Grown Up Thinking

No matter the budget, when brainstorming for a client the eager minds at Mr Youth always start by thinking BIG. We toss around ideas of wild, dream executions to introduce or promote a brand, imagining that money is no object. (“Let’s send one person from every single country to the 2010 World Cup!” or “Let’s build the world’s largest piñata!” –don’t laugh, it’s been done! Well, sorta.)

Typically, reality sinks in quick and we regroup to develop a program that has the same strategic and creative chutzpah our client wants, but that fits more in line with their proposed budget and timeline– to sparkling and dynamic results, no less!

Derrick Borte’s new film, The Joneses, presents a concept that sounds as far-reaching as some of our initial wild and crazy marketing ideas. Embed a fake, envy-inducing family into a wealthy, materialistic neighborhood, outfit them with all of our clients’ newest and hottest products, and get them to get their “neighbors” to want it all? GENIUS… maybe.

The concept here is compelling on a few levels. We know for a fact that consumers trust the opinion of their family, friends (and in this case, neighbors) more than any claim a company itself can make. The Joneses may have something to say about how far some brands are willing to go to get you to buy what they’re selling. Is this an example of word-of-mouth gone too far? Are you swayed by strategic product placement as much as some brands are hoping you are?

Watch the trailer and let us know:

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.

QR codes have been all the buzz these past few weeks and many companies are taking advantage of this new trend. QR stands for Quick Response- because they can be scanned quickly by a mobile phone via its camera. QR codes can be used to pull information from one location and stored directly into your mobile phone- anything from links, videos, photos and more.

One company that sticks out (literally and figuratively) is Stickybits. Stickybits produces two-dimensional barcodes users can attach to any real world object. For example, take a sticker and put it on your business card, scan it with either the iPhone or Android app and upload a full PDF version of your resume to the sticker. When others scan the barcode on your business card, your resume will be at their fingertips.

This is just one example of how QR codes are changing the way we think about barcodes. Facebook is also jumping on the QR bandwagon and will be used with an upcoming version of the Facebook mobile app. Facebook is still keeping the details under wraps until April, but some predict that QR codes will be most useful for Facebook’s integration of location-based social networking. In addition, QR codes will be useful for businesses who want to engage with consumers on a deeper level.

Stayed tuned, and don’t be surprised if you start seeing QR codes everywhere. Happy scanning!

We all know that product placement is nothing new. It’s a multi-billion dollar market that spans across television, movies, music, sports and more. Whether it’s the Coca Cola cups on the American Idol judging table or the food on top of Joey and Chandler’s fridge in Friends, product placement is everywhere all the time. Sometimes it’s subtle and plays in to the storyline of a movie or TV show; other times it’s more obvious. In Lady Gaga’s case, it’s on the screen and in your face, and she doesn’t care if you like it or not.

She’s known for her eccentric outfits and imaginative performances. In fact, being over-the-top is what made Lady Gaga so famous. Now the artist is starting to be noticed for the blatant product placement in her music videos. And with over 50% of brands using branded content for awareness-based marketing, she is a marketer’s dream come true. In fact, Lady Gaga is the only recording artist to reach 1 billion video views across all online video platforms – perhaps making her blatant product placements the most valuable in entertainment history! According to Neilsen AIG, product integration is more likely to drive brand recall than other forms of advertising, so if all goes according to plan, I’ll never make a sandwich without thinking of Lady Gaga, and I’ll never see Lady Gaga without wanting a sandwich.

Maybe when I finish eating I’ll take a picture with my Poloroid camera, upload it on to my Beats laptop, listen to some tunes on my Hearbeats headphones and call my friend on my Virgin Mobile phone. Why? Because Lady Gaga made me do it.

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.

In our recent tech history, there have been countless examples of emergent technologies being introduced to the marketplace before their time with a resounding flop, only to be resurrected a few short years later. A few worth mentioning:

* In 1996, CompuServe launched its WOW! initiative as the first major consumer Internet service that reached critical mass. It had a clear first-mover advantage in a space on the verge of exploding. However, technology issues and questionable marketing moves led to Compuserve’s demise at the hands of AOL, who later purchased the Compuserve business. AOL would go on to create a company that was worth nearly $15 Billion by the time it was purchased by Time Warner in 2001.

* In 1997, a web service was launched called SixDegrees.com which I regard as the first social networking site ever created. It was based around the premise of six degrees of separation (insert Kevin Bacon jokes here). At its peak, SixDegrees maintained a user base of over one million people. It was purchased by YouthStream Media in 2000 for $125 Million (the same year YouthStream also purchased The Magma Group, the first company I founded,  for infinitely less!). Ultimately, SixDegrees failed because the web had yet to be fully integrated into social lifestyles of the Gen Y audience they were targeting. It took an additional failure of Friendster (and, in some ways, MySpace) before Facebook was introduced, a business now valued by some at over $10 Billion.

* In 2000 DodgeBall was founded as a way of making social networking physical  by connecting people based on their actual geographic locations. In 2005, Dodgeball was acquired by Google, where it floundered in irrelevance juxtaposed against their behemoth search business. Ultimately, it was shut down. In 2009, Dodgeball founder Dennis Crowley created FourSquare which was seen by many as the breakout technology application at the SXSW conference and now looks like a candidate for the next big thing in the social media landscape.

Many blockbuster tech-based products services have been borne at the expense of the original brave pioneers whom broke new ground with the dreams of a first-mover advantage. The lesson here? Sometimes it’s good to take a step back, see what happens to others and wait for the right time to enter a marketplace. Sometimes the early bird gets the stale worm.

What failing business model now in the marketplace has the making of success in 3 to 5 years?

YouTube has recently announced it will be revamping its site by focusing on ad-supported premium programming (a la Hulu) and completely separating the user-generated content that has long accounted for most of the site’s traffic. The redesign will now include four tabs for browsing: Movies, Music, Shows (all ad supported) and Videos (user-generated content.) I assume this change will definitely ruffle some feathers as the very content that built YouTube up to its current status as the #1 destination for video is largely being relegated to a digital ‘back shelf.’ One could argue that the site’s unique and personal feel will be lost in addition to  bombarding end users with more and more commercials. On the other hand, promoting premium content and features (including the truly nifty “pop-out” and “dim the light” features of Hulu) could potentially add more quality and value to the site.

I’m anxiously waiting to see how YouTube will ultimately pull it off. I’m admittedly a fan of both sites for their very different approaches. But I would worry that taking the You out of YouTube would take some serious value out of the equation for the masses. The balance between the two will definitely need to be maintained to ensure that quality, content and utility end up benefiting consumers. Then it can truly be an advantageous relationship between people and advertising.

Every recession in recent American history has consistently shown ad budgets decline. We’re already seeing evidence of this in the current economic downturn. However, history also shows us that when the economy goes south, those who maintain their budgets or even increase them have far greater results compared to spending levels when the economy is doing well. The lesson here is, when competitors are decreasing ad budgets, pounce.

In the last advertising slowdown, companies like Netflix, Expedia, and Zappos managed to grow over $100 million in revenue by taking advantage of cheap media. The current recession, however, is not only going to lower the cost of media, it will also lower consumer confidence. People will be saving more and buying less so companies will have to step up their game to stay competitive. Many companies have turned solely to online campaigns like Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Optimization and viral campaigns, seeing much better results at a fraction of the cost. Because people are saving money by getting rid of cable, driving less, and spending more time online, people aren’t seeing TV spots, billboards, and print ads like they used to. Today, everyone is online for everything, which is why this recession is the perfect time for traditional companies to try nontraditional advertising.