Social Media in Action Series: Duck Sauce

I'm spending a few days highlighting my "best in class" picks for companies driven by social media. This series isn't about uncovering the latest viral phenomenon - it's about slowing your roll a little bit and observing the underlying principles of success in social media marketing. Day 4 in the series features Duck Sauce.

When an Internet phenomenon is reported by the New York Times it's usually regarded as having earned "viral" or "meme" status by the teeming hordes of social media experts. Watch the latest video to reach such status from the band Duck Sauce aptly named Barbara Streisand, then read my takeaways below.

One of the cornerstones to social media success (and some of this can be applied to the music industry as a whole) is producing something that many people will love. Not just "like" or tweet, but truly love. By combining a catchy beat with visuals and celebrity cameos that make most young New Yorkers swoon Duck Sauce created a juicy bit of video goodness that was championed by the largest city in America. The lesson here is simple: target your audience with remarkable content and they will... remark! Too many brands play it safe by generalizing content to apply to as many people as possible, not realizing in the process they are eroding viral potential.

Nick Kinports (follow him on Twitter @ADMAVEN) has worked in the interactive technology world for over 15 years, and helps agencies and brands find and connect to digital audiences for profitable outcomes. Want to talk to him about how social technologies can help your agency or brand grow? Email him at nick@lonelybrand.com

Social Media in Action Series: Google

I'm spending a few days highlighting my "best in class" picks for companies driven by social media. This series isn't about uncovering the latest viral phenomenon - it's about slowing your roll a little bit and observing the underlying principles of success in social media marketing. The third case in this series features Google.

You may have seen Patrick Boivin's hugely popular stop-motion animation series on YouTube. Watch his technique used in this Nexus One unboxing, then read my quick takeaway after the video.

Are there social media guns for hire? In this case, you bet! Google used a tried but true technique - combine meme with an already established personality to create a new and instantly viral phenomenon. Does it always work? Certainly not. In fact the Internet is littered with the wreckage of bad brand/social media personality collaborations.

It's all about finding the right blend of an existing Internet personality providing pure value (no ads already) to their fans, and then tapping it in a way that doesn't corrupt the very attraction that made the content viral to begin with.

It's a delicate balancing act illustrated above perfectly.

Nick Kinports (follow him on Twitter @ADMAVEN) has worked in the interactive technology world for over 15 years, and helps agencies and brands find and connect to digital audiences for profitable outcomes. Want to talk to him about how social technologies can help your agency or brand grow? Email him at nick@lonelybrand.com

Social Media in Action Series: Department of Transportation

I'm spending a few days highlighting my "best in class" picks for companies driven by social media. This series isn't about uncovering the latest viral phenomenon - it's about slowing your roll a little bit and observing the underlying principles of success in social media marketing. Day 2 is all about the Texas Department of Transportation.

Let's face it: drunk driving is a serious problem in America. It's been an ongoing mission of the Department of Transportation to communicate the negative impacts of driving under the influence through various national television, radio and print campaigns. Local governments also get involved, but with budgets shrinking it's been tough to get the word out. I'll just say it. Most of these ads are cheesy and don't connect with drivers at an emotional level. Enter the Happy Hour FAIL campaign. Be prepared for a sting, and read my thoughts after the video.

Ouch. Did you have the same awkward and painful feeling watching a life set back by ten years?

The Happy Hour FAIL campaign is a great example of marketing to Millennials, and it's one of the first ads that plays to the fear of a damaged social media reputation. It's all part of a more robust campaign that connects on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. Not bad for a traditional government department rooted in old media.

Nick Kinports (follow him on Twitter @ADMAVEN) has worked in the interactive technology world for over 15 years, and helps agencies and brands find and connect to digital audiences for profitable outcomes. Want to talk to him about how social technologies can help your agency or brand grow? Email him at nick@lonelybrand.com

Social Media in Action Series: Blendtec

I'm spending a few days highlighting my "best in class" picks for companies driven by social media. This series isn't about uncovering the latest viral phenomenon - it's about slowing your roll a little bit and observing the underlying principles of success in social media marketing. I'll kick things off with Blendtec.

Chances are you're already familiar with the cooky lab tech that likes to destroy expensive and amusing items with blenders. If not I'll let the video do the talking. You'll find my quick takeaway below.

