Archive for 2009
It was 4:20pm. I was sitting at my desk doing the typical “Between-Christmas-and-New-Year’s” work. I’d been digging through some papers looking for a Wired magazine article I’d printed off their website when suddenly it hit me. I saw the perfect example of what 2010 would be like. It was right in front of me, all over my desk…
I saw my Mac desktop computer with Facebook pulled up. I was in the process of sending a client a virtual piece of birthday cake. It was his birthday the next day, of which I’d been reminded by Facebook, Plaxo and Linked-In via email. Facebook was waiting for me to complete the virtual birthday cake purchase transaction, because a piece of virtual birthday cake now costs money. The $1.99 charge was being billed to me through my AT&T iPhone account, and I was waiting for a text message with a PIN that I had to input into the Facebook page in order to send the virtual piece of birthday cake.
My iPhone was situated on my desk in between my Mac desktop computer and my Mac Book Pro laptop computer. As I was keeping an eye out for the text with the PIN to come through on my iPhone, I was listening to a live podcast (from Germany) via my Mac desktop computer. The podcast was giving me instructions for using the new Google Social Media Search technology that I had just joined as a beta tester by signing up via Twitter that morning. As I was listening to the podcast, I was simultaneously downloading a recent Brandtailers video from my Flip camcorder onto my Mac Book Pro laptop, which I was going to quickly edit and upload to You Tube.
All of the above occurred within a five minute period.
For some of you reading this you’re saying, “No way. I’ll never be like that.” For others reading this you’re saying, “Yeah, so what. I call that Tuesday.” Well, guess what? The “I call that Tuesday” readers win. Because it’s where we will all be very soon. Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, recently gave his predictions for what the Internet will look like in the next five years. This one particular prediction says it all… “Five years is a factor of ten in Moore’s Law, meaning that computers will be capable of far more by that time than they are today.”
You can embrace this technology or ignore it, but you can’t stop it. 2010 marks the year of No Going Back. I choose to embrace, participate, and use it for doing good. How about you?
Every year we try to do something nice for our clients during the holiday season. This year we decided to “Skip” it, but not in the way you might think. This year we joined up with a non-profit organization called Skip1 who encourages people to skip something small, and use that money instead to feed a hungry child.
So we “Skipped” our gifts to our clients this year. We “Skipped” our holiday party, too. Instead we donated the money, along with some manual labor (see video link below), to help feed some very hungry children in the Philippines suffering from the destruction caused by three recent Typhoons. We knew, no matter how tough things may have been this year for all of us, there are millions of children out there with much greater needs.
In the spirit of technology it seems fitting that we post this year’s Christmas/Holiday message from Brandtailers on our blog. Don’t worry, it’s only a minute long. And for those of you non-techies, make sure you click the funky little four-arrow icon to the left of the word VIMEO to see it in full screen.
( To our clients, please watch the video and then see the donation we made in your name here )
Brandtailers Holiday 2009 from Brandtailers on Vimeo.
There’s a relatively new retail automotive TV campaign making it’s viral way around the country. It’s a puppet badger acting as a sleezy car salesman. Granted, most of the spots are very funny. But why? Watch the clip below and then ask yourself why it makes you chuckle. Possibly because you’ve experienced it? Is that smart marketing?
I’ve never understood this strategy. According to sales reports, neither have most consumers. I think this is just one great example of incomplete thinking in the marketing process. Could a funny industry-degrading ad get attention? You bet. Could it win creative awards? Of course (that’s just a question of money). But does it really change the opinion of the consumer when the “alternative” solution is presented? RARELY.
EM634DFGQD2X
It’s only Tuesday and it’s already been an interesting week. Depending on what news you listen to or read, the economy might be in store for a “good-but-not-great-and-certainly-cash-not-credit” holiday shopping season. With Black Friday just around the corner, this TED talk by John Gerzema of Young and Rubicam seemed like a timely 16-minute video to show my staff today. So I thought I’d pass it along here. John has a great background in consumer behavior and advertising, along with being co-author of a terrific new book, The Brand Bubble.
Look at this picture. What does it say to you? To me, it says there’s a woman out there with enough confidence to laugh at herself. That’s humility, and I admire the heck out of her.
I’ve met many people lately who are unwilling to submit to their lack of social media knowledge. They have the “I don’t understand Twitter therefore it is a joke” mentality. How sad. They will be last in the unemployment line in a few years.
Oh, I’m no poster child for humility. I didn’t really get Twitter until about 9 months ago. I thought it was stupid. Now I’m busy playing catch-up. So I speak as an equally flawed human being, which is why I can attest to the fact that businesses must embrace the power of social media whether they really understand it or not.
My message of hope to you is that you are not alone – MOST PEOPLE DO NOT YET UNDERSTAND SOCIAL MEDIA. But you can no longer ignore its marketing power.
These days, with technology changing so quickly, most of us need to trust and rely on others who know more than we do about these new business tools. The sooner we find them, trust them, and let them help us, the sooner we’ll gladly have our picture taken in a Wonder Woman costume. I look forward to it.
I recently revisited the question of what makes me want to get out of bed in the morning and go to work. The answer for me these days is simple – Social Media, simply because I see it as the new communication icon for truth, trust and transparency. Most of us know that truth sells better than anything else, but unfortunately that’s not what the ad biz has always been known for. I always hoped that, if I stayed in it long enough, truth would win out. And it has.
How well do you think this Winston cigarette commercial using Fred Flinstone and Barney Rubble would go over today?
[youtube NAExoSozc2c]
Yup. It ran. And no one balked (or at least they couldn’t be heard balking). Today’s equivalent of a concept like this wouldn’t even make it past the first focus group. But if it did, and it went all the way to TV or YouTube, the response might just be strong enough to put Winston cigarettes out of business. Ask Domino’s Pizza or United Airlines if they think it’s possible.
So, to those in the advertising industry still wishing the Mad Men days would come back, your time is up. Truth won out after all. And that’s job security for agencies like mine. Take that in your pipe and smoke it.
