Influential Marketing Blog

How "Location Shifting" Could Reinvent GeoTargeted Online Marketing

There's a pretty simple idea that could transform the landscape of targeted online communications, but no one is doing it ... yet.  If you have ever done any online marketing that has been targeted by geography, you know that there are pretty much only two ways to do it currently online:

1. Based on IP address of where the user is accessing the Internet. Notoriously unreliable because of shared servers and inability to truly pinpoint a user's location.
2. Based on a profile that the user has created indicating where they live. This is much better with two big assumptions ... that people tell you the truth about where they are, and that they are usually there (as opposed to travelling).

For someone like me, this system makes it impossible to target me on a geographic basis. I am always travelling, often using Internet through shared connections in multiple locations, and my Facebook profile says I belong to the San Francisco network (intentionally), even though I live in DC.  My email address has the word Australia in it and I registered it while I was living in Australia and never changed my region. There are a lot of other consumers like me, making it tough for any business to truly target geographically by relying on such uncertain data. The one solution with promise involves using the mobile platform to geotarget based on where a person physically is. This is good, but still incomplete because it doesn't allow you to predict where someone will be.  What if there was a way to geotarget your messages not to where a user currently is, or even where they say they live, but to where they will be?

This is possible today, because more than ever before, people are now broadcasting where they are going to be and what they are currently doing through social media.  Look at a platform such as Twitter, where people routinely update their status to indicate where they are and what they are feeling.  Or a travel site like Dopplr, which I use to update my upcoming trips.  To a degree, this is private information - but many people publish it live for anyone to see.  Location shifting means geotargeting your marketing communications based on information about location that your consumers are giving you or posting online.  As a result, if smart marketers started using this information, a whole range of things could be possible:

1. Banks could verify that you are travelling and not have to cancel your cards because of suspected fraud
2. Marketers could send special offers to people who express a particular sentiment in a certain location (eg - someone Twitters that they are hungry in Manhattan, and gets a Twitter message back with a coupon to a local pizza shop)
3. Car services could automatically update their drivers who are waiting for pickups
4. Your friends could invite you to events through social networks based on where you will be and not just where you live

What else could be possible with location shifting?  Let me know if you think this idea works.

Plse Forgiv Typoes - Jott Fights Terse Reply Syndrome

For anyone who uses a Blackberry religiously, or works with those who do - you also know that there is a new language that has emerged for that mode of communication. Similar to text messages, brevity is a growing necessity with Blackberry communications and it is leading to people doing things like including a disclaimer at the bottom of their emails apologizing for the short replies, and possible grammatical and spelling errors of their message. Apparently having small keys is enough of an excuse to spell poorly and forget about periods or commas.  I wish we had that excuse when were were in school. Still, we have all seen this effect and to a degree have probably learned to accept it because there wasn't an alternative.

Probably, you don't even think about it anymore ... until a campaign like the "Terse Reply Syndrome" from Jott reminds you that those short mistyped replies are no way to communicate. Jott has a beta service that allows you to speak a reply into your Blackberry and it will type it for you. That alone is an interesting and useful service (assuming it actually works), but as a marketer you can learn a lot from their approach to launching it. The Terse Reply Syndrome (TRS) is a situation that most businesspeople will immediately recognize, whether they have been on the receiving or sending end of these types of messages. And we would all love to find a better way. The campaign works because it talks about a real situation of need that many business people will be familiar with, and presents a solution that allows you to use the same tools you are used to using. Their videos (shot in the style of a "when the moment is right" Viagra ad), promise "side effects" of longer more thoughtful replies, less thumb stress, and more free time.

This is where the message really hits home, because you can have better communications without giving up your Blackberry. Their useful blog offers further tips on how to effectively use their service, and it even works with lots of common social media tools. The service is in limited beta and free at the moment, but you should sign up quickly because eventually it will be a paid service. It's easy to imagine this is one of those few services where once you try it for free, you are probably going to pay for it.*  Smart marketing combined with a great and useful service. This is the type of Web2.0 service we could all use more of.

