Monthly Archives: May 2010
Molly Hop & Anna Mer | Critical Mass Chicago
It’s clear consumers are hungry for mobile applications, having downloaded more than 3 billion apps from the Apple app store as of March 2010, according to eMarketer. The growing popularity of this channel has led to an increased desire to find a way to market to our mobile consumers. In response to this, Apple has recently acquired Quattro Wireless (after having AdMob snatched up by Google) to create the iAd advertising platform that will launch with the iPhone 4G this summer. Now the question is, how will iAd change how brands approach marketing within mobile applications?
A common debate among the Critical Mass Experience Distribution team is whether there is a “correct approach” to mobile applications.
When do you recommend creating one?
What value will the mobile application serve vs. that of the mobile website?
How should we market this application?
How much money, time and effort should be put into it?
One might argue that building an application but not putting a marketing effort behind it is similar to the “if a tree falls in the forest but no one is there to hear it” concept. If we determine that we don’t have the money, resources or rationale to build and market our own application, do we sponsor a relevant existing app that another brand hasn’t gotten to first?
The launch of the iAd offers a new option. We will soon have the ability to build an experience as robust as an application and be able to syndicate it out as an ad within the application environment.
Let’s take a deeper look at what makes the iAd platform unique compared to other mobile platforms:
1. Dual Interaction
iAd allows users to interact with the rich media ad without losing the application that they had opened prior to engaging with the ad. This dual action was not possible before the launch of the iPhone 4G. Now consumers can click on ads with the reassurance that they will not lose what they were previously engaging with. This dual involvement will certainly lead to more mobile ad interaction.
2. More Robust
The ads that Apple is building for the mobile platform act more like applications or microsites than standard mobile advertisements. The ads are able to contain videos, games, content, images, etc. Users are able to expand the ads over any application, allowing the ad to take full screen. (Check out Jobs’ demo.)
Lindsay Renwick | Critical Mass Toronto
The good folks at Facebook caused quite a flap last week when they announced a major change to the custom Landing Tabs feature on Facebook Pages. The upshot was that Pages would have required a minimum of 10,000 fans or an existing relationship with a Facebook advertising representative in order to qualify for a custom tab.
Mere days later, the policy has been rescinded due to the overwhelming outcry. Claiming that the change would stack the deck against companies trying to use Facebook to deftly and inexpensively build a social following, marketers, developers and small businesses persuaded the world’s largest social network to reconsider. The furore is dying down, but it remains a sobering reminder to businesses and to the agencies who recommend and maintain Facebook Pages for their clients, that carefully-crafted plans can come tumbling down at the flick of a digital switch.
Would it really have been that bad?
With the potential crisis averted, let’s explore the question of whether this would have been as huge a disaster as predicted.
At no point did Facebook threaten the wholesale removal of brand pages from the network. Brands would have been permitted to maintain their Wall feeds as usual which means that the social activity the Pages feature was designed to host and foster was never under threat. Brands with active and engaged community managers would have been free to continue building their followings by posting links to their Wall pages, generating discussions and hosting contests.
What would have been limited are the static Landing Tabs, which provide good SEO, allow a quick hit of brand messaging, and provide ongoing work for developers. While brands that can afford the investment have engaging and interactive Landing Tabs, smaller businesses tend to use them as a one-stop spam page that users bounce from nearly immediately.
This is about engagement, not spam. Read More
Nicole Armstrong | Critical Mass Calgary
Yesterday, I read the Fast Company article about the new logos Greenpeace followers have created to provide a more accurate visual representation of the brand, considering how out of place the green and yellow sunburst seems when, as the article puts it, “the defining image of the company is a dark blob spreading across the Gulf”.
This article made me immediately think – actions speak louder than words!
On BP’s site, they define themselves as:
Unfortunately, the actions associated with BP (i.e. giant plumes of oil as big as 10 miles, long 3 miles wide and 300 feet deep, including oiled smeared beaches and pelicans dyed with crude) have gone completely against the image Beyond Petroleum was trying to create for themselves. This has seriously impacted consumer perceptions. Especially in instances like this, when actions cut to the quick of consumer’s values, the outcry against brands tends to be far-reaching and irreversible. In this case it has even led to new visual cues – like an oil stained logo at left.
What’s more, this is all consumer generated content. There has even been a fake BP twitter page created: @BPGlobalPR:
This page was created less than a week ago, and it already has over 46,000 followers, nearly 8 times as many followers as BP’s official twitter page. This site is making a farce of the BP brand with tweets like:
- It’s official, the phrase ‘All the tea in china’ has been replaced with ‘All the oil in the gulf” – Can’t wait for the royalties! #bpcares
- If Top Kill doesn’t work, we’re just going to toss a giant ‘Get Well Soon’ card into the Gulf and hope for the best.
- Negative people view the ocean as half empty of oil. We are dedicated to making it half full.
The consumers are beginning to reshape the BP brand – in fact they are making the BP brand as dirty as BP has made the Gulf!
