Posts Tagged ‘marketing’
augmented reality and the bandwagon
22 Jun, 2009 • posts i've written • 2 comments
Lately, I’m hearing a lot of back and forth these days over Augmented Reality.
As it happens with technology, more evenly distributed tech (webcams and smartphones) has lead to a step forward (AR) which has lead to a rise in applications and adoption. Call it progress or call it a bandwagon, either way, we’re seeing some particularly smart uses of the technologies at hand.
When most people consider a bandwagon, they see two options: jump on or stay off, proselytize or condemn. Of course, this is a false dilemma.
The third option is to remain curious – and to use technology to serve a purpose. Most of us are talking to clients about the technology, and it’s up to us as intelligent thinkers to determine if AR really can serve a purpose for our client’s business. Disregard those that blow wind, listen to your own damn self.
But I will say this, ignoring and avoiding advances in technology, even those you may deem superfluous, is the quickest road to irrelevance. Technological literacy is a demand of our modern era; sussing out how things work is critical to understanding how things will change.
my advice to new graduates
22 May, 2009 • posts i've written • 2 comments
I’ve been thinking quite a bit lately about the new crop of graduates ready to leave academia and join the ranks of we, the slick persuaders.
Before I begin, consider disregarding everything here. Consider disregarding taking anyone’s advice but your own. Whatever tale I weave, it’s only the sum of my personal experiences. If you’ve escaped college still able to make your own judgments, then you truly are our Harrison Bergeron; dance while you are free.
First, let go of all the bleak predictions shoveled on top of you. This isn’t your recession. Recessions spell the end of business as usual, not for the business never before seen. Remember to resist entering the world to join the ranks of the status quo; the world doesn’t produce something new only so that it may replicate what has come before. Your place in this world is simply to evolve everything.
Avoid the industry. Quite simply, beyond artifice and affectation, at times, there can be little here of substance. These are not the ivory towers; this is the Emerald City. Behind the famous names, and famous faces, often lie feeble men with tricks of smoke and mirrors. In truth, there is good work being done by extremely talented folks, but many of even the most talented are fighting for their lives; and it’s a fight you can choose to step around.
We need to see amazing work come from outside of agencies. You’re part of a generation coming to age with a greater cultural and technological literacy than ever before – don’t ever forget that, or take it for granted. You should be building things, tearing them down, analyzing them, and starting over again. Be free to make mistakes. You also just happen to represent the most attractive demographic to most any brand out there; and if you can create something that garners attention from your peers then you can find someone to buy it or advertise on it. If you never quite get there, you’ll still have learned more in that short time than any of your entry level peers.
We live in a world where creating conversations, earning attention, and mobilizing human beings are the most valuable skills to learn. Put everything else aside.
Never stop being curious.
And never stop being skeptical.
fans: rise of the machines
13 May, 2009 • posts i've written • 1 comment
You see those trending topics on Twitter? Those are fans talking about things they love, to their friends, and anyone else that will listen.
Oprah mentions Twitter and registrations surge. That’s not the power of Twitter, that’s the power of Oprah’s fan community. CNN and Ashton go at it for new followers. Again, that wasn’t Twitter, it wasn’t a virus, it was fans acting on a leader’s nudge, and to connect to each other to share information and social currency.
You don’t scan your tweets every day because of Twitter either. You’re looking for people you know, friends, and also people you’re a fan of. Twitter can connect anyone: you to Ashton, Ashton to your third grade english teacher, and so on. Twitter is a bit of technology that better enables what fans want and need to do: connect with each other, express their fandom/define their identity, gather information, and feel more connected to what they love.
Fandom makes or breaks technology. Meetup.com took off because fans of beanie babies needed a place to swap and collect. Friendster cracked down on fakesters and it reduced a way fans could engage. Facebook is the center of a brand’s digital world because users can now ‘fan’ things.
Still think focusing on fans is too narrow? Or do you mean, ‘we just don’t have any fans?’ Those are two separate things: one is bullshit, the other is fixable. One is kidding yourself, the other is killing yourself (or at least resigning yourself to a slow extinction, better hope for no meteor showers). Brands should be out there courting and supporting these vocal fan communities. They’re right there, they aren’t hiding; in fact they’re doing very much the opposite.
fans: choose your own adventure
23 Apr, 2009 • posts i've written • 1 comment
Something’s missing here; the road most taken: calling your lawyer.
Treat your fan communities like the most valuable research project you’ve got – because they are. Give them space and give yourself time to take it all in. And when you’re ready to engage them, when you have something to offer them, court them wisely – as partners.
fans: mobilize a conversation
23 Apr, 2009 • posts i've written • 2 comments
To be marketable the new cultural works will have to provoke and reward collective meaning production through elaborate back stories, unresolved enigmas, excess information, and extratextual expansions of the program universe.
