YouTube mashes with Google maps

The YouTube team released an example mashup that merges Gears geolocation and the video geo search. Using the demo application, you can find nearby videos based on your location.

More here.

Armchair Football Coach

To the legendary football fans who multi task media on Sundays, NBC has answered your prayers with a one-year football broadcast experiment. Go here on a Sunday night and find yourself at the helm. The site is not only outfitted with live streams from five camera angles but it also gives you the ability to text questions to the expert football commentators.


via Brandflakes

Email trumps Facebook

According to a study from Ball State's Center for Media Design and ExactTarget, the 18-34 set are more receptive to email marketing and direct mail than ads placed in social media networks. Also, despite that young homemakers text and use social networking during the course of the day they too prefer to be marketed to via email marketing and direct mail. Lastly, according to 20% of wired consumers texting is another viable medium for marketing communication.

Via Mediapost

Information from every nook and cranny of the web

Perspctv.com is a site whose singular function is to draw results from feeds such as Twitter, Technorati, and CNN. Type your subject into the search box and the site displays the results into three categories, "recent tweets, recent blogsphere mentions and google search volume." The site whose tagline is,"Compare, analyze, monitor... Your dashboard on anything," also allows to you to compare different topics with your information resulting into a graphic display.

Here's another noteworthy site. via Babs

The man isn't only tweeting but is on Facebook

In an effort to reach the the young American demographic the State Department has begun posting its country profiles and travel advisories on Twitter. You, can friend the man at Facebook, here.

Keeping up with the Jones' of the world

Want to know what your neighbors from across the pond blow their wad on? Here's a great interactive chart.

Viral vs. a Video

Its interesting to still get briefs that asks for a viral video because in reality it similar to asking film maker for an Oscar. Heres some good tips to make it a reality.

The Electoral process in plain english

W.T.F is Social Media?

A Slide show with great tidbits of stats and information. Its likely that youve heard most of it, but its great reinforcement.

Check it out here

Its all about you

One of simply done, smart spots for Hotel.com. With online booking for hotels, reviews are standard and expected but I like the fact that Hotel.com uses, you-the user; you-the hero as their selling point. The message: "Your input on Hotels.com is valued and rewarded."

see it here

The lines are blurring

"You can really see the lines blurring when Bud Light’s “Swear Jar” viral with 12 million hits and thats never aired on the boob tube receives an Emmy Award for “Outstanding Commercial.

via five blogs before lunch

N.Y.C. gets the picture

Realizing the value of consumer journalism and photography, NYC and Mayor Bloomberg are making good on a promise. As of September 9, 2008, 911 and 311 can now receive pictures and videos from cell phones and computers.

Read it here

Twitter dee, Twitter do

This BrandWeek article, titled," Sour Tweets Get Sweet Results" is about how companies initially used Twitter for social media monitoring purposes, helping them nip negative comments from consumers in the bud. But this article from Marketing Daily explains how microblogging has evolved into a way for companies to endear themselves with and build brand loyalty among their consumers.

An early adopter with this is Zappos, the online shoe company. Along with the CEO Tony Hsieh, 300 of the 1600 employees tweet,"talking and listening to each other about what’s working and what’s not, what’s hot and what’s not, and basically anything else that provides the “pulse” of the market." Read how this trail blazing company has seen its sales increase from from $70 million five years ago to $1 billion today.

"See you at the debates, bitches"

See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die

The web as our soapbox gives anyone and everyone that has something to say the venue to do it in and this could raise a hair or two on any celebrities or corporations back. But as Paris Hilton and E.A. demonstrates its how you respond not react to the call out that makes all the difference.

for the entire scoop

Yearbook yourself

On top of this weeks viral chart, Yearbook Yourself is a bit of a round about yet fun way for Taubman Centers, a mall to drive teens and parents to do some back to school shopping.

say,"Cheese" here

Twitter evolved

Viddler is 15 seconds of video moshed with Twitter. Pretty cool.

On the beat with Twitter

Theres someone with their finger to the pulse at the Scottsdale, Arizona police department. Them guys in blue, are using Twitter to send out alerts on important town information such as road closings, traffic jams, power outages and inclement weather conditions. I keep saying that a population who could sorely use this tool are doctors.
Any medical office that would tweet an updated doctors schedule, sends a clear message to patients that their time is just as important as theirs.


