Influential Marketing Blog

A Revolutionary Idea: Branding Tap Water

Here is an interesting thought for a Friday afternoon: what if tap water had a brand?  When you think about it, all any kind of bottled water is doing is selling you a brand for something that is arguably no different than what you can get for free from the tap in most industrialized countries.  In fact, some arguments point out that tap water can even be healthier than bottled water because of the increased regulations around its filtration from many governments.  In a brilliant campaign to try and solve tap water's "branding problem" - Eric Yaverbaum and Mark DiMassimo are taking a marketer's approach to solving the world's increasing love affair with overpriced resource-sucking water bottles that are simply ending up in landfils.

Their idea is a simply yet powerful one ... that if people had a brand to associate with tap water and could visibly share that brand as a badge of honor, then they would.  Thus they created Tappening, an initiative that encourages people to "Think Global.  Drink Local."  The effort has a small website, and sells water bottles for $14.95 each.  It is also linked to a film about our incessant creation of landfill mass called Garbage!  Check out the site and the effort ... it's a great example of a green campaign taking on a cause by doing something that many cause related campaigns forget: creating a brand that people can get passionate about.

(via TrendCentral)

Guest Post: What's In a Name?

By Nedra Weinreich

I'm honored to have been invited to join the illustrious cast of bloggers here filling in. Congratulations to Rohit and his family on the birth of Jaiden Kumar! What a beautiful name.

I've been thinking about names a lot lately. Many would say that names are destiny. What you are called shapes your self-perception and how others respond to you. How do you picture a woman named Brandi? What does she look like? What is her personality? What kind of job might she have? Now picture someone named Susan. Do different images come to mind? What you call yourself and what others call you is important.

Now, what if everyone had variations of the same name? This is quite common in China, where there are more than a billion people sharing about 100 surnames, and 1.3 million people are named Liu Bo. It happens here in the US too, where we have plenty of John Smiths and Lisa Williams. In fact, my sister's best friend in elementary school had a name pronounced exactly the same as hers (though different by a couple of letters). It gets confusing pretty quickly, especially when you are searching online for someone with a very common name.

This naming issue has come to the fore over the past couple of years in my field of specialization, social marketing. No, I'm not talking about using Facebook and blogs and word of mouth. I'm referring to the over quarter-century old marketing specialty geared toward motivating health and social change. If you do a Google search on "social marketing," you'll see that most (but not all) of the results are websites providing information on this established field.

However, do the same search on Technorati, and you'll find that nearly all of the results are from bloggers using the term "social marketing" to refer to anything from using social media like blogs or YouTube, to using social networking websites like Facebook and MySpace, to anything vaguely Web 2.0-ish.

Yikes -- this gets awfully confusing for anyone who wants to learn, talk about, or search for information on either type of social marketing. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but an American Beauty rose and Rose Kennedy would smell quite a bit different from each other. The same shift is happening right now with the term "social advertising," which had a very specific meaning of advertising about social issues, but suddenly found itself with a new role as a result of Facebook's Social Ads (which spurred its own Facebook protest group).

Why is this issue important?

First, and most practically, people searching online for information about either type of social marketing are bound to encounter the wrong sites for their needs. Only those who already have some idea of what they are looking for will be able to effectively pick through the results.

Second, clarity saves a lot of misunderstandings and wasted time. When I'm talking to tech-savvy people for the first time, I generally have to spend the first part of the conversation explaining what kind of social marketing I do. And whenever someone else refers to "social marketing," I have to make sure that we both mean the same thing by the term.

Third, we health and social change social marketers have had a hard time building a brand identity for social marketing -- it's still widely unknown or misunderstood even among nonprofit and government agency people who have never heard of social media or Web 2.0. Mixing in the name confusion definitely doesn't help!

So, what can we do about it at this point? It could be that the new meaning has spread so well via "social marketing" that the genie is out of the bottle now and there's no going back. This would mean either living with the ambiguity or rebranding the old social marketing under another name -- I'm thinking "social change marketing" might do a good job of retaining the essence while clarifying the distinction (too New Coke?). Or we could work to stamp out all incorrect uses of the term while arguing for more semantic exactitude.  I've tried being the social marketing police for a while, but that loses its appeal when you feel vastly outnumbered. Looks like I'm going to have to use my marketing prowess to bring about change on this. Okay, then...

