Grown Up Thinking

This article appeared as part of MediaPost’s Engage:Teens Publications. To read the original post, click here.

So here is my report not from the sidelines, but from the mud pits of Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Manchester, Tenn. I was only there for 36 hours of it, but had enough time to party with festival children, see some killer bands perform, participate in the festival revelry and witness some brands in action.

In my eyes, event sponsorship is all about heightening the consumer’s experience. I hope for the sake of our industry, that corporate culture has graduated from thinking signage and logo placement equates to consumer retention and interest.

The true play for a brand in the event activation space is to elevate the event goers’ experience by ultimately conveying that the brand understands what the consumer is going through. Once a brand understands and connections to the consumer’s emotional event experience, they can effectively add real value as a sponsor.

Additionally, event producers don’t have the time to offer every amenity, every perk, every nice-to-have since they are focused on the entertainment and general production needs. I’m sure every festival producer says, “That’s a great idea; maybe we’ll get to it next year.” Four years later, it’s still a great idea but hasn’t been executed. This leaves a huge opportunity for brands to elevate their activations.

A quick snapshot of Bonnaroo to properly set the stage: four days of music and mayhem on a 700-acre farm in the middle of nowhere. There is no escaping the festival grounds. The average teen I spoke with drove 8+ hours and stayed in a basic camp tent with minimal amenities. Most didn’t have a basic fan in their tent and it was insanely hot. Bonnaroo isn’t an event; it’s a cultural movement comprised of loyal adventure seekers, with approximately half of 100,000 attendees being teens and college-aged.

Click here to read more of Doug’s experience at Bonnaroo 2010, and how some brands got it right.

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.

This article first appeared as part of iMedia Connection’s Social Media: In Focus

More than a fan aggregator

With its recent F8 announcements, Facebook has again one-upped the world as we thought we knew it. Brand marketers need to start looking at Facebook as a much deeper and broader solution than one that purely amasses a fan base. As Facebook rolls out new functionality, brands have the opportunity to act immediately in a variety of ways. In addition, it’s important for brand managers to re-imagine their brands by leveraging social enhancements.

Brands need to be able to take immediate advantage of features such as the “like” functionality, but they also need to be visionary in how they can build their brands for the future and become truly social. While I encourage brands to take part in these new advancements, we also need to make sure that we keep an eye on the Facebook future and build with this future in mind.

So, in the quest to make your brand truly social, uproot your assets and think of new ways to infuse them through Facebook integration and by adding key social layers to the brand experience. Look toward the future and start evaluating the role that Facebook can play at retail, on the ground, and across every channel your brand touches. Not all opportunities will be a fit, but one thing is for sure: If you only look at Facebook as a place to have a fan page, you are missing the greater offering and will likely be sitting on the sidelines when the future arrives.

Get the full article here to take a look at some of Facebook’s new and evolving functionalities, as well as what they mean for your marketing efforts.

Find out in our just-launched white paper in partnership with Intrepid, titled Millennial Inc. Following a six-month joint international research study, the paper explores what the Millennial-led company will look like when Millennials take charge.

Closely observing the way Millennials would run an organization and develop and market products brings to light the challenges marketers are currently having in reaching this demographic. By taking note of how Millennials would reach and impact themselves, the white paper is a much needed how-to guide for making the changes necessary to survive and thrive in the new socially-connected, fully transparent world.

Millennial Inc explores nine core themes across three main areas of the business and concludes with the 10 Core Principles that the Millennial Led Business Will Follow. What are they? Download the whitepaper at millennialinc.com and find out.

They are the holy grail of youth marketing; the 5-million-plus American high school students who will be leaving home for the first time this fall, building brand loyalties and buying habits that will last a lifetime.

During student orientation before my freshman year at Boston University, I signed up for a Bank of America credit card. Eighteen years later, I am still a customer — as a dad, homeowner and entrepreneur. Talk about the lifetime value of a consumer …

As students are about to leave the nest (and the influence of parental purchasing), they will have the freedom to build their own “best of” roster of preferred brands that will make this tenuous transition just a little easier. Their choices now will likely affect their loyalties for life, proving that there is no more critical time for brands to connect with consumers than that first step from adolescence to adulthood.

