User-Created: What's with all the tiny pictures?

Madeofjapan.com (Onitsuka Tiger by Asics)
Eye.kddi.com
Drawball.com

These sites have passed under my nose over the past week. While each is slightly different— the Asics site is a collection of photos, while eye.kddi encourages video upload and drawball is a user-created graffiti site—they collectively invite users to submit an image (a representation of themselves in some way, I’d argue) to become a tiny part of something massive. While I think these sites are cool, visually and conceptually, I’m left wondering, “what’s the point? Is this cool for cool’s sake?” I posed the question to our esteemed Interactives.

Basically, the group agreed. Right now, it’s answering the innate human desire to engage, be a part and leave your mark.

But more interestingly, there are lots of ways to evolve the concept into something more purposeful (dare I say) that could either bring people together in support of a product or idea (a nod here to Onitsuka) or to help people better understand the components that make up a big, maybe faceless brand. What would a thousand picture collage of SXSW look like? Or Tumi?

ROI of Blogging: Part One-Buzz Metrics

I've been thinking on the sidelines about the ROI OF BLOGGING (nobody asked, but I recall one of our declared missions is to be more accountable about RESULTS), so here goes.

Part 1: I took a 5 minute BlogPulse review (short attention spanners can skip to conclusions at bottom):

Fallon Planning Blog vs Fallon.com
Our Planner blog is getting buzz volume on par with the main website (we work largely outside the margins with no PR flack "promoting", just planners talking and people talking about what we talk about). We take the hit in being cited among traditional (ie mass audience) press sites (though we have scored a mass media mention or two throughout last year).


Fallon Planning Blog vs Fallon Worldwide
What's more interesting to people: Fallon Thinking or Fallon Accomplishments (new spots, new book)? Kinda neck and neck (I remind you, planners have no PR team flacking daily). Interestingly, most of the Agency buzz is fueled by Pat+Fred's "Juicing the Orange" book promotions.


Fallon Planning Blog vs Juicing the Orange - 6 months
"Juicing the Orange" takes it! But planners ain't no slouches in this race...do note, that Agency Buzz verbatims reveal a tendency to be mostly Book buzz with the agency buzz basking in that association, so those could be considered duplication of the same buzz. And that note only shows that Agency Thinking is the bigger draw, add JuiceBook buzz and PlannerBlog buzz and we easily trump Agency Accomplishments buzz.


Fallon Planning Blog vs Juicing the Orange - 2 months
The Book is the gift that keeps on giving - buzz that is.


Fallon Planning Blog vs Fallon.com vs Juicingtheorange.com - 2months
Eh, the JuiceBook Dotcom ain't really pulling them in to the extents that the AgencyBrochure Dotcom or even PlannerBlog Dotcom is...interestingly, the JuiceBook Dotcom was intended (I think) to be an ongoing conversation continued beyond the book...a blog format could have been a better reworking of that thesis (compared to a promo microsite that may not work as effectively at fueling revisitation). Note too, I don't have the JuiceBook Dotcom metrics since day one, so there was likely a big flurry of buzz back in the day that trumped all of us (I would have to check Alexa for that measure). Needless to say, today, the JuiceBook Dotcom is not quite up there.

- but JuiceBook ain't doing so horribly when you take the 6 month view.


CONCLUSION: The F* I knows.

OK, so I'll try a few:

1) Metrics are fun!
2) Planners rule. Fallon Planners rule the mostest.
3) Blogs can definitely reinforce (even take the lead) building the overall experience of the brand...note that Agency and Book Buzz is propaganda. Hey, I got nothing against corporate propaganda at all, but it is a different POV than our blog which (allegedly) is our thinking (on a good day). And technically, GOOD THINKING IS THE FALLON PRODUCT IN TRADE (NOT JUST ADS)...but that is a different debate for a different day.
4) I could also conclude that the blog reaches pretty damn far (comparatively) with half the resources (did I mention we got no PR team flackin' us daily?). PlannerBlog buzz is produced from simply harnessing the thinking we do everyday - recorded in posts in real time and opening our thinking process up for people to see. For us, thinking is easy, it is the merchandising of our thinking that is the hard part (the important part?).
5) Fallon Planning Blog is "Juicing the Orange" in action...mmm, tasty. We're putting in action, daily, the corporate ideal of being outsmart in lieu of outspending.
6) Buzz about the book and buzz about the work (ie New Ads and Clients) is prob getting the bigger mass audiences, though. Do we like that? To be honest, Planner thinking ain't landing in Fast Company and BusinessWeek everyday...but that is a matter of time, and prolific content, and striking the timing on a hot topic and the responsive discussion and insight from us.
7) Blogpulse metrics depict a snapshot of levels of buzz, but admittedly it lacks a bit in defining the audience whose buzzing. Planner Blog was always intended to speak primarily to Planners (we told you that at the title)...and secondarily to internal Fallon teammates, then tertiarily (that a word?) to whoever cares to peek inside our heads and contribute or gawk (whatever's your pleasure). Number 1 and 3 are our biggest viewers. We should boost internal Hive Mind around our blog (get your AEs and Creatives on the same page with you - this webpage - and stop complaining that they never "get it"). So much of our chatter may be amongst other elite thinkers (discounting the occasional blog cite in CNN.com and CBS News et al). Is high buzz amongst elite thinkers good or bad (I pretend to speak rhetorically, but I certainly have a POV)? We can change any and all of these, blogs are flexible like that. JuiceBook buzz is targeted squarely to prospective clientele. Technically, PlannerBlog can just as effectively (perhaps more effectively) target prospective clientele, too. That is up to us to get it in the clientele channels (perhaps starting with our own clientele). **We may have an offline conversation about who actually reads Planner blog, but you'd be surprised what domain names I see checking us out, consistently - and it ain't just planner geeks at other agencies I'll have you know.
8) Time matters. Blog buzz and readership (currently at almost 300 readers a day) didn't just blast off at day one, so don't expect to light fireworks with your blog - it's a Long Nose strategy that builds up. The traditional buzz tactics (press release about new work debuts, a new book debut) spikes and drops, spikes and drops, spikes and drops - like a crackhead scrambling for the next hit. Buzz tactics such as the book provides a long tail that at least keeps it going a bit longer - like a slow baked weedhead coming down from a good high (Like these colorful metaphors? "This is your blog on drugs"). But without doubt, the Plannerblog keeps our brand buzz steady, steady, ongoing, like a heartbeat - as long as we commit and continue to contribute and stimulate and surprise. Blog demands that we deliver the goods (good thinking) with each and every post.

So while I hardly want to make a better than/worse than inference, the money shot could be that BOTH BLOG AND TRADITIONAL APPROACHES ARE VALID, BOTH MAY INTEGRATE NICELY, BOTH MAY COMMUNICATE THE BRAND VISION IN BROAD(ER) DIMENSIONS TO COMMUNICATE WHAT AND WHO WE ARE. WE ARE FALLON.

Open to discussion. Oddly enough, I don't hear too much talking about ROI of blogging...some good ones I have found are here and here.

I will soon post further thoughts and analysis on ROI OF BLOGGING throughout coming weeks and conclude a magic formula for easy success.

Politics 2.0: McCain MySpace Page Begs For The Hacking

(Spank) "Please sir, may I have another?"

The scoop as detailed by Tech Crunch:
Presidential hopeful John McCain used a well known template to create his Myspace page. The template was designed by Newsvine Founder and CEO Mike Davidson. Davidson gave the template code away to anyone who wanted to use it, but asked that he be given credit when it was used, and told users to host their own image files.

McCain’s staff used his template, but didn’t give Davidson credit. Worse, he says, they use images that are on his server, meaning he has to pay for the bandwidth used from page views on McCain’s site.

Davidson decided to play a small prank on the campaign as retribution. Since he’s in control of some of the images on the site, he replaced one that shows contact information with a statement: "Today I announce that I have reversed my position and come out in full support of gay marriage…particularly marriage between two passionate females."