Be a better marketer when you buy classic Social Marketing! Avoid those looks of disapproval from your fellow marketers by using the term correctly. Everybody's doing it! Tell all your friends!

But I'd love to hear your ideas too.

Nedra Weinreich is a social marketing consultant and blogger at Spare Change.

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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Can LitLiberation Raise $1 Million For Public Schools in 4 Weeks?

Tim Ferriss thinks so, and he's bringing together an amazing list of influencers like Marc Andreessen, Drew Curtis, Tom Foremski, Matt Mullenweg, Darren Rowse, Premal Shah, Gina Trapani and lots of others to help him do it.  When I first met Tim at an event before his phenomenally successful 4 Hour Workweek came out, he was just getting ready for the book launch.  At SxSW, when the book (and Tim) were just starting to generate buzz - we had a great lunch brainstorm talking about angles for the book and how to market it.  A few short weeks later, 4HWW was out and rocketing to the top of all the best seller lists (check out Steve Rubel's great summary of his marketing strategy).  Clearly, Tim is no stranger to setting bold goals for himself and is one of those people that usually get there. 

So when he emailed me and said he was launching LitLiberation aiming to hit $1 million to fund small school projects by getting lots of top bloggers to add their voices and identities to the campaign, it didn't take long for me to jump in.  My wife is a teacher, so I understand well the problem that many teachers have of never getting enough funding to do the things they want to do or give their students the resources they need.  Many times, teachers are spending their own money to buy these things, a tragedy if you consider how underpaid most teachers are in this country.  The LitLiberation Project through DonorsChoose.org let's these teachers enter proposals which you can choose to fund, and the bloggers Tim has invited can participate by creating their own challenges and funding them.  After searching for some time, I choose just over ten projects that I thought looked great and already put in more than $500 of my own money to fund some of them.  Here are a few simple proposals from teachers that are listed on my page:

• A lamination machine to create cards for children with Autism to help them learn
• Post-it notes for high schoolers to easily take notes without writing in their text books
• A new carpet for a Kindergarten classroom to create a germ free environment
• New international music CDs from Putumayo and others to replace a cut school music program

Most of these proposals need just a few hundred bucks and they are fully funded.  It's not like Kiva.org where you are lending the money, but being part of this challenge made me realize that it does offer the one thing that most literacy and school funding programs have trouble generating: a sense of urgency.  This is not like a broken dam or a village ravaged by war where the effects are highly visible.  But it is important and has a direct impact on all of our futures.  So have a look at some of the projects on my page and across DonorsChoose.org and consider donating, create your own page, blogging or writing about this cause or finding any other way you can to help.  Tim's an inspiring guy, and his latest inspiration can help a lot of people.  I'm glad to be part of it.

View Proposals and Donate Now >>

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!

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.

The Greenest Sports Event on Earth

Yesterday during an afternoon session at the Corporate Climate Response event, Jack Groh, Environmental Manager at the NFL Environmental gave an engaging presentation about the NFL's environmental policy.  He may seem like an odd choice to speak at an event like this, and the National Football League may seem like an even odder choice to be considered a leader in environmental issues - but sitting through a 30 minute presentation about all the efforts underway at the NFL - one cannot help but be left not only with a sense of awe at all the NFL has been doing, but also that most people have never heard about all these efforts.  Interestingly, one of the first points that Groh made in his presentation was how this is not a new program at the NFL.  The environmental program has been going for 15 years - and when you think about their efforts in terms of this timeframe, seeing the organization as a leader in environmental policy no longer seems like a hard claim to believe. 

The greatest opportunity for the NFL to lead is in the Super Bowl, which Groh points to as the greenest single day sports event in the world (not to compete with the Olympics which takes place over several weeks).  As evidence, he took the audience through a timeline of efforts from the NFL starting with Super Bowl XXVII in Pasadena (1993) with a pilot recycling program.  At the time, there were no large scale recycling programs and no precedent.  From these humble beginnings, Groh shared that this year they are on track to be using all recycled products for plates, cups, forks, etc. at this year's Super Bowl.  The program, however, is far broader than just recycling.  You can read a full list of efforts the NFL implemented around last year's support to support support their claim of the event as the "greenest."

At the end of the day, Groh explains that the NFL's Environmental Policy is about legacy - a big word at the NFL.  It comes down to answer the question of what you will leave behind.  The NFL's efforts have served as a model for other event planners, last year they saved nearly 100 metric tonnes of CO2 and Groh himself has inspired other large organizations to get greener, including the US military.  When it comes to making an effect and leaving a strong legacy, the NFL is a model citizen worth copying.

