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Anti-Advertising Technology Makes Marketing More Engaging

July 12th, 2010 by Rory Partalis
Categories: Digital Innovations | Tags: ad blocker, ads, advertising, ambient, augmented reality, content, dvr, experiences, firefox, hud, product placement, readability, social media, sponsorships, tech, tivo | 5 Comments »

I know we all like to think that people love to see our ads, but there are people out there looking to build tools that allow people to block or skip the beautiful advertising we create. I know… it’s hard to believe that anyone wouldn’t want to see that “HeadOn – Apply Directly To The Forehead” commercial every ten minutes, but there are people out there who desire to consume ad-free uncluttered media.

Browsers, like Firefox, have add-ons, like Ad Blocker Plus, that allow people to block out all online advertising and replace it with images of their choice. Another ad-killing Firefox add-on is Readability, which allows people to remove all the clutter from a webpage and only display the main body copy in a single, easy to read and print column of text.

DVRs, like TiVo, are another great example of people trying to avoid watching advertising.

And Augmented Reality is also trying to get into the game. People at Fast Company and MIT have written about future heads up displays that will allow real world advertising to be blocked out or replaced all together. For example, imagine 2015, you are wearing augmented reality glasses, walking down the street and all billboards, posters and logos in your view will be able to be replaced with photos or web applications of your choosing, in real time.

I’m not here to say that this is a bad trend or a good one. Obviously most of the great content online and in the real world is ad supported and most of us take it for granted. But we will still need a way to spread the word about new products and services. What does this trend mean for the advertising industry?

A big goal JWT for the past 5 or so years is to create ideas that people will want to spend time with. This couldn’t be more true today with technology giving people increasing control over the advertising they see. To counter this, advertisers also have a host of new techniques to break through. Product placement and sponsorships are an obvious answer, but to really make an impact in this new paradigm, advertisers need to create ambient ideas OOH, engage in social media, produce longer form content and build online & mobile experiences that people find useful or entertaining.

In the comments, let us know how you think advertisers can engage in this new environment.

5 Comments »

What do Red Cross, Harvard and Tasti D-Lite have in common?

January 14th, 2010 by Kristen Green
Categories: Cause Marketing, Digital Media, Social Media | Tags: 90999, coffee talk, customer loyalty, digital power, engagement, foursquare, freshman, Haiti, Harvard, location based, loyalty rewards, Red Cross, social media, Tasti D-Lite, texting | 5 Comments »

What do Red Cross, Harvard, and Tasti D-Lite have in common? They have all learned how to use existing social media and digital platforms to work overtime for their causes and brands. Let’s take a little walk through three highly effective and brilliant uses of this digital thinking.

Case Study No. 1: Red Cross
As the world watches the heart-breaking images of the devastating earthquake, our hearts are saddened. We want to provide help in whatever way that we can, but we live here. They are there. What role can we play? This is where Red Cross stepped in to provide a way. Everyone knows that Red Cross plays a huge role in responding to disasters around the world. They also accept donations that fund these very causes. Their mission didn’t change but their call-to-action did. Many people would never take the time to seek out a way to give to Red Cross, but our tech-savvy society had phones in hand when they heard of the Haiti disaster. Many of us, including myself, learned of the disaster on my phone. So, the idea of using that device as a quick and easy means of collecting money was perfect. With a simple text message, you can donate $10 to the Red Cross’ relief efforts in Haiti. The buzz about the 90999 SMS code spread like wildfire across Twitter and Facebook. Within 3 days they had raised over $3 million dollars in donations through text messaging alone. That is phenomenal! That is money that may have never been seen if this system wasn’t in place. It is such a simple technology, but it found a great use in this tragedy. Tony Aiello of mGive, the company that is handling the donations for Red Cross, said it best, “Today is a huge day for mobile giving. We are experiencing a tipping point.”

