innovation playground Idris Mootee

Your Next Electric BMW May Not Come With Any Sound. Need To Pay For Separately Dowloadable "Autotone".

Many years ago people did not realize the power of the ringtone. Not only they can make money selling them but it is a powerful political tool. I think the Philippines was the first country in the world to use text messaging to topple a former president, they may soon be the first country to overturn a government with a ringtone. Imagine the power of the voice on poll tape and ringtone. What about the Obama ringtone?

The BBC World Service Trust understands the power of the ringtone to achieve development goals. When they were tasked with the tough task to make condoms more acceptable, and free from negative judgment, they came up with a wacky idea to get people talking about condoms -- a condom-themed ringtone. World Service Trust Condom Ringtone was the solution. They hope that this will stimulate conversation, which is desirable as - according to research - those who talk about sex and condoms are more likely to have safer behaviors

Or do you know about the mosquito ringtone for teenager that allows teenagers to receive text messages and phone calls in class without the teachers hearing them. In case you didn’t know, it’s a tone outside the audible range of hearing for most people over the age of 30. You probably don’t know this, the history of the mosquito ring tone dates back to 2005 when a British inventor by the name of Howard Stapleton came up with an ingenious idea to drive away teens through ultra high frequency sounds much like how a dog whistle would affect dogs. It was an idea to make the storefront very uncomfortable for the loitering teens while leaving the money spending adult customers unaffected.

So what’s next for ringtone? Here another innovation for the auto makers to make money. How about “autotones” for your car? If you live in New York City or Toronto you will often encounter bike messengers speeding pass you just a few inches away. The problem is you don’t know they are coming because there aren’t making any sound. When electric cars eventually get popular, the same problem will arise. Because they are so quiet, it can be dangerous if you are crossing the street and couldn’t hear them. Those hyrids need to figure out how to make the cars nosier.

Many have started working with sound engineers to design sound effects to simulate engine noises. The Fisker Karma, an $87,900 plug-in hybrid expected to be in the market soon, will emit a sound -- pumped out of power sub-woofers in the bumpers -- that the company founder, Henrik Fisker, describes as "a cross between a starship and a Formula One car. I believe at one point they will get creative and designing unique noises to differentiate their brands. There will be Mercedes, Porsche and BMW noises.

Buying an electric car in 2012 you will need to pick from the price list what “Vroomtone” or “autotone” package that you may want to include (for a price). Or you can buy a subscription package that you can have unlimited download of all “autotone” for your car for a year. Pick something for the locking of the cars, or another for engine noises or when the charge is ready etc. May be the automakers end up making more money from these “autotone” that the car itself.

Have a great weekend and off to Boston.

Any CMO Health Check Can Uncover The Following: Chronic Social Media Phobia And Brand Equity Ulcer.

The challenges faced by the CMO and senior marketing execs today speak to many of the fundamental strategic as well as structural problems underlying marketing organizations and the external environment. The proliferation and fragmentation of media as well as the as the over-branding of everything is causing the jobs of many CMOs.

The core definition of the role is not clear in many instances. Sometimes the real job is Chief Sales Officer and sometimes it is the job of a Chief Communications Officer and sometimes the job is the Chief Strategic Alliances Officer. Rarely the job is just Chief Marketing Officer. CEOs are having too much trouble defining the CMO role and making heads or tails of what, exactly, the value was. And for the future, the role will be called  “Chief Social Marketing and Communities Officer”:

CMOs health check will often uncover the following:

Chronic Social Media Phobia: A fear what to do with social media and knowing it is important but can’t figure how to orchestrate these efforts or link them to ROI. How much does a Twitter message worth? How does these behavior will evolve? How do we monitor or measure them? Suddenly our brands are becoming vulnerable.

Marketing Science Delusion: The unsubstantiated belief that marketing is all about science is causing this delusion. There is science in marketing but it will always be just 50%. The other 50% is social science. While great strides have been made in describing human behavior in the marketplace, the ‘general laws’ of human behavior are not really laws. Human behavior is not universal, and observation and experimentation in the marketing sphere rarely yield strictly reproducible results. So it is not that kind of science.

Brand Equity Ulcer: A stress condition caused many to think brand equity is a goal and refuse to acknowledge that brand equity is only an intermediary step towards the larger goal of creating a more successful business (cash flow). Patients find it hard to resist the temptation to narrow the focus to brand valuation when the focus should be on the overall value dynamics of the business.

Undifferentiated Technology Obsession: An obsession disorder suffers by many by repeatedly throwing money at marketing undifferentiated product or service offerings and hoping to magically create differentiation.

