A great viral video makes usually causes one of two reactions: we laugh or we shake our heads in incredulity. Internet favorites like “Charlie Bit Me” and “Sneezing Panda” are organically hilarious. For a brand to get in on the nonstop flow of viral love, it takes a truly ingenious approach.
I was really impressed with Sony’s new Twilight campaign, which puts their camera equipment to the twilight test of low-light shooting, a prominent feature on the new cameras.
The microsite, while not particularly visually stunning, serves as an effective springboard for the contest, giving Sony fans (and fans of the creative arts, for that matter) the tools they need to get involved.
Smart brands give their buying society a chance to engage with the brand. Loyalists and evangelists love to do some of the heavy lifting, if they know that their actions are approved and appreciated.
Break down the barriers between online and offline engagements. The smart marketer threads the needles through every medium. This creates consistency, coherency, and completes the engagement cycle most effectively, both figuratively and monetarily.
The new Quiksilver skate site uses a very unique visual trick. The cast of athletes literally pop out of the video player and destroy the website. The tactic feels a bit like Wario Shake, but with a really refreshing twist.
Take a peek at the new design. Notice how, as new elements crash and tumble around, the boarders integrate them into their mass hysteria of boarding antics.
The site begins with video housed in a traditional Flash-based player, which is merely a visual trick—the Flash player is merely part of a bigger Flash player.
Wimbledon is in full swing (pardon the extremely cheap play on words). American hopefuls Andy Roddick and Serena and Venus Williams are steadily cruising through the tournament. Serena stomped Venus in straight sets; Andy Roddick and Roger Federer slugged it out through the longest match in Grand Slam history, lasting an incredible 30 games in the fifth set. We have decided to feed our addiction to all things sports by sharing some of our favorite virals with you.
First things first: a video is just a video is just a video. It’s only viral once people spread it.
Three drastically different videos highlight three drastically different products: a tour, a racquet, and a sports drink.
Without a doubt, Twitter is pop culture’s sparkling darling right now. The all-too ballyhooed competition between Ashton Kutcher and CNN pushed Twitter into superstardom. The challenge gave people a reason to care—a reason to pick sides. Essentially, it pitted Ashton Kutcher against Larry King.
It should come as little shock, America’s class clown, Mr. Kutcher, @aplusk, won the bet.
In case you missed it in People, Entertainment Weekly, or on ABC News, it all started when Kutcher (@aplusk) put out a video declaring that he wanted to beat CNN to one million followers. He upped the ante today by tweeting that he’d also donate 10,000 bed nets to help fight malaria if he was first.
CNN responded in the form of a Larry King video, in which the iconic TV host pulls a fairly classic “do you know who I am?” routine. Incidentally, it turns out CNN didn’t actually own the account (@cnnbrk) that is closing in on one million followers until recently reaching a deal with the person that started it.
Here are the videos:
Oddly enough, only about 6% of CNN’s viewers use Twitter. 64% do not, and 30% responded, “What’s Twitter?”
This feels a bit like MySpace circa 2006, does it not?
The importance of Twitter isn’t really put on display by this battle for attention. Twitter is about a real-life connection with the people and brands that influence our world.
Oprah, @oprah, made her first post (with the help of Twitter’s golden boy, Ashton) on live TV.
Shaq, @THE_REAL_SHAQ, has become one of the most colorful and influential celebrities to tweet. He broadcasts live and unedited, misspelled words and all: “Sittn in a police management class, I will b a sheriff , put yo hands up”.
I recently read a very interesting article about seven ways to approach Twitter. One can be 1) themselves, 2) a personal brand, 3) a corporate brand, 4) a fictional character or dead historical person, 5) a literature, 6) a robot, or 7) a blend. I’ll spare a description of that—jump over here if you want to learn more.
From a marketing perspective, the brands that do it right give people a look behind the veil of the corporate machine. CEO’s who tweet humanize a brand. Brands who tweet create instant customer connections.
Two great examples of this are Sweet Leaf Tea in Austin, TX and Zappos in Henderson, NV.
Sweet Leaf Tea makes ready-to-drink organic teas and lemonades. Their founder, Clayton Christopher (@SweetLeafCEO), updates this Twitter page daily, commonly with TwitPics (a free service for attaching pics to a tweet). He recently posted about the MS150 bike ride from Houston to Austin, including a few tweets from his BlackBerry.