* Note - This post is about the marketing behind Jott. I haven't been able to try it yet as it doesn't appear that you can use it on a Blackberry that is issued from work when your employer doesn't pay for phone access (which my employer doesn't). If anyone knows a way around this, please share!

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!

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.

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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3 Things We Need (Besides the iPhone) To Revolutionize Mobile Marketing

As writeups of experiences with the iPhone cover blogs and traditional media today - many marketers will likely be reconsidering what their mobile marketing strategy should be in a world bound to evolve rapidly now that the iPhone is in people's hands.  John Bell, the head of our Digital Influence group, has a great post about how we have been helping our clients to craft a mobile influencer strategy for some time now.  The promise of mobile marketing has been far removed from what has actually been possible in the past.  The iPhone may bridge some of this gap, with it's integrated web browser, built in ability to access Wi-fi hotspots, and other features.  The device, however, is not the only thing holding mobile marketing back.  Here are are a few other changes we need to see before marketers can maximize what they get out of mobile marketing.

1. Time Based Opt In - The way most opt-in's work is that an individual company seeks my permission to market to me, and once they have it they can send me messages at any time based on their own schedule.  We all know this comes with wastage as many of the messages will likely reach me at a time when I am not interested in them.  For email, this is not as much of a problem as I can just save it for later.   Mobile marketing is about immediacy - and therefore less suited to this model of opt-ins.  What we need is a time based opt-in where I can indicate my status and openness to marketing messages as easily as I change my status on an instant messenger window.  This works for consumers and for marketers - ensuring the messages arrive at a point when consumers are most likely to act on them.
2. My Marketing Profile - Unfortunately, delivering messages at the right time doesn't necessarily mean they will be relevant.  Right now, users can create profiles on social networking sites, indicate news preferences to get the most relevant news, and otherwise create profiles on thousands of sites to save their preferences.  What people can't usually set is their marketing preferences.  Of course, you can opt in to messages from individual marketers, but what about opting into messages from every company in a mall that you frequent, or all middle eastern restaurants in Brooklyn?  Setting these parameters into my profile lets me opt into messages that have the most relevance.  The difficulty is the level of coordination (sometimes between competitors) that would be required to make this work.
3. Synchronization of Mobile And Retail - As anyone who has ever downloaded a marketing offer to their mobile phone knows, the entire process falls apart if you go into a retail location to redeem the offer and the staff are unaware of the promotion or how to honor it.  This is a large stumbling block and one that will continue to hinder the adoption of mobile as a channel to receive marketing messages.  Consumers need to feel that what they get via mobile is integrated into a real life experience (where appropriate), or mobile marketing will always need to fight the same credibility battle.

We can do effective mobile marketing without these advances, of course, but getting a model for solving some of these challenges will help the industry as a whole to get smarter and more interactive about mobile marketing that people actually want to get.  Hopefully the iPhone is just the beginning of a new era in mobile ...

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A Few Non-boring Ways to Use Twitter For Marketing

Since around the time of SxSW and perhaps earlier, the buzz on Twitter has gone through the roof.  Collecting groups of text messages and emails from people cataloguing "what they are doing now" might seem like a colossal waste of time, but it has found a devoted following from bloggers and those actively engaged in social media because of the immediacy and real time appeal of sharing your thoughts.  This is different than blogging, this is like carrying a text based recorder on your shoulder to broadcast your location and current thoughts to the world.  It's not hard to see why this would appeal to bloggers who are already sharing their personal views of the world online.  Twitter adds a frame of reference and has the same live appeal of instant messenger.