How can your brand seize this crucial market opportunity? Here are the top seven ways to emotionally connect with the class of 2014… right now:

#7: Facilitate connections: Most seniors are still strangers to their future roommates and classmates and have burning questions about the people and things that will shape their college experience. “What kind of music will my future roommate like?” “Where is the best place to grab late-night sushi at my new campus?” Create social connections between classmates and their new college town between now and September to get students talking early on.

#6: Talk dollars and sense: Most kids leaving high school have no clue how to balance a checkbook, apply for a credit card or even start building credit. Provide resources that educate (and make their lives easier) to build brand equity and trust.

#5: Give them the goods: Whether it is a coupon, VIP event access, or just a free slice of pizza, incoming freshman appreciate every edge they can get. If you really want to win the hearts of inbound college students, help them get the clout they need to rock those first days on campus.

#4: Help them domesticate: When mom is doing the laundry and making sure things don’t get musty, teens don’t have to think about home care. Now, it’s their turn to be the head of the household (or don of the dorm room). Show them the way, and your brand can “clean house.”

#3: Embrace school spirit: School spirit is at its peak during freshman year. Can your brand leverage the momentum of the football team, harness the heat of homecoming, or take over the tailgate? Create a national effort with local ties that tap into the power of school spirit, and your brand will never look back.

#2: Create a pipeline to the Bank Of Mom & Dad: Parents don’t know what their kids need at college, and students often don’t know how to ask for it. Brands can bridge this gap by helping students understand their needs and leveraging the growing 55+ age group presence on Facebook to ask for the right stuff in creative ways.

#1: Help them hook up: Facebook was developed to help guys and girls meet each another and hook up. Period. Incoming freshman will “like” anything that allows them to meet more members of the opposite sex. It is a premise as old as the dean, but remember: only certain brands can get away with this (and you know who you are).

This article appeared as part of MediaPost’s Engage:Teens Publications. To read the original post, click here.

Earth Day is here and thousands of companies will be taking the opportunity to announce how they are “going green.” With such encouraging messages about positive action, why are consumers seemingly indifferent and even annoyed by these reports?

An overwhelming cynicism has developed regarding claims of corporate environmental responsibility and sustainability– partly for good reason. Greenwashing is certainly an issue whereas some companies attest that their operations or products are “green” with pretty questionable justifications behind those claims.

However, should that negate the efforts of so many companies who are legitimately trying to course-correct and reduce their carbon emissions?

Many marketers are terrified to announce their sustainable actions because of the potential backlash they’ll face if their company is not considered environmentally friendly as a whole. Is it not still a good thing for a corporation to take steps towards a more sustainable future, even if they are just baby steps? What causes us to have such high expectations of companies when we don’t have them of ourselves?

On this Earth Day, let’s try not to look at corporations as deceitful polluters, but rather give them the benefit of the doubt and show some appreciation for the steps they are taking to make a brighter and greener future for us all.

There’s been a lot of buzz about Facebook’s growth as they try to stay on top of social media development. No one site “owns” the entire social media landscape; however, Facebook is making significant headway in making their site a one-stop-shop for all of your online interactions. Here are six reasons why I believe that Facebook will reign supreme over other social utilities:

1. Connecting: The average Facebook user has 130 friends, and with over 400 million active users that’s over 52 billion social connections. This dominance affords a huge opportunity for Facebook to integrate new social platforms.

2. Email: Facebook is rumored to be developing a full-fledged email system that could eliminate the need for a separate email accounts.

3. Social Plug-Ins: Due to the popularity of the “Like” function, Facebook is now competing with sites like Yelp by providing integration on to other sites around the web.

4. Facebook Chat: Facebook recently added a feature to their instant messaging system that allows users to make Friend Lists within Facebook Chat which will no doubt increase its use over other services.

5. Geolocation: Applications like Foursquare have made a name for themselves in this increasingly popular space, but now Facebook is jumping on the band wagon.

6. Facebook Connect: Facebook Connect eliminates most barriers to entry for engagement on other sites. Now that this process is being made even easier, it will continue its rapid growth in integration.

Check out some more information and insights from today’s F8 keynote presentation here.

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.

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.