Influential Marketing Blog

Inside Lenovo's Olympic Blogging Program

This past week in the string of posts about the book coming out, I've been stockpiling ideas for "real" blog posts and wanting to write about them more and more. Thankfully now that I launched the Personality Matters blog, I will post most of the updates about the book there and refocus on marketing strategy and insights here. I can't promise I won't share the occasional post about the book ... but I know that you're giving me your time to read this blog because you want marketing ideas and you want lots of them. So this post is about one I'm particularly excited about.

The Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence team recently finalized the details to take the lead on what I would have to call my dream project. Those who know me know that I am what you might call a full on Olympic enthusiast. I went to college in Atlanta and was there for the 1996 Olympics. I moved to Sydney in 1998 and lived there during the Sydney Olympics, and my first son was born right in the middle of the Athens Olympics (during the women's marathon, ironically). So I've been there and seen it, and more importantly, I think it is a world stage that nothing else even comes close to.

Which brings me to this very ambitious project that we are helping Lenovo with. David Churbuck, our main client, posted about the idea behind the project on his blog and it is a brilliant summary of a big vision that Lenovo and David himself has for this project. Here it is in a nutshell:

The Problem: Media coverage of the Olympics has become about melodrama that is broadcasted as "real" stories. But those producers only choose the athletes who have overcome quadruple knee surgery and the lack of a college degree to become a world champion ... in other words, the extreme stories.

The Insight: What about the real athletes who spend every day training and working hard just to get to the Olympics whether they have a shot of winning or not?  Their voices could be the most powerful and this Olympics more than any other promises to offer the chance for them to do that.

The Project: We are seeking 100 potential Olympic athletes from around the world to all start and maintain a blog all about their experience leading up to and during the Games. In return, Lenovo is offering all participants the chance to use a new IdeaPad laptop for their blogging and help from our team to set up and maintain their blogs. 

This is a big project on a scale that is completely global, multi-lingual and very ambitious. Lenovo, to their credit, are not content to sit back with their sponsorship of the Olympic Torch Relay and Olympic Village (already considerable efforts) and call it a job well done.  If this is the year for Olympics 2.0, this program should be one of the best examples of it. Our main goal right now is finding Olympic athletes, so if you know any (or you happen to be one), please get in touch with myself rohit [dot] bhargava [at] ogilvypr.com or David.

Lufthansa Proves Sweden Is Full of Gorgeous Blondes

Typical marketing advice says that you should never focus on marketing your category, but instead focus on what makes your service distinct from your competitors.  Marketing an industry or type of service is usually a losing proposition because even if you convince someone they need something, you have not convinced them that they need to get it from you.

In the travel industry, this lesson is somewhat different.  Today American travellers are increasingly choosing destinations outside of Europe for their vacations because of the weak dollar against the Euro.  Europe needs to find a way to get its appeal back and Lufthansa (an airline with many of the most frequented routes from the East coast to Europe) is helping the cause with a smart new campaign called Rumor Travels at www.rumortravels.com.  The site offers a few videos focused on three of the greatest rumors about great European countries:

1. Sweden is full of hot blonde women - Watch Video
2. Germany has beer everywhere for every meal - Watch Video
3. France is full of lovers who cannot stop kissing each other - Watch Video

The videos are meant to visualize silly stereotypes and all end with the compelling tagline, "you'll never know if you don't go."  There is a contest on the site where users can submit their own videos to win 2 business class tickets to Europe and a new Sony digital video camera.  Strategically, the campaign works on on several levels:

1. Demonstrates the necessity of travelling in a world of increasing virtual experiences.
2. Positions Europe as the ideal destination to travel for challenging your preconceptions (something people may usually associate with other more "exotic" destinations)
3. Targets the young, professional and single travellers (who will likely be least deterred by the negative exchange rate between Dollars and Euros)

Of course, it doesn't hurt that each video features attractive people and focuses on the romance of travel.  Europe, romance, professional, single ... you get the picture.  This campaign seems like it would work - if only Lufthansa was doing any perceptible amount of marketing around it.  I read about the campaign on Adrants and most of the less than 20 blogs that are listed on Technorati as linking to the campaign come from people reading about it on Adrants.  Even the Lufthansa US homepage only features a blurb on their promotion with Iron Chef instead of any links to the RumorTravels.com site.  The video views on YouTube are still super low, and the contest ends in just 2 days.

As far as I can tell, it seems like a classic smart, strategic and engaging campaign that will ultimately underperform and fade into obscurity because the team behind it was unable to coordinate enough marketing support from whomever controls the ad budgets for Lufthansa.  If anyone has insight into the campaign, please share.  I would love to be wrong on this one ...