Case Study No. 2: Harvard
Remember the first day that you walked onto your college campus as a freshman? Can’t you feel your heart pounding as you try to discreetly glance at your campus map that is secretly tucked away inside of your shiny new binder? Well, Harvard is attempting to take the fear out of freshman life and encourage upper class-men to become more involved and active on campus. Enter Foursquare. For all of you Mayors out there, you already know that Foursquare is a game that lets you & your friends discover new things in the city, and you earn points and unlock badges when you discover something new. You can think of it as a location-based scavenger hunt with the goal being to connect with new places and ultimately new people. So, Harvard has partnered with Foursquare to create a game and badge specific to their locations. I think this is a great use of a previously existing social platform. Instead of reinventing the wheel, Harvard has harnessed the power of a very popular tool to encourage campus activity and help save fearful freshman.

Case Study No. 3: Tasti D-Lite
If you peek inside your wallet, do you find a stack of unused loyalty reward cards? Or do you have a myriad of grocery store fobs that adorn your key ring? Even though the rewards of using loyalty cards can be beneficial to our bottom line, many people simply forget to use them. But would you reconsider if your incentives were increased? Tasti D-Lite has taken a new approach to customer loyalty by combining digital platforms that their patrons already use. If you connect your Tasti D-Lite loyalty card, known as the TreatCard, to your Twitter and/or Foursquare account, you can earn additional points for spreading your Tasti D-Lite love. When you swipe your card, you will earn points for an automated tweet that will go out, and when you check in on Foursquare more points will be added to your account. Again, it’s such a simple idea that will most definitely have an effect on their patrons. Tasti D-Lite may be one of the first to attach loyalty rewards to social media engagement, but they won’t be last. Others will soon see the benefits and follow suit.

Brands are always looking for ways to further their cause, engage their consumers, and increase their awareness. Red Cross, Harvard, and Tasti D-Lite, although drastically different in their missions, have all found a shared success harnessing the power of existing digital addictions. These case studies are great examples of how to implement easy and highly successful programs for your brand. So, what digital power will your brand harness?

Sources:
NY Times Blog
Mashable: Harvard
Mashable: Tasti D-Lite

5 Comments »

The masses are mingling. Is your brand at the party?

January 6th, 2010 by Kristen Green
Categories: Digital Media, Social Media | Tags: blogging, flash mob, foursquare, google latitude, loopt, mass, mingling, Social, social media, trend watching, tumblr, tweeting, twitter | 5 Comments »

2010 is upon us, and many of us are surveying the triumphs and failures of the last decade in an attempt to make this one better than the last. Many top ten lists have surfaced for the latest and greatest predictions of the coming year and decade, and I have been especially drawn to the “10 Crucial Consumer Trends for 2010″ that was published by trendwatching.com. One of particular interest to me is the idea of Mass Mingling. As trendwatching.com puts it, “Ironically the same technology that was once seen to be—and condemned for—turning entire generations into homebound gaming zombies and avatars, is now deployed to get people out of their homes.” As more people are utilizing location based social services, such as Foursquare, Loopt, and Google Latitude, more people of similar interests are gravitating together for common causes and fun. The digital walls have fallen. We are now entering what I believe to be a world that has a digital layer that lives on the real streets, rather than a computer world full of 3-D avatars. People no longer desire to hide behind the anonymity of their computer screen, but they are seeking to connect and share in real-time and in real-life with those who they have discovered via the interwebs. So, what does this mass of mingling mean for your brand? I view it as the golden opportunity for 2010.

In decades gone by brands had to hunt down their target and attempt to assimilate a mix of media that would hopefully hit a large percentage of those eyeballs. In today’s world, people are clustering themselves willfully. The upside for brands? Go find your group and follow them. I mean this both figuratively and literally. If you keep a constant finger on the pulse of your brand’s society, you can become a part of that culture. You can learn how to add value to conversation, provide reward for brand enthusiasm, and make yourself a lovemark to those who your brand values most. Hear about a flash mob that is going to assemble? Make sure that you are there to be a part of the action. Learn of a tweet-up or tumblr meetup that has the attention of your brand’s target? Be there! Make your face a common presence among your in-crowd. Now, you don’t want to be a salesman at the party. You want to be the cool kid who is laid back that other people seek out. If you wear your brand well, then you won’t have to shout from the rooftops. Also, if this is truly your right target, they will welcome your presence and not shun you from the fun.

