Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic

image credit: Gathara's World

It seems the Obama phenom has caught fire pretty much around the world. The below are three links that show how the rest of the world would vote if they had a say on Tuesday:

http://www.iftheworldcouldvote.com/results
http://www.economist.com/Vote2008/
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/gallup/

The first was created by a 22 year-old in Iceland and is the most fun to use. It actually allows you to vote and then to see results by each country. The versions on the economist and from Gallup are more formal and aren't nearly as user friendly.

What intrigued me as a Canadian is the overwhelming support for Obama. In all three versions, he leads in every country in which people actually participated save 2 Macedonia and Albania. He is in a deadlock in Lesotho at 50/50. Mind you, only two people voted there and it is likely a couple having an argument!

In the Great White North, Obama is by far the favourite (note the 'u') and this morning I heard on CBC radio that several Canucks are heading to Detroit, Buffalo and Chicago to help out in any way they can! One person didn't even vote in the recent Canadian Federal election!

Is it his eloquence of speech, passion, or conviction? Does the rest of the world even know anything about Senator Obama? Or is the rest of the world fed up with Bush? Hard to say, but perhaps a combination, and some baggage from Bush Senior.

It too bad they didn't spend more on the applications to make them slicker to play around with or include Palin and Biden as well. Regardless, I will be watching with baited breath to see if America votes with the rest of the world!

Vito Greto

For fans of content, a presidential election is always awesome. Speeches, blather from pundits, polls, "October surprises" and endless-endless-endless prognosticating was fascinating even when we only had three TV networks, two national papers and two major newsweeklies to turn to for the fix. And with millions of sources these days, well... go crazy folks. Welcome to some vision of heaven or hell, depending on your point of view.

There are a couple of interesting trends I've been chewing on that I thought I'd share as the insights do cross industry and topical lines IMHO:

1. People Love Content!
2. Bias is cool! Kinda...
3. Mainstream News (Journalism Driven) sources are relying on this growing world of experts, promoting a sense of "bias" in virtually all content

This week, Amazon.com announced their green initiative "Frustration-Free Packaging" on their home page. It reduces wasteful packaging and simultaneous simplifies unpacking process. But the interesting part of the initiative is that it highlight the user experience and not just the green aspect.

I think although people claim to care about the environment, they'd like to know what's in it for them as well. This may be also why when Obama talks about alternative energy, he emphasizes its job creation potential and not the typical liberal save-the-earth rhetoric. On the other hand, it's quite possible that their call center simply has answered too many angry calls regarding those hard clamshell packages over the year...

Which is hinted at by their Wrap Rage campaign site:
http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=amb_link_7803552_5?ie=UTF8&node=1234279011

Fang-Yu Lin

image credit: io9.com

There is no denying that there has been a rebirth of the zombie movie in the past decade. There are the Resident Evil movies, the remakes and sequels to the George Romero legacy, 28 Days/Weeks Later, Planet Terror, and even the most recently released Quarantine. But the question is... why?

The team over at io9.com decided to map out the rise and fall of zombie apocalypse movies against the economic state and warfare of the USA. Turns out, violence and depression seems to make for good zombie movie inspiration.

So with the result of yesterday's election, you have to wonder... are we in for 4 more years of zombie movies or a rebirth in romantic comedies? Either way, the graph is just fun for all the info-graphics and analytics junkies/lovers out there.

Lau Ardelean

ThreeMinds recently wrote about how video games, like LittleBigPlanet, are adding Web 2.0 functionality to the gaming experience. Another game pushing the envelope of user creation is Spore by Electronic Arts, which was released about a month ago.

When if first came out, I spent all day (literally!) playing this, and the concept is incredible: you begin as an amoeba, and move all the way up to space travel, and lets you design every aspect of the game you can think of as you go.

EA released their Spore Creature Creator quite some while ago, which allowed you to design creatures that you could use in the game. However, in the full game, there are 11 different easy-to-use but powerful editors for everything you can think of, amoeba, creatures, buildings, plants, trees, cars, spaceships - you name it. There's even a mini music creator which lets you make a little national anthem for your race!