Note: This is a republished entry that was originally posted on the Climate Response Blog.

US Government Uses Blog Summit to Foster Discussion on Pandemic Flu

Consider this a fair warning - this week I will often be blogging about client work as I contribute to the Climate Response Blog.  As I head to London for that event, simultaneously our team has been spearheading a bold new initiative for the Department of Health and Human Services designed to engage bloggers in a discussion around the potential threat of a flu pandemic.  The Pandemic Flu Leadership Blog launched late last week with 16 contributors from health, community, business and faith-based sectors including Pierre Omidyar (founder of Ebay), Nedra Weinriech (author of the Spare Change blog) and many leading authorities on pandemic flu.  The blog convenes these thinkers and other participants for 5 weeks, leading up to a Leadership Summit event in Washington DC.

Though the topic is pretty grim, many experts say a flu pandemic is impending and not a question of if, but of when.  The blog is an interesting experiment from a government agency on bringing influential voices together and thinking outside the powerful walls of Washington.  The blog summit runs through June 27th and will likely stir up some great discussion online both about the topic and about the fact that some government agencies are finally getting smarter and more innovative about fostering discussion and using personal media to spread awareness about an important issue.

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Are You Marketing Your Product Backstory?

Several weeks ago, I noted an interesting story about how Dole is offering "farm codes" printed onto stickers that are placed on organic bananas offering consumers the chance to get to know more about the farm that grew the banana by visiting www.doleorganic.com.  On Dole Organic, you can see such information as a description of the banana plantation, photos of workers, and Google Earth images.  Despite the site's average design and limited functionality (no ability for users to interact with the content or add their voice) - the effort represents a great example of new thinking that product marketers are using to capitalize on the global trend towards ethical consumerism.  As more and more attention is being paid to the manufacturing or acquisition process for products, as well as the carbon footprint behind these processes, offering insight into the backstory for how your product is made is becoming more and more necessary.  Certification programs like Dole's Farm Code effort, or the international movement to create a certification for conflict-free diamonds are just two examples.  Soon, the "Made in Tiawan" stickers so often seen and ridiculed through the 80s and 90s may be replaced by reports on the factory, images from the floors, and interviews with the workers.  Social responsibility and ethical consumerism is not just about buying green products, but also understanding the process that they are created with and choosing based on this information.

Yet product backstories have more potential than just offering environmental or societal impact assessments for products.  Backstories are a cultural trend.  More and more films are taking a different approach to the traditional beginning to end timetable for telling a story.  Lost is perhaps the best example of the rise of the backstory, as the hit television show has used the engaging format of weaving a backstory of one of the show's characters into each episode to allow viewers to learn more about each character.  The backstories fill in the details and deepen the emotional connection of a viewer, or a consumer.  You might say it's a stretch to say we will care more about our bananas after having seen images from the farm ... but on some level, it has an impact.  Having worked with BuzzAgent (a word of mouth marketing company) on a number of campaigns, I know that when it comes to WOM, the backstory is particularly important.  Knowing more about a product or company's origins make you more likely to tell others about it.  In many cases, the backstory becomes the marketing story.  Most marketing today focuses on product attributes and uses or creating a need for consumers to purchase.  What if more of our efforts focused on a product's backstory?  At least one marketer is betting that's the way to sell a whole lot more bananas.

Update (06/06/07): Dole also has a blog about this effort at http://doleorganic.blogspot.com/

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Product (RED): Smart Social Marketing or Meaningless Celebrity?

In a great post over at PSFK - Piers publishes the content of a conversation he had with Julie Cordua, the VP of Marketing for the often talked about Product (RED) social marketing campaign.  In case you're among the few people that hasn't seen the campaign, it created waves last year by introducing a for-profit model where companies could sign on to create products that they would sell for profit that became part of a line of items furthering the Red brand and donate a portion of profits to The Global Fund.  According to Cordua, campaign partners include Gap, Motorola, Converse, Emporio Armani, Apple and American Express (in the UK Only).  The most iconic of partner marketing to date in the US has probably been The Gap, which has featured print ads of T-shirts with such catchy phrases as "Empowe(RED)" and "Admi(Red)" and my personal favourite: Desi(RED) ... which will certainly become the T-shirt of choice for all those Desis out there.