I've always been convinced the success of Blentec's YouTube campaign is rooted in discipline. Sure, it's amusing to watch things get destroyed - but translating that into sales is a more complex feat. You can find hundreds of thousands of videos on the Internet of wanton destruction. Blentec's secret is rooted in discipline. Any social media campaign must be consistently executed with predictable "tune in times". You can always cite one-off examples of single videos that went viral. That's different than a planned and produced campaign, or it's just plain lucky.

Consistency in look and feel as well as a disciplined content release schedule dramatically reduce the chances of failure. After over 100 well produced and executed videos, Blendtec is a great example of the disciplined approach to social media marketing success.

Nick Kinports (follow him on Twitter @ADMAVEN) has worked in the interactive technology world for over 15 years, and helps agencies and brands find and connect to digital audiences for profitable outcomes.

3 Interactive Advertising Trends iPhone 4 Will Accelerate

If you're an Apple enthusiast your world ground to a halt on June 7th, 2010 at 12:00CST for the live announcement of the iPhone 4 (among other, and decidedly less hyped, technologies). Of course most of us had already seen a prototype model leaked (lost) months earlier.

I don't really care about the specifics of the phone itself, and won't bore you by rehashing some of the same old points about how amazing and magical the device is. Instead let's take a look at the trends that the ubiquitous device will accelerate in the interactive advertising space.

First, a disclaimer and an opinion. I own an iPhone and enjoy the experience. I do have my complaints, but overall it's the one piece of tech I couldn't live without on a daily basis. The opinion? iPhone isn't going anywhere. In fact, for the reasons I'm about to outline below, iPhones are going to become even more relevant in the average smartphone user's life.

TREND ACCELERATION: Video Everywhere

Advertisers have, for years, struggled with making video relevant and engaging. Consumers, for the most part, haven't jumped on the bandwagon. Video widgets and ads have actually become less prevalent as advertisers adjusted budget from expensive production to Google ads embedded in YouTube. That's all over now. Watch and see.

TREND ACCELERATION: Mobile Ads That Work

iAd is a great advancement in mobile advertising technology, but the real insight here is ubiquity of a single mobile platform. That means advertisers, agencies, and marketers can begin to think about one mobile culture instead of disparate pockets of early adopters. We've all heard mobile ad budgets are on the rise and will reach seventy three quadrillion dollars by 2052, but the reality is that iPhone 4 and OS 4 will accelerate this process dramatically.

TREND ACCELERATION: Rich Social Ubiquity

Social technologies have come a long way in the last few years. It's generally accepted that some of the more robust technologies like video blogging, podcasting, and lifestreaming haven't caught on the same way that Facebook or Twitter has. Thanks to the ease of use of Apple's new mobile device, expect to see the traditional blog (and to some extent microblogging) made less relevant as it's eclipsed by richer formats.

Do you see iPhone 4 as a catalyst for trend acceleration? What else do you see coming down the pipe as Apple's next big device hits market?

Nick Kinports (follow him on Twitter @ADMAVEN) has worked in the interactive technology world for over 9 years, and helps the Fortune 100 identify unmet consumer needs, create ideas to fill those needs, and bring them into market. He currently works at Maddock Douglas.

Online Ad Revenue Set to Explode, As Marketers Struggle With Complexity Who Wins?

Facebook, LinkedIn, AdWords, countless networks, and now Twitter. These are just a few of the major online advertising platforms agencies, marketers, and entrepreneurs are budgeting for in 2010 and 2011. According to Nikesh Arora, Google's president of global sales, the budget allocated to online advertising is about to skyrocket.

I agree.

In an age where traditional media is in the throes of a long and painful death and more of the world spends time online Mr. Arora's estimates are well taken. He states,

"People are shifting their spending dollars more and more to the online world – whether it be direct marketing, or advertising, or branding. And that follows industrial marketing logic which is that you have to go where the eyeballs are, where the customers are.

The next big wave will be consumers consuming more and more video on the web, and you will see more and more brand advertising and display advertising move to the web."

There's just one problem: Most marketers don't understand online ad technology.

I'll admit - I have a lot to learn, but based on some impromptu research of major North American Brands marketers have a long way to go. Take this statement as an opinion only for now; I'm not prepared to present the hard facts on what's out there.

