The Old Spice Guy

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Old Spice’s “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” television ad campaign was a massive hit this year, and originally aired during the Superbowl in February. It featured actor and former NFL practice wide receiver Isaiah Mustafa reciting a monologue, shirtless, in one take about how a man could do anything if he uses Old Spice’s brand of shower gel and cologne. On YouTube, the video’s views reached over 13 million. The campaign reached its peak when Mustafa began responding to Twitter fans’ questions on youtube in his signature towel and shower background (he responded with more than 180 short videos to celebrities like Demi Moore, Ellen DeGeneres, and Perez Hilton — in rapid succession.) Best Old Spice Guy clip? Him signing off to his followers, and then, immediately after a fish drops from above and into his hands, proclaiming, “Silverfish handcatch!”

Tipp-Ex Hunter

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Whiteout company Tipp-Ex made media headlines when they introduced an interactive YouTube video called “NSFW: A Hunter Shoots A Bear.” In it, a man about to be attacked by a massive bear shouts out “Hey, I don’t wanna shoot this bear!” He then erases “shoots” and implores you to change the story by writing in your own verb. There are a number of pre-recorded responses to write-ins (though if your verb isn’t recognizable, you’ll get the bear and hunter holding an “Error 404″ sign.)

Greenpeace Orangutan

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When the environmentalist organization Greenpeace wanted Nestle to stop using palm oil, a kind of vegetable oil used in processed foods, because they claimed it was fueling deforestation and removing the orangutan from its natural home, they went viral. Activists teamed up with producers to create a video parodying Nestle’s “Need a Break?” catchphrase by showing a stressed office worker chewing off the finger of an orangutan instead of a Kit Kat. The video is fairly graphic (it shows blood spewing from the finger) but certainly gets the message across — it won “Best Viral Video 2010″ at the Berlin International Short Film Festival.

Toy Story 3

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Toy Story 3 — which grossed has grossed more than $1 billion worldwide and is the highest grossing film of 2010 — had a unique viral video campaign this year that was composed of fake vintage ’80s commercials for one of the toys introduced in the movie, Lots o’ Huggin Bear (there’s even one in Japanese!). The massive campaign also featured free screenings to college students of the first two-thirds of the movie (but they’d have to pay to see the ending, when the movie came out.) There were also three internet-only videos (including one where Woody and Buzz have an IM chat) and a Disney application for Facebook that allowed users to purchase tickets directly from the site and update their friends when they did so. Additionally, there were a few hilarious ’70′s-themed interviews with the Ken doll called “Groovin’ with Ken,” and WaltDisneyUK released a similarly uproarious series on “Ken’s Dating Tips.”

Mountain Dew

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Mountain Dew led a successful “DEWmocracy campaign” to create a new flavor, voted upon by customers, for its brand. Toward the end of 2009, the company invited individuals and ad companies to submit 12-second video ads for new flavors (Distortion, Typhoon, and White Out were the finalists.) Voters texted in their choices, or voted online through dewmocracy.com. WhiteOut eventually won, due to the striking color of the product and, ultimately, its cool packaging.

Tron: Legacy

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Tron: Legacy‘s viral campaign has had a long, hard road during its two-years, which is finally coming to a close when the movie opens December 17. The campaign has included the following: Disneyland parks changing its monorails to lightcycles, an online game, and flynnlives.com — a site maintained by “activists” that believe in Kevin Flynn’s (played by Jeff Bridges) mission and body of work. In October, a 23-minute preview of the movie was shown in IMAX theatres across the world, and the movie’s premiere is scheduled to be broadcast via the internet. Clearly the Tron marketers are trying to prevent its 1983 commercial flop from happening again. Whether the sequel will be as popular as the marketing has been, however, remains to be seen.

What Happened To The Phone Number?