Get the 411, here

Working M.O.M.'s

This targeted approach to Moms by Moms is smart on a number of fronts. First, statistics show that a person is more receptive to word of mouth advertising or in this case from a peer than from the more any of the number of traditional approaches. Also,"Since they listen to their children’s music and watch their children’s television programs, they aren't finding out about new music, cosmetics, books and other good stuff," via TV, radio and print advertising anyway. With this approach they can be marketed to while they're in their environment, at malls or the gym or at get togethers with other moms at playgroups and schools.

I could only imagine these moms need to work in some degree of transparency and let friends know that they're on the clock. Being invited to a friends for a gathering is alot different then showing up and realizing its a Tupperware party.

Check them out here

Sophisticated skinny dipping

Shenanigans are made easy for todays youth. Apparently, U.K. teenagers are using Google Earth to target their swimming pools and social networking tools like Facebook or Bebo to alert their friends. Totally fun, there's definitely a scavenger hunt idea for some campaign here.

via Viralblog

Gatorade scores!

In my book, this video scores a home run. It displays many of the qualities of videos that have gone viral; its simplicity, visual appeal, and the unknown factor: is it fact or fiction. And one of the biggest factors that I would attribute to its success is its lack of ownership or branding which caused a lot of intrigue and gave my brain permission to suspend its sense of disbelief. Had it a touch more branding, even the slightest hint would have changed how I perceived this video. Kudos to Gatorade for taking the risk.


Catch it here

Bubblicious

Fosters introduced a new, "in-can widget" known as the ‘Scuba,’ which eliminates big bubbles to create a lager thats goes down smoother. What I find really nice about this campaign is that instead of explaining the mechanics of destroying bubbles they show it to you. An enormous tank with a bubble maker was built in the National Marine Aquarium where Fosters then engaged you by making the destruction of the unwanted intruders a competition with a sweet prize.


visit the site here

Target Women

"Target Women is a recurring segment on Current TV's weekly television show, infoMania. In each episode of Target Women, Sarah Haskins takes a look at the often-ridiculous way the media reaches out to women." In a nutshell Sarah Haskins delivers common sense critiques to ads targeting women; S.N.L. style.


Check it out here

via adfreak

Brands In The Digital Realm

Brands play a role in our lives by helping us to express our values to the people we interact and encounter, for example driving a Prius, immediately communicates that your an environmentalist and democrat. But how brands fullfill this same need online is what makes it difficult for brands to crossover into the digital realm.

Forrester sheds light on this topic with a new report called, "Online Community Best Practices". Forrester categorizes the different reasons brands form online communities into: Listening (an online standing focus group), Talking (get across a brand message), Energizing (nurturing brand enthusiasts), Support (allow brand users to support each other) and Embracing (involve brand faithful in developing the brand).

Via Third Way Blog

The biggest collection of boobs

Wonderbra launched a new collection of bras called the D+G collection. Aimed at women with larger cup sizes, it showcases a line of everyday" bras and a line of glamour bras. The user generated campaign calls for,"as many girls as we could to create the biggest collection of boobs ever seen," to appear in a billboard in Central London. The Chuck Close technique works well with the interactive counterpart of this campaign letting users get a closer look at all those who participated.

See it here

Noodles that are spot on

An Asian restaurant chain Wagamama in the UK has launched its first online campaign using a brand utilitarian approach. Via geo targeted technology, when a user searches a specific area that is located near a Wagamama, a message on the screen calling for people to "Click here for noodles in this area". When the user clicks on the call to action, all Wagamama restaurants in the area are revealed on the map.

A hole in one for E.A.

When the game Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 first came out, a feature of the game called the "Jesus shot" was posted on Youtube. Electronics Art the maker of the game responded back with this spot. Its a simple, done with a wink gesture that let their consumers know they were paying attention. Nice job E.A.

Anticipation

Ikea Germany's website features a 24/7 live stream of a a guy in an empty apartment waiting to receive his Ikea catalog. The idea of someone being video taped is definitely been done before but I like the extra level of engagement where
not only does he take calls from those who watch him on the web, he also Twitters
and responds to snail mail.
Strategically the absence or the waiting for the furniture to transform his place as well as his lifestyle is a really smart way to create anticipation and curiosity for the product.

Visit the site here

A brand that delivers

“Social media can prove to be a real landmine for marketers who cling to old ways of thinking. They’ve failed to grasp the crucial fact that while traditional advertising is all about delivering product news in an engaging manner, social media is all about delivering customer utility in an unobtrusive manner."

Alan Wolk

This article ," Why Nike Embraces Brand Utility is a great example of Alan Wolk's thoughts about social media. Though Nike runs its fair share of banner ads
Nike global director of digital media Stefan Olander thinks the best way to evolve the Nike brand is by providing services that are relevant to the consumer. He sees the interwebs as," less of a marketing channel than a place for services"

One of the Nike projects that convey this philosophy is a Facebook application called ,"Ballers Network". It lets players connect with other players in their area and around the world to organize pickup games and leagues.

Coors quenches social media thirst

In an effort to to extend their reach, Coors is stepping outside of the traditional box by posting clips onto Youtube along with a Facebook application and a Coors Light presence on MySpace.

They, like all other brands are putting their best foot forward seeing what works and are running with it. On the ad biz side, agencies are learning to embrace a requisite function for new-media initiatives; cross-agency collaboration.

read the article
Coors Light presence on MySpace

A compilation of various social networks, communities + virtual worlds

A list of communities ranging from virtual worlds, social networks for youth, boomers and the retired.

read it here

Tell me what you really think of me

Do you take critiques well from friends? Brands are learning that if you want to start a conversation, there's going to be a listening part associated to the relationship. And this is proving to be a difficult hurdle for brands who are used to shaping the consumers perceptions with one sided communications. But as Matt Freeman, CEO of digital-media advertising company GoFish says, "It's a cultural change for brands that are used to having more control over their communication...and cultural changes take time."

Its also a matter of how you want to manage the feedback, which in the web 2.0 realm is inevitable. Do you want to handle the negative critiques head on,"in your own backyard?" Or as Dave Morgan, former head advertising strategy for AOL says," would you rather have it pop up on blogs, social-network pages, and other sites where you may never see it. "It's sort of like how taking your medicine right away is better."

read it here

More reinforcement

More reinforcement that its more about building actual relationships than going for the big 'grand' hit.

Seth Godin proposes that its better for advertisers to put their money in the back end. "The best time to promote something is after it has raving fans, after you've discovered that it works, after it has a groundswell of support. And more important, the best way to promote something is consistently and persistently and for a long time."

read it here

What's next in advertising

"What's next in advertising - moving from advertising to marketing," is a really smart presentation worth seeing. In a nutshell its all about -- branded utility.
see the slideshow here

props to Jeff for this excellent find

Emerging from behind the corporate logo

Corporations are using company blogs to reveal more of their human side. Jeremiah Owyang discusses the pros and cons of the Corporate, Team and Personal Blogs.

read it here

Adidas, wants an original with an unoriginal U.G.C. contest

Adidas is running a standard fare U.G.C. contest. Add your photo, upload videos from YouTube and pictures from Flickr and voila'get discovered.

see it here

The antidote to bouncing traffic; engagement

Seth Godin speaks about the three seconds you have to convince a consumer to stick around your point of destination.

read it here

Space, the new Times Square

Doritos, is doing it again. First it was the Super Bowl and now they're foraying into real uncharterd territory by making history with the world's first extra terrestrial advertisement.

The Doritos Broadcast Project ran a consumer generated contest to create a 30 second video clip that could be beamed out to the universe offering a snap shot of life on earth.

view the spot

read the article



props to brian for this lead

Twitter, revisited

Currently, following people is the true extent of my Twitter use. But Ian Schafer makes a convincing argument of how for certain conversations Twitter is more effective than email or instant messaging.
read it here

Consumer Generated Movie

This contest is run by Paulo Coelho, the author of a book called," The Witches of Portobello," which is told from multiple perspectives. This consumer generated contest is unique in that he asks his readership to choose a character from the book and film the segment of the book in which that character is the narrator; theres 15 in total. The winning segments are professionally edited and the film is told from the multiple perspectives. The entire movie will then be submitted to film festivals.

Another interesting aspect of this is contest is that Coelho attracts the specific talent he's looking for by hosting his contest strictly through the social network MySpace. Here he asks the users to enter the contest by uploading their work through their MySpace account. The music for the feature film, is also via MySpace inviting musicians from this venue to enter their work for some notriety and a paid fee of 1500.00 euros.

I think this contest lends itself well to being consumer generated in that it will actually be told by many different voices and the fact that he draws his talent from a social network makes it feel more authentic or home grown.

Companies are realizing that to build their brands, they need to build relationships

In the dark days of advertsing--in the pre-interent ages, brands were able to prosper on the inabilty of people to get information. The only things consumers had to go on were
logos, spokespersons and slogans.

With the limitless access to information the power is now back into the consumers hands and brands like Zappos and Google are making decisions to invest in consumers over advertising. Havas Media Lab director and London economist Umair Haque on Harvard Business Online writes," Google is a living example of a deeper truth: The future of communications as advantage lies in talking less and listening more."

read the Adweek article here

Arby's tries their hand at Social Media

Arby's first crack at leveraging social media involves a video contest and facebook app. The winner becomes the next member of Arby’s Rescue Brigade whose sole mission is to save the world from ordinary fast food.The Facebook app lets you send virtual Arby's menu items to friends.



via AdFreak

Coke's alter ego

Coke's new facebook app, is CGC done right.

Posters that talk

The concept aptly named," Giving Everyone A Voice" is a United Nations awareness initiative for people whose "plight normally goes unseen and unheard."
A campaign which engaged users by leveraging some amazing mobile phone and digital image recognition technologies, posters with images of faces instructed people to,“Photograph my mouth with your mobile. Send it to 0428 641 658. Within a few minutes your mobile will ring and you’ll hear my story.”

All in all, there was no better way to make this emotional connection then hearing the stories first hand. This campaign also had a natural ability to segue into the online space where the original seven voices sparked numerous if not thousands of conversations.
via the inspiration room

Tampon Crafts

Tampon Crafts
How not to do C.G.C.

Kodak's 2.0 Game Plan

read it here

Brand Next : The Store For Tomorrow

On Thursday, March 27th, along with a few colleagues I attended the opening for " The Store For Tomorrow," at Wolf Olin's very cool office. I wasn't sure what to expect other than what I read on their site:
"Held in London and New York, the show highlights ten platform brands that invite people to take part, to give as well as get. And the more people who join in, the better it becomes for everybody."
It wasn't actually a store but 10 stands being tended to by Wolff Olins employees for different brands. Nike's store was aptly called," Fitter City," where you pledged to give a certain amount of miles per week to selected destinations and in return you received a Nike+ kit. Every store was dully mobbed, but Fitter City was one of the first to sell out their quota of pledges.
Exposing people experientially to their ideology of how brands need to act in the future was a genius way for Wolf Olin's to brand itself. And what they proposed is that if brands want to have more of an impact they need to became a platform to helping people enhance their lifestyle. Brands notoriously tout "Buy our product and it will help you do what you really want to do."
The sort of thinking that Wolf Olins is preaching is what JetBlue and Nike are practicing. Purchasing Nikes sneakers, may help people run better but along with a program like Fitter City where they encourage people to share their training, competing and goal setting data online to help motivate people helps really fulfill that promise. By going above and beyond to understand their consumer, the message Nike is now sending to their consumers is that they authentically care about helping them do what they want.
Its this kind of pertinent engagement with the consumer that creates an emotional connection. Both Nike and Jetblue's initiatives clearly demonstrate that a fool proof way for consumer generated content to succeed is to simply base it around what the consumer actually needs.

A brand that gets Twitter

Darryl Ohrt, from Brandflakes For Breakfast, tells how he noticed a tweet from Jet Blue warning NY travelers about impending whether delays. This prospect is so simple and so obvious, one would think other companies would already be doing this.
All it took was for this brand to figure out how this existing tool could be of service to its consumers. Through this simple gesture Jet Blue shows that the brand gets them, knows what they need and from a branding perspective gets how to be a part of their day in a relevant way.
One industry that could I could think of that could sorely use this tool to build their brand, are doctors. Rather than the typical waiting time of up to an hour in the waiting room, how great and easy would it be for a doctor's office to twitter their patients that the doctor is running late? Nix the cards on my birthday, a doctor could show me they care by showing me they respect my time.