All things considered, here's my prediction of who will cash in and why:

Twitter: the hugely popular microblogging service is about to unleash it's ad platform. I think the concept is simple enough that marketers will flock to the service... at least in the beginning. From a long term viability standpoint I don't see Twitter generating the kind of revenue it needs to be profitable from ad sales. Not to be a pessimist, but I have witnessed the decline of Twitter in the consumer marketplace, and I can't imagine a future where inundating consumers with sponsored Tweets and ads will make the service more palatable.

Facebook: the world's most popular social network has visions of becoming bigger still, and in order to accomplish Facebook's goal of going public (trust me - this IS a priority no matter what Facebook is saying publicly) they are going to have to have some serious revenue on the books. Ad sales are going to make up a big part of this, and I think the next big wave on online ad spending will see Facebook cleaning up as it expands it's semantic web approach. The "Like" button, among other widgets and games will increase the importance of Facebook - and it's value to advertisers.

Ad Networks: though Facebook will get a healthy bump in revenue from selling advertising, it will be dwarfed by the increase in sales through ad networks. As semantic, geo, and behavioral targeting become more refined (and more intrusive) expect the immediate benefits to be irresistible to advertisers looking to squeeze more out of an already reduced budget (raise your hand if you had a healthy increase in your marketing budget over the last 2 years... Beuller? Anyone?).

Video Services: YouTube and others will reap big benefits in online ad revenue from a sharp increase in online video viewing.

What other trends are you observing in the online ad space?

Nick Kinports (follow him on Twitter @ADMAVEN) has worked in the interactive technology world for over 9 years, and helps the Fortune 100 identify unmet consumer needs, create ideas to fill those needs, and bring them into market. He currently works at Maddock Douglas.

Fixing the Music Industry, One Viral Video at a Time

If the late 90’s and early 2000’s were about scandalously clad underage girls becoming pop sensations, the second decade of the new millennium is most certainly starting with youthful boys belting out shrill tenor chords on YouTube.

It’s about to be common knowledge that Canadian born Justin Beiber has the top selling US record for the week of May 9th – the same week that other, and certainly more “adult” sounding artists pitched their wares through more traditional channels. Add to that the fact that the number of Beiber’s units sold is abysmally low. It’s just another nail in the coffin of an industry that is currently seeing the downside to rejecting progress.

Beiber’s meteoric rise to fame is another, and for marketers old, YouTube story. You know it just as well as I do – talented kid thinks it would be cool to put his videos up on YouTube, does so, and is plucked from a normal childhood by a bevy of talent scouts, agents, and record labels who come late to the game after seeing huge numbers of video views.

Greyson Michael Chance is the latest in a long line of child artists to be snapped up by Hollywood – moving from a YouTube viral phenom to guest of the Ellen show in three days. Wikipedia hasn’t even decided if he’s article worthy.

The impact of social technologies works both ways.

Consumer behaviors are changing by the hour. Music industry executives are left confused, disoriented, and unsure of the future. To the modern marketer for a large brand, it’s just another day at the office.

A source at Universal Music Group told me this today:

“If we don’t start selling more [physical] records soon, all the major retailers will pull out. If Best Buy pulls out, target will pull out, and Wal-mart would have already been out. There won’t be any more product on the shelf unless you are Lady Gaga. I don’t see that we are making up for it digitally. So Beiber is #1 with a tiny amount of records sold. Where are all the people buying digital albums? Where is the revenue? And what kind of message does this send to emerging artists trying to break into the business? If our industry as a whole won’t come off of our high horse of pricing [physical] albums at $13.99 to match or best digital prices, consumers won't see records on the shelves anymore.

If they aren’t buying it at Best Buy and they aren’t buying it at Target where are they buying it? The answer is they aren’t. They are streaming it on sites like YouTube and Facebook. Music has become so fluid you can literally listen to it anywhere you want. It’s not confined to a car or iPod. The music industry has to figure out a way for them to pay for it without paying for it. The artists have to be sold in a different way.”

The need for the music industry to reinvent itself has never been more pressing (assuming you care about music). I'll ask the question and let you tell the rest of the story:

If you could give one piece of marketing advice to a top music industry executive, what would it be?

Nick Kinports (follow him on Twitter @ADMAVEN) has worked in the interactive technology world for over 9 years, and helps the Fortune 100 identify unmet consumer needs, create ideas to fill those needs, and bring them into market. He currently works at Maddock Douglas.

