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“This ain’t Flint” – When new media campaigns go horribly wrong.

April 16, 2009 By Jimm Fox 9 Comments
 this-aint-flint1
This ain’t Calcutta or Abuja or Port-au-Prince either. So what.
This Ain’t Flint is a campaign developed by Alphabet Creative for Newcap Radio ostensibly to remind the good folks of Ottawa, Canada to stop whining because things are really not that bad – compared to the economic hardship that Flint, Michigan has had to face. The Newcap radio group has put a lot of money and effort into a campaign that includes video, a website, transit ads, and other promotional activities. 
We live in one of the best cities in one of the best countries in the world. We are privileged beyond any reasonable measure.  I wish this campaign would go away. I’ve tried to ignore it and the discussion around it for the last couple of weeks. Problem is, it’s hard to ignore. I keep driving by “This Ain’t Flint” transit ads every day. So if I can’t will it away… the next best thing to do is to rate it. Here is how I would score this campaign:
Embarrassment.  10/10 They knocked it out of the park with embarrassment. I have friends and relatives in Michigan and I am ashamed to be associated (geographically) with this campaign. Read a couple US blogs to get a sense for how this campaign is been perceived south of the border. Ouch.
Harmfullness  8/10 . A bit more planning could have given the campaign a higher harm score. This campaign will probably affect tourism, trade or anything else with the good folks in Flint / Michigan / US … frankly anyone who needs a reason to dislike our Nation’s Capital. “Hey honey come here, Ottawa looks real nice compared to Flint… let’s go there this summer.” (Of course this isn’t the intent of the video and campaign… just the outcome.)
Confusion 5/10. Hard to rate this one. The message is absolutely clear (Ottawa isn’t as hard done by as Flint )- so I’d give this part a fail.  But the purpose of the video is a mystery so I’d give the campaign folks full marks for confusion here. What’s the point? I don’t get it. The demonic baby, the strange video, the lack of an obvious audience, or purpose. They didn’t make it to get people to buy more radio ads so what was the purpose?
Creepiness. 10 / 10. The freaky doll was a masterstroke! Nothing picks up the spirits each day like the bus shelter image of a horror movie doll. Bravo!
Lack of Originality. 8  /10. Everyone knows that viral video is all about copying something that has already been done. Kudo’s to the ‘Roger and Me’ treatment in the first half of the video and the shockingly disjoint Ottawa Tourism video in the second half. Although ‘Freaky Doll’ has been done many times before (still a huge ‘Chucky’ fan),  it hasn’t been done in conjunction with an ‘economic optimism’ video before so I had to knock a few marks off  here.
Ballsiness. 9/10. You have to have Kahunas to launch this campaign knowing that uncreative, tree-hugging, left-wing sensitive types will find something to dislike about it. A change of heart – putting the video up on YouTube and then quickly removing it – cost the campaign a perfect score. (Why purposely avoid using the best free social media channel on the  planet?) All comments are good comments right!
 
Filed Under: Content Marketing, General, Marketing with Video, The Effect of Video on Your Brand Tagged With: , ,

Unilever CMO evangalizes social media

April 15, 2009 By Jimm Fox Leave a Comment

It’s been a slow build since the authors of the Cluetrain Manifesto told us in 1999 that ‘markets are conversations” and that ‘thanks to the web, markets are becoming better informed, smarter and more demanding of qualities missing from most business organizations.” A tech bubble, a tech bust, a resurgent web 2.0 and a global economic crisis later, we are starting to see companies internalize the vision and promise of social media that the Cluetrain conductors outlined a decade ago. An example:

A recent article in Adage featuring Simon Clift, CMO of Unilever and minder of one of the largest marketing budgets on the planet, highlights the keyote speech Clift delivered at Adage’s annual digital conference. The article is well worth the read.

In his speech Clift covers everything from consumer activism to the oxymoronic ‘corporate consience’ and declares that many companies who don’t adapt ‘simply won’t survive this accelerated natural selection.”

Adage concludes the article with a list of new rules for marketing which include ‘Listening is more important than talking’ and ‘PR and Marketing are now the same thing.”

Sure, we’ve heard it all before but marketers are no different than consumers. We tend to wait until the groundswell has shifted us from our comfortable position before we act. Once the big companies adopt new behaviours it’s no longer a trend. It’s the new reality.

Filed Under: Content Marketing Tagged With: ,

Betty Crocker uses How-to videos to keep brand relevant.

March 23, 2009 By Jimm Fox Leave a Comment

 

 
In the 1920′s General Mills sponsored a radio cooking show called “The Betty Crocker Cooking School of the Air.” Hundreds of thousands of homemakers tuned in each day to learn new recipes and cooking tips. Eighty years on Betty Crocker is still going strong thanks in part to it`s commitment to branded infotainment as a way of reaching it`s core audience.