Still, a quick visit to the homepage of Twitter may leave the uninitiated unimpressed.  It's mostly a collection of people you don't know talking about doing stuff you don't care about.  Even if you read these updates from people you do know, it's tough to get excited about.  The tool, though, offers a great platform for sharing experiences real time and has plenty of potential for marketing.  Here are just a few non-boring ways to use Twitter for marketing:

1. Capture the live pulse of an event - This is one of the most popular marketing uses that I have seen for Twitter, where it is used to offer a visual display of conversations happening around an event.  More and more interactive events have this, and I suspect other non-Web related events will start to incorporate it as well to offer participants a visual way to track the pulse of an event and determine where to spend time.
2. Deepen a static experience through live commentary - I saw an interesting story last week about how Fox is going to be using Twitter to promote their new show Drive by having the director provide live updates and directors commentary via Twitter throughout the show.  We will definitely be seeing more of this type of marketing in the near future. 
3. Facilitate collaborative watching - When it comes to watching video content online or on television, Twitter can allow you to watch something "alongside" anyone anywhere by sharing your impressions and reading impressions from others as a program unfolds.  This is a powerful new method of sharing feedback and ideas   
4. Add a new dimension to promotions - Scavenger hunts, user generated content campaigns, and other reality based marketing promotions are growing popularity as ways to encourage interaction from customers.  Twitter can offer a way of encouraging dialogue between promotion participants and adding an "instant message style" dimension to a promotion without the privacy and contact acceptance barriers normally associated with using IM for marketing.

Tapping Twitter for marketing is still a relatively unique ocurrence -- but from what I can see, there are plenty of opportunities.  If the popularity of the site continues to grow it's likely these opportunities will continue to get more appealing, and the list of ideas for using Twitter in marketing will grow as well.

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2 Recaps of The Millennials Conference

Yesterday I moderated a panel on user generated content at the Millennials Conference put on by my friends at Digital Media Wire, an event that featured many brands, thinkers and even millennials themselves talking about media and marketing to this new generation of young people.  I published two separate summaries of the event, the first of which was about the multicultural thread that I noted throughout the event which you can read on the 360 Digital Influence team blog.  I am part of the 360 Digital Influence team and the group blog features lots of great ideas from folks on our team and is a worthwhile read.  The other recap was written for Anastasia and the readers of YPulse, a popular marketing blog all about targeting Millennials (alternately called Generation Y).  If you haven't seen of visited Ypulse and do any marketing targeting youth today, I highly recommend adding it to your list of blogs you read regularly.  And Anastasia has a new book out called Totally Wired which is also well worth picking up if you want to get inside the wired lives of the milllennial generation.

Links:
A Recap of The Millennials Conference On YPulse
The Multicultural Mindset of Millennials on the 360 Digital Influence Blog

Learning from Blackberry's Social Media Marketing Mistakes

Blackberry's recent "Share Your Stories" campaign was inspiring for me, though probably not in the way they intended.  I actually love my Blackberry, but their entire "Share your Story" campaign just struck me as lacking in any of the lessons many other marketers have learned about Web 2.0 marketing and what works in social media.  The mistakes were so basic, that it led me to put together this post listing a few of them and some reactions for how they could have been avoided.  As more and more consumers continue to find ways to interact with brands that they are passionate about, the popularity of UGC campaigns will continue to rise.  Blackberry has such great potential to tap their own brand enthusiasts for efforts like this ... but they fall short in this campaign in several ways.  Without further intro, here are some of the key mistakes and thoughts on how Blackberry might have been able to execute this campaign idea differently:

1. Mistake #1 - Not offering a payoff or incentive for users:  Asking consumers to share their stories with you is one thing, but giving them an incentive beyond relying on their affinity for your brand is vital.  This is not about turning any campaign into a contest with winners and prizes.  The incentive could be as simple as guaranteeing that your story is shared with the most relevant people inside of Blackberry, or sending a personal email of thanks back.  The point is, an incentive answers the question of why ... and without necessarily promising a financial reward as the answer.
2. Mistake #2 - Forgetting about photos and video: It probably seems odd in this time of popularity for online video and YouTube for any User Generated Content campaign to launch without some ability for customers to include their photos and videos as part of their submissions.  Of course text based entry is easier - but for those customers who really love their Blackberries, why not let them submit images and video.  Particularly when one of the coolest features of the new Pearl is the integrated camera.
3. Mistake #3 - Only promoting campaign through advertising:  The way I found the campaign was through a banner ad on CBSNews.com (not exactly a hotbed for consumer generated content).  Though I am unsure about their other online advertising efforts, I am fairly certain they missed the most easy promotion available to them - a link from the Blackberry.com website.  There are always a host of reasons why clients decide not to link to their promotions from their own homepage, and the only reason I have accepted in the past as reasonable is not wanting to give up the real estate on a ecommerce site to a promotional unit.  Blackberry has no such reason and should be promoting this campaign everywhere they can, especially on their own site.
4. Mistake #4 - Avoiding publishing contributions real time: Again, legal and filtering reasons are probably behind Blackberry's choice to not publish any stories immediately ... however as a consumer being invited to share my story and not be able to read anyone others before doing so seems odd.  What is the plan for these stories they are getting anyway?  According to the T&Cs, the only thing that's clear is that a consumer gives up all rights and control to any story they submit.  The only way they could make it any scarier for a consumer to participate is by asking for a full driver's license number upfront like Bud.TV initially did when they first launched (which they have since corrected).

Does anyone have any other thoughts on something I might be missing here?  Would love to hear more from other folks who are launching (or considering launching) new User Generated Content campaigns using social media and struggling with some of these issues ...

IdeaBar: "Beaconvertising" And New Social Media Phones

This post is not about the iPhone.  You might have heard that many people believe the latest innovation from Apple will not only revolutionize the mobile phone industry, but maybe even the future of mobile marketing.  Whether it does or doesn't, in the short term, it's easy to forget that ideas for innovation may come from elsewhere.  The Helio from Samsung is one of those kinds of products.  The interface and look of the phone is not necessarily unique.  Yet built into the phone are a range of smart features, from integrated support for MySpace Mobile, to full screen landscape video viewing.  The feature that I found most interesting, however, was the built in GPS.   

A core feature of this GPS service is something they have called the "Buddy Beacon" - a way of broadcasting your location to friends so you can find one another at any time.  This idea of the beacon is a powerful concept with many other applications.  Rather than most maps which rely on street addresses and turn by turn directions, the beacon can be a marker of location that offers a visual way for someone to find you ... or find a location.  It's a portable homing device.  What if retail stores could use this beacon concept for marketing?  The idea of "Beaconvertising" simply refers to the idea of broadcasting your location to customers in a way that helps them find you in the real world.  Now think about all the situations where as a consumer all you need is the closest location of something.  The closest place to buy diapers - the closest place to rent a movie - the closest place to fix a flat tire ... the list is endless.  These are purchase decisions made largely based on location - yet there are still only rudimentary ways to get this information on mobile devices. 

I should also point out that Beaconvertising is not just for the future - Business 2.0 reports in this month's issue about a few advertisers and campaigns, including an effort from Saturn to help customers locate their nearest dealership - that are finding ways to use Google Earth and MSN's competing services to drive users to their physical locations.  Jeff Goodby notes in the article that he believes "every retail chain will eventually do this."  As GPS phones become more common - the range of uses will continue to grow as well.  Keep your eye out for Beaconvertising through GPS - it just may become the next killer app (and opportunity for marketing) on the mobile phone.  Take that, iPhone.