Tiger Woods' New Nike Ad Confuses, Makes Us Feel Sad

Tiger Woods' new Nike advertisement featuring the voice of his deceased father, Earl Woods, has a lot of people confused, and a few upset. What are your thoughts?

Social Media Contests: Benefits Beyond Traditional Campaigns

Big brands have been leveraging social technologies to encourage community and individual participation in contests for quite some time. The last half of 2009, however, has seen an explosion of innovative social media contests across the most popular outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

Benefits for brands (aside from the obvious exposure, awareness, etc...) include:

• Content Collection - content that is submitted by participants is owned by the brand, therefore a successful contest can generate a stock of creative images, videos, or stories that can be re-purposed for future promotions.
  
• User Experience/Message Testing - by exposing participants to a set of messages, site content, or other creative work brands that are listening to the chatter can make informed tweaks to an ongoing campaign.
• Advocacy Building - a smart social media contest disburses smaller, yet still valuable, prizes among more participants. An ongoing contest from Lexli International, for example, offers one grand prize and ten runners up. By reaching out to a broader pool of winners and soliciting them for further participation in the brand, a company can create its own group of influential online advocates.

Other innovative social media contests in market today:

Champion's What's Your Everest Contest

Know of other ongoing contests? Let me know by commenting below.

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PEOPLE WHO READ THIS ARTICLE ALSO READ:

> Marketers Love Facebook and Twitter, But At What Expense?
> Advertising Week DC 2009: The Capital of Making Big Things Happen
> Developing Social Strategy: Choose Wisely

Advertising Week DC 2009: The Capital of Making Big Things Happen

I received an email from Advertising Week DC 2009 requesting to post this information; ADWKDC should be a great event!

When?
Monday, September 14th - Friday, September 18th 2009

Got any big names?
You bet! Advertising Week 2009 will feature influential speakers from companies such as
Verizon, Discovery Communications, Inc., Mixx, The National Guard, Interface Media, Blue Pixel, Brunner Digital, RP3 Agency, White & Partners, Williams Whittle, LM&O Advertising, MDB Communications & Arnold DC.

·Shelly Lazarus, Chairman, Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide
·Liz Dolan, Chief Marketing Officer, The Oprah Winfrey Network
·Robb High, Principal, Robb High Consulting
·Tiffany Warren, Chief Diversity Officer, Omnicom Group, Inc.
·Stuart Elliott, Advertising Columnist, The New York Times
·Mark Whitaker, Washington D.C. Bureau Chief and Senior Vice President, NBC News
·Chuck Todd, NBC News Chief White House Correspondent, NBC News Political Director, Contributing Editor, ‘Meet the Press’
·David Gregory, Moderator, ‘Meet the Press’
·Nick Moore, Executive Vice President, Chief Creative Officer, Wunderman New York
·Ted Eyes, Senior Vice President, Group Creative Director, Draft FCB NY
·Speakers from Verizon, Discovery Communications, Inc., Mixx, The National Guard, Interface Media, Blue Pixel, Brunner Digital, RP3 Agency, White & Partners, Williams Whittle, LM&O Advertising, MDB Communications, Arnold Worldwide

How can I get updates?
Text ADWKDC to 56333 to receive updates to the program as they become available. Standardmessage rates apply. You can also follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Blogger and YouTube. To link to us and find more information go to: www.ADWKDC.com.

How do I register?
Easy. Visit our website: www.ADWKDC.com

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PEOPLE WHO READ THIS ARTICLE ALSO READ:

> Developing Social Strategy: Choose Wisely

> Marcus Sakey: Social Media Marketing in the New World of Publishing Part 3

> Controlling Google Search Results Essential For Job Seekers

Chicago Sketch Comedy Troupe Makes A Splash

On the cusp of one of the most unfortunate incidents of a video going viral, a local sketch comedy troupe reminds us all that humor is still one of the greatest calls to action for viral content distribution (many of these videos were released several months ago, but are recently trending on Twitter and other social media outlets).

Do you find these videos effective in delivering messaging, or does the humor eclipse the call to action?

Find more information on the videos here.