Zappos (@Zappos_Service) uses their account to keep customer service on the up-and-up. @BUKSHUN tweeted, less than an hour before this was written, “Just ordered 5 pairs of shoes from ZAPPOS, shhhhhh don’t tell the wife… At least not yet! Gotta love them Classics..” Within minutes, @Zappos_Service responded, “@BUKSHUN We’ll keep it on the low down for you. Enjoy the new shoes!”
What a great touch!
How are you connecting with your customers? Customer service is no longer answering calls from angry customers—it starts far, far earlier than that. Social media has empowered consumers like never before. It’s up to brands to be a part of that conversation.
For brands just learning how to tweet, check out this amazing article about the practice of retweeting, which, in essence, is how content becomes viral on Twitter. Click and learn.
Go ahead and join our conversation. Follow us @blindsociety. And follow Mashable (@Mashable), our favorite social media newssource and the inspiration behind many of our posts, And, as always, subscribe to the RSS feed below.
Facebook has been a busy group: making changes, apologizing for them, renigging them, making more changes, being met with adoration, being met with disdain, being met with adoration once again, and (in the midst of it all) being slapped over the face with Twitter’s sudden rise in pop-culture power.
The status updates on Facebook received a very welcome update over the past few weeks. Before the updates, Facebook automatically inserted “is” after the user’s name, before the update. Updates would read like a “what’s up” for the user.
“Micah Johnson is going to the premier of Watchmen.”
“Lisa Sorenson is hanging out with her BFFs @ Lake Calhoun. What a nice day in MPLS!”
And, so updates were so bold as to be, “John Jacobs is.”
That was all fine and good, when people followed the rules of grammar and common sense. However, people would ignore the “is” and begin their own personal dialog with the world of Facebook, making for some brutally awkward syntax: “Kevin Manning is Why do people act like such jerks?”
Or they would change voice from third to first: “Aaron Tague is happy to be home with his kids. I love them so much.”
Facebook dropped the ubiquitous “is” from their updates, making the status box almost EXACTLY like, um, Twitter. But here is the separating factor: Facebook has created a venue for people to discuss everything—everything—neatly.
Writes Mashable:
Some of my friends have been known to give me flack for not replying to posts to my “Wall” on Facebook (and in earlier times, MySpace). The main reason I usually don’t do this is because I think it’s a silly way to have a conversation – you end up with random comments on your wall that don’t make any sense to the other people viewing your profile. Facebook has finally fixed this problem in a sensible way by adding Comments to Wall postings. In the same way you can now comment on Status Updates (which, seems to have become the most popular means of communicating within my network), you can now comment on Wall Posts, both on your profile and on those of your friends.
Ah! A place for everything and everything in its place! Truly, an inspired move. Now, users can comment on a status update, a note, a video…anything. The conversation stays in one place. Neat!
These changes have been implemented alongside this (even more brilliant) move: the “like” button. Users can “like” anything on which they can comment. It is the ultimate in information gathering.
What’s more, Facebook is beta testing a point system.
Reports VentureBeat:
Facebook is testing out a way for people to show how much they appreciate friends’ status updates, links and other items on the site — its a new feature called “credits.” The idea is a more advanced form of commenting or liking an item on the site — and if it works, it could spur people to share more information that they think their friends will enjoy (and give them credits for).
Hmm. Interesting. MySpace has become stunningly obsolete (outside of the music realm). The complete mishmashtrash of information become entirely too overwhelming for most users.
Brands that grasp changes decisively will connect with consumers in a powerful manner. With new features pouring out onto the ‘net constantly, there is always a great way for a brand to deliver its message effectively and powerfully, given the right media mix and messaging.
Speaking of media mix and messaging, our very own Arizona State Univeristy…ahhhh, it’s too soon. I’ll get back to you on that one.
The eager puppy runs. He is searching. For what, you ask? For a person who isn’t mistreating their bum by sitting on hot cars and falling off of skateboards.
What the what?
Zach Braff, the inescapably nerdy/cutesy lead from the television series, Scrubs, is the voiceover for Cottonelle’s potty puppy. He is very proud of this, even blogging about it:
I did it for free because I love toilet paper so much, I wanted to spread the word about how amazing Cottonelle is on your twosie region (no I didn’t do it for free, but I must admit, it is a damn fine product). My twosie region never chafes.
The commercials don’t make me want to scrub my “twosie”, they make me want to park my twosie on a couch and watch Scrubs.
This again points out the flaws in traditional thinking.
When presented with a problem of a similar fate, The Privy Council tried a different kind of bathroom talk:
Diggin’ in the crates, I found a Blind Society concept done a while back:
I have spent the week in the whipping winds of the Midwest, staying at my grandparent’s house. They have basic cable. And no TiVo. Choke me now.
