Get it down on posterous

Better late than never Adidas

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Adidas miCoach

http://bit.ly/6D9cw9

I guess there are real Adidas loyalists out there that will be psyched for this, but you gotta think that the real goal of providing this type of service is to bring in those non-loyalists that jump between sneaker brands, like me. If that's the case, this is gonna be a real tough sell to convince non-Adidas runners that their tech and user experience is better than Nike+.

Believable signage

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I have a pretty standard commute ritual that consists of buying a coffee right before I get on the C train for my ride to Spring St. For a couple weeks now, though, I was thinking of changing that ritual (that behavior) and buying my coffee when I got out of the subway instead. Why? Well, because of this sign. 

I'm gonna take a wild guess and say that there was no brief, no creative director, no 5 rounds of reviews, no legal approval. No focus group, no A/B testing, no social media strategy. But there was, intentional or not, a promise, a dare really, made to every passerby. Now, granted, that on its own isn't really all that special. Brands make promises everyday about their products with each communication they make. You could say that is what a lot of advertising is, a promise. What a lot advertising isn't good at is making that promise believable. Full disclosure, the agency I work for, LBi, has a lot of thoughts on the idea of "believability" and the role that marketing, digital or otherwise, plays in making a brand promise believable. Fortunately, I concur.

"We" tend to describe it as being quite complex with many factors that come into play. In many cases that is true. In this particular case (Rheon Cafe's sign that is), while it really isn't that complicated, there are a lot of factors that are in play:
- the authenticity of a hand written sign
- the simple, straightforward and confident (I like how "Really" is underlined) statement that feels almost like something a friend would say if you walked past the coffee shop together ("That place actually sells really good coffee.").
- the proximity (within steps of product) and ease at which ($2) a passerby's could "test" the promise  

As a result, my response was, "OK, let's see just how good your coffee is."" And I did... not bad. Not great, but not bad (point here - your product/service/experience better deliver). Amazing coffee or not, a simple had written sign got me not only to stop, take notice and try a product, but it got me to actually change an addiction fueled ritual. I don't know, that seems pretty damn effective to me.

So score one for the buzz terms - authentic and simple.

Does anyone notice this stuff?

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Or is it just me?
I'm pretty sure no real consumer thinks about stuff like this, but I do every time I see this ad...

Where exactly is the person sitting in the car that captured this "special moment" in their life with a Canon Powershot?

All right. You know what? Forget that question. It's stupid and I'm certain no one cares. The better (or more relevant) question is, did the real photographer for this ad campaign actually use a Powershot? And if he did, well cheers to Canon, but why make the consumer guess? There's plenty of room along the bottom to say that a Canon was actually used and it certainly could be communicated with some clever copy. Wouldn't that be more interesting and meaningful to a potential customer than their cheesy "gazillion" copy?

Better yet, this campaign is running inside the Broadway/Lafayette subway station and it's plastered all over the place (probably a good dozen versions), so wouldn't it be even more fun (and memorable) if they used some of those placements to show a photo of the photographer actually taking the photo, in that ad you just saw, with a Canon Powershot? (did that make sense?) At least Canon would be making an effort to actually prove they can deliver on their promise.

Yea, you guys really don't care huh? Aight. Carry on.

Lost 'n Found?

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If the intent behind this is what I think it is, I can think of about 100 times in my life when I wish someone was this nice (and had a roll of scotch tape on them) when I lost my keys... or jacket... or bag...  or 3 year old.

*Note: That last one was obviously a joke. There's no way scotch tape could hold a 3 year old to pole.

Dallas BBQ gets it right

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First of all, the art direction of this Dallas BBQ subway board is amazing! Yea, no it's not. It sucks... But, BUT! It's the first time I've seen a "text" conversation in an ad that I can actually imagine two people having. The tone, the energy, the use of txt slang, the whole "heels n my bag. I'm running." is really what hooked me.

I'm not sure why something that 100% of people in advertising do ("Everyone in Advertising Texts" February 2009, Forestor) always comes across forced and fake when used in an ad. Even though I love this Cingular spot, it's really not the same.

So here's a "Good job!" to those savvy marketers over at Dallas BBQ. I mean, bumble gum flavored vodka shots? Freakin' brilliant!