For CMOs to succeed they must sit at the top of an “agile and socially-driven” marketing organization, and new capabilities need to be built from the ground up. The science of marketing is advancing forward and measurement systems are years behind. Advertising agencies are more behind the curve than clients and clients are demanding more.

CMOs also need to equip themselves with financial skills and to better understand KPIs that link to NPV. John Quelch (HBS) in an Advertising Age column suggested that “Improved accountability requires CMOs to be financially literate, to understand the balance sheet as well as the income-statement effects of marketing initiatives.”

CMOs also need to take on the role of a change agent. As marketing becomes “social”, CMOs who once bought the voice of the customer into organizations (customer-centricity) now once gain have a mission to bring all ideas that are “social” into the organizations. Effectively the change agent for the transformation of the socially empowered enterprises. There is no room for complacency or incremental efforts.  Marketing is a dynamic practice that keeps an organization in check with the dynamic needs of its customer communities and of the marketplace.

Viral Video Is A Secret Weapon Many Are Still Learning To Use. It Is Highly Engaging. Advertisers Ask Why Are We Paying For Reach When What All We Want Is Engagement? Think Viral!

When most people think about viral videos, they think of a crazy idea (often funny) that is irrelevant to the brand and put it out there to see what happens. The field has gotten much more crowded in the past 12 months but the behavior of sharing video is more common and bloggers help create more space for that. iPhone is another factor.

How to create and measure a good vital campaign? Here's an example of how to look at it. We;ve built a very sophisticated model and actually adjust and weight each interactions so it can be comparable to 'impressions'.

- 2,000,000+ views on YouTube
- 35,000+ informed on Facebook or Linkedin
- 10,000+ ratings
- 6,000+ favorites
- 4,000+ comments
- 2,500+ mention in community and forums
- 500+ blog post mention
- 250+ blog posts linking back to the videos
- 10+ newspaper/magazine mention

What is the best strategic framework for viral marketing strategy? OK I'll share some of our company best kept secrets here (Pls don't share with our competitors).

Creating the brand connection. This is very important; a concept should not be forced because it fits a brand. Rather, a brand should be fit into a great concept. This is where the art comes in. How do you align the positive attributes of the viral videos to the desirable brand attributes to further strengthen them.

Size does and doesn’t matter. People often think that a viral video needs to be short 15-30 seconds, that’s really not the case. It doesn’t matter, as long as it is not 30 mins. So whether it is 30 seconds or 90 seconds, I don’t think it makes a difference. It is the content.

The shock factor myth. Well sure it attracts attention, but the best viral doesn’t need to resort to using this. Having said that, it is always important that a viral video will allow and attract viewers to investigate further.  Lots of folks think the shock factor is the key viral component, may be for very small teenage segments. Most people don’t care.

Don't create a mini TV commercial. That’s guaranteed to fail and not getting viral. Don’t make an outright ad: if a video feels like an ad, it reduces the likelihood that viewers would share it unless it’s really amazing in production value.

Truly authentic user stories. People are interested in regular people; the cool factor lies in those little things with those everyday folks. Even those they are professionally produced, keep everything as authentic as possible. If you idea involves real life stories, it is even better.

Allow voting. Let the public vote for what they like or whatever makes sense. This will get the bloggers buzzing to their readers.  This is the most powerful participation driver. Everyone loves competition.

Be 'good'. People who believe in a cause tend to be more proactive in spreading the word.  They can be fiercely vocal about what they believe it.  Leverage that behavior and dig deep to find the ‘good’ in your brand.

Encourage ‘remix’. There are lots of creative people out there, and I’m sure many of them would be delighted to add or remix their ideas. Make that easy for them.

Watch this one. It's funny.

Advertising Is Simple. It All Comes Down To Three Things: Sex, Hope and Baby. It Is Not The "What", But The "How".

Let’s be happy is the global theme of the year. At least most of the ads will be  trying to do that. It is starting with the Coca Cola launching a new marketing campaign with tagline "Open Happiness." Both Coke and Pepsi at the same time are launching big new campaigns and big marketing blitzes behind their flagship colas, we are seeing a Cola war in the making. Not a bad thing for this economy.

Coke launched its new campaign with television advertising during broadcasts of "American Idol" on Fox.” And will continue for a few weeks. One of the new TVC for the US depicts people using their digital devices (computers, phones, etc.) and turning into their alter-ego online avatars. When one man--who has not turned into his avatar--reaches for a Coke at the same time as a scary-looking beast, the beast turns into a pretty woman and a real-life connection is made.

One of the new commercials will feature a music track that will be released as a commercial music single. The music is billed as a collaboration between recording artists from Gnarls Barkley, Fall Out Boy, Panic at the Disco and Gym Class Heroes.

