Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic

I wanted to bring to people's attention a very extraordinary video of which I was recently made aware.  This happened a while ago, but I only heard of it recently and it moved me greatly.
 
Randy Pausch is a retired professor of Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University.  He recently retired at age 47 because he was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer.  In order to leave a lasting legacy for his children he gave this "Last Lecture".
 
It's quite long, but well worth the time.
 
Randy's lecture and life are a testament to the extreme pursuit of the ultimate User Experience.  The Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon is a testament to the types of Computer Human Interaction that can be developed and expands the boundaries of what can be expected when interacting computers.  I am not able to express the simultaneous joy and sorrow that I experienced in viewing his lecture. 
His words speak much more eloquently than I ever can.
 
You can learn more about Randy and his current health status here.
 
He also has an excellent lecture on Time Management viewable on Google video.
 
Lee Tsao

They're both tags attributed to Disney on the Brand Tags site...  Ed Cotton (of InfluxInsights.com) posted on this inquiry into brand impressions.  Noah Brier, a strategist with Naked Communications, has taken advantage of the collaborative nature of tagging to embark on "a collective experiment in brand perception." At Brand Tags, visitors are presented with a brand and an input box where they can tag the brand with the first thing that pops into their head.  When you've done a few, check out the full list of brands, each with its tag cloud of first impressions. 

Now obviously this isn't a rigorous brand perception methodology, but it is an interesting idea.  For most of the large brands, the biggest tags are the ones you'd expect.  Evil, crap, boring, and the like were common.  (Disney even got 'evil' at a fairly high volume, though it was overshadowed by cartoons, children, kids, fun and of course Mickey Mouse - overall a pretty good branding story there...)

The more interesting results were the smaller tags; "Leash" in the BlackBerry list, "Olympic Rings" for Audi, "Coffee" for Guiness.  Apple shows up as a tag for other brands like Dyson and Flickr.  Brand names come up more strongly for some companies than others.

On its own, it's simply an interesting experiment.  But I could see this approach being useful as part of a larger research approach.  It seems like a great way to get some initial, quick, directional feedback that could provide some insights to drive deeper research.  Start with a brand tag question in a survey, follow up with ongoing dialog.  Compare perceptions of different segments, at different life-cycles or against competitive brands.  Get an informal read on employee perceptions.

As companies come to grips that they aren't in control of the brand and they become increasingly transparent, increasingly conversational, this kind of exercise might even start to show up on a company's home page... Who are we? You tell us.

And who is Wendell?

David Lewis

PMOG is a Passively Multiplayer Online Game. This game allows you to leave traps or gifts on any web page. You can also take missions across the internet, discovering new content while leveling up.

To play, you need to use Firefox and add the PMOG extension.

The really interesting opportunity with a game like this is the viral marketing opportunity of using a game like this for commercial uses. Think of a brand that is using the digital space well with many varied properties and experiences using this type experience to drive potential customers
across their sites!

http://pmog.com/

Baron Conway

Via BBC News: "Microsoft has now released, in beta form, its long-awaited WorldWide Telescope, a free tool that pieces together some of the world's best ground telescope and satellite images, using data and imagery from NASA's Hubble and Spitzer telescopes and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, among others. The tool allows users to pan and zoom around the planets and view anything from distant galaxies to exploding stars. It also features guided tours from some of the world's top astronomers"
 
For amateur astronomers like myself, this is a great tool to travel around the solar system and beyond. The best part is I don't have to shell out $20MM to the Russian Space program to experience it, yet I can get the benefit of billions of dollars of technology all on my computer.
 
I could not find any remnants of the Apollo missions on the moon,  so perhaps the conspiracy of the lunar landing being completed in a studio, may yet live on.....
 
http://www.worldwidetelescope.org
 
Vito Greto

Since its entrance into popular culture, the internet has always worked to empower consumers, just by the innate nature of the medium. The wealth of data and improved tools to access that data gave consumers access to information more efficiently than they ever had before. Web 2.0 introduced a new culture of passionate empowered consumers. Their desire was to not only extract value from the internet, but to contribute to an ongoing dialogue with other like-minded consumers. More recently, those conversations have extended beyond user to user, and consumers are able to collaborate directly with the brands they are passionate about.

Consumer collaboration is one of the booming social sectors of the year with numerous branded collaboration tools launching daily. Dell's IdeaStorm and My Starbucks Idea are commonly used examples of how consumers can help influence product or service improvements. But, the more comprehensive list of brands involved in crowdsourcing and "white label" social networks is immense. In fact, the list is probably far shorter for brands not currently involved or planning to become involved in some form of consumer collaboration.

Brands are not just collaborating with consumers to gain insights for product improvements. Forrester has broken common objectives into 5 specific categories. Brands are using online communities to listen, to talk, to energize advocates, to support customers, and to embrace consumer ideas. Recent brands to "energize advocates" include SeaWorld and Nike. SeaWorld nurtured rollercoaster enthusiasts with rich video content and Nike featured a top community member in a commercial.

With such a huge growth in consumer collaboration tools, it was just a matter of time before the free, "create your own My Starbucks Idea" tool came forward. Enter UserVoice:

"UserVoice is a way to harness the innovation and ideas of customers and potential customers. It's a way to improve the signal-to-noise of user opinion, and to moderate the ideas of one against the opinions of the many. It's Satisfaction meets Digg. It's focus groups for companies that can't afford focus groups."

Although UserVoice hasn't been put to the enterprise level traffic challenge, it does offer much in the way of simplicity and integration into other useful tools, such as Google Analytics. The clean design is reminiscent of a 37Signals product, which makes the learning curve pretty manageable. This makes it an attractive solution for many companies with or without a product, who might not have otherwise got into consumer collaboration. One example is Jeremiah Owyang, who is using UserVoice to take suggestions on how to improve his blog.

This is just further proof that it is a great time to be a consumer. Whether it is big brands using robust collaboration tools with large communities or micro-niche brands engaging smaller groups in a more intimate conversation, there seems to be a movement on all fronts to truly give every consumer a voice.

Marta Strickland

The world needs more loveable college scamps looking to make a quick buck on this Internet thing.  Part Google AdWords, part Million Dollar Homepage, two Irish Masters students have created an ingenious value proposition:  "redefine" a word by buying it from them (at $1 a letter) and then linking it to the website of your choice.  This is also known as buying a search term.

Hurry!  Viagra and Britney Spears are still available.

http://www.thebigwordproject.com/

Misha Cornes

A new microsite for JetBlue. As tempers flare over airlines' delays, fare hikes and fewer free services, JetBlue wants to put a more pleasant spin on air travel with its new marketing theme, "Happy Jetting" created by JWT, New York.

http://www.happyjetting.com/

Euphenia Cheng

For some time now, there has been rumor of an "affordable" Ferrari. Affordable, as in you'll only have to sell one of your children on the black market to pay for it instead of the usual two children. Other than that, details have been a bit sketchy. There were some fake drawings a while back. Spy shots have trickled in. A video or two. But now things are firming up. It now appears that the vehicle will be christened with the alpha-numeric and sufficiently Ferrari-esque handle F149. It's also called the "GT" sometimes. It's expected to share its platform and significant chunks of running gear with similar grand tourers from Alfa Romeo and Maserati. Since all are owned by FIAT, it doesn't surprise me that there's a bit of badge engineering going on. It's just not that often that you see it happening so transparently at the supercar level. To that end, the debate has been raging as to whether this particular car devalues the Ferrari brand. Presumably, some of that debate has to do with who the consumers of same will be. Personally, building a car that some of us could one day hope to own doesn't seem like devaluation of the brand to me. Frankly, more harm is probably being done by the Ferrari theme park in Dubai, the hideous Ferrari-edition Acer laptop or the partying ways of F1 piloti Kimi Raikonnen. But then again, perhaps I am but an aspirant proletarian who doesn't understand his place in the world.

Moreover, I'm sure that some would say that I don't understand luxury goods either if I don't think that they can be devalued by merely falling into the wrong hands. And surely I remember getting into a rather spirited thrash a while back with a former Organic about whether or not rapper Jay-Z (net worth $400M) was damaging the Cristal nameplate by giving the brand hundreds of millions of dollars in free advertising by way of song. But I digress. This is an interesting one. Ferrari, at its core is supposed to be about the red-blooded passion of performance motoring. Which does more to reinforce that credo? Having hopelessly undertrained douchebag multimillionaires buy them as museum pieces or worse still, wreck them? Or, letting them collect a few paint chips on track days and backroads blasts. I say let the masses have a turn already. Or at least the top-earning one-tenth of one percent of the masses.

It will likely still be more than a couple of ticks too far into the Robin Leach zone for my wallet (once pricing is revealed), but just the same, one can dream, right? Indeed one can. As a visit to this URL proves.

The good folks in Maranello, as well as their digital agency of record, seem to have an absolutely perfect understanding of one of the core attributes of their brand that inspires these dreams: sound. From the early V12s of the '50s to the as-yet unreleased F149 GT, sound is something that Ferraristi prize. So, when building a teaser site for an unreleased vehicle, how brilliant is this? Virtually no pictures. But virtually the full range of engine noises. From startup to test track, there's some serious rip and snort. And most importantly, they are sound waves befitting the prancing horse. I also love the old-school Oscilloscope sound wave thingy. And the picture of the trunk lid. That countdown clock is an ominous signal to the bank balances of underfunded dreamers worldwide, but Ferrari gets some props for seeing the wisdom in putting product a little closer to the dreamscape of gearheads everywhere.

Daniel Turman

Crackberry.com has purchased a currently unreleased version of the Blackberry - the 9000.
RIM has given the Blackberry a huge facelift - the user interface is a slick black with white icons, similar to a PSP.

Of course the list of technological advancements are huge: 650mhz CPU, video playback, Wi-Fi, 3G network support, hi-res screen, video recording, the list goes on.
 
View part I and II of the review here:
http://crackberry.com/blackberry-9000-smartphone-hands-review
http://crackberry.com/blackberry-9000-smartphone-review-part-ii
 
Morgan Tiley

With the gas prices way up (sooo painful), I have started to practice some hypermiling techniques - trying anything to get those extra miles per gallon.

I will probably never exercise the extreme hypermiling measures (avoiding hilly routes, drafting other cars or trucks, turning off the engine when at red lights, etc.), but some of the simpler techniques, such as reducing hard stops or fast accelerations, coasting into red lights, or trying to time traffic lights to avoid stops, can reap decent benefits.
 
Interested in the benefits of hypermiling? You'd be surprised by what can be achieved.

http://www.edmunds.com/advice/fueleconomy/articles/120880/article.html
http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/01/Autos/driving_for_mpg/index.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypermiling
 
Reducing the hard (or even normal) accelerations are going to be tough for me. I don't want to be labeled the milkshake who takes forever to accelerate up to posted speeds.

Tony Jankiewicz

If you've read any of my previous posts, you know I'm a big proponent of location-based services. Bright Kite is the latest in a long line of startups aiming to bring location-specific services to the masses. At its core Bright Kite is a location-aware social recommendation service. Users are encouraged to define their oft frequented locations, once at a defined location users can view a placefeed - think location-specific twitter - as well as, post notes, images, and check in. All of the site's functionality is also available through their excellent iPhone web app.
 
All in all it's a pretty slick service with tons of potential. It improves on at lest two very popular services [can you guess which?] and, if it can attract a large enough user base, might give them a run for their money. The other thing Bright Kite has going for it is that anything location-specific should be a breeze to monetize.   

Dan Neumann

Google is powered by Post-It Notes.

For more interesting uses of Post-It Notes, check out the YouTube Post-It Notes contest, where users are encouraged to upload a video showing their unique use of the notes for the chance at $10,000.

Marta Strickland

Geek Squad is an Organic client, and I love the way that the Geek Squad agent has become part of popular culture.  First Chuck on NBC (still on the air!), now the video for the ageless Mariah Carey's latest single.  BTW, Mariah has 18 #1 singles, second all-time after only The Beatles.

Misha Cornes

Burma has been on everyone's mind in the last few days as a result of the catastrophic cyclone that struck on Friday, killing as many as 10,000 people.  It's a tragic way to bring the appalling human rights situation in Burma back to the forefront of the collective consciousness after the monk-led anti-government protests of September 2007 failed to bring about any changes.

My mother is Burmese and I have plenty of family living in Rangoon/Yangon.  One of my cousins was arrested and beaten by the Burmese government for his association with opposition leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.  For me and for anyone concerned about the Burmese political situation, it's hard not to feel powerless in the face of an immovable military regime.

The U.S. Campaign for Burma is taking an interesting and provocative approach to making Burma relevant, refusing apathy and sending the message that collectively, we can do something about the situation.  In conjunction with the Human Rights Action Center and social shopping site Fanista, they have created a 30-day campaign that uses short celebrity videos to raise awareness of the plight of the worlds only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize recipient and the atrocities occurring in Burma.  Some of the spots are serious (Julie Benz), many are humorous or irreverent (Will Ferrell, Jennifer Aniston).  Each is unique and worthy of pass-along.

The goal is gather a million signatures of support for Burma in 30 days.  Welcome to social action, new media style!  As Human Rights Action Center founder Jack Healey writes:

"I've thought long and hard about how to create a new paradigm, a new thrust, a new energy, a new force. I am bored by public service announcements and feel that they have lost their effectiveness. I set out to create a new genre...A big or small non-profit can now define themselves without raising tons of cash through direct mail, cutting down trees for the paper, and can go up online and get the world to respond in a new way."

Sign up, add your voice, make a donation, and spread the word!

http://www.burmaitcantwait.org

Misha Cornes