Yet as Piers and PSFK highlighted, among others - the model may not be effective in leveraging what is presumably a huge marketing spend (perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars) for companies like Apple, Motorola and Gap on their (Red) products.  As the counter argument says, wouldn't it have just been better for all these brands to donate funds directly to the Global Fund instead of launching the Red campaign?  I even got an email earlier this week from Ben over at WPIWeb pointing to a site they helped put together called BuyLessCrap.org which issues a challenge to folks to donate directly to The Global Fund (and other charities) rather than giving their money to companies who will pocket some profit and only hand over the difference.  These are admirable efforts and anything to spark a debate about the level of assistance the Western world is providing to stop the Aids epidemic is good news, in my opinion. 

At the end of the day, I think where you stand on this comes down to who you think the Product Red campaign is targeted at.  As anyone who has done significant social marketing will tell you, it's not that difficult to get civic minded people or issue advocates to care about a cause and act to donate or contribute to events.  These are the small group of people that do much good in the world.  The real challenge is getting the person who would never ordinarily think about donating to charity to think about it in a different way.  My view on Product Red is that this is who it targets.  Whether they manage to donate $11 million dollars or $100 million, I think what the brand represents could ultimately be a good thing.  Weaving social marketing and issues into the decidedly profit centered worlds of retail, consumer electronics, and fashion is a new idea and many people won't agree with the business model, rightly pointing out that we could do so much more good buy simply giving the money to charity directly.  The real issue is that there is a significant percentage of people in the world that just won't be part of something like this either because they don't know about it, or are not inclined to participate.  If Product Red can get some of those people involved and raise money in the process - I think it has to be considered a success. 

As a follow up, I'm tagging Nedra, Craig and Alison to talk about this - as I'd love to hear thoughts about it from the real experts ...

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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.

Ideas for Marketing with Fantasy Games Online

On Friday last week, there was a great piece by Julia Beizer in the Washington Post Express about a different category of fantasy games that offer an alternative to Fantasy Football.  Now officially giving up on my Fantasy Football team after losing my two star players in back to back weeks to season ending injuries, I may just be seeking an alternative fantasy league myself.  For those readers of my blog unfamiliar with the American phenomenon of Fantasy Football - the premise is very simple: choose a player at each position from any team, and each week your "fantasy team" gains points based on how each of these individual players performs.  In this way, you can combine the best players from multiple teams and have a stake in multiple NFL games as you watch how each of your players perform.  As I have commented before on this blog, it's a brilliant brand extension strategy for the NFL that keeps it's brand front and center during the football season, and leverages the statistical element of the game to deepen it's relationship with NFL fans.

Now, however, the idea of fantasy gaming is starting to travel beyond football ... and even beyond sports.  The Tabloid Fantasy League is a great example, allowing people to choose their roster of stars and win points each time a star appears on the cover of a tabloid or gossip mag.  Of course, you lose points if your stars are busted by the cops ... or the fashion police.  The rise of concepts like this raises an interesting truth about the power that fantasy games can have to raise an individual's personal stake in just about anything.  In each case, the core benefit is engagement at a deeper and more personal level.  In a way, this is the reason why online stock trading has become so successful.  By removing the barrier to trading and watching investments, you can come up with your own "fantasy portfolio" with real money, and track your investments real time.  Here are a few other ideas for how fantasy games could be used by real world marketers to extend their brands and engage customers:

1. AMC Opening Weekend Fantasy - Each weekend, you can bet on the movies that will have the largest opening weekends.  Tie this into movie marketing and viral campaigns already being launched for many movie openings, and this could be a big idea in Hollywood.
2. Technorati Blog Fantasy - Despite the often discussed inconsistencies in how Technorati reports inbound links to blogs, tying a fantasy game into the currently existing Blog Favourites list could offer a great hook for users to continually check back into Technorati.  Readers could get points based on how many inbound links posts from their favourite blogs get over the course of a week.
3. AllRecipes/Whole Foods Food Fantasy - One of the best recipe sites out there, AllRecipes, could launch a fantasy game that lets site visitors select products to add to their fantasy lineup and win points based on how many views of recipes that use those ingredients get, or even tie it into sales data from a large grocery chain such as Whole Foods to win points based on bestselling items. 
4. PRWeek Fantasy Placements - This one is likely to get us in trouble, but what if the entire PR industry could select fantasy teams based on clients, stories, and PR agencies?  All readers of PRWeek could choose which clients, stories or PR agencies are likely to get prominent news placements on online and offline media and win points based on the favorability and prominence of the placement.