Pepsi had a presence at Obama's inauguration on Tuesday, with headlines featuring "Yes you can" and a redesigned logo similar to the image Obama used during his presidential campaign. As part of the campaign, the company created a Web site through which people could upload a video message to Obama.

A lot of other companies will also be refocusing on their core and try to protect any erosion or at least secure their share of the pie if the larger pie is shrinking.  I think we can see a lot of brands using variations of the Obama platform and market themselves the same way they market a presidential candidate.

Let’s think about the “Hope” industry? How big is that? Fashion, cosmetics, personal care, self improvement, health and diet and many many others have all been selling “Hope” for years and most hardly deliver anything.  When it comes to marketing, it always comes down to three things that always sell: Sex, Hope and Baby. Ask an anthropologist; they will tell you that they are all related.

Smart marketers consider not only the attention-getting power of an advertisement or commercial, but also what kind of emotional response it provokes in viewers. Studies found that sex does catch people's attention in advertisements, but usually without much brand recognition. Women have been the primary focus in sexual advertising in the past and present, but men are starting to be used more often as the sex object in advertisements. Not sure the ethical side is worth any discussions. As the morals and ethics of society change and differs, what is considered appropriate and acceptable by societies and cultures also varies. The Tom Ford campaign (above) is tasteful and high fashion, but it is a border line between that and porn. Remember those Calvin Klein and Abercrombie and Fitch ads? The breast cancer campaign is brilliantly executed so sex is that to get you attention, but it is also beautiful and relevant to the cause. 

So the answer is not the “what” but he ‘how’? After all, humans are innately hard wired to respond to titillating imagery and the possibility of sex. It's just in our DNA. So it's natural for marketers to use this attraction and for people to respond. But, it can be a lame cop-out used by marketers who lack imagination to create more compelling work that will sustain itself beyond the initial titillation. It is all about style. The same can be said about using “hope”, in that case it is about how authentic you are and the credible is your promise. And whether it is relevant to your brand and positioning.

What's Your Retutn On "Celebrity" When You Have Your Brand Endorsed By A Celebrity?

Using celebrity to endorse brands can work both ways. It is till difficult to put a ROI on it. You can argue if you have a really good idea that brings out the USP (Unique Selling Proposition) of a product or brand in a humorous and relevant way, why do you need to pay a celebrity? Having said that, a great idea and a power celebrity endorsement can create killer impact. There are ads that conveniently use celebrity to endorse but failing to integrate the celebrity personality with the brand personality. Or simply use it to hide behind the lack of truly creative ideas. 

Many marketers are shying away from big names and dumping celebrity endorsements altogether. Their concern is the brand is overshadowed by the likes of high-profile celebs. Regis' sidekick Kelly Ripa appeared in a variety of TV commercials for products including Tide laundry detergent and Electrolux appliances. What does Kelly Ripa know about a dishwasher or an washing machine? Do you believe her when she says it's a better appliance? Would she endorse Whirlpool or GE if they paid her more? I'd suggest the answer is yes. This is just one example of celebrities endorsing products for big dollars when their endorsement really means nothing as to the quality, features or durability of the product or the perceptual attributes of the brand.

As a brand coach for many top marketers around the world I often have to explain that there are many elements around the influence of celebrity endorsement on consumer buying behavior and marketing. Marketers pay tons of money to celebrity endorsement hoping that they  will bring magic to brand they endorse and make them more appealing and successful. But all celebrity glitter is not gold. Celebrity sources may enhance attitude change for a number of reasons. They may attract more instant attention to the ads than would non-celebrities or in many cases, they may be viewed as more credible than non-celebrities. Consumers may identify with or desire to emulate the celebrity. Finally, consumer may associate known characteristics of the celebrity with attributes of the product that coincide with their own needs or desire.

The effectiveness of using a celebrity to endorse a firm's product can be greatly improved by matching the image of the celebrity with the personality of the product and the actual or desired serf concept of the target market.  There are no questions celebrity endorsement influence consumer buying behavior and effectively build brand awareness, but marketer has to take care of all the aspect that whether the brought personality and image of celebrity matches or not, whether celebrity endorsement has deep penetration among the masses or not, whether he is considered as credible source or not etc.

Case in point, Woody Allen was suing American Apparel for using his image in one of their outdoor poster campaign. Woody Allen was asking $10 million, for using his image, without permission in one of its outdoor campaigns last year. The campaign features a photo of Allen, dressed as a Jewish rabbi in his 1977 award winning film Annie Hall, beside Hebrew script that translates as "The Holy Rebbe." 

