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.

Notes From the Twitterbowl: The Top 3 Strategic Super Bowl Ads

Last night during the big game, I joined a large group of marketing and social media types to share some live thoughts about the Super Bowl ads through Twitter (sending them to the @superbowlads user account).  The aptly named "Twitterbowl" consisted of lots of folks live rating ads and sharing some feedback about the ads live during the game.  Voting on ads in real time is nothing new ... however doing it and reading the thoughts of my other contacts during the game was an interesting way to experience the ads.  Though I would have expected a more sophisticated commentary from the group as a whole, being marketing people and all.  Many folks seemed to just be rating ads on entertainment value as opposed to whether or not the message actually made sense for the brand, but it was still a fun experience as part of the game.

Aside from realizing that people can really have completely opposite views of what makes a successful Superbowl ad, it was also clear that all of us love to have our opinions.  Everyone decides what is most entertaining for them, but since this is a marketing blog, I'm going to go with my own top 3 Super Bowl ad list based on strategic value for the brand.  So, here is my list of the top three 3 strategic ads that were creative, engaging, messaged properly and could actually have a real impact in terms of sales (and only one of them made the USAToday Top 10 popular ads list):

1. Tide "My Talking Stain":  This spot was easily relatable (everyone has had that stain they couldn't do anything about), funny, and generated awareness for an under appreciated product  In the Twitterbowl, most folks loved it, and it will easily have the recall when anyone is walking the grocery market aisles and sees it.  The only downside?  The word in the Twitterbowl was that their marketing site (www.mytalkingstain.com) went down under all the traffic.
   
2. Under Armour "Under Army":  Any company that is number 3 in a competitive industry has perhaps the most to gain from a Super Bowl ad because it positions them on equal footing with the other two.  For Under Armour, this meant taking the reigns from Nike and Adidas with their "Under Army" spot, which they did brilliantly.  Not to mention it was one of the rare Super Bowl ads that (gasp!) has something to do with football.  Ironically, it wasn't popular in the Twitterbowl - but for the masses and Under Armour's target audience, I think it was spot on.
3. Audi "Godfather": Audi's spot was a big deal in marketing circles before the Super Bowl even aired because it represented a rare entry from Audi into the Super Bowl mix.  The ad itself was a brilliant parody of the Godfather that positioned the new __________ as the ultimate in new luxury.  Anyone want to bet what percentage of the boomer males watching the game were picturing themselves in that car?

Of course, I am tough on these ads because I am putting the often forgotten lens of strategic value over deciding what was a good creative execution.  If we just looked at entertainment value, which I am sure lots of polls are doing today, the winners were probably a few of the Bud ads and the Pepsi Night at the Roxbury spoof.  Worst ads?  They have to be the Gatorade/Vitamin Water/Sobe combos (seriously, can anyone tell them apart?), the CareerBuilder nasty exploding heart ad (they should have stuck with the monkeys), and the singing Comcast ads (which, thankfully, most of the country probably didn't see).  Big props to Dell and Lionel also, for being the only advertiser (that I could tell) to actually be part of the Twitterbowl. 

Oh, and it was a great game to watch too ... congrats to Giants fans everywhere.  If it can't be the Redskins, it might as well be the Giants doing the NFC East proud.

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Announcing The Ultimate Marketing Bookstore

Several months ago I participated in the LitLiberation Blogger Challenge launched by my friend Tim Ferriss to try and raise money for DonorsChoose.org (a site which allows teachers to submit funding proposals to ask for help doing something they don't normally get the funding for).  Around the same time, I started playing around with Amazon Affiliate links and made more than ten bucks on links by just using a few links on several blog posts.  That's only a small amount of money, but it got me thinking about the potential of using an affiliate program to generate money for charity in the marketing world.  Over the time that I was away from blogging, one of my side projects was to start contacting several influential people to see if they would be willing to participate in a new kind of bookstore - which I called The Ultimate Marketing Bookstore.  Today I am launching it (although I will resist the temptation to call it a "Beta launch").  Here's how I described the purpose of the site and what makes it different:

This site is different because it features all the reading lists of marketers that you already know and respect in one place.  From CEOs to marketing directors to top marketing bloggers - The Ultimate Marketing Bookstore lets you see and shop from all their reading lists ... and all for a good cause.