- Jonathan Gray (Editor), Cornel Sandvoss (Editor), C. Lee Harrington (Editor), Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World
The best conversations are ones where I know something you don’t and you know something I don’t. We share what’s new. Too bad this isn’t how most marketing and advertising works; marketers love conversations (about their products).
Advertisers look for the big message. They spend weeks in front of a white board crafting the perfect tag-line, one that says it all. Then they buy up all the mass media airtime they can afford to make sure that big message saturates the most people. End of conversation.
As if attention is a commodity you can buy…
In Pierre Levy’s Collective Intelligence, he describes a future societal power structure that transitions from ownership over commodities to mastery of knowledge. In particular, this ‘thinking community’ taps a ‘cosmopedia’ or ‘knowledge space’ of vast information provided by the type of many-to-many connections the web facilitates. Members of this group search, inscribe, connect, consult and explore together. Pierre describes what we might call a ‘hive mind,’ where if one has knowledge, soon all will. And in this hive mind, “unanswered questions will create tension within cosmopedic space, indicating regions where invention and innovation are required.”
The authors of Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World argue that digital fan communities might be the most fully realized versions of Levy’s cosmopedia. Fan communities are indeed “self-organizing groups focused around the collective production, debate, and circulation of meanings, interpretations, and fantasies in response to various artifacts of contemporary popular culture.” Moreover, fan communities mobilize around unanswered questions. This is what spawned fan fiction, ARGs and other multi-player transmedia storytelling games. Fans rush to create meaning where meaning appears to be missing.
Advertising is made for people who care… to pay attention. Fans care. Fans pay attention. But most messaging doesn’t create the tension that activates full fan communities. We’re still stuck on saturating a crowd of unwilling participants instead of mobilizing a community to create and spread a conversation.
a week dedicated to fans and the future
19 Apr, 2009 • posts i've written • 2 comments
I don’t write TV spots. I don’t design packaging. I don’t re-organize supply chains or help your sales team close more deals. I help giant global companies speak digital. In the past, I’ve written about what I do, but this week I’m focusing on the how and why.
Speaking digital means realizing digital media isn’t mass media. It’s about courting numerous existing communities in relevant, useful, and respectful ways.
This is digital marketing vs the marketing of yore…
Today, brands must learn how to earn fans. This begins with courting existing communities to earn (not fabricate) credibility. After that, brands must provide the means to connect fans and give them something to do. After all, a dollar spent on fans is a dollar spent on R&D, retention, recruitment, loyalty and longevity.
I’ll be spending all week posting my thoughts on the future of fans and digital marketing here. I hope you stop by and join in on the conversation. Let me know if there’s something specific I can dive into.
the fan economy
17 Feb, 2009 • posts i've written • 2 comments
I’ve been cobbling this presentation together for some time, even back when I was a Mad Man this was bouncing around this inside of my skull. Take a spin through and leave me any comments or concerns (either here or on Slideshare). If you enjoy it, please spread it. I’ll be expounding on this a bit in further posts coming to a blog near you.
branding in the era of the remix
23 Jan, 2009 • posts i've written • No comments
Mike, Faris and I were all contacted by Ben Alter, a grad student at the VCU Brandcenter to help answer one huge question:
Do you think there are any major ramifications for companies/brands knowing that the next generations connective tissue is this sharing, participating, and remixing of ideas?
Ben, my answer is yes. Thanks for the question. Now here’s a funny video.
I kid. I kid. Mike and Faris both took an eloquent stab at an answer, so I’ll do my best not to simply repeat them.
Recombinance is not a marketing strategy. Recombinance is a behavior. And it’s how culture advances. Technology has only further enabled remixing of content; but it’s less important how and more important why.
If you stand for nothing, no one will stand with you. Remixing is a form of personal expression in relation to something else. If you provide no stimuli, you can’t expect the behavior. From time to time, novelty can stand in for a lack of belief or values. But novelty is a diminishing resource by definition.
Brands have a myopic fascination with the effect, while they ignore the cause. Faris made the excellent point that remixes are sexy to brands because they’re a form of media that gets shared (and we like for the word to be spread). And brands are practiced at creating content that would never be spread by actual non-zombies: the dreaded press release, or a shallow micro-site, or banner ad, or interstitial video ad. Brands have perfected a model that is unremarkable. Instead of building a strategy around being remixed, brands should dedicate themselves to being remarkable.
Trying to control digital manipulation is the new tilting at windmills. You can’t influence culture without influencing culture. Certainly not all remixes are positive, so again, focus on your brand and what you stand for.
The rate of change will only increase. Having the ability to drag and drop pre-made elements to create something unique means that creation is more accessible and rapid. The pace also applies to building things like interactions: kids are out there building the next Facebook while brand managers review their :30 spots.
It’s time to create or capture more content, and distribute it more quickly. By spreading a wide net of content, your audience will stumble across it as they like and craft their own personal story of your brand.
Whew, that’s enough for now. Mike, Faris, your serve.