Today the Betty Crocker brand is being supported by some rather impressive web-based tools and services. On the Betty Crocker website you can download an iPhone cookbook application, you can create your own online recipe box and you can view a wide variety of how-to videos that have been developed in partnership with Howdini- a How-to video site targeted to woman.

Creating how-to, informational and general help videos that support the users and ecosystems around your brand is a smart way to keep your brand relevant and to ensure that your core customers continue to find value in what you do.

If Betty Crocker can keep something as generic and undifferentiated as cake mix top-of-mind for the last 80 years you can probably envision a way to add value to your customers and prospects.

Filed Under: Content Marketing, Corporate Video Examples, General, how-to video, Marketing with Video Tagged With: ,

Denny’s uses in-restaurant video to increase revenues

March 23, 2009 By Jimm Fox Leave a Comment

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Mark Chmiel, Denny’s chief marketing and concept officer gave an interview to adweek where he discussed Denny’s foray into in-restaurant video networks that will be rolling out across Denny’s global chain of restaurants.  In the interview Chmiel reveals that they are considering many non-traditional digital marketing platforms including AOL and social networks.  He also explained that the roll out of their new DOOH (digital out of home) network is intended to up-sell products and enhance the guest experience. What wasn’t mentioned in the article was the share of  advertising revenue that Denny’s would receive for agreeing to exposure it’s customers to a barrage of network ads.

Denny’s is using a DOOH network run by Indoor Direct - a company with a large and growing footprint in large restaurant chains.  Denny’s is allocated 6 minutes a day on the newtork to promote it’s own content – the rest is advertising and/or entertainment programmed by Indoor Direct. Advertisers treat in-restaurant viewers as a higher value audience as these viewers are out in the market already and more likely to act on ads they see so the CPM for these audiences would be considerably higher.

Chmiel optimistically characterises the video network as ‘enhancing the guest experience’. Hard to imagine that offering advertising to your customers enhances anything but your bottom-line but I believe this is just the beginning of a new and growing wave of video marketing and advertising. Any wall or surface that can accommodate an inexpensive video screen will represent a revenue generating opportunity for someone. It will also represent a marketing opportunity for you.

Filed Under: Content Marketing, General, Marketing with Video Tagged With: , , ,

Linux tries their own “I’m a {name here}” – style video promotion.

March 15, 2009 By Jimm Fox Leave a Comment

 

 
The Linux Foundation is tapping the open source community and the collaborative masses to submit entries into it’s “We’re Linux” (true, it isn’t exactly ‘I’m a Linux’) video commercial contest.  The above entry is one of close to a hundred videos developed over the last three months. As you might expect many of the videos are silly, bad parodies or just plain strange,  but that’s not really the point. Linux is community driven and this contest is a great way to get the developer  and creative communities to rally around the Linux project.

The Linux Foundation doesn’t have Apple’s or Microsoft’s financial muscle but it does have a worldwide community of enthusiasts and promoters and this video is a great way to energize these groups. That said, I would have liked to see a different approach than employing Apple’s “I’m a {name here}” format. Microsoft was so threatened by the “I’m Mac” that they felt they had to respond with “I’m a PC”.  I don’t think it helps Microsoft or Linux to allow Apple to set the promotional agenda. There are plenty of parody and professional “I’m a Linux” ads (Novell created a good series of these a while back) already.  ”How Linux is changing the world” or “Linux where you least expect it”  or something that highlights why Linux is important could have served them better.

It’s hard not to root for the underdog – I hope this promotion does well for them.

The prize is an all expenses paid trip to Japan!

Filed Under: Content Marketing, Corporate Video Examples Tagged With: , , ,

Why Video Marketing doesn’t always work

March 13, 2009 By Jimm Fox 2 Comments

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“We need some flash stuff on our website!” 

Ten years ago web-based flash garnered a lot of attention. Today video is the ‘media de jour’ for many companies – for lots of good reasons. But like any marketing tool or intiative (blogging, brochures, advertsing, events, etc.) you should have a plan in place and some measurable outcomes in mind before you start a video marketing project.

Last week, all on the same day, I had these conversations about using video as a marketing tool:

At a local ski resort. ‘Oh yes, we’re already doing video – check it out on our site!” Having done my homework before chatting with this company I had skimmed through the site and hadn’t noticed any video. I mentioned that to them and they told me where to find it. Point # 1. If you are going to go to the effort of making video feature it prominently (unless it’s really bad – then don’t use it ). Video gets the largest response of any media, keeps people on your site and is a great way to encourage a call-to-action, whatever that may be. The ski resort’s hidden video was less than impressive. It featured a young employee talking quickly about the local ski conditions that day. The video quality was poor and they didn’t show off any of the ski area. Point # 2. Video is a visual media – use it as such.  Bad quality video has the same affect as bad writing, only its sticks with you longer. Say something interesting, show people the benefits of your product or services when you use video and try to achieve a level of professionalism that matches the intended professionalism of your establishment. Bad video doesn’t get a free pass because it is a new media.

