When it comes to the much-hyped debut of the iPad, brands would be advised to channel their inner Donald Rumsfeld. The former Secretary of Defense in 2002 summed up the murky situation in Afghanistan by saying, “There are known unknowns. But there are also unknown unknowns. These are things we do not know we don’t know.”
Dr. Martens marks its 50th anniversary by melding its past with the present, rolling out a digital campaign centered on 10 modern covers of classic pop tunes spanning the diverse musical history of the brand.
I’ve spent some time over the last couple of days at a large social media conference/exhibition (no, not that one … this was Social Media World Forum in London), and it’s hard not to conclude that there are some sharp dividing lines emerging in the way social media is being sold to executives.
via The Battle for the Soul of Social Media | The Big Money.
Will social media revive appointment TV?
A number of network executives planning to expand social media program extensions next season hope the answer is yes.
Recent research indicates that viewers increasingly interact simultaneously with TV shows and social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to comment in real time on story lines, action and characters. Research also shows that viewers, enabled by technology, are increasingly using mobile devices to engage in real-time, at-home “watercooler” talk about programs as they air.
The growing legion of foursquare users can now start following and friending celebrities via the location-based mobile service through a new pact with Viacom networks MTV and VH1.
Foursquare, which enables members to earn points by visiting businesses — and automatically alerts their friend circles of their whereabouts — is using the partnership to kick-start its new Celebrity Mode tool.
Users can begin following MTV stars such a Jersey Shore’s Pauly D., who will start letting fans know where he has traveled and share tips on his favorite locales. Other stars from MTV shows The Hills, The City and the upcoming Real World: New Orleans are scheduled to begin using foursquare, said officials, as will talent from the VH1 vehicles The T.O. Show, Fantasia for Real and What Chilli Wants. Continue reading
If nothing else, SXSWi is a celebration of ideas. We share them, question them, challenge them and gather around them. Perhaps most importantly, we search for new ideas and try to imagine their consequences.
So it’s not entirely remarkable that Ben Malbon, executive director of innovation at BBH and managing partner and founder of BBH Labs, and his brother Tim, founder of London’s Made by Many, assembled 30 worldwide “competitors” to talk about how we might collaborate and innovate together in an effort to not only reinvent the future, but blow up the now.
via The Digital Exchange.
It didn’t take Ron Cooper long to figure out Clear Channel Outdoor’s (CCO) strategy as it emerges from one of the toughest ad years ever. After spending three months visiting nearly 20 local offices, the new CEO (who replaced Paul Meyer in January) for CCO Americas is ready to ramp up the company’s digital assets, a key contributor to the parent company’s growth.
Clear Channel Outdoor this year plans to add at least 120 new digital billboards to its portfolio of 472 digital boards in 33 of its largest markets. In a first for the out-of-home industry, CCO also plans to introduce later this year full-motion digital screens in bus shelters beginning in San Francisco and Washington, D.C.
CCO’s digital expansion is already under way in San Francisco, where it is erecting a high-profile digital board at the base of the Oakland side of the Bay Bridge. In Dallas, it’s adding two boards to the 11 currently in operation. Digital video screens are also being added to CCO’s inventory in airports, such as Denver and Chicago O’Hare.
Digital signs were a proven winner last year, especially in a depressed market. In 2009, spending on digital billboards grew 15 percent to $551 million, per PQ Media. The firm predicts this year spending on digital billboards, about a fourth of all digital OOH expenditures, will grow 19 percent to $657 million.
While other out-of-home companies froze digital rollouts, the additions made by CCO kept revenue for CCO Americas from dropping more than 13 percent to $1.2 billion (parent CCO saw its revenue drop 18 percent to $2.7 billion). Digital “led our company in revenue growth,” said Cooper. “The signs cost several hundred thousand each, but the high capital costs are supported by the revenue that the signs generate. It’s a different medium [from traditional static boards] with a different set of economics.” According to estimates, digital boards in high-profile locations are able to command rates up to three times higher than static boards.
Marketers such as Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Fox Television increased their OOH presence during the recession. New advertisers such as Clearwire and Fifth Third Bank have also started using it.
Advertisers are even becoming more sophisticated in how they use the boards, blending content and marketing messages. For example, a Tampa/St. Petersburg, Fla.-area hospital posts the average waiting time in the emergency room. CCO is even trying to turn some outlets into news sources, having launched the Total Out of Home Network in Chicago, featuring real-time traffic from CC Radio (and sponsored by the Illinois Lottery). Continue reading
Machinima’s already won over the Halo geeks. Now it’s going after the millions of Madden maniacs.
