Leo Burnett - Cultural Fuel

Why are visualizations always so fascinating, putting a spell on us seeing the whole?

Eric Fischer visualized Twitter and Flickr geotags of major cities and continents.

via Grant Zemont

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Jeff Greenspan had another simple idea. Verify people via twitter, count their followers and decide if they are important enough to be admitted to the world’s most exclusive website. If not, you will be redirected to a “less discriminating” site.

Whether this is meant as a social criticism or not, see if you can jump the velvet rope:

http://theworldsmostexclusivewebsite.com/

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Well, did you think it wasn’t possible? Well, think again! Now your dog can send you Tweets about their activities and what it is doing! All you need is Puppy Tweets..
If you are tired of all the Facebook comments about “I’m hungry” or “Waking up”, well, you may add “Chasing my tail” to the list, because of course, someone will repost the dog’s tweets.
I don’t know, and it is not specified, if it can also be applied to cats, ferrets and other pets, and if you don’t believe me, you may want to check the link.

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Collaboration is human. We like to take part in shared experiences and then talk about them. Debate/dissect them. Remix them. Come to shared agreement about them. These are core elements of how we share experiences.

And yet - many digital experiences seem to be more like echos - call and response, but mostly asynchronous, especially if you’re looking for a real person, instead of a script. And when you think about where you spend your ‘connected’ time is it mostly in isolation? It seems we spend most of our time online doing something alone, or reaching out for information, but not getting live feedback from a person, or groups of people.

Image by ChrisL_AK on Flickr

Why is this?  Is it purely that no groups of people are ever in the same place on the internet at the same time?  Is it the fact that most computers only ’seat’ one?  Why are their so few places for live digital interaction outside of instant messaging/chat and texting (which, while relevant for younger audiences, are not typically a mass behavior). Is it a new preference we’re only understanding now because of the new tolls we use to communicate?  Are people actually afraid to have a ‘live’ experience online?

As Web 2.0 took hold, the expectation grew that Brands should offer the chance for feedback from users, but very little of it is in real-time.  Or really even close to real-time.  And having groups able to give feedback and discuss or even manipulate something together is almost unheard of, outside of alternate reality worlds like SecondLife (which are, shall we say, not as relevant as one would like to a mass audience).

Think about the tools you use for work - like Word, Powerpoint and Excel.  Until the latest Office release with Sharepoint built in, there were few ways to work collaboratively on these documents without emailing them around.   Google and Xoho Docs gave us this power from the start, but are not as widely used. Some others are listed here.  But these are really all about productivity.  Where are real collaboration tools for consumers?

We have seen several recent campaigns where timeliness of response is a central part of their appeal, like the Old Spice Guy, or Wheat Thins’ Crunch Is Calling commercials with their van deliveries or Edge Shave Zone’s Anti-Irritation campaign.  The fact that the response comes quickly (ok - sort of quickly) is what makes them cool.  But still these examples are not about collaborating, as much as responding.  Think about what a difference in quality there is between those campaigns and the experience you have watching the SuperBowl and talking with your friends while you see the ads.

So what to do?  Well, the answer lies in another trend.  In some recent research about DVR viewing, it was uncovered that DVR viewership was down in some younger segments, and it was determined that it was because of that group needing to experience the event/show live, in order to participate live with their friends and avoid any spoilers.  So both the time-aspect and popularity of the content changed their behavior from what it might otherwise be - delayed viewing - to live viewing so they could use social networks and text messaging as an immediate channel for collaboration and connection.  This finding creates an insight that drives how we design content and experiences for great community collaboration: the centrality of having a well-known Time, Place, and Reward.

Time: clear deadlines/happy hours/times to tune in

Place: obvious platforms where all/most of the people who share the passion will be

Reward/Goal: a shared community value (social currency) attached to the participation

By creating engaging Acts that include a powerful mix of Time, Place and Reward drivers we can encourage engaging experiences in a variety of ways:

1. Facebook - Since almost everyone is already on there anyway - why not there?  The sheer number of things you can do on Facebook continues to grow (including chat), and it may well be the SecondLife of the moment.  Their recent roll out of their partnership with LiveStream allows for multiples of interactions at the same time, although true dialog has not yet really taken hold there.  Why not add a platform that enables real-time community discussion for a Brand?  Or crowd-creation of content that connects the people together while they are creating it?
2. Online worlds - We shouldn’t count them out just yet.  Don’t forget that Farmville still lets you go ‘live’ a friend’s farm, or down to the local i-pub.  The key here is to match the Brand’s purpose to the community’s task when they enter the alternate world, which can get pretty murky outside of gaming worlds, which we’ll get to in a minute.
3. Tablets/kiosks/media tables - One possible vision for Microsoft Surface could have been to allow for more than one ’seat’ at the computer.  IPads and other tablets are still mostly used as one-person devices, but their very portability does encourage some level of ’show and tell’.  As retail stores find new ways to allow for more engagement, they will be looking for ways to encourage shoppers to share and build experiences in-store that deliver value, and although a majority will be available on their mobile phones, there are still opportunities to allow for shared experiences that can impact sales.
4. Gaming platforms - Wii, Xbox and now Kinect are great examples of being able to place ourselves in a world with others, easily and with a maximum of impact.  Again, all that is needed is a clear purpose for participation that aligns with the Reward/Goal the gamers have.
5. Hosted ‘projects’ - Prezi, the zooming presentation software, is an interesting example of a digital experience that not only allows collaboration, but gives it a personality with little avatars zooming around the page for each collaborator.  Yeah - it’s kind of second-lifey, but the cool thing there is that it’s really _about_ the collaboration on something - a presentation in their case.  This idea about interaction should be examined further.
6. Interactive toys - When we think of how digitally wired many toys are these days, we should remember that Mom may be there with her kid at the same time, and finding something for them to do together could be an emotionally-charged moment.
7. The family car - same premise as #6, but this time with a few possible other players.  It’s great that the car of the future can read you your tweets, but why can’t it do something more for the whole family than just one person?
8. Your site - With Facebook reportedly preparing a commenting function to be rolled out across 3rd party websites, could this (or other products like Convore) bring more dialog and collaboration to your site?  If not, you can always examine where most of the conversation will be happening, and plan how to engage there.

