As I discussed in The Future of Your Brand is Play, brands need to take a different approach to engaging with those formerly known as "the audience". In the US Spike TV is screening the whole Star Wars series and have a comprehensive, integrated promotional strategy in place. One of the activations is shown below. Makes me think that playing gold with "The Shark" would be a cinch after all.
Month: July 2008
Where the Hell is the Sponsor?
If your brand is struggling with social media — wondering how to become involved with a “viral” marketing activation, there is much that can be learned from Stride Gum’s involvement with Matt Harding and his Dancing Matt videos.
The folks at Stride Gum took an interest in the videos that Matt took while travelling. These videos show Matt doing the “only dance” that he knows how to do in a number of places around the world. And while these were initially done for the benefit of his family, they were absorbed into the great viral milieu and spread far and wide. The videos worked because they manifested the P-L-A-Y framework as I discussed yesterday (and in more detail here).
- P — for power: the videos demonstrate the power of belonging, the desire to connect
- L — for learning and curiosity: Matt chooses his locations well. He sparks recognition in the locals and curiosity in everyone else.
- A — for adventure: through this very simple visual storytelling, Matt stimulates our own sense of adventure. Importantly he also demonstrates that despite very different circumstances and locations, that we are connected to others in a primal, joyous way — a connection that has no regard for language or alienation.
- Y — the yelp of surprise and delight: just watch this and you will know what I mean.
After seeing the videos and their impact, Stride Gum approached Matt, and sponsored him to travel around the world again, this time on their dime. Again, this was a great “viral” achievement. After that success, and after thousands of emails, Matt returned to Stride Gum and suggested he do the trip again — this time inviting the community to participate. Those who had emailed and commented on his blog were invited to perform the dance with Matt … the result is shown below. Fanstastic.
But even better is the approach taken by Stride Gum. While they could have plastered their logo throughout the clips, provided T-shirts to participants etc, they are content with what is effectively a post-roll credit. This allows us, as viewers, to be drawn into the story and into the experience. It allows us the possibility of transference from passive recipient to imaginary participant. It grants some respect to the story, the communities who participated and the viewers. And it really puts a smile on my face.
Special thanks to Ian Lyons for introducing me to Where the Hell is Matt!
David Armano for President?
Now I know that there are many people who believe that the man in the hat can change the world, but is this a step too far?
With thanks to Leo Bottary — make your own here.
The Art of Surprise and Joy of Delight
Good creative work can make you gush. When you see it, you are hit by simultaneous reactions — you want to speak but your brain has already shifted from literal to figurative language. We call it “amazement” but it is not just an emotional implosion — it is also physical. You stammer, stutter and roll your eyes.
When I began to think through the Future of Your Brand, I started with this “wow” factor. To truly delve into the possible futures of the consumer-brand experience, I felt it was important to try and mine this state of being. I came up with a mnemonic P-L-A-Y that provided some guidance around what is needed to achieve this enhanced state of receptiveness (in the consumer):
P — for power
L — for learning and curiosity
A — for adventure
Y — the yelp of surprise and delight
At the moment I am working with a young woman who wants to change the world. She is working on a massive project for her final year of high school and she needed assistance with her marketing plan — and as we were working through the process, she was asking many questions (as she should), seeking to clarify what it is that we are doing. This forced me to realise that, although I have written many marketing plans before, there is still plenty to learn — both in terms of the way in which I communicate and teach as well as the nuances of marketing, communications and messaging. And bringing the real world experience of HOW this is activated back to a teaching framework brings another series of challenges — after all, while I understand (and often write about the theory), it is all based on my actual PRACTICE of marketing.
Today, we spent quite some time on messaging. I forwarded her my method for building out messaging and key themes and we worked our way through it via email and IM. What I was trying to get across to her was the importance of “surprising and delighting” your audience — but had forgotten about the P-L-A-Y approach that may have yielded faster results (I will mention it to her tomorrow).
But then an email popped into my inbox from Tim Brunelle who reminded me that what we are hoping for in our messaging is a revelation of sorts — “I hadn’t thought of it that way before”. Tim explains it more fully in this way:
“An instructor at the U of M told our class that we couldn’t get a good grade by writing a lot of facts and stuff about the subject. He said he knew just about everything there was to know about the subject because he’d been teaching the class for a long time. He said the only way to get a good grade was if he said to himself after reading our paper, ‘I hadn’t thought of it that way before.’ That, to me, is what ads are (or should) be all about.”
– Pat Burnham
Good messaging, which is at the heart of good advertising, has to be about surprising and delighting. You need the emotional and the rational connection. You need a message that reminds you that you are alive — a living, breathing and caring being — and a kick that drives you to action.
Tomorrow Isadore and I will be revisting Tim and Pat’s story and trying to apply it to the task at hand. And I dare say, that any project you are working on could benefit from the same creative review (no matter how far down the track you are). Remember, you have only one chance to make a first impression. Don’t waste yours.
One Message Many Languages
One of the great technology driven innovations is real-time translation. It opens up the opportunities for us all to communicate across languages, to make language less relevant to the spread of ideas.
Today I noticed that this post about Greg Verdino was garnering attention from an overseas audience. Now while I doubt that the subtleties of the language translate fully, I find it fascinating that there is even the slightest chance that these words/ideas have drifted not just across geographic boundaries but into new cultural spaces. And while I expect this will become an ever more increasing aspect of blogging, at the moment it feels novel and strangely astonishing.
My Name is Gavin Heaton and I am a Social Media Charlatan
Much is made of “expertise”. Take a look at various TV shows, websites, blogs, and even LinkedIn profiles and you will see the word “expert” bandied about. When you pre-fix this with the words “social media” and you can end up with a potent mix. LinkedIn, alone, ponies up over 50 pages of “social media experts” within my own network — so it would appear that social media expertise is far from a rare skill.
The reality is, in my view, somewhat different.
We are living in a time where the acquisition of knowledge is occurring at ever increasing speed. Thanks to search engines like Google and to personal knowledge networks like Twitter, we can all find, relatively quickly a preliminary answer to the trickiest of problems. For example, if I want to know how to write a social media release, I will find good quality links to Todd Defren, Lee Hopkins, a case study by Geoff Livingston and even a webinar by Des Walsh. I could also comb back through my own del.icio.us bookmarks (or those of others), or I could reach out to my personal knowledge network (aka Twitter) — or just enlist the charming Connie Reece.
None of this makes me an expert.
I could repeat the same process with a different challenge — say managing an online community. There would be new names, great insight and plenty of links. But again, this does not an expert make.
Because while I have searched through all these links, spent hours reading and analysing and determining a plan for action, the world has changed. There are new services, new offerings and new approaches being launched. There are new web applications unveiling themselves. And it all happens in what seems like a matter of hours. Sites come and go, find favour and fail … within incredibly short time frames. The flux seems never ending.
How then can I, in all honesty, advise clients/companies/anyone about “social media”?
What I do have is experience, access to people who are way smarter than me, an openness to learning new things and an ability to bear a certain amount of risk. I try before I buy. Oh, and I have failed, and even embarrassed myself.
I claim no expertise in social media … I am continually learning too much (and working on shifting ground) to consider myself anything other than a charlatan. And I have taken the words of Connie Reece to heart — “If someone tells you they are a social media expert, run”.