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It used to be that getting someoneʼs phone number meant something, but now most people couldnʼt list ten. It used to be that youʼd have to call someone if you needed to talk, but now you have texting, social media, blogs, and email. Itʼs not just that we have better ways to communicate either. I know dozens of entrepreneurs that wonʼt even pick up the phone for friends, let alone customers. In a strange way, weʼre developing a huge aversion to voice to voice contact.

The AOL Days

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Do you remember when AOL used to ship those free CDʼs and weʼd sign up for the trial over and over again? What about when we used to swap internet providers based on who had the best deal? Eventually, you probably cycled through fifteen email addresses, forcing you to email your friends and family every time you made a change. It was painful!

In those days, we changed email address in the same way we change clothes. Today, thanks to services like Gmail and Yahoo, we tend to pick an email address and keep it. Sure, we might have secondary addresses that we use for Paypal, work, and/or signing up for newsletters, but weʼve all got that one email address that we keep for the important stuff.

How Email Became The New Phone Number

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With the advent of cloud-based email systems, phone numbers simply arenʼt relevant, itʼs the email address that matters. Think about the way you exchange information with someone that youʼd like to do business with. You might give them a business card with a phone number, but the piece they really want is your email address. On the other hand, if youʼve met someone youʼre not interested in doing business with, youʼll give them your website address, or maybe a Twitter or Facebook URL – but youʼll keep that email to yourself. Why? Because now more than ever, we use email to do business. When the phone rings now we let it go to voicemail, but when something hits the inbox, we give it our undivided attention.

One could speculate that itʼs easier to do meaningful business without getting caught in trivial conversation, but the truth is that we donʼt need to talk on the phone to do business because weʼre already talking to each other anyway. These days, that weekly phone call to my friend has been replaced with daily status updates, Tweets, and blog comments. But whatʼs the one piece of information that binds all of those profiles together? Whatʼs the only constant in a rapidly changing digital world? Itʼs your email address, the digital ID that enables us to do business and communicate online. With nothing more than an email address, I can create a Twitter account, Facebook account, YouTube account, Google Voice account, and more.

How Google Changed The Game…Again

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Have you noticed how Gmail asks for phone numbers to help you “backup” your Google account? Theyʼve been doing it for a while, but no one really noticed. Weʼve gotten so used to giving away our phone numbers (mostly because we donʼt answer anyway) and texting back and forth that we gave it away without a 2nd thought. If you were Google, and you had everyoneʼs email address linked to a phone number, what would you do? You guessed it…Google Voice. Brilliant.

With one fell swoop, Google not only made the phone number relevant again, but turned the email into a key card used to reveal a personʼs entire social profile at once. With a Google Voice account, which can easily be accessed via web or cellular device, I can call you without ever knowing your phone number. I can make phone calls from Gmail, and if I have your email, I can call you on the spot. Better yet, you donʼt have to be home. Google Voice allows me to find you wherever youʼre willing to be found.

As a business, that makes having your email address more valuable than ever, and as a consumer, it gives me even more reason to safeguard it.

Transcending VOIP and Cellular

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The email address is officially the connector, it is the most valuable piece of information you can obtain from someone. Google Voice is already a core feature of Droid devices, and it will eventually find the same market on the iPhone. Itʼs live in airports, and now…in your inbox. Because of this, I predict a return to voice to voice communication, simply because the barriers to access have once again been removed. Where once Skype and Vonage destroyed the landline, Google Voice will destroy the cellular service plan while simultaneously serving notice to those that helped pave the way.

I can easily imagine a Google device, one which allows me to contact you via phone, video, chat, that uses nothing more than a Gmail address as the glue that binds it all together. Until then, this is what Google Voice has become. Many praise Facebook for aggressively entering the information brokerage business, but Google takes them to school with this one.

The landscape is changing, and with this move, your email capture methods have become more important than ever. Email addresses are currency, not because you can use them for telemarketing or spam, but because you can go the extra mile to show your customers that you care. This is how we usher in new forms of marketing and customer development, how active becomes interactive, and how personal becomes interpersonal. What are you doing to embrace it?

Nathan Hangen is an entrepreneur, author, and founder of Soundtrackster, a premium royalty free music house for online publishers.

