Grown Up Thinking

Several brands are creating more participatory content on YouTube these days and the channel as a whole seems to be making a slow but smart play from a passive content channel to a broader interactive digital hub. The new functionality will allow advertisers to engage in deeper and more unique messaging offerings by making the viewer a more active part of the content experience.

One of the first examples to catch my eye and keyboard this summer was the Google chromefastball game on YouTube. More recently two examples came up, one by a relatively unknown brand Tipp-Ex and the other from an old school legend, Trivial Pursuit.

What’s impressive about both of these is the level of viewer interaction with the content. In the Tipp-Ex video “A Hunter Shoots a Bear” there’s a “choose your own ending” format, coupled with an unexpected interactive ad unit. The Mac/PC ads famously started doing this on the NYTimes homepage, but it hasn’t yet reached critical popularity on YouTube.

So what do we call all of this? An interactive content ad? The viewer is clearly duped and then encouraged to fool a friend with a cryptic message through pushing out to their Facebook or Twitter networks. Smart play! The outcome of the content is unexpected and thus encourages continued pass along to drive up viewership.

Another example which takes the channel more into the gameplay realm is the Trivial Pursuit YouTube game. Are these just one-offs, or a small growl into the future of YouTube’s belly of awesomeness? Will developers start building games with YouTube in mind? Certainly all the mashups could gain from allowing users to easily make their own thruough some quick tools integrated within the YouTube channel. What else have you been seeing on YouTube or other channels that makes the content two-way?

I remember when watching TV used to be a sociable experience.  My friends and I would base our Friday night plans around ABC’s TGIF line-up, a bowl of popcorn and our parent’s carpool schedule.  These days watching TV is my “me” time, curling up in my bed with my laptop and catching up on a week’s worth of TV via Hulu.

I’m happy to report your TV viewing experience is about to, once again, revolutionize with a so-called “second screen” experience.  The concept is being fueled predominately by the growth of mobile and sites like Foursquare and GoWalla, and will take your on-screen viewing experience to your social networks where you can connect with friends (and strangers) who share similar viewing interests.

Two start-ups forecasted by Mashable caught my eye:

Miso, the self-described “Foursquare for TV”, allows users to check into the show they are watching and push notifications live to both Facebook and Twitter.  Badges and check-ins work very similarly to Foursquare which in turn, socialize your TV viewing experience.  A simple concept, but does it have the ability to take-off like Foursquare?

i.tv takes socializing television to a whole new level.  The app aggregates conversations happening around shows and can provide the user with these conversations no matter what time they are watching.  This is particularly helpful for people like me who watch TV shows several days after they air, and then wants to see what everyone has to say about the latest episode.  The app allows for additional functionality such as remotely scheduling your TiVo, using your iPhone as your remote control, manage your Netflix and more.

No matter which startup wins this war, I think it’s safe to say things are about to change.  As social media evolves and more and more people jump on the bandwagon things we’ve become accustomed to, like watching TV or a movie, are going to change.  Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing?  Well, that’s up for you to decide.

So, after having highly anticipated the iPad and getting one on the day it came out, I found myself disappointed without a ton of use for it. Like all Apple products, the device was beautiful, had a great user experience and performed above expectations. It was just that nothing was new. The iPod changed how music was listened to, the iPhone brought about the mobile app ecosystem and both devices notably changed the way I did things from Day 1.

I kept saying the same would happen with the iPad, the applications just hadn’t caught up. Finally this week, I came across Flipboard and things started to change. Flipboard is a personalized social magazine, pulling content and shared links from your own Facebook or Twitter feeds and displaying them in magazine format, allowing you to flip through content that your social graph has created and shared specifically with you. You can even view curated lists by topics like sports, music, tech and fashion that pull stories from leading influencers in those areas based on what they are sharing in real time on their social networks.

Magazines and newspapers had already created some slick interfaces that turn pages in a similar way by swiping a finger but the content and even experience was largely the same. Similar to how these same publishers faltered and lost ground to blogs and content aggregators on the web because they tried to largely repurpose their content in a digital medium, publishers face the same challenges with new mobile and tablet platforms.

It is never about displaying the same content in a new fresh way. The true success stories of media when faced with disruptive technology are always those that fully embrace the new medium and develop a product that does things that completely alter how people consume content. Flipboard understands the immense amount of content that we now have to sort through from our social networks, the ability to leverage the personalized nature of this content and the emergence of a new device that now seems perfect for enabling us to consume this content en mass without being tied to a desk chair and computer screen. As a result, I’ve used my iPad more in the last two days than in the previous two weeks and my media consumption has once again been flipped on its head.

If you’re anything like me, you spend 72-85% of your “going out to dinner in NYC” time looking for a location that’s equal parts NOM-licious and affordable. Those of you familiar with the New York gastronomic scene know that “affordable” is the more fleeting variable in this scenario.