The lack of “luxury” has given me a chance to consume countless commercials, however. You would think, given that I am an advertising guy, I would be totally in to watching commercials. I’m not. And those who know the Blind Society mantra understand: DEATH TO TRADITIONAL!
Some of the worst culprits of überboring television spots are cable companies. Most of their attempts to seem hip and cool leave me feeling unmoved at best; annoyed at worst.
And then there’s this gem:
Kimya, is that you? Whoever penned this lil’ diddy must have watched Juno two- or three-thousand times. (As did I.)
Apparently, I’m not the only one to realize this connection. Writes AdFreak: [The new Comcast Town ads are] a groovy mix of live action and animation, with characters singing in a Moldy Peaches/”Juno”-esque hipster monotone.
Here’s Ms. Dawson singing “Tire Swing.”
Do we not grasp the obvious connection?
Great job, Comcast—you made me watch your commercial. I th—oh, wait, there’s more? You have a website? Okay, let’s check it out.
At first blush, it’s impressive…some real FWA-level work. Let’s dig! The site has content—honest-to-goodness content—on it. I can watch videos, read lyrics, create a Second Life-esque abode, connect with Comcast Town on Facebook, and download wallpapers and ringtones.
¿Qué en la tierra? This is actually engaging and unique! I don’t know how to process this information!
Writes one person: I totally thought it was cute too. Who doesn’t love the guy in the hot tub, watching football with the giant finger? Love it. And how about the guitar playing squirrel?
Writes another: I honestly think the commercial is the most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen. All the people are so monotone and sound like zombies. They could have at least had the people be more excited in their singing to bring it out of “awkwardville”. I’d really like to know who came up with the idea; they should see a psychiatrist.
There is no accounting for taste, is there?
What are your thoughts, roving readers? Do these ads inspire you to connect, or, as one Twitterer put it, do these ads “blow“?
Mae, a Seattle-based emo group, has deployed a very unique approach to combat music pirating. Their next 12 singles will be released once a month, and will be available for the nice price of $1 or more.
Wait, wha? $1 or MORE?! The site, www.whatismae.com/charity, explains the three simple principles for this cause-based campaign:
• Each month during 2009, we will be bringing you a new Mae song.
• When you visit whatismae.com, you will be able to hear the music for free.
• Every song will be available as a digital download for a min. donation of $1.
“Our promise…is to commit all of the profits from digital downloads to fund humanitarian projects that Mae and you will be a part of all year long,” writes Mae.
Mae is appealing to a sense of greater good in their fan base, and, in doing so, motivating them to be a part of this movement.
Marketers measure impact in terms of impressions and frequency and blah, blah, blah. I ask you, fair reader, approximately how many impressions is this worth?
This kid flips—seriously—over his Christmas gift: a shiny new Wii. At first, he goes nearly catatonic. And then, he geeks like a LAN party.
Call me crazy, but I think he has that “I know that I’m going to end up on YouTube” gleem in his eye, does he not?
If you are a brander, PRAY that your brand makes people this go-nuts.
Everybody but who’s anybody is talking about it: every baggy-panted tween and every power tie/power suit CEO. I have a Facebook page. I have a Twitter account (which is underutilized, I must admit). I even belong to a few Ning networks. What’s a marketer to make of all this noise? Where are the hard numbers and ROI stats?
Ick.
Gen Ys aren’t moved by hard numbers and data. And only God can save your brand if you approach your marketing as such
The beauty of social marketing is that it’s completely customizable. Pick one or two or twenty. And go. Give your fans content. Make contests. Give them the down-low. Tease them with videos. Start conversations with them. Ask questions. Answer questions.
A great example of a strong social media usage are the efforts of NBC’s “Late Night” with Jimmy Fallon campaign. In prepping for Fallon’s takeover of “Late Night,” they have been building hype primarily via a vlog (video blog). He announced his house band, The Roots—a severe, welcome, departure from the norm—on the site only days ago.
At the bottom of his vlog are 18 (count ‘em—18!) different social media outlets, ranging from the usual suspects (MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube) to several niche entities, like MyYearbook, imeem, and Last.fm.
NBC is simply giving fans a chance to connect and share the NEW “Late Night” brand. It’s not astrophysics, it’s common sense.
Twitter, the foremost microblogging site, has an incidentally famous “system error” screen. When too many people tweet (post), which causes an overload, an inconspicuous illustration of a whale, being hoisted from the water by birds, appears. This terms has organically been branded the “Fail Whale.” It has become synonymous with failing—at anything.