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PEOPLE WHO READ THIS ARTICLE ALSO READ:

> ADMAVEN Interviews Domino's: An Insider's Perspective

> Domino's Social Media Disaster and Resolution

> CMM&A Thanks Eric Lazar and Kyle Tobin; Members for a Wonderful Evening

ADMAVEN Interviews Domino's: An Insider's Perspective

I had the opportunity to interview Phil Lozen of Domino's regarding social media and their recent public relations fiasco. Mr. Lozen currently operates the Twitter account @dpzinfo Domino's set up to discuss the offending videos, and has been empowered to reach out to online communities regarding the brand. The circumstances are difficult for Domino's, but may result in other large fast food chains jumping on board the social media marketing bandwagon.

I want to thank Mr. Lozen for his time and interest in reaching out to ADMAVEN readers.

For further background information, videos, and discussions surrounding Domino's plight, read my previous article.

Inerview transcript:

Please tell us your name, job title, and number of years at Domino's corporate headquarters in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Phil Lozen, Web Designer 10 years at Dominos.

Things must have been very tense at your offices in the last 48 hours. How did Mr. Doyle, President of Domino's USA, decide to craft a response video, and what were his initial feelings regarding social media engagement?

There was a whole team of people who really came together in the last couple days to respond to this incident. Our PR department, led by Tim McIntyre, along with our Precision Marketing Group, led by Rob Weisberg, all played a part in our response. The suggestion for a video response came from a several people and Patrick was glad to help out. He’s a very smart guy and he saw the importance of us being where our customers were talking.

Domino's is a pretty big company and seems to be targeting a relatively young, Internet savvy demographic. How do you justify staying away from earned media (social media) for so long?

We haven’t stayed away from social media. We have a Brand channel on YouTube and a Facebook page with over 200,000 followers.

While many of our senior PR and Marketing team members are active representatives of Domino’s Pizza in Twitter, one challenge we faced over the past few days was that we didn’t have a corporate Twitter page. The “Dominospizza” Twitter name had already been taken and we were already in the process of working with Twitter to reclaim the name before this video surfaced.

How did the word come down that you would be responsible for handling Twitter, blog outreach, etc...?

Though this crisis did not drive our entrance into social media it certainly put our social media into the spotlight.

I work in our communications/PR department. Our department was best suited to maintain the dialogue with consumers.

Now that Domino's has a healthy respect for the social space, is budget being allocated beyond your time to target and engage online communities in 2009/10?

We’ve always has a healthy respect for social media. Budget was allocated back in 2008 for social media outlets. We continue to invest in 2009 and have plans to do so in 2010 and beyond.

To that end, what other communities are you targeting online for outreach and communication? Are you being proactive at this point or strictly reactive?

We are proactively communicating in a number of communities, however this event certainly required a reactive stance as well.

What advertising or public relations agencies have been instrumental in your social media crisis management?

Our PR team is housed here at Domino’s Pizza. Our ad agency, Crispin, Porter and Bogusky, has been there with us every step of the way.

What software do you use to manage/monitor Twitter and other social media outlets? Do you manage while mobile and if so, what device do you use?

I use a mix of Tweetdeck, Twhirl, and search.twitter.com for the most part. I also have capabilities on my iPhone, right now using Twitterfon.

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PEOPLE WHO READ THIS ARTICLE ALSO READ:

> Domino's Social Media Disaster and Resolution

> CMM&A Thanks Eric Lazar and Kyle Tobin; Members for a Wonderful Evening

> Chicago Recruiter Roundup - Land That Next Big Ad Agency Job

Bridging The Gap - YouTube Links to iTunes, Amazon, and Others

The biggest problem faced by Web 2.0 technologies involves measuring the success of a campaign in dollars. Creation and distribution of content is the first step to a great campaign, but how does one move from clickthroughs to actual sales. Last week YouTube took steps to sell - albeit through affiliates - content related products and services online.

The new model has been reviewed by many analysts, bloggers, and pundits; so I am not going to cover the specifics of how it works (read marketingpilgrim, seorountable, adverlab, and searchengineland for more details). Rather ADMAVEN will look at the fundamentals of the YouTube model; and why bridging the gap between social media campaigns and direct sales is so critical to the future of online campaigns.

Linking products and services directly to YouTube videos on a content specific basis allows vendors to benefit from product placement, use of music, and overt commercials that are often viewed by millions.