At a local educational institution. ‘Oh we’ve tried video but we haven’t been happy with the results.” Not having done my homework on this one (shame on me) I had to defer to that comment and simply asked – “do you feature students in your videos?” The response, after a short pause – ‘oh yes’. The reality after checking the site – ‘not much’. Point # 3. Consider your audience. The site did have a number of videos on it – some institutional corporate videos, a number of the school’s faculty talking about courses and programs and a few students talking briefly about the institution. What was missing were students talking about and SHOWING other students in their voice, how cool and interesting life and learning were at the school. Video targeted at students should consider this critical question – Will students want to share this video? The answer to this question for this instituion was an emphatic ‘no’.

At a local tourist destination. “Yes we’ve been using video for a while now – we have video playing in our lobby”. My first thought was – ‘isn’t that a bit late in the purchasing cycle to be hitting customers with video – they’ve driven up to your destination, you’ve probably already sold them.” Point #4. The context and use of video is critical to the success of your intiative. Of course there are many great uses for in-store/location video such as cross-selling and up-selling and perhpas this was exactly how they were using the lobby video that they had created. Tourist destinations are a prime candidate for web-based video marketing – Why? Because if you create compelling video that highlight the features of your destination – that include testimonials. you might just get your customers to help you sell your services for you. This is the great potential of social marketing and social networks.

Video is great for website-based marketing and in-premises marketing but you should also create the tools that allow your customers and prospects to share your story.

Filed Under: Content Marketing, Marketing with Video, Video Marketing

Top Social Brands of 2008

February 3, 2009 By Jimm Fox Leave a Comment

Vitrue, a social media marketing company has announced a ”Top Social Brands of 2008′ list. The company developed a methodology that tracked conversations on a variety of social networking, blogging, microblogging, photo and video sharing sites and developed an algorithm to determine the most popular brands mentioned in these social media sites. This list focuses on businesses only - Obama, Palin, Spears and other ‘personal brands’ did not make the list. 

The list is an interesting scan with few surprises which, by-and-large reflects the most well know brands. The one glaring omission is ‘Google’ not appearing in the top 100. It’s hard to imagine that ‘Sears’ registers higher in the zeitgeist of web-users than Google. Perhaps they chose to exclude verbs from their list as well. Here are the top 10:

1. IPhone
2. CNN
3. Apple
4. Disney
5. Xbox
6. Starbucks
7. iPod
8. MTV
9. Sony
10. Dell

Filed Under: Content Marketing Tagged With:

The Future of Social Networks

January 27, 2009 By Jimm Fox Leave a Comment

 

Charlene Li, coauthor of the book Groundswell has put together a presentation that summarizes some of the key messages outlined in her book and that looks into the impact that social networks (people connecting online) and social technologies (Facebook, Tweeter, YouTube, Flickr, etc.) will have on businesses in the future.

There is no end of hype and excitement around the transformative affect that social media will have on businesses. Trusted marketing experts such as Seth Godin refer to the trends outlined in this book as ‘the next industrial revolution.’ (Subtlety is the first thing to go when you when you attain ‘Marketing ‘Guru’ status.)

The presentation is interesting, provocative and convinced me to buy the book. I’m inclined to suggest you do the same. (The revolution won’t wait for you…)

For more charts and more information on this survey follow this link to eMarketer.

 

Filed Under: Content Marketing Tagged With:

The future of content marketing

January 12, 2009 By Jimm Fox Leave a Comment

Company brochures, product pages on websites and company presentations all suffer from the same problem – in isolation they have no value. Sure, in the context of someone coming to your website and looking for that information that content still serves an important purpose. The problem is that your website is becoming less important to your various constituents.

Whitepapers have always been seen as the highest value print collateral. Why, because they offer value beyond simply hawking your goods or services. If you offer some new insight, some value to the reader they are likely to benefit from it and pass it on… and hopefully contact you about it in the future. Your product brochure on the other hand offers little to no value other than to try to convince someone that the features and benefits of your product are worth the investment.

Content syndication

Your website will lose value over time as a point of entry for knowledge about your products and services. You still need one – it will always serve as a repository for all knowledge about you, your products and your services. What it can’t do however is reach out to people and engage them where they are – on a portal or on a social network.  Content syndication – getting your valuable content distributed throughout the web is becoming a critical success factor to marketing your goods and services. The new challenge however is that you have to add value to those content elements otherwise no one will care.

Creating Valuable Content

It’s easy to get peoples attention when they are on your site. When they are not, you have to try a whole lot harder to get them to notice you.  Repurpsoing the content from your product brochure into a ‘How-to” video on a specific topic- that just happens to include your product is an example. Creating a blog or discussion group around specific industry issues that affect your product is a great way to engage your audience – to add value.  You need to create content that people can and want to share. Content that starts conversations,  that is optimized for SEO and that adds value is the future of content creation and marketing.

Filed Under: Content Marketing Tagged With: ,
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