The way most of us find out about great marketing books is the same way that we learn about great products ... through recommendations from people we trust.  Most online bookstores are just categories of books selected by one or two people.  They are great if you trust those people, but they are not comprehensive. 

As I describe above, all the proceeds from affiliate commissions that this site generates will be donated to DonorsChoose.org on a monthly basis and I plan to try and spread the word in the marketing community about this new bookstore and will be adding new names on a weekly basis.  Here are a few reasons why I think this idea can work:

1. Collects a central hub of reading lists from marketers that are currently widely distributed online. 
2. Encourages marketers who are not sharing their reading lists to do so in an easy way.
3. Makes great marketing books easier to find and buy.
4. Creates a community of marketing book readers and allows them to contribute to a good cause
5. Offers a platform for new marketing books to get promoted to an interested audience

That's the initial idea, but I'd love to hear some feedback on what you think could make it better.  I am still reaching out to marketers to add their book lists, so stay tuned in the next few weeks as I will likely be adding lots more names to this list, and I plan to publish updates with money raised and associate this bookstore with a challenge on DonorsChoose.org so the amount raised (and what the dollars are being spent on) is highly visible.  Blog badges and other tools to promote the site are in the works as well.  Any other suggestions?

Note: A big thank you to all the people who responded to my LinkedIn question about which charity could be the best to support for this.  DonorsChoose.org was the most popular suggestion.

Guest Post: Is Word of Mouth a Discipline or Just a Channel?

by John Bell

Rohit has invited a handful of folks to post on his blog while he manages his true key influencers - family (including the newest member!). It only seems fitting that each of us post on what we care about most. In my case, that's word of mouth marketing.

My team uses digital marketing, social media and traditional strategy to amplify and activate word of mouth all to support our clients business objectives. While I love social media and it is a part of all of our work and personal digital lives, I must frame it as a set of techniques, methodologies and behavior geared towards motivating people to share, participate and even recommend products and services to their circle of friends, colleagues and family - their affinity groups. Why "must" I? At the end of the day, we have to measure. Social media is not a measurable unit. WOM is. To make WOM a reliable approach to marketing, it must be measured in a way that CMOs, Communications Officers and CEOs, can report its effectiveness to reaching their business goal. WOM can be measured and reported today. We do it. BzzAgent does it. Visible Technologies does it. In the near future, an industry standard for that measurement will arise. Social media drives WOM.   

I am fresh back from the Word of Mouth Marketing Summit 2007 in Vegas. I serve on the board of the organization so take any endorsements for the organization with that in mind. The quality of the experience was up there: good speakers, topics, brands, solid debate, some news. It reminded me of why I joined the organization. Still it wasn't perfect. But that's okay. I enjoy the naive enthusiasm we all have for creating a new discipline based upon the tenants of two-way conversation with people, authentic relationships and the value of advocates (or "promoters" in the Net Promoter Score framework).

Problem is - are we a discipline? An expertise? Or just another channel? Having spent last week with about 500 people from brands, agencies and start-ups who think word of mouth is important enough to travel to Vegas during the final budget-clampdown quarter of the year, here's some points to consider:

Discipline or channel?
Discipline: Word of mouth marketing takes belief (based on understanding and knowledge) and discipline. There are no shortcuts. As Sean Driscoll from Microsoft points out , there is a 'right model' and a 'wrong model' of influencer marketing (which I interpret as a part of word of mouth marketing). The wrong model suggests that I can just tell people about the wonder of my brand and they will yak about it. The right model assumes a truly engaged conversation model where we listen as much as we talk. To do things "right" in Sean's vernacular, it is very hard to just tack on some WOM-stuff to a large traditional marketing campaign and expect significant results. Like any discipline, word of mouth marketing requires certain procedures and conditions to succeed.