Thumbnail Photo: spencerholtaway

Black Dynamite’s 2009 movie, “Black Dynamite,” follows the “veritable one-man-army” on his quest to find out who killed his younger brother Jimmy, clean the drugs off the streets, and uncover the biggest conspiracy in American government. Though he may never have used a personal computer, his legacy teaches lessons for social media that every jive turkey in the game can learn from. So if you crave social satisfaction, than dig these laws for interaction, guaranteed to put your traffic in traction.

Use a Bold And Daring Persona

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In crime fighting and social media alike, it doesn’t pay to talk like a jive sucker who isn’t confident in the value of his work. When Black Dynamite walked into Chicago Win’s pool hall and found himself surrounded by a gang of thugs, he might have felt a tinge of doubt, but still he stayed and fought it out. This persona of overconfidence in yourself is often helpful when when it comes to social promotion.

The spokesperson of the ultra-successful Old Spice social campaign knew this rule well. Rather than simply telling you that Old Spice is a strong deodorant, he spoke with a bold attitude about how it will help men attract women, battle wild animals, ride motorcycles, and other clearly exaggerated claims. Though everyone understood it to be humor, it created a cult fascination around his personality. Similarly, if you want to attract fascination and zeal, you have to create a bold and daring look and feel, can you dig it?

Take It Straight To The Top

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As a newcomer to social media, it can be hard to attract the interest of thousands of users in your market. This is because you have no authority yet, but dig – if you can visibly interact with a prominent social figure you will attract a storm of new interest in your blog or channel. There are several ways to do this -

• Invite a top blogger to write a guest post on your blog.
• If your business is local, get a public figure, such a mayor or well-known business owner, to interact with you on Twitter or Facebook.
• Network with users that already have big audiences and get them to repost your content, or interact on your account.

Never be afraid to contact relevant people no matter how big they are – Black Dynamite didn’t even stop when his quest led to the White House. Gaining a new audience is a challenge, but teamwork with popular people can help. As Black Dynamite himself once said, “It may be bigger than me and and it may be bigger than you, but it ain’t bigger than me and you, can you dig it?”

Choose Your Words Carefully

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When it comes to delivering your message over social media, you must be both brief and evocative. You might feel like you have a lot to say, but Twitter and Facebook limit how much you can type, and most people don’t want to spend a long time reading a book’s worth of text on your blog. After all, they just met you, sucker – how do they know if you’re worth it yet?

You can’t waste time beating around the bush, you have to deliver the goods – rip it up from the ground and tell them exactly what’s going down. Just as Black Dynamite could charm the clothes off any woman he pleased with a few choice sentences, you must decide not only what you want to say, but also how you will say it.

Interact Personally and Get Everyone Involved

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Companies who do social media wrong believe that they can just speak from their tower and everyone who follows them will hush up and listen, but this is a mistake. Building a close-knit community where every user feels they belong is accomplished through personal interaction, a skill Black Dynamite knew well. When B.D. solved the mystery behind Anaconda Malt Liquor, he didn’t just stand up and tell his crew what was going on. Instead, he led an impassioned game of questions and answers that eventually allowed his entire crew to come to the answer together.

This is what you must do in the social media world. Interact rather than self-promote and preach; exchange ideas instead of being a leech, and address your commenters individually to increase your reach.

Be Smooth, Never Desperate

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Black Dynamite knows he’s so cool he can make ladies gasp with a wink and a smile, so smooth he can fight crime in a suit with a perfect hair style. Black Dynamite would never harass a girl for a date, never wait for other cats to tell him hes great, and when he knows what he wants, he never hesitates.

This is how you must be with your social media campaign. There is nothing worse than following a new blog or Twitter account, and instantly being harassed several times a day to sign up for new offers or read new posts. If you have to beg your audience to share your content or get involved with your company, you are taking the wrong approach. Instead, keep your cool and focus on sharing ideas that people will naturally want to discuss.