Lessons learned here:

1) The web matters, social networks matter - recognize
2) All together now - honesty and transparency (repeat 3 times) - especially when you are a big ol' brand with the means and resources to do better and the delicate image that begs for pranking
3) Never underestimate the power of the little guy...hidden behind layers of cryptic acronyms and avatars lies the guy who can rally thousands (or millions) of people to expose you in a very public display (as in this case, the person offended is the founder of one of the largest news aggregators who can post his grievance before millions - oops, you stepped on the wrong "little blogger", dude)
4) The echoes of social network chatter reverb globally, and faster than the speed of light
5) Social currency and web conversation can be great advertising and branding tactics - note Davidson's clever add to "Discuss Election 2008 on Newsvine.com". Nice one-two punch! Subversive, AND entrepreneurial! That kind of thinking warms my heart
6) Don't step into the social media ring if you're not prepared to face millions of challengers. Those good ol days of launching a mass media message bomb and stepping back to await the pavlovian response are over.
7) Actually, you will be called into the social media ring whether you want to or not. Right this moment, someone is having an experience with you. And right this moment someone is saying something about your brand. And they may have the eyes and ears of millions. Are you comfortable with what they may say?

via Tech Crunch
Get at the original NewsVine post

User-Created: Zooppa

Recent results announcements from Frito-Lay declares that Dorito's "Crash the Superbowl" user-generated commercial campaign drove over 600 million views. 600 million views (the Superbowl boasts of 93 million views). Expect many to reduce the clues to tapping this opportunity as "let's hold ourselves a You-Create-It Ad Contest"!

That essentially is the potion that Zoopa offers us treasure-seeking marketers.

The checkered flag is waved and I picture advertisers like the zany comedians of It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Mad World in the madcap race to get that easy "user generated pot o' gold".
Zooppa stands to gain from the holy grail of engagement - harnessing the awesome power of user co-creation...but their solution of plug-and-play contests to solicit work from brand superfans for any and all clients seems ham-fisted and too literal. User-co-creation is first and foremost about sincere consumer passion for a brand. And the base reality of consumer-made engagement is that IT AIN'T FOR EVERYBODY NOR EVERY BRAND! But we'll see how these guys fare.

I quote highlights of their schema below:

"Zooppa.com partners with international companies to sponsor their brands through Zooppa's video competitions. Based on the briefs companies provide, users are invited to create their own commercials for that brand. This can mean designing an animated sequence, writing a script or concept for a potential ad, or actually shooting their own video."

"For each company that Zooppa partners with, a new contest is launched for users to compete in."

"Once users have uploaded their commercials, it is up to them to decide the winners. Users rate the videos and it is based on these ratings that Zooppa awards the cash prizes. Each Zoop$ that users earn are equivalent to real US dollars. Once users have accumulated a minimum of 1000 Zoop$, they can convert their Zoop$ into a real cash pay out."

Hey brands! Here is a free treasure map clue to consider: if our brands behave in unique and engaging ways, consumers will co-create with us. Save the money on the contests and prizes and think of really great experiences for your customers to have with your brand.

Neo-Health: Antioxidant backfire?

Antioxidants are everywhere, and most people believe they’re good for us (although they can’t say exactly why). They let us indulge in chocolate with less guilt. But a new study shows that taking an antioxidant supplement might actually lead to a shorter life! This week, news spread of a cumulative analysis done in the Netherlands that found studies on various antioxidants (like vitamin E or beta carotene) showed a 5% increased death rate. Here's a webmd recap.

People who get antioxidants from their fruit and vegetables do tend to live longer, but taking the pill version might be harmful. In a New York Times article earlier this year, Marion Nestle, a nutritionist, put it well, “ The problem with nutrient-by-nutrient nutrition science is that it takes the nutrient out of the context of food, the food out of the context of diet and the diet out of the context of lifestyle.”