I was a big Allen’s fan in the 70’s and I’ve watch Manhattan probably 20 times. It was long time ago. Allen's problem is not there's a promotional image of himself out there, but rather than the said image isn't promoting him in a way that he totally controls. That's kind of fair. His lawyer cited that Allen does not endorse products or services in the US. Second, you take a company that has made its name with 1970s porn-style ads (but nicely executed) that feature either moist looking hipsters or their rather sleazy looking bearded brethren. I do like their anti-glamor photographic style, sort of edgy sex-sells play, a more real version of Calvin Klein ads.

This oddly brings us back to Allen’s story with his adopted daughter of his ex-wife, Mia Farrow, we all know what happened. Here’s the funny part, in response to a query from The Jewish Daily Forward, American Apparel spokesperson defined Allen as the brand's "spiritual leader." And if you think about it, it's kind of dead on. American Apparel understand their brand and its essence. From a branding perspective, the two share many common brand attributes, I can think of quite a few.

What's The Next Innovation For The Revival Of Towns And Cities? Co-creation Of Experiential Destinations?

We don't hear a lot of the word ‘revival’ anymore these days, towns, cities, resorts and even local industries all needing it. High-technology revival for historic city is always good challenge for economists and planners to take on. Many geographical revival or innovation programs do not achieve the results that they wanted because of a reason.

The best way to design ‘revival’ programs is to use the disciplines of consumer/end-user innovation to inspire revival developments from the outset. By applying the discipline of consumer–driven innovation to create and experiential destination effect’, premium visitors, customers and/or residents can be attracted to spend time and money in the destination. Premium consumers, of course, attract premium operators who, in turn, exercise ‘upwards pressure’ on the developer to deliver premium space and a quality environment. The ‘all-round uplift’ ensures that better revival outcomes are achieved. A sustainably competitive destination is one where consumer thinking drives the planning: the brand deal is as important as the land deal. The same approach could apply to areas as opposed to the entirety of a town or city.

Contrary to popular belief, companies make location decisions based primarily, but not entirely, on economic factors. Earlier the first half of the 20th century, economists believed that firm location decisions were based on minimizing transportation costs and maximizing profits. Over time, they realized that the decision-making process involves more complex aims and a wider array of economic factors such as labor, agglomeration, and space. These economic factors still significantly influence firm location decisions, but have changed due to several shifts in industrial North America. Technological advances have decreased production costs in all sectors of industry. In factm the high-tech sector is less cost-sensitive than other industries, has different labor needs, and prefers to be near centers of higher learning. Cities have learned that more jobs are created from existent firms than new start-ups, and thus emphasize the retention of existing businesses rather than the attraction of new ones. The importance of experiential factors has thus increased; this is especially true for high-tech firms and generation Y.

Developer and designers should be thinking about how different sections of the town/city /resort could develop in such a way as to appeal to different audiences, and how that development could be encouraged. Essentially, there needs to be synergy between all elements of the experience and the customer base for that experience. The public realm, the size of units, the type of retail offer, the type of food and beverage offer, the type of brands, the events, social activities etc.

Developer and designers’ job is to create a new mythology combining the best of a local history with the promise of a new and social techno-centric but human future. They need to put their imagination to work, first to start with defining the persona, setting, and emotional and action dimensions of a town, resort or city. The result will be a complete “story vignette”, new lexicon, design standards and a clear description of what people would experience.  Developers should be pushing further, to another level of experience management — architectural vision, expressions in sensual.

I am kind of happy to see that design minimalists are shifting a little to the side of modern and a little art deco. One concept I like is Sou Fujimoto Architects’ design of the next generation house within a small but functional 13’ x 13’ x 13’ cube. I guess you can make it bigger. The house looks as if it was built from strategically placed Jenga blocks. he blocks are actually cedar logs laid deliberately to create spaces for sleeping, eating, seating and storage. Spaces were left to house modern angled glass as windows. I want one of this as Idea Couture offsite retreat.

What's Transformative Advertising? Here's One That Shapes Public Behavior.

Governments often use mass advertising to educate and shape social behavior. The results are often mixed and we all understand it is not easy to have a change in human (public) behavior. Upgrading faster police cars is definitely not the solution. Here's an innovative idea from a Latvia agency. A local ad agency MOOZ! (Riga, Latvia) was tasked to develop a campaign against speeding and aggressive driving with the goal to in reduce the number of car accidents and casualties. Target audience were those who consider the speeding part of their lifestyles and polices have a hard time chasing them down.

