Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic

I saw a wonderfully weird and irreverent TV spot for Cheetos. The spot left me intrigued – it felt bigger than the common and meager attempts at TV-to-Web integration. Turns out, they want us to commit “random acts of cheetos”, or ROACS (ray-ocks). Or in their words, “to create playful mischief using CHEETOS snacks.” The tone of the campaign as a whole is riddled with subtle and not-so-subtle references to things like Fight Club, LOST and 12 Monkeys. The three things that I like most about this campaign:

The idea is extremely riffable; the nasty little orange snacks are easily accessible and the mischief potential is quite high; I expect they’ll get a lot of UGC participation.
The campaign is a build-up to a mysterious PR event that will take place on April 1st, where “all your hard work will not go unnoticed”.
The full screen video is whoop ass, with chapter-like markers that link to the YouTube profile which serves as a smart campaign hub.

http://www.orangeunderground.com/

Adam Wilson

News for the Long Tail: "The easiest way to keep track of what’s happening on your block, in your neighborhood and all over your city"
 
Hoping Toronto is covered eventually!

http://www.everyblock.com/
 
Jim Bachalo 

Connecting the spiritual part of running with the memory of the American soldiers who have fallen during the conflict in Iraq ...

Over the course of the past five years America has been involved in an ever-growing conflict inside Iraq. Over 3,930 American soldiers have lost their lives and over 28,000 have returned wounded.
 
Beginning June 15, 2008, a dedicated team of runners will run across America in honor of those who have fallen during the Iraq War.  Every mile in this memorial run, Run for the Fallen, will be dedicated to a fallen soldier and marked with an American flag and personalized sign card. These dedication markers will create a memorial trail across the United States, which will allow the memorial to connect with towns and citizens and propagate the memories and lives of those who fought in Iraq. We run in honor of the soldier. (see the soldiers and the map here.

Kathy Sierra has always been a proponent of what she refers to as the "hi-res user experience". She, along with Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV, recently spoke at the Future of Web Apps conference. They shared some common viewpoints about the necessity of inspiring passion when building a successful web community. And while Gary attributed his success mostly to his dedicated role as "community leader", there was a lot of insight in Kathy's words that also can explain the phenomenon that is Wine Library TV and a ever growing number of Vayniacs.

"What the music expert hears has more notes, more instruments, more syncopation... than what I hear when I listen to the same piece. Of course I don't mean the music technically changes, but if the way we experience it shifts, it is AS IF the music itself shifts. Learning adds resolution to what you offer. And the change happens not within the product, but between the user's ears. The more you help your users learn and improve, the greater the chance that they'll become passionate." Kathy Sierra

Two big mobile announcements this week:  Microsoft announced a deal with Nokia to take Silverlight mobile and Google announced the compatibility of Google Gears with Windows Mobile devices. Bringing some competition to a mobile RIA market dominated by Flash Lite can only be a good thing. While MS has a long way to go, a partnership with Nokia isn’t a bad place to start considering their 57% share of the global smartphone market.

What’s interesting about the Google Gears announcement is that it brings offline web app functionality to mobile. Most people are familiar with the idea for PCs in the form of Adobe AIR so it’s interesting to see a similar concept for mobile from Google. This could prove a very attractive platform for certain types of applications. Hopstop, that means you.

Dan Neumann

Apple has licensed the Active Sync Exchange protocol from Microsoft which will bring the iPhone’s messaging capabilities in line with Windows Mobile and Blackberry devices. It’s a big step toward removing barriers to corporate adoption.

In addition to push email support Apple announced the release of an iPhone SDK and outlined a distribution and monetization model for third-party applications. The plan is for a 70 - 30% rev-share deal with developers. Distribution is to be handled through iTunes giving Apple control over the types of applications available.

If they aren’t already, advertisers and marketers should be paying close attention to the iPhone developer community over the next few months. The breadth and sophistication of third-party apps at launch will likely foreshadow iPhone market share for Q2 and Q3, and potentially into next year. Not only is there potential for development of branded applications, but because Safari handles HTML so well, wider acceptance of the iPhone has the potential to shape the direction of mobile web development well beyond 2008. 

The device’s 2.0 firmware update is scheduled for release this June. It will include the application loader software that is to provide access to native application downloads. Mark your calendar. 

Dan Neumann

Organic is happy to announce a new, cross-network internship program, The Farm. Our long-term goal is create as one of the best digital programs in the nation – growing exceptional talent within the company.
 
We’re currently accepting applications from interested students and we are excited to show off our new micro-site:

http://www.organic.com/farm/

Besides submitting a typical resume or portfolio, students are also invited to submit their own two-minute video to express why they should be chosen as an Organic intern.  We're looking forward to hearing from bright students (or their teachers) who are interested in growing in the digital space with Organic.

