Take a look at the picture below. The website noticed that many of their users came from StumbleUpon referrals. In order to attract additional StumbleUpon traffic, the site wrote a notice for StumbleUpon users to save this site as their favorite.
That’s an excellent strategy and a very thoughtful way to transfer insight from analytics into marketing.
I came across a great article today while doing some research on online video. Here’s a juicy quote:
“The high level of consumer engagement with video means that car marketers can boost their conversion rates, not just their CTR. A January study conducted by The Kelsey Group found that 55 percent of consumers visited a business’ website after watching an online video ad, while 30 percent went to the business’ store and 24 percent actually made a purchase. These numbers suggest that video not only generates site traffic, it also drives revenue.” Read more…
I don’t understand Ford’s Boredom Hurts campaign, but I think the execution is cool. I experienced the campaign first by clicking on the Boredom Hurts banner ad on Flickr, which led me to a Boredom Hurts sponsored Flickr group. The group invites Flickr users to upload pictures on the Boredom theme to the group…, described as: “A menacing Boredom epidemic is currently spreading across the globe and the search is on for photo-evidence.”
There are a few links to the Boredom Hurts microsite, and when you click the links, you finally see that Ford’s creating this.
The microsite is beautiful, seriously. However, I couldn’t imagine using 1/10 of it–even if I was really, really, really bored. It contains a web 2.0 check list of activities, ranging from watching webisodes and reading a blog to submitting video and subscribing to email updates on the “state of boredom?”
The Ford Escape is integrated into the primary navigation of the microsite, and all of Ford’s models are accessible by drop down menu on the top right of the screen.
I hope that bored consumers become motivated car buyers.
You don’t have to watch this if you don’t want to. Let me summarize it for you. An attractive British teen ponders whether she’s anyone’s favorite person and invites her viewers to record a video response answering the same question. As of today, this video has been viewed more than 500,000 times. Over 1,000 people have left comments, and many have responded with videos. I was pretty moved and surprised by how seriously her viewers thought about her question.One viewer sent out a bulletin to her Myspace friends asking, “Am I Your Favorite Person.” She qualified the request by saying….this is serious. Another viewer pondered the question extensively, creating her own soundtrack filled response.I think this question works so well because it’s simple, intensely narcissistic and answering it involves talking with friends and family.As a side note…The person featured in the video, asking the favorite person question, has an awesome YouTube screen name…mememolly.
Amazon’s new features allows customers to review products by recording a video of themselves – or by submitting their video review. This is going to open up an entirely new type of product placement.
Imagine an interactive talent agency, lets call it “pay per review modeling company,” which offers beautiful actors and articulate, regular people to sample products, film reactions and post them online.
I think this will add to the clutter online and make it even more difficult to discern quality content from paid endorsement. I wonder if Amazon, or other companies, will serve ads against the video reviews…“
Video reviews sponsored by Buzz Agent: Get Cool Stuff For Your Opinions, Buzz Agent.”
I’m sure that brands will conduct video product review contests: “Come up with the most innovative way to review our product, send us a link of that review posted online, and if our panel of judges selects your video review—we’ll use it in a national commercial and give you xyz prize.”
Curly: You know what the secret of life is?Mitch: No, what?Curly: This.Mitch: Your finger?Curly: One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and everything else don’t mean shit.Mitch: That’s great, but what’s the one thing?Curly: That’s what you’ve got to figure out. My business partner has an amazing philosophy: the essence of focus is sacrifice. I think this philosophy is particularly relevant in marketing businesses.Think social life for a second. When you’re describing a girl at a party to a friend: “She’s the girl with the obnoxious laugh,” or “He’s the guy that works for Microsoft.” Seldom do we provide an in-depth list of the features that the define people we meet. Unless there is no one characteristic that emerges as memorable. Those descriptions sound something like, “Don’t you remember, she’s the girl who went to school with Scott, she was wearing a blue dress, and she spilled that drink…” “Oh, now I remember, the girl who spilled the drink.”When a business stands for one thing that is clear and differentiated it helps consumers not only remember the business, but also to evoke associations. If we were marketing a flower shop whose big ideal was cheering up office workers with flowers. Cheer up could become the one thing…and in conversation….Zach’s flowers…the cheer up people…What’s your one thing? Right now mine is sleep.
Google Audio and TargetSpot have dramatically increased the efficiency of radio, and in so doing, created opportunities for new advertisers to invest in the medium. While the media on these two platforms, remnant terrestrial and streaming spot inventory respectively, is less desirable than the prime spots available on the same stations, the turnkey process of placing an ad, setting the demographic criteria and instantaneous reporting might just justify the quality difference to an interactive media buyer.
