Catch Up Lady

I Fell In Love At the Apple Store: R&B meets Technology!

There's nothing not to like about this rap, home made at the Apple store on 5th Ave in NYC.  Not only is the song "catchy as hell" according to Gizmodo, but it combines two of my favorite things - atrocious R&B and technology.  Hells yes!

The song was recorded by FattySpins on one of the demo MacBooks at the store.  He freely admits there appears to be a "homeless giant" standing behind him in the YouTube description, and defends himself against green screen accusations by posting the rough cut and stating, "If you're wondering why the other people in the store hardly turned around, then you've obviously never been to New York." 

HT to Catch Up Bro for this find.

Stream 2009: The Myth of the Viral

I was fortunate enough to spend the last few days at WPP's annual Stream Conference - which brings together some of the brightest minds from around the network in an unconference format to discuss the what's next in digital and technology communications. Some of the best sessions I attended were the ones organized around lists - be it potential "truths" presented for discussion, or co-created outputs. One such session was The Myth of the Viral presented by YouTube.

“Viral success happens, but it doesn’t just ‘happen’”.

Myth 1: I don’t have to promote it

The most successful videos are rooted in smart creative and promotion. Videos need a robust syndication and promotion plan that incorporates elements such as video ads, brand integration on .coms, influencer outreach, and social networking plays.

I think this is the most frequently overlooked aspect of video - today YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine in the US, so the Field of Dreams approach to posting your content is definitely not enough. Any time you want scale in social (and who doesn't?!), a promotion plan - often rooted in paid media - is a must.

Myth 2: I can just put a video on YouTube and users will find it

Naming, tagging, and engaging content people spend time with all help you index on YouTube. To stand out you have to understand search terms that people use, and search optimize against those words.

Search is IT - for video and anything a brand puts on the web - 80% of web sessions start at a search engine, and 91% of Internet users search daily. Search intent modeling is now essential to everything from SEM/SEO to messaging to consumer behavior research to tagging. 

Myth 3: Consumers don’t like branded content

Branding is ok if it’s tasteful and appropriate to the content – stripping the brand out, or having all UGC content is not necessary. Examples: Samsung Omnia i900 Unboxing, riffing on the unboxing video trend (3MM views), or my favorite Smirnoff Raw Tea Partay (5MM views).

Consumers are accustomed to contextually appropriate branding - as long as your adding value (humor, knowledge, exclusivity...) you can "get away" with branding that delivers on your messaging in a subtle way.

Myth 4: It’s not just about one video

Come up with ideas that people can replicate easily, so that viewers feel empowered to create additional content in response to the original piece. If you’re smart, you can build an ecosystem around your content.

This was a really smart point - think of things like the Cadbury Gorilla, which spawned so many spinoffs that Cadbury at one point set up a shadow site to house them. Imitation is the highest form of flattery.

Myth 5: Being in control is a good thing

Take advantage of your accidental spokespeople who are creating content without the brands “permissions." For example, McDonald’s has leveraged a UGC McNuggets rap in advertising, and UK’s Cillit took advantage of a popular UGC techno remix of one of their commercials. Another common YouTube fear is the inane comments that are often left on videos, the discussion group felt that brands need to have tolerance for the YouTube community and the good/bad comments – and be confident that silly or unnecessarily disparaging remarks are often shouted down.

Ahhhh, control! The age old question. One of the best arguments against leaving your head in the sand is that, in many cases, consumers are *already* appropriating your brand in some way. Listening to the conversation gives you more control and a platform to start a dialogue that could be leveraged proactively or reactively in the future. One of the best examples of nimbly reacting to video content was how Chris Brown and Sony responded to the JK Wedding Dance video, in which a couple danced down the aisle to Brown's "Forever." Instead of wigging out, Sony Music used ContentID to claim the audio content and opted to put music purchase buttons next to the video and use YouTube insights to examine a new demographic and "come up with new distribution, sales and marketing ideas." Sales of the song jumped from 3,000 to 50,000 in one week in July.

Bing Goes the Internet! (SOS....)

Bing has a winner for its jingle contest.  And it's really really kind of creepy.  Overlooking the male camel toe (manel toe?) and the inexplicable apparitions behind the singer the song itself is so freaking catchy that I'm reluctantly predicting a Rick Roll type movement to shortly emerge.

If you're looking for a laugh, double click below and check out the comments on the YouTube page - "die in a fire, this is the worst shit I've heard in a long time", and "you should be tried as a war criminal and put to death in the most excruciating way for this act of audio/video terrorism" are definitely leading the pack in my opinion.

Zack Attack(s Late Night with Jimmy Fallon)

I've been hearing good things about Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.  Most recently when WIRED Magazine did an article, Jimmy Fallon is out of Beta, talking about how the show has hired G4 Network's Attack of the Show producer Gavin Purcell in order to give the show more of a techie insider bend.  Apparently Fallon is bowing down to the echo chamber, and it seems to be working out pretty well for him. 

Then, this morning I saw this little gem floating around Facebook.  Any show that literally brings back Zack Morris and attempts to organize an on-air class reunion gets an A+ in my book.  I don't want to spoil anything, but Zack may or may not sing the Zack Attack hit, "Friends Forever"...

Noah K Everyday

Noah Kalina has taken a photograph of himself every day for the last 9 years as part of an ongoing digital art project that focuses on the subtleties of aging.  He began taking daily photos when he was 20, and posted a video chronicling year 1 - 6 a few years ago.  Noah intends to post a video on the 10 year anniversary and then every five years thereafter.  You can check out the video below, which has over 12 million views.  Pretty cool (though you can practically pin point the time that he moved past college aged years, and developed big ass bags under his eyes like the rest of us... try clicking around in the video stream to compare his age.)  Via HeeHaw Marketing Blog.

