stakeholders understand it and are on board with it. Distribute a guide that communicates the value of your tagline in the context of your brand messaging and positioning. Remember, your tagline is the beginning of the conversation – not the end of it.

Source - Tagline Guru

Marketing As A State Of Mind

2010-08-01T10:33:00.000-07:00

What do meditation and marketing have in common? They both create a state of mind. Proper advertisements put the customer in state of complete and utter brand absorption. Read on to discover how this is accomplished.

Marketing is no longer a department – it is a state of mind.

I awoke with a start this morning with a single thought on my mind. It is a concept I heard randomly in the halls (or maybe on Twitter) from the company, ExactTarget. I’m not sure who said it (or typed it) but it was on my mind at 2:30am this morning. Stupid, I know. At first the concept sounds easy to understand. “Yah… Kyle this makes complete sense! Do not think of marketing as a department with a CMO and a staff but think of marketing as an overall experience!” Easy.

However, there is a deeper meaning to the idea of marketing being a “state of mind.” It is more than your department or advertisement. It is everything under your brand… your structure that supports and influences the customer’s buying decision…. and their experience.

First, let’s explore the meaning of something being a “state of mind.” In researching for this blog post I ran across the teachings of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (I know… it is a mouthful). Mihaly is pretty much the master on the idea of the flow of the mental state of mind.

Mihaly outlines his theory that people are most happy when they are in a state of flow— a state of concentration or complete absorption with the activity at hand and the situation. The idea of flow is identical to the feeling of being in the zone or in the groove.”

Each individual can have their own understanding of what it means to be in the zone (or groove). When it comes to marketing it is extremely important to keep the customer or the potential customer in the groove. The groove is the process of captivation… a state of concentrating and complete absorption in an activity. Your story is what makes you captivating. Your client’s success story is what throws people in the groove. Can you imagine a customer being completely absorbed in your product and brand experience? You can look at any big brand and discover slivers of this idea worked into the product design, store design, marketing and employee training.

Tell the story and captivate your audience. Want a good example? Check out this marketing/recruitment/employee interation video from Twitter.

You may be reading this disgusted because you are the ONLY marketing professional in your company. Hell… you could be the only person in your company! But guess what? It is easier than you think to create a positive state of mind with your clients and potential clients. Tell your story and create the content that pulls potential customers into your mix. You are creating an experience to captivate them.

Source - Kyle Lacy

Six Ways Brands Should Think of Social Media as a Party

2010-08-01T08:09:00.000-07:00

Just because you’re at the party, doesn’t mean anyone wants to engage with you. At the social media party, as in life, attendance isn’t sufficient to garner popularity. The following explains the nuances of social media interaction which can transform your brand from wallflower to rock star.

I've been using this analogy for some time now and it seems to resonate with everyone who hears it. If you are a brand looking to connect with consumers through Social Media, think of Social Media as one giant party. Here's why:

1) Social Media is one giant party.

Let's set the stage.

Imagine the social web as one huge cocktail party. In one corner of the room, a group of moms are talking about education and parenting issues. In another corner of the room, a group of recent college grads laugh over Will Ferrell's latest movie. Everywhere you turn, different groups of people are enjoying themselves, sharing stories, discussing current events, pop culture, trends, etc. All the groups are mingling, making new "friends," and the most influential people in the room have the most "followers" hanging on their every word.

Sound familiar?

Social Media is a true reflection of society today--and what better representation of social behavior, fragmentation, hierarchy and influence than a giant party?

2) Lead with "people stories," not "product stories."

Marketing has taught us to always lead with our "product story": distilling our message down to a "unique selling proposition" and driving it home with features and benefits. As a brand marketer, your first priority has always been to show or sell your product. And it works well--if you only have 30 seconds to sell your product through a message that's blasted out into the world. However, if you walk into that party and the first thing you do is try to sell your product, nobody will talk to you and you certainly won't get invited back.

You walk into the party and head for the group of moms in the corner. If you interrupt their conversation to talk about your "new and improved hydrating face cream" or your "ultra-absorbent paper towels," chances are you will alienate the group or simply be laughed out of the room.

To become the life of the party you can't lead with product stories; you need to lead with people stories. If you want that group of moms or those recent grads to listen to you, you need to enter the conversation on their terms. You have to start a dialogue with something that is important to them, not what's important to you. Only then will you have earned the right to talk about yourself. People need to like you first, then they'll ask what you do for a living.

This means it's critical to have the right "opening line"--a way to enter the conversation that starts with the consumer's agenda but can seamlessly migrate to your agenda.

3) Use content to make connections.

The right story, joke or anecdote at a party goes a long way, and social media is no different. If those moms are talking about parenting issues, turn them onto a parenting expert who can help with their problems. If those grads are laughing over Will Ferrell's latest movie, give them something similar to laugh about or recommend another movie for them to see.

The right content will allow you to make instant connections. And that means you need to think of your fellow party goers as audiences rather than consumers. Like a publisher, you need to help or entertain first; showing or selling comes later.

4) Embrace fragmentation.

Just like a party, social media is made up of many groups. People with different interests, different likes and different dislikes. This means that you can't use the same opening line with moms that you used with those college grads.

Every audience is unique and you should speak directly to each group. This means you may need a few different "opening lines" if you are going after different audiences. In the same way you would "work the room" at a party, the way to get scale in social media is to break your audience into segments. As you walk around having conversations with different groups of people, you naturally adjust your talking points based on who you are speaking with. At the end of the night you will have met everyone at the party; if you are interesting, relevant and sociable, people will remember you and be willing to learn more about you (and your products).

5) Leverage the influencer.

Have you ever walked into a party where you didn't know anyone? It's not impossible to meet people, but you certainly have to work hard at it.

Now, what if you walked into the party with the most popular kid in school? You get instant credibility, everyone in the room knows who you are and talking to them becomes that much easier.

Simply put, leveraging the right influencers makes you "cool by association." You don't have to work as hard meeting people, you get to talk about yourself more and instead of trying to figure how to start a conversation with people, they will come talk to you.

6) Engagement trumps impressions.

Brands are obsessed with impressions. For them, it's always been about reach and frequency. Well, when it comes to social media, the name of game is engagement, not impressions.

If you walked into a party and just stood against the back wall, people might "see" you standing there. You may even make eye-contact with a few of those moms you so desperately want to talk to--but what good will that do?

You could go to 1,000 parties and stand against the wall at each one of them. Eventually people may recognize you--but they won't know anything about you and there's still no basis for them to have a relationship with you.

The Social Media Party is not about making eye-contact (impressions); it's about shaking hands (engagements). It's about meeting people, talking to them, sharing with them--it's about engaging with them and participating in the conversation.

Final Thought

The party analogy is a whimsical way of saying that brands can't treat Social Media the same way they treat other mediums. For the first time in history, brands are trying to navigate a two-way channel of communication. This means they can't talk at consumers. Instead, they need to engage with audiences. Social media requires a value exchange between the consumer and the brand.

So when it comes to developing successful social media campaigns and programs:

1) Pretend like you're getting dressed up for a giant party.
2) Lead with people stories, not your product stories.
3) Use content to make connections.
4) Try to align yourself with the "in crowd" so people will want to talk to you.
5) Don't just make eye-content, shake hands with the people you want to meet.

Source - AdRants

10 Reasons Social Media Will Not Kill Traditional Agencies

2010-07-21T13:54:00.000-07:00

The unprecedented growth of digital & social media has been labeled a threat to the traditional marketing model but the truth is that the two models aren’t substitutes for one another. The following article is a summary of observations by Simon Mainwaring from Cannes. As a well credited social media guy, Simon argues that traditional advertising is more relevant than ever.

I spent the week at the Cannes International Advertising Festival and came away greatly encouraged. Not only did the Festival team (led by Terry Savage and Philip Thomas) do an amazing job but I was impressed by how well the event captured the latest expression of the marketing world. With all the excitement (and, yes, hype) around social media, one might expect this bastion of traditional advertising to take a defensive posture and shun social media, or at least to be a little out of touch. The opposite was true. Not only did the work and seminars fully embrace the potential of social media, but agencies and clients demonstrated real engagement with the marriage of the two. So I thought I’d use my experience of this year’s Festival as a way to explain why traditional advertising is more relevant than ever.

1. IT’S ABOUT THE IDEA: Whether it’s an uber traditional ad spot like Nike’s World Cup spot, ‘Write the Future’, or the Cyber Grand Prix-winning Nike Chalkbot, the fact remains that it’s the idea that determines success with consumers and at the show. Social media expands the reach of great content, but ideas determine reach into hearts and minds. As such, veteran idea generators like ad agencies are very important.

2. FIRST PRINCIPLES, NEW MEDIA: Irrespective of your marketing speciality – whether it be traditional, digital, or social media – the timeless fundamentals of effective advertising apply. Work needs to be simple, emotional and consistent. As such the hard won lessons of traditional advertising agencies are more relevant than ever. They just need to be applied to all media including social media.

3. SOCIAL MEDIA IS IS NOT AN END IN ITSELF: I did not see a single piece of work celebrated at Cannes simply because it was social media. The power of social media is only unleashed when an emotional connection is made that motivates someone to share something using social tools. Brands at the Festival demonstrated a clear understanding of this and a due respect for agencies as architects of community.

4. BRAND CUSTOMERS: Clients made up almost 15% of the 8000 attendees this year according to Ad Age, and this demonstrates a recognition of two facts. One is that consumers are now reaching out directly to brands through social media, and, secondly, that brands are looking to ad agencies for guidance in how to respond. As such the client/agency dynamic is as critical as ever. In fact Terry Savage, Festival Chairman, also said he is 90% sure there will be a prize for effectiveness next year in which clients will play some role.

5. ‘GOOD’ BUSINESS: So much work demonstrated that brands and agencies realize that consumers want a better world, not just better widgets. This a new thing. Campaigns like the Millions, UNICEF Tapwater and Earth hour receiving titanium awards in recent years. What’s more this year the Festival introduced the first Grand Prix for Good indicating a further appreciation of the positive role that advertising can and must play.

6. SILO BLURRING: This year clearly demonstrated the ability of traditional ad agencies to fill new roles. For instance, Interactive Agency of the Year was Crispin, Porter & Bogusky, and Direct Agency of the Year was Abbott Mead Vickers in London. As traditional ad agencies migrate their focus and talent into emerging areas, their creative prowess will come to bear on the marketing.

7. PURPOSE AS PROFIT: One of the things I stressed in my seminar was that the future of profit is purpose. This is based on the recognition that the universal values that inform purposeful work make brands innately sharable and therefore potentially profitable. Across the board work demonstrated a recognition that consumers want to see their brands changing the world for the better. A great demonstration of this was done by the Festival itself when Jeff Goodby, Ben Stiller and Yahoo, enlisted the entire audience to raise money for Stillerstong that is building schools in Haiti.

8. TECH = SAVVY: As someone who attended last year, I was struck by how tech savvy everyone suddenly became. Eyes were permanently glued to iPhones and Blackberries, laptops served as sun reflectors and there was amble wi-fi and power throughout the Palais (which is not always the case even at tech conferences). As such the Festival did a great job of reflecting the impact of technology discussed in so many of the seminars.

9. TRIUMPH OF YOUTH: Each year the Festival does an amazing job of filling its hall with the future of the industry. It would be easy for an expensive Festival such as this to become stocked with veteran ad types (like me!) but this year I felt more old and out numbersed than ever. This is partly due to the Young Lions Zone and new efforts this year through Cannes Connect to put attendees in touch with each other and their communities.

10. THE FUTURE IS HERE: Each year the Festival does a great job of securing the thought leaders from areas that are re-shaping the industry. This year it was Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook. The Debussy Room was packed to the rafters with two others rooms outside full of people as well. Beyond the understandable fascination around such successful entrepreneurs, the industry is clearly listening to those shaping their future on a daily basis.

With that said, there is still ground to be gained. I was surprised how few people were tweeting out from laptops during the seminars (if that’s any indication of the audience’s personal engagement with their own social communities). Plus I believe the private sector (represented by brands and ad agencies at forums like Cannes) can play an even more powerful role in shaping the future of marketing and society at large. No doubt next year will demonstrate an even fuller embrace of this potential in which brands, ad agencies and consumers co-create the stories that move people, sell products and change our world for the better.

How do you think traditional advertising agencies are doing? Are they sufficiently embracing social media?

Source - Simon Mainwaring

Creating Compelling Content

2010-07-21T13:51:00.000-07:00

We’re all familiar with the saying: “content is king”. Although this statement is true, it should really be “compelling content is king”. There’s no use adopting a content strategy if you’re content is crap. The guys at College Humor, a site that gets about 10 million unique visits a month, have a few tips to ensure you land in the latter camp.

Today at the Mashable Media Summit, College Humor’s CEO Ricky Van Veen announced a partnership with SoBe to launch SoBe Studios — a project that creates branded video content — and with it a three-part web series called Mr. Vicarious, set to premiere on June 9. He also shared with the audience his “10 Web Content Urban Legends.”

In true Internet entrepreneur style, Van Veen started College Humor in his dorm room — now it’s an operating business of IAC with more than 10 million unique visitors a month. Although it now produces TV shows, films, live tours and books, Van Veen told the audience that the web always remains at the center. And how did the site gain such high standing on the web?

And how can brands capitalize on such cache? According to Van Veen, by being hyper aware of the 10 Web Content Urban Legends, which are as follows:

Myth #1). People will want to watch your branded content: Why would anyone watch this? If you don’t have a good reason, don’t make it. If your goal is 75% to entertain and 25% to sell a product, you already have a handicap.

- Brands need to be flexible. IE, College Humor is a racy site — so if you want to partner with a media outlet like this, its content will be racy. Embrace that. To remedy this issue, you can present content that is not explicitly branded, and then reveal your involvement later.