The agency came up with the idea of Organ Donors Certificate as a part of the ad campaign. Agency beleived that the reason for speeding is very social, fast driving is considered to be cool among large groups of the society particularly male age 20-35. Trying to educate them is useless. The agency thought of another social problem - shortage of organs needed.  The idea is during the campaign aggressive drivers are asked to sign their organs to those who are waiting in line for a transplant by signing Organ Donors Certificate. Certificates were issued directly to aggressive drivers during raids by the Latvian road traffic police. So instead of getting a ticket which cost whatever $50, you will end up giving a liver away for driving above the speed limit!!

Not sure how they enforced that but it was effective. Number of victims dropped by 29%. You may not remember the ad, but you will always remember the day you signed your Organ Donors Certificate and devoted your organs to somebody else. Campaign raised as well the discussion of another social problem - the sortage of organ donors, Transplantation Center was very thankful and client had nothing against combined solution, since the main task was to save lives. Still not sure exactly how it works, first timers get to sign away their liver and seriouos offenders signs away their heart? Will find out more. 

The more I think about it, borrow this idea to use on repeated violent criminals.

Marketers Need To Understand The Difference Between Demand Creation, Demand Enhancement and Demand Fulfilment Tools.

There’s one debate that keeps coming up in my professional career among CMOs and CFOs, it is marketing accountability and how they should be measured.  Instead of thinking about what is needed, most just make some adjustment based on their last year spend without questioning “why”? That’s why CFOs questioning marketing spend but never given a simple answer to justify them. The problem isn’t the absence of an ROI on marketing’s expenditures; it’s the absence of any semblance of coherence and rationale for why the investment was made. On the marketing side, the issue is the changing face of media makes it even hard to justify any spend on emerging media.

Finance is frustrated that marketers don’t seem to understand the concept of opportunity cost which is not marketers use to evaluate spend. The opportunity cost does not mean much particularly you are close to year end, if you don’t use the budget you will not get it again next year. So what opportunity costs? Marketing people frustrated that finance don't seem to understand brand infrastructure spend is necessary.

So much is said about how effective the Internet is as a marketing tool. Equally many struggle to measure it outside of direct transaction, particularly the transaction happens through a broker.  Online marketing has many enticing characteristics like tractability and targeting, but I’ve witnessed more than a handful of times when clients and agencies struggle with linking that with larger business goals.

The Internet is not different from traditional branding tools when it comes to measuring brand building effectiveness, never easy to draw a direct link. It is not about online or offline. We need to understand the very nature of the campaign and whether it use for demand creation, demand enhancement or demand fulfillment. Demand creation is about sending the right messages to the right target with a compelling propositions, demand enhancement is to educate the target the benefits of the products particularly for high-involvement products and demand fulfillment is closing the transaction and getting the sale.

Digital marketing fulfills demand much easier than it creates it. TV and print are primarily demand creation medium with some exceptions. The digital tactics that work best (search marketing, social media etc) work because they reach an audience that is either already aware of your brand or a need was already established.

Branding spend should be considered infrastructure spend. And social media capabilities should be considered infrastructure too, as well. They enable firms to engage with customers and prospects in ways that the firms weren’t able to previously have. Trying to measure the ROI on all these investments could be a challenge.

Microencapsulated Scent Will Move Beyond Sampler Into Public Spaces And Electronic Devices

I was shopping at some department stores yesterday and realize there’s some scent that is being pumper from the ventilation system. I realized this is not uncommon. Imagine in the cinema, popcorn is probably the scent that you will be exposed to, but in a European cinema, you might just smell bread, caramel, chocolate or whatever else an advertiser wants you to smell. This is the technology tested for Beiersdorf's Nivea, and exit polls showed a 515% rise in recall for the Nivea ad compared with moviegoers who saw the spot without the scent.

A German company called Cinescent is allowing marketers to pump out the scent of their brands in German theaters. I wonder how they calculate the advertising rate. The estimated cost is over double the normal price of an ad reel spot and rolling out a national campaign would not only be expensive but no doubt also a logistical nightmare. Here’s how the test works, a specially made 60-sec spot shows a typical sunny beach scene, with people lying around on deck chairs or sunbathing on towels while waves crashed and seagulls cried in the background. As people wondered what the ad was for, the scent of Nivea sun cream permeated the cinema, and a Nivea logo appeared on screen along with the words "Nivea. The scent of summer."

I remember four years ago I was giving a similar idea to a client who was the CEO of a HAVAC company. I was telling him that by supplying a scent distributor with their rental furnace, they can easily charge a few dollars more every month. More so, it is a differentiator in a pretty commodity market. I was suggesting different scents for different time of the day. They never went forward with that idea.