How would your Brand participate in this kind of collaboration? And what could you do if everyone could be in the experience at the same time?

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Following on the heels of Boone Oakley’s YouTube website, is the Argentinian agency Kamchatka, with their agency website listed as a series of Twitter accounts.

Kamchatka Site Demo from Kamchatka on Vimeo.

It’s an interesting idea, but might be a little too convoluted for users. Time will tell!

Via: Biz Report

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Check out the @jeeppuzzle Twitter account and YouTube video where Jeep has found a way to make the order that you add followers add up to a beautiful snapshot…

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After what I thought of as a frankly lackluster program for Sportweets a few months ago, one of my favorite retailer’s latest effort for the relaunch of their UK website is a good example of Uniqlo getting right to the heart of consumer desire in the social space.

The “Under Construction” page for the UK site (which relaunched on the 9th) featured their ‘Lucky Counter’ which offered to bring the price down in exchange for tweets about your favorite items.

What’s not to love here?  The virtual immediate gratification, the built-in need to return to check on the price, the tantalizing view of how low the price could go, the focus on the launch date as the payoff, and on and on.

Another smart move from the innovative retailer.  Read all about it here.

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… they use a social networking phenomenon to say that aliens are contacting us.

Granted, Mail online isn’t exactly known for Pulitzer material, but still:

While any ‘lost in space’ messages wouldn’t exactly be restricted to 140 characters, as on the website, a study suggests ET is more likely to send out short, directed messages than continuous signals beamed in all directions.

The reason?

Because alien civilisations are likely to strive to limit waste and make their signalling technology efficient.

Thank god for Twitter. We have finally found a medium for aliens!

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1296574/Is-ET-using-Twitter-Scientists-claim-aliens-likely-sending-short-messages-space.html#ixzz0usS7TO5h

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We are often asked whether or not a Global Brand should have just one presence on Global social media platforms. For instance, should there just be one Facebook page for your company?

Facebook prefers to have global brands only have one presence, and says that multiple presences fracture brands, and there are clear benefits to having one central presence -

• Larger numbers of fan/followers and comments – which can showcase the popularity, breadth and power of global brands
• Brand Temperature - a place where the ‘Global Pulse’ of the brand can be felt
• Consistent messaging – which is more easily centrally managed
• Efficiency and scale – in that fewer, more central teams are required for development and management of assets – which can allow smaller markets to get cheaper access to better content than if they had to create it just for their market.

And bear in mind that local promotions and communications can still be done, using market-based status updates and custom tabs that allow for users to select their market and get local content – making the page “Glocal”.

Many brands, however do not choose to implement a global page, but instead (or IN ADDITION TO) use local or market-restricted pages due to complexities like

• Operations - the challenge of planning and executing across markets can be one of the biggest hurdles companies face in creation and management of global platforms, due to the organization needed to corral Brand managers across markets into a unified strategy and editorial calendar.  Along with a strong central agency, some specialist partners can help with planning and implementation.
• Moderation – who will remove offensive posts and users who abuse the page or page visitors?  Moderation guidelines must be set centrally, but we recommend use of local or regionalized community management to ensure that fluent language speakers can catch nuance and hidden needs.
• Escalation – the community management action is generally well equipped to handle escalation, but many markets do not have a Consumer Affairs group ready to be the recipients of complaints or issues from this new channel.
• Legal/policy restrictions – legal variances exist for how companies must treat User Generated Content, and these policies and restrictions are still an emerging area for legal – standards are not fixed yet.
• Product availability – users may be upset when made aware of variances in products by market.  If you have starkly differentiated product lines (Diet Coke versus Coke) or consumer segments (your product fans versus your F1 team fans, moms versus kids), a unified presence may not make sense.
• Relevant content - Good old-fashioned local relevance can be a big factor.  Including language concerns, and if local promotions are a large focus of the page, you may still have some markets not served by global promotions, which can create unhappy users.  Again, a custom tab can help in this case.

Starbucks, for example, has a global site, but offers redirects to international local sites for increased relevance.  Adidas offers a local customization page on their global page, but you can also find Adidas Running, Basketball, and other specialty sites as well.  The oft-discussed Coke maintains one main, fan-powered site, and local market sites do not appear to take advantage of any centrally built applications.

Twitter also presents challenges since localization depends on users turning on location settings or a full profile - a rarity on that platform.  But that will be covered in another post!

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Stretching the idea that your average person is gunning for an endorsement deal from their products and services - Shortbord launches today!

It has good integration with Twitter and Facebook (but who doesn’t?) but I’m not sure that the people who do these kinds of things for money are really the right people to represent brands.  How many times would you read the status updates of someone who was more interested in getting paid for their endorsement than connecting with you?  For how long would they remain your friend?

For Cause Marketing, I think it has potential, simply because the updates are less annoying and interruptive, but Brands should remember that in order to get good ‘friends’ online you have to _act_ like a good friend.

via Thrillist

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