Stay tuned for more info about Life On The Farm.

Traci Armstrong

Jeremiah Palecek is a painter that became noticed in the blogosphere (Boing Boing, Kotaku) for his video game inspired oil paintings. Lately, he's been getting another rush of press, as he has decided to turn his attention to painting representations of famous viral videos, including diet coke with mentos, grape stomping lady falls, Tom Cruise Scientology, and of course, the dramatic chipmunk.

The surge of traffic has caused him to reach out to the community and ask them what he should paint next. He will then select his 5 favorite comments from YouTube and create a community inspired art piece.

Marta Strickland

It's about time. Recent research from PEW Internet & America Life Project is beginning to tell a compelling story for American mobile web adoption. For the past two or more years, I have been somewhat astounded at the continual higher mobile adoption rates found in other countries. However strange as it seemed, there was an interesting and unique story in each case to justify these statistics.

Japan
As of Q1 2007, half of Japanese mobile consumers use the mobile Internet, which contrasts 10% of Europeans and a significantly lower amount of Americans. Why? Japanese consumers tended to use mobile web to get information that was timely, location driven, and actionable for their life on the go. Japanese never had a highly adoptable SMS program, and so mobile web quickly took over the void. Things like ringtones and wallpapers were pushed using this method instead of SMS which was more popular in the US and Europe. Add that to lengthy train commutes into work, and you have fast mobile web adoption.

Coordinatr is is a stripped-down event planning and tracking tool. Nice social features and VERY easy to use.

I’m swearing off of Evite.

http://www.coordinatr.com

Michael Beavers

I love this site from Vestal, a Southern California watch designer. Their brand is about "fine-tun(ing) style and expression for the musically inspired individual", so naturally they lead with music and video. 

While many other youth brands (Scion, Airwalk) integrate a music player into their site, Vestal uses the video window to house both entertainment (musicians, music videos, photo sets) and the sale itself (product details). Their products are so tightly woven into the brand story that the products tab is 8th in the navigation hierarchy.

What impresses me even more is that way that the interface replicates the modern experience of web-browsing multi-tasking.  You can run music in one window, browse product video in another, watch a news feed in a third, all from the same page.  Highly immersive.

http://www.vestalwatch.com

Misha Cornes

The Lost Ring is an ARG sponsored by McDonalds and the International Olympic Committee. It appears that a great deal of thought has been put into creating the game - it has an extensive cast of characters and content.

Check out additional videos here.

The actual site is....

http://www.thelostring.com/index.html

An a wiki that gives you the scoop on all things "thelostring" is here....

http://olympics.wikibruce.com/Beginners_Guide

Baron Conway

I received this "test" from a friend over the weekend for a campaign to promote awareness of cyclists among car drivers in the U.K.:
 
http://www.dothetest.co.uk/
 
While it pertains to cycling safety, I believe the premise of the "test", the phenomena of "change blindness" is relevant to our everyday business here at Organic.
 
Give it a try!
 
Here's more on the background of the "test":
 
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/projectsandschemes/roadsandpublicspaces/7599.aspx

Joe Lekovish

I just had a great experience with Dopplr that I thought would be insightful: ending my account.

Dopplr is a great tool for organizing your trips and seeing what trips your friends are planning and where they are.  This was all great, but my problem was that I just don't travel enough to warrant another site I have to update and deal with. So, due to no fault of theirs I closed my account today. They made this very easy, there's a one-step link in your profile page but after this they went above and beyond by emailing me this .ics calendar file of all the trips I organized in the tool. 

They clearly get that the owner of the data isn't them, it's me and that I shouldn't have to jump through any hoops to take my data with me after I'm finished using their site.  This sort of attention to detail and user friendliness in something as normally mundane as closing an account is exactly the kind of thing that makes me remember them and want to return to their service if I ever develop a need for such a thing.

Phil Dokas

MySpace launched their Application Gallery (beta) late last week to pretty quiet fanfare. Beyond the tech community, many probably don't even know of its existence. MySpace Apps is not yet included in the overall navigation, and with no messaging API that feeds application interaction into a user's "Friend Subscriptions", it is going to be a long while before MySpace Apps adoption numbers reach those comparable to Facebook, if ever.

But, it's early... and it wouldn't be unreasonable to consider the initial burying of MySpace Apps is on purpose. They still need to work the bugs out and get some proof points under their belt to attract skeptical developers, who have recently feared social network fatigue and application clutter. Having spent an hour or so testing out some of the initial offerings, I think that is probably a very wise strategy. There was equal amount that got me frustrated as there was getting me excited, and to win over the new MySpace audience, they are going to have to improve that ratio.