 View all "Idea Bar" posts on this blog 

The iPhone Controversy and Apple's Big Brand Challenge

Every news media outlet and just about every blog in the universe is buzzing about Apple's big iPhone announcement Monday at MacWorld.  It has been a busy few days of announcements with CES, MacWorld and the Detroit Auto Show all happening this week and fighting for the headlines.  As it turns out, the real headline grabber has been the rising battle between Cisco and Apple over the rights to the trademark iPhone name.  Despite it's perfect consistency with the rest of Apple's product line, it turns out the branded trademark "iPhone" actually belonged to Cisco since 2000, and they are also promoting a smart portfolio of products bearing the same name that quietly focus on reinventing the home telephone to include some of the features available in mobile phones.  In a blog post about Apple's move of announcing their own iPhone, Cisco offers a thoughtful response painting Apple as the spoiled child who tried to get the name they wanted, couldn't reach an agreement in time, and decided to move ahead with announcing the name anyway.  Paul Kedrosky has some interesting further thoughts on this, including an analysis of a part of Cisco's suit against Apple that points to some corporate espionage-like efforts from Apple to try and steal the rights to the name.

With this situation and Apple's choice of using proprietary formats for music and video throughout iTunes (insuring purchased digital music and video cannot be played on other devices) - they continue to risk being labeled as a brilliant product design company with a flawed approach to industry openness and interoperability.  So far, they have weathered this storm because consumers that have a Powerbook, iPod, iTV and (eventually) an iPhone don't realize this flaw.  But there are a growing number of customers unlikely to change their entire life into an "iLife" and who will continue to mix and match their technologies and products.  For these customers, Apple's iconic product design is only one piece of the puzzle.  There are lots of anti-Mac videos on YouTube already, poking fun at the elitism and arrogance that is becoming a growing part of Apple's brand reputation.  This controversy with the product name and Cisco is also fueling this reputation.  Ultimately, I think taking on Apple will turn out to be a smart marketing and PR move for Cisco to ride some of the media interest in Apple's iPhone - as well as another blow to help redefine Apple by it's business practices rather than only on the merits of their stunning product design.  Realistically, for now the product design will probably be enough to keep them ahead.  Not unlike the old Microsoft of the late 90s, in the longer term they will need to find a way to refocus their brand away from becoming the evil corporation bent on world domination - and more towards a brand that uses stunning product design to enable the creation and sharing of digital content openly in a world that will continue to realize the promise of personal media.

Update (1/11/07): In just a day, there have been hundreds of comments added to the post on Cisco's blog explaining their position while Apple remains silent because they don't have the same direct dialogue with customers.  The backlash is coming, and interestingly, it is coming even from Apple loyalists.  Clearly the real reason Cisco is starting this fight is because they see Apple's next move may be to shift into VoIP and perhaps start to build out the AirPort product line to directly compete with Linksys.  It's a fight the entire consumer electronics industry will be watching very closely.

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CES and Marketing in the Age of Control

Last night Bill Gates shared his vision of the future to kickoff the Consumer Electronics Show - and focus attention during the annual gadget-fest on the role of Microsoft's Vista in how consumers will be using electronics and technology in the coming year.  Not surprisingly, his focus was on "connected experiences" and how the vision behind Vista is not just a sexed up user interface for your PC, but also the promise of connecting all your digital devices, and more importantly, sharing content between them.  When Bill Gates makes a prediction, it's worth paying attention to - and his prediction here is that users will continue to demand inter-connectedness from their devices.  Yet if users are in control of content, they need to be able to share it more easily. 

On The Simpsons last night, Homer made a joke about not being able to figure out how to load a video onto Marge's iPod.  It's a problem more and more consumers are facing (even the smart ones!) - and not just around the iPod.  Giving them control means allowing them to use, share and even modify the content they are consuming with ease.  Of course, as a marketer, my mind first turns to what this age of control that Microsoft and others are dedicated to ushering in will mean for the art of marketing.  I was tempted to create  list here, but I think the solution is not necessarily a top ten list, but rather a single principle: marketing with content worth consuming - and letting consumers share it easily.  The age of control is placing a new emphasis on content marketing ... that is, the idea that you need to create (or let your users create) more than just a marketing message. 