How is your brand going to mingle in 2010? Step outside of your comfort zone and get out there! No one ever made new friends by staying home on Saturday nights.

Source: www.trendwatching.com. One of the world’s leading trend firms, trendwatching.com sends out its free, monthly Trend Briefings to more than 160,000 subscribers worldwide.

Image by chrisjohnbeckett

5 Comments »

IM, Chat, Email and Social Networks Gone Wild

December 8th, 2009 by Rory Partalis
Categories: Digital Innovations | Tags: all-in-one, api, buddy media, chat, comments, communication, content, dashboard, digsby, email, facebook, fan pages, friendfeed, google, google wave, IM, images, inbox, instant messaging, media landscape, mobile, open, ping.fm, pixelpipe, platforms, profiles, social media, Social Networks, status updates, trillian, twitter, video, websites | 2 Comments »

The Social Media Landscape has become so complex that something needs to be developed to help us manage all of our profiles.

There is a quiet battle brewing under the shiny-new-thing syndrome we all are guilty of from time to time. This battle grew out of the complexity and exploding number of websites the average internet user has profiles on today. Modern advertisers and marketers are especially plagued by the inability to keep up with all the comments, inboxes, and instant messaging clients we use to communicate with our family, friends, coworkers and clients.

This provides an opening for smart companies to build an all-in-one online communication dashboard. And this opening gets bigger and bigger as companies like Twitter, Facebook and Google keep rolling out more and more open platforms and APIs. This allows other websites, widgets and mobile apps to have greater access to content and information from those platforms.

Friendfeed was obviously the original social network aggregator, and Facebook mimicked their methods and then bought them outright. Now Google has ambitions with Google Wave, but there are still gaps for an all-in-one online communication dashboard that both pulls and pushes content from all other communication platforms.

I’ve seen a few emerging spaces where companies are trying to partially realize this dream. The first battlefield is combining IM, Email and Social Network communications and content into one chat client. The two rivals I’ve found in this space are Trillian and Digsby. Each are strong contenders and pull from many of the same sources. I am currently testing Trillian on my work laptop and Digsby on my home laptop. I prefer Digsby’s IM client and chat window layout, but like the look of Trillian’s pop-ups better. In my opinion either works fine for my needs, both are strong contenders in the all-in-one space, but neither are quite there yet.

The second area where I see a battle brewing is the content uploading battlefield. This is where you can login to one place and post text, images, videos and other content to all of your social network profiles. Both Ping.fm and PixelPipe have a lot to offer in this space and also push to many of the same sources. Both also have mobile apps, which is awesome for posting content on the go.

I’ve also seen a third battlefield begin to emerge after having a conference call with a company called Buddy Media. They provide a dashboard that manages the layout of Facebook Fan Pages and Twitter Profiles. Very cool stuff, but still in its infancy.

Have you seen any other similar tools like this that would make all of our online lives easier? If so, please mention them in the comments section below.

2 Comments »

The Demise of the Glossy

November 24th, 2009 by Kristen Green
Categories: Digital Media, Social Media, Traditional Media | Tags: advertising spend, augmented reality, copy circulation, digg, facebook, glossies, glossy, magazines, print, social media, twitter | 3 Comments »

We all know that with each day that passes digital media is pushing print further over the cliff of no return. You hear of magazines closing or going 100% digital on a daily basis, and even those of us who are digitally-devoted find it heart breaking to see some of our favorites glossies fall by the wayside.

Many of the big names are taking the hit hard. Conde Nast’s ad count is reportedly down by 8,359 pages. However, others are taking a step towards the future by merging the idea of print and online through augmented reality. The December issue of In Style magazine will be using augmented reality for their Taylor Swift cover (via Fashionista). There will also be interactive ads throughout the entire issue. According to publisher Connie Anne Phillips , “This is our most buzzed about issue [of the year] on a consumer level, and with this click-to-buy feature, it’s all about ROI and taking consumers to the point of purchase.”