Blog Action Day: 7 Tips on Eating Differently To Impact Climate Change

One thing I can't resist is an ambitious project.  As a marketer, if there is a groundswell for something that I believe in or find interesting, I am highly likely to try and be a part of it.  That's why I join all sorts of groups, and why I try to lend my voice to causes that I believe are worthwhile.  The latest effort that I have been looking forward to being part of is also the reason why I'm posting twice in a single day ... something I don't usually do.  Today is Blog Action Day - something I have been promoting on the sidebar of my blog for several weeks now.

The aim of the project is to collect together all kinds of bloggers to talk about the environment.  The site featured a very smart way of letting bloggers sign up early and attaches a currency to being first in how all the blog participants are listed (in order of joining rather than by size of blog - so I'm in the 4001 to 5000 list).  The built in measurement of the site is also done through aggregating the readers via RSS, which they planned for by requesting the RSS link for every blog that wanted to participate when you signed up.  So far, it's a brilliant model for how to run a blog centric social marketing campaign - and the results are stellar so far.  The site boasts more than 15,000 blogs participating with an aggregated RSS reach of more than 12 million readers, and is publishing real time updates on buzz on the Blog Action Day blog.

Let's consider this reach for a moment.  One of the big measurement challenges in blogging is to equate an RSS reader with a regular old impression.  Impressions are typically measured on a monthly basis and multiplied out.  RSS readers are individual readers and therefore far more accurate.  I happen to believe an RSS reader is more involved than a regular impression as well - but how much more?  Even if you conservatively say it is worth 2x as much, this gives the reach of Blog Action day nearly 25 million readers.  On a single day.  That's pretty impressive.

But the point of this post is to talk about the reach but to talk about the environment.  My original thought was to come up with something new to say about it ... but while I was live blogging at the Corporate Climate Response event a few months ago, I published a post about tips for eating differently to impact climate change.  That's my contribution for Blog Action Day, republished below:

7 Tips on Eating Differently To Impact Climate Change

During a session run by Tara Garnett from the Food Climate Research Network at the Corporate Climate Response Conference, she shared a wide range of interesting research that was likely difficult for most participants to absorb quickly enough (and extremely difficult to keep up with for blogging purposes!). Luckily, FCRN has a fantastic research archive published online at their website and also provide links to an assortment of research from other groups collected into a single archive. One of the more interesting points Garnett raised was what steps regular consumers could take in order to change their own eating habits to make an impact on CO2 emissions. This is often a little talked about topic, and as Garnett noted, it is notoriously difficult to ask consumers to do - mostly because of the huge cultural significance of food and the difficulty of sacrifice. For many consumers, however, it may simply be a lack of information. For all of them, here are 7 tips Garnett shared about ways you can change your eating habits to have an impact:

1. Change the balance of what you eat (less meat and dairy, “lower down” on the food chain)
2. Choose seasonal field grown foods (require less storage, heating & transport)
3. Do not eat or purchase certain foods (including foods that are hothoused or those that are air freighted)
4. Reduce your dependence on the “cold chain” (get rid of the second freezer, choose less processed robust foods and do more frequent non car-based shopping)
5. Waste less food (improve your “food turnover” to eat what you buy sooner and reduce wastage)
6. Cook more efficiently (cook for more people and for several days at a time, use the oven less frequently)
7. Redefine your ideal for quality (be willing to accept variability in quality and supply

In addition to this post, here are a few other posts from this blog over the past year which may hopefully inspire your thinking and perhaps even inspire some action:

"Greenest Hits" From Influential Marketing Blog:

• The Greenest Sports Event on Earth
• The Marketing of "An Inconvenient Truth"
• Live Earth Includes DC, Thanks To The Native Americans
• One Hour No Power Campaign - And Other Ways to Save the World
• Wikimapia, Google's Green Summer and Marketing Mashups

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Influential Marketing Blog Featured in Wall Street Journal

Many of you may have already caught this yesterday, but this blog was cited in the Recommended Reading  section of the Wall Street Journal yesterday in an article by Keith Huang.  As Jay Berkowitz from Ten Golden Rules shares on his team blog, my blog was one of 60 resources that they recommended to the journalist as part of their reading list and was selected from that list as a recommended resource for companies looking to "optimize their online presence."  Here's the writeup:

Influential Marketing Blog, rohitbhargava.typepad.com
Rohit Bhargava's blog is intellectual and educational. In a recent post, he discusses the art of stamp collection and how, even today, many smaller countries use stamps as a key marketing tool. He writes, 'Next time you pass a post office in any country, pay attention to how they are using their philately to promote the country, cater to tourists, or commemorate moments of significance.'

It is a great media hit and to be selected from a list of what I am guessing were 60 stellar resources is flattering.  I'm in awe at being included among the other bloggers and authors mentioned in the article - including Seth Godin, Steve Rubel, Matt Cutts, John Battelle, Chris Anderson, Joseph Jaffe, and Danny Sullivan. Thanks to Jay for including me in this great list, and to Keith for selecting to include my blog!