Still leaves Hershey’s in question….cocoa is a natural source of antioxidants, but recently The House of Chocolate announced expansion in its so-called ‘goodness chocolate portfolio’ Hershey’s Antioxidant Milk Chocolate and Whole Bean Chocolate. So which is it? Supplement or natural cocoa ingredient?

University Marketing: Creating (A) School Spirit

I've always felt most school's would fail to get a passing grade in Marketing (even as I pursued my degree in this field). From fairs to brochures to tours to websites to videos to alumni newsletters, they don't do a heck of a lot to pull people in/make a connection and keep them connected. The know, however, for many, their sports teams create a real draw. This week's AdAge has a good article on the benefit(s) of a university's "cinderella" team making it far in the men's and women's NCAA basketball tournaments. For example, last year's George Mason saw a significant increase in applications this year (4x greater) after making it to the men's Final Four, 25% increase in "giving," and got press mentions worth up to $50MM in purchased media.

Unfortunately for those smaller, less known/popular schools, this year's men's tourney boosts household names of Ohio St., Florida, UCLA, and Georgetown. However this year's women's bracket saw a Sweet 16 shocker in Marist, who planned to take advantage of this moment in the spotlight by...drumroll please...simply playing the game.

Asked if Marist would take advantage of its success by running a 15- or 30-second commercial on ESPN's telecast of the game against Tennessee, Mr. Murray said the school had something longer in mind. "How long is the game going to be on? Two hours? That's a two-hour infomercial for us."

Fair enough. And when you think about how colleges and universities have historically and typically chosen to market themselves, you can't help but admire the "action speak louder than words"/events speak louder than ads approach. Look no further than this Slate article's title, to some up traditional university marketing: "Those Weird College Ads: If you like our football team, you'll love our chem labs full of Asian students."

As state-school spokespersons are quick to point out, colleges don't pay for the airtime—the slots are provided at no cost under most college-football television contracts.

Yet, there must be a way to not just fill this time better, but have a more compelling message and make a stronger connection with viewers. First you have to understand who that audience is. It's probably not full of potential student-athletes, it's probably not be full of jock guys, it may not be potential applicants, it may not be potential donors. It may be all of the above, but primarily current students. So the opportunity may just be to engage and galvanize the entire student body to create a visible or somehow tangible sense of positive energy and enthusiasm on the campus. In this case, maybe you sponsor a student created video contest. Or maybe there's a noticeable dropoff in or lack of current students participating in volunteer orgs, so you can make them aware of the opps available. In this case, you drive them to a comprehensive website or event.

Overly simplified, more university's need agencies to help them first and foremost, define objectives, learn about your audiences, create strategies for recruitment, donation, etc., develop smart and unique ideas and ultimately execute them. To help them understand what makes them unique and optimize real moments for connection—from the ads to athletes to the professors to the events to the students. (Hopefully the ones giving the tours are like Guide #2 in this post from Hill Holliday's blog.)

Ad Agency Deathwatch: Digital Wake-Up Call

WSJ reports on "Madison Avenue's Digital Wake-Up Call". Nike recently served notice to W+K and other agencies to boost web savvy and integration, other traditional agencies are taking stock.

some quotes:

"The move was a wake-up call to Madison Avenue. The message is clear: No matter how talented an agency's creative team or how well the client's management likes the firm's executives, the agency is of limited value unless it embraces digital media."

"Digital has long been 'an afterthought here,' says a person at the agency. 'We do it but haven't done it to the level we need to.'

"Nike now believes digital thinking should be at the heart of ad strategy, according to people familiar with the marketer's thinking. To make digital more central, it needs its main ad agency to be better skilled at digital techniques because the agency is developing ad strategy at the very early stages of a marketing campaign."

"Ad executives say more mainstream ad firms could lose business unless they figure out how to better integrate digital media. If people aren't embracing digital they will get left behind; clients are already there and they are gravitating to agencies who get it."