Pearl & Dean (which sells cinema ads) likes the idea so much that they are now bringing it to the UK and are selling to talking to a handful of clients, including sun cream, bread, coffee, perfume, air fresheners and chocolate manufacturers. It is easy to see why this works. Let me think what doesn’t work. Perfume doesn’t work as it is more of a sampling product and sometimes too strong. Pharma products..a Viagra scent? Probably not. Durex? Not sure people like the smell of plastic. Tobacco and cigar won’t work. Automobile? May be the smell of the leather seats in a new car, this works for me. Pizza Hut? That makes people hungry, not a bad idea.

Scent marketing is not new, we know the sense of smell is the strongest and most primal of all our senses. It vividly reminds us of moments and experiences– good or bad.  It is the first of our senses to evolve in the evolutionary chain and the sense with the strongest, most accurate level of recall. Scent is processed by the limbic system in our brain which is responsible for memory and emotion processes. It is probably more powerful than visuals. Marketers are learning how to apply multi-sensory marketing techniques to enhance customers’ experiences of a location and its products or services. These experiences allow customers to develop deeper memories and emotional connections. We know how it works fro our experiences. At least this is a area which you will be safe from Google attack, I don't think they have a scent search engine or something that detects smell and place ads. Not yet for now.

Oh one more application I can think of. Scent can be used to prevent counterfeiting since it cannot be easily reproduced. So next time if you want to see if your friend has a genuine pair of Nike, just smell it.

Customer Communities Are The Message, The Medium AND Your Marketing Platform

People talk about marketing but not discussing enough about creating customer value. What is customer value? To start we need to evaluate the value that flows between the value chain players and discover which customer-value segments exist, based on their value needs, expectations and aspirations and how we want to serve those segments.

This goes beyond conventional quantitative surveys or focus groups. It requires laser sharp attentiveness to customer requirements and needs (both articulated and unarticulated), as well as lots of creativity and imagination.

Three major components in the discovery process: 1/ the market  2/ customer behavior and three what jobs they are trying to accomplish. 3/ Then we can start the process of market mapping. The goal is to identify clusters of customers with similar needs and change our view of target buyers from a random aggregation to a linear plot, from those most likely to respond to your customer-value propositions, and eliminate those who will never respond. Relentless fine tune your USPs until we get it right.

The exercise includes high-level map describing all the needs, value expectations, loyalty behavior as well as the category level of involvement. With this info, we can work down to the next deeper levels of detail. The map is a just a starting point — you may also need to know what substitutions customer use or why their behavior switch overtime, and what unmet or poorly or painfully met needs they have. Questions like these can help you discover and define customer segments. At Idea Couture we have a great tool kit to do this. There is science and there is art. That's why we have a Resident Anthropologist in house.



Customers are not just the people who happen to want to spend money and buy your products; they are any member of the customer value chain who directly, or indirectly, purchases or influences the purchases of your products and services. Every customer today is part of your value chain as they are part of the customer communities that shapes other decisions. Successful marketers effectively converse with their community through blogs, social networks and countless other forms of media. Customers are the message, the medium AND your marketing platform.

Food for thought: We also need to rethink traditional corporate functions and culture. You cannot have an effective community strategy if you’re working with an inflexible corporate structure or lots of organization silos. To benefit from leveraging the power of community, companies must have a change plan otherwise you can be stuck forever unless you know how to carefully cultivate internal chaos.

Your Avatar Can Now Go Partying In Facebook While You're Asleep

Just as you thought the buzz of avatar is over, a new app now allows your avatar to join Facebook.  Alter Ego was created by M iChameleon in conjunction with Coca-Cola’s digital team in London. It allows you to paste a photo of tyour face onto an avatar which can then be tweaked and customized with a selection of trendy threads. Your avatar can go partying with your Facebook buddies, or to go out and make some new friends at the Burn Alter Ego bar. The next day, photos of their (or rather your) exploits are automatically uploaded along with details of the evening, documented in a special blog. Cool idea indeed but not sure if your avatar would only be allowed to drink Coke on his/her night out.

You need to decide how often your avatar goes out to tear it up, however, as far as we are aware there is not yet a penalty point system in place for hangovers, so inhe more your avatar socializes the better. As your profile is boosted on the Burn Alter Ego scene, more souvenirs are provided from each night out, the more you hang out the more cool stuff you will get. This is probably most ambitious and technically advanced applications seen on Facebook to date.

The creator describes Burn Alter Ego as giving users ‘the freedom to maximize your social life beyond reality.’ OK, we are already getting all kinds of invite to join Facebook everyday and imagine if your avatar is an active partying animal, everyday he will bring you tons of new friends that you may not want. Partying has side effects too.