What You Can Learn From Philatelic Marketing

Raise your hand if you know what philately is.  OK, major geek points for you if you got it right.  For the rest of you, philately is the fancy name for the study of stamps, commonly related to the hobby of stamp collecting.  Last weekend I was in Lima for a good friend's wedding and passed a post office that shared the following tidbit which my (limited) spanish was surprisingly good enough to translate:

More than 25% of the entire population of the world has collected stamps at one time in their life.

Whether you believe that statistic or not, stamp collecting has been a hobby passed down from parent to child and a way that millions of children have learned about the world.  I admit, I collected stamps as a kid.  In fact, the first place I learned the Sverige was Sweden, Magyar meant Hungary, and how to spell India in Hindi was from stamps.  It was a way of travelling around the world while staying put, learning about obscure countries that seemed made up (seriously, is there really a Leichenstein?) and surprisingly, it also turned out to be a way I learned about business.  My brother and I used to check out the stamp pricing guide from the library and be amazed at how much we were worth.  Along with my Topps Art Monk rookie NFL card, my total net worth was more than $50 before I hit the age of ten.  Thankfully, I've nearly doubled it since then ...

But jokes aside, what is the power of stamp collecting that drives countries around the world to still use stamps as a key marketing tool for their countries?  In some small countries, the revenues from printing the selling their stamps to collectors around the world is a significant source of income.  It's like printing your own money, almost.  Here are a few reasons why I think stamp collecting has remained such a popular activity:

• Captures the moment - Stamps are all limited issue, and when you get them with a postmark, they very clearly capture a singular moment in time.  Because of this, they feel like a historical record.  In fact, many stamps are even called "commemorative."  The stamps I picked up in Peru are different to the ones you would get if you went a few months from now.  That makes my collection unique.
• Offers a global universality - Just about every country has postage and mail, and therefore every one has stamps.  You may not find shot glasses or little spoons, or all the other things people collect in every country, but you will always be able to get stamps.
• Has a real value - Every stamp has a real value associated with it, and is usually worth more over time.  When you buy one, the amount you paid is usually printed on it.  The value is therefore very obvious, and makes it feel significant.  You might throw away other souveniers or things you pick up while travelling, but few people ever throw away a stamp.  It just feels like throwing away money.
• Always changing - Every year, countries issue many different designs of stamps.  More recently, these stamps mirror recent events, are released in interesting sets and come in all shapes and sizes.  As a result, there is plenty of variety.  Stamps are colorful, plentiful and always different. 

Next time you pass a post office in any country, pay attention to how they are using their philately to promote the country, cater to tourists, or commemorate moments of significance.  People there don't send that much mail.  The stamps are just a smart hook that makes sense because it offers something unique to travelers.  It's no wonder at least everyone's tried it at least once.

IdeaBar: Still Seeking The Great Semacode Marketing Idea

Gizmodo just posted a piece about how H&M is using semacodes imprinted onto Billboard ads in Europe for clothes to allow consumers to purchase an item of clothing directly from their phone.  I am a big fan of the promise of semacodes for marketing because they can offer a reliable way to let consumers interact with static outdoor ads and get more information or take an action right on the spot.  There are some obvious flaws in what H&M is trying to do ... most notably that I don't know of any woman who would see an article of clothing on a model in a billboard (especially after Dove's Evolution showed how these ads are created) and immediately decide to input her size and color choice to buy it.  But the idea of semacodes has lots of smarter potential applications.  Here are a just a few I could imagine for some smart forward thinking marketers:

1. Food and Lodging Recommendations - This is probably the most obvious application, as you are in a single physical location so you are most likely to agree to receive information for places to stay (if you are looking) or a good restaurant to eat at.  Any restaurant guide service like Zagats could easily use this as a promotion to share their content.
2. Personal Homing Beacons - Who hasn't been stuck in a new location and unable to describe your location to someone else who is trying to make their way there?  Street intersections are good, but sometimes that is not descriptive enough.  Imagine semacode lamp posts where you could snap a photo and essentially create a homing beacon for yourself for anyone to find you.  You could help your friend with no sense of direction find you through Google maps on their phone, or more usefully, order a Domino's pizza straight to the middle of nowhere.
3. Scavenger Hunt Style Promotions - As these rise in popularity, using semacodes imprinted onto locations or objects could enable a really fun chain reaction game where you find one clue and get a message telling you about the next one.  These would be indecipherable to people who do not know what they are, but provide essential clues to game participants.  For more interaction, a brand could even let people generate their own and generate clues for others.
4. HyperLocal Town/Suburb Info Guides - Walking into a new city with a Lonely Planet guide is great, but in smaller areas or suburbs, the infornation is often very little for travellers.  Semacodes printed into public spaces could bridge this gap by offering a way for local citizens to contribute content online and share information about destinations and attractions that no tourism book would likely cover.  Think more broadly about this, and it's easy to see how semacode marketing could reinvent how small towns or even suburbs market their localities as tourism destinations.