So don’t be a Fail Whale. Get in. Get gritty. Try something. Tweet. Blog. Post videos. Write down your thoughts. It doesn’t have to be sharply refined, it just has to BE.
Be honest and transparent and authentic, and you will be a major part of your consumers’ lives. And that is certainly no Fail Whale.
Atmosphere, the hip-hop duo from Minneapolis, MN, recently played Letterman. Blind Society and Atmosphere’s label, Rhymesayers, have joined forces like the Justice League. The newest update to the Blind Society website will feature music from Rhymesayers recording artists, such as Atmosphere, Grayskul, MF Doom, and the legendary Jake One (producer for hip-hop icons such as 50 Cent and Freeway).
Aside from making phenomenal music, Rhymesayers encapsulates the Blind Society belief quite nicely: create a conversation with your best customer, and give them the tools to share your brand.
An example: to promote Atmosphere’s latest album, “When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Sh*t Gold,” Rhymesayers used several nontraditional/alternative tactics to separate the band from the heaps and heaps of other artists vying for everybody’s limited attention span and iPod space.
They aired a series on YouTube called “Paint It Gold.” Each week, Slug and Ant (the members of Atmospere) would sit in Slug’s basement, answering questions from fans. The show is not glitzy and glammy—it is shot with two handheld camcorders on tripods. The low-budget feel, however, speaks to Atmosphere’s positioning; it strengthens their brand.
In one webisode, they received two questions that, from a brander’s standpoint, are rather intriguing. The first question inquired about Atmosphere’s feelings on illegal downloading. Here is a transcript of their response:
Slug: I can’t really say I’m mad at it; I can see how it’s f*ckin’ up the industry. You know—
Ant: It’s not the worst thing in the world, though, huh?
Slug: There you have it. I know for a fact that there are lots of people, in the beginning of our career, who would’ve never heard of us had it not been for file sharing and things of that nature, you know? And people like us, we’ll adapt. We’ll figure it out. You can’t download a t-shirt, you know, right? We’ll figure it out, man, you know, like, whatever—we’re like cockroaches! Arrrrgh! Swashbucklin’!
The second question asked how the new revolution of social media and Web2.0 affects the underground culture. After joking around for a moment, Slug again fields the question with surprising insight.
As a national music magazine, we receive approximately 1.4 quillion promotional CDs each year in the office. For the most part, the dozens of bubble mailers that arrive every day keep it short and sweet. Inside, we find a CD, a one-sheet band bio, and very little else. It’s true that after hundreds, these mostly start to appear the same…
It was a Thursday. We were sifting through our bins of unopened mail, and I spotted an oddly-shaped package at the top of one heap. Intrigued, I ripped it open, and as always, stuck my hand in. Forgive the reference, but as they say in Titanic, at this point, all my experience was working against me. Months of bubble mailer opening had taught me that it’s safe to just reach in and pull out whatever is inside—and moreover, that whatever is inside will be clean and safe and dry. My mistake. My fingers found not the run-of-the-mill CD and random attention-getting object I had learned to expect from an unusually-proportioned press kit. Instead, an unfamiliar half-rancid, half-zesty odor assaulted my nostrils and I reflexively pulled my hand back out again. It was wet. There were flecks of gold on my fingers.
We were bewildered and without conclusion as we crowded around and peered inside the offending envelope. None of the sensory clues added up to anything any of us could identify. It’s a strange feeling when you think you should have enough input to at least hazard a guess at the situation, and yet you’re still completely dumbfounded. There was no visual to be had from the open end except for the shadowy side of something mottled and bulbous that intermittently caught the light.
After I vigorously washed my hands, we sprang into action. A pair of scissors was procured, which we used to cut open the envelope and to handle the contents inside. When aforementioned contents were first revealed to us, however, we still couldn’t say what we were looking at. It was round-ish. And squished-ish. And green-ish. And there were gold flakes everywhere. Below nestled a very damp and forlorn slimline CD case and an absolutely soaked one-sheet. Extracting the CD, we turned it over.
The unlucky album was by a hip-hop group called Atmosphere, and boasted the optimistic title, When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold (out April 22 on Rhymesayers). We stared at it. The front cover sported a picture of Slug (Atmosphere’s MC and primary creative driving force) holding stacks and stacks of lemons.
Suddenly, it all came together in the same way all the facts add up at the end of a murder mystery. The citrus-cleaner smell. The juice. The fuzzy green substance. The gold flakes.