If you think you can escape the interuptions of advertising in the virtual world you're wrong. These virtual worlds and identities are designed to you escape the mundanity and viscitudes of real life about which apparently are lacking in excitement. Marketers are not giving up the invasion of this escapsim by real world hucksters.  Engagement in one environment does not translate into engagement in your environment. Interruptive marketing are here to stay, there's no escape.

iPhone Goes 2.0 With Social Lego

We spent 30 mins in the Apple store in NYC between meetings and it was packed with tourists, mostly European tourists and I saw people buying half-a-dozen of iPhones, I guess it is cheap because of the weak US dollars. iPhone is hot, VC John Doerr said the iPhone could be “bigger than the personal computer,” and here’s why he’d say that. One of the most popular features of the iPhone is that it gives owners an Internet connection wherever they go. New data from the Pew Internet and American Life project shows that’s increasingly important to mobile phone owners. 58% of Americans have used a mobile phone for a purpose other than a phone call, such as surfing the Web, checking email or sending a text message. Furthermore, Pew found that 21% of people who use the Internet go online from someplace other than their home or office at least a couple of times a week.

Now iPhone goes 2.0. Imagine you could virtually build, imagine, share, and play with LEGOs right on your iPhone or iPod Touch? Love that idea. PlayNYC's LEGO-touch application concept has been dreamed up just in time for Apple's SDK. The functional usage of touch technology reflects the building essence of the Lego brick. You can build, share, challenge others, create characters, personalization and more. The interactivity of Lego-touch is quite the lucrative creative experience on a smart phone for all ages. It's a great example of the types of apps we might expect to see in the near future, with the newly unveiled SDK. "Lego Touch" aims to bridge the creativity of Lego with the portability of Mobile.  In his demo, Panas proposes being able to "touch and build while on the move, moving from finger to brick to creation." Users can also save, share and challenge friends to Build-offs. Looks like great fun, and perhaps an indication that we're at the cusp of a wave of creativity and innovation that's going to be possible through the new iPhone SDK. Expect more cool things for the iPod.

Latest Retail Sales Number

There is almost no question that this holiday retail sales in general will be a comparatively weaker one. Total retail sales, excluding automobiles, rose just 3.6% over the previous year (according to MasterCard SpendingPulse), but factoring out spending on gasoline -- which soared thanks to a 27% average price increase since same time last year -- retail sales increased a lackluster 2.4%. Industry forecasts had predicted gains of 3.5% to. There is a definite trend for the consumer to go after the deal, and I suspect this will continue throught the next 12 months at the  minimum. Expect bargain shopping opportunities the next 4-8 weeks.

The bright shots as expected was the  e-commerce sector, which posted a 22.4% gain in online sales over last year, according to SpendingPulse. 7.1% gain for the luxury sectors only. Costco reported strong sales of seasonal gifts and food that more than offset weaker-than-expected jewelry sales. E-commerce is chanigng how tradtional Christmas shopping is being done.  According to Forrester, on average, Web buyers have spent $511 and $313 in stores and online, respectively, during the past three months. In fact, 53% of Web buyers have spent between $1 and $199 online during the past three months, whereas just 18% of Web buyers fall into that spending bracket for their retail store purchases.

In fact, technology has truly come of age and not just from people shopping online, but there are more tech products like the Wii and the iPhone or iTouch and there's so much technology built into almost anything we guy whether it is a key chain or photo frame. But the preponderance of technology, it's shaping all our lives right now. iPhones, Blackberry, Blue Tooth, XBox, these are all part of the digital dictionary for our generation's x, y and z and are actually shaping not only what we buy and how we buy them. Happy Boxing Day shopping.

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Transmedia Story Telling - The Next Brand Building Super Engine?

Every individual in this world shares one commonality which is we all have stories to tell. Some have very interesting ones and some are sad. It is like we all have a photo albums or a 60 minutes documentary that talks about our life. The older we get, the more repetitive these stories become. The true role of story and storytelling is much greater, older, and elemental than Hollywood. The human animal is a narrative animal and we are made of stories. We tell them, understand them, remember them, and live them. In the canonical image of village people sitting around a fire at night, everybody is listening to the storyteller tell the tales of the day, the season or of the people themselves. The tales were about life itself – living it, surviving it and ending it; whether historically or metaphorically. And since stories are such an important part of our very nature, we have no choice but to apply this natural and powerful tool to entertainment as well as to the other parts of our lives, like business. MIT’s Jenkins describes transmedia story telling as “Transmedia storytelling represents a process where integral elements of a fiction get dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels for the purpose of creating a unified and coordinated entertainment experience. Ideally, each medium makes it own unique contribution to the unfolding of the story.”

