Wake up and smell the coffee.

...I use the expression loosely as I'm about to talk about Starbucks. As I've mentioned before, having lived in Italy I am a blatant coffee snob, and Starbucks isn't coffee that I would in any way go out of my way for.

But, they do play a role, and they are also doing a good job in the digital space.  So full marks awarded to them for initiative and using paid for digital spaces to drive brand engagement and offline sales. I've just spotted this ad on Facebook.

Smart.

It re-inforces fairtrade =  associations of social conscience for Starbucks.

It gives something away = people love free things, BUT

It's conditional "with purchase" = drive sales

It's appropriate to it's context...

It asks you to RSVP = interaction/ involvement.

No idea how long the ad's been up but almost 31k people have said yes already.  (UPDATE: 1hour later, post Friday lunchtime and it's now at 36k) Even if a small percentage of those people actually remember and do claim their muffin, the additional foot fall, sales, reminder of the Starbucks experience are all more than likely to easily offset the cost of those free muffins.

Altering behaviour by adding fun

I saw this fun video content piece earlier in the week but haven't had time to share (and in fairness the first version I saw was only in Swedish) but now I've found a version with English supers.

I'm going to spoil it for you by telling you that it's brought to you by Volkswagen, but would still urge you to spare a few moments to watch it, (then watch this other release in the same series) and then think about the implications.

What could your brand do or facilitate to make people's lives more interesting / easier / fun?  In turn providing that service will most probably make them feel positively towards your brand.

The film ends pointing you to a website "thefuntheory.com" which in turn urges you to sign up, teasing the notion of more fun to come.

So of course I did. Fun is good. I am also currently pondering on buying a VW. It can but help build VW in my consideration set. Points awarded for smart use of content to open a conversation between a consumer and a brand. What they do next is the interesting thing.

I'm still waiting to hear any more about my Sony Ericsson Space Hopper's adventures, which was a few weeks ago now.  Not so smart after all perhaps. Were I not working in the marketing space and/or having the memory of an elephant, chances are I'd have forgotten all about that.  Opportunity missed.

E-crm. It's like dating.

Securing a first date is only step one.  Assuming it went well, not ringing for several weeks afterwards is not a very smart if you were vaguely interested and were keen to go out again. You'll be dismissed , written off as useless, or find that someone else jumped into the void.  In marketing terms that could well be one of your competitors jumping in and building a relationship with a consumer that might have been yours. Which means the cost in time/ effort (and money in brand terms) of getting that first date nailed down is kinda wasted. Doh.  Have a contact strategy. Aim for relationship.

The Google waves are a little choppy

So I've had Google Wave to play with for a week now.  Sadly a week when I've been stupid busy and had pretty limited time to play. But as every day goes by and I find that more of the people I invited are receiving their invites and coming out to play the more fun I have with it, and the more I learn about the features.

There's a lot of learning and discovery to do yet, but I love the ease of formatting and editing conversations, the notion of document collaboration, being able to go back to previous "blips" and edit, cross out, amend, highlight, rather than just having to tack stuff on the end which means for better context and flow.

I like the ease with which you can effortlessly (i.e without doing anything at all) toggle between IM and Email in the same conversation depending on which of your conversation participants are online when you are. It's really pushing the notion of time and expectation of response within a new communications context. 

The playback feature comes into it's own when you invite someone else to join a conversation later on, allowing them to easily understand what happened in what order and who said what.

I'm still having a few problems with some of the embedded gadgets as the platform is pretty unstable at times (but that's beta for you) but fair play for having a smart and humorous approach to reporting problems when it does fall over.

There are also nice little design touches like a wavey animated status bar when the Wave syncs.

To be continued, meanwhile watch this, it's a bit techy but it makes sense

YouTube modifies logo today...

to yell about getting 1 billion views per day (albeit last time I looked at some numbers it's actually greater than that most days). 

Apparently the average (US) consumer watches  9.7 hours of online video content a month, and the average video is 3.7 minutes long.  The last figures I saw earlier in the summer also quoted that there are 20 HOURS of content uploaded to YouTube per MINUTE! 

So twaddle to all those people that don't believe that users are participating or generating content.  How can your brand harness people's interest in getting involved?

For the second year running Doritos (in the US) are running a UGC themed competition  called "crash the superbowl" for the chance to win $5m and create the ad used for their prestigious and highly competitive SuperBowl spots.  Interesting because I saw a similar execution for Hula Hoops (owned by a different company) who are running a UGC video competition at the minute too.  Have a look - there's a lot of people genuinely prepared to put in some serious effort and creating good material.

Meerkat magic continues

I'm risking repetition I know, but I really can't help but celebrate the genius that is the Aleksandr Orlov / Compare the Meerkate/market campaign. I am continuously cheered by my relationship with Aleksandr, and did indeed compare the market recently when renewing my car insurance, almost certainly as a result of the campaign as I didn't even bother to consider any other market aggregators.

Via his tweets, and Facebook status updates he's been teasing new content/tv ad to come for a week or so now, culminating in him sending  out these links 30 minutes ago:

 

The link take you to this this entertaining interview with media partner Metro (free newspaper) and does a great job at illustrating the involvement consumers have with the campaign, as the questions are taking from real tweet questions people have asked Aleksandr (and to which he frequently responds).

Interestingly, at almost the same time I got an email with this link to the new TV ad before it breaks on air. Smart, smart, smart: using a combination of channels for language and context appropriate content..

Ride that Wave

Yeah!  I got a Google Wave invite.

Dammit that I am stupid stupid busy today and have no time to play with my long awaited new toy. Grrr.  Can't wait to get stuck in later. V exciting.

iSnack 2.0: Who thought that was a good product name idea then??

I'm firmly in the hate camp on Marmite, and I can't say Vegemite (declared superior by the Anitpodeans) appeals either but that's not going to stop me adding to the ridicule aimed at Kraft Foods for naming their new Vegemite and cream cheese spread concoction iSnack 2.0.

Err, what?

Apparently it was suggested by a consumer, fair enough, but I can't believe that it was the only suggestion.  There's lots of great creative and brilliant digital work being done in Australia so I know that the Aussies are a creative bunch.  I am just struggling to believe that the Kraft marketing team were daft enough to think naming anything you put on toast " 2.0" was a good idea.  Toast is a large feature of my OFFLINE world. It's thankfully not connected to anything other than marmalade, peanut butter, jam or honey in my world.

However after lots of consumer protest Kraft have already climbed down and said they'll have another go at naming it and the 500k jars already on sale are no doubt going to be collectors items sold on eBay before too long.


There's plenty of ridicule and mash ups going around the web on the subject this week, so here's a few to share.

That good old Hitler scene re-mix strikes again....



I think Vitamin Water's recent Facebook campaign to get consumers to suggest new flavours, and buzz monitoring to assess popularity was a rather better strategy at applying digital to product marketing.