It boils down to having data in a language that’s easy to analyze and compare across media. Google Audio and TargetSpot makes it easy to measure the ROI of spot radio in the same language as an interactive campaign. That’s their greatest asset. And it doesn’t hurt that you can place an entire buy in minutes…
I am impressed the NBC’s digital strategy for JourneyMan, a new series about a time traveling man. The advertisement on Pandora, an online music website, invites people to listen one of several JourneyMan channels on Pandora. Clicking the ad, opens the radio player.
People often talk about creating an online experience, JourneyMan’s advertising strategy nails it! It’s not only contextually relevant, it’s completely engaging.
I thought a lot about my last blog entry today: “Comments in a Porn Community.” Honestly, I was very uncomfortable posting something explicit to my blog. I didn’t want a client, a prospect, or even a family member to read it, or to misread it, and draw incorrect conclusions about me. I called Lorenz Sell, one of my closest friends who understands social media inside and out to discuss this.
“Do you want to work with the type of client who is offended by this?” he asked me.
Then he offered, “the good blogs, and the good bloggers, blog as if they were writing for themselves—a diary made public.”
I’m not sure I agree with this. Many of the “good” bloggers I read are narrowly committed to a topic and offer the same editorial standards you might expect from a daily newspaper. Occasionally, they will offer a brief personal aside. One of my favorite blogs is micropersuasion. Steve Rubel blogs as if he’s writing for a community, not just as if he’s an individual sharing private thoughts. From time to time, he uses his blog to share an anecdote, issue an apology, etc. but for the most part—it’s really the news on social media trends. Then again he works for a large PR agency which might constrain his subject matter.
The reason I posted my blog entry on adult content is I feel adult websites often are the most brilliant online marketers—and as such, they merit study. Their business is among the most competitive online, involves the greatest amount of fragmentation and is looked on with the most disdain by the public. The way in which these sites acquire and retainer users present insights that can be used with many online marketing initiatives, from selling flowers to lawyer services. And the sub-cultures that exist within these adults communities are just as meaningful and fascinating as those which exist on a Myspace and a Facebook. My previous blog entry shows that within an adult community, a subset exists the treats sex sensitively.
One of the things I respect about Lorenz is he’s not afraid of offending people.
I think I’ve played it too safe on my blog. I’ve never really written too critically about a product, service or website—and as a result, I think it’s fallen short of it’s potential. I think things are about to change. At least I hope so. And if this offends you, click here.
EE Cummings said it best: “To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”
I was pretty surprised by the comments I came across in an adult community in response to explicit content. Check out how thoughtful and polite these people are…
“Is this blog worthy,” she asks him seconds before he proposed.
“No,” he replied.
I am embarrassed to admit it, but I watch the UFC on Spike TV. Last night, when flipping through the channels, I paused to see two competitors beat each other into pulp, which was all sponsored by Burger King. I guess I’m surprised the Burger King would back such a bloody sport. I understand that their customers are watching; however, I expected them to be more discerning in their sponsorship. If dwarf tossing became the new “thing,” would they rush to get involved, too?
Seeing Burger King back the UFC also legitimized it as main stream: as if two guys kicking each other in the nose, breaking legs, twisting pinkie’s was as common as watching a free throw or a Yankee’s game. What if Burger King took their sponsorship to the next level: a pre-roll ad on all the YouTube videos that feature kids fighting. Here’s the spot: “Next time you kick someone’s head in, make sure you try our new whopper special. Bring a police report and it’s buy one, get one free.”
I just came back from the Conversational Marketing Conference in San Francisco. It was a small event, well attended by brand and ad agency executives. Among the attendees were Ogilvy and Johnny Vulkan from Anomaly, who presented on brand utility, essentially the importance that brands stand for big ideals, and a community good, which they take steps to achieve everyday.
Oglivy introduced a great way to think about it. (Brand name) believes that the world would be a better place if (XYZ). For example, Dove believes the world would be a better place when women feel better about their bodies. Try it with your company, or even yourself. Personally, my ideal is “I believe the world would be a better place if everyone who wanted to learn had access to an inspiring teacher.” What I like most about this exercise is how well it helps to organize a social media strategy for your brand.
If I owned a local flower shop, my ideal would be: “Zach Flowers believes that the world would be a better place if everyone who needed to be cheered up had fresh flowers.”
I would build an entire strategy using this theme.
I would use this ideal in my radio spots, online videos and website, in addition to my social media strategy—and use it every I represented my brand.
Check out an old interview with Johnny Vulkan for more on this concept. He really gets it!
[ youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKAInP_tmHk]
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