Myth #2). People will be patient with your content: 35% tune out soon after starting to watch a web video. Also, one third of web activity is executed while watching TV.

- So, get to the point — quickly.

Myth #3). People will find your content: Your video will not necessarily go viral. Over-saturation is not the key, either.

- Have a strong seeding strategy.
- Team up with an established brand or platform.

Myth #4). The Internet is a level playing field: A link on Drudge Report yields more results than some dude’s blog.

- Tap into power users.

Myth #5). We have no idea why things go viral: There are no rules for making a viral video. But all viral videos give the user a reason to pass it on. This all has to do with identity creation: What does passing this video on say about me?

- College Humor has a hit strategy: Only hit for nines and 10s.
- The shorter the better.
- The hook comes within the first 20 seconds.
- Sweet spots College Humor taps into: Topical issues and “Candycorn” (cultural touchstones that everyone knows, but doesn’t actively think about).

Myth # 6). Experience () beats documentation: We have a new generation that puts documentation above experience. It’s all about Flickr feeds and Facebook status updates. It’s basically high-tech bragging.

- if you’re a marketer, create experiences that allow people to show off how cool they are.

Myth #7). You should build your own community and tools: The web values simplicity and openness. Don’t limit the openness of your project. Make all tools open and easy to share. Don’t build your own features — if you want people to share photos and whatnot, use Facebook () and Flickr (). You get much more exposure and reach in that way.

Myth #8). Keep things professional: Show the people behind the scenes. It gives your site personality and makes it sticky. Personality drives your brand. Post photos of staff as well as videos and other content. Perez Hilton does this really well, according to Van Veen.

Myth #9). Traditional media is irrelevant to the web: TV is not over. Content creators are always working to get to TV and film — that’s where the money is. The average American watches 151 hours of TV a month, so that’s nothing to sneeze at. You get a stamp of approval thusly.

Myth #10). People will create good content for you: This is the biggest myth of all.

SOBE STUDIOS

Van Veen topped all of this off by announcing the creation of SoBe Studios, a production studio that creates content centered around the SoBe brand. According to Van Veen, this partnership adheres to two of the rules laid out above: 1). SoBe is partnering with established brand with a history of creating good content. 2). It’s working directly with College Humor to create something that people will actually want to watch.

And what exactly are they creating? A series, which was filmed at South by Southwest, based on SoBe’s “re-skin” campaign — which involves the drink company redesigning the labels of the SoBe Elixir and Tea bottles called Mr. Vicarious. In true metamorphosing spirit, the show centers around two comedians — Paul Scheer and Nick Kroll — who live vicariously through three actors dressed up as different characters, including a karate sensei, a massage therapist and a caricature artist.

Source - Mashable

Cognitive Surplus

2010-07-21T13:50:00.000-07:00

Clay Shirky is an extremely well respected anthropologist and writer who has some very interesting thoughts on society and culture in our digital age. He released the book “Here Comes Everybody” and has recently released a new book called the “Cognitive Surplus”. Here’s a really neat fifteen minute (but it’s all good) video that summarize his findings on the Cognitive Surplus.

Go HERE to watch the video.

Quality > Quantity

2010-07-21T13:48:00.000-07:00

It’s said that just 1 percent of a brand's fan base on Facebook and Twitter drives 20 percent of traffic to its website. Clearly, it’s important to identify this 1% of your audience and ensure they continue to advocate on your behalf. Although we tend to focus on a quantity approach when it comes to marketing (number of fans, awareness etc), it’s also worth our time focusing on tactics that don’t reach a large audience.

Your brand's biggest influencers are the people who actively and continually talk about, comment on, and spread the word about your products and services. These people are crucial to your bottom-line sales, but they are few and far between. In fact, it's said that just 1 percent of a brand's fan base on Facebook and Twitter drives 20 percent of traffic to its website -- and these influencers can directly influence 30 percent or more of your sales just by recommending your products or services to their wider social network.

I recently wrote an article about the critical importance of finding and identifying this 1 percent, pointing out that most brands today have largely focused on amassing a large quantity of fans, instead of cultivating and engaging their highest quality fans. While it's great to have tens of thousands of people following or friending your brand, the majority of these "fans" will probably never visit your fan pages or company website -- or maybe once. You'll get a lot more impact out of directly engaging one influencer with exclusive opportunities and unique content because that person will indirectly promote your brand to thousands of others who are part of his or her social sphere.

But once you've found your 1 percent, how exactly can you engage them? What type of incentives, rewards, and offers will they respond to?

Finding out what your influencers want is an ongoing process. Sometimes you just have to try out different promotions and then use social media monitoring tools to find out if the content resonated with your influencers, if they shared it, with whom, and what impact the content had on your site traffic and bottom-line sales. There are no hard-and-fast "rules of engagement." However, there are some proven engagement strategies that have worked well to attract and maintain the interest of key social influencers. The key is to continually offer new and enticing content to your top social influencers, like promotions, discounts, games, free stuff, and sweepstakes.

Here are some tips to help your brand begin building a long-term influencer engagement strategy -- so that your biggest fans become your biggest marketing weapon.

Skip the flashy Facebook page
Having a Facebook page for your brand or product is de rigueur today, but you don't need to spend a lot of time making this page look like a flashy, feature-rich website. Most of your Facebook fans will rarely visit your page. Instead, they will get updates about your brand or products through their feeds. The content you deliver through this feed is critical -- but building out lots of fancy tabs and adding zillions of photos to your main Facebook page is not.

Status updates that reach your fans through their feeds are a great way to quickly see who your most active Facebook fans are, as you can see who "liked" the update, who commented on it, and who shared it. Also, if you have already identified your top influencers, status updates allow you to measure which promotions, content, and offers resonate with these key fans. The bottom line: It doesn't matter if your fans never visit your Facebook page -- as long as they are engaging with your brand through their daily feeds.

Reward your top fans
Keeping loyal customers happy is your top goal. Your fans love deals, promotions, special privileges, access to inside information, and other perks. The type of incentives you extend to your entire fan base and those that you extend to only your top 1 percent will of course vary based on your business and industry. But what all incentives have in common is that they are enticing, interesting, or useful to your customers. For a gaming company, for example, incentives for your top fans might be free game points, previews of games, access to secret codes, or the ability to join an exclusive online network of top gamers. For a consumer products company, incentives might be discounts available only to top fans, free samples, an invitation to write a guest post on your website, or a gift of their favorite product every year on their birthday.

Create your own currency
On your Facebook page, Twitter account, company blog, or other social site, you can create your own "fan currency." By allowing your top fans to collect "points" every time they engage with your brand -- such as 10 points every time they write a review, or 100 points if they make a purchase -- you'll build a loyalty program right into your social pages. Fans can redeem these points for prizes, content, or information. In addition, loyalty point programs give you another way to identify key influencers; people with the most points are the most engaged with your brand. Have fun with this program. On a music site, maybe you give away "notes;" on a sports site, fans could tally up "goals" or "dunks."

Make your influencers "stars"
Your biggest fans love your brand or product -- so you should love them back. While everyone likes a special deal or promotion, your top fans are probably more motivated by fame than fortune. If someone takes a lot of time to create and share content about your brand, they want to be recognized as an expert on your products. Recognize the people who create or share the most content about your brand; invite them to write a guest blog post, put their name on the front of your fan pages with a "top contributor" badge next to it, or call them out in newsletters or email communications. Let them know you're listening and appreciate their contributions.

Source - iMedia

Fashion Cycles

2010-07-21T13:45:00.000-07:00

Like the ocean’s tide, fashions ebb and flow. Whether it’s an indie band, a type of beer, a style of facial hair, a cut of jean, or t-shirt with obscure references, all trends come and go. (And then come and go again with each new generation, so keep those keffiyehs somewhere safe for your future children.) The infographic above deconstructs the natural cycle of hipster fashion, using the example of a hat. Do our findings line up what you’ve seen?

Source - Flavourwire

The Purchase Funnel - A Different Lens

2010-07-21T13:42:00.000-07:00

Purchase models are always a little flaky because they assume the purchase cycle is a linear process. As we know, everybody behaves differently and context plays a critical role in any decision. The following article suggests that looking at the purchasing funnel from a different angle (literally) can have a profound impact on your marketing efforts.

Enough already with the arguments about the death of the so-called Purchase Funnel and its relevance or not, for the digital age. Because maybe the real issue is not whether the funnel is obsolete – but that agencies and marketers have been looking at the funnel the wrong way?

So, take a deep breath. Take a different view of the funnel. And think about it this way.

In a consumer-controlled world, where it’s less about taking the brand to the consumer and more about taking the consumer to the brand, behavioral patterns are less likely to be linear – or sequential. And therefore it’s hard to imagine a consumer who seamlessly transitions from a state of awareness to purchase, by smoothly sliding down the funnel as they consume media. But knowing this doesn’t mean that the funnel is no longer relevant. There’s more to consider. And let me explain why:

1. What we know from our work behind the 7 Modes of The Mind is that consumer behavior in a digitally-powered world is increasingly shaped by their mood, mode and mindset.

2. We’ve discovered that mode of behavior and potential brand receptivity is shaped by a confluence of consumption – based on how a consumer interacts with categories, brands, technology, content and media.

3. We’ve found that the consumer journey towards a brand experience begins at one of seven primary modes: entertainment, share, learn/research, task/transact, socialize/connect, play and information mode.

4. We’ve also studied how the consumer jumps from one mode to another as they make their way towards the path to purchase – based on what frame of mind they’re in while consuming different media, devices and content.

By connecting these dots together in this way it then becomes apparent that the consumer mode of behavior and the “gravitational-pull” towards the bottom of the funnel are highly inter-related. And what’s amazing is that when you take a peak inside the purchase funnel you can begin to see all this unfold.

Go beyond a two-dimesional view of the funnel, dig deeper inside, and with the benefit of a three dimensional perspective it’s fascinating to actually see this modally driven form of behavior unfold. Far from being a linear sequential series of steps, what you’ll likely see is a meandering path to purchase towards the center of the funnel – that’s akin to a journey through a twisting-turning labyrinth, with trap doors and blind alleys, trampolines and pitfalls. But because this journey is fraught with distractions along the way, it also means the consumer may or may not make it down to the bottom of the funnel – depending on when and how a brand engages them.

So far, what’s clear from our initial work in this area, is that knowing how and when to intercept the consumer within the funnel and understanding what mode they’re in at a particular moment, increases the odds they’ll take the chute to purchasing your brand and become an advocate. Using a snap-shot of the three-dimensional view from above the funnel as an integrated modal connections framework can also be helpful, as a way to potentially mapping-out the journey a consumer might embark on as they make their way through the complicated ecosystem within.

So in short, don’t be mistaken. The funnel is far from dead – because on the inside, what we’ve found is that it’s very much alive. Dare to dive in, and what you may discover might initially scare your brand to death. But equally, don’t be surprised if this new perspective of the funnel provides you with a better understanding of how to give your brand a new lease on life.

Source - Mullen

What Makes A Great Planner

2010-07-21T13:40:00.000-07:00

The role of a Planner has always been tricky to define. Sure, Planners are strategist & problem solvers but what characteristics do great Planners have in common? In an attempt to answer this question, PSFK interviewed a number of Planners and combined their findings in a series of videos. Take a look and make sure you are getting the most of our your Planner.

Link to the first video here.

Can The iPad Save Traditional Media

2010-06-14T11:48:00.000-07:00

The iPad is the latest, and arguably, most compelling reason for marketers to back further away from traditional media companies and engage consumers directly. Brands are more capable and empowered than ever to go at it alone when it comes to creating and disseminating content. As such, marketers who think like media executives stand to gain share and improve loyalty for the brands they serve.

The iPad is the latest, and arguably most compelling reason for marketers to back further away from traditional media companies and engage consumers directly. Previously, brands needed print and broadcast media to reach their consumers efficiently and effectively. This is no longer the case. That’s because with technologies like the Apple iPad, brands are more capable and empowered than ever to go it alone when it comes to creating and disseminating content. As such, marketers who think like media executives stand to gain share and improve loyalty for the brands they serve. In this exclusive Proximity white paper, we examine the tremendous opportunities and upside of the “marketer as content provider” model.

Link To The WHITEPAPER

Taking A Page From Farmville

2010-06-14T11:38:00.000-07:00

Consider this: Farmville has three times as many active users as Twitter. We brought social gaming to your attention in past bulletins and this month we’d like to share some insights on social gaming provided by Zynga, the leading social gaming developer and creator of Farmville. Be sure to water your crops and check out this article. Oh, did we mention Zynga made over $100MM last year?!

Earlier this week John Doerr, an investor in Google, Amazon, and Intuit, said Zynga is the fastest growing venture he’s ever been a part of. Zynga’s flagship game, FarmVille, has 3 times the reach of Twitter. FarmVille has 71 million active users while Twitter has around 22 million active users (Twitter has 110 million registered users, of which an estimated 20% are likely active). Perhaps more impressively, Zynga is estimated to generate $50 million in revenue from the most engaged members who buy virtual goods and keep up a toolbar.

Every web experience designer can learn from the tactics deployed in FarmVille to engage members over the long term. Here are 8 tactics you should include:

1. Reward users for returning in a short time period. Every website visitor is going to leave at some point. But why will they return in 24 hours? FarmVille is centered around planting and harvesting crops. The shortest time a new user can harvest a crop in is 4 hours. So on the first experience, FarmVille says: “Go away and come back in 4 hours”. How bold! In order to make progress in FarmVille, you need to go and come back. The site also has functionality that you can only use once per day (e.g., giving gifts to friends), further encouraging you to go and come back.