I am sure there are lots more possibilities for using semacodes - especially as camera phones become more common and people get more sophisticated about how they use their mobile devices to access timely and relevant information.  I will definitely be watching this space.

About the Idea Bar:  Working in a creative team, the life of our business is new ideas.  We come up with them every day for clients, but sometimes there are ideas that just don't fit a client.  They are too big, too different, or just not quite right. Inspired by John at Digital Influence Mapping Project, the IdeaBar is a category of posts that are meant to be "open source" and offer new ideas for marketing.  Take them and use them ... all I ask for is a link back to this post if you find these ideas useful and talk about them.  Read more IdeaBar posts on this blog.

Branding the Subcontinent: India's Inspiring 60th Anniversary Celebration

Today is India's 60th Anniversary of Independence and there is lots of discussion on Indian blogs about the significance of this day and what it means for the country.  It will come as no surprise for admirers of the Bollywood film industry that India's culture is one driven by film and music.  The blockbuster Bollywood films incite passion amongst most people in India that is incomparable to any film release anywhere else in the world.  It is fitting, then, that the voices of this 60 year anniversary are not the politicians, but the artists.  In the only country in the world where films with local origins still far outpace Hollywood movies on opening weekend, the national identity of India is inseparable from its love affair with film and music.   

As an example, here are two (1 2) of the many videos floating around YouTube showing how the country is finding and projecting its voice and brand to each other and to the world. 

These may be a bit over the top, but they are clearly working.  In the 2006 Country Brand Index published by FutureBrand, India was the only third world country in the top ten list of the strongest global country brands.  Despite any social or political problems, there is a strong national identity for India and the country seems likely to move higher on this list of strong country brands this year.  Branding a country is an activity that is on a scale hard for most marketers to imagine, but at the end of the day is comes down to the most basic marketing lesson of all ... giving people something to believe in.

Note: If you want to continue your journey into India today, check out this great list of Indian bloggers (I'm in the Entrepreneurs and Innovators category).

Behind the Scenes At The Battle of Kruger

One of the hottest videos on YouTube this past year is the Battle at Kruger video featuring the amazingly watchable battle of lions, crocodiles and buffaloes on a Safari.  The video is nearing 8 million views in just a few months, and is an obvious prediction to take over the crown from the Free Hugs campaign for video of the year in 2007.  Chad Hurley, founder of YouTube, even pointed it out as his favourite video at the recent Webby Awards.  Here it is in case you haven't seen it:

A good friend of mine from college, Jason Schlosberg, was one of the pair behind the Internet phenomenon which was just featured as the lead video on NBC News' new program, i-Caught (which premiered last night).  The show is just one amongst several others that features popular online viral videos, but takes the slightly different approach of featuring the stories behind the videos and how they were made and why there were uploaded.

Watching the show, and seeing my friend and his story, the most interesting part was when they interviewed a pair of videographers who had been shooting video and documentary footage for 25 years.  The pair listed off all the hardships they had gone through, from suffering malaria to dealing with near desert climates.  And they had never witnessed a moment like the Battle at Kruger.  This is the next evolution of the funniest home videos.  It's no longer enough to capture moments of extreme stupidity (staged or real) on grainy footage.  The new age of amateur content creators are capturing once in a lifetime moments that even the professionals watch with envy.  Welcome to the new world of media.

The Not-So-Secret Way Virgin America Will Reinvent US Air Travel

Virgin is not in the business of music.  Or credit cards.  Or mobile phones.  Or space travel.  Though the brand has done remarkably well in translating its popularity from one business to the next - they are actually in the business of reinventing stagnant industries.  Just look at the track record of industries that they have entered and how they have done it.  Last week they announced the newest business they will try to reinvent, now that they finally have their long awaited approval in the US to start a new domestic airline.  A visit to www.virginamerica.com proves that they are already applying the "virgin way" to their business and standing out before any of their flights actually take off.  How can they do this?  Are they just smarter at marketing than the rest of the industries they enter?  Their "secret" is actually quite simple: they look at an industry that is doing everything the same way, identify the pain points for customers of all companies in that industry, and focus their business on doing those things differently.  For Virgin America, this means doing the following:

1. Having a unique personality.  With the exception of JetBlue and perhaps Southwest, few domestic airlines in the US could be accused of having an authentic and unique identity.  Virgin America uses elements from the subtle to the explicit to demonstrate their personality.  The cabin has "mood lighting" that changes throughout the flight.  The site lays out a promise to travelers on how Virgin America will treat you.  And, of course, the Virgin brand carries a certain inherent personality of irreverance and hipness that many consumers can connect with.
2. Enable traveller's gadgetized lifestyles. Every seat has a power plug for laptops, USB chargers for MP3 players, and will eventually have built in ethernet for internet access.  For longer coast to coast flights, this ensures that no matter which class of service you are travelling in, you will never run out of batteries on your device.
3. Eliminate the hand signals and call button etiquette problem. It can sometimes be nearly impossible to get a stewardess' attention on the flight and somehow it just seems rude to ring that call button all the time and expect them to come running.  Virgin America has an online ordering system where you can order your food and pay through a cashless system (also removing the need to carry around cash or exact change). 
4. Discounts without the discount airports.  One of the most frustrating things about "discount" airlines is that many of them use obscure airports like Sarasota or Buffalo.  So far, Virgin America flies from DC to LAX and SFO.  All big airports, all places that are not inconveniences to fly to or from.
5. Connect with fellow passengers. One of the saddest parts of travelling sometimes is that you can sit next to someone for 6 hours or more and never speak.  The greater tragedy is that there may be other people on the plane hungry for a good conversation, but simply sitting next to the wrong people.  Built into the back of seat console is something Virgin calls a "seat to seat chat."  Presumably, it only works for passengers who put their seats into "discoverable" modes, but a very cool idea nonetheless.

 

Live Earth Includes DC, Thanks To The Native Americans

Today might be the largest simultaneous social marketing event ever staged - as Live Earth concerts light up stadium stages on 7.5 stages on 7 continents.  In case you're wondering, the "0.5" stage is right here in DC.  The concert taking place now is at the American Indian Museum after they offered their venue for a "Mother Earth" version of the concert.  Why this venue instead of the preferred larger one on the steps of the Capitol in DC?  Mainly because partisan politics from Republicans who believe global warming is a "hoax" (led by James Inhofe) threatened to keep the DC event from happening and blocked it from taking place in Gore's originally preferred venue.  Regardless, the event is here in DC and I will be heading out to see it live and share photos later tonight.

In the meantime, there are live video streams and information available at http://liveearth.msn.com/ as well as a full schedule of artists and shows.  Despite this live satellite feed - I can't help but wish for more integration of social media so I could share in people's experiences of the shows real time throughout the day.  There is a Live Earth blog, but it is authored by a single individual who is going to the concert in NY and watching the rest online and on TV like the rest of us.  Even the Unofficial Live Earth blog is mostly updated by a single person.  Michael Prospero from the Fast Company Blog is promising to live blog the New York event, and I am sure there are other similar individuals at the other concerts doing the same - but there doesn't seem to be a way to collect this aggregated conversation in a single location, which seems like a big missed opportunity. For a global concert event across 8 cities - one person is never going to be able to share the entire experience of the event in a comprehensive way because they cannot be in more than one (or 2) places at once.  If there was ever a moment where I might actually care to read Twitter updates from lots of people I don't know, this would be it. 

Regardless, watching these events unfold live around the world is addictive and I've been spending much of a day where I intended to work on my book watching the films and concert performances in HD on TV.  The campaign has a very simple call to action and plenty of easy ways for each and every person to make a pledge to "answer the call."  Every social marketing campaign should be so relevant and have such a clear way for anyone participate.  If you haven't seen any of the shows, be sure to visit the Live Earth site today - and stay tuned for a report from the DC event and hopefully some live photos from me later this evening.

Update Rant - Can someone explain to me why the sound and video crew covering the DC event are the only ones that don't seem to understand how to get a good camera shot (without sun flares or blue overtones) or how to get microphones to work where you can actually hear the singers performing?  There's a big step down in quality of the TV broadcast between the DC event and all the other events I have seen so far ...

One Hour No Power Campaign - And Other Ways to Save The World

I love a good grassroots campaign to change the world - and usually I do all I can to help these causes when I find them.  The latest one that's caught my attention is the "One Hour No Power" campaign which is asking everyone today at midday in your local time to forego using all power.  That means turning TVs and computers off, not driving, and just being outside or away from technology and power for an hour.  I love the concept of this - but the problem is that a short term awareness stunt like this may not lead to longer term behaviour change.  We need the stunt to be viral and (hopefully) drive media interest ... but the real question is what to follow it up with. 

I came across an interesting article on the website for the Today Show yesterday where they highlight some lessons from the "Live Earth Global Warming Survival Handbook," which offers 77 tips on how to make an impact on the world.  On that stands out from this article and also has been getting recent attention is what the piece terms "phantom power" - namely, the power that is drained by your electronic devices while they are in standby mode.  It points to what I believe should be a shift in how we all think about all social marketing campaigns that relate to energy usage and global warming.  It's not about reducing consumption, it's about reducing waste.  Reducing what we use means a sacrifice, which people may or may not take.  Reducing waste means getting smarter and more efficient.  It means saving money.  And best of all, it means no (or little) sacrifice.  Am I saying we should tell people to use all the energy they want as long as they use it?  Of course not.  But in a culture where "me" usually comes before "you" ... reducing waste is a message that gives the impression you can do good for the world without sacrificing anything.  That may not be true, but it certainly makes for more compelling marketing.