I am sure there are lots more ideas for how fantasy games could be used for marketing, though my favourite so far comes from the civic sector.  The Fantasy Congress (mentioned in Beizer's original piece), is a site where you can "draft" senators and representatives and earn points as they introduce legislation and make law.  As one of the founders of the site says, "if people cared about government as much as they cared about sports, we'd have a much better government."  I'm heading to the site right now to choose my fantasy congress.  Unfortunately, the way my luck has gone for Fantasy Football, I wouldn't be surprised if I lost my chosen Senator to a season ending sex scandal before too long ...

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Using YouTube to Launch a Global Movement: The Story of Free Hugs

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The rise of phenomenally viral videos on YouTube is happening every day now, ranging from the silly to the funny.  Recently I came across the Free Hugs video posted above on YouTube less than two months ago and loved it.  Aside from making me miss living in Sydney, it struck me as a wonderful social commentary, music video and promotion for the Sick Puppies (the band recording the soundtrack), and plea for people to just be nicer to one another.  On the official campaign website, Juan Mann (the originator) talks about the story of why he started the campaign:

I'd been living in London when my world turned upside down and I'd had to come home. By the time my plane landed back in Sydney, all I had left was a carry on bag full of clothes and a world of troubles. No one to welcome me back, no place to call home. I was a tourist in my hometown.  Standing there in the arrivals terminal, watching other passengers meeting their waiting friends and family, with open arms and smiling faces, hugging and laughing together, I wanted someone out there to be waiting for me. To be happy to see me. To smile at me. To hug me.  So I got some cardboard and a marker and made a sign. I found the busiest pedestrian intersection in the city and held that sign aloft, with the words "Free Hugs" on both sides.

There is also a recap of the history behind the campaign outlined in a Wikipedia entry, which offers some great perspective on how quickly this viral video has really grown into an international campaign.  According to the entry, as of yesterday - the video has more than 6.4 million page views, making it the 14th most viewed of all videos on the site.  Juan Mann even published a thank you video on YouTube noting that the campaign is continuing and asking people to visit www.freehelpcampaign.org to make a difference. 

There are many lessons in here for any social marketer looking to use viral videos and YouTube as a springboard for launching a cause related effort.  In particular, here are a few elements that I believe have made this campaign such a runaway success in such a short time:

1. The video tells a compelling story - Just as good documentaries and movies do, there is a connection with the main character, an element of conflict when he is banned from hugging, and a redemption as he overcomes this barrier.
2. Sharing the video is a "safe" personal statement - By sending the video to someone else, you are making a personal statement that you believe more hugs could make your day better.  It is simple and non-controversial.  Unlike email chain letters, political statements or potentially misinterpreted jokes, this is one of the few "safe" videos to send to someone.
3. The emotional themes used are universal - The video starts out with loneliness as a key emotional theme, and continues through a journey to happiness and even love among strangers.  Unlike many social marketing campaigns trying to make a point about a disease or condition that people cannot truly understand unless they have a personal experience - Free Hugs is something anyone can connect with.

Though the campaign is "only" about hugs, there is a great lesson in here for any social marketers about using new media as a way to build interest and passion in your cause.  I suspect the Free Hugs campaign has only just started it journey towards being an international phenomenon.  Visit the Free Help site the Juan Mann has launched (with support from Oprah) to see what you can do to join the movement.

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The Dark Side of Social Media And 5 Ways to Avoid It

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PR blogs have been on fire the past week debating the Walmart blog fiasco with Edelman at the helm.  Some have taken a subtle delight in Edelman's failure (see comments on Richard's response post), while others have shared fears about what this means for the future of PR and social media.  At it's core, the Walmart case illustrates what is quickly growing to become the dark side of social media - the ease with which the truth can be manipulated.  More and more consumers believe that new blogs or videos posted online are real if they "look real."  Accordingly, there is an expectation from consumers that companies are using personal media to communicate more authentically with them.  As companies start to fail this trust by using personal media covertly for marketing or advertising, critics are coining terms like "flogs" and "astroturfing" to symbolize this emerging dark side of social media. 

