Grown Up Thinking

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.

Though I missed the Super Bowl entirely, I did manage to catch up on all of the ads after the fact thanks to YouTube’s glossy showcase of Super Bowl commercials: AdBlitz .

I diligently viewed every ad from all four quarters of the game, and have outlined here a list of all the ads that made me LOL. Which, if you caught my previous post, you know that is something of a rarity.

Here’s the rundown of the most LOL-worthy spots of Super Bowl XLIV:

1. Snickers: Game (featuring Betty White)
For whatever reason, I’ll watch pretty much anything that involves Betty White. She’s delightful. But this spot in particular had me howling like Tom Hulce in Amadeus. Delight turns to pure magic when Betty delivers her first and only line.

2. Vizio – Forge (featuring Beyoncé)
This spot is a close second in my book of LOLs. The real clincher for me is the YouTube Celebrity/Meme theme: particularly, David at the Dentist’s inclusion is nothing short of comic genius. I’m a sucker for traditional and new media cross-pollination!

3. Doritos – House Rules
Cute little kid shows us who’s boss. This LOL smacks you right in the face with some LOL-worthy sass.

4. Dodge Charger – Man’s Last Stand
This commercial epic and comic ode to any man who has lived with a significant other or experienced a serious relationship. As a guy who’s lived through both, I had to resist the urge to bust out my air guitar at the climax of this spot.

5. Kia Sorento – Big Game
This commercial harkens back to something many of us wonder as children- do our toys have thoughts/feelings? Oh, maybe that was just me? Anyway, this commercial brings to life some hilarious fantasies from our favorite childhood toys.

That’s a wrap! Hope you enjoyed Super LOL 2010 – feel free to post your own Super LOL list in the comments!

Much like Dave Carroll and his 2008 plea to United Airlines to fix the guitar they busted, Freya Svensson has turned to song (and YouTube) to air her concerns about customer service with a huge brand (this time, it’s Volvo).

Instead of writing an angry letter, consumers will now write scathing blogs posts. Instead of asking to speak to the manager, they’ll turn to their social networks. Thankfully, these examples show less vitriol and far more humor, but act as a definite heads up for brands to listen and respond.

A recent video response by Kristina, a 21-year old student on the topic of communities working with brands, seemed to touch on so much of what Mr Youth has found to define the new consumer. While older generations might question the placement of advertising into personal blogs and You Tube channels, Consumer 2.0 struggles to see how this is any different then attempting to bombard them with a brand’s message via traditional channels. Kristina identifies how much more contextual and relevant marketing via peers and communities is. She explains how off putting “shoving commercials down our throats is” and how brands who take the time to think through ways to engage them and “work with them” have a much better grasp of how to positively communicate with their generation. Marketers could learn a lot from this 21-year old.

We all know how annoying it can be to hear a song in an ad and not be able to find it anywhere. Apparently enough people felt that way about the latest Ritz ad that the brand responded in a very interesting way. Ritz learned through comments on YouTube that consumers were searching for the happy tune featured in the spot, but were unable to find it online.  The brand responded by posting a video stating  that they would turn the 30 second jingle created specifically for the ad into a full-length song if the video achieves 10,000 views on YouTube.  The song will be available on iTunes with all profits going to the artist.

At the time of this blog post, the video had just over 7k views, so it looks like this ditty is destined for a full-length future. Though the whole backsory may be faked by Ritz’s agency and most would argue that 10k views does not a viral video make, this is still a smart way for a brand to use social media as both a messaging and listening tool.  It also goes to show that sometimes the most compelling social media executions are the simplest.  Contrived or not, this one, like the product itself, is like “buttah.”

Recently I came across a Vanity Fair article covering Anomaly’s partnership with YouTube sensation Lauren Luke to launch a makeup line soon to be sold at major retail stores. Its excellent to see this type of entrepreneurial output from a talented YouTube star. For those out of the loop, there are many YouTube phenoms with excellent audience bases, many with over 100k+ subscribers to their channels.  These new-aged Video Stars  generate over 5+million video views, some even with 30+ million views and armed with the ability to quickly produce mutiple videos under their belts that satisfy the appetities of their online crowds. This viewership is the type of stuff advertisers beg for. While beauty seems to be a hot button for online tutorials, other brands have found partnership opportunities and endorsement deals around YouTube celebs. Recently iJustine did a video promo on for Sanyo and tagged a contest to promote their video camera. In short, the news on the Lauren Luke make up line is truly in stride with the gospel we hustle; authenticity is key and credible voices are often more powerful than celeb pay to play voices..  While there is still a lot of parody, spoof and nonsensical videos on YouTube there are some budding stars that brands can align with in a low-cost, high-reach, and immensely authentic manner. In the coming weeks we will share some news on an exciting project Mr. Youth has been working on with a viral sensation. Till then you can check out the list of YouTube celebs on Wikipedia.

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.

I’ve lived in the same apt going on 3 years. It’s been nice, but I’ve never been able to get reception on my phone.  It’s always been one of those “dead zones” everyone is talking about. I’ve been through 4 phones in these 3 years–0 bars the whole time.

The other day while surfing the app store on iTunes I came across Fring, an app that among other things allows you to connect your phone to a WiFi network to make free VOIP calls.  ”Wow!” I said to myself, “What a find. I can totally use this in my apt!” I downloaded the free app, but quickly ran into a roadblock. I didn’t want to pay for skype, but the app says “free calls”–was this just another disappointment in the legally ambiguous 2.0 world?

I went to the Fring section on iTunes–no help. I went to the Fring website–no help. WTF. I then googled “free calls fring iPhone.”  Lo and behold–a consumer tutorial on YouTube gave me the exact step by step instructions I needed to solve my problem–legally and easily.

I think we’re seeing now with our plug-and-play, ADD, instrant gratfication culture, people want to solve probelms as they arrive, and look for the authentic voice of fellow consumers to answer their questions. No one is reading instruction manuals anymore–the connectivity of 2.0 world has alowed consumers to reach out and collaborate to solve problems.

Twitter has teamed up with Current TV  to allow viewers of the presidential and vice presidential debates to Tweet  their opinions and have them appear live onscreen, giving the TV audience unprecedented access to commenting on the nation’s political discourse.
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