2. Reward users for helping friends every day. When you give a gift to a friend on FarmVille, it actually benefits you. Fertilizing a friends’ crops does not cost you cash. Instead, it raises your experience level. So, you can feel good about both helping someone else and gaining points at the same time. Dropbox.com does something similar with their program for inviting friends that gives both the inviter and recipient extra space. But on FarmVille, you can earn coins and give gifts every day you visit a friends’ farm.

3. Allow users to create without typing. FarmVille is incredibly easy to play–you just point and click. Click to till soil. Click to plant seeds. Click to harvest. It can be played by 5 year olds, drunk college kids, or tired parents. You never need to think about what to say, how to spell, or what key does what. Perhaps most importantly, it can be played by the user whether they have 5 minutes free (i.e., to harvest crops) or 30 minutes free (i.e, to redecorate their farm).

4. Show progress…everywhere…on everything. It seems like everywhere I look in FarmVille there are progress bars implying future levels of achievement can be obtained. If it’s an activity you can do on FarmVille, it’s measured somehow with coins, cash, points, levels, ribbons, and more. This make’s users aware of the value of their past actions. It also suggests what the next step can be.

5. Make users feel lonely without friends–because if they get friends on, they’ll stay longer. After spending a few minutes clicking around FarmVille, you quickly see the game is designed for you to have friends. The main screen has at least 10 reminders of where your friends should be. These serve as a call to action to add friends. And you’re more likely to stay engaged if you have friends involved. FriendFeed claimed that, for their service, a new user is much more likely to stay active if they have 5 friends.

6. Enable self expression. FarmVille immediately lets you customize your avatar and start to customize your farm. You can represent yourself with just a few clicks of the mouse. And by making a representation of yourself, it’s likely you’ll care about it. Do you want to be the person who has withered crops or a small farm?

7. Offer increasing levels of complexity for mastery. After playing FarmVille for a bit, they started to unlock new things that cluttered my display. For example, after a week of play did I get a “gas meter” for a “Tractor”. I expect that if I keep playing they’ll be more and more things to unlock that can be mastered. [Editors note: I've now heard that "horse trading" is something veterans can do]

8. Have surprises & limited time events. Sometimes when you plow a plot of land, you find coins. Sometimes when you log in, there will be a special promotion for a limited time stuff to buy. These surprises make it fun and encourage repeat visits. Even Google changes up it’s logo every now and then just to keep things fresh. I’m so curious about what FarmVille will think of next that I’m sure I’ll regularly stop by in the coming year.

In summary, FarmVille is designed to retain users over the long run. There is a lot that designers of websites can learn from the tactics deployed. To hear about follow up posts on how FarmVille acquires users and monetizes, follow me on Twitter.

Source - Making Sense Of Good & Bad Content

Three Key Location Trends For Moms

2010-06-14T11:32:00.000-07:00

Moms are always on the go and location based services (LBS) on mobile phones are an excellent opportunity for marketers to connect with this important segment. Although LBS has yet to penetrate on a mass scale, it is predicted to have a huge impact by 2014 (which is disturbingly close). Here are a few tips to get you ahead of the game and remember it’s all about value.

Location-based services (LBS) on mobile phones are engaging a growing market — one that is expected to generate revenues of over $12.7 billion by 2014. With a significant percentage of moms using smartphones, location services offer a rare opportunity to interact with moms while they’re on the go.

Below are some innovative ways that companies are applying location-based technologies to target moms.

1. Discounts & Coupons

Discounts for “checkins” reward users for their brand loyalty. Women have shown a particular interest in mobile coupons, with more than two-thirds expressing their interest in getting coupons on their mobile device. In another study, 88% of female Internet () users said they would like to see more targeted offers from trusted brands. Discounts are a common incentive for moms to use location-based services. “I don’t care about being “mayor” of a location unless that means I will get a special offer from the business in return,” says blogger and Nielsen Power Mom Beth Blecherman.

However, privacy is a concern raised by many moms. “Location-based services are like two sides to a coin … they humanize and personalize, and conversely … they dehumanize and quantify us as data points. It can be hard to balance,” says Ciaran Blumenfeld, founder of Momfluential.

The balance seems to be in letting moms determine who can see their checkins. “It would also be great to allow people to check in ‘privately’ … so the store knows who checked in but it does not display to the whole world. I would probably use the location based services for everyday shopping more if I could choose when I only want the business to know I am checking in or make that public,” says Blecherman.

2. Utility Applications

Utility applications provide information and tools that make life easier for moms when they’re on the go. Applications such as Yelp (), Qype, and AroundMe () offer information about nearby restaurants and places to shop.

Sit or Squat enables users to locate nearby public restrooms and rates each one on a five-star scale based on whether or not they are a “sit” or a “squat.” Many of the restrooms include photos and information about special features, such as changing tables and handicap accessibility.

Rocket Taxi is an iPhone app that locates a user via GPS or Wi-Fi and finds nearby taxi companies. Users can select a company based on their rating, bookmark their favorite cab companies, and get an estimate of how much their fare will cost. These applications provide information for moms when they need it, and “locations make all of these interactions more relevant,” says Kate Imbach, VP of Marketing for Skyhook Wireless.

3. On The Go Sharing

Checkins enable users to fold the location-based element into a larger story, generally through photos, notes, and other social features. These applications appeal to many moms because they provide a context for checkins.

One application, Whrrl, enables users to add photos and notes to their checkins, as well as tag friends, who can also add their photos. “I am a fan of Whrrl in particular because it goes beyond the checkin and allows users to tell their story and recommend experiences to other users. Furthermore the stories I create are a visual history of my life and an easy way to make and share meaningful albums with friends and family. I can even post them on my blog. All of this makes it worth my while, and worth sharing my data” says Blumenfeld.

Babymate, an application that helps parents keep track of their babies’ development, is incorporating location-based elements into their existing application. Babymate is currently adding the ability to favorite locations, and incorporate that information into events, measurements and milestones. Users can integrate that information with images and articles

According to Babymate’s developer Mariano Capezzani, “The idea behind integrating Babymate with a location-based framework is to make the experience of using the app even more relevant and useful for users. For example, a mom whose baby has just been given the BCG vaccine will be able to comment on how her baby reacted and [how] good a job the clinic did. Another mom can share with the community the date when her baby started walking and what tips she found were useful to help him in the process. The community can share with each other and follow any activity, place, class, show, product and tip they find interesting, right through the app.”

Looking Ahead

Whether they provide discounts, utility, or on-the-go storytelling, successful applications are those that use location-based information to add value. As location-based services become more mainstream, developers will create even more innovative applications that appeal to moms. Marketers should look to location-based tools as a unique opportunity to add value and engage with moms while they are on the go.

Source - Mashable

Engaging The Like Minded

2010-06-14T11:25:00.000-07:00

Traditional commercial content deems the audience to be passive participants. As we all know, the tables have turned and audiences are now active players in commercial content. Examples include crowdsourcing, user generated content, social media and a whole lot more. The following article explores the groundwork for audience engagement and the reasons why people get involved in the first place.

In order to get any group of people to work together towards a common goal, you need to find the answers to these questions:

What do you want people to do?
How will they do it?
Who do you want to participate?
Why will these people participate?

This should be the starting mindset for any brand or anyone designing experiences that are intended to engage a community of likeminded people.

When brands attempt to work with groups of individuals outside the brand, i.e. consumers – or as I prefer to call them: people – things start to get a little bit more complicated.

Too often, what brands set out to accomplish is out of whack with what any group of people outside the brand would be interested in.

Brands need a method for aligning what’s important to the brand with what’s important to the community of potential participants.

This approach has four parts, which synch with our guiding questions of Who, What, How, and Why.

Community
What is the shared interest that brings these people together and defines their collective identity? (Hint: the answer is not “our brand”)

Vision
What is an aspect of our world that this community would be inspired to help change? (Hint: it can be big or small, as long as it’s a specific outcome that is inspiring to the community)

Values
What are the beliefs that guide this community’s decisions? (Hint: look at the kinds of information that strengthen bonds between members and gives members status within the group)

Behaviors
What are the common modes of interaction and communication within the community? (Hint: pay closer attention to what people do, than to the platforms that enable it)

Once you’ve developed a deep and comprehensive understanding of the network of people you want to work with, you’re ready to begin building the experience.

At MIT’s Center for Collective Intelligence, researchers Thomas W. Malone, Robert Laubacher, Chrysanthos Dellarocas, and Greg Little, have spent the last four years analyzing examples of collective intelligence enabled by the internet, and have developed a model they call The Collective Intelligence Genome (I highly recommend that you download and read the full paper available here.)

I’ve adapted their model slightly to be a bit more suited to marketing. I’ve renamed the four pillars: Goal, Participants, Tools/Methods, and Motivations. And I’ve expanded their list of Why genes beyond just Money, Love, and Glory in order to encourage a more holistic approach to thinking about what a community will find compelling. The Motivation genes I list were adapted from Jane McGonigal’s research on why people play games, and Daren C. Brabham’s research on the Threadless community.

Goal: What specific collective action is the group contributing to?

Create – the group needs to create something new
Decide – the group needs to choose

Participants: Who is the group of people who will be working together?

Crowd – a loosely organized, widely distributed group of people, typically unrestrained by place or time
Hierarchy – a group organized by a management structure, with specific roles and responsibilities for each participant

Motivations: Why will each person within this network be compelled to participate?

Money – in exchange for a monetary reward
Glory – for the opportunity to gain public recognition
Expertise – to hone their skills and get better at what they do
Social – to spend time with people they like
Satisfying work – the feeling of accomplishing meaningful tasks
Be part of something bigger – the sense that they are contributing to something bigger than themselves
Personal passion – because this is something that they love to do

Tools/Methods: How will the group be enabled to participate?

(Tools/Methods: Create)

Collection – each participant contributes in small pieces on their own
Contest – used when there is a limit on how much needs to be created
Collaboration – used when individual contributions necessarily affect each other

(Tools/Methods: Decide – Group Decisions)

Voting – each participant votes for their favorite choice, most votes wins
Averaging – each participant rates independently, and the aggregate ratings are averaged for a final rating
Consensus – participants engage in direct dialogue with each other to agree on a precise outcome
Prediction Market – participants place bets on what they expect to happen

(Tools/Methods: Decide – Individual Decisions)

Market – participants spend money to express their choices
Social Network – participants trade in social currency to guide and express their choices

These elements, or genes, can be thought of as ingredients to be mixed and matched in endless combinations to create experiences suited to different needs and project exigencies.

Our powers combined… we end up with an actionable framework for designing experiences to catalyze collective action among a network of individuals connected by a common interest, aligned with the interest of the brand, that looks something like this:

Thank you for making it to the end. You’ve just earned 1,000 Bonus points for determination!

This is still a work in progress. Comments are very welcome. What are example of this that you’ve seen or built yourself? What questions arise as you attempt to put this into action? What other thoughts can you share?

Source - Mike Arauz Blog

The Good Ol' Days?

2010-06-14T11:23:00.000-07:00

Culturally, we embrace youth and the “good old days” when life was a breeze and we were void of responsibility. Contrary to cultural belief, recent research suggests that youth is overrated and people actually get happier as they get older. This is an interesting insight and a great opportunity for brands targeting older demographics.

It is inevitable. The muscles weaken. Hearing and vision fade. We get wrinkled and stooped. We can’t run, or even walk, as fast as we used to. We have aches and pains in parts of our bodies we never even noticed before. We get old.

It sounds miserable, but apparently it is not. A large Gallup poll has found that by almost any measure, people get happier as they get older, and researchers are not sure why.

“It could be that there are environmental changes,” said Arthur A. Stone, the lead author of a new study based on the survey, “or it could be psychological changes about the way we view the world, or it could even be biological — for example brain chemistry or endocrine changes.”

The telephone survey, carried out in 2008, covered more than 340,000 people nationwide, ages 18 to 85, asking various questions about age and sex, current events, personal finances, health and other matters.

The survey also asked about “global well-being” by having each person rank overall life satisfaction on a 10-point scale, an assessment many people may make from time to time, if not in a strictly formalized way.

Finally, there were six yes-or-no questions: Did you experience the following feelings during a large part of the day yesterday: enjoyment, happiness, stress, worry, anger, sadness. The answers, the researchers say, reveal “hedonic well-being,” a person’s immediate experience of those psychological states, unencumbered by revised memories or subjective judgments that the query about general life satisfaction might have evoked.

The results, published online May 17 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, were good news for old people, and for those who are getting old. On the global measure, people start out at age 18 feeling pretty good about themselves, and then, apparently, life begins to throw curve balls. They feel worse and worse until they hit 50. At that point, there is a sharp reversal, and people keep getting happier as they age. By the time they are 85, they are even more satisfied with themselves than they were at 18.

In measuring immediate well-being — yesterday’s emotional state — the researchers found that stress declines from age 22 onward, reaching its lowest point at 85. Worry stays fairly steady until 50, then sharply drops off. Anger decreases steadily from 18 on, and sadness rises to a peak at 50, declines to 73, then rises slightly again to 85. Enjoyment and happiness have similar curves: they both decrease gradually until we hit 50, rise steadily for the next 25 years, and then decline very slightly at the end, but they never again reach the low point of our early 50s.

Other experts were impressed with the work. Andrew J. Oswald, a professor of psychology at Warwick Business School in England, who has published several studies on human happiness, called the findings important and, in some ways, heartening. “It’s a very encouraging fact that we can expect to be happier in our early 80s than we were in our 20s,” he said. “And it’s not being driven predominantly by things that happen in life. It’s something very deep and quite human that seems to be driving this.”

Dr. Stone, who is a professor of psychology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, said that the findings raised questions that needed more study. “These results say there are distinctive patterns here,” he said, “and it’s worth some research effort to try to figure out what’s going on. Why at age 50 does something seem to start to change?”

The study was not designed to figure out which factors make people happy, and the poll’s health questions were not specific enough to draw any conclusions about the effect of disease or disability on happiness in old age. But the researchers did look at four possibilities: the sex of the interviewee, whether the person had a partner, whether there were children at home and employment status. “These are four reasonable candidates,” Dr. Stone said, “but they don’t make much difference.”

For people under 50 who may sometimes feel gloomy, there may be consolation here. The view seems a bit bleak right now, but look at the bright side: you are getting old.

Source - The New York Times

Go Back...Way Back

2010-06-14T11:20:00.000-07:00

There’s so much discussion about social media that it can be difficult to remember the best practices. The solution is simple: go back to your roots and it’s easy. This article takes you back to the lessons you learned in kindergarten and applies them to brand behaviour in social media. The fifteen tips may seem obvious but it is amazing how much impact they can have on your brand.

Ok, I admit it. I spent eight years in kindergarten.

No, I didn’t fail and need to repeat it seven more times. I passed kindergarten the first time.

Right out of college, I started my adult career teaching full day kindergarten for several years. There’s nothing like being responsible for twenty-five five-year olds for eight hours a day. Go ahead and try it. I dare you!

Actually, I loved it and would do it again in a heartbeat if it paid more money. Every Fall, I yearn for the sights, smells and sounds of the beginning school year.

Then I remind myself that I needed two additional jobs to make ends meet. I taught kindergarten in the day, drop-out high school students at night, and held various weekend and summer jobs.

After nearly a decade of teaching, I took a salary increase and moved to the nonprofit world planning education, events and meetings. It’s also when I worked on my master’s degree in adult education.

Here are 15 tips I learned about social media while in kindergarten.

1. Sharing with each other is a good thing.
Playing with a new toy or game alone is boring. Sharing that toy with others is more fun.

Likewise, sharing great blog posts, meeting experiences, recipes for success, tips, videos and other content via social networks is a good thing.

2. Storytelling captures our attention.
What a great feeling of excitement, awe and contentment sitting on the floor listening to the teacher read a good book. Stories captivate us. We identify with the characters. We feel their emotions. We get lost in the plot.

In social media, storytelling captures more attention than crafting the right message.

3. Look, one of the first words we learned in Dick and Jane books, is critical to learning.
If you didn’t read the Dick and Jane books, you still learned to look at something and explore it. In kindergarten, I often brought in objects and asked students to look at them from many angles. I asked them to describe an object using as many, different, unusual words as possible. Looking with all the senses is important. It is how we learn.

Look and watch other successful social media users. Observe what they do. Watch how they blog, communicate, comment, share, Tweet and connect with others. Then mimic it. Don’t copy everything they say or write, but mimic their methods.

4. Listen.
As five-year olds we were taught to listen. We listened to the sounds around us, to our parents, elders, teachers, siblings and each other. If we didn’t listen to our kindergarten teacher, we might miss important instructions or a surprise.

In social media, learn to listen first. Then respond. Listen to your customers and potential customers before broadcasting messages. Listening means sometimes asking questions and listening to replies.

5. Talking with each other is fun.
As kindergarteners, we loved to talk with each other. We would talk about our clothes, TV shows, lunch, games, our siblings and friends. Having to sit silently in a desk, in a row for eight hours a day was torture. Actually, it goes against the very nature of a five-year old–and an adult as well.

The really good kindergarten teachers gave their five-year olds something to talk about. They helped spark discussions about new things. They helped focus conversations on new learnings. Instead of shutting down the talk, they invited and led it.

In social media, conversations are critical to success. Don’t just be a monologue. Be a social media conversation sparker, engaging with others in important conversations.

6. Uniqueness is celebrated.
In kindergarten, we celebrated all the diverse holidays and cultures. We didn’t leave anyone out. We learned about each other’s special customs and traditions. We celebrated our differences.

In social media, uniqueness stands out. Repeating the same social media message over and over again gets lost in the noise. Be different and unique.

7. Travel in groups and hold hands.
In kindergarten when we went on a fieldtrip, we held hands and stuck together. We had buddies. We learned that we need each other.

Social media encourages community-building. Encourage community around your brand, your organization and your services. Help others find their community and niche groups in the social media networking platforms. Be a social media buddy.

8. Show-n-tell is a highlight.
Remember show-n-tell? When everyone was in awe of whatever you brought to class? Sure, sometimes someone said “I’ve got one of those?” Or,” I’ve done that.” Yet, good kindergarten teachers helped facilitate discussions so that even common everyday items brought in for show-n-tell had a new sense of awe.

In social media, make old, common things seem fresh and new again. Show-n-tell on your blog. Share your perspectives and views.

9. Change is the constant.
In kindergarten we learned that the sun comes up every morning and how to say Goodnight Moon. We learned that each day was new and never repeated itself. We discussed how the weather changes each day and some of the patterns that occur. We learned that people come and go. Some friends move away and new ones move to the neighborhood.

In social media, change is the constant. It’s not about the social media tools as they come and go. It’s about the communication and engagement patterns with others.

10. Opinions count.
Five years olds often learn to respect and listen to other people’s opinions. And while they may make a quick judgment about something, they usually don’t make fun of others who disagree with them…unless they are bullies. They will say ooo, yea or yuck out loud quickly. They don’t mean any harm. They just speak their mind at the moment.

In social media, invite others to share their opinions, even when you disagree with them. Learn to disagree without being disagreeable.

11. Sticks and stones may break my bones and words can bruise my soul.

Choose your words with care and respect. ‘Nough said.

12. Some games have a set of accepted practices and rules.
Unless everyone agrees, you can’t change the rules of dodge ball or hide-n-seek. Sure you can make up games and create your own rules. But not everyone likes to play by those rules.

Yes, there is a set of accepted practices and social norms to follow in social media. For example, being self-promotional all of the time is frowned upon. Learn a good balance of sales and self-promotion with being seen as a resource and helpful.

3. Wonder is, well, wonderful.
Curiosity as a child is welcomed, expected and encouraged.

In social media, reclaim that childhood curiosity and explore different social media tools and platforms. Experiment and try new things for yourself.

14. Be a good sport!
Learn to play fair. Own up to mistakes and say “I’m sorry.”

In social media, if you say something in that is interpreted differently than you intended, own up to your mistake and apologize. You’ll get more respect.

15. Take a nap every day.
Yawn, is it time to unroll my mat yet?

Take intentional breaks from the 24-7 social media stream each day. Step back, reflect and enjoy the quiet. Balance is key. Remember, your friends are in your pocket on your mobile device just a click away.

Source - Midcourse Corrections

Create or Aggregate?

2010-06-14T11:16:00.000-07:00

Here’s how a content strategy works: “I (the brand) provide you (the audience) with engaging and relevant content in the hope of building affinity by establishing a reason for an ongoing relationship.” Some brands are in a position to create their own content; others aggregate existing content. There’s a ton of content out there to herd, here’s one example of a form of content aggregation. It’s also a nice way to see what videos are buzzing in real time.

Click to get to Zoofs

Making The Best Of Youtube

2010-05-18T12:37:00.000-07:00

Your brand might have dipped its toe into Youtube but we’re willing to bet you aren’t making the best of this medium. Sure YouTube’s great for hosting existing branded content but there’s so much more this channel can offer. Thinking beyond your TV commercials, the following article shares ten tips for making the best of Youtube.

There was a time when Youtube was considered a wild-wild west of content — a place where marketers shied away from uploading their commercials, let alone building a branded channel. But these days, YouTube has become more mini-van than stagecoach. From Toyota Sienna’s high-profile television commercials urging consumers to visit their YouTube channel, to (what might be considered the anti-minivan) Harley Davidson’s fan-centric YouTube universe, there has been a noticeable shift in corporate adoption of the platform.

There are many companies now that are hopping on the bandwagon. Just about every corporation and small business is creating a branded channel on YouTube, but there are still relatively few marketers who have managed to harvest the full potential of the platform.

Whether your brand already has a YouTube channel that’s in need of a facelift, or if you’re interested in developing one from scratch, this article will provide some practical tips and valuable tricks to help you kick-start the process.

1. Test Tube On Youtube

Look at your YouTube channel as a new, exciting learning lab. Be malleable in your approach to both the content and design of the channel. Don’t be concerned with acquiring thousands of friends and subscribers right away. Use this time to test, gather insights, and see what works for your brand and what doesn’t. Unlike your company’s website and traditional marketing collateral, the look and feel of the channel can be changed, tweaked and optimized without a huge investment of time and money.

2. Plotting Global Domination? Check Your Swagger

Ideally, you’ll want to be goal-oriented during the launch (or re-launch) of your channel. Before your itchy little finger goes to hit that “upload” button, consider the needs and goals of your various target audiences, and keep reminding yourself that web video is distinct medium.

Next, think about your marketing objectives and overall brand strategy. Are you using the channel to attract prospects, provide customer support, or build a list of subscribers? Understand that there might not be “one size fits all” content if you are trying to accomplish all three.

Let your strategic goals drive the tactics you use to create and promote videos, and consider whether a paid sponsorship would offer an advantage. If you check out YouTube’s advertising channel, you can get a basic overview of what brands can do with the platform, but be forewarned — the information is a bit heavy-handed on the sales side.

3. Avoid Over Commitment Issues

Strongly consider outsourcing. I’ve never met a marketer who wasn’t time-starved. Let’s face it: You probably don’t have time to be uploading content, let alone coming up with titles, descriptions and tags, friending, rating, commenting and optimizing. And I’m giving you fair warning: Entrust this project to a summer intern at your own peril.

While you should allow yourself the flexibility to experiment, YouTube can be a high-profile place to make gaffes, so don’t say I didn’t warn you. If you’re going to outsource, you might consider looking for a specialist who is already set up and can implement your strategy. Creating web videos and knowing how to market them on YouTube requires a whole different skill set than web development — just because it’s online doesn’t mean that it’s a job for the company that builds your website.

4. Be A Social Media Butterfly

Think of your YouTube channel as an extension of your brand that lives and breathes. You’ll need someone who is dedicated to tending to that page, building your audience by reaching out to fans, and managing your profile online.

Start by searching your brand on YouTube and see what the existing conversation looks like. Then try reaching out to people who already have an affinity for your product or service by commenting on their videos and/or “friending” them. Remember that YouTube is an online community, and if you’re not participating in the dialogue, then you are missing the opportunity for true engagement.

5. Don't Just Repurpose Old Content

You should post your television commercials online, but don’t let that be the only content on the channel. Remember that television commercials are designed for a one-way medium, and that while audiences may want the ability to see your commercials on-demand, if that’s all you have to offer, they will never visit your channel again.

And don’t just post your commercial and 15 derivative videos about the making of it, or “director’s cuts” of the same, unless they have legitimate value as content in their own right. YouTube is an opportunity for your brand to go beyond traditional “push” marketing tactics and to create videos that address multiple audiences and a variety of consumer needs.

6. Broadcast Your Best Self

Make the feature reel on the channel the most entertaining or best piece of content that you have. If that means that it’s a cleverly written and witty commercial that was originally destined for TV, so be it. If a viewer visits your channel, you’ll only have one chance to impress them with your content, so if you don’t entertain them or offer some overwhelmingly valuable information, you’ll lose an opportunity.

7. Make A Menu Of Content For Everyone To Feed

Understand that YouTube is a search engine for video. Create tailored content that considers what consumers are searching for or need to know about your products and services. If you play your cards right, when consumers are searching for information about your competitor, they’ll come to your videos first. Instructional and how-to videos that show consumers how to use your product are always a good place to start, but also consider the value of integrating your product into existing YouTube shows and then favoriting those videos on your channel.

8. Juice Your Marketing: Extract Extra Value

YouTube does not exist in a vacuum. Try to integrate your YouTube channel into the rest of your marketing programs and cross reference/promote your content. You can extract more value out of your event marketing if you think about ways to co-produce video content. Remember, integrating marketing channels and initiatives is well known for producing a campaign “multiplier effect.” Whether it’s video shot at a trade show or a promo for an upcoming event, just make sure that the video is well produced and edited for length.

9. Be Home Grown

Grow your channel instead of “launching” it. If there is any medium that pays attention to grassroots movement, web video is it. And be patient — it takes time to spread the word about your channel, and it takes care and nurturing for it to catch on. Keep releasing content on a regular basis, integrate your YouTube channel into your other marketing efforts, bring your customers extra value, and your presence will grow.

10. Keep The Future In Mind

YouTube was started in early 2005 — look how much has changed in a five-year time span, and how fast web video has progressed. As new technology and distribution channels emerge (like the iPad), try to think about how you can create web video content that will serve your brand into the future. During the production process, you should keep user-experience in mind and plan for the audience to be watching your videos on screens the size of a TV, as well as on their mobile phones.

Source - Mashable

The Power Of Perception

2010-05-18T12:31:00.000-07:00

There’s something to be said about the power of belief. According to a recent study, the simple belief in luck can have an impact on how we perform. Superstitions are a fascinating because they suggest that abstract perceptions can have tangible outcomes. We’re not saying you should pull out that old rabbit foot but this article is worth a gander.

Can luck really influence the outcome of events? That question has captivated otherwise rational people for centuries—and challenged scientists to somehow prove whether lucky charms, special shirts or ritualistic behaviors hold special powers.

They do. (Sometimes.) New research coming out in June suggests that a belief in good luck can affect performance.

In a test conducted by researchers from the University of Cologne, participants on a putting green who were told they were playing with a "lucky ball" sank 6.4 putts out of 10, nearly two more putts, on average, than those who weren't told the ball was lucky. That is a 35% improvement. The results suggest new thinking in how to view luck and are intriguing to behavorial psychologists.

"Our results suggest that the activation of a superstition can indeed yield performance-improving effects," says Lysann Damisch, co-author of the Cologne study, set to be published in the journal Psychological Science. The sample size, just 28 university students, was small, but the effect was big enough to be statistically significant.

Believing in their own good fortune can help people only in situations where they can affect the outcome. It can't, say, help people watching a horse race they have bet on.

While the findings have not been published, this study could prompt psychologists to explore ways to tap into people's belief in good luck. "Simply being told this is a lucky ball is sufficient to affect performance," Stuart Vyse, professor of psychology at Connecticut College and author of "Believing in Magic: The Psychology of Superstition," says of the new study.

When Anthony Overfield rides his motorcycle, he carries two passengers on board: so-called gremlin bells. The 46-year-old runs a Web site, New York Biker, and sells merchandise at bike shows statewide. Gremlin bells are his best sellers. Many bikers believe these small brass bells, mounted near the back of his bike, help ward off accidents. "My bike's in good shape," he says. "I'm healthy. I haven't been involved with any altercations with vehicles." In short, his good-luck charms seem to be working.

Still, people often overestimate how much control they have over a situation. For a 2003 paper, researchers in the U.K. enlisted 107 traders at London investment banks to play a computer game simulating a live stock index. They were told that pressing the letters Z, X and C on the keyboard "may have some effect on the index," when in fact it didn't.

Nonetheless, many traders had an illusion of control. This characteristic could have detracted from their job performance. Traders in the study who held the strongest false belief in control had lower salaries in real life, suggesting that excessive belief in their own control of "luck" may have hurt their trading decisions.

"The idea that wearing a red shirt, saying some sort of incantation or prayer or carrying a lucky charm will bring good luck is very appealing because it gives people the illusion that they have some degree of control over future events in their lives," says Peter Thall, a biostatistician at the University of Texas. "The painful truth is that we have little or no control over the most important events in our lives."

Mathematicians have demonstrated the role that randomness plays in life—"there are no long-term successful craps players," says Harvey Mudd College mathematician Arthur Benjamin.

But don't tell that to the people who believe they can shape their own luck. They're well represented in games of chance, such as lotteries and casinos, and will be out in force at Saturday's Kentucky Derby, in which a favorite is named, what else, Lookin At Lucky.

On a recent rainy Sunday afternoon at Aqueduct Race Track in Queens, N.Y., Dennis Canetty was wearing a brown suit. Not an everyday, run-of-the-mill, ordinary brown suit. The retired Wall Street trader, age 61, was sporting his lucky brown suit to help the horse he co-owns, Always a Party, win the second race. The power of the suit is real and proven: Mr. Canetty was wearing it at the Preakness Stakes two years ago when Macho Again, another horse he co-owns, finished second as a 40-to-1 long shot.

"It's silly," he said a few minutes before race time. "My wife thinks I'm nuts."

Even some otherwise calculating mathematicians hold irrational beliefs about luck. "I tell my class, 'Don't bother entering sweepstakes; it's so unlikely you're going to win," says Joseph Mazur, a mathematician at Marlboro College and author of the book "What's Luck Got to Do with It?" coming out in July. But then his wife entered him in a sweepstakes and he won $20,000.

There I was for months afterwards, entering every sweepstakes contest I could find," he says. It was futile—he never repeated.

Investors also are prone to superstitions. For example, during an eclipse, which many cultures view as a bad omen, major U.S. stock-market indexes typically fall, according to research conducted by Gabriele Lepori, assistant professor of finance at Copenhagen Business School in Denmark. This effect persists even after controlling for economic news and long-term trends. And the indexes usually bounce back soon afterward.

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, known for basing personnel decisions on statistics, notes with bemusement the superstition of some of his highest-paid employees. "Every locker room has a comical procession of superstitions," he said in an email. "We have things based on time, on speech intonations and on specific conversation exchanges. If you look at the introductions of any NBA team and what the players do, you have an anthropologist's dream."

But Mr. Cuban is sticking with his stats. "When it's all said and done, it's about performance and data," he said. "Guys will change their superstitions, but the numbers don't lie."

Still, he says he has some superstitions of his own to give his Mavs a boost, "but there is no chance I tell you; that kills them." These may not have helped his team in the playoffs: Dallas trails San Antonio, three games to two.

And did Mr. Canetty's lucky brown suit prove to be lucky? His horse, Always a Party, was bumped early in the race and jockey Channing Hill went flying. "I threw the suit away," Mr. Canetty said on Tuesday. "I'm not wearing that suit anymore." For the next race, "I'll try out a new suit, and see if it brings better luck."

Source - Wall Street Journal

Interactions, Engagement & Ecosystems

2010-05-18T12:25:00.000-07:00

A "media" model composed of paid, owned and earned efforts is nothing new - however it’s useful to think about this landscape in tandem with the different ways we interact and engage with branded communication. This article identifies three forms of digital engagement and proposes that each form tends to dominate the experience. Having intimate knowledge of how these ecosystems thrive (or not) will help us figure out how they can work best together.

A "media" model composed of paid, owned and earned efforts is nothing new—however it’s useful to think about this landscape in tandem with the different ways we interact and engage which are enabled through technology. There are essentially three forms of digital engagement which can often overlap (engagement in a single initiative can include all three types) but each form can tend to dominate the experience. It’s important to remember that the type of engagement is contextual to what a participant wants to accomplish.

Types of engagement:

Interactive
This type of engagement is, as its name suggests highly interactive by nature, though what’s worth noting is that there is no social component to it. The primary interaction exists between a person and technology or human to computer. Examples of interactive engagement could be an ATM, or an e-commerce experience or microsites. It can also be a game, video, or any other experience where users engage a system or interact with content. The key distinction is that interactive excludes social interactions between participants.

Social
Social engagement requires the interactions between live human beings (not machines) and/or groups with each other. Most common forms of social engagement can occur on off domain networks such as Facebook and Twitter but can also occur on domain such as corporate blogs or by using the integration of off domain services. The key differentiator for social engagement is that it goes beyond human to computer interaction as described in interactive engagement and usually involves social behavior such as “friending” or human to human direct engagement.

Mobile
Mobile engagement happens exclusively on mobile device as opposed non-mobile device such as a desktop computer. It also takes into context the user behavior of individual(s) who are in mobile situations such as traveling or moving from point A to B. Context in mobile behavior is critical as user activity is influenced by the actual state of being mobile. It’s also worth noting that “mobile” itself may gradually be re-defined over time with devices such at the iPad which blend stationary and mobile behaviors as well as geolocation platforms such as Foursquare which makes mobile activity hyper-local.

Where engagement happens:

Engagement can happen either on domain or off domain and initiatives which include any form of media or content can fall into the following categories:

Paid
Paid efforts always require some type of monetary exchange in order to have initiatives placed on properties whether they be traditional outlets such as display advertising or non traditional outlets such as blogs or advertising within off domain such as Facebook. Paid placement in search initiatives also falls into the category of paid as long as results are tied to non organic or paid searches.

Owned
Owned media typically does not require monetary compensation and can occur on both on and off domain properties that the organization has control over (Facebook pages are off domain, where Websites are on domain but both are owned). Owned properties offer organizations the most control as they can decide what media to promote although off domain properties must be monitored closely as they often support social engagement which cannot be controlled but moderated.

Earned
Earned media nearly always takes place on off domain properties such as forums, blogs, social networks and also mainstream publications. Media is typically earned through word of mouth or unpaid but highly visible results in both search engines and social media referrals. Earned media can also be amplified through outreach initiatives. The core distinction for media which is earned is the absence of overt payment to the property owner for the results.

What This All Means
As stated in the beginning of this piece—much of this should not be new, however it does present new opportunities and challenges for organizations looking to stay in lock step with their customers, consumers and employees. The media ecosystem must be purposefully orchestrated and appear seamless to the individual and groups you are hoping to reach. From a technological perspective, this means potentially adding systems equipped with workflows such as Social Talk or Awareness which allow you to better manage your entire social ecosystem. From a people process, this could mean training and staffing differently. But from the perspective of the people who you want to activate—it simply means that you are relevant to their digital lifestyle. This translates to the the following: we must better understand how people want to engage (IE their motivations and behaviors). For example, the context behind when they want to act "socially" or be left alone and when they are “on the move” vs. stationary. Also, each form of media is its own micro ecosystem within a broader macro media ecosystem—Facebook’s latest addition of community pages could potentially create micro-ecosystems within the broader Facebook environment.

Having intimate knowledge of how these ecosystems thrive (or not) will help us figure out how they can work best together. In other words, get ready to go both wide and deep as you plan digital initiatives. The future of communications will require organizations to be effective both in engaging participants via micro formats while taking a step back and managing media and interactions across the macro (all social, interactive and mobile touch points)—and that’s just on the digital front. The bigger picture? Integration between the digital and real world because this is where it all comes together.

Source - Logic + Emotion

Seven Psychology Tricks

2010-05-18T12:15:00.000-07:00

Getting people to take notice of your branded content is a tricky task. In a world where people are bombarded with choice, why on earth should they engage with you? In addition to producing really great content, there are a few psychological tricks you can used to influence behaviour. Although the following article is written for content in social media, the learning can be applied to most consumer touch points.

One of the hallmarks of social media is content: creating it, sharing it and engaging with it.

The best content in social media inspires, informs, educates or entertains (and if you’re really lucky, it does all four!). But how do you create content that goes viral?

What follows are seven strategies you can employ to help your content succeed.

The idea for this post came from Jay Baer’s excellent article on creating reusable social media content, which defined how companies can generate more value by repurposing existing content.

Content Creation Is Easier Than Ever

With the growing number of social media tools coming online each day, creating content is easier than ever. You can grab a bunch of pictures from your camera and create an Animoto slideshow in just a few steps. You can also upload these pictures to Facebook and Twitter using sites like Twitpic or Tweetphoto. By adding captions and explanations, you help those in your network share the experience with you.

Will They Notice if You Create It?

Similarly, it’s reasonably easy to get started with blogging. The challenge is, even though content is easy to produce (and a lot of people are actively creating it), how do you create powerful content that actually gets attention?

The answer to this lies at the intersection of neuroscience, individual psychology and group dynamics. Here’s a bit more detail.

#1: The Cocktail Party Phenomenon

In terms of neuroscience, there are a few concepts you need to know. The first is the reticular activating system (RAS). The RAS is one of the structures in the brain responsible for orientation and attention. Most commonly, the RAS is associated with the concept of selective attention, which means that we naturally orient to information or ideas that we are invested in.

An example of the RAS at work would be in a crowded room where you can’t hear much of anything, but you suddenly turn to someone who has just used your name in conversation. As our names are one thing we are clearly interested and invested in, we naturally focus more fully when someone mentions us.

One strategy is to create content that is relevant and meaningful. Sounds obvious, right?

But the trick is that it needs to be relevant, meaningful and usable. Adult learning theory says that adults are much more interested in content that addresses a specific problem they are having right now. If you want your social media content to stand out, don’t be afraid to get specific and target your audience very tightly. The more relevant your content is to a specific group of people, the greater attention it will receive.

For example, let’s say that you’re a time management expert. You have productivity tips that would help everyone, but you’ll get more attention and notice if you target the tips to a specific group, such as “time management for working Moms.”

#2: More Formats: Better Learning

The second concept related to neuroscience is the idea of assisting people to interact with your content in multiple ways. The concept of “multimodal learning” explains that people are more likely to learn and retain information when it is presented in multiple modalities such as written (visual) and aural (auditory) at the same time. Your content will get more attention if you offer people multiple formats by which they can consume it.

Edgar Dale’s Cone of Learning demonstrates this concept well:

#3: Emotional Narratives Are Remembered Best

As we turn to human psychology, we can find a few ideas that are useful in terms of content creation. First, remember that people tend to respond more strongly to stories and to find meaning in narrative. To the extent that your content is logically presented, sequential, easy to follow and includes emotional elements, your audience will pay more attention. Use stories in your marketing to make it more relevant and personal.

For example, when sharing content on social sites, include case studies and examples of how your concepts or ideas were applied successfully with good results. People remember narratives better than a series of facts.

#4: Familiarity Fosters Likeability

Another concept from human psychology comes from Swap (1977), who found that familiarity fosters likeability. The findings of this study suggest that the more exposure we have to someone, the more we are predisposed to like them, especially when we feel they are giving us value or rewards. For your content, this means you should syndicate your content widely and be out in front of your target audience every chance you get. As people see you “everywhere,” they start to pay more attention. And as they pay more attention, you become more familiar. And as you become more familiar, they like you more. We all are more inclined to do business with people we know and like.

#5: People Want Shortcuts

A third concept from human psychology that we can apply is the idea that people want shortcuts to help them make good decisions. As Barry Schwartz points out in his book, The Paradox of Choice, we all want lots of options—but, paradoxically, the more options we have, the less able we are to decide. This means, as a marketer, your content has to filter, not aggregate.

While people do appreciate resource lists, and you should use these in your marketing, it’s also important to include some suggestions and ideas for how people can benefit from these resource lists. Guide your visitors to make good decisions, filtered through your expertise. This is a powerful content—and persuasion—strategy.

#6: People Take Advice From People They Don’t Even Know

Turning now to group dynamics, let’s talk a bit about social decision-making and the value of social proof. Social decision-making is a term used to describe the idea that we are looking for ways to make good decisions without extraordinary effort. One way we do this is by asking questions of our social group. Sites like Yelp.com (and other review sites) tap into the wisdom of the crowds, to help you make a better decision about where to eat and where to shop.

A study completed in 2008 by Jupiter Research found that 50% of people consulted a blog before making a purchase. This means that we are basing our purchasing decisions on the wisdom of the group and can be influenced by people we have never met and hardly know. This growing focus on social decision-making has an important implication for you. You must position yourself as an expert resource for your clients. When you do this effectively, clients are more likely to trust, and act on, your recommendations. When your potential clients are ready to make a buying decision, you want them to think of you as the best solution.

#7: Engage, Captain!

As a content creator, it’s important to seek out comments and feedback from your audience, because not only do you connect with them more deeply, but you also start building your group of true supporters. These true supporters will look to you for guidance, information and assistance in making crucial decisions. As you gather more true supporters, your status grows. And, as your status grows, people are naturally more willing to listen to what you say and act on your suggestions.

So your content is powerful when it moves people to take action for personally positive results. Social proof is activated when others start talking about you, and sharing positive experiences with you. This naturally builds your credibility and visibility, and makes it more likely that people will pay attention to you and your content.

Putting it all Together

So as you focus on building content, keep in mind that it should:

Be relevant, targeted, and usable
Be offered in multiple formats
Use stories and sequencing to appeal to emotions and logic
Be consistently delivered
Guide your visitors to make the best decisions for them
Focus on building your true base of fans
Move people to personally positive results

When you use these principles in your social media marketing, you’ll be benefiting from the convergence of neuroscience, human psychology and group dynamics, which will call attention to your content. And getting attention is the first step to making anything happen.

Source - Social Media Examiner

Facebook & The Continued Decentralization Of The Internet

2010-05-18T12:12:00.000-07:00

The structure of the Internet resembles a collection of walled gardens. Organically, countless website and platforms such as Twitter have emerged yet there remains little interaction between these individual “walled gardens”. The tides of changes are upon us. Recent changes to Facebook have greatly accelerated the erosion of these walled gardens furthering the decentralization of the Internet. Take a peek at the changes Facebook released at the F8 conference.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his pal from the recently acquired Friendfeed, Bret Taylor, showed off a whole bunch of new features that'll impact your entire Web experience today at the f8 developers conference. Here are the highlights.

• The death of Facebook Connect. No longer do you have to deal with a middleman forcing you to confirm Facebook Connect every time you want to use your Facebook login at another site or service. Facebook is moving to a one-click authorization, so once you're logged in to Facebook, you don't need to log in again and again and again. That leads into the next point...

• Open Graph. The number of sites that use Facebook and Facebook's collected data in extensive, interesting ways is about to skyrocket. So once you're logged in to Facebook, if you go to Pandora, you can see what your friends are listening to, what they like, and see recommendations from other users with similar taste. And it goes both ways--you can "like" an artist on Pandora, and that artist will show up in the "Favorite Music" section of your Facebook profile. And that's just one of 30 partners who will be part of the launch, including other online services like Yelp and IMDb, news organizations like ESPN, and Microsoft--which is going to offer Web-editable Office 2010 documents (read more about Microsoft's Docs here).

• Incredibly easy plug-ins. Since the new API is so easy to integrate into any site (it's just a few lines of HTML), you'll start seeing Facebook integration everywhere. Go to CNN, which has already integrated the new global Facebook authentication across its site, and you can "like" a story, which posts it to your Facebook stream. But you can also see a little pop-up showing what your friends have liked. This is different than the deep-diving Pandora integration. It's the easiest integration Facebook has ever offered, which makes it much more likely to spread fast.

• The social bar. Remember Digg's floating toolbar that appeared on lots of different sites, allowing you to use Digg services from anywhere? If you do, it's probably because you hated it--Digg eliminated it after a torrent of anger toward the bar from Digg users. In that proud tradition, Facebook is introducing their own floating toolbar, which gives access to services like Facebook Chat and friend updates. You will likely start seeing this on poorly designed sites soon, with backlash to follow.

• Credits. Facebook will start using a single currency, to be called Facebook Credits, for all in-Facebook purchases. This is likely to be a bit of a pain, since the currency will have to be converted from real currency like dollars or euros. Microsoft used a similar idea with its "Microsoft Points" currency, to general consternation, although it had some success with the system on Xbox Live.

• Location was a no-show. Despite the wide assumption that Facebook would roll out an oh-so-trendy location-based service (a la Foursquare or Twitter), there was no such announcement. Facebook even teased us with fun little check-in points via the RFID chips in our press badges, but it was not indicative of any new location-based features. Zuckerberg declined to speak in much detail about future location plans, except to confirm that it is being worked on.

Source - Fast Company

Mass Media 2.0

2010-05-18T12:08:00.000-07:00

Digital media is revered for its sniper like ability to serve up targeted, relevant content. If you are looking to speak to people aged 41 to 43 who have an interest in cross-eyed cats and claustrophobic gophers, the opportunity is there. But what happens when you forget “laser focused targeting” and take a mass approach within the digital space? It’s the 1970s all over again!

Reckitt Benckiser ("RB") made ad trade headlines last week when it announced a record-setting $40 million web video buy for 2010. What shocked everyone wasn't the dollar amount but rather that the company pretty much doesn't care where the ads run.

"This kind of strategy echoes planning/buying 101 back in 1970," said a comment on the news article in Advertising Age, "It's a senseless approach that abandons all facets of leveraging for optimization and efficiency." Spoken like a true technonut, I say. At risk of overly analyzing the move I wonder if it heralds a realistic approach to web advertising.

Say hello to mass media 2.0?

RB isn't a household name but Lysol, Woolite, Clearasil and many of its other consumer products are well-known. These are "low involvement brands," which means that consumers aren't necessarily looking to have conversations or meaningful relationships with them. They're also low cost, high frequency purchases because most of them get used often and need to be replenished.

RB is in the business of selling lots of bottles of French's mustard and Air Wick freshener sticks.

So it's not wholly surprising that it has rejected the conventional wisdom that drives most Internet marketing, which dictates that technology enables brands to target consumers with laser-like focus...and then requires companies to talk with those consumers incessantly. Experts are shocked that RB isn't interested in appearing before the high-quality eyeballs that watch videos on high-quality web sites, like Hulu, and instead is willing to put its spots just about anywhere. We're talking a difference in cost of $40/thousand pairs of eyeballs reached (or "CPMs") and $2.

RB's media buying company will have its hands full avoiding joke videos in Esperanto and snuff films with that low a placement threshold.

Worse for the new media lobby is that RB will measure ad efficacy by using reach, frequency, and gross-ratings points just like it would a TV buy. "We very much look at this as TV advertising, just on another screen," explains a company spokesman, risking excommunication from his favorite web gurus' RSS feeds.

Ad views or impressions have always been imprecise metrics; you could buy a demographic for your TV spot and presume you knew who was behind those eyeballs to witness your brilliance, but it never took into account the context that influenced that consumption:

What else is going on in the room, on the airplane, or along the street on which the consumer you’ve paid to reach is living.

Where else that consumer just came from/is going, which has significant impacts on how and what gets experienced when you've paid for the privilege to participate in it.

The web ad model has never really challenged this worldview even though the influences on consumption have gotten infinitely more numerous and varied. Instead, it has evolved comfortably with the presumption that some sites should charge more for reaching eyeballs that are in some way better than others. RB isn't buying this rationale and instead just wants eyeballs. Lots of them.

I don't think it evidences any return of mass media advertising as much as it's proof that it never really went away. We just started calling it something different.

Large audiences matter, at least somewhat irrespective of demographics. That's what drove TV advertising for most of the last century; it was fine-tuned and otherwise confused by claims of slicing-and-dicing which eyeballs watched what programs, yet those viewers swore undying allegiance to their favorite programs compared to the fickle and fractured commitments of online consumers. RB is betting that its target consumers will likely visit a variety of sites and that it'll catch them at one or another.

This mass media approach has always lurked behind the measurements offered up by web sites daring to aspire to profitability, and it's why the trades have said that RB's approach "...breaks the backs of publishers with onerous terms."

My opinion is that it's just further proof that mass media deserves more credit. I'm not surprised by this week's news that the TV upfronts could be very healthy. For a dinosaur the beast still seems to have a lot of kick left in it.

A couple of other quick observations about RB"s announcement:

It's elevating the importance of content by being so broad in its buying purview; since it won't be catering to the presumed proclivities of individual site viewers (and thus engaged in creating gigantic insider jokes, which is what qualifies much of online content today) it'll have to find messages that are more fundamentally memorable and compelling. A mass media approach isn't as easy or lazy as it might seem, at least from a creative perspective.

It'll be more interactive. It has to be. So Spot X runs on fishmatingcalls.com and there are two visitors who might be Calgon water softener customers on any given day. The execution has to be something utterly motivating...vote, register, do something that matters...or it risks getting missed altogether. Maybe this mass media approach yields lots of more meaningful direct-to-consumer dialogues? RB says that it'll look to measure interactivity as part of its buy, which means it recognizes how crucial it will be.

It doesn't challenge the alternate model for buying space online, which is all about addressing spots to particular customers at unique moments in time with special content customized exclusively to them. Phew. This web marketing wet dream is still very valid, but when it comes to low involvement brands I still don't get how it amounts to anything more than distributing discount coupons.

So forget Mass Media 2.0. I think RB is simply saying hello to reality, and it's doing what it can to sell stuff. After all, that's probably the best metric for web advertising.

The ingrates!

Source - Jonathan Salem Baskin's Dim Bulb

10 Points For Brushing Your Teeth

2010-05-18T10:48:00.000-07:00

Social gaming has made a big impact this year. On one hand the massive adoption of social games such as Farmville can be linked to the entertaining and social properties of gaming. On the other hand, companies, governments and marketers are leveraging the foundations of video game design to alter behaviour. This fascinating video that explains how social gaming could be a part of every aspect of our lives.

If you are interested in checking out the entire video.

The Evolution Of Game Based Marketing

2010-04-14T08:58:00.000-07:00

Advergaming is a video game experience brought to you by marketers. It’s been around for ages but recent tactics are now blurring the lines between entertainment and unconscious persuasion. The evolution of advergaming strategy is Funware, which describes the use of video game mechanics in everyday, non-game applications. Funware is an intuitive concept: If you turn work into game, people willingly participate.

Gabe Zigermann coined the term Funware to describe the use of video game mechanics in everyday, non-game applications. It was a big idea that has now become a rallying cry for the spread of video games beyond their traditional borders into industries that seem remotely related to games.

What Zichermann, chief executive of beamME and a 12-year game industry veteran, realized was that games motivate people to do things that they wouldn’t ordinarily do. The book (subtitled “Inspire customer loyalty through rewards challenges and contests”) debuts this week and is a must read for marketers, including the folks who are attending the MI6 game marketing conference in San Francisco on Thursday.

Funware is an intuitive concept. If you turn work into game, people willingly do it. If you make a tedious school assignment into a game-like competition, kids will become engaged with it. If you add a rewards-based loyalty program to your product, people will choose it over rivals. The time has come to “game-ify” all of the boring industries so that users will be motivated to use products and services because they want to, not because they have to. In fact, the authors argue that just about any task can be designed so that it can be more fun.

Over the past couple of years, the idea has gained steam. Venture capitalists such as Bing Gordon, former chief creative officer at Electronic Arts and Kleiner Perkins partner, believe that Funware has the potential to change all of advertising.

Game-based marketing is one of those things that has been around forever, but is only now getting recognized for what it is. Games have grabbed a bigger share of the entertainment market because they’re sticky. They get people to come back over and over in a way that ordinary ads or marketing programs do not. (Pictured right: Zichermann).

The book begins with a couple of telling anecdotes. One relates how one of Zichermann’s former bosses in the ad industry just didn’t understand the point of marketing to gamers. Another shows how the Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates commercials — advertising the launch of Windows 7 — failed horribly in winning over audiences. The authors say that the failure of these commercials harkens the death of traditional ads.

Brands are starting to catch on. The old way of reaching people through 30-second commercials isn’t working anymore because people are skipping commercials with their digital video recorders. And a new generation of young people isn’t watching TV at all. About 80 percent of these youths are playing video games, so they are naturally amenable to game-related motivations, such as competitive leaderboards, enhanced status in a community, or achievement points. They are a generation that looks at things like and wonder why it wasn’t designed more like a game. One example: a leaderboard inspired Brazilians to boost their usage of the Orkut social network so their country could be the top of the leaderboard. As a result, Google’s Orkut is the No. 1 social network in Brazil, not Facebook.

Some of this is basic psychology. If you put up a velvet rope and create a VIP area in a bar, people will want to get into it. They will be nice to the host and offer bigger tips if they can get the better service and status associated with being a VIP. The bar makes more money and can charge higher prices in the VIP area. The fundamental product, alcohol, is still the same. The marketing of the product is what changes, and that’s what companies should realize, says Tim Chang, principal at Norwest Venture Partners. (Pictured right: Linder).

Part of the problem with today’s marketing is that marketers grew up thinking that brands should be inserted into games as commercial breaks. And game companies grew up thinking that their games were only for hardcore players. But now the growth of the mass market for games means those lines are blurring. Zichermann and Lindner say that the marketers should realize that the BRAND CAN BE THE GAME. In this melding, game experts can lend their expertise to the brand marketers, who in turn can help the game companies reach the non-gaming masses.

An example is the NBC trivia game, iCue. For years, NBC wanted to find out how to make money from its archive of videos. No one was watching them. Then NBC created a video trivia game where players had to guess a movie’s details based on watching a clip. The result was a sticky application with 100,000 users per month.

This book rests on the shoulders of others that have come before it, such as Changing the Game by David Edery and Ethan Mollick, and Total Engagement by Bryon Reeves and J. Leighton Read. Both of those games argue the same case as Game-Based Marketing, though with different examples about how to turn work into fun.

One of the common examples that comes in all of the books is America’s Army, the online combat game created by the U.S. Army as a recruiting tool to reach young people who grew up playing video games. America’s Army costs very little to run, but it has had a huge impact in educating youths about the ways of the Army. Nike, Coca-Cola, Mary Kay Cosmetics and lots of other companies are sharing in the fun by designing Funware.

The fact that other books have come before this one suggests that thesis of the book is part of a larger movement. The ideas that were once considered radical are now becoming an accepted canon. Bunchball, founded by entrepreneur Rajat Paharia, is actively helping brands to game-ify their web sites.

But Zichermann and Linder point out out that some of the pioneering ideas behind Funware are, in fact, really old. They were embedded in the old Green Stamps program where you could earn stamps by making purchases at participating stores and then redeeming the stamps for merchandise. The germs of the Funware idea were also in the first frequent flyer program created by American Airlines in 1981. And they were part of addictive nature of slot machines in Las Vegas and sweepstakes contests as well.

That gets us to the good thing about this book. People who know games should read it because they’ll learn about other industries which have already done what the game marketers want to achieve. And people who know brand marketing should read this for the new tips that the game companies have created to hook users. I must admit I got sleepy when I read so much about frequent flyer programs, but I also learned a lot that I didn’t know.

Game makers may think that they have learned all of the ropes, but the research in the book shows they would do well to study the effects that rewards programs have on users. The Boy Scouts, for instance, figured out that giving out low-cost badges instead of big monetary awards was more than enough to keep young boys motivated. Indeed, in everything from sweepstakes to reality TV, it is a fact that large prizes are not required to encourage continuous engagement and loyalty. And the game makers may have to watch out. As the designers of social networks have figured out, it is possible to create an experience such as Facebook that is possibly more fun than games. It’s also worth noting that gamers will try to game any system; just ask Las Vegas casinos why they have huge security staffs devoted to cracking down on cheaters.

Meanwhile, the creators of loyalty programs at institutions such as McDonalds would do well to modify their contests to be replayable, as most games are, to inspire long-term loyalty. Why can’t the Internal Revenue Service create some incentives so that filling out your taxes is fun?

If the game makers and the brand experts get together, figure out how to create long-term brand loyalty through engagement, then everybody is going to make a pile of money.

Source - GamesBeat

The Social Media Bubble

2010-04-14T08:55:00.000-07:00

Here’s a controversial perspective on social media. Social media is overvalued and online relationships are grossly inflated. Despite all the hoopla around social media, we aren’t nearly as connected as we think we are. The following is a cultural examination on our perceived value of social media and highlights a lot of the things we are doing wrong. The debate continues. Read & discuss.

I'd like to advance a hypothesis: Despite all the excitement surrounding social media, the Internet isn't connecting us as much as we think it is. It's largely home to weak, artificial connections, what I call thin relationships.

During the subprime bubble, banks and brokers sold one another bad debt — debt that couldn't be made good on. Today, "social" media is trading in low-quality connections — linkages that are unlikely to yield meaningful, lasting relationships.

Call it relationship inflation. Nominally, you have a lot more relationships — but in reality, few, if any, are actually valuable. Just as currency inflation debases money, so social inflation debases relationships. The very word "relationship" is being cheapened. It used to mean someone you could count on. Today, it means someone you can swap bits with.

Thin relationships are the illusion of real relationships. Real relationships are patterns of mutual investment. I invest in you, you invest in me. Parents, kids, spouses — all are multiple digit investments, of time, money, knowledge, and attention. The "relationships" at the heart of the social bubble aren't real because they're not marked by mutual investment . At most, they're marked by a tiny chunk of information or attention here or there.

Here's what lends support to my hypothesis.

Trust. If we take social media at face value, the number of friends in the world has gone up a hundredfold. But have we seen an accompanying rise in trust? I'd argue no. Now, perhaps it will take time for gains to be visibly felt. But social networks have already been around for half a decade, and society seems to be little better off.

Disempowerment. If social tools were creating real economic gains, we'd expect to see a substitution effect. They'd replace — disintermediate — yesterday's gatekeepers. Yet, increasingly, they are empowering gatekeepers. Your favorite social networks aren't disintermediating PR agencies, recruiters, and other kinds of brokers. They're creating legions of new ones. The internet itself isn't disempowering government by giving voices to the traditionally voiceless; it's empowering authoritarian states to limit and circumscribe freedom by radically lowering the costs of surveillance and enforcement. So much for direct, unmediated relationships.

Hate. There's this old trope: the Internet runs on love. Equally, though, it's full of hate: irrational lashing-out at the nearest person, place, or thing that's just a little bit different. Read any newspaper web comments sections lately? Usually, they're giant puddles of bile and venom. Check out these emails to Floyd Norris. Far from fueling meaningful conversation, today's "social" web is a world full of the linguistic equivalent of drive-by shootings.

Exclusion. Hate happens, at least in part, because of homophily: birds of a feather flock together. The result is that people self-organize into groups of like for like. But rarely are the gaps between differences bridged. Yet, that's where the most valuable relationships begin. To be "friends" with 1000 people who are also obsessed with vintage 1960s glasses isn't friendship — it's just a single, solitary shared interest.

Value. The ultimate proof's in the pudding. If the "relationships" created on today's Internet were valuable, perhaps people (or advertisers) might pay for the opportunity to enjoy them. Yet, few, if any, do — anywhere, ever. Conversely, because those "relationships" aren't valuable, companies are, it is said, forced to try and monetize them in extractive, ethically questionable ways. That's because there's no there there. I can swap bits with pseudo-strangers at any number of sites. "Friends" like that are a commodity — not a valuable, unique good.

What are the wages of relationship inflation? Three cancers eating away at the vitality of today's web. First, attention isn't allocated efficiently; people discover less what they value than what everyone else likes, right this second. Second, people invest in low-quality content. Farmville ain't exactly Casablanca. Third, and most damaging, is the ongoing weakening of the Internet as a force for good. Not only is Farmville not Casablanca, it's not Kiva either. One of the seminal examples of the promise of social media, Kiva allocates micro-credit more meaningfully. By contrast, Farmville is largely socially useless. It doesn't make kids tangibly better off; it just makes advertisers better off.

Let's summarize. On the demand side, relationship inflation creates beauty contest effects, where, just as every judge votes for the contestant they think the others will like the best, people transmit what they think others want. On the supply side, relationship inflation creates popularity contest effects, where people (and artists) strive for immediate, visceral attention-grabs — instead of making awesome stuff.

The social isn't about beauty contests and popularity contests. They're a distortion, a caricature of the real thing. It's about trust, connection, and community. That's what there's too little of in today's mediascape, despite all the hoopla surrounding social tools. The promise of the Internet wasn't merely to inflate relationships, without adding depth, resonance, and meaning. It was to fundamentally rewire people, communities, civil society, business, and the state — through thicker, stronger, more meaningful relationships. That's where the future of media lies.

Now, this is just a hypothesis. Feel free to disagree with me, challenge me — or to extend and elaborate upon it. Next time, I'll discuss what we can do about it.

Source - Harvard Business Report

Love Angry Customers

2010-04-14T08:50:00.000-07:00

Brands have always claimed to put their customers first and it’s no surprise that quotes like “the customer is always right” are commonplace. In today’s media landscape, brands are forced to live up to consumer centric claims or risk the wrath of the crowd. Fear not, this is an excellent opportunity for brands and their consumer relationships. As this article highlights, disgruntled customers serve a compass once you’ve charted a course of authenticity.

For a long time advertising has operated on a conceit that brands and consumers were in dialogue when, in truth, brands were dictating consumer behavior, pushing messaging on the public and often exploiting their trust or gullibility.

Phrases such as “We’re here to help you”, “We put you first” and notions like customer-centric companies sounded good, but as brands discovered more profit could be eked out of customers by manipulating their messaging, such language lost much of its meaning.

Thanks to information on the web and social media connectivity, consumers are now better informed and media savvy. By organizing themselves within social networks they have found their voice. The phrase “be careful what you wish for” comes to mind. Brands finally got the two-way dialogue they’d been talking about.

That two-way dialogue means brands can monitor in real time the hopes, frustrations and opinions of consumers – something they had to second guess before with the aid of research and focus groups. This is enormously valuable. On the downside, it means consumers are calling out brands for duplicity, disingenuous advertising or unconscionable behavior.

Yet brands shouldn’t fear angry customers. In fact, now that a two-way dialogue is in place, the dynamic functions as a self-correcting mechanism that can ensure the longevity and profitability of brands.

If a brand has a defined purpose, clear core values, and consistent communications (wow, that’s some steeplechase), its consumer base can serve as an invaluable feedback loop to keep the brand on track. As that authentic dialogue deepens, mutual trust grows with it.

A great example of this is the t-shirt company, Threadless. While its been rightly lauded for its crowdsourcing economic model, the integrity of the company is what strikes me as most revolutionary. Not only do they make sure that people want their products before they make them, but they never compromise their commitment to their original mission and community, both in terms of who they hire and how they run their business.

Brands that remain committed to their core values will keep and expand their community around shared values. If a brand makes the wrong strategic move, and every one does at some point, the community will set you straight. When they do, the correct brand response is, “Thank you”.

Disgruntled customers serve a compass once you’ve charted a course of authenticity. Better yet, consumers want to help and they’ll do it for free. As this new two way dialogue gets further entrenched through mainstream adoption of social media, the single most important defining quality of successful brands will be the quality of their listening.

Let me know of any good brand listeners? Are there any out there?

Source - Simon Mainwaring

The Internet Of Things

2010-04-14T08:47:00.000-07:00

Objects are invading the Internet! It may sound a little ridiculous to have Big Ben or a Barbie doll communicate online like a living, breathing person however it’s a trend that will continue to grow as technologies such as radio frequency identification (RFID) become mainstream. The outcome is a whole new realm for advertisers as interactions between people and objects become a whole lot smarter. Here are a few examples of brands getting a head start on this trend.

Big Ben has been steadily keeping time in London with its distinctive "bong" for over 150 years. But unless you were in the famous clock's proximity, you most likely remained unaware. That is, until late last year, when Big Ben joined and now keeps time virtually for nearly 50,000 people through Twitter's API.

While we can all have a bit of a laugh at Big Ben's presence on Twitter, our newfound ability to communicate with what were previously inanimate objects is no joke. Advances in a host of technologies like radio frequency identification (RFID), near field communications (NFC), electronic product codes (EPC) and, most importantly, Twitter and its API are enabling an array of smart interactions and connections between objects and people.

Not too long ago, unless you knew how to write code, the primary way that we communicated with objects was decidedly one way -- beep -- a simple signal for us to pay attention. AOL ingeniously took a step to humanize the beep in the '90s by alerting us to an incoming e-mail with a chipper "You've Got Mail." But since then we haven't made much progress.

Twitter is helping to change all of that by allowing developers to add intelligence to devices and inanimate objects in a surprisingly warm and human manner. We saw some of this with early experiments like BakerTweet, a system made by U.K. agency Poke that allows bakers to dynamically send out tweets to customers alerting them when a fresh batch of buns have emerged from the oven, and Botanicalls, which uses networked open source hardware and software to allow plants to communicate with people in human terms (e.g. "water me please") by either using the telephone, text message or Twitter.

Sometimes called "The Internet of Things" or "Web 3.0," the possibility of smarter interactions between people and objects is opening up whole new realms for advertisers and product developers alike. Here's a look at some of the more noteworthy attempts.

NIKE+ and the HumanAPI
Athletes are notoriously data-focused so it makes sense that one of the first entrants into the space was the combo of Nike and Apple. Nike Plus is a clever piece of technology that allows people to transform their iPhones and iPods into personal trainers, collecting real-time workout data, allowing them to react in real time and letting them track their performance on their PCs. Taking the concept a step further, independent developer Nikolai Onken has created an iPhone app prototype for the HumanAPI that collects heart rate data and transmits it via Bluetooth to an application for real-time visualization. You can view a series of videos here.

Sony
The interplay between physical space or location and online events is ripe with possibilities. For the Sony Hopper Invasion campaign in the UK, Dare Digital and Tinker.it demonstrated how physical objects could become a real-time visualization tool for an online event. The team built a grid that allows 49 Space Hoppers (colorful balloons, really) to be inflated dynamically through the use of hashtags on Twitter and through the Sony website. You can view a video of the campaign event here.

Mattel and Barbie
Can a product speak? Taking a much more analog approach, Mattel decided to give their iconic doll an online persona for her 50th anniversary. The company created a presence on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube for Barbie and even gave her a voice, sort of. While consumers couldn't actually hear Barbie speak, they could certainly read her tweets which, in today's culture, might just be about the same thing.

Blue Dot
Location-based services are becoming mainstream, but surfacing the information in real time is not. Blu Dot, a small but stylish Minneapolis-based furniture maker, scattered 25 of its chairs across the streets of Manhattan for its Real Good Experiment campaign.The company enlisted a creative shop called Mono, camera crews and GPS devices to track the chairs' travels. Real-time updates were provided on Twitter at bludotnews and realgoodchairs and on a map at realgood.bludot.com. Better yet, Blu Dot even made a touching documentary about its efforts.

FedEx
FedEx is clearly a leader in using real-time data to allow people to track their packages throughout the world, but the company is taking it further with its SenseAware. Using an in-package sensing device (about the size of a drink coaster) with a web-based information platform, the company can now let users know if a package has been opened or exposed to light, its exact location via GPS coordinates and even if it is too warm or cold. FedEx hasn't set up the service to broadcast package whereabouts or comfort via Twitter yet, but it certainly could.

Guinness
Talk about a human API. Guinness continues to expand upon its groundbreaking use of RFID technology with its Ireland rugby team sponsorship. The company just launched Area 22, a site that hosts data on the rugby team and its players performance, an iPhone app and even a Facebook page. The site boasts in-depth data with excellent visualizations on the key areas like kicking, possession, penalties ("Sin Bin") defense and performance. In preparation for the run-up to the Rugby World Cup in 2011, Guinness has even launched a new TV spot that highlights a futuristic -- a la "Minority Report" -- playing field.

Clearly it's still early days for "The Internet of Things" but the possibilities continue to grow as the technologies are becoming cheaper and more accessible. It's also becoming easier to find all sorts of connected consumer devices now, like the dog collar that tweets locations or the Wi-Fi-enabled scale that provides progress updates via Twitter.

Pachube, a company that provides a web service that enables developers to both virtually and physically tag and share real-time sensor data from objects, devices, buildings and environments. Another is Violet, which makes Mir:ror, an RFID reader USB-attached mirror that enables any PC to react to the presence of an object. The company also makes Nabaztag, a very cute connected device that delivers all sorts of audio and visual and information, including readings of your e-mail or RSS feeds.

Source - AdAge

How To Start A Movement

2010-04-14T08:45:00.000-07:00

Some very successful campaigns have emerged from strategies that focus on creating and facilitating movements. Take Dove’s Campaign For Real Beauty as an example. There are a number of variables that go into creating a movement and they’re all readily available to brands. The following video looks at what it takes to get people behind a rallying cry.

Video link here.

Source - TED

10 Essential Rules

2010-04-14T07:02:00.000-07:00

We’re willing to bet that you’ll walk away from this article with at least three things you didn’t know about consumer behaviour and attitudes in social media. This article is particularly insightful because the ten essential consumer truths consumer are grounded in empirical evidence. It’s always a good policy to adopt marketing principles based on quantitative data, particularly in emerging platforms.

These days, everyone seems to have advice about how to run your social media marketing program. There are so many tips floating around, it’s hard to know what truly essential strategies you should follow to effectively use social media to build your business. Questions abound: do Facebook fans drive sales? Why should I fund forums for consumers to pillory my products, ridicule my service, and tout the competition? And, whatever I decide to do, how I will I know if it’s working?

In the search for Truth, sometimes Social Media is its own worst enemy. With a self-credentialed guru waiting at every click and blog, finding actionable, fact-based insight is tricky.

So, in a modest attempt to bring a dose of sanity to this intellectual frat party, I’ve reined my impulse to lob more “personal picks” into the fray. Instead, I’ll follow the wisdom of an august data mining colleague to just “let the data speak”.

Our process was to query data from hundreds of our brand clients to see what testable truths emerged – and here’s what we found: 10- rules that hold-up across category and time.

1. The 1% Rule

In category after category, our data shows a small fraction of site visitors are responsible for a substantial portion of total site traffic. On average, the percentage of influential users (defined for our purposes simply as a visitor who’s subsequent sharing actions result in at least one additional site visitor) on a given site is .6% and rarely above 4%. However, these influencers regularly generate 20%-50% of total site traffic and an even higher share of conversion (defined however a site owner so decides). To make social media marketing effective, marketers to identify and engage --and better, recognize and reward -- these Super Influentials.

2. The 2-4X Rule

When it comes to conversion, visitors driven to a site by influencers are 2-4X more likely to convert compared to visitors from other sources, such as display advertisements or paid search. That means your landing pages for people coming from shared links and social sites should reflect these visitors’ interests and offer enticing deals that will encourage these social visitors not only to convert, but to share the deals with others.

3. The New Media – New Pipes Rule

In today’s socially-driven internet, it matters far more what consumers do with your content than what you do with your content. What they say about your brand means more than what you say about your brand. Our data shows that content spread from consumer-to-consumer through word of mouth is far more powerful at driving brand preference and purchase intent than content distributed by the brand itself. This has profound implications in Social Media. To illustrate, if a brand puts content on its Facebook fan page, it is far less likely to go viral than if an influential consumer puts that very same piece of content on his or her page or posts it to a relevant community of enthusiasts.

4. The Martha Stewart Rule

Throw your own party, don’t just cater someone else’s! If you base your social campaigns in venues you don’t control – such as Facebook or YouTube – you may get great “attendance”, but data shows it’s hard to convert and retain these partygoers. If your goals are anything beyond building brand awareness, it’s better to have a house of your own where friends can find you -- such as your own branded social site, contest site, or customer forum.

5. The Power of “Weak Links” Rule

Influentials generally do have many direct “friends” and “followers”, but what makes them truly valuable is number and relevance of their extended or indirect connections. As Albert-Laszlo Barabasi illustrated in Linked, you are far more likely to find your next job through a friend-of-a-friend than through an intimate contact. These “Weak Links” matter in the “real world”, and they matter even more online. A critical implication for marketers is the need to track the extended social graphs of their content if they are going to be able to understand and activate the dynamics of influence.

6. The Feed the Fire Rule

Consumers love to share relevant, engaging, useful, and entertaining content with their friends. Make it easy for them to find your content and make it easy for them to share your content. >90% of internet pages have fewer than 10 links pointing to them – making them effectively unfindable. Avoiding this abyss of irrelevance requires more thought and effort than just pasting a sharing tool on your pages. It means actively syndicating and curating your content and distributing it not only through your brand’s social graph, but through the graphs of your most influential advocates and fans. Easy ways to do this include following/friending your influential’s followers/friends and retweeting/posting content even if it’s not yours.

7. The More Things Change Rule

Our research consistently demonstrates that email and IM remain popular ways to share content. So don’t throw out your old email marketing methods just because Facebook and Twitter are the newest communication platforms du jour. The tried-and-true methods of getting customers to share links via email and IM are still extremely valuable sources of traffic. Furthermore, incorporating social elements into your email, such as incentives to share, can dramatically enhance an investment you’re already making.

8. Horse before the Cart Rule

Success in Social happens when brands infuse their content with Social dimensions (Facebook Connect, most notably) NOT when they simply stick their ads and content in Social forums. In other words, if you want to succeed in Social Media, your brands and content need to have social attributes – content worth sharing, brands worth talking about, sites that encourage consumer participation and dialog. If your Social strategy relies on advertising in Social, probably better to hang onto your money.

9. The PR Pitfalls Rule

Blogger outreach and content seeding may be popular ways to get your message out into the social world, but our data shows that more than 90% of seeding has no material impact. Up to 5% gets some response, but less than 2% of seeding drives valuable traffic. In other words, if you can’t track efficacy of these efforts, don’t bother.

10. The Customer Service Rule

Social marketing programs succeed when they provide a service to the consumer. Traditional media planning processes that begin with Reach and Frequency targets are largely unhelpful in Social Media. Reach and Frequency – as well as engagement, preference, and conversion – are positive consequences of giving consumers content that is sufficiently relevant and useful that they propagate your message across their own social graphs. Focus on providing useful content and offers to your target audience and they will spread your messages for you.

Social media isn’t a science, but applying data-backed principles to your social efforts provides a structured framework that will enable you to improve effectiveness and ROI over time. And one final note: every rule has exceptions. We live in dynamic times. Find what’s true for you – and share.

Source - imediaconnection

How to Survive Geolocation's Looming Apocalypse

2010-03-30T12:56:00.000-07:00

Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that everyone is buzzing, blogging, tweeting, and talking about geolocation. Research firm Borrel forecasts that location-based mobile spending will hit $4 billion in 2015, an increase of nearly 12,000% from the $34 million spent in 2009. With highly anticipated location-centric announcements looming from both Facebook and Apple, the buzz over geolocation is not expected to diminish any time soon.

Leveraging location will drive the next wave of consumer marketing, but based on the current pace of services and apps going to market, we're setting ourselves up for geolocation apocalypse. In this scenario consumers gorge themselves on a plethora of location-based services and spam, gut-busting data profusion and promotional push acid-reflux. If we're not careful, the coming cataclysm could consume us with:

Swarms of Geolocation Services. Already in full swing, new services are appearing with an alarming frequency. Ranging from the more popular/mainstream (Foursquare, Gowalla, Twitter, Yelp, MyTown, Whrrl and Loopt) to the more obscure (PlacePop, BlockChalk, Bump, FoodSpotting and Graffiti), services are being piled high. Gauging by the more than 25 companies that made location-based announcements at SXSW, consumers will soon be choking on an overabundance of geolocation services.

Armies of Aimless Apps. Each service wants you to use their app, so can the marketplace sustain a massive rush of apps? Of course not. When I sit down for dinner at my favorite tapas place, how many apps can I "check-in" with before everyone else at the table starts throwing flatware at me? Most likely one, possibly two, if I snap a photo for upload when the entrees arrive. Check.in, by the team at Brightkite, is addressing this problem with their upcoming app (one checkin to rule them all). But how many apps (and features within each service) will they need to support to effectively fulfill consumer needs?

Drowning in a Deluge of Data. If you've seen SimpleGeo's Vicarious.ly, or the visualization video of geolocated data they collected during SXSW, you can see the potential for massive floods of personal geolocated information that may or may not be relevant to your consumers. Bing recently added Foursquare data results to their maps. Now imagine them adding results from a dozen other services, or maybe four dozen other services. As a user, I just wanted directions to the post office, now obscured by thousands of user notes, to pick up my bacon-of-the-month. Does it help to know that 600 of my closest friends also hate going to the post office?

Spates of Vexing Spam. Why should marketers care? Consider the consumer. An innocent trip to the mall might trigger an avalanche of promotional push notifications. You check in at Macy's, and because you just had tapas for dinner, Macy's offers you 30% off paella cookware. The Gap sees you and sends an SMS about its sale on Spanish red sleepwear, while Barnes & Noble (a few doors down and a bit confused) pushes you a coupon for Macy Gray's latest release. The consumer just turned off their phone...

Crime Cataclysm, Stalker Apps and Misrepresentation. With vase amounts of personal-location information being exposed, we're bound to see a rise in potentially damaging behavior. Ages ago (in 2009) a man tweeted about a family trip to Kansas City, only to return to a burgled home. What did he do? He blamed Twitter. On the flip side, I would be remiss if I didn't mention PleaseRobMe.com, a site that displayed Foursquare check-ins in real time, essentially listing "all those empty homes out there." The site is no longer active, but it caused quite a stir and fueled much debate when it launched in February of 2010. That sound you hear is consumer confidence gasping about the dangers of geolocation.

It Doesn't Have to Be That Way
This isn't the first time marketers have embraced disruptive technologies, nor will it be the last. As long as we keep one foot in the shoes of our consumers and follow some basic rules of road, you'll safely stay out of the wasteland:

Respect and Delight Your Consumer. Service creators, application developers and marketers alike should have undying respect for consumers and the desire to make them fall in love with their brand by providing them with something special. If you undervalue your consumer by creating less than magical apps, treat privacy with little or no consideration or abuse your knowledge of their whereabouts, consumers will turn their backs on you and won't return.

Embrace Open APIs. Open APIs allow marketers and app developers to build on top of existing services. Facebook and Twitter owe no small portion of their success to having created open APIs early on. Remember reading about tweeting toasters, plants, dishwashers and even beds? Twitter's open API was not only great for developers, it was phenomenal PR. Why has Gowalla lagged behind Foursquare, even though many users report preferring the Gowalla experience? Maybe because their API is currently read only.

Choose Wisely. As part of your strategic approach, building upon a proven favorite that will likely NOT end up in a geolocation landfill makes sense. All signs indicate that Foursquare will be around for some time, especially given it raised $1.35 million in venture capital last year. Also of note, following SXSW, Foursquare tweeted that they experienced "2.4 million checkins !& about 90,000 new users (!!!) in the past 7 days. Every week bigger than week before."

We Can Prevent Geolocationitis
Geolocation isn't going away -- in fact, it may get a significant bump if Facebook turns location on for their 450 million+ users. Stay tuned; that news is expected to unfold at the upcoming F8 developer conference on April 21. In addition, Apple's appreciation of the impact of geolocation was acknowledged with their patent application for a social-networking app (named iGroups in the patent) that would allow users to securely share data with one another using a service like MobileMe. Apple is also rumored to be rolling out iAd, a location-based advertising service that leverages technology from their recent purchase of Quattro Wireless.

We've already taken our first few leaps into the geolocation deep end, but it's not too late to refine our approach. If we work hard to respect our consumers' needs and privacy, while taking every opportunity to provide them with brand experiences brimming with value and delight, we could turn a looming apocalypse into a land of geolocation milk and honey.

Source - Advertising Age

SXSW - What Corporate America Thinks Of Web 2.0

2010-03-15T08:15:00.000-07:00

Here's a top line summary of Andrew McAfee's discussion on the corporate mindset regarding the web 2.0 world.

The Corporate Mindset

The Bad

Risk averse
Enamored of the status quo
They’ve been burned by technology hype – we oversold in the past and now corporate culture has apprehensions. We’re dealing with a skeptical audience.
Unimpressed by features and novelty.
Recession has cut middle management and consequently everyone else is very busy.
Uninterested in social revolutions.
Hostile to auto-obsolescence – hierarchy is not obsolete.
ROI seeking.
Convinced of their own uniqueness.

The Good

Aware of new tools and approaches
Aware of organizational dysfunctions
Pragmatic
Swayed by theory
Narratives – what going on, paint a picture, where we fit into it
Keenly aware of what their peers are going
They fear being left behind.

How to talk to your bosses about technology

Comparisons instead of demos.
Present theories and frameworks, not jargon.
Present data, case studies, and narratives. (Not Google, Amazon etc).
Activate peer effects
Anticipate concerns
Show that you understand their problems.
Don’t treat them like geeks or dopes.