Frontiering Talk

For those who loved the 1982 classic Tron movie, will enjoy this cardboard version.

This just shows the type of quality content that can be created and shared online.

Brands should consider tapping into these resources for producing videos.

via EpicFu

YouTube is introducing a new feature called YouTube Insight. The new feature will entail several new tracking abilities for those who want to advertise on the video sharing site.

YouTube Insight provides insight on how a video is doing over time and geographically.  YouTube Insight will show a breakdown percentage of the countries that viewers are coming from and how long a video takes to perform well

“Effectively, YouTube has become an ad-effectiveness, or an insight-effectiveness, tool,” stated Tracy Chan, YouTube Product Manager. “YouTube has millions of viewers every single day, and has become the world’s largest focus group.”

Brands will also have information regarding the geography of content consumers.  This will enable artists or marketers to target certain audiences for their videos.

YouTube Insights lets you see information on the geography of content consumers, how long it takes for a video to become popular, and ongoing performance. The new metrics are available under the About This Video, which are available to publishers and consumers alike.

Google Analytics is probably having an influence here and upcoming features will include how visitors were referred to specific videos.

There is certainly a growing trend for small companies to support the growing demand for personalised products.  E.g. Brewtopia in Australia allows consumers to personalise their own beverage label.

Vuru.com takes personalization to the degree where it provides customised daily supplement pill packs sent out as several months supply. They have created several starter pack formats linked to lifestyles, but you can also completely personalize your own.  Great for people who are taking several different supplements.  The site also contains a Vitamin Concierge, which is free for consumers that take 15 or more pills per day. 

And now we can add Customised Tea to the list of personalised products, (although it’s currently only available to US and Canadian consumers).  Known as Design a Tea, the company provides the ability for consumers to select a base tea to start with (Black,Oolong, Green, or Rooibos), and then add 1 or 2 flavours from the more than 40 available. The final step involves selecting the tea format (loose or bagged).  A personalised message can be included on the packaging if the product is being purchased as a gift. Pricing starts at USD $4.75 for 10 bags or 22g of loose tea.   And if the choices are too overwhelming, there is an assortment of pre-designed blends.

A collaborative story written by 140 different elementary and middle school students across the globe using Twitter.com.

Each student used the same @manyvoices Twitter Account. to contribute their 140 (or less) characters. The story concluded at the 140th entry. At that point, we collectively edited and revised our little Twitter story before publishing it as a small book through Lulu.com.

Kind of brings the whole, write a line and pass it on exercise into something that is global.

Listening to consumers has never been more important.  What are your consumers saying?

Sleeveface is defined as "one or more persons obscuring or augmenting any part of their body or bodies with record sleeve(s) causing an illusion"

This unique art-form has inspired over 1400 Flickr photos, a series of Youtube videos, and even a Facebook group with over 10,000 members.

This is a great example of a self powered community linked by the single common objective of creating art from record sleeves.

Absolut loves visions. They love them so much that they turn visions into realities.

In an ABSOLUT World everybody can submit their visions and explore what others have envisioned and realized.  And the website reflects this idea with an interactive navigation using 3D graphics to create an engaging experience.

Realised visions are represented in by boxes that you can drag, spin and open. Each one is different, and because they are generated by consumers, you’ll find all kinds of content inside.

There is even a blog which captures the submissions to "In an Absolut world …."

I’d like the ability to save a vision as a widget and then post the result to a social network, as this would ensure greater syndication of the content.

But the site is well designed and the visions are very powerful.

David Armano is one of the great visual thinkers best known for his Logic + Emotion blog which is full of creative visuals that clearly explain concepts.

Here’s his talk from this years Interaction 08 conference which describes how the convergence of design and experience are having an impact of the roles people play and the way we work.

Here’s a video from Reuters explaining a concept phone now on display at New York’s Museum of Modern Art demonstrates Nokia’s vision for how handsets might evolve.

The Morph concept is the result of a collaboration between the Nokia Research Centre and Cambridge University’s nanoscience centre providing a vision of a flexible, multifunction device.

Here are some notes I took from Brad Jakeman’s session which described the current lack of focus on getting the brand promise or big idea right.

Complicated communication channels as media became more fragmented and diverse.

• - There’ve never been more communication channels available and yet we are
• - So obsessed with the channel (the how)
• - And have lost focus on the Content (the what)

“The step that precedes action is Engagement”

 US Stats – in 3 years time

• US$6.9 billion will be spend on marketing and social Networking site.
• US$2.9 billion mobile marketing
• US$7.1 billion online video
• Search will triple to $25 billion.

 Consumer Shift

We’re not spending enough time developing interesting , attractive content.

• 98% brand messages are not effective.
• Brands now need to participate rather than enforcing themselves on it.
• The average consumer is exposed to 2,904 messages each day.
• Of those 2905, they pay attention 279
• Of those 123 are from Read, Listen or Watch
• 30 of those are disliked, and of the 83 that are left
• Only 55 are liked and remembered. .which is a 98% attrition.