Thoughts (read: why it frustrated me) on Web 2.0 Expo's panel, Advertising Strategies in Social Media: Adapt or Die

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I'm going to start by saying that I read both Alisa Leonard-Hansen's and Steve Hall's blog and I enjoy and respect their content. As for Tom Bedecarre, I mean come on, the guy is the CEO of one of the best agencies (digital or otherwise) in the world. Obviously he has achieved a level of experience and success that I can only hope to have one day in my career. And just to prove that I'm not just blowing smoke I'm going to be honest and say I had absolutely no opinion whatsoever of Marissa Louie, the CEO of AD-Village, going into today's Web 2.0 Expo's panel that she moderated, Advertising Strategies in Social Media: Adapt or Die, because I had no idea who she was. Ok, that's out of the way, now I can share my disappointment with the poor little guy in the christmas hat above.

It's one thing to say that you "didn't learn anything new" during one of these panels, and really that's not a bad thing. It means you're right on the curve or maybe slightly ahead of it. I also don't think anyone should expect to have their mind blown at every single conference. But when you walk out believing that people in attendance where actually led astray, that's not so good.

Here's how I would sum up the panel's thoughts on advertising strategies that enable "us" to adapt rather than, you know, die, in social media:

Use the rich and unique personal data that "social" sites have on their users to... wait for it... run more targeted ads and sponsorships.

Uh, what? Really? More ads? More sponsorships? More distractions, interruptions, more noise? Ok, I know the topic was "advertising strategies" and I do agree 100% that SM user data allows brands to more effectively target, and as a result, craft more relevant "messages" (their word, not mine) for customers, but I really did expect a more progressive definition of the word "advertising" to be put forth by the panel. At a minimum I thought Alisa or Tom would drive the discussion towards value or utility or supporting users social behaviors, goals, experiences, something more along the lines of user-centric marketing rather than marketer and publisher-centric advertising (I'm pretty sure Marissa said "monetize your customers" on 3 separate occasions) but they all kinda stayed on the topic of ads. No one pushed it. Even after Alisa admitted right at the start to having banner blindness like the vast majority of people online, the discussion continued to revolve around traditional digital strategies (really, they mostly talked about tactics, not strategies, but I won't split hairs). Well that's not entirely true, there was one strategy shared (recommended) by Steve that was for brands to jump on a meme bandwagon and sponsor someone/thing like Matt, the guy that dances around the world a la Stride Gum.

(silence)
This is me silent in awe.
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Is this actually what I'm suppose to go to one of my clients with? A strategy that is to search YouTube for the most popular video and tell them to sponsor it? Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of Stride's strategy tactic, but to say that other brands can find success by co-opting what's "hot" right now is right up there with "viral" as a strategy for me.

To Alisa's credit, when I asked if there was a place for "marketing as a service" in the future of advertising within social media (an opinion stated in the form of a question if you really must know) she did say yes and spoke about integrating across touch points/channels/mediums and so on. Which really wasn't an answer to my question, but I do agree is important, but it didn't go any further than that. Though... Marissa did successfully bring it back to ad networks and behavioral targeting (I think) before moving on. Based on the other questions asked after mine, I got a sense I wasn't the only one who was a bit disappointed that there was so much focus on traditional ad tactics. And I think the appropriate word here is disappointed. I know Alisa, Tom and Steve understand there are more ways to approach advertising in SM than banners. And I also know that as the CEO of an ad network, Marissa has a vested interest in pushing certain (banner) strategies, but I guess I was expecting more.

So this doesn't end as a Web 2.0 Expo rant/bash post, I did think the morning sessions I attended, Murder As A Way to Win (Nilofer Merchant) and We've Done All This Research: Now What? (Steve Portigal), were excellent. I walked away with a couple pages of notes on both.

Tried to find an credit for the photo but couldn't, sorry "sad baby".

But it's just 0's and 1's

I can't find the link to the story, and to be honest it really isn't that important. Essentially "they" are saying that virtual gifts will generate over a billion dollars in revenue by the year 2009 or 10 or something. Again, not really that important. What I thought was interesting was my initial reaction to reading the study/report/whatever which was "That's ridiculous. Why would people buy a virtual gift for someone? Who would want one? I certainly don't and can't really think of anyone I know that does."

