...the blog that goes with everything. Your daily source for a hilarious take on social media, marketing, ketchup, Michigan and pretty much whatever else I feel like.
Example #2348b of how social media and Web 2.0 have changed this election.
Not only can we instantly watch, share and comment on clips - like this one of Matt Damon equating a potential Sarah Palin presidency to a "bad Disney movie" - but we can have amazing, high quality spoofs in a matter of days.
It's been awhile since I've blogged about ketchup - so I'm going to hit you with the 1 - 2 - 3 -4 punch. (Is there such a thing? I guess we're about to find out...)
1. My sister snapped the pic at left at a drive-thru in California. As she so eloquently put, "What kind of lame ass McDonald's pulls this shit?" Times must be tougher than I thought.
2. My friend Katie sent me this video from CNN's CGM news site iReport. It features some shocking footage from the 20th Annual Hamburger Festival in Seymour, WI. All I'm going to say is it involves ketchup. And a Slip n Slide. And it's not me in the video.
3. Speaking of drive-thrus, shout out to my friend Ian from Flagged For Follow Up. On my last post about ketchup issues at drive-thrus he commented about fights he's had with drive-thru people about the amount of ketchup they'll hand out. I thought he was giving me crap, until I confronted him about the perceived slight and discovered that he was a fellow ketchup commrade. Here we are at a Nat's game with beer cups fill of ketchup, only God and Teddy know what we did with them.
4. Thanks to reader Joe Ammond for emailing me this picture of some truly delightful couture. The piece was spotted in a mall in St. Charles, MO. Should you ever find yourself in St. Charles, the food court in the mall "serves the closest to a Detroit Coney dog I've found
outside of SE Michigan." Amen brother!
19% of online adults read blogs or visit online communities or social networks daily. Every day! (33% for Gen Y-ers, 17% for Gen X, 11% for boomers, and 8% for Seniors - go granny, it's you birfday...)
33% visit social media sites to do product research before purchasing
47% say that information they read on social media sites has influenced their purchase decisions at least "to some extent"- and 26% changed their mind about a purchase because of something they read
So let's recap. Social media is widely used by the online public, especially younger generations - where social media interaction is the norm. It impacts purchase decisions. And use is on the rise, the study reveals that 42% of respondents say they use social media more now than they did 6 months ago. What are you waiting for?
I have to imagine that opening a new franchise of a national or regional "fast food" joint has to be a fairly competitive experience. Working in downtown DC it seems that every other building has some random eatery (yet I always complain there are not enough choices - go figure.) So how do you make a splash with a franchise opening in a crowded lunch spot environment?
Chop't a (delicious) new salad joint opening multiple locations in Washington, DC and New York City has been hitting the word of mouth nail on the head by doing something quite simple. Free food. Between 11 - 2 on the first day a new Chop't location opens, they offer free salads to anyone who walks in the door. Turns out there is such a thing as a free lunch, AND it's a great WOM driver.
I heard about this weeks ago from a friend who had gotten their free lunch previously - and then was reminded about an opening on my block via Twitter (@Washingtonian.) A quick search turned up other Washington DC lifestyle blogs (DCist, Metro Blogging, etc.) that seem to have been tipped off to the event, there was also an event posting on Upcoming - so the online WOM machine seems to be chopping away to make sure a new Chop't maximizes buzz on its first day. Offline, word spread fast - fueled by online buzz, and offline conversation. Our floor at OPR was all atwitter (literally and figuratively) - infinitely more so than if the joint had just thrown open its doors.
Being a cheap skate, I was excited to get my free salad and headed downstairs at 11:30 with Virginia to get a jump on the crowd. Here is the scene we were met with today:
Yeah. So needless to say it was NOT cost efficient for me and Virginia to stand in an hour long line for our free salads in the middle of the work day, and we went elsewhere. (Though note that the sheer length of the line only added fuel to the offline WOM as passerbys caught wind of the new lunch spot.)
This is a great idea - one that other franchises have also used to great success. Chik-Fil-A famously gives away free food on the first day, AND the first 100 people in get free food for a YEAR. (If that was part of the Chop't deal I would have been camping out - no joke.) What are other great franchise debut WOM tactics you've seen, heard or eaten on/offline?
As it's now the end of September, I think it's officially time for me to stop blogging about the Beijing Olympics. BUT I WILL NOT GO QUIETLY INTO THE NIGHT!
This was the first Olympics EVER with athlete sanctioned blogging, which meant that most key players were standing by to see what would happen or dipping a cautious toe into the social media waters.
Bottom Line: We did a synchronized canon balled into the deep end with Lenovo, and the Voices project blazed a trail for other sponsors, OC's, Federations, and countries who will use social media to support, or lead, their Olympic efforts in the future.
2) THE POWER OF... A SOCIAL MEDIA SAVVY CLIENT
The Lenovo team we worked with was lead by David Churbuck, and included Alan White, Esteban Panzeri and Tim Supples. These guys GET social media. They blog, they Twitter, and they'll do whatever comes next as well.
