Articles in Consumer Generated
Commuispace has released a study titled Meeting Business Needs by Meeting Social Needs, which examines the 6 social needs that people seek in social networks.
1. Expressing personal identity: online social networks provide people with the ultimate tool for defining and redefining themselves, as evidenced in profile pages on Facebook and MySpace.
2. Status and self-esteem: the need for autonomy, recognition and achievement are essential to our sense of self-worth and are fulfilled in online communities, blogs, and social networks that provide a way to develop and manage a virtual reputation.
Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV fame, talks with The Trend Junkie about building the Wine Community, transparency and the acqusition of Cork’d.
It’s an insightful video full of excellent advice for people wanting to start a community.
We have often mentioned the car segment as one of the best categories suited to “long format” advertising. If you are in the market for a particular make of car, you really want a more detailed engagement than what can be delivered in a 30 second spot.
So it’s no surprise to us that Honda have today launched an Internet TV channel (which will soon be linked to Honda’s UK site) which will deliver on-demand delivery of the company’s films and video content including Honda racing, driving tips and advertisements. Included in the short films section will be a feature on ASIMO (Honda’s humanoid robot), who will also feature as the host of the tv channel.
Alvin and the Chipmunks is a new movie to be released on Dec 14th. To promote the movie, the Oddcast software has been used to create quite a unique promotional microsite. The site is called Munkyourself and allows consumers to create a mashup of a chipmunk animated character generated combined with your own voice recording which is of course modified to sound like a chipmunk.
People are continuing to talk about brands, and a recent Mediapost article by Jack Loechner suggests that there are 3.5 billion word of mouth conversations every day in the US alone.
Whilst 90% of these conversations take place offline, that still means that 350 million discussions are happening daily. Can you afford not to start listening?
Now that Youtube has gained acceptance across the world as video sharing site, it’s no surprise that companies are creating tools to assist content producers in establishing their own video collections.
MyfootballClub, who I blogged about recently as an example of a Consumer Generated Football team, has purchase Ebbsfleet United.
Fao-Swartz has created an initiative which enables people to get a customised toy monster, based on your child’s drawing.
Known as Make My Own Monster, and the toys cost $250. You are first sent a kit, which contains pencils for drawing the monster, as well as a detailed questionaire which is used to help describe the character of the monster. FAO Swatz partnered with the North American Bear Co, who actually make the designs.
Jockey International has launched a Consumer Generated Content campaign call Jockey Underwars.
Individuals or groups are encouraged to post videos of themselves dancing in their underwear.
The site features head-to-head matches (aka Hot or Not), or dance contests (presumably by category).
“UnderWarriors,” as they’re known, can challenge other participants or just post his or her dance video on the site for all to enjoy.
The main JockeyUnderWars Tournament starts on November 15th, and winners will be selected by Audience voting. You can also provide comments on videos and invite other UnderWarriors to spar again.
Salesforce.com have set up an ideas section within their site that runs like Digg. That is, the most popular ideas float to the top.
Software companies have been running user forums for many years, and typically the customers with the highest budgets got to dictate the priority of development releases. Whilst it is important to look after your best customers, this new site allows for anyone to suggest a new idea or enhancement for the product.