By not focusing enough on the what, we have allowed consumers to view what we do as pollution

I also liked this quote which suggested that ROI really stands for “Removal Of Imagination”

We still operate by pushing messages at our consumers rather than pulling them toward great ideas.

• TV commercials lost to DVR zapping

The Big brand idea is greater than any cool ad and that idea should govern everything we do in all media channels.

He suggested that by 2010, 18% of ads would be screened out.

He then showed the this years Superbowl ads.

And commented that whilst these were great one-off ads, where’s the big brand idea?  At a cost of ~ $2.4 mm all they got was 60 seconds.

Big idea – an idea that’s big enough to drive a brand’s behaviour and language across all channels.

- I got the feeling he was talking about the Brand promise rather than an individual campaign idea.

• It should be Media agnostic – can be executed across all consumer touch points.
• Proprietary and unique – it is based on a truth about the business and its core customer.
• It would sound disingenuous when another brand has said it before.

JETBLUE case study

• The big idea “Bringing humanity back to travel”
• Which drove out every function and experience that was delivered to their audience.
• They used the “JetBlue” storyboard which was like a cockpit with webcams to record consumer stories
• Airline horror stories is a very engaging topic that people like to talk about .. so this tapped into the positives and the consumers embraced it

5 lessons

1. Shut up & listen – Start with the consumer. A big brand idea can’t be created in isolation of the consumer.
   85% jetblue consumers – will recommend jetblue a friend.
2. It has to start at the top – The big brand idea has to be embraced by the CEO because it has to drive all facets of the business.
3. Everyone in the company is a marketer – Everyone in the business has to be accountable for delivering the brand promise.
   (“invertise before advertise” which I thought was a great quote and refers to making sure your employees understand the big idea before the general public)
4. Do as you say! Mass collaboration enabled through technology
5. Insulates you from operations e.g. Feb 14, 2007 – Jetblue Disrupt most flights – 17,000 flights were cancelled.
   but despite this disaster consumers forgave JetBlue due to their loyal fan base, and the transparency with which they handled the crisis.

Conclusions

Media is becoming more complex but marketing is not – focus on some basic principles.

• Start with finding the unique role your brand plays in your customer lives
• New media is very important but don’t let it become the shiny object.
• Be rigorous and relentless in driving the idea in every single thing you do.
• Try zagging when everyone else is ziggling. – Know what your competitors are doing, but don’t be afraid to be different.  Create something that is unique. And make sure the content is superb.

I picked up this gem of a illustration while chatting to Ian Lyons, Communications Director at Pure Profile.

How does your website rate?

Brightcove have just published an excellent whitepaper on 5 keys to successful online video.

The 5 keys are :-

1. Create Context This refers to label and tag the videos to help with searching)
2. Encourage snacking (displaying related videos around the main video)
3. Produce for the Medium (i.e. short form content, bearing in mind not all genres are equal)
   - Av length is 2.6 mins
   - Less videos provide fictional narrative and drama, more at news, paparazzi video, individual personalities
4. Use Internet Distribution
   -  Allow consumers to embed your videos
   -  Organise syndication with internet video distributors
5. Monetize (for non branded sites)
   -  Need to thinking through how to integrate 15 sec pre-rolls
   -  For Brands .. the creation of 15 sec pre-rolls is an important strategy

Mike Murphy VP Media Sales Facebook (x-Yahoo) gave today’s keynote address and spoke on the Power of Social Media for Brands.  Some key take outs.

Facebook Australia Statistics
- now have 2.2 million
- that is 1 in 5 Australia people online.

Mike talked around the frequency of how Brands are mentioned in conversations without incentives.
For example, there are
- 118000 mentions of McDonalds
- 7000 mentions of Ikea in their profile

Polls
You can now run polls on Facebook, and in this example people were asked on their preference for Vegimite, Marmite or neither), and in 14 mins over 500 responses were received.

Trust and influence
People are discovering their friends various passion points, and this is being used to influence purchasing behaviour, as well as close friends being trusted for all topics.

Value of online media
Mike showed some examples of branded online media
Ali versus Ali (addidas)
Aussie Week (which was is a clever travel log showing real people experiencing Australia)

Distribution through Conversation
Mike talked through the social graph to explain social networking

Media spend
4 to 5 % of budgets are being spent online in Australia versus 25% in the US
He appealed to the industry to find better ways to measure engagement

Examples of companies doing social media right
1. Be a part of the experience
Gillette Venus Breeze razors, which asked women to interact with experiences

2. Maintain a daily dialogue
JP Morgan / Chase bank.
- Asked collegue students what was important to them in a credit card
- Results suggested that points were important, but that they didn’t feel they would accumulate enough points
- Chase responded with an application that enabled student to accumulate points together and then you could see how many points your network has
- This was the most successful credit card campaign that Chase has done

3. Give a reason to share
Cloverfield movie .. created a facebook application which could run as a widget on users pages.

What makes social media different and exciting? (some quotes from leading US ad execs)
- The power of conversation
- Like the difference between leaving a voice mail and the other person picking up and talking
- Putting your brand out their and letting people contribute to it
- How do you listen and engage consumer needs … over and above your brand needs
- Creating a fair value exchange - experience for their attention