Everything you create is uploaded into what EA calls "The Sporepedia", which creates a massive database of creatures, vehicles, buildings, spaceships, plants, and a whole bunch of other stuff which will appear randomly in your game as you go. So, every new game of Spore you play will be entirely different, and the content will be almost entirely generated of content made up by not only your friends, but the entire Spore community.

With user-created content in every new game you play, there are also a ton of advertising possibilities. For instance, we could make replicas of different Dodge, Chrysler, and Jeep vehicles and make them playable in fantastic ways within the game. Because... why drive a Dodge Viper when you can fly one?

Daryl Brewer

When the computer crashes or wifi is down, everyone's favorite person in the office happens to be the IT Help Desk tech. But for those with, let's say, a more intimate IT relationship, now there's a way to symbolically show the world. Seattle jewlery artist Jana Brevick has created Jacked--Cat5 Compliant rings -  a wedding set for the unconventional. Diamond's may be a girl's best friend, but nothing says "I love you" like ethernet plug sets.

Traci Armstrong

This was a historic week... for social media, for voting, for America.

It's undeniable that this election and the campaign of the new President-elect Barack Obama has profoundly affected the industry I work in. Up until the big day, people were predicting results by measuring social media statistics and then following electing day results on Twitter. It was an overwhelming, but addicting amount of content to consume.

Then it was over. And many of us were left wondering what would become of the social technology that powered this election. Would the new President-elect tap into his groundswell to call people into service or to crowdsource policy reform? Would he embrace cloud computing to connect all Americans with relevant government data? Could he use this technology to create a transparent transition to the White House?

Yes He Can... and http://change.gov was launched to pick up the social momentum of the campaign and actually use the power of the people to, hopefully, change not just the results of an election, but our government.

But let's turn our attention away from politics and to two of the biggest social tools used during the election, Twitter and Facebook. What's next for them? They organized and informed during an election. They may have helped win a presidency. Are they ready to wear the grown-up shoes?

Let's look at Facebook this week. First there was the announcement that they would be joining forces with SalesForce to enable developers to create business applications. Then, there was hints that Facebook Connect could be rolling out soon, offering more useful application and integration options. But people aren't waiting for that... Retailers are already using Facebook more than any other network to promote their messages via fan pages and social ads. But many fear that the more profitable Facebook advertising becomes, the less usable Facebook will be as a social network.

Not as much has been happening with Twitter. There have been some great Twitter moments in the past, all of which prove that the success of the system is in the way people are using it. People are having to become more tweet-conscious as unfollow technology is allowing them to see people who stop thinking they are relevant. But eventually, Twitter is going to have to offer something to new and useful to its users (like groups!!), or they will leave for a less noisy micromessaging systems.

Marta Strickland

Editor's Note: ThreeMinds and Organic welcomes Karri Ojanen, seasoned blogger and information architect to the team.

Much of the Internet, as we know it now, is still top-down, highly virtualized, and not truly mobile. Most of the updates people post come from the comfort of their chair at the laptop, but, in social media, the use of mobile devices is increasing. Some also tout location-aware services as one of the next big opportunities for online marketers.

For the user, the increasingly popular microblogging services are competing to get to everyone's phones from their laptops. Twitter, Jaiku, Facebook and others all offer mobile apps, either third-party or their own, for posting tweets and status updates on the go, but they don't connect the updates with location-based data. Adding location data to the services could offer new opportunity to marketers, who could start offering location-based information to people on the move. And it could help make the connections that people create online more real, when 'current location' is added to the details.

None of these ideas are really new as concepts, but only now the required technology is becoming common enough to spring up some services. The iPhone 3G and other GPS-equipped devices are becoming more popular, and even without GPS the user's current location can be estimated by using the GSM network cell ID or the WiFi network that the user's on.

To that market, there's GyPSii...

One of the most common definitions of Information Architecture is that it's the "structural design of shared information environments." It defines information structures to answer the question "how does a user find the information they want?"

Today, the Web is certainly not just a hypertext system of pages and pages of information linked to each other, but a complex software interface for online social interactions, interactive animations, processes, applications and much more. While most Web IAs still call themselves Information Architects, and while IA is still an important part of what they do, it's really only a part of it. Some IA professionals now specialize in social media, some in interaction/experience design.