Channel: The media buying companies and some advertising agencies want to see WOM as a channel. They deal in channels. They want to fill up on the 360 degrees of our lives reaching us at home, at play, at work. They want a new channel to deliver messages. Preferably one that is as predictable as other channels ("if I spend $1 more on WOM it will deliver X"). That's why BzzAgent's current configuration has been so successful with media agencies. they can just buy 6000 agents in three markets for 12 weeks. Feels like media. While the agents will talk about the product, this is not two-way conversation. And the brand is renting those agents not building a long-term relationship. Still, it is a form of word of mouth.

Discipline: To deliver on the promise of social media, word of mouth marketing, influencer marketing, conversation marketing - whatever part of WOM you want to emphasize - we need a simple, shared approach to measurement that compares well to what brand managers are used to. Yes, that probably means some sort of ad equivalency. That approach - comparing to advertising - may be a trap. Look what happened to public relations. In most cases PR reports media "hits" as equal to ad impressions. Shouldn't they be valued far north of simple paid impressions? And WOM, shouldn't that be like 10X and ad impression (with a true "recommendation" even north of that)? WOMMA and other groups are working on an industry standard for measuring WOM. I think we will have a solid model in 2008 that will be a tipping point for the discipline.

Channel: Many ad-based marketers see viral video as the answer to their WOM aspirations. If they can just get enough views of a video, it starts to feel like traditional media. And if the mechanism for accummulating those views is people sharing and recommending amongst their friends then that, my friend, is social media. Within the Ogilvy family, we have the ultimate accomplishment/curse: the Dove Evolution video. With millions of views under its belt, it really deserves to be the poster child for viral video. Because those views grew from people recommending it to others, it is more valuable than TV impressions (pull vs. push) BUT, it is one dimensional and doesn't fully utilize what is possible in word of mouth marketing. Still, many marketers will use this case as their compass for word of mouth and try to leverage the channel of video-sharing to meet their goals. Viral video leverages something that ad agencies are very good at: storytelling and filmmaking. That's why branded entertainment is ad agencies' social media technique of choice.

It's a discipline

Word of mouth is a broad discipline like advertising or public relations. It requires technique and methodologies that are particularly relevant to do it well. It is possible to treat it like a channel by tacking on some WOM tactic to a larger advertising program, but it may not pay off in comparison to those more traditional marketing tactics.

Most WOM strategy is about engagement and building strong relationships with a core group. If it serves a "reach" purpose, it is through the long-term multiplier effect of one satisfied and engaged customer telling 3 friends who tell 3 friends and so on. If you want to reach millions with a product launch in January and have no existing set of WOM relationships, word of mouth marketing is probably not your first choice. BUT if you had those relationships in place - oh, what a launch it would be.

Now the next interesting question is whether word of mouth will be a stand-alone discipline or be integrated into either PR or ad firms or both. Think of account planning (or connections planning). More often than not, this is a discipline found inside ad agencies. Yet several firms like Naked have cropped up where account planning is the defining discipline of the firm. Will the same thing happen with Word of Mouth? Forward thinking communications/marketing firms will build or acquire the expertise for a true word of mouth discipline (not just channel experience). they will do this in droves once the measurement nut is cracked. Until then, you will have the visionary companies who believe that business objectives for many (not all) clients can be achieved well and efficiently using WOM - setting up a WOM shop. That's where our team - 360 Digital Influence - comes in. I still believe that enlightened PR firms (i.e. more than 'media relations') shops) stand a better chance culturally of making these units work than traditional ad agencies.  Some specialty shops are already cropping up - Brains on Fire and Zocalo Group come to mind. Since WOM can be enhanced by advertising, PR, digital marketing, you name it, I prefer as much integration as possible.

Much has been written on the characteristics of the best word of mouth marketing. Suffice it to say that it is different than the discipline necessary for successful advertising campaigns.

John Bell runs the 360° Digital Influence team at Ogilvy and blogs at the Digital Influence Mapping Project

A Recap of Ideas from Nielsen's CGM Summit 2007

I spent the day today at the Nielsen CGM Summit in NY listening to some panels and presentations from Nielsen and many of their clients about the future of measuring CGM.  One thing I was looking forward to about this event in particular is that the percentage of brands vs. agencies in attendance would be much more favored toward brands.  It is sadly ironic when you think about all the events that agency folks attend to basically talk to themselves, while their clients are all interested in (and spending time attending) events on measurement (which few creative folks from agencies would be able to stay awake through).  I must admit, I had a bit of a hard time staying awake myself today ... but to be fair, that was probably due to my redeye from the west coast to NY last night. 