Viacom vs YouTube from Daily Show (on YouTube) Explained by Demetri Martin (Until They Take It All Down)

Viacom and YouTube haven't had the most amicable professional relationship. Viacom filed a huge billion-dollar lawsuit to stop the Tube from posting their intellectual property and now Viacom is being sued by "activist" groups for their insistance that a parody of Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report" be removed from YouTube. "Daily Show" correspondent Demetri Martin tackled the complex issue and made it funny, if not completely confusing. Even funnier, the clip is still available on YouTube.

via WebJunkTV

Mass Interactive: Wanted Poster on MySpace UPDATE

UPDATE: Homie is NOW APPREHENDED! Thank you MySpace for keeping the streets safe!
*Note the subtle change in music tracks since he's been caught (b4 it was "Bad Boys, Whatcha Gonna Do?"). Oh, Ponch and John, you clever-clever cops...Cue the freeze frame, theme music and roll titles.

Previous episode: Police created a MySpace account for a serial bank robber hoping to enlist the millions who use the popular social networking site as a cyber posse to help track down the fugitive.

The account has already collected over 1800 "friends", other MySpace users who have joined the unnamed robber's social network.

via MIT AdLabs and Smart Mobs

Inbox of Immaturity: March Madness Continues

You mean you didn't fill out an NIT bracket this year? Maybe you had a viewing party at your crib then? No. Well did you at least cozy up on your couch solo with a nice bucket of popcorn?



Sorry, I spent the years between Iverson and JTIII at Gtown, so I have some built up resentment. Plus, I missed the living legend Dikembe Mutombo, but heard tales of this legendary night.

In case you're less of a bball fan, but still want your fill of immaturity, here you have it: CGI disaster, National Anthem disaster, and Rap lyrics disaster - who knows though it could be the next club banger.

Guilty Pleasure: Techno Tuesday

I just found a new guilty pleasure, an online comic strip called Techno Tuesday. As the name implies, expect a new episode every Tuesday. The humour is prob a bit dark for some tastes - which is why I am loving it. This is like Simpsons for tech-geeks, which at this point may include everybody living in this modern age.

Check some samplers:

Mass Interactive: Wanted Poster on MySpace

Police have created a MySpace account for a serial bank robber hoping to enlist the millions who use the popular social networking site as a cyber posse to help track down the fugitive.

The account has already collected over 1785 "friends", other MySpace users who have joined the unnamed robber's social network.

via MIT AdLabs and Smart Mobs

Innov8 (or Die): Skunkworking the Motorola Razr

CNN/Money recounts the story behind how a team of engineers and designers defied Motorola's own rules to create the cellphone that revived their company.

The RAZR - a play on a code name the engineering geeks dreamed up - was hatched in colorless cubicles in exurban Libertyville, an hour's drive north of Chicago. It was a skunkworks project whose tight-knit team repeatedly flouted Motorola's own rules for developing new products.

They kept the project top-secret, even from their colleagues. They used materials and techniques Motorola had never tried before. After contentious internal battles, they threw out accepted models of what a mobile telephone should look and feel like.

The "thin clam" project became a rebel outpost and a talent magnet within the company, and the team grew to as many as 20 engineers who met daily at 4 P.M. in a conference room in Libertyville to hash over the previous day's progress.

"Anytime you've got something radically different, there will be people who feel that we should be putting our resources on other stuff," says Roger Jellicoe, team leader on the project. "It was a kind of lock-the-door-and-put-the-key-beneath-it approach to product development." Digital pictures of the project were prohibited, so nothing could be inadvertently disseminated by e-mail. Models of the phone could leave the premises only when physically accompanied by a team member.

With an ambitious deadline of completion within the year, Jellicoe relied on non-standard methods to drive morale and speed ideation. For example, he set up a competition among five of his engineers to see who could come up with the best design. And engineering and design teams began combining their work, a back-and-forth process that became known as the "dance."


Lessons from MOTO RAZR:

1. Secrecy limits distractions.
By insulating its RAZR development team from the influence of corporate groupthink, Motorola got an innovative product that wowed the industry and consumers.