Creating exceptional experiences online, and developing efficient interactive marketing, is much about storytelling. We develop stories that excite and motivate people, and platforms where people can come create and edit their own stories. Interactive storytelling is in many ways more complex than traditional movies or theatre, but IAs can still learn a lot from scriptwriting techniques.

Chicago-based theatre producer Greg Allen's "25 Rules for Creating Good Theatre" make a good, basic guide to designing customer experience, services, and presentation technique as well. Some are basic rules that we all know and recognize, like these for example:

Rule #4: Know why you are creating this show.
Rule #5: Make form fit function.
Rule #15: Include a surprise.

Some others are more thought-provoking ideas. Try applying these to social media:
Rule #22: Get non-verbal.
Rule #23: Establish ritual through repetition.

Check out Greg's full list here: http://tinyurl.com/28mbqq

Karri Ojanen

From the title alone, one would have expected the recent Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco to have dealt primarily with the "usual": advertising, user-generated content, social media, and consumer trends. But this conference was a lot less about where the web meets marketing, and instead focused on where web meets world.

The final speaker of the night on Friday, Al Gore, summed it up nicely when he compared the history of the web to the history of electricity. When electricity was first tapped, there was a lot of focus on whizzbang gadgets, and now electricity flows everywhere, empowering our daily lives. It's time to look at redesigning our systems to be powered by the web. It's time to look at redesigning "the context in which these online activities take place -- in other words, World 2.0." (Gore)

For some industries presenting at the Web 2.0 Summit, the change is already occurring: politics, health, defense, green energy, and disaster aid. But there were others pleading with the audience, hoping to get the ears of venture capitalists and developers, in need of a 2.0 revolution. Those pleas namely came from Michael Pollan for a Food 2.0 movement, and Al Gore who wanted to see cloud computing and collective intelligence be put to work against the climate crisis.

First, Smule took the app world by storm with their simple but ingenious Sonic Lighter, that allowed you to see where other people around the globe had their flames burning bright at the same time as you. Next, they launched a special campaign edition where people could burn their lighters blue or red in support of the presidential candidates.

Now, Smule is bringing the official instrument of the Legend of Zelda, the Ocarina to the iPhone.

Why this is cool:
1. It's a digital representation of an ancient (12,000yrs old) analog instrument.
2. Its more than pressing buttons, there's a human element as blowing into the microphone impact the performance.
3. You can connect with people globally. You have the option of sharing what you're performing, or listening to someone half way around the globe.
4. It distills the core of what makes Rock Band and Guitar Hero so wildly successful and puts it into the palm of your hand while allowing you the freedom to create.

Maybe not a Rock Band killer, but undeniably awesome.

Stephen Murray

Sprint has a really interesting new site to promote it's mobile broadband offering.  It's called "Sprint NOW" and it is a futuristic personal information / news dashboard made of a screen full of cool visual widgets giving you a snapshot of our World now.

There's a broad range of widgets showing, for example, the current National Debt, email sent , forests cut down, energy usage across the globe, new cases of malaria, today's top Google searches and Youtube videos.

When I first saw it, I imagined this being projected up on a huge digital display in my home similar to a scene from "The Island", "Minority Report" or "Ironman".  I imagine myself going up to the display and customizing the data simply using my hands.

There's no hard sell from Sprint - just that soothing synthetic female voice telling you the current time, a stunning glimpse of how diverse and interesting our world is and how this diverse information can be presented in real-time NOW.  

Kudos to our friends at Goodby, Silverstein!

David Feldt

It's that sad time of year here in the northern states. The inevitable cold. Sure, it will be fun for a while to bundle up in winter clothes, hot chocolate, fireplace, and the holiday season. But come January, the novelty has worn off and there is still three months to go.

Leave it to Google to turn their trends technology to mapping the flu season. While technology might not be able to bring sunshine to Michigan, at least it might make us smarter about not getting sick.

What's Been Happening This Week?

The Battle To Monetize
YouTube made two great leaps this week in the realm of monetization. First, they announced an AdSense-style model that allows video creators to bid on sponsored placement and search terms. Second announcement, which came yesterday, they are placing ads inside of video embeds. The ads are small and can be clicked on to disappear. I imagine there will still be a cry of annoyance from the YouTube fan base, but nothing as drastic as what might happen over at Facebook...