Today, the 10-year-old gamer media company, which has quietly amassed a large and loyal audience on YouTube, will roll out its third channel on the site, Machinima Sports. Premiering on the channel is the series Replay, which will consist of user-submitted sports game highlights, and Playmakers, which will re-create classic sports moments via games.
According to CEO Allen DeBevoise, Machinima already produces 24 original series and pumps out 600 animated clips per week. On YouTube alone, those shows reach over 23 million unique users monthly and have generated more than 1 billion streams.
Machinima tested the strategy of syndicating its content all over the Internet but decided to cultivate its YouTube fans. “It’s a question of focus,” DeBevoise said. “We found that you don’t need a channel everywhere. YouTube is the biggest bang for our buck.”
Kenji Arai, strategic partner manager at YouTube, credited Machinima with using several of his company’s free tools, like YouTube Insight, to respond to its audience’s viewing patterns — as well as to program more effectively. “Machinima really gets how to use YouTube,” he said. “They don’t just post a channel and let it sit there. The whole company thinks about its YouTube strategy.” Continue reading
Weaving through the throngs of St. Patrick’s Day revelers at the Hoboken, N.J., parade earlier this month was the usual turnout that you’d expect for an event like this — local girls wearing green-beaded necklaces and green-tinted sunglasses, frat boys in green-felt top hats and tape-on leprechaun beards, and sturdy men stomping the asphalt in kilts. There was a lot of singing, of course, and a lot of beer. It was, in other words, a standard holiday turnout.
Two of the nation’s biggest department stores — Macy’s and Sears — are using social media to drive prom sales for the first time this year.
Sears this month launched the Ultimate Prom Experience, a microsite dedicated to helping teens find the perfect dress. The site, accessible at Sears.com/prom, includes features such as a “Find out your prom [dress] personality” quiz, hair and makeup tips, a list of the 10 hottest trends, and a $1,000 sweepstakes. Quiz takers may also share and post the results on Facebook or Twitter.
While some people blithely put all sorts of personal information online, a seven-country Financial Times/Harris Poll finds plenty of others worried about what might happen to their data.
One question in the survey (conducted online last month) asked people to say how concerned they are “about the amount and security of personal online data that can be accessed by search engines you use.” In the U.S., 24 percent said they’re “very concerned” about this. The “very concerned” tally was higher in China (26 percent), but a bit lower in Spain (24 percent) and France (23 percent). It was lower still in Britain and Germany (17 percent each), and lowest of all in Italy (11 percent). Adding in the “somewhat concerned” votes, Germany and Italy were the only countries in which a majority of respondents didn’t voice at least that much worry about this matter. Continue reading
In the great Facebook fan rush of 2009, Skittles stood out. The Wrigley brand was able to accumulate a staggering 3.6 million connections. This gave the brand an opportunity to message this audience — but not much more.
Last month, it decided to get real. Skittles kicked off “Mob the Rainbow,” a social media campaign that turns loose its virtual friends on the real world in service of fun challenges. To start, over 45,000 Skittles fans created Valentine’s Day cards for an unsuspecting traffic enforcement officer in San Francisco. Skittles filmed the encounter and posted it on Facebook, bringing the effort full circle from digital to physical back to digital. It led to another boost in Facebook fans, with nearly 500,000 added in a month.
We have a love-hate relationship with technology. It’s quite possibly the largest boon we’ve ever had as marketers in terms of making our lives so much better, easier, faster, and even cheaper. Unfortunately, it’s the “easier” and “cheaper” parts that distract us to a fault.
We look to automate.
We look to scale.
We look to simplify.
We look to reduce.
Unfortunately life itself is not simple. Relationships are not algorithms; they’re intricate bonds built and reinforced through empathy, consistency, and commitment. Trust is not automatic; it’s earned over time. Our customers are not one’s and zero’s; they’re humans just like us.
via Will the New Marketing Revolution be Automated? | TalentZoo.com.
When Monster Media recently installed four giant interactive displays at Los Angeles International Airport on behalf of JCDecaux North America, it was the first of its kind for the airport — and also the latest indication that digital out-of-home is breaking the sound barrier in the air travel space.
“We now have about 22 systems in U.S. airports, and an additional 15 to 20 will go in before the end of the year,” says John Payne, president of Monster. The company’s interactive campaigns in airports have included displays where Travelers Insurance umbrellas multiply and contract as people walk by, and where snow blows across giant bottles of Coors Lite in a similar fashion.
via OOH Takes Flight.
As the economic downturn has dragged on, we’ve grown accustomed to hearing about consumers watching their pennies as they do their food shopping.
However, survey data released this month by Context Marketing, a strategic-marketing- communications firm, points to another behavior that has been taking hold: While an interest in “ethically produced” food used to be a niche preoccupation of food co-op habitues, it has become a mass-market phenomenon.
Jason Uzarraga 