That’s why Scoutmob, the newest platform to jump on the Groupon/Woot bandwagon seems pretty spot-on to me. Bridging the gap between two of the hottest trends right now, geo-location enabled mobile apps and daily e-coupons, Scoutmob serves up hand-picked deals in NYC and Atlanta (usually 50% off) and delivers them right to your iPhone. The clincher? Unlike its web-based predecessors, there’s no purchase required for the adorably quirky Scoutmob. Simply present the app at your restaurant or bar of choice, and you have instant access to the 50% discount.

Did I mention the deal is valid on ANY combination of items on the menu? Guess I know where I’m eating tonight…

I am so excited about the potential of Facebook’s open graph that I want to look further into its driving force: the “Like” button. The popularity and recognition of this little button is what propels the web’s social function, and the reason brands will see the results.

Many moons ago, when Facebook first created the “Like” button, there were skeptics. But, as with all good social media developments, users began to accept the “Like” button and it has since started a new trend in communication.

The phenomenon of the Facebook “Like” button is that it has become part of our daily expression. Online (and offline) it reigns.

It started when I received a letter in the mail (you know, with a stamp and everything) with a drawing of a Facebook “Like” button on the envelope. Then, I stumbled across this gem by Nation, which we’ve already started using in the Mr Youth office. You can also wear, send, or peel and stick a tangible button.

What other words could Facebook have chosen for this task? You “love” this. You “approve” this. You “concur”. You “agree”.  You “think this is the shiznit”.

Definitely not. Nothing else works! “Like” is the word. (I suppose Eisenhower had it right.)

Though this isn’t the first instance of web speak going face-to-face (OMG!), it is funny and realistic (more so than this). Facebook has turned a single word into everything we need to say; created such a strong need for this simple piece of feedback that we’ve asked for it to exist everywhere.

Now we need buttons for the rest of our emotional range.

I guess to sum it up, I “Like” this. Do you?

This article first appeared as a PROMO Xtra Editor’s Pick at promomagazine.com

There is a cultural identity crisis occurring among consumers and brands, with each wanting to emulate the other. The byproduct of this shared admiration is an exponential opportunity for word of mouth and social media marketers to play a central role in the facilitation of this ongoing shift.

Brands as People
Brands are finally starting to realize that they can no longer act like the faceless logos they once portrayed. They now need to establish a persona that is approachable and opinionated. Brands need to strive for relationships with consumers and learn to listen so that a two-way dialogue can be established. They need a face and voice that can fully express their multi-faceted product or service offerings. In short, brands need to emulate people.

Honda and Ford have done a nice job humanizing their brands as evidenced by their respective Twitter handles @alicia_at_Honda and @ScottMonty. These players are learning out how to build personas out of well-known brands that are approachable, distinct, and warm.

Both Alicia and Scott have mastered the art of seamlessly integrating their personal opinions with factual product information to serve as a human element to the historically bureaucratic automotive industry. Accessibility, humanity, and responsiveness are no longer traits people expect from just a trusted friend, it is something they demand from a trusted brand.

Click here to read the full article and learn how to morph your brand into a person.

Facebook’s Open Graph protocol was announced back in April. It allows just about any web property to incorporate basic Facebook social functionality. It’s still very new, and the most basic implementation of it, the “Like” button, is popping up everywhere from branded e-commerce sites, to movie microsites, to blogs and mainstream news outlets.

It’s the easiest way to layer social functionality onto existing brand properties – the low hanging fruit in almost any social strategy. However, because it’s so new, I often find myself having to justify this tactic to clients a lot more than other social tactics. The lack of solid results around major implementations of the Like button doesn’t help the situation.

The three most common questions brands are asking about Open Graph plug-ins, and my simplified responses are:

1. Will people actually click on these buttons? Yes, they’re doing it in droves. Look at the Levi’s store figures. Thousands of people have liked each individual product in their store. The Like button is a familiar feature to everyone on Facebook, but now it’s available elsewhere.

2. Does anyone care when their friend Likes something? Yes, “Liking” is a common practice among the 500-million users of Facebook, and so are similar actions on other social networks. Consumers rely on the sharing of information and “Liking” brands/products/people/content in order to express their personality, interests, and personal brand to their friends and followers.

3. What kind of results can we expect to see from this? Every “Like” can amplify your value proposition through Facebook at an accelerated rate than previous tactics. It helps to build your brand’s community faster. It knocks down barriers between your owned digital properties and the primary social network your consumers use. And of course, at the most basic level, it’s acting as a recommendation engine to make it easier than ever for consumers to endorse your products (this is a recipe for awesome sauce, since friends are highly influential in consumers’ purchase decisions).

As of this week, we have some powerful new data in our arsenal to illustrate the tangible benefits of implementing social functionality outside of social networks. Data from Steve Madden e-commerce site and email marketing firm GetResponse provide us solid figures that actually answer all three of the above questions in terms of ROI and consumer influencer.