The holy grail of all social media is moving one step past the clickthrough rate to the conversion rate, or number of viewers that actually perform the desired action, such as purchase, register, or otherwise interact with a vendor.

When advising clients on how to properly execute social media campaigns, it is important to ask yourself how a campaign might be structure to remove as many layers between viewing content and actually making a purchase, registration, etc...

Too few campaigns measure success based on number of clickthroughs or video views alone. As we move forward in the Web 2.0 space, these metrics will become increasingly irrelevant as the industry restructures toward conversion rates.

Nicholas Kinports (follow him on Twitter @ADMAVEN) has worked in the interactive technology world for over 15 years. He is the Digital Strategy Lead and founder of Chicago-based digital marketing firm lonelybrand, where he directs the creation and execution of digital marketing programs that generate measurable signups, conversions and sales.

Interactive Advertising Q&A Roundup

As an active member of communities touching the interactive advertising world I answer many questions on a daily basis. Each week I will round of some of the best questions and answers for your consumption. If you have a question about a subject related to interactive advertising or related subjects, you can email Nick Kinports at nick.k@maddockdouglas.com.

David Peck, New Media Strategist for LSF Interactive, asks:

How can we use a video like this to get the youth to vote? Saw this great video regarding getting the youth to vote in the upcoming election:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4kg514DcTA#

Got me thinking… How can we use a video like this to get the youth to vote?

ADMAVEN answers:

David,

Using a video to influence a group is a very powerful technique that has proven results; IF and only IF the video in question resonates with meaningful, targeted, and perceptually valuable content.

For example, let me direct you to my latest blog post, which is a prime example of exactly what I am talking about (not an ad to get you on my blog the post actually is a perfect example for this question).

Linked below to the blog and the specific post itself.

http://admaven.blogspot.com/2008/09/robin-williams-and-spore-why-not-more.html


Judith Bush, Manager of Software Development at OCLC, asks:

What are "best practices" and "best uses" of Facebook for community outreach?
My goals are to:
-become recognized by the general community
-become a known resource for watershed information throughout the community
-involve schools and students with projects as well as fundraising

ADMAVEN answers:

Judith,

Your situation is superb for the use of a social media outlet such as Facebook. The best Facebook campaigns involve relevant content (important and timely information to your local community) that cannot be easily accessed elsewhere (your council produces the information as a sole provider). Your target audience of schools and students are among the top users of Facebook.

This being said, your immediate goal should be to choose an individual to represent your organization and create a Facebook profile for that individual.

Next, you must begin placing relevant content into the profile. This may be done in the form of a blog, group, or announcements. Once your content is rolling you can begin inviting your target audience to participate with a clear, concise message detailing why your Facebook profile is important to their lives.

As for stories of successful engagements, let me point you toward a few resources.

I have linked below to my review of a free ebook entitled, "The Social Metropolis". The book provides relevant case studies and success stories that will assist you in developing your own campaign. Follow the link in my blog to download the book.

http://admaven.blogspot.com/2008/08/sem-vs-smo-part-3-social-metropolis.html


Mike McClure, Partner, Exec Creative Director at The Yaffe Group, asks:

What would get you to watch a webinar? What makes a good webinar? Special guests? Unusual topics? Straightforward strategies to improve your biz? Sock puppets? What works for you?

ADMAVEN answers:

Mike,

In general, the most effective webinar involvement is a personal referral. If your target audience is small (say <1000 people) the best thing to do would be a targeted campaign that has a high level of customization. For larger target audiences I recommend using your analytics to find out where these targets spend their time online, and then leveraging social media to promote your webinar. Regardless of the strategy you take, make sure your webinars provide relevant, useful, and entertaining information that is truly meaningful to the target audience. Ensure your webinars are extremely easy to share over social media (i.e. YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Digg, Technorati, Email, Etc...). If the content is good enough your audience will work to distribute for you.


Guillermo Pérezbolde, Editorial Director at Entrecreativos.com and Creative Operations Director at Mente Digital, asks:

Do you think that Google´s AD Planner will become the standard for Online Media planning?

ADMAVEN answers:

Guillermo,

Google offers a lot of great tools to deal with simple (read: small) online campaigns. They will not be replacing agencies any time soon for larger jobs.

We use a variety of tools and outside resources to get the job done on larger campaigns. and Google cannot match the depth and breadth of expertise and software that the process encompasses.