It’s like I alluded to in my Semantic Web post – consumers are in control of defining the brand within the marketplace, based on that brand’s actions. And here we are seeing this happen to BP – going as far as consumers rebranding the organization themselves.
Nikki is an Associate Planner in the CM Calgary office.
Alan Dodaro | Critical Mass Chicago
It turns out all of that idle time spent on Twitter could actually pay off. In my case, it did with a brand-new job. The Great Recession changed how people think about jobs while creating new ways for people to be heard and stand out. I spent months looking for new opportunities the old-fashioned way trolling through job posts and making weekly sweeps through career sites without any luck.
On Twitter, I followed a few agencies including Critical Mass and noticed several companies tweeting about new opportunities within their organizations. This made me rethink my job search strategy with Twitter. Here’s what I did to land my sweet new job:
Research
I knew I wanted to go beyond the traditional agency setting and explore a more interactive workplace. Aside from a few staple companies, I didn’t know who the main Chicago players were in this industry. I began following the trades and blogs diligently to see who was making headlines. Once I had a few companies in mind, I began following them and their key players, learning more about each company as information was pushed to my twitter feed as soon as it was released.
Extreme Makeover: Your digital image edition
Social media allows for very personal interactions and it leaves a lot to be desired when you update about your mystery rash, blackout bar nights (to be fair, everyone gets one drunk tweet) or starring role on the next episode of Hoarders. Save the sick stuff for Facebook where it belongs (kidding) and focus on creating dialogue. Tweet about work, websites and industry happenings you think is cool (and why). Retweet anything insightful and provide your own commentary. You’ll get your fair share of followers that will boost your twitter credibility too.
Change your avatar to a photo of yourself. Make your face clearly visible and be the only person in the shot. It doesn’t have to be dry and corporate but keep it to something you’d feel comfortable having your grandma show to her friends. A real photo helps connect you to your online identity, and will help people pick you out at networking events and at (fingers crossed!) your interview.
Finally, include a bio. After indicating I was in the advertising/marketing industry, some of the agencies I followed began following me back even while it was very obvious I was in a very junior position. Keep your bio short and sweet highlighting relevant information showcasing your interests.
Twit Lists
The typical twitter feed can be an overwhelming free association of thoughts from friends, celebrity train wrecks, industry leaders news posts. My problem was that I wasn’t monitoring my timeline 24/7 meaning important posts could be pushed out of my feed if my timing wasn’t perfect. Twitter has a feature that allows you to group specific people/companies into specific lists separate from your main timeline. Even more helpful, you do not need to be following a person to have them on your list, provided their updates are public. I set up a list to follow agencies and companies without the noise and distraction of everything else. This helped organize my hunt.
Scott Shamberg | Critical Mass Executive
Recently I attended an event that was classified as a “marketing forum” designed to match marketers with vendors for two days of one-on-one networking. We met with 38 marketers representing brands from all over the world.
The biggest take away for me was pretty clear – everyone and their mother want to know how to “do” social media. Literally everyone we talked to asked us about social–from Visa to Trump, Western Union to Scotts Lawn Care. Here were the top 3 questions we heard at the event and that we are hearing on a recurring basis from marketers.
1. My executive team doesn’t understand it. How can I convince them?
2. How can I do social media on a local level?
3. Can you tell me how to measure social media?
Clearly brands big and small know they need to participate but are not sure how just yet. But I’m seeing the irony in these brands wanting to understand a new channel built on authentic conversations in a business environment built almost exclusively on short, relatively shallow conversations. Nevertheless, let’s look at those three questions.
Convincing Executives
This is no easy solve. Many CMOs would still rather shoot a commercial than develop a Facebook page. Try the 3 E’s.
EXPERIMENT: Get your execs to play with Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare. Let them see for themselves how influential they are.
ENGAGE: Get your agencies involved with your executives when you can and let them do the heavy lifting.
EDUCATE: You know your executives better than anyone. Find ways to get them educated through articles, conferences, examples and stats. The more they know they more involved they will get.
Keep Reading for my Recommendations on Local Social and Social Measurement
George Panopoulos | Critical Mass Chicago
I recently had a truly extraordinary retail experience when taking my son to visit the LEGO store out at Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg (IL). The store layout, staff assistance, merchandising, customer-centric focus, the use of technology and overall shopping experience I had there made me stop in my tracks and recognize this was worth documenting. We say that we are in the business of creating extraordinary experiences at CM—and I strive for that every day in my work. But it is an experience like this in my personal life that helps me step back and reframe what “extraordinary” means any why we strive so hard for that bar.
It was such a blast that I decided to capture the ways that the LEGO store engaged customers, kept them in the store (for hours at a time) and pulled in foot-traffic in an otherwise gigantic and distracting 300 store mall. What better way to do that than in pictures, so you can see what I saw—and what LEGO fanatics keep coming back for.
Some of the “Extraordinary” highlights I noted during my LEGO experience were:
1. Immersive and interactive displays.
2. Ingenius targeted product development.
3. Makes buying easy.
4. Speaks to the enthusiast.
5. Utilizes technology.
Keep Going to see the extraordinary LEGO journey in each of these areas