First up, it looks like Steve Madden’s implementation of the Facebook “Like” feature into its mobile commerce site increased traffic by 30 percent overnight. This is huge. Read more at Mobile Marketer.

Second, when it comes to enhancing email marketing, it turns out that adding social sharing elements to emails will result in an average increase of 30-55% in click-through-rates. The variance is proportional to the number of sharing methods included in emails. Three different sharing options resulted in the highest average CTR – 55%. Learn more about this study from GetResponse’s report.

I’m excited to see more results pour in now that Open Graph is being implemented across the board for so many brands. Keep your eyes peeled!

Simply amazing. (Yes, I had to start off that way.) Anyone who’s ever played with my phone knows that I love me a good app. I’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to phone applications for marketing, but I always appreciate when someone comes up with an idea that takes marketing and entertainment to the next level. I was recently made aware of an iPhone application concept for Durex Condoms that truly takes this medium to the next level. Not only does it provide for an entertaining prank to play on your friends, but forces the consumer out to retail in order to remove the crying baby that could soon dominate their lives.

If a mobile application is not fun or functional (or both) it’s doomed to fail from the start. If it can actually drive you to retail and actually get you to see the product, then it’s destined for success. Whether or not this type of application would actually be successful is debatable, but the idea behind it is magnificently unique. Check out the video below:

Let’s get the obvious out of the way about Apple’s WWDC keynote: iPhone 4 is available June 24th. It’s the biggest innovation in smartphones since the original iPhone launch in June 2007.

That aside, Steve Jobs spoke about two other things that are much more interesting than the new iPhone, if only because we already knew about iPhone 4 thanks to Gizmodo’s dubious investigative reporting tactic.

1. Apple iAds: Major Advertisers Have Already Committed $60m in 2010

The iAd network is exciting: it’s built into iPhones, iPods, and iPads. The number one pre-release complaint we’ve heard so far is that it’s much more expensive than typical display ads. Well, we got our first look at why the price atypical. The iAd is not your typical display ad.

iAds take rich media ads to the next level – they’re fully-interactive apps. Steve Jobs gave us a sneak peak at an upcoming ad from Nissan for its new electric car, Leaf. The ad included an immersive video experience, and an app that lets you interact with the 3D version of the car, including interactive representations of how far you can travel on a dollar’s worth of energy with the Leaf versus other cars – from the Prius to the Hummer H3.

Per Apple:

iAd will kick off with mobile ad campaigns from leading global brands including AT&T, Best Buy, Campbell Soup Company, Chanel, Citi, DirecTV, GEICO, GE, JCPenney, Liberty Mutual Group, Nissan, Sears, State Farm, Target, Turner Broadcasting System, Unilever and The Walt Disney Studios.

Apple has iAd commitments for 2010 totaling over $60 million, which represents almost 50 percent of the total forecasted US mobile ad spending for the second half of 2010.

2. Apple Brand: The Intersection of Technology and Humanity

Steve Jobs revealed some insight on how it sees itself relative to its competitors, namely, Google and Microsoft. It came at the very end, when Jobs confessed:

“We’re not just a tech company. Apple is more than that. It’s tech and humanity. It’s the hardware and the software working together. It’s not just a great new camera system, it’s the editing too, it’s not just a front-facing camera, it’s that plus 18 months of work on the software side. It’s the complete solution, so all of us don’t have to be system integrators.”

The iPhone and iPad represent the future of computing for Apple. Imagine a computer that is designed for humans to instinctively know how to use, one that gets rid of the low level crap that confuses the hell out of us, and prevents us from focusing on our work, creative or otherwise. Get excited, we live in the future.

Today is the day you’ve (I’ve) been waiting for. iPhone OS 4 for all 3G and 3GS iPhones! The new iPhone HD hardware! The air is thick with anticipation and excitement for Apple’s forthcoming announcements. WWDC is one of the few scheduled times in the course of the year when Apple (i.e. Steve Jobs) descends from the mountain to give us the good word.

Steve will be delivering the keynote presentation at 1PM EST. Tune in for live blogging updates at either MacWorld (they always do a great job of this), or from Engadget.

Or you can be like me, and jockey between both of those links at the same time- and maybe a third. Here are some rumor roundups on what to expect. See you on the flip side!:

- Fast Company – Apple WWDC 2010 Rumor Round-Up [Updated]
- Apple rumored to debut Safari 5 with Reader, Bing at WWDC
- Apple’s Multi-Touch Trackpad Leaks Ahead of WWDC

What do you think Apple will unveil today?

P.S. Remember when Gizmodo purchased a stolen iPhone HD and published all the details they could about it a little while back? Yeah, well, looks like they were not granted a press pass to the event this year. As I’ve heard, Apple isn’t thrilled with them for spilling their intellectual property all over the place. It’s a messy situation for both sides of the case. Steve Jobs defended their pursuit of the perpetrators last week at the D Conference w/ Walt Mossberg: