Curious Creative

Transmedia Storytelling

As the marketing landscape evolves for brands Transmedia storytelling rises to the top. No longer a singular experience, Transmedia storytelling is a story universe told across many different mediums and it’s an exploding phenomenon. By extending the story arc to other medias including online, social networks, mobile, print, on demand video, interactive TV, and more brands are able to turn spectators into participants. More brands are creating Transmedia stories and immersive brand experiences. As we see more successful case studies marketers will consider how their brands/products/services could either integrate into stories or how brands themselves can create unique and compelling stories that could become a Transmedia platform on their own. The evolution of successful marketing is getting people to interact, use, open, respond, recommend, upload and share from multiple points of entry.

Search is not a silver bullet

Search provides a reliable element within any marketing campaign, but a robust marketing mix could never be more important. This point was reiterated with a recent ComScore study that suggested display advertising significantly lifts online search activity and demonstrated that consumers exposed to display advertising were more likely to search for brand terms. Seems obvious. Of course there are some interesting numbers to back it up with some compelling lift within specific verticals but exposure in general, leads to search no matter what the medium. Search engines require someone actively searching for something and while the engines can use that information to push contextual, behavioral messages they are at a disadvantage in selling something someone does not know they need. So when creating a marketing plan, know your audience and make sure the media mix includes lead gen that gets people interested, as well as search once they are.

Digital Shorts

So I’m watching SNL last night with both eyes on the TV screen for the first time in a while and I notice they are calling some skits “Digital Shorts”. Not sure what makes them any different from their regular skits. Unique, random, funny. Sound like criteria for what often becomes viral? But got me thinking, most SNL skits are in many ways perfect as short format digital videos. It’s a wonderful parallel, and maybe where SNL ultimately sees its fan base blossoming again. I got this one sent to me the other day, I have to admit I watched the entire 3:00 and had to share it. Interesting though. It was sent to me via YouTube (6,948,962 views), pulled from Hula (login required, but worth it, 113 reviews), and all the Digital Shorts are categorized on NBC.com. On NBC.com this one had (283,143 views).

“Money, it’s gotta be the shoes”

There is the superstar, there is the product and together they can do unbelievable things.
Michael Jordan and Mars Blackmon (Spike Lee) established this simple yet powerful formula in the late 80s. It’s a formula Nike has continually brought back successfully. The difference today is the medium and the reach. Add a little less overt marketing and product shill, cut down your production and media budget and you have the next generation of “Money, it’s gotta be the shoes”. 

Over the holidays I happened to be sharing some of my favorite videos. One is of soccer legend Ronaldinho and it captures what happens when he first puts on a pair of Nikes. Granted it is 3 years old, but 26,620,160 views. Enough said. Can’t you see Kobe jumping the Aston Martin followed up with one of his buddies proclaiming, “Money, it’s gotta be the shoes”. By the way that video as of this post has 4,235,635 views.

Video future

I know of a handful of people who have some sort of wire set-up at their home where they stream long-format video from their laptop and watch it on their larger television screens. The technology exists. But these are the pioneers of what will be mainstream in the near future. Wires not included.

Consider this, in 2004 YouTube didn’t even exist. Now eMarketer projects the online video audience will be 88% on the internet population by 2012. No doubt short-format video is here to stay. With content owners armed with the ability to monetize their digital assets with advertising in the form of in-stream ads, pre-rolls, mid-rolls and post-rolls what’s to stop long format from eclipsing traditional broadcast and on-demand altogether?

Weren’t we all wondering when we could have one devise rather than a phone, an mp3 player, a digital camera, a game platform, internet connectivity and email?

I’ll skip the wires for now. A solid solution is in our (near) future.

Obama is a gamer

I’ve posted about the Obama campaign and it’s sophisticated use of social media, emerging technology and advertising platforms to enfranchise voters before. Another tactic he’s using, in game advertising. If Obama is relying on Gen X to put him in the White House he might just be on to something. Kudos again for all the interesting ways Obama is reaching his audience.
Photo Credit

dog do

A bit random but quite addictive.
enjoy.

Are the Olympics even in Beijing?

Now two stories have broken that discredit some of what we saw in the Olympic opening ceremonies. It seems the footprints we saw in the sky were months in the making special effects for the viewing audience, and now the cute little singer was lip-syncing "Ode to the Motherland". Neither undo to brilliant spectacle that the opening ceremony was, but what they point out is how the web has made everything so transparent. We have an appetite for the truth and if it’s fake chances are it will be found out. Neither Governments nor Traditional Media can spread a message like Social Media can. It’s interesting to see how China is still in the business of control.

Are you a DJ?

Forget sharing iTunes, waiting or “that” song on Pandora, finding groups on muxtape, imesh and the like. Blip.fm is my Twitter fix with a soundtrack. Become a DJ or follow others like you. It humanizes the related artists element of something like Liveplasma and let you actually hear the entire song. Or find a good DJ and just hang out and listen. My only question. Do I need another Social Network?

Do social networks mix with the financial sector?

Privacy & security. Big barriers for the financial sector to overcome when considering how to break into UGC, WOMM and social networks. Fisery, a company that supplies back-end bill-payment and transaction technology recently launched a Facebook application called MyMoney, which allows Facebook users to carry out basic banking tasks such as paying bills, making transfers, and checking balances. If you believe you need to go where your audience is, and you are targeting Gen Y consider this. 65 million users spend an average of about 20 minutes a day on the site. On the security front the application was built using 128-bit encryption and a two-way security system that lets the credit union know who is trying to access the member’s account. So is the financial sector ready? So far 36 credit unions have started supporting MyMoney. I'd say yes.

Brilliant

Here’s an example of an idea that comes from a solid brief. I can see it now. Key insight: people are unaware of our brand and people have a hard time saving money for a vacations. Where else do you end up with the pitch, “so you want to sell tickets? How about you sell beans”. Love it. Happy Soldiers, Sydney created more than just an ad campaign for Zuji, a Travelocity company operating in Asian markets. They created a big platform idea. Probably well beyond the allocated budget. But you know what? If the idea is big enough money has a way of supporting it.

Radiohead and data visulization.

Check out Radiohead's new video for "House of Cards. “No cameras or lights were used. Instead two technologies were used to capture 3D images: Geometric Informatics and Velodyne LIDAR. Geometric Informatics scanning systems produce structured light to capture 3D images at close proximity, while a Velodyne Lidar system that uses multiple lasers is used to capture large environments such as landscapes. In this video, 64 lasers rotating and shooting in a 360 degree radius 900 times per minute produced all the exterior scenes.”
Mesmerizing.

The Future of Brick-and-mortar

Shopping online is quite different than in-store. Online we have unlimited choice and the ability to find the best price possible. In-store we are subject to what’s in stock and the prices there. But convergence is upon us.

Go to a store, find the product you want, grab your web-enabled device and search. Okay it hasn’t been perfected yet. Not quite that simple.

Recently the future just got one step closer with the release of an iPhone app Checkout SmartShop, "a shopping assistant meant to help you find online and local prices when you’re out and about shopping." For now, you still need to type in the UPS code; they are working on converting the iPhone camera into a barcode scanner.

Hmm. Getting easier.

Retailers are you listening? Converging experiences are happening. Mobile web browsers are more than a trend. If you are not going to win the price battle start creating loyalty and value. Or get a cell phone jammer for your store.

Social Order

So I’m sitting at the airport. A sigh in unison vibrates through the terminal when the announcement booms over the intercom. Another Delay. I can’t help but marvel at the incredible cross section of people. Everyone trying to get somewhere. So many people all around and yet I feel isolated. Maybe my earphones and the hypnotic stare at my laptop are sending a message? Even so, alone. All this brings me to a recent post by Greg Verdino that got me thinking. He was inspired by Michael Nicholas of Carat who said when discussing the fundamental importance of social connections and the impact of groups on individual behavior, “You can understand a lot about the importance of social connections by looking at the punishments we bestow upon individuals who do wrong.” The examples are endless. Criminals are locked up in jails and prisons -- taken out of the community and largely cut off from their normal social connections. Really bad criminals are put in solitary confinement. No social connections at all. A young child gets a time out and a teen might get sent to his room, or even grounded. The idea of social networks and the importance of community are far from new. In many ways they are the fabric of what makes us human. Technology has enabled a new form of social connections. Whether you have a Facebook or Myspace page or not you are part of social networks. Sharing experiences, making new friends and connecting with old ones. That will never go away. If anything interactive social networks will overtime emulate social networks elsewhere even more. You don’t open the door for a stranger and you won’t accept every invite to become a friend. You don’t trust an anonymous person to help make a critical decision and you will begin to seek the expert rather than the rant of one unhappy customer on a review. Interactive social networks will evolve into more exclusive micro communities, if you misbehave you may get kicked out and while crowd sourcing has is place, when making critical decisions you’ll seek the expert.

Navigation free

I’ve used this site as an example for clients when they feel compelled to make every little bit of functionality have a label or description. Web users are savvier that you think. Intuition takes over. Once you reward a user for exploring they will continue.

Obama the interactive marketing superman

danny g over at AdPulp points it out again. Barack Obama has put together one of the most sophisticated interactive marketing machines. Think about it. He has one sale in mind. November. Not multiple widgets, varied merchandise, aggressive sales cycles. One sale. November. And yet so much to learn from this one sale. Salon reveals even more:

“Now Obama's campaign is aiming to be ahead of even the GOP's standard in applying sophisticated data mining techniques across the board, supported by all the traditional canvassing, door-knocking and other work it's been doing. The campaign is collecting some of the most helpful data on its own. For example, aides can track what time you open e-mails from them, and if you show a consistent pattern, they'll start sending them at around that time of day. "The marginal benefit of sending some people an email at 2 o'clock vs. 3 o'clock vs. 4 o'clock might not make sense [at first]," said Michael Bassik, a Democratic consultant with MSHC Partners, the firm that did John Kerry's online advertising in 2004. "But once you start getting an e-mail list that's 3 million, 4 million, or 10 million people, increasing the returns for a fundraising e-mail by 5 or 10 percent means additional returns of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars."

If you're one of the 1 million people who have a login on Obama's social networking site, they know how often and when you visit, and they can use that to gauge how committed you are to the campaign. A few months ago, the campaign sent out a three-page survey asking people about their voting habits, how often they go to church, which groups and issues they identify with and whether they've given money to political candidates in the past. The point of all of the online gadgetry is to get people to show up for offline events. "We've tried to orient the tools less as a social network and more as a mobilization network," said Joe Rospars, Obama's online director. "We're creating opportunities for people to get out there and do things -- the campaign is election-outcome oriented."

Obama has one of the most savvy marketing teams ever put together.  I think we can all learn a little here.

50 ways marketers can use social media to improve their marketing

The right marketing tactic falls out of the right marketing strategy. A YouTube video will be flawed if the reason for the video is because someone wanted a YouTube video. But if a strategy suggests brand recognition with a viral component, you have interesting or valuable content or are willing to push the boundries of your brand. And you have a marketer who is willing to dabble in free lead generation perhaps a video is the way to go. But don’t just stop there. Create a plan to get the video to travel all around the internet and generate millions of views. Share it on MySpace, Google Video, Facebook, Digg, blogs, forums, email lists, etc. Make sure you tag your video, encourage comments, create a compelling thumbnail, give it a clear title…

That said, knowing the tactics that are possible gives you the ability to fulfill the marketing strategy. Chris Brogan has listed 50 ways to use social media to improve marketing. Great list

The best campaign for a product is creating the best product.

Social Media: Openness, transparency and participation

Social Media is not just another channel or set of channels to add into your marketing mix. There certainly are tactics that could be deemed social media and you should probably roll them into any marketing plan that might include some of the traditional and expected forms of marketing. But social media is bigger than a set of tactics. Social Media is the platform for participation by your employees, customers and prospects.

Overused terms like “customer in control”, “On-Demand generation”, “Push to Pull” speak to the evolution marketing has undergone. The goals are the same. Acquire, retain, up-sell, cross-sell, build loyalty have not changed. It’s just that Social Media, as a platform not a tactic has fundamentally changed the way in which we do those things.

There are examples of extreme Social Media. Take for example Dave Balter, BzzAgent Founder & CEO who recently published The Word of Mouth Manual, Volume II. He chose to self-publish and then decided to practice what he preaches by pointing his network of BzzAgent word-of-mouth evangelists to the blogs. He also put the book in the hands of some influential bloggers, who could distribute free copies to their audiences, to see how fast and far word spreads -- as measured by downloads.

And then there are cases where Social Media is a tactic within a campaign. Take for example Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. He has plenty of TV spots, print and even on-line advertising. But the Obama campaign embraced Social Media as a platform. Look at my.barackobama.com, which itself is a sort of social network. Look who runs my.barackobama.com, Chris Hughes, one of the three co-founders of Facebook. Barack has made innovative use of crowdsourcing and has tapped into the massive crowd of supporters that have been generated through social media. He’s not just podcasting, but he tweets on Twitter, updates images on Flickr, has a MySpace and Facebook profile, Posts videos on YouTube & more. And then look at all the posts, groups, feeds and pages created by others about Barack. The qualities he cited to Time to describe his campaign — “openness and transparency and participation” are also the successful qualities of social media.

Image source: Flickrverse by GustavoG.

Viral=Flash-in-the-Pan?

What is viral? Something unexpected, unbelievable never seen before, thought provoking, rude, funny or fun. Typically not all of these things at once but in most cases anything viral has one or some of these elements. In the past few weeks I’ve seen two viral videos that fall into the Unbelievable category. Amazing Catch and Popcorn producing mobile phones. So unbelievable that they have turned out to be staged. In a world where viral videos snowball into everyone’s in-box a breakneck pace, they are just as quickly de-bunked. I give the creators credit; unbelievable never seen before is a tall order. But here is my question. Are these flash-in-the-pan viral videos a mere spike in brand awareness and do they undermine the credibility of a brand when they turn out to be a hoax. Or not? A bigger question, is there a way to extend the campaign? Perhaps not if it’s a hoax

Airborne internet

So here we go. The much anticipated on-board internet is beginning its roll-out.

DALLAS (AP) -- American Airlines says customers will be able to test in-flight Internet access on two flights beginning Wednesday, with broader service expected to begin in the following couple weeks.

No mobile phones yet amid fears of obnoxious sales people as your neighbor.  I can wait for that as well. I have mixed feelings about the internet idea. One of the last places I can “go dark” and in many cases actually get something done.