Grown Up Thinking

There are many among us who cherish the days when we get to indulge in a hearty breakfast of pancakes and syrup instead of our usual cup of coffee and too much to do. Well today is our day, because it is officially National Pancake Day according to IHOP, and the folks over at the famed food shop are taking a new approach to promoting it with a Web 2.0 spin!

For starters, IHOP enlisted Miss America 2010 to be the official spokesperson for National Pancake Day to support the nationwide promotion and tie-in with the Children’s Miracle Network. On the official National Pancake Day website consumers can share information via their social networks and sign up to receive celebrity wake up calls reminding them to celebrate with some pancakes. If you’re one of the 74,000+ IHOP Facebook fans you may have noticed that you were automatically sent to the National Pancake Day tab this morning while IHOP employees across the country took to their local IHOP Twitter accounts to spread the news about the promotion and were even triumphant enough to earn IHOP a spot in the coveted “Trending Topics” list on Twitter. Overall I’d give IHOP an “A” for effort, but a “B” overall for their Web 2.0 centered celebration. They’ve got a lot of room to make this a full-blown social media extravaganza, and this is a great step in that direction.

Glance at this year’s box office Top 5 and there is hardly a well known name, let alone a true movie star. Gone are the days where you shelled out $20MM dollars for a top star and they led you to box office glory. In fact, take a peek at this year’s Top 30 movies and see how many true stars you can name outside of Tom Hanks and perhaps Hugh Jackman. It’s not surprising that star salaries are dropping fast.

So what’s changed? Well, Twitter’s assent to mainstream for one. A movie can be chock filled with superstars but if Twitter is ablaze Friday with negative tweets about the film, a blockbuster can go up in flames in just days. Will Ferrell and Sasha Baron Cohen have seen this first hand this summer.  Likewise, films like The Hangover and District 9, which delight audiences, can quickly swell at the box office despite no notable stars. What does this mean for Hollywood? Make good films and audiences will come. Find ways to engage core fans and spread their enthusiasm through social media and that effect can be multiplied quickly.

Hollywood of course is not the only industry effected by a world that now demands instant feedback and so easily enables people to bypass mass media to disseminate and consume information. Brands face the same challenges. No longer can a big budget commercial and widespread brand awareness convert at the register. The product or service must deliver and conversing with communities most vocal and passionate must be a large piece if not the focal point of any marketing campaign.

As we’ve seen throughout history, mass adoption of new technology changes the rules. The rules are  now changing fast and no star or brand is immune.

When @jimmyfallon tweeted last Wednesday to check out his Twitter Page at 6 pm because he was “trying an experiment”, I considered setting an outlook reminder. Ever since Jimmy Fallon took over NBC’s Late Night for Connan O’Brian on March 2nd, he has integrated social media into his show, taking it to new and unmarked territory.  Therefore, as a loyal @jimmyfallon Twitter follower for nearly 2 weeks, I was eager to see what 6 pm would bring.  

It started with Jimmy Fallon “twitterviewing” Cameron Diaz via three of his followers interview questions earlier this month.  While the questions weren’t necessarily life changing interview questions, it did result in an entertaining interview and more importantly, he was able to make all of his twitter followers feel like they were part of the interview and thus more connected to the show. While it could have just been a cheap trick to get a couple thousand more viewers, I truly believe Fallon is onto something in the way he is engaging in social media on his show.  

So, when I finally remembered to check back @jimmyfallon’s twitter feed, he simply had a tweet which requested you to follow @bryanbrinkman, dubbing it the “Bryan Brinkman Experiment”. Clearly, as I am not one to ignore a request by a celebrity tweet, I started following @bryanbrinkman, me and 10,000 of his closest friends. It was more than 3 hours before the show even aired, before he even announced what the experiment actally was, and @bryanbrinkman already had more followers than some major twitter users.  Fallon finally reveled the experiment on air, a simple ‘how many folowers can I get @bryanbrinkman’ (who started with 7 followers earlier that day pre-Fallon), paired with an entertaining segment featuring the founders of Digg.com and Russell Brand, all of whom tweeted on their MacBook’s throughout the show.  Today, it is almost a week later and @bryanbrinkman is at nearly 33,300 followers. 

This experiment brings up so many questions for me.  Will interviewers never have to come up with their own questions again, always turning to the public to find out what they really want to know? Will @bryanbrinkman’s tweets become more interesting before everyone unfollows him?  Either way, I truly believe we can count on Fallon to continue to use Twiter and other social networking sites to entertain, grab attention and solidify the power of this media during his tenure on NBC’s Late Night. 

We at Mr Youth have long spoken about the Demise of the Glamorized Celebrity. It is one of many reasons why we often preach focusing campaigns on creating messaging that is spread through peers vs. betting on some celebrity. While nearly all data will reinforce that peers and trusted sources are the #1 influencer in purchasing decisions, recent celebrity behavior and the 24/7 media makes celebrity endorsements an even greater risk.

The list of recent celebrity “mistakes” leaves few safe. As Chris Brown, Michael Phelps, Alex Rodriguez, Britney, Michael Vick, Kobe Bryant, Mel Gibson and many others show,  nearly anyone can fall and anything from drug use, anti-Semitism , domestic violence to dog fighting can bring a celeb (and any brands attached) down. It appears that advertisers are catching on as a recent Ad Age article cited that only 7% of the ads that aired during this year’s Grammy Awards featured celebrities, down from 13% in 2008 and 25% in 2007.

Brands will increasingly have to question whether handing over big bucks to back a celeb are worth the risk, especially when social media and technology continues to make connecting consumers through authentic and relevant sources more widespread.  So, brands who haven’t already inked deals with Tiger, Peyton or one of the few seemingly sure bets will need to determine whether to bet on their consumers or a celebrity.