Intel Launches Chinese Language Technology Blog

Intel, a current Ogilvy PR client, has just launched a new Chinese language blog focused on technology and is generating some great conversation through comments already.  Unfortunately, automated translation software cannot provide a coherent picture of the content yet - so you might be out of luck with getting much from the content of the blog, but it's a great example of a company building out their global strategy when it comes to social media and providing an outlet for more smart minds within the company to share their voices, regardless of the language barrier.  A bit of insider info ... coming soon will be other multilingual blogs from Intel designed on bringing out even more of the expertise from individuals inside the company from other countries. 

Note of Attribution: The Ogilvy PR Digital Influence team works with Intel on social media strategy and marketing but was not responsible for building and deploying this blog.  For the inside story behind the launching of the new Intel China Blog, you can check out the launch post on Textura Design. 

Flat Whites in DC: Why Thinking Outside Your Region Matters

There is a restaurant in the Washington DC area called Cassatts which is the only location in all of DC where you can get a flat white.  For most people that might not mean much, but for anyone who has lived in Australia or New Zealand, the thought of starting a morning without your flat white (an espresso based coffee drink similar to a latte) is unimaginable.  One of my common complaints about the DC area is that I have yet to find a coffee shop that serves a decent cup of coffee ... but Cassatts stands out for their signature coffee and uniquely Kiwi feel.  Why does Cassatts provide such a compelling experience?  Is it because the coffee just tastes better?  Or is it because they have brought something that is extremely common from another region into a place where they can stand alone?

Imagine the street vendors selling golgappas (also called pani puris) on Chowpatty beach in Mumbai relocated to the streets of San Francisco to offer the same street food to unsuspecting residents.  Or an authentic silver shop from the Taxco region of Mexico located in Philadelphia.  This is about more than importing products from one place to another and reselling them.  Anyone can do that.  Thinking outside the region is more about geographic displacement: bringing a business that is relatively common in one geography into a new location where it offers something unique and different.  Uniqueness is key in creating a story consumers will share with others, particularly when you think about the challenge globally.  Travellers go to far-away places to seek authentic experiences, and often do so because of the reputation of a certain place when it comes to food or products to buy.  If you can capture that experience and bring it to an unexpected place, you can have your own blue ocean.  That's the power of thinking outside the region.

Image Credits:
Rain.Forest Photostream on Flickr
Pani Puri Presentation on SlideShare from Thakkar

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The Indian Film Festival, Permanence and the Internet

Last night I had the chance to attend the opening of the Indian Film Festival here in LA, which opened with a film called Provoked featuring Aishwarya Rai and Naveen Andrews.  The film tackles the difficult topic of domestic violence and is based on a true story.  After watching the story being told and thinking about the film afterwards, I was drawn to the idea of permanence.  The film has been produced and released, and now offers a permanent testament to the story of Kiranjit Ahluwalia - a woman who was strong enough to overcome her situation of domestic abuse and offer inspiration to women around the world.  Film and books certainly have this aura of permanence, but what about the Internet? 

If you asked anyone a few years ago, they would have pointed to the inherently changeable nature of the web as proof that it will never have this permanence.  In a world where what is arguably the best source of information on the Internet is a site with millions of definitions for terms that can be changed everyday by anyone (Wikipedia), how could anyone believe that the Internet has the same permanence as a film or book?  Yet as we have seen with the recent scuffle around Steve Rubel's remarks on Twitter, what some might have considered the least permanent type of site possible, comments made online can indeed stick around for quite some time.  People who have created photos and webpages throughout their youth are contending with this permanence as they go out and start to seek jobs and manage their indiscretions that might be recorded and easily available to a potential employer through a web search.  Politicians are dealing with a new age of transparency on every legislative choice they have ever made being available for any voter to see.  Yes, permanence is alive and well on the Internet despite it's many flaws and inaccuracies.  It may not yet offer the same feeling of permanence as a film or book today, but there is no denying it has a feeling of permanence far beyond what it used to.  Here's an open question: do you think it will ever reach the same level at films and books?

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A Recap of the PSFK Conference

Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend the first conference event put together by Piers and the team at PSFK focused on trends and ideas.  The agenda was very compelling going into it, and I did leave with many interesting insights and new ideas about marketing and communications.  Though I unfortunately had to duck out early due to client commitments, here are a few key observations I made in my notes:

1. Getting the "doers" to come and speak. At many industry events, there are lots of great (or average) speakers that are trained to position companies.  The tone at the PSFK was definitely more real, with Piers choosing to feature many "doers" rather than speakers.  The result at times was the necessity to really focus on the essence of what someone was saying rather than being caught up in the speaking, because the presentations could be halting or awkward.  In the end, I think that added to the appeal of the event.
2. Blogs fill a void in vertical media. This is something I had experienced, but not thought about ... how blogs are augmenting vertical trade publications in just about every industry to offer another channel for learning and information.  Elizabeth Spiers started the day with a somewhat sales-pitchey presentation about her collection of sites for Dead Horse Media, but did share the interesting observation that the secret of success behind Dealbreaker.com was that it allowed lots of 29 year old financial services workers to read something entertaining while "allaying their guilt because it is peripherally related to their jobs."  Seems like a lesson lots of other blogs have learned as well.
3. Most toaster designs suck. This is something I would never have thought of before Allan Chochinov's presentation from Core77.  He shared lots of imagery, talked about the design asthetic and illustrated how his sites was truly focused on design ideas.  Bucking the trend for many popular blogs, Core 77 does not necessarily post what they like, but rather what sparks the most ideas.  His tour of Flickr, Worth1000 and other sites were worth checking out - as is Core77 and coroflot.  If you have anything to do with design in your job, or are passionate about it, this collection of sites are must-reads.
4. Gaming was the first social revolution (maybe even leading to UGC?). This sentiment was echoed both through the presentation from David Rosenburg from JWT and Kevin Slavin from area/code.  Until about 2004, video games were played alone against the computer.  Slavin pointed to this as what people 20 years from now might call the dark ages of gaming.  Now it's social, huge and for everyone (especially people in categories you might not expect, like women and boomers).  Rosenberg's survey of the many different types of gaming, evolution of gaming and built in videos was a great 20 minute survey of a very ambitious topic. 
5. TrendSpotting is not as important at TrendUnderstanding. Simon Sinek  had many great moments as part of this panel, and one of them was pointing out that much of the crappy marketing work published recently comes from brands blindly following trends without understanding the underlying reasons and motivations for them.  Positioning the difference between the academic world and the business one, Grant McCraken from MIT shared the perspective that the academic world is very good and understanding the underlying reasons, but not quickly spotting the trend.  As Simon noted, the marketing world is just the opposite.  I'll be subscribing to his Re:focus blog in my rss reader ...
6. Using continuity instead of consistency to create a great brand experience. Going against the trend of sameness in retail locations, George Murphy (the former VP of Brand at Starbucks) shared the example of how Starbucks creates an experience of continuity without resorting to consistency.  With so many brand marketers focused on making every aspect of an experience fit together and giving consistency an undue reverance, Murphy's observation offered an insightful caution about avoiding your brand becoming stagnant because of sameness. Planned inconsistency can make a big difference in fostering your brand experience and offering some personality without losing your consistency.
7. Good guerilla marketing is not deceptive and sometimes even useful.  In a strong panel about guerilla marketing, folks from several agencies shared some core principles of doing guerilla marketing right.  The first idea that stuck out was that you cannot be deceptive otherwise you risk pissing off consumers.  The other interesting concept was that now messages could become inherently useful by offering messages or guides to locations that people need.  Floyd Hayes of Cunning also shared an interesting observation about how we use so many militaristic terms in marketing (guerilla, campaign, targeting, etc.) and perhaps we need to stop treating customers as "targets" and more as people.  Amen.
8. How to invent assvertising without becoming the "assvertising agency."  This is a topic of particular relevance for me as I focused late last year on participating in dialogue about Social Media Optimization without wanting to become the "SMO guy."  Darren Paul of Night Agency shared the story behind coming up with "assvertising" and how it helped to put his agency on the map to do much more.  It's a great lesson in not being afraid to introduce a big idea even if you are afraid of getting "type-cast" with it.  There's always a way to move on.
9. Big games and building a "public secret" really work.  Kevin Slavin's presentation about the Brand as activity was one of my favorites of the day, as he shared lots of examples of great games and real life contests that used brands as the focal point for interactive experiences.  This is the concept at the heart of the "creationstorming" idea I posted about earlier this week.  The Tucson Conqwest is a great early example of a mobile "big game" and how effective it can be.  Kevin shared lots of other examples I will be checking out, including several I am linking to in my resource link list below.
10. Art as advertising is not anonymous.  Most attendees of the event would be familiar with the intense frustration creative professionals feel after spending long hours to produce artistic work as part of a marketing effort, only to have their involvement be anonymous and hidden to everyone but the advertising community through awards shows and trade pubs.  The panel on using art for advertising was illuminating because it represents a different kind of advertising where the art is identified with the artist and the brand is simply a participant.  This was the concept we explored through our popular effort with Julian Beever for Aveeno - and seemed to represent a different type of respect for advertising that most aspired to.

As with most of these kinds of events, I also noted many sites for a follow up visit (or revisit) because of mentions in presentations and tagged them in del.icio.us.  You can check out my list of sites at http://del.icio.us/rbhargava/psfkconference.

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Jaman and The New Global Niche

Ethnicity has always been an appealing niche for foreign language newspapers and magazines to local cable television programs.  Restaurants, churches and temples are all centers for exploring global cultures in the real world.  Yet on the Internet, the most successful ethnically focused sites seem to be the online dating sites such as Shaadi.com, JDate and Corazones.com - as well as online communities targeting ethnicities for networking.  The problem with this is that most of these sites are not inviting others outside a particular ethnicity to interact and learn about a culture.  If online networks focused on getting together those of a particular ethnicity, we risk alienating each other as everyone only joins their own ethnic group online and doesn't venture beyond. 