Facebook's monetization strategy and marketing techniques have been under far more scrutiny. A suggestion that marketer's use photo tagging to promote their message sent the bloggers and tweeters into a frenzy. Then, the Wall Street Journal threw some doubt on the launch of Facebook "engagement ads", ads that try and appear more like social applications. While marketers scratch their heads and users resist, I do think that there is some value to be had with the engagement ads. They just need to be in line with the spirit of the platform, like Ben & Jerry's managed to do during the election with it's free ice cream campaign.

The Tweet Cup Floweth
Twitter hit 1 billion tweets this week!!! That is 1000000000 140 character nuggets of link shares, nonsense, and occasional insight. The bird chatter is becoming hard to handle, but luckily people like Chris Brogan have let out their secrets of how to deal with Twitter at full volume. One little bird that has gone silent though is the MarsPhoenix, which has likely been wiped out in a Martian dust storm, one of the coolest ways to quit Twitter.

Meanwhile, there was drama this week over an app called Twitterrank. Hundreds of Twitter users handed over their usernames and passwords out of curiosity, crowd "wisdom", and vanity. Luckily it turns out the app creator's intentions were not for evil... this time.

Marta Strickland

With movements like Data Portability, the social web is moving to a more open platform. The big networks are joining or building service offerings to take content, user data, social graphs, and technology out to the wider web. Facebook has Connect, MySpace and Ning are part of OpenSocial, and smaller players like Twitter and Friendfeed were built on an open platform from the start.

The walls of the garden are breaking down, and it begs the question: What will this new social world look like? Where will we be socializing in the future and how?

We are seeing the start of this next generation social web with the emergence of social browsing applications. These projects range from browser extensions like Headup and Glue to actual full-on browser offerings like Flock. These tools help bring social conversation and content directly into the browsing experience. While each offers its unique flavor, not all of these start-ups will survive.

The ultimate winner will be the one that follows these two rules:
- reduce, don't create, social noise and
- leverage existing social data and connections

A little while ago, an ad for the new Wario game for Nintendo Wii caught our eye. It was given a ton of praise for it's originality and the way it really caught the viewer's eye, getting them very interested in the product which it was advertising.

I ran across a similar ad today on the IGN site - at least, it's trying to be similar.

Once it loads, you'll see the Tomb Raider Underworld ad on the top and right banners, with a "Pull down The Ring" callout in the top right-hand corner. This is Problem #1 with the ad - you can't actually pull the ring at all. You have to CLICK on the ring, without dragging at all, in order to get the desired effect. It's a very, very cool concept. The problem here is that the concept has been pretty badly executed.

Problem #1 - user confusion. You don't tell the user to "pull" on something with your mouse when the functionality isn't there for that to happen.

Problem #2 - load time. The ad loaded in between 23 and 25 seconds consistently, whereas the Youtube Nintendo ad started playing in less than 6.5 seconds. Granted, IGN is a notoriously slow site.

Problem #3 - problematic presentation. The ad loads in two pieces, at completely separate load times. You're left with this "Pull Down The Ring" message with nothing else to support it at all until the final piece loads.

Problem #4 - mediocre video. The video itself is very well done, but the amount of time it takes you to get to it, plus the overall choppy quality of it, takes away significantly from the video's impact.

The bottom line is there are some lessons to be learned here about how the impact of a really cool ad concept can be drastically reduced because of less-than-stellar execution - something we should all keep in mind.

Daryl Brewer

Growing up, most of us could rely on an overbearing parent to point out when we needed to mind our manners. Dear ol' mom or dad could always call us out for interrupting someone, or opening our mouths full of mac n' cheese, or for forgetting to send Aunt Dolores a thank you note for the bedazzled sweater.

Later in life, even if our parents happened to be etiquette-challenged, there were sources - like Miss Manners or the Emily Post Institute - available for a crash course in protocol, say, before an important job interview lunch:

- Water glass to the right directly above the knife. Check.
- Napkin folded in lap. Check.
- Restrain self from ordering clam linguine. Check.