Love What You Do

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People can always tell when you’re only doing something for money. If your readers get the sense that you don’t like talking to them and are only looking to squeeze dollars out of their pockets, they’ll label you a jive turkey and move on to the next guy. This is why you must love what you are doing to be successful with it. The best social media marketers have a passion for networking and love exchanging ideas with new people, and their readers know this.

Black Dynamite was an expert fighter not because he felt like he had to train for other people, but because he truly loved Kung Fu. When he found out the kids in his neighborhood were falling victim to drugs, he told his friend, “Ever since I was a boy, all I knew was how to fight. Fight, fight, fight. And when I got tired, I would fight some more.” This is how you must feel inside to be truly great at your social media.

Present Value Before Requests

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Finally, you must always remember to give your audience something of value before you make any requests. Everyone from Kung Fu Island to the CIA knew Black Dynamite’s reputation as the man who will stop at nothing to enforce justice and set things right. Because of his tremendous history in war and the revolution, he need only ask for assistance and a team of crime fighting goons would assemble at his back.

If you approach social media by asking your users to sign up to all kinds of news letters and buy products from you before you give them reason to believe you are a man of value, you will lose your audience fast. To win at this game, you must first give your users useful information, valuable insights, or free trial offers to prove your worth. Only once they are turned into true believers in the power of your company can you begin to make requests and get favorable responses.

Can you dig it? I think you can…

]]> http://www.flowtown.com/blog/how-subject-matter-varies-between-blogs-and-traditional-press/feed 7 http://www.flowtown.com/blog/are-we-addicted-to-the-internet http://www.flowtown.com/blog/are-we-addicted-to-the-internet#comments Tue, 01 Jun 2010 15:34:22 +0000 Ethan Bloch http://www.flowtown.com/blog/?p=1988 While the American Medical Association has yet to officially classify internet addiction as a recognized mental health disorder, the statistics show that this issue is indeed serious – with potentially dangerous side affects. Betweeen 5 % and 10% of web surfers surfers suffer from some form of web dependency.The graphic below illustrates the state of internet addiction, as well as the rapid increase of Internet use in recent year.

]]> http://www.flowtown.com/blog/are-we-addicted-to-the-internet/feed 65 http://www.flowtown.com/blog/keeping-it-simple-how-google-has-marketed-itself http://www.flowtown.com/blog/keeping-it-simple-how-google-has-marketed-itself#comments Thu, 11 Mar 2010 04:38:59 +0000 Dan Martell http://www.flowtown.com/blog/?p=1568 If you have been anywhere near the Internet in the past decade, you might have heard of Google. In fact, you might even be reading this article on your Android phone, using the Google Chrome web browser, perhaps after receiving the link in your Gmail account. Where many Internet start-ups stick to one or two products, Google is constantly blazing ahead, expanding its range of products into just about every popular technology niche. Sure, the Internet has seen plenty of companies change focus and experiment with new angles on old products before, but what really sets Google aside as a case worth studying is the speed with which they did it all. In a few short years, Google has morphed from a small, efficient search engine into a tech juggernaut; a full-force software company big enough to take on the likes of Microsoft and Apple in any market. And interestingly, all of their best products come free of charge. In many respects, the rapid expansion of Google has forced Google to take an unconventional approach to marketing, an approach that has evolved in tandem with the company’s epic growth.

The Early Days

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When Google first debuted on the Internet in 1998, very few people outside of Silicon Valley knew of the new search engine. Google was too young at this time to afford large-scale marketing efforts, thus their only product was marketed almost entirely by word of mouth. In late 1998, PC Magazine reported that Google, “…has an uncanny knack for returning extremely relevant results.” The magazine named Google as the search engine of choice in the Top 100 Web Sites for that year. This notoriety sparked the first wave of “Googlers,” (people who use Google). Googlers quickly became loyal to the service, recommended it to their friends, and helped to grow the user base.