Now wait a second before you berate us for having taken so long to work through this particular puzzle. It seems simple enough to an outsider, I imagine (especially as it revealed itself to be so literal in the end), but take into account the fact that in no way would we ever expect to receive spoiled produce in a press kit. In a perfect world, in fact, no one would ever mail gold-coated citrus fruit in an unprotected, non-refrigerated package from so far away that it would have the time and opportunity to crush, soak everything, and then completely mold. These weren’t eventualities we knew to expect. Our collective jaws were on the floor.
They say any publicity is good publicity. I guess the jury’s still out on this one.
Here’s the music video for “You.” Who doesn’t love finger skateboards?!!
And here’s the music video for “Guarantees.” The whole song was recorded in one take—as was the video. Unique, me thinks…
And, thusly, Rhymesayers’ mentality lines up with that of Blind Society’s oh so nicely. What a fit.
Thinking outside of the box is not thinking out side the box. It’s a cliché—a tired, dusty LP in an iPod world. Alas, it’s the war cry from boardrooms a nation across.
“We need to think outside of the box!” screams an all-too-tired-of-this-friggen-economy marketer. What ensues? Fire an agency. Hire an agency.
“Surely,” said marketer reasons, “this time we got it right.”
Another six months passes, and little to nothing changes—for the positive.
That’s because the message sound like a broken record: BUY ME! BUY ME NOW! HOW ‘BOUT NOW?
Ugh. Kill me. Kill me now. How ‘bout now?
Traditional campaigns can look a lot like Neanderthals on a rampage, do they not?
As the notorious saying goes, “I know that half of my marketing budget is wasted. The problem is, I don’t know which half.”
The problem is deeper rooted than better creative or greater saturation. If someone wants to ignore your message, they’ll ignore it—no matter whether they see it once (no big deal) or two hundred times (and now you’re starting to upset them).
I have actually sworn off many a brand due to poor advertising. Bad commercials and poorly conceived print ads really make me mad. If you, Mr. Brand, don’t value me enough to make a quality advert, then you don’t mind wasting my time. And if you don’t mind wasting my time, I will be certain not to waste any of yours with, say, orders or online reviews (well, positive ones, anyroad) or by joining your Facebook group page. Believe it or not, Ripley, I am actually insulted by those types of ads.
A while back, a few friends suggested eating at a local restaurant. I protested quite stubbornly, “I will not support (edit this portion; they don’t merit the promotion), they wasted my time with that silly commercial. You know, the one they must have shot for $15 on a 1986-issue VHS stadium-sized camcorder. No. We can eat at Fate, though.
We @ Blind Society would sooner be caught jobless than hypocritical. So what did we do when Arizona State University came aknockin’?
What resulted was a 20-year record in season ticket sales: 50,000+.
What resulted was a nomination for the 2009 National Sports Forum Best Alternative Campaign award.
What resulted was, well, results.
So, the question is: do you want to be a broken record or a record breaker?
Click below to download the full portfolio from the Arizona State University 2008 football campaign.
We facebook on Facebook. (And sometimes, we still myspace on MySpace.)
We don’t like commercials. We don’t like billboards. We don’t want you, Mr. or Mrs. Big Brand, invading our lives, unless we say it’s okay. Then, and only then, may you engage us. And don’t talk to us ONLY when you want to sell us something. We have but precious little money, and we’ll spend it how WE see fit (on 007 tickets and the new Kaiser Chiefs album).
So if you want to earn the right to engage us, be relevant, be witty, and be self-effacing. We know that you’re not the greatest thing since sliced bread.*
(*That statement does not apply to Mini Coopers. Or the Puma Speed Cat. Or pre-LA Galaxy David Beckham.)
Speak to me when I want to be spoken to. If your timing is serendipitous enough, we’ll do the heavy lifting for you. We’ll write blogs and post videos. We’ll make our friends your friends.
Example: Apple on Vista. (This ad actually landed right on cnet.com’s Vista page. Whoever landed Apple this media buy gets a gold star.)
The message is humorous, and placement is impeccable. The result? It got blogged about and passed along countless times. The viral nature of the ad far outweighs the media spend.
Don’t be a dolt. Be innovative. Don’t talk at me, talk with me.
George Carlin may have passed away (and have been severely far removed from the ultra-connected genNEXT consumers), but he had it right:
We all have to tools to let you in or shut you out. We are the new gatekeepers. Play nice, or we won’t play at all.
(The preceding was just some random musings, morphed into a manifesto, on a quiet Thursday afternoon.)