Yet this criticism is not new when it comes to complaints about authenticity in marketing.  That debate has long existed, and in part this has led to a situation where most US consumers have become adept at filtering out irrelevant or outrageous marketing claims.  Unfortunately, consumers are learning that their built in radar honed over a lifetime of seeing (and ignoring) interruption marketing messages is now inadequate.  Consumers are being duped easily by phenomena like the LonelyGirl15 episode, where a seemingly authentic conversation turned out to be a publicity stunt.  Consumers are no longer as confident in their ability to spot a marketing message.  As a result, their guard is up.  Their radars are peaked and they are on the lookout for anything inauthentic.  They pounce on corporate missteps like the one from Walmart and blogs that raise the most hell or break the news get the most traffic.  It is the personal media equivalent of the journalist's search for the scoop ... the blogger's search for the dupe.

Looking at all these risks, some organizations might conclude that it is wiser to simply avoiding doing anything with personal media altogether.  This is a big mistake.  Despite the risks, using personal media for marketing can offer a chance for an authentic dialogue with customers, a chance to ask for and act on direct customer feedback, and a unique and human voice for what may otherwise be a faceless corporation.  In short, the benefits are worth it.  But how can any marketing team hoping to engage in personal media avoid the fate of Walmart, Dell and others?  How do we counsel our clients on using personal media in a way that engages people rather than offering them fuel for contempt?  Below are five lessons that may help in avoiding the dark side of personal media, and finding success in the blogosphere:

1. Be as transparent as you can.  Transparency is key, as flogs and astroturfing are both based on marketing efforts that are dishonest and lack transparency.  Yet full transparency can make a campaign boring or give away too much too quickly.  The trick is to strike a balance where you maintain authenticity without necessarily giving away every detail.
2. Don't be afraid to "admit" you are marketing. This is the single biggest myth that lots of marketing teams believe ... that if they admit they are marketing people will stop paying attention.  If a marketing message resonates- the fact that it happens to be marketing doesn't matter.  This is one of the central concepts behind WOM, that consumers are willing and often happy to support marketing and even become brand ambassadors for something they believe in.
3. Understand who your detractors are, and assume they will always hate you.  One of the many concepts I picked up from Seth Godin that I am fond of quoting is that every customer has a worldview.  And this world view is nearly impossible to change.  Chevy Tahoe's viral promotion failed because people who hate SUVs are highly vocal, and people who like them are embarrassed to admit it.  The lesson here is to know who hates you and assume they will be vocal about their hatred.  The only way to manage this is if that group happens to be relatively small, or if you have a equally vocal group of people who love you.
4. Make sure you have supporters that will fight for you. This relates to the point above.  When engaging in personal media, you can't succeed if everyone universally hates you.  You need to find a way to engage those people who like your product, service or what you are trying to do.  Ultimately, these voices supporting you in personal media will matter far more than anything you are able to release in your marketing.
5. Listen, participate and respond. This may be fifth in the list, but is perhaps the most important.  If you look at every instance of personal media marketing horror stories, from the Kryptonite Bike Lock, to Dell Hell, to Walmart ... each could have been managed far better if the companies involved had listened, participated and responded to issues or problems raised on blogs.  This is important at all times, and particularly after launching new campaigns and marketing efforts as well.

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IdeaBar: Mobile Marketing with Virtual Hugs

One of the more interesting reports to come out of Wired's NextFest event held in NY this past weekend was about a wearable technology company called CuteCircuit and their "hug shirt."  The shirt uses bluetooth technology or mobile messaging through SMS to relay the sensation of a hug from one wearer to another anywhere in the world.  While it might seem like yet another technology toy with limited usefulness, the concept got me thinking about a new frontier of uses for wearable technology that integrates with bluetooth technology.  The most basic benefit of this is that a huge number of mobile phones already have bluetooth and this presents lots of integration opportunities.  Bluetooth hugs are just the beginning of the potential uses for this technology. 

By offering the benefit of touch and integrating it with voice, other applications could include virtual sight assistance for the blind, helping children away from parents for the first time deal with separation anxiety, and even add the dimension of touch to the webchat.  Even in the concept of the bluetooth virtual hug, another marketing application could be smart charities that offer virtual hugs from celebrities like Angelina Jolie or George Clooney for the price of a small donation.  Who wouldn't donate money for a bluetooth hug from Salma Hayek?

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. To view all "Idea Bar" posts on this blog, click here.

NYC Chefs Launch ChefsRightsNow.org as a Wakeup Call for New Yorkers

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