At first, Google’s message was simple– they worked hard to create the world’s easiest, quickest, and most relevant search engine. Google had no taste for the bells and whistles their major competitors tacked onto their search engines. Services such as Yahoo! and MSN loaded their interfaces up with news highlights, photo, email account offers, and so forth. Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, however, found this sort of approach unnecessary and irrelevant to their vision of an efficient way of organizing information based on relevancy. With this in mind, Google launched as a white page with a prominent, single search box in the center of the screen, with little else.

The Launch of AdWords

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For the first several years of its existence, Google relied mostly on this word-of-mouth marketing. Though this is generally considered a dangerous tactic, it worked out beautifully for Google. Outside of the occasional press release, the company focused its efforts entirely on its flagship product and trusted its faithful user-base to spread the brand’s message. As the years passed, Google grew to immense popularity, winning award after award, and receiving frequent reviews and mentions in technology related magazines. This unconventional approach to marketing helped to cement Google’s image as company dedicated to results and quality rather than flashy advertising. And,  Googlers loved the service because it worked.

In 2003, Google launched a new major offering – Adwords. Essentially, this platform allowed companies of any size to tap into Google’s immense user base by way of keyword-targeted advertising. The service was a major advancement for both advertising and marketing. In the early days of Adwords, Google was careful not to ruin its reputation as a minimal, user-friendly search engine, however. But there was a new issue — how would Google market its new service without offending its user-base? Google chose a very quiet marketing angle.

They put out press releases and allowed relevant magazines to cover their new service, but they did very little in the form of self-promotion. Quickly, search results came with small, innocuous reminders that you could now bid for advertising space on their keywords. Also, ads began popping up alongside search results that seemed to be related to the search query. Google relied on the sheer power and possibility that its new system offered marketers to essentially sell itself. And for the most part, it did. Advertisers didn’t need to be told twice about the opportunity staring them in the face to display their messages at the precise time searchers would be most inclined to click-through the ads.  As more businesses bought ad space, Adwords attracted more interest from the business community who began to see ads in their search results and investigated how they could get in on the action. Adwords would soon prove to generate the bulk of Google’s revenue, which continues to this day.

Beta Stage And Invitation-Based User Acquisition

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Another way Google has marketed itself has been by consistently releasing new products with a mystique-creating “beta” label. Traditionally, the word beta has been synonymous with “a work in progress” or “preview release.” Getting your hands on something during its “beta” stage is considered a real treat, as users are made to feel as though they have access to emerging technology before the masses. Google, however, cleverly leaves its products in beta phase for quite some time, and makes access into the beta stage relatively easy. Consequently, no matter when an individual user discovers Gmail or Google Wave, etc., for the first time, they still look and feel like beta-release technology for years after the release.

Compounding the exclusive feel that the beta label inspires is the way users are made to feel ‘special’ and ‘hand-selected’ by receiving invitations. Gmail (released in 2004) was the first Google product to be available to only an exclusive group of users, lucky enough to receive invitations. At first, it was considered an honor to send and receive messages via @Gmail.com.  In turn, those left only on the receiving were left wondering why they weren’t chosen for an invitation (and subsequently jockeying for an invite from their friend; early users had 5 each, if I remember correctly), thus creating a snowball effect of buzz about the service. Demand for Gmail invitations became so intense that, according to Geek.com, some users were auctioning invitations to the highest bidders on eBay. The article reported that, “…bidding on eBay is active, with some sales getting upwards of 20 bidders. Buy It Now prices range from $65 to $125.” It should be noted that Google’s exclusivity-driven approach is the exact opposite of how most companies (particularly Internet companies) approach a product launch.

Typically, the mentality is to spread the word as far and wide as possible, bringing as many new users into the fold as the server can bear. Google, conversely, has consistently found success in keeping most people at arms reach initially, letting demand build up as much as possible.

