Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic

Apparently the Carhartt website has undergone a redesign and they are enlisting their users to help destroy the old site.  The implementation of this could have been a little stronger, with more tools to use, but I like the concept of having some fun with the old website to introduce the new one.  Once you destroy the old homepage, you get to see the new one.

http://www.carhartt.com/

Steve Conroy

This is a very smart and engaging site created for Subaru Canada.  Works on many levels.  The sumo wrestler injects the Japanese - read quality - aspect.  It is synergistic with the broadcast.  Leverages the reality shows like America's Next Top Model and also sells the vehicle in an engaging manner.  It provides the same walk around navigation of most auto sites, but truly puts the consumer in control.  You even get to look at your proofs and send them off to friends or a contest they sponsor.

While a half naked sumo may not be what I would consider sexy, the site certainly delivers on make a relatively non-descript vehicle, look..well hot...

http://www.sexysubaru.ca

Vito Greto

A little-noticed story from Anheuser-Busch last week given the focus on the presumptive InBev takeover: last week A-B announced that it will stop selling alcoholic energy drinks. 

Relenting to pressure from anti-underage drinking activists and state attorneys general, they are pulling the plug on the tiny Bud Extra and Tilt brands (shortly after I got married, I used to see this ad every day on my commute).  Several brewers are accused of designing and marketing "alcopops" specifically for the under-21 market, and ultimately it seems A-B has decided that the controversy was not worth the minimal gains.

While it will have little effect on A-B's business, it's a big deal for category leader Miller and their Sparks brand.  I've tried Sparks and last year I reviewed Sparks.com, which seemed to give an insight into their product strategy:

"Navigating the site definitely feels like stepping into the mind of a teenage boy - air guitar contests, skateboards, doodles - but in a bold move, no shots of attractive girls.  Is it specifically targeted at underage drinkers?"

If the Center for Science in the Public Interest and New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's case against SAB Miller goes forward, we will soon have our answer.

Misha Cornes

Animoto is in beta but it's very very cool..  Essentially you upload a bunch of static images, choose a song of your choice (or upload your own) and Animoto produces a video based on what you've uploaded..  The images have some very nice motion effects and is all synced very nicely with the soundtrack you selected or uploaded...

I read about this site from one of my newsletter subscriptions and so I took 5 minutes and played with it.  Very easy to use. My only negative is the wait time while it puts your video together for you - but i'ts hardly a valid complaint as it's worth the wait.  The site allows you to watch videos/movie trailers while your waiting for your final result..    With that said - I'll definitely be back.

I only created a small (< 30 secs) version but you have the option to create full length video's as well.

My first animoto can be found here. 

Enjoy!

Patrick Dunphy

p.s.  Pardon the cheesiness..  Yours truly is getting married this summer.  ;)

Check out http://www.martinandosa.com and click on shop by outfit. Very nice simple use of video to show-off the products. It's a really well-designed retail site: Great product display, easy to navigate, simple well-organized merchandizing.
 
Something I have never seen before with a retail site is send to mobile. Quite clever. You can send a product idea to a loved one to buy it for you or you can show the SMS to a store associate when you are at the mall.
 
Adam Turinas

I love reading Rob Walker's Consumed column, a blend of business journalism and cultural anthropology, that appears weekly in The New York Times Magazine.  Next week he has a new book out, Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are.

Based on the previews, the basic thesis is that the CGM movement makes brands more, not less relevant to consumers. They are embracing brands more than ever as they co-opt, remix, and rebroadcast their own interpretations of what a brand stands for.  I'll post a review when it comes out.

In the meantime, enjoy this piece on the "lady's Taser".  With the new C2 model, Taser is coming full circle on it's original business plan - to arm the average citizen.  The marketing execution is clumsy, but the idea is sound - now that Taser has established a (controversial) reputation in the professional law enforcement marketplace, why not create a Taser that's "tough enough for a man, but made for a woman"?

Be sure to check out this video of a 95-lb "Jane Doe" (with Taser) vs. a professional ultimate fighter.

http://www.taser.com

Misha Cornes

Firstborn sent this as an example of the level of work they're doing these days, particularly in the area of blending HD and 3D. The production value and little interface details are naughty good.

There are a few things I really like:

- The seamless integration of product information/demonstration, along with the ability to actually purchase
- The nice balance of time-waster games and ancillary information (e.g. the eat calculator in Gus' section)
- The depth and consistency of the site is great- many site experiences seem to fall apart two levels deep - this one holds it together from top to bottom
- The "wishlist" is a nice feature - you can actually shop within the site experience

Things I don't dig so much:

- The writing and the talent are stiff and unnatural; could do without the pun-based character names
- The "yard creator" is pretty cool, but the games were much more engaging
- "Mike's videos" are just TV commercials, which is a bit of a letdown

http://www.welcomebackspring.com/

Adam J. Wilson

On Sunday, Powerset unveiled tools for searching Wikipedia that use conversational phrasing instead of keywords, marking the first step of its challenge to established Web search services such as Google. Powerset also has features that help you locate facts within articles "Explore Facts"; used to extract, navigate and explore.

Is Powerset the ultimate Google killer? You be the judge.

Lindiwe Vinson

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

I'm so over Twitter. I haven't wanted to admit it to myself, but a couple of things really tipped the scales for me. The first was this Newsweek article from 1995, which famously called the Internet a passing fad.  The fear of being the guy (or gal) is a big part of what drives the technology hype-machine.  Better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt. I feel like it's time to be brave enough to say what I really think.
 
Second, this simple Dave Armano diagram really spoke to me.  As an Internet marketer, my stock-in-trade is all about what's next. But sometimes even something really cool gets old.  In fact, pretty much everything that's really cool eventually gets old - sigh.  We've all been the either the last person on a trend (Second Life) or the first person off (WoW). 

Most embarrassing of all, we just implemented a cross-posting functionality that will push new ThreeMinds blog entries titles to Organic's Twitter account, although in fairness, we experiment with a lot of new technologies here trying to see what sticks.

Why did I sign up again?  Who am I following, and why?  I think my attitude can best summed up by this haiku:

Got a text message!
Oh wait, it's just Twitter spam.
You're stalking yourself.

But seriously.  Here are three reasons that I am over Twitter:

Most people are not that interesting.
There, I said it.  Overall, the culture of self-promotion embedded in most social media applications bothers me.  I know that listening to "life between blogs post and emails" is supposed to bring me closer to my Twitter friends, but I don't want to hear about their minutiae any more than I want to report on my own.  The time you spend away from people is what allows you to be interesting to each other again. 

Twitter takes bite-sized content about three bites too far. 
Have you ever read the transcript of a Twitter conversation? It's like reading the notes that get passed back and forth in class.  If blogs are bite-sized versions of newspaper-length articles, tweets are one-liners.  And as Gertrude Stein quipped, "literature is not remarks". I like to get the benefit of people's reasoned opinions, not their spontaneous outbursts.

Twitter feels distancing even as it connects me to others.
I think the main positive benefit of Twitter - promoting weak social bonds between loosely connected groups- actually allows people to maintain their space and reduces real intimacy.  In this great article about the parallels between behaviors like friending and more ancient forms of oral communication, cultural anthropologist Michael Wesch notes that there's a "fundamental distance" to social networks. "That distance makes it safe for people to connect through weak ties where they can have the appearance of a connection because it's safe."

With Twitter, each of us shouts into the void to the community at large, rather than taking the risk of speaking directly to one another.  Tweets, if you can consider them personal communications at all, are a declaration of existence rather than an invitation to engage in a conversation.

I'd love to hear why you agree, or how I've got it all wrong.

Misha Cornes