Marketing Video Gold Mine!

This week was marked by an outpouring of hilarious videos poking fun at marketers - because if we can't laugh at ourselves then... uh...yeah. 

Enlightened Stupid Marketer

The Vendor/Client Relationship in Real World Situations

What's Been Keeping Me Busy...

In the last few days I've been catching HELL for not posting to this blog - everyone from my mom, to my bestfriend to a girl I used to work with and haven't seen in two years (hey Claudia!) have all been busting my chops.  So before we resume regularly scheduled programming I wanted to highlight some of the my work projects that have been consuming my time of late over at 360 Digital Influence:

Tropicana Trop50 The Juice
The social media ball keeps moving over at PepsiCo - and a few weeks ago Tropicana Trop5o launched The Juice, an online community for women in partnership with BlogHer.  The community revolves around the concept of getting more of what you want, and less of what you don't out of life - whether you're focused on nutrition, functional fitness, family, or just optimizing your life overall.   So what makes this community different?  Each week discussion is kicked off by a video featuring BlogHer co-founder Jory Des Jardins and an expert guest, and the content is truly driven by community generated tips and ideas - from the Tropicana Trop50 spotlight that serves as the inspiration of each episode to the community tips that are featured throughout. 

A few weeks ago I flew to San Francisco for one of the episode shoots (that's me with BlogHer's Blake Norman, Julie Godard and Lisa Stone watching playback) - and I'll have more on The Juice in the next two weeks, as we head to New York to film an epsiode with a very cool guest.  In the meeeantime check out The Juice community, or watch one of the weekly webisodes below is The Juice: Make Ahead Meals  with Stephanie O'Dea from a Year in Crockpotting.

LG DTXTR

With LG DTXTR LG is branching out in the texting space - because while teens are leading the way with their warp speed thumbs the rest of us (especially parents) can use all the help they can get.  DTXTR has several features - most importantly the DTXTR Text Transaltor which lets you enter in any term and "translate" it into teen speak.  The Translator is powered by the DTXTR Glossary which is an every growing list of terms that anyone can add to at any time. There's also an interactive DO U Know TXT quiz where you can test your text knowledge, and TXT Tips for Parents.

Right now there is a DTXTR promotion running on BlogHer - so check it out for a chance to win the LG enV2 or Lotus.  These phones are pretty rad, I should know, they're all locked in my desk until they ship to the weekly winners.

Ford Fusion 1,000 Mile Challenge
One of the many projects that 360 Digital Influence is involved with over at Ford was the recent 1,000 Mile Fusion Hybrid Challenge.   For nearly four days here in DC a team of Ford Hybrid engineers led by Wayne Gerdes, the world record hypermiler, used Eco Driving techniques to drive over 1,000 miles on a single tank of gas in the 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid.  The team actually did better - going over 1,400 miles before rolling to a stop.  I was there with our team creating video, live-Twittering, and hosting bloggers as they took Eco Driving clinics with the Ford team.  Below is a video of the final day of competition when NASCAR star Carl Edwards (fresh of his amazing crash at Talledega) flew in to drive the team over the 1,000 mile marker.

So, now you know where I've been.  More to come!

The WOM Gods Must Be Crazy: Oven Baked Mosquitos

This week there were two remarkable word of mouth (WOM) advertising/marketing efforts that deserve mention.

The first was Domino's Oven Baked Letter incident.  Many of us are familiar with the Domino's 2:1 commercials that visually demonstrate the finding that their oven baked subs are preferred 2 to 1 over Subway's.  Apparently Subway was also familiar with the ad campaign, and none to pleased.  The Subway lawyers sent an email to Domino's threatening legal action.  So what did Domino's do?  They had their CEO, Dave Brandon (also a conservative Regent at the University of Michigan) film the spot below.  The spot can be viewed on the Domino's website (where you can also "oven bake the letter" yourself, or on YouTube where one version has over 1 million views. 


The second WOM moment of the week came with Bill Gates at the TED Conference. While speaking on the lack of funding for malaria research, Gates unleashed mosquitoes on the auditorium stating to the affluent crowd that it shouldn't just be poor people at risk for contracting malaria. (The swarm was malaria free.)

What made these two incidents stand out from other WOM campaigns is that you passed along the message - not the method of delivery. 

Think of your favorite virals - for most of them you remember that they were funny, or stunty - and when you told people about it, THAT was the message.  I told dozens of people about Smirnoff's Tea Part-ay video generally by saying that Smirnoff had made a hilarious rap video staring preppy people.  No mention of their new Raw Tea product or any of its attributes.  With both the Domino's Oven Baked Letter and Bill Gates mosquitoes stunt it's virtually impossible to recommend to others without delivering the intended message. 

"You have to check out the Domino's Web site - their CEO got a letter from Subway telling them to pull down their ad campaign - you know the one saying their oven baked subs are 2 times better - then the CEO actually oven bakes the letter!" or "Did you hear Bill Gates unleashed a swarm of mosquitoes on an auditorium at TED during a speech on malaria research and said that poor people shouldn't be the only ones suffering from malaria?"  This is WOM gold - and we shouldn't lose sight of it.

New Media Douchebags

I don't know whether to laugh or cry (ok, I laughed.)  I do know that "douchebag" is one of my favorite words.

Oh The Places You'll Go!

This video, which tracks a day's worth of air traffic around the world, is pretty sweet.  The first time I watched it I missed the night/day parabola making it's way around the world - so be sure to keep an eye on that as traffic spikes in different regions during daylight hours.  (Via David Churbuck)