For many who are eager to share their stories. There is always a challenge of not finding the right audiences or enough audiences. Then came YouTube, almost like the answer to their prayers. It is more than just silly videos. The idea of finding new ways to tell them and actually taking the time out to "listen" can bring happiness and inspire people by recognizing relationships and likenesses on a human level, across every corner of the world. These stories capture our emotions, experiences and events. Advertising has always been telling story via a 30sec TV commercials and every scene is carefully designed to tell a brand story and to elicit emotive responses. In the interactivity world, creative folks use categorization, visual cues, and layered interactivity to tell stories within stories within stories --a digital/emotional experience that can live on the web forever. In an era of convergence, consumers are becoming explorers and gatherers pulling together information from multiple sources to form a new synthesis. Advertisers began to learn to embrace this powerful concept as a branding tool as they seek to leverage them across medium.

The democratization and bottom-up programming are slowing down anytime. It is a tough one for traditional media companies to  repsond to because younger companies can take a lot of risk that more established companies cannot. Think about the risk YouTube took and it paid off. The problem with large companies is they're not doing strategic product development, which involves launch, listen and learn. Instead they're wasting six months doing strategic planning, Any planning can only be agile in this world. You need to act fast. Companies who put user needs and emerging behavior above all else will be better able to adjust to media's ever-changing environment.

Let me throw you a million dollar idea here, if these self-produced mini-clips can be used as powerful medium to carry a brand message, then opportunity exist for a company to broker marketers and ad agencies to sponsor them. With the continuous rise of YouTube as a distribution channel for consumer-generated videos, it makes sense even for consumer electronics manufacturers (cell phones, camers etc) to incorporate YouTube functionality into their digital video cameras. By cutting down a few conversion steps, camera makers have eliminated a key hurdle between users’ footage and their computers. Just upload directly from your video camera. There is no questions that the number of video content creators is likely to grow, (both amateur and professional and pro-amateur) and this is further validated by a Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates study commissioned by Hill & Knowlton. PSB found that 41% of adult consumers would like to use a personal computer for creating or editing video or audio. Below: Photo of SamSung YouTube phones.

So the question is, if I am an advertiser, I would find the top 100 consumer generated video clip that can increase my brand relevance to the market and offer to buy the rights for a product placement. If a company comes to me and tell me I can have my brand message appears in these 100 video clips for six months I will cut them a check. I will even consider signing them up to sponsor their next episode whatever. I think there’s money to be made here. I can write this business plan for this in a few hours. If you can come up with another idea, ping me. I will write the plan for you if it is a good one.

Will Social Media Spend Surpase Traditional Media?

If you think yes, media comanies are in big trouble. By 2013, advertisers and marketers will be expect edto spend more money on so-called conversational media (Social Media)--or online media that encompasses things like blogs and podcasts--than on advertising through traditional media (Print and radio etc) , according to a recent study from the Society for New Communications Research (SCCR). A ealier study on Social Media spending by Prospero reported that 88% of businesses expected to increase Social Media Spending in 2008 and further more when asked about social media return on investment (ROI), 35% reported positive ROI and 41% said that ROI was “unknown.” Responses to questions about how web marketers measure ROI reveal that direct sales revenue is not a top measure for determining social media success. Respondents said that total number of site visitors (17%) was the most important criterion for assessing social media performance. Total number of page views and number of subscribes / community members (15%respectively) were next, followed closely by length of visit on the site (14%)."

According to the Prospero study traffic to social media site is the most important determiner of ROI (which suggests investment in Social Media is advertising driven, perhaps more than it should be). On the other hand, brand "engagement" is the main measure of success for Social Media spend. Although there are no common defintintion of what "engagement" is. We do have one that we use with clients at Idea Couture and we have clear definition of each stage of the Customer Engagement Lifecycle as. well measurment framework. Will share more here later.

The SNCR study asked about 260 agencies about their plans to advertise and market in conversational media. Today, a majority of these agencies said that they spend about 2.5% of their total budgets on conversational media, but by 2012, they plan to tip that percentage to MORE than they spend on traditional media as according to the SNCR's study.

Today we are ooking at the about 110 million blogs, with about 120,000 new blogs created every day and about 1.5 million new daily posts, according to Technorati. Of those, a third are English, a third Japanese, and the rest are a mix of all. Although the growth of blogs is slowing, their importance and visibility among traditional media, companies, and entrepreneurs are actually increasing. I don’t even think social media has come close to reaching its true potential yet. Expect to see more innovaiton in this space.