Despite many resources to rely on for real-world etiquette, I've found myself in need of an expert to turn to for manners in the web's social network setting. (And clearly, my parents can't help in this situation.)

I'm not an avid baseball fan but I do enjoy partaking in my boyfriend's Yankee season tickets a few times a year. Recently, an announcement on the NY Post about changes to Yankee stadium caught my attention:

"Instant replays and a variety of camera angles will soon be accessible via cellphone, and fans may even be able to dial up hot dogs and beer, team officials announced yesterday." NY Post

I'm a little bit torn. On one hand, it seems that it will take away from the classic "experience" of the game. There's something about baseball that makes you think of a father/son enjoying some bonding time, hot dogs and waving giant foam fingers. But on the other hand, the experience is already so far from that with $10 beers, overweight men with the team's name spelled out on their stomachs and homerun balls selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Sporting events, especially baseball games (perhaps because of the America's Pastime references), feel like large social gatherings. Thousands of people coming together to share the experience of rooting for their team. There's a collective feeling of "we". This technology makes it more about the "me". People will spend more time staring at their phones and seatbacks instead of high-fiving the strangers around them after a stellar play.

I'd like to see them take this technology even further. Interactive games that folks can play against one another on the large stadium screens, creating/voting on songs/playlists, posting photos they take at the stadium for all to see... make it a "Personalized We" experience.

Tracy Richards

An interesting article in Advertising Age points how poor marketing placement choices might actually cause consumers to "erase" their memory of the brand. As a result of advertising on American Idol, Coca Cola increased their equity, AT&T did fairly well, but Ford got "erased" from people's memory because it just didn't resonate in that context.

Think about it this way... if the brand placement doesn't fit into the "story" somehow, people don't remember it. I think we're just flat out wired to remember stories. Seriously, how many of you remember way too many words to the "if you like piña coladas" song? That's what I'm saying. In fact, Captain Morgan or someone should really market that song with their rum. But I digress.

Definitely food for thought when placing ads. The better the product fits into the overall "story" of the location (whether a page, a social networking site, a movie, a game, etc.), the more positive associations people will have with the product.

Tracy Coté

(...gettin' caught in the rain....)

image credit: ted.me

"Randy and I were having lunch in downtown Orlando today when someone appeared to have dropped their wallet. People shouted out to the person who dropped the wallet and Randy ran over and picked it up. When he tried to give it to the person who dropped it they said "Keep it. It's on the King". ted.me

What a cool and topically on-target viral campaign by the BK brand - especially if the target isn't necessarily the people who will find the wallets, but the people who will blog about the buzz. It's a campaign idea could resonate with an economically challenged consumer culture, but I just especially love details like the King's driver's license (reminds me of McLovin's Hawaii DL from 'Superbad', e.g. this spec for the King: "Sex: Yes").

Ironically, my posting about this is just feeding into the campaign goals, huh? At the same time I share info about the campaign and brand, my real chances of finding a wallet (with most likely just a buck inside) are about the same as seeing a golden ticket in a Wonka bar ;)

Because the "King" is now an established brand persona, the idea seems more 'real' to me than other recent campaigns by major brands that also employed the 'lost wallet drop'. My .02.

Jay Bain

This week kicked off with some record breakers. One billion browser add-ons downloaded from Mozilla and nearly 60 billion mobile messages delivered by Verizon in just Q3 of this year... which is more than double that of last year. The digital lifestyle is speeding up at exponential rates as more and more people connect to each other, tweet, text, and customize their online space.

What's Been Happening This Week?

All You Do Is Talk, Talk
After the kick-off last week of Obama's weekly YouTube address, many in the blogosphere began asking a very good question... Obama might talk to the people, but what is the effective plan to start listening? Some offered online solutions, like GetSatisfaction and @obamacares, while others detailed just the sort of government roadblocks that might be in the way of a Presidency 2.0.

It's a good question though. In a time where even Shaquille O'Neal and Playboy are on twitter... in a time where a legion of angry moms can create a WOM tidal wave over a 30 second ad... how will our new leader be able to separate the value from the noise?