This is the formula behind BMW Films.  It means focusing on the content, and also giving people the right incentives and tools to pass the message along.  Blurring the lines of interactive, broadcast and word of mouth - ultimately the goal is to generate a branded message that has a value and helping people to pass it along.  The value can come from many things, whether it is useful, entertaining, humorous, or just plain wierd.  The marketers that understand the value of creating quality content are the ones that will stand out.  The others will be ignored.  So in this age of control, before you launch your marketing efforts - ask yourself if you are creating content worth interacting with.  If the answer is no, chances are your customers are already filtering you out.

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A Recap of 2006 on Influential Interactive Marketing

Let's start with a warning ... this is the "clip show" post where I recycle a lot of old material so if that causes you extreme pain, please close this window now and come back tomorrow.  For all the rest of you, it's the holidays and a quick glance around the marketing blogosphere will show that these clip show posts are in right now.  With nearly 400 post on this blog already, there is lots of content to choose from ... allowing me the luxury to conveniently ignore those posts from the past year that are outdated or that I just don't like anymore.  Here is a sampling of the rest:

Concepts & Ideas:
This is a collection of concepts and ideas that were introduced or discussed on this blog and then travelled virally to other blogs and were discussed elsewhere in media.  A good collection of ideas, many of which I still hope to implement on a client campaign (but haven't yet).

• Soundbombs
• Virtual Hugs
• Placecasting
• Widget Marketing
• Text Messaging Customer Service
• Tagging with Domain Names
• Social Media Optimization
• Automated Blog Translation
• Photopedia
• Human Search Filters

Rules & Guides:
These are a group of "Guy Kawasaki style" posts written in list format as guides to various topics from SMO to viral marketing.  It's a format I have always liked and you will probably see many more posts in this format going into 2007.

• Avoiding the Dark Side of Social Media
• 5 Rules of Social Media Optimization
• Signs Your Viral Marketing May Flop
• 7 Tips on Pitching Bloggers
• Golden Rules of Blog Etiquette

Presentations & Published Work:
Links to presentations given at industry events as well as guest contributions to other blogs.  There is some good powerpoint link bait in here, useful for those who are interested in any of these topics but couldn't make it to the events referenced.

• 7 Rules for Getting into Search (Search Engine Strategies Conference)
• 7 Tips on Pitching Bloggers (White Paper)
• The Human Side of Search (Search Insider Summit)
• Guide to Blog Marketing (SixApart Seminar) 
• Finding your Personality in Personal Media (Guest Column on Strumpette)

That's it.  Look out tomorrow for an all new post about what I think the top ten marketing ideas to watch will be in 2007.

Hyatt Offers Wake Up Calls from Christie Brinkley

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In an interesting new promotion from Hyatt for Gold and Diamond members, you can go online to www.hyattwakeup.com and schedule a personalized wake up call from a friend or family member, or choose to have a standard wakeup call from Christie Brinkley.  This strikes me as a stunningly simple and effective campaign that any hotel chain could have done, but surprisingly haven't until now.  Wake up calls are a natural fit for hotels and offering a gimmick like this is sure to get travellers talking.  In a particularly smart move (assuming it is intentional), the wake up calls can be ordered to your home phone or cell phone - allowing you to use the service anytime, not just after spending a night in a Hyatt.  Oddly, you can't actually use it during a hotel stay at Hyatt, because it won't work with hotel phone systems. 

The reason I love the concept of custom wake up calls is that they are the ultimate irony in interruption marketing - marketing delivered at a moment when most consumers are actually seeking an interruption.  Attention is likely to be high (though a bit sleepy) and there is a very personal element to a wake up call.  Choosing the first thing you hear in the morning is an intimate decision, just like choosing a hotel to spend a night with/at.  The possibilities for hotel brands that understand this component of intimacy within their brands are nearly endless.  For example, with Starwood's launch of the new Aloft hotel brand in Second Life, extending this promotion could really get fun.  Who wouldn't order a wakeup call from Christie Brinkley's avatar, or any celebrity for that matter?  As more smart travel brands start to focus on creating their own moments of intimacy with travellers, the role of personalization in travel marketing is likely to generate lots more creative ideas.

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