This line of thinking continued for a few days. To be honest, I really didn't think about it again. Then I came across Rory Sutherland's TED Talk on perceived value vs. tangible value http://bit.ly/QozoZ and really enjoyed it (he goes well beyond that topic). Definitely recommend it. From that point alone you can probably see where I'm going with this, but to be honest I didn't connect the two (virtual gifts and perceived value) right away. It wasn't until I listened to one of Bob Knorpp's recent podcasts, The BeanCast - http://bit.ly/2K6hpl, during which he and his guests talked about this exact topic of the virtual good's market. In full disclosure Bob wrote a similar blog post and even came upon the same Sutherland's TED Talk within days of me - http://bit.ly/3oluDk (I actually enjoyed the fact that we were on the same "loop")... Anyway, during the podcast I believe it was Ask Wappling (or maybe it was Ana Andjelic?) who brought up greeting cards. Her point being that it's a billion(s) dollar industry built on giving someone a piece of paper (heavy-stock may it be) that people pay close to $4 for that is then, in most cases, thrown away within a few days if you're lucky. So why is it so crazy to think, Michael, that people wouldn't do the same thing for something made of 0's and 1's? I guess it's not. Actually, it isn't.

It comes back to perceived vs. tangible value. And if I really want to get all deep, does anything really have tangible value? But I won't, so don't worry.

So I guess I need to stop questioning data that on the surface sounds ridiculous and just take a little more time to think it through (and watch a TED Talk and listen to a podcast or two).

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NYT and WSJ both using email (differently) to drive readership

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I thought it was interesting enough to see the NYT paper edition, not the .com, using small, niche (long tail-ish) newsletter, Tasting Table, to promote their Weekender subscription package, but then I looked at the Gmail adspace at the top and saw their good friend WSJ getting in on the action. Not gonna get all up in the "newspaper dinosaurs are dying" discourse. Just liked seeing how the big boys are advertising with the little guys...

"Red Cup Day" or when your advocates make up a holiday for you

I started to notice a couple days back that Starbucks-heads were getting excited (read: talking) about the fact that their caffeine delivery mechanism was about to turn red. As in a red cup. Then today I saw a few more mentions, so I did a search (pic included) and the flood gates opened (note Shannon Elizabeth getting in on the action)... there you have it, Starbucks has an unofficial-official holiday on their hands, Red Cup Day.

Now, as a non-Starbucks zealot, I probably have missed the fact that Red Cup Day has been around for years, but that really is not the point. The point is that this is what gets me, being the marketing dork that I am, excited about brands. Or better put, the potential of brands. Take a look at the Snag I took of the Twitter search results for "starbucks red". Can you find one negative comment? You can almost see the smiles on the faces of people as they type the exclamation points! (that ! was mine, not theirs). Do a quick search yourself and try to find one. If you do, please pass it on to me, because I am interested to see how the haters are talking about it.

Say what you will about Starbucks, good or bad, but you have to admit that there isn't a brand in the world that wouldn't pay 100's of millions (Ok fine, 10's of millions) for their customers to get so excited about the change of a color of a paper cup that they would feel compelled to tell world of the sheer joy they are feeling inside. Or even better yet, that a change in their "product" would be aligned to something as universal and emotional as the change in seasons. Again, so much so that it gets people giddy. And I don't use "giddy" lightly. Just look at the words people are using - "Yay", "Happy day!", "so excited", "makes my hear happy!", "HOORAY!" "WHEE!!!" It makes you want to scream, "It's a fickin' cup people!" But it's so much more than that, isn't it? There is a lot wrapped up in this little red cup. More than my brain is capable of dissecting. It is powerful stuff, to say the least.

The purpose of this post is not to critique how Starbucks could be doing a "better" job of leveraging the spirit of Red Cup Day, but I did do a quick review of their digital properties and there wasn't much going on. Especially on their Facebook Fan page, but (and this is a real-time 'but') I just updated my search on Twitter and saw that they are doing exactly what I was about to recommend ; ) (see Snag of the @Starbucks tweet I included). So yeah, well done Starbucks.

Was trying to think of other brands that have become cultural symbols of changing events in the calendar year. Things that make you say, "It must be that time of year." (smile included), but I'm struggling a bit. Everything I come up with is generic - Christmas music being played in stores, ice cream trucks popping up on street corners or the smell of a fireplace or bbq. Seeing how this is my first post and I think I only have 1 follower (thanks @igzelesko) this request will probably float into the ether, but can anyone else out there think of one? Come on, I know there are probably at least a half-dozen or so out there.

 

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