Google Dabbles
Google launches and kills some things this week. Gmail gets themes, a simple but powerful addition, which Google has been doing a lot with the mail service. Google adds voice recognition search to it's mobile app with mixed success (I guess "bears" and "Paris" sound close enough). And in order to deal with the up and coming threat of Hulu, YouTube begins experimenting with HD video.

Google Lively, which was Google's virtual world offering, gets shut down. With the failure of services like Jaiku (microblogging) and Orkut (social network), it has left some wondering if Google just isn't good at communities.

Facebook, Destined To Be Google Or MySpace?
Facebook is spreading its wings during this tough economic times, but it is leaving many wondering whether it will turn into more of a MySpace or a Google. Let me explain... They are adding more ad space, which should make them more profitable like MySpace with advertising, but also can create drama with their users.

Other revenue models they are implementing include making developers pay a price for a verified (or "sponsored") application. This is very Google-y, and so is their ambitions to be more of a service provider, which we are seeing with things like the Citysearch Facebook Connect pairing.

And yet neither option really gives marketer's what is of true value, it's not the add space, it's not the social services... it's that rich data flowing underneath their feet.

Marta Strickland

To celebrate its 15th anniversary, The Toronto-based agency TAXI decided to mark the occasion with a big idea, one that would give back to the community. What they've created is The 15 Below Project and a jacket for the homeless.

The jacket is breathable, waterproof, lightweight, and the lining is made up of pockets throughout. These pockets can be stuffed with newspaper to provide adjustable levels of insulation from the cold. The concept came from Steve Mykolyn, Executive Creative Director at Taxi who enlisted long-time friend and designer, Lida Baday, to create the jacket.

"It's a lifeline for people without homes. They're a pretty low-cost, immediate way to address a huge issue," said Paul Lavoie, co-founder, chairman, and chief creative officer of TAXI.

On behalf of clients and staff, 3,000 15 Below jackets will be donated to people living on the streets throughout Canada and the U.S.

It's brilliant: http://15belowproject.org/

Dave Sylvestre

Twitter was all a-buzz yesterday about Mr. Tweet, a personal networking assistant that algorithmically scans your network and the entire twitter network to recommend you people that you should be following. It makes recommendations based on how many connections you share and the # of followers the person has. And because of that, it sways heavily to the twitter superstars, the people that have 10K+ followers.

While some found the technology to be incredibly useful, there were a few of us looking for more. In a world where social media experts are a dime a dozen, where we are overcome by social noise... it shouldn't be about connecting to people because they are the "popular kids", it should be about something more meaningful.

"Main prob w/ @mrtweet is using a grading system that scores 'influencers' by #of followers when most of my best tweeps have less than 200." acclimedia

"while a good start @mrtweet isn't a marriage-worthy 'matchmaker' yet... more like People magazine 40 sexiest celebs for now" martastrickland

"@martastrickland: But wouldn't a 'matchmaker' service be cool? Not talking dating, talking interests. Let us ponder and innovate." ckEpiphany

"@martastrickland @ckEpiphany Fantastic discussion! Will try very best 2 be a gd matchmaker- current penchant 4 twitterati will be improved!" mrtweet

In Mr. Tweet's defense, the company launched with GetSatisfaction already in place and spent a good portion of yesterday following up with the flurry of suggestions from opinionated tweeters. So while I still don't have my good web party host yet, it might not be far off.

Remember how cool it was when you as the art club chick found out that the soccer player in your class was also a fan of David Bowie. I look forward to the day where we move out of the high school cliches and into the real social web.

Marta Strickland

I will keep this short and sweet, as there is only so much we want to fill our brains with before the biggest bar night of the year and then the biggest pants-busting meal of the season.

What's Been Happening This Week

Social networking continues to boom, while advertising on social networks continues to fail short. This fact only confirms my feeling that what we really need is value-driven marketing, interest-targetted (not demo-targetted) advertising, and good ol' two-way dialogue between brand and consumer. Not just more of the same, different flavor.

What is surprising though, is that according to Nielsen just because online video is up, does not mean that TV is down. Turns out all screens except the silver screen (web, tv, mobile) are seeing record high numbers of viewership. And video providers are taking advantage of their hungry audience... YouTube went widescreen and Blockbuster is officially set to release a set-top box.

Marta Strickland