Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic

While I don't understand the craze behind Joss Whedon, I have to respect the major Web 2.0 embracing that is demonstrated in his latest project, Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog. This is not another viral video, this is not another web sitcom. It's an event, a moment in time, a quickfire community assembled around valued content.

Dr. Horrible a three part series releasing every two days and then coming down for good. All acts will be available until midnight, Sunday, July 20. Then they will "vanish into the night, like a phantom (but not THE Phantom - that's still playing. Like, everywhere)" according to Letter from Joss Whedon available on the site.

It's ingenious. In a time of disposable culture, grassroot advocacy, and niche social networks, Joss is tapping into the vein of Web 2.0 in a way that most of traditional media has yet to comprehend.

"It is time for us to change the face of Show Business as we know it. You know the old adage, "It's Show Business - not Show Friends"? Well now it's Show Friends. We did that. To Show Business. To show Show Business we mean business. (Also, there are now other businesses like it.) "

And it looks like it's already working. The first installment released on Tuesday crashed the website.

So why is this important? Again, I'll defer to Joss who explains it best in his letter...

"Do what you always do, peeps! Do what you're already doing. Spread the word. Rock some banners, widgets, diggs... let people know who wouldn't ordinarily know. It wouldn't hurt if this really was an event. Good for the business, good for the community - communitIES: Hollywood, internet, artists around the world, comic-book fans, musical fans (and even the rather vocal community of people who hate both but will still dig on this). Proving we can turn Dr Horrible into a viable economic proposition as well as an awesome goof will only inspire more people to lay themselves out in the same way. It's time for the dissemination of the artistic process. Create more for less. You are the ones that can make that happen. Wow. I had no idea how important you guys were. I'm a little afraid of you."

Marta Strickland

I am definitely one of those people who hit the remote button but this spot would have kept me watching.
 
Imagine doing this with Volkswagen. They probably would have got to the G and then gone splat.
 
Adam Turinas

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

Times redefines the concept of both an RSS feed and what it means to be a newspaper online.

Times is a new Mac OSX app. that presents you with a format that is just like a traditional newspaper.  However you select the feeds just as you would for any other RSS feed/newsreader.  It is an interesting take on what both a newsreader and an online newspaper could or should be.

It has a great design sense, great features and the person who created is only 19!

http://www.acrylicapps.com/times/

Baron Conway

It's rare that you see a single banner ad unit get press.  Every once in a while an integrated campaign gets coverage and the online advertising portion may be highlighted, but rarely does one ad unit make a big enough wave to get its own press article out of it. 

Dr. Pepper and their agency VML have recently received press for a new "ultra high-def" ad before it even launches.  Brandweek ran an article today about the new Dr. Pepper banner ad and the description makes it sounds more like TV spot.  With nods to media spend and the ad's creative highlights they even refer to it as "Drool."  

Kudos to the Dr. Pepper/ VML team - I am looking forward to seeing the ad.  Seeing articles about a single ad unit the way we have seen articles about TV spots in the past is definitely an indication that people are paying attention, and that we are moving in the right direction.
 
Becky Marinaro

As we probably all know, the Internet has presented a lot of challenges (and opportunities) to the traditional publishing industry... Do they embrace the spectrum or fight against it and go the way of the horse-drawn carriage...or even the big record labels! Or do they embrace it - digital offers some incredible paradigms for redefining what telling a story is and can mean.

I think the jury is still out on what the final answer is going to be, however you can see from the way online advertising has decimated traditional newspaper margins that the writing is on the wall.

Well one traditional UK publisher, Penguin Books, is taking a different approach.  Starting on  March 18th, Penguin UK launched an ambitious digital writing project. In collaboration with alternate reality game designers Six to Start, Penguin has challenged some of its top authors to create new forms of story - designed specially for the internet.

Over six weeks a number of well known writers including Mohsin Hamid, Kevin Brooks, Naomi Alderman Nicci French will creating stories that take try to full advantage of the immediacy, connectivity and interactivity that is now possible. This could not have been done until the last couple of years.

http://www.wetellstories.co.uk