Robin Williams and Spore: Why Not More?

Robin Williams makes a surprise (read: planned by an agency) appearance to demo the creature creator aspect of the new game Spore.

For those of you who pay attention to these things, traditional and interactive advertisements have appeared everywhere for Spore. I'm not sure what the total advertising budget was, but it is massive.

This is a great example of how an impromptu appearance and an unscripted, honest presentation about a product by a key influencer combine to form a viral juggernaut. As of this post the video has been viewed on YouTube about 1,000,000 times.

Nicholas Kinports (follow him on Twitter @ADMAVEN) has worked in the interactive technology world for over 15 years. He is the Digital Strategy Lead and founder of Chicago-based digital marketing firm lonelybrand, where he directs the creation and execution of digital marketing programs that generate measurable signups, conversions and sales.

Yahoo Buzz: Room For Growth?

Since making its official public release three days ago Yahoo Buzz has generated just that: a lot of buzz. But has it delivered? The premise of any site using the user rated content model (YouTube, Digg, etc…) is to push relevant articles into the hands of readers by peer voting. Of course any organization can submit its own writing – ADMAVEN does it for every article – only large groups of individuals voting for a submission will bring that particular article to prominence.

So far Yahoo Buzz has acted more like Yahoo Drone.

In press releases and interviews leading up to the public opening of Buzz, Yahoo stated that individual bloggers, small-time writers, and other such users will be given a chance to be on the front page and vaulted into relevancy. Unfortunately that just has not happened. Major news organizations dominate the first page of articles, with a few non-syndicated bits buried deep within the back pages.

My advice to Yahoo Buzz is simple: get rid of the New York Times, Salon, Times.com, and all the other major news organizations bloating the service. We know where to get that information, assuming we don’t already have RSS Feeds set up for it. The key for Yahoo Buzz should be to carve out a niche of relevant, user generated content that includes the blogosphere, videos, and other popular media. In this way Buzz can differentiate itself from its competitors and get away from the traditional news aggregation model that so many other sites employ.

Nicholas Kinports (follow him on Twitter @ADMAVEN) has worked in the interactive technology world for over 15 years. He is the Digital Strategy Lead and founder of Chicago-based digital marketing firm lonelybrand, where he directs the creation and execution of digital marketing programs that generate measurable signups, conversions and sales.

Lively by Google Seeks to Break New Ground

Eerily similar to Second Life, Google Labs has produced a virtual world in which avatars interact with user created content in three dimensions. Did I mention it is free to download and use? Lively by Google utilizes in browser software to allow webgoers to dive head first into virtual reality and interact with other avatars and their environment.

Google, in typical press release fashion, states they will not place ads of any kind in Lively. I have to wonder how long this will last – especially with marked success from similar products like Second Life, in which advertising is rampant. Implications for interactive adspace are huge. Take corporate self-promotion for example. I had a quick look at the popular rooms page on the Google Lively website and found the interactive agency Proximity Worldwide’s room.

Looks like a typical agency setting to me. Note the YouTube videos rolling on the wall and the Proximity logo covering the floor. Conversation in Lively comes easily: simply type your message into the box and hit enter to generate an easy to read chat bubble. Now if only I had someone else in the room who would answer me.

Other frustrations came quickly. The initial load time for the room is about 30 seconds – not a death sentence by any means – and subsequent lag ensues after the space is generated. My laptop is not wimpy by any means, but Lively seems to eat all my resources and then some.

Lively also provides simple ways to integrate your personal space with a MySpace, Facebook, or other social networking page. I am a fan of improved interactivity and “bringing the customer into your house”, but Lively needs to solve a few key problems regarding slow loading and jerky movement before this tool will be truly useful to the interactive advertising community.

My verdict: keep a close eye on Lively in the months to come, but don’t scramble to set up your own complex virtual labyrinth only to realize you are the only one populating it.

Key implications: look to Lively for enhanced customer service apps, live order taking, and embedded YouTube viral marketing in the near future. There may come a day when interactive agencies sell a Lively environment as part of the standard online presence package.

Nicholas Kinports (follow him on Twitter @ADMAVEN) has worked in the interactive technology world for over 15 years. He is the Digital Strategy Lead and founder of Chicago-based digital marketing firm lonelybrand, where he directs the creation and execution of complete digital communications solutions for a variety of industries.