2. Research isn't everything.
Motorola's "human factors" unit dictated that phones more than 49 millimeters wide would be deemed uncomfortable by consumers. The RAZR team concluded otherwise. Their only data points: their own instincts.

3. Niche products can have mass appeal.
The RAZR wasn't designed to be a blockbuster. It was supposed to be a high-priced, high-end jewel to regain luster for Motorola. Yet with high demand, unit costs plunged along with the price for consumers - to as low as $99.

4. Missing deadlines doesn't mean failure.
The RAZR team was supposed to be done by February 2004; they weren't until summer. But getting it right meant a whole lot more than getting it done on time.

Brand Cult: 55 Ways to Have Fun With Google

How elastic is your brand?

Google's mashable interface is unique in that it is intentionally opened to all users for mass hacking and improvement.

One believer has uncovered at least "55 Ways to Have Fun With Google" including the Google Snake Game, Googledromes, Memecodes, Googlesport, The Google Calculator, Googlepark, Google Weddings, Google hacking, fighting and rhyming?

Download PDF to start having fun with Google.

Mass Interactive: Groundswell

Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff at Forrester research have a good blog you should read, Groundswell, and a developing book about winning strategies in a world transformed by social technologies.

And as you'd expect for a book about such a topic, they are reaching out to the masses, You.

Their book will be crammed full of proprietary Forrester data, and insider case studies from organizations that succeeded through embracing consumer technologies.

Feel free to join the conversation and tell them about what you're doing.

Some of the things they're looking for:

-Good stories about how you got started and kept going.
-Real business results you can speak about. (Successes are great, but we'd also like to hear about projects that flopped or haven't succeeded yet, too.)
-Real people involved in the project that we can speak with.
-And in case you are worried about the public nature of sharing, they'll keep your examples confidential until the book is published some time next year.

Connect with Josh Bernoff/jbernoff@forrester.com or Charlene Li/cli@forrester.com

FallonLabs: Striegel's Wall Writer

Our own Jason Striegel and the interactive team is in the laboratory cookin' up some new interactive experiments. This homebrew "wall writer" is intended to eventually project onto a large wall or side of a building and allow the user to draw an image using the building as a canvas and the laser pointer as a pencil.

It's still in the early stages of development and is currently being rigged from a computer, photoshop, a standard web camera and a simple laser pointer.

"Package Up" Your Packaging

Got an email from Aki this morn, titled "funny observation" and which read, "this link still drives em in aftr all this time (14 yesterday alone) i always see it in the most linkd box...the gift that keeps on giving (for better or worse)." (Note: I printed this without Aki's permission.)

He was probably trying to coax me into post a "Dick In the Box" remix, but instead I remembered this post at Kottke.Org, which I some how "Stumbled Upon the other day. (Note: I didn't actually use this service.)

Seems that Gatorade may have lucked out (or knew all along) when designing its bottle for a mostly male sports drink consumer. It's not just the urinal peek or the locker room full exposure anymore; it's an AREA OF EXPERTISE.



Focus and learn men, focus and learn.

Mass Interactive: DeathSpace

Philosophical ponderings: In this age of digital second lives and multiple online identities, what happens to one's digital essence when the physical body dies? Is there a heaven or hell for the digital soul? Do androids dream of electric sheep?

Check out DeathSpace, a self-described "collection of dead myspace users."

Mass Interactive: Justin.tv

One day plus and counting...check out Justin's streaming live "reality" show.

Twitter, MySpace and Facebook options available too, so you never miss a move!

2007 Planner Survey

Planners, time to take some of our own medicine!

It's time for the 3rd annual planner survey.

If you haven't participated before, Heather LeFevre at Martin Agency conducts an informal survey that is designed to let us all see what planners at different agencies think about their jobs, understand what drives salaries, and hopefully learn more about how our discipline is changing.

192 people participated last year.

Please only take the survey if you are working as a planner (freelance and those who work outside the US are welcome), and your answers stay anonymous.

This link captures your email so you may receive results.

Feel free to post on your blogs and/or pass the link on to all the planners you know.

Survey
Email capture