Worker Generated Content

Great article on how interactive shops are following a Google initiative called,"20 Percent Time," which allows engineers to work on side projects. Besides being another revenue maker these independent digital agencies are adding the creation of applications to its repertoire as showcases that carry added weight with potential clients.
Read It Here

Joining a movement

Really cool site, Ive never seen this technique before where photos uploaded by users are incorporated into videos. Its a great way to get people involved and have them become a part of the movement. Props to Am, for this lead.

visit the site

Twitter and who is tweeting?

Despite hearing about Twitter from its early inception I still haven't found a way to make it useful in my life. Any web based technology I've adopted to, is usually because it's made things easier for me or is entertaining. Twitter doesn't fall into any of those categories for me. I recently read this article in the N.Y. Times which identified the people who I suspected it would be relevant to. According to Walter J. Carl, an assistant professor of communications studies at Northeastern University“The people who I see using it are an older demographic, people in marketing or P.R. or advertising, who use it for work, to present themselves as particular types of people. They’ll twitter, ‘I’m traveling,’ or ‘I’m going to interesting restaurants.’ They’re using it to do identity work." But he also points out that its the same reason people use Facebook, " is to control other people's perceptions of them.”

These are really interesting insights the first one being that people whether or not they realize it, use Facebook for their own branding and positioning purposes. My second thought was that maybe why Twitter works better for the marketing, P.R. or advertising demographic is that all their tweets are more announcement worthy. They're usually about doing something productive. The difference here being that business productive,"I've just finished my post mortem report on my last project" has more net worth than the personal productive," I've just done two loads of laundry." Well, its not that either one of these tasks are more virtuous than the other, its all in the context of their respective audience. In Facebook, my doing laundry doesnt really make me anymore esteemed.

Here are two great articles on how Twitter is much more effective in the business realm, both showing how a brand could successfully utilize Twitter. From The Toad Stool, titled,Twittering As The Ultimate Ad Vehicle talks about successfully using Twitter at event your brand might be sponsoring, and having someone who can report insider happenings or on the spot information to fans of that event. Another great idea comes from Brand Flakes, Darryl Orht calls it TweeVee," a television that one could add my own Twitter sub-titles to. A broadcast that is streamed, and allows users to choose the Twitter buddies that appear as sub-titles? Very Cool.

Your brand is not my friend

An excellent article from the Tangerine Toad. It's a clear and concise description of the social media landscape and contingent on whether or not your a "Prom King" brand -- how you should use the space accordingly.

read it here
Props to the Toad for the inspiration for this blog name

Consumer Generated Content

According to Wikipedia, the advent of Consumer Generated Content in 2005 was due to new technology becoming affordable and accessible to the masses. They define it as , "various kinds of media content, publicly available, that are produced by end-users.

My initial thought about blogging about “User Generated Content” was that it would be that it would be limited to reporting on, deconstructing, and understanding past User Generated Campaigns that have been executed. My other thought was, since interactivity is the true nature of the web; I would have a lot of ground to cover. Joseph Jaffe articulated it well when, he said," the tv was the lean back; passive medium and the internet was the lean into, engagement medium."

Upon more reading, Wikipedia's cited these three central characteristics for UGC:

1-Publication requirement
2-Creative effort
3-Creation

And these as the different types of user generated content

Discussion boards
Blogs
Social networking sites
News Sites
Trip planners
Customer review sites
Experience or photo sharing sites
Any other website that offers the opportunity for the consumer to share their knowledge and familiarity with a product or experience
Games

I again, realized how broad this topic could be so for my intent and purposes I will define User Generated Work as a vehicle to engage a person, whether in a conversation or an activity. Its about getting people to participate thus, making a connection with the consumer, especially one of the emotional nature. I love the saying the president of our company Ben (Heo) quoted in a meeting, "Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand."

That being said the parameters of this blog is to cover anything consumer generated from discussion boards to games; anything that a brand could use to CONNECT,CONVERSE, and or ENGAGE their audience in a MEANINGFUL way.