Countering this trend to a degree are sites that take a more global view of the world, targeted at those who consider themselves more than just citizens of a particular country.  There are sites like Worldchanging and GlobalVoicesOnline that offer global news and a collaboration of voices from many countries.  Other online news and video sites offer a more global view on world news and reporting such as Current.tv.  Campaigns such as the One campaign or Product Red are also taking a global view for cause related marketing.  Yet when it comes to sharing the best of global cultures in a way that is not cause related, there are surprisingly few ways people have found to do it online.

One site that I came upon recently which seems to have a different vision is Jaman - a social network and website where you can sign up to rent or purchase foreign films from around the world.  Uniting the world through cinema has long been the charge of many independent film festivals and other such events, but online this mission has not really taken off.  There are strong online communities that relate to film, such as Flixter - but none focus as uniquely on global cinema as Jaman.  The site is still in beta, and the film collection relatively small ... but as more and more global cinema labels sign onto the service and see it as a profitable distribution channel, the collection is sure to grow.  It's one of those sites that is helping to define a new global niche for sites that are focused on bringing the best of global cultures to everyone ... without the necessity for an underlying cause.  After all, even the global citizen who wants to learn about or save the world need some old fashioned entertainment every once in a while.

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Screenshots of Jaman Service (click to enlarge):

     

Google Celebrates Australia Day With An Aerial Maps Mashup

For those that haven't been keeping up on their Aussie daily news ticker, today is Australia Day - and to celebrate, Google has launched an innovative campaign where they have been photographing Sydney Harbor from the skies through the course of the day and posting images on a mashup site for anyone to see.  The site tells people about the times when they might see the Google branded plane flying overhead (it has permission to fly low to capture high-res images) and asks them to create formations or hold up signs that may be seen from the plane.  Forget bringing tiny signs to football games, now you can get onto a mashup to be seen around the world.  It's a fun campaign idea and is already getting some significant buzz in Sydney as people get ready for the plane in all sorts of ways.  The article even points to a group from the Nature Conservation Council in Bondi Beach that gathered over 50 people to make a human sign reading "Vote Climate."  How about this for the next evolution in social marketing?  Maybe the next time there is a five car pileup on a major US highway - you will see a group gather to create a human sign to target all the news "vulture-copters" that descend on the scene to provide 24-7 aerial coverage.  Their message?  "Drive Better."  If only someone was dedicated to that cause ...

Update (01/29/07): As it turns out, the execution of this event may not have been exactly what Google was hoping for as they were forced to alter the routing of the plane from air traffic control and were forced to leave some people disappointed.  David Utter has a good summary of the story over at WebProNews.

The Metropolitan Opera's Big Marketing Experiment

This weekend I headed to the movie theater to see A Night at the Museum, and before the film there was preview for the Metropolitan Opera's new initiative -- Saturday Matinees Live in HD at local theaters around the world.  I have to admit, what first caught my attention in the trailer was the multiple "Apple-esque" logo placements for Edelman in the first moments of the spot.  As it turns out, this effort is part of the Met's new marketing strategy in 2007 to broaden the appeal of the Opera to a wider global audience (and presumably realize another stream of revenue from productions as well).  Along with the 8 live HD broadcasts of performances in movie theaters, they are also broadcasting weekly audio programs through a partnership with Sirius Radio.  The website provides details on all the programs, including some nice links to allow patrons to support the Met in other ways by contributing or spreading the word.

As some reviews have noted, this is a bit of a gamble for the Met as it may keep some travellers from making the trip to NY, and dilute the prestige currently associated with a night out at the Opera.  The Washington Post has a great interview with Placido Domingo where he shares his view about the two types of people that don't go to opera - those that can't afford it, and those that don't like it.  For the first group, the live performances can be a great equalizer (shows cost only $18 as opposed to the several hundred dollars a typical ticket to a performance at the Met can run).  For the second, their dislike may be due to unfamiliarity with opera - which can also be addressed by the live performances.  At the end of the day, I think what will make this effort most successful is the fact that a performance of the Opera can actually be enhanced by watching it in this way. 

For example, anyone who has been to the opera will know the frustration of trying to watch the action on stage while also reading the subtitles above the stage.  Depending on where you seat is, this can range from distracting to nearly impossible.  On screen, it is much easier to follow a production with subtitles.  Secondly, the color and visual appeal of the opera cater very well to the "big screen" and will make full use of the medium to present an engaging experience.  Finally, the surround sound audio capabilities of cinemas make them ideal choices to introduce a great audience to the opera.  This experiment will work wonders for the Met this year, bringing them more positive reviews, more audience, and furthering their reputation as a world-class production house for the opera.  Broadway should take notice.

Top 7 Marketing Trends for 2007

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