Grown Up Thinking

Looks like the Apple/Adobe “feud” just got a lot more interesting. Fresh off the heels of Steve Jobs’ condemnation of flash on the Apple blog, Adobe released a full page ad in the Wall Street Journal proclaiming its “love” for the computer giant.

While a traditional media play may seem contradictory for a brand whose product resonates most with the online crowd, the provocative ads demonstrate just how powerful the synergy can be between traditional and social campaigns. Already, there are thousands of blog posts dedicated to the subject, and the twitter-sphere is buzzing as the tech-savvy crowd rushes to choose sides.

Regardless of where your allegiances lie, the Adobe example demonstrates an important point for marketers: traditional and social needn’t be mutually exclusive. When executed strategically (with an inherent understanding of your target’s behavior), a traditional mass awareness play can be so powerful that consumers will willingly turn to social media to weigh in, amplifying your message exponentially. All you need to do is start the conversation, and let your audience take it from there.

Who are you rooting for, Apple or Adobe?

Nearly three months after the U.S. military gave the “affirmative” for online social media use, an intriguing thing began happening: the soldiers went viral. Up until now, the military had very strict policies on sites such as YouTube or Facebook. No longer. The latest trend of music video-inspired mayhem is being created (quite creatively, by the way) by America’s few and proud. And they’re hamming it up in renditions of Lady Gaga and Miley Cyrus for all the world to view, share and “Like”.

I have a wild theory. Call me crazy, but I find this new wave of humanized soldiers (“They’re just like us!”) to be a brilliant, if unintended, underground marketing scheme to recruit soldiers. These men are rocking boot camp and risking their lives–sure–but they’re also gaining worldwide exposure and having a blast, too. Signing up now seems a lot more “Animal House” than “Apocalypse Now”. And that’s a good thing for luring new soldiers to enlist in an uncertain time of turmoil in the middle east. Time will tell if recruitment numbers go up, but I think this is a fascinating trend worth following. In a time of war, it certainly won’t make the numbers go down. Not when there’s a new Gaga parody to be performed in the barracks, right? See for yourself:

An hour-long high school dramedy series that’s a musical? Let’s face it: Glee initially had everything going against it. Time will ultimately tell, but skeptics be damned. This year’s Golden Globe winner for Best Comedy Series turned out to be a runaway hit that has yet to lose steam as it heads into the second part of its freshman season. Above all, the show’s writing is top notch by melding a perfect blend of edgy dark humor and a lot of heart. The talent of the young cast is undeniable. And Jane Lynch turns anything into comic gold. But producers were faced with some tough challenges right from the start. How to get people to actually tune in? Enter social media and a relatively risky gamble on an aggressive interactive marketing campaign.

First of all, Fox chose to debut the pilot episode months before its actual season debut in order to capitalize on its 20+ million captive audience from American Idol. They then utilized the down time to really gain traction online by engaging with their most passionate fans (or ‘Gleeks’). Currently, @gleeks has a nearly 50,000 person following on Twitter and almost 2 million fans on Facebook. Mix that with its very own YouTube channel with exclusive content, PR-worthy appearances (Oprah!) and even nationwide mall performances. Yep, everyone’s all abuzz over the little show that could.

Blurring the line between fan and fiction even further, Glee has since launched a national casting campaign for new characters to appear on the series. Fox also recently released an interactive “hypertrailer” allowing viewers to click and “fan” the show’s cast members on Facebook, who also participate live on-air in weekly re-run episodes (or “Tweetpeats”) much like the cast commentary on today’s DVD and Blu-ray discs.

So what’s so significant about Glee’s marketing strategy, anyway? At its core, it is truly a niche show. But a very enthusiastic niche crowd at that. And Glee is giving that very core audience exactly what they want: access and interaction. At a time when studios are shuttering unauthorized playback of content and guarding creative copyrights like a fortress, this show is practically shooting it across America through a t-shirt cannon. Whether it be the show’s music content (consistently charting week after week on iTunes) or capturing that “underdog” spirit in everyone, Glee has succeeded in truly crossing all media types, including a forthcoming iPhone/iPad app. That makes it one of the very first scripted shows to actually achieve results in reaching out to a young, digital audience with significant viral success. That’s definitely a social media coup to be gleeful about. I, for one, am proud to be a Gleek. Who’s with me?

Glee resumes its season on Tuesday,  April 13 on Fox.

If I were in the sports marketing department at Northern Iowa, I’d be working overtime (no pun intended) to get my basketball coach on Facebook and Twitter by, like, yesterday. Your school just knocked off a giant in the NCAA Tourney and now you’re the trending topic of the week. Embrace it.

How many opportunities does a small school such as Northern Iowa get to have millions of people reading, watching and talking about them? Schools are businesses, and businesses need to build their brand in order to attract new customers (or in this case, students).

A school and coach that’s doing it right? Check out Kentucky’s Coach Cal. He has over 138k fans on Facebook and over 1.1 million Twitter followers…WOW. I imagine there are a couple brands that would pay good money for that type of online community.

How many of those Facebook fans are high school students still deciding on which school they will attend? How about potential basketball recruits looking to get to know the coach? He even goes on to promote a Nike contest that the University of Kentucky is participating in to help rally votes and get the University more exposure.

So, Ben, even though your Panthers crushed my dreams of bracket supremacy by defeating Kansas, I forgive you and would like to offer you a bit of advice if I may:

Please, speak to your marketing department and ask that they set you up with some social media networks pronto. The world is listening and you’ve just signed a big ol’ 10-year contract extension to stay at Northern Iowa (congrats BTW) – better start building that brand while you have our attention.

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.