In any case, I managed to stay awake throughout the day long enough to take some notes on some key takeaways from the summit which you will find below.  I also had the chance to meet several folks in person that I have been reading or known from afar, including Peter Kim, Henry Copeland, and Emanuel Rosen (author of The Anatomy of Buzz).  Though some of the "wonder of Nielsen" presentations that I expected throughout the day ran a bit long (not yours, Pete!) - overall the day was a great deep dive into all the ways we can and should be measuring.  As one speaker shared earlier in the day, "media is not an island" and is interconnected as consumers watch and interact with messages across mediums. Marketers may be specialists in one particular channel (TV, Online, Mobile, WOM, etc.) ... but consumers are most definitely becoming experts in all of them and use them concurrently. 

Anyway, here are some key notes and insights I took away from the event:

1. Influencers are emailers.  There was an interesting data point in one of the presentations that said that 55% of people who were considered "speakers" (those who share opinions vocally) have emailed directly to a company about a product that they liked.  This was a big insight throughout the day, as it indicated that brands seeking their influencers may simply need to listen more closely to the feedback they are already getting.
2. CGM generates powerful insights, not just influential voices to "target" - In response to a question from Max, I shared this point of view during the recap of the day and it was something that came up repeatedly throughout the morning.  Listening to CGM can drive strategy if you find the gaps which you can use CGM and social media to solve.  One example I shared was using CGM to find the conversation about Julian Beever (a sidewalk chalk artist) before we started our Fountain of Youth program for Aveeno.  We learned that there was lots of discussion online where people wanted to see more of his images and know how he does it.  So we created a Flickr gallery of all his images and a video of him drawing to rave reviews online.
3. Buzzphrase #1: Consumer Fortified Media - This was a new concept that Pete introduced in his presentation about how brands are putting their commercial messages online (like Dove Evolution), and consumers are talking about them and adding credibility to these messages, thus making them fortified.  Of course, there is a handy acronym for this as well: CFM.  (I suppose it could be CFM2 when those commercial messages are for products already "fortified" ... um, like Fruit Loops).
4. A new reason 2008 Superbowl ads will be better than the game - The guy from Fox Interactive shared that next year Fox has a deal with the NFL to create an official site where the 30 second spots will be accompanied by "long form video."  The smart marketers will take the chance to create "making of" secondary ads around their $3 million Superbowl spots.  Not sure how CGM plays a part here (unless lots of brands do the "you can create our Superbowl ad" thing again), but I still thought this idea of extending the most watching ads in the world with long form content behind them is a great concept.  Maybe worth an idea bar post at some point ...
5. "Getting out of the way" is a strategy - During the panel where media brands shared what they believe will happen in 2010, the guy from CBS talked about the things that they are doing and noted a significant moment where a random user placed a clip from Letterman where he interviewed Paris Hilton on YouTube and the clip got millions of views.  His point ... we didn't go after him, which signifies a great case study.  I loved the irony that getting out of the way is now considered a strategy.  Actually, sometimes it's the best one. 
6. Buzzphrase #2: Consumer Emulation - In this second concept from Pete's presentation early in the day, he talked about how we are in the midst of a wave of "consumer emulation."  Citing examples like the JetBlue and Mattel CEOs addressing the public as if they were doing consumer produced Youtube videos, or politicians and celebs who have Facebook or MySpace pages  - the point he made is that the pros are sometimes emulating the amateurs.  And of course, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't ...
7. It's not about volume anymore - The great conflict with how brands used to purchase media to buy influence online versus how they do now is that tricky measure of CPMs.  When you are buying in blocks of thousands of impressions, it is impossible to say you are not buying volume.  Yet as many marketers noted today, less is really becoming more.  One thought I shared is that sponsorships of blogs and social media sites that are persistent can offer a much higher value, but not measured in terms of page views, but rather in terms of brand perception.
8. The silo-fication of marketing remains a barrier - Many of the brands that participated in the day were large ones, and all seemed to struggle with similar issues when it comes to ownership.  This was not about the typical debate on whether blogs belong in corporate comm, or product development, or marketing, etc.  The silos on a macro level are those between marketing/communications, customer service, product testing, and other large divisions.  In many large organizations, these groups are in geographically disparate locations.  CGM may be a brilliant place to gather insight, but if the marketing team who gets the blog monitoring reports isn't sharing them with product development, or the customer service team who is speaking with a blogger doesn't share that information with marketing ... the power of CGM is never realized.

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Thinking Outside the Demographic - Why Customer Passion Matters More

If you have been in marketing for any amount of time, you know how omniprescent demographics are.  The first question most marketing teams will focus on is "what's our target demographic?"  Demographics are what media is bought by and what media properties define themselves by.  Ask any online community about their core audience, and they will typically respond with a demographic like "teen girls 12-18" or "young men 18-25."  TV shows and movies do the same.  Brands take this information, match it with their research or intuitive belief in who their audience is, and decide what promotions to run and what ads to buy.  The problem with this system is that it asks the wrong question.  The question we should be asking is "what does our audience care about?"  There are a number of reasons why we need to think outside the demographic:

1. Creates a common interest. The classic problem with demographics is that you usually end up with more than one that is the target.  Usually, this means a brand will use language like their primary and secondary demographic.  But how do you link them together?  If they were already bonded by a common interest, it makes it much easier to determine how to reach them.
2. Focuses on real relevance.  The other issue with demographics is that they assume because someone is of a certain gender or age, that they will care about a message.  I know demographics get much more sophisticated than that, but they are still based on an assumption that may be flawed.  Focusing on what your audience cares about instead allows you to think more strategically about what messages would be relevant for them.
3. Avoids wastage based on assumptions. Perhaps the greatest benefit of this approach is that it helps you to avoid wasting much of your marketing dollars on trying to reach people who are in your demographic but may not necessarily care about your products or be in the market for them.

As a real example of this, imagine you are promoting a campaign where a brand is trying to raise money for breast cancer, the old demographic mold of thinking would be to target women 29-44.  Contrast that approach to one that focuses instead on everyone who has a personal belief in the issue and is vocal about it.  This could include women 29-44, but is just as likely to include a 15 year old boy who's mother is dealing with the disease.  The implication is obvious.  In terms of buying media, the shift required is creating more contextual marketing messages that touch on points and topics that a particular audience is likely to care about.  The whole point is that targeting by customer passion rather than demographics can make your marketing messages more relevant.  And at the end of the day that's what we all want.

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!

Three Simple Words And Three Sites Every Marketer Should Read

There are a lot of resources out there for marketers.  We read books and blog posts and articles and magazines and podcasts and video blogs and ... well, let's just say the list goes on and on.  Like a lot of people in our industry, I follow a lot of links and have a lot of opinions that I respect.  One of these days, I plan to publish my must read list of blogs, but I have to confess that this list is not as static as you might think.  There are many times when my reading pattern tends to be visiting a favourite blog of mine once a week due to client workload or my travel schedule, even though I wish I could read them more often. 

Still, when it comes to the usefulness of the marketing content that I read, there is some that is mostly about new ideas or news in the industry.  In fact, that's the category that most of it fits into.  There are three sites, however, that stand out because they are in a different league.  The reason is because instead of ideas, they offer tangible real case studies of what brands are doing and how effective it is.  Those sites are WOMMA, MarketingProfs and MarketingSherpa.

If these three sites are not on your reading list, you need to add them.  For any practicing marketer, the lessons you will get from the cases here will likely offer you pieces of information that you will not only find useful, but just might give you the reasons for your peers to envy your level of knowledge and new insights.  For example, a recent MarketingSherpa article (open access until tomorrow - 09/18/07) pointed out that the three most effective words for getting people to read more of an article were "click to continue."  Not "continue to article" or "read more" but the option with the word "click" in it.  I didn't know that, but now that I do - you can bet we will be using this information in our email marketing work.  That's the power of reading case studies like this.  They give you actionable insight and also great information to justify doing something or a benchmark to evaluate performance.  I love ideas and innovation, but sometimes what you really need is a good case study.   

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.

Barbie Fights the Tyranny of Toy Packaging

This past weekend, my son had his third birthday - a great moment in fatherhood for me because it's really the first birthday where he gets really cool toys that Daddy can spend an entire Sunday afternoon playing with.  I think I speak for all Dads when I say Baby Einstein doesn't really do it for us.  Give me a projectile shooting Batman doll anyday.  Unfortunately, a large part of Sunday was actually spent combating the diabolical packaging for most toys seemingly designed to keep the toys sealed inside plastic for life.  As most parents already know, if there was a nuclear war, most toy packaging would survive along with the cockroaches.  If you could make a protective bunker out of both, you'd be untouchable.

Mattel is trying to take a friendlier approach as profiled in this month's issue of Fast Company magazine.  Apparently, after extensive testing, Mattel learned that little girls don't enjoy watching their Daddy's crying in frustration after trying unsuccessfully to pry Barbie dolls from their impenetrable packaging.  They also learned that kids don't have the patience to untwist those twisty things and prefer to just pull at a toy to try and get it out (or fling it across the room if they are a three year old boy).  Hopefully they didn't pay too much for those insights.  The result they are coming out with, however, is the sort of packaging parents dream about.  Taking inspiration from food packagers, who have done a good job in many cases to offer easy access opening through single pull tabs, they redesigned Barbie packaging completely.  Now the package is easy to open, can be kept around as a storage container, and is something that girls can open themselves.  Better yet, it stands up to all the rigors of cross pacific travel that most toys make to get from their place of manufacture in Asia to a retail outlet in the US.  Apparently, that is the real reason for the iron clad packaging - so the toys remain in place after their rough international journey.

The whole example is a case study in addressing a pain point for your customers and making the experience better while still addressing the functional needs of the packaging.  I strongly encourage anyone who has any input into product packaging to read the full story in the magazine or online.  It's almost enough to make me go out and buy a Barbie.  Except that a small part of me still wants to keep that Batman packaging around ... you know, just in case that we ever need that nuclear bunker.

Add Your Votes To The New SxSW Panel Picker

For those who follow this blog, you know that I attend and speak at a lot of events.  Each has a different vibe and type of attendee - and I've been to some amazing events and heard many fantastic speakers.  This past year, one that stood out was the annual South by Southwest Festival that takes over the town of Austin, Texas for more than a week.  During that time, there is a film festival, a music festival and the interactive event - and the atmosphere around the event is unlike any other for interactive marketers.  Because of the combination of music, film and interactive - it is a haven for creativity and this past year it was a big venue for new sites and services to try and launch their betas and get them in front of influential individuals.  Many trace back the fast rise in popularity of Twitter back to SxSW this year.

Next year's event in March 2008 promises to be no different and is going to be very important timing for me because it is likely to coincide closely with the release of my new marketing book which I've been fairly silent about apart from announcing the deal back in June of this year. Look out early next week for much more detail about the book - but in the meantime I have several panel ideas up on the interactive panel picker for SxSW and there are more than 600 entries from great minds and influencers from across the interactive industry.  Visit the Panel Picker at http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ and check out some of the great panels in the lineup. 

Here is a direct link to go directly to my three panel submissions: http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/index/2/q:ogilvy

Also, here are the descriptions that I provided for each idea that you can read on the panel picker:

1. 10 Easy Ways To Piss Off a Blogger (and Other Mistakes Marketers Make) - The short history of blogging is filled with the examples of clueless marketers who have suffered being flamed, outed or ignored by the "cruel" blogosphere. Yet approaching bloggers is not as risky as it might seem -- it just requires a new approach. In this session, you will see real examples of 10 of the most common mistakes marketers make when approaching bloggers and how to avoid them. Vote for this panel now - http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/20
2. Creating the Ultimate Personal Brand With Social Media - Starting a blog is easy, but getting it to stand out among millions of blogs is going to be tougher and tougher. In this session, you will get real tips for how you can make your blog, social networks and online profiles all work together to help you build the ultimate personal brand -- to help you make money, get your dream job, sell that big book deal or rank first on Google for your name. Vote for this panel now - http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/19
3. The Authentic Business: Making Your Personality the Secret Weapon - Despite what you might have heard, transparency doesn't matter. In an age of authenticity, the rise of social media means that customers are looking for the true identity behind a company or a product and just letting them in is not enough. This session will show you how to make your business stand out by using your real personality.  Vote for this panel now - http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/21

If any of these seems interesting to you, I hope you register on the site and add your vote.  In addition to my own submissions, there are lots of other great panels worth voting for.  I have not yet had time to go through all of the more than 600 panel ideas, but I already cast my vote for several that stood out for me.  Here are a few of the ones I recommend checking out (I'll put in links when I get a chance to do the cutting and pasting - but for now you can use the search feature to find any of these):

• Michelle Osorio, DivX - How Filmmakers Got Their Voice Back
• Anastasia Goodstein, Ypulse.com - Totally Wired Teens: How Teens are Using Your Applications
• Zadi Diaz, Smashface - Immersive Entertainment: The Next Step in New Media Production
• G. Kofi Annan, Annansi LL - Africa 2.0: Affecting Change Using Technology
• Tim Ferriss, Author - The Art of Speed         
• Daniel Hope, MotivateMedia - Blog on Company Time Without Getting Dooced
• Henry Copeland, Blogads - The Suxorz: The Worst Ten Social Media Ad Campaigns of 2007
• Rachel Clarke, Behind the Buzz - Stories, Games and Your Brand         
• Mike Monello, Campfire - Persistent Engagement: Why Your _____ Isn't Enough
• Ned Desmond, Time Inc. - Cover Story: Building Brands for a Digital World

Happy voting and hope to see you at SxSW next year!

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What If Consumers Could Generate Ads They Want To See?

Last week I sent myself an email to generate a Google text ad.  As any Gmail user knows, Google serves ads based on the text content of your email.  So corresponding back and forth with a good friend of mine whose wedding I will be attending in Peru next month results in several offers for Peru travel advisors.  Those ads are relevant, so I am likely to click on them.  Of course, the saavier among you is probably reading this thinking it's not so different from text ads on any search engine.  After all, if I typed in "lima, peru" into any search engine, I would get lots of ads.  The problem is intent.  When I am just learning about Lima, all I want is background information.  At the point when I am ready to purchase, I want to see offers.  Keyword advertisers are getting smarter about targeting intent, but it sometimes seems like banner ads are getting left behind. 

Often they are still purchased based on the demographics of a site overall and simply served in random order.  Most would agree this doesn't work.  But think about how a printed copy of the yellow pages works.  These are essentially filled with banner ads and organized by category.  What if there was a site where banner ads were organized the same way?  As a consumer I could enter by region, category or even individual product.  Going to the site would give me a list of banners with the current promotional offer that the vendor has on right now for whatever I am seeking.  The ads, in effect, could be generated by page based on a user's search terms.  This is consumer generated advertising - but where they are calling up the ads that they want to see rather than creating ads themselves.  Thinking even more broadly - what if you could also call up television ads from an archive to watch based on what you were interested in buying?  Would someone in the market for laundry detergent watch three ads back to back from three different companies before making a decision?  Maybe not.  But if I'm looking for a hotel in Lima, or a new car, or a digital camera, or a new kitchen appliance ... you bet I would.

The Complete Gallery Of Simpsons Movie Marketing

In what may go down in history as one of the biggest integrated movie marketing efforts in the history of Hollywood, the pre-promotion for the upcoming Simpsons Movie is in full swing right now.  Unlike many other Hollywood promotions, the marketing for the Simpsons movies is going beyond billboard and print, beyond television, and beyond even interactive or viral.  This campaign has everything from creating your own animated avatar (that's mine on the left!) and having a chance to star in an upcoming episode, to winning the chance to get the premiere of the movie in your hometown provided you live in one of 14 Springfields around the US Vermont (the winning city ).  This post is an attempt to round all these marketing efforts up in a visual way.  Be warned, you might end up wasting an hour or more following all of the links below ... so read at your own risk!