Bottom Line: Being a part of a team that's hip to social media allowed for us all to collectively take the project to the next level.
3) THE POWER OF... A REACTIVE TEAM
One of the perks of #2, is that the team worked in real time to react to social media mentions and improve the campaign. When a post appeared on Search Engine Guide criticizing the Voices site for not incorporating SEO as well as it could have, the second commenter was Lenovo's Esteban Panzeri, the tech lead for the project. He commented on Lenovo's point of view, made some tweaks to the site, and then posted a more detailed response on his own blog - which is now the lead in to the original Search Engine Guide Post. No freakouts about a partially negative post, no frantic blackberry messages about the "next step", just smart quick action.
Bottom Line: The Voices campaign was made better because we acted on word of mouth the campaign generated. Yours could be too!
4) THE POWER OF... AUTHENTICITY
We preach this one hard every day, but Voice of the Olympic Games really demonstrated the value of authenticity. The Voices program won kudos for taking the very essence of the Olympics, the athlete experience, and sharing it in a spin-free way that had never been done before. Bottom Line:Authenticity must be a key element of ANY WOM campaign.
5) THE POWER OF... RESULTS!
And of course there were results. Looking at good ole' traditional "reach" metrics the Lenovo Olympic sites reached over 1.5 million worlwide visitors. 200 mentions on various social media sites reached an additional 10 million UMVs. The Facebook app had over 250,000 downloads, the Zumobi mobile app more than 60,000 downloads (58k plus from iPhone users.) But the real success came with the engagement metrics. The 100 athlete bloggers posted over 1,500 posts about their Olympic experience. These posts generated 8,000+ comments from fans around the world who were eager to connect with Olympians big and small. Over 1.5 million invites were sent through the Facebook app. This project really connected people and got them talking.
Bottom Line: Lenovo accomplished its mission of using Lenovo technology and social media to connect athletes and fans.
So friends, as we leave you tonight, I hope you'll enjoy this video we've put together featuring the highlights from the Voices project. There's no better way to understand the impact technology had on athletes in 2008 than to hear it straight from them. This is Bob Costas Kaitlyn Wilkins signing off.
Um seriously? The old SNL skit hawking "Bag 'o Glass" and "Bag 'o Sulfuric Acid" comes to mind. You don't even have to be a parent to see why this is the worst. idea. ever.
Check out Rohit Bhargava for more on "why people hate marketers."
Cobblers. One of my ex-roommates from Boston just moved to DC and we were lamenting the complete and total absence of qualified cobblers in the District. In Boston there is a cobbler on like every block in the Financial District and they can fix anything. Got a pink shoe that needs polishing? Come back in an hour. Your shoe fell in the garbage disposal? Come back in an hour. In DC *if* you can find a cobbler they laugh at you if you ask them to do anything more than polish or re-heel some tragic black shoe. I mean literally like, "ohhh, haha, I can't fix that. You'll never walk again." Unless I move back to Boston.
Pardon My Luxury Vehicle. One of the hilarious things about Georgetown is that people street park their luxury vehicles. I don't worry about my Mini getting jacked, because there are always Mercedes, BMWs and Audis within eyesight. The best part about all of this is watching these drivers try to do the "tight squeeze" past a dump truck, moving van or some other large vehicle taking up most of the road in a back street in Gtown. These luxury drivers will have like a foot and a half on either side and just SIT there. Paralyzed with fear that they'll scrape their car (that they street park.) Every week I see a poor garbage truck man get out and actually navigate some idiot driver through a hole big enough for a tour bus.
"Located Near the Whole Foods." I was recently looking at apartment listings on Craigs List and it cracks me up how "near the Whole Foods" has become like a total panacea for an apartment listing that may be in a questionable neighborhood. On 13th street next to the free AIDS clinic? But you're just a 3 minute walk to 'Whole Foods! This rationalization is GREAT for parents as well. Got a parent who is nervous about your move to Columbia Heights? Tell them you're behind a Whole Foods and I gaurantee they'll feel better. Even if there was a drive by there the day before.
This season Michigan unveiled a new coach, a new offense, a new (partially done) addition to the stadium, and new uniforms. Gone are the Nike swooshes, replaced with the Adidas triangle.
The home jerseys are pretty much indistinguishable from the old ones, save the different logo. The away jerseys get a little funky with some yellow strips many feel are reminiscent of West Virginia's (we steal their coaches, why not their jerseys?) The new jerseys also feature the famous Bo Schembechler quote that graces the doorway leaving the locker rooms "Those Who Stay Will Be Champions."
This is totally judgmental and shallow, but am I the only one that feels like Nike is like the ultimate D-1 sponsor, and anything else is a little second rate? Or am I just the victim of great marketing? Someone* hilarious in Ann Arbor agrees with me, or is equally label obsessed, and took the opportunity to customize his own jersey cut-out with an inspirational message - which I'm sure Adidas appreciated.