So, is this a glimpse into the future of magazines? Will other pubs follow suit and find a means to their own revival? I’m excited to get the issue in hand to explore a truly interactive and tangible experience.

What are your thoughts? Could this be print’s lifeline?

Infographic by CartridgeSAVE.co.uk

3 Comments »

Nothing Goes Together Like Cause Marketing and Social Media

August 3rd, 2009 by Rory Partalis
Categories: Cause Marketing | Tags: awareness, buzz, Cause Marketing, charity, social media | 3 Comments »

Autism and Muscular Dystrophy Charity

… except for maybe kittens or babies and YouTube.

But I digress, most companies are involved in charity already, however many don’t realize that people want to hear about and get involved in those kinds of things. In addition, especially for B2B companies, it might be tough to get people excited about their products in a social media environment. That’s where cause marketing can help (aside from the obvious philanthropic benefits of the charity itself).

Now thanks to the rise of social media, cause marketing and social good is at an all time high and frequently used by PR agencies as an effective technique to raise brand awareness or repair a damaged brand (see Eric Hyman’s previous post on Michael Vick and his Humane Society work). David Hessekiel, President of the Cause Marketing Forum, told Ad Age that “In 1990, cause marketing spending was a bit more than $100 million, this year, it is forecast to reach $1.57 billion.”

Any foray into social media cause marketing must be authentic and substantial. An insincere program may do more damage than good. It must have a relevant cause to your line of business, but still must be considered an important cause (sorry, but “Save the CEO’s Private Jets” might not cut it, unless it’s a sarcastic Jet Blue campaign). It must also have a way for people to get involved and make a significant, measurable impact with their investment of time, attention, effort or money.

The Cause Marketing Forum added a Social Media category to it’s Annual Halo Awards, and here are the winners from this year:

GOLD: More than Footprints: TripAdvisor and Conservation International, Doctors Without Borders, National Geographic Society, Nature Conservancy and Save the Children

TripAdvisor invited consumers to vote on how it should allocate a $1 million donation between five nonprofits. Using social media, TripAdvisor generated more than 1million votes, 1.4 million views of a video on YouTube and numerous posts, resulting in improved impression of TripAdvisor by 56 percent of members surveyed. The biggest donation went to DoctorsWithout Borders ($392,000).

SILVER: Best Buy@15 Challenge: Best Buy and Ashoka Youth Venture

Best Buy and Ashoka Youth Venture, an organization that encourages youth entrepreneurship and social action, engaged teens to form teams and use social media to vote for cause projects of their choice in order to win one of 15 $10,000 grants. Word of the contest spread mainly by blog, social media profiles, e-cards and message blasts. The initial goal of attracting 20,000 votes was met in the first four days, and overall 151,419 votes were cast in six weeks through text messages and the web.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/carlgetinthehouse/ / CC BY 2.0

3 Comments »

Why @jwtcet Auto-Follows on Twitter

July 14th, 2009 by Rory Partalis
Categories: Social Media | Tags: auto-follow, jwt cet, social media, twitter | 4 Comments »

We struggled with this auto-following issue on Twitter for a while, but eventually decided to auto-follow everyone who follows the @jwtcet account.

We’ve heard people claim that accounts look spammy if they have similar large numbers of followers and followees; however, we don’t believe that auto-following people is spam. When people randomly follow massive amounts of random people, hoping to get auto-followed, that’s when it becomes spam. Even before we implemented the auto-follow tool, we still received tons of strange people following us for the wrong reasons, hoping for an auto-follow, especially since we are twittering from a recognizable brand name.

Also, our company twitter account is just an aggregation of our employee tweets, so it’s not too often that our employees read the full twitter stream for that account. However, many of us use advanced twitter clients like TweetDeck, which allows us to set up groups for the people we follow, such as grouping friends, coworkers, competition, news, clients, etc. into their respective categories so we don’t get overwhelmed by the mass of people we follow.