The Product Explosion

Google’s IPO in 2004 gave Google provided an opportunity for expansion and development, and it was around this time that the world witnessed an explosion of new products from the search giant. Gmail, Google Docs, Google Earth, Google Street View, Desktop Search, and many, many more products came out of the Google Labs, seemingly by the month. And, each time Google stayed true to its conservative marketing nature. Each new product was briefly mentioned on their home page along with a link to check it out if a user were so inclined. It wasn’t long after each product launching, that the story would become Internet-wide, big-time news, sending fans of the burgeoning software provider to the download page to check out the latest innovations.

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In 2006, Google made a big marketing move – the acquisition of popular online video website, YouTube. Although YouTube was not a profitable website bursting at the seams with revenue, it did offer Google  a new user based of millions of dedicated users. It wasn’t long after the acquisition that YouTube viewers began to see short Google advertisements before their videos played. At the time, this was Google’s most direct form of advertising efforts to date, and it didn’t seem to upset users enough to alienate them.

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In 2005, Google acquired Android Inc, maker of a mobile technology platform that they would spend the next year further developing. Google eventually released the open source platform, forming an alliance with many mobile phone developers including HTC and Motorola, as well as carriers such as T-Mobile. With the release of its mobile technology on several phones (including Motorola’s Droid, HTC’s Dream and Google’s own Nexus One,) Google has shifted much of its marketing thrust toward the mobile web. In conjunction with various manufacturers, Google now has its mobile technology advertised on television, on YouTube, on billboards and in shopping malls across America. By way of owning the world’s most visited website, Google has also been afforded the most valuable online advertising space for its own mobile phone, the Nexus One — on the homepage of Google.com.

Google: A Love Story (First Television Commercial)

Until quite recently however, the world had never seen a television commercial for Google or its products. It seems odd that a company able to grow so large as to debut on the Nasdaq stock exchange had never advertised on TV. During the 2010 Superbowl, Google’s first ever television ad aired. The ad told the story of a student falling in love while studying abroad in France. Eventually he marries the girl and they start a family. The interesting thing about the commercial is that the entire story is told through a series of searches, such as, “How to Say ‘you’re very cute’ in French”, to, “How to assemble a crib.” The ad can be viewed here.

For all of its growth, Google remains rather quiet – at least when it comes to traditional advertising and marketing. Perhaps this is indicative of their firm commitment to performance rather than image, or perhaps Google is still planning their biggest business move yet. Will we slowly begin to see more aggressive marketing efforts from them over the next several years? With a history as storied as Google’s, we may never know what to expect.

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What does Ad.ly Twitter Analytics report on?

• Time of day you tweet and time of day you get retweeted (local time)
• Followers location overlay – global
• Followers location overlay – USA
• Follwers by gender
• % of followers that are engaged
• Your 4 most influential followers

Time of day you tweet, get re-tweeted and most influential followers

What you get for $9.99 in the advance report:

The Power of This, And Potential Future

The reality is that there’s some VERY interesting data locked within all these tweets, and nobody has been able to unlock it.  Right now Peoplebrowsr has the data, but companies like Ad.ly are starting to make sense of it all.  I personally thought Twitter would add these features into their “business accounts“, but nothings has surfaced yet.

How would you use twitter’s data to build an amazing application?

And be sure to try it out with your own Twitter account.

• Slow to open
• Feels cheap
• Easy to break?

10 – 60 Minutes

• Not being able to line break in most text elements is a pain in the butt
• Getting into flow
• Feel like I’m 7 again
• Faulty drag select making me frustrated
• Having fun! (while creating mocks? geek? )

1 – 24 Hours

• Mouse disappears at times (Adobe Air problem?)
• It’s the simplicity that makes it beautiful (it’s stupid simple)

24 Hours+

• Want to leave it open even if not using it
• Inspires creativity
• Gets me excited for no reason

My output within the first hour (mom would be proud)

Parting Thoughts

Balsamiq is tool made with one purpose in mind: mockups. Having used OmniGraffel in the past for almost all of my mockup needs, I find Balsamiq pleasantly refreshening and energizing. I now find myself wanting to mock something up, even when nothing needs to be mocked up!