• The Official Simpsons Movie Site
• Official Simpsons Marketing Partner Site
• Xbox Contest
• JetBlue Contest
• JetBlue Downloadable Movie Banners
• Be In An Animated Simpsons Episode 7-11 Promotion
• List of 7-11s Nationwide To Get A Kwik-E-Mart Makeover
• List of Simpsons Inspired Products To Be Sold at 7-11/Kwik-E-Marts
• USAToday Springfield Hometown Movie Premiere Challenge (UPDATE: Vermont Wins!)
• Simpsons MySpace Page
• Kwik-E-Mart in Burbank, CA Flickr Gallery
• Kwik-E-Mart in Dallas, TX Flickr Gallery
• Kwik-E-Mart in Orlando, FL Flickr Gallery
• Kwik-E-Mart in Bladensburg, MD (outside DC) Flickr Gallery
• Kwik-E-Mart in Denver, CO Flickr Gallery
• Kwik-E-Mart in Vancouver, BC (Canada) Flickr Gallery
• LAist Writeup of Burbank, CA Kwik-E-Mart
• DCist Writeup of DC Area Kwik-E-Mart
• Update: Kwik-E-Mart in New York City Flickr Gallery
• Update: Kwik-E-Mart in Las Vegas Flickr Gallery
• Update: Kwik-E-Mart in Mountain View, CA Flickr Gallery
• Update: Simpsons X Vans Custom Skateboard Shoes (via comment from rj at SneakerPlay)
  
  • Simpsons X Vans (Mr. Cartoon Design)
  • Simpsons X Vans (Gary Painter & Geoff McFetridge Designs)
  • Simpsons x Vans (Tony Munoz & Taka Hayashi Designs)
  • Simpsons x Vans (Futura & Todd “Reas” James Designs)
• Update: Simpsons Create 180ft Homer Chalk Drawing in UK Field (Via reader Mark Tong)
• Update: Ben & Jerry's Release Two New Simpsons 1-Day Only Flavours (Need an image if anyone has one)
• Update: Simpsons Mobile site offers phone downloads and first mobile game
• Update: Burger King Simpsonize Me Site to "Simpsonize" a photo you upload
• Update: Full story and fashion spread in Harper's Bazaar magazine
• Update: 4 Different Collectible Simpsons Covers for Entertainment Weekly (Via DeliFaks)

If anyone has any other links of marketing related efforts from partners, or other images from Kwik-E-Marts, please email me or leave a comment to this post and I'll add them.  Also, below are lots of images and screengrabs from these efforts -- enjoy!

The Simpsons Movie Poster (with every character from the show):

Simpsons - Create Your Own Avatar Tool:

Simpsons USA Today Springfield Challenge:

Simpsons Official Partner Page - www.seeyellow.com:

Simpsons MySpace Page and "Simpsonize Your World" Contest:

7-11 "Get Animated Into A Simpsons Episode" Contest:

7-11 Real Store "Kwik-E-Mart" Makeovers:

Images from Kwik-E-Mart Makeovers (images taken from Flickr Galleries referenced above):

Simpsons XBox Promotion (Winner of "Lamest Promotion" of the lot so far):

JetBlue Blog Takeover by Mr. Burns (Winner of "Most Unique"):

JetBlue City Destination Bubbles (brilliantly boils the essence of each city into a single Simpsonesque stereotype - 14 cities in total):

 

And last, but not least ... a real life Squishee! (from DCist post linked above):

Update: Simpsons X Vans Sneaker Designs (images from www.hypebeast.com & www.honeyee.com)

UPDATE (07/11/07): Vermont Wins USA Today Contest for Hometown Premiere

UPDATE (07/13/07): Influential Marketing Blog reader Christopher Trela shares this image of In-Theater Marketing from NY

Update (07/19/07): SimpsonizeMe Site From Burger King (with funny error messages when site doesn't respond):

Update (07/19/07): Simpsons Mobile Website and Mobile Meltdown Marketing Game:

Update (07/19/07): Fashion Spread In Harper's Bazaar (via FYI-Mag)

Update (07/19/07): Simpsons "Homer Erectus" 180ft Chalk Drawing at Cerne Abbas (via Influential Marketing Blog reader Mark Tong):

Update (07/20/07): 4 Different Collectible Covers for Entertainment Weekly Magazine

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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.