Auto-follow isn’t about attracting people, it’s about connecting to people who want to connect to you. We would like everyone who follows us to be able to send us DMs (direct messages), but they can’t if we don’t follow them first. Yes, a lot of the messages may be junk, but we just don’t reply to the junk. On the other hand, by not auto-following, brands may be missing important messages that people want to send them privately. In addition, if we find out we’re following spammers or inappropriate people, we unfollow them. Unfollowing the handful of spammers is easier than vetting the hundreds of people who follow us to figure out who they are and what their intentions are.

The other argument that needs to be addressed is the the negative perception of accounts with an equal amount of followers as followees, but we’re not here to win a popularity contest based of some artificial ratio. We’re here to connect with people interested in our company and our work.

4 Comments »

Online banner ads join print, broadcast and outdoor as “traditional advertising”

June 8th, 2009 by Rory Partalis
Categories: Social Media | Tags: advertising, digital, social media, traditional | 6 Comments »

A previous post on this blog was of the opinion that at some point soon we’ll stop talking about social media as being separate from digital media since digital media is inherently social. That’s a good point. But I think there are some aspects of digital that are not social (paid banners for example). So that leads me to a slightly different observation.

Being the social community manager, I may have a biased viewpoint, but I think the time has come to admit that it’s not traditional media vs digital media anymore, it is now traditional media vs social media. Some form of digital is now a part of every campaign.

Traditional media is purchased and intends to convey a message. Social media is interactive, encourages participation and is often owned or earned rather than paid (if you don’t know what I mean by that, keep reading this blog and you will), not to mention that even traditional advertising is becoming more digital, at least in terms of production and distribution.

Therefore, the way I see it, standard online display ads, search ads and other online text ads are now traditional media (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Traditional advertising, like TV, print, OOH and radio, is traditional because it works. It’s tried and true and when the strategy is sound, the message solid, the creative eye catching and the placements well targeted, traditional does exactly what it was intended to do.

Social media, on the other hand, has numerous case studies proving how impactful it can be, and in many cases more impactful than traditional media. However, it’s a lot riskier than traditional advertising because a win in social media is a lot harder to discover, plan, successfully launch and earn buzz from, especially without the support of paid, traditional media.

6 Comments »

When a brand becomes the sum of its links, who’s going to pay to entertain us?

June 2nd, 2009 by Eric Hyman
Categories: Commerce and Content | Tags: digital, links, social media, traditional | 2 Comments »

Just read a piece in Adage, What Matters Today Is Whether Yours Is a Most-Linked Brand, about how in the new world of marketing, old techniques and measures won’t matter that much; but how linked a brand is, will. The first part of that statement is not a new view. But the latter, while not a revelation, is a point to be noted. That is, the more linked you are, the more people are interested in you, the more they discuss you, the more in your face you are in the digital media swirl.

The question I have is, when the day of reckoning finally comes and old media is dead and it doesn’t matter what messages brands pay for to influence our perceptions and purchase decisions — when all of this paid stuff is no longer important or effective in reaching buyers/communities/targets/constituents — just who’s going to pay to subsidize our passive entertainment?

Think about it. If all the predictions of traditional media doom and gloom come true, there will be nobody to pay to produce whatever it is we might want to plop ourselves down to watch on our futuristic combination IP TV/PC/communications device. And with nothing to do but watch online shorts or wade thru blog posts (with no ad revenue, all traditionally funded media goes away), my prediction is we’ll all soon tire of our traditional brand free link supported digital lives. And sooner or later people will want their old school sit on the couch and veg watching Jon & Kate Plus 8 back.

I’m not refuting the prediction the success of a brand will be greatly enhanced by the sum of its links; that’s true now. But let’s not count out ad supported media yet. Somone after all, does have to pay for all this stuff; “free” will only take us so far. There’s going to be some happy medium marketers and agencies will find somewhere in the middle that will be the true Parthenon of new brand order. My advice: find a digital/traditional fluent agency that gets both sides of this constantly changing mess — not just where it’s going but also where it’s been — because in the future, you’re going to need it.

2 Comments »

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